Epiphany and the Season After - Year C -- 2019
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Epiphany Year C
Isaiah 60: 1-6
Psalm 72
Matthew 2: 1-12
Justin Trudeau. Theresa May. Kim Jong-un. Elizabeth II. Pope Francis. Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin. Just 7 of the hundreds of people in the world considered to be people who are considered to be “powerful” in some way or other! Some lead countries which are friends and some, lead nations which are sworn and bitter enemies! Trump is envious of the Pope because the pontiff has a wall and Trump does not! I hope that when I read this sermon at some time in the future the desire for a wall between Mexico and the US is but a distant and horrible memory
Among other things, today’s scripture passages call us to look at worldly power in a different way and challenge us to follow the ways of God as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.
We know about wealth, power and success. They usually go together without our even questioning it. Many of the world’s leaders live in some degree of luxury but in modern times the most famous example, or shall we say infamous, was Imelda Marcos whose thousands of pairs of shoes and ultra-lavish wardrobe, and lifestyle symbolized a regime that was totally out of touch with the average citizen of the poverty stricken country presided over by her husband. They simply could not comprehend the damage they were doing to their country and its citizens.
For various reasons, many people are fascinated by the lives of the rich and famous. We “ooh” and “aah” over the dresses worn by famous people such as Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and future Queen.
A couple of years ago you may have seen the news footage of the then President of the USA, Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle meeting the sweet and adorable young prince, George Cambridge, third in line to the throne of the United Kingdom. He had been allowed to stay up past his usual bed-time, to meet the American First Family. He was also photographed testing out the rocking horse the Obamas had given him when he was born. He was also allowed to break the dress-code required of those meeting with the president; no one else would get away with showing up to such a meeting in pyjamas, bathrobe and slippers!
I don’t know about sales of rocking horses but almost immediately the line of bathrobe and slippers Prince George was wearing sold out as moms and dads everywhere wanted to outfit their children in what the trendiest of toddler attire. The one given his sister by the Obamas also sold out, even though it was never televised!
We are now entering “Red Carpet” season. Millions of folks will tune in to the Oscars and the Golden Globes (tonight) to see if our “picks” win the coveted honours. But it’s the pre-show that many people really want to see. They want to see the American Royalty, the “movie stars” strut their stuff. Even though some chose their outfit to make a political statement it’s all about them and glitz and glamour. These sometimes outrageous outfits are designed to impress and prove that they have “arrived”.
The gospel of Matthew tells the story of another “arrival.” The beginning genealogy of Jesus is designed to show his connection with his religious tradition and his royal lineage; his claim to the throne of David. Yet, Matthew attests that he has a much broader claim.
According to Luke’s gospel, baby Jesus was visited by a bunch of ordinary shepherds in after having been born in a barn! Matthew does not tell of the shepherds and the barn at all but instead spends some time telling of a later visit, a visit with world-changing significance. Some time after his birth (we don’t know how long) visitors from “the east” arrive, causing quite a stir in certain sectors as they search for the child. Diplomacy and discretion are not in their skill set! It is these visitors who are the focus of today’s gospel passage.
A lot of what we know or think we know about these strange visitors comes from legends and popular hymns - very little of which is supported by the text. The original word in Matthew says they were “magi” - which most English Bibles translate as “wise men” but they may not all have been men.
Since they are said to have given three gifts many have assumed there were three of them but there is no number in the text. Some Eastern Orthodox churches have the tradition that there were 12 of them!
The text does not tell us that they were “kings”, they were most likely Zoroastrian priests whose studied the stars in the belief that they held messages for the people. I read that one of the Zoroastrian beliefs was that “one day a virgin would conceive by the power of the gods and bear a a son”. Sound familiar? (Incidentally Zoroastrianism was the religion of Persia until it was converted to Islam about 600 years after Jesus.)
So, Matthew’s story, which begins by placing Jesus in the context of a Jewish prophecy and lineage almost immediately broadens that to have world-wide significance. To Matthew there was nothing beyond the magi’s mysterious origin: “the east.”
After the major blunder of looking for the new king in the royal palace, they finally find the right place and the right child. They open their luggage and give him the gifts they had brought - gifts - gold, frankinsense and myrrh - expensive gifts, suitable for royalty. They rejoice because their arduous search is over.
What motivated these foreigners to take an interest in the prophesies of a foreign religion that would not have given them the time of day is not clear but we remember their journey and their gifts. Matthew reminds us that the gospel is not only for the Jews but for the entire world.
As this chapter of the story concludes they are warned in a dream about Herod and “get out of Dodge” by the back door.
When Herod finally realizes he has been tricked and the magi are not returning he gives the order to kill off any possible rivals. In the power-point this morning I have included three imaginative and graphic depictions of this part of the story. These works of art are in the style of their time but clearlhy depict an event of chaos and death. Over our lifetimes we have seen news footage of various massacres - Cambodia, Auschwitz and the list goes on; the main difference was that the dead on this occasion were all baby boys.
Herod the Great had been appointed to his position by his father and then named as King by Rome. Herod, like the rest of the Empire, held power through a combination of fear, corruption violence and ruthless enforcement of the law.
The ways of Herod were well known to the original readers of Matthew’s gospel and many of the generations which preceded them. In stark contrast to the ways of the world, the biblical passages present a vision of something very different.
This different picture is one of prosperity and life for all people - not just for some at the expense of others.
What is the GOOD NEWS for us, 2,000 or so years later? The major message for me is that we are assured that the broken and fractured world in which we live is not the world as God intends it. God wills something much better - not just for us, but for everyone.
In a world where we get caught on the treadmill of making a living, getting ahead and staying afloat we are assured that God wishes for us a life of blessing. In a world where many live in hunger and fear for their lives we are assured that God wishes not only a freedome from these things, but true shalom. In a world where power over is everything we are assured that love is what God wills.
The Good News is that God’s promise of wrongs being righted and all people benefiting from the blessings of creation still ring true today. Keeping with the season it is a message of light in the midst of darkness - hope in the midst of despair.
A few months ago, when I was visiting my sister in PEI, I walked over to my nephew’s new house. It’s not that far away - just down to the road and around the corner. When I left though, it was well after dark and the night was pitch black. There was no moon, no stars and the intersection does not have one of those lights common at more major intersections. The only light I had was from the screen of my cell phone. When I got back to my sister’s I promptly installed a flashlight app. I may have become too accustomed to streetlights but I find it hard to walk around outside in total darkness.
We sometimes think that we don’t have a light to guide us, but the season of Christmas that is just drawing to a close presents us with the guide - not the baby Jesus per se but the one born in a stable who grew to proclaim God’s good news!
Much of what this Jesus proclaimed was not new - he often quoted the prophets of his tradition. He talked about the light for their path - the light that came from the one who first said, “let there be light.” He talked about the justice of everyone having enough, not the few gathering as much as they possibly can for themselves, not caring about anyone else, or anywhere else.
So stand up says the prophet. Stretch your arms and legs. Breathe deeply, greet the dawn. The good news is that the light has come to our darkness and we can see the way forward. It is a way of life for all people - not only here but everywhere.
God has shown us the way. Love has no limits. The star of Bethlehem guides the way to new life.
Will you let it lead you to find a new way home?
Amen.
January 13, 2019 - Baptism of Jesus
Isaiah 43: 1-7
Psalm 29
Luke 3: `15-17, 21-22
It was the fall of 1985 and we were in the chapel at Atlantic School of Theology for daily worship. It was the morning after a group of us received word that a friend from Mount Allison had just been killed in a motorcycle accident. At least one who was not a “Mt A” grad had known her from “Youth Forum”. I suppose it was the first time that most of us had experienced the death of someone close to us; someone OUR AGE. We were all in our early 20s! One of the hymns chosen for worship that day was “Be Not Afraid” - from the Catholic Book of Worship .
The first two verses of this hymn are based on the passage that has just been read from the book of Isaiah. To the surprise of the others present, one by one almost every member of “our group” dissolved into tears as we all sang these words by Jesuit, Bob Dufford.
If you pass through raging waters in the sea, you shall not drown. If you walk amid the burning flames, you shall not be harmed. If you stand before the pow'r of hell and death is at your side, know that I am with you through it all.
We were in deep grief but these words touched our hearts and souls and we knew that we were not alone. We knew that somewhere, somehow, our friend was not either.
We’ve all heard and experienced the adage: “children grow too fast.” Seems like yesterday my oldest nephew was washing is hands in mud puddles so he could go and pick blueberries with me and now he is a building contractor and he and his girlfriend have their own home.
Seems like yesterday that Jesus was born - actually, as the lectionary goes, its only been a couple of weeks. Now, according to our chosen lectionary readings, he’s a grown man, and is being baptized by his very odd distant cousin, John. Based on other clues in the overall gospel story scholars estimate that he was about 30 at the time. Where did those 30 or so years go?
Of course, they passed one 24 hour day at a time, 365 days per year, with an extra year for leap year (and yes, by the time Jesus was born, leap year had been invented. Julius Caesar did that - probably on the advice of his “advisors”.
It seems to me that none of the gospel writers are concerned with penning a biography of Jesus; their goal is to convey his message. They are writing “Good News” which is what the word “gospel” means!
Most of what Jesus said was not new; with a new urgency and with conviction he brought to them the two-pronged message of the prophetic literature - “shape up” and “God loves you.” He brought dusty old words to life and embodied them in his ministry.
Long before Jesus there had been 2 prophets who wrote under the name of Isaiah - today’s passage is from the second one. The people to whom the first one wrote had been defeated in war and carried off into exile. Then, after the passage of time, the powers on the world stage changed and they were given permission to go back home and rebuild their beloved Jerusalem.
You would think it would be a cause for great rejoicing but it wasn’t exactly that. Of course, returning after a disaster is rarely easy. We might think of the people evacuated from Fort McMurray when the wildfires threatened the entire city. Some returned to intact houses and their only issues came from the rotting food in fridges and freezers because of the long power outages or the smoke damage. Others found whole neighbourhoods completely obliterated. There were government forms for grants to complete and a lot, lot, lot of work to do before their lives would get back to normal.
In the case of the exiles returning to Jerusalem there was one important difference: no one who left actually returned. The people had been in exile for 70 years. The people who returned were the children and grandchildren of the original exiles. They had been in Babylon for 70 years. SEVENTY years. I think I’ve now said that three times. Their ancestors had been in the wilderness with Moses for only 40 years.
To them Jerusalem, once a great city, lived only in the fireside stories told by the old folks at the end of long days in their new country. Jerusalem was their home. Their Jerusalem was gone. Just like all modern people in refugee camps they could not put their lives on hold for an indefinite period of time. They could not rise up against Babylon in a bid to return home!
They made the best of a bad situation. They married and had families - some even married locals, “non-Jews, to the chagrin of some of the strict leaders! It became a point of debate in their community, in fact. BUT, If they did not have families, there would have been no hope at all! Without children there is no future. These days many people are delaying having a family to establish careers, or to finish their education, but you can’t delay for 70 years!
Then a bit of a miracle happened. They could not defeat Babylon, but Persia did. And Cyrus, the King of Persia, allowed them to return to their homeland. They were still a cog in the international political machine, but they were going home - or at least their ancestral home.
Factor in the actual physical task of relocating, establishing agriculture so they could eat and then actually doing the work of rebuilding , without government aid, without a “Red Cross”.
Isaiah’s words comfort them and assure then that the God of their ancestors will be with them as they accomplish this task. We have the beautiful and powerful images of how they must have felt - fire and flood would be no worse! Yet this passage assures them that they will return to Jerusalem and live the abundant life to which their ancestors Abraham and Sarah had been called, generations before.
In the past number of weeks this congregation has experienced great loss. I don’t have to remind you that in about seven weeks our congregation, has lost six people who were part of our little congregation, or were close family of a member of the congregation. In a little more than a month I will have conducted funerals for five members of this church, folks who are remembered for their dedication to this community of faith. I can close my eyes and see 4 of them sitting down there. I can see Madeline’s smile, hear Gordon’s laugh, wonder how I could dodge Garth’s camera flash and see a bunch of jars of Elwood’s superbly made marmalade or jam on the tables at the Chicken a la King Luncheon and Bazaar. Many of you have said goodbye to yet other family members and friends and are still keenly feeling this loss. These gaps in our family circles will be felt for a long time and cannot be filled by others.
Yet it is not empty comfort to read words from the scriptures, such as are found in Isaiah:
I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
Since good people do get harmed in just those ways, these words can SEEM empty - yet, even in the midst of our own, very real, difficulties, it is important to remember that God’s people have been this way before - and God’s Spirit has given strength for the way and food and water to refresh and sustain us on the journey forward.
A colleague reminded me yesterday than one of the most often repeated phrases in the scriptures is: “fear not”. We heard those words on the lips of angels as the birth of Jesus was announced - and it is this same Jesus who comes to John, in today’s passage, to be baptized, to identify fully with the people he has been called to serve and to begin his ministry by standing between the past and the, as yet unknown, future.
On this day, we are told that he heard God’s affirmation that he was God’s beloved son and that God was well pleased.
From this affirmation he drew the strength to go into the desert, to sort out his ministry and then journey into his own unknown future of proclaiming God’s call and God’s love.
I believe that this was also God’s message to US on the day of our birth AND on the day of our baptism - when we were committed to the journey of God’s people by our parents (or when we ourselves committed to that journey).
We are never told what lies ahead, only that God is with us and we will never be alone.
Surely that is more than enough!
Amen!
January 20, 2019 - 2nd Sunday After Epiphany
no sermon due to snow storm. Same readings for next week.
January 27, 2019 - 3rd Sunday After Epiphany
due to snow storm this sermon uses last week's readings.
Isaiah 62: 1-5
Psalm 36
John 2: 1-11
A number of years ago I was talking to an employee of a wedding photographer whose studio specialized in wedding albums with a “scrapbook section” In this section each 12" X 12" page featured a photograph or two, adorned with different colours of fabric, paper and “embelishments” to create a “wow” effect.
One day, a Francophone couple came into the studio to pick up their album and the woman who was in charge of the scrapbooking section showed it to them. The bride opened the book and quietly looked at each page. As she went through the scrapbook section she began to cry as she whispered to her husband in French. The book’s creator began to worry. She said to them, “is something wrong?” The husband said, “mais non, my wife does not know how to tell you in English how beautiful she thinks everything is. Her tears are tears of joy”.
These days most couples invest a lot of time and money in “the wedding”. Each feature of the big day can chew through a ton of money. There are a number of “reality” shows that shine a light on the wedding industry. There was even one where 4 brides attended one another’s wedding and evaluated the other three in the hopes of winning a dream honeymoon. They evaluate the bride’s dress, the venue, the food, and the overall experience. Sometimes the brides are very critical of the others. I heard that the show is being revived and this time, the brides know one another!
In most weddings there needs to be someone, or several someones, taking care of the details that come up during the day so the bride and groom don’t have to worry about anything other than remembering their vows and the names of each other’s closest relatives.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is attending a wedding in the village of Cana, about 6 kms from Nazareth. For some reason his mother has taken on the role of making sure there is enough wine. There is no indication that either of them were anything other than guests at this wedding.
In Jesus’ day a wedding was not just a “Saturday event” but a week-long event or series of events. Running out of wine at the wedding festivities was seen as a major disgrace. For whatever reason this couple underestimated their guests thirst and Mary goes to her son with a statement of this awful fact: they have run out of wine! His initial reply would indicate to me at least that he was not prepared to do anything, but Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them.
Jesus tells them to fill the jars with water- the ones used for the rites of purification. These LARGE jars were made of stone and held twenty or thirty gallons EACH. It would have take many trips to the well with smaller containers to fill these jars! Jesus then tells one of them to take some of it and give it to the chief steward. (I suppose we would call him “the caterer”!
When he tastes it, the steward’s reaction is one of incredulity. It was customary to serve the best wine first - when the people were most able to tell the difference, but it seemed to him that the quality of this wine was unsurpassed. The best had been saved for the last!
As a conclusion, the writer of John’s Gospel indicates that this was the first of his signs, the first public enactment of his power and his identity as the Messiah, the son of God.
Over our history Protestants have often had difficulty with this story. Since the years of the “Temperance Movement,” Protestant churches have tended to be “anti-alcohol.” In Jesus’ day, wine was virtually the only adult beverage available. Most grapes were grown for winemaking. There is one passage that refers to Jesus as the “true vine” and God being the vine dresser. There are very good reasons to discourage the consumption of alcohol, or at least it’s over-consumption, but that is a topic for another day!
Apart from revealing Jesus’ true identity, what else does this miracle story show us?
Simply, wine at a wedding was a symbol of joy. The text tells us that he made an enormous quantity, somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons. That’s a lot of wine!
This was wine of excellent quality wine - so there is not only an abundance but quality abundance. Where Jesus is there is an abundance of joy and celebration!
We must remember that this wine was not just for one family or one meal or even an ordinary celebration. It was a WEDDING.
In Jesus day wedding celebrations were essentially a time apart from regular life during which people celebrated life in all of its fullness.
Traditionally, weddings were, and are, about transition. Two young people become a couple and their wedding is the first step in forming a new family. This transition is so significant that everything stops in the lives of the two families and their friends so that this joy can be properly celebrated. Two families are brought together by the marriage of their children. Every couple has hopes and dreams for their future. The dreams of many young couples involve having and raising children and growing old together and living long enough to enjoy their children’s children.
Weddings were celebrations of love, joy and hope for a bright future. Without weddings there would be no new families and no stability in which to raise children - and no future.
We know very little of Jesus life before he began his public ministry but we do know that he had a close community of friends and even after his ministry began he sought to spend time with them. We certainly know of his humanity when we are told that he wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. I think that this event, on its simplest level, shows us just how much the normal celebrations of human life meant to him.
It seems to me that part of what this passage says to us is that the Christian faith is meant to bring us joy and celebration and that we are meant to share these joys and celebrations in the midst of our journey of faith. Some people seem to think that the life of faith is all about sacrifice and seriousness and they go around as if smiling would literally crack their face. I think the term “frozen chosen” was coined just for them.
I found a picture of a famous preacher who looks, at least in his official portrait, rather dour. (Some of that, of course is, a dour expression was necessary for the long exposure times needed for cameras of that era). Imagine though, that look on his face as he tried to preach about the love of God! The other picture is, I believe, from a movie. Imagine the view of the life of faith coming from that kind of preaching! Contrast that with Michael Curry, the American Bishop who preached at Harry and Megan’s wedding last year. Look at his smile and his excitement as he preached his sermon.
This is one of my favourite drawings, and hangs on my office wall - it depicts Jesus in a full belly laugh, head back, mouth open - perhaps enjoying a good joke or a good time with his friends. It is by Canadian artist, Willis Wheatley and I think it’s original title is “Jesus Christ: Redeemer,” but most know it it as “the laughing Christ”. Sandy noticed the picture on a chair in my office and said, “I have never seen a picture of Jesus laughing before!” While many other pictures and drawings portray his face as kind, Sandy is right, few drawings show him as laughing.
Apparently some people were offended when it was published. Perhaps they were offended by the idea that Jesus expressed strong emotions of any kind. The way of the cross is no laughing matter in their eyes.
The Christian faith is not about the following of rules and regulations as if it was a prescription for a drug that has very specific guidelines or it wont be effective. Many of you would know about that because you take several of them, each with a different requirement. Take this one with food. Take this one on an empty stomach. Don’t eat coconut or drink grapefruit juice when taking this drug. Don’t take with milk. Take this one while standing on our head and spinning counter-clockwise.
The story tells us that the Christian faith is about the abundant joy given to us through our faith in Jesus and celebrating that with others.
The Common Cup Company is a musical group whose music has spoken to me for over 30 years now. Their song “Cana Wine” (which Juanita will play during the offering) seeks to plumb the deeper meaning of this passage. The song is sung from the perspective of a long-ago wedding guest transformed by this event.
Some friends of mine got married about three days ago . I could take you to the place down in the valley just below; but I think I’ll stay up here awhile and enjoy the sweet warm glow that has come from the taste of Cana wine. It was just a simple wedding feast you know the kind I mean: holding hands, holding hearts, and holding fast to all their dreams, but somehow I got a feeling it was more than first it seemed Must have been from the taste of Cana wine That marriage down in Cana brought new life to my friends. I bless them and I wish them all the fullness life can bring, but a new life’s rising in me too like an overflowing stream and it comes from the taste of Cana wine Cana wine, Cana wine working on my heart and mind flowing free, filling me, till I lose all sense of time! Cana wine, pure and fine, from the fairest of all vines! Come, sit down and we’ll share some Cana wine. Common Cup Company, Rev Gordon Light.
On Wednesday night the local Refugee Sponsorship Committee welcomed Nur Alam, Mitu, and 5 year old, Ariski Mohd to Hantsport. We hope that a teenaged son will join the family soon. This family looked around their modest apartment smiling - saying it was “big.” Our committee has been working hard for 2 years to raise the necessary funds (along with government help) to be able to help a family escape the uncertainty and danger of their lives to begin new lives in Canada. Like many of our ancestors they will come to make Canada their home and will add to the rich mosaic that we are.
Too often we see our lives in terms of “scarcity”. We all complain about the rising cost of living, high taxes and wages and pensions not keeping pace with inflation. I know I was probably better off about 20 years! Yet the Christian life is about counting our blessings. It is about seeing life as an abundant gift of a generous God. I have been reading, “A Gospel of Hope” by Walter Brueggemann, a minister of the United Church of Christ and a professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia and in it he writes that we are called to live out of an attitude of “God’s abundance” not out of an attitude of scarcity. Contrary to a popular view that we are called to be “concervative and frugal” with our resources, he argues that living out of God’s abundance enables us to share with others - trusting that all will have enough. Being a Christian is about following the one who “took bread, blessed it, and gave it”. It is about following the one whose abundant love produced 180 gallons of the finest wine.
As a people of faith let us celebrate the e “Lord of Life”. Let us live trusting that just like those 180 gallons of generosity are not about to run out anytime soon!
Amen.
February 3, 2019 - 4th Sunday After Epiphany
Jeremiah 1: 4-10
Psalm 71
Luke 4: 14-30
My goodness, that was a long time ago; you heard the story Sandra read a few minutes ago. I was there that day, you know. Let me tell you more about it. Would you like that?
My late husband and I lived in Nazareth, just like my parents and theirs, at far back as anyone can remember, many, many generations. I’m not sure when Mary and Joseph arrived - they went to Egypt just after Jesus was born and managed to avoid that terrible danger with the boys in Bethlehem when Herod became more jealous and more paranoid – - more than he usually was! And that is saying something.
But we consider Mary and Joseph and all their family to be “from here”. When we heard that their boy, Jesus, had left carpentry behind to became a preacher, we were some proud.
It’s not that he wasn’t a good carpenter - and we sure need good carpenters! He learned his father’s trade very well. He could have done well as long as his health and strength lasted. It’s really a job for a young man but he was good at it!
Yet, when he closed up shop, we weren’t surprised, really. When he was a young boy I am told he asked his teachers a lot of insightful questions - even though he was just a boy, his insights were deep - he even stumped some of his learned teachers.
Every so often, after he left, we would hear reports that he was attracting great crowds all over Galilee - people liked what he said. His sermons were engaging people and he would go to anyone’s house to eat and talk about God and the life of faith. You didn’t have to have a fancy house or a sumptuous meal - bread and fish suited him fine - but he ate with rich people too! And he liked good food and a good wine! Some of the rich folks got bent out of shape if he ate with undesirables; but to him everyone was the same.
Now all us Nazoreans were hoping that he would come home some Sabbath and lead in worship in our synagogue! We thought that would be a great day! Most people from Nazareth, if they manage to get away, don’t want anyone to know they are from here; folks from other places kind of look down on us.
Then one day it was all arranged and he did come home. There was a full house in the synagogue that day. The service began like any other - we all recited the Shema:
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
And it ends with:
I am the Lord, your God, who led you from the land of Egypt to be a God to you. I am the Lord, your God. “
You would think that saying it every week might make it boring, but I think that saying it together every week reminds who we are, and whose we are.
Then we say amen which means that we want it to be so. But after the events of that day I wonder if we really BELIEVED that our age old hopes would come true or even if we ever wanted them to come to be. Let me explain.
After this part of the worship service the speaker arranged for beforehand reads from the scriptures. Then, the reader will sit down to preach. Yes, teachers and rabbis preach sitting down - it’s a sign that a man has authority - and it`s always a man. Women don’t speak in the synagogue!
The sermon usually reminds us that we are the people who were called through our ancestor Abraham and his wife Sarah. We remember his journey of faith. It is supposed to inspire us to be people of faith. The sermon usually has some nice pious words about that God being with us today. After the sermon we have a benediction - and we go home. Simple. Every week. Week in. Week out. Same old Bible. Same old words in the sermon. It makes us who we are. It reminds us that WE are God’s people. Why does it need to be different?
But on that day we were all ears as Jesus took the scroll, read his selected passage, and after reading it, returned the scroll to the attendant and sat down. What would be say, we wondered? Why did he pick that passage and not another one, we mused?
We still thought that Mary’s boy had turned out just fine. He read so well; some of those words in the scriptures are hard to pronounce! We are all happy to see our young people grow up well; we were going to hear what a good preacher he had become.
When the other women and I went to the market or to the well for water, we would say to one another, “I know Joseph would be so proud.” Sometimes we would see Mary, who was a widow by then, and we would say, “you must be so proud” and even though pride is a sin you could see that she was.
One warm morning long ago Mary and I were resting by the well and we talked about our hopes and dreams for our children.
When Mary spoke of her hopes though, she had a kind of funny, far away look in her eyes, like she’s known for a long time that part of his life would bring her sadness along with pride. It’s like she knew he would not live to be an old man!
Well that’s a bit of what I had in the back of my mind as I listened with to him. Almost as soon as he opened his mouth, though, I noticed the mood around me change. People were gasping. They were shifting in their seats. Their mutters under their breath soon became audible sounds of disgust! The more everyone heard the more upset they became. How dare he? Who was he to suggest such things?
How could we get upset when he said the prophet’s words were going to be fulfilled? Well, that’s exactly it. That particular passage has been applied to our hopes for the Messiah for generations. Every child of Abraham, for many generations, has known about our hopes for the messiah. The Messiah would do all of those wonderful things outlined in that passage and he would be a wonderful leader. But no one would believe that the Messiah was from Nazareth. No one from Nazareth would dare to claim to be the ONE - the Messiah has to come from somewhere else - somewhere important.
In the passage are all sorts of good things about the reversal of fortunes for the poor, the blind, the oppressed and the captives. It sounds so lofty when it is read. We don’t dare believe that it is to be taken literally.
But there he was, claiming that it WAS coming true, as he spoke, as if he had something to do with it. HE was going to bring good news to the poor. HE was going to proclaim release to the captives. HE was going to give sight to the blind, HE was going to let the oppressed go free. That sounds so very wonderful but you have to understand what it was connected with - the Jubilee - the year of God’s favour!
Every seven years we are supposed to have a rest year when we would plant no crops and even the land rests. Every seven sets of seven years we have a Jubilee year. Part of it works like this: all debts are forgiven and all land is returned to the ancestral or original owners.
That’s good news if you had to borrow money and after you weren’t able to pay it back, the lender repossessed your land. It’s not such good news if you are a lender. It’s no way to run an economy - no one would ever get ahead - no matter how hard they worked. It’s in the law but no one really wants that.
What we wanted was to get rid of the blasted Romans and put a David like king on the throne and we would be back to our Glory Days and this land would flow with milk and honey again. WE were God’s chosen - and that must meant that we are God’s favourite, doesn’t it.
But the FINAL straw, the one that broke the camel’s back was when he connected 2 events from the “good old days” and now. Jesus referred to two stories we knew well - Naaman the Syrian and the Widow of Zarephath and he pointed out how God favoured them, with miracles, over people of Israel.
Those stories make us more than a little uncomfortable but he didn’t have to rub our noses in them! We had heard that Jesus was a miracle worker when he was in other towns and villages. Why not here? Why not among his own people? Is he too good for us now? I suppose he had not healed enough folks since he had arrived back. I guess we were jealous.
But it’s more than that! We admit to ourselves that it is really great when our enemies get what WE THINK they deserve. Like when all those Egyptians drowned when the Red Sea crashed in on them when the people were escaping from Egypt or when the prophet Elijah put all those prophets of Baal to the sword! That’s what is supposed to happen. We are supposed to win. We don’t win often enough. We don’t want the Naamans and Widows of the Zarephaths of the world to get anything from God when we don’t.
Of course we conveniently ignore the part that they were the faith-filled ones at the time and the Jewish folks around them were taking things for granted and not paying that much attention to the things of faith.
As I think back on it and everything that has happened since then, I get the idea that WE thought WE would lose too much if we believed the prophet’s words that everyone was supposed to benefit from God’s grace. For too long we have divided the world into “us” and “them”. Basically “us” is GOOD and “them” is BAD. We wanted our enemies to be God’s enemies!
Jesus’ sermon that day brought that spirit of the prophet to life - all that upside down stuff was going to happen again. Then again, maybe that’s why so many prophets got run out of town. They say stuff that needs to be said but no one wants to hear.
For the last number of years I have wondered what this old world would be like if we truly believed that God’s love is meant for everyone?
What if those of us who have enough and more than enough shared with those who don’t.
What if our sharing and our action is one of the means by which God feeds the poor, clothes the naked and sets the prisoner free?
What if?
Do we expect it to fall from the sky without any effort on our part.
Of course, I know what my brother would say. He would say, let the rich share. He would say I work hard and I’m not giving anything I have to lazy people and criminals. He would say that we deserve what we have. He would say, “let God look after them if God loves them so much. Right now God is a little behind in giving us our due.”
I used to agree with my brother, but now his words seem so hollow, so lacking in faith.
I wonder if we are afraid that the goodness of God is in short supply. I wonder if we think God’s love and grace will run out if the Samaritans and the Syrians and especially the Romans are part of God’s plan of love and grace.
I wonder why we are so afraid .........
February 10, 2019 - 5th Su5day After Epiphany
Isaiah 6: 1-13
Psalm 138
Luke 5: 1-11
Back when I was in school I learned all about Canada’s Food Guide. I’m told that we Canadians have had “a food guide,” with slight variations in name, since 1942. A new one was just released and it has caused no small amount of controversy.
The agency responsible for the Guide indicated quite a while ago that this time, they were operating on the science of nutrition and were not going to listen to powerful lobbies whether they be from the dairy or beef industries, or big businesses whose stock in trade is highly processed food laden with sugar, preservatives and sodium.
Behind it all is an intentional and concerted effort to turn the around train wreck of our culture’s disastrous diet choices before we all go over the precipice. We eat too many servings of burgers with fries and too many deep fried pizzas.
We all know that there is a big difference between knowing what we should eat and actually eating that way! When I re-read the words from Isaiah think of the food guide:
Promoting this Guide will “
Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.’The task of conveying the information and encouraging the necessary lifestyle changes falls to the government agency responsible for the guide, the teachers who work in the school system, and the various health professionals in the community, among others.
Challenging people to change their eating habits is not usually a way to win friends but people do that work because they believe in it. The food scientists believe that we will be healthier if we follow the guide and ignore the millions of tv commercials and mounds upon mounds of “featured items” in the grocery store lobby even before we get inside! Sobeys and Loblaws, and other grocery retailers, may very well promote their produce sections more, but they are not likely to stop promoting their dairy, meat and processed, already prepared food. They are in business to make money and those are money-makers!
In the biblical story, prophets are called to speak the truth of God to a people who are not often all that willing to listen; prophets do not often get called to tell the people they are doing a great job - (that task falls to others) but, as I sais, are most often called to challenge people to faithfulness when they have lost their way.
Prophets also proclaim hope to a people who have become mired in their despair and whose world has turned to darkness.
Prophets do their work because the Holy One has called them to proclaim a message that is right, not because it is easy.
In many ways, Jesus call was a call to proclaim a prophetic message of God’s call to abundant life. Part of his “strategy”, as it were, was to gather a group of assistants or “disciples” to help him with his mission and ministry.
In today’s passage the call to discipleship is a call to go fishing for people. It is a call to captivate the listener with a mission so intriguing and so compelling it will become as if they have been caught in a net and cannot escape.
Some of the best message that prophets can proclaim, and groups can proclaim, are also directed at themselves.
Church life and the life of faith today can be like the experience of those two small groups of fisher folk, working hard all night, with nothing to show for it in the morning but aching backs, empty nets, mounting bills and endless and soul-sucking frustration. We too may wonder: “We know how to fish, what has happened?” and “where have all the fish gone?”
On a bit of a side note, the post-card on the tv screen is a copy of a picture taken about 1903 where there were cod, or at least 2 of them, as big as a young boy. I read on the internet that the largest cod on record was 6 feet in length and weighed over 200lbs. Normal cod are much smaller although . Apparently though, 40 - 50 lb cod can be found in lakes in the high arctic.
The province of Newfoundland has been changed forever by the demise of the cod fishery. A once abundant species became the backbone of a way of life and an economy and now almost completely disappeared.
In recent years most churches are reeling from dwindling congregations as fewer and fewer people are available for church activities or even interested. Church closures are now a common occurrence. Many churches are looking for part-time ministry and it’s impossible for a minister to do cobble together full time work because all the churches want the minister there, on site, at the same time! I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
Let’s look at that gospel story again- we begin with a group of fishermen washing their nets after a frustrating and fruitless night on the water. They are tired and no doubt cranky. Jesus comes along, followed by a crowd and looking for a pulpit - it’s easier to preach when you have a little distance. Simon rows him out a few feet off shore. It was no big ask. He can still clean up the nets for the evening.
There is no indication in the text of what the sermon was about. Then, this carpenter, turned preacher, asked him to put out into deeper water.
Say what? The only reason for this action would be to go fishing, to cast their nets once again. This is not some boat for hire in the tourist business, it’s a working fishing vessel.
Simon expresses a mix of feelings with his comment along the lines of “It wont do any good, (pause) but if you say so, I will.” I wonder about that pause - how long was it? Had Jesus’ sermon spoken in some way to the very real discouragement he was feeling. Was his mere presence in the boat prompting Simon to respond with a strangely renewed energy?
This time things are different. Very different! They are told to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. What possible difference would a few feet make in a whole sea? But this time the catch is so large that it threatens to overwhelm their nets. It is so large that it takes both boats to haul it in.
They know they are in the presence of someone who is more than a mere preacher and they fall to their knees. Like Isaiah they know to the depths of their being that they are not worthy. Yet, the men are called and they follow. They follow the carpenter who wants to teach them how to fish in a different way, from the other side of the boat and in deep water.
Let’s hear that once again: Jesus the carpenter - turned rabbi, called these four seasoned and experienced fishermen to leave their nets and to fish for people. Fishing was something they knew; it requires a knowledge built up over generations, attention to the things in nature landlubbers barely notice, patience, and nerves of steel. They were called to a career change in an era when that was unheard of.
Not that long ago, who could have imagined the things you could do with a computer? Write a sermon. Certainly. A computer can be used as little more than a typewriter with a screen! That’s mostly how I used my first one and what a difference that made!
Do complex mathematics really quickly? It’s like an adding machine and a slide rule on crack! Of course?
Milk a cow? Fix a tractor? Send a letter around the globe in a millisecond. Look up six different resources without leaving your desk. Now those three things and millions more are some of the everyday uses to which computers are put.
Of course, some of those activities still requires hands on labour, or robots, but use of computers has changed theses tasks forever.
Long ago I saw a cartoon in a church publication that gave me quite a chuckle. In “panel 1" the preacher had send a tv and VCR to church to deliver his pre-recorded sermon. On the Sunday the minister was lounging on a far-away beach. Panel 2 showed what happened the next week when the minister was back in the pulpit. His entire congregation had sent their VCRs because they were off to a sunny destination.
With our large TV and power point program here at Avon United we are barely scratching the surface of what computers can do in worship and what is being done in thousands of churches.
But some churches are not just using computers and projection to go “paperless” and to enhance worship; they are using them to share human resources.
I have heard stories of churches, hundreds of kilometres or more apart, who worship together through computer aided technology - that and good high speed internet. Imagine our choir anthem broadcast to a church whose minister preaches her sermon to us - on a big screen at the front here. Oh, it’s not “their” minister, and “our” choir, we are A minister wione community of faith in two locations. Now that is how a minister can conduct two worship services at the same time in two locations.
There are lots of tv commercials about using video computer programs to connect family members across the vast distances that separate family members from one another. Why not church families?
Perhaps computers are a way of fishing from the other side. When we look at the life of our church, we feel like we are stuck, like Simon and the others must have been, at least momentarily, between fishing in the same old way, over and over again without success and casting our nets on the other side.
Yet church is about more than the “sweet hour of prayer”. What about all those 167 other hours in the week. Maybe we need to change our question from “how do we get people to fill our pews” to “how do those of us who sit in these pews seek to fill the lives of those who need us?”
We look at this story and we see that the second time they were not fishing alone. Is it enough that Jesus is with us in the boat?
What are we being asked to do? What are we being asked to do differently?
The next step is ours.
Amen.
February 17, 2019 - 6th Sunday After Epiphany
Jeremiah 17: 5-10
Psalm 1
Luke 6: 17-26
I read a story once of a man who went to visit someone in a poor neighbourhood of a large city. When he returned to his car he noticed a boy just standing on the sidewalk and looking at his car with wide eyed amazement.
“Hi Buddy. How are you?” the man asked.
“Just fine, Mister. That sure is a nice car.”
“Oh you like my car? I do too. You know, my brother gave me this car.”
“Your brother just GAVE it to you. Like for free? It didn’t cost you nothing?”
“No, it didn’t cost me anything.”
“Boy, I sure wish - I could be a brother like that!”
When the boy first opened his mouth the man was certain that he knew what he would say next - that he wished he had a brother like that! What the boy actually said left him speechless.
After a moment or two he said, “Would you like a drive in my car?”
“I sure would minster. Can my brother come? We live on the next block.
“Sure. Yes. We can go and pick him up.”
They got in the car and when they arrived at the apartment building the boy got out of the car and ran inside. A few minutes later he came out almost carrying a younger boy who had some obvious physical disabilities.
They sat in the back seat and the man drove his car all over the city and showed the brothers with the older boy showing his brother the marvels of the city they had never seen but had only heard about. For that day, at least, he got to ‘be a brother like that!”
Many years ago I watched “The Doctor,” a movie about a heart surgeon who becomes a patient. As the movie begins we meet a man who “has it all”. He is rich, arrogant and accustomed to having people ask, “how high” when he tells them to jump. Then he is diagnosed with throat cancer. He has to take time off. He waits, in a waiting room for his treatments just like all of the other patients. He learns that his wants and needs and the cancer treatment regimen are two different things. When part of his treatment involves a time of not being allowed to speak you can see his obvious frustration as he writes what he wants to say on a small, hand-held, chalkboard. He finds out that having a fight with his wife is more challenging when he has to write everything on this small slate and cant even speak, let alone, raise his voice!
During the course of his treatment he befriends a young woman, a fellow cancer patient and she teaches him a great deal about the meaning of life and illness.
In the last scene of the movie he is back to work. On this day he is mentoring medical students, as usual, but something in him has changed. On the first day of class, each of the students is handed a paper which indicates a diagnosis of a serious illness. They are assigned a bed in this makeshift hospital ward, have to put on a hospital gown and go through every test that would be associated with that diagnosis. They complain loudly. The one person smiling is the nurse in charge of this project. This nurse knows that such a level of understanding will make these young students much better doctors.
I’m sure that every one of you has seen “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Probably many times. It’s on TV every Christmas, at least once. George Bailey is depressed and at the end of his rope. He feels he has let everyone down and his “building and loan” business is at the point of failure because of some “missing money”. When he wishes he had never been born, an angel seeking to earn his wings, gives him the gift of seeing the world as it might have been if he had never been born.
When he sees Bedford Falls as it would have been without him, he realizes how much difference he has made in the life of his small town. Finding a few flower petals in his pocket, given to him by his daughter earlier in the day, makes his realize just how blessed he is to be alive and where he is.
There was once a young girl who was sent off to a mid-week Church program with 2 ten cent pieces for the offering. When she came home her mom noticed that she had a bag of penny candy.
“Where did you get that, hon?”
“Well I used half the money you gave me before I left.”
“I gave you that for the church. I did not intend to have you buy candy”.
“I know, Mom, but the teacher taught us that God loves a cheerful giver. I decided I would be more cheerful if I gave just ten cents and not the twenty.”
Today’s Gospel passage is part of a passage we call, “Jesus Sermon on the Plain.” You may have noticed the two picttures that were on the screen when it was read. One seems to be a painting, the other a stained glass window. In some ways these verses are quite similar to ones from Jesus “Sermon on the Mount” as recounted by Matthew’s gospel.
Today’s verses speak about the life of blessing in a seemingly unconventional and counter-intuitive way. The signs of blessing, according to Jesus, seem to be the opposite o what most people, and our culture, would expect. We would expect that wealth, having enough to eat, good health and a good reputation are signs of sure blessing, but Jesus’ words call this into question. How can this be? On the surface, it makes no sense at all.
It is common, I think, for people to envy others, especially if the “other” has something one wants. The single envy the married or, at least, the “coupled” and the poor envy the rich. When I was young I envied those who were older, (at one point I envied those who had made it all the way to Grade 10. For wahtver reason, I thought those in that grade had “arrived”. The more older people I talk to the fewer I find who envy the young! Interesting! I believe that when you live in envy it is hard to feel blessed.
While this is a passage in which Jesus speaks in front ot crowds he is really talking to those who wish to be committed to his way. His way is not the way of “common wisdom” or “everybody believes and knows” but to the topsy turvy world of the gospel. It is the world of the first being last and the last being first.
This is also another one of those passages which speaks to those who know that “things are not always as they seem”. In case you can’t read the words under the picture I’ll read them for you. “The deer is not crossing the road; the road is crossing the forest.” How you look at it, does make a difference? Who belongs in the forest? The car or the deer?
I may look at a person or family and on the surface they seem to be happy and blessed but then I find out that the family is deeply troubled and unhappy - and they are trying desperately to hide it behind the facade of nice cars and clothes and vacations and wide smiles.
In popular culture one of the most valued kinds of people are those who are self-made. They grew up poor, worked hard, and now they are rich. This is not what is valued in this passage. The problem with this kind of value is that it fools people into thinking that you can be blessed through your own efforts. The gospel seeks to communicate the grace of God as that which is necessary to feel blessed. We cannot earn or amass what we need in order to be blessed solely through our own efforts. The blessed - whether they are rich or poor, must live by grace. When you are rich, its easier to fake it - when you are poor, you know that you have no one else on whom to rely but the Spirit.
I was talking with a friend yesterday and she defined blessing as “looking in the mirror and knowing things were ok”. It’s not about looking around your house and seeing nice stuff or black ink in your chequebook, it’s about how you truly feel within yourself when you don’t have to put on a show for anybody else.
This is not the pie in the sky opiate of the people so despised by Marx but a call to focus on what is important.
The call to live the life of blessing is also a call to live for others; to give of one’s self so that others might know blessing. This may involve, for example, sharing food so that the hungry may eat, but it may also involve other actions.
Have you seen the new $10 bank note? For the first time the note is vertical, not in the usual landscape format and it depicts Viola Desmond, a Nova Scotian who became famous for what she would not do! Incidentally, it was 9 years before American Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery Alabama, Desmond refused to move from a section in a New Glasgow movie theatre reserved for “whites” only. We need to remember the women like Viola Desmond, not only in Black History Month, but in all the months of the year.
The life of blessing is not had by depriving someone else of theirs but it can be found in being a blessing to others. It can be discovered that we all live by God’s grace. The life of blessing is not them about what we have but who we can be through grace.
Amen.
February 24, 2019 - 7th Sunday After Epiphany
Genesis 45: 3-11, 15
Psalm 37
Luke 6: 27-38
There is a hotel in Charlottetown with a bar that used to be called, “the Hangman’s Lounge”. Popular belief at the time the building was built was that this hotel sat on the location of the city’s gallows - but I believe that that particular honour belongs to a site that is now a “public square”; and it’s not all that close to the hotel.
One man in PEI was hanged for stealing a loaf of bread and a pound of butter. One woman was sentenced to death for stealing a little under £8 from her employer, but no one in the colony would carry out the execution so she was exiled to Nova Scotia! Interesting sentence!
In 1869 a large crowd gathered for what would be the last public hanging in PEI and it was so bungled (they had to attempt the hanging three times) that afterwards executions were carried out with only a few witnesses. I saw a photograph of a hanging which took place in the yard of the Don Jail in Toronto in 1905. In the distance you could see that spectators had climbed telephone poles so they could see over the wall of the jail and witness the event. After that, they took the hangings inside.
One of the things I really, really notice when I am watching the crime dramas I follow on TV is the satisfaction some people in the justice system seem to derive from saying to the suspect, “In this state we have the death penalty.”
Although Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” does NOT include Jesus’ repudiation of the adage, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” which is found in Matthew’s gospel, grouped with many of the same teachings found in today’s passage, I cant help but associate it with these other teachings on love of the enemy. While that principle is, in fact, a way of making the punishment fit the crime, and limiting punishment, it is sometimes seen as a “throw the book at them kind of statement”.
When I began thinking about this sermon my mind went to “public enemeis” and to the changes over the years in how society treats those convicts who are, in essence, enemies of the public.
When I hear the word “enemy” my next inclination is to think of he opposing sides in a war. As we know, Germany was one of our enemies during WWII. At one point Americans invaded Canada! In the last generations world alliances have changed greatly.
Society tells us to either hate the enemy or, at the very least, have nothing to do with them. With criminals we say, “Lock them up and throw away the key”, or “Make them live on bread and water.” To everyone who thinks this way Jesus says, “Whoah. That’s not what I am about. Listen up and let me say this!” Jesus asks them to consider mercy as an alternative. Jesus goes further by saying, “turn the other cheek” which is not to “turn your back and pay no attention” but seems to say “give your enemy the opportunity to strike you again.” These are challenging words, to be sure.
It is all too easy to look at an enemy, or at someone with whom we disagree adamantly and assume they are “not at all like us; we are all good and they are all bad.” Many people would like the double standard of “throwing the book” at others while being the recipient of mercy, themselves. We tend to see ourselves in a much more favourable light than we see others, don’t we! It is a human tendency.
Jesus is advocating mercy as the way of God. Religious leaders from some of the world’s other “great religions” would agree. Indian spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, is quoted as having said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
In my Grade 12 year book, there were two pages dedicated to current events - one page for inside the school and the other for the world outside the school. The details on the first page would mean little or nothing to someone who had not gone to our school at that time. On that page are the words that were printed on a sign in the Chemistry Lab, “please do not stick curtain in fan” (As I remember this action was a convenient way to keep with baffles open and let air in without the noise of the fan) but I think it was hard on the curtain! As well, on this page there were three hearts, for the three popular couples of the school. “Leah and Edward,” “Ray and Wendy” and another couple I don’t remember! Leah and Edward went their separate ways and married other people; Ray and Wendy married and are still together, last time I checked.
On the other hand, everyone my age or older, remember most of the events on the next page. Four of the seven events the class of 1981 remembered were “The Death of John Lennon”, “Prince Charles Marries Lady Diana Spencer,” “Terry’s Fox’s Marathon of Hope” and “Idiot Tries to Assassinate Pope JPII.” I’m not sure what we thought of the man who shot and killed Lennon - but we called Mehmet Ali Ağca, the man who tried to kill the Pope, “an idiot”. As far as I know Chapman is still in prison after having been denied parole 11 times but Agca is a free man.
Some time after the shooting, the Pope met with Agca in prison and forgave him, and furthermore, asked that he be pardoned. When he was finally released he returned to Rome and placed two dozen white roses on the late Pope’s grave.
I would venture to say that there is probably no greater loathing than that between two former friends who have become enemies. This can be true of former marriage partners or business partners where there was a falling out or a wrong done by one to the other. It is also true of siblings when the rivalry gets extreme.
You may recall the story of Joseph and the coat of many colours his father had given to his favourite son. The ending of that grand story was today’s first reading. This arrogant young man, the spoiled son of his father’s favourite wife, so irked his half-brothers that they faked his death and sold him into slavery. I am sure they never expected to see him again - let alone come to be in charge of food distribution in Egypt, the only country which had a stockpile of food saved for a famine. I wonder though what kind of burden they carried throughout the intervening years as they saw their father mourning his beloved son and knew that they were responsible. I wonder.
When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, after a rather convoluted process of proving that they had changed, I am sure they were afraid; I’m sure they were very afraid - but it turns out that he was prepared to show them mercy. He was prepared to have a relationship with them that was free from malice. A colleague of mine, from our online lectionary discussion, said the other day that. “they threw Jesus into the pit but he pulled his brother’s out.”
I believe that love, as is commanded and described by Jesus, has little to do with feelings but is really about actions, but I also believe that “doing the right thing” and “acting in loving ways” can bring us closer to true “feelings” of love and compassion.
The struggles of Syrian refugees to make a new life in Canada were largely hidden from many Nova Scotians -until Tuesday morning. By now we have all seen so many pictures of that beautiful smiling family as they arrived at the Halifax Airport in 2017.
We have seen the pictures of the seven Barho children who died: Rola, 12; Ahmad, 14; Ola, 8; Mohamad, 9; Hala, 3; Rana, 2; Abdullah, four months. This family of immigrants has touches our hearts because of this tragedy.
We all realize the cruel irony of their situation; they came to Canada to escape danger and ended up losing their lives in a house fire. Most people support the idea that the parents need to be reunited with family members as soon as possible. They may not have been seen as “enemy” but before this many might have seen them as “other”. Now they are Nova Scotians we are hurting. The “success” of the gofundme campaign is an expression of love and care.
The last gofundme campaign that knew such success was about a year ago for the Humboldt Broncos Hockey team. How do we feel about the truck driver who caused the accident. His guilty plea and the court proceedings have been in the news lately. I read that when he finishes his sentence he will probably be deported because that is our “law”. Given that all of us, have had at least one close call, or one accident because of a moment of inattention , and in the light of this passage about seeking the good of the enemy, what are we called to do?
My “new congregations” in Saskatchewan do not have the option of seeing this as long ago and far away, it was practically on their doorsteps and I will be dealing with their response in my ministry. I ask for your prayers.
Love: do good, bless, pray. We may hope for fairness and justice but the gospel is more about mercy. The Christian life is not an equitable exchange but a call to mercy.
The bottom line is that our God is a God of mercy and is kind even to the undeserving and that quality must be found in God’s children.
That is a big challenge but whoever said that following Jesus would be easy.
Amen.
March 3, 2019 - Transfiguration Sunday
Exodus 34: 29-35
Psalm 99
Luke 9: 28-36
Back in grade 12 I was struggling with Trigonometry. I just could not “get it” and I was in real danger of failing the course. It was very stressful. Then, things clicked - and just before the final exam in January.
I wont say it was like Archimedes discovery of a solution to the problem of the King’s crown, but it a true “lightbulb” moment.
A week or so after the second semester had started I ran into the teacher outside the staff room. He pointed to me, wagging his finger. “How did you do it - I couldn’t believe it. Congratulations.”
“I passed?” I asked.
“Yes, you passed. You made NINETY SIX PERCENT” he said.
Somehow things came together in those last weeks and I aced the exam. I wasn’t just on a mountaintop, I was over the moon! (Teenagers are easily excited.) I looked at the exam the other day and I don’t think I could make 6% now - but, I haven’t had any cause to use it since.
On my first pastoral charge I had 4 churches, one of which was at the base of a mountain - well - actually just a really big hill - only 162 metres above sea level. (By contrast the North Mountain is 235 metres above sea level and the South Mountain 280 and Nutby Mountain, between Tatamagouche and Truro, 360m. But those are mountains we drive over, not walk!
The tradition of the Sunday school had been to make an annual climb to the top of the mountain, but we only accomplished it once in the 4 years I was there. There was a path, of sorts, but there were many fallen trees and other obstacles in the way. Somewhere, I also have pictures from the top.
Sometimes we refer to sudden moment of understanding as an “epiphany” or an eureka moment - such as Archimedes experienced - as legend would have it, in his bath - after which he ran through the streets naked, shouting, “eureka.” We often refer to experiences of emotional or spiritual ecstasy as “mountaintop experiences.” When we have a mountaintop experience we feel we are “on the top of the world”. We could embrace the whole world we, have so much love in us. We could sing,
“I'd like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony; I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love.”With slightly different words it’s also a Coca-cola commercial!
When we are on the mountaintop, all of our goals are within our grasp and everything good, is possible. When we are on a mountaintop we feel like we are soaring with the eagles.
Civil rights leader, the Rev Martin Luther King Jr., described his vision of racial equality in the United States of America as a view from the mountaintop. From this mountaintop he had seen the promised land of equality.
I had a friend at Mount A who had a mountaintop experience but his problem was the stark contrast between that experience and the everyday life of a university student. Of course he could not “live there”, he had to come back to ground and go to class, the library and the cafeteria and all of those good student things.
Yet, not all of us have had a mountaintop experience - some feel their lives are like that rather humorous poster, “You can’t soar with the eagles when you surround yourself with turkeys.”
In my 30 years of ministry I have heard many stories from folks about their mountaintop experiences but many more which are more akin to the “valley of the shadow of death” as described in the 23rd Psalm we all know so well. To be truthful, I have heard more of these than the mountaintop ones! These folks struggle to know the presence of God in the midst of their difficulties. These folks sometimes feel abandoned by God and alone.
Today’s gospel speaks to both of those experiences.
Today’s gospel places Jesus on top of a mountain with three of his disciples. Walking up a steep path to that height the disciples are weary and nod off. As they open their weary eyes and look at Jesus they see two heroes from their past appear alongside him and are talking with him. In the absence of history books with illustrations, don’t ask me how the disciples knew who they were (maybe they were wearing name badges - or maybe not!) (The text is not designed to answer this question). The significance of the appearance of these two figures from the past has a fairly simple explanation. Interestingly they are two heroes from the past whose deaths were shadowed in mystery. Elijah was supposed to have been carried of in a chariot and a whildwind - he did not die. Moses went up the mountain and never returned. However, one is the “primo lawgiver” and the other is considered to be the “primo prophet”. So, there Jesus is, talking with these spiritual giants from their people’s past. What are they talking about - well, Jesus’ departure.
They wanted Jesus to stay around forever; they are not able to grasp the topic of that overheard conversation - Jesus’ departure. The gospel writers are making it clear that in order for Jesus to accomplish what he had come to do, he was going to have to continue on to Jerusalem and it would probably mean his death. The disciples want to stay in the moment of glory; they even offer to construct three structures to shelter these great men of faith.
Meanwhile down below, the remaining nine disciples had encountered a crisis. A man had brought his son, who was plagued with debilitating convulsions, to the disciples for healing but they were unable to heal the child.
When he returns, Jesus heals the man’s son and then expresses his amazement at the disciples lack of faith. A similar thing had happened generations before while Moses was on the mountain talking with God and receiving the law. The people waiting below had became so despondent and afraid that they abandoned their faith in the God who had led them out of Egypt and his servant Moses. The biblical story tells us that they pooled their resources and had a golden calf made - a god they could see and worship. They had very short memories and no patience. Had they forgotten the departure from Egypt? They wanted all of their blessings right away, with no waiting, no setbacks, no disappointments.
So what are we to do with this story, 2,000 years later? It seems to me that it is a whole lot easier to have faith when we are on the mountaintops of our everyday lives. I recall the new mom I saw in the hospital, just sitting on her bed with her newborn in her arms and marvelling at her baby. We ARE to take joy in holding our children and our children’s children and marvel. We ARE meant to enjoy the realization that the irresponsible teenager that left the house slamming doors and squealing tires, has grown and changed and is now a good parent. We are MEANT to marvel at sunrises and walk PEACEFULLY, hand in hand, in a winter wonderland with our beloved.
We are also to know God’s strong presence as we stand at the grave-side of our life-partner left only with our memories. I have stood there myself and with countless others through the years as we have laid to rest infants and those who were full of years and had run the good and faithful race across the finish line. We are meant to know God’s care as our nest empties and we wonder where the years went. We are meant to experience God’s presence as health issues shorten the possibilities of our once exciting bucket list. We are to know God’s strength when we have been abandoned and betrayed by people we thought would love and support us forever. We are to experience the care of community as these and other losses befall us and know, through that care, God’s love and strength.
The people in the valleys of life do not need to feel abandoned while the others are on the mountaintop.
We are called to come to the table and to share together the feast of God’s presence in one of the most difficult journeys the disciples had to undergo. In valleys and on mountaintops we can know the glory of God’s compassion and tender care.
Amen.