I was just pursuing the Portage-Lisgar election stats for the 2008 election and found something that kind of shocked me (which might tell you how deep in the sand my head is buried).

Almost 12 percent of our riding is deemed to be living in poverty. That’s more than 10,000 people right here at home. Not a continent away. Right here. For those that don’t believe me check here – http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/federal-election/portage-lisgar/Portage-Lisgar-Profile.html

It also notes that 14.5 percent of kids under 18 live in poverty. That’s nearly 4,000 children living in poverty. Here. At home.

A family of four living in a small urban region earning less than $30,328 lives under the poverty line in Canada according to 2005 StatsCan figures and while some out there might cynically respond “that doesn’t seem so bad” my suggestion to you is to try it. For a single person living in a small urban region the cut off line is $16,273.

We live in one of the most affluent and wealthy countries in the world. We live in one of the most ‘Christian’ parts of the entire nation. How is it that such a large portion of our population lives in poverty? How is it that so many of our children live in poverty?

Wow.

I have often wondered about the strangeness of politics and religion and how they end up entwined. In the United States it was Ronald Reagan campaigning in 1979 for presidency that brilliantly tapped into the religious right to boost him to the win. Since then the Republican party has forever been tied to conservative Christians.

Of course most things that occur in the US echo here in the Great White North and this interesting dance between politics and faith has happened here as well. For a while now my  experience in the church has been one that has seen evangelical Christians tied somewhat inextricably to the Progressive Conservative party (and now the Conservative Party) when it comes to voting in elections.

Now there is nothing wrong with either Republicans and Conservatives (why some of my best friends are Republicans and Conservatives…) but I question what I perceive as unthinking loyalty to anything. I have met many a person who simply assumes that because they are Christian they must in fact be Conservative or Republican.

It used to be a party’s stance on abortion was the thin edge of the wedge for Christian votes…of course this no longer factors into Canadian politics because every major Canadian party has publicly stated that they will not repoen the issue or consider private member’s bills.

So how do faith-based decisions get made when it comes to voting. What are the big issues Christians should consider? Here are a few:

– Poverty
– Health care (healing the sick)
– Sanctity of Life (all life)
– Corrections and crime (vengeance or rehabilitative)
– Environmental policies (Stewardship of Creation)
– Tolerance (as Christians who value our freedoms and feel them eroding we must recognize that tolerance is the key to regaining what we have lost and this is secondary to the fact that “God so love THE WORLD…” and desires that ALL would be saved and created everyone with the Imago Dei)
–  Senior Citizens (care for our elders)
– Economy (Store up riches in Heaven, do policies make it easier to fall into debt or harder)
– Youth related issues and policy (education etc. “Do not let people look down on you because you are young”)

This is a tiny list and there is much more but it gives you an idea of the depth one can delve in making a decision. All of the parties have strengths in this list. All of them have weaknesses. How does a person of faith decide?

Certainly one does not decide by name or tradition.

silas marner kept a pile of gold
beneath the floor boards hidden
taken out to covet, crave and pour over
but never shown the sun
nor seen by any other loved one
not spent except in years
useless as any secret kept
like a shame or nakedness after the tree
best to keep some priceless things away
till shine and shimmer disappear
forever.

snow does fall
as my spirit is wont;
fast and heavy laden
no wind
no sun
nor force of nature
will lift it up again
but wet and pressed down
with the weight of its own existence
it is driven to the ground
leaving a faded outline
that it was…and then –
gone

Why does so much of life often seem to revolve around input? What I mean is why do “good” things have to happen for it to be a good day and why do “bad” things have to happen for it to be a bad day?

Why does a sense of well-being seem to hinge on such temporary and untrustworthy things like weather, and the moods of other people? Or worse still- the endorphin levels in my own brain? It seems that our contentment and happiness hinge primarily on luck and things that are out of my control.

Ok, I know what some of you are thinking. Just develop a nice committed relationship with Jesus and all your happiness will become joy and not dependent on some external thing.

While this is true this is easier said than done and often ends up with a lot of trickery and fakery. Plastic people with plastic faces set to the comedy setting of the masks. I don’t mean to suggest that Christ does not offer joy…far from it. What I mean is that while Christ is the source of joy dependent on nothing but my relationship with him, I am still Peter (and aptly named at that). Peter is inconstant, Peter is a traitor, Peter is weak and while Christ is strong he is also respectful of all of my stupid choices..one of which is to hinge my joy and wellbeing on things and externals.

Today is Wednesday. As a journalist it is my version of a weekend because Tuesday is deadline day and the week up to deadline is always filled with writing and interviewing and picture taking etc. So today is Wednesday. It is blue sky nice out today. Nice enough that I might take a walk around the lake this afternoon if only to remind myself why I don’t often walk around the lake. Today pleases me.

I wonder if today was grey, raining and all my plans were to fall through, if I could still be pleased? This is what I mean by hinging our hopes and dreams on the inconstant shoulders of weather, money, clothes, and other people. Frankly to hinge our joy on another seems to be the worst of all decisions…how much of a burden to force another to bear the responsibility for your happiness? At least weather and money feel nothing and cannot feel guilty when they disappoint or fail you.

This brings us back to Christ. Christ is a person. God certainly but also the most human human to ever live. He does feel. He can be hurt. I can hurt him. Maybe this is why I don’t like hitching my hopes and sense of wellbeing to him…I don’t want to disappoint him. I don’t want to feel the guilt when I inevitably fail. Who’s to say really?

Well no matter what, no matter where I hook my hopes,  I have to remind myself constantly of this promise of Christ from John 15:5 –

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

What is it about hell that gets people all bent out of shape?

Lately Rob Bell (whose name rhymes with hell and is likely due to have a poorly written limerick about him) has stated over and over again that he believes in hell and yet his detractors continue to state otherwise and consign him there simply because of his recent book.

I find it an interesting phenomenon when a person can explicitly state something and others will simply pretend it was never said and go on whistling another tune as if life were somehow better blanketed in illusions.

Oxford defines hell as follows:

noun

(often Hell) a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.

a situation, experience, or place of great suffering:I’ve been through hell; he made her life hell

exclamation

(also the hell)

used for emphasis or to express anger, contempt, or surprise:oh, hell — where will this all end? who the hell are you?

A broad definition but as a noun there are two attributes that stand out – pain and punishment. Hell is a place. Hell is pain. Hell is suffering. Hell is punishment.

The irony about the uproar over Rob Bell’s discussion of hell is that some people are willing to consign him there for their insistence that he does not believe in it. This of course leads to the thorny issue of does one need to believe in hell to be saved? To me that’s a little like telling your children that if they disobey they will be strapped and that even refusing to believe in the existence of the strap is disobedience that will get them strapped.

The word hell in the Bible is translated from the Greek word Gehenna which refers to the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem. This was the site where the faithless would sacrifice their children to pagan God’s like Moloch for instance. It symbolized great evil and distance from God. In Christ’s era the valley was used as a dump for Jerusalem where fires burned constantly to consume to refuse. Overall the place was where useless garbage was thrown. The unwanted and the undesirable things of the world would go there.

There are 13 references to hell in the Bible, all of them in the New Testament. In the Old Testament there are references to the Valley of Ben Hinnom but only as geographical and non-symbolic. When Satan is referenced in the Old Testament book of Job he is the Accuser and he is in Heaven.

The most enigmatic reference to hell comes in Matthew 10:28 where Jesus says:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

It is important to note the context of the verse. Jesus has surrounded this verse with verses focused specifically on his command for believers to NOT BE AFRAID. His theme and emphasis throughout these passages is on the fact that with God there is no fear. It is likely the One referred to hear is anyone demonic or otherwise who would tempt a person into unbelief and darkness. The soul is that which engages with and welcomes the spirit of God…with the soul destroyed by evil one loses connection with God and is useless and tossed to hell as trash is tossed to Gehenna.

Christ also asks the question of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:33:

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

Which is to say “your actions have shown you to be garbage and useless, worthy of the trash heap…how will you escape this?” The answer of course is to turn toward God and avoid the condemnation of painful separation that awaits those who choose it.

It is important to not mix our metaphors when it comes to hell. We Christians do this all the time by blending hell, the lake of fire and hades into one place geographically located at the centre of the earth.

Gehenna, the Lake of Fire and Hades are all distinctly different allusions within the text of scripture. We know Hades is altogether different because in Revelation 20:14 it is thrown into the Lake of Fire and destroyed, there being no need for it anymore. In Revelation 20:15 all those whose names are not in the book of life are also thrown into the lake.

To better understand the context of who lands in the lake of fire we read Revelation 3:1-6 and find Christ speaking:

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

There are some in Sardis who are living and walking according to Christ. One’s whose lives show who they follow. These ones, Christ says, will never end up in the fiery lake.

At any rate there are 13 references to hell and two to the lake of fire while there are 622 references to heaven and the heavens. With such a vast difference I often wonder at our desire to appeal to fear and hell as we witness Christ and not to heaven and God. It says something about ourselves when our emphasis is on darkness and death and hell and nothing about the person who may or may not mention it.

On a more random note about hell I think Dante got it wildly wrong in his Inferno. Of course the poem is highly allegorical and so one cannot blame him too much. I think his definition of the lowest (and therefore worst) circle of hell as being the location of betrayers clearly does not take into account the gospel portrayal of Peter.

Peter is the definition of betrayal. He betrayed Christ three times while he was on the road to the cross. He betrayed the one he very clearly identified as “the messiah, the son of the living God” and yet Christ forgave him.

What kind of insane person would every have such a list of friends? I mean such a person would be drummed out of respectable society don’t you think?

– Thief
– Prostitute
– Adulteress
– Psychic
– Drunkard
– Glutton
– Divorced
– Possessed
– Broken
– Greedy

– Sinful…

Such a person is either one of them or unconcerned about what people think.

Here is a great excerpt from the first part of pastor Rick McKinley’s fantastic new book A Kingdom Called Desire: Confronted by the Love of a Risen King.

“One of the first lessons I learned in church was not to be honest. Of course I did not learn that lesson from the man behind the pulpit, nor did I learn that lesson in the Bible. Instead, like most important lessons, this one came through experience.

A couple of weeks after I started following Christ, I realized two things in my previous life were going to have to go: getting drunk and having sex. At the time, heaven sounded like payday, so I figured my reward for my newfound sobriety and celibacy would be getting back everything I’d have to give up. So in my exuberant ignorance, I asked the college pastor if heaven was like the greatest party ever, with all the drinking and sex you could imagine.

My frame of reference was clearly rooted in my understanding of pleasure and rewards and the hopes and dreams of an eightenn year old boy-man. The only experience of ecstasy I had ever had that resembled anything of the ecstasy waiting for me in heaven was getting drunk and having sex.

I honestly think that is how most eighteen year old boys think, raised in the church or not. But the college pastor looked at me in horror as if I had trampled on something sacred and defiled something holy. He was right to think that. Drunken orgies in heaven would be unholy and quite defiling of something sacred. Yet the desire I had for an eternity of ecstasy was in fact legitimate. I had experienced ecstasy as something momentary (and painful the next morning), but I longed for something better, something lasting and life-giving.

Through that experience I learned that honest questions developed from limited life experience were frowned upon, at best and better left unspoken. An honest question – horrific as it was to my friend’s holy ears, though spoken in innocence – created a reaction that made me feel like a stupid person asking a stupid question. So I quit asking questions. I muted my rage, repressed my desire, and learned – don’t be honest here.

I later found out that there were several men in the church that I respected and had been taught by who had been living out the dreams of my eighteen year old passions – only not with their wives. In fact they hid behind a string of lies. But given the first rule of religious living that I’m quite sure they learned as young children growing up in church – which is don’t be honest – they just waited for everything to implode so they could crawl away from their respective disasters in shame.”

What is with a want?
it pushes past a need

why seek the pleading hearts?
become invaluable in deed

don’t want to be needed
don’t need to be wanted
it’s a crisis of identity really
with the difference in the pair
lost in confusion, lost in the air

what is that which separates the two
that which can inform both I and you

it is perhaps this deep truth:

that need suggests require
while wistful want cries desire!

A good sermon is provocative in that it provokes the congregation to thinking. Today Henry preached a great sermon in church about Christ’s first miracle/sign at the Wedding at Cana and it had all the hallmarks of a great sermon and then some. I appreciated that it kept my attention throughout and I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction he created with the congregation.

More specifically I left with more than I went in and this is always a good thing. Two things which had never occurred to me that I want to unpack here are:

1. The role of Mary at the wedding
2. The nature of the jars as symbolic of the law

There’s Something About Mary: Ok, I know that is a terrible lead into the subject but when you consider who is delivering it you will understand. The setting of the wedding is straight forward enough. Much celebration is occurring and the host runs out of wine before the party is over – in any culture this is a disaster…especially at an open bar.

Mary’s involvement is simple enough…she approaches her 30-year-old son and simply says: ““They have no more wine.” which is likely Jewish Mother for “Do something about it”.

In response Christ simply says “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.” Which is likely Jewish son for “leave me alone mom.”

In response Mary acts as if Christ had said nothing and turns to the servants saying “Do whatever he tells you.” Which essentially says “You may not think you’re ready, but I am your mom and you are ready when I say you’re ready – and by God (literally) you are ready.”

This leads us to an interesting place. The passages tell us much about Christ but it seems to me they tell us a lot about Mary and why God chose her to bear the messiah. Christ is always in tune with God’s will, that is his nature, but there are times when he seems hesitant. The healing of the gentile, the time before the cross in Gethsemane and here at the wedding.

Mary’s actions show us just how in tune with God’s will she is. She could have listened to her son and left well enough alone but something in her says that this is, in fact, his time and so she pushes him out of the nest as it were. It teaches us that Mary was not simply a convenient womb acting as a vehicle to bring God into the world but that she was much more than that. She is, as her cousin’s greeting goes “full of grace” and “blessed among women” for her attentiveness to God. In many ways Mary is a kind of prophet only the message she bears came in flesh.

It’s In the Jars: Now to the jars that held the ceremonial cleansing water. Christ uses that water (somewhere between 120-180 gallons) to supply more wine for the wedding. Henry pointed out something I had never thought of (and for that I am grateful)…the jars represent the law in that their purpose is strictly defined by the law.

Now they would have likely already been used as the guests would have washed upon arrival and in some sense this suggests that the law continues to play a role. The law is, in fact required for Christ to carry out his responsibilities here…without the law there is no paved road that leads to the messiah. There is no preparation for Israel or the world. The law is necessary for Christ.

The fact that Christ has filled the jars now with wine suggests they have served their purpose for the water is gone, replaced with something else. Something new and deeper. Christ’s blood fulfills the law, it does not abolish the law but it does transform it into something radically new and celebratory and in abundance.

I don’t want to go too far into allegorical interpretation because I find such interpretive methods limited but there is much symbolism in John’s relating of the wedding.

Anyhow – those are the thoughts I was given. Great sermon…looking forward to more.