Breath for Brittle Bones

Column for The Citizen (June 10/21 edition) by Pastor Ernest Dow, Huron Chapel EMC, Auburn

                As the pandemic wears on, it’s been getting more difficult to keep our hopes up. A news item featured Toronto psychotherapist Sarah Ahmed talking about the phenomenon of ‘languishing’. That’s the term that’s been used to describe pandemic doldrums – you’re not exactly feeling depressed, but as Sarah Ahmed says, “Languishing is essentially described as a feeling of emptiness, numb, feeling stuck, feeling as though we have no motivation, no ability to focus, tasks take longer...” Being a psychotherapist with an active practice, she warns that people’s mental health may end up being affected in the long run if our feelings are left unattended. It helps to identify and acknowledge our feelings, as a start.

                Languishing is prompting some folks to have their so-called “mid-life crisis” earlier than they might have otherwise. Ahmed explains, “It’s forced people to stop and take a look at what’s going on, ...that kept me so busy, that kept me so occupied, and why do I feel like this?” It begs the question of purpose and long-term goals – “Is this really what I want to be doing with my life?”

                The article is not written from a religious perspective so there’s no mention of reflecting on your life in the light of eternity. To be convinced our daily existence actually matters and has significance requires validation from outside ourselves; the Bible points to God our Creator and Redeemer as the One who ultimately judges our life’s worth. If you’re languishing, if you’re experiencing ‘pandemic fatigue’, there’s no better time than the present to reflect on your life goals and priorities, to weigh your activities in the light of Scriptural truth and the Lord’s calling for you.

                In Ezekiel 37, the prophet is given a vivid object lesson that visualizes people’s need to receive God’s enlivening Spirit when all seems lost or futile, and hope has vanished. At this juncture in Israel’s history, judgment has happened: Jerusalem has been reduced to a heap of rubble, exiles have been removed in successive waves from their homeland. How devastating and crushing all this must have felt for the Jews! The beautiful temple of Solomon has been destroyed. Ezekiel, being both prophet and priest, must have felt deeply the loss of the temple where sacrifices were offered and people gathered to worship. Now here he was stuck in Babylon, some 2700 km away.

                So we might say Ezekiel and the Jewish people were languishing. All hope had been lost. They were a defeated and exiled people, strewn abroad to the four winds. They were done for – or so it seemed.

                The Lord deposits His prophet in a valley of dry bones. “He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.’” (Ezek.37:3) Does that valley of very dry bones reflect your situation today? Are you up against some seemingly impossible obstacle? Are you frightened by the global pandemic with its new variants cropping up? Has your business been curtailed because of lockdown measures? Do you just miss your relatives, being able to give hugs, it seems all too long since we could go about life as “normal”? Those feelings the psychotherapist described of being “empty” and “helpless” are very real.

                As Ezekiel is led back and forth amongst these great many very dry bones, the Lord tells him to prophesy to them. As he does, bones are connected, flesh comes on them, and eventually they stand on their feet like a great army. Then, the Lord interprets the vision to Ezekiel. He has been aware of their languishing, their sense of defeat and hopelessness. Here their feelings and emotions are identified. “Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’” (v.11)

                But God has not forgotten or abandoned them; disciplined them, yes, and provided the Promised Land its missed “sabbath years”. But God’s plans and purposes for the nation are not over.

                There is a wonderful promise in verse 14 – “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live…” The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, shows us how grieved the Lord is by our trespasses and rebellion, and moves us to turn to Him in confession and new patterns of living. The Spirit opens our eyes to God’s holiness, our shortcomings, and pierces us to the heart so we become receptive to Him.

                Paul describes this remarkable turn-around the Holy Spirit makes possible this way to his co-worker Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7) ‘Justified’ means put right with God in His sight – by grace, what Jesus has done for us – so that followers of Jesus are now heirs, inheritors of all that awaits us, having “the hope of eternal life” – not left languishing hopelessly, no matter what pandemics or losses or challenges this life may bring us.

                An old-timer who’d lived all his life way back in the bush by himself went into a hardware store early one morning and asked for a saw. The salesman took a chain saw from the shelf and commented that it was their “newest model, with the latest in technology, guaranteed to cut ten cords of firewood in a day.” The old-timer thought that sounded pretty impressive, so bought it on the spot.

                The next day the customer returned looking exhausted. “Something must be wrong with this saw,” he moaned. “I worked as hard as I could and only managed to cut three cords of wood. I used to do four with my old-fashioned saw.” Looking confused, the salesman said, “Here, let me try it out on some wood we keep over here out back.” They went to the woodpile, the salesman pulled the cord, and as the motor roared to life, the customer leaped back and exclaimed, “What’s that noise?!”

                Trying to saw wood without the power of the chainsaw motor is like us attempting to live without the daily empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We very much need His divine breath to connect us with God and help us stand on our feet, having renewed hope, leaving languishing behind. 

Bottom-up Leadership

(Newspaper column for North Huron's The Citizen  - Apr. 29/21 edition)

            COVID-19 is all about taking shots. Some are taking vaccine shots. Yet-another-lockdown prompts others to take shots of alcohol. And then, still others seize the opportunity to take pot-shots at our leaders.

            It must be a tough time to be in leadership, with hospitals filling up and hundreds dying, and officials having to impose restrictive measures in order to try to help people safeguard their health. On social media we see memes poking fun at, or downright critical of, our elected leaders. One I saw recently depicted a woman with a frying pan raised, ready to whack our prime minister in the head from behind. Another graphic showed our provincial premier with eyes superimposed from the main comic figure of Mrs. Brown’s Boys, supposedly making a humorous expletive statement. The situation isn’t helped by our premier’s recent confession of having made a mistake in threatening police action to investigate citizens’ movement during the lockdown.

            I do not envy our politicians in their delicate and imposing task of guiding millions of independent, strong-willed, anxious citizens through a pandemic! I have the greatest respect for many of them. Even when the freedom of churches to gather for public worship is curtailed, I recall Scripture’s injunction to submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1). The Apostle Paul also writes: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour...”  (1Tim.2:1-3) At times like this, our leaders need our prayers more than our pot-shots!

            At the risk of criticism for being duped, I will admit I have been impressed by the verbal statements of three leaders in particular: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Quebec Premier Francois Legault, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Even though Premier Legault’s English is broken, for instance, I can still hear his heart coming through in his voice. All three have the sound of being genuine, sincere, trying to do their level best for the people they serve. Our elected officials remain fallible human beings prone to errors of judgment like the rest of us, and deserve our ardent prayers through this present crisis.

            It is perhaps endemic in human nature to be extra critical toward those who are in authority over us. Adam and Eve rejected God’s instruction about which fruit to eat in the Garden of Eden. Cain rejected the Lord’s warning not to let envy override the need to be his brother’s keeper. The Hebrews throughout Old Testament history bucked at God’s laws transmitted through Moses, earning them the reputation of being a “stiff-necked” rebellious people that eventually found themselves exiled to a foreign land as punishment for disobeying the covenant. In fact their first royal leader, King Saul, was roundly rebuked by the prophet Samuel for not carrying out God’s instruction: “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.” (1Samuel 15:23)

            The prevailing temptation for worldly leaders is to exploit power, to milk it for all it’s worth. Scripture warns against politicians who take advantage of citizens to enrich themselves: “A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.” (Proverbs 28:3) Jesus sought to show His followers a better way. He acknowledged the common failing of abuse of political rank. “And he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.’” (Luke 22:25) However He held out a higher ideal, backed by His example. He went to say, “But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”

            Jesus came to inaugurate an upside-down kingdom, different from the usual worldly political kingdoms where ‘big fish eat little fish’ (as it were). He came not to establish a political entity such as just another country or state; He came to call a people to Himself, to give us ‘new birth’ as God’s very sons and daughters, who live not for this world but for love of God and others, with eyes on what God is seeking to bring about through us and in us. When we discover what His grace and forgiveness are all about, we are ‘graced’ in turn by His Holy Spirit to pour out our lives in service for others just as He poured out His life on the cross for us, to bring us to God.

            Scripture reveals to us the ongoing role of our Risen Messiah – not so much ruling with an iron rod as interceding and pleading for His people, upholding us before our Heavenly Father. He is the Christ who has the ‘right’ to recline at table (referring to the Roman style of banqueting) – but He becomes the waiter, serving us instead. This is His “High Priestly” role, interceding for us. Paul refers to this: “Christ Jesus, who died— more than that, who was raised to life— is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34) And the author of the Book of Hebrews puts it explicitly, “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”

            If we have such a great High Priest whose ongoing task is lifting us up before His Heavenly Father, we can in turn be lifting up our elected officials! They may be imperfect, granted – but just as we are all too aware of our own imperfections, their human fallibility can prompt us to pray for them that much more intently. We become aware God’s sovereignty is big enough to superintend and steer even the most powerful political figures. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” (Proverbs 21:1)

Coming Alongside ‘Those’ People

 (Column for the North Huron newspaper The Citizen, March 18 2021 edition.)

            Are you quick to form opinions about people? It’s easy to jump to conclusions about others, to judge a book by its cover, to form prejudices based on very limited evidence. A lady visiting New York for the first time was being led to her hotel by the bellboy. As she walked through the door she became indignant and snapped at the man, “I tell you that I won’t have this room. I'm not paying my good money for this cramped cubbyhole with a tiny folding bed not fit to sleep on. And there's no TV, no phone, and I suppose you expect me to walk down the hall to use the...” The bellboy cut her short: “Ma’am, this isn’t your room, this is the elevator.”

            It’s all too easy to jump to conclusions in forming our judgments!

            As Jesus’ ministry started picking up speed, His miracles earned quite a name for Him; He began to attract a large following. Yet people never would have dreamed Jesus might pick a tax collector to be one of His closest followers. But He called Levi (also referred to as Matthew) from his tax collector’s booth. (Mark 2:14) The tax collection system in Palestine under Roman occupation had become kind of a mash-up between civic duty and organized crime. Tax collectors constituted a despised profession in Palestine: such people were viewed as traitors, having bought tax franchises from the Roman overlords. Subsequently, skimming off a large surplus over what they were required to remit, many tax collectors became wealthy at the expense of their fellow-citizens. When Jesus called Levi, the collector could have been “set for life” in a prime location. We find out from the context he probably had a fine house, of good size that could host a banquet with numerous guests.

            Christ just says two words - “Follow Me” - and it’s enough. Levi gets up and follows Him. Had his conscience been bothering him, collecting over and above what was really due? Had the sneers and abuse from Levi’s fellow Jews been eating away at the satisfaction of seeing his nest egg accumulate? For whatever reason, something deep inside Levi prompts him to respond, to get up and get moving with Jesus. As a result we have the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew [aka Levi]. Levi was obviously a careful recordkeeper, good at his job – but he chose to give all that away to follow this mysterious Messiah. Not depending on money, or income, or the power of the government to back the fleecing of his fellow Judeans... Levi turned his back on all that and committed his future into Jesus’ hands.

            He felt so good about this decision, he decided to throw a banquet and celebrate. When Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, we are told they were joined by “many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)” (Mark 2:15, New Living Translation)

            Are we talking about those people? Did your parents fill you in on those people while you were growing up? I used to think my parents were pretty unprejudiced, but we did pick up also by osmosis some of their attitudes toward people they didn’t really have a very good opinion about.

            There was that family up the road, who had more kids and seemed to keep on having more kids, who didn’t really seem to have a regular job, whose children dressed not as nicely as we did and used bad words, the kids who sometimes seemed to steal from us when items went missing. I’m guessing the parents drank some, and we didn’t. Those people.

            There were the indigenous people we never met but Dad had stories about; a man who when he was growing up in the 1920s had walked right into their home as if he owned the place, took what he wanted to eat, and left again. That sort of story prompts you to form an opinion about a whole group of people. Those people.

            There were the Catholics who inhabited the north half of the township and attended the big imposing Catholic church in Dublin. The Protestants in the south half preferred not to have much to do with the north half. Almost as if there was an invisible dividing line halfway across the township, and the two groups just avoided each other. Those people. Little did I realize I would be in close partnership years later with Frere Armand, a Catholic lay brother from France who taught Braille and other classes at the newly-formed National Institute for the Blind in Congo. I actually got to know him and appreciate him, one time going for a meal with his other lay brothers in their little community.

            Do you have any of those people in your acquaintance? What measures did your parents use to induce you to put up invisible barriers that would seal you off safe from those people that might influence you, that you were better off not having too much to do with? Who for you are those people today, that you’d rather not meet coming down the street?

            As for Jesus, He seems to have been surprisingly at home with those people. Teachers of the law complained to Jesus’ disciples, “Why does He eat with such scum?” (Mk.2:16) You can almost hear the sneer in their voice! To eat with someone in the Middle East implies acceptance, even approval, if you break bread together.

            Yet, Jesus is not pressured or manipulated into leaving the feast of the so-called ‘sinners’. Jesus responded, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Christ came to call sinners, those who know they’ve fallen short, those who realize they’re not able to stand on their own feet before a holy God, those who are ready to submit their attitudes and priorities and mindset because they’re just not working to give the meaning and relationships life ought to have. Jesus came to treat the morally sick, to inoculate them with this vaccine called ‘the Kingdom of God’, to help them re-think their whole approach to life oriented around what God most wants. You’ve got to be ready to have your worldview turned upside down to discover how God really looks at things. You don’t need a do-over on the surface, you need a heart transplant!

            Only those who recognize they are spiritually sick, that they are not healthy, are the ones Doctor Jesus can help. They are the ones He came to save: not the righteous, but sinners – those who have reached the end of their rope and realize there is no way they are ever going to impress God.

            The recent military coup in Myanmar has brought many protesters to the end of their rope. Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng is a nun in Myanmar who knelt in front of police that had been shooting student protesters. The students ran for safety to a clinic where she was working; she knelt pleading for the police to stop the killing, and even to take her life instead of the students’. (Thankfully, it worked – the police relented.) That is like Jesus coming to give His own life in the stead of sinners, to be a doctor healing those who are spiritually sick and calling out for help.