Down By the Riverside

Beginning the Story

 A little different today – breaking up the story a bit and having it set the stage. So here is what we are talking about – The Assyrians are the most powerful nation on earth  - this is around 750 BC – and they have invaded everything around them. They were the Romans of their day or the British Empire of Queen Victoria… And they decide to invade Israel – so they send an army, but more importantly, they send this really good public speaker, sort of an advertising campaign, a propaganda war, and what they say is this:

No one has ever beat us. No one is capable of standing up to us. We are the most powerful nation in all of history. King Hezekiah is not going to save you. Do not listen to him… surrender. If you do, life will go on just as it did before, you will have peace and prosperity – in fact, it will be even better because you are Americans… er… Assyrians.

Good campaign – the grass is always greener – things will be better if...

and the premise is this – we are bigger, stronger, and better in every way and so we can protect you, take care of you – all you have to do is do what we say.
       
Tempting, is it not? This claim can work in so many parts of our lives. You don’t want to be an independent contractor really, do you, I mean, if you join up with Acme Carpentry life will be so much better. Wallmart offers more choices and cheaper prices, shop here instead of the local grocer. Brett is a rich professional, wouldn’t you rather marry him than Billy – stuck in a dead end job with no potential? Being part of the United Church makes you part of the largest Protestant denomination in Canada! So much better than being an independent church!
       
King Hezekiah hears this and tears his clothes. He hears it and realizes, Oh my God, they are right. Who am I to think I could do it better than the king of the whole Assyrian Empire? What can I give my people to compare with that? We are doomed unless we listen.
       

Seeing it Through Story

A Reading: Isaiah 2:1-4

The Story Unfolds

Two ways of seeing the world. That is what we are talking about here. The way of Assyria and the way of God. Might makes Right or Peace makes Prosperity.
       
Consider the difference between the American dream, and the Canadian
       
Bigger is better versus Better is Meaningful. I don’t know, there seems to be a lot of ways to say this. But let's consider it within our own social context and history. There was a time in North America where everything seemed to be settled. The World Wars were over. Everyone went to church to network and make friends. Most people had jobs. Women raised their 1.5 kids. It was all worked out because we said – ok, you take care of us, we will do whatever you say.
       
Then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam, and Watergate… and and and some prophet spoke up and started to speak out against the culture of the day. Hippies became not just dropouts from society, but the ones who were standing on the edges and saying, it is not supposed to be this way.
       
If Jesus was born in the 50’s I wonder if he would be a hippie in the ’60s?
       
This was a movement that fought against stereotypes and fought against the idea that there was only one way to do, one way to be. The funny thing is, it was so successful that we hardly credit it for the way these people changed the world. Questioning authority, freedom to find your own purpose in life, women’s rights, equality, sexuality, even politics, and religion changed as a result of the ’60s.

Sometimes quietly and sometimes kicking and screaming – but it made a difference and made us remember there are always two sides to every coin.
       
Here is a question – If I said there were two ways to do something, the world’s way, and God’s way, what do you think God’s way would look like?
       
If Isaiah were talking to us here now in the 21st century, what would he say we should be like?
     
These are not trick questions, the answers are pretty similar to what they were 3000 years ago.
       
I am just asking because I think Isaiah was asking Hezekiah, and in fact, everyone, to just step back and think a little – to question authority – to be more hippy like.

Don’t tell the Woodstock crowd with their bell bottoms and burned bras, but they were not even being that original. They were serving as the prophets of the day.
       
I wonder who is doing that now?

Ideas to Take With Us

Some day – Some day nations will look up to us. Some day swords will be beaten into ploughshares. Some day we will study peace and not war.
       
This is not just a pie in the sky dream but was an actual philosophy of life that we call the Kingdom of God.
       
Way back in 700 BC there were two ways of seeing things, and there still are today. There always has been and there always will be. And I suppose there are times and places for each – for every matter under heaven.
       
The Hippie’s of the 60’s still give me hope. They inspire me and motivate me to look behind the curtain and see what is really going on.
       
And when I find myself trembling like Hezekiah and saying, “Oh God, they are right.” I think those are the times I need to look deeper and ask -  is that really true. Is there a better way?
       
What would happen if we all took the time to ask that exact question?

LENT 3 - C

INTRODUCTION OF THEME

Second Chances… They are wonderful things.

I grew up believing in them. My parents got angry about the things I did, but they always gave me a chance to make up for it. Don’t get me wrong, I never got third chances. But a mistake was just a mistake – and then you try to correct it.

You know, when you think about it this was the message that Jesus began with – that we all have a second chance to get right with God; and it was the message that he in turn had heard from his cousin, John the Baptist. John said it a different way – Repent! But basically to repent is to start over, to turn around, and to choose a different, and better path.

I am not sure if you have heard the story behind Amazing Grace… The author was John Newton, born in London in the summer of 1725, the son of a commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. Later he was forced into the Navy, then started working on a slave ship, and finally he became captain of his own ship.

Newton had given up religion as a child – but on one homeward journey, while attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm he had what we might call a “come to Jesus movement.” And gave it all up to become an Anglican Priest.

For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, and later he would write the hymn which for him was all about the second chance he was given.

READING

Luke 13:1–9

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were guiltier than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

GROWING TIME

Ask the children to pretend that they have been given the important job of looking after a fruit tree. It could be an apple tree, a peach tree, or a pear tree—something that is appropriate for your climate and area. Ask the children how they would look after the tree. Ask them if they think it would produce fruit if they ignored it and didn’t provide any water or care. Explain that God looks after the people of the world, including the children, just as a good gardener looks after a fruit tree. God provides people to care for the children and supports in the community, such as churches and schools, so that the children can be productive members of society and produce fruit in the community.

SCRIPTURE

Isaiah 55:1–9

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.”

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

CONTEMPORARY READING

TO THE FIG TREE ON 9TH AND CHRISTIAN - ROSS GAY

   Tumbling through the
city in my
mind without once
looking up
the racket in
the lugwork probably
rehearsing some
stupid thing I
said or did
some crime or
other the city they
say is a lonely
place until yes
the sound of sweeping
and a woman
yes with a
broom beneath
which you are now
too the canopy
of a fig its
arms pulling the
September sun to it
and she
has a hose too
and so works hard
rinsing and scrubbing
the walk
lest some poor sod
slip on the silk
of a fig
and break his hip
and not probably
reach over to gobble up
the perpetrator
the light catches
the veins in her hands
when I ask about
the tree they
flutter in the air and
she says take
as much as
you can
help me
so I load my
pockets and mouth
and she points
to the step-ladder against
the wall to
mean more but
I was without a
sack so my meager
plunder would have to
suffice and an old woman
whom gravity
was pulling into
the earth loosed one
from a low slung
branch and its eye
wept like hers
which she dabbed
with a kerchief as she
cleaved the fig with
what remained of her
teeth and soon there were
eight or nine
people gathered beneath
the tree looking into
it like a constellation pointingdo you see it
and I am tall and so
good for these things
and a bald man even
told me so
when I grabbed three
or four for
him reaching into the
giddy throngs of
wasps sugar
stoned which he only
pointed to smiling and
rubbing his stomach
I mean he was really rubbing his stomach
it was hot his
head shone while he
offered recipes to the
group using words which
I couldn’t understand and besides
I was a little
tipsy on the dance
of the velvety heart rolling
in my mouth
pulling me down and
down into the
oldest countries of my
body where I ate my first fig
from the hand of a man who escaped his country
by swimming through the night
and maybe
never said more than
five words to me
at once but gave me
figs and a man on his way
to work hops twice
to reach at last his
fig which he smiles at and calls
baby, c’mere baby,
he says and blows a kiss
to the tree which everyone knows
cannot grow this far north
being Mediterranean
and favoring the rocky, sunbaked soils
of Jordan and Sicily
but no one told the fig tree
or the immigrants
there is a way
the fig tree grows
in groves it wants,
it seems, to hold us,
yes I am anthropomorphizing
goddammit I have twice
in the last thirty seconds
rubbed my sweaty
forearm into someone else’s
sweaty shoulder
gleeful eating out of each other’s hands
on Christian St.
in Philadelphia a city like most
which has murdered its own
people
this is true
we are feeding each other
from a tree
at the corner of Christian and 9th
strangers maybe
never again.

ENGAGING THE THEME

When I was growing up it seemed to me that my life was set out in front of me. At least, when I got to Jr High and High School. My father wanted me to be a doctor. He wanted me to go to Acadia where he went to school, where my grandparents had gone to school, where most of my aunts, uncles, and eventually my brothers went to school.

I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be different. And I ran… I went to Mt Allison intending to study art but getting lost in religion and political philosophy. I left Sackville and headed to Montreal in an attempt to get even further away from my family. Boy, did I ever think I knew it all.

If I could just be different from them. If I could just define myself somehow as not Baptist, as not a New Brunswicker, as not the “good obedient son.” And I did. I did that in spades. I was a rebellious teenager who was never far from trouble, I hung out on the streets of Montreal and idled away time and money and reputation…

I got in trouble with the law, lost friends, and went years without seeing my family.

Someday I will work the rest of my life into the sermons you hear. I think it is a pretty interesting story. But my point here is just to point out how far I veered from the plans of my family, and for that matter, from the gifts that I was probably intended to use by God.

I spent a lot of my life on the wrong path.

Now – your life may not have seemed so dramatic as this – or perhaps it is even more dramatic. I have a friend who is a minister in Ontario who actually joined the US Navy to get away from his parents and his past…

But we all do it. In some way we set out to find ourselves, we set out to be different from our parents. We set out to be original… And I would wager that all of us have made mistakes along the way.

But – here is the thing – no matter how far off of the route we are, God provides on ramps…

This is what struck me in the meandering poem I read to you… Here is this guy wandering through the city lost in his own thoughts, feeling negative about everything when all of a sudden he sees a fig tree, and he eats some figs, and so do others, and all of a sudden he remembers not only that life is good, but that he is not alone.

Give it a second chance, says the gardener, and I bet it will grow. We just need to be reminded that the second chance is out there. Perhaps it is as easy as seeing a fig tree where we didn’t expect it.

CONCLUSION OF THEME

Some 4000 years ago the prophet Isaiah spoke to a bunch of people who had lost hope – have nothing to drink? He said, come and drink with me. Are you hungry? God has provided milk and honey. Leave behind your wicked ways and turn to God and you will be welcomed…

There is always a second chance.

This is another truth of Lent that we need to wrap our heads around – no matter how far gone and no matter what we think we have done, no matter if we think we are too young, too old, too stubborn or too weak, there is a second chance.

No one has sinned too much – no one is so far gone that they are not loved by God.

But we have to take the time to work the soil, to add a little water, to accept that love and start once more to bear fruit. That is the journey of Lent.

CHRISTMAS EVE

A Reading:       Isaiah 9:2-7                                                        

                               

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—   on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. 

For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. 

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders;  and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 

Reflection

Thousands of years ago, people longed for something to change. They spoke of it in their poems and songs, they gathered around fires and told stories. One day, things would be different.

We are not so different. We all want things to be better next year than they were this one, we all want to believe in the idea that there is something more.

And so we gather with our families, on one of the darkest nights of the year, to believe in miracles...

I saw an ad on Kijijji yesterday, it is an online place where you can sell stuff, and the ad was offering Christmas spirit. It said, if you have no one to spend Christmas with, come to our house, if you have nothing for supper, we have a ham we can give you, if you have no gifts, we have gift certificates for the stores... then I read how the power is out in half of Moncton today, so the Crown Plaza, one of the nicer hotels in town, is offering rooms to anyone without power for 30 bucks.

Life will not get you down, Isaiah said, There is such goodness in the world that we will see light shining in the darkness... and tonight, we see that light. Here. Now. In the faces of those who have gathered.

A Reading:    Luke 2:1-7

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.      

Reflection

It all starts with this... with the baby in the manger... and we can see it in so many different ways; God bending near the earth and coming to live among us... God’s love showing up in unexpected ways in unexpected places... a moment when someone was born that would change everything...

But it is Christmas. And it is worth noting that it happened in an out of the way place and the first people to recognize why this was important were not kings or queens or professors or priests, it was ordinary people, like you and me, like the shepherds, who were able to see in what was happening, something amazing.

A Reading:    Luke 2:8-14                                        

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

Reflection     

I love the idea of Angels bending near the earth. I love the idea of thin places, of those times when heaven and earth seem very close together. I mean that poetically – like when you see a sunrise, or walk on new fallen snow in the starlight… When you hold a baby or see someone sound asleep with a smile on their face. I love the times when we see God.

I have a romantic notion that the shepherds just could not live without seeing this baby for another second. That it was as if they knew that something magical, something divine was happening and they just had to be a part of it. So much so that they just left… they ran down the hillside to get there in time… they did whatever it would take to be with God.

I have always felt that Christmas was a magical time of year, and I guess what I have always been trying to say is that I feel the magic of God’s presence in these moments. I am not sure how, concretely, that happens… I am not sure what, exactly, I am feeling at times such as these… but it is as if I know that everything will be all right, that I am loved, that goodness really will save the day.

You see, I have seen the stranger push the car out of the snowbank; I have watched someone give 100 dollars to a homeless man on Christmas Eve; I have read stories in which Christmas has the power to change lives and I have seen evidence.

And I think it really is that simple. We all want to believe. We all want to know that we are loved. We all want to have hope. We all want to sing with joy… but we need a reminder every now and again that these feelings are ok. We need to be shown that there is goodness and hope and mercy and love and that in the end, these things do make a difference.

Perhaps it is too simplistic, but I see that in a Christmas Eve service. I see friendly faces, I see candles burning nostalgically, I see lights aglow and new fallen snow… and well… I see God.

Christmas Eve makes me want to run down that hillside too. It makes me want to go and see what God has done, and then take that out into the world... I want to be a shepherd.

                                   

Conclusion

We are like the Shepherds. We are the ordinary people living our lives on the hillside... but every now and again, the miraculous, the holy, the magical breaks through....

We catch a glimpse of God and we see love breaking through... Hopefully tonight in this service, or at home in the morning with the gifts under the tree, something stirs your soul, and you can go from here and take God’s news. Be the messengers and share the love...

And so I send you forth with hope, with peace, with joy, and with love.

Know that the light of Christ goes with you.

May this lovely season of Christmas bring you blessings in abundance.

May the love of God work its magic in your life.

May your heart be filled with hope and joy. 

May you touch every life you meet.

Merry Christmas and peace for you this New Year.

Creation 2 B

Home: Where Heaven and Earth Meet

note: I wrote this sermon and then really strayed from it... ad libbed more than most. I did not even write the conclusion; and it ended up different in each place I preached it. Not sure where my head was this week... guess I was beginning to get sick - I had the flu for over a week... anyway... here is the basis from which I spoke.

Introduction

Did you ever come home from school to smell cookies baking in the oven? Or have you ever been sitting around on a Christmas Eve looking at the tree and felt really, really content? How about going away on vacation or for work and then first seeing the lights of home on your way back…

There is a feeling, I don’t know if it is nostalgia, or awe, or comfort… but there is a feeling associated with home. I have often moved away from the Maritimes; and any Maritimer who finds themselves in exile will tell you, when you stand on the rocks by the ocean and breathe in that salt air again – it is magical.

I guess I am talking about moments in time where you “feel” at home. I think that means safe, warm, cozy, loved, content…. Sometimes that might be because of the place, sometimes because of what is happening, maybe even because of memories.

In ancient Celtic lore we call these, “thin places” the places where the dividing line between heaven and earth is very thin and you feel almost holy.

I guess if we go back to the beginning, this is what the story of Genesis is all about – there was a time when we felt so at home, so in tune with the world that everything was like this – but then we started turning inward, or getting greedy, or something… and we, over time, have lost that sense of being at home in the world.

Isaiah 55:10-13

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

With Kids – Liturgy of Covenanting

Singing in the Rain

There are many places in the Bible where our relationship to the natural world around us is highlighted. Think about Genesis and how we coexist with the animals – or how about the whole Jonah story – where a really big fish acts as his own personal submarine and then when he is too hot in the sun a plant grows up to offer shade. Abraham always had his formal meetings under a huge tree and life in the Kingdom of God is often compared to working in a vineyard.

But there are also passages where the world is alive… like our Isaiah passage. Where mountains and trees join us in dancing and song – where plants grow flowers just because of their love for creation…

I know, it sounds sort of silly from a modern scientific standpoint – we know that they are not alive in the sense that we are… but sitting here at my desk watching the trees rustle in the wind, and the birds play in the berry bush while the sun streams down, I can get, poetically, that the whole of creation is enjoying the beautiful day.

In Native spirituality there was an emphasis on how we were all connected – how the wolf and the deer were my brothers and sisters. Perhaps that was a better way to see it… everything is connected… and everything is “home”

Revelations 21:1-5

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Love Come Down

We have strange conceptions about heaven. They come from thousands of thousands of years of hardship. Streets paved of gold comes from a sense that we live in poverty; sitting on clouds playing harps from a time when back breaking work was the thing we most wanted to escape from.

Vikings used to say that heaven would be a place where you could battle all day without dying… they loved to fight and hated to die…

For the most part there are very few clues about heaven – and most of what we have imagined is wishful thinking… the clues we do have are mostly about feelings – that it will be a place where there is no more crying, no more pain.

The other interesting thing is the location – Jesus was always convinced we could create heaven on earth… he said things like “the Kingdom of God is among you” and kept trying to teach by example how we might help make the earth what God intended.

I don’t know, human nature being what it is, I think that perhaps we feel it would be easier to “go to” heaven than to “create” heaven. But I also think the Bible is quite clear that the dividing line is not so easy as we would like to believe.

Remember, when God created the world, it was supposed to be perfect. We may have messed it up a bit as we have gone along – it is getting a little old now. But that does not mean there is not a chance for renovation.

So what would you do to make this world a better place? What would you change? I think that we need not look any further than our own lives and our own homes to answer this question – what do you do to make your home perfect? You put in things that make you happy – flowers and paintings and portraits. You create spaces that feel comfortable and inviting…

I’ll leave you to think about it for a minute; we will get back to it with the Gospel…

Luke 7:11-23

Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. The disciples of John reported all these things to him.

So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’” Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Heaven on Earth

You might not recognize it at first, but Jesus is doing what any good preacher would do when asked a direct question, quoting scripture…  He is in fact quoting Isaiah… a few different passages of Isaiah but he is weaving all the prophecies together from the Old Testament when Isaiah talked about what it would be like when God restored the earth…

The blind seeing, the lame walking, the sick healed, the dead raised and the poor taken care of.

In a Biblical sense, that is it… that is the fulfillment of the question, what is life supposed to be like…