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