Ecclesiastes 9:11, Matthew 5:45, Romans 8:28, John 10:10b, John 16:33: Reflections upon Driving to Camp

 Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries by Major Michael Ramsay

 

The children went to and from camp this week. In the end I think we had 22 or 23, 7- to 12-year-old campers accompanied for their journey anyway by a number of chaperones. It was interesting. There were the usual challenges, of course, of some people not being able to make it at the last minute and people’s phones no longer being in service – but this time there was more, much more.

 

First, the bus caught fire. Truly. It was a real blessing that none of the kids were on it yet. We had to scramble to find enough cars and drivers to get the children to the ferry and we even had to press Remi (our Food Bank driver) into action, driving the cube van with everyone’s luggage in it. And remember that the camp is in Gibson’s so the children have to catch 2 ferries to get there; so we are under a bit of a time crunch. We race to Nanaimo (as fest as the speed limits will permit, of course). Almost everyone had made it to the ferry but one car was just not coming. We were waiting. We were wondering. We were waiting.

 

Mayor Sharie Minions was driving (she was one of the chaperones that came with us all the way on both Monday and Friday and we are so thankful for her and all our drivers). It appears that the adventures for the morning weren’t over for her yet. As she was driving over the hump, a car came towards her careening out of control. It spun right towards her, in her lane, at high speeds; she recalled that she has no idea how she missed it: self-aware car features, reflexes? The grace of God intervened for sure. The car just missed her and her carload of kids and crashed into a guardrail on the oncoming side of the road. She stopped, called 9-11 (which is always an adventure in and of itself; it really is not a useful feature being that it is never staffed by local people – but that is another story); she called the children’s parents to let them know that their kids were okay and make sure that people were still good to go to camp and then she did make it to the ferry just in time for us to buy our tickets.

 

There was one more breath-holding moment at the ticket booth because earlier in the week reservations weren’t working and we usually try to make reservations for groups this large and also earlier in the week my corporate visa wasn’t working so we had to get The Salvation Army to sort that out – I wouldn’t want to have to try and buy that many tickets any other way. It all worked out and we got our kids to camp. Now this isn’t the end of the story though – there was the ride back…

 

The day we went to get them was Friday. You remember what happened all across Canada on this past Friday? Rogers’ network was down so no interact and no visa in many places. As I was driving to the ferry, I was wondering indeed how and if we would be able to get all of these kids home again – it is a bit of money for all these folks on the ferry (especially since the 12-year-olds pay full fare!). We get there and none of our drivers/chaperones who are parking their cars to get on the ferry to meet the kids can get the parking permit machine to work. They tried Visa, Interact, even cash. At this point we are more than a little concerned. I go up to the counter to buy our ferry passes and… apparently Visa worked just fine with the ferries – just not interact, so that was a big relief!

 

But there was more – this time not our adventure but the Victoria group. We bought our tickets to come back to the Island as soon as we could. The moment the ticket sales opened for our sailing and we had all our kids present and accounted for, we lined up to purchase our tickets and then we took the kids down to the beach to wait (for I don’t know? ¾ hour or so?) with all of the other Salvation Army groups returning to the Island – Courtney-Comox, Parksville, Campbell River, Nanaimo, all the Victoria corps…

 

When the time came, we boarded the ferry and headed for home. When we were on the ferry I saw Pat Humble. He has been in charge of family services for all of the Victoria corps for years. I’ve known Pat pretty much since the day Susan and I first went to a Salvation Army many years ago. He told me his story of camp. He made it on the ferry back to the Island - but none of the kids from the Victoria corps did. The kids were still on the mainland – but he was on the ferry back to the Island. He is a very nice guy and not very easy to fluster at all! But he was less than impressed with the 5 chaperones who were with the children, who were supposed to get them on this ferry. You see Victoria brought a van on the ferry with all the children’s supplies: Pat was driving this which is why he was on the ferry. Not one of the chaperones apparently thought to buy the tickets for the kids until the ferry was just about to leave and by then it was too late so they remained stranded on the mainland for another hour or two and now Pat was desperately trying to get a hold of the bus line that they had hired to drive all the Victoria kids back home again, and their parents, and, and, and…

 

Camp can be fun – who knew getting there and back would be quite the adventure? (The kids did all seem to have a really good time though!) In the midst of all this I am sure there was no shortage of prayer. A couple of competing thought kept coming to my mind through this experience that I will sum up with these verses, though there are many similar verses from each perspective.

·       Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

·       John 10:10b: … I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

And

·       Matthew 5:45: He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous

·       Ecclesiastes 9:11: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

·       John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

 

In some denominations there are always those who believe that only pleasant, nice, prosperous events happen to those who love the Lord. The rest of us however grasp the fact that the race is not to the strong, time and circumstance happen to us all, and that life’s battles belong to the Lord. However, in the midst of trying times – even times much more trying than getting kids to and from camp – we can be tempted as was Job to complain and blame. There have certainly been stressful times in my life – again much more stressful than these stories – where I have looked in front of or above me and called out loudly to the Lord in anguish not knowing where or why or anything except frustration. That all being said the sometimes seemingly competing ideas of Romans 8 and Matthew 5 competed briefly in my mind this week

·       Matthew 5:45 He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous

And

·       Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

 

To what is Romans 8 referring? This could be a long conversation… Romans 8 really is bound to Romans 7. These two chapters have a lot to say about the Christian life and holiness and everything else. One of the things to which Romans 8:28 is referring is the idea that we have quoted many times from Major Ivany that in the end everything will be alright; so (take heart because) if it isn’t alright it isn’t the end. Romans 8 does spend a lot of time talking about the eternal spirit within us that is seemingly struggling with the mortal body around us and does offer up the hope that one day our perishable body will be (as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:53) clothed in immortality.

 

Some of the challenges with just putting this all in a future tense though could come from what we saw in the aftermath of the US civil war. A very strong racism, segregation, discrimination, oppression was forced upon a whole people, a whole culture. The struggle certainly hasn’t ended yet. In the midst of everything there were some great, solid people of faith who have led and continue to lead down there. I am really impressed with how God used MLK jr and others in their time and circumstance. Some other faithful folks from an even earlier time penned the many great ‘spirituals’ that have a solid Christian message that sometimes, however, may seem to put too much of our hope or even all our hope on the other side of the metaphorical River Jordan, in the future Heaven, not leaving room for hope in the present. This thought can be summed up in an expression that was common when I was quite a bit younger, “Life’s a b…, life’s hard and then you die”. I think life is much more than that. I believe that Christ called us to live life abundantly.

 

But what does it mean to live life abundantly? Does it mean that everything is always going to come up roses? Does it mean that everything is always going to be easy? What does it mean that all things work for good for those who love the Lord? Does it mean that there are no difficult times for those who love the Lord? The scriptures are quite clear that for those who love the Lord, in this life there will be struggles: many of Jesus’ early followers spent many years in prison followed by violent deaths. We have all seen in our lives that time and circumstance happen to all (as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes drive home). So what does it mean to live life abundantly?

 

My mind goes to John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” And my mind goes to reconciliation. And my mind goes to forgiveness. I think that this is the means by which Christ’s freedom is lived out in our lives.

 

I have done a lot of work in the prisons and the courts in my life and ministry. One absolute travesty (of many) in our criminal justice system is the victim impact statement. There is not much more vicious a society could do to a victim than we do by compelling them to make a victim impact statement years after they have been victimized. The victim is told to hold onto and even grow (or conjure up) the hate they have for the person who committed the crime. They are told not to forgive. They are told to ask for the strong punishment for the person who wronged them. They are told to hold onto this hate and unforgiveness for years and then – no matter how harsh a sentence is meted out on the other person, they always feel that if they hated them a little more than they may have ‘gotten what they deserve’. This victim impact statement process re-victimizes the victim. They are compelled to hang onto hate and unforgiveness for years, when we know that the sooner we can get over a traumatic event, the better our success rate in doing so. It is vicious to the victims. In many cases our system forces the victims to be trapped in their trauma forever when healing could have been available right away. I have seen this play out time and time again.

 

The Christian response to evil is the opposite to this. God wants us to be free of hate – for hate destroys us. It is all-consuming. Unforgiveness can ruin our whole lives. It can make us unable to work, it can make us unable to have relationships, it can drive us to addiction. Sometime people even suffer physical symptoms to go along with the emotional and spiritual symptoms of unforgiveness. The devil can use unforgiveness to destroy our whole live.

 

I truly believe that contrary to this, the message of the Gospel, the Good News of Christ is that of reconciliation with one another and with God and I truly believe that the only way we can be reconciled with anyone is to forgive them. The only way we can have peace with others – or even ourselves – in when we are able to forgive (cf. Matthew 5:43-47).

 

When we forgive we can love and when we love we will indeed have life abundantly. I am sure we have all seen people who seem to have had every advantage in life but are absolutely miserable and I know that -especially in our Salvation Army context- we have seen many people who seem to have nothing at all and many people who seem to have had nothing go right for them at all but have been experiencing perfect freedom in Christ; I am convinced that this freedom in Christ comes from our reconciliation with God, our fellow person and that this all comes out of forgiveness which we can all dispense as God has already given it to us (to dispense); so that He can love even us, even me and we can love each other so we will love Him.

 

Jesus says, John 10: 10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

John 16: 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

 

Let us pray…

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Ecclesiastes 1: Boney Fingers and Other Problems

Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, 09 June 2019 by Captain Michael Ramsay

Nothing makes sense anymore. Do you ever get to the point where you think that nothing makes sense anymore? Do you ever get to the point where you don’t really know what the point of anything is anymore? Ecclesiastes 1:2:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”
  

This sounds a little familiar doesn’t it? Do we ever wonder why we invested all of this time and energy into things that seem entirely irrelevant to today?
  

Let me show you something: this hat, do we recognize it? This flag, do we recognize it? When I was a student I was able to go to the USSR. Young people met from each country. We exchanged greetings and shared cultural dances, etc. Canada’s cultural dance: I don’t know who made the selection. My guess is that we were surprised by the concept of a Canadian national dance because we chose the Hokey Pokey as our national dance. Hopefully people in Russia don’t still think that is our dance. Shortly after this the whole USSR dissolved and all of the efforts that were made to establish peace and understanding between the Soviet East and the Capitalist West, were meaningless, as were all of the domestic advances of the USSR for the Soviet Union disappeared from the face of the earth. We in the West were told that this collapse would usher in an era of peace but, of course, the opposite was true and even today you just need to turn on the TV to see how much positive affect student exchanges, perestroika and glasnost had on peace and understanding. It seems it was…

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

But there is much more to this meaninglessness of Ecclesiastes than an old flag and a hat that I happen to have from a city that no longer exists in a country that no longer exists.[1]

Verse 3: What do people gain from all their labours

at which they toil under the sun?

We've heard the expression and maybe the Hoyt Axton song: work your fingers to the bone and what do you get? Boney fingers. Or maybe we've heard Tennessee Ernie Ford's version from an older song? You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. The city of Detroit went bankrupt a couple of years ago. The Detroit Free press last year ran articles on the effect of the city's bankruptcy on pensioners. Some people had to all of a sudden find private health insurance of almost $1000 a month where it was covered before.[2] In Canada pensions that people are working for are not necessarily much more secure. Our country has talked about raising the retirement age to 67 instead of 65 and many people my age and younger have lamented that they may never be able to retire. Hoyt Axton: You work your fingers to the bone what do you get? Boney fingers. Tennessee Ernie Ford's: You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Ecclesiastes: What do you gain from all your labour and toil under the sun?

The clips here are HOYT AXTON and JOHNNY CASH (not Tennessee Ernie Ford)

We've heard the idea that if we work longer and harder we will earn enough to survive or even prosper. We have all heard of the prosperity heresy… that God won't let good hard-working Christians starve; they will all be rich: It is not true. Just like the parable Jesus tells about the man who builds storehouses to invest for his retirement. Luke 12:20: “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’  Another music reference for us today. You know the song by Harry F. Chapin, 'Cat's in the Cradle?'

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man in the moon

"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when"

But we'll get together then

You know we'll have a good time then

    

It is a song about a dad who works so hard, presumably for his family, that he has no time for his child because he is working so much. His child grows up and then his dad retires and has time for his son but his son is now too busy for him. Like father like son. The story of the song's writer is equally as tragic. Harry Chapin realized that he was a workaholic who desired to spend time with his family as the song says but Harry Chapin also did not get the chance; he died suddenly at 38 years old before he could retire, leaving behind his daughter who grew up to be a performer - just like him.

Hoyt Axton: You work your fingers to the bone what do you get? Boney fingers. Tennessee Ernie Ford's: You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Ecclesiastes: What do you gain from all your labour and toil under the sun?

All of this work, all of this toil and nothing ever changes. Ecclesiastes 1, some more, verses 4-7:

4 Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,

and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south

and turns to the north;

round and round it goes,

ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

All our hard work and other efforts and nothing seems to change. I can remember feeling duped by politicians more than once, voting for a new person or party believing that when they get in everything will be better only to have them elected and see everything just continues on the same trajectory as always. I still vote in every election that I can and I take the time to research the people, the parties and the issues but there is a reason why less and less people - especially young people - are voting these days.

Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

Hard work, politics, even big societal changes - we've heard the expression, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'?

Now Ecclesiastes really is a book that you have to read in its entirety to grasp its full meaning but we just don't have time to do that here today. Maybe you could do that at home though. I read it once or twice in its entirety recently. I think it took about half an hour. The context is very important because if we just continued to bring out quotes about everything that is meaningless searching for meaning we may even find apparent contradictions in this letter. Suffice it to say that a major theme is

Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

But I do want to bring our attention to something that I find very interesting and maybe even significant. Who wrote this book? In all probability it was King Solomon or someone at his behest or pretending to be him.[3] But, who is the teacher that is referred to by the author?

Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

I had always just assumed that this teacher (or preacher depending on your translation) was the author of the book or another person - but I no longer think this to be the case necessarily. I looked at the Hebrew for this text a little bit: Qohelet. This word that we translate as 'teacher' is quite interesting. The Hebrew word Qohelet is in its feminine form. A small number of scholars then can argue that the teacher of Ecclesiastes is a woman. One problem for this is simply that masculine pronouns and language are used consistently throughout. I think it is likely that the author was indeed male (which matters not) but I think that when the text refers to the teacher that the text is not referring to a specific person. I think the text is referring to Wisdom herself. We know the name ‘Sophia’ is Latin for Wisdom. The Hebrew word for ‘Wisdom’ in its feminine form is found here as in other Wisdom literature, even in our Bible; in the book of Proverbs for example Wisdom is personified as a woman.[4] All of this I tell you simply because I found it interesting while I was doing my research. It really doesn’t matter whether the teacher is Solomon himself, a man or a woman or whether, consistent with other Wisdom literature, the teacher is Wisdom herself but I found it interesting and I thought that you might as well. If the teacher is Wisdom it doesn’t change the meaning of the text but I think it does make it a little more clear that indeed this passage still speaks to us today. However, in the end the whole discussion about who the teacher really is…

Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says Wisdom.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

This book does go through many things that one considers meaningless: study, work, moral perfectionism/over-righteousness, wickedness/foolishness, life, death, envy, fame, freedom, happiness, hopelessness, talk, fellowship, and even wisdom itself.

When I was a teenager or even a young adult I read this book as if it was written by a high school or university student. Looking for the poignancy in apparent contradictions, my favourite verses at that time came from Chapter 7:16-18:

Do not be over-righteous,

neither be over-wise—

why destroy yourself?

Do not be over-wicked,

and do not be a fool—

why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one

and not let go of the other.

Whoever fears God will follow each extreme (or avoid them both).

I have spent some time in the past few weeks reading and studying this again and now I read it as a middle aged person who is not tempted to be caught up in the novelty of paradox as much as I am to be swept away by the apathy of experience. Many people try to sum up this book with the cliché that life is meaningless without God but I think that this book says much more than that. I think the book points out quite clearly that even with God in our lives these meaningless events occur. Even if you are a Christian you can lead your life as a health nut, only eating the appropriate amount of organic health food and still die of cancer. You can be an athlete who works out and exercises appropriately and still have a heart attack. You can study 15 years in University and spend all your money doing so and still not get a degree or you might get that degree but then not be able to find any work so that all that time and money you spent was indeed meaningless. You might be like that fellow in Luke’s parable that we mentioned earlier who is really good with his money and saves up for his retirement only to die before he is able to retire. You might work harder than anyone else in your job and never get a promotion. You may volunteer for a million years and never get a paid position. Life is like this. Life is not roses and puppies. You will have good times and you will have bad times. Whether you have money and health, or study hard and work hard or whether you don’t won’t affect that (cf. also James 4:13-17). You cannot inoculate yourself from trouble; you can not vaccinate yourself against hard times. I think this is the message of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 9:11:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all.

This is important. You cannot be vaccinated against bad times; you cannot be inoculated against life. Trying to do so, trying to solve all of life's problems on our own won't work.  It doesn't matter how rich or poor, smart or dumb, pretty or pretty ugly you might be, time and circumstance happens to us all. What we can do is seek to learn and have the joy of the Lord in all of our circumstances (Phil 4:4-8). We cannot ever fully prevent the tragedies of life from happening. Life happens. But when the tragedies do occur we can turn to the Lord who promises He will never leave us nor forsake us (Dt 31:6, Heb 13:5). As the Teacher tells us to conclude this book:

Now all has been heard;

here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear (Respect) God and keep his commandments,

for this is the duty of all mankind.

And as we do that, as we seek the Lord and trust in Him, everything will be okay - even when it isn't.

Let us pray.

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---

[1] Cf. Tewoldernedhin Habtu, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 814, ‘What’s the Point? 1:1-2:6’ about the still prevelant  Afican perpective of a transient people on a on a not as temporary earth.

[2] Cf. Susan Tompor, 'Even 5 years later, retirees feel the effects of Detroit's bankruptcy' (Detroit Free Press Published 6:00 a.m. ET July 18, 2018 | Updated 3:34 p.m. ET July 18, 2018): https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2018/07/18/detroit-bankruptcy-retirees-pension/759446002/

[3] Cf. also J. Stafford Wright, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Ecclesiastes/Introduction to Ecclesiastes/Authorship of Ecclesiastes, Book Version: 4.0.2

[4] Cf. W. Sibley Towner, The Book of Ecclesiastes, (NIB V: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1997) 268, 280. If the teacher/preacher here is not ‘Wisdom’ then it puts the book of Ecclesiasts in an unique situation as Wisdom, though a major theme would never make a cameo as one personified.

Devotion 3.25/126: Matthew 5:45: New York Wind

Presented to River Street Cafe, 21 March 2018

My family and I are blessed to be visiting New York this week as my children are on a break from school. It was a bit of a drive from Toronto but we don't mind, we are used to long drives.

It is great we got to see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Barclay Centre (where the Islanders play), the Museum of Natural History, 5th Avenue, Broadway, Time Square, and Central Park, among other places.

We walked around outside quite a bit an enjoyed ourselves - and then it got cold. Have you noticed how things can change in an instant? A day can be perfectly enjoyable and then it becomes too cold (or too hot) and all of a sudden everyone's mood changes.

Scenery hasn't changed. The neat things to see and do haven't changed. The monuments and parks haven't changed. You're enjoyment however has changed.

This is life. Life happens to every one of us. We all have many exciting and enjoyable things to experience just as we have many trials and toils to endure. The difference is how we experience these situations. If we focus on ourselves, it is like we are inviting a cold wind into our day to make us miserable in the midst of all the wonderful sights around us. If we, however, focus on Christ, we will also notice others and have our hearts warmed and lives enriched by his love as we take in all that He is doing around, in, and through us.

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Devotion 3.12/114: Ecclesiastes 9:11: Mandolins

Presented to River Street Cafe, 20 November 2017

Read Ecclesiastes 9:11

Jethro Tull won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, beating the favourite Metallica. The award was controversial because most people rightfully do not consider Jethro Tull hard rock, much less heavy metal. On the advice of their manager, who told them they had no chance of winning, no one from the band even attended the award ceremony. Their front man pays the flute and their band’s logo is a silouhette of Ian Anderson playing the flute.

When asked about the controversy Ian Anderson quipped, "Well, we do sometimes play our mandolins very loudly." And their label, Chrysalis, responsed to the criticism by taking out an advertisement in a British music periodical with a picture of a flute lying in a pile of iron re-bar and the line, "the flute is a heavy metal instrument."

In 1992, when Metallica finally won the Grammy in the category, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich joked, "First thing we're going to do is thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year"

Ecclesiates 9:11:

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift

or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant

or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all.

This is grace. It is our job to enjoy our labour under the sun, as Ecclesiastes repeatedly reminds us throughout. We must work hard; we should enjoy our work for we must remember that at the end of the day, everything good does not directly correspond to our effort, influence or anything else. Our blessings are due to the grace of God alone.

When have you experienced the grace of God recently?

  

Devotion 2.37/09: Ecclesiastes 12:8: Groundhog Day

Presented to River Street Cafe, 03 February 2017

Read Ecclesiastes 12:8-14

February 2^nd: What happens on February 2^nd? What day is February 2^nd? I have some friends from Wiarton, Ontario; I usually send them a note on February 2^nd. February 2^nd is Groundhog Day. What happens if groundhog sees his shadow? What happens if he doesn’t? What happens if one sees his shadow and another doesn’t? What happens if they disagree? What happens if the groundhog is blind? Is that cheating? When we lived in Manitoba, groundhogs were everywhere; how do we decide which one did or did not see his or her shadow and which one’s view matters more than the next? Yesterday 2/3 of the famous groundhogs did not see their shadow; so do we just say 2 out of 3 ain’t bad and assume that Spring will be early this year? What does it really mean if a groundhog sees its shadow? Nothing.

I once heard Canadian elections cynically described in terms of metal bars. You have four metal bars in front of you: a Liberal Red one, a Conservative Blue one, an Orange NDP one, and a Green one. On Election Day you choose which of these four metal bars you will be beaten with for the next four years.

I saw a comic on one inauguration day in the US. It was a picture of the devil sitting on a throne with the American Flag behind him. He was in the process of taking off a mask of the outgoing president and putting on the mask of the incoming president. There is a line in a favourite song of mine by White Lion, that says, ‘no more Presidents and all the wars will end; one united world under God’

This week we have seen some potentially horrific things – depending on how it all rolls out – in the US. The new president has signed a ban on immigrants and refugees from 7 countries; he has signed into construction a wall to keep others out of their country. I think sometimes people think that all of this would change if the devil just wore another mask, if they had elected someone from the other ruling party. Did you know that the leading candidate from the other party, while she opposed the ‘wall’, instead supported a ‘fence’ – same thing different name; and did you know that that other party put a ban on Iraqi children entering their country when they were in the most need. The events of this week may be horrible but really we are just being hit with a different colour stick than we have been hit with before.

Now I am not saying that we don’t need to stand up to horrible things: we do! As Christians we are told that we do need to stand up to against injustice. That is part of what shows the world that we are Christians.

What we need to remember is this: don’t to look to politicians or parties or philosophies or groundhogs to solve all of our world’s problems. They won’t do it. They can't do it. As interesting as they are, they really are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What we need is to stand up for the poor and the marginalized, but let us not do so in the name of party or a philosophy but in the Name of Jesus Christ because that is where our help comes from. There is no other name by which mankind can be saved.

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