ADVENT 4 - B

MARY HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

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My girls have a little Christmas book that came with a tree decoration we put up in their room. At the back of the book are a few carols, one of which I have not sung very often, and had all but forgotten about: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”

I knew from literature courses in university that this was an older poem – but I was reading the lyrics and thinking to myself how appropriate they sounded. Listen for a second just to three verses:

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Pretty interesting is it not, that we live in an era when war and disaster loom large all around us, when many people want to say that God is dead and that there is no hope. And yet...

Do you know where that song comes from? It is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was written shortly after his wife burned to death in an accidental fire; shortly after his son returned from war a cripple; all near the end of the America Civil War, Christmas 1864.

But that is nothing. A little over 4000 years ago our prophet, Malachi, was bemoaning the fact that God seemed very absent in light of Babylonian Military invasion, and yet we should have hope.

Some 2000 years later Mary and Elizabeth are wondering about the wisdom of bringing forth sons in Roman occupied Palestine.

I don’t want to seem all doom and gloom a few days before we all celebrate – but hey, this is over 5000 years of anecdotal evidence that life pretty much is not what we would expect it to be.

Having a child is a pretty interesting case study in just how easy it is to forget the good things. I don’t mean, having a child and watching them grow up, I mean physically having a child. Now clearly I am speaking from observation here – but I think pregnancy goes pretty much like this:

We should have kids – wouldn’t that be nice?

I’m Pregnant! (tears of joy, relief, buying baby booties)

Why did you do this to me?

Get this thing out of me!

We tend to forget that the characters in the Bible are real life flesh and blood people. So I think Mary has gone long enough that by the time she goes to see Elizabeth a lot of the original joy and happiness has been replaced by the pain, sore back, morning sickness, lack of sleep, and the fact that Joseph is off with all his carpentry things and not picking up the slack.

What started out as hope and enthusiasm has turned to worry and fear.

This is not just a pregnancy thing, this is a human thing. You start school with such bright eyed optimism, you become a doctor because you are going to heal people, or a lawyer to reform the world, and there comes a point where the pain, the cynicism, the utter reality of life dulls that optimism and you wonder why you should bother.

Another war, another story – remember the Christmas Eve story from the trenches of World War One, when some anonymous German soldier began to sing Stille Nacht...

It started at the battle of Flanders where the two sides were dug into trenches and fighting bitterly. The Germans actually went so far as to put up Christmas trees with candles. As the story has been told, it was the German side that started the truce. Many of them spoke English, while few of the allied soldiers spoke German.

They put up signs that said “you no fight – we no fight” and “Merry Christmas”... eventually someone was brave enough to stand up and test things – and no one fired. Then they made their way into no man’s land and each side buried their dead. After that the truce lasted a few days; gifts were exchanged and the soldiers played soccer together. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Still....

One song, one night, was enough to reach into the gloom of World War One and restore some of that hope that seemed lost.

It takes something to reach into the darkness that pervades our souls. We cannot do it alone. Even mary had grown weary and worried, frightened for what might become of her baby. It took Elizabeth, and the joyous meeting of two unborn children who seemed somehow to recognize each other to break the spell, and remind them what a miracle childbirth and new life is.

It took Church Bells on Christmas Eve to make Longfellow remember that his pain and struggle did not have the last word.

The trick is to allow these moments of revelation to seep into our soul and revive our hope and spirit. Remember, no matter what is happening in your life, there is hope. That is the miracle of the magnificat, that is what Mary finds the courage to sing about, that is the point of a Christmas Carol penned in the midst of war:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

LINKS THAT I SPOKE OF

Hi All.... this week in church I spoke of a site to rank yourself against the world...

here is the link:
www.globalrichlist.com

Advent 2 - C "Preparing the Way"

Last week I was talking with some friends who were debating about how they would decorate for Christmas this year. Would they go about it simply or use all the decorations they have?

What about you? Are you going all out or cutting back?

You know what the real problem with Christmas is? We are already busy. My house is filled with stuff, every shelf and corner has something on it... my calendar is usually booked solid whether it is May, October, or December... So where do we fit Christmas?

I think this is an actual real practical question that most of us face...

When we begin to decorate, boxes are pulled out from the attic, the basement, a closet or maybe from all these places. And there is a lot of fun, a lot of nostalgia, as you decorate the house. But in order to find a place to put them, we also have to rearrange some of the things that are already out there taking up space in our homes.

I for one, wish I could get some extra time during the month of December. I want to slow things down, just a little. What I find often happens is that I come to the Christmas Eve service and once it is over, I find myself saying, ok now I am ready for Advent to begin.

But the world doesn't stop for Advent & Christmas. Even though we are supposed to be finding more time for family and friends, many have to work extra shifts and we all have to keep doing the usual things that keep our lives running.

And what about gifts? Shopping this year is a real challenge. The economic times we live in make it difficult to set a budget let alone stick to it, after all, when things have been tough, we want to try and make people feel better with the gifts we give. So this year we have to look a little harder, make a little more time and effort.

Now, I hope you can also see that this is a metaphor for something else...

It is not just the house and the schedule that is already filled to the brim come December, I think we have a lot of un-cluttering of our “selves” to do as well to get ready for Christmas.
Consider two of the most famous groups of visitors in the Christmas season; the Wise Men and the Shepherds. They are the role models for how to get this right.

The Wise Men gave up the comfort of home, they set aside everything they were doing as princes and astrologers and made the journey to see this promised king. They brought the best gifts they could think of – ones that meant something to Jesus.

The Shepherds did the same; left the sheep in the field, followed the summons of some strange
heavenly music, and found themselves standing in awe at the sight of a little baby.

John the Baptist, who speaks out in our Gospel today, was one of the most colorful characters in all of history what with his fashion sense and diet. And his marketing techniques weren't the best either. He went out into the wilderness, away from the city, away from the crowds, to attract a great crowd. He seemed almost determined to fail. Despite all of this, Matthew tells us that people from all over the region were flocking to hear this message.

It was, for the record, the same message that had summoned Wise Men and Shepherds.
What John did was to take a moment in history that everyone had read about and could remember, the Exile in Babylon, and use the same words that Isaiah had used to talk about captivity and occupation by the Romans.

His message was simple - comfort will come to God's people, in the wilderness, in exile; a way will be prepared for the Lord. In a time of feeling lost, like in a game of hide and seek, we are assured that God will find us. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing for us to do to make it easier...

As you look at your plans for the holidays, have you been so busy making sure that you do what you think everyone expects of you that you have not have left a little time to spend some quality time with those you love? Maybe a friend or loved one needs “you” more than the gift you will spend hours trying to find. Is it possible that having a smile on our face may be more important than perfecting the decorations in our home or getting everything done on schedule?

I think John’s challenge to us is a constant one. It is too bad that it only comes up once a year, but it is as good a place to start as any. Preparing a way means being willing to ask some tough questions and make some hard decisions. It means trying to let go of things that divert your focus from what really matters.

So where do we start?

Think with me for a moment of some of the clutter that could possibly fill our hearts and minds, think about how these things can drain our hope and diminish our energy.

There are the regrets of things we did not do in the past or things we wished we had done. There are fears of not doing the right thing, or of how we will be viewed by others. There is the grasping for things to bring meaning, for toys and shiny things that in the end always dissapoint; and there is the way we close ourselves off, for whatever reason, from each other.

Advent comes each year with a challenge... Advent comes only after John has been out there in the desert calling for us to repent... and here is what he is really saying:

Surrender.

Let go of all those things that are just not helping to get you to Christmas in the right way. Prepare the way of the Lord – make enough room in your life, and in your heart, that God has a way to be born in there again.

Once again John uses the ancient words of Isaiah to show us the way forward: Every valley shall be filled and every mountain brought low. Those valleys or low places in our lives, such as worry or grief or doubt, and they can be filled with an awareness of the very presence of the living Christ. The mountains we must deal with in our hearts include pride, prejudice, fear, and selfishness. When these are brought low, we can see a greater horizon; we can see the way of the Lord.

The Gospel also calls for us to make the crooked places straight. We are challenged to confront those things in our lives that lure us away, push back the trivial that fill our minds and hearts and seek God's ways. We are being invited to clarify our choices and take the steps needed in order to live our lives as ones who follow Christ.

And we are told to make the rough ways smooth. In our lives, this may mean for us to forgive those who have hurt us, to refuse to allow what has happened to you to control your life. We need to make sure there is enough time for those that we care about. This means looking at how we live, examining, challenging those things that clutter our hearts. Then we will find the way more open.

As we approach Christmas, let each of us see beyond the clutter of living to the hope that was born so many years ago in Bethlehem. The invitation is for us to find a way for God to be in our days and our hearts.

Free your life from the clutter that has cut you off from the real meaning of this season, and let the love of God be born once more in your heart. Amen.

Advent One - "On The Threshold"

{My apologies to everyone for the fall - due to personal issues I was not working and not updating - I will change that forthwith...}


A Sermon for the First of Advent using the first and last lines of the Lectionary as bookends...

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land...”

The days are surely coming....

My youngest brother is returning this week from Korea. He has been there for about 14 months, teaching English with his girlfriend. He is bringing me a Buddha statue for my desk.

During a conversation about this he said, “Buddhism is not so much a religion as a way of life, a way of living...”

When I heard this it immediately sounded wrong – Buddhism is not a religion because it is a way of living... is that not what Christianity is, a way of living? There are far too many people out there who think it is all about believing certain things, all about praying a certain way, (all about coming to church on a Sunday.... )and has nothing to do with the way we live our lives.

Curious that almost every story of the Bible is about how we live, not about what we think.

When we are told that God will fulfill the promises made to our ancestors, made to Abraham, and to Isaac, made to David and to us, as their descendants, we are told that God will cause someone to rise up who will execute justice and righteousness in the land...

The Messiah, the messenger of God, is going to come and remind us how we are supposed to live. Not how to pray, not how we can get into heaven, not who God is, but how we can live.

Think about what you know about the stories of Jesus... Nichodemus came and asked how to get into heaven and Jesus said it is simple.... be born again... and Nichodemus said, “What?” and Jesus never does explain it any further.

The disciples kept on asking over and over how to pray and at one point Jesus gets frustrated and tells them the Lord’s prayer... but that is it... just one universal prayer...

In fact, Jesus never really does argue theology or ecclesiology... he never talks about how we should build churches or who can and cannot preach in them...

Instead, Jesus says over and over and over and over... God is love. God is righteousness. God is action.

Forgive each other, take care of the widow, don’t throw the first stone, pick up Samaritans on the side of the road, heal those who are hurt, welcome outsiders into your family, feed the hungry...

Here is why we have a hard time with all of this. Jesus coming means we have to change. It still does.

My favourite social philosopher of all time is Charles Dickens. If you know him for nothing else, you know him for the character he created, called Ebenezer Scrooge.

Dickens was a messiah of sorts.

He came into Victorian England at a time when everyone thought they were good and Christian and following God... but in fact there were terrible things happening in society with orphanage, slavery, workhouses, poverty and the like.

Dickens England was probably the worst possible place to live unless you were the Aristocracy.

Dickens was raised as an Anglican; he eventually converted the Unitarian Church because of its broader message. His first career was as a Law Clerk... think Bob Crachit in a Christmas Carol. In the evenings he taught himself shorthand in order to escape and become a reporter, then one of England’s most successful novelists.

Dickens's religious beliefs were those of most 19th century British Unitarians. In his will he urged his children to adopt a liberal, tolerant, and non-sectarian interpretation of Christianity, "the teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit." He recommended they "put no faith in any man's narrow construction" of isolated passages. In The Life of Our Lord, written for his children and not published until 1934, Dickens summarized his faith as "to do good always." He believed humanity, created in the image of the divine, retained a seed of good. He preached the gospel of the second chance. The world would be a better place if, with a change of heart, people were to treat others with kindness and generosity.

In 1843, while he was most active at Little Portland Street chapel, Dickens created the first and greatest of his Christmas books, A Christmas Carol. Around this time Christmas Day was again beginning to be celebrated and the holiday transformed. The story and its characters—Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Crachit and Tiny Tim—defined the holiday's meaning for the English-speaking world as the regenerative spirit of generosity, or what Dickens called his "Carol philosophy." The heart of Dickens's social criticism and his religious message is found in A Christmas Carol.

Here is one of the most memorable quotes from a speech that Scrooge’s cousin berates Scrooge with: “But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round ... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Dickens’s was following in Jesus’ footsteps, challenging the way church and state had come to define what was good, what was right, what we were ‘supposed’ to be like. For Charles, people were meant to be kind and generous, righteous and good.

He was one of those voices calling from the wilderness and reminding us that things are about to change – the days are surely coming.

And this is the message of Advent, the message of Christmas, the Message of Scrooge and of Santa. This is what Rudolph and his Island of misfit toys are all about; this is what Frosty and the magic hat is all about... The message is that we can find a different way, God’s way, of love and generosity and hope.

We are preparing for Christmas – the beginning of the message that Jesus came to bring into the world to share with us – and that message is all about a way of living...

Ebenezer Scrooge needed three ghosts to come and point out all of his weaknesses and misunderstandings. Perhaps it is easier for us, we merely need to listen to the stories, to be reminded of the reason for the season. We need to be on guard for the spirit of Goodwill that surrounds this holy season and begins each church year.

The world is not what it is meant to be, and the days are surely coming when we will realize this, or, as the Gospels put it:

“...Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

PENTECOST 16 - B

Ego, Invisibility and the Little Child

(Parts adapted from the writing of The Rev. Stephen Lewis, National Director of the Calling Congregations initiative of the Fund for Theological Education, based in Atlanta, GA.)

I have an ego.

Maybe it is worse than that – perhaps I am narcissistic. I am sure some of my behaviours are.
Through whatever paths and interactions in my life that have brought me to this place, I have come to think that I deserve certain things; that I am owed certain things, that I am more important than a lot of people around me.

I am hoping you are not as bad off as I am. But consider this – I know this is wrong. I know all about empathy, compassion, values, faith, and all of those little things Jesus said about first being last, and eyes of needles.

Maybe I have some real problems, but I can’t help myself sometimes; I get irritated when things don’t work out my way, I get angry at people who do things that I think waste my time, and I genuinely am not a nice guy.

All of this is true, by the way, but I am also trying to make a point – and the point is this – when left to our own devices most of us become narcissistic. We become self centred. We become self important.

Many of us have the wherewithal to move beyond that, or to set our needs aside for others; but it is hard.

Ever wonder why every second passage in the Bible is about learning to get over yourself?

Because the one thing that is really in the way of authentic life is “me”

***

Our society suffers from a debilitating addiction to a "greatness" understanding of leadership. Families feed this addiction to their children. And an addiction to being the best or greatest in ministry, whether it is about leadership or building institutions, is a pandemic virus in the church. The earliest strand of this deadly addiction can be traced back to the church's origin. It is the very question the disciples are arguing about in this text.

Fortunately, Jesus has a response: he provides some answers about how we might break free from our addiction to unhealthy forms of greatness by re-imagining church leadership. This re-imagining is a necessary revolution, it is a rebellion against not only the way things are. But the way they have always been... and it is still the same old message, be more like God.

In our reading we find Jesus schooling the disciples on what greatness looks like in his ministry. He says to the disciples, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all." Notice, he does not say what we have to do, but what we have to “be”. We have to let go of all of that power grasping, all of that ego, and “be”

Jesus then tells his disciples, "Whoever wants to be first must be servant of all." Notice that he does not say servant to all, but servant of all, which suggests that the disciples are called to be servant leaders regardless of what other people seek to be. Servant leaders practice greatness by being givers who serve together through shared leadership, responsibility and accountability.

Jesus then models what leadership looks like for the disciples. He summons a young child to come to him. Children symbolize God's blessing. symbolize the continuance of their family's salvation and inheritance into the future. In the Gospels, children also symbolize the character a person must possess to enter the city of God (Mark 10:15). In spite of the symbolic status children hold, we find their voices silent for the most part throughout the Bible. I want to suggest that children symbolize the voiceless, those at the margin of the community.

Jesus welcomes the child to the center of the community and wraps his arm around her--the voiceless one--and suggests that if we want to be great, then we must practice welcoming the voiceless to the very center of the community. Expand the community's center to include those people at the margins. Make the margins the new center of the community because this is where the welcoming presence of God dwells. Otherwise, we alienate ourselves from the very presence of Jesus and the One who sent him. This is what greatness looks like in Jesus' ministry.

So what does this mean for us? We who love our churches and traditions, must re-imagine our ambitions and concepts of greatness. We must adopt new practices of insignificant greatness. We must cultivate the next generation of church leaders to exhibit these practices. Why? Because, ultimately, what is at stake is the church's future, its witness and its relevance in the world. A church that fails to be the welcoming presence of God ceases to be the church.

So this is an invitation to you to re-imagine what the practices of greatness look like in this church. It is an invitation to re-imagine the kind of church leadership that cares about the ongoing formation and practices of the next generation of church leaders. This is also an invitation to imagine practices that cultivate your capacity to develop a community of disciples who share authentic leadership.

To create a safe space for Christians to explore their vocation in the world.

To spend more time asking provocative questions rather than giving patent answers.

To model what greatness really looks like in Jesus' ministry.

To welcome the voices and the vocations of young people in the community.

To expand your community's center to include the voiceless.

And to make the margins of the community the new centers of congregational and denominational life.

This invitation is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those who are concerned with being popular. There might even be some economic reprisal if you join this movement. Some of you might face a social crucifixion. Some of you will undercut your upward mobility into the priestly class and denominational leadership. However, what is at stake is our alienation from the presence of God, a divided and unhealthy life and a community of gifted people who will continue to be underutilized in God's grand vision for the church in service to the world if we disregard this invitation and do nothing.

This is the invitation to re-imagine greatness; it is the call of the Gospel. So how in this world do we muster the courage to join this movement and become who we are intended to be?

Let us pray
Gracious God, we long to know your Presence, To feel the movement of your spirit. Lead us, O God, into practices from which our spirits shrink because the demand is so great. Give to us quiet confidence, just a simple trust. Let us be true to that which you have entrusted to our keeping, The integrity of our own soul. For us, God, this is enough.
Amen.

PENTECOST 15 - B

God Enters In
(This sermon, (at least in conclusion) is largely based on the Sermon Aaron Billard wrote for this Sunday. Due to personal reasons I could not finish my sermon and am grateful for his help.)

Way back in my students days I had a field placement site in was in Ottawa. I worked at Emmanuel United Church, with approximately 600 families. That was the church Wilbur Howard, Lois Wilson, and Anne Squires all left to become Moderators of our church. Anne Squires sat in the pew when I preached there. So did most of the top scientists of the National Research Council. It was a strange place – the average educational level for the congregation was a PhD. And most of those were in science. It was the proverbial ‘tough crowd’.

Every day I hear that faith is dumb; that the church is either hopelessly outmoded, or downright abusive; that God is a made up projection of people who are afraid; and that the values we talk about here are ‘quaint.’

In other traditions this Sunday is sometimes called “Rally Sunday” which in the United Church we call, “I have to go back to church Sunday.”

It has truly got me thinking about why… why we have to, why we should, what we think we are accomplishing, and if all those naysayers and atheists out there are right.

Do you ever read obituaries? A lot of people seem to. It’s funny how they can go both ways … Often, they are cold and sterile, merely listing off the next of kin of the date of the funeral, if there even is one these days. Usually it will mention the person’s love of cards and that they belonged to some club. The other side of that is to endlessly list someone’s accomplishments. Yet once in a while, an obituary appears that is out of the ordinary. One that describes the passion of a person, the people they loved, what they believed in, and how they tried to live their lives. It’s like one last gasp of life to say that “I existed!” before we turn the page.

Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner, from his book The Yellow Leaves, talks about being in a cemetery and finding the grave of a ten year old boy. On the tombstone was written this:

“Damien Parlor: Child of Light, Bridge in the Universe, So Dearly Loved, Danced in Sunlight, Floated on Moonbeams, Dreamed on Clouds, Laughed Soaring Hawk Song, Cried Brilliant Rainbows, Reached for the Stars, a boy who could pet bees.” (August 1974 – September 1984)

Now that is an obituary I would like on my tombstone. I am nowhere near having earned anything like that. I hope by the time I need it I get a paragraph that speaks to a life lived rather than accomplishments achieved. A bit of writing that shares the core of who we are and what we were trying to do in life.

As I was reading the Gospel this week it occurred to me that it reads a bit like an obituary. It’s what Mark really wants us to remember about Jesus. “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Moreover, Mark wants us to remember that Jesus is the Messiah, which he has mentioned only once before at the beginning of the Gospel.

Just like many of you, one of my favourite haunts is Chapters. I often go there with no intention to buy anything; rather, just to be among the books. I like the idea of being surrounded by words and people quietly reading in a chair or leaning against a book shelf. Well, to be honest I am addicted to coffee too…

It never ceases to amaze me how many books there are about Jesus. So many authors, so many preachers, teachers, philosophers, theologians, poets, all claiming to have some knowledge of what something really means or some particular insight into Jesus. Yet in the Gospel of Mark, the first of the Gospels to be written down, it says from the beginning: Jesus is the Messiah.

Messiah. Such a word is almost too big in our language and in our tradition as Christians. I suspect if I went around the church this morning and asked what the word meant, we would either be silent or throw our best guesses. I even had to crack open a few tomes before I felt that I should even try to say anything.

Way back in Isaiah’s time there was a lot of talk of a Messiah – the one who would come, the one who would suffer, anointed by God. Throughout scriptures, the Messiah is the one who comes like a roaring lion and an angry wave; in other parts, the messiah is the one who heals, who teaches people to walk, and people sing for joy.

Yet for all we surmise and suspect, for all we guess and grow in our faith along the way, I might argue that we aren’t sure why we call Jesus the Messiah. We aren’t sure that we really even need a Messiah in our lives. So much of who we are and what we do is wrapped up in other things. We forget, sometimes, that we need something to save us from hopelessness; something to save us from fear; something to save us from being blind to injustice; something to save us from loneliness and isolation. And at the end of the day, something to save us from ourselves, and that will mean different things for different people.

What does “Messiah” mean for you?

“If you have doubt in your mind,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “then I will tell you the truth. Sometimes I would give anything for one fireball from heaven, for one blast of raw power from a tidal wave God who would sweep my and everyone else’s doubts away forever. But that is not what I have. What I have instead is a steady drip of mercy from the followers of a man named Jesus, who is still playing doctor to a lot of marginal people in the world.” (From the book, The Seeds of Heaven)

Aaron Billard shared a video with me this week on youtube of a shipwreck in the Cayman Islands. A passenger liner was being towed in a storm when it broke free and washed up on shore. The video was of the next 20 years, as the water slowly broke it apart, and ground it into the beach.

There is an amazing scene where you see how the waves have eroded a huge hole across the bottom, wearing everything away at an incredible rate.

Just little waves, Just little drops, but with incredible power.

Time and time again as a minister I am confronted with the doubt of people, or with a refusal to even begin to contemplate the notion of God as being anything more than a caricature in a movie starring Charleton Heston.

Well – this year I want to explore more deeply, and more fundamentally, what it is to have faith in this modern world.

It’s my belief that there is a need within the church for a massive re-orientation of our beliefs. In computer language, it’s time to hit the reset button. A lot of what people fight about an disbelieve, and hold as completely true, could be seen quite differently if it was just framed differently.

And Jesus asks one good question: Who do you say that I am? Not who did your grandfather say Jesus was, not who did your Aunt Helen say Jesus was, not who did your Sunday School teacher say Jesus was, who do YOU say that I am? He asks. It’s a question in the present tense. Who is Jesus for you today in light of the fact that there are no lightning bolts, no thunder, no heaven-sent floods, no big dramatic mass miracles where doubt is cast away.

Here is a quote I read: “Remember how a stone is shaped by water. See that round hole? Water did that. Drop by transparent, short-lived drop, water transforms rock as no tidal wave ever could. For reasons beyond our understanding, that is how the Messiah has decided to come for now – not all at once but steadily, drop by drop, for millennia. Every time someone lives as he lived by loving as he loved, another drop falls. For some people, it is not enough. For others, it is a way of life.” (BBT, The Seeds of Heaven)

Let us hope that it will be enough for us. Let us pray:

Loving God, crack open our hearts so that the drops of your love might find their way through the crevices into our souls. Open us to new experiences of the mystery of that love, and be with us in our lives as we live them in response to you.

Summer Sermon Series

AWARENESS

Have you ever spent much time thinking about Moses? He is a fascinating character. His story is truly remarkable. Born in a time of genocide and then brought up under the nose of the very individual who ordered the killing.

He witnessed the beating and torture of his own people. He committed murder and then had to flee for his life. Then taken in by a family, marries and then finds himself a shepherd.

I try to imagine what life must have been like for him in those days of tending the flock. Having been brought up in a palace this must have been quite a shock to the system. With all that happened I can imagine that some days must have seemed like a blur. I wonder if he enjoyed the peace, quite and solitude of tending the sheep.

What is important from today’s reading from Exodus and Moses’ story is two verses: There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up."

Moses could have easily walked by, I am sure he had a lot on his mind. How many other people had passed the bush by? Not only did he notice but he went to observe, to take it in, to seek its mystery. And with that simple act, the act of awareness or attentiveness, or being present to the moment, whatever you want to call it, Moses witnessed and heard the call of God.

It sounds so simple when we hear in read from scripture. But I wonder how many times he walked past this very bush, alive with the angel of God, beckoning Moses to see what is right there in front of him.

I like to think of it that way, probably for my own piece of mind. I think I walk by opportunities every moment where I could encounter the Holy One. But I get distracted...I become overwhelmed, or worried, preoccupied with what has to be done next. I can even miss what someone is saying who is sitting right across from me, while in the midst of a conversation with them and yet I hope to be able to see God every day.

This is why I think spiritual practices are so important, why I have been focusing on them for the last few weeks. A spiritual practice helps us to keep the spiritual channels open and help keep the heart turned toward God. These disciplines can't save you; they can't even make you a holy person. But they can heighten your desire, awareness, and love of God by stripping down the barriers that you put up within yourself and some that others put up for you.

What makes something a 'spiritual discipline' is that it takes a specific part of your way of life and turns it toward God. A spiritual discipline is, when practiced faithfully and regularly, a habit or regular pattern in your life that repeatedly brings you back to God and opens you up to what God is saying to you.

I have never been the most spiritual of people. Sounds strange to say coming from a minister I know, but I have always thought of faith more as actions – as following God… for me actions speak louder than prayers… But I was young, and well, to much of a head person and less of a heart person. Over the last couple of years I have been seeing that how you feel, that your relationships, that the spiritual side of life is as important, if not more important.

The spiritual life can be profound once you begin to practice it. You begin to take the time to notice what is right in front of you, to see and hear and feel what and where you are. Eckhart Tolle calls it the power of now – being present in this moment. Moses lived it the day he saw the burning bush.

The practice of awareness doesn’t require us to do anything special day, we don’t need to add anything accept our attention. As we do the most mundane activities in our day we can practice awareness.

Here is a story from “Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On”: The Autobiography and Journals of Helen M. Luke edited by Barbara Mowat.

In her autobiography and journals, writer, counselor, and Jungian therapist Helen M. Luke reveals her remarkable ability to observe hints of the inner life. For example, she writes:
"I have recently been more aware, I believe, of the life in things, not only in things of beauty but in the ordinary tools of everyday. Jung used to greet his very saucepans in the mornings at Bollingen! I begin to understand this. In my life-long impatience, how much I have missed. Last night, washing the dishes, I really looked at my iron frying pan in the dishwater. The light made visible for a moment a tiny rainbow — a light through water revealing all the colors of life. It is so easy to miss the tiny symbols. Finding them is something quite different from the business of trying to hatch up big symbolic experiences. It is recognition, not pursuit, of meaning — recognition of the sacramental, of the intersection of the two worlds, breaking through unsought because one is attending."

The poet and doctor William Carlos Williams used to carry a notepad around with him in which he listed "Things I noticed today that I've missed until today."

This spiritual discipline is also known as attention, mindfulness, concentration, and recollection. Although I have saved this for the last sermon, this is probably the primary thing that we can do as a spiritual practice. We must stay alert or we risk missing critical elements of the spiritual life — moments of grace, opportunities for gratitude, evidence of our connections to others, signs of the presence of Spirit. The good news is that attention can be practiced anywhere, anytime, in the daily rounds of our lives.

We can all begin by doing one thing at a time. Keeping our minds focused on whatever we happen to be doing at the moment. It is through the mundane and the familiar that we discover a world of ceaseless wonders. Train yourself to notice details.

The idea is not to become perfect or that you will be aware every moment of every day. But to practice from time to time every day all that goes into being aware so that it becomes easier, and when you need to you can call on those techniques and be aware of what you are encountering.

Think of it like this. If you honestly believe that your spiritual life is a high priority in your life, then regular spiritual practice is essential. Believe me, you are not going to get to the other side of the river unless you get in the boat. The important principle here is to just get started. Don’t plan beyond that. Begin with only five minutes. After a brief time, double it to 10 minutes and eventually work your way up to whatever you believe is right for you.

Awareness is an easy place to start. As you clean the table tonight you can be aware of what is in front of you, the blessings of your life.

Summer Sermon Series - Spiritual Disciplines

Hospitality as Faith in Action

These days there is an entire industry connected to hospitality. It is consists of food services, accommodations, recreation, and entertainment sectors – taking care of every need. However, it is a several billion dollar industry that mostly depends on the availability of leisure time and disposable income.

In Biblical time Hospitality was even more important. If you were in trouble and were welcomed into someone’s tent or invited to a meal, you were safe, the kind of safe that is like what we understand sanctuary to be. No one could touch you or harm you. Food and refreshments would be provided.

It was serious business to be offered a place out of the sun, out of harm’s way, and invited into the company of people who would care for you.

That is hospitality in Jesus’ day; a hospitality that has to do with foreign armies, and scorching suns, a hospitality that was a vital part of the lives of people. There were very clear beliefs and understandings of how one was to be hospitable to another.

In our own homes we have an understanding of hospitality. My father tells a great story of his aunt coming to the house when he was probably 10 and his parents were not yet back from the store. Dad knew he needed to be polite to his aunt, take her coat, invite her to sit and offer her a cup of tea. The unfortunate part of this story is my dad had no idea how to make tea. He knew he had to boil water and put in some tea leaves, but quantity was another thing all together. Apparently the tea was rather strong...but he was hospitable and his aunt was gracious.

I went to school with a person from Liberia, in Africa. When Leroy invited you for a meal you would eat first, and when you had all that you could possibly handle, he would eat what was left. It was the politeness of making sure the guest was comfortable first.

I am sure you all have your own traditions in your family, in your household.

But here is the thing, how does the physical and social practice of hospitality as a part of our culture translate to the spiritual realm? How is hospitality a spiritual practice?

Consider an expression that each of you probably has heard, which comes from one of the very oldest stories in the Bible. Abram and Sarai were camped out in the desert when three men approached the tent, Abram immediately gets up and gets Sarai to prepare a meal; a feast, for these strangers who wander close to the camp.

It is then that Abram and Sarai entertain angels unaware… and in doing so, are blessed by God.

So maybe the spiritual practice of hospitality has to do with honouring each person as if they were someone who was more important than you imagined?

And how about the famous scene from John’s gospel – a wonderful story of hospitality and fellowship, all based on the idea of 5000 unexpected guests showing up for supper. Well, maybe 10,000, for some reason they only counted adult males…

If that many people needed a picnic lunch and I was in charge, I would be like the disciples, a little panic stricken about what to do with all those people and how to feed them, let alone what to feed them…

The most important thing is, Jesus does not let this deter him from offering what hospitality he has… And in fact, allows a young boy who is willing to give up his lunch to teach them all a thing or two about trust and openness.

As the host, Jesus merely opens the space for others to participate in his generosity. He does not limit, or demand anything from anyone, but allows any who want to eat, to share in the meal.

Henri Nouwen, a spiritual writer points out that the German word for hospitality is Gastfreundschft which means friendship for the guest.... It means the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.

Another writer, Marjorie Thomson says it this way: “Because family is the place of our most intimate relationships, the meaning of true hospitality is best expressed by bringing those outside the circle of intimacy into its very center.”

And Joan Chittister – a famous Catholic writer says that “Hospitality is the act of the recklessly generous heart. “

In a very basic way, we are practicing hospitality when we welcome guests — including strangers and enemies — into our lives with graciousness.

How we treat others really does reveal how much of a connection we have to God. To see beyond the obvious and see the way God sees is not and easy thing to do – but when we do it we are showing that we believe the universe is basically a friendly place. We are also taking a very glass half full view of reality where we can see that even the little things can have a positive effect.

To welcome the stranger is to acknowledge them as a human being made in God's image; it is to treat her as one of equal worth with ourselves – in fact, no matter who they are, it is to accept that in interacting with them we can become better people ourselves, and learn from them.

Anyone ever see the movie Chocolat? It is a movie about a small town in France, and actually about how they celebrate Lent.

The church plays a central role in the community; it stands for tradition, for the way things have always been, and especially during the season of Lent, for self-restraint and sacrifice. At least that's the way the town's mayor sees it, and he's making sure the priest says as much from the pulpit.

Just five weeks on the job, Pere Henri is young and inexperienced, so he preaches sermons the mayor has edited about the dangers of temptation, the threat to morality posed by outsiders, and even the evils of chocolate.

Until Easter morning.

By then Pere Henri has seen enough to know that the life of this community is enhanced, not threatened, by diversity. He tells his surprised parishioners that he doesn't want to talk about Jesus' divinity this Easter. He is more interested in his humanity and what we can learn from his life on earth:
"We can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do. We measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include."

In other words, our ‘goodness’ is measured by our hospitality.

Summer Sermon Series - Spiritual Practices

COMPASSION

Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, tells of an experience he had while riding the New York City subway one Sunday morning. People were sitting quietly – some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. The man sat down next to Covey and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers. And yet, the man did nothing.

Covey couldn’t believe that the man could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it. So finally, he turned to the man and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little bit more?”

The man lifted his gaze as if coming to consciousness and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”

Can you imagine what Covey felt at that moment? Suddenly, he saw things differently, and because he saw things differently, he thought differently, he felt differently, he behaved differently. His irritation vanished. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. Everything changed when he saw the man and his children from a different perspective and was able to be compassionate.

But what is compassion as a spiritual practice?

Jim Wallis writes in his book “Who Speaks for God”...

"Compassion has less to do with 'doing charity' than 'making connections.' The word compassion means literally 'to suffer with.' It means to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, try to understand their experience, or see the world through their eyes. That always changes our perspective. True compassion has less to do with sympathy than it does with empathy.

The call to compassion is not about somebody 'doing for' somebody else. Rather, its value is in the connection, the relationship, and the transaction in which everyone is changed.

The Hebrew prophets say that we find our own good in seeking the common good. The prophet Isaiah says that when we feed the hungry, take in the homeless, and 'break the yoke' of oppression, then we find our own healing. He also says the act of compassion requires that you 'not hide yourself from your own flesh.' In other words, compassion means to recognize the kindred spirit we all share together. And the Bible insists that the best test of a nation's righteousness is how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable in its midst."

Marcus Borg writes in The God we Never Knew: Some people find the experience and practice of compassion as a spiritual discipline to be a more direct route to the transformation of the heart than prayer. It is not that prayer does not or should not play a role in their lives, but their way to the opening of the heart lies through deeds of compassion. "Just do it" summarizes this path of transformation.

And Joanna Macy is quoted in Open Mind Diane Mariechild... Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing — resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.

But Karen Armstrong a religious historian and student of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism; states that the purpose of all the world religions is to change people’s behaviour. And each religion calls its followers to act compassionately as it brings followers closer to God.

Jesus certainly called us to live compassionately:

Luke 6: 31 – Do to others as you would have them do to you

John 13: 35 – By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Matt 22: 37-39 – Love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all you mind. This is the greatest and first commandment, and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Jesus not only asked his followers to be compassionate but he himself lived compassionately with everyone he encountered.

In today’s Gospel from Mark – we know that Jesus and the disciples were tired enough that they themselves were not even able to get much to eat and so they try to get away from the crowds for a short time, we imagine to rest and restore themselves before continuing on their mission and ministry. But what we see happen is that Jesus saw the people – saw their need, had compassion for them and responded to their need.

Remember what Jim Wallis said about compassion in an earlier quote...it means to put yourself in someone else’s shoes... compassion is not about somebody 'doing for' somebody else. Rather, its value is in the connection, the relationship, and the transaction in which everyone is changed.

Add to that what we have learned from the Hebrew prophets about how we find our own good by doing good for others... when we feed the hungry, help the homeless, and 'break the yoke' of oppression, then we find our own healing.

Compassion allows us to recognize the kindred spirit we all share together.

Karen Armstrong suggests that when we feel compassion we dethrone ourselves and put someone else there, we get ego out of the way and let someone else claim centre stage.

But as a spiritual practice how do we practice it? How is it that we are able to practice being compassionate? I think the key is in our gospel reading.

You see when Jesus looked at the people; I think he must have identified with what he saw in those who had gathered or he allowed himself to feel their pain and loss. The passage said that they were like sheep without a shepherd, perhaps this was something Jesus had known in his life, for it is through our struggles and hard ships of life that we are able to have empathy and compassion and reserve judgement for God. Or maybe Jesus was able to see the look in the eyes of his followers and remember a pain that he had felt in his life and then he could identify with and feel for those who needed him.

I believe the only way to practice compassion is to be around those in need, and I mean really see the people or person there in front of you who is in need of compassion.

The challenge for us this week is to continue to work on celebrating each day, to be present in our daily lives and experiences, and now to offer compassion.

WE can do that by simply watching the news and let the sadness of the day’s events touch our hearts, walk down town and see the kids who live on the streets and let their stories touch your heart, see the prostitutes on St. George and let their stories touch your hearts. There are many places in our city and in our world where compassion is needed to be exercised. Not just within your hearts but at the next level - the level that calls us to action as well.

This week I know the spiritual practice of compassion is harder than the other two. It demands a little more from you. But it is an important part of our Christian faith. For the world will know that you and I are Christian by our love, not our judgements, pronouncements, or doctrines but by our love!!

Summer Sermon Series - Spiritual Disciplines

writers note: this was an experiment in writing a spoken word sermon as 'speakers notes' instead of in the usual 'format' so again, the spoken word jumped off from these notes

The Sound of Silence

Introduction

Opening Thought: How easy do you find it to be alone? Have you ever gone on vacation and come home feeling worse than when you left? Ever found yourself driving down the road when you realize that the sounds – radio, tires, wind, people, are driving you crazy?

The Counter Argument: I can also remember afternoons in a hammock. I remember nights around a campfire, I spent Friday afternoon up at the ocean on the hot sand. Each of you think about it... look back and remember some moment of quiet, when time seemed to stand still...

I will tell you my best one ever. Halfway through my first internship as a minister in North Bay Ontario; a tough summer, as I had never ever worked in a church before, I went on a Canoe trip with a couple of my friends from Ottawa. We followed the old voyageur canoe route back towards Ottawa and alone the way spent the night camping beside a waterfall, on the edge of a sheer rock cliff.

It was fabulous, hundreds of miles from the next person, starlight and water cascading; A cooler full of beer and fresh fish on the fire.... Curiously we returned a few weeks later to Ottawa and were in the National Art gallery when we came across a painting, you might even have seen it, I think it was a Frances Hopkins, of some voyageurs camping under the overturned canoes, in the exact same spot, hundreds of years earlier...

Transition: Today we'll look at two of the most overlooked spiritual disciples: silence and solitude.

Silence and solitude

• Our culture has become addicted to noise.
-Illustration: I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a house where the television has been turned on in the morning, and left on for the entire day... or perhaps the radio... sometimes with no one even consciously paying attention.

• Many people are afraid of being alone.
-Illustration: Sartre said, "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

• Many people use noise and company to drown out loneliness, doubt, fear, and pain.
-Illustration: When Keith Miller was a boy, he found himself alone in the house and, becoming terrified, sang a loud song and banged a spoon against a pot until his mother came home.

• Every great leader of the Bible was familiar with silence and solitude, including: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Paul, and John.
-Luke 5:16, Acts 20:13, Psalm 131:2

Transition: Today, I want to point out three areas in which we can learn to "still and quiet" our souls.

Find time to be alone

• Jesus knew this... the disciples were always being hounded by people who wanted to see Jesus – he knew the value of getting away, but it seems they hardly ever did, so he urged them to come away with him to a quiet place.

• We might think we don’t have the time, or what have you... but consider this...Even in the midst of a hectic lifestyle, we have to find time to be alone.
-Illustration: While in a Nazi concentration camp, Victor Frankl would sneak out to a tent in which corpses were kept in order to find privacy.

• We need to make the most of our time with God by stopping everything else and being still.
-Psalm 130:5

Make it as quiet as possible

• Make your external environment as quiet as possible so that you can be still in your internal environment.

Practice the art of silence

• Quiet refers to what you hear; silence refers to what you don't say.

• Our most powerful interactions with God come when we listen.
-Psalm 62:1

• The more we listen to God, the easier it is for us to listen to others.

Conclusion

• Big Idea: Silence and solitude supply fuel for the soul.

• As often as you can, get in God's presence; be as still as you can be, make it as quiet as can be, be as silent as you can be, and listen to the still, small voice of God.

Pentecost 5 - B

Writers note: the opening paragraphs are from another sermon I read and cannot find the source of - I used them as a jump off point.... secondly; as I read this I realize I went so far away from the written text in preaching this that it will be a 'new' sermon for those who read it compared to what they heard in church...

Welcoming a Prophet

Where is the transporter, the “beam me up Scottie” of Star Trek fame that can avoid congestion and CO2 emissions and move me from one place to another? Where are the brochures for holidays or moving to the moon on a colony in order to relief the pressure on the earth’s resources? In my childhood it was obvious such things were on their way; they were promised. Now it’s the 21st Century and still no transporters or possibility of moving to the moon in spite of all the wonderful technology around us that can be used for good or bad. I have to admit, I’m a bit disappointed.

Imagine how the folks in Nazareth felt when they heard that an anointed prophet, maybe even the messiah, was coming to town. They went to synagogue that morning with great anticipation that the “future is now”... but they were disappointed too.

When they looked up front they saw a common carpenter – not only that, he was a ‘home town boy’; Mary’s Son and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon; event he sisters still lived in town... everyone knew the whole family.

I think I would have been disappointed to. I would be expecting someone from away to come tell me the ultimate answer to all my questions.

Thus the saying that a prophet is not honoured in their home town.
There is a problem with prophets...

They often say things we don’t like to hear. They are too honest. They want us to change.

And we know they are right; that is the real problem; the prophets among us remind us of the values of God – the need for justice, the need for obedience, the reality of life, the emptiness of materialism. A prophet keeps going on about expecting great things and believing in God that the will of God may be realised.

You see, the prophet recognizes that the deep feelings tucked way down inside of you are true – the prophet recognizes the value of the spiritual promptings inside of you are what are most important to living the authentic life.

So they challenge and provoke us with what God desires and seeks; what God wants from us. A prophet is one who speaks by divine inspiration, one through whom God’s will is spoken. ‘This is what I desire. This is what may happen. This is how I, the Lord your God relate to you my beloved creation.’

The truth is that most of us are called to be a prophet at some point in our lives... how is that for a scary thought? How in touch are you with those deeper truths? Are you ready to risk anything for them? Could you walk the walk?

Jesus was a prophet who not only spoke the will of God, but lived it in his very person, by being willing to risk his very life for his belief in God’s way of living.
It is all too easy to assume we, in the church, respond well and eagerly to the prophets amongst us today. It is easy for us to assume we, in the church, are the prophetic voice of God now. Yet our gospel reading challenges us to think again – it is the people that know Jesus best who reject him outright.

Jesus knew his scriptures so he probably was not that surprised, he would remember that Ezekiel went through the same thing;

Ezekiel was called to be a prophet and this is what he was told, ‘Whether those rebels listen to you or not, they will know that a prophet has been among them’.

We must speak out God’s word, for we are sent by God, we can expect to be rejected and scorned, to be treated as a pain, but the truth of the message of God will still touch folk and they will know a prophet has been present. Shaking the dust from our feet we are to put time in with those who are responsive and put less energy and resources into those who are fixed and turned away from the call of God at this time.

This was true for many other prophets too; Hosea with the weakness of being married to a temple prostitute who was regularly unfaithful to him, Ezekiel whose visions were so pronounced that today we might well diagnose him as schizophrenic. For most of us seeking to speak out God’s message within the world we have a weakness, a thorn in the flesh, a hardship or two, which counterbalances the strength of inspiration by God and enables us to recognise the power of God, the love of God, the majesty of God over and around us. When we face difficulties this enables us to work and speak inspired by the Spirit of God rather than relying on our own strength.

Those who are prophets who speak out God’s will within the world are often rejected and experienced as a pain in the flesh to others, particularly those in leadership positions. Also prophets often experience a thorn in the flesh, a weakness which makes them aware that they can not speak in their own strength alone but must be fed and inspired by God. And thirdly prophets also often have an experience of the awesome nature of God, that overpowering transcendent overwhelming sense of the beauty and grandeur of God.

For Ezekiel at the point of his call he has a vision of the bronze person, shining with a bright light, reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. This dazzling light showed the presence of God. Isaiah had a vision in the Temple of flaming creatures, who cleansed his lips so he could speak God’s word. Paul had the experience of the Damascus Road, a blinding light of the presence of the Risen Christ. Jesus at his commissioning at his baptism experienced the affirmation of the Holy Spirit descending on him as a dove and a voice saying ‘This is my son with whom I am well pleased.’ Occasionally as we come to know what must be said and done as we follow God known in Jesus we too are overwhelmed and have a picture, a glimpse of the grandeur of God. It is part of the prophetic call to have an awareness and experience of the greatness of the one Holy God.

When we come to church, when we worship in garden, or hallowed space at home do we expect to encounter the Holy God? Are we awe-struck and overwhelmed by God’s glory?

Just occasionally we may be and when we are it will probably be a challenge to prophecy, to speak out to others what God would have us be and do. But in that call to prophecy there is potential rejection, and probably weakness. But God inspires it and is present within it.

I end with Gerard Manley Hopkins expression of it in his poem God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

This is the inspiration of prophets down the ages and is our inheritance today.

Amen.

Pentecost 4 - B

Re-Arranging the Walls

I read a story about something that happened in Poland during the Second World War.
This was a time when the nation was, by and large, a Roman Catholic nation; and it so happened that in a particular village there was a man who was well known because of his care and compassion for others.

He was not a particularly wealthy man, nor was he a native of the village, nor did he attend the village church. In fact he was not even baptized and showed little interest in rectifying that situation. But both before and during the War he just did so many good things for those in his adoptive home town that he was very much loved by everyone.

If a stranger came to the village and needed a place to stay, this man would offer a cot in his little home. If a village family ran out of food, he was among the first to offer a loaf of bread or some flour from his meager supplies. If someone was in trouble with the authorities, and it seemed like someone always was; or if the Germans or, later the Russians, were performing a sweep of the village to collect up the young men for either imprisonment, or to force them into the army, or worse… he would help hide the would be victims in the woods outside town or in some other way.

It seemed he was a friend to everyone, right up until the day he died.

The villagers prepared his body for burial and proceeded to the village church where they asked the Priest to perform the service and to bury the man in the church cemetery.

And here is where the story got interesting. The priest, who knew and loved the man as much as anyone, agreed that he would conduct the funeral service - but he insisted, despite many pleas from the villagers, that he could not bury the man inside the church cemetery because he was not baptized.

Don’t think too badly of him, this was the 40’s. it was the Old Catholic Church, and things were done one way, or not at all… people who were not baptized did not get buried on holy ground.

Period.

Now… this just did not seem right so the villagers appealed even more earnestly to the priest, saying that the man was a good man and surely loved by God as much as any of the baptized, perhaps even more on account of all the good that he had done – it was just an oversight.

The priest agreed with them regarding the virtues of the man, but insisted that the rules of the faith were clear and could be not be broken. Finally they all came up with a compromise that he hoped would satisfy everyone. "In recognition of your love for him - and his love for you and all of God's people in this village", he said, "I will bury him on church land, near to those who have gone before him - those whom he has loved, but it will have to be beyond the fence that surrounds the consecrated ground of our cemetery."

Well… that was, I guess, good enough. And on the appointed day a grave was prepared just outside the fence that surrounded the church cemetery, and the body of the man was processed by all the villagers to the site where the priest conducted the ceremony - and then the grave was filled in and a stone placed before the night fell.

Now, a curious sort of thing happened that night… early the next morning the priest was making his way to the church to say mass when low and behold, the fence had magically moved to include the new tombstone…

I don’t know – maybe you have heard the story before… but I think it is pretty cool, not only that, but I think it captures exactly what Jesus was about, what the good news of the Gospel is all about - namely the fact that the love of God really is for everybody…

As the villagers expanded the fence, which divided sacred blessed land from unblessed land to include the grave of the man whom they loved - so Jesus expands the boundaries of the sacred to include both those whom the rules of our religion would exclude - and those that the ways of this world would exclude.

Really, that is what we see today in the Bible readings is it not? David is actually morning the loss of his enemy. Sure, Jonathon was his friend at one time, as was Saul, but they became bitter rivals.

Jesus heads off to cure the daughter of a Pharisee… one of the enemies… the people who would one day soon be putting him to death on a cross…. And along the way he heals a street woman, a nobody, an outsider…

There is a pattern here.

The English writer Rudyard Kipling once wrote, and I quote him here because most of us have no idea, myself included that it was this guy, the author of the Jungle Book, who actually said it… "East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,"

Could it be that there is something deep in human nature that makes us want to divide the world into "us" and "them," that causes us to choose sides, to draw dividing lines, to build walls?

There are so many ways in which we do this! In some places it's about the color of your skin; in others it's about which side of the tracks you come from. Maybe it's about Protestant versus Roman Catholic, Christian versus Muslim, immigrant versus native born, labor versus management, rich versus poor. We're asked to declare our political party affiliation and even which major league baseball team we prefer. It's still a world of "us" versus "them."

What we need to keep being reminded of, however, is that this is not the way of Jesus Christ.

I know that we have heard it before, and some part of us knows, or remembers that we should know, that God loves everyone… but it is hard… everyone? Really?

The truth is that we are on the front lines trying to change the world through this simple and yet powerful belief. So we need to keep rethinking our own behaviours… We need to look again at those we call "strangers". We need to see them not as different from us, but as essentially the same.

Then we need to look at the barriers we have set up, or that are already a part of the local and larger world in which we live….

If we are really walking in Jesus footsteps then those barriers simply do not exist for us.

So think about it… who are the outsiders for you? Who do you find it the hardest to love, to help, to believe in? Now, ask yourself, how do you contribute to those barriers, how do you add bricks and mortar to their construction?

Think of the groups you name, and the divisions you maintain by doing that – we all do it. But our faith tells us that all are one in God’s eyes… That is what we are supposed to be about most particularly in the United Church of Canada. This is our ethos, what we are all about. Our crest says we are UNITED AND UNITING.

Beyond that, this is Canada… part of the great melting pot of nations, where we have built a country by seeing the best that each person can bring. Not always, and not easily… but it is the truth nonetheless…

"East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet”?

Naw… how about this: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."
In a world that constantly encourages the "us versus them" mentality; the Christian message is that there is no "them." There is only "us" – all of us. We are all in the same boat.

I think that there is hope in that message. May God give us strength to live it.