B is for blasphemy

Let’s say you live in the great land of Saskatchewan. It happens to be the September long weekend. And on this weekend you are at Taylor Field wearing a jersey of blue and gold. Now in unison I hear you all cry out, “BLASPHEMY!”

Similar situation: It is this same Sunday, you are on your way home to watch the Labour Day Classic, when you realize that you don’t have the necessary green and white munchies to watch the game. You stop in at the local Sobeys (because their logo is green) and are lamenting to the person in front of you in the line at how long this is taking. Said person turns to you and asks why you didn’t come in earlier. Your reply: I was at church. Said person gives you the hairy eyeball whilst proclaiming “I don’t believe in all that God business.” Now in unison I hear you all cry out, “Meh. To each his own.”

 

It’s funny how the word blasphemy has been turned around for us.

To get all fancy with you for a moment, let’s look at the etymology of the word blasphemy. It comes from the Greek blasphemia which simply means to speak harm. So while you’re not wrong in using the word blasphemy to express the horror of cheering for the bombers; it certainly does speak measures as to what we deem to be important.

Prepare your minds to go way back in time to a time before times: A time called the Old Testament. In your hands you will find an old crumbling book called Leviticus. In this book, in the 24^th chapter you find something disturbing. You find something which talks about speaking harm against God, and as a result facing death. It gets worse than that as you read on to discover that there is no turning a blind eye even for those that don’t believe. Blasphemy in this book is a really big deal! It’s so important that even those people who seemingly don’t know any better are called to be punished for speaking harm against God!

You return back to modern day Saskatchewan and you’re still a bit shaken up by what has happened. You worry about what you’ve said, and you’re afraid that you deserve to be punished by death too! Let’s be honest here, you absolutely do! You and I have both said things that blaspheme against the name of God. We have broken the first commandment so many times that we can’t even keep track anymore! There is of course something even greater at work in our lives. Although we realize that we deserve death for the things that we have done, we also remember that we have a loving saviour who died for all of our sins.

Let me recount a personal story. Whilst on my internship I was doing a children’s message one Sunday morning. During this message I was telling the kids about no matter what sin you have committed, Jesus will forgive you. Of course I had one young boy who was obviously smarter than I was and piped up, “What about the unforgivable sin?”

So, what about the unforgivable sin? What do we do with the passage in Mark 3 (and the other synoptic gospels) that tells us about the sin that can never be forgiven? What does it mean to speak harm against the Holy Spirit?

To see the Holy Spirit at work we can look at verses like Matthew 3:11 or John 3:5 which tell us about the gift of faith that we are given through the Holy Spirit. It is this gift of faith which saves us. Through the gift of faith we are forgiven. But as with any gift, it can be rejected. We don’t have to keep, use or believe in the gift of faith. This is when we start treading on dangerous ground, when we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

When we deny the power of the Holy Spirit, we deny the miraculous nature of Jesus, we deny ourselves the forgiveness of sins. This unforgivable sin is not saying that we are unworthy of forgiveness, but rather it’s us saying that we do not want to be forgiven.

Rather than leaving you with the fear of your salvation ringing in your ears, I want to leave you with the reminder of Romans 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The threat of blasphemy, so speaking harm against the faith giving power of the Holy Spirit is real, but the promise of salvation, the sacrifice of Christ is still stronger.

I like my faith like I like my coffee…bold!

It seems like whenever someone refers to me as bold; it’s never for a good reason. When my mouth works before my brain, my questions are referred to as bold. I might make a bold decision with my wardrobe (I still maintain my green shirt under my purple plaid shirt was a great choice!) Although people stop themselves from directly critiquing, the use of the word bold conveys their disapproval.

So why then am I advocating a boldness in faith? Do we really need more reasons to be critiqued for our faith?

Let’s look at the word bold in a different light. Turn in your bibles (or click the nice hyperlink) and go to Ephesians 3:12. Not just boldness, but confidence!

Now for me confidence in faith times comes up in two different ways.

1. Internal Confidence
2. External Confidence

Let’s look at #1 first.

When I’m talking internal confidence, I’m talking more about the confidence that we have in our salvation. It’s internal because it’s something that we believe and that is in us. For example, you’re reading through your bible and you come across a verse that really solidifies your faith, makes you feel good about yourself, let’s say a verse like 1 Peter 3:18. It reminds you that Jesus died for your sin and that you are promised life eternal in spite of all the crappy things you’ve done.

Unfortunately, if you’ve read that particular verse, more than likely you’ve read the one that goes before it too. In 1 Peter 3: 15 we are called on to the external confidence, the one that requires us to make known the reason for our faith.

This #2 reason is the one that calls for increased boldness.

Just to be clear, being bold in your faith, giving a reason for your faith doesn’t require you to stand on a street corner shouting out what you believe and condemning everyone around you. It doesn’t require you to make pamphlets, or go knocking door to door.

What it does require is you going outside your comfort zone…you can’t be bold whilst being afraid.

Your argument to me right now is going to be, “But I don’t know enough.” And you’re right, you don’t. You never will. Because you, like me, would like to have all the answers, to know the bible inside and out and to have the same amount of knowledge about all the different –ologies and –isms as 27 Religious Studies professors. What you want is an excuse to stay inside your comfortable bubble. Truth be told, I would like to do the same.

Unfortunately the bible calls us to give a reason for our faith, not to stare at the floor and hope that nobody ever asks us about it.

We are expected to give a reason for our faith, but we are not expected to go it alone. Matthew 10 tells us that in these situations we are given the words to say. Our words are those of someone much wiser, someone who can give the answers that we could never produce.

Our boldness in faith doesn’t come from us. Our boldness isn’t tied to our personality. The only way we can be bold in our faith is through the understanding of what Christ has done for us. In understanding our unworthiness, how we are all failures in our own right, we are led to the greatness of Christ and what he has done. Our boldness comes when we realize the reason for our faith is something so great that we just can’t keep it inside.

A is for Angels

Angels we have heard on high.

Angels in the Outfield

Touched by an Angel

Amanda.

All examples of angels in today’s society.

But what does that really mean for us?

We look for angels in all areas of our lives. Statuettes of angels crowd every corner of people’s homes. We talk about our guardian angel. We imagine our dead grandpa to be our guardian angel. We picture heaven and it’s filled with angels of every shape, size, gender and nationality playing their harps and drifting on their own personal cumulous.

Where are we getting this from?

When did this... 

...become this?

I would hope that my guardian angel would look more like Michael than a 12 year old teeny bopper.

Let’s first look at what an angel is. (If I were in a classroom this is where I would pull down one of those screen things and have a pointer)

So an angel is a part of God’s creation. They were created by God for a specific purpose. Believe it or not that purpose is not to help a rag tag baseball team. But we’ll get into that. As part of God’s creation they are beneath God. They aren’t meant to be praised. They aren’t God. They are made, not begotten.

Not only are they a part of creation, but they have been for a really long time. They are something that we are compared to but not something that we become. Just like there will never be another Amanda, the angels that we have are the angels that will be.

I already broke your heart by telling you that the main purpose of angels is not for the purposes of making baseball interesting (far too impossible) so why are they here?

Our guardian angel is a real thing. To what extent I couldn’t tell you but I’m sure I need 2 or 3. They’re present as messengers, as guards and even as warriors. Again I don’t think that puny girl up there is going to do much good against an army full of trained warriors.

God created angels with a purpose. He created them to guard, to guide, to be messengers, to be warriors. He did not create them as robots. As we see in several different records in scripture one of the angels took his responsibility as a perfect creation of God to a place that ultimately caused his downfall. The angel that you and I know as Lucifer was one that was created for a great purpose. He was in the upper shallot and was incredibly wise, incredibly beautiful and incredibly aware of his greatness. It was this awareness, this pride in what God had given him that caused him to believe himself to be like God, to be equal to God. This awareness awoke a desire to be greater than God and the slippery slope of free will descended into that of greed and pride; sin at its worst. This descent included several other angels and created Satan and his demons as we know it today.

God’s creation of angels is one that goes far beyond our understanding. It is unfair to place them as we have; as puny 12 year old girls playing harps, floating on clouds. They are capable of greatness, or even of the absolute forms of evil. They inhabit a role that is far beyond anything that we can properly understand.

And this, my friends, is the letter A.

What happened at VBS-Day 5

Thank you for your patience. We will now resume “What happened at VBS-Day 5: The Final Frontier”

Papa Lions has the best thinking face

Day 5 was filled with enthusiasm as we heard about Daniel’s miraculous salvation from the lion’s den. We heard about how we went from a hero sandwich to a plain old hero. Our theme of the day was that God is with you when you’re thankful. We can pray to God at all times, whether we’re happy or sad; whether we need something or we want to thank God for what we already have!

Babs and Papa Lions were there again to show us what magnificent gifts we have been given by God. Even though we don’t get to hang out with them every morning, well, I do, but that’s beside the point, we can be thankful that we were able to learn from each other. Thank you Babs and Papa Lions for showing us this week that God is with us always, and especially for showing us today that God gives us plenty to be thankful for!

Right before we started the hoop on fire

After meeting up with Babs and Papa Lions we made our way to the royal palace one last time to hear the finale of Daniel’s story. And it was a doozy! After being trapped in a pit with a pride of angry, hungry, sharp-toothed lions, Daniel made it out unscathed! Not even a lion scratch on his luxurious mane, I mean, face! God was with Daniel when he was in need of protection, and when Daniel rejoiced with the king, God was with them then as well!

In games the kids were able to experience for themselves what it is like to be a lion…in a manner of speaking. Have you ever been to the circus? Have you seen the craziness of the lion jumping through a hoop? And then they set the hoop on fire? Ya. We didn’t do that. But there was some pretty intense hula hoop people weaving. Basically the same!

What a gleeful expression on his face

Speaking of lions, of which we spoke a great deal, we made the most darling little lions in crafts today! Now answer me honestly what was your favourite commercial from the 90s? That’s right! The chia pet! We made our very own versions and they were just adorable. And by that I obviously mean ferocious! And about that whole idea of God being with us when we’re thankful…I’m thankful that all that soil and grass seed was confined to the craft area!

Already learning the hip jut

Music served as yet another reminder that God has given us a lot for which we should be thankful. Not only that, he has given us so many different ways to show him how much we are thankful! We can sing, we can dance, we can sign, we can play, we can craft, all of this is using what God has given to us and thanking him for his great mercy towards all of us!

At the end of this somewhat shortened day we had the chance to show our parents all that we had done this week! The kids were amazing as they sang out with all their might did the actions with amazing gusto and even performed “We bow down,” using American Sign Language. It was truly an amazing sight to see.

Best smile ever

As any good Lutheran knows, one simply cannot have a social gathering without a ton of food…and this was no exception! Thank you to everyone who came out and partook of this amazing adventure! We enjoyed spending time with the kids as we learned about Daniel and thoroughly explored his story but we were also really thankful that we had the opportunity to share what we had learned with our family and friends!

Papa Lions, reminding you that God is WITH YOU!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make this week such a huge success! Thank you also to everyone who came out and participated. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again next year and remember:

God is with who?

WITH YOU!!

What happened at VBS- Day 4

Well friends, today is going to be pretty short because we have been left hanging about what has been happening with our friend Daniel.

We learned that “When you are lonely, God is with you,” and Daniel was a very lonely fella today, and it appears that he wasn’t the only one.

The morning started off with Babs and Papa Lions and poor Babs was just so lonely, you know she doesn’t know many people here in Babylon! Papa Lions was pretty sure that Daniel had some similar issues when he was here too, but couldn’t quite remember all the details so we went to talk to Ash to find out more about this!

Turns out that Daniel was alone in a much scarier way than Babs was. Daniel was all alone in his worship of God…while everyone else was worshiping King Darius, Daniel was worshiping God, even though doing so was punishable by death! Ash told us that Daniel was punished for worshiping God by being thrown into the lions’ den to be eaten alive…and that was where the story ended! I sure hope that God can help poor Daniel!

In music the final touches were put on the song that we will be performing tomorrow. There are 4 songs that our groups have been working really hard to perfect. I gotta tell you, it sounds, and looks, pretty perfect to me!

Now what kind of VBS would we be running if we didn’t include a water games day? We broke out (and broke!) the old slip and slide and everybody had a grand old time getting soaked to the bone! I think that there may have been some damp children’s body prints on the back seats of their parent’s cars!

In crafts we were missing our regular craft lady extraordinaire and instead had to make do with a DPS who has more enthusiasm than crafting ability. In spite of this the children made some Babylawesome necklaces. We can wear these necklaces and be reminded that God is with us, even when we feel all alone!

So that was day 4! Tomorrow is sure to bring an awesome end to our exciting adventure! 

What Happened at VBS- Day 3

And now the hump day presents: What happened at VBS- Day 3!!

That’s right friends, we’re halfway there. Woah-oh, we’re living on a prayer.

Day 3 was awesome. We veered slightly away from Daniel to learn about his friends Shoe-rack, Meat-shack and A-bed-I-go, or as you may know them: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Let me tell you, they have quite the sizzling story. Get it? Cuz they were in the fiery furnace? It’s a good thing there’s an r in furnace, there’s nothing fun about burning.

Our theme for today was “When you’re afraid, God is with you.” Sometimes we have big fears, sometimes we have small fears, but either way, God is with us.

Babs has a fear of bees. Oh boy, if you could have seen her running around like a fool when she thought she saw a bee. She was so afraid! Papa Lions told her that even though she does get scared sometimes, God is always with her, God can use her times of fear to make her stronger, and He promises to do that for everyone!

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had a fear of being burned in the furnace. They were afraid to stand up for their beliefs, but they did and God protected them. He even send an angel to be with them so that they would be safe. It’s quite an amazing tale!

Ashpenaz keeps getting confused about this, “only one God,” thing. Luckily these kids are very good at letting him know that we only believe in one God.

Speaking of being afraid, I had a big time fear walking into crafts today. There was sand everywhere! It’s amazing how one little grain of sand seems like no big deal, but when they all gather together it’s all of a sudden a huge mess! This can happen with our fears too. When we are afraid or nervous about one thing, it doesn’t really seem like a big deal, but when there are a lot of fears, it’s more than we can handle! Putting the sand on the box reminded us that God takes our fears and turns them into something good.

The music continues to be sooooo awesome! These kids are pretty much music pros. Admittedly, I didn’t get to spend as much time actually IN the music station, but I could hear them all the way from my office and it was really something. However, there are no teasers here…you’ll have to come on Friday to actually hear them sing!

And FINALLY we broke out the parachute! It was possibly the windiest day ever, so the parachute was a little crazy, but boy oh boy did those kids make it work! While the leaders couldn’t only produce a lame looking mushroom, the kids created one of the most elaborate games of cat and mouse…talk about your being afraid!

If the first half is any indication, this week is going to end off being amazing! We have had so much fun and everyone here is just amazing! It’s great to know that God is with YOU!!!!

What Happened at VBS- Day 2

And now for our second installment of, “What happened at VBS?”

So after working out the kinks of yesterday we moved on to even more excitement today! Today’s theme was “When you need help, God is with you.” We met up again with Babs and Papa Lions and you gotta feel bad for poor Babs. She’s a gardener who is having a lot of trouble telling poison ivy from a dandelion. Luckily, there was a dandy lion there to remind her that God helps us with all of our problems, big or small, he helps us all!

Ash didn’t feed us any delicious treats today, but he did feed our spiritual needs. He shared with us the story of Daniel and how he was able to do amazing things with God’s help. When King Nebuchadnezzar demanded the impossible, Daniel prayed to God and God helped him to both know and understand Nebuchadnezzar’s dream…ultimately saving Daniel’s life!

Daniel wasn’t the only one who was courageous today…our craft helpers showed a lot of bravery as they broke out the paints, both watercolor and finger, and helped us to make some amazing dream journals. Hopefully the dreams we record aren’t as upsetting as Nebuchadnezzar’s!

Today we were very thankful to have Judy and Norm come in and teach us sign language too! Music time is more than just singing with our voices, it is using our whole selves to give praise to God!

Here in Babylon we don’t like to do things the way people expect. Games today turned into an impromptu spelling test. See if you can tell what our youngest crew is spelling out!

As always, we leave VBS reminded that God is there for us, no matter what! Thank you God for an amazing day and we’re all looking forward to what tomorrow brings!