From whisper to print then back to whisper.  Living and life giving, the Scriptures are a collection of images, a series of revealing finger prints that tell of the Divine Mystery. But this isn’t the kind of mystery that is to be solved, instead, it’s a mystery that permeates all, revealing and inviting humanity into God’s staggering care for the world.

Open to interpretation, but bound to community, the Bible transcends language and context to become an experience. Tragedy, comedy, fairy tale woven together from past thru present and into future – It’s God’s epic in progress.

These stories are Handled. Handled in the sense that they’ve intentionally been passed down to us through human hands – for better or for worse. But also Handled in the sense that one needs to know how to pick them up in order to be fed and not burned.

In this light, it’s not so much we that read the Scripture, but the Scriptures that read us. Signaling who we are, where we’re from and where we’re headed, it’s these whispers from the Divine Mystery Himself that cut and heal, break and form.

Something’s cooking. Pull up to the stove and see for yourself.

"You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature." -Gandhi

Jeremiah 29:4-14 tells an old story that intersects with our present day story. Israel’s elite were in exile, God’s divine relocation program. We too can find ourselves in places of physical, emotional or spiritual exile. Dislocated from where we feel at home, removed (sometimes by choice, other times by force) from where we really want to be. Yet for whatever reason, God allows or sees fit for us to walk through these seasons of discomfort. Most often, its in these times that God gets our attention, or at the very least, we’re finally able to see what’s been in front of us the whole time.

It’s in this space/exile that God challenges us to create dangerous memories. Life altering, game changing, course correcting happenings that not only influence but also set the trajectory for our lives, and the lives of those we love. Exile thus becomes a sweet spot, where we (re)engage our own stories and context, ever attentive to God’s holy interruptions.
Its in this physical and spiritual space that we become conscious of the stories we are writing, and the stories that will be told about us on our shift as citizens and as the church.

You are here. Wait, trust, be aware, join in. It’s where you’re supposed to be, even if its just for now.

Below you’ll find some of the ideas and authors that helped us out this month:

“The exile was the crucible of Israel’s faith.  They were pushed to the edge of existence where they thought they were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and they found that in fact they  had been pushed to the center, where God was.  They experienced not bare survival but abundant life.  They now they saw their previous life as subsistence living, a marginal existence absorbed in consumption and fashion, empty ritual and insensitive exploitation.  Exile pushed them from the margins of life to the vortex of where all the issues of life and death love and meaning, purpose and value formed the dynamic everyday, participation-demanding realities of God’s future with them.” (Eugene Peterson)

“The Church is the only society on earth that exists for the benefit of non-members.”  (William Temple)

*Britain had animal welfare laws before it had child welfare laws

*American couples now find just twelve minutes a day to talk to each other.

Over the last generation, the time parents spend with their children has declined by as much as 40%

*Time diary expert John Robinson says family time spent together is of a different quality – now much of it consists of parents chauffeuring their children from one event to another

*Kids are terribly overscheduled as ‘market values have invaded the family.’ Parents often see family life as about instilling competitive values in their children so they can compile the best resumes to get into the best colleges to get the best jobs to earn the most money.  Meanwhile, the number of families regularly eating dinner together and taking vacations together has dropped by a third since 1970.

*The new homelessness: We have people living in houses with one another but not connecting with one another. They’re not interacting because, quite simply, they all have their own toys to play with. Dad is on the internet, mom’s upstairs watching a movie, the kids are downstairs playing video games. Everybody is connected to something outside the home even though they are physically within the home

*In 1967 2/3 of American college students  said developing a meaningful philosophy of life was ‘very important’ to them, while fewer than on third said the same about making a lot of money. By 1997 those figures were reversed. A 2004 poll at UCLA found that entering freshman ranked becoming ‘very well off financially ahead of all other goals.

*Asked about their highest priority in a 1999 poll taken at the university of Washington, 32 percent of those surveyed cited ‘looking good/having good hair” another 18% listed ‘staying inebriated,” while only 6 percent checked ‘learning about the world’

“God is always at work. We can never walk into a situation where that is not the case.” (Mindy Calguire)

Sarnia Stats

"It's a complicated area that includes whether people feel they have opportunities," he said. Those who engage in "risky behaviour" may feel that no matter what they do, others will be much better off than they are, he said. (Rod Beaujot, a sociology professor at the University of Western Ontario)

*Sarnia-Lambton also led the way amongst similar-sized communities when it came to impaired driving charges in 2008; stats going up, province down

*Our community also has a large number of high-risk drinkers, according to a recent Canadian Community Health Survey. Thirty per cent of residents admitted to downing five or more drinks in one sitting at least once a month, the second highest percentage in Ontario.

*As for over-eating, a Canadian Community Health survey found that 49.6 per cent of adults in Lambton County are either overweight or obese. That's one in seven who are obese and one in three who are over-weight.

“Jeremiah’s letter is a rebuke and a challenge: “Quit sitting around feeling sorry for yourselves. The aim of the person of faith is not to be as comfortable as possible but to live as deeply and thoroughly as possible – to deal with the reality of life, discover truth, create beauty, act out of love…Don’t just get along, waiting for some sort of escape. Build houses, plant gardens, marry, have kids, pray for the wholeness of  Babylon, and do everything you can to develop that wholeness. The only place you have to e human is where you are right now. The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at this moment.” (Eugene Peterson)

"My whole life, I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I discovered that my interruptions are my work". (Henri Nouwen)

“…there is none of this passivity in the Scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. If we wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted and that something has already begun, it changes the way we wait for the future. Active waiting implies being fully present to the moment with the conviction that something is happening where we are.” (Henri Nouwen)

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
(Corrie Ten Boom)

“Normal life is full of distractions and irrelevancies. Then catastrophe: Dislocation. Exile. Illness. Accident. Job loss. Divorce. Death. The reality of our lives is rearranged without anyone consulting us or waiting for our permission. We are no longer at home. All of us are given moments, days, months, years of exile. What will we do with them? Wish we were someplace else? Complain? Escape into fantasies? Drug ourselves into oblivion? Or build and plant and marry and seek the shalom of the place we inhabit and the people we are with? Exile reveals what really matters and frees us to pursue what really matters, which is to seek the Lord with all our Hearts.” (Eugene Peterson)

Being a Jesus follower and throwing good parties go hand in hand.  So, in conjunction with our February teaching series (Good Reason to Throw a Party) we're issuing this challenge:

Over the next month, at least once, throw a dinner party. Have people over that maybe have never been to your place, go a little overboard with the food and drink, plan some fun activities for the kiddies...whatever...just make it super awesome. If you don't own a home, take someone out for dinner or treat someone to a coffee.

The occasion? Just 'cuz you love Jesus, love people and love life...because where joy is present, so is God's Kingdom.

For a transcript of last week's message, go here.

What question has been asked for Jesus to answer with this parable? Perhaps the crowd was looking for an explanation of why the kingdom he was proclaiming did not fit their immediate expectations like:

*Romans vanquished
*John the Baptist thought it was to be judgment, but when that didn’t happen he sent messengers to ask: are you the coming one?
*Expectations that the messiah to purge Jerusalem of Gentiles to drive out sinners, to gather holy people and to be intolerant of unrighteousness

GARDENING 101

Leaving weeds in a garden way to run a farm, yet the (poisonous) weeds that Jesus is referring to is a weed that looks very much like wheat in its beginning stages; in fact, they were nearly indistinguishable. Jesus warns that the danger is that one may pull up the good by mistake. The surprise of the servants in the parable and the conclusion drawn by the master both give a clue at something not explicit in the parable: the number of weeds was far beyond normal. Yet the master instructs to let them be, to allow them to grow together. This is a little troubling. Ifthe good seeds represent God’s kingdom and his loyal subjects, and if the weeds symbolize evil and agents of evil what does it mean that Jesus uses as his example two plants that are nearly identical at first sight?

TOGETHER FOR NOW

Wheat and week, good and evil, Kingdom and anti-kingdom grow simultaneously.

Yet the master’s words call us to keep steady:
-v30: “Let both grow together until the harvest.”

The word ‘let’ here finds its roots in the idea of permitting, suffering and forgiveness. In fact, it’s the very term that Jesus uses in his last words:

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)

Forgive/let/permit/suffer both to grow together until harvest.

PULLING WEEDS?

Does this parable teach passivity to sin? Not at all, Matthew squashes that all over his gospel. And in the parable’s interpretation, judgment is a very real reality – but perhaps that’s not the point of this whole story. Jesus was not overlooking Rome’s evil and atrocities  - the day for evil to be destroyed is on its way. But in the meantime, as good and evil grow side by side – for the sake of the kingdom – can we forgive?

Again, the parable isn’t about permissiveness of sin, God’s serious about sin, He’s not overlooking anything. And it’s not primarily about what’s going to happen at the end of the age. The parable of the wheat and the weeds is  about forgiving instead of avenging.

Not to worry…at the end it will become very obvious what’s a weed and what’s wheat. The weeds will be only their removal will have to wait until judgement day - but its not our job to make the separation.

Can we trust God to take care of everything in the end? Can we put to rest the impulse to pull the weeds? As we forgive others, essentially we’re letting ourselves off the hook…we no longer have to carry the hurt and pain…and the reminder to get even.

The kingdom of God?...
…its surrounded by evil, but its still at work.

The kingdom of God? It’s like that feeling…
…of wanting to pull weeds, but not, because you’ll likely do more damage than good and in the end, its not your job anyways.

The kingdom of God?...
…it will set wrongs to right, all in good time, but until then I will forgive.

“Evil can never create or build, only twist and destroy what already exists.  It uses human brilliance and creativity as well as folly and ignorance toward heinous ends.” (Debra Rienstra)

“…they would’ve caught the Holy Spirit’s exalted pun immediately: The malice, the evil, the sadness that is manifest in the real world and in the lives of real people is not to be dealt with by attacking or abolishing the things or persons in whom it dwells,  rather, it is to be dealt with only by an a letting be that is a forgiveness, that is a suffering – that is even a permission - all rolled into one.” (Robert Capon)