Palm Sunday - C

5 Practices: Passionate Worship

Palm Sunday is known for the parade. Every year we begin Holy Week with a re-enactment of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem complete with a procession of palms and loud hosannas. However the gospel of Luke’s version of this story does not have palms or hosannas. Nor does Luke have the fickle crowds who adore Jesus today, but call for his crucifixion on Good Friday. The multitudes that cheered Jesus unto Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke were his faithful disciples who had journeyed with him throughout his whole ministry. These were folks whose lives were forever changed by witnessing the deeds of the power of God through the miracles, exorcisms and teachings of Jesus. This ragtag group of sinners, lepers, tax collectors, women, fishermen, poor people and yes even some Pharisees came into Jerusalem in a makeshift royal procession setting their King Jesus on a donkey and laying out their ragged, sweat stained cloaks on the ground for him to ride in on.

I just want to give a nod here to our fifth week; and fifth practice: Passionate Worship.

When we speak of the word “passionate” we are describing an intense desire, an ardent spirit, strong feelings, and the sense of heightened importance. Passionate speaks of a connection that goes beyond intellectual consent. It connotes eagerness, anticipation, expectancy, deep commitment, and belief.

I would like to suggest to you that the one thing Jesus’ followers were as they entered Jerusalem that day was passionate.

These disciples had high expectations for their King Jesus. After living in oppression under the brutal power of the Roman occupation, they imagined that Jesus would restore the Davidic kingdom and chase the Roman army away with a cosmic force greater than any of their military might.

We know now, however, that Jesus’ power did not come from force; rather his power was peace and compassion.

Throughout his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus told his disciples several times that his way of peace was a threat to the powers of the day and that when he comes to Jerusalem, he would be killed those who feared him, the very powers and principalities that his disciples thought he would defeat. However Jesus also told them that in the end he would have the ultimate victory of life over death, but his disciples just couldn’t hear it. They could not wrap their heads around anything other than a military victory.

We remember that Jesus came into Jerusalem during the celebration of Passover. Every year at that time Jewish people from all over came into Jerusalem to celebrate the Exodus, the freedom of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. Part of this celebration included a parade into the temple where they sang a song about a king victorious in warfare coming to the temple. This was their song in anticipation of the Messiah yet to come. As they drew near to the temple the pilgrims sang, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!” As they stood outside the gates of the temple they sang, “Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.”

As the pilgrims continued through the gates of the temple, the priests and choirs that surround the entry sang to them, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the House of the Lord.” And the pilgrims go into inner temple to give their sacrifices in thanksgiving to God.

Now – what we sometimes forget is that at the same time the religious pilgrims were parading into the temple there is a second parade coming into the temple on the west side. Pontius Pilate, the Roman Empire’s representative entered into the temple in order to “keep the peace” in the city Jerusalem during the turbulent time of Passover. His troops with shields, spears and brute power were moved in to take control of the crowds and show them who was really in charge.

But no amount of intimidation is going to dim the passion in these followers…. They dance and sing and parade into the East side of the Temple… singing…

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The disciples as usual were clueless as they sang and danced around Jesus. They had no idea that their celebration would lead to the cross. However some in the crowd, the Pharisees knew exactly what would happen if the Jesus parade clashed with the religious procession or worse yet the military parade. So they gave him a friendly warning, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” They wanted Jesus to tell the disciples to tone it down so as to keep everyone safe from harm.

However Jesus responded by telling them, “if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” He was telling them, if you try and stop me, God, the one who is real peace will come to set things right…

Even the stones would cry out, would worship… there is a time and a place for us to be passionate about what we believe, even when there are risks…

Passionate Worship means worship that connects people to God, worship that people enter into with expectancy, and with the anticipation that God desires to speak to them and connect to them. Whether traditional, blended, or contemporary, Passionate Worship is authentic, connecting, and sustaining.

You see, the soldiers, Pilate, they were there for the wrong reason – their parade did not connect them to anything spiritual that would bring them to a better understanding of the world. I would suggest to you that that meant the real power was in the hands of the disciples – who risked that they might have that closer and deeper relationship with God.

Where are you in the crowd?

Are you that passionate about your faith that you are willing to journey on from here, no matter what the risks? Do you believe that God is calling us to take those first steps along the dusty roads that lead to confrontation with the powers of this world?

Jesus was the king “who has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly…filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

He was the king of outcasts and sinners, of you and me… so this day, this week, this year, let us passionately reclaim our faith that God is in charge and that God’s justice will always reign and that not even the violence of brutal armies or even nails on a cross can contain God’s aim of abundant life for all of God’s creation.
May it be so.

LENT 4 - C

5 Practices: Extravagant Generosity

“Extravagant Generosity describes practices of sharing and giving that exceed all expectations and extend to unexpected measures. It describes lavish sharing, sacrifice, and giving in service to God and neighbour. Every scriptural example of giving is extravagant, and churches that practice Extravagant Generosity teach, preach, and practice the tithe. This is a focus on the Christian's need to give because of giving nature of God whom we worship.” – Robert Schnase

What’s wrong with the prodigal son’s brother?

Think about it, he has the father’s love every day, he has a roof over his head, he has never wanted for anything, and yet – he is complaining about one welcome home party...

You know, I have a theory, it is a theory that a lot of country singers subscribe to; and that is, you don’t know what you have until you have lost it.

Still, you can understand the feeling of jealousy, I suppose, here he is slaving day in and day out on the farm, doing what is expected of him, not partying with his friends because he is too tired at the end of the day; when his little “bother” gets to go off to the big city, spend his money one wine and women, and then come home with his tale tucked between his legs and start all over?

Does that seem fair?

Of course not; but then, like it or not, we have developed too touchy a sense of Justice. It starts, I have noticed, when we are two... and everything that Billy has, Sally has to have too. As we get older we expect that everyone will treat us equally, or we get mad about the way people won’t listen to us, don’t value us, and aren’t like us - I like to call this ‘teenagers.’

And I don’t think we grow out of it; we want to be able to look around and be doing “as good as” the people we see next door, we want life to be fair to us, and treat us well, and so we hate it when we see irresponsible people prosper... or bad people get ahead....

Ah, but then there is that pesky Bible thing... and the one bit of advice we somehow cannot do at all, even a little bit... can you guess what it is? Do you remember the line “judge not, lest you be judged!”

Of course, there must be some specific application that God had in mind, right? It can’t really be saying that we are never supposed to judge people – after all, some people deserve to be judged right?

But not according to the Bible, and not according to Jesus... Who tells this story about the wayward son really to force us to look at the character of the father; you see, all that matters to the father is that “what was lost is now found, what was dead is now alive” and simply to show up and ask for help is cause for generosity beyond expectation.

So what sort of generosity should we expect from each other?

I want to go with Bishop Schnase and say we should be looking towards the most extravagant generosity we can manage.

This might mean we give money to the church, it might mean we build a habitat house, it might mean we spend the whole day listening to a friend when we have other things that need our attention... but generosity of spirit, openness to sharing all we have, willingness to pour out love without counting the cost, that is the type of thing Jesus wanted for us.

I want to read a short snippet from The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, and I want you to listen closely and ask yourself, “Does this sound like my church?” Bishop Schnase writes, “Vibrant, fruitful, growing congregations practice Extravagant Generosity. These churches teach, preach, and practice proportional giving with a goal toward tithing. They encourage their church members to grow in the grace of giving as an essential practice of Christian discipleship, and as a congregation they practice generosity by their extraordinary support for missions, connectional ministries, and organizations that change people’s lives. They thrive with the joy of abundance rather than starve with a fear of scarcity. They give joyously, generously, and consistently in ways that enrich the souls of members and strengthen the ministries of the church.” Do you think that sounds like us?

They thrive with the joy of abundance rather than starve with a fear of scarcity...

Hmmm. That seems to me like quite an indictment... It seems that every time you turn on the radio, or the television, open a newspaper or scan the news on-line, there is nothing but doom and gloom about the economy. When I pay attention to the news south of the border I think it is a little worse... If you watch CNN all they seem to do is paint a bleak picture of scarcity. They run stories that scare us into believing we won’t have enough to retire or even meet our current financial obligations. Everywhere you look we are bombarded with the spectre of economic recession.

Which makes it all the much more difficult to see how rich we really are. When we consider that people in Haiti eat ONE meal a day around 3pm, primarily rice and beans, are we living in scarcity or abundance?

When we consider that every day, 16,000 children around the globe perish from hunger-related causes, that is one child dies every five seconds from lack of food, are those of us gathered here this morning living in scarcity or abundance?

When we consider that somewhere around a billion and a half people, or 1/5th of the world’s population, live on less than $1.25 per day, ask yourself, are we living in scarcity or abundance?

Craig Blomberg, a distinguished New Testament seminary professor at Denver Seminary co-authored a book entitled the Revolution in Generosity in which he makes this point incredibly clear to us. Dr. Blomberg writes, “If every North American Christian simply tithed, the additional amount of money that would be raised above and beyond current giving levels, would be enough to eradicate world poverty in our lifetime.”

Can you imagine that? If we all tithed, that is gave 10% of our income, we could eliminate poverty everywhere. All could eat, all could have adequate shelter, all could truly live. With this knowledge, who WOULDN’T want to help? Who WOULDN’T want to give merely a tenth of what we have, so that others might have the bare necessities to live?

But life isn’t always that simple, is it?. We’ve all made choices about how we spend our money. Many of us have overextended ourselves with credit cards, car payments, mortgages, we are leveraged beyond reason.

So what do we do?

I think we cultivate that spirit of generosity that could lead to bigger and better things.

Take a look around this sanctuary. The pews we are sitting in; the pulpit, the altar, the piano, the organ, this building. These are all examples of a previous generation’s extravagant generosity. 50 years ago people believed that it was worth raising tons of money to build a church here – I bet this church cost the people who dreamed it up dearly; and I bet none of them had more money than we do...

We have to get back to that sense of generosity that comes from knowing that God wants us to be here; that comes from realizing that God is generous beyond measure and we have to live up to that example. We have to become like the father, being open to expressing love without reservation, even when we have good reason not to.

It is not easy to live like that – but Jesus never said it would be easy...

Let us pray:

God, open our hearts, allow our spirits to catch fire; well up within us so that your love pours out into the world. And then, when we are there, remind us of your never ending love and patience, so that we can be free to love. Amen.

Lent 5 - C

5 Practices: Extravagant Generosity

Maritmers are pretty hospitable, wouldn’t you say?

I remember a time when I was just starting out living on my own, the summer came and I was working at a Youth Centre in Hampton New Brunswick, while my girlfriend at the time was living in Fredericton. One night we had a fight and I decided I was going to hitchhike up there and straighten things out. So I set off, and got a ride to Sussex.

That is when it started to rain.

No one picks up hitchhikers in the rain, not even Maritimers. I suppose we have seen too many horror movies or something; bad things always happen when you combine strangers and rain.

Anyway – for some strange reason, walking kilometre after kilometre in the rain made me more and more thirsty... until finally, about 11 o’clock at night, I was passing a house with a light on and I stopped and asked for a drink of water... which was more than freely given, along with a piece of cake, and an offer of a place to sleep – but I had an argument to won so I kept going.

Still, mighty hospitable of the folks if you ask me.

You will remember that as we talk about the five best practices of a Christian congregation we are talking mostly about the adjectives. We are called to work on mission and service, well, we all do that, we give money to lots of different causes; but to be truly at the top of our game, we should be doing “Risk Taking Mission and Service.”

Last week we talked about “Intentional Faith Development” about how we are called upon, if we are serious about following Jesus, to learn as much as we can about our faith, to not take things for granted, and to expand our minds and our souls as we journey through this thing called life.

Now I want to talk about hospitality... and not just any hospitality, RADICAL hospitality.

As a church we practice hospitality when we invite, welcome, receive, and care for the people who are already sitting beside us week after week, and also for those who might be coming for the first time.

So, we are talking about a genuine love for others; a love that motivates church members to openness and adaptability, including a willingness to change behaviours in order to accommodate the needs and receive the talents of newcomers.

But how is that radical?

Robert Schnase argues that Radical means "drastically different from the ordinary practice, outside the normal, and so it provokes practices that exceed expectations, that go the second mile, that take welcoming the stranger to the max. It means people offering the absolute utmost of themselves, their creativity, their abilities, and their energy to offer the gracious invitation and reception of Christ to others.”

So let me ask you a question... in your house, what would normal hospitality be? If someone were coming for dinner you might set a nice table, you might use the best china, depending on who it is... Cook something that you think they will like.

If they are staying overnight you would change the sheets, lay out fresh towels, maybe some extra toiletries in case they forgot something... we have all done stuff like that.

2000 years ago it was really not all that different. The one main difference in the Middle East would have been ritual washing. Us Westerners never really took to washing all that much until modern times. In fact, the Crusaders probably lost most battles in the Middle East because they were itchy from the fleas, and the Ottoman Turks smelled them coming.

But I digress; my point is that at the doorway of every house was probably a bowl to wash your hands in and a basin to wash your feet. These were people who wore sandals all day in the Desert, it only made sense; that was the hospitable thing to do.

So if that is what you are expecting – and try to put yourself in that situation.... you come in from a dry and dusty road, you are coming to supper and you can’t wait to dip your feet in the cool water and sit in the shade... but as soon as you are done that, your host comes over and washes your feet with a ten thousand dollar bottle of oil. Then they uncover their hair and dry your feet off.

Does that not seem, I don’t know, radical?

Is it not going further than you can imagine anyone going in order to make you feel at home?

Now, what would you have to do at your house for the welcome to be that radical?

Of course, that is the easy question. The more difficult question that faces us is how do we as a Christian Congregation practice radical hospitality...

I think it is a question of what else we could be doing with what we’re already doing. Radical hospitality is our next step. Radical hospitality is the addition, the something new that not only welcomes folks into our congregation but invites them to church in the first place.

What if we were reaching out to people that we normally wouldn’t? What if we were inviting the homeless, the street kids, the prostitutes, and the criminals? What if we made a place for people no matter what they looked like, what they did, what their sexual orientation was, or whether or not they spoke our language?

I think that might qualify as Radical.

Schnase says this:

"Practicing hospitality is not launching a membership drive for a civic organization or inviting people to join a club in order to enhance revenue through dues. We invite people into that mysteriously sustaining community that finds its purpose in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

So Mount Royal is a friendly church, right? That may be true – it certainly seemed friendly to me when came; however, what Schnase is saying is that even if we are friendly, even if we have great music, even if we serve good coffee, we might not be doing enough to share what we have.

Hospitality means we pray, plan, prepare, and work toward the purpose of helping others receive what we received from God. Hospitality is more than common politeness to newcomers... Hospitality is a quality of spiritual initiative, the practice of an active and genuine love, a graciousness unaffected by self interest, an opening of ourselves and our faith community to receive others.

Radical Hospitality might simply mean loving like Jesus loves... and inviting others to do the same.

Let us pray:

God who welcomes us with extravagant and radical hospitality, we know that we often fall short of the mark. Widen our circle, help us to see who most needs to be welcomed into our midst; allow your spirit to make our love complete, so that in sharing it, others may come to know you. Amen.

LENT 3 - C

FIVE PRACTICES: Intentional Faith Development

Could This Be The Year for Figs?


It's hard to let God be God isn’t it? We long to explain things only God can know. We human beings have spent centuries looking to find cause and affect patterns for every good and every evil in the world. Yet we can each tell stories of terrible tragedies that have happened to good and faithful people. Even here within our own church family. But what we want is to make sense of things that make no sense so we put words into God's mouth that are our own rather than God's.

Some years ago, William Sloan Coffin preached a sermon about our temptation to speak God's mind. During the years when Rev. Coffin was senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City, his son Alex was killed in a tragic car accident. Alex was driving in a terrible storm; he lost control of his car and careened into the waters of Boston Harbour. The following Sunday, Dr. Coffin preached about his son's death. He thanked all the people for their messages of condolence, for food brought to their home, for an arm around his shoulder when no words would do. But he also raged; he raged about well-meaning folks who had hinted that Alex's death was God's will. "I knew the anger would do me good," he said.

Then he went on:

"Do you think it was God's will that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper...that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had a couple of 'frosties' too many? Do you think it was God's will that there are no street lights along that stretch of the road and no guard rail separating the road and Boston Harbour? The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, 'It is the will of God.' Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break."

It's hard to let God be God. We long to make sense of senseless tragedies and search for reasons even when there are none. Jesus anticipated our questions in today's gospel reading. Two terrible tragedies had happened in Jerusalem, one in the temple, the other near the pool of Siloam. In the first instance, Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed some Galileans who were making sacrifices at the temple and then he mixed their blood with the sacrifices. No doubt this was a warning to other Jews to remember that Rome was in charge. In the other incident, a tower fell on people near the pool of Siloam killing 18 people who simply happened to be there. How can such things be explained?

Jesus asks the questions that must have been on people's minds. Were the Galileans worse sinners than other Galileans? Were the people killed by the tower worse offenders than all others living in Jerusalem?

These are serious questions; questions on the mind of each and every one of us as we go through a life filled with challenges and tragedy.

Last week I started talking about the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations – you may remember we talked about Risk-Taking Mission and Service. The idea was that we should focus on the adjective – “risk taking” and congregations who are able to take risks tend to be healthier.

This week I think the concept that best fits the situation, and the passages, is “Intentional Faith Development.”

Let me explain; Life throws us curves, it causes pain, it offers up a lot that is difficult to explain – and there are no simple answers. Because there are no simple answers, we are called to search out truth – we are called to dig deeper.

God does not will death.

Are you going to accept the easy answer, or are you going to be intentional about learning about your faith?

In the Five Practices Robert Schnase writes this: “Intentional Faith Development refers to the purposeful learning in community that helps the followers of Jesus mature in faith, such a Bible studies, Sunday school classes, short-term topical studies, and support groups that apply the faith to particular life challenges.

Learning in community replicates the way Jesus deliberately taught his disciples. People cannot learn grace, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness, or joy, simply by reading about it in a book. These are aspects of spiritual formation that one learns in community, through intentional engagement. The sanctifying presence of God's spirit works through these practices to help us grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God.”

William Sloane Coffin is recognized as one of the greatest preachers ever in North America. It was not just his sermon when his son died; he spent his whole life intentionally confronting the hard questions below the surface of the scriptures. He always knew that life was unfair, that things don’t work out, and that our simple ideas of God never explain the mystery of it all.

The poet Rilke said it this way: “Try to love the questions themselves; do not seek the answers now, but live the questions themselves.”

When people were blaming God for these random deaths Jesus decide it was time for some intentional teaching, and so he told a parable.

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, "See here, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?"

Which if we accepted the simple answers, if we really thought is was as black and white as God does good things for good people and bad things for bad people would be the end of the parable... but it isn’t...

In fact, the parable goes even deeper than we might at first expect... What does the person argue? That it has been three years and the tree has not produced any fruit – do you know when Jesus says this? Just about three years after he was baptized by John, just about three years after he started his preaching?

For three years God has been waiting for people to turn their hearts toward Jesus, but there has not been much repentance. Instead of repentance, the resistance to Jesus' vision of the kingdom has intensified over the three years. There isn't any fruit on the tree, so the owner of the vineyard says, "Cut it down!"

Again, remember, this is not the end of the story...

The gardener doesn't cut down the tree. Instead the gardener says, "Sir, let it alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not you can cut it down."

Dig around in the roots; put some manure on there... or in other words – be intentional about doing the things that will help you to grow... be intentional about learning, intentional about developing your faith... and then we will see what happens.

This is a story of hope... one more year... some intentionality... and we can become who we were meant to be...

Now -- the real point is that this year is not going to be any easier – but as a congregation, we are given chance after chance to look deeply at ourselves, to take risks, to be intentional... to work at changing the world even while we seek to understand it.

You never know, this could be the year for figs.

Let us pray. Gracious and merciful God, whose patience goes far beyond our erring, be with us this day that we might repent and turn around. Give us the power and the grace to return to you. Give us the courage to admit what we have done wrong and what we have failed to do right. In this year, come to us; dig around our hearts, open us to your wisdom, your forgiveness, and your grace, Amen.

LENT 2 - C

An explanation of sorts - for the remainder of Lent the sermons will be part of a series exploring the book "The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations" by Robert Schnase. The sermons will not be following the 'order' that Schnase presents the practices, as we will be following the regular Lenten Lectionary readings as well.

You are welcome to check out more about the five practices HERE

5 PRACTICES OF A FRUITFUL CHURCH – RISK TAKING MISSION AND SERVICE

What do you think the purpose of church is? I would argue that it is two-fold: To make disciples of Jesus Christ; and the transformation of the world.

The first is simple enough; we are people who follow Jesus way of being in relationship with God. Jesus himself used those words, “Follow me and...” on a few occasions. He also urged his followers to become more and more like him; and therefore closer and closer to God.

Secondly, Jesus whole message was about the Kingdom of God, and how it was supposed to be here among us. We pray every week, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done...” and what we are really saying is that we believe in the whole peace and harmony thing that God has always been trying to get us to live up to. We are talking about the lion lying down with the lamb, about a place where widows and orphans are the most important and taken care of – where we let the captives free and heal the broken. This is the world the church is actively trying to build.

But how do we do that?

There is a new movement coming out of the states called “The Five Practices” it was started by a Methodist Bishop, Robert Schnase, who did some work trying to figure out how we should best approach being church in a post Christian world; What he came across was, to use a marketing term, the five best practices of churches that are really vital:

· Radical Hospitality,

· Passionate Worship,

· Intentional Faith Development,

· Risk-Taking Mission and Service,

· and Extravagant Generosity.

The practices are basic and fundamental. But it’s the adjectives that make these words come alive, because they stretch us and cause us to ask ourselves, “How are we doing in practicing these qualities of ministry in our congregation? How might we do better?”

As we take Lent as a time to examine ourselves personally, I want us also to take this opportunity to examine ourselves corporately... To take the next five weeks and look at these five practices. SO my question for today is:

Do we do Risk Taking Mission and Service?

Listen again to Jesus’ lament for Jerusalem... a lament for his church:

“Yet... I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

So this is where we start. We are Jerusalem. And by that I don’t simply mean that we would crucify Jesus if he showed up here too; I mean that we are just as unwilling to listen to the prophets in our midst. We are just as unwilling to take risks that might lead to change.

And, perhaps, we are afraid to risk our comfort if it means making the world outside these walls, a world of poverty, starvation, warfare, criticism, pettiness, manipulation and greed a little more real.

I am just guessing... I am not accusing... I am asking you to help me to look at Mount Royal and think about who we are.

Here is how Robert Schnase describes Risk Taking Mission and Service:

“This involves work that stretches people, causing them to do something for the good of others that they would never have considered doing if it were not for their relationship with Christ and their desire to serve Him. These churches not only solicit and encourage ordinary service to support the work of the congregation, but they also consciously seek to motivate people to more extraordinary service. They lift examples in preaching and teaching. Risk-taking missions and service is also part of the formation of children and youth. All youth and children ministries include teaching and experiential components that stretch compassion outward beyond the walls of the church. Faith mapped in childhood provides pathways that shape lifelong commitments. These churches collaborate with other churches, other denominations, civic organizations, social agencies, and non-profit groups. They actively invite and welcome newcomers, visitors, and the unchurched to help them in making a difference in the lives of others. As congregations move beyond their comfort zones and follow Christ into more adventurous encounters with people, God’s Spirit changes them, changes others, and changes churches.”

Now these are practices—they're not qualities that some churches have and some don’t. They’re not phases that, once we get them done, we can move on to something else. These are practices that we have to learn and improve upon constantly. These are the activities that are so critical to the mission of the church, that failure to perform them in an exemplary way leads to congregational decline and deterioration.

(the remainder of the sermon was a spoken conclusion that I did not write down. feel free to imagine how I might have concluded, or in fact, how you would conclude it - grin)

LENT 1 C

We have entered into the season of Lent. A time of preparation, not unlike Advent is before Christmas but with more of an inward focus of self improvement.

Advent is about making room for the Christ child to be born, to bring new life... It is a time for us to make room for the incarnation, God with us to be born in you at Christmas time.

Well in Lent, we have 40 days (which excludes Sundays) to look deep within ourselves in order to see how we are living our Christian faith.

To aid us in this journey we take this time to listen to the stories of Jesus life; and especially come to grips with those that led to his persecution and death.

Because you see, this is an opportunity to find ourselves in the story – to allow it to get into those places within us that feel like Good Friday, to open us up for God’s spirit to get in there and have a good look around so that we can be transformed on Easter morning and be filled with new life and a deep assurance of the living Christ being with us.

The Scripture passages we read for today, for the beginning of Lent, are as dependable as taxes. It seems that we always start with the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert... and it is a good place to start, because it tells us all about looking at those things that are inside us, about confronting the darker side of our personalities, and overcoming.

But this morning we also read from Paul’s letter to the Romans; which is a tiny but important passage that needs to be given careful consideration.

You see, Paul was afraid he would never make it to Rome, and he was writing to them to pass on all of his wisdom, his knowledge, and his faith. He wants them to understand just why it is that you should follow Jesus; so here we find him reworking three passages of the Hebrew text in order to help people understand Jesus. He also points out very clearly that we cannot earn God’s mercy and love. They are gifts freely given.

So let’s think about that for a moment - Lent is a time to prepare and look at how we can become even closer to God. We are thinking about how to strengthen our relationship with our Creator.
And Paul is reminding us that when we are tempted to believe that we have earned God’s blessing because of our own goodness or because of who we are; or when we are tempted to believe that we have not earned God’s love and grace because of what we have done or not done.... we are wrong. What we need to remember is that God does not discriminate – God is there for all – it is not something we can earn, or that comes to only some of us; it is grace.

That is a hard thing for us to accept. Jesus preached it, Paul wrote about it, literally millions have preached about it; and most of us struggle with the concept of grace.

We need some time to think about it. Lent is really nothing more than a time to be disciplined about your faith. It is an invitation, an offering for you in the midst of the business of our lives to look at who we are as people of faith but more importantly to learn more about God, grace, and God’s relationship to us.

As we listen to the words of scripture we find that they are full of stories of people like you and I who struggle with faith and our relationship with God but continue to be able to see what gets in the way of growing closer to God.

Let’s not kid ourselves everyone struggles to do this. It is not something that comes easily for us. It takes effort and a willingness to look at ourselves in ways we may not always feel comfortable doing.

While Jesus was in the desert he relied on his reading of scripture to respond to the temptations he was facing. He was constantly quoting the Hebrew text in response to each temptation.

Sometimes we forget the value of the stories of our faith. Many of us have tried to memorize portions of them, I’ve drawn charts to try and keep all the lineages clear in my head... But that is not where the wisdom lies. The wisdom lies in the stories themselves, in reading them in such a way that we can see their message and how that applies to our lives, our temptations, and our personal struggles and doubts; the dead ends of our lives. There is wisdom in this book we read.

SO here is a challenge that I want to leave with you for Lent. Read your bible, read the passages for the coming week. Read them and let them settle into you. It is not a text book; it is a book of rich text and poetry.

These forty days are not about preparing a space, it is not about preparing the world, it is about preparing us... getting ready from the inside out. Take the time and the space you need... .

TRANSFIGURATION - C

Bridging the Three Feet

Have you ever heard of the term, “thin places”?

In Celtic Christianity there is a sense that the divine and the ordinary are two sides of the same coin. I suppose that it is another way of saying that God is always present – but being more realistic than some of us, the Celts say that God is present but not always known.

We can relate. We get up and brush our teeth; and most of us are not aware of God’s presence in that moment; or eating supper, or arguing with a child, or most of the ordinary, real, mundane, things we do in our lives. We don’t usually expect God to make an appearance there.

But there are other places... places where the two sides of the coin are almost touching... where it is possible to see from one reality to another.

I once lived on Haida Gwaii, an island 18 miles off the coast of Alaska and home to the Pacific Indigenous tribe, the Haida. Just to place it, if you have ever seen any of Emily Carr’s paintings of totem poles, they are the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

One day while walking through ancient, moss covered trees, my family and I came across a half finished dugout canoe that for some reason was abandoned, some 2-300 years earlier. Darkened tree canopy, with sunlight streaming through moss hanging in huge tendrils from the branches, and you stumble across something from another age, another time... it was, for lack of a better word, magical.

That clearing, was a thin place.

Have you ever read the story of King Arthur? Or seen some of the more authentic retellings? There was a guy named Geoffrey of Manmouth who wrote a history of the Kings of England back in the early 1100’s – he was the first to tell the story and he talked about an Island, shrouded in the mist, called Avalon – which is old Gaelic and Welsh for the Island of Apples, coincidentally (remember the garden of Eden? – forbidden knowledge and all that...)

This is the Island of the Old religion, of the druids, the place where Excalibur was forged, and it was almost impossible to find – it existed “somewhere else”... in fact, you had to be allowed to find it in order to get there; because it was a thin place, connecting the ordinary to the ‘Divine’.

There is an abbey; built back in the 1100’s called Glastonbury; which is said to be near the edge of Avalon. Legend has it that Joseph of Aramathia, the guy who carried Jesus cross for him on Good Friday, founded the monastery himself, and planted a piece of the true cross there, and it grew into a rose bush, or perhaps an apple tree – but more importantly – it just might be the Holy Grail. King Arthur and Guinevere are supposed to be buried there as well.

Again, Glastonbury is a thin place... and I guess the first specifically Christian one I have mentioned – when you stand in the ruins near Somerset, you can apparently feel the connection to God.

I should point out that thin places need not be good. Anyone who has ever been to Auschwitz claims that from the moment they pass the gates they feel the evil as if it is some oppressive weight pressing down on their very souls.

But “thin places” of course are not limited to these famous locales. They are all around us. And they are not just “places” either. They can also be events in our lives where the dividing line between the ordinary and the holy becomes blurred. Thin places can be found in all kinds of experiences.... we can find beautiful spots in nature, music, poetry, movies or television, and even books all can serve as thin places for us.

They are places where the boundary between ourselves and what we’re looking at disappears, and we are ushered into a feeling of deep oneness with our surroundings.

Think back to a time where a quiet walk through the woods, or a passage from a book or a piece of beautiful music or a penetrating conversation with a friend transported you, and you were somehow moulded and changed by the encounter.

“A thin place is anywhere our hearts are opened,” writes Marcus Borg. “They are places where the boundary between the two levels [of reality] becomes very soft, porous, and permeable. Thin places are places where the veil momentarily lifts and we behold God, experience the one in whom we live, all around us and within us” (The Heart of Christianity, pp. 155-56).

They are rare – but they happen to us all. And the moment transforms us – it transfigures reality – and we glimpse the underlying holiness that part of us always realized was there – but we never fully felt in our hearts.

That’s the thing – Peter – the disciples... they know, up in their heads, that Jesus is something special. When he asks them who they think he is they have all sorts of good rational answers – Elijah reborn? John the Baptist back from the dead? Even Peter’s answer of “Christ” which is to say, the Messiah, is a head answer – that is who he thinks Jesus is.

So Jesus invites them up to the mountain to pray – he invite them to a thin place – perhaps he knew that it would be easier for them to experience God with the grandeur of the view up on the mountains, perhaps he just wanted them to get away from the crowds so they could get in touch with their hearts... whatever Jesus was thinking, it worked.

Thin places, if we let them, will guide us. This experience connected, for perhaps the first time, the Disciples to a true sense of the divine. It was a turning point in their journey to becoming what Jesus intended them to be, children of God, just like him.

This was one of those moments that show us how close God is to us, and how heaven and earth are intertwined, within us and all around us. Our thin places can grace us with a new awareness that our lives are not meant just to be struggled through and survived – they are meant to be celebrated and savoured.

As we learn to walk through our day with more openness, stillness and receptivity, we won’t need to seek out thin places, for they will just naturally come to us.

There is an old Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller! You are invited this morning to see how close heaven is to you. You have thin places everywhere in your life. They beckon you to step through them and become renewed. God is waiting to meet you in those places.

Let’s pray…. Dear God, help us touch upon those thin places where we experience…Deep peace of the running wave, Deep peace of the flowing air, Deep peace of the quiet earth, Deep peace of the shining stars, Deep peace of the Son of Peace. Thank you, O God, for the Son of Peace. AMEN.

EPIPHANY 5 - C

Paying Attention to all things Burning

Let’s talk about Peter.

You may have heard tell of a rather prominent church in Rome, The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter; the mother church of the Roman Catholic worldwide community. I wish we had power point already because I want you all to see pictures of this – so go home and look it up. It is impressive!

If you can believe it, construction began in 1506 and it took more than one hundred years to complete, in 1626. Just that one fact alone is astronomical – 100 years to build a church…

And just for the record, it was built over top of the Old Basilica of St. Peter which was built by the Emperor Constantine sometime in the early 300’s.

Some of the best artists and stone masons of all time worked on the rebuilding project; people like Michelangelo, for example.

Apparently, Peter himself is buried deep under the altar… as are most of the popes through history. You see, tradition has it that after 30 years of Ministry in Jerusalem, Peter travelled to Rome; and unfortunately, was crucified, upside down, after that famous fire that burned most of Rome, and Nero fiddled during, but then blamed Christians for… Never mind the fact that most of the buildings that burned were dedicated to Augustus Caesar and the new ones would all be dedicated to Nero Caesar… but I digress…

My point is this – Perhaps the greatest church of all time, the centre of the only Christian nation on earth – the Vatican… is dedicated to and built around, Peter.

All to the glory of God and in honour of Peter; Petros in Greek, which is a nickname we might best translate as “Rocky”; one tough, stubborn, independent, fisherman.

See, now there is something you don’t see every day. It’s like some Shediac Cape lobster fisher ending up being Prime Minister and having huge buildings named after him… It’s not that it is impossible; it is just… improbable…

Now – keep the real Peter in mind – the one who was stubborn, the one who worked day and night out in the boats, the one who constantly messed things up and got in trouble with Jesus…

And then look back some 1500 years to Isaiah; one of the greatest prophets in the history of Israel – and the person who ended up knitting the community back together after decades of isolation and exile.

And look at the very beginning, the start, the year King Uzziah died, and everything changed.

Far from being certain of God’s call; Isaiah cries out: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Which is another way of saying – I have never said a good thing about anybody all of my life – and you want me to talk for God?!

But that’s always the way isn’t it? Moses was a runaway killer, a disgraced prince, a lonely shepherd with a stutter when God spoke out of the burning bush.

David was the youngest, the ruddiest, when he was chosen to be king – and even after he committed adultery and murder; God still had other plans for David.

Last week I asked, what is it that stops you from hearing God? What in your life would you yell out to prove you are unworthy of being chosen by God? Is it your past? Is it your fear? What is it?

Because what we need to see is that everyone God speaks to, has some reason not to listen – and for all of us, there is an epiphany, a moment when everything changes and we hear it, we get it, we respond knowing that what we have to offer is enough.

In Isaiah’s case we find that King Uzziah – historically recognized as the best king in hundreds of years, and perhaps of all times, has died. Isaiah is the court philosopher and prophet… and for forty years he has faithfully served this king. But that era is over. As Isaiah faces an uncertain future he has a vision of God – a vision that reminds him of two things – first and foremost, that Isaiah is clearly not capable of being great without God’s help… It takes Isaiah down a few pegs and reminds him of who he really is – and then… then God says, “I am not through with you yet.”

And what about Paul in our letter to the church in Corinth, what is with the resume? I want to suggest to you that it is the writing of an insecure person having a mid life crisis… Paul was never completely comfortable with his past, persecuting Christians, or his future, a call to ministry. All of the time he is writing about his limitations, about the thorn in his side that will not go away, about his failings… but here he is, saying despite that, something has changed.

Despite everything, he became convinced that God loved him… “I am what I am” he writes… and it is reassuring – because we have been there too; we all have our own skeletons in the closet – that is part of what leads us to those moments of crisis when we come to terms with our past and finally listen

In all if this, even in Peter recognizing Jesus as important, calling him master and throwing the nets out the other side; I want you to see that there is a cause and effect. It was Moses willingness to pay attention, and God’s willingness to speak. At that burning bush we read this passage: “When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.” (Ex 3:4)

But think about this – it also matters that you pay attention to what is on the inside, to what you are feeling. The disciples walked the long dusty road to Emmaus with the risen Christ, we are told, and it was only after when they looked at each other and said, “were our hearts not strangely warmed?” that they recognized that God was with them on the road….

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a great poem:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees it, takes off his shoes –

The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

For there are legitimate hurdles we must overcome; but at some point, it truly is up to us to turn aside, to recognize God at work in our midst, and to grasp the larger picture.

Nelson Mandela quoted Marianne Williamson in his inauguration speech:

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

So – keeping in mind that God is all around you this very moment, calling, pleading, burning brightly in your life – I think the time has come to respond.

Let us pray, in the words of Ted Loder, from his book Guerrillas of Grace:

O God,

Let something essential and joyful happen to me now,

Something like the blooming of hope and faith,

Like a grateful heart, like a surge of awareness, of how precious each moment is.

That now, not next time, now is the occasion to take off my shoes, to see every bush afire,

To lead and whirl with neighbour, to gulp the air as sweet wine,Until I’ve drunk enough to dare to speak the tender word: “thank you” “I love you” “you’re beautiful” “Let’s live forever beginning now; and “I’m a fool for Christ’s sake.” Amen.