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.