All Souls (c) 2010

All Hallow’s Eve exists because of All Soul’s Day

Introduction

OK, has anyone ever stopped and considered the definition of the word “Hallow”? It is a verb, by the way, and it means, “to consecrate: to render holy by means of religious rites.”

Hallowe’en, technically, means the night before everything is made holy!

A friend of mine recently said we have to rescue Hallowe’en from the world – take it back as the religious festival it is... So today, we are going to learn a little history before we head out into the darkened skies to beg for candy and threaten mischief.

"Children’s Story"

The light within... the story of pumpkins

History

So, November 1^st is All Saints Day; the day we commemorate all the known and unknown saints of the faith. Then comes all Soul’s Day which commemorates all the faithful dead. In Mexico it is called the Day of the Dead.

But I want to back up a bit first... Some 2,000 years ago the Celts, crazy purple people that they were, celebrated the New Year on November 1st. The day marked the end of the warm, growing, harvesting season; and the beginning of the cold, dark, dying season. They also believed that on the night before the changing of the seasons the veil between the two worlds - physical and spiritual - was weakened. This made it easier to see the future and to determine where fate was leading you. So they built bonfires, wore animal skins, danced, prayed, sang and celebrated.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honour Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honour saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honour the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the Eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

You can see how this all comes together... but for now I want you to consider that this is a festival of everything that is holy and good about people.

Zacchaeus

So... what makes a perfect person? What makes a saint? In truth... nothing special.

That is what we learn from the story of Zacchaeus. A wee little unloved tax collector... except.... well, except that God loves him. Jesus loves him. Everything gets turned around because of that realization.

Conclusion

On this, the eve before we celebrate what is good and right and holy in the world, may we remember that it is our faith

Pentecost 21 (C) 2010

Breaking through

Introduction

Buddha said that all life is suffering.

He meant that there is always going to be pain; and that the only way we can escape that pain is to try and become detached from it. Jesus backed him up, claiming that the poor will always be with us, that we are a broken people, that the cross of life, the pain of life, looms large.

So think less of your own struggle and try and help diminish others… that was one of Jesus’ answers. Not so different than Buddha.

So what do you think? Has anything bad ever happened in your life? Have you ever felt pain? Have you felt despair?

Sure you have… There are so many choices, so many commitments that pull us from one thing to another each day. From the time we wake up we are bombarded with questions and concerns – some of which are horrific and stressful – for example today we are thinking about world food day… and we all, like it or not, hear tidbits of scary information about food. Half of the time it seems something is poisonous, deadly and recalled. Then there is that fact that it has what, quadrupled in price in the last couple of years. How about the fact that most of the world woke up hungry this morning and will go to bed hungry tonight. With global warming a lot of the world’s crops are failing and soon enough there will be a lot more starvation than we expect.

Cheery, is it not… but I don’t want to stay there. I want to move beyond that… I want to ask you to think about where you turn for answers about what to do…

Some Stories

I want to tell you some stories:

A long time ago God came to Abraham in the cool of the evening and said, “You are going to be a father” and Abraham actually questioned God, saying, “How is that possible?”

God told Moses to lead the people out of Israel and Moses wondered if God might have chosen the wrong person.

Nichodemus came to Jesus at night and questioned how one could be ‘born again’.

You see what I am getting at? There has never been a person – from the greatest saint in recorded history right down to each and every one of us, who has not had some questions, some doubts, some struggles with their faith.

Augustine’s most famous prayer is this “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!”

“The days are coming,” says Jeremiah, “when the people of God will be scattered. When no one will seek the Lord… When the church will lose its influence… and when the world forgets the values that Christianity has fought so hard to instill in us. The days are coming – the days are here – when faith will be filled with struggle.”

Of course, he doesn’t end there – he says that even when there is doubt, even when the world turns away from God… there is another day coming as well, a day when the laws of God shall be written on our hearts.

I love that phrase….

A time will come when we will know our faith so intimately, when it will be so much a part of us, that we will no longer need to search everywhere for answers – we will intimately know God’s love and that God is with us.

An article I read about motivations calls it an intrinsic rather than an extrinsic sense of reality… when we will act out of what is inside us, instead of from a place of wanting acceptance, or needing to look good.

Of Being Alone

Is God out there? NO!

Is God with you? YES!

A lot of people know that my own personal image of God is much closer to the idea of the force. I try not to think of God as the old man in the sky, or in any personally specific way – it is difficult, but for me, the idea of the force from Star Wars resonates the best,

The Force is that power that is both within you and connecting you to something larger – it is the creative aspect of the universe which flows and empowers us.

When I think like that it is easier for me to say that God is with me always.

Because you see, that is another thing we learn when we look back to Abraham, to Moses, to Jacob, to Jesus, to Paul, to Augustine, to Martin Luther King Jr…. – in the midst of their struggles and their doubts, there was an assurance that God was there with them – and it made all the difference.

God never said, “Go on ahead alone”, instead, our scriptures tell us that God called to the faithful and said – “I know you are scared and uncertain, but go on – I will be with you.”

So God is there, offering strength and support in the midst of life. God is there, urging us on – challenging us to be better people.

The Judge!

So what is wrong? Why don’t we feel God’s presence?

Well – the truth is the problem lies with us, not with God.

What if I tell you that the historically we have completely missed the point of this story Jesus is telling. In fact, they missed the point right off the bat, saying, ‘We should be persistent, just like the widow!”

No…. we are not the widow in this story… we are the judge.

Think of it a second, are people not a lot more like the judge than the widow? Is not one of the problems with the world that we tend to think only of ourselves, not having regard for others, or for God? Do we stubbornly try to go our own way and do what we want? Not all of the time, to be sure, but there are those moments…

So here we are, living in the world, dazed and confused, dazzled by the wonders of all that advertising and “me first” propaganda – and there is God, the persistent widow, pleading his case over and over and over…

God came to Abraham, but the people forgot, God was with Jacob, but the people forgot, God led Moses, but the people forgot, God spoke through Elijah, God was in Jesus, God has always been there – and we forget… we turn away… we don’t listen….

“The day’s are surely coming”

And for many of us they are here. Or we are close. Faith is something that is a part of us, something we have known for a long time. Our hearts beat in tune with God – we understand what it is that the Lord requires of us, and we do it – imperfectly to be sure, but we throw our hearts and minds and bodies and our souls into working for God’s kingdom and the good of all our brothers and sisters.

I feel Jeremiah’s words deeply in my soul – because I have been there, I know what that exile feeling is like, when you feel lost and lonely, and frightened that things will never be okay again. And I know what it is like when people don’t understand who you are, or why you do what you do, or how you could possibly have faith after all that has happened. And I am sure you feel those things too.

And my heart leaps for joy because I know that God’s word does eventually break through to each and every one of us. I know that God never gives up – that God is as persistent as we can imagine.

So where does that leave us? Listen to Paul’s letter to Timothy:

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness… I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction… But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

Life is a struggle. But we have all learned something along the way. There is much that is written on our hearts: Loss and loneliness, joy and success, love and hope – faith. And as Paul reminds us we have a responsibility to share that faith, those words of scriptures, all which is God-breathed into our lives, so that we can continue the ministry that Jesus has called us to.

May God continue to inspire and challenge us that our faith might grow. Amen.

Thanksgiving

GIVING THANKS

Introduction

There is an obvious place to start – I can start by asking everyone what they are thankful for. I can suggest that you take a moment and thank God for the good things in your life. Perhaps I should remind you that no matter what happens or what you feel there are still reasons to be thankful; maybe this should be a there but for the grace of God go I type service...

Of course, there is also the stress of this day – of heading off to family, or preparing dinner for 462 and realizing you have forgotten the cranberries....

But instead I want you to think about something for me... what is your favourite television show?

Stories to Tell

This is the thing. I think that the stories we tell make a huge difference. Does anyone remember the “little engine that could?” what was the moral of that story? How about a Christmas Carol... what are supposed to learn from that?

And they affect us, don’t they? It is like a ‘self fulfilling’ prophecy. When we tell stories about how great life is, we see life that way; and when we tell stories about how terrible things are... well... they seem that way.

Our moods, our attitudes, and our lives are affected by stories.

Each of us has a personal story, each of us has a family story, and we also have a religious story.

So what are yours?

Here is a quick one of mine... When I was just starting out in Seminary I took half a year off. I went to Guatemala and did some “International Observing” of a refugee camp and return.

One day a friend and I were driving a pickup truck through the countryside surrounding the camp and we came across a habitat for humanity build, just completed. The folks actually flagged us down and got us out of the truck. It was at that point that one of them hoped onto a motorbike and sped off.

We were a little bit nervous. Norm and I each had our own secret police tail, and we had lost them to head out here for some freedom. We thought the guy had gone to get the cops on us two gringos... a few white knuckle minutes later back comes the motorbike with another guy on back. The other guy was carrying beer and corn tortillas... turns out the only thing they were thinking was they didn’t have enough for these huge white guys to eat.

That story changed my mind about people – about hospitality – about a lot of things.

Children’s Story

How easy is it to rub the belly and pat the head?

OK how about bad stories, things that make you sad....

What about thinking good thoughts; your own good stories...

Can you think both at once?

Thanksgiving is a time to remember the good stories, the good times, and allow them to push all of the bad things out....

Relating

I am always curious how we relate to the stories of our faith.

You see, we are meant to be able to understand that they are our stories too. So if I say, My great, great, 24 times great grandfather was a wandering Aramenian...

Does it mean anything to you? Can you see yourself in the story? Does it mean anything to you?

What if we re-tell it in a slightly different way?

In the Book of Deuteronomy in our Bible (hold up Bible) there is a story about Moses gathering the people together to say something very important to them. They had been many years travelling in the desert without much food, but they had trusted God and always had enough to eat.

And they gathered regularly to praise and thank God for all God’s love and care, in their hard times. Now they were moving into the land that God had promised them. It was filled with bees for honey and olives and grapes and dates and figs, and many other wonderful foods grew there. Moses was afraid that the people might forget God when things were so easy for them and they had lots to eat.

So Moses asked the people to have a special festival every year to say “Thanks” to God for all that God had done for them. They were to come to their place of worship and bring some food from their crops before they ate any themselves, and take time to tell the story of how God had helped them through their difficult times and brought them to their new land. Then they were to have a big feast and share what they had with those who had very little, and with people who had come from other countries to live in their land...

Now tell me... Was Moses right? Do you think it is easy to forget to say thank you? I do it all the time....

Conclusion

So of course, I am thankful for things. I am thankful for many, many things... but the trick is that it has to come more than once a year. I am a glass half full type of guy; and I want us to celebrate each and every day as thankfully as we can. Because all life is filled with grace and beauty.... even the dark places.

World Wide Communion 2010

One Bread... One Life...

Introduction

Now, you have to appreciate that this is an impossible statistic to keep track of, it has probably changed countless hundreds of thousands of times since I wrote this... but for the sake of argument – there are 3.7 million Christian churches in the world.

Within those churches there are somewhere in the 2 billion range of people.

I imagine that this number really means nothing to us ... either we use billion too often without understanding it, or we just can’t imagine it.... so let’s put it into perspective:
To count to one thousand, counting one number every second continuously, it would take 17 minutes. Counting to one million at the same rate, it would take 12 days (counting nonstop, day and night). But counting to one billion would take 32 years! Two billion would thus take 64 years to count.

Imagine if we tried to say all their names?

Clearly – as a group – we would have almost nothing in common. Some live in the desert and some in the snow, some are rich and some are poor, some are old and some are young....

Today – we all – everywhere – at just about the same time – are going to do the same thing.
Two billion people will celebrate the sacrament of communion this morning.

Communion Basics

- What do you do when you want to remember something?
- Is it easier to remember with a reminder?
- Communion is like that – a reminder – what do you think we remember with communion?
- What is the bread? What is the Juice?
- Is there anything that all of your friends do?
- Isn’t it cool that we all are celebrating communion this morning?

What are We Doing

World Communion Sunday began in 1936 in the Presbyterian Church and was adopted by the Federal Council of Churches (predecessor of the NCC) of the United States in 1940. Since then, the celebration has grown into an international ecumenical celebration of Christian unity.

The key word for World Communion Sunday is communion, or unity. It is a day when we mark the almost universal Christian practice of breaking bread with one another and remembering that last night Jesus shared a meal with his followers — when Jesus instituted what we now call the Lord’s Supper as a lasting remembrance.

But it is more than just remembering – it is a statement of faith.

That statement says two things – first, and probably most importantly, it talks about our sense of continuity; our belief that no matter what, things will still go on.

Jesus knew something bad was on the horizon. He knew he might not be around for very long – and he wanted to created a community; togetherness, by sharing an event and having it mean something. No matter what happened, they could keep doing it.

I want you to consider that this is what Lamentations is all about – Jerusalem used to be a mighty city, it is not now, but it will be once again. That is the promise, that is the belief, that what allowed the faithful to hold on...

In essence, Jesus created the same thing with the Last Supper – Soon I will not be with you, but the spirit will come and be with you, and each time you do this, you will remember.

Increase Our Faith

So, the disciples wanted a magic bullet to increase their faith – and I have to say, there isn’t one.
I think that is what Jesus was getting at too... the point is to keep on keeping on.
Eating the bread, drinking the cup – that alone does not make us more like Jesus; it does nothing to increase our faith...

The thought, however, of being connected to Jesus, to the disciples, to 2 billion other people who are all saying, “Increase our faith” - well, that has power.

And so Jesus says that we should have just the tiniest bit of faith, we should allow that what we do, we do because we believe in something bigger than ourselves... do it because it is the right thing to do... not for some reward, not for some future hoped for payback – but because we believe.

Conclusion

I want us all to go out from here with a feeling that if it comes right down to it, we are all one family. We have more in common than the things that separate us – perhaps it does not always feel that way; and perhaps we should