Joshua 24: 1-3a , 14-25
Psalm 78
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
Matthew 25: 1-13

Prepared to be Disciples

Rising 60 metres over the Douai Plain in northern France is an escarpment known as Vimy Ridge. At its highest point rise the twin limestone pillars of the Vimy Memorial, commemorating the sacrifices of the Canadians who gave their lives in WW1. Among the twenty sculpted figures representing such ideas as peace, justice, mourning and grief, stands a woman, (representing Canada) head bowed mourning her dead sons! Carved into the monument are the names of those 11,285 soldiers who died in France and have no known grave.

For 4 days in April of 1917 the combined might of all four Canadian Divisions executed a meticulously planned assault on the ridge and took it from the entrenched German defences. Using intelligence gathered by various means the soldiers practised the new strategy necessary for taking the ridge. As I understand it, this consisted of the heavy guns lobbing shells over the heads of the infantry and the infantry advancing and then the heavy guns coming up behind and lobbing the shells ahead of the advancing infantry once again. This became known as the “Vimy glide”. The battle is widely seen as the moment when Canada came into its own as a nation. Men who were there have reported that on that first day of the battle, when the command was issued to fix their bayonets, the eerie and ominous sound of steel on steel could be heard travelling up and then down the line. I am told that visitors to Vimy Ridge cannot stray off the marked paths because the ground is still littered by unexploded ordnance.

On this Sunday and again on Friday we pause to remember the toll taken by war and the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in far away places - in France and Belgium, in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in the Netherlands and high above the ground in Germany and England. We pause to also remember those who died in Afghanistan in the mission that has drawn to a close but we are also aware that the training mission on which we are now embarked there are still dangers as one flag draped coffin has already made its journey down the Highway of Heroes and one more family is grieving.

Watching those flag draped coffins being loaded onto military transports and seeing those pictures, pictures of young men and women with so much to live for, with so much of their lives yet ahead of them - we know something of the cost of war.

My grandfather was on leave at the time and did not fight at Vimy Ridge but he was at Passchendaele, a battle with one of the worst outcomes in terms of Canadian casualties. He along with many ofthose who returned to Canadian soil given the privilege of experiencing the joy of marriage and children and grandchildren before he grew old and was, you might say, weary and condemned by old age.

Those whose bodies lie in the carefully tended graves in Europe were not so fortunate. It is to them and to those who served in the Second World War we owe so much. It is to them we say a thank you. It is to those who did not have the opportunity to grow old and experience the ups and downs of life that we give our respect this day. It is also to the ones who have given their lives in peacekeeping and in Afghanistan that we say thank you today.

I think we should say a special thank you to those who often invisibly and unwillingly carry the war with them in very personally destructive ways. Long ago I had a parishioner who, I was told, suffered from “shell shock”; we call it PTSD these days. There are the veterans who are severely wounded and carry these physical wounds with them every day.

War is such a senseless waste of human lives and of resources but, after diplomacy and other pressure tactics have proven useless, it is sometimes the only choice a nation has when faced with invasion or an international bully.

The passage from Joshua talks about the choices the people of Israel will have to make as they cross the Jordan and journey toward nationhood.

For them, in that time, the choice was a complete loyalty to the God of Israel - or nothing. The God who had led them in the wilderness was not one to allow divided loyalties, this God wanted all or nothing.

The bridesmaids were chosen for a specific task and as we heard only half were prepared for unforseen circumstances. We all know there are many things that can delay a wedding. When I was in my Summer Internship in Thunder Bay in 1985 we told the brides and grooms to leave an extra half hour, if they had to cross the train tracks, in case they found themselves on the wrong side of the tracks when a train was going by. The trains were 100 cars long and could only travel so fast in the city limits. You could eat your entire lunch, in leisure, waiting for a train to go by; I’ve done it.

I don’t know what would have been a reasonable reason for a delay in Jesus day, but you have to expect the unexpected when it comes to weddings, so these bridesmaids whose only purpose for being in the wedding was to wait and welcome the wedding party should have been prepared for a delay.

The question for us is this: have we prepared for things to go wrong, or at least allowed for things not to go according to plan - or are we prepared to give only what we expect and only when we expect.

Discipleship is about good preparation but it is also about trusting the Spirit so that we can respond in faith, even when the time is not what we wanted it to be or the specific commitment is not what we expected it to be.

Let us be prepared and then trust completely the God who has brought us this far.

Amen.

Judges 4: 1-7
Psalm 123
1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Matthew 25: 14-30

Harsh Words?

I have a friend who, if you ever want to get her going on passages in the Bible with which she disagrees, the gospel passage for today is the one to do it! It seems so unfair on so many levels: why is this poor fellow, who wasn’t expected to do all that much anyway punished when he fulfills his master’s low expectations?

The only thing I know about investing money is that you are supposed to have more when you finish than when you started but if you don’t do it properly you could lose all the money you had invested. The GIC is my speed of investment: you don’t usually gain as much as you could over time with mutual funds but the principal is guaranteed! If you want to make a great deal of money don’t expect me to bury it, but I wont be returning too much profit to you.

If I am given a recorder and told to learn to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, I could probably do that; after all it’s bascially a simple variation on the musical scale! Mark (one of our musicians) on the other hand is much more musically talented. Give him a fine piano and ask him to learn to play Ravel’s : Gaspard de la nuit, or Boulez’ Second Sonata, or Stravinsky’s 3 movements from Petrushka which some musicians consider to be 3 of the most difficult piano pieces ever composed and he could probably do that, if he has not mastered them already.

When I was in theological school I applied for the job of “school photographer”. When I turned in the first set of pictures the faculty member to whom I reported said something along the lines of, “Well done. I knew you could do the job or I would not have hired you!” That is usually the way the world works: we match people with the jobs they can do and we hope their talents develop and grow.

So, here we have an odd and seemingly vindictive passage toward the end of Matthew’s gospel in which the poor fellow with few abilities is given more than he can handle and is criticized for responding in fear and burying the money he was asked to invest.

I must agree with my friend, the message in this passage doesn’t seem to me like something Jesus would say.

This is one of those parables that requires careful interpretation, like an archaeological dig.

The first layer we uncover asks and answers the question: what is a talent?

I think we get off track when we forget that, in Jesus’ day, a “talent” was not an ability, a skill, but a unit of money. Various exchange rates and conversions into modern dollars have been offered . If my estimations are correct the first slave is given enough money to employ a hundred slaves for one year or fifty slaves for two years - any combination will work. For a slave it was an ENORMOUS sum.

The second slave was given only 2 talents - enough for 40 years wages - not nearly as much as the first but to a slave still a very LARGE sum.

The third was given one talent, only 20 years wages for a slave. More than the average slave would earn in half a lifetime (and remember that life expectancy was very short in those days). All in all, even though it was only one measly talent, it was still a HUGE sum of money to be given away!

Lets uncover another layer. I am told that the language used in this parable implies that this is a gift. The first slaves multiply the money and are praised for it but they do not “return” it; they seem to keep the money.

As we dig down into the ground this is where we need to abandon the shovels and take out the paint brushes and the sand sifters; otherwise we could miss valuable, small, findings.

The third layer of meaning that I see in this parable is that a great deal centres on the attitude of the third slave toward the master. He regards the master as a harsh man who benefits from the sacrificial labour of others. It seems that he resents the excess power and wealth of a man who can give away the equivalent of 160 years wages. Unlike the others who go and trade and put the money to work, this man buries the money, not in an interest bearing savings account, but in the ground.

Now that might have been a good strategy before all of the market mayhem about four years ago. If you had cashed in all your investments before the ‘so called’ meltdown, and had buried the money - you would still have had that money (provided that thieves did not find out about it and dig it up) - but this parable really isn’t about appropriate investment strategies.

While this “money” cannot be directly translated into “gifts and abilities” that can be one meaning of it.

There are some people who bury their “gifts” and not only do they not grow, they sometimes mould and decay.

For example, some people have been given the gift of growing up in a bilingual or even multilingual home, but they avoid using one or more of the languages and over time they lose them.

Some people have a talent for art or music, for example but they do not use it or do not try to develop it and it does not grow and mature. I do now know many musicians who do not practice and work at their talent on a regular basis. I know very few gifted musicians who can play anything at the drop of a hat, who do not also spend a great deal of time doing just that, playing to keep their gift alive.

People who are good at sports spend many hours practising and in conditioning. I know of a young pro hockey player who was booted from the team because he thought he was so special that he did not have to practice or do the other drills and exercises expected of the others.

I was raised to treasure a gift and that is good; sometimes the giver made a sacrifice to give me that gift. On the other hand, though, if you put a gift away and keep it “for good” for far too long, you may find that it no longer has a use. The good sweater or blanket may have been eaten by moths, or no longer fits. Someone gave me a gorgeous candle as a hostess present when they stayed at my house. I commented that it was too nice to burn but they said, “we gave it to you to use, so go ahead and use it. That’s what candles are for. We don’t abuse gifts, but we ARE called to use them.

The third slave saw the master as a harsh man, which leads me to ask the question, “How do we characterize God, the giver?” Are we a people who live by the grace in which we claim to believe or are we secretly afraid of the punishment that will surely come if we mess up. If we bite off more than we can chew will God punish us? It seems that some people think that it is better to do nothing than to fail! They think, “No one has failed at doing nothing, after all!”

It seems that the others, who had far more with which to risk, had a different attitude toward the master. Is our God loving and generous ? Is our God harsh and cruel?

This parable plants the thought in my mind that perhaps our view of God will affect our response to God’s grace in our lives. Are we afraid that we will take too great a risk and lose what we have been given. If we view God as harsh and living off of the work of others we may indeed miss the grace and generosity which surrounds our lives. Grace is not earned, it is gift. Gifts are to be used and responded to - not buried and hoarded.

The reality is that, at the end of their lives, I believe that more people regret the risks they did not take than the failures to succeed. More people regret the opportunities wasted than their choices which did not pan out.

One of the things that I wish I could ban from church meetings is these two immediate responses to new ideas. One is: “We have never done that before; it won’t work here!”. The second is: “that’s for the big churches”. If what we are doing now is not working what is the harm in trying something new - if we are committed to the journey. We need to realize that many of those so called “big churches” are having their own struggles, the most pressing of which is a large building, with or without endowments, but becoming emptier and emptier at worship and fellowship time.

I think the defeatism that infects many churches is like the one talent slave who regards his master as a harsh man and who refuses to take risks. What kind of God do we serve: one who would like to see us risk for the gospel or one who would like to see us play it safe, keep the people we have happy, do things like we have always done them and tell the last one out to turn off the lights and lock the door?!

It is harder and harder these days to attract children to our Sunday School, and harder and harder to attract adults. Churches are finding they have to try many different things; some are a lost cause; even if they have worked elsewhere! Some work well. But we don’t know if we don’t try.

As a church our gifts are not meant for ourselves alone but for the communities in which we exist - for the people we serve - for those who come seeking a caring and loving expression of faith.

As individuals and as a community of faith may we treasure our gifts, whether we see them as abundant or meagre in terms of the gifts given to others and may we risk for the good news of God’s love which is offered to everyone.

Amen!

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1: 15-23
Matthew 25: 31-46

“Wana Be A Sheep”

About 30 years ago now, I was in my first year of university and the members of the “Pre Theological Society” conducted a worship service at Sackville United. My friend Darlene, preached on the gospel passage I read earlier in the service and titled her sermon, “Wanna be a sheep?” Later in that year she had an opportunity to apply for a summer job filling in, in a charge whose minister was ill, and she used this same sermon to show the congregation that she could actually preach.

Traditionally, the Matthew passage has been referred to as “the Parable of the Last Judgement” - and the moral of the parable seems to be, “You really wanna be a sheep!” You really wanna be in the group of people who feed the hungry, help the poor, visit the sick and in prison and so on. That’s the group you wanna be in. According to this passage that is the activity which has eternal significance.

Yet, in the very next chapter of Matthew’s gospel, giving to the poor, was used by the Pharisees as a reason to complain about the woman’s use of a costly ointment to anoint the feet of Jesus: they said the money could have been used for that. Jesus rejected this excuse and welcomed this somewhat extravagant gesture. Perhaps there are more important things, at some times, than giving to the poor. On that day though, it was likely just an excuse from someone who probably would not have given to the poor either.

As we look at this passage - on the surface it seems black and white. Sheep feed and clothe the poor and the goats don’t; you would want to be a sheep. Go out and act like a sheep! Baaaaaaaaaa!

Yet, as usual, it isn’t that simple. For the next few minutes I would like to mention a few of the things that strike me about this passage; then I will try and draw some conclusions as they relate to our call to faithfulness.

First off, this passage is often termed a parable but it really isn’t! Since it’s not a spiritual truth drawn, in some way, from reflecting on every day life, we cant really place it in the same category as the Parable of the Good Samaritan or the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is, however, still a story based on everyday life which is designed to result in reflection. Apparently sheep and goats lived in mixed herds at some times and at other times they were kept separate. Jesus’ listeners would have known why this was done but I don’t think it’s essential for our understanding of the passage. Perhaps the same effect would have been achieved by separating heifers from mature cows at milking time!

Moving on! This story should not be seen as a prediction of exactly what will happen - when “that time” comes. It is a story, based on the everyday actions of real life, that points to the ways of God and what God calls us to be as people of faith.

A few years ago, a professor of New Testament from AST in Halifax was the guest of the Maritime Noon call in show. I am not sure what the topic was that day but I do remember that this passage was brought up by one of the callers. The professor pointed out, in response, that we must remember that in this passage it is not individuals who are gathered in front of the Son of Man in his glory, but the “nations” and it is the nations who are separated based on how they relate to the poor and those in the other kinds of need mentioned.

Not that long ago, we thought of medical care of the poor, or feeding the hungry, for example, as something church people did, or service clubs such as Lions’ Club or the Shriners did. Since the days of Tommy Douglas, in Canada at least, we think of medical care, at no direct cost to the patient, as part of the social fabric; as part of the social responsibility we have to one another. While lots of people, such as doctors and nurses and other health care staff earn their living in health care, we don’t tend to think of medical care as a business in which people can invest and make a profit.

In Canada, at least, we have probably shifted to the other extreme in that we tend to think of our medical system, our social safety nets, our prison system, and the like, as the “government’s responsibility” and we would just like to wash our hands of it. We think, “we pay taxes and its up to the government to do all of that”.

One thing that surprises me in this passage is the element of surprise. The sheep are as surprised as the goats. What, “we did this?”; “What, we would have done it if we’d known it was you”. I usually don’t pick up hitchhikers, for safety reasons, but sometimes I will slam on the brakes and pull over when I realize the hitchhiker is someone I do know! Occasionally I will hear that someone I probably should have known saw me pass by without stopping.

Note that this is not a separation of bad nations from good ones; not a separation based on religious belief; it is a separation based on what we might call, for lack of a better word, acts of kindness, compassion and solidarity.

The goats are not bad cats! They are the folks who would most certainly have gone the second mile, and maybe even the third mile for Jesus. If Jesus had asked them, they would have given the cup of water, the food, the shirt off their backs and visited him in prison. They saw people in those situations but they did not see Jesus in those people; they did not see that helping these people in that way had anything to do with their faith.

In many ways the sheep are not any better than the goats. As I said the sheep are just as surprised as the goats are to see the connection between these “acts of charity” and their faith. The difference is that they sheep did these things anyway. If the goats knew it was of eternal significance, THEY WOULD HAVE DONE THE THINGS MENTIONED. The sheep seem have acted in these ways because that was just what seemed right to them.

So what about us, 2000 or so years later. We have this passage; the element of surprise is gone. We know what we are supposed to do; the nations know what we are supposed to do.

How do we as Christians in community and as individuals respond to this passage. I think that the message about helping those who are need is CLEAR and is really a no- brainer!

What I would really like to look at is the attitude of the sheep and the goats to the results of the selection process. I did say that the goats are not bad animals; they have not gone out and harmed the sick, the homeless or the imprisoned. They have not done anything wrong. They would have helped Jesus if they had seen him. They would have helped Jesus if they had seen him because that would get them a check mark or two on the good side of the ledger.

The sheep it seems, saw the needy person and only the needy person, but helped anyway. And it is that attitude we are called to have.

Extend your hearts in love. Befriend the friendless. Feed the hungry. Visit those in prison, no matter whether it is the prison at Sleepy Hollow our provincial jail or the prison of mental illness, of alcoholism or other addiction or a prison of a different kind.

We are called to be the kind of people who don’t go around asking, “What’s in it for us?” Like the shoemaker in my children’s story this morning, we extend ourselves to others because that is just who we are.

Sounds simple.

The Reign of God is not ultimately about rewards but about caring for the least and the lost.

Amen!