• Setting the Stage – SOTM (1)
• Beatitudes Part 1 – SOTM (2)
• Beatitudes Part 2 – SOTM (3)

Having taken a week off our Sermon on the Mount series to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis, we are back at it, this time wrestling through Matthew 5:13-20. Again, it is critical as we move further into this central teaching of Jesus that we are mindful of what we have already explored in the previous sections (see above). The Beatitudes inform (and transform) who we are as His followers. The community described in the Beatitudes (and the verses to come) are not examples “super-Christians”, but images of who we are all meant to be, without exception.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

What does Jesus mean by “salt of the earth”? From that time up until today, people the world over have been using salt to cure meat, preserving it against decay and rot. In the same way, we are called to be agents of preservation against decay and rot in the world. How does this happen? As we embrace the way of Christ, especially as put forth in the Beatitudes, we will impact the world around us in this way.

However, it is also critical that we see that while we play a significant role in preserving the world, we are also distinct from it. Being the “salt of the earth” is to be actively and essentially IN the world while not becoming OF the world. This is not about being superior, but rather that we are called to be something new, something other than what has become the status quo in the world. Discovering what this is without alienating ourselves and world is one of our most critical challenges as the Church.

If we attempt to be Christ’s followers apart from the world, separated from it, our “saltiness” ceases to have purpose. What good is salt if it sits in a pile unused? The very nature of being “salt” means that we must proactively engage in the work of being IN the world as agents against the rot and decay of sin. Jesus makes no mistake about what becomes of salt that is no longer of use. Therefore, the obedience to the mission of God is linked to our very identity and how we will be judged. This sets a much higher standard than many of us have been used to.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

That our faith is proven authentic in the inevitable acts of public service, sacrifice and love is undeniable in these statements. These are the visible, embodied fruits of the Beatitudes. How, then, can we live these out without making it all about our pride? Again, in understanding the Beatitudes we see a people of humility and brokenness whose works are expressed in way more akin to a 12-Step support group than the religious externals of apparent “perfection”. What is made clear here is that we have been created and called to be the VISIBLE community of Christ. This is not optional. It is not an ideal some might achieve. This is the base-line standard for all of Christ’s people. Again, we see the standard set higher.

Jesus does not say that we become the “light” as we do these things. If we are His followers, we ARE the light. Therefore, whenever we do not live lives worthy of being His light, we are hiding it “under a bowl”. There are not on times and off times of being the light, we called to constantly be the light of Christ. Failing to do so robs the Gospel we live and proclaim of its authority. After all, the truest meaning to using Christ’s name in vain is bearing that name, yet living lives unworthy of the Lord from whom we received it.

These two images of salt and light intentionally compliment and inform each other in important ways. Just as the salt fights death and decay, so too light brings life. It is far too easy for us as Christians to focus on one or the other. If we fight the dangers of sin to the exclusion of being light, we become legalists who are defined more by what we are not than the God in whose image we are created. If we seek to be the light of life and hope to exclusion of being salt, we expose ourselves and others to the very real and insidious corruption of sin and selfishness. Together, this synthesis of salt and light, of morality and ministry, of righteousness and justice- it is here that all the law and the prophets hang. It is here, again, the Jesus Creed is proven central.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

When Jesus described the people of the Beatitudes, the suffering Jews of His day would easily identify with lives of suffering and persecution. Then, when Jesus described them as being the salt and the light in the world, born out of that identity, it would have stood in stark contrast to what was lived and taught by the religious leaders of their day. They might even have been tempted to use Jesus teaching to reject the law-based fundamentalism they saw around them, rejecting even the law itself. Jesus, however, gave to room for such a move in these verses.

We are often tempted to do the same thing. How many of us have used Jesus’ radical grace to justify moral compromise? For many of us, this kind of response is a natural reaction to having lived under legalism elsewhere in the Church. However, God’s grace must NEVER be used as license to compromise. Jesus rejected the abuse of the law, never the law itself. Again we are reminded that loving God and loving others is the ultimate fulfillment of His law. Jesus is not teaching us a new law or an addition to the old, but demonstrating the ultimate intention behind the law all along. We cannot fulfill the law without becoming like Christ. Yet we cannot become like Christ unless we also embrace the law as He intended it.

Again, we see Christ’s teaching leading us to an obedience at the Cross. More than that, He is leading us to an obedience ON the Cross. If we are Christians, there is not a moment when our lives are not the embodied and expressed salt and light of the Gospel. Yes, God’s grace will forgive us our inevitable failings as we seek to be His Body, but that is NEVER license to compromise. To do so is ask Christ to die anew upon the Cross for our own convenience and pleasure. Our freedom in Christ is a treasure too easily abused. We must ever be mindful of what is at stake, both for us and for a waiting and watching world.

Today is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. It is a fitting day, then, for us to celebrate the germination of Little Flowers Community, our inner city church plant that follows a Franciscan path as a Mennonite community. While officially having begun in January of this year, the group that became Little Flowers started gathering around a common table every Sunday evening about a year ago. So this evening we will celebrate what God has done in and through us, remembering the example of St. Francis who continues to inspire us.

What is a feast day? Celebrating the feast day of a saint is strange for many Christians who have not grown up in traditions that practiced it. For us it is a way to celebrate the stories of Christians who have gone before us- inspiring and challenging, while still flawed and human. I have always been moved by how Jewish holidays help them remember, both good and bad, the history- the story- of God’s journey with their people. It is this that draws us to the practice of celebrating the Feast of St. Francis.

The Smithsonian Institute, while correlating one of the largest databases of writing on the planet, discovered that St. Francis has been written about, cited and referenced more than any other person on record. As we study his life and see the lasting, expanding impact he continues to make on the world, it is not surprising that so many are inspired to follow his example. With the benefit of history as hindsight, it is not surprising that his life has often been written with the often sanitized quality of many hagiographies. However, when Francesco Bernardone responded to the mysterious calling of Christ on his life, he had none of the knowledge of how it would turn out that we are privileged with. He was stepping out of the security of his family, the approval of his culture and even the safety of the status quo of the Church of his day. It was an obedience that led towards the darkness of the Cross with only the hope and promise of the Resurrection.

As we consider the inspirational example of St. Francis, we must be ever mindful of the uncertainty with which he responded to his own calling. In an age of political and religious upheaval, he choose a lifestyle that had gotten others burned as heretics. He cared for the diseased in a time when medical care was virtually unavailable, virtually accepting a painful death sentence onto himself. Some scholars even believe that his stigmata were the wounds of leprosy. Even if this explanation were true, it still reflects his selfless embrace of Christ’s sacrificial love.

Franciscan biographer Donald Spoto once said:

• “In the final analysis, this is what attracted me to Francis of Assisi- that he saw his journey to God as a process, a constant deepening and adjustment of his aspirations, a refinement of his presumptions about what God wanted and a winnowing of his own good intentions. In that regard, his conversion was not the event of a day but the work of a lifetime.” (pg xix, “Reluctant Saint”)

While we do not deny, ignore or reject the benefits we receive as inheritors of his life and example, neither should we fail to be mindful that to follow Francis should never be a step into the comfortable, the novel or even the certain. Rather, we follow in radical obedience, trusting that with each step we will come closer to goal that Francis himself pursued. For we as step in the hallowed foot prints of the saint, we discover those prints are themselves within the larger prints of Christ Himself.

Today is also the day that I celebrate my profession as a third order Franciscan brother in The Company of Jesus. Please pray for me, along with the other sisters and brothers in the order, that we will walk the journey together in such a way as to honour Christ, fulfilling His mission and building His Kingdom.

• Setting the Stage – SOTM (1)
• Beatitudes Part 1 – SOTM (2)

This week at Little Flowers Community, we continued our series on the Sermon on the Mount (SOTM) by tackling the last of the Beatitudes. It was a larger portion for one evening of discussion, but it was really encouraging. So let’s dive right in:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”

When most of hear the word “righteousness”, what usually comes to mind is the idea of moral and ethical uprightness. While this idea is important and certainly a part of the broader understanding of righteousness, it doesn’t best represent the meaning of the word. As we dug in on the word, we discovered that one of the best summations of what it means is found in Matthew 22:37-40, which says:

• Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

True righteousness in this context is about action and relationship- that is right relationship with God and neighbour. For many of Jesus’ listeners, the words of Micah 6:8 would have sounded in their hearts & minds: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” So while moral & ethical uprightness is important, it is the natural by product of truly loving God & neighbour, living lives of justice, mercy & humility.

This life of pro-active compassion & justice is something that Jesus says we must hunger & thirst for. In an age and culture of pet obesity, it is difficult for most of us to truly understand genuine hunger or thirst. However, to the desert people of Israel whose history was tied to survival in a harsh & unforgiving wilderness, Jesus words were powerful. This kind of active righteousness is something for which our very survival depends, therefore inspiring us to pursue it a near desperate urgency.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”

When we look at the life and teachings of Christ, we can see two basic meanings for the idea of mercy. Rirst, an active compassion for the suffering, regardless of the subjects “worthiness” to receive that compassion. In this first meaning we must recognize that compassion is not simply an emotion. While conceived in the heart, it because genuine only insofar as it is born in our active will. Feeling compassion for the suffering is important, but ultimately empty if we fail to respond in some meaningful way. In fact, to feel real compassion but fail to act is, in many ways, worse than no compassion at all.

Second, mercy refers to the forgiveness of others, just as we received forgiveness from God. While this might seem to be an easy value to embrace in the face of petty offenses, the reality is that it is monumentally difficult. We called to forgive others, even in the face of the worst of sins, yet most of us have a hard time letting go of the anger of being cut off in traffic. This radical forgiveness is offensive to our sensibilities. Consider how the Jews of Jesus day felt on hearing this, knowing that His teachings extended to their Roman oppressors. Even from the cross, Jesus extended forgiveness. Are we that committed to extending mercy?

It is from that declaration of Jesus on the cross that we learn the hard truth of this lesson. This Beatitude promises that we will be shown mercy, yet clearly Jesus suffered and died horrifically. The mercy we are promised in mercy extended by God. It is not a promise that, should we take the moral high road and extend mercy to others that they will then show mercy to us. In fact, as Jesus life proved, the path He walked (and calls us to follow) leads inevitably to the cross.

So we must ask ourselves: Are we actively pursuing lives of compassion to a suffering, but often ungrateful world? Will we extend forgiveness to others, even when they don’t do likewise? Will we hold true to this grace when we are rewarded with suffering? We must.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God”

Judaism is a purity culture, evident in the many and complex purity laws found in the Old Testament. When Jesus referenced purity, He was speaking to a people well aware of all that was involved. However, by referring to purity in heart, Jesus reminded the Jews that purity was not merely the fulfillment of these external obligations, but rather that the external was the fruit produced from inner commitment (Psalm 24:3-4). We often find Jesus’ rebuking the religious leaders for failing to see this very important distinction.

What was Jesus referring to when He used the word “heart”? At Little Flowers we often refer to this idea by mentioning the 3 H’s: Head, Heart & Hands. That is, our minds, our wills and our emotions. (To help you remember, think of Dorothy’s 3 companions on her journey home: the Scarecrow who had no mind, the Tin Man who had no heart and the Cowardly Lion who lacked the will to act) Purity of heart, then, is when these three dynamics of submitted to the heart, mind and will of God.

When this happens, we are told that we will see God. Again, as we look at Scripture, we see that people could not look at the fullness of God without dying. Even those who saw His glory in part had to veil their faces from others as a result. Jesus words would have been powerful to the Jews considering these realities. While He was not promising that they would look upon God in His fullness with their naked eyes, He was promising them that they would come to know God in deeper and truer ways. And like those great men of old, their natures would be changed by that knowledge and reflected to those who saw them and how they lived.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be call sons of God”

The word “peacemaker” is only used this once in Scripture, making it something of mystery. As we studied different books and resources on this verse, we saw that many scholars often quick brushed over this verse as though they didn’t know what to say. Others came up with wildly different interpretations. We realized that this point would need much more thought & discussion as a community.

We realized that the implications of the word “peacemaker” suggested a proactive calling that meant far more than just “being peaceful” or “keeping the peace”. The violence we are meant to confront is more than just physical, but also cultural, racial, etc. We also realized that peace is more than the absence of violence, but the presence of God’s shalom. The work of the peacemaker is one that demands deep commitment, passion and a great deal of courage.

What does it mean, then, to be call “sons [or children] of God”? So familiar with a faith that calls God Father, we often fail to see how radical God’s love for us is. When God made His covenant with Abraham, He was extending a value on people (and the individual) that was unprecedented. Further, more than just making a covenant that reflect value, He extended His identity onto us as His children. That this identity is more significantly discovered in the work of peacemaking tells us something very critical about His nature and character.

“Blessed are those who persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you”

Jesus wraps of the Beatitudes with a closer that any salesman would tell you is a huge mistake. Why finish with the promise of suffering? The word “blessed” gets lost in the dire implications of what we will face. However, not only are we called blessed, but we are commanded to rejoice and be glad!

Loving God and loving others as Christ does, calling us to be active peacemakers and advocates of justice, will put us at odds with the principalities and powers. It will inevitably mean suffering and persecution. However, we have to be careful here. First, we are not called to go look for suffering. Second, and more importantly, just because people mistreat you doesn’t mean you are doing God’s will. Many Christians act with ignorance and arrogance, inspiring many to reject them (and sadly the Gospel) as a result. This is NOT what Jesus is referring to.

These final Beatitudes are the culmination of the previous: we are called to be humble, compassion, just, peacemakers, etc., and when this leads to suffering, we are not called to respond with vengeance or retaliation, but with these same qualities, except now with rejoicing and gladness. I imagine many people listening to Jesus walked away at this point, as their hopes for a militant Messiah in Him disappeared. In the same way, far fewer people will embrace the calling of Christ in the face of these realities. However, we must never underplay the realities in order to make Christianity more attractive. Clearly Jesus did not, so how can we?

Next week is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, so we will be taking a break from the SOTM series until the following week. Hope this has been a helpful to you as it has to us.

Last week at Little Flowers Community we did our intro to the Sermon On The Mount (SOTM) series exploring Matthew 4 to set the stage. This week we jumped into Matthew 5:1-5, the first few Beatitudes.

A quick online search on the SOTM turns up massive amounts of information. Of that, we noticed 4 names that popped up again and again- men who intentionally lived the SOTM in their lives (for various reasons and in various ways): Jesus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. We also noted that each of these men where killed for their convictions. Bonhoeffer onced said of the Sermon:

• “Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place of this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found – on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all. From the cross there comes the call ‘blessed, blessed.’”

We recognized, then, that following the SOTM would inevitably call us to costly lives of sacrifice.

What does it mean to be “blessed”? Of the two words in Greek that translate mostly commonly, the one used in the SOTM is “markarios” which denotes a pre-existing state or condition. In other words, the blessing is not something that comes after or as a result of the condition, but is a blessing in the midst of said condition. We are not rewarded with blessing because we are poor in spirit, but rather are blessed even in midst of suffering.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their is the kingdom of heaven”

For as longs as there have been Biblical scholars, the difference between this verse and it’s parallel in Luke 6 (“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”) have been debated. Some will suggest that when the Jews of Jesus day heard Him say this, it would have immediately brought to mind such Scriptures as Isaiah 66:2, referring to a “poor and contrite” spirit. Others, however, will note that in Luke 6, the blessed of verse 20 finds its parallel woe in verse 24, which says: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort”, clearly indicating that Jesus was, at least in part, referring to material poorness as well.

This difference could have filled our entire evening, as it sparked many strong opinions from various perspectives. What we could agree on was that to be poor in spirit, like simplicity, is an internal transformation of the heart that, by necessity, must find expression in our external behaviour and choices, specifically in our relationship to wealth (and thus, sacrifice, selflessness, generosity, etc.). Still, it is a point we will need to explore more.

What, then, is the kingdom of heaven? While our time was far too limited to get into this point in depth, we all agreed that this was not about the promise of eternal life in heaven (at least not primarily), but rather about the establishment of God’s shalom– peace, justice, compassion, etc.- in the midst of our broken world. Against the “wisdom” of the world, God’s kingdom here and now is found, less in the bold victories of unwavering confidence, but out of our embrace of our own brokenness and humility.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”

We all suffer pain and loss. As a community, Little Flowers has faced a great deal of both. This Beatitude at first can seem simple, even sentimental, but in the face of real suffering and loss, it is profound. When our friend & brother Andrew took his life this year (due to untreated mental illness) shortly after becoming a Christian, we were all bombarded with questions and uncertainties, both from our own hearts and from others around us. In the end, this Scripture gave us permission to truly mourn, avoiding the empty and desperate attempts to “put a good face on it”. It also promised God’s primary posture to us in our suffering- the Comforter.

While God can (and has) certainly brought loss as a means of correction or consequence, we too often look at such times as though we are somehow to blame. This dangerous prosperity mentality is deadly. We should not face suffering with undeserved guilt or let it fester into bitterness. Rather, we must mourn. Jesus preached these words to a people all too familiar with suffering. So we must navigate between the extremes of foolishly ignoring the consequences of our choices that leads to suffering and the lie that all suffering is judgment for sin or lack of faith.

Just as Jesus said that the poor would always be with us, so too will we be daily sharing life with others who are suffering as we follow that missional path that He has called us to. Therefore, we must responsibly, respectfully and realistically face suffering and loss- our own and that of others- without easy answers. To mourn is not to deny Christ’s ultimate victory, but to acknowledge the legitimacy of our current suffering. To that end, we also committed again as a community to stand with each other and our wider community in the face of suffering and loss.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”

The first thing we learned about this verse was how misleading the translation of the word “earth” is. The word would better be translated as the “land”. To the Jews of Jesus day, this would immediately have been connected to the Promise Land, which was currently occupied by their Roman conquerors. So, as they waited for the Messiah to rise up and wipe out their enemies, Jesus’ admonition that the Promise Land would be had through meekness would have been shocking at best. While the people were often thinking only of the immediate political reality, Jesus saw that the Promised Land represented much more, including the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant (see Genesis 12-17).

The pattern of the Beatitudes is becoming clearer with each verse. The Kingdom will not belong to the proud (and many Jews were quite proud to be the chosen people of God), but rather to the humble. In the face of suffering and loss, God does not promise vengeance and victory, but rather comfort in the midst of our pain. And finally, the Promised Land will not be liberated through military might, but rather, even then in the midst of occupation, is inherited by the meek. Meekness is not weakness, but rather a confident humility (which is not a contradiction), a trusting obedience and a steadfast faith in God in spite of what the circumstances suggest.

As we considered these few Beatitudes, we realized that to embrace them goes against our nature. It is demanding, difficult and dangerous. It requires patience, trust and above all, grace. We prayed together that we would hold fast to these commitments, not letting the abstract ideals distract us from walking them out in every day life together.

With the summer behind us, Little Flowers Community has decided to spend the next few months exploring The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). As a Mennonite missional community that follows a Franciscan way, an emphasis on this Sermon is fitting, as Anabaptist and Franciscan traditions both attempted to live life around this set of teachings. We are all excited to see where it leads us as a community. Before we started into the Sermon itself, however, I decided it might be a good idea for us to explore what preceded it for Jesus. And so, together we dived into Matthew 4. Here are a few of our thoughts on it.

• The chapter opens with Jesus facing temptation (which we explored in detail in another sermon). We reflected that Jesus faced His temptation alone in the wilderness. Sometimes we can view resisting temptation as a social pressure or public witness. That is, we resist because we fear consequence from our peers and/or to maintain credibility of witness to a watching world. While these two aspects have their place, Jesus’ solitude in the face of His temptation teaches us that the temptations of in our hearts and in our private moments are most critical.
• Soon after his temptation, Jesus goes out and, in the midst of his preaching of repentance, He calls His disciples to Him. Here we see that being a community of faith is no small part of the work of the Gospel. It is not incidental or a casual analogy that we are called the Body of Christ. As we die to the sins of our individual hearts, we are resurrected together as one, as His Body. To truly be an authentic community of Christ, we must be intentionally and consistently committed to submission- both to the Holy Spirit and to one another- not because we must, but because we love God and each other.
• Jesus then continues on with His disciples and begins to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed, moving powerfully and miraculously in the Spirit. Through the authority of our righteous & humble lives, out of the context of a mutually submitted community, ministry is born. Each factor contributed to leading Jesus to preaching this significantly important Sermon, calling His people to a specific way of life together.

So, it is on this foundation that we are getting ready to dive into the Beatitudes this week. I am really excited about this series and feel as though the above ideas have really prepared us to move into it.

What do you think?

While the weather here might convince us that the long await summer has arrived, it is in fact the season of changing leaves, back to school and fattening up for the winter slumber!  Here at Little Flowers Community, it is also the time we gear up for our Autumn season.  With people back from holidays and settling into routines again, we will be getting ready to face the next season as a community.

Starting today (Sunday, Sept. 13), we will be kicking off a series on the Sermon on the Mount.  The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is a critical text for Christians.  In the Anabaptist tradition, as well as in the Franciscan, it remains a central call to Christian life.  Give it a read and you will see that it is no easy task.  And so, as we going to the Fall, we will be exploring together what it means to live out the Sermon on the Mount, as individuals, as a community here in the West End and as members of the greater Body of Christ.

Tonight we will set the stage for the series by looking at Matthew 4.  If you would like to join us tonight (or any other Sunday), drop us an email or a call.  We are happy to give you details!  We meet on Sunday afternoons/evening for a potluck and a time of worship.  For those who live locally, we also share life together throughout the week.  We’d love to have you join us!

Peace & all good!

This week’s gathering of Little Flowers Community, our inner city church plant, was a real reflection of the unique life of our group. First, our wandering homeless friend Chris was back in town. It was his birthday on Friday, so I told him that I would get him a big cake with candles. He was so excited he invited a group of his buddies to join us (convincing them that we weren’t some creepy cult). When several of his friends agreed to come, he ran out to buy groceries to make his famous “Poor Man’s Soup”, as I wanted to contribute to the potluck. Amazing guy. With these fun loving guys added to the potluck, the language was a lot more colourful, which we are hardly notice, but our other guests had to adjust to. It was really neat to see such different people enjoying a meal and each others company. After the meal, we sang Happy Birthday to Chris. He & his buddies decided to take off before worship, but they said they might join us again. I guess we weren’t too cultish after all! I put aside this week’s planned sermon/discussion and had a time of community sharing. We centered it around James 5. Are any of you happy? Sing songs of praise! And so we celebrated and prayed blessings on Andrew & Rachel, newlyweds in the church who have been part of Little Flowers since before we officially started. It was good to commit to them as a couple to stand with them as a community, even in the face of many challenges. Are any of you sick? Lay hands and prayer for them. The evening became a little more somber as Delia (who with her husband have been a huge support to Kim & I as leaders) shared that she had been diagnosed with the early stages of cancer. While the prognosis is very good, it is nonetheless scary for them and all of us. Delia shared this with the group:

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For the past several months—more specifically weeks, I’ve been walking under a somewhat overcast sky. Not that there hasn’t been bright sunshine. Sometimes conditions have been so beautiful I could almost convince myself there were no clouds overhead, ever. But the clouds were never far away. A month ago as I looked ahead down my road, I pondered those clouds, noting: What will be is not yet clear but sometimes taunts me from the shadows of worry taking shape as clouds of reality blow overhead and block the light. Those clouds are clearer now. Indeed, they contain the feared letters C A N C E R. Although it is in the beginning stage, I still don’t like this word so close to me! My mind recalls the words from Scripture: “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12) Yeah, I know. I am fully aware that I am one of thousands who have dealt with cancer. I know it isn’t anything unusual. I also realize that countless numbers of them have survived. I know, too, that everyone, at some point, gets one illness or another And my intention is not to get stuck in a “woe is me” ditch. And although there is a great measure of comfort in the fact that I am not alone in the world of sufferers, there are feelings and events, and decisions that are specific to my particular situation. Therefore, I feel I do need a bit of time to ponder the implications of this new reality, even sitting, for a time, in the sadness it brings. I invite you, if you wish, to ponder also, with me, how this news impacts you. As we ponder we will pray for balance so we allow ourselves to be real and admit our true feelings, while not allowing the negative ones to grow too big and take over. I don’t so much think of this as a battle with cancer as a battle to “Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5) I want to keep in mind that illness is not our enemy. Our real enemies are fear and worry. We are encouraged not to “be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present our requests to God.” Then, we are promised, “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:6&7) At this point my main prayer request is that I will be ruled by God’s peace and not by fear, and that this thing won’t become too all consuming. There is still a lot of other stuff to attend to and living to enjoy.

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While not nearly as devastating, Kim & I also learned some disappointing news this week: the adoption process is slowing down, making the likely time that we will bring our child home from Ethiopia closer to October 2010. It was comforting to sit together with John & Delia last night sharing our mutual struggles, encouraging and praying for each other. Last week also saw the closing of The Dusty Cover. For those who missed the Winnipeg Free Press story, it was online in Fredericton (no idea), found here. While we are sad to see it close, we also know it will be reborn into something new in the year to come. As a community we continue to share life together, both the joys and the suffering. I love our community, even though there are times of heaviness and frustration. Keep us in your prayers!

Just a reminder that The Dusty Cover Blow Out sale is now underway until Saturday, August 15th.

Come on down and take advantage of some GREAT books as cheap as 10 cents!

(originally posted at www.missional.ca)

I recently had the chance to tell the story of how Little Flowers Community was born in our West End inner city neighbourhood. As I recalled how it all happened, I was struck by how blessed we have been to arrive where we are. Out of seven years of mission to our neighbourhood, humbly attempting to learn what it meant to be part of the community, a small, unique church has emerged. What is most beautiful to me is that we did not really have a design on this outcome (though we sensed the momentum in that direction), but rather were approached by the group of people who had become our family and asked to help them be a church together.

For those of you familiar with Little Flowers, you will know that we are not a typical church. Made up of primarily people from our community, we meet every Sunday night at the mission house (an old now restored gang house) for a potluck and time of worship and fellowship. Again, it is not typical, so when I use the words “worship and fellowship”, it lacks the organization, polish and social civility of most churches. We are rough around the edges, to be sure, but a group bonded into a genuine community. That means, of course, that our community life isn’t only on Sunday nights. Many of us share life together in intentional community, while others live just blocks away. We have shared gardens in our backyard, do community shopping runs at Costco to save and live simply, and generally spend much of free time together. Like I said, we are more of a family than anything else.

As the pastor, I have found a vocation that is the rewarding roles of my life. It is also, however, the most demanding. I have already had to step back from many of the day to day aspects of our other ministries to give it the time it needs, including (in part) the closure of The Dusty Cover. Even with these changes, it has become very taxing. When we began this ministry, we knew that God would have Kim & I lead alongside others, hopefully another couple. We have prayed for this for some time, but have not seen it answered yet. That is what I am writing about today. We are putting this out as a Macedonian call.

I don’t want to sabotage this effort, but I also want to be clear from the start. This is not a paid position. Kim & I receive no funds for pastoring this community. Anyone who would come would need to be self-supported, either through other jobs or missions support. We also have a strong values that our leaders must live in the neighbourhood. We know that these two requirements eliminate a lot of options for people. However, we also know that God is faithful to provide for those He has called to His purposes.

Some of you may be in a position to answer this call, so we ask you to prayerfully consider what God might be saying. Feel free to send us (in comments, emails, etc.) any questions you might have. Those of you who are not in a position to answer this call, we would ask that you pray with us. We also would like to ask you to consider spreading the word. As I said, this is a Macedonian call for sisters and brothers in Christ to join us in our life and mission here in the West End of Winnipeg.

Will you join us?

Originally posted at Missional.ca

Shortly after his dramatic conversion, while St. Francis was working hard at rebuilding the chapel of St. Damiano, his family was searching for him everywhere. When Francis’ father learned that his son was living like a beggar while rebuilding an abandon old church, he was furiously angry and decided that he would drag his deranged son home and set him straight. When Francis learned that his father was coming to take him home, he fled into hiding, residing in a cold, wet cave for a month with friends providing food and water. During that month, Francis prayed with great fervency that God would deliver him from his father. His desire was to serve God alone, so prayed that God would save him from his father. After a month, Francis was suddenly filled with a great peace. Leaving the cave, he went into Assisi and told him father, along with the whole community, that he had given his life in service of God, renouncing his wealth and privilege to live among the poor as their brother. This news with met with mockery, rejection and great anger, especially by his father. However, in the end, Francis was free to continue his pursuit of service to God.

This story highlights something fairly critical about prayer. As Francis prayed for God to intervene in the crisis, he asked that his father would leave him alone to pursue his calling. God answered Francis’ prayer, but instead of changing his father’s heart, he changed Francis’. The young saint was filled with the peace to face his enemies, even when mocked and abused. God did not turn circumstances to meet Francis’ needs, but rather changed Francis’ heart to be able to face the true cost of his devotion. I once heard it said (perhaps by C.S. Lewis) that we pray not to turn God’s heart towards us, but to turn our hearts towards God.

As face the realities of each day, I want to better embrace a life of prayer, not out of religious obligation nor out of a desire to receive what I want from God. Rather, I pray that I might better come to know God and, in so doing, become more like Him. I want to die to my own impulse to turn to God only in my need, desperately seeking His intervention, while ignoring His call to me to intervene as His Body in the suffering of a lost and dying world.