Pastor's Messages from Prints of Peace
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There are 68 Messages in 9 pages and your are on page number 2

Rollerblades, relevance, and faithfulness

Once, after I had presided over an elaborate wedding and was leaving the church on my rollerblades, someone took a picture of me because in their mind minister and rollerblades did not go together. Or maybe it was the Lycra on ‘the man of the cloth’. If the church is ‘stuffy’ then the minister cannot commute on roller blades. This perceived ‘stuffyness’ is also extended to being out of touch and irrelevant. But you tell me how rollerblades make you relevant!
We live in an experience oriented culture in which churches find it difficult to compete for the interest and attention of entertainment savvy consumers, no matter how many rock bands play on Sunday morning.
I don’t have a problem with rock bands but regardless of rock bands, part of the church’s problem (and strength) is that for 2000 years the church has learned to understand and appropriate the truth of God in Jesus. As much as the church wants to be in tune with current trends, it cannot simply disregard its tradition without ceasing to be the church.

It is true that those of us in the church would like the church to be many more things and speak to many more issues. It is true that we wish the church to be more, as much as we wish ourselves to be more.
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme went undetected for so long because our society is result and success oriented. People will flock to what looks like success. As much as I pity the Madoff investors, most of us – at one time or another – beg to be set up. Yet faithfulness counts more than success.

This is no cop-out, nor is it referring strictly to doctrine. Think of another stereotype we have of the church: There are weird people in church. Maybe it takes a certain age to admit your own weirdness, but I know that I am strange and if you don’t believe me, you can ask my family. Or think of the church as moralistic: Of proclaiming the high road while taking the low road. Of course, this becomes particularly bothersome if we view the church primarily as a moral institution, and not as religious community (without justifying moral failure). I, for one, am glad to have found a place in the church.

It is interesting that we could expect the church to be a perfect institution even though the New Testament has always described the church as an imperfect community. It never was perfect. What then is the draw? That I can belong, that you can belong, that we can belong. That we are gifted to each other to learn from and with each other. That we don’t abandon each other on a whim but understand that God is as present with my neighbour as God is present with me. That we are willing to learn to be patient with each other. One of our hymns sings “all are welcome in this place.”

This kind of community is possible only because we do not follow a consumer model. Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson says that she is as faithful a churchgoer as they come because the Gospel is so counter-intuitive. It is also transformative.
Could it be that we need the church precisely because of its imperfection: that by learning to be faithful to each other we learn to emulate God, and are transformed in the process?

Yours,

Pastor Christoph
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 17:21

Faith and Beauty

It was just Easter. It actually still is (for 50 days).
On Good Friday the Church remembers that in the person of Jesus God entered our humanity: God became one of us. On Easter Sunday the Church celebrates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. We remember by reading the stories and by reminding each other.
One story we read at this time of the year has been nicknamed the story of ‘Doubting Thomas’: The risen Jesus appears to his friends; all except Thomas are present. When Thomas returns, Jesus has left and everyone says, “You won’t believe who we saw!” And indeed, Thomas doesn’t. The next time Jesus comes Thomas is there and Jesus invites him to do what he had earlier demanded to do: to put his hands in Jesus’ wounds to see whether the visitor really is Jesus. The episode ends with Jesus saying: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe (see John 20).

In most of these stories there is someone who asks the questions we would ask or does the things we would do. I don’t claim to have more faith than Thomas, and so I am content to identify with him. Since I am he I will not give him a hard time.

Many years ago my wife and I were hitch-hiking in Europe. Our last ride was our longest. The friendly Norwegian driver asked what we were planning to do. We planned to go hiking in the Norwegian wilderness. We attempted to stroke his patriotism by telling him how beautiful his country was. He was mystified and exclaimed repeatedly that he was unable to see what we saw: Why don’t you go to Spain or Italy where it is at least warm? All that we have is rocks and trees. He dropped us about 30km from our destination where we embarked on a long and beautiful hike.

We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is a loving and respectful way to say that you can see whatever you want to see and that we won’t argue. But it’s not an acknowledgement of beauty or of the truth of what you see.

The biblical text does not say whether Thomas followed Jesus’ invitation to place his fingers in Jesus’ wounds. All we are told is that Thomas believed. For Thomas belief is not defined by accepting twenty-three improbable propositions before breakfast. For Thomas it is a different way of seeing. It is Jesus, no doubt, but the important question is whether seeing Jesus effects how he sees the rest of the world. God sees humanity with the eyes of love, all of humanity. Can we see what God sees?

One of my favourite books is Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince”. In it a fox says to the Little Prince (who has trouble understanding others): It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Not seeing is believing but believing is seeing.

When we were in Norway, we saw rocks and trees, but we saw much more: we saw beauty and the goodness and the presence of God. When Christians confess the resurrection of Jesus they do more than make a historical claim: They confess that the resurrection has something to do with them, that Jesus’ overcoming of death means that they have overcome death: Love over hate, forgiveness over retaliation, generosity over miserliness and rule adherence, it is in giving that we receive. Jesus is not distant but present, as near as our neighbour.

It is true, like Thomas, we weren’t there when he came the first time, but he comes to us still. And aren’t we glad he does!
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 14:01

the little things

I don't know about you but I can read the same passage for years and not understand it until, one day, I get it. Then I wonder what took me so long.

Matthew 25 contains three parables. In the first parable ten bridesmaids wait for the groom to arrive. The groom is delayed and half of the bridesmaids are unprepared. The story exhorts us to live expectantly.
The second parable is the parable of the talents. I have always had difficulty with it. A man goes on a journey and entrusts his property to three servants. Upon his return they return his property. Two with interest, one without. The one who did not invest is reprimanded and excluded.
We are generally more comfortable with the third parable, the judgement of the nations, because – while demanding – it locates Jesus among us.

If we view the parables in the context of our call to follow Jesus and remember that to follow Jesus is to trust Jesus, then we can look at the first two parables in this way:
We see that the bridesmaids' problem was not the fact that they ran out of oil but their assumption for the bridegroom to be such a bean counter as to exclude them on account of lamps run dry. Similarly, it can be argued that the servant's problem was not that he had not invested but that he was afraid of his master. In this way the parable shows that blind literal obedience is no substitute for faith. The story calls us to love Jesus because perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

A few days ago a verse from the parable of the talents popped into my head: “you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things.” (25:23) Suddenly the emphasis had shifted from exclusion to the word 'few'. Suddenly, God spoke to me through the parable I had read so many times: 'Few' means that the task is doable, 'few' means that God puts his trust in us, 'few' means that God notices the things we do (however small they may be), 'few' means that we can start small, 'few' means that we can be of good courage.
It is no coincidence that the three parables are all in the same chapter. The first parable tells of the beauty of a life lived in expectation, the second parable shows us that following Jesus is not only possible but an expression of faith and love, the last parable spells out what following Jesus means: 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? When was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? When was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' ... 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' (Matthew 25:37-40)

It's in the every day stuff where discipleship is lived, it's in the every day stuff where the love of God wants to manifest itself in our lives. It's in the every day stuff that we live as those who died and rose with Christ. It is right here, it is simple, it is all possible, because, first and best of all, Jesus has faith in us.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 19:52

Every Moment is Holy


We thought spring was almost here (and it is almost here!) but it snowed on Ash Wednesday and we cancelled the service.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and the following is part of the Ash Wednesday Liturgy:

Friends in Christ, today with the whole church we enter the time of remembering Jesus' passover from death to life, and our life in Christ is renewed.

We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and for God's mercy. We are created to experience joy in communion with God, to love one another, and to live in harmony with creation. But our sinful rebellion separates us from God, our neighbours, and creation, so that we do not enjoy the life our creator intended.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to a discipline that contends against evil and resists whatever leads us away from love of God and neighbour. I invite you, therefore, to the discipline of Lent—self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love—strengthened by the gifts of word and sacrament. Let us continue our journey through these forty days to the great Three Days of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Lent is less a historical remembering (though it is that also) and more a house-cleaning, a renewal of focus and purpose, and of entering into God’s story in Jesus. Lent is less about suffering than it is about the abundant life in God.
It is in this way that I understand the following paragraph by William Law:

“If any one could show that we need not always act as in the divine presence, that we need not consider and use everything as the gift of God, that we need not always live by reason, …; the same arguments would show that we need never act as in the presence of God, nor make religion and reason the measure of any of our actions. If, therefore, we are to live unto God at any time, or in any place, we are to live unto him at all times, and in all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as his gift. If we are to do anything by strict rules of reason and piety, we are to do everything in the same manner.
…
They therefore who confine religion to times and places …, and who think that it is being too strict and rigid to … make it (religion) give laws to all their actions and ways of living – they who think thus … mistake the whole nature of religion. … They may well be said to mistake the whole nature of wisdom, who do not think it desirable to be always wise. He has not learnt the nature of piety, who thinks it too much to be pious in all his actions.”
William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life)

May God bless our Lenten Journey! May we journey together, and may we receive strength for the journey through God’s gifts of word and sacrament.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Thursday, March 05, 2009 at 21:05

Hope as Real Presence

An online publication carried a satellite image of the inauguration of Barak Obama. Perhaps you saw it. The picture was an expression of the significance of the day, attested to by the size of the crowd. Obama captured the imagination of many people. Appropriately, some have described him as a preacher.
During his campaign Obama chose to emphasize hope instead of problems, thus preventing (massive) problems from becoming overwhelming and paralyzing (e.g. Iraq, the environment, the economy, etc.). Many were eager to exchange the rhetoric of partisan politics for expressions of hope and possibility.

Speaking of ‘hope’ is the language of faith more than it is the language of politics. It fascinated me that the language of faith received such response. It is remarkable that an electorate normally driven by short-term interest (like any electorate) voted for something as elusive as hope.
What is hope? Hope is something like this: ‘I believe that there will be a tomorrow and that tomorrow will in some way be good.’ Hope is not that tomorrow will be like today. Hope distinguishes itself from wishful thinking in the way that it sees a connection between today and tomorrow. In this way hope allows us to adjust to change. Much of life is adjusting to change creatively as opposed to merely working to prevent change.
Every time we are confronted with change beyond our control we are forced to examine how realistic our expectations are (God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference). Is it realistic to assume that I will never be alone or that I will not age? Is it realistic to assume that I will always enjoy perfect health? Are 10% investment returns realistic? Is it realistic to assume that there are no limits to prosperity and consumption? How can I continue to have hope when things do not go my way? How then can I believe in a tomorrow that will in some way be good?
Hope may be elusive (as compared to tax cuts, infrastructure investments, and other things we expect politicians to deliver) but we cannot live without hope. We are wired for hope. Without hope we live aimlessly or we withdraw. But those who are hopeful find purpose in their life and do their work joyfully despite momentary setbacks.

The Book of Psalms says that having hope in the Lord is the best asset one can have. Because we have a short memory, the Bible frequently reminds us of the things God has done in the past, particularly of Israel’s deliverance from slavery and sojourn to the Promised Land. The logic is that if God was faithful then, God can be trusted today and tomorrow. Seeking to conform my life to God’s will is part of what it means to trust God. Yet while we receive assurance from God’s past faithfulness we know that Abraham and Sarah trusted God even before they saw the promise.
In this way, to have hope results from having faith. Faith is the trusting relationship with God and hope is born of faith. Christians hope because they have seen the Lord. Hope is the Word becoming flesh, hope is sacramental reality. Christians can plant an apple tree any day because they know today, tomorrow, and every day belong to the Lord.
We all long for redemption. To know redemption is what we call hope. Redemption is a gift but we don’t receive it passively. When the Word becomes flesh in us it changes us: We become bearers of hope, called to embody the presence of God.


Yours,

Pastor Christoph
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 at 14:37

What to hold on to and what to let go

One of the beautiful things about Christmas are its comforts, not just of food, but the comfort of familiarity. Family traditions play a bigger role at Christmas than at any other time of the year. We try to maintain what we know and have experienced, music, food, stories, gatherings, and worship. The world may be completely chaotic, but at least at Christmas time stands still.
I remember the informal competition I had with my friend Heike when I was a teenager. It was about whose Christmas tree stayed up the longest. Heike won hands down (and, yes, those were real trees). She said something about near Easter. Even then we tried to preserve and stretch Christmas.

Of course, we know that nothing can be preserved in perpetuity. For one, not everyone may have a good memory of the Christmases of their childhood and thus may not want to repeat this experience. Or think of changing families: I remember the first year Jackie and I were married and we invited my mum to spend Christmas with us (instead of us with her). To my mum it was a shock I had not anticipated.

We are entering a new calendar year, and little reminds us more of us getting older than having to write a new year on our cheques (a decade ago I would have said ‘on our letters’, but there aren’t many who still write letters in an age of e-mail). The nature of the passage of time is that things do not stay as they are; we see the world change, we change. Whether or not we welcome the change often depends on our age. Children find it much easier to accept change.

There is at least one familiar thing we carry into the new year. Our Gregorian calendar relates all time to the birth of Jesus, thus we say 2009AD, or ‘in the year of our Lord 2009’. Amidst all change there is Jesus our Lord. Amidst all fear we may have of the unknown, there is Jesus our friend walking before us, beside us, and with us.

And yet, even in walking with Jesus there is change, because Jesus is change. God becoming human, God entering history, God entering our lives means change. It means to be remade in God’s image, it means to follow Jesus, it means a new purpose of serving others in His name.

And so we take into the new year both, the comforting and familiar presence of Jesus and the challenging and changing presence of Jesus. May God bless all our time and all our lives.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Thursday, January 08, 2009 at 22:28

Singing God's Song

When many years ago I did my driver’s training my instructor always had the car radio going. Given the fact that I was only learning, I found the radio a little distracting. My instructor’s reasoning was that once I had obtained my license I too would always have the radio on and therefore this was good training. I think he was just bored and had the radio on as a diversion.
Yet he had a point. One of the challenges of driving is to remain focused. The current debate about car cell phone use makes the same point. I remember a fender bender I caused on a mall parking lot in Winnipeg not because I was talking on the phone but because I had turned my attention to the back seat.
The challenge in this is that you cannot always control your environment. You can choose to pull over when making a call, or not to have the radio on, but many other things happen beyond your control and the challenge is to remain focused anyway.

When planning worship I try to have us go out on a hymn or song that we can sing the rest of the week. I aim for a song that will take us along, a song that makes us part of the choir of the whole church of all times and places, a song that helps us sing continuously the melody of God’s gracious and redemptive presence. I think that when some of you have expressed the desire to go out to an ‘upbeat song’ you mean precisely that.

For whatever reason, I am a person who wants to meet people’s needs, which isn’t to say that I always do, nor that I always could. There are good sides to this and bad sides. Besides, being a pastor requires that you respond to needs that arise and you cannot always anticipate the things that will happen in the coming week.
However, it can make you re-active. Rather than take the initiative, your schedule could run you instead of you running your schedule. All of us have probably experienced this.

For the church Advent has always been a time of reflection and preparation. We anticipate Christ’s return as we prepare for the feast that remembers his birth. Advent expresses our longing for redemption, remembers that Jesus is our hope. Because of that, it is also a time for house cleaning, a time to refocus, a time to un-clutter our lives. That the world around us celebrates Christmas while we celebrate Advent, and that there are many expectations placed on us, makes it harder for us to focus, makes it more difficult to prepare for the newborn King.

All of us are singers at heart, regardless of whether we think of ourselves as such or not. Music is a language of the soul and we all respond to it (even if we don’t sing). As we journey through the season of Advent, let us sing God’s song. Let us sing of the One who is our hope. Let us sing of our long-expected Jesus, let us sing of how we shall adore Him, let us prepare the royal highway by making our life join into the song the Holy Spirit has been singing since the creation of the world. Joining in the song will give us focus and will keep our schedule from running us during this busy time.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote about this in a letter he sent from prison. He points out that the point of our song is not to drown out all else but to let all else unfold to its full potential:
“God requires that we should love him eternally with our whole hearts, yet not so as to compromise or diminish our earthly affection, but as a kind of cantus firmus(1) to which the other melodies of life provide the counterpoint. ... where the ground bass is firm and clear, there is nothing to stop the counterpoint from being developed to the utmost of its limits. ... only a polyphony of this kind can give life a wholeness, and assure us that nothing can go wrong so long as the cantus firmus is kept going. ... put your faith in the cantus firmus.”(2)

May the Holy Spirit always sing within us. May God direct our lives to his coming.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph





(1) A cantus firmus is a musical term referring to a fixed song within a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. Wikipedia
(2) Letter and Papers from Prison, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company 1971, page 303
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 11:24

What the world needs and how it matters to us

I was driving home from an Abbotsford Christian Leaders’ luncheon and thought to myself:
“Why do we get excited about things we don’t need and don’t get excited about things the world needs?”
We get excited about new electronic gadgets, sports equipment, clothes, home renovations, etc. All things that, by and large, we have too much of already. Why else would we have such difficulty finding presents for each other?
My point here is not that it is wrong to get excited about something new. That is often a treat and as such can be an affirmation. Just as dressing up can be a sign of taking pride in oneself, so a new item we have longed for can be affirming (as long as we know God affirms us without any of that).
My question is: Why don’t we get as excited about ‘giving’ as we get about ‘getting’?

When I was 15 I learned to windsurf. Even though learning to windsurf is not a matter of instant success (initially you spend much more time in the water than on the board), I was instantly hooked. I was determined to save up for a board. I got a job collecting shopping carts off the lot of the local supermarket and spent every hour I wasn’t working (or going to school) gazing at windsurf catalogues and magazines.
It is true, it was the response of a 13 year old and I have matured some since (at least so I hope) but I still don’t get as excited about buying a goat for an African farmer, giving to Surrey Urban Mission, or to the Cyrus Centre as I get about getting ‘stuff’ (or at least not until I actually do it). Our excitement about things makes us very focused on attaining them. Just imagine what we could achieve if we could get equally excited about sharing our bread with the hungry, about clothing the naked, about loosing the bonds of injustice,(1) or about funding an outreach or youth pastor for our church, or about building a gym! Our excitement about everything becoming new in Jesus would make us focus on bringing change and being change.

Our excitement shapes our priorities. My answer to my question about our lack of excitement about things that matter has to do with the culture in which we live. Our culture deems having more important than reaching out, deems possessing more important than becoming. But it is when we reach out with the love of Jesus that we grow into the full stature of Christ. (Eph 4:13)

Thus the preliminary answer to my question is that we need to change the culture in which we live, at least the culture on which we orient ourselves, the culture which we live and breathe.
The culture we need exists in the pages of the Bible; we make it ours by reading, breathing, and living the story of God and His people.

I suppose the best part about Thanksgiving is not the family gathering, or the Turkey (you knew I’d say that :-)), but the refocusing of our lives, of how gifted we are, of how blessed we are. And people who engage in thanksgiving need someone to give thanks to. When we give thanks to God we encounter the One who gives us new direction, new goals, new excitement, it is the One who sends us out beyond ourselves. As we go, we grow more and more into his likeness.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph



(1) Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
Posted by J. Christoph Reiners on Monday, October 06, 2008 at 10:31

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