Pentecost - C - 2010

PANENTHIESM FOR THE MASSES

I am not religious, I am spiritual.

If I had a nickel for every time I have been told that.... and what exactly does it mean anyway? If you looked it up in the dictionary you would find that “Spiritual” means; of, relating or pertaining to spiritual or religious values. While the definition of “Religious” is: related to or pertaining to religious beliefs and practice. There is not much difference there....

Of course, I know that when people tell me they are spiritual they are actually saying that they have no need to go to church.

“I find God when I walk in the forest, or do Yoga, or Meditate, or listen to the Dalai Llama...” they tell me. Well of course you do; so do I. I would even take it further and say you could find God while taking out the trash, bathing the kids, driving to work...

Unfortunately, God is not a one on one experience. Sure, we have moments of connection with God, we feel the presence of God, but God is made manifest in community. Which is a fancy church way of saying, you find God in church.

There is not a single person in the Bible who has an experience of God while they are all alone and then immediately is ‘faithful.’ Every single one of them goes to the Temple and checks it out, or speaks to the elders, or finds God revealed in the group.

Paul saw Jesus on the road... but it was not until he went into town, stayed in a Christian House, and met with a holy man that he was actually converted... then the scales fell off his eyes and he knew what God was like.

Even Abraham, who is reported to have had more one on one conversations with God than anyone past or present, and who was really a minority because at one point he might have been the only one on the planet following God, worked these things out with his family as he went.

We never fully find God alone.

Here is why: God is greater than the sum of the parts. God is everywhere, in everything, and working through everyone. If you wanted to move a fridge you could possibly do it alone – it would take a while, you might get a hernia, and you will certainly scratch the floor. With two people it is easier, with four it is a cinch.

God is like that – and although we always use it to justify small churches, the phrase, ‘where two or three are gathered’... well, it originally meant the opposite of what we now mean by it: God is only fully present when there is more than one person; when there is a relationship; when love is exchanged.

Pentecost is sometimes called the ‘birthday of the Church’ because it is really the first time that things got organized. Before Pentecost was a period of figuring things out, of wondering what to do if Jesus was not actually leading on a day to day basis. There were encounters and holy moments a plenty, on roads and at the seashore... but no one really knew what to do.

Then they all gathered in Jerusalem. If you follow the story, this is the first time all of them have gotten together since the days after Easter when they were locked away in the upper room. And not only are all the disciples together in one place, there is a multitude of people out and about – some of them listening to the disciples.

And – the presence of God is made manifest... Have you ever had one of those moments where time and space seem to strip away, where there is a sense that there is more going on than meets the eye? I often have them at Christmas Eve services, with the darkness and candles, I get a real sense that God might just be being born into the world again.

Well, here, Peter and the whole gang suddenly get it, they suddenly begin preaching with power, they suddenly reach out across the barriers of class and race and language and everybody understands them. Everyone who walks by realizes that God is at work in this moment – it is almost visible as tongues of fire... it is the Holy Spirit.

And by that we mean it is the presence of God in and around and through everything.

God is suddenly known in the sum of all the parts that are gathered together, and the power of God is so much more than people imagined... it is more than the beauty of a sunset. It is more than the feeling of peace as you walk beside the still water. It is more than the power of the ocean waves crashing on the shore... it is more than spirituality.

It is church. It is God made manifest in the life and work of God’s people. The possibilities are endless for us, and that my friends, is the good news.

Easter 07 - C - 2010

THAT ALL MAY BE ONE

I have this feeling that life is actually a series of beginnings and endings; of hellos and goodbyes.

Often, well, actually, always, it is hard to tell the difference. Every ending is the beginning of something else, and every beginning is in its own way, an ending.

Do you remember how we start the narrative story when we celebrate communion? We always say, “On the night before Jesus died…” And that recognition brings us back to a very clear remembrance that Jesus did die – that the hopes of the disciples were dashed, and that everything changed.

Of course, those events of the Last Supper and even the crucifixion turned out to be just a beginning of a different kind, of the season of Easter – the time when Jesus, or rather, the resurrected Jesus, was present in the world and interacting with the disciples to help them continue his work.

Now the time has come to say farewell once more.

Over the last seven weeks we have journeyed with the disciples as they have come to terms with Jesus death and resurrection. From the first day he appeared behind the locked door, we too have had to try and understand what it might mean that Jesus was resurrected. How does it change things? What happens now?

Take a moment and think about that… what does it mean to you; this whole Easter story? What does it mean that Jesus was brought back from the grave?

~

The opening to this Sunday’s service could well be “On the night before Jesus left…”

“The glory which thou has given me,” he tells God, “I have given to them…”

The passing on of a mantle, of a mission, of a calling to share God’s love with those who would come after; and in doing so, to reveal God’s glory.

I remember that when I was ordained it was a pretty powerful moment. A group of clergy placed their hands on top of my head and said very similar words, passed something on to me… a tradition, a calling, a challenge… and set me free to live my faith.

Baptism and Confirmation are times when that same glory is transferred to each and every one of us. Jesus said, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word.” This is not only a goodbye prayer for the disciples, it is a continuing blessing for us – their followers.

“I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” That the world may become perfectly one. This is the prayer that Jesus has for us.

This Farewell Prayer always calls to mind the prayer once offered by Elie Wiesel to someone who was about to be ordained a priest: "May this day mark the beginning of a mission that will bring many, many people closer to each other, closer to God, and closer to themselves." I wonder if Elie Wiesel knew he was paraphrasing Jesus' last prayer for all of us. For this mission is the one mission we all share, no matter whether we are Christians and Jews, Islamic or Hindu; we are the people of God.

And this unity is possible – Because God’s love is a powerful force for good. We are one, because we are unified in God’s love. And that love is with us in every instance of our lives – it sets us free.

Just look at Paul and Silas. They were trapped in the deepest darkest prison, shut away from their friends and companions, not knowing what was going to happen next – they could even die. And in the midst of that what are they doing? They are having a hymn sing! Even in this moment God’s love still rings through their heart.

There is a freedom there that hopefully many of us will never have to experience, a freedom that allows us to live the abundant life Jesus promised no matter what is happening around us. It makes me think of the Slaves in the Southern States, who even though they were born into a harsh life of absolute slavery, still wrote songs of great love and beauty – like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”; or take a moment and turn to hymn 577…

“I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul.” Can you imagine singing those words over grits in your slave shack? Do not underestimate the power of God’s love to make us whole – to bring us that glory that Jesus spoke of.

A story is told of these two soldiers who wanted to bury their companion over in France. They looked through the village until they finally found a small church with an adjoining cemetery. It happened to be a Roman Catholic graveyard and the man was a Protestant. So the two friends went to find the priest and ask permission to bury their friend. The priest refused because the man was not Catholic, but seeing how disappointed they were he told them they could bury their friend just outside the cemetery fence – which they did.

A few weeks later they returned to visit the grave and looked high and low but could not find it. Their search led them back to the priest and, of course, they asked him what had happened to the grave. He told them that during the night they first arrived he had been unable to sleep because he had made them bury their friend outside of the fence. So he got up and moved the fence to include the dead soldier.

“I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.”

It’s a powerful statement of unity and the calling that Jesus left us with. But the other interesting thing about unity is that we are not talking about making everyone exactly the same. God’s love does not require us to all look alike, or think alike, or act alike. This is a unity of spirit, a unity of love, in which all of our differences actually help to strengthen us.

Ralph Milton tells a story which I would like to share today; a story about concrete. He writes:

I watched them pour the driveway to our house. The workers laid down steel rods, then as they poured the cement, they pulled the rods up so they would be in the middle of the concrete as it hardened.

“What do you need the rods for?” I asked one of the workers.

“It makes the concrete stronger. Reinforced concrete.”

“Yes, I know, but how do the rods make the concrete stronger?”

The worker picked up one of the rods. “Look, if you push down on it, it bends real easy.” His muscles bulged and the rod bent. “But you can't pull it apart. This hunk of rod could pull that truck over there. On the other hand, a piece of concrete is easy to pull apart. But if you push down on it, it won't bend."

“So?” Ralph asked.

“So they've got opposite strengths. The steel is strong when you pull, the concrete is strong when you push. Put them together, and you've got reinforced concrete, which is strong both ways. That's how they make all those big buildings and bridges. Concrete by itself or steel by itself wouldn't be strong enough.”

Jesus knew that no one person would be strong enough to pick up where he left off, but he knew that together we could share God’s love the way it was meant to be shared. He prayed for our unity so that we might pick up where he left off – but he also prayed that we might come to understand God’s love and live out of that place of freedom that allows prisoners to sing in the dark and slaves to laugh.

And so, on this last Sunday of the Season of Easter we pray to God as Jesus prayed; that God's love might continue to dwell in us - and that we may be one. We pray that our love for each other - our unity - may be shown not only to each member of the family of God that walks through these doors - but to those outside these doors as well - so that all might believe. Amen.

Easter 6 - C - 2010

Come on Over

A Mother’s Day Theology

(This is either the text of or adapted text of a sermon by Rev. Jan Croucher. Preached at Heathmont Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia, May 12 1996. I used this as the starting point for what I said.)

Imagine if you will that one night you go to sleep peacefully content with your life... now, at some point during the night Jesus appears in your dream and says, “Come over to Macedonia and help us...”

Now, I would probably grab my Iphone at breakfast and look up where in the world Macedonia actually was; and then maybe forget about it. But what if, what if, all day long you could not shake the feeling that God had somehow spoken to you in that dream?

What if as the days went on the conviction seemed clearer and clearer? Suppose you pick up the paper and on the front cover is a story about Macedonia? Well, isn’t that a coincidence... two times in one week and I had never really heard of the place before. Then there is a radio advertisement ... “Tired of living without adventure? Westjet now flies twice a week to Macedonia.”

I for one would start wondering what was really going on... I would probably start thinking someone is trying to tell me something...

Oh, if only life was ever that clear.

Of course, we are reading the story selectively; and I want to tell you that it was almost never that clear for the disciples either... in fact, this story is the third missionary story in a row; and the first two, well, they didn’t work.

First, Paul tried to go to Asia and preach the good news, only to fail. Then the band of disciples gets run out of Asia Minor... Then Paul has a dream, “Try Macedonia...” he is told with all the conviction the Spirit can muster.

~

This is the secret very rarely talked about part of our faith – the reality that for everyone who follows God, getting it right 1 out of 3 times is probably the best you can hope for.

Some of them, like Moses, take five times to convince pharaoh, and 40 years of failure to find the Promised Land...

But the faithful response, we are told over and over, and the response that comes closest to connecting to the sacredness of the world, is to keep trying.

And I am here to tell you; I think that is easier for women than for men... I am not sure why, but I just truly think women, and mothers in particular, are more persistent and capable than men are.

Now I realize that some of us come from families where our mothers were terrible to us, or they left us, or perhaps motherhood is a sore point because we are one of the 16% of the population who can’t have kids...

But just like the disciples, who are not famous for the bad examples, but rather, remembered as an ideal to live up to; even though most of the time they were complete failures; I want to suggest to you that today we are talking about an ideal way of looking at the world – one which takes failure and turns it into success, one that is about relationship, not only with each other, but with God as well. For just a second I want you to think, Paul is acting more like the good mother than anything else – he is filled with compassion, he is overlooking the current failures, he is willing to go to great lengths to care for someone else...

Paul himself recognizes that women are far more likely to be capable of understanding the spiritual depth of God’s love; as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, a lot of the people Paul puts into positions of authority in the new church are in fact women; like Dorcas, or like Lydia.

And they are not a biblical anomaly – Women have always played an equally important part in the history of our faith – here is a short example:

There was Miriam who led the people in praising God after the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex 15:21), Ruth who put God first and became the ancestress of King David (Ruth 1:16;4:17), Deborah, a judge in Israel (Judges 5), Hannah who ‘lent to the Lord’ the child of her prayers (1Sam 1:28), Esther who took her life in her hands to plead for her doomed people, the widow whose obedience sustained the prophet Elijah (1Kings 17:9-16), a little captive maid who told Naaman’s wife of the man of God who could cure Naaman of his leprosy (2Kings 5:2-4), the woman who anointed Jesus with the expensive ointment (Mk14:3), the poor widow’s gift of two mites which won Jesus’ praise (Mk 12:43), Mary who gave birth to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Luke 1:28), Martha who served and Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42), Mary Magdalene who brought spices to anoint Jesus, who first greeted the risen Lord and who received the first commission -’Go tell’ (Jn 20:17-18; Mk 16:9), Lydia one of the first converts in Macedonia (Acts 16:14), Dorcas – full of good works (Acts 9:36), Phebe & Priscilla – servants of the church (Ro 16:1-4), Lois and Eunice who had sincere faith (2Tim 1:5), Persis ‘the beloved’ and Tryphena and Tryphosa who laboured for the Lord (Romans 16:12).

You see, there have always been two ways of seeing God, of seeing reality in the Bible – they sort of go through the whole thing side by side; and over the years we have focused too much on one at the expense of the other.

The one you and I grew up with is the Monarchial model of God. It is a way of seeing God that was filtered through those who held most of the power; unfortunately that was almost always men, and that said that God was king of the universe.

This is what we all heard in Sunday School, it is the God who holds all the power, who is out there somewhere watching us, and who is going to punish us if we are bad.

What we have to understand is that our faith really does not point us in this direction, it is a distortion.

The second way of seeing God, and the one that even the Bible uses far more often, is the Divine Lover model of God. It’s there all the way through – for example, the prophet Isaiah tells the people in exile, “You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you... do not fear.” (Is. 43:4)

Or how about Song of Solomon, where God is pictured as not just a lover, but a very enamoured lover? What about one of the most famous lines of the whole Bible, “For God so loved the world...” (Jn. 3:16)

This is in fact what the entire Bible and the entire teaching of Jesus tries to get across to us, that God loves us. We, however, always picture God as the old man in the sky who judges us. This is a little harsh, but I gotta say, that seems a little bit like we have a psychological problem...

So what does it mean to picture God as divine lover? Well, here is another word that the Bible throws around pretty liberally. God is “compassionate;” which literally means, “to suffer with...”

I would like to suggest that we might be far better off understanding God as our mother.

“Just as a Mother feels compassion for her children and wills their well being and can become fierce in the defence of her children, so God feels compassion for her children, and wills their well being, and can become fierce in the defence of her children, all of her children,” writes Marcus Borg in the book, God at 2000.

That is an understanding of God I can understand...

Again, not all mothers are like that, and not all of us can be like that, but I am talking about God here. God is the ideal state of the love that we should all have... and we can find that love echoed in the best love that we can find in mothers....

Let me read you one more thing, something written by a minister in Australia named Jan Croucher;

A MOTHERS’ DAY CREED

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living

God, who was born of the promise to a virgin named Mary.

I believe in the love Mary gave her Son, that caused

her to follow him in his ministry and stand by his cross as he

died.

I believe in the love of all mothers, and its importance

in the lives of the children they bear.

It is stronger than steel, softer than down, and

more resilient than a green sapling on the hillside.

It closes wounds, melts disappointments, and enables

the weakest child to stand tall and straight in the fields of

adversity.

I believe that this love, even at its best, is only

the shadow love of God, a dark reflection of all that we expect

of him in this life and the next.

And I believe that one of the most beautiful sights

in the world is a mother who lets this greater love flow through

her to her child, blessing the world with the tenderness of her

touch and the tears of her joy.

Thank God for mothers, and thank mothers for helping

us understand God!

.

Easter 05 - C - 2010

God 2.0

My God is better than your God!

Have you ever said something like that? Taunted someone like a child would because of religion? How about if we said, The United Church is better than the Wesleyans! What about saying Mount Royal is better than Central!

Sounds childish, doesn’t it? Childish, but unfortunately so true... No, no, not true, just human nature. Comparison is something we fall prey to far too often...

2000 years ago these same comparisons were being made – remember how Jewish people felt about Samaritans? Well, there was someone they hated even more... the Gentiles... the non Jewish, well, usually Roman people who were always causing problems and did not understand how important faith was for the chosen people.

So, keep that in mind, and listen again to the opening of our passage from Acts....

“Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.”

Gentiles! Accepting the Word of God? Who can believe such a thing – especially when the quick list of Gentiles is also a list of those people who at one time or another had conquered Jerusalem: Romans, Egyptians, Philistines, and Assyrians? Gentiles were the type of people who God did not like very much; and basically that list included everyone else.

Gentiles were also the people who didn’t bother to follow any of the simple rules that God laid out for being a good and faithful follower; rules like washing your hands and not eating shellfish. We all know exactly what God wants us to do, right?

Well – ok – there is the real problem... the real problem is that we are quite certain WE know what God wants.

When I was younger I was convinced God was a really really old guy on a cloud with white hair and beard… not quite Santa Clause, more like Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings.

For some reason it never registers on us, but the Bible lists hundreds of words or phrases to describe God... none of them, by the way, says anything about the old man in the clouds...

God is a Creator; God is the Alpha and Omega – the Beginning and the End. And the list goes on… invisible, powerful, glorified, loving, like a mother hen, like a clap of thunder, like a father, even the sound of silence.

If you think about it, the real problem is that we have no physical description of God: No where are we told, God is 6’4’’, God is a woman, or God has the appearance of a regal 65 year old… Instead, we are told what God acts like; or how God behaves… and the list is kind of vague and way too long, so we edit.

God would never drink sherry for communion. God would support Capitalism. God is against Abortion. God is on the side of the Allies not the Axis. God is heterosexual – you get the picture… the danger is that we start to define God as being very, very much like we are.

Which is how Peter and the rest of them felt; God was not only Jewish, God was really Jewish.

They thought that Jesus, as the Messiah, came to save the Jews... end of story...

And you could easily tell who was in and who was out, who was a Jew and who was not, by looking at what they eat. Jewish people keep the kosher food laws, and Roman people do not... easy, right?

Of course, one of the things we should know about God after all this time is that God loves to challenge us, and God challenges Peter with a vision: God sets a picnic up and asks Peter to eat; but the problem is that it is food that has never touched his lips; food that would make him ritually unclean; food that would make him just like those Romans…

I want to suggest to you that this is one of the great turning points of the faith. You see, at this moment Christianity moved from being a religion of God’s chosen people, to the religion of everybody... This was God erasing the line in the sand and saying, my love is for everyone, even the people over there.

We might think that God does not like people who belong to another language or racial division; French, Spanish, black, Chinese. It might be a class distinction, God only likes rich people, or educated people, or working class people. Perhaps we would put those with mental illness, or depressed people outside of the line. What about life style, does God really love those who drink, gamble, smoke or drive SUV’s? And we all know that Sexuality plays a big role – God doesn’t want anything to do with the divorced, the unwed pregnant, homosexuals and perhaps even single people… The one I struggle with the most is religion; some people would put Islam out of God’s reach. Others, like me, are more subtle: God does not, in my opinion, listen to the prayers of fundamentalists – or at least that’s what I think on a bad day.

The point is that we all have someone; from our sister in law Susie, to the Ayatollah of Iran who we think is not worthy of God’s love, who is unclean in that ritual sort of way, and who we would not want to have anything to do with.

But what if God set up a picnic for us both? What if we were forced to eat together?

Peter, when he was explaining himself to the other apostles, had this to say in verse: 11:17 “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"

It is a phrase that catches me up short – who am I, that I could hinder God? If I do not like someone, if I am against some policy or other – does that mean that God sits on my side of the fence? But what are we to do since all of us suffer from a similarly narrow point of view when it comes to our likes and dislikes?

How about if we ask ourselves one simple question: what is the commandment that Jesus left us with? We are to love one another.

Now, if I am to truly love the people around me I have to accept that no matter what I think of them, I am not right – and God loves them anyway. Not only that, but God might think they are more right about things than I am, and God loves me anyway.

When we pray our prayer of confession it is this that should be right up there at the front of the list – I have not loved everyone, or perhaps even anyone yet today, the way that God would have me love them. And trust me, of this I am repentant; because what an incredibly wonderful world God has given us – filled with beauty and creativity and diversity – I know that everyone I meet is a person who can make my life a better one, and so I try, I really try.

After all, Jesus tried to tell us: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Easter 4 - C - 2010

Hearing the Voice

If I got you to remember back to an old vinyl record company, RCA, and asked you what the logo of that company was, could you tell me? It is one of the most familiar logos of all times, the figure of a dog sitting beside one of those hand crank record players, staring in wonder at the speaker. The caption told it all: “He hears his master’s voice.”

Obviously, this classic advertisement relied on the common knowledge of dogs and their relationship with owners. Whenever an owner calls a dog, the animal will begin to wag its tail and squirm and jump in eager anticipation of being petted or scratched or fed or taken outside.

You could get the image instantly – and understand the point – the recording sounded just like the master….

That, by the way, is also how Jesus taught. He was always conjuring up an image, engaging the senses, and explaining his philosophy and spirituality by using something familiar.

Today we have a reading in which he is trying to convey to his disciples just how much he loves them, and exactly what their relationship in like. He uses the imagery of a shepherd; and in doing so He characterized who and what he was for them – and who he is for us.

To Jesus and the people of his day, tending sheep was a familiar activity that meant many things. The shepherd led the sheep to good pastures, looked after the strays, exercised responsibility for protecting the sheep (which often meant risking life and limb against wolves), and served as midwife for the birthing of lambs, and paid special attention to the little lambs, the most vulnerable of the flock. The shepherd knew each of his sheep and valued the life of every one. The shepherd was deeply devoted to his flock.

I am not sure we can ever completely get back to feeling it the same way the disciples did – but can you see how powerful and image that is? What if I told you I would get you what you needed, protect you no matter what, act as a midwife for all your dreams, take care of you when you were most vulnerable, remember everything about you, and seek you out no matter how far away you roamed?

Sometimes we balk at the idea of being sheep, of following mindlessly, but that was not the point, the stories are all about the Shepherd… all about God…

Now, Jesus didn’t really make this up; he was playing on an image much more ancient and powerful - We recited it in our psalm today – a hymn of confidence offered by one who knew not only great depth of loss and fear, but also knew within his heart that God would lead him through the other side.

Sometimes I think this is too obvious, too clear to even bother talking about – we all find ourselves in dark valleys, we all find ourselves unable to discern the way forward, we all long for someone to set that table, to help us overcome our enemies, and to lead us out the other side…. We get the 23^rd Psalm; we would love it if Jesus was the good shepherd…

In fact, I would argue that the 23^rd Psalm is the most loved and beloved passage of the entire Bible, most of us even have it memorized, and memorized in the King James Version to boot:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul;

Now, here is the question…

Is it powerful simply because we have all walked those dark valleys? Or is there something else? Is there a sense that we so need to believe that God cares for us, that God loves us, that the very possibility that this might be true, that God leads us and walks beside us, is enough to move us to tears?

How come? What are we missing that we don’t just KNOW this stuff?

Is it that we don’t recognize God’s presence in our lives because we are not looking? Is it that we are distracted by ‘other’ shepherds, other things that lead us away from the safety of the sheepfold?

Probably it is all of those things and more….

I think one of the great dangers for us is in not recognizing that voice; like sheep not hearing the voice of the shepherd. It is very easy for us to fail to discern God’s will because we can’t separate his voice from the many others clamoring for our attention. That is our reality; everywhere we go, there are voices calling out – voices that say “buy this” or “do this” or “say this” or “go this direction” or “act this way” or “don’t tend to that need.” There are voices competing with one another, vying for our attention, seeking to gain control of our lives in big and little ways.

So, we Christians must keep our ears tuned to the voice of Jesus, our good shepherd, calling out in the midst of those other voices.

I also think that what we think about ourselves gets in the way. We are unlovable, we are evil, we are too dumb, we aren’t pretty enough, and we eat too many brownies…. I don’t know, you might have your own thoughts like this too – I don’t want to make it all about me….

The thing I love about the Psalms is that the people werte aware of their thoughts, they were aware of their limitations… but they knew, KNEW, that God was not subject to those limitations – God loves us completely despite ourselves, God knows the right way even when we wont listen, God can make all things work for the good… there was never any question of that…

Over the weekend I was in meetings all day Friday and Saturday discerning the core values of the United Church as a hierarchal institution…

The moderator of the United Church, Mardis Tindal, said something very, very wise…

She said, “It is not God’s Church in the world looking for a mission… It is God’s mission in the world looking for a church.”

Think about that… God is there – Jesus is the Shepherd…. Are we listening?

Easter 3 2010

Get Up!

TS Eliot wrote a series of long poems called “The Four Quartets”

The last stanza of the last poem reads thus:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Now poetry might not be for everyone I realize. I am just using this as an example that words convey more meaning than just definition – they convey emotion, understanding, and even ambition.

So, anyone want to hazard a guess at what Eliot was talking about? Okay, I want to change the background, and have you look at the picture again, so to speak: I will tell you what Eliot has in his mind when he wrote the poem, and then read it again:

The title of this fourth quartet is “Little Gidding”; it is a small town in England that is home to a monastery founded in the 1600’s... This is really a poem about religion. As he goes through the work he meditates on the meaning of our actions, and the many instances when we realize that what we called an end was just the beginning of another move, of something else, and vice versa. Birth and dying are moments of equal importance, we are born and we die, and in each is contained the seed of the other. Now, you should also know that Water is a symbol for God, Fire means the Holy Spirit and that the Rose is a symbol for Jesus, and that Eliot believes in the Trinity.

So the poem is about life and faith; it says our lives have meaning, but mostly, Eliot is arguing that we see that meaning most clearly in beginnings and endings. It is as we move from one thig to another that we find new meaning and move on. And while we keep that in mind, we have to also remember that for Eliot, God is constantly present; but he wants to express that in poetry, so water is the creative force of God the Father, and fire symbolizes the Holy Spirit and the Rose is Jesus...

Now, listen again:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Did it mean something different because of the little bit of explanation that I gave you? Is it not much deeper, much more meaningful, when we see not only the emotions conveyed, but the thoughts behind them?

Here is a story of Easter:

“Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."

So; You all might know this from Sunday School, but let me do the same thing I did with Eliot and give you just a glimmer of history behind the words.

Early Christianity was not persecuted by the Romans; that came quite a few decades after Jesus died, early Christianity was a revival movement within the Jewish church; and not a popular one. The traditional folks said that the way to gain God’s favour was to follow the rules, exactly – if you do everything God expects, God will love you. These people were called the Pharisees; and everyone went to their churches because it was a simple and neat solution. Wear cotton, pray five times, wash your hands a certain way, give 10%, don’t eat pork, and God loves you. (this is a stereotype, by the way, there are over 1000 rules in the Bible that the Pharisees thought you should follow to the letter of the law, and it was tough.)

Jesus, you may remember, said something different. He said you could boil it all down to a sentence; love God, Love everyone else, love yourself. If you pull that off, God loves you. Call it the spiritual approach rather than the practical approach.

Now Paul was such a good Pharisee that he wanted to stop this nonsense once and for all, arrest everyone who would not follow the rules, kick them out of the churches, straighten this mess all out. And he was good at it; he was the most feared Pharisee in the Holy Land because he was perfect, and did not tolerate one iota of deviation.

Now the one other thing you should know is that there is no word “Get up” in this passage in Greek; the word is “resurrect”

Now listen: “...suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

"He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."

Now here is Easter, as understood by Eliot, explaining Paul:

Everything in life ends; and in that moment we see more clearly the choice that lays before us; and it is a choice. The end is not an ending; it is simply the place where we see quite clearly what has to change. You could be searching your whole life for this; or you could stumble upon it some idle Tuesday on the road to somewhere else; and get knocked off your horse.

In that moment – in the moment of ending; of whatever ending; be it naiveté, be it youth, be it a relationship, or be it life itself, God speaks – and what God says is this: Come back to life – move on – it will become clear what you are to do next.

And as Eliot has God say, “...And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well...”

Easter 2 2010

Believing in Hope

I think that Thomas always gets to me.... Part of it, I think, is that I live in a world where I question too much... where I am never quite sure that I have said the right thing, done the right thing, or even hoped for the right thing...

There are days I wish I could be a carpenter... either the deck stays up and is finished, or it falls apart – either way, you are sure about something.

Life never seems so easy for me.

Think about it. Don’t you wish you could be sure that Green Tea was good for you? Don’t you wish you could be sure you’re not missing some big deduction when you fill in the tax forms? Don’t you wish you could be sure that is the right tie to wear on your dinner date? But more specifically – since we are here in church – don’t you wish you could be sure God loves you?

Ah – there – that is the crux of our religious problem. That is why we come here week after week, for some ‘assurance’...

Our Gospel reading this morning is about “Doubting Thomas”, but here is a curious fact, the Greek word for “doubt” never occurs in this whole passage! The root word is actually pistos – which has three definitions:

• pertaining to trusting -- one who trusts in, trusting

• pertaining to being trusted -- faithful, trustworthy, dependable, reliable

• pertaining to being sure, with the implication of being fully trustworthy -- sure

The prefix "a" as in apistos, means "not" or "without". We have the same thing in English where, for example, "amoral" means "without morals" - therefore "Apistos" means "without pistos."

We could define it as “not having trust or faith or certainty."

Okay, so now you are all scratching your heads and asking – so what. Is not having certainty really any different than doubt? Well, it is when we turn it around – It is not Thomas who doubted; it is Thomas, who wanted to be sure. And, well, wouldn’t we all want to be sure? Don’t we all want to be certain?

That experience of knowing – really knowing – that Christ is alive, still able to touch and love and heal, is something we want and need, especially when times are dark and uncertain. And for Jesus’ followers in this morning’s gospel, the times feel very uncertain....

Think back for a moment – you might have to think back years, or maybe it in only months, or perhaps weeks, or minutes... what has happened in your life to make it so you can’t be sure God loves you.

I had a lot of really bad stuff happen to me when I was a kid. When you read the newspapers and say “Oh. That’s terrible,” well, I have probably been there. I spent most of my life pretty unsure if there was a God, and certainly unsure if God loved me. I spent decades actually rebelling against church... locking myself away from any proof that there just might be a God of love out there.

Which is essentially where our friends the disciples find themselves this morning; they’ve had a terrifying series of experiences. They saw Jesus arrested and led away. The ones who were brave enough to watch saw him crucified.

And then Peter and the beloved disciple saw that Jesus’ tomb was empty. An even more frightening thing than we usually imagine, because to someone living in the first-century Roman Empire, they would know that if anyone had seen them around the tomb, Jesus’ followers would have been suspected of grave robbery – a crime that carried a death sentence.

It is of little wonder that, at the beginning of this morning’s gospel, Jesus’ followers are gathered secretly, behind locked doors. As possible grave robbers, they were suspected of a capital crime; as known followers of a man brazen enough to conduct a public demonstration in the Temple courts, in full view of the Roman garrison stationed there, the disciples would be considered highly dangerous to the peace of Rome, and to the Judean leaders Rome supported…

So the question on the minds of Jesus’ followers is probably not so much “will we be next?” as it is, “how long do you think we can last?”

To reach them, breathe his spirit on them, and commission them to serve as agents of his forgiveness and love, Jesus has to come through not just the physical locked door behind which they’re all hiding – but the emotional barriers of their fear and doubt as well.

To get from here to there, they had to be SURE.

Right? All of them are in there locked up and afraid, right? Well, almost all of them are hiding. Interestingly enough, one of them is not. Thomas is not with those cowering in the locked room when Jesus appears to them. And so Thomas doesn’t see Jesus, doesn’t experience Jesus’ breathing on his followers, doesn’t receive the commission the risen Jesus gives the others.

Does this mean that Thomas is less faithful than the other disciples? I think it is actually hinting at quite the opposite. Thomas misses Jesus’ commission to the other disciples to go out into the world, forgiving as he forgives: but I like to think that Thomas wasn’t present to hear those words because he, unlike the others, was not locked inside in fear, but was already out there, in the world.

Thomas was the disciple who already understood some of the things we too often forget. For example, he knew that being a disciple was not always a safe thing to do. Way back in chapter 11 of John, Thomas is the one who says about Jesus, “let us also go to Jerusalem that we may die with him.”

SO perhaps Thomas is not afraid like the others.

Jesus appears to the first group because they need to get over their fear, they need to be empowered... so why does he come back for Thomas?

How about so Thomas can be SURE he is on the right track.

Which led to some great things – according to rumour Thomas was the only disciple who was present at the death of Jesus’ mother. He was also the one who took Jesus message the furthest, spreading into Syria, and India... all because of his certainty.

So how can you know it is the real risen Christ? The real risen Christ is the wounded Christ, the broken Christ, and the Christ who walks right by our side in our pain and sorrow with tears streaming down his face.

Thomas knows that if he is dealing with that Jesus, then everything he believes in is true. And he wants to make sure. Maybe it will give him strength so that he can go out there into that dangerous world, maybe he just needs to know he is not alone – but he needs to know.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith is being sure, deep down in your heart, that God is real, that God loves us, and that there is some way in which this whole world makes sense. And I need to say it just one more time – seeing the risen Jesus, knowing what Jesus went through for love, seeing those wounds and really, really, experiencing resurrection – that changes everything.

How can you be sure? How can you encounter the Risen Christ in your life? How do you know for sure that God really matters? For each of us the answer to that question might be different. But it is available to us nonetheless – If we are open to it, we will encounter God as a very real presence in our own lives. We will be able to unlock the door on our own fear and wade out into that world with a new purpose and vision – we will be able to declare, like Thomas, “My Lord and My God!”

And at that point we have to really listen for what resurrection is all about – for ti didn’t end with Jesus appearing to the disciples, it ended with the words he spoke next to those who encountered him: You are being sent out, into the world, and specifically to the world’s brokenness. You are being sent to touch those places, to proclaim and participate in the healing that is Christ’s work in the world. You are being sent because YOU – yes you – are now the Body of Christ, Jesus’ presence at work in the world, called and empowered to do what he did, and more.

We are the risen, living Body of Christ is in the world – breathing peace, bringing healing, and going forth, in love and in power. Thanks be to God!