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The Doctor, Clara, and the Power of Grace

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

I have never fully understood the speed with which some people, Christians especially, completely cut other people out of their lives. Oh, I get that there are toxic individuals that you are better off not spending your time with, in fact it would be dangerous to ones’ mental health to do so, and there are those individuals who seem to never learn that they themselves are the source of all their relationship woes. But for the one who claims to follow Jesus there is a wee bit of a problem with the concept of a “deal-breaker” when it comes to relationships.

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21-22 NKJV)

For the three of you that have no idea who he is, The Doctor, is the central character in a British sci-fi series called Doctor Who. He is also, by far, one of the most enduring Christ-figures in all of science-fiction. A being from another world, inexplicably enamoured with humanity, willing time and time again to put himself in mortal peril for the sake of the ones he loves. And in the clip above we have the Doctor at his Christ-like best. Through all the years, and all the incarnations of the Gallifeyan time-lord, this is my favourite moment.

“Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?“

If we are to follow Jesus’ example and “love others the way He has first loved us” there is little room for deal-breakers, at the very least it should be a last-resort kind of option. Oh, I may well decide not to spend time with you, or choose not to absolve you of the consequences of your actions, but I will not stop caring for you, I will not stop loving you.

It’s important to note here that forgiveness is not a “get out of jail free card” as some have been led to believe. It is an un-deserved, compassionate, loving response born out of grace (unmerited favour). It is why God continues to love us, though we betray Him and let Him down time and time again. Though we fail to follow His precepts, though we totally suck at following Jesus’ example, through grace forgiveness and love remain. It is the bedrock, the foundation of the Gospel message.

Now, the Doctor is not God, so his response to Clara is not the result of his divine nature, quite the opposite. I think he refuses to hold Clara’s betrayal against her because he knows who he is. He is all too aware of his character flaws, his immense short-comings, he has had thousands of years to contemplate his inner-self, and is fully aware that he has committed far greater sins than Clara could ever possibly imagine. Which brings us to another moment in Matthew’s gospel.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12 NIV)

He looks at Clara and sees a person who is actually a better being than he is, and so, though he can never forgive himself for the things he has done, he likely yearns for someone to forgive him… so he forgives her. His love and compassion for her overrides anything she could ever do to him. When he says they have work to do, it’s not just about saving Danny, I think it’s also about saving their relationship. He doesn’t want her guilt or his bitterness to destroy it, he cares for her too much to let that happen. If he kicks her out of the Tardis that can’t happen, so once again he forgives.

And so it is with Jesus. He came into this world with the express purpose of saving us from ourselves, from our short-comings, from our sins. Sin is a loaded word, a lot of people struggle with it. My personal theology defines sin as any action or inaction that interferes with my relationships. If what I have done, or left undone inhibits our ability to be friends then I have sinned against you, if it inhibits my relationship with God, then I have sinned against God. If I have done something that makes it hard for me to like myself… well, you get the idea.

Jesus did what he did so that His grace and forgiveness would allow the relationship to continue, to grow, not just between God and ourselves, but between ourselves and others. It’s up to me to follow that example and do what I must to allow my relationships to continue to grow. This starts with grace towards others, it starts with forgiveness. It gives me closure so that guilt and bitterness do not get in the way. In short, I have work to do.

Where Have All the Monarchs Gone?

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

This morning, as I was walking through Margaret Greene Park with Roberta, we took note of all the little white butterflies that were fluttering around us. When I was a kid at Paisley Road School, we were told they are properly called Small Cabbage White Butterflies, but we all just called them Cabbage butterflies. As we walked, we admired them and enjoyed the cool of the shade along the path.
Then it hit me… those were the only butterflies I had seen all this year, anywhere!
At least in the city anyway. Again, when I was a kid (do I sound old yet) we regularly saw Dustywings (several varieties), Skippers, and, best of all, Monarchs! We used to catch them with homemade butterfly nets and put them in jars to take to school and to put in the terrarium. We’d grab the striped caterpillars as well and place them in a glass case with some milkweed, watch them pupate and form a chrysalis, then finally emerge as an adult, marveling at the transformation. It was pretty much a rite of passage for grade school kids in the 1960s.
Today however, I can’t remember the last time I saw a Monarch butterfly in the wild, adult or caterpillar. You know what else I haven’t seen? Milkweed.
Not a one. Used to see them all the time down at the Bullfrog Pond across from John F. Ross C.V.I. Of course, it’s the Bullfrog Plaza now, along with the Bullfrog Pond Park behind it with its concrete creek. The ponds at the top end (west) of Paisley Rd. are gone now too, filled in and paved over for condos and Costco.
No ponds, no milkweed. No milkweed, no Monarchs.
And no tadpoles, insect nymphs, or the hundreds of other tiny creatures we observed in our science lessons at Paisley Road. We collected all kinds of life at school and at home, examining them with our magnifying glasses and sometimes even microscopes. It was easy to do, what with the culvert at the bottom end of the playground, between the school and Knight Lumber. I first learned to really draw making sketches of what we saw in those simple microscopes.
But now the culverts are fenced off, where they haven’t been buried. (Did you know there’s a buried creek under downtown Guelph?) The ponds are filled in, paved over, or lined with concrete. It feels like we took the Biblical exhortation to take stewardship over Creation and, seeing the word “dominion” decided to focus on the dominate part.
And so we excavate it, clear-cut it, pound it, suck it dry, and bend it to our will despite generations of pollution, and the desperate cries of scientists, native elders, rangers of all kinds, and even Boy Scouts, trying to encourage us to follow a less destructive path.
When we do manage to section off a little belt of green across the landscape, others, more focused on reaping instead of sowing, undo it all with a wave of an administrative hand because, well, they have a “mandate” you know. Which is ironic because ‘mandate’ comes from the Latin root mandare which basically means “to give responsibility for” as in to care for and protect. But again, we chose to focus on the “rule over” aspect of the meaning because there’s more money in that.
Funny how meanings change when we want them to. God gave us a mandate to care for creation and to protect it, and all of creation is desperately waiting for us to fulfill that mandate before it’s too late.

The Face in the Mirror

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

Back when Donald Trump first emerged on the campaign trail I, like many others, couldn’t imagine him getting the nomination let alone being elected. Then, when I heard so many Christians trying to tell me that this lying, cheating, womanizing, self-obsessed misogynist was God’s choice for President of the United States and therefore the de facto “Leader of the Free World” I shuddered at the very thought of it.

There was no part of me that could accept the idea that when God looked out over the landscape seeking a suitable occupant for the White House he saw Donald J. Trump, paper billionaire and paper human being, and said, “There’s my man!”

But now, six years later, on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration, I’m not so sure.

One phrase that we’ve heard more than any other the last few weeks, especially since the attack on the Capital in Washington is, “That’s not who we are.”  However, the fact remains that this would not be happening if that statement were true.

The occupant of the White House, whoever they are, is very much a reflection of who America is as a people, as a society, as a nation; and for the last four years we have been forced to take a good long look in the mirror and the face staring back at us has been Donald Trump.

“For now we see in a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face.”

For some time now the heat of political correctness has been steaming up that mirror preventing us from seeing all the imperfections. Donald Trump’s presidency wiped away the fog and forced us, and the world at large, to take a hard look at who we really are. The real us, with no make-up, no fashionable outfit, no perfectly coifed hairpiece; just the unadorned true face of North America.

It happened because Trump gave Hilary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” free reign to prove just how deplorable they could be. People who had formerly concealed their hate behind a mask of political correctness were empowered to voice their hatred in the name of patriotism. We also learned that the basket was much bigger than we thought it was.

And the white, evangelical Christian church, desperate for a Martin Luther King Jr. of it’s own, had finally found him. We took down the cross from our sanctuaries and raised the Confederate battle flag in its place along with the Stars and Stripes. We worshipped a westernized version of Jesus that put the modern church in the role of God’s chosen people and convinced ourselves that we could do no wrong.

But we were wrong. We just couldn’t see it, mostly because we didn’t look, or didn’t want to admit what was there. Oh, we heard the cry of the disadvantaged, the poor, the black, the Asian, the native Nations, the LBGTQ, just to name a few; but how many of us went out of our way to lift them up out of their disadvantage? How many of us, while genuinely sympathizing with their plight, continued living a guilt free life secure in the bosom of our white privilege?

“There is no one righteous, not even one.”

The more astute (or the more defensive) of you will notice my use the the collective pronoun “we”. You are likely wondering why a Canadian would lump himself in with the deplorables to the south, or you are defensively protesting that “we aren’t like that, that is not us.” But is there as much difference as we think? The church in Canada cannot rest on it’s laurels any more than can the church in the U.S., or the church in Europe, or in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter. The church everywhere has much to answer for.

Because Donald Trump didn’t make things the way they are anymore than my bathroom mirror is responsible for the face looking back at me. I’m not sure where it started, but it didn’t start with him; he just gave the ugly truth a higher profile. It didn’t even start with the Republican Party, or the American church. It started long before that as the church in all it’s various incarnations has sought to influence politics and dictate the way in which all people should live whether they believe or not. It might even have started with Constantine making Christianity the state religion of Rome for reasons that some consider likely more political than religious.

But wherever or whenever it started it continues as long as we ignore the one who said “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s“

So yeah, maybe Donald Trump was indeed God’s choice for president. Maybe God looked at America, and the church in particular, and decided we needed a wake up call. Does that mean I owe the 45th president a vote of thanks? Hardly; no more than I should give Judas a pat on the back for his betrayal of Jesus, even though it ultimately led to the the hope of salvation.

But I do owe God my gratitude for the lesson I think I’ve learned. I thank God that issues of racism and privilege are getting attention more in keeping with what they deserve rather than just lip-service from “woke” policy-makers. I thank God that though I never desired to own another human being myself, I now better understand how my life in the 1% is founded on the actions of those who did. I thank God that I am reminded that I need to examine my own beliefs and how I follow the teachings of Jesus in my day to day walk and hold myself accountable to His words. I thank God that the church can no longer take its privilege for granted and must also examine itself to see where it went astray. And I thank God that the instrument of His instruction didn’t get a second term.

One question remains: Now that we have seen the face in the mirror, what are we going to do about it?