Easter Season - Year C -- 2010
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Easter Year C
Acts 10: 34-43
Psalm 118
1 Corinthians 15: 19-26
John 20: 1-18
Acts 10: 34-43 Easter Season - Year C -- 2010
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Easter Year C
Psalm 118
1 Corinthians 15: 19-26
John 20: 1-18
Why Are We So Surprised?
Back when I was a teenager working at a laundromat to earn money for university one of the clerks at the adjacent store told me this story. Her son, a high school classmate of mine, had come home from work the previous evening with a most interesting story. According to him, he had seen a small car driving down the street full of teenagers. What was unusual about this car was that in addition to hte passengers inside the car, there was a teenager sitting in a chair strapped to the roof. She told her son that she wasn�t going to fall for it; it could not possibly have happened. Who would be crazy enough to do something like that!
She had to reconsider though when her husband came home from work and told her much the same story. The only difference was that by the time the father had seen the car, the police had pulled it over and were interviewing the driver and the kid in the chair. Apparently his only reason for the precarious perch was that they were all going out for pizza and there was no room in the car for them all, so one of them had to sit on the roof!
Unbelievable when her son told it, but not when her husband did? Maybe it depends who tells the story.
A number of years ago, when I was living in Nova Scotia I received a call from the local Presbyterian minister, on the day before Easter. Now we would all assume that a Presbyterian minister would be a reliable source of information, especially on Easter Saturday! I figured that if he said it, it had to be true. Doesn�t it?
I missed the call, but this is what I heard when I pressed �play� on my answering machine, �Beth, I saw him. I saw him, right there in Fulton�s Pharmacy, right here in downtown Tatamagouche. It�s true. He�s alive! He�s alive. Elvis is alive! �
Huuuum! Sometimes you can�t even trust a usual trustworthy source! Some things are just too crazy to believe.
A group of people, about thirteen in number along with a bunch of women and a few other odds and sods used to travel around together and there was something so compelling about this man and so real about him and his teachings they knew, despite what some said, that when they were with him they were as close as it was possible to be to the true teachings of their faith. Crowds followed him and he was becoming very popular. Everyone liked him. Well, ALMOST everyone. For some reason one of his closest circle was more than a little disappointed by the lack of �real change� in his message. For reasons that we can never truly understand he turned him into the authorities. He regretted it almost immediately, but it was the kind of think you can�t take back.
Almost before you had a chance to blink he was tried, convicted AND executed. There were no appeals back then, but this was especially fast. Might as well get it done before the long weekend!
At the end of the day the man, their leader, was dead. Dead. Dead. And buried. His followers scattered to the four winds. The authorities, afraid of his popularity and what his followeres miught do, breathed a sigh of relief. Another troublemaker gone.
They were to discover however, that they were just beginning to deal with teacher from Nazareth and his followers. The story becomes very confused and has so many different versions that you really don�t know where to begin. You don�t know whose story should be believed.
We must remember that these are not police reports from some kind of RCMP or CSIS investigation; these stories are proclamations from believers. What seems factual is that the body was gone - vanished without a trace. If that were not true the authorities could certainly have found it when all the followers were telling everyone that he has risen from the dead.
Yet, of course, we must remember in all of this that it was not really Jesus absence from the tomb that ultimately changed their lives and convinced them that Jesus had been raised, it was his undeniable presence in their previously empty lives that really changed them for ever. It was that presence that enabled them to proclaim what might be called the first Christian creed, �Christ is Risen!�
What really happened to the �body of Jesus� is a mystery. It seems clear from the proclamation that the �reality� of the resurrected Jesus was not the same as they presence of the physical Jesus when he was alive. In some stories he invited Thomas to touch him to encourage belief and in other cases he told them not to �hold on to him�; not to touch him. He could appear in locked rooms. He could appear out of nowhere on a wilderness road and then vanish after a meal. Clearly something very unusual was going on. This was not normal physical existence. It was not even like another case of Lazarus brought back to life. Resurrection is NOT the resuscitation of a corpse. Clearly no one within the community of faith had the words to be able to adequately describe their experience. So they tried as best as they could to say what happened and what they thought it meant.
What it meant was that everything as they knew it was changed. Life and death itself had changed. Remember that the Easter proclamation is not just �he is not here�, but �he is risen�. The Easter proclamation is not just �he was raised� but �he IS risen!� It was a present tense verb. It was not �what happened� on that first Easter but a way of describing their lives on Monday and the next week and ten years later and forty years later. Christ is Risen!
Like the first disciples, we don�t need any reminders of what we might call �the Kingdom of Death.� We don�t need to be reminded because we may live it each and every day. Our family may have more than its fair share of sorrow and pain. We may work in one of those professions where we see these things every day. We don�t need to be reminded of tragedies, illness and disappointments. If we don�t have any tragedy in our own lives we only need to read the papers and see the news at suppertime or bed time! We really don�t need to be reminded that life is a depressing struggle for some.
What we so need to be told, and need to be told it OVER AND OVER again, is that there is life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of despair and love in the midst of hate.
We need to gather at the empty tomb on Easter morn and gaze at the place where he lay.
But we need to do MORE than this. As I said, in and of itself, the empty tomb is not enough. We also need to open our lives to the presence of the One whom the tomb could not hold, the one who lives.
We need to tell the story; no, we need to PROCLAIM the story. We need to LIVE the story for ourselves and as GOOD NEWS to and for others, Despite the sadness that may come to us from time to time; despite the way the world seems, we must live our new reality: the powers of evil and death have indeed been defeated. He IS risen. That is not a past tense statement. That is present tense. Right here. Right now. In 2010. Christ is risen.
We need to practice the resurrection. We need to perform resurrection actions, if only to show ourselves that the Kingdom of life is stronger than the Kingdom of death. We need to place our trust in the One who was raised and in his Way - the way of truth, justice, peace and service. It�s not about what the world believes, its about what we believe and what we are prepared to live for. Do we believe that Christ is raised?
If we do, then we are called to proclaim it. We are called to proclaim it despite the circumstances in our lives which may suggest otherwise. Others may scoff at us and dismiss our proclamation as an �idle tale�, as the word of some of the first witnesses was dismissed, but that does not matter; it is the story that both roots us to the ground and opens us to the very presence of the One who created the heaven and the earth.
Christ IS RISEN.
And with the generations who have gone before we can respond with our lives as a community of faith:
CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED.
Acts 5: 27-32
Psalm 150
Revelation 1: 4-8
John 20: 19-31
It was still the same day; the same day that some women had reported that not only was the tomb empty but also that they had seen the Lord. Things were moving so fast; it was all so confusing. Rumours were abounding of a roundup of �all of them� so that these �alive again� rumours would be stamped out and order and respect for proper authority would be restored. So they gathered behind closed doors; NO, behind locked, secure, doors. The disciple, Thomas, sometimes called �the twin�, was not with them that day. We dont know where he was ; hiding somewhere else perhaps.
A week later, they were all together; their heads were still swimming; their hearts beating faster than they ever had. They were living on adrenaline. Thomas must have been flabbergasted. He had not been with the others when the first �Jesus sightings� had taken place. �What were they on?� he may have thought. �That�s just not possible!� Even when Jesus appeared he was still skeptical; asking for what was the hardest proof; evidence he himself could touch - the wounded body of his teacher, leader, mentor and friend. �Unless I can prove it to myself, see it and TOUCH it, I will not believe!�
I was eating lunch with a group of colleagues on Wednesday and one of my group had a pronouncement that eating sugar will make you weaker, almost instantly. I said, �you�re crazy. That can�t be true. You are making that up!� I became his volunteer and saw and experienced for myself that what he said was true, at least on that occasion.
We don�t give him enough credit, poor �doubting Thomas�. We say, �O come on, don�t be a �doubting Thomas�; believe.� Let me ask you; would you have believed? People may have believed a lot of things back then that we don�t; but this one thing is fairly constant; dead people tend to stay that way! Especially when they had been beaten, crucified and stuck with a spear! Especially when the only one we have ever met that could raised the dead, is the one who died! Thomas, to be frank, was the only sane one, the only one with his head screwed on straight.
We take this one even and make Thomas out as an example of skepticism. We forget the other scripture in which Thomas is full of courage, willing to risk his life for the sake of spreading the good news. In John�s 11th chapter, Thomas was not willing to let the fear of an angry mob prevent him and other disciples from accompanying Jesus to Judea to see Mary, Martha and their dying brother Lazarus. Maybe we have to re-think poor Thomas!
This is one of those �low Sundays� in the church; after all that hype last week, some folks need a break - you can have too much of a good thing. A colleague of mine is observing �Holy Humour Sunday�. Immediately after Easter, I usually take two weeks off and go to someone else�s church to listen to them preach. I don�t think I have preached on the second Sunday of Easter for about 15 years, but because I was on sick leave for Lent, I decided to delay my vacation, so you are stuck with me today!
In the season of Easter we read the stories of the first resurrection appearances and how they were explained by the disciples in the early proclamation. We look at what it meant to them, in those early days. We look at how it changed their lives.
But this is not just about history, WE are asked to wrestle with what the resurrection means in our daily lives; just as the first followers had to figure these things out for themselves, so we too, have some work to do.
Like them, we cannot rely on the scriptures in and of themselves; they had to figure out what these encounters with the risen Christ meant for them.
How easy it would be for us to believe, if Jesus were to appear here and give us the same opportunity he gave to Thomas. I am not sure it would make much difference! First of all, I doubt that we would recognize him! I suppose we would because he would be the only person in the room who was from the middle-east! We forget that he did not look like most of the portraits and pictures we have of him. And he wouldn�t be wearing a suit and tie or speaking English.
Perhaps he would appear to us as one of the world�s wounded and hurting ones. Would we recognize him then?
Today has been designated as Holocaust Remembrance Sunday. During and just prior to the Second World War, the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews as well as at least an equal number of disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah�s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, political and religious opponents and people from a number of ethnic groups considered undesirable. April 11 is the anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. It was also 65 years ago today that Burchenwald, one of the concentration camps of the Nazi regime was liberated by the allies and the world saw one more example of what hatred, racism and plain indifference could do.
As I was researching this topic I came across a site that commemorated the genocide in Rwanda. It took just 100 days for 800,000 to be massacred, mostly by friends and neighbours. As it was starting those countries with the power to intervene, refused, because Rwanda had no strategic importance and many nations were unwilling to risk the lives of their soldiers for a bunch of black Africans. The world has lived to regret that decision.
Stephen Lewis has been speaking to the west for years about the AIDS pandemic in Africa, and again the world is characterized by massive inaction. For the most part the west is more concerned with keeping supposed terrorists out than helping alleviate mass suffering and death in Africa.
But, what, you may ask, does this all have to do with Easter and the risen Christ?
Let us consider ourselves as Thomas, looking for proof of the presence of the Christ in our midst. We say that we want to see the wounds of the Christ or we will not believe and what wee are shown are these and many other examples of a wounded and hurting world. There are gospel stories where Jesus himself is recorded as having equated helping the wounded and hurting with helping him. For me, the connection, in principle, is obvious.
The problem comes when it comes to the practical - when the wounded and hurting are on our televisions or standing before us on the street. When I go to Toronto I can�t walk more than a couple of blocks without being asked for spare change. I�ve never been asked in Souris, but its becoming more common in Charlottetown, especially near the Tim Horton�s on Kent St.
We may close our eyes and see the wounded people who live in many of our First Nations communities, in sub standard housing and plagued by violence and complicated addictions. We may see a large portion of our farming sector in crisis. We may see the wounds of a child welfare system that cannot cope with the problems it sees every day. We may also see images of the many, many ways in which the poor are sacrificed for the shareholders of wealthy companies.
We may also see examples of people suffering from illness or loneliness - people who are our neighbours, our friends, people with so many needs that we do not know where to begin. We may see a family, living in housing that is not as good as many barns and we wonder what can be done.
Thomas� experience, in my mind, calls us to make the links between the wounded world and our faith. In the wounded we are called to see the Christ.
When we act, when we begin to bring the love of Christ to that woundedness; when we take that leap of fiath and act, despite the certainty of a connection - we will see it. We will develop the faith that it is connected. We will come to believe that such action and response is parat and parcel of our faith.
We have many choices abiut what wee can do. Advocating for action on the provision of drugs for Africa; supporting peace keeping in trouble spots with ethnic violence; volunteering for Habitat for Humanity; becoming a foster parent; supporting neighbours in crisis; being aware of the hurt in our own communities.
Perhaps our actions or our questions may upset or unsettle some, but as a people of faith we are called to seek life for all of God�s children.
Like Thomas we need to look for evidence of the Christ around us; but when we do - open our eyes, hearts and minds we will see and be able to respond, �My Lord and My God�, and to ask, �What do you want me to do?�
Amen!
Acts 9: 1-6 (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5: 11-14
John 21: 1-19
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of artists have used their craft to try and depict the �conversion of Paul�. They seem to focus on the �bright light� or the �disorientation of the blind Saul/Paul�. There is even a somewhat �off the wall� version depicted in a series of vignettes created from �Lego-like� building blocks and Lego-people. (It�s on the internet but I warn you, it�s not for children.)
People often refer to a sudden conversion as a �Damascus Road experience�. I doubt though that the so-called conversion was as instantaneous as we might first believe. The biblical text makes it clear that he was at the stoning of Stephen. Perhaps the Holy Spirit had been working on him for some time.
We must also remember that Paul remained a devout Jew all of his life. After Damascus Road he was a Jew who followed �the way� which was what the Christian movement was called - but this in no way, caused him to deny his Judiasm.
However I decided to take the path less travelled today in regard to my sermon. I prefer quiet walks to moving along with the noisy throng!
While most preachers might be dealing with Paul�s experience and what it meant for him later in life, I want to take a look at the other person who is named in this story, the man named Ananias. We don�t know much about this Ananias - there are six other men in the Bible by the same name. This man is referred to simply as �a disciple in Damascus�. No doubt he would have been on Saul�s �hit list� until the risen Christ knocked him off of his horse. Saul would have had quite a reputation by then and everyone would have known just how dangerous he was. A Pharisee and a citizen of Rome, it seems that Saul was in exactly the right place to do the most damage to the fledgling communities which would eventually become the �Christian Church�.
Ananias was a man of faith so when God called him he replied, �Here I am�. Like prophets before him he was willing to do what was asked even before he knew what the assignment was. EXCEPT - after he heard the assignment he expressed his strong reservations.
But really, who can really blame Ananias for objecting to welcoming someone who was known as an enemy of the followers of the Way of Jesus of Nazareth. It seems like a perfectly natural and understandable reaction to me.
Yet the welcome of Saul, now called Paul, was an intrinsic part of God�s plan. The Christian faith has always been one which is based in communities and I feel that his welcome by the Damascus believers was vital to Paul�s growth and development as an apostle and set an important benchmark in community behaviour and witness.
Ananias gathers up his faith and his courage, goes to the street called Straight and does what he is asked. The rest, as they say, is Christian history. Ananias had a great deal and stake and Saul was a known quantity, yet this was a time of great change; they had been shown that very surprising things were in store as the Holy Spirit, through the mission of the apostles and teachers, enabled the church to grow and expand.
What does this say to us as disciples, as community of faith, all these years later?
It seems to me that one of our primary reasons for existence as a community of faith is to be a welcoming presence. Just as Jesus called and welcomed those who were outsiders in his society; just as his message appealed most to those who felt excluded by the powerful elites or the �status quo�, so our mission is to proclaim that all can come and find welcome and rest. Our role is to trust the work of the Spirit, in both our own lives and in the lives of those who come our way.
Christian community is not about erecting barriers to belonging but about tearing them down.
Some of our most beloved hymns speak of this amazing work of the Spirit in working in the lives of the most surprising of people. John Newton, a slave ship captain, was awakened to the evils of slavery and wrote �Amazing Grace� as well as becoming a proponent of political change to outlaw the slave trade.
One of the things that have been discovered by the folks working on the Emerging Spirit campaign is that those outside the church regard church people as elitist and close minded. Emerging Spirit aims to change and challenge these assumptions by training churches to be more visibly welcoming.
On my first pastoral charge there was a little church just outside the gates of a National park. They had a teepee they placed on the front lawn that advertised �Camper�s Church - Come As You Are!� The only thing I could not do was to convince the locals to leave the suits and ties home for t- the summer. I think it would have helped a little, but we would get least one family every summer who told us that they didn�t take church clothes camping and they came because our sign made them feel welcome.
We need to take a lesson from Ananias and trust the working of the Spirit; the most surprising people seek to become active in the church sometimes. It would be so easy to turn them away. Some of the most tried and true ways are, �Oh, we have never done it that way� (Which is most often interpreted to mean, �and we don�t intend to start either!�) Or we say to someone who has been around for ten years, �Oh its so nice to see the new people taking an interest!� When they don�t consider themselves new. In some churches no one gets to have a say unless their people have been there for two hundred years or more. When a new couple moves in and we say, �Oh you are living in the old schoolhouse, it is an easy way to identify where they live, but if we make no attempt to go beyond that and get to know them and what their gifts and interests are, they will still be the strangers who �live in the old schoolhouse�.
Part of it is the nature of rural communities. I was talking to one of the people who worked in our national office and he said at the annual meetings in his church they were not at all concerned with repeating what was done the past year, or past years, but with what could be done this year. I think that traditions are vital and important, but only when they support the forward looking nature of the community. When traditions become an end in themselves we need to take a serious look at whether or not they need to be continued.
The question that needs to be asked is: �How do the activities and priorities of this community of faith assist the work of the Spirit in this place?�
We have come a long way in the last few years as we have opened our eyes and hearts to the presence and gifts of many different people. We are slowly beginning to realize that not everyone is happily married with 2.3 children who all come to church and sit in the pew quietly and politely. Perhaps when we fully accept the folks in our own families that do not fit this mould we will welcome the so-called �stranger� who is gay or lesbian, single-parent, living common-law, or the teenager that has a purple and green Mohawk, really weird clothes and a lip ring. We accept those who question everything and those whose faith has not changed since Sunday school and we give thanks for our diversity instead of wishing that everyone was the same. As the minister, I can say, it would take much less energy (provided everyone thought like me) but it would be oh so BORING.
I recall doing some research into communion liturgies in use in the Presbyterian Church of the 1800's. While the liturgy had long passed out of use the attitude was still very much around. The liturgy emphasized that the elements were only for �God�s holy people�. It is little wonder that many people did not feel worthy to receive communion and either left the service early or did not come at all on Communion Sunday. For them Communion ws not a celebration of the love of God but a reminder of their sinfulness.
We have so many reminders in the run of the week at how much we fall short of someone�s expectations, we need to have one place where we are welcomed with open arms; where those guided by the Spirit say to us, �beloved Child of God, you are welcome here, Come in, come in ans sit down, you are a part of the family.�
Ananias, and the saints down through the ages have welcomed us, so we welcome others.
Amen.
Acts 9: 36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7: 9-17
John 10: 22-30
While we know that roles of women in the last number of years in the church, and in society in general, are very different than they were just a few years ago.
We tend to forget that the role of women in first century Palestine was much more restricted even than that of our ancestors or our own youth. They were akin to second class citizens; seen as only a little better than slaves. Their day was spent doing most of the work in the home; marketing, carrying water home from the community well, grinding grain, cooking and tending the children. Given their role in that culture the fact that women are mentioned as followers of Jesus is quite amazing. Given the status of women the fact that the woman from the Acts passage is both named and called a disciple is doubly amazing
In the reading for today from the book of Acts the woman Dorcas had done much work for the community and her loss is a devastating blow. The disciple Peter is summoned.
We don�t know much about this woman; how old she was or if she herself was a widow or not. We know she is referred to by the feminine form of the word disciple in Greek; I am told, the only time it is used in the New Testament. Given all that I have said about their culture, this is quite unusual and quite amazing.
It seems that Dorcas� role was to make articles of clothing - a simple act that was obviously much appreciated by the widows with no source of income.
This has been designated by our church as Camping Sunday. For a long time I thought April was far too early for �Camping Sunday� but the board and director of Camp Abegweit, for example, are already hard at work envisioning the programs which will greet new groups of campers this summer. Talking to the camp administrator a few weeks ago she invited all the clergy to come for a day of �loitering with intent�.
We often dismiss church camps as something relatively inexpensive to take up a week of a child�s sometimes boring summer - and often parents don�t put a lot of thought into what camp to choose - the closer the better - but like churches, church camps they can be quite different in their approach to the Christian faith.
At Church camp the camper will have an experience of the holy that is often not possible in the rush of everyday life.
At church camp the campers will experience community in ways that are unique to church camping.
At church camp faith is lived out from morning watch through activities and meals to campfire songs that stir the spirit and quiet the soul.
Many clergy often point to church camp experiences as crucial in their faith formation and their call to ministry. Many years ago I recall, very clearly, standing in the very wet basement of the main building at Camp Abegweit holding a flashlight so that the director, a minister, could do what was necessary to get the sump pump working. As he worked we talked about my call to ministry. About 30 years later, he probably remembers the event as well as or better than I do.
A few years ago some folks got together, took a look at the ageing infrastructure at Camp Abegweit and said to the Presbytery, �we need to do better than this for our children?� That building with the wet basement is gone and a beautiful new main building now graces the property. The last time I was there the only buildings I recognized were the cabins and even they were in better shape than they were in the 1970's. But the space was the same - the feel was the same - it is a place where God can get to you. With the average child going there for one week a summer the ministry of Camp Abegweit may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it is at the same truly time priceless. I for one am glad that we brought it back to life. Our churches have many needs and priorities but camping should not be seen as insignificant, because it isn�t and it should not be forgotten.
When we think of significant ministries we tend to think of people in the news or of the responses to war and natural disasters which make the news, but the ministry of Dorcas was certainly not one of those. The ministry which makes a difference in the lives of the most people overall, is lived out in small acts of kindness performed by people of faith everywhere. Sometimes we need to blow our own horn so that we may recognize its sound.
I have a number of prayer shawls on hand to give to people who need to know they are not alone. The last one I gave on your behalf was received with great appreciation. It�s just three balls of yarn and a few hours of knitting, but it makes the world of difference to someone who needs to we warmed by the prayers and care of others.
I was at a funeral the other day and it was misting heavily and cold and there was a couple who made sure the ministers coats were ready to step into before they left the church to go to the cemetery.
There is all that food delivered to the homes of the grieving. It makes so much difference in such a chaotic time. There was an item on the news yesterday about Ubah Ali, the single parent immigrant with seven children who lost an envelope containing her entire income for the month and the church that is giving her food and helping raise awareness so that the upcoming month will turn from a disaster into something much more bearable.
The things that mean the most to people are usually the smallest things - but things done in love, care and concern.
Dorcas may even have discounted her work, but the widows who grieved her passing certainly did not. Sending a child to camp, can seem like a waste (when we have bills to pay and a roof to fix and all of those other things which ARE also important, or it�s just another thing we do to make a child happy, but not too big in the grand scheme of things, but what a difference it can make.
There are no small acts in the kingdom of God - there are just disciples living out the love of God each and every day !
Amen.
Acts 11: 1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21: 1-6
John 12: 31-35
A kindergarten student went to a friend�s house for a birthday party. She went right up to the mother as soon as she arrived and said, �My mom says to tell you that I am allergic to nuts and to chocolate.�
The mom said, �Thanks for telling me. ...Are you allergic to cats?�
The five year old replied, �I don�t know. We don�t eat cats at my house!�
There are some things we just know; we don�t have to be told; we learned them from our parents and we taught them to our children, from our behaviour as well as from verbal lessons.
Go to church on Sunday;
if you say you will do something you do it;
don�t lie or steal;
take food to a home where there is sickness or bereavement;
be careful of big mean dogs;
don�t associate with anyone not born on PEI;
when it�s cold wear a hat and mittens;
drink lots of water on hot days;
starve a cold a nd feed a fever;
don�t waste your money.
They all sound like pretty good advice, don�t they? What! You noticed that one about being cautious of people �from away!� Thought you would! For some of us, this warning would be correct if it were changed to �all people who aren�t Protestant.� For others it could be people �from the wrong families! � For others it could be people who �look different�; or folks who eat �funny food�, or �people who can�t speak English like we do�.
We need to know that the Jewish people had strict food laws. Shellfish was forbidden because they are scavengers as were birds like vultures. Pigs were forbidden because they had cloven feet but did not chew the cud like a bovine or a sheep. Peter�s vision is of many, many animals that they were not permitted to raise or harvest for food - and he is appalled that he is told to eat them. But then it becomes clear that this dream is metaphorical. It becomes clear that it applied to people. It was clear that the dream was about throwing open the doors of Christian community and not excluding people based on external matters of race or language. All people were to be welcomed into the new community of faith.
At the very beginning the Christian Church was a group within Judaism. Since the Jewish people were the ones who had hoped for the Messiah it seemed logical to them that all gentiles wanting to convert had to become Jewish first. Circumcision was the sign of membership in the Jewish community. Of course it was a sign for the males only; women were second class citizens, even in terms of the faith community.
So this vision is not really about food and Peter knew it; it was about people. The message is clear - God calls all people clean and wants us to welcome them into the community of faith.
It was not a fear of the outsider for its own sake; they firmly believed that this was the way to purity and purity was the way to survival as a nation.
Christianity had many struggles as it began to grow and as the apostles debated whether or not to open the doors to gentiles. In the end the �Circumcision Party� lost to the opposition - and yes the people who were sticking to the traditions of Moses were called by that name!
That was long ago; this is now. What does this have to do with us. There is a great deal of debate in our country these days about immigrants, particularly women from Arab countries, and headscarves! Should a Canadian resident be required to show one�s head or can they keep their old traditions? Should a Canadian resident have to eat our food? Should a Canadian resident be required to speak English or French?
Leaving politics aside, many churches have their list of membership requirements - but we need to decide if these requirements are central to our faith or more culturally conditioned.
The Emerging Spirit campaign was designed to present provocative statements and images and was aimed not so much as those already in the pews as it was at those who had given up on the church. Church people were invited to participate in workshops to see how they could remove barriers to newcomers; barriers they didn�t even recognize as such.
Robbie Burns said (and I cant do the accent, so I won�t try) wouldn�t it be nice if God would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us. It would save us a lot of trouble.
Most people don�t know that he wrote this poem because a woman sitting in front of him in church had on a large hat which was harbouring at least one LOUSE!!
How do others see us; the us, being the church? Marcus Borg, well known biblical scholar says that his students have an almost universally negative view of Christianity and Christians, describing us as anti-intellectual, self righteous, literalistic, judgmental and bigoted�. I must admit that if my only experience of Christianity came from television evangelists I might agree.
The Emerging Spirit campaign of the United Church tried to reach out to the young and unchurched who were looking for a different experience of Christianity to go to a United Church for a more intellectually robust, socially aware and open minded experience of Christianity.
It is clear when you begin to study the New Testament and the next 19 centuries of church history that we have never been of one mind on what the church should be and how various biblical passages should be interpreted and which ones are to be given the greater importance.
One day when I was bored and had some extra money I bought a book titled, �A Year of Living Biblically�. In it, a man of Jewish heritage decides to spend a year following as many of the rules of the Old Testament as possible. Now the one about not cutting his hair was easy - even if it disturbed his wife. But when it came to stoning adulterers, he had to settle for small pebbles. I�m not sure what to make of the book, other than to laugh at it. If we had seen this person on the street in Souris or eating his hamburger with no bacon or cheese at the Sheltered Harbour we may have laughed too.
There is another book that I read about recently titled, �UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity�. The author made himself a pair of coveralls covered with so-called Christian bumper stickers - cliches and one liners. Bumper Sticker Man asked one question, �How has the gospel of love become the inflection point of so much bitter controversy?�
How can we be people of principle without being bigoted and exclusive? How can we hold a place for Holy Mystery and still be intellectually honest. The call of the Spirit to be open to those who come our way may well be the first step- and the second and third!
Yesterday I went to Cornwall to attend a mandatory workshop on Racism. For some time our church has been concerned with how pervasive and insidious racism has become in our country and in our church.
We are a pretty homogeneous province but this work shop brought to my attention how much work I have to do; how much work we all have to do on our preconceptions, assumptions as privileged people from the dominant cultural group.
Our faith tells us that we are ALL created in God�s image - pink or brown, white or black, short or tall, balding or with long curly hair. We are called to be open to our brothers and sisters and welcome them in love and in the Spirit of Christ who came to show everyone the way to abundant life.
Amen!
Acts 16: 9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 5: 1-9
I like watching hospital shows almost as much as I like crime dramas. Grey�s Anatomy , an ABC drama, is one of the shows I try and make time for each week. On the episode aired this week, an extremely obese man came into the emergency room with serious medical issues. He kept cracking jokes about his weight as an attempt to hide his deep emotional issues. The doctors quickly determined that he needed a very risky surgery to save his life but he elected to go home and die. After a serious challenge by one of the doctors, he decided that he really wanted to be well and was willing to take responsibility for his own healing and have the surgery, change his life, lose weight and to begin the difficult journey back to health.
The story of the man by the pool with the mysteriously healing waters is an intriguing one. According to the text he has been disabled for thirty-eight years; thirty-eight years waiting poolside for healing. Considering the rather short average life expectancy of the times it seems that he had to have been there most of his life. His whole life, waiting for healing.
The brief exchange between Jesus and the man is quite interesting. Jesus asks �Do you want to be well?� The man answers, �I have no one to help me.� Jesus responds, �Take up your bed and walk�. Immediately this man gets up, rolls up his yoga mat and walks away. Oops, it�s the Sabbath. Tune in next chapter to see if anyone gets in trouble over this - yoga mat or Beauty-sleep Pillow Supreme, carrying your bed on the Sabbath is considered work, and is forbidden. There�s more than enough to preach on without going down that road today though.
There is a great deal in this passage and like most of the biblical healing stories - there is more here than meets the eye.
First of all, Jesus ASKS him if he wants to be well. It�s not the first question we usually think of when we encounter a sick person. We assume that people need to be freed of the flu, or the heavy cast from the sports injury, or the restrictions following routine abdominal surgery.
Sometimes in healing though there is no quick fix, and the steps to healing seem impossible. Those of us who are relatively healthy and well sometimes don�t understand why someone would not want to be healed.
His answer was, �I have no one to help me�. He saw his only option as this pool with the healing water, but always there was someone to take his chance away. We look at this man with pity; surely someone could have helped him into the waters and waited till another day.
What do we do when we realize that we are not living up to our potential and need to make a major change.
We are told that many people today will change careers several times. Many people will need to take upgrading to do so. I have talked to those who are doing just that- they tell their children who are in school for the first time, stay in school, do it right the first time, keep your options open. A GED is harder to get when you are 40 than grade 12 will be when you are 18 or 19.
There are dozens of commercials on TV these days about breaking out of your boring dead end job, or commuting through the snow to real classes, and present the option of studying online instead. From the commercials, it sounds so easy. From the commercials it sounds so simple.
Did you know that you can become a private investigator, or a professional bridal consultant, automotive mechanic or even an aircraft mechanic, for anywhere between $1000.00 and 1500.00 and never leave the comfort of your own home.
If you would prefer a school with actual buildings, I checked with the Holland college website and the tuition for aircraft maintenance costs five times that! I don�t know about you but I would rather fly in a plane maintained by someone who had learned from real engines rather than online or from a book.
You can also become a police officer with a municipal police officer for $16,000 plus food on the weekend for the 35 week course. Then again you could go to university for four years to get a degree and the list goes on.
But what about transportation? What about childcare? What about paying your bills when you are going to school? Are you sure of a job when you graduate?
It no longer sounds as simple as those commercials on television. Those who have tried it know it isn�t simple at all. My friends who were at theological school and raising families at the same time had a much more difficult time than I did - but most of them did it. They did it with support from families. They did it with community support. They did it because they were certain it was their call.
Now, lets look at other people. Other people are not so easy to fix as we might think; it would be much easier if only they would listen to us.
A homeless person enters the church
Hello!
Is that coffee free? Sure could use something hot. Haven�t eaten since Friday.
Homeless person walks up the aisle and sits down in the minister�s chair off to the side of the pulpit
Can I sit here? Please I have been walking for a long time, and no one will let me sit and rest my feet. They take one look at me and say, these seats are not for the likes of you.
Sure, but do you have to bring all that trash with you. Can�t you leave it outside?
Might get stole; then I�d have nuttin.
Oh! I think you�s be safe here.
Then someone would throw it in the garbage or burn it - got no suitcase for it.
Why do you have to bring it with you? Can�t you leave it at home?
Home is where I am.. Got my space staked out at night, but can�t leave stuff there during the day.
You are pretty young; what about your parents?
Got no home no more. I was kicked out of 12 foster homes - most of them just wanted the money - they didn�t care about kids - went to Ontario - hitched a ride with a trucker - but I got beat up the first night - then I got int some bad stuff on the street - you know, drugs and stuff. It helped at first to take away the pain and made me forget I was hungry and cold. Someone was glad to give them to me - got me hooked- and I knew there was no free drugs and then I really needed them and one thing led to another. Sometimes I could eat at a soup kitchen, if I got there before they ran out.
When I was up in Ontario I tried the shelters but trust me, you are safer on the streets. I�m down here again, there aint nuttin I can afford, leastwise there aint nuttin fit to live in I can afford.
Do you work?
I tried to work but I aint got no experience and there was no way to contact me - like you cant get a cell phone without a job or an address and you caint get an address with no money.
Tried to do a lot of things but I don�t have high school - caint read all that good.
You must be one of those people who fall through the cracks.
Ya, that�s what they call it. (Laugh) Pretty big cracks if you ask me. My friends Bob and Cindy- they threw �em out of the mental hospital. Government cutbacks they call it. They don�t wanna take their pills, makes em feel horrible, and on the street no one will make them, but they are some scary when they are taking one of their spells, even the police wanna stay outa their way and when they are ok, they are the sweetest people you could ever meet.
Does anyone ever call you lazy?
All the time. But where should I start if I wanted to change. I cant even go to the bathroom when I want. Most places now lock the bathrooms so we cant use them. Bad for business they says. So you know I cant stay all that clean. Who would hired me.
What do you need to be able to feel better about yourself and your life?
I�d have to think about that - no one ever asked me before. They think I should take the leftovers and be happy about it - or they decide what I should do. Why can�t I have some say. How many of them government bureau crats have ever missed a meal let alone not know if they have a place to sleep at night.
I gots to go. Lineup for the soup kitchen starts soon - it�ll be all gone if I am not at the head of the line . Thanks for the coffee.
Bye
person leaves
Obviously some of that person�s experience applies better to the homeless in large cities, but PEI has homeless people - and some of the people who are homeless in Toronto are from PEI. In PEI, there are no places for kids who have to leave home to live - no programs, unless the girl has a baby, or unless the young person gets in trouble with the law. Then there are programs for them.
It�s not someone else�s problem. It�s not something we can solve without taking a serious look at the problems from the perspective of those who are or who have been homeless - they know what they need.
Just as Jesus asked the man if he wanted healing, we have to ask, to listen, to try and do what is wanted and needed, not what we think the person needs.
When we look at societal or corporate illnesses we like the sound of magic fixes and we like the blame others for not helping us out of our mess. If we want to clean up our environment, for example, we can�t expect someone else to do the work. We can�t regulate our farmers out of business - because we are worried about the smell, or the fertilizers, or whatever, and then buy cheaper imports from countries with absolutely no environmental or health regulations. What is that about? Do we value the people living far away who raise this food as much as we value ourselves and our neighbours? We all breathe the same air. The volcanic eruption in Iceland proved that - when countries far away had to shut down their airports.
We think �people� should do something - government should do something; someone else should do something; instead of first and foremost taking a serious look at what �we� can do.
Real change does not happen overnight. If you really think about it, the man who was healed by Jesus on that day probably had more than a few hurdles to jump before he found a place in able bodied society. Where would he live - he hadn�t worked in years - what about his family - begging wasn�t much but it was what he knew. It wouldn�t have been easy.
Healing is not something magical - it is often a process of change and adaptation to the places in which we find ourselves. Healing is risky business. Healing is also a process of relationship between the one who is offering the healing and the one who is receiving it. Healing is a journey. Using the Alcoholics Anonymous program as an example, it is a journey toward sobriety lived �one day at a time�. There are no magic cures to lifelong addictions - just the courage of some to offer a solution and a companion along the way.
We are called to be that companion. We are called to put out our hand and receive that companionship. We are called to be recipients and agents of healing, and called to a lifelong journey of living into the abundant life offered by Jesus, the Christ.
Amen.
Acts 16: 16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17: 20-26
We are nearing the end of the Easter Season. Next week is Pentecost.
For the past number of weeks we have been reading stories of the disciples encounters with the Risen Christ.
For the past number of weeks we have been trying to come to terms with what the resurrection meant to the disciples, to the early church, and to us.
I must reiterate - the resurrection has little to do with the empty tomb and the absence of the body and everything to do with the presence of the risen Christ in life of the church as a community and the lives of individual believers.
We need to be reminded that Easter is not just a day for the church, it�s not really just a season, it�s a way of life. As someone once said, �We are an Easter People.�
We forget that though. We forget it and need to hear it. We need to allow it to seep into the depths of our being and truly believe it.
We need that when things are looking grim.
We need that when things are looking grim in the economy.
We need that when things are looking grim in our personal lives.
We need that when we look at our communities and churches and think first of how much we have lost rather than seeing opportunities for new life.
We also need that when things are going well; when the celebrations are running back to back and it seems like we are on cloud nine. We need that in the good times because at all times we are called to remember that we are not self made- we depend on the Sprit - we depend on our community - from our very creation we were meant to be in community, in relationship with God and with other humans and with all of creation.
The story from the book of Acts is one of those stories where �one thing leads to another� - a woman�s illness causes her to cry out and more out of annoyance than anything else Paul cures her and as a result ends up in jail. After a night of singing the jail falls down but they don�t run away - not Paul and Silas, not any of the others - a life is saved, because I gather in that time and place a warden whose prisoners escaped might as well commit suicide - as if he caused the earthquake - but this too led to the addition of numbers to the community that would become the church.
Jesus, in what is sometimes called, �the High Priestly Prayer� prays for the people who have followed him and for those who will come to faith down through the years - and for you and for me - all these generations later. Jesus prays for unity and for an indwelling of his Spirit - in and through whom the unity is achieved and sustained.
Unity is sometimes mistaken for uniformity. Being united does not mean being the same, and certainly being United Church does not mean being the same. The beauty of the United Church is that it brought together people of quite diverse practice and theology to be able to worship together and to participate in the common but diverse mission of the church.
As I look at the epistles and the gospels I see a church that is sometimes very much divided. Division and disagreement in the church has been there from the very beginning. People had strong opinions and expressed them strongly; but the leadership was always seeking to draw their focus back to what was common - their call to discipleship - their unity in the one who called them and named them. This did not diminish the differences in any way but it was meant to challenged them to see beyond the differences to what was common. There was so much against them in the early years they had to stick together; they needed a common bond.
This unity, based in this unique identity as disciples was not one that gave special privileges, it was the unity of service.
Lets go back to the Acts passage for a few minutes. The special something that Paul and Silas had was noticed by the woman who was said to have �a spirit of divination�; at that time considered an evil spirit - she knew who they were and she made no bones about expressing it out loud. Jesus has encountered this outspokenness as well. She was healed. A good news story turns sour when it is realized that she is no longer economically useful to her owners. Paul and Silas are blamed and packed off to prison.
We are told that they spent the night singing and praying. When I was in university I learned a peppy song about that event - but don�t ask me to sing it - I cant even remember all the words - but it is a song about the power of God and the joy of faith and the freedom it brings.
Yet, this freedom has its limits. This freedom does not permit the deliberate hurt to another, or being uncerned about the consequences of their actions. The open doors were more about the power of God to break down barriers than they were about the disciples having an escape plan for sticky situations.
We know that eventually the early church leaders and members endured heavy persecution from those who felt threatened by their new found faith. Yet even with the threat of persecution the church continued to grow because those they met saw something special, something different.
What do the people around us see when they look at us. Are our differences more important than our mission to proclaim the gospel; to feed the hungry and comfort the sick and to proclaim release to those who are in prisons of various sorts - alcoholism, drug abuse, family violence, poverty, to name just a few.
Unity is achieved, I think, not by focussing on ourselves as much as it is giving up what we think is important, giving up our own life for the sake of the gospel. Does not mean that differences are not important. We CANT all be the same but we can be in that place where we are not working against one another, because we are a part of the body - and like a body, each part must be looked after - sore feet make us sore all over, a sick stomach doesn�s make our feet ache but it does affect where our feet can take us.
We are told that Jesus prayed for the health and unity of the early church and he prayed for those who would follow them; he prayed for us. Let us seek to live into the vision of unity and love that Jesus had for his followers.
Amen.
Acts 2: 1-21
Psalm 104
Romans 8: 14-17
John 14: 8-17
There are some stories that are almost impossible to tell. Some are too painful- we all have those, but others are so wonderful we can hardly find the words. Some things need to be experienced to be properly known; someone else’s experience just isn’t equal to it. Being in love is like that. Women tell me that having a baby is like that. Being a soldier in combat is like that. There are things that you can’t really know until you truly have “been there and done that”.
The event described in the book of Acts was a significant one in the life of the early church - not really like its birthday, perhaps more like its high school graduation - they thought they had it made; they had no idea of what was in store for them, but the enthusiasm they felt on this day would be remembered forever. This visitation of the Holy Spirit, if you want to call it that, was not a one time occurrence - God’s people had experienced the Holy Spirit many times in the past, this one was just more remarkable than others.
How would you have described it if you were there? When I was young my mother bought us a set of illustrated Bible Story books and I devoured them over and over again. Remember that I said the books were “illustrated”. There are some stories that you cant depict in simple pictures or drawings and this is one off them.
In this story the people looked like they each had a little tea light on top of their heads. Demonstrate this Now, that is what the text implies, but when you take it literally and paint or draw it that way, it looks downright silly.
Using the examples to which I referred earlier, we can see something in the actions and on the faces of people in love but its not a something we can draw - similarly it is hard to fully capture what we see between a mother and her infant. It’s impossible to truly capture visually what is on the mind of a soldier in combat, or a veteran who has gone there in his or her mind.
That’s how I see the Pentecost experience as told in Acts. Luke, the evangelist, has tried to describe the indescribable - but perhaps the only way we can get any inkling of what was going on is to look at their actions - and to look at how these actions affected others. Sometimes we can describe in poetry what cannot be captured in complete sentences and paragraphs. Taking this all together can we get a glimmer of what they experienced that long ago day?
When I was at General Council last summer we spent some time one day telling our church’s story; but we were limited to six words! Just try to tell any story, let alone a significant one, in six words or less.
The first example the then moderator, the Rt Rev David Giuliano used was a perfect example of a story that was full of sadness, but said everything in six words: “Baby shoes for sale. Never used.”
Think about that one. You don’t always need a lot of words, just the right ones - rightly placed.
As I was working on this sermon yesterday, and trolling facebook for material, or in other words wasting time, a friend posted something on my wall. Apparently there is an internet blog site which asked its regular contributors to submit their ideas of the work of the Holy Spirit, - in 100 words or less. Now I’ve seen books as big as a large dictionary try to do it - and long before I reached the end, I was none the wiser!
“The Holy Spirit is a faithful border collie, always at work, greeting me with enthusiasm wherever I enter, however I enter - dog tired and bone weary -or filled with energy and imagination; ...greeting me with hope and expectation, gracefully and easily forgiving my past foul moods, or periods of self-absorption and neglect. Always watching for me,barking at my heels when I stray, herding me away from danger and back to the fold; and then again surprising me with foolish playfulness, and unexplained joy; unbridled affection and unquestioning loyalty.”Source: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/How-the-Holy-Spirit-Moves-Today.html
Let us move then to the effect that the actions and words of those filled with the Spirit have on others. In the text we are told that there were people there from every nation - that would be every nation where people of Jewish faith were living. The “Feast of Weeks”, 50 days after Passover, was a festival of the Spring harvest. Mandated before they entered the “Promised Land” the people came from “everywhere” to give thanks for God’s mercy in giving them food to eat.
They spoke a lot of languages - The story fo the tower of Babel describes how this came to be. People had gotten too proud of their own accomplishments, forgot about God and it all fell apart! Its all there in early Genesis.
So these folks are outside and inside the followers of Jesus experience the power of God’s Spirit and they just have to go out to the street and proclaim it. Wonder of wonders the people can understand them - this is NOT the “speaking ion tongues” referred to later in the epistles: no interpreter is required on this day. To people from all over the known world it was as if the disciples were speaking in their own language; Babel had been reversed. The Spirit was reaching every heart with one language.
What does this mean for the church of the 21st Century; how do we speak the language of the people on the street? What is our mission in 2010? Are we meant to go out and set up a soapbox and preach on the street-corner? God loves you! Come to our church!
Someone named Jim Ball ( a friend of Mardi Tindall, Moderator of the United Church of Canada) ) has written:
“We were made to know joy and to be a blessing. We were created to experience love and to ease the burdens of those who travel with us. We were birthed to walk together— justly, humbly, & lightly— upon God’s earth.”
In her Pentecost message, our current Moderator, Mardi Tindall, wrote at length of her experience in Haiti and of the faith of the people who have lived in grinding poverty for years and who have recently endured a devastating earthquake. She stated that the Haitian church people with whom she met perennially look to the future with determination and hope, expecting joy and blessing. She asserted that as church, we are created to travel together, easing one another’s burdens and making joy and blessing possible.
While that can sound so much like the Red Cross or any secular aid organization it is more than that for us; it springs from an experience of that Spirit which drives us out of locked rooms; a belief that our faith calls us into the world to the people in need.
We are not meant to stay on our knees in prayer. We are not meant to keep our faith to ourselves. We are meant to go out and speak the language of love in word and action. We are meant to trust that the Spirit will make it understood.
Amen.!