Meditations from The Church at Southpoint

May we place the resurrected life of Jesus at the centre of our attention. May we become a fresh expression of the resurrected life force of the welcoming Christ.

Frederick Buechner said: "Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing." Losses shape us and humble us, and may break us, but they don't define us. We are more than the sum of our successes and failures to be who we want to be! Each day we plant ourselves in the flow of divine Love —which is what really defines us—and be part of that giving and receiving. What did that mean for Peter?

What it would be like to wonder what might be waiting — beyond the sorrows we witness, beyond the sadnesses you carry in your heart? Even if you don’t want to run to the tomb yet, maybe you can make some space for wonder, a tiny green sprig growing amidst the stones and sorrow of your heart.

This Lent we've been on a long journey with Peter — observing his journey of faith, and our own — we've been wandering, we've been wondering, but not today! Today, we are walking with purpose. Today, we are waving branches in the air, we are singing and we are celebrating the way God was on the move through Jesus, and the way God is on the move in our midst, now. When the crowds saw Jesus coming towards Jerusalem, the people were exuberant, cheering him on joyfully as he approached the city.  Enthusiasm is a powerful force which  ignites our spirits and infuses our actions. How is Jesus on the move among us? Could our exuberance be a sign of his presence? 

Peter seems to be someone who lives under the groaning weight of high standards. Being right, doing what is right, and naming what is right seems to matter a great deal to him. In this passage, he approaches Jesus, asking for how to do forgiveness right. Curious about how the conversation unfolding with Jesus? Come have a listen.

Like Peter, we feel angry and scared when what we expect doesn’t come to pass. When certainty gives way to disappointment, we feel disoriented. Jesus invites us to loosen our grip and open ourselves to his love, which is with us in the mystery, complexity, and pain. Jesus’s love, assuring us that after our long sorrow, there will be liberation.

Jesus says to the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter responds, “You are the Messiah.” These words aren’t an intellectual assertion, but a clear articulation of Peter’s deeply personal, deeply experiential knowing of Christ: This is what I know to be true about you, because I have experienced you to be this—you are the Messiah.”

This post launches Southpoint's Lenten series "Not All Who Wander Are Lost", incorporating material from A Sanctified Art. The theme, at its heart, is that at the deepest level of our life, our journeys—no matter how they twist or turn—are held safely within the labyrinth of God’s love. Be open, keep walking, surrender your feet to the next step, trusting the path will lead you home. You are held by the labyrinth as you wander! In today's episode we join Peter as he encounters Jesus and begins to wander. Jesus has a vision for his Father's house. He has a renovation in mind. He wants to take down walls that keep people out. He wants to replace the architecture of legalism and make room for an abundant feast of grace. He is going to need other people to help him bring about this vision. (Even Jesus isn't expected to do it alone.) Who does he choose for his team? Jesus holds a vision of who we are that is bigger, richer, deeper and kinder than the limiting beliefs we have of ourselves. When we are ready, Jesus calls us to step out and come wandering with him, so we too can participate in the feast of grace.

The partnership between Elijah and Elisha reminds us of the power and the importance of companionship, and of the way God longs for us to companion each other. We can do hard things, together. Our theme for Epiphany is that God Calls Us, and we’ll wrap up here with "God Doesn’t Call Us to Go it Alone".

Diving into words of hope and comfort — God’s promise of restoration from Isaiah 40:21-31, written for those exiled to Babylon—Anne unpacks the prophet’s call to hope in God.  This God, who spread the heavens like a big tent, providing a home for all, is vast, creative, and caring; a God of incomparably great agency who comes intimately close and with profound commitment to those who are weary. This is God, who remembers the weak, who is ‘with and for’ them, particularly those who are in exile. God who will give strength and resiliency to those who need to make the journey from oppression to a place of greater spaciousness and wholeness, a place where they can rebuild their lives.  Which exiles, tiny in the presence of Babylon, come to your mind? Our LGBTQ+ siblings and their allies? People of colour whose stories and experiences are so often erased in white spaces? Folk struggling with mental or physical illness? Those experiencing the dissolution of a marriage, or close relational ties? Those suffering in zones of conflict or fleeing as refugees?“ Do you not know? Have you not heard?” We have felt the radical embrace of the expansive love of Jesus, a Jesus who is spacious and inclusive, a Jesus who companions all of us on our long journeys towards restoration. 

This season of Epiphany we look for and celebrate the ways God’s light is being manifest in our midst. When will the manifestation of God come to us this year? Where will this lead us? What will we be called to hear—or to bear? What will we be invited into? Some themes in the Bible are so threaded through everything that we almost miss them. One of these fundamental, basic themes of the Old and New Testament is that God is a self-revealing God. God communicates. The Bible assumes that God is a god of self-revelation, a god of self-disclosure, the God of revelation. The God of revelation: that's what Epiphany is! If you look at all the ways God communicates, you notice that God is quite creative about it. God speaks through dreams and visions, angels and animals, creation and prayer, Jesus, written words, the Holy Spirit, and scriptures and people.  Today, we lean into this idea of God as one who communicates: "I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in their mouth.” (Deut 18, from today’s lectionary reading). Wouldn’t it be comforting to think that God, who is with us, and for us, might put words in each other’s mouth to encourage us?  If God is one who communicates, then it might behoove us to lean into listening! Today, we are practising listening. What do you hear?

Instead of dying, Jonah is rescued. The whale isn’t God’s judgement, it’s God’s mercy (kind of an uncomfortable mercy!) The mercy of God, once again, triumphing over judgement… Now, Jonah, having been shown mercy, is feeling a lot of internal discomfort: he’d rather die than live with a God who forgives his enemies… 

“We are God’s beloved”. This is our deepest identity. But this is only the beginning of the story. God takes this vast expansive love, as broad as the midday sun, and narrows it into a beam of light, shining within a human life in uniquely personal ways. Our awakening to that light is the next bit of the story. In 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Samuel is waking up slowly to the presence of God calling him, singularly and personally, by name. At first, Samuel assumes the voice belongs to Eli, the priest who has raised him since he was brought to the temple by his mother, Hannah. After a few times, Eli suggests an alternate possibility: the voice MIGHT be God. Even though no one had heard the voice of God or received a vision from God for a long long time, Eli was open to the possibility that this MIGHT be of God. So, Eli gives Samuel this beautiful piece of advice. He suggests that Samuel be open to possibility too. In other words, be open to the possibility that this thing happening in your life might just be of God.  Then he suggests that Samuel get curious. If he hears the voice again, says, “Speak Lord. Speak. I am listening.” He suggests that Samuel simply cultivates space to listen, to see if indeed God might have something to say. The revelation of God and our awareness and response to this revelation is a relational dynamic that ebbs and flows throughout the course of our life. When we gather on Sunday, we are making room for one another on this ever evolving journey. What might God be doing among us? What might God be doing in each other, even if it looks differently?

Have you ever felt seen, known, and celebrated by someone? Not for what you do, but just for who you are? Have you ever felt that kind of delight for another person, not because of what they do for you, but simply for who they are? What would it feel like to know that God sees you that way? To hear God say:  “You are my beloved. I love you, not because of what you do for me. Not because of how you serve me. Or how you fill my needs. Or how you serve others. Or how you fill their needs. You could walk out of this church and never return. You could walk away from all you do for me. And you would still be My Delight."

How Does a Weary World Rejoice?“We allow ourselves to be amazed.” It’s hard to describe awe. It's expansive. Something vast, yet near. Awe moves us. Softens our guard. For a moment, we forget about ourselves, lost in the moment. Dr. Keltner is a professor at Berkeley who has studied awe and found it calms our nervous system, activating our vagal nerve. Our heart beat slows, our breathing deepens, and oxytocin is released, making trust and bonding easier. It even settles the part of our brain involved in how we perceive ourselves—we become less preoccupied with ourselves and have less negative self-talk. Awe gets us out of our heads. I wonder if we aren't curating awe in this season? We put lights on our houses and trees, choose presents for each other, wrap them and tuck them under the tree, light candles, put on Christmas music, and enjoy lovely food—hoping that, if even for a moment, those we love will feel that fleeting, expansive sense of wellbeing. At Christmas time, in a culture saturated by stimulus, the “awe” offerings are getting bigger, noisier, and brighter. Our economic systems grow rich by attaching awe to consumption, particularly the consumption of the spectacular. And we do find awe in the spectacular—the Nutcracker ballet, a forest light up with lights, a mountain covered with fresh powder. It's comforting to know that Dr. Keltner also found awe amongst the prisoners of San Quentin State Prison. They told him they too experienced awe—in the light, in the air, in reading and spiritual practices. Awe is found in the spectacular AND in the mundane. And today's passage, Luke 1:57-66, gives us even more information on awe. This week, I looked at this passage from this lens of awe, approaching it with attentiveness and curiosity, to see what it had to teach me about awe. Here is a summary of what I found. —Anne

JOY "When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leapt in her womb..."In this moment of connection between Mary and Elizabeth, this deeply embodied, energetic exchange passed between them. Something moved between them, woman to woman, child to child. That thing was so palpable that John, the baby, leapt within Elizabeth. Standing together on that threshold of Elizabeth’s house, feeling that energetic flow of Spirit connection, they felt joy. What if joy is that energetic flow within connections, like the electrical current that connects two filaments in a lightbulb? What if joy is an energy that can flow within even those tiny, seemingly insignificant, fleeting connections that happen everyday? What if these little eddies of energetic joy that moves through us, all intertwined and entangled into life, is the gift of the Spirit to us? And what if this current of joy, which can contain elements of sorrow too, is flickering whether we are actively aware of it or not, keeping us warm, like the way a low flame on a burner warms a pot of soup.  Later, over meals with friends and family, Elizabeth and Mary would recount this fleeting moment—how Elizabeth felt the baby kick, and knew this baby was holy. Somewhere along the way, Luke heard this story, and decided to include it in his gospel. He takes it out of the discard pile of women’s embodied stories and gives it a place of honour, right there at the beginning of his narrative about Jesus. And that brings me joy, too:)

This Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, is also the very first Sunday of a new liturgical church year. Why does the church year begin here? Because a spirituality that pretends the darkness doesn’t exist is no good to anyone.

Series Wrap up & transition to Advent... !

Seeds remind us of organic growth patterns. They are small, full of potential and can flourish when placed in the right environment. As we drink from the well and take our place at the table, the Holy Spirit works in us. The soil of our heart becomes softer, the stones are removed, bitter roots are pulled. As the soil is prepared, the seeds of the kingdom within us begin to grow.  The seed symbolizes the radical fertility of the Spirit. At Southpoint, growth isn't about numbers or programs but about bearing the fruit of the kingdom in our lives. We desire inner fruitfulness—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. The Spirit nurtures these fruits within us as we realign ourselves back to Jesus' heart. We desire outward fruitfulness - the Kingdom coming through our actions as we realign our lives back to God's desire for justice, mercy, restoration. We desire this inward and outward growth for ourselves and for our children. At Southpoint, we are responsible for cultivating a healthy environment for these seeds to grow. We seek to treasure the seeds within us. We watch for what the Spirit is growing in us. We look for new opportunities. We wait for leaders to emerge. We trust the Spirit to provide what we need for each stage of growth. We return regularly to the well of Christ's presence to water the seed. We do this as an intergenerational community on Sunday mornings—reading scriptures, praying, and sharing—making special intention to nurture the seeds growing within our children. We do this as a leadership team once a month, and in various circles of leadership, including congregational meetings, throughout the year. 

Loving God, grant us a continually renewing experience of your love, acceptance and presence; grant us a core experience of being caught up in your net of love and mercy. Grant us humility, hope, and grace that by actions of wisdom, courage and justice we might mend and extend those connections that are healing and humanizing and reconciling.Inspire among us the prophetic vision of a deep, abiding, and all-embracing shalom. As Jesus prayed, may we be one as you are one.