This past Lenten season  ~
          seems like forever ago, doesn’t it?  ~
the theme of our noonday Lenten services was:
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world,”
words written by Mahatma Gandhi.
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

All of those who spoke took their own approach to the theme.
The approach I took, however, was a bit more personal.
I wrapped my thoughts around a Michael Jackson song, “The Man in the Mirror.”

Have you had a look in the mirror lately?
I mean a good look.
You know, after you’ve said to yourself, “Gee, you’re good looking …”
after you’ve said to yourself, “Not bad for an old guy …”
after you’ve gotten past the surface stuff and really looked at yourself?

In the song, “The Man In The Mirror,” this is what the man says as he looks at himself …

“Gotta make a change
For once in my life
It's gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right”

And his “gotta make a change” frame of mind
is prompted by what he sees as he looks away from the mirror:
a world
of misery
and sorrow
and hurt
and struggle …
a world with hunger
and poverty
and prejudice.
He sees a wounded world.

And in his “gotta make a change” frame of mind,
“gonna make a difference, gonna make it right,” spirit,
knowing that he’s gotta start sometime … with someone … somewhere …
this is what he says …

“I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change …”

There were two university freshmen
who they decided they were going to take on one of the school’s most brilliant scholars.
The professor was head of Jewish religious studies and was quite eccentric.

When he needed refreshment and ideas and time,
he would reach over and get his long black robe, put it on,
then stride about the campus in deepest thought.
In his flowing robes and long beard he was quite a sight.

Well, these two fool-hardy, naïve freshmen, in their youthful conceit,
decided to have a little fun with the professor,
so they blocked his path one morning and broke his stride.

The first freshman bowed very low and said,
“Good morning, Father Abraham.”
The second freshman bowed low and said,
“Good morning, Father Isaac.”

The professor drew himself up to his full height
and looked down at the two freshmen,
and quoting from the Hebrew scriptures, from 1 Samuel, he said,
“I am neither Father Abraham nor am I Father Isaac,
but I am Joel, the son of Kish,
out looking for my father’s donkeys,
and, lo, I have found them.”

We can go through life being all kinds of things:
professors … students … characters … or donkeys.
But most of us, most of the time, have the choice to be the kind of person we want to be.

And so I put the question to you:  What kind of a person do you want to be?
And once you’ve figured that out: How are you going to get there?

There is no doubt about it: we are all trying to figure out a way … our way.

I don’t know where I heard these words, but I have always remembered them
because of the truth I see in them.
Someone wrote:
“There are plenty of ways to die.
But you have to figure out a way to live.
Now, that’s hard.”

Let me tell you about how hard that can be.
I remember talking with a group of men in a half way house about values.
Talked about the values that had shaped my life.
And when I had finished speaking, and said that I would be happy to answer any questions,
one young man told us something of his story.

He told us how he had been raised in a very dysfunctional home
where alcohol and abuse and brokenness were the norm.
And now that he was an adult,
now that he had entered a program he hoped would bring him to a place
where he could be clean and sober,
he said that the trouble was that he had not experienced the values I had spoken of
to be the ground that he would walk on
in order that he could rebuild his life.

He wasn’t taught any of the things I was taught.
He was taught that it was okay to fight as long as you didn’t lose.
That is was okay to steal as long as you didn’t get caught.
That it was okay to lie as long as others thought it was the truth.
And although he had learned along the way that there were plenty of ways to die,
his struggle was figuring out a way to live.

It seems to me that the Gospel call is a call to follow …
          and in the following to take a look at ourselves
and allow the spirit of the changeless Christ  ~
        the One who is the light of the world …
                 the One who is the bread of life …
                           the One who loves us enough to have given his life for us  ~
                                       to empower us to change that which must be changed within us;
                             so that we can become, as Paul writes,
                   that new person in Christ.
          And God knows, as we do, if we’re honest enough,
there’s lots of room for change within each one of us.

There is an old Hindu proverb which says:
“There is nothing noble in being superior to some other (people).
The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”

Self-conquest is sometimes the greatest battle you may have to fight
and when you win it is the greatest victory of all.
Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist, said once:
“I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met.”

Something profoundly and deeply needs to change within us.

When Jesus said, “I am the way the truth, and the life,”what did he mean?
There are some who see the words that Jesus spoke as the way to heaven.
There are others who see the words as the way to live on this side of eternity.
But wherever you may put your emphasis, they are words we believe.
Jesus said, “I am the way the truth, and the life.”
I like to understand those words as meaning that
Jesus is the way to the truest kind of living we can know.

So how do we find our way to the truest kind of living?  I believe I know.

We all have our favourite songs.
Sometimes it’s the melody that stirs us.
Sometimes it’s the harmony that moves us.
Sometimes it’s the words that capture our imaginations.

Listen to the words of a song written and performed by Amanda Marshall.
They speak of the search for a way to live
even as they speak of the need
not just to believe in ourselves
but the need to know that someone else believes in us too.

The song reminds us of who the pilgrims are in our time.
The song that reminds us of the longings we all have.
The song that reminds us of the needs of our souls.

Somewhere there’s a river/Looking for a stream
Somewhere there’s a dreamer/Looking for a dream
Somewhere there’s a drifter/Trying to find his way
Somewhere someone’s waiting/To hear somebody say

I believe in you
I can’t even count the ways that/I believe in you
And all I want to do is help you to/Believe in you

Somewhere there’s an angel/Trying to earn his wings
Somewhere there’s a silent voice/Learning how to sing
Some of us can’t move ahead/We’re paralysed with fear
And everybody’s listening/‘Cause we all need to hear

I will hold you up/I will help you stand
I will comfort you when you need a friend
I will be the voice that’s calling out/I believe in you

I can’t even count the ways that/I believe in you
And all I want to do is show you/I believe in you
And there are just so many ways that/I believe in you
(Baby) what else can I do but believe in you – believe in you
All I want to know is you believe – believe in you  

These are the pilgrims of our time, including us:
dreamers …
drifters …
people needing to hear someone say “I believe in you”;
angels trying to earn their wings …
silent voices learning how to sing …
people paralysed with fear.

And everyone’s listening because they need to hear that there is someone
who will hold them up and help them stand …
who need the comfort of a friend
who will let them know that they believe in them
so that they can believe in themselves.

It is our Lord, who says to every pilgrim who travels the rough highway,
I will hold you up/I will help you stand
I will comfort you when you need a friend
I will be the voice that’s calling out
I believe in you.

He is the One who believes in us.
He is the One who wants us to believe in ourselves,
to believe that life is worth the living
and that we are worth something in the living of it.
He is the One who offers us His help and hope and friendship.
He is the One who offers us the friendship of God.

And, as I said a couple of weeks ago, to know  ~
not to believe … not to think … not to hope … but to know  ~ that God loves you,
is the beginning place to figuring out your way.

The loving friendship of God becomes the way,
if we open our hearts to it,
for God to do something to our world

The beginning place for figuring out a way, it seems to me,
is to know with certainty that we are loved …
and in that love that we are believed in …
so much so that we can believe in ourselves.

An American psychologist of another generation, William James,
coined a most remarkable expression that, if applied, can transform anyone’s life.
He wrote, “To become, act as if.”
Charles Colton wrote that “Imitation is the sincerest flattery.”
In truth, it is so much more than that.

To become happy, imitate happiness, act as if you are.
To become kind, act as if you are
To become loving, act as if you are.
To become forgiving, act as if you are.
To become gracious, act as if you are.
To become good, act as if you are.
To become the person you know Christ would have you be, act as if you are.

Imitate the most beautiful attributes you see in Christ and others
with the hope that the imitation becomes the real thing.

And if you do, by the grace of God, an amazing thing can happen.
You can come to a place where you are no longer “acting as if.”
Happy and kind and loving and forgiving and gracious and good
will be the way you are.
                                       The day will come when God’s love will do something to your world …
                                                and to you.

Don’t let anything prevent you from pursuing that goal.
Don’t let anyone get in the way of your reaching it.

I like the story of the fellow who was driving home from work one day
when he saw a local Little League baseball game being played
in the park near where he lived.
So, he stopped and sat down on the bench
on the first-base line.

He asked one of the boys what the score was.
“We’re behind fourteen to nothing,” he answered with a smile.

“Really,” was the reply.
“I have to say that you don’t look very discouraged.”

“Discouraged?” the boy responded
with a puzzled look on his face.
“Why should we be discouraged?
We haven’t even been up to bat yet.”

Don’t ever become discouraged with the progress you’re making.
Sometimes it takes another inning and another at bat.
Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back.
But a step in the right direction, well,
is a step in the right direction.

And know this.
          The Jesus who spoke the words read earlier
                   isn’t a long ago Jesus, but a now Jesus …
isn’t  a far away Jesus, but a close at hand Jesus …
                                       isn’t a used-to-be Jesus, but an “I am here” Jesus …
isn’t a not anymore Jesus, but is our risen Lord.

The Jesus who is the way to the truest kind of living we can know,
even as we try to figure out our way,
is the Jesus who said:
“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of time.”
In his love for you, you can figure out your way
and become the person you have the possibility of being.
                                               

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

SELECTED SAYINGS OF JESUS
Before we hear words spoken by Jesus, hear these testimonies of Jesus by John and Paul:
John said:
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all people.”
And Paul said:
“The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.”                                             
And it was Jesus who said to the hungry:
“I am the bread of life.”
And it was Jesus who said to the thirsty:
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst.”
It was Jesus who said to those fearful of death:
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
It was Jesus who said to those trying to figure out their way on life:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
It was Jesus who reminds us that we are loved, even as we are called to be loving:
“Love each other as I have loved you.”
It was Jesus who reminds us the lengths to which his love for us would go,
even as he calls us to love.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command …
This is my command: love each other.”
It was Jesus who said:
“I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness
but have the light of life”
And this same Jesus said to those looking for value and worth,
who wondered if their lives mattered:
“You are the light of the world …
Let your light shine before people …”
What Jesus was saying was that his love for us, and our love for him and others,
makes it possibly for us to find our way.
For love is not only the name of the destination … it is the name of the journey.
Thanks be to God.

Footnotes for “1153” – Figuring Out A Way