Mark 4: 26-34

Growing in God’s Garden

“Inch by inch and row by row” was a song I learned early in life - at Brownie or Guide camp or in Vacation Bible School; I don’t know - it all kind of blends together.

Gardening, for me, is a chore. I like looking at a well tended garden, but it’s a lot of back breaking work. After someone else tills the garden with a roto-tiller gather the soil into rows, make a little trough for the seeds, plant said seeds, backfill gently, pat down with a light touch, water, thin, weed, water, weed, weed, and when necessary put on sun-screen and bug spray, and water and weed some more. Stake tomatoes, peppers and other plants, check for bugs, beat the racoons to the corn, cover with old sheets when frost is forecast, pick, blanch, freeze, and enjoy all winter.

I like the beauty of perennials but they still need weeding and dividing and more weeding.

Sometimes the plants are not weeds but they might as well be because they aren’t growing where you want them. A beautiful weed grow out of the doorstep in my first pastoral charge. I pulled at it every chance I got. Finally I forgot about it until someone said to me. “What a beautiful bleeding heart you have!” I managed to move a piece of it to my next charge.

The manse at my last Charge had sizeable maple saplings growing under the doorstep and tiny ones all over the lawn. I did not need a maple forest so cut them down at every opportunity but they grew everywhere, probably coming from the underground roots of the mature trees - unseen, yet active.

At the Maritime Conference annual meeting a few weeks ago I met up with a young woman who I baptized about 15 years ago. Her family lived next door and she reminded me that she and her 6 year old brother came to the manse one afternoon to ask me to baptize them. She was a nine year old with a beautiful voice who was very keen to be involved in church - now she is a young woman, eager to have her voice heard on the dangers of shale gas exploration. She has found a cause about which she is passionate and she has found her voice!

Today’s parables are about growth. We are at the time of Sunday school closing. We are at the end of a time of learning and growth, but the summer break is not a break from growth. I will warn you older folks; when we see some of these young people next we may not recognize some of them - one will have grown a foot; one will leave this service a boy and come back in September looking like a man. A young girl will appear in Sunday school in September looking more and more like her mom and more and more grown-up. Moms, dads and grandparents will see the growth every day but the rest of us will be amazed at the change over a relatively short period of time. We will wonder where the time went. Parents tell me this; grandparents tell me this, but kids roll their eyes as if to say, “Did you expect me to be 4 forever?”

When we are five and learning to read we may wonder if those little chicken scratches on the page will ever make sense and then one day we connect the printed word d o g to that animal lying on our living room rug or barking when the doorbell rings, and then we recognize another word, then whole sentences, then chapter books ane before we know it, technical manuals for that old clunker we bought or a textbook for a university course in early English literature or advanced electrical engineering.

With many plants we need to start with a seed - or with a small slip or small tuber of bulb; with many things in the life of faith we start with the seed of faith -

In 1962, the famous theologian Karl Barth was visited the USA and was asked for a summary of his work, which amounted to millions of words. Legend has it that he thought for a moment and said, ““Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Whether or not he actually said this, it is something he could well have said.”

There was once a university chaplain who received a call from an irate parent. Apparently his child had switched majors and was now going to study theology and work with the inner city poor instead of having a lucrative career in industry. He blamed the chaplain and her unhealthy influence. The chaplain asked the parent if the child had been raised going to church and Sunday school.

The parent agreed that they had taken all of their children to church and sent them to Sunday school.

“Well, don’t blame me then”, said the chaplain. “ You started it. You planted the seed.”

“Well. We didn’t want her to take it THAT seriously”.

Well folks, being a Christian is serious business and I hope we expect all of the children in the Sunday school to take their faith seriously. It does not mean all will be called to become workers in an inner city mission but it does mean that we have to take seriously the teachings of Jesus and how they apply to our living.

When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, what does he mean? He most certainly does not limit its meaning to “that wonderful place we go when we die,” however we might picture that in our minds.

The Kingdom of God is also a state of being in the world, as we know it today, on earth, BUT a state in which earth is what it was originally created to be. The kingdom of God presupposes true equality between and among all people. In the Kingdom of God everyone will have enough to eat and wear and a suitable place to live and will have meaning and purpose in his or her life.

Jesus tells us this kingdom grows in us like a seed grows and matures in secret under the earth. But we have to allow it to be planted. We have to tend it. We have to pull out the weeds that would choke it out - especially that weeds called discouragement and greed, and the tendency to secretly hoard some for ourselves instead of sharing with all.

When I planted my first garden at my first manse I made a little map, just like my mom did and it indicated where each kind of vegetable had been planted. As I was weeding one day I decided the lettuce was a lost cause as it was a terrible texture and started to pull it out by the roots instead of just snipping off the tops. I discovered it was not lettuce but radishes I had planted in that row. I had inverted the map! I guess the moral of that story is that you cant plant radish and expect lettuce .

Planting the seeds of faith is kind of like planting a mystery garden. We know it is a seed for something but we have to tend in faith, be open to mystery, and trust the one who panted our garden of earth in the first place. We have to trust for even the small mustard seed produces abundantly.

So my friends, the summer is upon us - the classes have stopped but the growth continues. What seeds of faith have been planted - let them grow into what they are meant to be - and we may be surprised at the result.

Amen

1 Samuel 17: 1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49
Psalm 9
2 Corinthians 6: 1-13
Mark 4: 35-41

Not “Just” A Children’s Story!

When I was much younger, back in the days when the Bible stories I read were illustrated ones, David and Goliath was one of the stories in all of the children’s Bibles. Along with Noah’s Ark, Baby Moses in the Floating Basket, Crossing the Red Sea, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, Jesus Calming the Waters and Jesus Blessing the Children, this was one of the stories that stick out in my memory. I am not sure why we were taught some of these stories as children but they seemed to be in all of the children’s Bible Story books. Whatever children are supposed to learn from these stories, they are not really simple tales designed to tell simple truths to children - at their level. Perhaps no children’s story is just for children.

We cannot ignore the fact that this is a very violent story, and a very graphic story. It is one in which the winners (David’s people) take great pride in the defeat of the aggressor (Philista) - I’m not sure , but I don’t think modern rules of engagement would allow what David did with Goliath’s head!

Each time we read a biblical story we need to ask the question: Why has this story been written and preserved? We also need to ask what it has to say to us today? Of course there are probably several ways to answer each of these questions.

This can be seen as a story designed to show the greatness of King David, and his qualities of leadership; qualities which he possessed from his youth. If the nation of Israel operated like the other nations King Saul would have handed the crown to his oldest son, but other parts of the story explains why this did not occur. David is to be the first in a new line of Kings, this time, a line worthy of the title.

From the time the people entered the promised land, until Saul became king they were ruled by judges, people who spoke for the holy God. The prophets made it clear that God did not want them to have a king; the “other nations” had kings and they were told that they were not to be like the “other nations”. Finally, I guess you could say that the people wore God down and they were granted a king; first Saul and then David. In the end the problems that plagued the kings and royal houses of other nations ended up ruining Israel, but that is a story for another day..

The nation of Israel was to be different from the very beginning. The other nations relied on might and power; Israel relied on God. Other nations relied on legions of men armed to the teeth; some even relied on giants so big even their names struck fear in the hearts of their opponents; Israel relied on a young boy with a boy’s weapons.

For much of its history Israel was at the mercy of the larger nations: Babylon, Persia and then Rome. This story would served to encourage this small and beleaguered nation that mere might and power was not everything. They would learn that God had been with them from the very beginning or they would not exist at all. These are core stories written and preserved to strengthen a people mired in despair and assailed at every turn. These stories reach to the core of their faith and identity as a nation and as part of our own Bible they have a great deal to tell the church in 2012!

This was a key scripture for Maritime Conference’s Annual Meeting earlier this month.

The story of David and Goliath can be seen as a story of faith overcoming fear; a story of faith overcoming all of the odds stacked against it. It is a story of the boy David, who could not function with any of the kings armour but instead chose stones of faith and courage.

A number of years ago I watched a very powerful movie called The Mission which was set somewhere in South America. In the 1700's a group of Spanish Jesuit missionaries began working with an indigenous tribe called the Guarani who sent at least one of the early missionaries to his death by tying him to a cross and sending them over a very large waterfall. The Jesuits persevered and succeeded in making inroads with the Guarani people. While the Jesuits had come with the best of intentions they themselves became caught up in the larger world of power and politics. The missionaries tried to protect a people who were in danger of being captured and put into slavery by a group of Portugese eager for labour on their plantations. The hierarchy of their order effectively sells them out to the miners in favour of the “bigger picture”, but the missionaries are unwilling to give up. The founder of the mission refuses to fight, saying - “If might is right, then love has no place in this world; that may be so, but I have no strength to live in a world like that”. In the end, all of the people are killed or captured and enslaved.

It is a powerful and haunting film about the toxic mixture of political power, religious faith, and monetary profit – especially when the power is in such a state of inequality.

One of the darkest chapters in the history of our church and our country involves our participation in the residential school system. It was a system designed, as was explicitly said, “to take the Indian out of the child.” The education offered in these schools was usually substandard, as many children had to labour long hours each day in the running of the school, the nutrition was poor and as we now know, many, many children were sexually and physically abused. Beaten for speaking their own language they ended up with big psychological problems, unable to live in their own culture and not welcome in white culture. Even the actions arising out of our best intentions ended up being very damaging. The abusive actions of a portion of the teachers and administrators in these schools caused untold damage. A large portion of the problems affecting the health of native communities today are a legacy of these schools. Our listening and attention to their stories and their pain is but one of the ways in which we can show that we are serious about walking into the future in a new way. Power and might will not fix these problems. Ignoring these problems will not cure them or make them go away. Goliath was so sure of himself that he thought he had no one to contend with - that no one would dare to challenge him, but this small nation, this nation that had no voice a few years earlier came and said, “You cannot just mow us down like we were nothing - you will pay for this - trust us!” And we know what happened to Goliath.

The boy David did not use the armour and spears of his king - he used only the weapons he used as he cared for his sheep on the hillside and with them he was victorious.

If we look at the history of social movements advocating for change we will find that the movements seeking justice which were out-numbered and outgunned were often the victorious ones, in the long run. Rosa Parks refusal to give her seat to a white man sparked a bus boycott, which combined with an already existing civil rights movement, and a lot of marching and a lot of determination, eventually gave black people the vote all across the nation in which they were born and as we speak a black man is seeking reelection as President of that nation.

In South Africa, Myanmar and many other situations, change has occurred as a result of the boy David’s of the world, shunning the traditional weapons of war and taking the small but powerful stones of resistence, faith and righteousness.

In Nova Scotia a family is fighting expropriation by a Canadian mining company; in Latin America people of many countries are standing with indigenous peoples as gold extraction companies are destroying their traditional lands for gold and for profit.

We need to ask ourselves - and answer honestly- if we identify with David or with Goliath.

As a church that had been accustomed to wealth and numbers and power we are realizing that we are no longer in that position - but the good news is that we are not alone - we do not need all of that armour that we had in the past, we can contend with the forces of this world with a few small stones - if we act in faith and trust .

Amen.

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Dundas Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8: 7-15
Mark 5: 21-43
July 1, 2012

When Need Gets In the Way!

We have all been to the hospital emergency room at one time or another. We all have stories of long waits, and different opinions about the quality of care provided. Generally, we get what we need, even if we have to make more than one trip to get a doctor’s or several doctors’ attention.

Generally speaking, when you arrive in the emergency room it is not supposed to matter who you are - people are treated according to their need, not the number of times their face is on the front page of the newspaper or the size of their chequebook

Today’s passage is a sandwich; one healing is sandwiched between the halves of another. It a story of persistence and grace.

We begin with Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. He would have been a man of status, and would have been expected to uphold the status quo.

Jesus, the popular teacher from Nazareth who gathered large crowds who followed him around, and who associated with sinners, tax collectors, women, and other ner-do-wells, was not well regarded by the religious elite and it would probably have been in Jairus’ best interests to steer clear of him!

But, on this day Jairus is desperate; he knows that his daughter’s life is at stake and he seeks Jesus out! Jairus had probably consulted the best doctors and by this point was willing to risk everything to try one more treatment option - no matter what it cost him socially.

So he went to Jesus and fell at his feet and begged him to come. This was hardly what one would have expected of a community leader. Jesus, asked no questions, and immediately went with Jairus.

Meanwhile, there is a woman with one of those problems that cannot be mentioned in mixed company. These days some medications can help this condition; but sometimes only surgery can correct it. Not then! In addition, religious purity laws would have made it so that this woman was not supposed to go out in public, especially when she might come in contact with a man, even accidentally, in a crowded place.

She too is desperate, has spent all of her money on doctors who could do nothing in the end. Note that she did not even consider herself worthy of actually asking Jesus for healing so she hatched her plan. It was a simple one - merge in with the crowd as it went by and touch his robe - surely that will be enough. Her faith in his healing power is great - but what she does not count on is the power of his caring.

He does know and he stops. He insists on finding who it is that has “benefited from” his healing power. It’s hard to tell at first if he is angry - maybe he’s the type that wants to be asked first! It seems to me though, as the encounter plays out, that what he is seeking is genuine relationship. He is not a magician; Jesus seeks to build and model honest relationship.

Then, even before the woman could go on her way, they all received the news that Jairus’ daughter had died. Some are no doubt thinking the outcome would have been different if only Jesus had not stopped to heal that woman, who could certainly have waited another few hours or days!

Jesus is not deterred; he takes with him only a select few on this last stage of the journey. They arrive at the house only to discover that the customary rituals of mourning have begin. They all scoff at his assertion that there is still life - but as the story ends Jairus’ daughter is restored to life and as far as we know she grows up, marries, has a family and eventually dies old and full of years.

What do these two stories have to say to us who do not believe the raising of dead bodies or in instant miracle cures affected by touching someone’s coat?

I began my sermon with an assertion that our medical system is supposed to be colour blind, or status blind, or economically blind. We like to think that we also possess those same lack of criteria in other areas of our lives, when we talk about other people. Yet, I wonder of this is really true.

For example: Don’t we get just a little edgy when we hear what medical care costs Canada for refugee claimants! Its been in the news lately; its one of the things being cut - and since these people can’t vote, who cares! But we need to be careful who we listen to. When the government talks about these costs you would think that these folks are international criminals who are lining up at our borders just to get a prescription for blood pressure medication or a salve for their eczema!

A colleague of mine, (you can tweet @revjeffdoucette) reported on Friday that he was licking an envelope in which he had placed the .59cents he was mailing to PM Harper as his share of what healthcare for these very vulnerable people costs the Canadian public. (It’s also on that wonderful invention called you-Tube!) That’s it! Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to mail FIFTY-NINE cents - for each person in your house to the Prime Minister. Most of us single folks could gather up that much in the loose change from our couches, the bottom of our purses or our pants pockets on laundry day.

Then put it in an envelope with a note and mail it to the Prime Minister or to the Minister of Finance - and because of the miracle of our Canadian postal system, YOU DON’T NEED A STAMP. You would need 9 people in your house before you would need to open the part of your wallet that keeps the paper money.

Even as we may be losing jobs here in PEI do we think that the country cannot afford .59 a person for health care for those claiming refugee status? I wonder what Mr Harper and Mr Flaherty will do with all of those letters - maybe they will have to hire people on EI to roll the coins!!!!!!

This story does NOT tell us that Jesus abandoned Jairus for the woman in need; nor does he ignore the woman because of Jairus’ prior claim. Both were given the attention and care that was needed; both were valued!

One of the things an economic crisis tends to do it to make people think in terms of scarcity. We are encouraged to become mean and stingy. Save, save, save. Charity begins at home - especially IN your home. Save. Cut back. Give away less! Additionally, we are encouraged to blame all of our woes on those least able to fend completely by themselves for themselves. It seems to me that those who have jobs are being encouraged to blame the frequent users of EI and those on Social Assistance for higher taxes. Yet, I doubt those taking maternity or paternity leave that is supported by our “EI system” want to tar themselves with the same brush. There is always a way to justify our own use of a system while accusing others of abusing it. There are some, and I think our government is part of that some, who want to divide people and pit them against one another.

The example of Jesus, in his whole ministry, and certainly on this day, challenges us to look at life and at people in a different way. Human beings have a tendency to look out for ourselves out of a fear that we will lose out completely if someone else gets something we don’t have.

We are challenged to be people who look at life, not from a stance of scarcity but from one of abundance. This does not mean that we should regard the earth as having infinite resources and we can burn oil and throw stuff out till the cows come home and everything will be all right. That’s not whata I am talking about.

What I am talking about is a way of looking at life in which my gain is not dependent on your loss. Life is not like a cake where your taking of a bigger piece automatically means my piece is smaller but a kind of co-operation in which we look at this same cake as a common resource which we share based on our needs at the time. Perhaps we will discover that we will have as much as 12 baskets full of cake left over. .

The biblical story is meant as both comfort and challenge but we have all too often ignored the challenge - we have seized upon the comfort and forgotten the challenge. We have forgotten that the call to discipleship is a call to fundamental and complete transformation.

We are a people blessed by God. We are a people who value all of God’s people - whether they are like us or not - no matter how much education they have - or how little - no matter if they have a big house or no place to call their own - no matter if their ancestors came here in the 1700's - or were here even before that - or if they came just last week on a container ship and claimed refugee status!

There are all sorts of jokes and sayings about the glass being “half full” or “half empty” or like Mark (our accompanist) just getting a smaller glass. The reality is that many of us are living life thinking that our glass is empty, or about to be unless we hoard what we have.

We are challenged by the One from Nazareth who turned a few loaves and fish into enough to feed thousands, with baskets left over. We are challenged by the One who stopped to aid a nameless woman in distress while he was rushing to aid the daughter of an important man, and showing that abundant life and healing was possible for both! We are challenged by the One who said that he came that ALL may have abundant life.

Let us embrace this abundance as we seek the road of discipleship before us.

Amen.

2 Samuel 5: 1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12: 2-10
Mark 6: 1-13

“Not Without Honour”

As a commissioner to the General Council that meets next month in Ottawa I have the responsibility of discerning, along with several hundred others, 357 others to be exact, who will be chosen as our next moderator. Our present moderator Mardi Tindal is a layperson with extensive experience in church related broadcasting; the moderator before that, The Very Rev David Giuliano has served the same pastoral charge since his ordination in 1987. In our 87 year history most of the moderators have been ordained and male, but a number of others have served as well, including a colourful and somewhat controversial medical doctor who had spent most of his career in China working on behalf of our church.

I have spent some time lately looking over the list of nominees for Moderator for the United Church. I know two of them personally; one serves in Halifax Presbytery and one was a professor of Church history when I was a student at Atlantic School of Theology, now over 25 years ago, and who now teaches in the School of Religion at Queens University. Two of them are, to use the popular phrase, “Prince Edward Island born and bred”, but I do not know them. But they have to be good people - don’t they, if they were born and raised on PEI?

I am, as you know, Prince Edward Island born and bred, and some of you know members of my family or your kids play hockey with my nephews or niece or you did business with my father or are on the PEI Hospital Nurses Alumni with my mom or have some other connection.

It is not usually the practice of the United Church to settle someone in their own presbytery and when I was ordained in 1988 I certainly did not want to be somewhere where my claim to fame was being “Mark’s little girl.” I was not ready to come back when I made my next two moves either!

Last year I went to visit someone from Charlottetown in the Souris hospital and as I went in I said something like, “Hi, I’m Beth Johnston and I visit all the United Church folks from out of town who are in hospital here.” The patient’s husband said, “You are Frank’s sister, aren’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

Early in my ministry I saw such connections as a liability I did not need. I wanted to find my own way and my own voice without the possibility of family connections getting in the way.

Sometimes it is more comfortable for the people in the churches to have someone “from away” because this “long period of knowledge and interrelationship” works both ways. I was once told that a certain church would never hire an Islander; apparently people from away were better ministers.

As Maritimers, we become accustomed to being told that Ontario and Quebec are the places of the real action; and, as we know, many people have to move there because that is where the jobs are. We have come to have either an inferiority complex or a very inward looking mentality. We need to divest ourselves of both.

Islanders, at least, have a love-hate relationship with those who would be our leaders. We don’t want people “from away” coming in, changing things and telling us what to do; but we certainly don’t want people “from here” doing that either.

Today’s passage tells of the time when Jesus’ ministry took him back to his hometown. We are told that they were astounded at his wisdom - because he was “the son of Mary and bother of James, Joses, Judas and Simon.” He was a carpenter, not a preacher, teacher or rabbi. Yet what they heard they discerned to be wise. As we know, wisdom is not “book learning” but the result of profound reflection upon life and faith. But, the passage notes that their amazement turned to offense. “He’s JUST Mary’s boy? Where does he get off telling us how to be faithful children of Israel? Well, of all the nerve!” ”

Since we don’t know the content of his sermon, it’s hard to say what turned them and put them on edge, but he expected it. The proverb about a prophet having honour, except in the hometown, was not coined by Jesus, but he knew its truth. It is also noted in the passage that the unbelief of the people left him practically powerless.

Luke’s gospel tells us of a similar incident, or it could have been the same incident, and in Luke there is much more detail about the content of the sermon. In that sermon Jesus proclaimed the age old hopes of the people, the prophesy of the great prophet Isaiah, was being fulfilled in their very hearing. Perhaps they felt that he was getting “too big for his britches” or trying to “rise above his station”.

One weekend quite a few years ago I was struggling with my sermon, as I was last night, and my dad said to, “Don’t worry, no one listens much anyway!” I’m not sure the words were comforting - but they were meant to me. I did not remind him of the day when he spent the drive home from church telling me, and perhaps the universe itself, how wrong the preacher was, in his views on nuclear disarmament! He was listening that day, for sure - but perhaps his opposition to what was being said blocked out any possibility of truly hearing the message?

What do we expect when we come to a “service of worship?” What do we expect from “church” or our “church community”?

We may wonder what we as a church can do in the world, or what we as “just the few people that are left” can do and how can we be church when it used to take so many. As I was reflecting on this question the words of well-known author Marianne Williamson came to mind:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. 
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

I spent a couple of hours yesterday in the presence of some of children in my brother’s extended family. They were running around, playing with toys, swimming, eating, occasionally crying, but generally doing that which children so well, enjoying life. They were shining, because they have not yet learned that the world will take your smile away, if you let it!

The team in charge of worship at Maritime Conference this year all wore red t-shirts emblazoned with the question, “What’s left” on the front, and on the back o the t-shirts was the answer, “we are”.

We need to give up on our search for the “ONE with the answers” because if he or she did show up, we’d probably run him out of town! We need to give up in the hope for a magical return to the pews, because that is not likely to happen. We need to give up on some magical formula which will fill our bank accounts so that we can continue on the way we have been going without worrying. We need to look at what we have and begin the serious WORK of looking at options for our life and ministry together in hopefulness rather than despair.

As churches we need to begin thinking outside of the box - to use a common catch-phrase - doing church in the way it has been done for the past few generations will not work and going half-time, in and of itself, does not solve anything. We need to wrestle the questions of why church is important and why we attend worship on Sunday and what difference the church makes in the community. When we have those answers we need to discern what resources are necessary to carry out our mission in the world, and resources include the number of buildings, the number of leaders, and the number of people needed.

The church of tomorrow may not be recognizable to us but if the church is to survive at all and be a healing and positive agent of God’s healing in a hurting and fragile world, we need to seek answers to these and similar questions.

There is no one set of answers, no one formula - more than one congregation that I know has left their treasured building behind and are in a time of transition - asking “what kind of building will enable and enhance our ministry?” instead of asking “how do we keep the doors open?” Other churches have gotten together in a larger and cooperative fashion with a greater number of congregations and several staff but with a different way of being together where every “minister” does not need to spend the time necessary to lead worship every week, freeing the others up to work with the congregation and community in other ways and focus on their common ministry and outreach. When we are all separated into our pastoral charges with our ministers unnecessarily duplicating each other’s work, we are wasting valuable resources.

A colleague of mine, involved in the amalgamations in the city of Moncton, said that vision is crucial to the process of change and redevelopment. If saving money is our only vision the amalgamation of two congregations with 100 worshippers each will become one congregation with only 100 worshippers. Having a vision required talk, discussion and work; it does not just “happen”.

We need to know that the way forward is a challenging one - but we must realize that the way we have done things in the past is not an option.

Not only does our survival depend on it, but our faithfulness does as well. We are called to be disciples in the places in which we find ourselves; let us go forward in courage, in faith and in trust.

Amen.

2 Sam 6:1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1: 3-14
Mark 6: 14-29

What Dance Are You Dancing?

Sometimes you come across a biblical passage and when you read it aloud in church you want to raise your voice as if you are asking a question when you finish and say, “THIS is the word of God!? or “THIS is the Gospel of Christ!?” Sometimes you wonder what purpose such passages serve and you wonder who it was who thought they should be in “the Bible” and what committee agreed with that person! We have TWO of this kind of passage today! TWO!

In addition, it’s not always a good thing to use the first quote that comes to mind when you read a biblical passage. Tuesday evening after a walk in the evening heat, and a supper that was a little too heavy, I read these passages and thought immediately of Rudyard Kipling’s famous quote, (which is actually composed of both the beginning and ending lines of a much longer poem, titled, “If”) “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; ......you’ll be a man, my son!”

Certainly John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth did not set out to be executed for being a prophet but that is what we are told happened. John attempted to, as we say these days, “speak truth to power” and he paid with his life.

The gospel passage is interesting for several reasons. While we might think of the people’s idea that the long dead Elijah had returned is a more than a bit odd, the return of Elijah was supposed to be one of the signs of the coming of God’s Reign. You may remember that he was carried of in a whirlwind, accompanied by a chariot of fire. Technically, he did not “die”, so he could, technically, “come back”.

Mark wants to be sure to make note of this. Such a speculation would not be unusual or worthy of more than passing mention. Remember there were some who thought that about Jesus.

Mark wants is to know that what is different here is that Herod’s conscience has been working overtime. HEROD thinks it is John, the baptizer, come back to life; Herod was the man responsible for his death in the first place!

The story of John’s demise is told as a kind of “flashback” - almost as if it is there just in case a reader has not followed the story in the daily newspaper.

In our passage from Samuel and our passage from Mark we have two dances - one a dance of unbridled joy and the other a dance of seduction and manipulation.

In our passage from the Hebrew Scriptures David is celebrating the “homecoming” of their most sacred object - the ark of the covenant. The Psalm is about that too. No one really knows what this “ark” looked like but it was extremely important to their worship and faith life. Upon this box sat two golden angels and in it were the tablets upon which were written the ten commandments. It was a very holy object; as if it was God’s home on earth! Approaching it involved prayers and rituals. It had to be carried on poles, or on an ox-cart, so that humans did not have to touch it. Humans were punished with death if they touched it - and that odd story is also in the Bible.

In today’s passage, David does an ecstatic “happy dance” and apparently it is not the most modest of dances. It is said that he was girded with a linen ephod. The exact nature of this garment is also a matter of debate but we can infer from the text that it did not actually “cover all the basics”, especially if one was in a dancing mood! You can’t arrest the king for indecent exposure but we are told his wife was very upset. Yet this dance is viewed in a positive way in the biblical story - David is expressing unbridled joy at this bringing the ark of God to their new home as a nation.

Contrast this dance with the one performed by Herod’s daughter in front of her father and his friends. Mark tells us that she is in cahoots with her mother whose hatred of John was well known. John had confronted Herod because he had married his brother’s ex-wife and niece, which was against Jewish law. Herodias’ dance was clearly pleasing to this group of men who were probably inebriated and Herod had foolishly promised her anything she wanted. After consulting with her mother she asked for John’s head on a platter. Because of the promise he had made in front of his friends Herod had to have this sentence carried out. John was in prison but had likely not been executed because Herod was afraid of him and Herod knew John was right.

We tend to think of dictators as people of absolute power; but I don’t think it’s really possible to have absolute power all on one’s own! You see, there have to be others who support the structures that allow this power. Herod was having supper with some of them that night and he it seems that could not afford to appear weak in their eyes. In reality, he had to give the order. Once he made the promise he did he opened the door to manipulation by his wife.

There is something about the nature of power which tends to corrupt those who have it. People in power often need to make deals to keep their power and the deal makers, sitting in the background, usually get what they need without getting their hands dirty.

David was certainly no saint with respect to abuses of power; the incident with Bathsheba and Uriah being a case in point but on this day his dance appears to be sincere and without regard for anything but expressing his profound religious joy.

Herod’s daughter danced to manipulate - to coerce something from her father - there would have been no other motive. The rash promise was just the icing on the cake her mother needed to get what she wanted - to be free of that meddling prophet.

These passages placed together call us to reflect on the use of dance in each of these passages. I think it is a metaphor for the way in which our powers and abilities are used. David is described as dancing with wild abandon; he does not care who sees and what they think. It is clear that his wife did not like it. Maybe she thought that he would lose face with the people if he looked like a silly child or a drunken idiot. He had a reputation to uphold - after all he was the king. David’s dance was spontaneous and heartfelt.

Herodias daughter, on the other hand, was dancing to manipulate her father. There was something she wanted and she knew how to get it - and in the end someone died.

We’ll be singing “Lord of the Dance” in a few minutes. In this hymn the dance is a metaphor for life, especially the dance of Jesus’ life and the dance of following him. Back in the early days of my ministry I had one organist who made it quite clear that this was not a hymn she wanted to play. She had grown up in a church that was completely against dancing - and she felt this hymn had no place in a service of worship.

In the United Church we don’t tend to have those restrictions but these are not waltzes or square dances either!

As I said its not the form of the dance that is in question - it is the motivation. It leads us to ask the question about ourselves - what is our motivation - do we express our faith with abandon because that is how we feel and we don’t care who sees, or is our faith expressed so that the right people will see us at the right time.

In Voices United, (our hymn book) there are “John Wesley’s Directions for Singing” and one of them is “sing modestly, do not bawl” but note that he ALSO says “sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep”. In his directions for singing, holy song is for the purpose of honouring and praising God, not impressing the other churchgoers!

So we have the metaphor of dance, the example of singing modestly but with life, and we can apply this to all of the things we do in faith. We have to ask ourselves the question - do we do so to impress someone - do we do so that we will be seen by someone and perhaps receive some kind of reward - or do we respond in the way we do because it is the only expression of our faith that is authentic for us at that time.

We have to be careful here - our audience is God, but we have to be careful that we don’t respond to get something from God, for we have already received all that we need.

Let us throw ourselves into the dance of life, because that is what our faith demands of us but let us do so to express our faith and our joy and our gratitude to God with our whole being - not to earn favour of any kind because we have already received all that we will ever need.

Amen.

Psalm 84
Ephesians 6" 10-20
John 6: 56-69

Whole Armour of God

As most of you know, on Saturday the Annual Dundas Plowing Match Parade took place. At the beginning and end of almost every parade, here and elsewhere, are the fire trucks - all cleaned and polished - with a small child sitting on the driver’s knee and someone else throwing candy out of the window. These trucks were, of course, driving v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Normally fire trucks drive as fast as they can because lives and property are at stake, and racing to an actual fire is not the time or the place for small children or throwing candy. (For those reading this sermon on the internet you can learn more about this local fair at , Provincial Plowing Match and Agricultural Fair Please come next year! )

A little boy in one of my previous congregations had the unfortunate experience of two neighbours having to call their fire-department. He saw flames and fire trucks and his mind drew the most obvious conclusion. Pause When his kindergarten class visited the local fire-hall to learn about fire safety he confronted a firefighter, “Why do you burn peoples houses down?” It was a perfectly logical question to him because for him the two went together; even adults will agree that you never see a fire without a fire truck - to a four year old there was an unmistakable cause and effect!

All firefighters wear specialized equipment and regulations dictate what must be worn for certain kinds of duties. If you work for a big city fire department and are going to go to the roof of an office tower to rappel down to a trapped office-worker standing on a ledge (as I just saw in a tv movie about a fire-fighter) your equipment is somewhat different that it would be if you had to enter a burning apartment building to look for a trapped resident. As far as I know you can’t send in just one firefighter to look for someone - you have to send at least two, so even the smallest volunteer fire-department needs 2 sets of breathing apparatus. And they aren’t cheap! We all know that parade day and a day on the job are very different things.

Many professionals, including doctors, dentists, as well as bomb-disposal experts and haz-mat teams need protective clothing and equipment in order to perform their jobs safely.

Today’s passage from Ephesians is a curious one, especially when we are reminded that the early church was essentially a pacifist organization. They took Jesus’ teachings about turning the other cheek and not paying evil for evil, quite seriously. For many taking up arms would have been to contradict the trust they placed in God and the love and teachings of Jesus who taught about turning the other cheek and not repaying hate for hate. For various reasons they were also heavily persecuted.

My internet colleagues got into a great discussion this past week around the question of Roman Soldiers in the Christian community. We know that all Canadian peace officers and members of Canada’s Armed Forces have to take an oath of loyalty “to her majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.” The so-called ‘Bible lands” at that time were occupied by Rome and a Roman Soldier had to take an oath that, in part, affirmed Caesar as Lord, in other words, as divine. This would preclude a Christian from taking the oath because, one of the earliest creeds was, “Christ is Lord”. This creed clearly implied that the Christian DID NOT believe that Caesar was a god. Thus the Christian creed was seen as treason and indeed some regarded Christians as atheists because they did not worship Caesar.

At some times in the early church, before the conversion of Constantine, Roman Soldiers would have played an instrumental part in putting Christians to death. The sight of a soldier in full armour would have been intimidating if not downright frightening.

Yet, despite all of this, the author of Ephesians must have assumed that the original readers would be able to get their heads around what could have been seen as a stumbling block by using the image of the kind of armour they would see being worn by others every day.

We would do well to notice that with the exception of the sword all of the armour mentioned is defensive armour - it would be of little use in the modern army but that is what they had.

The early church still believed in a world that was controlled by forces beyond their control - indeed by forces that were from “out of this world” or as this author puts it, “heavenly places”, and this is not a positive meaning of “heaven”. Their ability to be loyal to God and the ways of Jesus was constantly being tested by forces loyal to the evil one. I don’t think it matters much that many of us do not believe that these forces are real beings. In our modern age we know the forces have real power, even if they are creations of our own psyche. They still need to be contended with for they can stand in the way of a satisfying life - and especially in the way of a life lived in faith.

Who was it that used to say “the devil made me do it”? Wasn’t it Flip Wilson? In the Family Circus cartoon strip the parents inevitably quiz the children about something which has been broken that should never has been touched in the first place. When asked the children blame “Ida Know” and “Not Me”.

We all know that “the devil made me do it” and “Ida know” and “not me” are nothing more than cop-outs or lame excuses that we make up in a futile attempt to avoid responsibility for our own actions and that growing up involves both taking responsibility for our own actions and resisting the temptation to make excuses. As we grow we need to take ownership of our own actions, whatever the punishment might be.

The author speaks of these forces as coming from the heavenly places and being stronger than flesh and blood. You don’t have to believe that there is a being or demon called “fear” to know that fear is real, debilitating and there comes a time when it has to be confronted and defeated. It would be so much easier if fear was a “thing” that could be killed or tied up and put in prison! Wouldn’t it?

Of course with fear, there are times when fear is a good thing. If I wake up to the sound of the smoke detector in the middle of the night, it is a good thing that a fear of fire makes me leave my house, as quickly as possible, cell phone in hand, to call the fire department.

Even though our world view has changed this passage has some important things to say to us - that is the beauty of scripture, the timelessness can transcend different world views and many scientific advances. Instead of acquiescing to these forces we, like the early Christians, are enjoined to put on the armour of God.

The church has historically referred to “seven deadly sins” as the ones which are the hardest to avoid and which, perhaps, do us the most damage. Roman Catholics may put more emphasis on these than the Untied Church has, but I think the list still applies. The currently recognized version of the sins are usually given as wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. At some times in our lives, each of these and other temptations, can be so powerful that they seem to be driven by forces beyond our control, as if the forces are actual beings or creatures with a mind to make us fail.

So what do we do when we are assailed by the temptation, for example, to take more than our fair share, to seek revenge, or to let envy take over our life?

We first need to seek God’s truth and righteousness. This is certainly not self-righteousness but the sincere seeking of the deep truth of God’s call to each one of us and God’s fairness toward all of creation.

People may wonder what direction we are taking but if we are a people who walk the way of peace and love as well as talk the talk of peace and love, we will be seen as people of integrity. Our faith will become, for us, not just a set of things we believe, but a way of life and, a way of trusting, that we are not depending on the transient and fleeting things of this world.

With faith as our protector we will not fall victim to flaming arrows of those who want to see us fail, or think we are just wasting our time. With prayer and the support of the community, both those who stand with us, and those who have gone before us, we can know the strength that comes from faith in God and the support of the community. Christian faith is not supposed to be something that becomes routine and requires no effort or thinking at all. Our faith is something that should engage us as we seek DAILY to live a life which reflect the teachings of the one we follow.

The scriptures tell us again and again that standing against the tide is not futile, and that ultimately God’s truth will be proven - except that it is not always proven in ways that the world recognizes.

As I was writing the conclusion to this sermon a hymn came to mind that I learned and came to love while I was at AST - it is by a Jesuit priest by the name of Bod Dufford and is found in the Catholic Book of Worship II and it speaks of the different standards by which the community of faith lives. It’s title is “Be Not Afraid and I quote it here. (Hymn quoted)

Amen.

er is one of those “hospital shows” that I love and since the series is “over” I now watch it in reruns or on DVD. On Friday, in an episode from one of the later seasons, it is obvious that Frank - the middle aged ornery desk clerk and Dr Morris are having a dispute that is having a negative effect on all of the staff. It was almost like the common childhood dispute where one child divides the room with masking tape across the floor and rejoices because only one gets to use the door! Their boss, Dr Pratt, using material from a leadership course he is taking, makes them speak in sentences beginning with “I feel”. It’s not as easy as it sounds at first, but it’s not as useless as it might sound either! After a few stabs at the problem, Frank finally reveals the root of the problem when he says, “I felt hurt when you invited everyone but me to your party”.

Seeking to defend his actions, Dr Morris says, “You told me you hated sushi and karioke. I didn’t think you wanted to come.”

Frank replied, “When I said I hated karioke all I meant was that I did not want to do it, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t interested in watching your fools do it - and I could have stopped somewhere and brought something else for me to eat.”

With the air cleared, they go off together for coffee and Dr Pratt stands at the reception area, proud of his problem solving skills.

The truth of the matter is that words do matter. The words we use to express our feelings, matter. If we really believed the childhood rhyme, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”, we were deceiving ourselves. We said that rhyme, not because it was true, but because, deep down, we wanted it to BE true. We knew names and cruel words did hurt and we wanted the hurting to stop; we wanted those feelings to go away.

When a teacher is explaining concepts to a class that teacher has to use language which will resonate in some way with a student’s experience. Inner city children, for example, would not resonate with illustrations from farming or rural living. Farm children would know little of the life in the city.

James is an epistle written for a different audience than the apostle Paul had in mind. Martin Luther called the letter of James “an epistle of straw”. I think Luther did so because he liked Paul’s writings and did not fully comprehend the reality that James was writing for a completely different audience and in an almost completely different time. James talked about faith needing to be accompanied by works because for James’ audience faith was something your believed with your mind or your heart.

James’ audience loved ideas and intellectual challenges. James had to make sure that the new Christians to whom he was writing knew that faith and actions went together. Paul was writing to a different group who would never have separated the two in the first place; Paul, and his audience, would have assumed that faith in God meant that one lived a faith-filled life. Different audience - complimentary message.

This is the year of the Summer Olympics. They took place in London, United Kingdom and are now being followed by the Paralympics. In both events there are tears of joy and many proud moments. There are also bitter disappointment as each event finishes and the first, second and third place winners have their names inscribed in the history books, while the rest seem to be all but forgotten.

One of Proctor and Gamble’s 2012 Olympic Ads focus on all the things moms do for the children who grow up to compete in the Olympics. The tag line is something like, “the hardest job is also the best job”. I think of the hockey moms, dads and grandparents who take children to tournament after tournament and buy untold amounts of gear, sticks and roll after roll of hockey tape and pay for countless meals and hotel rooms while on the road.

We must realize that no one in the NHL, or any other pro-sport or Olympic sport got there on his or her own. For every player there is someone, or many someones who believed in her or him and helped in some small or large way. Unfortunately, the moms and dads don’t get medals or their names on the Stanley Cup.

Of course, no amount of help and support can turn every boy into a Bobby Orr, or a Sydney Crosby or put every girl on the podium at the Olympics, or into the National Ballet of Canada, but without that help and support none of them would be there.

There are those who recognize and appreciate this and there are those who do not. Harry Emmerson Fosdick, the famous American preacher from the early 20th century, once observed that in his experience those who reflected upon their lives and concluded that they had received far less than they deserved were not people that led great lives. Similarly those who concluded that they earned about what they were entitled to, were not people sho stood out as great people either. The people who had led truly exceptional lives, he concluded, were those who believed they were truly blessed; those who truly believed that they received far more than they deserved were the ones who were able to be a blessing to others. These were the ones people looked up to; these were the real heroes, to use our sports image.

James is writing of the kind of grace that transcends social barriers and social standing. We do not live in a class based society of the kind that James did, and we have a hard time understanding just how much it was thought to limit life and one’s potential in previous eras. Yet we know that some people seem to have an easier time of it when they go to do something. Their name or their community of origin may give them an advantage that someone else does not have.

As a Canadian, born in the time after Tommy Douglas made his mark on canadian society, I find it totally incomprehensible that some people argue against universal health care. We just have to turn on the tv to an American channel to hear these various views. Our system has its flaws and costs a great deal, but the alternatives are not pretty! We forget that the churches were the ones who seem to have invented what we might call “the social safety net”. In the early church, to which James writes, the ones in the most need were the “widows and orphans”. They were people who had no breadwinner to care for them and some even believed that they were being punished by God for some misdeed and had earned the punishment of poverty! The early church worked against such notions.

I believe that I read somewhere recently that the churches of the reformation in what is now the United Kingdom were instrumental in ensuring these most vulnerable members of society were cared for. In Canada what we call “the Social Gospel” is responsible for the movement which spawned our current social programs. It is unfortunate that many who would consider themselves Christian are trying to dismantle them under some kind of Gospel of personal responsibility - which is, to me, a thinly veiled Gospel of Greed which is no Gospel at all!! We are called to live a life of generosity - called to live in faith - to utilize our gifts - not just for ourselves - because they have been given to us NOT to make us wealthier, or more special, but to improve the health of the entire body.

Let is look in the mirror. Let us realize that we are seeing someone blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to others.

Amen.