Pentecost 8 - C

The Good Samaritan Revisited

Opening

I have always figured Christians fall into one of two camps. I know there are hundreds of variations, but I think all of those, whether liberal or conservative, whether catholic or protestant, all fall into these two things: Either you think what you do matters most, or you think what matters most is what you think.

Confess your faith in Jesus Christ as your saviour and you will get into heaven, goes the saying in one school of thought.

Follow in Christ’s way and live by his example and you will get into heaven, goes the other.

I am firmly in the last camp, just so you know. I think actions speak much louder than words. In fact, I think people who say they are not Christian and do good things are being just as faithful as I am.

In the old time biblical way of speaking of things they called actions the fruits… the fruits of your labour…. The things that grew because of what you did…

I started today with Paul’s letter to the Church in Colossae because I think this is a good place for us to start thinking about what it means to follow Jesus – Paul speaks of it as the Gospel Bearing fruit.

And by that he means that the teachings are starting to have an effect.

Has anyone ever gone on a diet? I hate it because the first thing that happens is that you get irritable, then you start to crave every single thing you should not eat, and all the while you are looking in the mirror and seeing no change.

But there comes this moment, where the extra walking, or the lack of cheesecake really does kick in and you feel good about yourself. There comes a moment where the work starts to seem like it is making a difference and you get more energy….

You see, there is a feeling in Paul’s words that we all know… we all know this sense that things start to turn around, they start to pay off, and we get it.

Paul describes it as being made strong and joyful … when things come together and we know we are on the right track.

Whether we are talking about diets, about work, about faith, or about life… those are the moments to treasure.

Readings

Psalm 82 (VU p. 799)

Luke 10:25-37
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.'

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Of Samaritans and Cutpurses

What would shock and embarrass you into action? What would you have to see happening in order to step in? I have to say there are a lot of things that I wish I did that I didn’t do. The other day I saw a father yelling at their kids in a mall, like screaming at them… and I wanted to go tell him to cool it, relax, think about what he was doing… but I just walked away feeling awkward.

On the other hand, there was a guy whose car would not start the other day and I went and boosted him since I had jumper cables. Just a stranger in a parking lot, but he told me that he had been there quite a while and no one else had stopped to help.

There is a lot going on in the Good Samaritan story, but cut right to the core and it is about loving the neighbour… which is never an easy thing.

See, the first two characters are religious; it is not just the average person passing by, but really religious people… and Jesus is trying to point out to his listeners, by embarrassing them admittedly, that the religious people are often too self-righteous to help. He is not wrong about this… there are those that think people get into their own messes because they are not faithful and will not help them, there are others who say, with all the best intentions, I will pray for you, but still just walk on by.

The last person is the unexpected person… the Samaritan, the outsider, the one you would think would not help. Like have a black person help a white person in the South in the 1960’s or having a gay person help a red neck with a flat tire…

The people saw this; they knew that Samaritans were a bunch of liars, cheats, and losers…. But… if a Samaritan did the right thing when the holy people wouldn’t… what does that mean?

Anger Management

So I am assuming you have heard a sermon once or twice about the Good Samaritan. I am also assuming that someone, somewhere, has told you to love your neighbour, and even that your neighbour might not be who you expect… so good, remember that… but I want to talk to you about righteous anger.

Or rather, about when is it NOT okay to just be religious? You see, Jesus was talking to a bunch of church goers, he was talking to Session Members and trustees and they were asking him, what are we supposed to be doing as a church… surely you don’t mean we are supposed to love everyone…. There are a lot of people who do not deserve love…

And Jesus got angry. We don’t talk about that much, but he did. And the point of this story is to put the holier than though Pharisees and Sadducees down. He is not really trying to convert them, that would be a bonus, but he IS trying to insult them.

I wonder if we are too polite? I wonder if we ignore things we should not ignore? I wonder what it would be like if you challenged people for stupid questions and dumb answers. What if someone said something and you told them that answer wasn’t good enough… how would they react.

I do not think when Jesus said we should be a good neighbour that the point was to be a pushover. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Jesus stood up for what he believed and did not suffer fools gladly. I think we have gotten into a lot of trouble in society by being too polite, too nice, too accepting… Now, don’t get me wrong, I think love is the centre of everything, and I think we need to love everyone the way God does, I would NEVER tell you to be judgemental about anyone or anything.

But at the same time, stick up for what you believe in, hold people accountable for their actions, keep pointing out when people are making mistakes…  That is all part of being faithful to the way of Jesus too.

Conclusion

Love, when it is done right, is all about honesty and openness, about transparency and accountability. So when  Jesus is saying, Love your neighbour he is saying a whole lot more than, be nice to them. He is saying that we should challenge them to be better people, we should be there when they fall into the ditch, we should accept them for who they are, we should share who we really are…

Being a real neighbour is not easy…. But it is part of the struggle of being a real Christian.

Pentecost 6 - C

Moving On

Introduction

I chose the theme song from the Littlest Hobo for our opening quote today in the bulletin because I think it expresses something similar to our Bible readings today – a sense that there is more to the world, more happening, than meets the eye… and also a sense that we are all on a journey, all seeking something.

So where do you find yourself this weekend? What is on your mind? Are you feeling like you would like to settle down more, have less to do, be able to sit on the couch and do nothing; or are you feeling like you wish you could have a vacation, wish you could go away somewhere, wish something, anything would happen?

Human beings are funny things, we are, for the most part not content. We are restless in that we are always thinking about something else. But this is part of human nature, part of who we are deep down in our souls.

Augustine, a famous bishop from the early years of the church once said, my soul is restless until it finds it rest in God.

And I really think that might be true. We are made for change, we are made for growth, we are made restless…

Of course, the world is continually changing around us. As much as we sometimes want to stop the spinning wheel and get off things are different today than they were yesterday and tomorrow they will be different again.

Is that human nature? Is that the way we were intended to live? Why are we on a journey and where are we going… all will be revealed… well…  maybe not, but perhaps we can explore that little today.

Heading on Up to Heaven

So first up, change happens. It is inevitable. And as you are all well aware, there are different ways to react to the way the world changes around us.

I want you to realize that there is a lot going on in the story of Elijah and Elisha, but at the very simplest level, Elijah is going to die, and Elisha knows it.

You see, what is happening here is that everything is changing, and everyone knows it. Elijah keeps saying, stay here, you have done enough. Elisha keeps going each and every time. Elijah asks what he wants, and he says to follow in your footsteps, to inherit the family business, and Elijah responds that if it were up to him, he would…

Now, we can talk about prophets, about miracles, about followers… but what is really happening here is that things change. And sometimes, we are ready for the journey, and sometimes we want things to stay the same.

Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed to God that if there were any other way besides the crucifixion, he would like to know about it now… we don’t always want change.

But still, it happens. So here is where I get back to human nature. We can do one of two things, we can deny change, stick our heads in the sand, wish for things to be different – or we can accept it and answer the question, so what now? What do I need to get through this?

I like to think that each and every thing that happens to me is an opportunity, a challenge, a moment where I get to choose to re-invent myself and find new ways to cope and new ways to get through things. I know I am sometimes actually sad and depressed when things change, but on my good days I see that there is opportunity.

So change happens, and it still seems like how we react is the main thing that matters.

A Hole in the Ground

My kids had a book I read them when they were little. It was a simple little book about a stray cat looking for a place to sleep. It always made me think of this Bible passage. That cat finds that hanging upside down like a bat is too hard, or that living in a burrowed hole in the ground like a fox is too dirty… so where is the place for it?

Perhaps this goes back to my original point about how we are restless. And the truth is most of the time we are restless AND heading somewhere. We have goals, or tasks to accomplish, and we are heading out there to do them… but the thing is that life gets in the way… it can feel like no one understands or appreciates, it can feel like we are all alone…

If you think of this Bible reading about Jesus as a video, what would you think the expression of Jesus’ face might be? I think he would be somewhere between two things – certain and lonely.

Here he is, heading off to do what he knows must be done; but it feels no one wants to come along, no one wants to support him… and that is rough.

You see, as much as we want change and are restless; as much as, like Elisha, we are trying to make the best of things and move forward… there is always this one little stumbling block, the fact that most people are also comfortable with how things are.

I know this sounds like a contradiction, and it is. But it also seems to be true, we would like to change things, but we also want things to remain the same…. And that really makes living life hard.

And it makes it hard for people who decide to go ahead and change things. They get misunderstood, they get to feeling lonely, they have to change things and work on that journey from here to there and take scary first steps… and we fight against them.

Ever tried to change anything and discovered people did not really want you to change? You probably have. And it is hard.

But change is inevitable. Life is constantly changing, and so are we. I wonder what would happen if we stopped fighting against it.

Conclusion

Okay, you may have realized this entire sermon has been circling around a theme without naming one, without making any conclusions, without drawing on any facts even – everything I have said has been pretty abstract without any specific details… change happens, sometimes we are prepared, sometimes we fight against it.

People will tell you that a sermon should have some Good News, which is what Jesus was always all about, helping people to find the good news in their lives….

I guess in my own meandering way the sermon was trying to show what life is really like… you don’t know what is going to happen or where you are going.

When I started, way back at the introduction I asked you to think about your own life… about what is happening in it…

Here is mine – I am feeling old lately. I am slowing down and the way I have lived is making my body prematurely old. My kids are growing up and I am missing huge chunks of it. That thing that happens where time speeds up as you age has so overtaken me that it feels like I cannot remember anything happening between Christmas and now…

So what are the things that are making you feel that things change too fast? Someone could die, work could change, people will come in and out of your lives, your grandkids could grow up without you noticing…. And some of you may be feeling old too….

But here is the thing. We were made for this. That is the good news. We are people who are restlessly driven into the future, who change, who adapt… and we find new meaning, and hope.

We were created to embrace life in all of its fullness, no matter where we find ourselves in it. So look around, find out where you really are, and live…

God will be with you in the details.

Communion Sunday

A small caveat. I have not felt like a sermon I have ever preached worked worse than this. I changed it in each church and I still never got the feeling that I connected to the people or evoked the thought or feelings I had hoped for. Perhaps I was not able to put into words what I was feeling...

Church

Introduction

I am taking things a little differently today. I am going to invite you to participate in a church service about church. In other words, I want to talk about what we do here every Sunday. Not in the abstract, but in the concrete reality sense of saying, what are we doing now, and why…

Church services have been happening for thousands of years. People have gathered together for a number of reasons… one of the first was probably food. Gather together around the campfire and pray for the mastodon or buffalo to be plentiful… then after we started planting crops I am sure people prayed for rain, or sun, or to keep the frost off…

The point is, religion began when people banded together for a common goal. They all decided they wanted one thing… rain in a drought, or sunshine in a storm. And they prayed and prayed and hoped for things to get better.

There was always a beginning. And the beginning was always an invitation… think of lighting the candle, or the opening prayers, or a song we sing as an invitation not only for us to enter into the experience, but for God to be present with us.

You see, the things that we do are ancient, in a way… we do them differently, but they are the same, we are still using the opening moments of church to set the stage… we are still using word and song and prayer to get us in the right mood, and to help us to see the holy, to see God, in our midst.

Communion

At the heart of what we are doing is communion. Not the meal which we will be sharing later, I will get to that, but the idea behind the word… communion.

Have you ever heard someone say, they are going to commune with nature? I used to say that when I smoked and had to go outside… grin. But seriously, I think lots of people say this… and what do they mean?

They mean that they are becoming one with… that they are emotionally connecting to… nature.

The actually dictionary definition is to share ones most intimate thoughts or feelings. So what we are talking here is that we connect with in some way… and behind our church service is this thought that we are connecting with God, and with each other….

Perhaps that is why I love the passage from John, the one in which Jesus is talking about vines and branches… It points out the connection we all have. It is as if we are all part of one another. This is true whether we are talking about our family, our church family, everyone out there in the big bad world, or God…

At the same time, it is more than that. What Jesus actually says is that all of this communion, all of this being the branches, takes effort. We have to choose to remain connected. We have to work at it and we have to “actually” be connected.

So there are essentially three things: First, recognize that we are all connected. Secondly, we need to work at this relationship. Lastly, what we need to do is to, as Jesus puts it, “we must bear fruit.” It is not just about being connected in name, it is about being in tune with each other, about working together, about being on the same page…

When we come to church, we are saying that we believe this… that we are all connected…

Eucharistic Yearnings

So, the sacrament of communion goes right back to Jesus… or perhaps further back. Like I said, people have been getting together for religious services as long as we have been around. There used to be feasts and meals and celebrations long before Jesus. In fact, Jesus and the disciples were getting together for a religious feast and church service in the first place, the Jewish Festival of Passover.

But Since that night, things changed, and as Christians we have made this special meal, called communion, or the Eucharist, the central part of our worship together. The reason we do it is as a re-enactment of that Last Supper in the Upper Room.

We know that Paul, while in the church in Corinth, was celebrating this meal just a few years after Jesus died.

We also know that one of the reasons the early Christians got in trouble was because people thought they were cannibals… that they were actually eating the body and blood of Jesus.

But we are not doing that… so what are we doing? Well, first and foremost we are sharing a meal. By doing that we are doing something we usually only do with family and friends. Secondly we are remembering and re-enacting the last night of Jesus’ life.

That is important because we know that when everything was going wrong, Jesus did something nice for his friends, he prepared a meal, he invited them, he served them… but more importantly, he gave them a way to remember. Each time you eat this bread or drink from this cup… remember me.

And we can understand that… Here is my grandmother’s recipe for macaroni and cheese. Boil macaroni in a pot, drain it, add a can of tomatoes and grate some cheese into it. Add some salt if you like… It is not like this is high cuisine or even a very memorable dish… but I love it, and every time I eat it I think of her.

Jesus was pretty smart in setting up something simple, eat some bread and drink a bit of wine and remember me… because thousands of years later we still do.

Conclusion

So I guess what I am trying to say is that church is about relationship. It is about how we come to be with each other, recognize each other, and become united just as the vines are united to the branch.

Sure, it takes work, and there are responsibilities, and it does not always seem like we are connected in ways we could be… but….

When we come here, when we commit to this, we are working on it… and when we are honestly doing that, we are on the path.

Pentecost 2 - C

Come Together… Right Now…

Introduction

It almost seems too simple to say this… but together we are stronger than we are apart.

Last weekend I was in Sackville for the Annual General Meeting of Maritime Conference. For those that don’t know, the United Church is separated into regions, and ours goes from Bermuda to the Gaspe. So it is Bermuda, Nova Scotia (Cape Breton… they get angry if you think saying NS includes them), Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Gaspe region of Quebec.

It is geographically huge… but at the same time, we tend to forget our own size. When you come to church in Whitney and these 20 people are your fellow United Church folks, you forget that we are the largest protestant denomination in the country.

But in a Hockey Rink in Sackville, with some 700 people, the view seems quite different.

Margaret McCain, yes, one of those McCain’s, gave a speech about why she donated money to the United Church. Essentially it was this: Although she goes to another church, she thinks the United Church has done so much for the world, for Canada… we led the way in terms of Women’s rights… Mount Allison was the first university to grant a degree to a woman and we were the first denomination to ordain women… It was a United Church member who went on t politics and created welfare and medicare, we have fought for including and treating as equal everyone, no matter their race, or sex, or ideals…

We, together, have made a difference.

Acts 2:42-47

 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

With Kids

 Working Together…. Lego… what can we build, how do we work together more… why?

Socialist Jesus

So when the followers sat around for a while and thought about what Jesus was saying… here is what they came up with… we should work together!

Let’s pool all of our resources, let’s all work together, and live together, and create a new way to be in the world but not part of the world.

If we did that right, there would be no poor people, no one would have to worry about food or housing, everyone would get enough….

It didn’t last too long, partly because Christianity spread too fast… it was located in Jerusalem for a year or two tops, then it spread to all the Roman Sea Ports, and then inland. Hard to all live together when you are talking thousand mile differences…

But the idea stuck… monasteries and convents were the main places of learning and prayer, they were the social agencies and food banks of the middle ages… and followed this same principle that we should all work together and be together and support one another…

The same is true of congregations. We are meant to be a community where we come together, work together, help each other, are there for each other.

It still does not work as well as it should. I have often thought we could figure out a way to do it better. But it is hard. There are a lot of things each of us are involved in… there are a lot of directions pulling us to head out of here…

But in the end, the sentiment is still the same, together we are stronger than when we are on our own.

Hebrews 10:23-25                   A Call to Community

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Provoking One Another

There was a story on the CBC this week about an American Spelunker… that is a cave explorer… who went to the Ukraine to explore some cool caves… he just thought they would be fun… but when he got down in them he discovered something he did not expect… shoes…clothes… lots of other things that suggested someone, sometime, had lived in these caves known as Priest’s grotto.

So he started asking questions, and doing the research… what he discovered was amazing. In the 1940’s in the Ukraine, Nazi soldiers had begun to round up the Jews for concentration camps. In fact, in a few weeks they had taken half the town.

One mother sent her son into the forest to find a place to hide, he found a cave. So eventually 38 people ended up spending 344 days in this cave, the lived for over 2 years underground. The cave it huge, the 10^th largest in the world, and could be accessed only by a sinkhole the size of a fireplace chimney.

Ok, seriously, how long could you stay in one cave, in the dark? I think any one of us alone for that long would go insane, not to mention it is only 10 degrees in there…

But together, working together, taking turns, caring for each other, telling jokes and stories, those people hid, and lived, for 10 years.

It makes it seem to me, that when we help each other we can do superhuman things; that when we work together we create things and do things that we would never have believed that we can do.

We could all tell stories like this… perhaps some of them less life threatening… but stories of people bringing food after we lose a loved one, or stories of someone helping you to fix a deck, or move… or gong fishing with you when you are sad. Being together changes everything. Working together changes everything.

The author of Hebrews, writing to the early church, says we should meet together and provoke each other to love, and good deeds. We should encourage one another and push one another and help one another. That is what church is all about.

Mark 3:31-34                          The Spiritual Family of Jesus

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!

Why are we here?

 Every so often I find someone who comes up to me and says that they do not need church, that they find God while walking in the woods, or standing on the seashore… and I say, of course you do, but… that is just God. You don’t go to church to find God, you go to church to find yourself.

I also notice that there are quite a few people who do not go to Presbytery, or to Conference, and I wonder the same thing… why do we go to church? You see, in these passages  we are told the answer… we go to church because it is there that we meet people who are like us, who believe like us, who work on the same things as us, who are our spiritual sisters and brothers… and we go to lift them up, and to be lifted up by them.

No matter how many walks in the woods I take, it is not going to challenge me to be a better person. Going to church is. Meeting someone who has a great idea for something and wants to do it is going to challenge me to do something more…

I guess in simple terms, we are here in church for each other.

Jesus was not really a mean person. Later on he arranges for one of the disciples to take care of his mother after Jesus is executed. But he is saying something important… he is saying to the people gathered around him that they are as much his family, as much a part of him, as his own mother and brothers and sisters….

And he is there for them, and they are there for him. That… is the reason we go to church.

Conclusion

So there are two things I want you to remember from today – one is that the United Church is not dead, nor is it going anywhere. We are still the second largest denomination, we are a huge group of committed people, and we are trying to make a difference in Canada and the World so that everyone gets to live the way God intended.

Secondly, being here is important… I don’t mean you have to com every week, I don’t mean you need to do it when you are sick, or anything else. Heck, there are lots of weeks I want to go do something else… but being part of this community, being connected to other believers and worshiping together… that makes a difference… and you need to be a part of it in order to be a better person.

Put those two things together and I believe anything is possible. That old where two are three are gathered God is there adage means a lot to me… I think that when we set our minds to it and work together, we can change the world…

And I think that is what God is calling us to do.

Pentecost C

Pentecost

“Pentecost is something more than a so-called past event.
It is the story of God’s continuing presentness experienced again and again...
...the amazing story of people coming to awareness through reflection on the life of Jesus that the same Spirit that moved in him moved in them.”

Michael Morwood, Praying a New Story

PRESENTATION OF THEME

I have always enjoyed a good party. Perhaps it is the maritimer in me; cause trust me, outside of Quebec, the rest of this country is far less likely to randomly break into a kitchen party. But there is something about the feeling of having friends and family, of a meal together, of music playing and people laughing… it really seems to make everything feel better.

The Jewish faith actually had this down to a science thousands of years before most of us did. For them, every religious observance was accompanied by a feast, by a gathering, by music and prayers…sometimes lasting for days.

The festival of Shavuot, some 7 weeks after Passover, was the Jewish festival celebrating the time when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on top of Mount Sinai. It was a time when you headed to the temple for the weekend and prayed and ate and celebrated.

And people from all over the world would flock to Jerusalem. Religious or not, everyone was going to be there, so why not go… traders and merchants, soldiers and tax collectors, The faithful from other countries and the curious… everyone would head to the city for the weekend.

One year, it happened that the disciples were there too… shortly after Jesus death… and that was the weekend everything changed.

MAKING SENSE OF THE BABEL

If we are to truly understand Pentecost we have to see it as a time when things got put back, when things got fixed… and that is why we start with the tower of Babel… here is where they got broken. It is not a real story, but it is a true story… and here is the truth behind it… People reach too far… we want too much, we try too hard… and when we do, we get broken.

Think of it as being for our own good. If we build the tower too tall, we are going to fall and get hurt… it is as simple as that.

There is a Greek Myth about Icarus… who wanted to escape his world and so he made wings out of feathers and wax… but once he was flying he wanted to go higher and higher, eventually getting too close to the sun… when the wax melted, his wings fell apart, and he fell to his death.

Same story – sometimes we go too far, and it ends up with us getting hurt… so, as the tale is told, God protected us by making it so that we could not work together anymore…

And it was pretty effective too… instead of being united, we all spoke different languages, we all lived in different places, we all looked different, and we really did not trust each other…

Now we would not be able to build that tower to the sun anymore….

EXPLORING THE THEME

Now this is where the story gets interesting…. Where the broken gets put back together again… the point of the story of Pentecost is that it reverses the tower of Babel; our differences, our languages, our faults… none of that will stop us if we believe in Jesus.

The disciples, you might remember, are all from small town Galillee, and they are mostly fishermen. There was not much education between them, certainly they were not city kids on the streets of Montreal who might speak three or four languages… they spoke Aramaic… not even the Jews in the Temple spoke Aramaic… the city folk spoke Hebrew…

And yet, as they spoke and preached and prayed during that first Pentecost they did it in Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Ethiopian, Coptic… every language known to civilization.

The point of this story is not some miraculous speaking of tongues, the point is about overcoming differences. Here were these people with a message that they thought could change the world… but not that many people had heard the message yet… until this one day, during a festival, when people from all over the world were gathered in one place… and they got it.

This is why we call this the Birthday of the Church. It really did not start with Jesus, or with Paul, or with Peter… not the church… the message started and spread through them… but it took this moment, this perfect moment when everyone was in the right place at the right time, to start the church.

People left Jerusalem after the weekend and returned home, and they talked about this, and they spoke of Jesus, and other people got curious, and things spread from there to everywhere… 

You can think of a thousand reasons that this might not work, that people might not stop to listen, that others would not be curious, that the message was boring anyway… but that was not the case. They had something to say, and they said it with passion, with tongues of fire, and it was worth listening to, worth sharing….

CONTEMPORARY READING

"Wind, wind. A reflection on the Spirit"
By William Loader   (Adapted)

Wind, wind,
you come from nothingness and go to nothingness,
and when you are still,
there is nothing we see, nothing we hear,
and you surround us in our not seeing and not knowing.

Wild, wild wind,
you whip the seas, whirling great water spouts and fountains,
crashing the foamed edges of the shore,
sweeping the unsuspecting fisherman from the slippery rocks,
terrifying force, uncontrollable, beyond our power.

Wind, wind, wondrous wind,
hovering at the birth of creation,
whisking secretly among the wonders of new life,
bearing the seed, lifting high the heads of mighty trees,
swirling among the grasses, celebrating life.

Wind, wind, gentle wind,
wind of our breathing, our life, our hope,
renewing, refreshing,
sighing in our stress,
moaning in our pain,
still in our dying.

O wind, wind,
you breathed upon the clay and there was life,
you danced down to the forehead of a Galilean
and there was hope,
you shook the foundations of community
and there was Pentecost.

EXPLORING THE THEME

Did you know that there is only one word in Hebrew for Spirit, breath, and wind, “Ruach”? They are interchangeable… which I always find interesting because they are pretty much used in the same way in the Old Testament… the spirit of the Lord hovered upon the waters, the breath of God was upon him, God spoke in a mighty rush of wind… all sentences from the Bible we would understand to be almost the same….

Anyone who has ever watched the wind blow on a beach knows that it is powerful and creative. The wind is what makes boats sail and airplanes fly… it is, literally, the wind at our back…

Which is what the spirit of God is too; the spirit is that which blows through you and gives you strength, or courage, or hope, or love… it is the feeling that pushes you to better places, better ways of being…

It is what unites us all and weaves us together…

I wonder what changed at Pentecost. I wonder why a thousand years of division suddenly got reversed. 

Maybe when we tried to build the tower of Babel we were not ready to work together, but when we heard and understood the message of Jesus we were?

Cause that is a powerful claim for those early Christians to make… where once we were all divided, now we are all together… where once we could not work together, now we understand that we are all the same…

But that is what they are saying, that once God had to separate us, but now through Jesus we are restored…. That is what Paul says when he writes that we are all part of the same body, that there is neither Jew nor Greek. It really was not only their hope, but their passionate belief that now God was with them and nothing could stop them!

And this time it was not arrogance because this time they were not trying to build a tower, or fly to the sun, or do anything to prove they were the coolest, or the best… this time they were trying to help everyone to be loved just like they were.

It surprised even them when it happened. Like all grace filled moments, they come out of nowhere… but looking back we can say that this is where it all began… this is when people took it seriously and went out into the world hoping that they could make a difference themselves.

Instead of spirit, let’s call it something else… inspiration…. This was the moment where inspiration came into their lives and it led them out into the world full of passion and purpose…

CONCLUSION OF THEME

I think what we see around us is 90% what we feel. Think about it, your mood changes how things look, feel, taste, are….

So what, you may ask… well… I want you to see Pentecost the same way. I want you to see that it was attitude that caused people to have hardship, and it was attitude that got them all back together again…

We, as a church, moved from the tower of Babel to the celebration of Pentecost…

And it is a lesson we can all understand, all see as being true, and all take to heart. God’s love has the power to overcome our differences and set us free. Working together for the good of others is an idea that can challenge and inspire us, and the spirit is with us as we go.

Easter 6 - C

The Rich Count Too

Introduction

I am not sure if any of you saw the movie Spiderman… the first one, a while ago now… Anyway there is a line in that movie, where Uncle Ben tells the young Peter Parker, who will one day become Spiderman, that “With great power comes great responsibility.”

It is a great line, it is actually a lot older than Spiderman, the French philosopher Voltaire wrote it down centuries before; but I am pretty sure it has been around in some form or another forever… Take care of your younger brother… if you are going to borrow the car you have to drive your sister to soccer. We all learn that as we get more freedom, more power, more life, we also have more responsibility…

Perhaps we do not stop and think about it spiritually all too often. What does it mean that the more power we have, the more responsibility we have? We usually think of it the other way – when we read the Bible we see ourselves as one of the poor, one of the powerless, one of the great majority of people who Jesus was talking to when he said, God will come and make it better.

And the heroes of the Bible… Moses Stutters, David is the youngest and smallest son, Jesus is just some small town carpenters son; and almost every other person we encounter comes from the poorest of the poor, shepherds and fishers…

But what about the other side… what is God saying to the people who have it all? And I don’t necessarily mean money, I mean resources, influence, lifestyle… which, to be fair, most of us have more of than most people in the world… What is God saying to us.

With the Kids – Comfort

Thinking of Comfort

I have often read the John passage at funerals. It is one of my favourites to preach on. I guess probably that is because I hope to be as brave as Jesus when I die. You see, he knew what was happening, he knew this was the end, and his last thoughts were about making it all right for his family and friends.

Don’t worry, he tries to say them. I am always with you, and I will send another to comfort and guide you, you do not have to go through it alone, God will be with you, in one way or another…. It is their future, their pain, their life that concerns him the most as he is losing his.

Imagine what it would feel like to know that someone was there who would teach us how to get through it, who would help us to feel at peace with the world even when tragedies happen… That is what Jesus is offering his followers. He is saying that no matter what comes, there will be someone who is there for you. 

That is a pretty powerful promise.

Lydia

So here is our hero for today, Lydia… as important a person as ever there was for the early church, but another person for whom we only have one brief story; and so I want to tell you that story again, in a more dramatic way… I have to admit that I got a little help from a book called Women of the Bible by Ann Spangler and Jean Syswerda.

The wind rustled the branches overhead until they became a swaying canopy whose shadow danced across the circle of women bowed in prayer. It didn't matter that Philippi had too few Jews to support a synagogue; the river's edge had become their place of worship, a green sanctuary where they gathered each Sabbath to pray.

A woman named Lydia was there that day, on the edges, watching it all unfold. Lydia was not Jewish, but she had come to believe in this God they spoke of. She had come to Philippi from Asia Minor and was a prominent businesswoman who sold fine cloth to those who could afford it. The cloth was prized for its purple colour.

Now Lydia listened as a stranger from Tarsus began the morning prayers; "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Such prayers were like a gust of wind, fanning her longing. Though not a Jew, she wanted to know this God powerful enough to part the sea yet tender enough to yearn for the love of his people.

Paul did not stop there, he spoke of a God whose Son, Jesus, had been murdered for love. This Jesus had risen from the grave after suffering the most agonizing death imaginable. He was the Messiah, the merciful and holy One.

The women sat quietly as Paul told the story. Even the branches overhead had stopped their noisy rustling. But in the stillness, Lydia felt a strong wind rushing through her. Tears rolled down her cheeks even though she felt like singing. Afterward, she was baptized in that same river she had come to pray at. In fact, so strong was her faith that her entire household followed her example and were baptized; then Lydia insisted that Paul and Silas and probably Timothy and Luke too accept her hospitality.

Philippi seemed an unlikely place to plant the gospel. It was a prosperous Roman colony located on the main highway linking the eastern provinces to Rome and its citizens included large numbers of retired Roman soldiers. Despite its size, however, Philippi hadn't even enough Jews to provide the requisite quorum of ten reliable men to form a synagogue--and it had always been Paul's habit to preach at the synagogue first. Even so, Philippi did have its group of praying Jewish and Gentile women.

Shortly after Lydia's conversion, Paul and Silas had been thrown in prison for upsetting the Roman authorities. After they were released, Lydia once again extended hospitality and invited them into her home and cared for them. In the short time that they had been away, Lydia had started a house church and the faithful were gathered there. Her home may have become the very center of the church in Phillipi.

I am sure that Lydia did not fully understand the power that she held. Luckily, she took her responsibility to be a good person seriously. This affected all of those around her and her simple actions of commitment, love and hospitality helped to set the church on a certain path.

All You Need Is Love

I guess we all know that John Lennon was right when he wrote, all you need is love… after all, he got that from some good sources, like Jesus, and the Apostles, and… well… God.

But perhaps more to the point, that is what we are talking about once again… whether you are rich or poor, whether you are young or old, all you need is love.

Why is that true?

Well, in this letter, which is thought to be written by the person who wrote the Gospel of John, we have a long passage about love. And essentially it says something we already know, that God is love… but then it goes on to say we should then be acting out of a spirit of love… and the ultimate reason given is that love conquers fear….

So it is more than just loving because you are nice, it is more than just making the other person feel good, it is more than just doing the right thing… it is a concrete way to conquer fear.

This, when you think about it, is a pretty good tool to have; because who of us is not afraid, I mean, really, we are afraid of death, of sickness, of speaking in public, of being alone, of speaking our mind, of being judged, of spiders…. Fear is at the heart of a lot of our decisions… maybe most of our decisions.

And what would it be like if we overcame that fear with love? Could that not be what drew people to the faith, whether they were rich or poor? Could that not be why Lydia is recognized as a Saint, that she did things, like bring in Paul the prisoner, despite her fear… she acted out of love in the face of fear…

Conclusion

So what about that whole “great power leads to great responsibility” thing?

I think that we have to realize that we all have choices to make, that is what Lydia is all about – she had the power and the resources to make a difference and she used them for good. And perhaps if you do find yourself with more than other people, that should be your guiding principle.

Did you know Bill Gates, certainly one of the richest people on the planet, what with basically owning the concept of computers, is also one of the biggest givers to charity in the world, like, giving more than a lot of countries….

God calls us to be responsible, and in that, to live out of a place of love.

Easter 5 C

Rolling Down the River

Introduction

If you write stories, or tell stories, you know there is more than one character… if there is a good guy there has to be a bad guy… to oversimplify it.

But in most good stories there are many characters, and some of them are really unexpected. As an aside, you don’t have to be alive to be a character… ever read Huckleberry Finn… It is the story of a boy, a runaway slave, and a raft… the raft is as much a character of the story as Huck.

Moby Dick is as much about a whale as a sailor…

A more modern example would come from the movie Titanic… sure, there are the main and supporting actors and actresses…. But one of the characters, with its own personality and storyline, is a giant boat… the Titanic.

I’m just trying to say that sometimes we see the story from only one side… we don’t take the time to think about what it all means from the point of view of the minor characters, or the bystanders.

We have been talking about Disciples, about Apostles, about Followers of Jesus, be they the more famous like Peter and Paul, or the less known, like Dorcas… But throughout our storytelling we have not focused on the other side, on the crowds, on the people who were watching this all unfold before their very eyes.

What would it have been like to see the world through the eyes of a Jew in Palestine, or through the eyes of a Roman Gentile living in a foreign country, when there was a religious movement taking over… what would you notice first? What would draw your attention? What would it mean?

With the Kids

Passing Love (pennies) even the smallest thing can make a difference….

Fleshing Out the Pennies

One of the things that really got to people, and we cannot stress this enough, was Jesus’ message of love. Think of it this way, these people all went to church every day… whether they were Jew or Greek, Roman or Babylonian… and the main thing that they heard said over and over is… God is with you.

God loves Romans, God will help us conquer the world, God is Roman… God loves Jews, God rescued us from Egypt, God will rescue us again… The Gods love Greeks, the Gods have always been with us….

You get the idea… Religion was just like human nature… it was based on the idea that God loves me more than you, and if I do what God wants, God will reward me… plain and simple…

No one ever went out and said, you know what, God does love Romans, and Jews, and Greeks, and Samaritans, and Women, and… and… and… And what God really wants from you is not obedience, it is not national pride, it is love… go love each other, help each other, pray for each other, heal each other, comfort each other, feed each other…

Now, we have heard this for a few thousand years so we forget… I want you to just for a second, put yourself in the mindset of someone who has been told their whole life that they are better than everyone else and that God only loves them…

Can you see how interesting it would be if all of a sudden this stranger did something nice for you? Or someone from a different tribe or race all of a sudden helped you? You would want to say, why did you do that? And they would tell you…. And it would make you think!

The Banquet

So Peter is off cavorting with some Romans… well, maybe he is preaching to them, and healing them, and baptizing them… and he gets back to town and there is a session meeting; and the session says, what are you doing? How could you even talk to those people? Don’t you know what they have done?

But Peter has had a vision… he has all of a sudden been able to see it from the other side… he gets what the Romans are all about, why they are like they are, and, more importantly, he is finally convinced that Jesus is right… God loves everyone.

Ever have this happen in your life? I have… I have met someone who I find really annoying… I get angry at the way they do things, I cannot understand why they would do it that way… all kinds of things… and then all of a sudden something clicks… I start seeing it from their point of view… and everything changes… I get it….

I don’t really know what the Romans who were in Palestine thought, or the Greek traders that sailed the Mediterranean… but I do know that they had never thought about things the way Peter and the Gang were teaching… and the apostles had been hanging out with Jesus for so long they just took this stuff for granted….

And not everyone was on the same page… we see that in the fact that the other apostles are not really happy with Peter…

Sometimes it takes seeing things differently… sometimes we have to be able to get outside of ourselves… there is probably a lesson in here for us, eh?

Miramichi Presbytery meets on Saturday. How many 30 year olds want to give up a Saturday off and leave their kids and go to a day-long volunteer meeting? There is an example of the church not seeing the world through someone else’s eyes…

And there are a ton of them…. Like a million things we all do every day that we either take for granted or assume that everyone sees just like us… but it simply is not true.

This Jesus guy came and changed things so dramatically that it woke everyone up and made them pay attention. I wonder what we would have to shake up to get the same reaction.

Blessing by The Buddha

May every creature abound in well-being and peace.
May every living being, weak or strong, the long and the small
The short and the medium-sized, the mean and the great.

May every living being, seen or unseen, those dwelling far off,
Those nearby, those already born, those waiting to be born,
May all attain inward peace.

Let no one deceive another, Let no one despise another in any situation,
Let no one, from antipathy or hatred, wish evil to anyone at all.
Just as a mother, with her own life, protects her only son from hurt,
So within yourself foster a limitless concern for every living creature.

Display a heart of boundless love for all the world,
In all its height and depth and broad extent,
Love unrestrained, without hate or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk, sit or lie, until overcome by drowsiness,
Devote your mind entirely to this, it is known as living here life divine.

Buddha Heart

Jesus lived at what has been called the Golden Age of Religion. He was not alone, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, all of them lived at a time when everything was changing… and they saw that God had always been different than most people understood… that God was bigger than any one nation, any one people… and that God wanted us to see the world from the point of view of love, acceptance, and understanding.

Now, as I have said before… this is not an easy path. Buddhist Monks give up everything, and go live in the ice covered mountains of the Himalayas so that they can focus on this stuff and get it right…

But it is the path we are all on. We are the ones who are supposed to move beyond lies beyond hurt, and see everything and everyone as loved by God.

The people in India, when Buddha came out with these things, didn’t get it any more than the Romans… I want you to know that… but there were still those who were surprised… who heard the message and saw the followers and knew there was something different going on here.

There is something different about us too…

Conclusion

So you want to know where we are? We are that small group of people who believe in the message of Jesus. We are the minority who think that God works through love and not through forceful power. We are the ones who the world looks at and is surprised by.

But if we are truly going to live out our role as followers of Jesus’ Way we do have to start realizing how different our way of thinking is, and we have to start seeing the other people out there for who they really are… they are not wrong, they are not the enemy, they are loved by God for exactly who they are…

So what do we have to say to them? How do they fit into our story? Where is our vision of the future leading us? These are the questions we all need to explore.