The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 51: Ascension Day

a traditional icon depicting the Ascension of Jesus

In this week’s podcast, we are looking at the feast of the Ascension. Ascension Day is one of the more underrated of the feasts of the church marking events in the life of Jesus. Two passages tell the story: Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11.

Christians celebrate Ascension Day every year exactly 40 days after Easter, to echo the 40 days that Jesus stayed with his disciples after the Resurrection. During this time, he met with them, taught them, and opened their hearts to understand the Scriptures. Finally, the disciples witness him lifted up out of their sight as he returns to God.

Even though this feast doesn’t get as much attention as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, it is crucial to how we understand Jesus’ ministry of salvation. It is also the catalyst for the arrival of the Holy Spirit ten days later.

The Ascension marks the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, launching the church to take up the Jesus movement. Join us around the virtual table as we explore the joy-filled Ascension Day.

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The Prayer of the Heart

A woman balances on a swing in front of a waterfall, illustrating how the prayer of the heart brings life into balance.

A Series on the Human Heart as the Temple of God, Part 3 of 3

There is only one secret to the spiritual life that you need to know: the human heart was made for God. It sounds impossibly simple, but understand that it is more profound an insight than most people know. Life is busy and complex. It is difficult sometimes to know what decisions to make. For instance, there is nothing simple about discerning how to allocate money and resources wisely. We also struggle with how to get through pain and grief. And yet… for all its complexity, there is a simplicity at the heart of life that can easily get lost.

You Are Your Ability to Love

Who are you? In one sense, you can spend a lifetime learning the answer. But in a deeper sense, you are simply your ability to love. You are your heart. And you were made to love God above all things. I will go out on a limb and say that if you have this right, then most of the rest of your life will fall into place.

This is the foundation of everything else. It is why Jesus says that ultimately all the laws of God boil down to two: love God and love your neighbour. Make sure that loving God is first and the neighbour is second. Why? It is not because there is a competition between God and everything else, nor is it because God needs to know that God is first. Rather, it means that making the love of God your highest aim sets everything else in place.

One reason life can be so difficult is that our loves fall easily out of balance. This is the real meaning of idolatry. Created things like money, desire, power, possessions, and relationships are all good. They only become problematic when they are loved and desired out of balance. Giving them God’s place in our lives and attention distorts everything else.

Keeping on Track with the Prayer of the Heart

How do you keep God first and everything else in balance? One way is through prayer, particularly the Prayer of the Heart. If you explore this prayer practice, you will probably find a simple and powerful way called the Jesus Prayer. This is a humble plea for God’s love and mercy through one repeated phrase: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me. Christians have used this prayer for centuries to help keep their lives centred on God.

The human heart was made for God. The heart is the dwelling place of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We can distill the Prayer of the Heart even more than these seven words, and say that it is only about bringing our hearts before Jesus. To really experience this truth, we must strip down our prayers and come before God just as we are, in all our poverty. By that I mean without big thoughts about God, with no desire to impress or get something, no excuses about our behaviour or choices, no big plans for how life should be, no thinking about how important or rich you are. Just you – plain and simple, stripped down. Find the simplest words you can to express love, and then stay there.

The Prayer of the Heart is Reaching with Love

The Prayer of the Heart seems so simple that most people pass it by, yet it carries the deepest wisdom. Carlo Carretto tells us,

“Don’t try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach him in love; that is possible.”

God really only wants you to know one thing: that you are loved and that you are called to love others. When you pray, keep the logic of it simple, and you will find that wisdom will meet you in the practice.

As I end this series, I invite you to meditate on these words by Carlo Carretto that sum up the Christian vision of the Prayer of the Heart:

“The love of God is by nature pure, balanced and holy. Whoever is dominated by it lives in deep peace, has an ordered view of things, and knows the meaning of true freedom. But the love of God, too, passing into our heart must be worked at, cultivated, pruned, fertilized. And the most uncompromising farmer is God.”

Growing Open Hearts

Part 2 of What Does God Really Want from You: A Three-Part Series on the Human Heart as the Temple of God

There are many things you won’t tell everyone: certain memories, feelings, hopes, goals, and so on. You probably don’t make them known because you feel that if others could see the “real you” they wouldn’t understand. You know you have found a good friend when you feel safe enough to open these areas of your life to them. A good friend understands and can be trusted with your deeper life; you can “let them in.”

Where exactly are you “letting them in?” The answer is your heart. You heart is the name we give for the deepest part of you. It is where you are most real and authentic. The heart is your inner sanctum. It is the ‘who’ of who you are. One helpful thing about seeing your heart as an inner sanctum or inner room is that it allows us to imagine how expansive it is.

Growing Open Hearts

Think of the story How the Grinch Stole Christmas. After the Grinch tries to stop Christmas by stealing all of the presents from Whoville, he is shocked to hear the Whos still singing. He realizes,

“What if Christmas… doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?”

He realizes that Christmas is about love.

And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.

I know that feeling. I don’t think I was ever a Grinch, but before I had kids, I thought I knew what love was. As it turned out, my heart just needed to grow. Since I became a parent, I have felt my heart expand larger and larger with love every year. That’s the thing about the heart: it can grow!

Open Hearts to God

When have you felt your heart grow bigger? God wants all of us to grow hearts large enough to embrace all of creation! We have a long way to go, but God promises to meet us there. St. Catherine of Siena tells us that there is a room in each one’s heart where no man, no woman, no devil, no angel can go. Only you and God can enter that interior space. God wants to be present with you there and grow your human heart. I invite you to let God in just as you let in a friend. In a way, the life of discipleship is a long process of opening our hearts to God. Christians have explored it through a practice called The Prayer of the Heart, which we will talk about next week.

In the next few days, spend some time exploring your heart. What things make you feel open and relaxed? What things close you off and make you retreat inside? Who do you let in? Who do you keep out? There are no right or wrong answers here; this is only about self-knowledge. What are you learning about your own heart?

What Does God Want from Us?

What does God want from us?

A Three-Part Series on the Human Heart as the Temple of God

  1. Introduction

One of my favourite stories in the Bible is when Samuel the prophet travels to Bethlehem to anoint the new king of Israel. He knows that the future king will come from the family of a man named Jesse. When Samuel arrives, he asks Jesse to bring his sons to him, one by one. When Samuel looks at Jesse’s eldest son, he sees a strong and tall man with a kingly appearance, so he naturally assumes that he is the future king of Israel. But God stops him short, telling Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16: 7)

God Looks at the Heart

This theme runs all through Scripture. God looks deeper, right into the human heart. In the Bible, the human heart is more than just the organ in your chest. It is a metaphor for your whole inner life: your thinking, feeling, and willing. In the heart, all of your loves and hates are born. It is your deepest self, the home of your desires, fears, and hopes. The heart is the seat of your deepest joys and, conversely, where you know the most crushing pain. This is why we talk about having a broken heart or feeling like our heart has been torn out of our chest. When God looks at you, God sees your heart.

God doesn’t actually see all of the things that the world sees: your titles, your wealth, your fame, or your resume. God sees where you are joyful and where you are suffering, where you have loved your neighbour, and where you have hurt your neighbour. God only cares about one thing deeply, and that is your heart. This is what it means to say that God loves you: your deepest self, who you really are where no one else can see. For God, it is not about being perfect; it is about being honest. It is about offering God your heart for God’s mercy to heal it.

Old map

Here Be Dragons

God knows that it is not easy, because the human heart is a confused and rocky terrain. While our hearts are capable of great love and joy, they are also capable of inflicting great pain. An early Christian saint described the heart as an apocalyptic arena. He writes:

The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. There are rough and uneven roads; there are precipices; but there too is God, the angels, life and the Kingdom, light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and treasures of grace. All things are within it.

St. Macarius of Egypt (300-391)

The ultimate meaning of discipleship is this universal struggle of the human heart toward God and against sin. The way to win this struggle is to let God love you, knowing that God’s healing love is called mercy as well as grace. But this isn’t easy. Next week we will talk about how repentance is really the name for the struggle to let Christ dwell in your heart richly, loving you deeply and transforming your heart.

The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 47: Jesus Appears to His Disciples After the Resurrection

Episode 47: Jesus Appears to His Disciples After the Resurrection

In this Easter season, we are continuing to travel through Jesus’ appearances to his disciples after his resurrection. Today’s story from Luke 24:36-48 follows immediately after two of the disciples meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus. As they are telling their friends about these amazing events, Jesus suddenly appears among them, saying, “Peace be with you.”

They are afraid, thinking they are seeing a ghost. But Jesus reassures them that he is truly alive. To prove it to them, he eats some food and shows them the wounds from his crucifixion. From there, he opens their minds to the Scriptures and speaks with them about his mission.

There is a lot to talk about in this story, from the meaning of peace, to the spiritual depths of an ordinary shared meal, to the fragile human hands carrying the promise of God’s life. Join us around the virtual table as we delve into this post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus.

The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 46: Doubt and Faith

Doubt and Faith in the Story of Thomas

Episode 46: John 20:19-31

In today’s podcast, we turn to John 20:19-31 and one of the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus. This story centers on one of the apostles, Thomas the Twin, who is sometimes called Doubting Thomas.

It begins a week earlier, when Jesus appears to the disciples, showing them that he is alive. However, Thomas is not present and has to hear about it from the others. When they tell him that they have seen Jesus, he says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Then one week later, Jesus comes again, and this time Thomas is there. Jesus does exactly as Thomas asked and shows him his hands and his side. Seeing this, Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God.”

This story is one of the most relevant to us today, because following Jesus means giving our lives to someone we have not met in the flesh. That the Bible addresses doubt and faith so soon after the Resurrection tells us how important this topic is.

Join us around the virtual table as we talk about what it means to believe, how doubt can lead us deeper into faith, and how Jesus empowers us to follow him.

The Hope Canteen Podcast, Episode 43: A Grain of Wheat Dies

Podcast #43: A Grain of Wheat Dies
Episode 43: John 12:20-33

In today’s podcast, we jump nine chapters ahead from last week to John 12:20-33, which looks toward the crucifixion through the image of a grain of wheat that dies.

The passage starts with some people from outside the Jewish faith wanting to talk with Jesus. This is a symbolic moment in Jesus’ ministry. It leads to a reflection on the deeper meaning of what he is working to accomplish.

Jesus starts to look ahead to his painful death on the cross using the metaphor of a seed. A grain of wheat must be buried in the ground to die before it bears life. Similarly, we are all to see ourselves in the grain of wheat that dies. This leads to a conversation between Jesus and God the Father that some hear as thunder from Heaven. Then, Jesus gives a final reflection that his death is not just a tragedy, but it is the judgement of the world, drawing all people to Christ through the cross.

Join us on this final Sunday in Lent around the virtual table as we plumb the rich depths of this reading, exploring the significance of Jesus’ upcoming death and what it means to ‘die to oneself’.

How Do I Pray Best? (Six Questions for Every Christian to Ask, #2)

How do I pray best?

Prayer occupies a central place in our lives as followers of Jesus. Prayer assumes that God is not distant and impenetrable, but that we can approach God, and that God listens and is somehow reachable in our prayer. Our liturgical tradition describes just one of many ways to express prayer to God.

If we can communicate with God, we can also listen to God. People have developed various ways of prayerfully listening to God through the Bible, through silence, by meditating with words or images or music, and in community. In all of these, we presume that prayer helps us to relate closely to God, and that God is in fact relatable. This is why we have chosen “How do I pray best?” as the second in our series of six questions every Christian needs to ask.

Called to Worship God

Two thousand years of followers of Jesus–and millennia of people walking with God before then–have practiced ways to call themselves and each other to the worship of God. We do not pray alone. We can rely on their work and wisdom as we both grow in prayer and deal with all those things that can make us forget God: boredom, wealth and ease, distractions, hardships, fears, attractive things, lies, and the many wanderings of our own hearts.

Deuteronomy 8 records Moses teaching God’s people as they are preparing to enter the Promised Land, reminding them about what is most important. Over and over, he says, Remember the Lord your God. Do not forget God. Remember how God has led you. If our relationship with God defines who we are, prayer helps us remember. How do you personally remember God and walk with God each day? How do you turn toward God who calls you into relationship? What are the ways you hear yourself called back? How do you hold the anchor of your life?

How Do You Pray?

We are complicated beings, and so people pray in different ways. And people pray differently in different seasons of their lives. Is serving others your prayer? Do you meet God walking in the woods? Gazing at the sacred image of an icon? Memorizing scripture? Wrestling through questions of faith? Sitting in the sanctuary? Pouring your heart out with a small group? Gathering with your church family? Moving your body? Do you give your prayer voice in music or art? Do you meet God in silence? In the suffering? What are the touchpoints of your life?

Perhaps start by asking if you have gifts and interests that you can turn toward your relationship with God. Are there ways of prayer toward which God seems to be nudging you at this time? Then remember that God is already here, and sometimes we just need ways to be reminded.

The only way each of us can truly discover how we love to meet God is by taking the journey of prayer, learning from others, growing in love. Because that’s the heart of it. Every model and method of prayer has the same aim: to give ear and expression to our relationship with God, centering our lives on Christ who seeks us.

This is based on a talk from our 2021 Lenten learning series, Re-boot Your Spiritual Life. You can watch the full version here: