Thursday, 11 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.



To paraphrase a well-known test of Pascal, we can say that all the political theologies, the theologies of hope, of revolution, and of liberation, are not worth one act of genuine solidarity with exploited social classes. They are not worth one act of faith, love, and hope, comitted--in one way or another--in active participation to liberate [humanity] from everthing that dehumanizes [people] and prevents [them] from living according to the will of the Father.

Gustavo Gutierrez

A Theology of Liberation

For those of us who have endured the latest round of political elections in the U.S., we say candidates from all parties using well-chosen faith language in order to convence church-going people to vote them into office. Gutierrez points to the fact that Christian faith is expressed not in words, but in actions of solidarity with the oppressed. The Church has often been criticized for being hgih on ideals but low on actions. In fact, well spoken preachers can make their followers feel as if they have done huge acts of faith, simply by being "pew potatoes."



Connection: A challenge for this day is to look for one concrete way to express your faith through actions on behalf of one who is marginalized from society. It may be a gift of time, of money, of advocacy. Instead of passively allowing politics to coopt the teachings of the Church, find ways to express the faith in actions that leave no doubt that the grace of God is active in the world today.



Prayer: Help us to speak the Gospel in our acts as well as our words. May what we do reflect whose we are. Amen.

Wednesday, 10 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.





However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound out psychology, however frank and open our behaviour, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other [person], for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ alone stands between us, and we can only get in touch with our neighbors through him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship

All our knowledge of our world, our relationships, even our God, are filtered through the lens of our experience. Experience gives shape to the symbols we use to organize our understanding of existence and provides meaning to those symbols. When we try to know another person, we form our understanding by interperpreting our experience of that person - not the objective reality of the person him/herself. As such our relationships are imperfect. Relationships improve (or at least become more genuine) when we can be willing to lay aside at least some of our emotional clutter. Thus, to an extend, knowledge of self and how our baggage colors our perceptions of others, is key to getting to know another person, at least on some level.



Yet even this is not sufficient, since we can never fully move out of ourselves to experience the other person fully and uniquely. It is Bonhoeffer's assertion that, for Christians, we can most fully engage the other person through prayer in the name of Christ. By doing this, we are trusting in God's essence to bring relaity to our relationship. Christ can be described as the one who was fully knwon by God and who fully knew God (this is part of the Trinitarian formula). If then, we release our relationships to Christ, we are trusting in God to be the active party to bring insight, knowledge, and truth to our interactions with others. Another way of looking at this is that, just as we trust that God alone justifies us in Christ, so also God alone provides the truest context to know others and to be in relationship with them.



Connection: Focus for a moment on your most significant relationship. Look at all you know about that person. Ask yourself how much of what you know might be reflectionship on who you are, rather than who the other person is. Then pray, trusting that Christ will create and inspire new insights to this person and a stronger bond of love between you.



Prayer: Help us to see what you see in those around us. Help us to understand that others around us are not relfections of our own selves, but divine creations of God - each with unique identifies that we now only see dimly. By looking at you, help us to more clearly see each other. Amen.

Tuesday, 9 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.





Monks go to a monastery to find God. But monks who live in a monastery as if they had found God are not real monks. I came here to get "closer" to God, but if I were to make myself believe that I am any closer to God than anybody else, I would just be fooling myself. God should be sought, but we cannot find God. We can only be found by him.

Henri Nouwen

The Genesee Diary

So much of religious pop culture speaks of methods, prayers and belief systems intended to help a person come to God. Sometimes, the proposed discipline is easy, sometimes it is hard, sometimes it separates people from their money.... The Gospel proclaims that God always comes to us. God seeks us out. God enters our context and makes grace freely available to all -- without our having to even ask for it. This is a God out of control. No denomination, congregation, or movement can manage and control the means of grace. God free gives to all -- without reservation.



Connection: Such a message as this throws the world's economic rules into caos. The Gospel proclains a God who had a priceless gift and who offers it to all, without condition, without the receivers having to be worthy, or sufficiently repentent, or even to have subscribed to a particular belief system. God loves and is completely out of control! What does it mean for us to worship a God so out of control? Do we dare to loose a bit of control ourselves? What would the Church look like if its members embraces this "out of control" grace? Wow.... just imagine...



Prayer: God, we thank you for coming to us. May we never get in your way as you gather humanity to yourself, but rather loosen us up to dance your dance of grace with all whom we meet. Amen.

Monday, 8 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.



Plain life as live by a Christian... in a spirit of faith, is a life redeemed by Christ. It is Christ's life.... When you eat breakfast, Christ is eating breakfast. When you go to work, Christ is going to work. When you meet your brother... Christ meets Christ.

Thomas Merton

as quoted in Merton's Palace of Nowhere

by James Findley

When I first read this quotation, my initial reaction was "This is way cool!" Then, when I started reflecting on how to put this in practice, I started to see the true struggle of being a part of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." There's an old saying that you can pick your friends but you are stuck with your relatives. I think the same must be said for those who are in the Church as well. Many in the Church have tried to escape this reality by forming new denominations, excommunicating troublemakers, even killing those who were named "heretics." But if we take Merton's premise seriously, we are running from, pushing away, and in the end murdering the Christ in our midst.



Another troubling aspect to this quotation is what is says about each of us and our daily lives. The daily grind of life is, in fact, the life of Christ within us. As we go about doing the ordinary activities of life, we are living and being Christ within the world. How we treat ourselves, how we respect our own dignity and worth relfects on how we view the Christ as much as how we treat those around us.



Connection: A meditation exercise I might suggest would be to reflect for ten minutes on the quality and nature of our interactions with others. Look for how they reflected our feelings for the Christ in the other person. Then spend another ten minutes on the quality and nature of how we live out our lives and how the quality and nature of how we treat ourselves reflect our feelings for the Christ within us. Finally, spend ten minutes looking honestly at how we did in these two areas without further crushing the Christ within us.



Prayer: Help us to recognize the Christ within us and the Christ within others. In the complexities of a bitter world fractured by politics, economic exploitation, and bigotry, help us to see Christ all around us and thereby to not give in to the evils that surround us, but to have a vision of your all-inclusive reign that is grounded in grace and love. Amen.

Friday, 5 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.



I used to be an active collector of quotes. This series of devotions will be based on some of my favorites.



Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles study [people] and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.

Frederick Buechner

Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

One of the most dangerous traps the church can fall into is to idolize its theology. If we worship the study of God, rather than God him/herself, then the object of our worship is, in reality, ourselves. Besides idolatry, this overconfidence in our own God-constructs diminish the scope of God's reign and dramatically increases the likelihood that we the golden calf of our own hubris on the backs of those who are the most powerless and disenfranchised within our societies. Some of the greatest acts of harm done in the name of religion have been when God's followers are most certain of their theological veracity. I wonder if the opposite is true... would a dose of healthy doubt and a willingness to be wrong be a counterbalance to the evils caused by arrogance? Maybe the Church might be well to offer questions in addition to creeds as part of it liturgical rites. What would the Church look like if this were part of our tradition?



Connection: A former professor of mine once said that the purpose of theology is to be about the business of continuously tearing itself down and rebuilding again from its ruins. Some voices proclaim boldly that they have the answers, including the ultimate answers of God and God's will for humanity and its institutions. Rather than answering those voices with different opinions having the same certitude, ask questions, pose alternatives, be willing to live with ambiguity and unanswered mysteries. A sign of wisdom for the aforementioned dung beetle would be to understand and accept that it will never have the capacity to comprehend the experience of being human and to be content with the mysteries of human existence.



Prayer: We release the need to try and understand your experience, O Lord. Help us to understand our reality through the life and ministry of your Son and by doing so, draw us closer to your essence. Amen.

Thursday, 4 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.



I used to be an active collector of quotes. This series of devotions will be based on some of my favorites.



I Pray incessantly

for the conversion

of the prodigal son's

brother.



Ever in my ear

rings the dread warning:

"The one has awoken

from his life of sin.

When will the other

awaken

from his virtue?"

Dom Helder Camara

A Thousand Reasons for Living

This quotation has a great deal of meaning for me because of the way that it turns the parable of the prodigal son on its side. Camara's focus is not on the prodigal son, but on the "good" son, who, in the end, was caught in a cycle of unrepentant, jealous hatred. It is worth noting that the parable is silent as to whether the "good" son ever repents of his jealosy and embraces his brother. When we wear virtue as a badge, we fall into the trap of self-justification that Paul warns us against and become impervious to compassion, forgiveness, and love.



Connection: Dream interpretation in Gestalt psychology begins with the premise that every person, object, and action within the dream represents a part of ourselves. Perhaps we can take this same interpretive principle and use it to look at Jesus' parables. We are the father, the producal son, the good son, even the pigs! We are both the one who is driven to repentance and the one who hardens his heart to compassion and love. And yes, we are also the one who, with open arms, forgives the son who has rejected everything we stand for. Today look at how you live out each of these characters., and take all of these "characters" to the cross where we see the one who is able to embrace and accept all of who we are, without qualification or condition.



Prayer: For give us out sins as well as our idolization of our good deeds. Whether we do good or evil, save us, good Lord, from ourselves.

Tuesday, 2 November, 2004

This week's devotions are written by Redeemer member John Caron.



I used to be an active collector of quotes. This series of devotions will be based on some of my favorites.



There are two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."

C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce

Today is election day in the U.S. The electoral system is a means to attempt to measure "the will of the people." It is also a time when politicians attempt to mold the collective will of their constituants into something resembling their own political agenda. C.S. Lewis makes the point that each of us can either seek the Reign of God or else be trapped in whatever we have chosen for ourselves. God's Reign stands outside of the labels of conservative, liberal, progressive, or moderate. It calls is to not pay ultimate allegience to any party, any political idiology, any govenment or any country. We cannot confuse any cause, no matter how good it may be, with the Reign of God.



Connection: It is easy to choose our will instead of the will of God. Our struggle is to first comprehend what the will of God is and then secondly, to choose it for ourselves. Recognizing the will of God is difficult. But in the landscape of competing messages, philosophies, and political agendas, the Gospel becomes our best means to make that choice. Ultimately, of course, we find that no party or poltical movement can pass the test. None have room for a God who takes on weakness, humiliation, and death. In short, none have room for the cross.



Regardless of election Tuesday's outcome, our faith must remain in Good Friday and in the God who was crucified by the will of humankind. In our elections, there are vital choices to be made. The consequences of those choices are very real. Participation in the political process is important, but our faith must remain on that which stands outside of all politics and all human will.



Prayer: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.