Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Psalm 130
John: 35, 41-51

“Bread of Life: Smells Like Home”

One of you said to me within the last week, “Back when we were kids and Mamma was angry over something we had done, she took it out on the bread and if we were very bad, the bread was really good that week.”

When kneading bread you have to put some effort into it! When I was growing up my mother made large batches of bread several times a week. I can still see her mixing and kneading and letting it rise and punching it down and letting it rise and so on and so on. In grade seven I made a new friend who was originally from Jordan. Her home-made bread was round, and hollow, something like pitas. My friend tells me that it was a lot o work too!

Long after I had grown up and moved away, I knew my mother’s problems with her shoulder were getting worse when she reported to me that she had purchased a bread-maker. No longer would the house be filled with the aroma of an oven filled with bread. Most people would agree that the aroma that come from baking one small loaf in a bread-maker us “just not the same”, but it’s all we could manage this morning.

They say that if you want to sell your house, one of the smartest things you can do is to arrange to have the smell of baking bread wafting through the kitchen when the real estate agent is showing the house! For many, the smell of baking bread, is the smell of home!

Part of my struggle with this week’s Epistle and Gospel passages was that I wanted to preach on both of them! Both of them deal with complex subjects which would take several sermons each! When viewed through the lens of “Christian Community” though, I think I found a way to make it work! I’ll let you be the judge.

When people from the Maritimes get together, we eat! When families get together, we eat! When a family experience a loss, people bring food so that when the family and friends gather, they can eat without worrying about what to cook or having to buy groceries! When families celebrate birthdays they eat! My brother’s wife comes from a family that believes each such gathering should have two to three times the amount of food the number of people attending could possibly need.

Of course, food is essential to life, and in many cultures a grain based product such as bread is a staple. Jewish people celebrate the Passover once a year - a meal of lamb and unleavened bread (because they left town in such a hurry that the yeast did not have time to do its work!) Bitter herbs and much wine. In Christianity this meal has changed from that very real and substantial meal into a symbolic meal consisting of some form of bread and wine. In the United Church it is an important part of our identity that the communion table is “open” to anyone who wants to come! This is not the case in some churches.

When we talk about community (and families) we need to realize that healthy families and good community do not just “happen”. They take work. Healthy relationships among and between all groups of humans take work and can be very frustrating even when they are healthy.

Sometimes the adage “do not let the sun go down on your anger” is advice given to young couples. I have seen it in a cartoon poster with a second line, “stay up all night and fight”! Long ago, a parishioner had to go to emergency in the middle of the night and she apologized for disturbing the doctor’s sleep. He replied, “O that’s OK. I wasn’t sleeping; my wife and I were having a fight!” She reasoned that “it was some fight!”

Somewhere we have picked up the idea that disagreements are wrong and that we all have to “get along”, particularly in church. That is not true; the health of a relationship, in any aspect of human life, can be measured by how conflict is handled, not by its absence.

In the olden days there developed the idea that convicted criminals were supposed to be forced to live on a diet of bread and water. I don’t know if that has ever been true but it is a well known association. Sometimes prisoners are given the poor, cheap food that no one else will eat. I read somewhere that back in the 19th century the prisoners in the Queens County Jail in PEI almost had a riot because, wait for it, they were being forced to eat lobster too often. How times change!

When we think of how we treat prisoners who have broken the laws of society there is a lot of anger! This is one case where we let the sun go down on our anger, often many times. We must remember a couple of things: one is that people are sent to jail AS punishment, not FOR punishment. The other is that as Christians we are a people of forgiveness and that extends to all people. Of course this does not mean that we abolish the justice system but we must look at it as a means of restoring both the offender and the one offended against.

There are some who cannot be let out because of public safety but those are a minority of the prison population. If we couold figure out how to stop the revolving door we would have fewer of those “lifers” as well.

The passage read this morning made the assertion that the robbers should be brought to the point where their lives will benefit the needy. We talk about a debt to society but who really benefits when the convicted ones are sentenced to time in a school for crime. It’s a complex issue but it won’t be solved by anger, revenge and a desire to “make someone pay”, at least in ways that do not really seek to restore anything of value - especially self respect and personal responsibility.

All of the behaviours mentioned in the passage: bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling and slander take up a lot of energy and do nothing to build community. They set up the assumption that “we” are right and blameless and “they” are wrong and fully responsible for everything that has gone wrong. Such is not an assumption that belongs to the community of those who eat of the bread that came down from heaven.

Just as the people in the wilderness were fed by grace and manna, so too we are fed on grace and the bread of Jesus - whose very life and teachings nourish us and bring us into community.

It is this bread, this name and this way which give us our identity and purpose.

So let us widen the circles of our sharing. Let us deal with our anger, not letting it gove3rn our lives. Let us follow the One who gave us a name, and bread to sustain our journey.

Doesn’t that smell great!. Just like our true home.

(By this time the breadmake should be finished and the smell of bread will fill the sanctuary).

Ephesians 5: 15-20
Psalm 111
John 6: 51-58

The Fear of the Lord - Seeking Wisdom

When I think of the phrase, “the fear of the Lord”, I can’t help but think of a few tv comedies. Do you remember Maud? She would shake her finger at her husband and say, “God will get you for that Stanley!” Or, on a TV show or movie, set in the 19th century, some dour church lady dressed in black says to someone who has crossed the line in some way, “Do you not fear God?” In popular thought, the “Fear of the Lord” is connected with punishment for specific sins that could run the gamut from murder to knitting on Sunday!

With all due respect to my forebears, I do not think that this is what “fear of the Lord is supposed to mean. It has little to do with the fear of being punished; it has little to do with what we usually define as fear either!

What then is the fear of the Lord? The catch phrase - the Psalm’s last words are “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. To get a sense of what it means to the Psalmist we have to look at the words that went before it. What is wisdom and how do we acquire it.

Back when I was a student at Mount Allison, somewhere in the last century, (no kidding, it was the 1980s) I took a course titled, “Making and Meaning of the Bible”. The professor was also Dean of Arts and at some point in the fall semester he had to go to meetings for university deans. Instead of cancelling class, as we might have hoped, he had one of the other professors in the Department take the class. This professor taught in the field of “theology and philosophy of religion” and he had a very dry sense of humour. His first comment was something like this, “Dr Scobie saved this topic for me; after all, what would the Dean of Arts know about wisdom.” (We knew that BOTH of these professors had earned PhDs in their respective fields! ) We all chuckled and then he went on to explain how wisdom and academic learning were not the same.

When I was small I had a favourite uncle. It was not until I became an adult that I realized what made him stand out in my life was his “wisdom”. He presented his advice, when he had some, as observations on the way life worked; he presented his advice as something that was obvious if you looked at things in a different way!

There is a lot of stuff you can learn, by rote or through little tricks and nemonic devices - ROYGBIV will help you remember the order of colours in the rainbow, the phrase “never eat soggy worms” will help you with the order of the directions on the compass: NESW. The answer in the 9 times tables always add up to 9, even if you 9 X your grocery bill or the national debt! As with all “knowledge” though, if you don’t come to the point where you “get it” and understand it from within, you probably have nothing more than a bunch of useless trivia in your head. Unless you are a contestant on Jeopardy or get into the “Cash Cab” when you are in Toronto it doesn’t do much for you, or for anyone else for that matter!.

Wisdom comes from “getting life”. They say that Solomon, the third King of Israel and son of David was wise. I remember an episode of Criminal Minds that referred to the wisdom of Solomon in the case of the baby wanted by two mothers. Solomon’s solution involved a proposal to divide the baby in two: that would be fair, each woman would get half. A wise king knew that the real mom would rather have her child raised by another than die. His ruse worked and the true mother became obvious.

We live in such a scientific world its hard to be amazed anymore. . Advances in medicine have made what was once unthinkable, routine! We can do surgery on the heart, the brain and on the unborn! While space exploration has not yet reached the Star Trek age, our knowledge is increasing in leaps and bounds. I don’t know about you, but I followed Chris Hadfield’s daily photograph postings via Twitter. My favourite was, of course, the picture of PEI. My only quibble was that it was upside-down! As each photograph was beamed back from space it was utterly amazing to me, that such pictures could be taken and we could know what was in the picture.

As 21st century people we can respond with the attitude that, in time, we humans will be able to know everything and to be able to know and control anything we choose OR we can take the path of hte Psalmist and respond in awe. One of the newer fields of theology is trying to take into consideration all of the findings in the field of Quantum physics.

Yet, we are human and the scriptures call us into a relationship of awe before God and before creation!

Have you ever seen the Northern Lights in all their glory? Have you stood on the walkway that enables you to almost touch the water rushing over Niagara Falls? Did you try and catch a glimpse of a perseid meteor shower this past week? Have you ever looked at a small child discovering something about the world for the first time? Have you ever gazed on a new born and marvelled at the wonder of it all? Have you ever been present at a birth or a death and wondered “what just happened here?”

If you have, you know something of wisdom. The fear of God can be likened to “awe before God” and, as I said, it is needed now, more than ever.

We often see ourselves as so much more sophisticated and knowledgeable than even our parents’ generation but I wonder what things we take for granted will be thrown out as science advances even farther.

They say that these days people have to become life long learners if they want to continue to work their whole adult lives! No longer will a woman graduate from university and know all there is to know about her field; in a few years old truths will be discarded and new ones discovered. Think of the changes computers have brought to the world of essay writing, auto mechanics and appliance repair just to name a few fields.

Before I moved I gave my state of the art (ala 1987) typewriter to a teen in the church - she had never seen a typewriter. She thought I had given her the best thing ever. When she took it into the house her mom said, “Oh, I have one of those in the attic!” Now her daughter things we are both antiques!

For centuries popular culture has believed that the more we find out the fewer mysteries there will be. Yet, that is certainly not the case. If scientists are honest, they will admit that the more they discover the more they realize they don’t know. Quantum physics, for example, has changed how we view reality in ways I cannot begin to comprehend.

What the Psalmist is trying to do in this Psalm is to move the human focus toward God. To focus on God, in awe and adoration is the beginning of wisdom.

Wisdom is not something you obtain, such as you might obtain a grade in school, or learn those semi-useful factoids I spoke of at the beginning of the sermon, it is a practise, a way of living and being in the world, it is a journey and not a destination.

Now I get back to the matter of human behaviour. This does not mean that human behaviour is irrelevant, far from it, but human behaviour is linked to our life of praise of God and to our connection with all of life. We think in terms of sin as something we can put “on a list” (such as a narrow reading of the Ten Commandments”. These things are unacceptable and thus are sins and things that are fine and not sins. BUT, it’s just not that simple.

How do we determine all of this?

We are called to be in relationship with the worshipping community, with those whose gaze is also beyond the world immediately in our grasp and who dare to venture into contemplation of the unknown

Wisdom comes from discernment, from reflection on life from the perspective of faith. Wisdom comes from the realization that with great privilege comes great responsibility. As we seek the will of God we will gain the wisdom we need in order to be God’s people in a changing and complex world.

What does it profit a person if the whole world is gained but in the process the soul is lost?

Amen!

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

“It Isn’t Easy Being Green”

Of course, you remember the muppets; those odd and furry creatures who had their beginnings on Sesame Street, but soon developed a life of their own. The more you watch the more you realize that a great deal of the humour must be totally lost on young children. One of my facebook friends uses as his profile picture the image of Waldorf and Statler, those two old gents in the fancy theatre box who are always offering their wry commentary on the goings on!

Do you remember the song sung by Kermit, “Its Not Easy Being Green”? Don’t worry, I won’t sing it!

 It's not that easy being green
Having to spend each day the colour of the leaves
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold
Or something much more colourful like that. 

Just about everyone wishes, at some time or another, that he or she were someone else! Or that they were taller? Or thinner! Or more muscular! Or smarter! How many of you have heard, “blondes have more fun!” and how many of you, who ARE blonde would agree that you do indeed have more fun!. Maybe you are tired of the stereotype inherent in the “dumb blond” jokes!

Kermit’s song concludes:

 “When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, 
but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful
And I think it's what I want to be” 

In the early church, being a follower of “The Way” as they were known at the time, was far from easy. As time wore on the persecution they suffered increased in its severity.

Our General Council has just finished meeting in Newfoundland. One of the motions that passed enables our church to strengthen ties with the Presbyterian Church in Korea. A former moderator, the Very Rev Lois Wilson spoke of a conversation she had some years ago with the Very Rev Sang Chul Lee, also a former moderator. Lois was preparing to go to Korea as part of an ecumenical delegation. He said something like this, “Lois you have to understand there are two Presbyterian churches in Korea. In one, the members are sure they are going to heaven; in the other, the members are sure they are going to jail!” As I understand it, it is the latter group with which we are affiliating! In some places it is a costly thing to be Christian - that is, if you feel it includes speaking out for the things that improve the daily lives of people while they are yet alive. In that church the people accept the fact they will pay with their freedom, because it is how they read the Gospel and how they follow the call of Jesus of Nazareth.

Throughout history, many stories can be told of people who put themselves in peril by hiding refugees from invading armies, (such as the Christians who hid Jews from the Nazis) from marauding mobs (Such as those who hid neighbours during the Rwandan genocide)

I find it very interesting that the image used in the passage from the letter to the Ephesians is that of the “battle dress” of a Roman soldier. Imagine a citizen of the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation reading a letter to their church which employed an illustration of the battle dress of a soldier in the Geerman army or the everyday uniform of an SS officer.

Yet this easily visualized image is redeemed insofar as it can be a teaching tool for the struggles of being Christian. NOTE that it is noted that their goal is peace - not conquering their adversaries with as much pain, death and destruction as they are experiencing!

The children’s program at Berwick Camp this year had “Superheros” as their theme. Instead of leaping tall buildings in a single bound or being able to see through brick walls these super heroes learned about STRENGTH to do what is right; DREAMING of God’s kingdom on eart; being a FRIEND to those in need and LOVING everyone!

The children wore simple, colourful capes made from t-shirts with just the neck band and the back remaining and a fabric or painted mask that just went over the eyes like Robin from “Batman and Robin” fame. Picture a very determined four year old dressed like this, walking around he camp for the rest of the week, and you get the feeling that there isn’t anything the child couldn’t do for Jesus.

A closer reading of the text reveals that with the exception of the sword, all of the items are “defensive”. They knew they were in a hostile environment and that they had to put on some protection.

In Canada in the early 21st century we might be fooled into thinking that we don’t need any kind of protective armour or battle dress in order to do our work as Christians, but remember the two churches in Korea I mentioned. Once obviously has priorities that get them noticed by the government in ways that affected their freedom and the other probably stayed with the safest topic of all: “getting to heaven when they died”.

The passage speaks of principalities and powers: in the 21st century we might refer to those things that used to be unquestioned, things which make life difficult for many - such as racism, sexism, classism - the widening divide between rich and poor - features of our culture which the vested interests of the rich and powerful do not want changed!

In Canada many of the principle factors that have made this country unique have come from the efforts of leaders whose religion informed their social conscience. Medicare is certainly the most prominent example.

As I see it, we follow someone who taught us to care for others, in the parable of the “Good Samaritan” and many other teachings and his personal examples . The early church showed by their care for widows and orphans that the Christian community was called to care for the most vulnerable.

When we look at our relative wealth compared with the rest of the world we are also challenged by the gospel of Jesus to make life better for people around the world - especially in cases where our prosperity is causing them to suffer.

How, for example, can we profit from gold mines in developing countries with standards we would never tolerate here and which are causing great harm to the indigenous peoples trying to live in these communities!

There are lots of folks who are against anything which may “cost” us as individuals or as a country, especially when the economy is in a slump. There are many who advocate belt tightening and focussing inwardly but what does the Gospel of peace say to us at a time like this?

Once upon a time governments listened to the churches but I think that tended to be on “safe topics” such as Sunday Shopping, gambling and “personal morality”. Then things began to change. Just look at what has happened with lotteries; now that the government is addicted to their revenue? Do you think they will listen to the churches’ whose position has always asked us to consider the many negative aspects of gambling?

When the churches started to really challenge people in their pocket books, their bank accounts and their investment portfolios, the hostility increased and we had to don that protective armour!

Since the 80s at least, the United Church has advocated for a more open attitude in the area of human sexuality, supported by the best medical knowledge and the stories of faithful Christians who have been hurt by judgmental and wrong headed attitudes of others who quoted the Bible like a hammer.

Again, we had to put on our helmets and our flack jackets!

As a church we need some distance from the state to be able to offer praise and challenge as we understand the gospel to be demanding of us.

Churches have had to reassess what it is that we are supposed to be doing. Supporting the status quo, in and of itself, is NOT on the list. “Keep the boat from rocking” is not on the list! How do we live out our faith in the public sphere? How do we proclaim the gospel and whose feathers do we ruffle in the process?

None of these things are easy but when we realize that its who are called to be and we are truly meant to be this way - its fine with us! It’s okay being the green!

We must remember that we are not to self-made as Christians - we live by prayer, by a relationship to the Holy One who calls us to be followers, to love God, others and neighbour and not to count the cost. We rely on the Christ for our identity and our marching orders!

Amen.

James 1: 17-27
Avon United Psalm 45
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

We Will Be Love

My mom used to love the expression, “more holy than righteous” but she meant it spelled like this: “holEy” as in “filled with holes”. That was back in the day when my mother darned socks and was tired of us wearing holes in our socks. Since we didn’t have carpet she wanted us to wear our sneakers in the house, to save our socks! I don’t think most socks are worth darning anymore - at least mine aren’t!

One of the perennial questions of people of faith is: What does God require of us? What is faithfulness? Is it more than following the ten commandments and the golden rule? If the gospels are any indication, Jesus was harassed on more than one occasion by a group of people who liked the “look” of righteousness; they wanted to look “holy” (no E) and they were upset when Jesus disregarded the rules, such as washing hands before eating! Now we all make our kids develop the habit of washing hands before eating, but that has more to do with hygiene and not religion! In Jesus day it was a religious rule but in the days before wet wipes in plastic containers, I suspect most people could not follow the rule when they were out!

Are such rules important? Determining what was and what wasnt important became even harder once the gospel began to travel beyond the places where everyone was Jewish and familiar with the Jewish rules, with which Jesus would have grown up.

As the church grew and expanded across the world as they knew it the apostles struggled to explain the faith and the life of faith im terns the people could understand.

Jesus’ message seems to be, “Stop with focussing on the picky laws and look at the lives people are living and look at how to make them better.” In another version of this story he is recorded as having said, “Don’t complain to me how bad it is to eat with dirty hands when some of you are looking for loopholes to avoid helping out your own parents in need”!

For the past 2,000 years Christians have been trying to answer the questions, “What does God want from us? and “How does one have a “right relationship” with God?” Do you have to just “believe” in Jesus or do you have to “do” certain things? Jesus talked about the “results” of one’s life as the sign of one’s faithfulness, not what could be considered arbitrary rules. “Stop proclaiming how much you love God. LIVE God’s love”, the writer of James would say. The apostle Paul wrote of “salvation through faith alone”. Martin Luther, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation was very critical of the Epistle Of James because it seemed to contradict what he saw as the centre of the Gospel (as interpreted by Paul) which was “salvation by faith alone”; he called James “an Epistle of Straw”. I don’t think that there is as much difference as Luther thought there was because the audience is very different.

You see, it depends what you mean by faith - if by faith you mean ideas and concepts that stay in your head, as theories or correct thoughts, then you do need works but if by faith you already mean an integration of what you believe with what you do, as Paul would have believed, then they are really saying the same thing!

James talks about the fleeting image of a mirror; unlike a portrait, it goes away as soon as you turn away.

Some of you will have figured out that I am a Harry Potter fan. In the first book, Harry stumbles on a magic mirror that shows, not what is in front of it, but the hearts desire of the one looking. He sees his parents. He gets his friend Ron to come and have a look, but he does not see Harry’s parents, he sees himself as the winner of the Quiddich Cup and Head Boy!

There is a legend told about the wife of a governor of New France. She carried a mirror as a pendant around her neck. Everyone who looked at the pendant was amazed that she thought enough of them to carry their picture around her neck!

We all remember Snow White. What does the evil queen say to the mirror which cannot lie? “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all;?” Once the mirror acknowledged the beauty of Snow White the trouble began!

Some would say that righteousness involves not sinning! If the only thing that can be said of us is that we avoided as much sin as possible, I would argue that we haven’t really done much at all.

Every time you access the news you find out about a serious accident or fatality involving an activity you do yourself: such as drive on the 101 or use a crosswalk. You could stay home but many accidents happen at home! So where do you go and how do you get there so that you avoid accidents? I saw a joke once along this line which asserted that since very few accidents happen in church you should go to church! However, we all know that we cant live life in a protective bubble if we expect it to have any quality. In the end, we live as safely as possible and try to avoid excessive worry but then we have to live.

Wait a minute, doesn’t James say that it is important that we should be “unstained” by the world. If this is not achieved by avoiding sins such as “sex, drugs and rock and roll” how do we achieve it?

We could see it though as not “buying into the myths of the world”. What are the myths of this world? One is the myth of unbridled capitalism. One is the myth of self-centeredness (look out for yourself first). One comes about when we deny any responsibility for the stuff we buy, use and throw away as it relates to reducing our imprint on the planet. One is along the lines of, “If I didn’t break it, I’m not going to fix it!”, so we don’t help out those in need who are far away or whose situations don’t touch our own.

Or we could learn from God, the father of lights, as James puts it, in the terms of Greek philosophy; God has given us everything we have. One of the biggest myths the world teaches us, either overtly or covertly, is that we humans are self-made and that we deserve what we have- and deserve to use it for our exclusive gain or profit.

A long time ago I saw a scratchy old movie (and it was scratchy and old when I saw it about 1981) which featured a former Moderator, Dr Robert McClure. As I remember it, he was talking with someone from an indigenous community in a developing country who asked him, “Tell me was it you or your ancestors who put the gold in the rocks of Canada”. As Canadians, we act as if our natural resources, whatever they may be, belong not only to us as a nation, but often specifically to certain provinces or even certain communities. We’re from Nova Scotia and you cant have OUR FISH for example.

Some corporations want to make water into something that is bought and sold, and available only to those who can pay. Basic health care in some countries is like that as for profit corporations control who receives whata and how much it costs.

Where IS the line between reasonable profit and unbridled capitalism?

Where is the line between healthy and un-healty sexual appetite.

Where is the line between ambition that drives excellence and ambition that clouds all other parts of our lives, especially our relationships with family and friends.

What is the purpose of Christian Community and the Church. Are we a private club carefully preserving our resources for contributors or are we opening doors in generosity and love.

I guess the real question is: When money is tight, and when hasn’t it been that way? do we look at God’s abundance or our our scarcity? When we can free ourselves from the responsibility to be self made; when we realize that we are made by God’s generosity and grace, we can be freed to live with grace and freedom.

We will come to know more clearly (without a guidebook) what the life of faithfulness looks like. Some who look at things differently may criticize us (and the United Church has often been in that position) but we need to keep our vision in mind.

We are a people of grace who have received God’s generosity and bt grace we step out in faith (and sometimes risk) to be God’s people in the world.

We don’t need to EARN anything because we have already received what we need most. Because we have been recipients of free and unmerited blessing we can go out and be a blessing to others.

Amen!

James 2: 1-10 (11-13) 14-17
Psalm 125
Mark 7: 24-37

Everyone Needs A Teacher - Everyone!

There is a wonderful scene in the movie “Shadowlands” in which professor Clive Lewis is at a faculty party with his new wife, Joy. Perhaps in an effort to be witty, a very boorish professor says something inappropriate to them, and she responds with words along the lines of, “Are you trying to be offensive or are you just plain stupid.” It’s certainly not the typical response of a faculty member’s wife in that era and it was not likely the response the professor, or her husband, expected but it was exactly what he needed to be told!

Today's gospel passage is intriguing in that we are left scratching our heads and saying things such as, "This does not sound like Jesus" or, "I don't like this Jesus, he was so mean to that woman". On the other hand we might have been surprised at the woman's "boldness", saying, "she was quite sassy, wasn’t she?" It can be a disturbing passage because of any or all of these elements.

When we were children we probably learned that, "even though he was fully human, Jesus was without sin", and we interpreted it to mean that he was "perfect in every way!" As I wrote that sentence I could not help but to think of the song by Mac Davis, "O Lord, it's hard to be humble". You know the words! ............... We've even expanded that to mean, "Jesus didn't even do the normal, but irritating, "kid stuff" that almost every child does at some point! We've also sung similar elements in our hymns. Do you remember the verse of another song, "Away in a Manger" that goes,

 "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes". 

We also tend to think that Jesus' theology was the same from the beginning of his ministry until its end and that he did not need to “grow in his faith”. We think that it was only the disciples who had the steep learning curve and often had “foot in mouth” disease. In the gospels, we read time and again that Jesus was often amazed that the disciples were so slow to realize the truths he was trying to convey, but we've been slow to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus had his own blind spots!

The geography of this passage is vitally important. Jesus was away from home, AND outside the borders of Israel. I think he was taking a break from his ministry. In the modern church many ministers like to do this! Jesus may well have wanted his equivalent of a sunny beach, a cold drink and NOONE who knew his name. On this day he went to a foreign country, one whose citizens bore a great deal of hostility toward people like him.

He was very disappointed. Not only did someone want him but the person in need was a woman and a foreigner. As you heard Rob read, he responds to her with no small amount of rudeness. He calls her a dog and implies that he would be throwing away his good news, properly reserved for the people of Israel.

This episode must have been brought to mind when the early church was debating the mission to the gentiles. On the face of it, it made logical sense! If the hope for a "messiah" was a Jewish religious one then it made sense that what became Christianity should e limited to the people who had been Jewish - or that at the very least they would have to have become Jewish first! Eventually the dispute was settled and Christianity separated from Judaism, but not before a lot of struggle. Jesus came to be seen, by Christians, as the Saviour of the World, not the just the Messiah of the Jews! That though, as they say, is another story!

Ironically, the writer of Mark's gospel places this story just after the one in which Jesus talks about the food laws, as one example, of "picky laws" getting in the way of people living out their faith, In this story he himself falls back on a cultural stereotype which some would see as equally picky!

Knowing a little bit about the times might help us to understand what might have been going on in Jesus' head! He did not live in a time of peace, tranquillity and universal prosperity. They were all under the heavy hand of the Roman Empire. Elsewhere we can read that the people of the seaport of Tyre made a great deal of money by exploiting the poor farmers in the nearby parts of the empire. They had been bitter enemies of Israel for many generations. It is might have been surprising that Jesus would even go there! .

Today’s passage offers a direct challenge to the thinking that Jesus had his act together throughout his whole ministry! I want to suggest that on the day in question, Jesus met his match as he came up against the personification of some of his own prejudices. This Syrophoenician woman was already at a clear disadvantage - as far as Jesus was concerned - she was a foreigner from a hated or at least mistrusted group and she was a woman. Jesus is weary and is on a break and he just wants to be left alone. He says the first thing that comes into his mind - he came first and foremost for Israel, and since he's not done with them he has no time for her,

Instead of slinking away with her head down to conceal tears of disappointment, she rises to the occasion! The woman's quick thinking, and tenacious faith challenge Jesus as she uses the metaphor contained in his insult and uses that to challenge him and proclaim the level of her faith. She asserts that a scrap or a crumb will do just fine. She isn't using "talking points" to avoid conversation but engages fully and thinks on her feet.

There have been many attempts over the past 2,000 years to soften Jesus' insult to and of her but I think it best to take it at face value - he insulted her; he called her a dog - like the vast majority of Jewish men from Israel he saw her as someone not worthy. She was not worthy of his time and God's healing power working through him!

Clearly, Jesus was the taught and not the teacher on this day!

It’s 2015 and we like to think that Canada is a classless society and that we treat everyone the same. That is more true than it used to be but not as true as we might think. I read an article on "White Privilege" the other day and even though its probably intended for the USA it's still very relevant to Canadian life and assumptions. Basically it lists a number of things that white people, particularly white males, can take for granted that members of visible minority groups cannot. It’s a sobering thought!

The refugee crisis in the Middle East will once again challenge our notions of our "colour blindness" and who are and are not desirable immigrants. It will also challenge our ideas of whata we can and cannot afford to give and share as a nation, as provinces, as communities and as individuals.

I was listening to the radio the otehr day and the person being interviewed said. “We can’t just walk by on the other side, and do nothing!” That reference, whether she knew it or not, pointed to the Parable of the Good Smaritan, in which a despised foreigner was a better neighbour than a religious official.

I must confess that sometimes my “help” is grudging, especially when I am tired. I remember a particular Friday afternoon phone call, once answered, I soon wish I hadn't. This person really needed to talk, I knew that but it had been a long week and I was tired. I had never met this person and really didn't know what to say to her but instead of telling her to call in the morning I listened and kept telling myself that I was the only one she could reach out to in that moment. I eventually did meet her but I wondered if she thought that I was just doing what I had to!

We can’t help everyone but the Gosepl tells us that we can’t discount those who come our way, whether it be on the street or on our television screens. We can’t get ourselves off of the hook by saying they are not like us, or that charity begins at home. On this day Jesus had his moral and compassionate compass re-calibrated.

When I went to General Council about 6 years ago the Executive Secretary said to us, “Not everything will go your way but remember who you are and whose you are?”

A few years ago Robert Fulghum wrote a best seller titled, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”! Early in life we may have learned other lessons, lessons we need to “unlearn”. Columbus DID NOT discover America! White people are immigrants too! What makes us think God loves us more than people in other countries?

We need to learn from this story about Jesus’ and his own education!

We are followers of the one who “could learn” not the one who knew everything from the get go. We follow the one who learned to live compassion to those he once considered “outsiders”

May we too continue to learn as we encounteer those who cross our paths and whose stories scream out to us from newspaper headlines and appear on our TV screens.

Amen.

Genesis 11: 1-9
Psalm 138
Romans 12: 3-7
Mark 9: 24-30

Babel: The First Failed Development.

When I was in New York City about ten years ago I learned a word that was totally new to me - schist. Schist is the type of rock underneath Manhattan and according to all the people who do the talking on the guided bus tours it’s presence enables them to build all those skyscrapers for which the city is famous. I don’t know about this part of Nova Scotia, but on my native PEI no one could build a building anywhere near the height of the average New York skyscraper - no schist, just sandstone!

When the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings were built there was a great competition to “build the tallest building”! The Chrysler building held the record for 11 months, until the Empire State Building was completed, but it is STILL the tallest brick building in the world.

Wikipedia tells us that 400,000 rivets were used and that approximately 3,826,000 bricks were manually laid for its non load bearing walls.

It seems that humans have long had a need to try and overcome the forces of nature which limnit the height of buildings. . When they build the original World Trade Centre it was thought the towers could withstand any type of collision. Since that fateful day. numerous conspiracy theories try to show that there must have also been explosives in the building to bring it down in the way it ended up happening. Others admit that what they did not count on was the amount of highly flammable jet fuel that exploded and then ignited all of the flamable materials in the building. In many aspects, life has never been the same since!

When they launched the ship, Titanic it was dubbed “unsinkable” and we know what this kind of pride, mixed with stupidity, did to this ship on a cold April night off of the coast of the colony of Newfoundland. It became one of the most famous ships in history, but not for the reasons the builders intended!

The story of the Tower of Babel is in that part of the Bible that is really “pre history”, in that it is before the promises to Abraham and Sarah and like the ones before it, this story is not about the “people if Israel”.

When we look at the story of the Tower of Babel we might well wonder “Why is this odd story in the Bible; why is it ]scripture”?”

Well. Here are a couple of thoughts. One is that it is a story that describes why something is the way it is! Why is this pyramid over there with no top! Or this story might explain how different languages developed. These structures were not meant to have pointed tops. The one in Ur, in modern day Iraq, is thought to have been 30m high. By contrast the Chrysler Building (with its spire) is a little more than ten times that! By the time the book of Genesis was written some of these temples may have been falling down and unused! Since they were designed to serve the worship of various pagan gods, it may simply be a way for the author of Genesis to proclaim a faith in superiority the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The biblical story tells of not one, not even two but many beginnings: the first tweo stories are of Creation after which humans began to populate the earth; the second after Noah where the children of Noah are given the responsibility of the rainbow covenant. Yet, it was not long, as the story goes, before the covenant was not honoured and the people fell away from it. This story tells us how, it was God’s will for humanity, on the one hand, to spread over all the earth and, on the other hand, to rely on God for strength, support, unity, identity and protection, among many things.

In this early story the people go it alone! They build a tower, reaching the sky, and people gather around it forming what could be called a city! This city will give them what they thought they could not have in scattered communities: strength, support, unity, identity and protection. Others would look at that city, at their buildings and say, “Wow - they are really smart and powerful - we’d better not mess with them! “

Self-sufficiency is not God’s intention, if that means people don’t need God. Self- sufficiency is not God’s intention if it means we see ourselves as the authors of all of their power, wealth and identity.

The scattering, as a result of their inability to communicate, while seen as a punishment, calls on them to rely on smaller groups for strength, support, unity, identity and protection, AND, most importantly, TO RELY ON GOD! As a result God’s purposes are furthered.

This story is about a language that seeks sameness and conformity and squelches creativity and the newness offered by the Spirit Walter Bruegemann, Genesis in the Interpretation Commentary series, 1982, John Knox Press

In the later stories in Genesis the story becomes about the people of Israle and they continue to have two basic problems: 1) they forget to rely on God, and 2) they want to be “like everyone else” and not the unique people they were called to be!

Flash forward many generations and we find the story of the time the Spirit came to the disciples at Pentecost and the miracle of hearing in many languages brought the people full circle to a unity and understanding.

It seems to me that this passage is not against cities. It is not against what might be called “progress” but against the many human efforts that are undertaken without reference to the covenant God established with the whole of creation.

All too often we humans undertake projects that seek to make a name for ourselves, with “ourselves” being just a small group of people, or which do nothing to respect the creation of which we are a part and upon which we depend, whether we want to admit it or not.

This is the liturgical season of Creation. In this natural season of harvest we are called to reflect on our inter- dependance with the natural world and our dependance upon God. We cannot actually create ANYTHING - out of thin air, that is! Think about it! We depend upon natural resources for everything - everything we eat, make, wear, use or abuse!

Climate change is one of the most contentious issues in current times. While most people agree with the scientists that climate change is real but do we have the will to do what we need to do to stop its progress? We might ask if jobs should trump care for the environment? Should we extract oil by mining the tar sands or by fracking? If we don’t, where are we going to get the oil we need? If we do, what are we going to drink, if the drinking water is polluted? At the end of the second world war we split the atom and developed a technology that could actually destroy the planet. The idea that nuclear might would be a deterrent to war brought us to its brink several times. Has our commitment to progress brought us to the brink of climate destruction? Have we breached one of the fundamental agreements with God as WE declared that ALL of the earth was ours to show how smart we were or that it is as the Psalmist claims, to show the glory of God?

Who decided that we humans have a right to turn all of creation into OUR domain, to make a name for OURSELVES. Who decided that globalization was the way to go - not the people whose labour keeps the corporations running, that’s for sure.

Is living more simply, as the saying goes, the solution to saving the planet and those people who are not “in our city”, who do not “speak our language”. .

There are serious discussions about colonizing other planets - but perhaps we should learn how to live on this one first!

We are called to live a life that praises God and respects our limitations as creatures.

Let us live with respect in creation so that future generations will know the grandeur of God’s good earth.

Amen!.

Wisdom 7:15-8:1
Romans 8: 35-39
Acts 17: 16-28
Psalm 104
Genesis 9: 8-9, 12-13

Whom Do We Worship?

One of the things I studied in university was greek and roman mythology. Its helpful for cross word puzzles and for understanding the background to today’s passage from Acts.

In the Athens of Paul’s day the “urban culture” took this mythology very seriously. There were idols everywhere and many were exquisite works of art that survive to this day. Even though there were many, many divine or semi-divine beings there were limits. Not long before the time of Paul there was a law forbidding the intricution of new gods. The use of the altar to the “unknown god” was probably a calculated strategic move on his part.

He was a visitor in their city so he begins this speech, as many scholars think that this was, in fact, a trial, with kind words about the people of Athens. You know what happens when a famous person goes on a speaking tour and in each place that person begins by saying something nice about the place in which they find themselves. When Stuart MacLean of CBC does this on tour you can hear the appreciative applause, for the time he took to do his research, when the live show is broadcast.

Some of you will remember that in 1983 Prince Charles was embarrassed when he referred to Saint John, New Brunswick as St. John’s, which is, of course, in Newfoundland and Labrador. The audience’s collective gasp, let him know immediately that something was wrong.

So Paul is trying to convert these folks to what would eventually become Christianity. It would have been no good for him to have said they were 100% WRONG from the get-go - we all know how effective that tactic usually is!

While touring around the city, Paul had seen an altar to “an unknown god” and in this speech he uses it as a jumping off point.

As Paul seeks to describe the god his people have known for generations to a people who were, effectively, total strangers, he needs to translate the “Jewish Jesus” into the world of Greek philosophy. Abraham and Sarah would have meant nothing to them and neither would have the concept of a “messiah”.

Even today the separation of Christ from culture is very difficult. The mistake that is often made by those some churches call “missionaries” is to confuse western culture with Christianity itself.

When our ancestors came to North America this was part of what was behind the destruction of their religious objects and the sending the children to residential schools. For a people who already had a full and meaningful relationship with “Creator” this was very destructive - to say nothing of the toll brought about by the residential schools.

Some might refer to Canada as a Christian country but we are, in fact, highly secularized. In some places there are large numbers of people raising families who have never had any connection to any church. We cannot attract them with the traditional language and traditional methods. In our case it may be a little better in that many of the people around here we are trying to reach are those who have stopped coming, rather than those who have never been here at all. We need to look at making fuller use of things such as Twitter and Facebook to reach the youngeer people.

We have to have to walk that fine line of speaking to our communities and the non-churched in language they can understand, while, at the same time as we do not compromise our essential message.

What is our essential message? Is being a good citizen and believing in God and in Jesus, enough?

As a people of faith we must be careful to model the faith we proclaim and not give it mere lip service. We must not only talk the talk, we must walk the walk! We have to be people of integrity. If God is important in our lives then it has to affect the way we live, or at least, give us a different reason for living the way we do.

One of the concepts I learned in university was of faith in the terms of “ultimate concern”. Despite what we say, what IS our ultimate concern? What are our real priorities? We can no longer have the world define faithfulness for us as Christians ; we must do it ourselves!

Many people in the world would prefer if we stuck to the religious matters of salvation and a narrow definition of sin and then they would safely assume that religion had nothing to say about the economy or social policy, for example. Yet, if you take even a quick glance at the Gospels you see a Jesus who was very concerned about the poor, the lame, the blind and any that were what we call “marginalized”. From its earliest days the church was concerned for the well being of the “widows and orphans” and provided real practical help. Former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brazil, under the military rule in that country, once said, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint., When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist”.

Yet, we are constantly bombarded with messages that tell us to look out for ourselves, to consume more and more, to ask “what’s in it for me and my peers”. In a world where a lot of things come down to money and the ability to pay for things we know the gap between rich and poor is becoming ever wider. Addressing that should be a faith response.

God created the world and all that is, for the benefit of all creation, not just for some - not just for human beings, but for all creatures everywhere and for the planet itself.

We are not self made no matter how hard we have worked to get where we are. We still have a Christian responsibility to share with others.

Christian parents have an especially difficult task. Raising children is hard enough, but when parents are trying to impart a different set of values than others it is even more difficult. Trying to be like everyone else should not be our primary goal.

The world refugee crisis is about that on a much larger scale. If we live and move and have our being in God just as the other peoples of the world do, we most certainly have an obligation to do what we can to alleviate the poverty of those who felt their only choice was to flee with only what they could carry on their backs.

One of the things that generosity can do is to help us cut the tie to the idea that the false god of “more” demands our allegiance and help us to recommit to the God who says “my grace is sufficient” who says we already have what we need.

Let us proclaim this with our lives in such a way that the message is compelling and draws others to us and so that ALL can be enriched and have what they need..

Amen.

Genesis 1: 1-13
Psalm 104 : 1-9
Genesis 9:8-9, 12-12

Paradise Lost?

On Tuesday, as I was preparing for this Sunday’s service, I had to step out of the office for a bit and on the way back I stopped in to Pharmasave. On their loudspeakers was playing the Joni Mitchell song, “Big Yellow Taxi”. Considering that I was working on this sermon, it was very fitting. The two lines that really speak to the passage from Genesis are about “paving paradise and putting up a parking lot” and the one about putting “all the trees in a tree museum and charging people to see them”.

When I was in high school I had the opportunity to go to Edmonton and visit a massive “tree museum”. It’s called the “Muttart Conservatory” and it is comprised of four huge glass, pyramid shaped greenhouses - each of three specializing in a different climate - arid, tropical and temperate, with the fourth being filled with seasonal plants which are changed - every season. (Now if you think I remembered ALL of that from just one visit 35 years ago, remember Wikipedia! (My memory was close, but not entirely correct! )

Realistically speaking, the only place I will probably see plants from Africa or the Amazon rainforest is in such a greenhouse, but it would be a travesty if this was the only kind of place where they existed.

Among the more popular attractions for families are the “sea worlds” - the kind of place where dolphins and whales are kept in enormous salt water tanks and perform for the public on a regular basis. Animal rights activists are trying to close these places down because of their belief that these animals can only thrive in a vast ocean and a tank, no matter how large, will never be adequate! In the past circuses often featured an elephant standing on a small stools or walked about while an acrobat did handstands on its back, or they had a tiger who jumped through rings of fire. These are not even remotely close to what they would be doing in the wild. Again, if a circus, park or zoo becomes the only place where these animals exist, it will be a great tragedy.

I read that Japan has discontinued its whale hunt and pictures of breaching whales have been flooding the internet - as if they are celebrating en masse . With modern substitutes for the products they once provided, humans no longer have any excuse to hunt these large, intelligent and now endangered mammals. Perhaps they will now have the opportunity to become more numerous!

I don’t know about here in the Annapolis Valley but in the 50's, 60's and 70's in PEI, there was a great movement to improve the roads by paving them; If we wanted year round roads that WAS the only solution! We paved paradise so we could get around 12 months of the year! About two years ago we paved a bunch more so that people could drive faster to get where they were going and the project caused great division.

Back in the day of pave the dirt roads campaigns, one farmer, perhaps in jest, perhaps as a lament against “progress”, put a sign in a field close to the road, “potatoes planted here - please don’t pave!” These days potato farmers are taking a lot of flack for the size of the fields, soil erosion and chemical contamination of groundwater and streams. The people who grow our food must deal with the complex wold of progress, traditional vs modern vs organic ways of farming , import and export agreements and the food distribution system of our national grocery chains. There are no simple or easy solutions.

I took my sermon title from a poem of that title. I’ve only read parts of it, but Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is well known in the circles of religious literature. I will warn you; its long, very long. It takes about 10,000 lines to tell the Garden of Eden story. I chose it as a title for two reasons - one that the scripture affirms that this earth was designed to be seen as paradise and treated as paradise and secondly because we forget the goodness of the earth. We forget and as a result we may be on the verge of destroying the goodness of this earth. Creation is not as it should be.

When we open our Bibles the first thing we encounter is the book of Genesis - in it we read not one, but two, stories of creation, and several other early stories. About the beginnings of civilization, as we know it. We don’t have to read them literally in order to take them seriously! We have parts of two of them today - part of the first creation story, and the end of the Noah and the flood story.

In the first creation story we read, “God said, ‘Let there be light’”! If we were not so used to it we would probably think, “How odd, to say it that way! It is almost as if God is commanding whatever is preventing the light from shining to let it out. Think of the request or command “let him go” or “let me out”! Now, if I was a bad kid, I would also ask this question, “Where did the light come from if the sun was not created until day 4?” It’s a fair question. Perhaps though, this light that was released on day 1 had nothing to do with the sun that we know “scientifically” provides all light. Perhaps it refers to the enlightenment that comes from being able to look at creation with a spiritual vision and see the love and will of God as compared to a human point of view.

It is clear in this passage that the will of God for creation is both order and life. Not only does God name it as good at the end but at several steps along the way. When what has come into being on a particular day is in place it is blessed by God as “good”.

Yet, it did not remain that way for very long. Within a few chapters of the story, the people did indeed “subdue” the earth to their own ends and seem to have forgotten all about God. According to the story it is human beings that messed up You know the story, God decided to erase everything that lived and Noah was charged with building the ark to preserve enough of every species of all air breathing animals and birds so that things could begin again. At the end this great flood we are told that God put a bow in the clouds as a sign and reminder so that GOD would see it and reaffirm the promise made not to do that again! We sometimes forget that the bow was an instrument of war, a means of death! It was the sign that God had repented and given up on destruction as a way of resetting creation. Most people I know find a rainbow a fleeting delight at the end of a rain; we can explain it scientifically, but it’s still a delight!

When I was a young adult some of my friends cited that as prof that we would not end in a nuclear conflagration - but I think all it says is that God isn’t going to do it - it does not say that God will prevent us from destroying creation; the ball is in our court!

We know that a number of species of animals have been eradicated from the planet, and many are on the verge of extinction. In most cases, we didn’t mean to make such and such a species extinct - we just took more than the natural replenishment of the species could handle or we unintentionally poisoned one in an attempt to eradicate a pest. This is not a modern phenomenon; we’re just very good at it now! Now we have the technology capable of destroying this spinning blue planet by turning it on itself.

As I see it, in this season of Creation, the major point of these stories is that creation is GOOD. God saw that creation was good and so should we. Here in Nova Scotia we are blessed. We are so blessed that often we look around us and say, “ho hum, another sunset, another sandy beach, another eagle soaring through the sky, another spring evening filled with the songs of spring peepers or the honking of a flock of Canada Geese heading north.

It IS a wonderful world. But we have become so separated from the natural world that we can’t always tell whether or not what wee are doing is damaging our world or not.

We are led to believe that unless something is making money for someone it is useless and should be replaced.

We know that the so-called “dumb” animals know when to migrate and know when and where to build their nests. Have you heard that; that you can tell how deep the snow will be by the height of certain nests in the fall?

Now, I’m like most of you in that I would rather live in a house than in the natural environment. I’d rather drive on paved roads with street and intersection lights on my way to do my work than walk on dirt roads in the dark!

What we must also remember that it is not just Canada that is part of God’s good creation. It has come to the point where we need to limit what we take so that others can have enough to sustain their lives. When I was in university there was a poster that was put out by the church that said something like, “We must learn to live more simply so that others may simply live.” Back then global warming was not even on the radar but it’s still a compelling and valid call.

We are called in this season to care for the creation that God has named good! We are called to live into this sacred will for creation - goodness - light - and life for all - animal , plant and human.

Amen!