Pentecost 23 C

Walk Humbly

Introduction

There is an old native saying that if you want to know someone you should walk a mile in their moccasins.  A more modern way of saying it is that we should not judge the people around us, because we never really know what they are going through at any given time.

Yet another way to put this is, be humble.

What does it mean to be humble? If you look it up in the dictionary it is a pretty unhappy state... It can mean to hold yourself in low estate, to have low self esteem, to be poor and have no social rank - or as a verb it can mean to put someone in their place.

But this cannot be what Jesus meant when he said we should be humble, can it?

Is it always such a negative thing? Or has the dictionary become influenced by our modern society and our way of thinking that bigger is better?

Faith is an exploration; it is about looking at who we are and how we should be. And today we are going to talk about the very biblical idea that the first shall be last and the last shall be first...

The Threshing Floors (Joel 2:23-32)

Let’s just for a second look at this a different way - from the angle of luck. For thousands of years people attributed good fortune to the gods. By this I mean to say that if you won the lottery, if the crops grew, if you were healthy all winter, God did it.

It wasn't even about deserving it. It was not about what you did. It was luck pure and simple.

Look around, the prophet Joel says  the threshing floors are full of grain, the vats are full of oil... The sun is shining and we are lucky. After all, who can understand why the gods do things. God causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike, to quote the good book... So if your world is going well... Count yourself lucky.

Believe it or not it is only in the last 200 years, give or take, that a different way of seeing the world has come around. It can be blamed in science and the industrial revolution, where we started creating machines.

All of a sudden people decided the universe worked on cause and affect. If we did something it caused something else. From a religious point of view, if we were good we were rewarded. If we were bad we were going to hell.

Problem is, no one has ever in the last 200 years proved this to be true.

Good people have bad things happen, and bad people have good things happen. Not only that, but scientists have come around to admitting they don't understand why things. Happen either. There is an exception to almost every rule...  And they invented two new sciences, quantum and chaos theory just to explain why cause and effect don't work.

But for some reason, when it comes to church, God and being good or bad, we still believe this wrong theory.

Beating Our Breasts

See, the Pharisee does not get the luck thing. That is what is happening here. For some reason he thinks he is better than the people around him, he thinks that it is perhaps because he is smarter, or stronger, or more faithful, or prettier…  There is no “there but for the grace of God go I” in his way of thinking.

There is not much humility there. The Humble one is the poor person who is convinced they are not worthy, and Jesus points out that this is the better response.

Why is that? Well, to put it simply, it is because arrogance is a bad thing. To be arrogant is to treat other people badly. To be arrogant is to think you can do everything yourself. To be arrogant is to think you are better. And the problem is, all of that creates walls between us and other people.

And we all know the thing we are supposed to do with other people is to love them.

Now, there are some issues with the poor person who thinks he is nothing but a sinner. We will get to that in a few moments.

But the real point is that we are supposed to care for each other. We are supposed to love each other. We are supposed to be doing what Jesus would have done. And humility is necessary in order to be the type of person God wants.

There is a very similar story about the good Samaritan. The priest thought he was too good to help the man in the ditch. So did the temple lawyer… but the Samaritan, who was already an outcast got it. He was the one who helped.

It is always easier to relate to people in pain, to people who have bad luck and to people who struggle if we have been there ourselves. Humility, in its best sense, is empathy. It is being able to feel the other person’s pain.

Contemporary Reading

“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. 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. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson; Author, Lecturer

A Corrective

Of course, the other side can be true. That is why I read you this quote. You can be too humble. I like to call this “worm” theology. I am nothing but a worm, God, and I am terrible, and useless, and…

When you say things like this, when you BELIEVE things like this, you no longer have it within yourself to do anything good. Who am I to make the world a better place? Who am I to speak up about this? If I do this it won’t make a difference anyway…

Ever say anything like this? Ever feel anything like this? We all have.

But this is not humility the way Jesus explains it. This is not what God wants you to feel. We need to know that we DO make a difference, that we do have the power to do anything, that we can change the world… we just need to make sure we do not get too full of ourselves.

It is a balance. And some days we are too arrogant and some days we are too meek. We all are. But that does not mean we have to stay that way. It is about finding the balance, it is about accepting responsibility, it is about seeing others as being as valuable as us…

Conclusion

So walk humbly with God. That is the bottom line here. We need to be in the world to help other people. 

We need to know that we can make a difference. And we need to be faithful in our love for others.

It is not really that hard. None of this really is. What we talk about in church and what God requires of us are pretty basic things. To believe in goodness and to remember how lucky we are to be in this situation. To notice when the vats are full of oil and the pantry full of food and to give thanks, to enjoy the life we have been given; and to share that goodness with the world around us.

World Food Day C

World Food Day

Introduction

I find it intriguing that world food day follows thanksgiving. I do not know about you, but in my family thanksgiving is the equivalent of a feast. It is all about celebrating the best the land has to offer. So we are talking Turkey and pumpkin pie, or for this year duck and wild rice stuffing...Very delicious.

But at the same time that we are celebrating the richness of our bounty, we know that there are others who have nothing. From the people on the edges of the deserts of Africa right through to the 400 people who use the food bank in Miramichi, having enough is a constant problem.

Do you remember those ads from a couple of years ago that showed a person in the kitchen opening a can of soup, and when they opened it the roof came off their house. Then you saw the words, food or shelter. 1 million Canadians cannot afford both. Habitat for Humanity sponsored it and the point of the ad was to say that for many the choice is that serious, food or shelter, what is it going to be.

World Food Day was established in 1945 on the tale end of World War Two. The United Nations members took a look at the world around them, a world athat was honestly used to a lot of growth and prosperity ... And realized that with two "world" wars in 20 years, with the greatest depression the world has ever known in between, things were not really that rosy. We needed to take food security seriously, we needed to make sure everyone had enough.

Of course, this idea is ancient... In fact it forms one of the core moral teachings of the Jewish and Christian faith.

Children's Story

Give 1 kid no rice cracker.

Give 1 kid 3 rice crackers

Give 2 kids 2 rice crackers.

Give 4 kids 1 rice cracker.

(Repeat if there are more than 8 kids.)

We live in a world where one in eight people face go hungry every day - can't find enough food to eat.

Even though there's lots and lots of food in the world.

Jesus found himself in situations like that - where some people had food and others didn't.

Put all the food in one basket and passed it around.

Everyone was fed and there was even more food than they needed.

Heading Through the Desert

Everything I said with the kids, the whole bread and fishes feeding the five thousand is all well and good... But the thing is, there are times when it is easy to be so comfortable with that - like when it is lunch and you know you can to home and eat more later, it is fairly easy to share our five fish... But have you ever been hungry? 

The grumbling in the desert is a far far more realistic picture of what it is like when you cannot find enough food. I remember a fishing trip like that, where the friend I was sharing a canoe with insisted we should live off the land for a week, we would fry our catch and pick berries... I think to be honest that we only brought cornmeal and salt and pepper... On the second day when we had caught no fish I was ready to kill him, the trip ended early.

Well, here are the Israelites, thousands of people  who left safety, security and home behind to follow Moses into the desert, the DESERT. Now, I have never personally tried to live off the land in the desert, but I can guess that the people were getting pretty hungry, and pretty grumpy. You can understand their point...

This is one of those stories that shows God is with us. There are number of things like this that happen, the soldiers are outnumbered, the crops dry up, there is nothing to drink, the people are hungry... And God provides.

Don't worry. God is with us. That is the very basic message behind this reading, and why it was kept alive as a story for thousands of years... Now, I don't want to say that there is anything wrong with that sentiment... I jut want us to think a little about the difference between God providing, and expecting God to do the work.

Certainly one of the things God is saying to the people, of Israel is this... "If you would just stop complaining and look around... There is food on the ground and birds in the air, now to out and get them..."

How about our responsibility in the midst of all of this?

Jesus and the crowd get to the shore and there seems to be no food, so they ask around, and everyone, knowing that they might be there a while, claims to have nothing. But then when they look a little further, they find some fish and bread and the sharing begins.

So to go back to my opening point about Thanksgiving and people starving... Perhaps it says more about our unwillingness to share than about whether or not God provides?

The Gleanings

There are a lot of really interesting passages in the Bible about taking care of each other. Most of us could come up with a couple like when the disciples ask Jesus "when did we see you cold and hungry, Lord" and he tells them that any time they help anyone they help him.

But did you know there are very specific laws and rules about helping people and food? For example, according to biblical law a field can only be harvested once. When you go through and cut the grain the first time, then you just walk away... You leave the rest, the leftovers, for the foreigners widows and orphans to go get without cost. You also don't harvest right to the edge of the field, leave the stuff growing there so that anyone who is old and crippled does not have to walk far to get food.

The entire way that crops were grown, used in church, and shared had to do with the idea that God did not want you to be greedy, and that you should do all you could to make it easy for others to help themselves and still have dignity.

I think we have sort of lost this along the way. I don't really know where and when, there are theories.... But it all happened long before any of us. Life became more about making your way in the world, it became  about your family. About your friends, and ultimately about you... Strangers and outcasts became just that, and we stopped talking to them, stopped caring as much, stopped seeing it as a matter of faith.

There was a minister in Germany in World War Two... He was eventually put into a concentration camp himself because of his complaints, the chief among them was that no one would stand up for the poor and outcast... He wrote a poem that became famous which said this:

First they came for the communists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

We can be thankful for the food we eat and the life we live, but if we are not also aware of the unfairness of this world, we are not being faithful. We cannot change everything and we cannot help everyone... But we cannot just throw in the towel either.

Conclusion

God has provided. There is more than enough food for everyone in the world. It has to do with whether we are willing to share,  to work together, to be the type of people Jesus knew we could be.

The answer to hunger is so simple we learned it when we were little kids. Share. It may sound simple... But it is the only way we will ever bring true change.

I want to end my sermon today with words from a Spanish poet named Federico Garcia Lorca

who lived in the early twentieth century. As you hear these, may you feel real hope for what is possible.

He said:

"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth

there will be the greatest spiritual explosion

the world has ever known.

Humanity cannot imagine the joy"

Thanksgiving C

 Embodying Gratitude

This sermon was written by Rev. Ali Smith at Forest Hill United in Fredericton. My off the cuff sermon was based on these notes.

My Autumn Drive

Throughout the Season of Creation,

I have been sharing with you

how much I have been enjoying Autumn this year.

I know that every year Autumn rolls around

and the leaves change colour

and fall to the ground

in preparation for winter.

But this year,

it's beauty has really struck me.

This week,

I went for a drive on the winding highway

between Fredericton and the Miramichi,

as I often do -

through some of the most picturesque places

New Brunswick has to offer;

places like Nashwaak and Taymouth,

Boistown and Doaktown,

and finally Blackville and Renous.

Most of the leaves, at this point,

had changed colour.

So, my eyes were met with a beautiful palate

of browns, golds, oranges, and reds.

Pine needles, like confetti,

covered the road.

The air was clear

and the sunshine was warm

as if hanging on from summer

for just a little bit longer.

Every now and again,

I would come across a produce stand,

filled with crisp delicious-looking apples

and bright orange pumpkins

that looked like they came

straight out of a child's colouring book.

And most of the people I saw out of my window

were wearing cozy Fall sweaters.

At several points,

birds soared gracefully overhead

in the blue sky.

And as I got closer to my destination,

a family of deer jogged across the road

up ahead,

with their white tails

standing at attention up in the air.

Driving down that road,

I felt blessed to have this time,

to have this beautiful scenery

that was speaking to my soul.

For two full hours,

I breathed it all in

and indulged myself

in my surroundings,

in the feelings stirred inside of me,

as if I had spent the afternoon at the spa.

I felt a deep appreciation

for what was before me

and found myself saying aloud

to no one in particular,

"This is beautiful."

And it was beautiful.

And it made me feel good.

And though I don't recall saying any words of prayer,

I could feel gratitude for God and for nature

deep in my bones.

My awareness, my alertness, my enjoyment

was my prayer of thanksgiving.

Words weren't necessary,

as something more powerful was happening;

I was embodying gratitude.

A Simple Thanks

How can one possibly come up with the words to say to God

when one experiences holy moments like this?

How are we to pray to the One who gives us so much?

As I was preparing for Thanksgiving Sunday,

I was pondering how we can possibly say thank you

to this generous God that is a constant presence in our lives.

A quote from the 13th century German mystic kept coming to mind.

I think I might have shared it with you last year

in the Thanksgiving bulletin.

Meister Eckhart is credited with having said:

"If the only prayer

you ever say in your entire life

is thank you,

it will be enough."

When giving thanks,

the words don't really matter

but the feeling of gratitude is important.

God is not sitting around

waiting for us to offer appropriate praise.

God is concerned with how we live our lives.

God wants us to live lives of gratitude -

to be thankful in the ordinary moments of our day -

moments like when we drive in our cars down a country road.

God wants us to feel gratitude

with our bodies and our hearts and our minds.

That will change who we are.

Embodiment

We see this embodiment modelled for us in scripture.

At Story Time,

we talked about the leper

who felt such gratitude for the help that Jesus had provided

that he could not stop himself

from getting down on his hands and knees

in an act of thanksgiving.

It wasn't what the leper said that impressed Jesus

because all that the leper said was "thank you".

He didn't make any great speech of praise.

What impressed Jesus

was the deep gratitude that the leper obviously felt.

The gratitude that he embodied

and thus shone right through him.

Jesus could see that he was thankful

and had great faith.

This morning,

we hear another wonderful story of gratitude embodiment

as we hear a thanksgiving story of the Israelites.

These ancient people had journeyed for generations.

Sometimes the journey was rewarding,

other times tedious,

and sometimes it was downright painful.

But with every step they took through the wilderness,

they felt a connection to God

and walked on with thanksgiving.

Even when they grumbled

or were ready to give up,

they continued to give thanks for God's promise

to bring them to a land all their own.

And then when they got to that land,

they gave thanks each and every year

in a great act of thanksgiving

that went well beyond words.

Each year,

they worked the land with their hands,

digging deep in the rich soil,

caring for crops until they were ripe.

When the time was right,

they gathered the first produce of the harvest

and put it in a basket.

They then carried this basket of first-fruits

to the altar -

a special place set aside for worshipping God

Then, with the same hands that tilled the land,

they put their offering on this altar.

Then they would physically bow to God

and say some words

to remember the many blessings

that God has bestowed upon them.

Once everyone had offered their first-fruits in this way,

the people got together and had a feast -

an ancient potluck, you might say.

And everyone was invited to feast -

neighbours and strangers alike.

This is another journey of sorts,

shorter perhaps,

but not unlike the journey

of their people

into the promised land.

And it is a journey filled with thanksgiving.

The words aren't what's important in this act.

It's the feeling of thanksgiving

that fill the people deep down to the bone;

a gratitude so deep that their bodies can't help but respond.

This became the ritual of the Israelites

and our thanksgiving ritual is not so different, is it?

We too gather the fruits of the Fall

but, instead of an altar,

we put them on our decorated dinner tables.

Then we gather around with those we care about

and share a delicious meal

that has been lovingly grown and prepared for us.

And while this is a great ritual

that most of us look forward to,

we must remember that

the Israelites weren't just doing a single act of thanksgiving on this one day;

they lived thanks with their entire lives.

And we are called to do the same.

Practices

So, how can we live thanksgiving with our entire being?

Today, when you look at your plate of food,

whether it is elaborate or simple,

take a moment to recognize the colours and the aromas

before you dig in.

In simply admiring what is before you,

you are giving thanks in a deep way.

Each week when you come to church,

take time to look around this circle,

perhaps when we sing a hymn,

and really take in the faces that you see.

See what you can see in those that share your space.

This is a great act of thanksgiving.

When you exercise this week,

whether it's a high intensity workout

or a simple stroll around your neighbourhood,

pay attention to what your body is doing.

Feel the way your muscles move,

the way you use energy,

the sweat the forms on your brow.

In doing so,

you are giving thanks for this beautiful body

you have been given.

When you spend time with your pet,

allow yourself to really feel connected to her.

As you touch her fur with your fingers

or feel her rub against your leg,

fill yourself with gratitude for this presence.

Conclusion

Live out of a place of deep gratitude.

Live your life as a response

to being given all that you will ever need for free.

Live knowing that God is always with you.

Live thanksgiving.

This week, a wonderful Canadian writer

won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Her words are a blessing to us.

So, I end my sermon

with words from Alice Munro.

They are from her story "Gravel":

            "The thing is to be happy," he said.

            "No matter what. Just try that.

            You can. It gets easier and easier.

            It's nothing to do with circumstances.

            You wouldn't believe how good it is.

            Accept everything and tragedy disappears.

            Or tragedy lightens, anyway,

            and you're just there,

            going along easy with the world."

Thanks be to God!

World Wide Communion C

Where is Your Mustard Seed?

Introduction

Do  any of you remember the Wendy's commercial from the 80's with the little old lady asking in a great big voice, "Where's the Beef?"

The idea was that other restaurants may offer lots of stuff, from bacon and applewood cheddar through to sesame seed buns... but the real question is... where's the beef?

I want to suggest to you that this is a very religious question. Here is why I think that is true, our lives, our faith, can have any number of outward trappings, we can go to church, we can buy the right things we can look the part and that will be enough; but in the end the question is, where is what matters?

In a hamburger, that is the beef,and in life, that is more like our core values... where is our faith?

Let me turn this around for a minute and look at it from the other side as well. How many of you out there have ever thought to yourself that you are not good enough? That you don't have enough skills for something?

Oh, I'm not good enough of a cook to bake pies for the supper, I am not a good enough reader to read in church, I am not pretty enough to have my photo taken...

I bet most of us think things like that all the time - and what we are saying is that we do not have enough of something to do any good.

Let me suggest to you, right from the start, what the conclusion of my sermon is going to be at the end of this service... yes you do!

You do have enough, you are good enough, and you know what... a little goes a long way.

With the Kids

Do you ever get cranky? Do you ever get angry for no reason? I have some kids who are just like that. They will all of a sudden get so mean, and argue with me, and cry, and scream and fight...

Ali and I call it the Hulk... do you know who the Hulk is? He is a normal guy who when he is angry ends up turning into a green monster....

And you know what stops the hulk, or at least stops Emily and Rachael and Peter from turning into the hulk? A snack.

Such a little thing... a few grapes, a cheese string, a granola bar... and it changes everything. Have you ever had that work for you?

Sometimes the little things we do make a big difference. We have to remember that.

NEXT WEEK - I would like you to bring in something that is very important to you. Something that you would like to say thanks to God for having in your life... it can be the thing itself, or a picture, or whatever you want...

Increasing Faith

There were these followers of Jesus, let's call them the apostles. And they wanted to be good followers. They wanted to be religious leaders. They wanted to follow in the master's footsteps.

You see this in one story where Jesus sends them out on their own to the villages and towns and asks them to heal the sick and preach the word; they are eager, they are excited, they are filled with faith... and in a little while they all come back with their tails between their legs.

Seems they did not believe in themselves enough to actually heal anyone...

Or how about the story of Peter, who is sleeping in the fishing boat one night when he sees Jesus walking along the waves toward them. He asks to be able to do that too, and Jesus tells him to step out of the boat, to trust... and he does! and it works! But... only for a minute till he realizes he is standing on water and starts to sink.

These are both stories where Jesus tells the disciples they have everything they need already, where he says to them that even a little faith would be enough to move mountains... but they don't hear that very well... they doubt it is true.

So they come to Jesus once more with a simple solution... give us more faith!

But Jesus, after looking at them for a second says.. "You don't need more faith, you need to believe in what you already have."

Even a little faith is enough... even if you have faith the size of a mustard seed... that is Jesus' favourite example... it was probably the smallest thing he can ever think of... if you have that much faith you can do amazing things.

And it is more than just saying small things matter, he is saying that we ALREADY have everything we need, that each of us are gifted, are special, are smart... and all we have to do is have the little tiny bit of belief be enough...

Contemporary Reading:     

"And the Table will be Wide"  by Jan Richardson from The Painted Prayer Book

And the table will be wide.

And the welcome will be wide.

And the arms will open wide

to gather us in.

And our hearts will open wide

to receive.

And we will come

as children who trust there is enough.

And we will come unhindered and free.

And our aching

will be met with bread.

And our sorrow

will be met with wine.

And we will open our hands

to the feast without shame.

And we will turn

toward each other without fear.

And we will give up

our appetite for despair.

And we will taste

and know of delight.

And we will become bread

for a hungering world.

And we will become drink

for those who thirst.

And the blessed

will become the blessing.

And everywhere will be the feast.

Worldwide Communion

Today is Worldwide Communion. The idea behind this celebration is that when we all get together, when we all celebrate communion at the same time, we are breaking down walls that divide, we are uniting literally, millions of churches in the same act.

It sounds like a big deal; and it is. Sort of. We all do it in our own ways, in our own buildings, in our own towns... we cannot even do it with the catholics down the road though, and they cannot do it with us.

You want to see how fast religion can divide into different ideas,try to get married, or baptize a child, or take communion, in another church...

So the idea that we are all united, all working together, all in this for the good of humanity, all following God and celebrating together is, for the most part, wishful thinking.

But here is the thing.... it is a mustard seed.

What if we start to see it that way. What if we started to focus on what brings us together rather than on what divides us?

The reason we celebrate communion is to remind us that we are following in the footsteps of this rag tag group of apostles who did not believe in themselves either... We are remembering that they ate together, drank together, and took strength for the journey from that... after this last meal together they DID go out and preach, and heal, and teach, and changed the world...

So in that spirit, we are going to eat this meal together, believing that it makes a difference.

Where is Your Mustard Seed?

So having eaten together and shared in this fellowship, after having sung and prayed and listened and thought together... I invite you to go out from here in the spirit of knowing that we have enough, that each of us is enough, that we can take Jesus little faith, the size of a mustard seed, and make the world, or at least our world, a better place.

It is enough, you are enough. Believe.