Season After Pentecost - Year C -- 2010
Indexed by Date. Sermons for the Season After Pentecost Year C
Jeremiah 32: 1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91
1 Timothy 6: 6-19
Luke 16: 19-31
Every Christmas since I can remember I have watched (or had the opportunity to watch) the movie, A Christmas Carol starring Alister Simm as Ebenezer Scrooge. Mr Scrooge has become synonymous with wealthy and uncaring skinflints and even has a counterpart as Scrooge MacDuck in the LooneyTunes cartoon series. The original Mr Scrooge tells everyone that Christmas is “humbug” and he seems to be bent on driving joy out of the lives of those around him. Things change for the better when he is visited by three ghosts during the night. The ghosts are named, “Christmas past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future” and he is sufficiently moved to change his ways, become more generous and take delight in his nephew’s life, and was henceforth became known as “a man who knew how to keep Christmas well”. The ghosts clearly had gotten his attention.
I know its three months till Christmas and I don’t want to rush it, but here is this passage that seemed to relate so well to that famous story.
Like the Dickens’ story, this story of The Rich man and Lazarus is told to get a point across - or to get several points across. It`s designed to get ou attention.
Contrary to our popular notions, Jesus was always talking about money and wealth and its responsible use. How wew use our money is a spiritual issue.
The story is simple enough - and it would have been common enough. Everyone who was listening would have known one such rich man and everyone would have known one such poor person, or they would have if they had opened their eyes!
The rich man is caricatured as feasting sumptuously and wearing fine clothes. Lazarus has nothing to wear, is covered with sores and does not even have the opportunity to eat the rich man’s leftovers which go to waste.
The rich man is not evil in the sense that he not is a murderer or a thief. He would have been a prominent citizen and well regarded by his peers. He would have had servants to answer to his every desire.
We should be aware at the outset that this story will turn things on their head because the rich man has no name and the poor man does. That is NOT how the world works. Poor people are not written up in history. You would look long and hard to find their stories in the annals of history. But Lazarus is not missing. Jesus is clearly going to make a point. Using the popular notions of heaven being up there and in the presence of Abraham and hades, a place of fire and torment, being down there and a great chasm separating the two, Jesus makes his point.
You will notice that even when the rich man was in torment he asked Abraham to send Lazarus with some water. He was STILL treating Lazarus as a servant to do his bidding. When he is refused this request he asks for a visit from Lazarus to his brothers so they will not suffer the same fate. The ironic ring is that he is told that they will not listen EVEN IF SOMEONE WERE TO RISE FROM THE DEAD.
Now, of course we know the story of Jesus rising from the dead. And we could make the story safe, as too many generations of Christians have done, and limit its relevance only to those Jews who did not become Christian - but we have done that for far too long as a church.
This parable is not really addressed to those who do not follow Jesus in the first place! We are that rich man’s brothers and the risen Christ is addressing this parable to us.
This parable is not a polemic against wealth. Jesus`point is the rich man`s lack of concern for the poor sick Lazarus.
One of the last times I was in Toronto I walked down a major street to find a restaurant for breakfast. In the five blocks or so between my hotel and the place I ate breakfast there was someone sleeping in almost every doorway - most were lucky enough to have their damp sleeping bag covered with a clear sheet of plastic.
There are a lot of complex reasons for homelessness. I suspect some of those people come from the Maritimes and went to Toronto to escape a horrible home life, or to find their fortune, or for anther reason - and ended up with only what they could carry and no place to rest their heads. Some are on the streets because psychiatric hospitals are closing or doing all their work on an out-patient basis and some cannot cope, get kicked out of their apartments, go off their meds and end up on the streets. Many become addicted to street drugs as they seek to make their miserable lives a little more bearable. And the majority of Torontonians walk by and don’t really notice. I noticed but I doubted the hotel would take kindly to me giving one shelter, or even offering my shower! This is Canada - one of the most prosperous countries in the world.
On Thursday night I listened to a presentation at Presbytery on the effects of gold mining in Guatemala - people have been forced from their land - crops have been deformed - children have developed terrible rashes - the water is polluted - their houses are being destroyed by the blasting that is constantly taking place and families are being pitted against one another as some get menial and all suffer from the unregulated and uncaring mining industry.
We don’t see those people when we drive to town; we don’t see them when we go the local jewellery store for a ring or a necklace or some other little treasure, but they are behind every ounce of gold mined in Guatemala by Gold Corp which is a Canadian registered company.
We can do something. Go on the internet and learn about Bill C-300 which if passed will prohibit our government from investing in mining companies which do not respect human rights and acceptable environmental practices. When those named Lazarus live thousands of miles away, speak a different language and have darker skin, it is harder to see them. I have met some of these folks when they have come to Canada through the work of Tatamagouche Centre. They are real people. They are people with children and families and communities they love just like we do and we must realize is that what our country is allowing is killing them - quite literally - and we have the power to stop it.
Write to Lawrence MacAulay today - write to Stephen Harper.
The rich man had it in his power to help one person - and he did nothing. We cannot eradicate global poverty as an individual but we can do small things which when added together will make a tremendous difference.
At our next Presbytery meeting in November we are having a workshop on local food production. As you are all aware farmers in PEI are becoming an endangered species as the big corporations are taking over not only the distribution of our food but where it is grown and what price the farmer receives. We will be hearing more about this later.
We can buy fair trade products - there was a Ten Thousand Villages display in Charlottetown on the weekend and we are assured that the artisans who make these items receive a fair wage for their work - we can add beauty to our lives and homes and not exploit the people who make the items.
If we are coffee drinkers we can buy fair trade coffee for our home coffee makers.
We can give to our local food bank. Soon we will have our Christmas food drives - but poor people need to eat every day just like we do. When we give to the food bank we need to think twice and keep in mind the special limitations of those who don’t always have a cupboard or fridge full fo other ingredients. When I volunteered at a food bank when I was living in Nova Scotia we received all of the Nanimo Bar Mixes they had not sold during the Christmas season. A client of the food bank returned hers to us because that particular mix takes about 3/4 of a cup of margarine. Sounds simple enough. But if you have no food and have gone to the food bank and you have been given one cup of margarine - for everything. Do you give up putting it on your toast, or frying your eggs or putting it on your children’s school sandwiches in order to have one desert? Or there would be a pasta sale and we would get oodles of pasta sauce and oodles of lasagna noodles. People probably thought they were being generous and helpful but what is lasagna without cheese! You know how much cheese costs! The food bank did not give out cheese. So the food bank volunteers took the lasagna noodles home and replaced them with spaghetti and the people would be able to enjoy spaghetti without cheese a lot more than lasagna without cheese. We replaced the mixes with other things which took only water to make. Being poor is about having few, if any choices; we need to take their whole situation into account before we can truly help.
We may not have much money to give but we can give in other ways. Many folks are sandwiched between caring for both children and elderly parents. Maybe just what is needed is an offer of a drive for groceries or to a medical appointment so someone`s schedule is just a little less chaotic.
The rich man in Jesus’ parable wanted to exert his “rights” as a child of Abraham but he did not see that this gave him any responsibility toward others.
We have been blessed in so many ways - we are called to be a blessing to others.
Amen.
Lamentations 1: 1-6
Psalm 137
2 Timothy 1: 1-14
Luke 17; 5-10
Crying in Babylon!
Can you imagine being exiled from Prince Edward Island, by force, to say, Greeland, and then being forced by our new neighbours to sing of our red fields, Anne of Green Gables and our beautiful and fair Island of the sea. Can you imagine being so despondent that your children only knew of your longing for PEI and could not settle where they were.
Some people who have come to this country as immigrants have a terrible time adjusting and they long for “home” every waking minute. Some are so determined to make a good life for themselves and certainly for their children that never speak of the “old country”. Most are probably somewhere in-between. Most families have at least one person who keeps the family stories alive - who keeps the family tree up to date and is always looking for one more generation from the past.
For a time when I was in high school CFCY local radio station played the Boney M version of “Rivers of Babylon” - all the time. Then I suppose another song took its place. A cousin of mine had been to England with her friend and enjoyed telling us that it was very popular “over there” BEFORE it came here. I told my brother that it was based on a text from the Bible and because we were kids and because he was my little brother, he insisted that I was crazy and that it was NOT from the Bible.
But I was right; the song was based on Psalm 137, a powerful song of lament -
We sometimes think that the Bible is filled with stories of people of faith and courage who had no doubts and were able to do amazing things because of their faith and the presence and help of God.
That is only partially true. The biblical record contains many such stories, BUT it also contains the attempts of people down through the ages to make sense of the tragedies of their lives. There are many passages which make no attempt to hide the raw and heartfelt emotions that are surging through their very being.
When I meet wit folks after they have received disturbing news or after a tragic or sudden death I sometimes have to tell people that it is okay to be mad at God, to tell God off as it were! I say, “God is tough, God can take it.” God is not someone whose feelings we have to protect.
I would suspect that many of us believe that God knows how we feel anyway but I think that any psychologist would say that we have to voice our feelings and truly admit them to ourselves in order for healing to begin - if we don’t the anger just churns inside us, makes us sick and tears us apart.
Yet, we are never meant to read just one passage of the biblical story. It is all meant to work together. The people do not stay in Babylon, crying, helpless, longing for home. They learn that they can sing God’s song in the new land; they learn that the God of their ancestors has come with them as had been the case through all of their journeying.
A very short bit of background history might help here. The people have been defeated in war and sent into exile. They have become pawns in the power politics of the larger nations. It seems that history has been repeating itself over and over again. After every war the strong nations take out a map and redraw boundaries and decide on the allegiance of overseas colonies. The expulsion of the Acadians came as the result of one such war. Or we remember how the European powers decided the fates of Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan and a host of other countries. The world is still trying to solve the problems made worse by some of those decisions.
Israel was very much tied to their own land - it was THE LAND OF PROMISE; they saw it as God’s gift to them. It so defined who they were that they could not think of anything other than their terrible loss - and to be forced to sing their songs was like rubbing salt in their raw wounds.
Oh how they hated their captors; they hated them so much that they desired to kill their captors innocent children. Read the end of the Psalm for some of the most surprising verses in the Bible.
What they had to learn for their own health and spiritual well-being was that God was indeed with them. They learned that they could sing God’s song in the new land. Meaningful worship was possible outside of their beloved temple on that hill in Jerusalem.
They had to learn that God had not stayed back in the ruins of their beloved city. They had to learn that they were able to worship God even in Babylon.
When I was in New Brunswick a large, beautifully decorated and well-loved heritage building was struck by lightening and before the neighbours and the fire department could do anything it burned to the ground and only a few items were salvaged before the building was fully ablaze. It affected not only that Parish but the whole county felt the loss - as had the at least two other congregations in the county whose buildings had suffered a similar fate in the relatively recent past.
They were able to rebuild, but the new structure looks nothing like the old one. Yet, their community gathers for Mass as it had before; there are changes as people move away or die and as people move in and are born. But of course, those changes would have happened anyway.
Those folks had no choice; they could not worship in a pile of ashes. In our pastoral charge we have been asked to make choices; to choose what buildings we need so that our community can have a worship home and so that our ministry may be enabled.
We cannot predict the future; we cannot control what other people will do or think; but like the people in long ago Israel did, WE can reach deep into our hearts and our souls to express these feelings of loss - and as we do so we can trust that we will come out on the other side and find authentic ways to worship our God in newer, less familiar settings, with folks who used to be virtual strangers but whom we have welcomed or have welcomed us as we continue the task of being God’s people in the places were we find ourselves.
We are having a meeting soon; everyone should have received or will be receiving a letter inviting you to attend. Take the letters to folks who aren’t here today; perhaps you can have a conversation with them about the future of our church in this area of PEI.
We are called to be community together. We are called to worship our God in the places and situations where we find ourselves; not where we wish we were.
After the weeping by the Babylonian waters comes the authentic worship of those who know the God of their ancestors to be their God and to be a very much present help in times of trouble and in the times of new joy.
Amen
Deuteronomy 26: 1-11
Psalm 100
Philippians 4: 4-9
John 6: 25-35
Many years ago a Canadian minister went to India to work with the church there on behalf of the United Church. He was invited to eat with a local family.
He knew this family were not very well off. Like a good Canadian boy he cleaned his plate. His plate was promptly refilled. He ate it all the second time and again the host removed his plate and went to the kitchen. This time he did not return for many minutes. Thirds was substantially less than firsts and seconds. Then, a light went on in the missionary’s head and he realized that he had made a mistake. What he realized was that in that culture to clean your plate was to indicate that you were still hungry and a host’s duty was to feed you till you were full. He also realized that the host had probably given him the family food supply for several days - and that the third portion may in fact have come from a neighbour.
What was even more and very humbling was that he was very willing to share what little he had with this servant of Christ from so far away.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving; a day set apart to give thanks for harvest. Generally speaking, families gather and the dinner table is laden with food.
In the passage from the book of Deuteronomy, a yearly thanksgiving ritual is outlined. This ritual is given to the people before they had crossed the Jordan river and entered the Promised Land.
Long before the days of European settlers our First Nations peoples regularly gave thanks to their creator for the bounty of the air, forest, sea and land which sustained them. They reminded themselves that they were not above or separated from the created order but that they were an intrinsic part of it and were called to live in it with respect and humble gratitude.
Since the time of the earliest explorers, Europeans in what is now Canada have celebrated some kind of Thanksgiving Day. Since the 1950's it has been celebrated the second Monday in October.
When we are living in the lap of luxury, or at least under conditions of abundance, it is easy to give thanks, and it is easy to associate thanksgiving with “gratitude for blessings: and the blessings are easy to name and list.
We think of thanksgiving as something we do or celebrate when we have extras; its something we do or feel when we consider that we have something for which to give thanks - lots of food, health, our family around us - and these are good things for which to give thanks - yet in the passage from Deuteronomy the thanksgiving ritual is outlined while they are still in the often frightening wilderness, still living on manna, and the occasional quail, while the land of milk and honey is still a dream, albeit a dream they can see, across the river Jordan.
Notice that sharing with the stranger, the traveller, is included in this passage; it is part and parcel of this ritual of thanksgiving - God’s blessings are to be shared.
In the letter to the Philippians, Paul who will soon be on trial for his life, encourages the church in Philippi to live lives of thankfulness and praise. The church is being persecuted and its survival is far from certain. He tells them what he knows deep down: that God alone can give them the kind of peace that passes all understanding. This is the focus of their “giving thanks”, this is the focus of their rejoicing.
It seems to me that a biblical understanding of thanksgiving is more an “attitude toward life” than a feeling of gratitude for things we can list or blessings or people and events that have worked out in our favour.
For some of us here, things have changed drastically in the last few years and many of the changes have been quite unwelcome. The death of a loved one, a chronic or serious illness, the loss of a job or career can each leave us feeling that we have nothing for which to give thanks - that this year we may well be tempted to not celebrate thanksgiving at all.
The first year after the death of a loved one is the hardest - particularly at the holidays and festive occasions. The absence at the festive table of a loved one seems more pronounced than it normally is from day to day.
We have all been there - if not this year, than some year in the past.
Yet I know that there will come a time, when, with guidance, we can offer thanks for the life that has been lived, for the love that has been shared and focus not on what we have lost but on what was gained and what is blessed in our lives.
When the WWII ended the first inclination of the people in Great Britain (and I suppose around the Empire) was to take part in one of the spontaneous and very raucous street demonstrations - the horrible war was over. Who wouldn’t spill into the street and shout for joy.
Then as they settled into peace they gathered for more formal thanksgiving rituals. In more solemn services they paused to give thanks but also to consider the very heavy cost of that peace; the many wounded, the sons and fathers who would not be returning from the front and, in the cities, the many killed in the air raids they had endured and the massive property damage. Yet it is a different kind of thanksgiving.
In a similar vein, considering the cost paid by Christ on the cross, says Paul, how can we do anything else but praise.
The passages speak of life - the life of faith enabled by God’s grace. The ritual which is outlined begins with a brief recitation of faith history, a recitation of the history of God’s presence and guidance. The people are asked to speak of the journey on which they had been led and to take a long view. They do not focus solely on the bounty of the land of promise.
Remember that this was a 40 year journey; 40 being a number that symbolized an entire generation. The ones who told the stories of the hardships of Egypt and kept the hope of the land of milk and honey alive were not the ones who saw the land of milk and honey. Yet, like planting a tree, they build the foundation for their children’s lives. Like them we are all benefactors of the decisions and sacrifices of our ancestors.
Rural Canada is going through a time of almost unprecedented change. Farm families which used to see one son or daughter keep up the traditions on the farm are now getting used to them being part time operations with most of the family income coming from off farm jobs. Buildings once bustling with life now lie empty or under used. We don’t know where the food in our grocery stores comes from so thanksgiving for the hands that grew it, is a little more dis-connected from the source.
All of us know that our money does not go as far as it used to and we seem to always be facing the month at the end of the money. We who sit here in church looking at empty pews and long for the “good old days”.
Yet in all of this Paul’s words call us to give thanks. Moses’ instructions in Deuteronomy call us to bring our first fruits to worship and give thanks. The Psalmist calls us to praise. Yet some years, some times, our heart is not in it.
I think that it is at precisely these times that thanksgiving is most important. Paul does not tell the churches to whom he is writing to give thanks FOR all things, but IN all things. In the midst of great difficulty they can still be thankful for the strength it has brought out, for the acts of courage and faith that have happened, for the witness of those who walked beside them and for the presence of Almighty God. They cannot change the past but they can look to the future with hope and thanksgiving because of the people who have helped them become who they are.
As we look at the empty spaces in our lives we CAN give thanks for our loved one’s presence on our journey; for the years we did have instead of focussing on what we have lost.
Come you thankful people come. Praise the God who has been with us all throughout the generations.
Amen.
Jeremiah 31: 27-34
Psalm 119
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18: 1-8
Thanks to Frank Fisher on the Midrash Preaching List for the opening illustration. I believe he found it on Ecu-Laugh. I adapted it just a little!
It was the day of the big Sunday school concert and the Sunday School had a problem. The Sunday School had a big problem. It seems that they had been having trouble keeping track of their music so they bought a cabinet in which to store it and a brand new, tamper-proof combination lock. The Sunday School Superintendent tried several times to open the lock but could not. So he went to see if the minister was in. She was and came right away. She took the lock in her hands and spun the dial right and then left and then stopped - and thought - and thought- and thought - then she looked up - her face broke into a grin and she looked down, spun the dial to the third number and the lock opened. The music was retrieved, the concert was saved and everyone went home happy.
As she was preparing to leave the church the Sunday school superintendant came to her office and asked, “What happened back there? Did you pray to God and did God really give you the last number of the combination?”
The minister chuckled and said, “You mean when I looked up? No there was no prayer involved, I just remembered that the combination was written on a piece of masking tape stuck to the ceiling!”
Since the earliest days of human civilization, people have looked up, to the heavens, for the combination to the difficult problems in life.
The people to whom Jeremiah was writing were no different. They were certainly encountering a difficult problem. Their beloved city was destroyed and the temple that was its crowning glory was in ruins. They were in exile and they were “in the depths of despair.” They cried to the heavens for help. They cried out in their anguish. Some gave up crying out and looking for help. We can understand that. Some of us have been there, at one time or another.
In the midst of this despair comes Jeremiah with his word from God - a word they were not always willing to hear, a word that was sometimes strange and unwelcome.
My first encounter with this passage, at least the first encounter I remember, was when I was in university and studying the prophet Jeremiah. The part that struck me most vividly as I remember was the phrase, from an older translation: “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
It is a great image, involving not the sense of sight, but the sense of taste. Instead of sour grapes though, I thought of the grape juice that had gone bad and no one realized it until the middle of the communion service! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeccccccccccccccch!!! Welch’s grape juice might not ferment, but it does not keep forever! While the image of one person eating sour grapes and another’s teeth being set on edge, might be a little confusing; we all know what the proverb is getting at. What if I said, “the apple does not fall far from the tree” or “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”, you would know what those sayings mean!
We know that many people are held back in life only because of the reputation of their parents. We may say that Bob’s father was no good and neither was his father so how can Bob be any different. (Apologies to anyone named Bob) So poor Bob lives forever in his father’s shadow and it may have been many generations since Bob’s family has produced a genuine scoundrel, but that’s the way it is. Jeremiah’s prophecy challenges this popular thinking and presents a vision where all this is changed.
Sin is not a thing of the past though, it is something to be concerned about, but only because each person has to be responsible for his or her own faithfulness. The way it’s written sounds like judgement, but taken in context it removes from the community the bondage they felt to ths mistakes of the past and it freed them to live lives of faithfulness - because each of them was starting with a clean slate.
“The days are surely coming” writes Jeremiah! What a great time that will be!
“The days are surely coming” writes Jeremiah, when there will be a new covenant; not one written on tablets of stone, or in a book, but in the heart. The writing of the covenant on the hearts of the people will result in them knowing God - seemingly without needing to be taught, and will result in them following in God’s way.
This passage is a bittersweet one - God’s love for Israel has been like that of a husband for a wife, but it seems to have resulted in nothing but heartbreak for God. The image of husbands and wives as a parallel for God’s relationship with the people of Israel can be found in the writings of other prophets; it’s not unique to Jeremiah. But God’s sadness is not the last word; God is not going to give up on Israel. This new covenant will be a new start; this covenant will be written on their hearts in such a way that it cannot be forgotten or set aside.
Then, in the last verse of today’s passage we are told that God will forget all about their sin. I was doing marriage preparation with a couple a number of years ago and she told me that she had told her fiancé all about her past. After this “confession time” she had said to him, “If you have a problem with any of it - tell me know, because I don’t want it brought up in the middle of some new argument.” I think it continues to serve them well - at least it did all the time I was their minister.
Wouldn’t it be nice if people would forget the things we have done wrong? Wouldn’t it be nice if our teacher forgot that our last assignment was also late when we are late handing in the current one? Wouldn’t it be nice if our parents didn’t have so good a memory about the rules of the household and how often we broke them? Wouldn’t it be nice if the police officer standing by our car window forgot the last time we met? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could live in the moment without having our own past held against us, let alone our parents’ failures as well?
We know it does not happen. Usually they remember. Usually we know we don’t deserve to be cut any slack, because we knew we were doing something wrong, we knew.
What this passage is talking about is relationship of grace and love. It is talking about the law and love of God being such an intrinsic part of our living, that it is as if it were written on our hearts.
Early in my ministry I met Kay, who was living with cancer. She told me about one of the tests she had to undergo where she was required to lie very still for a long time - (looking back now at her description, I believe it was in the early days of the MRI.) She said that she would close her eyes and recite the 23rd Psalm or a hymn to keep her mind off the closeness of the walls and not being able to move. I remembered that advice the first time I had an MRI!
We know that memory work has gone out of favour these days, in Sunday school and in the public schools. Even today, when I am looking for a particular book of the Bible, I rely on the memory work I had to do in Sunday School many years ago: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy ----Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans ........
However, when it comes to today’s passage from the book of Jeremiah, I think there is a big difference between memorizing something and have it written on our hearts. When we memorize a passage, we may be able to recall it quickly, but we may have no real idea of what it means, or could mean, for our everyday lives.
Having it written on our hearts takes things one step further. It means that we have allowed the passage, and it’s meaning, to become a part of us, not just in our head, but (and I can say it no other way) in our heart.
As I said before, the prophet Jeremiah is writing to a people who are in deep despair. Their lives as they knew them are in tatters and they are refugees in a strange land. The passage speaks of a future time when they will be back home; planting and harvesting their own crops, in their own fields. They will marry and have children in their own land.
Yet it will not be the “good old days” all over again; it will be better. This passage speaks of a new era for the people of Israel; a time of new hope.
They had hit rock bottom; maybe the people had to so that they could know what a genuine relationship with God was like. It was not about looking over their shoulders, wondering if God had noticed this or that behaviour or heart this or that word. It was not about splitting hairs and deciding to do something shady because it was not “really illegal” or “not really breaking this or that commandment, because ...........”. It was about being in a relationship which was so loving and accepting that the love which God had for them had so changed their lives that it was as if this law and this love was part of their own body, not even like a tattoo for everyone to see, but written on their heart - the very centre of their being.
It was a life lived in trust - in trust of that love which was at the centre of their being. Jeremiah’s word to the people of Israel is also the word for us all these years later. The days are SURELY coming.
Amen.
Joel 2: 23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18
Luke 18: 9-14 < br>
Sheree Fitch is usually thought of as the author of children’s books . I saw her perform at the Annual Fundy National Park Christmas Party about 20 years ago. She is a skilled performer for audiences of pre-schoolers. With titles such as “Toes in My Nose” and “Mabel Murple” (who lived in a world of purple) it is sometimes assumed that she only writes or performs for children. One evening, some years ago, she was to do a reading from her book, “In This House Are Many Women” and I gather that it was emphasized in the advertising that this was NOT for children. Despite this, some parents showed up with their children so she did a performance of some of her children’s poetry and then instructed the parents to take the children home. The poems in this book, and in her later novels, are about adult matters and most would not make any sense to a child and some were simply “not suitable” for children. In most situations a performer or speaker needs to “know the audience” and to tailor the performance or the speech to the audience.
While others may have been present on that day, the intended audience in today’s gospel passage is described as those, “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” When we read this passage we need to remember that. It is not directed at the common folks in the crowds who followed after him and hung on every word; it is directed at those who stood around looking to criticize and pick holes in what Jesus said because he didn’t subscribe to their reading of the scriptures.
As I see it, Jesus called the people to look at the scriptures and traditions of the people with fresh eyes. There were some who wanted to keep things the same and who may have had a vested interest in keeping things “they way they were”. They weren’t interested in fresh air blowing through the halls of faith; they were dead set against it!
On this day Jesus tells a parable. There is a man who is righteous and proud. His prayer consists of thanking God that he has managed to avoid sin, unlike “that fellow over there”. “That fellow”; the other man is labelled a sinner, and he knows it. Yet the one who is commended - as being justified - or made right with God - is the one who humbly admits his sin and shortcomings to God in prayer.
Now that we are the ones reading the gospels; now that we are the “good church people”, the real question for us is: to whom is this parable addressed, in its printed form? In whose shoes do we stand? Do we stand with the one who knows his own shortcomings or with the one who thinks he’s pretty darn good - at least mush, much better than that person over there! He’s not a thief, a rogue, a swindling tax collector - he fasts and he tithes. How much better could you get!
Followers of Jesus can just as easily fall into the trap that some Pharisees did in Jesus’ day. Seeking to justify ourselves either by bragging or by saying we are better than “those people” is not going to get us anywhere with God. It seems that one of Jesus pet peeves is those who regard themselves as superior to others.
Yet, it is hard not to. A teenager I know well said to his mom, “Mom - you give me such a hard time - but I’m not that bad a kid. I could buy drugs at school any day I wanted, but I don’t. Can you just leave me alone about my homework, and my marks?” I suppose the teen has his point but comparing one’s self to the worst of the bunch wears thin in a few years. It’s easy to come off smelling like a rose when we compare ourselves with the worst of criminals we read about in the paper; but it does not say much - that we are not as bad as say “former Colonel” Russell Williams.
It was sometime on Monday afternoon that I heard about the fire in Little Pond. I quickly found out that just about everyone has assumed that it and the previous week’s mailbox burning are a statement of disapproval on the lifestyle of the residents. I don’t believe that I had ever met the people who fled, terrified, from their burning home. Even though I do not know them, I was dismayed, angered and upset that such a thing could happen in a place so close to home.
For the past few weeks there have been stories in the media about an “it gets better” campaign designed to counteract the effects of teenaged bullying on teens suspected of being gay or lesbian. The reason for this campaign is that a number of gay teens in the United States in the past few weeks have been driven to commit suicide because of the bullying. Some of the bullies have even taunted the teens with explicit references to suicide.
We all know the teen years are difficult, at the best of times, but for teens struggling with such a basic part of their being and identity this kind of crisis coupled with the bullying, these years can be sheer torture.
I read in the news this past week that in Nova Scotia a multi-racial couple with five children were terrified recently to find a burning cross on their lawn. Long a tactic of groups such as the KKK, the burning of a cross is a statement of power designed to instill fear in the hearts of those whose lives do not fit the norm of society.
The cross can be seen as a symbol of power: a symbol of power turned on its head. When paired with the resurrection on Easter morn, the cross is a powerful symbol of the power of the world and all of the kinds of evil it can dish out, being no match for the love of God as portrayed in Jesus, the Christ. It is NOT meant to be a tool of hate and fear and racist propaganda.
I guess that what I really want to say about this is that hate is not a Christian value. I will say it again - Hate is not a Christian value. In terms of our opinions on homosexuality I am sure we would represent a wide variety of opinions. When I was a student at Atlantic School of Theology the United Church published a report on human sexuality and it seems that the pot has been on a slow boil ever since. The most recent phase of the controversy involved same-sex marriage. Our Session decided not to perform same-sex marriages, for the time being at least - BUT, I would like to think that no one in our church community advocates either running them out of town on a rail or trying to burn them in their sleep. We must remember that “they” are our children, our neighbours, our friends, and they are ourselves.
In the movie Brokeback Mountain, one character tells another that her husband died when a tire exploded, but we know, and his wife knew, that he was beaten to death by her brothers, because he was gay.
12 years ago, Matthew Shepherd, a university student in Wyoming, was beaten and hung on a fence to die because he was gay - he was only 21. One particularly hate filled (and so-called Christian church) Westboro Baptist Church, is probably the church that is the most “out there” and “over the top” in terms of hate filled propaganda disguised as religion, used to have a picture of Matthew Shepherd supposedly writhing in the fires of hell on its website. I guess it was their way of proclaiming their Christian values, but as far as I am concerned, the hate it proclaims and the extremism it portrays certainly do nothing to spread the gospel they claim to be living.
No matter what we think of homosexuality there comes a point when we must say that such hate filled behaviour is completely unacceptable; we must stand up for appropriate legislation on hate crimes and stand up for a society where all people can live in safety. We cannot afford to be silent any longer; the safety of our community and the safety of anyone with the misfortune of being “different” is at stake.
It is my hope that someday soon all members of our community will be accepted for who they are and welcome to seek to develop the fullness of their lives and their faith within the Christian community.
What then are we to do? When we look at a particular lifestyle or behaviour, do we adopt the stance, “Well it’s ok as long as they aren’t hurting anyone”? I don’t think that this is adequate either.
Let’s go back to the passage at hand. What this passage asks us to guard against is the kind of bragging and self-justification that comes with comparing ourselves with others rather than with the call of the gospel. When we compare ourselves to the call of the gospel rather than to someone else - we will always find that we are lacking. But what we will also find is grace, love and guidance. We must remember that we are living our lives in the context of the promise of love, forgiveness and grace. The gospel calls us and stretches us to become more Christlike. But we must remember that this is not something we do through our own effort alone. It is only through the power of the Spirit and the working of grace in our lives that living in faith is possible.
When we are truly people of grace we will be a whole lot less concerned about the morality and shortcomings of others and more concerned with what we can do to witness to the love that has transformed our lives and made our attempts at faithfulness possible. We live by grace. Thanks be to God.
Amen!
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17
Luke 20: 27-38
There are probably hundreds and hundreds of jokes about heaven. Like the one about the man from Ontario who died and was being given a tour of heaven and came across a door marked QUIET PLEASE. He asked St Peter what it was about and was told that it was where the Prince Edward Islander’s went - they had to be quiet because the Islanders thought they were the only ones there!
Life after death jokes are probably our society’s way of dealing with a difficult and unknown subject. We laugh when we realize how silly some of our ideas are.
As human beings we have a fascination with stories of the afterlife and even among people of faith there exists a certain amount of uneasiness about the unknown.
The Sadducees were a group within Judaism who were opposed to the Pharisees. It is thought that they existed for about 200 years before Jesus’ time and about 70 years afterwards. The Sadducees accepted only the first five books of the law as scripture. For our purposes the most important things about their beliefs was that they did not believe in life after death because there was nothing in those first five books to support that belief.
While a belief in life after death did not exist in Judaism until quite late in their history by the time of Jesus it was a part of the traditional faith of Jewish people. The Pharisees, in addition to being strict keepers of the law, followed this stream of faith. They accepted the later books, including the teachings of the prophets which did support the idea of life after death.
It is a group of Sadducees who approach Jesus and ask him a question about the specifics of life after death: Suppose a woman had been married seven times. To whom would she be married in the resurrection?
Listeners would have know it was a trap designed to make Jesus look like a fool. No matter what Jesus said, his answer would be wrong. If he supported some kind of afterlife they could criticize his answer with one of their well-thought-out arguments against life after death. If he agreed that life after death was absurd the people would be upset and reject him. He was between a rock and a hard place.
To gain a more complete understanding of the question we need to know a little bit about the practice of levirate marriage. It was a common practice in middle-eastern cultures and was designed to protect the property rights of the men and the name of the family. It went something like this. Bob and Fred and Sam are brothers. Bob marries but dies before he and his wife can have children. So Fred marries Bob’s wife and unfortunately he dies and they don’t have any children either so Sam marries her and they have a child who is considered to be Bob’s child. Now I am not sure what they did if Fred and Sam are already married? I am not sure what happened if the man died with only daughters. Normally a man was not permitted to marry his brother’s widow but in this case it was allowed. If a man refused to marry his sister-in-law she was permitted to take one of his shoes and he would forever be known as “a man with one shoe.” In the story of Ruth, from the Older Testament, she had been widowed while she was still childless and Boaz had agreed to marry her, but only if her husband’s closer relative relinquished his claim. To seal the deal this relative gave Boaz one of his shoes as a sign that he did not intend to marry Ruth. Boaz married Ruth and they had a son and all lived happily ever after.
The trap was set but Jesus took the debate to a new level. His answer was in two parts. First he said that the life in the resurrection does not need to be limited by the things that limit us in this life. Since there is no more death there is no reason to have children and no reason to have to structure our society in terms of husbands and wives and families
He then went on to quote a passage of scripture that supported life after death AND it was from the five books that the Sadducees revered as scripture. This passage speaks of their venerable ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the present tense - as if they are still alive and he asserts that to God they are still alive.
What this passage does for us all of these years later is affirms the belief in a life after this one, but asks us to suspend or desire to have certainty about what it will involve and what it will look like and instead to trust in God.
Jesus response calls us to trust in the God of the living, and focus on our life here and now and let God look after the next life.
There is a stream of thought in Christianity that holds that we are only passing through this life on earth and our real home is in heaven. While it sounds good, I think that it misses an important part of our Christian faith.
I believe that the biblical story makes it clear from the very beginning of Genesis that this life and this earth are part of God’s good creation and that we are meant to enjoy them and to find meaning in them. It is in this life that we find meaning is discipleship and service and it is NOT just so we can get enough brownie points to get us into heaven.
That kind of thinking diminishes the goodness of life on this earth. That kind of thinking diminishes any risk we might take to make life better for those who are having a hard time and it diminishes any need to look after the planet we call home. When Jesus said, “I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly”, I believe he was talking as much about this life as he was about the next one.
Those of you who are veterans risked your lives, because this life and this world was important - and we honour the memories of those who fell. It was important to you and to your comrades that tyrants not be allowed to run over the rights of others and slaughter millions because they had ideas of creating a master race and world domination.
Many of your comrades did not return to enjoy the blessings of raising families, living a full life and growing old as we are all supposed to have the opportunity to do. We will soon say , “they shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn”, and in a way it sounds as if they are lucky to be forever young. BUT hidden in that statement is the realization that we remember them, as much for the life they did not have an opportunity to live to completion as well as for their sacrifice itself.
I have been reading the winning essays and looking at the winning posters of the students who won the annual legion essay and poster contest. You can find them on the Royal Canadian Legion website. These students understand, I think, as best any of us who have not been there can, what it would be like to lose a brother or sister in war, or to be there themselves, scared and trying to do their best to win freedom.
We want and perhaps even need images of heaven. In this season of remembrance perhaps an appropriate image would be of the joy the day the peace was won or the day of their return home.
Despite what Jesus said about the life after death not being limited by the things that limit this one, Jesus himself provides images, the one I think of off the top of my head is the house with many rooms - but we must always remember no matter how comforting and concrete this image is, it is only an image. This image, and indeed all other ones are designed to instill in us a trust and a hope; they are not intended to give us a floor plan or a geography lesson.
In short, we are called to live lives of trust and then get on with life. We trust in the abundant life that we are promised in Jesus, the Christ. When we can live that trust we can live in faithfulness, serving God and following our call to discipleship.
Amen.
Jeremiah 23: 1-6
Luke 1: 68-79
Colossians 1: 11-20
Luke 23: 33-43
There is a town in Saskatchewan called Biggar. It is spelled B I G G A R. They have t-shirts locals and tourists can buy that boast, “New York is Big, but we are Biggar!”
In O’Leary you can go and see a giant potato or you can cross the Confederation Bridge and go to Shediac and see a 45 foot long lobster and then go up to Campbellton to gaze upon a giant salmon over 21 feet long. Next time you go to Halifax look left as you drive by Stewiacke and see their prehistoric mastodon whose uplifted trunk rises 21 feet above the ground. Many Nova Scotia residents know that Berwick has “a really big apple” and that Oxford has an 8 ton blueberry. The town of Davidson, SK invites you to partake of their amazing hospitality with their 24 foot high coffee pot. If you are Alberta bound you can see the four storey high cowboy boot in Edmonton. Just be glad no one gives you a kick with it because it weighs 40 metric tonnes! You can head east to Vegreville and see their giant Easter egg which is made up of over 3500 pieces of aluminum and weighs over 5000 pounds. Each of these “really big items” is supposed to show the world something important or unique about a particular place and gives the residents reason to boast about it.
Some Christians want to get in the act and show how important their faith is to them. Most of them build churches: small quaint churches, magnificent cathedrals, simple churches with soaring steeples and all sorts of buildings that fall somewhere in-between.
Some though show their faith with giant Jesus statues (or is that giant statues of Jesus?) Who has the biggest statue of Jesus in the world? Is it the statue that has long stood over Rio de Janiero in Brazil, the one in Cochabamba, Bolivia or is it the brand new one that stands over the town of Swiebodzin in Poland. I read that it wins the height contest because their Jesus has a crown on his head!
Today is one of those Sundays with at least two competing themes: for the last number of years we have been encouraged to call it “children’s Sunday”; but it is also supposed to be the Reign of Christ Sunday - the culmination of our liturgical year, the day we have been waiting for, for 51 Sundays. On this Sunday we celebrate God’s triumph in the person of Jesus, the Christ.
Yet, as we delve into the scriptures and look at what we are told there about the reign of Christ we find that it is defined in ways which are very different from the ways of earthly monarchs.
Next year we will all be treated to a royal wedding, when William the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, the second in line to the throne of the British Commonwealth weds his sweetheart, Kate Middleton. We know that it will happen in a glorious historic cathedral with every second of the ceremony broadcast around the world for all to see. The diamond and sapphire engagement ring is valued at a little less than half a million dollars (but it is second-hand). By the way, if you would like to feel like Kate, the soon-to-be princess you can buy a replica for yourself for 39.95! I have no doubt that her dress will be the subject of endless speculation as will just about every other detail of the nuptials. I am sure we all sincerely hope they will be happier than his parents were!
We think of kings and queens and their children as people of wealth, who dwell in palaces, sometimes several palaces and who have scores of servants to do their bidding. While they probably do not have the mundane worries that keep some of us awake at night I am quite sure I would not want their lives. Every single public minute is photographed and the notorious paparazzi seem to want to put every private minute on the front page of the supermarket tabloids.
The biblical story uses many royal images to describe the power of Christ with relation to the church. I can hear in my head the thunderous chorus from Handel’s Messiah “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”; or the chorus of the hymn that almost shouts, “Crown him, Crown him, Crown him, Crown him Lord of All”.
As I have already said, today is the Sunday on which we mark the “Reign of Christ”; it is the culmination of the church year. Each year we begin Advent with a declaration of hope. However, we must be clear, in Advent we are not really talking about our hope for the birth of a baby - but we are hoping, no LONGING for, the reign of the Christ. We are longing for the day when evil will be defeated and the world will know God’s way.
We know all too well about pain and evil and the abuse of power. I have just finished reading a recently published trilogy set in Sweden with the story surrounding a Russian defector, abuses of power and corruption in the Swedish equivalent of CSIS.
We all know the saying: “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We sometimes have the feeling that people with a great deal of power often abuse their power - I heard a story on the news on Friday night about such a case; or were there two stories, or ere there more?
At the end of our church year, when we think of the reign of Christ we can end up being somewhat confused as the ways in which the power of Christ is portrayed is not like the ways we think of - from the world of power and politics.
First of all, what kind of king is executed as a common criminal as Jesus was? When we think of the execution of Kings we might think of the French Revolution and the fate the met King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette or of Czar Nicholas and his family in Russia.
We think of Kings and Queens being people who enjoy flaunting their power and wealth but it seems to me that Jesus was not at all like that. We think of the popularity of Kings and Queens and we note that Jesus went to the cross with the crowds shouting for blood. It was clearly a different kind of popularity.
If you ask me, Jesus flunked the test for King - but only if you think of kingship in the usual and traditional terms that is.
The reality for people of faith is that Jesus, in his life and death, has redefined many of the concepts that the tradition had come to believe. The people of Israel believed in a messiah who would overthrow the hated roman occupiers and reinstitute the glory days of the Davidic kings.
They expected a powerful messiah who would make their nation great once again but here comes Jesus who spoke of loving enemies and turning the other cheek. He spoke of not letting the right hand know what the left one was doing. He wanted to win people’s hearts by love, not by force, or by coercion or by all sorts of what we might call “bells and whistles”.
The gospel is often about turning the world upside down; turning things on their heads. We are not called to focus our lives on popularity, prestige and prosperity, though all of those things are nice; but we are called to pattern our lives after justice and peacemaking and seeking a world where all will have enough and none will be in want.
We are called to think of the Reign of Christ in terms of the power of love and what the world considers weakness. The cross can be seen as a symbol of defeat, but to the church it is the most power-filled symbol in the world.
From the cross - love and forgiveness is proclaimed and from the presence of the risen Christ in the lives of those who believe we hear the assurance given to us all - you shall be with me.
Amen.