Genesis 9: 8-17
Psalm 25: 1-10
1 Peter 3: 18-22
Mark 1: 9-15

Being All We Can Be!

“What does our God ask of us?” This was the question with which last week’s Ash Wednesday Faith Event began. For each of the small groups a variety of answers immediately came to mind and most, if not all of them, could be gathered into one of two categories: ONE, God requires that we avoid specific sins or sin in general or TWO: God asks us to do good.

We then looked at the biblical passages from which have come the ‘10 Commandments’, the so-called ‘Great Commandment’, a Psalm as an example of praise of God, and at the teaching of a prophet which spoke of the importance of actions of ‘justice, love and mercy’. We wrapped up with a commitment to a lenten discipline of either repentance or greater service.

With the traditional imposition of a cross of ashes we joined with many churches throughout the world and through the ages in our yearly lenten journey.

This is the first Sunday of the season of Lent, a period of 40 days plus Sundays leading up to Easter. The word ‘lent’ comes from a Latin word which means ‘lengthen’. As our daylight hours begin to lengthen we focus on what our commitment to the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth means in our daily living.

As Lent begins we follow Jesus into the wilderness as he struggles with various temptations and then we accompany him into the last weeks and days of his earthly ministry. Lent, has become for many churches a time of penitence, fasting and prayer. It is a time to refocus our lives on what is important in our journey of faith. Lent can be a time of self-denial, but that can end up doing little more for us than making us, at the worse, feel more than a little self-righteous or, at the least, justifying the eating of lots of goodies on Easter Sunday.

The practice of a Lenten Discipline can mean a great deal more if we are willing to enter into the season of Lent with the expectation of the Spirit changing us and sending us in new directions.

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the Gospel of Mark is exceptionally brief, having the least detail of all. And to risk a pun I would say that it is tempting to import details from the other accounts. I would suggest that we have enough in the story as it has been presented by today’s gospel.

Perhaps the temptation of Jesus is not really about the details or the specifics, per se, but simply the temptation tp be less than he was called to be.

According to Mark’s gospel, the whole thing is very carefully timed and the sequence of events quite intentional. Jesus is baptized by John, who had baptized many others. The Spirit affirms his identity – to Jesus at least - the Spirit whispers that he is the beloved Son. The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he is tempted and waited on by angels. The details are not recounted by Marl, but left to our own imaginations. Then, John is arrested and Jesus begins his ministry. As I said a minute ago, the sequence is important to Mark, and can be summed up, I think, in the closing verse of our lection, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news”.

The Spirit descended on Jesus and affirmed his identity. We don’t know much about Jesus until then. Mark doesn’t tell us much at all. If the only gospel we had was Mark’s, all we would know would be that Jesus was from Nazareth. Obviously he had parents, or family, or community; that was Nazareth. But we would have no stable, no shepherds, no visit from the Magi and no story of a 12 year old in the temple. I think that for Mark, it is this second identity of Jesus that is most important; that of God’s son! John, the baptizing preacher is presented as the herald and, at least initially, Jesus was just one more candidate for baptism. Yet, as we already know, this gospel of Mark is a story about Jesus, so the focus moves from John to Jesus – not just Jesus from Nazareth, but God’s son.

But now this other identity is going to be much more important and I think that the time in the wilderness was needed to help him sort all that out. How was he going to BE that son of God and how was his ministry going to be exercised so that pleasure could be continued?

Surely this experience of his own baptism combined with this assurance that he was more than an ordinary man from Nazareth would have necessitated some time alone, to reflect, to struggle with what this identity meant.

This was more than a simple identity crisis: he needed to wrestle with what it REALLY meant to be God’s son. This temptation was not so much a work of the devil, but a work of the Spirit. What I mean by this is that he needed to resolve who he was and what his limits were. He needed to know what it meant in the day to day to proclaim the good news.

Once he left the wilderness his life would be a roller coaster ride to the finish. He needed this time to strengthen his resolve and deal with the temptation to be less than he was.

You see, we often think of temptation as an urge to do bad things, but I think that the far more insidious temptation is to be less than we are. Jesus temptation was to be less than God’s beloved son. Jesus’ temptation was to substitute the “good news” with something easier, more popular, more acceptable. I think that he knew somehow it would not be an easy road, for him, as he proclaimed the message that God had laid on his heart. YET, yet, after the temptation he knew how easily succumbing to the temptations could happen, how difficult it is to truly repent. Of course, the true meaning of the repentance is not ‘feeling bad’ for something that has been done, but turning around and going in an entirely new direction, leaving the past behind and setting our sights on a new goal.

It is about behaviour and about attitude, but not in the way that we usually think of it. You see, I think that many of us think of the life of faith as following the rules that God has laid out so that we avoid sin. However when we focus on faithfulness in terms of simple right and wrong we miss something broader and deeper and wider.

We are called to follow, not so that we will avoid wrongdoing, but rather so that we can be all that God wants us to be, so that we can help others to be all that they can be.

The story of the flood told in the book of Genesis is a story about covenant abandoned and renewed. I don’t think that the sin of the people that were left off of the ark was about bad deeds but rather a lack of attention toward their true identity as beloved and good parts of creation. The rainbow was a reminder to both God and humanity that the world would not be destroyed by divine action ever again. Now it was up to the creatures to hold up their part of the bargain.

So if Lent is about walking the path that Jesus walked and sharing his identity as his sisters and brothers then we are called to take a serious look at our own calling to be all that we can be.

As God’s beloved children, how can we live out that identity? What new directions are we called to take? How do our choices and decisions we make add to this identity or how do they take away from it.

The thing about the journey of faith is that no one can do it for us. While we can learn from those who have gone before us, and particularly from the life of Jesus himself; no one can walk that path for us. Even though we may indeed face the temptations that others have faced, we must deal with them anew, and make our own decisions about how we live out our baptismal identity.

The journey of lent is then offered to each one of us: as a time to wrestle with what is ahead of us; as a time to wrestle with how we will live out our true identity.

For that we will need the support of the community and, like Jesus the presence of the Spirit.

For that we will also need the Bread oif life and the cup of blessing. May we be nourished at the Table for this lenten time of journeying and decision making.

Amen.

Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22: 22-30
Romans 4: 13-25
Mark 8: 31-38

Harsh Words!

Some things just don’t make sense.

Sometimes you know that what you are hearing just can’t be right.

The disciples must have felt that today was one of those times. They had been with Jesus a while now. They had seen his popularity increase. They has been there when he healed, restored sight, and when he had fed the hunger of thousands. Peter, at least, had come to believe that he WAS THE MESSIAH and had proclaimed it aloud, for at least the other 11 disciples to hear.

The hope for a Messiah was, you could say, what kept the people going for many generations. And, of course they knew what the Messiah was coming to do an be. He was to be a leader, a victor, a winner. He was to overthrow the much hated Romans and sit on the throne of his ancestor David. When that happened, Israel would be great again.

Things would be wonderful once the Messiah came. The coming of the Messiah would be the end to poverty and oppression and suffering and sorrow and sadness. The coming of the Messiah was to be a great and glorious time in their history. And, now that they were the special friends of the one who would soon put his divinely sanctioned plan into action, the disciples could hardly wait - they could hardly wait until they began to reap the benefits of this new reign. Surely they each deserved a seat in the Cabinet!

Yet, today’s gospel message speaks a most worrisome word - a harsh word which surely brought them down to earth with a resounding thud. Have you ever seen or heard a dump truck delivering its load. The box is high in the air and the soil or grain or whatever is pouring out the end and then the trucker kicks it into gear and drives away. The pressure on the piston is released and the box drops with a thud and the tailgate slams with a resounding bang. One summer when I was a teenager we were having a new barn built on the farm and there were dump trucks coming and going bumper to bumper one day. Lobo, our gun-shy border collie thought she was being shot at and cowered under the couch.

These harsh words of Jesus drive the disciples into a serious reconsideration of everything they had come to believe about the mission of the Messiah.

WHY would you follow someone if it didn’t give privileges? To them, to any sane person, a suffering hero who would ask his followers to suffer and die, instead of winning and defeating the enemy by force, was certainly an oxymoron; it just didn’t make sense. They had to have mis-heard. That’s why Peter spoke up.

You see the cross was not a symbol of success or victory. The cross was a symbol of suffering, of shame. The cross was, plain and simple, the symbol of execution by the state, similar to a noose, or an electric chair, or a gurney designed for execution by lethal injection. No one placed on a cross was a true hero; no one on a cross would have a following for every long – - or they would be there too. And, the only reason to carry a cross, was to carry it to the place of execution. That’s how they got the crosses there; and this last demeaning task increased the suffering and humiliation of the condemned criminals as well. It was obvious to Peter, and no doubt to the rest of the disciples, that the Messiah certainly would not die on a cross. Peter had to clarify, to make sure that Jesus realized what he had said and say it the right way.

Yet here Jesus is, telling people to take up their cross and follow. How harsh!

American, Tom Fox, two Canadians and a Briton went to Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams and were kidnapped on the 26th of November. Late last week the body of Mr. Fox was found near a railway line. He had been shot and his body has signs of torture. The men who went to Iraq went to live out their faith. It was their cross. The Christian Peacemaker Teams describe themselves as people who are “Committed to reducing violence by getting in the way” (and the words “the way” are part of a graphic depicting sandled feet.) At the top of their website they ask the rhetorical question, “What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? < ”a href=http://www.cpt.org”> Christian Peacemaker Teams While some might argue that they took unnecessary chances by going out on the streets without personal security their work was certainly a cross. Their work should make us think about how far we can go to achieve peace, if not on earth, at least in our corner of it.

Michael J. Fox, in the 1989 movie Casualties of War plays a young soldier during the Vietnam war who protests the unnecessary and illegal kidnapping, rape and murder of a young Vietnamese woman by the members of his squad. He first refused to participate in the atrocities and then refused to look the other way, much to the chagrin of those who were actually guilty and those compelled, by his complaint to act. He believed that “murder is murder, even in war” . From a review page of the movie It’s been a while since I ahve seen the movie and I don’t remember any specific religious perspective motivating Fox’s character, but it is the kind of choice that is cross-like. It is the kind of choice that willingly shoulders the consequences of speaking out for faith and right and life in the midst of a world that is fast going in the other direction.

A minister I know of tells his children that they are not going to get all that he and their mother can afford to buy for them because of the needs of other children in the city in which they live and others around the world. His sharing of the family resources is a cross willingly accepted, they way they are teaching their children, as they tries to live out his faith and follow in the way of Jesus.

To carry a cross is to place our faith at the centre of our actions, 7 days a week. It is not to leave our faith at the church door at the end of the service, or at home when we leave for work in the morning, but to live it out, despite what some others may think.

In a world where the prevailing creed is “look after yourself and your family first” the gospel calls us to look beyond ourselves and our family to the good news of God in Jesus, and to make that the priority in our lives.

Why? Why would this be required of the faithful? Why indeed? It’s a large part of the paradox of the gospel; it’s at the heart of the gospel’s message. The message, as summed up by St Francis is that those who follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth

do not  “so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”  

To be certain, in the traditional way of looking at things, it does not make sense; but as it is lived out, it is at the heart of the gospel. You see, as I have said before, the disciples were looking at Jesus being the way to success, much as the world around them saw it; with them as the victors, with them achieving the power they had felt rightly belonged to the chosen people – yet Jesus was turning everything upside down, saying that defeat was victory. Indeed, Jesus was even harsh enough to brand Peter’s objection, as ‘words of Satan’, as being opposed to his mission and his very identity.

I suspect that it was amazing to Jesus that Peter could confess him as Messiah and not understand that his mission was not what the populace in general had been expecting – yet that’s what happened. In fact, it happens all the time – - today.

In fact I hear a lot of stuff from churches that leads me to believe that it’s still out there.

The fact is that Christians are meant to sacrifice for the gospel, without hope for personal gain. The fact is that the church is not meant to be successful, as its primary goal, but to be faithful

Before I conclude I must say that there are 2 kinds of things that many people regard as a cross, which are not. ONE example might be a choice to remain in an abusive relationship. Some do so and say, “this is the cross I must bear”. No a cross, while it may invite suffering, never asks us to accept that we are less than we are created to be: beloved Children of God. To leave an abusive relationship is a difficult thing, but to stay is not a cross (in the sense that this passage talks about. )

There are many reasons that people have for staying in an abusive relationship but it is completely unconscionable for the church to encourage staying because of this passage. Some may take on work with abused women and advocate for changes to laws as a cross and that is a legitimate use of that term for a cross never demeans, but seeks to be freeing and promoting of the image of God in each one.

The SECOND way that this passage is often mis-interpreted is that some look at the difficulties in their lives, over which they have no control, and call then a cross. What I am speaking of here are the personal and family tragedies such as a physical or mental handicap and we regard them as “the cross we must bear”. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not meaning to discount the lives and efforts of folks who must cope with these things at all; what I am saying is that this is not what this passage is about.

But, when a family has a disabled child for example, the cross MAY be the efforts the community as a whole makes to support this family, such as special programs at the church or the advocacy of special programs in the community. The cross may be the cost of a wheelchair ramp or a sound system designed for the hearing impaired.

I was reading on the net sometime last week about one church in the United States that is part of a coalition that is advocating the RAISING of the sales tax rate in their state for the express purpose of the giving of better health care benefits to poor families. Sorry I cant remember who or which list it was - probably Midrash or Prcl-l. That is an example of a cross - a burden taken on knowing the cost, taken on knowing that the end result will result in more freedom and wholeness for those, in this case, unable to afford private insurance. These are not harsh words after all, but words of freedom and fullness of life.

I think that we make a mistake when we follow after Jesus for the sole purpose of making OUR lives easier, for the purpose of saving OUR own souls. The Christian faith has always carried a mandate for service - a call to move beyond oneself to care for others.

May this lenten season be a time of soul searching;

a time of re-commitment to the way of the cross;

a time of realizing that as we walk the way of the cross we walk with the one who came to bring LIFE in all of its fullness.

Amen!

Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1: 18-25
John 2: 13-22

Who Is This Guy Anyway?!

The trial was called and several witnesses testified that the actions on the day in question were totally out of character for the accused. He’d never been in trouble before. Growing up in a small and close-knit community, he had been a good boy, a model student, a helpful boy to his elderly neighbours, never missed synagogue and was, by all accounts, a master carpenter. The legal aid lawyer representing the accused assured the court that, “this aberration in his behaviour would not be repeated and the man, now approaching middle age would pose no risk to the community if he were given a conditional discharge with one hundred and fifty hours of community service.”

Such might have been the trial of Jesus if he had been charged in a modern Canadian courtroom for trashing the market area of the local temple, effectively shutting down worship for the day and causing thousands of dollars in lost revenue for the vendors who earned their living at the temple and counted on the Passover rush to get them through the lean times.

While it is most likely that this cleansing of the temple happened toward the very end of his ministry (as is reported in the other three gospels) and was indeed the event that persuaded the authorities that this carpenter/preacher must be stopped - the writer of John’s gospel had his own reasons for placing it out of historical sequence at the beginning of his ministry.

The writers of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke recount this event as the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ and led, more or less directly, to the arrest and crucifixion. However, John takes what is undoubtedly the same event and places it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry for another reason.

This is one of those events that John uses to show the reader who this Jesus really is. The bulk of John’s second chapter is made up of two stories: the miracle at the wedding at Cana and the cleansing of the temple. Both of these are placed at the beginning as a way of saying that this Gospel will “build a case” in order to convince the reader of Jesus’ true identity as the Messiah.

This story of the temple cleansing is told as a good story, full of drama and suspense. As I was reading the passage I tried to convey what I think is the original sense and flow of the story. You see, the writer tells the kernel of the story in one long and run on sentence, obvious in the original Greek language but lost in the English translation. You can imagine a breathless witness running over to someone and telling the story, with his or her words spilling out faster than they could think, almost unable to believe that it had happened - except that they had just witnessed it. ”Guess what Jesus did this and this and this and this and said this and Oh my we can hardly believe it”.

Some have taken this as a proof text against selling things in the church sanctuary - such as plates, and mugs and calendars and the like, but that interpretation only scratches the surface of this passage and really only skews it’s deeper meanings.

We need to understand is why this commercial enterprise was happening in the lobby of the temple in the first place.

First of all, sacrifices were required for the feast of the Passover and the sacrificial animal had to be of the best quality. One couldn’t give second-best to God!

Next, many people, even if they had raised such an animal themselves, often travelled some distance to attend this festival that they could not have brought their own home grown lamb or other animal. Imagine leading a sheep on a three day journey on foot!

Next: Temple taxes had to be paid in money that was not defiled by the image of the emperor so their Roman money used for all other purposes in their day to day lives had to be exchanged for clean money.

So, by practical necessity, the temple provided the service of changing legal tender into temple money and selling animals that were certified to be ‘without blemish’. Now you wouldn’t expect them to do this as a free service, would you? The fact that the profits made were often extraordinary is often seen as one of Jesus’ motivating reasons.

Lastly, and very importantly, this was not taking place in the street by the temple but IN it. The lobby area of the temple that this all took place was also known as the “Court of the Gentiles”, and was the only area in the temple where non-Jews could come and worship.

It’s hard to draw an exact parallel with modern church life, because this passage is not really criticism of church suppers and bazaars, or selling china or Christmas lights or other such things as fund-raisers. It’s much more complex than that and it has as much to do with Jesus’ true identity as it does with what was actually going on in the courts of the temple.

To look at all of this objectively, given the regulations about the purity of the sacrifices, it is hard to imagine how the temple could function without a market system as part of the package.

But, in John’s mind, it WAS the whole package that Jesus was casting out. The writer of John’s Gospel is proclaiming that it is this carpenter from Nazareth who is the one whose life and death will provide the sacrifice once and for all. The writer of this Gospel also tells us that the meaning of the teachings of Jesus on this day did not become clear until after the crucifixion and resurrection. It was only after Jesus body had been destroyed at the crucifixion and the followers had experienced the resurrected Christ that they understood that what he had said about the temple was only a metaphor of his own life and death. It was this life and death and resurrection that would make the temple and it’s sacrificial system unnecessary.

So this passage is at the beginning of the gospel because it heralds the beginning of the Good News, that Jesus’ life is lived to become the place where heaven and earth meet. Like Jacob’s ladder, in Jesus, God can be seen and communicated with and become a means and sign of grace.

Internet colleague, Mike Johnston on the Midrash List reminds us: “It's important to note that Jesus was not anti-Jewish. Jesus was Jewish himself. This was not a protest against the Jewish religion. It was a protest against what it had devolved into. His basis for attacking it was not that it was wrong, but that it had not lived up to its own understanding of God. The temple (and the whole system) of the one true God had become identified with God. It had become an idol.”

Our call during the journey of Lent is take stock of our lives and our religious life and practice and to ensure that we are not worshipping the idols of ‘tradition’ or ‘the past’ and that what we spend our time and effort on truly points to the living God and not to the things themselves. And this is not always an easy task. It will take courage to do this assessment of our lives as individuals and as a community but we must be about this work, each and every day if we are to be true to the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.

During Lent, as at all times we are called into an encounter with the Christ who callus us to follow him. We are called to believe that in this Christ, heaven and earth meet. We are called to believe that in and through Christ we can encounter the living God. We are called to believe that trusting in his death and resurrection we will find abundant life and be given what we need to live lives of faithfulness and love.

Every time we welcome a child or adult through the sacrament of baptism we reaffirm our faith as a community. Every time parents bring a child those parents profess the faith they seek to show to their children. Such is (was) the case today (this morning) in St Andrew’s. Matthew and Cindy have brought Raine for baptism. We celebrate this decision with them and we, as a community of faith, promise to help them as they undertake this awesome task, as we promised for Raine’s sister Chloe and as we promise for every child who is baptized in our midst for baptism is much, much more than a personal commitment, it is a commitment to be in and to participate in a community of faith which worships God and follows in the way of Jesus of Nazareth.

So, in this season of Lent, let us strengthen our commitment to way of Jesus of Nazareth and let us ask for God to be with us as we walk the path of faith. ]

For we ARE NOT alone. God is with us. Let us give thanks.

Amen.

Numbers 21: 4-9
Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2: 1-10
John 3: 14-21

There Are Different Kinds of Wilderness

Not that long ago I went to a meeting in Nova Scotia and received directions from the chairperson. She assumed I would be taking a certain highway and told me what signs to follow. It should have been a short trip from the exit to the church. However, for some reason, I never saw the sign for that particular highway and followed another one. As soon as I hit the centre of town I knew something was wrong, but it was only after I was almost 20 minutes late had driven around aimlessly looking for certain street signs and stopping for road and sewer construction more times than I want to count, that I stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. Turns out I was not far and arrived very quickly.

There is an old joke about the people of Israel spending 40 years in the wilderness because Moses wasn’t willing to ask for directions, but of course, it’s only a joke. They were in the wilderness that long because they needed to be. The biblical writers tell is that they were wandering around out there that long because this wilderness time was necessary in order to make them a people and to teach them, by experience, and by a great deal of trial and error, to rely on God.

Have you ever been on a long trip and had someone ask, over and over again, like a broken rocord, “Are we there yet?” It’s annoying especially if they are old enough to wear a watch, read the road signs and tell time. Asking the question does not make the trip go any faster either!

Did you ever notice that the trip TO a meeting or event, especially in an unfamiliar place, seems to take much longer than the trip FROM that place - and no one shortened the road while you were there!

Have you ever been lost in the woods? Have you ever felt as if your life was so overwhelming that you might as well have been lost in the deepest woods or wilderness possible? Have you struggled with making a decision between the lesser or two evils? Have you ever struggled with a debilitating addiction, or helped someone to climb back from an addiction?

It’s amazing how the biblical story, written about people who lived long ago in another place and time, by people who thought the earth was flat, and who had little more than the most primitive of tools, is still very relevant today? Have you ever noticed?

When I was in university the minister of the church I attended quoted a passage from later on in John’s gospel, words placed on the lips of Jesus, and in the translation I now use most often “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.” That passage is closely related, in image and in theme, to today’s passages.

Of course John’s gospel is referring to the crucifixion and Jesus probably was too, but he was also counting on them knowing the stories of their scriptures. He was counting on their knowing the one I read today.

It is said that the people of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years. Now 40 years is a long time but in the Bible it’s also a number that symbolizes an entire generation. In short, the people who left Egypt never saw the land of promise; the people who entered the promised land were the children and grandchildren of those who had actually lived in Egypt. The wilderness people were a complaining and grumbling lot. They knew that time was passing and they wanted to get to the promised land; and they wanted to get there yesterday! The story for today recalls a time when many were bit by venomous snakes and began to die. We don’t have venomous snakes here but we can imagine. We could substitute SARS here, and if we can remember the scare that caused, particularly for those who had to travel through Toronto, we can imagine the fears of a group of thousands of people practically living on top of one another!

Moses was instructed to fashion a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole. He was to instruct the people who were sick and dying, that IF they looked at it, they would live. Now, if I had been bitten by a snake, that’s the last thing I would want to look at, but that is what was prescribed. One day I was on a pastoral visit and was bitten by a dog, and the last thing I wanted to see for a long while was a barking dog baring all 1000 teeth! I still don’t actually! Legend has it that this snake and pole was saved for many generations because it reminded them of this event, but that it was eventually destroyed because it was in danger or becoming an idol.

However the image of this object survives to this day, not surprisingly, in the world of is medical personnel. Now, I’m not talking about the two snakes intertwined on a pole topped by wings and known as a Caduceus – and representing physicians - that is a different one. You will find this one on at least some ambulances As far as I can recall, Nova Scotia’s ‘new’ ambulances don’t, for example. You might say that the people had to ‘face their fears’ in relation to what was actually making them sick, in order to be made well. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this and I would say that facing our fears is one of the first steps that we must take when we are trying to get out of the wilderness.

I was talking to a woman a number of years ago who had left her abusive husband and had moved to the community in which I was living. She had no telephone because she was afraid that he would be calling at all hours to heap more verbal abuse on her and to try to manipulate the children. One day she needed to call him and she went to the local pay phone to do it. She told me later, “When I realized that I would deal with him on the payphone, I decided that I could deal with him on my own phone”. She had faced her fear and was able to take one more step out of her wilderness of isolation and be able to receive calls from those who were supportive and encouraging at this very difficult point in her life.

There are many commercials on tv that talk about various kinds of illnesses. They tell you that if you have this symptom or that, go to your doctor. There are many reasons that people don’t listen to these warnings, but there are some who are so afraid of what they might be told that they stay home but in so doing they deny the possibility of timely intervention.

Often our fears restrict our lives, a fear of flying can keep us from visiting loved ones who live far away ; or a fear of water can keep us from enjoying our friend’s new boat. A fear of public speaking can keep us from showing very real leadership skills. A fear of being hurt can prevent us from receiving and returning the love of another.

The 12 Step Program, pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous, and adopted by dozens of other organizations asks people to faces their illness and those who have been affected by their behaviour as an intrinsic part of the process of getting better And of course, the 12 step program realizes what the people of Israel had to learn and what all followers of Jesus have to learn; that focussing on the power of God in our lives, and allowing that power to overcome our weaknesses, is an essential component of healthy living. The people of Israel had to learn that they could not do it on their own, and we can’t either - whether we have an addiction or not!

We live in a world that seems to be, at times, devoid of hope. From our Korean sisters and brothers in our United Church we have been given the word “Han”, which is a word used to describe frozen and knotted feelings of despair, helplessness, fear, anger and other such things that build up within us and we can’t or won’t let go of. It is God at work in us through the Christ that helps us to purge ourselves of these negative aspects of living. Through our work of Christian outreach we can help others to let go of their “Han” and face life with faith and hope.

The message of the Bible is that the God of life is determined to have the last word - the word of life is paramount in our world of darkness and despair. The people of Israel could not do it on their own, and we can’t either - no matter how serious the things are that are keeping us from fullness of life.

Nicodemus came to Jesus seeking life and the words given by Jesus offered the life that comes from the light of Christ and the power of the cross. May we open our eyes and our hands to the God of love who searches us out and seeks to save us.

Amen.