Sermons

First Sunday of Advent, Sunday November 27, 2022

Hope

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

Collect: God of peace, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; so that on the last day, when your Son Jesus shall come again to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to eternal life; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. 

But about that day and hourno one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.  Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.  Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Day vs night

Light vs darkness

Awake / be ready

Hour – unexpected – no one knows – they knew nothing – do not know

I am struck by the paradox that we have a specific period of Advent and specific day set aside for Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ.  However, we do not actually know the specific day or year Jesus was born, and we have the church of the west and the church of the east celebrating different days for Christmas, but setting a specific date.  We’ve designed a liturgical sense of time and calendar around specific days, dates, and the counting of dates, and yet what we hear in our reading is the constant state of not knowing, an unexpected hour.  That we must be awake, must be ready, for this unknown coming.  And yet we gather on a date the Gregorian calendar has set.  Another interesting point is that our gospel reading comes towards the end of Matthew, just prior to the passion narrative.   So, this question of when will this, Christ’s crucifixion, occur, when will all the changes that are expected to accompany his coming in glory, When is the time when all this will happen? pervades Matthew’s build up to Jesus’ death.

A theme of not knowing, of the unexpected hour, of being awake, of being ready is pulled from nearing the passion narrative, the hope of the coming in glory, to celebrating the birth of Christ.  Christ’s coming into the world.  And I guess, this is where they merge, a coming of Christ.  A coming of glory.  The entering of Christ.  The entering of glory.  Mary’s yes, and, our yes, come together as we wait for the coming of Christ.

As I point out the challenges of our understandings of time, the application of time, and liturgical time, we also have the gift of time.  Of the time that has passed since the early church, since the reformation, and in the previous century where we shifted from Advent primarily celebrating Kingship and penitence to waiting in hopeful anticipation and expectation.   The gift of time allows evolution.  Allows change.  Allows learning and growing.  Advent shifted to focusing on the hope of Christ, the hope Christ brings; peace of Christ, the peace Christ brings; the love of Christ exemplified by Mary’s uncertain yet resounding yes, the love freely given by Christ; and the joy of Christ, the unrelenting joy the does not die, can not be extinguished, the joy Christ brings.

Advent carves out this precious time to wait.  However, even while consciously waiting, we can still be so busy in our daily lives, doing our daily tasks, we can easily fall asleep lulled by the hum drum of life.   How do we stay awake? One way that helps is that pesky question I continue to ask:  where do you see God at work?  When you’re on the lookout for God it creates a level of attentiveness that may not be there otherwise.  It helps keep you awake.  I make a few changes in our liturgy each Sunday, we light a candle each week and carry that act with us throughout the week, we say our Sanctus and Lord’s Prayer, as we wait to sing again on Christmas Eve.  We listen and sing Mary’s Magnificat.  These changes are intentional, because they help keep us awake.  They help open our hearts and minds to what is coming, to the pregnancy that will birth.

Advent is the invitation into a hope that glows warm and bright from the inside out.  When the days are getting darker, the light is diminishing, the temperature is dropping, Advent is this precious time that invites of to draw closer to God and to each other, to draw nearer to that ember and fire of hope, warm, bright and radiating.

Take the hope that Christ brings with you this week.  Let it start as an ember and stoke that fire all week watching and listening for God, because not an hour or day goes by that God is not at work.   Let the hope of Christ warm you throughout this week and light your path.

https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/orthodox-christmas-day, accessed November 24, 2022.

Click here, accessed November 24, 2022.

Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Matthew, (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1993)

The Reign of Christ – Sunday November 20, 2022 The Last Sunday of Pentecost

Jerimiah 23: 1-6; Canticle 19 (Luke 1:68-79); Colossians 1: 11-20; Luke 23: 33-43

Isaac Graham, November 17th, 2022

Colossian 1: 11-20

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 

Here we are, the end of the church year.  I swear we were just here MAYBE a few months ago.  But apparently that was twelve months ago! Today marks the end of our liturgical year, and next Sunday the beginning of Advent marks the beginning of a new church year.  I miss these calendars I used to purchase from University Hill Congregation, by VST, where the chronological days and months were embedded within the liturgical season.  Rather than flipping a calendar by month you flipped by liturgical season.  It expressed so clearly time housed by our story.

The Reign of Christ.  One would think I would naturally turn to our gospel reading today, however I found myself settling into our reading from the letter to the Colossians.  Paul’s letters, whether they be the uncontested or contested, sometimes go even deeper than our gospels because they are from the perspective of Paul writing topeople living out their faith in community, with all its messiness and all its doubts.  And we hear a man writing to people, urging them to see the way of Christ, to live the way of the cross, to understand what Jesus’ death and resurrection meant.  Not a small task.  Here we are centuries later, with plenty of theological education, generations of followers of the way, Christians, who have gone before us and we’re still trying to figure out what this means.  Whereas in Paul’s day, they were simply letters being written to people going about their daily lives, in a time when memories of Jesus were still lived memories, and he was using every polemic he could, everyday concepts, understandings, images, to communicate his message, with which people would have been familiar, to speak to them with urgency about Christ.   Paul is talking in person, and, through his writing, and doing everything he can to describe what it means to live in the reign of Christ.

We hear in today’s reading a portion of the first chapter, that lays out the victory in Christ, and the supremacy of Christ.  In him all things hold together.  It doesn’t get much clearer than that does it?  Vertical imagery permeates the letter to the Colossians which reflects cosmos understanding, Imperial understanding, patriarchal understanding, of the day.  Households codes and Empire governance were lived application of the vertical relationships people experienced and by which they were bound.  When we read Christ as the head of the church, it taps into a lived understanding and experience of these vertical understandings, and applies it to understanding Christ.  The Cosmos was thought of as vertically as well, with the cosmos being up above.  At the same time people were being led to view Christ as a Cosmic Christ, supreme above all else; the understanding of Christ was being deepened. 

That in him all things hold together. 

The image of the invisible God was being made visible.  That peace and reconciliation were through the blood of his cross. 

Colossians uses this vertically imagery familiar to its readers of the day to draw them in, and then uses it as a tool to deepen and expand the understanding of Christ, of his death and resurrection, and our life in his death and resurrection. 

Isaac is with me as a I write.   His life reflects the reign of Christ.  He lived in the reign of Christ.  I remember walking into Isaac’s hospital room one time and cheerily greeting him with “Hello Reverend Graham” not facetiously but genuinely and purposely calling him Reverend to honour and recognize the Holy Order bestowed upon him, and his response was kind of a noise like a grunt, and almost a head shake, “Reverend.”  And in his tone I knew he would prefer me not to call him Reverend.   If memory serves me, I think he said call me Isaac.  Isaac was not hung up on titles.  Interestingly, I’m aware that I actually need to use my title more because as a woman priest perceived as youngI am challenged by gender assumptions, leadership assumptions, and kyriarchy, a term a brilliant woman theologian developed to encompass power imbalances even more than the term patriarchy.  Interesting to reflect on titles in the light of Jesus as King.  The victory in Christ.  The reign of Christ.  Christ above all and in all.  And yet the term, a basic title, Christian, wasn’t even around during Jesus’s time.  It was applied to him and followers of his way.  The reign of Christ is Christology and theology we have developed, to try and put into words a different way of living.

Isaac loved to talk, and what a gift it was to listen and hear his stories.   I listened intently very aware this was time I would not have again, that it was the only time left to get to know him.  His stories shared a life wholly rooted in Christ.  And his stories of ministry took my breath away and I grew an understanding and picture of a man who ministered ecumenically, and with deep love for people, that was so far ahead of his time, that we can learn from today.  He would share stories of being in communities where he would be doing an evening group and sit in a circle, or share Eucharist in a circle.  He would give me advice about meetings, to not let my time be consumed by meetings and how he regretted the time meetings took from Shelia.  He shared new things he learned about prayer, ways he always thought prayer was and how he thought it was now.  He shared how his understanding of the Bible and scripture had changed, how he used to think memorizing scripture chapter and verses was important (which it is! It is very useful and helpful, I’m forever having to remember)and how he said but I whished I spent less time worrying about memorizing chapter and verse numbers because that’s not what is important.

Isaac shared how he and Sheila met, discussions they had about marriage and what was important to her about marriage, that it be a partnership.  And how he agreed and respected her thoughts and recognised her wisdom.  Isaac respected, appreciated and loved his wife very much.  This stands out so starkly because that perspective would have not have been the norm duringthe time they were married.  It was during those moments that I knew that I was in the presence of a really beautiful and genuine person whose life was lived in Christ.  

Our last conversation with the two of us Isaac urged me to remember to visit people in their homes, that he questioned why this practice of ministry seemed to have declined over the years.  Okay Isaac, I promise to not get swept up in all the other demands, and to share ministry in people’s homes. 

Resources:

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, Tenth Anniversary Edition (Herder, 1994).

Harry O. Maier, Picturing Paul in Empire, Imperial Image, Text and Persuasion in Colossians, Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles, (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 63-102.  

Remembrance Sunday November 13, 2022

Scripture Reading: Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 116: 1-8; 1 Peter 3: 1-9; John 11: 21-27

There is an alternative intercession for a funeral that I like to use, that I think holds All Souls Sunday / Remembrance Sunday well, and embodies our gospel reading today, part of the prayer is:

We pray for ourselves, who are severely tested by these deaths, that we do not try to minimize these losses, or seek refuge from them in words alone, and also that we do not brood over them so that they overwhelm us and isolates us from others. May God grant us courage and confidence in the new life of Christ. We ask this in the name of the risen Lord.

It’s easy to sit in the fearful blaming angry part, which we hear expressed well in our gospel: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, we hear this expressed again later in the gospel passage. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Why didn’t you do something Jesus? Why didn’t you stop this from happening? If you’re real and you really love us, you would prevent death. Isn’t this how we feel at times for any death? Lord, if you had been here my mom would not have died, my sister would not have died, my marriage would not have died, my child would not have died, a parish closes, whatever deaths in our lives happen, you could stop them Jesus. In these sentiments blame creeps in, fearful anger consumes us, and the power of death takes hold.

Martha (there is new biblical research that provides evidence that there was a textual change in ancient manuscripts that changed a Mary to a Martha!* But that is a digression, but I just have to mention it! ) is on the cusp of understanding Jesus’s response of “Your brother will rise again.” Resurrection is familiar in Jewish culture and Martha trusts that her brother will rise in the way it was commonly understood in those days, as a finality that would happen in end times. But this is not what Jesus means. He means, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Resurrection and life are now is what he’s saying. And then he goes on to describe eternal life, a life that death does not have power over. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

This is one of the core tenets of our faith. Core to how we live our lives here on earth, where death does not hold us captive. Where death does not end life. God is at work all the time. God is always active and doing something even in the hardest of times, in ways that we can not possibly ask or imagine. God is always bringing about life in places, moments, relationships, actions, you least expect.

God is on the move.

We are remembering the deaths of loved ones, beloved parishioners, and veterans today. Even in the mourning, pain, grief, and loss God is on the move. God is with us in the grief and sorrow, and God gives us the strength and courage to live, to not be consumed by death. To remember and live. Life that does not die.

We pray for ourselves, who are severely tested by these deaths, that we do not try to minimize these losses, or seek refuge from them in words alone, and also that we do not brood over them so that they overwhelm us and isolates us from others. May God grant us courage and confidence in the new life of Christ. We ask this in the name of the risen Lord.

Resources:

-The Word Disclosed, Gail R. O’Day, pages 102-106 – New Interpreter’s Bible – The Gospel of John, The Anchor Bible, Raymond E. Brown

* https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/all-the-marys?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#details;
https://dianabutlerbass.com/wp-content/uploads/All-the-Marys-
Sermon.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

All Saint’s Sunday November 6, 2022

Scripture Reading: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

We celebrate the Feast Day of All Saints today. I will always remember this Feast Day well as I think about all the Saints who came to celebrate my ordination to the priesthood on November 1 st , All Saints’ day one year ago. This day for me is wrapped up and inter connected with reflections on what it means to be a priest, a question I hope to not reach definitive conclusions and that I reflect upon for my whole lifetime.

Heather set today’s sermon with a conversation we had on Tuesday. She had been thinking of beloved St. George members such as Madeline since last Sunday when we sang one of Madeline’s hymns. The spirit of All Saints Day was already with Heather, who had the eyes and ears to listen to the Holy Spirit who was calling people to mind for Heather.

As I sit with people who near the end of their life, I am continually awestruck by the depth of people’s faith and am continually reminded that I sit in the presence of Saints. The true heroes, whose whole lives share the faith. Not this glorious, big announcement of faith, but in who they are, the small decisions they’ve made, that lead to big decisions and a way of living, their humble nature and spirit. It is a privilege to be with you. I recently heard from an elderly person: “I have so much to learn from you,” and I said “I have so much to learn from YOU!” As tears welled up in my eyes, as I looked into the eyes of a Saint, who has lived a life time witnessing so much, and living so humbly even in their last final days.

As Anglicans we hold up particular people who have been named as Saints, this is part of who we are as Anglicans. I had a former hairdresser who was Russian Orthodox, and while I was getting my haircut we were talking about Saint Nicholas and I was sharing things I did for my family to celebrate St. Nicholas on December 6th . This was completely foreign to her, and actually a form of idolatry. From her perspective, it was pretty much a sin to acknowledge a Saint because it interfered with praying to Jesus. Which is very much part of the Reformation of the Church in the 1500s when people revolted, lead by Martin Luther who brought awareness to all the issues of the Church in his day, against the Church. This lead to the formation of Protestant theology; the Church of England; and all the denominations that grew from there. Many of the tenets of Catholicism were rejected, which for some included the recognition of Saints. For people who reject the celebration of formal Saints, Anglicans might seem very Catholic. And after a conversation I had with a Catholic friend who is discerning a call to the priesthood, I realized how much I didn’t know about Catholicism, and how NOT Catholic I was.

So as Anglicans we do recognize and celebrate Saints because they provide lived examples of deeply faithful lives and give courage and strength for us to live our lives in their footsteps. The Saints formally recognized reflect the blessings and woes we hear in today’s gospel, which lay out the concerns of daily existence.* And I look to these Saints, and, as I am priest among you, I look to you and see the saintly lives you lead each and every day. I witness people living rich humble lives, loving each other and their neighbour. I witness people loving their church and community committed to its thriving, living, and serving. I witness people whose lives are rooted and shaped by the love of Christ, and who are children of Christ, who make mistakes, who have conflict and disagreement, and thanks be to God for that, being able to have difference of opinion and different perspectives is a sign of strength and health in our ability to work together. You are Holy Saints.

Who are the Saints in your lives? Who are the names and faces who come to mind when you think of Saints? These people can be alive or dead, what about them and the lives they live or lived remind you of a Saint? Are there Saints the church has identified who you want to get to know a bit more? Our church year is filled with commemorating and honouring Saints, get to know them and see if one in particular draws you.

Friday this week is Remembrance Day, and the church celebrates next Sunday as Remembrance Sunday which honours All Souls who have died, and all the men and women who gave their lives for our country. So we have a week bookended with Saints, and All Souls, and Remembrance Day in between.

May you go gently this week as you reflect and honour.

* Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, Volume 28, The Anchor Bible, (New York: Doubleday 1981), 630.

Sunday October 30, 2022

Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 1:4,2:1-4; Psalm 119: 137-144; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10

One of the greatest joys I have as a parent is reading to my children at bedtime. As the kids got older, and we moved to chapter books, a special joy has been pulling out some of my favourites: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, in the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, and The Root Cellar by Janet Lunn, to name a few. What a gift to be able to read these books as an adult. God was certainly not part of my life that I was aware of and goodness knows I had no idea what a priest even was, and, it is no surprise now to see that these books were my favourites. God is at work through these writings for children, and equally so for adults. Because really in many ways they contain all the theology one needs. To heck with degrees, go read those children’s books! Lexie and I are currently reading the Narnia series, and are on the third book (in order of actual publication dates), The Voyage of the Dawntreader. And as I was reading this week’s gospel in Luke, Lexie and I were getting to the chapters on Eustace’s transformation. One of my favourite parts of the whole Narnia series.

Eustace is a cousin of Lucy and Edmund (you may recall Lucy, Edmond, Susan and Peter from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) who are staying with their Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold for the summer. Eustace is a child with advanced thinking parents, who loves knowledge and information, who certainly has no interest in children’s books. And most certainly does not like his cousins. Deep within him he is happy Lucy and Edmund are staying with them so he can boss and bully them. He had mastered the art of kind of being a pest, and upsetting people and getting under people’s skin with unkindness. In classic Narnia fashion, there is painting on the wall of a ship, sailing through waters, and it comes to life. And before the three children know what is happening, they are wet and on the ship, the Dawntreader.

As you may imagine Eustace is not at all pleased with this. He is grumpy about everything. Thinks the ship is insufficient in size and build, thinks that everyone is doing everything wrong, does not understand that King Caspian who young by our standards can be a king, and certainly doesn’t acknowledge Lucy as Queen Lucy and Edmund as King Edmund, for how could they be, they are only children.

The story progresses with Eustace grumbling throughout the whole voyage, until at last they find land. Eustace ever so slightly begins to have a shift in temperament and he goes off to explore and then gets lost. And finds a dragon. But of course, he hasn’t read any children’s books so he has no idea it is a dragon. The dragon is dying, and Eustace finds treasure. He takes pleasure in both the treasure and the dragon’s pain and slow death. He steals a beautiful arm bracelet and puts it on, falls asleep and wakes up the next morning to find he has become a dragon. “He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.” His arm now a leg is burning with pain because the bracelet is cutting into his skin. The story continues for a while and Queen Lucy and King Edmund and the others eventually figure out the dragon is Eustace. Finally, one morning Eustace wakes up Edmund after returning to himself as a boy, and shares his encounter with Aslan. Aslan tells Eustace to undress, but he can’t really because he doesn’t have clothes on. What he needs to undress is the scaly skin trapping and binding him.

Eustace begins by scratching the dragon skin off of him, layer by layer, until Aslan comes and says you will have to let me undress you. The first tear is so painful and deep Eustace thinks it has gone right to his heart, and then Aslan begins pulling the skin off until it is all gone and Eustace is soft skinned again. Then Aslan throws Eustace into a pool of water and dresses him in new clothes. Edmund can even notice Eustace’s laugh changes as he tells the story to Edmund.

The story goes on, and Lexie and I are not finished the book yet, but as I recall Eustace is forever changed. Occasionally slips back into the old Eustace, but with an overall change of heart, comes back to who he is created to be as a child of Christ.

I kept thinking of Zacchaeus, the tax collector all week, the chief tax collector no less, as Eustace. The analogy isn’t full and complete, but in terms of Zacchaeus forever changed because of Jesus, so is true of Eustace. And they’re both unfavourable characters to begin with. And they both serve as models to follow. It takes a lot of courage to have a change of heart.

From Zacchaeus, we learn to cast aside our pride, our status, our self-imposed expectations, and the expectations of others, and climb the tree to see Jesus. Zacchaeus exposes himself to ridicule, he allows himself to be vulnerable.

The crowd in comparison is actually blocking Zacchaeus’ view to see, the crowd is an impediment to the one who desires to see. The crowd can only see their predetermined judgment thatZacchaeus is a sinner, but it is Zacchaeus who rejoices when he sees Jesus. We see in Zacchaeus how his soul magnifies the Lord, he responds to Jesus joyfully. Zacchaeus’ eagerness is highlighted and magnified. It is this joy, this praise, that accomplishes the healing, the effect is immediate.

The character of Zacchaeus is used narratively as a prototypical outcast. He is an outcast as Tax collector, by the disciples, but so too by other tax collectors and Romans. He represents a variety of outcasts, who we see all throughout the Gospel of Luke Jesus constantly talking to, being with, and staying with. Today’s story chooses the tax collector, to be representative of many others.

Prototypical outcasts…can you see Zacchaeus as Eustace, can you see Zacchaues as Jamie who joined us last Sunday? And can you see, for those who know the character of Lucy already from Narnia, Zacchaeus as Lucy?

* C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawntreader. Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co., 1955, 73.

Sunday October 16, 2022

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

When will justice come? When will a wrong be righted? When will creation be cared for? When will all people have enough to eat and a roof over their heads? When will the oppressed be free? When will all people be honoured, acknowledged and respected? How long will it take God? How long do we have to wait and endure the very injustices while we wait? Our enthusiasm and faithfulness is waning, we are growing weary.

Pray always, do not lose heart.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Pray always, do not lose heart.

During the time the evangelist wrote this, generations had passed, and disciples were going weary. In our time, this remains true. Generations pass and we grow weary. Pray always, do not lose heart. We experience the passing of time and undergo persecution of the very things for which we seek justice. This is trying. We are groaning and longing for justice.

We are crying.

Pray always, do not lose heart.

We’re groaning and tired and we’re supposed to listen to the unjust judge? Yes. Because if an insensitive and hardened judge will hear the plea of a widow, how much more we can trust that God will hear the prayers of those who day and night cry for vindication.

Persistence.

May we all be the widow. Who persists and persists and persists. Jesus lifts up the widow, a woman in her day with no money, no power, and uses her as the example to follow. Persistence in terms of the justice she was seeking, and also as an example for the persistence in prayer.

Pray always, do not lose heart.

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? This is the closing question.

How do we answer yes to this closing question?

The closing is filled with our opening. A Yes is filled with praying always and not losing heart. A Yes is filled with prayer that is not superfluous where God is expected to swoop in with a magic wand and fix injustices without any action on our part, or have quick and easy solutions for whatever our prayers are

about. A Yes is filled with prayer that is deep and honest, and is part of each decision and action we make and take. A Yes is praying for the words to come for an apology; praying before, during, and after meetings; praying while writing letters to MLAs; praying while meeting with friends; praying before responding to your kids when they’ve done something; praying before sending messages. A Yes then begins to be filled with prayer that is transformative. That does bring about change, that does bring about vindication, that does bring about justice.

Pray always, do not lose heart.

Thanks be to God.

Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday October 9, 2022

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 100; Philippians 4:4-9; John 6:25-35

A psalm of thanksgiving where all lands are summoned to praise God, a call to the nations to worship the Lord, which refrains the Deuteronomistic reading of thanksgiving. You can see why these readings were chosen for Harvest Thanksgiving. In the psalm we hear seven invitations to worship: be joyful (make a joyful noise in other translations), worship, come, know, enter, give thanks, and bless (other translations say bless). I would add serve to that list actually, to serve is an invitation as well. Serving God is an invitation to a life of thanksgiving and blessing.

So let us be joyful in the Lord! Let us make a joyful noise to our Creator! Let us sing a song deep within our hearts. Let us sing a song with our minds. Let us sing a song with our bodies. Let us sing a song with our voice. Let us sing a song with our actions. Let us serve our God! Let us enter God’s gates and courts! Let us call upon God’s name! God is steadfast. God is faithful. God is with us from generation to generation. The psalm invites us into a life of thanksgiving.

It is a prayer to begin each day with. Psalm 100 is our Jubilation, our joyous song or outburst of joy. No surprise it’s the psalm that is prayed in the daily office in morning prayer. You may recall it from our online morning prayer services. We hear much about an attitude of gratitude, which is often shared through tips of how to be thankful in your days, tips on how to form a mindset of gratitude, but much is geared towards, developing, something we’re working towards and then accomplishing, this attitude of gratitude. However, when your life is a song singing the joy of the Lord, it’s not something you work towards, it’s like living in prayer, living knowing, trusting, you are deeply loved. Thanksgiving simply flows out, because your being sings a song to the Lord. You live in thanksgiving.

Our reading in Deuteronomy comes at the end of fourteen chapters, 12 through 26, outlining the Deuteronomic Code. A code similar but different from the Covenant Code which was written by Moses. The Deuteronomist wrote the Deuteronomic Code. The word “Deuteronomy” is “eleh ha-devarim” in Hebrew, which means “these are the words”. In Ancient Greek, it is “Deuteronómion” which means “second law”; or “a copy of this law”, signifying a re-telling of God’ laws. In essence, that is what the book does: it is a retelling, a repetition, or a reminder of the covenant that God made with God’s people. It represents the law as interpreted by the 7th Century BCE historians, the Deuteronomists.

It laid out codes that Israelites were to strive for, more of a utopian vision, not necessarily what was occurring. In this final chapter 26, the first portion, we learn of the law of the first fruits, the law of the harvest, and the presentation of the first fruits. The connection between our psalm and this passage from Deuteronomy becomes clear at this point. Bringing some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling place for you is done in thanksgiving, in praise. They were laws grounded in thanksgiving and praise. It is important to remember that there was no separation of religion and government, in fact this was right around the time monarchy was being moved toward and created. How we define religion, government, politics, those are terms, vocabulary, that didn’t exist, nor was their separation. How society was organized, governed, and lived, was simply rooted in a religious understanding.

So our psalm, the jubilate, reflects the thanksgiving and praise nature of the presentation of the firsts fruits. It puts a song to an act, an act done in song. What would it be like to bring to God the first fruits of the ground in terms of our lives? In terms of the hours of our day? Bring the first hour of the day for prayer for example. Time is what came to mind for me, because time is so precious. And we know it is God’s time. I’m always fighting with the chronological clock of time, so this struck me as a reminder calling me to bring the first time of my day to God in prayer. What comes to mind for you? What first fruits can you give to God?

God chooses our dwelling place, a dwelling place for God’s name. You are a dwelling place. Bringing our time in prayer is a place where God dwells. Bringing the first of ourselves, our best, our soul which reflects the light of Christ, is where God dwells.

Thanks be to God.

Trinity Sunday June 12, 2022

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Trinity Sunday.  A feast day when all the threads of what we have been living for weeks now in our readings, come together.   The doctrine of the Trinity, Trinitarian theology, what the Church hashed out at the ecumenical Councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon, Constantinople and Ephesus, looking at the divine nature of Christ, in the fourth and fifth centuries CE, spear headed by those such as Saint Athanasius in rejection to the Arian contention that Jesus was a created being.   Trinitarian doctrine, beliefs formally professed and upheld by the Church, was not formalised at the time of the writing of our scriptures, nor during the time of the people living whose stories are recounted.   It is important to remember this came one and two hundred years later.  Followers of the way, were simply living their lives, doing their thing.   They did not know about the Trinity, they just knew they had met, or heard the stories passed down depending on which community and timeframe we’re referring to, of a man who was crucified and died, whose tomb was empty three days later, and then who lived among them again, and left again.  Sending the Holy Spirit to remain.  It was a not a doctrinal living, or doctrinal beliefs or actions, it was simply their lived experience, their life.   People were just living, it is the institution of the Church that needed to clarify and cement the nature of Christ because of all the various claims, arguments and disputes.  Not believing in the divine nature of Christ was then considered heresy.  In this it is important to remember that again this is a label that was developed by the Church, when in fact those such as Arius were Christian presbyters, who simply had a different belief.  And, when Christianity was becoming a formalised religion, and the Church a formalised institution, lines did need to be drawn, beliefs did need to be stated.

I share all of this, simply to provide a bit of context, a bit of the conversation into which we enter.  So here we are today, marking as a Church, Trinity Sunday.  Core tenets of our faith as Christians.   Lest we not get lost down the rabbit hole of preaching through the lens of doctrine that has become background wall paper to us now, just automatic understanding to our faith, our scriptures tell us explicitly this is for the nitty-gritty of life[1] and reality living[2].

We are invited into a blending of life and doctrine with the question our texts calls us into: what is trinitarian living? A question I’ve mulled about all week, frankly thinking: I don’t know!!  Go ask someone else.   But it is a question that has niggled at me all week, slowly percolating.

When I think about the Trinity the book The Shack[3] comes to mind.  A book some put down, a book I really enjoyed, because of how the author imagined and brought to life the Trinity.  What I most enjoyed was seeing a representation of the relationship of the Trinity.   To see God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit working together to bring Mack out of the depths of his despair, being present with Mack, being in conversation with Mack, guiding Mack.   And Mack’s resistance, and then Mack’s listening and acceptance.  And I appreciate hearing about how the Church has let people down, through the story shared about Mack when he was thirteen with his drunken church-elder father, beating him and quoting bible verses as he did so, and continues to for many.  I have friends to this day who have experienced physical and sexual abuse themselves and their children, have been told to forgive their spouse by their pastor, by their Church, and to reconcile.  That does not delight God nor is the life God intends for us, nor is what the sacrament of Marriage is about.   So the book in my opinion, talks about many important things.  But I digress.

Relationship.  This is where I am landing when I think about Trinitarian living.  It has something to do with relationship, and, the uncreated cores of our being.  God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, are in relation, and are uncreated.  They are three in one and one in three.  What does Trinitarian living look like in the nitty-gritty of our daily lives?  In the packing of lunches and getting the kids off to school?  In the packing up of a home and moving? In the daily demands of our jobs, of our volunteer commitments?  In the daily living of caring for our loved ones? In the daily living of aging and coming to terms with changing health and abilities?  First and foremost, it has something to do with trusting we are not alone.  We do not live our lives alone.  Through the Holy Spirit, God is always there. Jesus is beside us, within us and among us all the time.  When we make decisions, and pray about them, we enter the Trinitarian relationship and the Trinity becomes part of our decisions.  When we meet a friend, we are in relation to that friend.  When we meet as parish Council, we come together and are in relation to one another in our meeting.  Even those who live a celibate and monastic life, live a life in community, in relation to each other.  When we come together to worship, we are in relation to one another and to God.  When we pray alone at home, we are both praying individually and corporally, especially when we follow the hours of the day praying, such as morning and evening prayer.  Our prayers join others around the world who are also praying the hours of the day.  Just like the Trinity, we too are in relation all the time.  In relation to God, to each other, to the world around us.

Trinitarian living also has something to do with being aware that although we are created, and are human, we also have an uncreated part of our being.  Which perhaps is part of the relationship.  Our hearts, our souls, our creativity, our questioning and thinking, our curiosity, all connect to our uncreated core being.

Trinitarian living also has something to do with living with an understanding that it is not all about us.  That we are not at the center of our lives, that the world does not revolve around us. That all the self-help books proclaiming I am in charge of my happiness, do not speak to the depth of joy that is with us in our deepest moments of grief, our deepest moments of hardship.

I’ve chosen the Creed of Saint Athanasius today.  It’s a bit long and archaic in its language at times, and is completely doctrinal.  I invite you though to enter the doctrine with a living approach.  It repeatedly teaches the Trinity.  And then we turn around apply that to our lives.

The question for this week is what is Trinitarian living for you?  How do you see the Trinity at work in your life or how is the Trinity a part of your life?

Pentecost, Sunday June 5th, 2022

Scripture Reading: Genesis 11:1-9; Psalm 104:25-35,37b; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-12, 25-27

VOICES RISE – A Poem By: Joy De Vito

A rush of wind scatters the strategic plans and negotiators scramble to escape.

They breathe a sigh of relief as the flames pass by.

Then voices rise in a surge that threatens the future of the godly church-nation:

Mohawk

Oneida

Onondaga

Cayuga

Seneca

Tuscarora

Treaties, proclamations, deeds, taken as opportunities to contain

Six Nations in one pleasing package called “Indigenous Peoples.”

Yet documents are not enough to restrain the sound.

The fearful dismiss the prophets as disruptors of the peace or fools.

But ultimately, the easiest way forward is to suggest a bottle in their hand and assume that new language is the same as the smell of booze on breath.

But what if some in the room heard a gift?

There would be no hierarchy of holiness, no assigned seating, as the growing chorus of voices

sought one another out.

Wampum remembered and treasured might not bring ease but could invite open comfort with the truth, measured by relationships not land.

Yet the spirit-infused sound was interrupted.

Tongues were silenced. And nations were inexorably cornered into one small portion of the promised land.

The alternative seems straightforward when cultural festivals on stolen ground offer

an illusion of community life. But shared food, resources, care, and sorrow

are only experienced when the voices are first heard.

Mohawk

Oneida

Onondaga

Cayuga

Seneca

Tuscarora

Listen.

This poem comes from Unsettling the Word, Biblical Experiments in Decolonization.[1]  The Holy Spirit is unsettling.  Jesus is unsettling.  Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit, for she unsettles our thinking.  She can move us in directions we don’t necessary want to go.  She questions, disrupts, and gives birth to different thinking.  This is not easy.  This is hard when routines, and structures, and rhythms are established.  And all you want to do is hold on.  But the Holy Spirit can not be held.  This happens to the best of us.  Our diocese has operated one way for a long time, our National Church has operated one way for a long time, and yet we know there is not only one way of doing things.  But even for those whose mind is open, it is still difficult when people come along doing things differently and asking different questions.  AND, thanks be to God, we would simply die a slow death, or a fast death, whatever the case may be.

I hear the spirit in this poem, because it’s like we hear in Acts.  The poem is speaking in tongues.  This is a different way of thinking about tongues.  What if tongues can also be a metaphor for saying things that others don’t understand or don’t hear, or don’t want to hear.  We speak in different tongues, different languages, both metaphorically and literally.   Our communities, our provinces, our country and our world are filled with different tongues.  And yet through the spirit, we are united.   This poem speaks in a language, spirit filled, that reveals the spirit at work.  The author is saying things that are difficult to hear.  The author is saying things that shake understandings.  The author uses the power of voice to communicate thinking that needs to change.  She communicates in a way that helps others understand.  She reveals the brokenness in the system that condemned a people.  By speaking she takes a step forward to unity.

The breath of God, the Holy Spirit is described as a violent wind, and it fills the entire house.  It fills the entire house.  And it is violent.  It’s not some warm summer breeze gently kissing your cheek.  No, it is rush of violent wind. Tongues as of fire appear and rest on each of the apostles and they all begin to speak in other languages as the spirit gives them the ability.   We are united because the spirit fills the entire house.  House is a power metaphor in the bible, that we hear frequently.  We live in God’s house, and we are united just as God and Jesus are one, through the power of the Holy Spirit.    Imagine what the world would be like if we truly lived as though we were united.  Imagine what the world would be like if we truly respected the other, and did not try to change the other.

I want to pull out the theme of sound that comes through in the description of the spirit.  The rush of the violent wind, speaking, tongues, languages, voices, these all echo and reflect sound.  And the partner of sound?  We hear Peter say it: listen.  Listen to the prophets speaking.   So we have this beautiful imagery of sound:  Loud, violent, fiery, difference, multiple languages, voices.  And the response:  listen.  And the act? The result? Unity.

This week I invite you to listen to the people or an item you hear being discussed that bothers you the most.  Or that hurts you the most, as in your heart.   Something that is so hard to hear, you just want turn the radio off, turn the tv off.  Do we want to hear about the shootings in Texas?  No.  Do we need to hear about the shootings in Texas? Yes.  Listen to the people talking.  Listen to the person who most bothers you and consider their perspective.   Do we want to accept, acknowledge and take responsibility for how indigenous peoples have been treated?  Our prides probably want to say no because it is hard, because it makes us feel a little sick to our stomachs.   And the way to move forward is to listen. And then use your voice to stand up with your indigenous brothers and sisters when the opportunity presents itself.

The Third Sunday of Easter, May 1st, 2022

Scripture Reading: Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

Here I am, Lord. “Here I am, Lord.” Ananias’ words in response to the call of the Lord.  “Here I am, Lord.”  Here I am, Lord we have heard also from other call stories, such as Isaiah.   These are such small and few words, yet, enormous and plentiful, a life altering response.  Saul often receives the most attention in this story, and yet it is Ananias who responds first, and it is through Ananias’ response that Saul moves from blindness to sight.  Saul is struck from blindness and only receives his sight through someone else’s call, through someone else’s response, through someone else saying “Here I am, Lord.”  Saul receives his sight, and, is also filled with the Holy Spirit.  Immediately something like scales fall from his eyes and he regains his sight.  Then he rises and is baptized, and is strengthened with food.  This is such a powerful story because among many things, it conveys the significance of God working through each other, building each other up, and building community.   And we are strengthened by what we are fed.

We also hear God revealing God’s self to Saul through a voice.  And others heard.  A theme of revelation carries forward in our gospel through Christ revealing himself in his physicality.  And people see.

A relationship with Christ comes in more ways than one.

Here I am, Lord.

In this glorious season of Easter, let us all say, Here I am, Lord.   Here I am Lord.   We are here to do your will Lord.   We are here to do your will Lord.  Let our identity of who we are as your people, as your Easter people, be continually molded and guided.

Let us live with Easter joy and Easter abundance.  Let us live deeply into this Easter joy and Easter abundance during these great fifty days of Easter.  Let us be clothed in this Easter splendour and rooted in your radiance, so that it becomes part of the air we breathe.  And that when we come to the end of these treasured fifty days, we leave having been nourished and fed by the miracle of Easter, and we leave this precious time carrying forward courage and strength to be an Easter people in the world around us.

A life with Christ is a life of joy and abundance.  Where we eat breakfast each morning with Christ, whether it be simple a breakfast or an extravagant breakfast.  It is being invited to the table in our own homes, to eat abundantly and exuberantly, because we sit down to our tables with Christ.  And then we gather with other and eat with Christ.  A life in Christ is abundant because it changes all that we have and that we do.  The joy and abundance of God’s gift is available in the risen Christ just as was in the incarnate Christ.  We are sent as individuals, as community, as a church, grounded in an experience of God’s fullness and unprecedented, and unexpected gift.[1]   A life in Christ is filled with bountiful provisions, that manifest themselves in ways we often can not touch or see, but the bounty is in our hearts.   Bounty is not in the cars we drive, it is in how we live.   Bounty and plenty, abundance, come because we know Jesus, and if we do not, we are invited to know Jesus.  We are invited to share in the gift of Jesus’ life in love.  It is in our love for Christ that he continues to be fully known.  To love Jesus is to know Jesus, because to love Jesus is to shape one’s life according to Jesus’ life.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!  Let us ring our bells loud and clear, bountifully, plentifully and abundantly.  Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!

Resources:

O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX.  Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Soards, Marion and Thomas Dozeman and Kendall McCabe.  Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C.  Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994.

[1] Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) 864.

 The Second Sunday of Easter, Octave Day of Easter, April 24, 2022

Also: A celebration of Earth Day 2022 and St. George

Scripture Reading: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

We are marking a number of things today: today is the Octave Day of Easter; today we mark as a church, Earth Day which was on the 22nd; and today, for our parish specifically, we mark St. George a saint whose commemoration day was yesterday in the Anglican Church.  As our patron saint, a bit of a feast day for us.  So, a number of occasions intersecting.  I invite us to look through this confluence of occasions through a baptismal lens, vows which we renewed during The Great Vigil of Easter.

Octave means an eight-day celebration, the prolongation of a feast to the eighth day inclusive. The feast itself is considered the first day, and it is followed by six days called “days within the octave.” The eighth or octave day is kept with greater solemnity than the “days within the octave.” [1] So the Easter Octave begins on Easter Sunday and ends on the Second Sunday of Easter.  The Easter Octave gives us time to impress upon our souls the mysteries, joys and graces of the greatest feast of the Church. Each day of the Octave we are invited to dwell on the mysteries of the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection through the sacrament of Baptism.   It has been like resting in this glow, this ray of light, that infuses all aspects of life, all this past week.  An energy that is life giving, even while you sleep.  As we transition out of this Octave and live into the fifty days of Easter, which bring us to Pentecost, and then move into the time of Pentecost, of Ordinary time, let us continually be awed by the mystery of the resurrection, continually live into this mystery, and continually live out our baptismal vows.  Let us be continually guided by this light which does not extinguish.

As we gather on this Octave Day, we mark both Earth Day and commemorate St. George.  Celebrating Earth Day on Octave Day really lifts up living into our baptismal vows.  In the next fifty days let us really take to heart, take time to reflect upon and deepen all our baptismal vows.  For those who were unable to attend Saturday’s The Great Vigil of Easter, here is a portion of our baptismal vows:

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?  As we acknowledge Earth Day let us listen again to the final vow: Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth? We replied on Saturday night with: I will, with God’s help.  I invite you now, to say: I will, with God’s help.    I will, with God’s help.

It has taken so long to get to this point, the point of no longer debating and arguing whether we have global warming, whether we have an environmental crisis.  We give thanks to pioneers such as Rachel Carson, in her 1962 book Silent Spring, where she called for humans to act responsibly, carefully, and as stewards of the living earth.[2]  Her words sure seem to echo our vows.  Do we strive for perfection?  No, I don’t think perfection is possible.  Perfection exists in the Trinity alone.  What we can do is our best in the day-to-day decisions we make.  And be part of larger group, community and social actions.  Do I drive a car to work? Yes.  Do I wish I drove an electric vehicle? Yes?  Can I afford an electric vehicle?  No.  Today, let us remember we are stewards of creation.  We take vows to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation.  Do we aim for perfection? No.  Do we aim to make a difference? Yes.  Do we aim to safeguard God’s creation in as many ways as possible in our daily decisions? Yes.   Let us let the vows we take shape all that we are, and all that we do.

As we think about our vows today and in the next fifty days, let us think about George, Patron Saint of England, a Martyr in the fourth century.  Few saints have been as widely popular as the martyr named George, a Roman soldier who suffered for the faith in the early fourth century. The circumstances of his martyrdom are obscure, but we know that the Roman authorities were worried by the number of soldiers who were secret Christians and took harsh measures against them. The situation was all the more remarkable because at that time soldiering was still one of the careers which the Church did not allow its members to follow — so that George was not baptized when he died. It was not unusual for people in his circumstances to delay baptism until they had retired from active service. But the Church believed that, by his martyrdom, George had (if anything) a better kind of baptism, because he shared in the suffering and death of Christ himself. In later centuries, as his cult spread westwards, George became the model of a perfect Christian warrior — just the sort of figure that appealed to medieval English kings when they placed their wars of conquest under his protection. That is how St. George came to be invoked as the patron saint of England. But another and far more widespread tradition has seen him as the pattern of what it means to be a Christian in the world — as an image of every Christian’s daily warfare against the forces of sin, ignorance, fear, and injustice.[3]  What is described of George seems to be an embodiment of our baptismal vows.

As we move forward into the Easter season, as we live in community with each other having Jesus with us for a short while, let us remember to not hold on to Jesus, to be Christ’ Easter people, to receive the peace of Christ, to receive the Holy Spirit, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers, to persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being, and to strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth.

[1] https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/easter-octave/, accessed April 22, 2022

[2] http://rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx, accessed April 22, 2022.

[3] Taken from For All the Saints, Anglican Church of Canada.

Easter Sunday 2022

Scripture Reading: John 20:1-18

Do Not Hold Me As of Good Friday, April 14th, in the Ukraine 1,964 adults have been killed, 161 children, have been killed, 4.1 million people have fled seeking refuge, and 379, 000 adults and 121, 000 children have been deported to Russian.[1]  In the last 16 months over 500, 000 people have died in Ethiopia in the Tigray War.[2]

How can I stand here and say these statistics without falling apart?  How do we hope in a world fighting and filled with anger, hatred, violence, oppression, colonialism, ultimately conflict about power?  Because I stand as a child of Christ, I hope because of the resurrection.  Death does not have power over us.  In ways I am not able to possibly ask or imagine, the tomb is empty.

I am with May weeping and staring into the empty tomb heartbroken.

And I am staring right now at the faces of Christ in each and every one of you.

I weep with Mary because the body of my Lord has been taken away and I do not know where they have laid him.

I am with Mary as she turns and sees someone thinking he is the gardener, “Please tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him…”  And then I am with Mary and hear her name being called.  “Mary.”  And then we know.  It is Jesus.  How can this be possible?  Mary knows without hesitation because she has been called by name.

And what is the next thing Jesus says?  Do not hold me.

Do not hold me.

Do not hold me.

And my heart breaks all over again.  I go from that moment of amazement, euphoria, relief, thinking that everything could be just as it was, that perhaps the death could just be reversed, and that I could have Jesus just I want him.

But you know, I know, we know together, this is not possible.  We don’t get to turn back time.   We don’t get to keep Jesus just for ourselves.

Isn’t this how it is in life? The more we cling to what we want, what we want to control, the more we need to let go.  Easter asks us to let go, to stop clinging.  Easter asks us to pry our finger tips from our ‘right’ness.  The I am ‘right’ and you are ‘wrong’.  The I ‘know’ and you do not ‘know’.   Before we know it we’re in this quest of ownership of knowledge, of deciding what truth is, of deciding what ‘right’ness is, of what righteousness is.

We begin to mold ideas and truths to suit or own needs.  We begin to mold Jesus to who we want him to be and what we want him to do for us.   At this point we actually block out Jesus and do not allow him in.  There’s no room at the inn.  The rooms are all full.  There’s no room for God.

Do not hold me.

Do not cling.

Could our international wars and conflicts be because people are clinging to what they think their countries should look like?  Have millions have people died and suffered and continue to suffer and die because the leaders cling tight to what they think is right?  Easter asks us globally to look at where we cling and individually where we cling.  What do you cling to in your own lives? Where do block the hope that is dying to spring forth?  Death does not have power over us, and, we do not get to turn back time.  Hope springs forth.  It is unstoppable.

It is the hope in Christ that gives the courage to see the atrocities in our communities, in our country, and internationally.  It is the hope in Christ that allows us to feel and experience suffering.  It is the hope in Christ that keeps us awake and our eyes open.  It is the hope in Christ that calls us out of silence.  It is the hope in Christ that flings the doors open and wide.

The tomb is empty.  Jesus is beside us.  And, do not hold on.  Jesus will ascend.  And, be with us in ways we can not possibly ask or image.  The tomb is empty.   And, I am looking at Christ in you sitting before me.

Resources:

O’Day, Gail R.  “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX.  Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Williams, Rowan.  Choose Life, Christmas and Easter Sermons in Canterbury Cathedral.  London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

[1] Statistics provided by a recent presentation given by Kate Woodman on Good Friday, April 14th, 2022.

[2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-tigray-war-has-seen-up-to-half-a-million-dead-from-violence-and/

The Great Vigil of Easter 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 24:1-12

The first service of Easter, the first service entering with the women finding the tomb empty in the early dawn.  This is the third part of our triduum we have been living out these last three days.  A three-day service.  So here we are standing with Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women.  I don’t know much beyond this point really, of staring into the tomb, and seeing it empty.  A man was killed and buried, and the tomb is empty.  These are things I know; the rest is a mystery.  I stand with the women staring in disbelief and amazement, in a stunned silence, and disbelief.  And then messengers from the heavenly realm, angels, with dazzling clothes, arrive delivering the Easter announcement.  “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise.”  I turn around to tell others in a stunned telling.  But then I stand also with Peter, disbelieving what I’ve just been told from the women, and then running into the tomb, stooping and looking in, and seeing the linen clothes by themselves, and going home amazed at what has happened.  Because what we’re asked to believe is really earth shattering, is something so unreal that this spark of doubt continues to push up.

I read this recently in a thirty-day meditation series I’m doing:

The amount of real trust we have in God is sometimes best measured by the depth of doubt and the seriousness of the questions with which we are willing to live.

So I say, go ahead question and doubt.  Death does not have power over us.  Doubt does not have power over us. Questioning is life.  Questioning defies death.  Perhaps doubt serves a purpose.   Questions manifest partly because of doubt. In some ways courage manifests because of doubt.  Perhaps doubt reveals hidden curiosities, which pave the way for imagination.  I’m not saying doubt is necessary or mandatory and we need to doubt, but rather than shoving it down, why don’t we live into those moments of doubt, and allow the questions that come to arise.    Curiosity can bring about the really big question, courage can come from curiosity…what if this whole resurrection business is real?   Do we dare ask that question?  Do we dare to imagine? What if we meet Jesus all the time, and just like the women, don’t know it, don’t recognize Jesus?  This is the part in the passage that comes after where our reading ends, where Cleopas is walking and talking to Jesus and doesn’t know it.  What if Jesus is walking beside us and talking to us in the places and people we least expect? What if Jesus is working through a friend, or colleague, or someone you don’t really know, and shares something new with you, and to you, and confronts you with something you hadn’t thought before?  What if Jesus is working through the friend that holds your hand when a love one dies?  What if Jesus is working through the person that drives you nuts who you don’t like?  What if Jesus is in the moments where time stands still and things that shouldn’t be possible miraculously come together and be possible?  What if Jesus works through us, in us, and around us all the time?

          As we renew our baptismal vows tonight, let us renew our vows and lean into the questions, lean into deepening our faith, lean into who we are called to be.   Let us lean on Jesus who walks with us whether we believe it or not.  And then, let us be filled with curiosity and courage and dare to believe the unbelievable.

Good Friday 2022

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrew 10:16-25; John 19:17-30

Today is a hard day. Today is the day I would rather avoid.  Today is a day that when you allow yourself to step into the pain and suffering of the journey of the cross, and enter with Jesus into his death, his crucifixion, you may find yourself weeping.  A weeping though out of compassion and empathy, not sympathy, a weeping out of compassion, not fear.  For it is Jesus who weeps in anger at the power death has, we heard back in the story of Lazarus.   He is angry at the fear death instills in people, he is angry at the power death has over people.  For the disciples do not know what is to come at that point.  They do not understand that his hour has not arrived, or what his hour means.

We do.

We have the benefit of time, and being the readers to whom the author of John writes.  So, perhaps we too weep out of anger, anger at what has happened, anger at the death of a man who was so threatening to the power of his day, so disruptive to all the thinking, the institutions and structures of his day, that he was hung and nailed to a cross.   Jesus’ hour has come, and we now enter into the hour, into his death.

A detail in the author of John’s account of the crucifixion is her description that Jesus carries the cross by himself, different than we hear with Simon of Cyrene in the other gospels.  And, we do not receive a description of who hangs with Jesus, as we do in the synoptic gospels.  We hear simply, and succinctly, that “with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.”  Through this narrowing, the author of John sharpens the focus, intensifies it, to be solely on Jesus.  Perhaps this is because she is drawing out our personal relationship to Jesus which is one of the overarching themes of John, for her purpose that we may believe.  Perhaps she is drawing out Jesus’ authority that he is in total command of the events of the hour.[1]   The inscriptions written recalls back the lifting up of Jesus on the cross, that he is exalted as king.  This is another difference in John’s Gospel, she does not have the conversation of Jesus with Pilate regarding his kingship.   It was common in those days for the notice, the inscription, the titulus, that had the criminals’ charges inscribed, to be worn around their neck on the way to their place of execution.  So we see here the charges being turned on their head: it is a criminal offense to claim to be a King when it’s someone other than the King, (that’s my interpretation of the charges because I wondered what exactly were the charges?) yet it is the very lifting, this very exultation, that on the cross Jesus is revealed as the “Saviour of the world.”  “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (heard back 12:32 and 11:52).  Jesus’ kingship is like no other.

          Jesus’ crucifixion also brings together a different meaning of family.  “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.”  This is God’s new family.  A divine and yet incarnate family.  A family that is like no other.  A kingdom that is like no other.  The events of Jesus’ hour, his death, resurrection, and ascension, bring this new family into being, into reality.  A heaven here on earth.

          So today, we stand as Christ’s family with Jesus at his death, at his hour.  We mourn and grieve together.  Today we suffer with Christ as he is exalted on the cross.  Today is a day we do not avoid.  Today is a day that actually gives us the capacity for suffering in our own lives.  Today is a day there are not enough words to express God’s love, Christ’s love, for us.

[1] Gail O’Day, “The Gospel of John” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 830.

Maundy Thursday April 14, 2022

Scripture Reading: Exodus 12: 1-14; Psalm 116:1,10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17,31b-35

Jesus’ hour has come.  The author of John has been building us up to this point, the polemic of the Gospel, written so that we may believe, is centered upon this phrase, ‘the hour’, is centered upon the imminence of ‘the hour’, and our first verse tonight marks its arrival.  And defines again exactly what Jesus’ hour is: to depart from this world and go to the Father, and is the full expression of Jesus’ love.   Everything we read tonight in our gospel is situated at Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, a meal that in John, is described as the last meal before the festival of Passover.  The chronology of events in John are different than in the synoptic gospels.  Something I actually love about our sacred texts, all throughout, is that the differences and conflicts are not washed over, the attempt was not made to harmonize.  All the differences are there in black and white.  It’s actually our interpretation of how we have absorbed them in society where the harmonization has occurred.  A guest speaker in a class I took on inter-faith religions, a Rabbi, spoke about living in the white space around the black letters we read on a page.

So we exist tonight in one of these tensions, these differences.  There is no ‘correct’ chronology of the dates and events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion.  Both chronologies have mountains of scholarly support and theological evidence.  Both chronologies imbue the death of Jesus with symbolic significance vis-à-vis the Passover.[1]  The difference is in the synoptic chronology the symbolism of Jesus and the Passover is that the institution of the eucharist is the Passover meal, where as in John, the symbolism comes from linking the crucifixion of Jesus with the slaughter o the Passover lambs.  So does this matter to us today?  Yes.  It matters in our understanding of whether we as Christians host a seder meal.  A practice many, many, churches, including ours, have done, and some continue to do.    A practice I have received a few emails forwarded of a letter written from an episcopal bishop banning seder meals.  Such a practice is not evidenced in John’s Gospel, and with all the cultural learning we have experienced over the years, it would also be a form of cultural appropriation.  Does it mean we’ve done something bad, something wrong in the past? No.  It’s just a sign of how information, learning, interpretation and understanding evolve over time.  The questioning and learning around this is a sign of humility and growth, growing more and more into God’s image and likeness. It matters in our inter-faith relations with our brother and sisters of all faiths.  It matters in our ability to question and think.  It is better to acknowledge these differences, that seem on the surface to be just chronological differences superficial in a way, that actually have huge impacts.   That raise deep questions.  With no definitive answers.  Or answers to which we may each arrive differently.

Tonight, we hear two of the four interlocking pieces that the author of John puts together depicting the events at Jesus’ farewell meal.   The two pieces we hear tonight are the foot washing and the love commandment and the prophecy of Peter’s denial (which carries on to verse 38).  We do not get to hear, so it’s important to identify the two missing pieces, verses 12-20, the discourse by Jesus on communal service, and verses 21-30, where Jesus prophesies his betrayal.  I had a professor who really dislikes, to put it mildly, the lectionary for this reason, because it cuts chunks out.  So I’ll at least identify those are the sections we do not hear.  The dominant themes the author of John highlights throughout these four interlocking pieces as part of the farewell meal are discipleship and the tension between Jesus’ gift of himself in love and the betrayal and rejection of that gift by those whom Jesus loves.[2]

Our focus is on the foot washing and the new commandment.   The foot washing is another difference between the Gospel of John and the synoptic gospels, it is only in John.  Which fits from what I’ve come to learn about the author’s portrayal of the Johannine community that we spoke about a couple Sundays ago…that it is one of the more egalitarian communities we read about in the New Testament.  The foot washing communicates so much.  It is on one level about service, love, humility, hospitality, discipleship; by having a towel tied around himself, Jesus is both the servant and host, an interesting and odd combination.   And it also is used to describe Jesus’ death, Jesus’ hour.  The removal of Jesus’ clothes links to the laying down of his life, the gift of Jesus’ life.  The wiping that we also heard about a couple weeks ago connects to the anointing of a body for burial.   The foot washing points to the fullness of the relationship we have with God.  The hospitality we have with God.  It draws the disciple into the love that marks God’s and Jesus’ relationship to each other and to the world.[3]   The foot washing is a significant piece of sacred text that I’m really just scratching the surface of.

I’ll close with the ending of our reading, the new commandment.  The commandment to love is not what’s new, because that commandment lies at the heart of the Torah, what is new is that the commandment to love derives from the incarnation.  The new is that Jesus’ own are asked to enter into the love that marks the relationship of God and Jesus.  Our participation in this relationship will be evidenced the same way that Jesus’ is: by acts of love that join the believer to God.

I leave you with this short poem by Mary Oliver and invite you to close your eyes:

It seems you love this world very much. “Yes,” I said.  “This beautiful world.” And you don’t mind that mind, that keeps you busy all the time with its dark and bright wonderings? “No, I’m quite used to it.  Busy, busy, all the time.” And you doing mind living with those questions, I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer? “Actually, they’re the most interesting.” And you have a person in your life whose hand you like to hold? “Yes, I do.” It must surely, then, be very happy down there in your heart. “Yes,” I said. “It is.”

[1 Gail O’Day, “The Gospel of John” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 719.

[2 O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible, 720.

[3]O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible, 722.

The Sunday of the Passion

Palm Sunday – Scripture Reading: Luke 19: 28-40; Isaiah 50: 4-9; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49

The king enters Jerusalem riding on a borrowed donkey.  And so begins Holy Week. This beautiful, sacred time, in our church calendar.   There’s a Latin expression which captures, I think, a core tenet of Anglicanism: Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.  The law of what is prayed is the law of what is believed.  What we pray is what we believe.  Over time this has expanded to Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi: the law of what is prayed is the law of what is believed is the law of what is lived.  We actually enter the journey of the cross each week, and pray our beliefs, as we come together and share our liturgy in worship together.  The words we say, the meal we share and participate in, and the community we form, is remembering and participating in our story.  We live the journey of the cross each Sunday.  Today though, is a marked invitation to enter the journey of the cross on a larger scale, on a scale where we’ll embody, we’ll act, and we’ll experience, our story throughout this week.  This allows us to participate in, even more deeply, our story, our identity.

What we pray is what we believe is what we live.

Today is a funny day because we recognize two parts: we recognize the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and then we jump to the passion, to the crucifixion.  One of the reasonings I’ve heard about this, and it may be anecdotal, is that it was recognized that people didn’t always come to the Good Friday service and therefore would miss the passion, miss the crucifixion.  So it was built into Palm Sunday to ensure the crucifixion is not skipped over. We are not able to get to Easter without experiencing the crucifixion.   In our own lives the metaphor rings true, do we get to the resurrection, without the crucifixion?  Do we get to growth? Do we get to healing?  Without a dismantling? Without dealing with issues, relationships, events, that caused the pain, the agony?  No.  Crucifixion comes in many forms; resurrection comes in many forms.

So here we have Jesus riding on a donkey.  Luke has used the motif, a well-established type scene of the day, of an entrance procession for a king, to depict Jesus coming into Jerusalem.  However, Luke has changed small but important details, for our understanding of Jesus.  Jesus rides on a donkey rather than a war horse, and a donkey on which no one has previously sat.  And it is the disciples who set Jesus on it.   A donkey conveys a very different understanding of kingship, a humility we see time and again of Jesus.  And yet, Jesus’ authority is not weak or lacking.  It is simply humble.  Because Christ’s authority comes not from him, but through his divine nature, through God.  Jesus’s humility and authority comes from God’s will.  Jesus’ life is lived and given in service to God.   Jesus’s disciples are laying cloaks, which are not expensive garments but tattered shawls and dusty, sweat-stained rags, out for him, again an element of a processional motif, and their praise, and the humility of those who followed Jesus.  Their praise can be seen as an antiphonal response, a refrain, to the multitude of the heavenly host announcing Christ’s birth, the heavenly chorus proclaiming Christ’s divinity.

Jesus sends two disciples to secure the donkey, yet he is not climbing up on the donkey himself, the disciples lay a cloak on the donkey, and put Jesus on it, set him on it.  This conveys a relationship between the disciples and Jesus.  Jesus sends the disciples; therefore, I would make a guess at this point that because Jesus is sending the disciples and instructing them to bring the colt, he would climb up himself, but it is the disciples who place Jesus.   And it is a donkey upon which no one has sat.  I was struck by this detail.  God has a different way.  God sent a king who acted like no other.  God shows God’s self through Christ.

We have Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.  Jesus is coming.  Jesus is drawing near.  Jesus is approaching.  For much of Lent I have picked up on the them of us drawing near to God by letting go, by repenting, and I was so struck by the visual of Jesus coming, of Jesus drawing near to Jerusalem.  Jesus is drawing near to his passion, to his crucifixion.  Jesus is drawing near to us.  Jesus is coming close to us.   Jesus is drawing you near.

What we pray is what we believe is what we live.  May you draw near to Christ, as Christ draws near to you during this Holy Week.  May you experience our, your, story this week.  May you see it at work in your own lives.  May you see the humble Christ coming towards you.

April 3, 2022 – The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3: 4b-14; John 12: 1-8

In the face of hostility, Jesus ministers.  In the face of hostility, you minister, I minister, we minister.  In the face of hostility, we come to the table.  It is such a small thing we do coming to the table.  It seems like such a simple thing to do, to walk up to the table and receive.  And yet, it is a such a life changing thing we do coming to the table.  Let down your hair and come to the table.  Let down your hair to serve. 

Coming to sit with Jesus, being invited, to sit with Jesus, asks us, actually requires us, to be vulnerable.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer to completely be in control of the decisions I make, the feelings I have, the relationships I have, I like to be in control of my strengths and my weaknesses…but when we come to sit with Jesus, we relinquish control.  We allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to say I do not have the sole authority.   We see this in Mary, anointing Jesus’ feet with the extravagantly expensive nard, and with her hair.  She loves Jesus, and is instinctively acting out of love, out of devotion.  She is unafraid, she is unapologetic, she does not hesitate she simply does what she feels compelled to do, and when questioned, Jesus defends her.   There’s a time and place for extravagance and luxury.  I have been blessed with vestments made for me, and gifted to me, and I have begun to feel a bit embarrassed.  I have gone from having no vestments, to having or will have, sets for all the seasons, which feels a bit extravagant, a bit luxurious.  It feels too much, like I don’t deserve it, or shouldn’t have it.   However, it is an extravagance for our worship, for our God, and my worth isn’t based on whether I deserve something or not, it is based on being made in God’s image.

Today’s passage marks a transition from Jesus’s ministry and the signs he did, towards his triumphal entry in Jerusalem for the Passover, which then leads into his passion, and then to his resurrection.   The author of John is setting the reader up for entering into Christ’s death and Christ’s glory, and being a disciple of Christ, being in relation to Christ.  Mary’s anointing of Jesus with her hair points towards Christ’s washing of feet, and, the Jewish practice of anointing for burial.  It points towards the death that is soon to come.  It points to the servanthood of Jesus, the humility of Jesus, and the discipleship of Mary.  It illustrates discipleship for us.

The Johannine community is the more egalitarian of communities we read about in the New Testament.  And this passage demonstrates this through Mary and Martha and the roles they had in their community.  Martha served Jesus at the table.  The verb serve comes from diakonein, and by the time John’s Gospel was written at the end of the first century the term diakonos, “servant,” had become the title of a recognized ministerial office in some Christian communities, and waiting on table was a function conferred by the laying on of hands.[1]  It is likely that if any established ministry existed in the Johannine community, it was probably that of a deacon.  And, it is likely that if any Christian community had some form of foot washing in its eucharistic liturgy, it would have been the Johannine community.[2]  We also see a woman, Mary, in the primary role of discipleship.  And when we take this in context that the primary relationship with Jesus in the Gospel of John, is a relationship of discipleship, the fact that this is presented by a woman, shows the active roles of women in this early Christian community.   This matters to me as a woman, and, as a woman in Ministry.  This matters to us as a community, to learn from the example of Jesus.  His teachings came, and come, to us in words, and so too in the experiences we encounter through the words.   Jesus was, and is, changing the norms of his day, and our day.   Jesus constantly was pushing existing thoughts and understandings.  And Jesus is constantly pushing our thinking and understanding.

Just as the early Christian communities were figuring out how to be faithful, how to be in community, how to be disciples, so too are we.  Jesus disrupted the norms of his day, and we too, are having to think creatively, of how to do ministry creatively, of how to be church creatively, of how to be community creatively, that looks different than it did before.   Mary and Martha demonstrate different models of leadership.  Different from the Roman authorities, different from the norms, of their day.   And Jesus stands with them by defending them.  Jesus demonstrates different models of leadership.    In the face of hostility Jesus gathers the disciples he loves and sits at the table with them. Come.  Sit with Jesus.  Come to the table. Let down your hair.  Come.

When the world is hostile, when there seems to be no way, when doubt, ridicule, anger and hatred surround us, come.  Come to the table, and sit with Christ.

[1] & [2]Sandra Schneiders, Written That You May Believe, Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, (New York: A Herder and Herder Book, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2003), 107.

March 27, 2022 – Fourth Sunday of Lent

Scripture Readings: Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21; Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

Be Reconciled to God.   The message is clear.  It could not be stated any clearer. Let’s listen again to Paul’s words: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.  We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Be reconciled to God. As we near the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and then towards the passion, let these words seep into every part of our being.

Be reconciled to God.  All this is from God…God was, and is, in Christ, reconciling the world to God’s self.   Through the incarnation, God drew, and continues to draw, us, nearer to God.  God transforms us. In six verses, we hear a tense of reconciliation used five times.  We hear it used as both a verb and a noun.  The action of being reconciled or reconciling and the state, the place, the act, of reconciliation.  Reconciliation comes from two Greek words: katá, down to the exact point, and allássō, to change.  Decisively changed.   Reconciliation also means the coming to agreement of two or more persons after misunderstanding or estrangement.  Through Christ God changes us, and brings us nearer to God.  Through Christ, God transforms us.  Through Christ is the restoration of harmony between humans and God.   This is an act that has occurred, and, is an action that continually occurs.  It is not a one-time event.  It is an event that we live each day with the actions we take; it is an event we live out each year as we live into our liturgical selves, our liturgical telling of our narrative, of who we are as an Easter people; it is an event we live each time we confess our sins; it is an event we live each Sunday.   The act of reconciliation is an act and action that occurs individually, and, communally.  It is an act and action that restores our relationship to God’s self, and, to God in creation, and, to God in social justice.  It is a process that we must enter into continually, because of course we witness, and participate in, time and time again, our estrangement from who God willed us to be as beings made in God’s image and likeness with our thoughts and actions; our estrangement from creation with our lack of care and concern and the life styles we live; and our estrangement from social justice.  We are surrounded daily by evidence of this.  We need to look no further than the pressing news of the day, and see someone so estranged from God, so removed from who they are as a child of God, as Putin.   We need look no further than the graves being found across Canada of Indigenous children.  We need look no further than the colonialism that is embedded in government policies and programs.  We need look no further than the hatred underlying the polarization from the vaccinators and the anti-vaccinators.

How are you estranged from God? How are you estranged from creation? How are you estranged from your neighbour? How are we as a society estranged from God? How are we as a society estranged from creation? How are we as a society estranged from our neighbour?

In this season of Lent, let us be reconciled to God.  Open yourselves to reconciliation.  Let go of the thoughts and actions that draw you away from God to make room for the transformation, for the reconciliation, God is seeking within you.  Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he (they) is (are) a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.  Part of the ministry of reconciliation Paul refers to is the work we do as Christians simply sharing the work of Christ in the world around us.  By the lives we live, by the actions we take, by the relations we have.  We are doing the work of Christ.  We also have the ministry of reconciliation in our liturgy, in our Eucharist as we come into communion with Christ, in the remembrance we live into, and we live out, in the worship we say each week, and in our confession and absolution.   We are being reconciled week after week.  We also have in the Anglican tradition, a specific ministry of reconciliation in the Reconciliation of a Penitent that can be found in our Book of Alternative Services.   Reconciliation is a foundational part of what it means to live out our baptismal identity. Be reconciled to God.

March 20, 2022 – Third Sunday of Lent

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Cor 10:1-13; Luke 13: 1-9

Who is your gardener? Who prunes your branches? Who bears our fruit?

Our readings are powerful today, inviting us to honestly ask these questions.  Does it make a difference in the honest answering of these questions if you know, that you are loved through and through, that you are rooted as a child of Christ, in the love of Christ?  That you do not have to earn God’s grace, God’s love.

God’s grace is freely given.  You are loved.  There are times I say this at camp, and the kids look at me like they have never heard this before.  As adults we forget this, or perhaps we too have not heard this before.  You are loved.

Trusting we are loved with all our ugly and beautiful bits, with all our weaknesses and strengths, enables us to be more honest, more truthful, enables us to repent.

God calls us to listen.  God calls us to repent.  Repent for what?  For things we do and say that pull us away from God, that make us fall away from God.  For getting caught up in thinking that pulls us away from God.   For believing that there is even a separation at all of the sacred and profane (the secular).  For falling away from our sacred being.

In all our readings, we hear the warnings about the deception of self-sufficiency, of self-spirituality, about self-contentment, about spiritual superiority.[1]   What word is the center of those warnings: self.   We learn about agency today.  Are we sufficient led only by our self? Our we governed only by our self? Is our spirituality only within our self, rooted within our sense of self? Are we self-fulfilled? Our we content only living within our self? The temptation is to think we can live within ourselves, that we are self-sufficient.  The temptation is the thinking that we have the sole self agency over our lives.  The further we fall away from God the more we are self focused, and the more self focused we become, the further we fall away from God, from our sacred being.  It becomes a perpetual cycle.  It also leads back to earning God’s love.  It leads to fear-based thinking and works-based grace.  Thinking we have to earn God’s love, is actually a form of self-sufficiency.  It’s a bit scary to think that grace can be freely given.  It’s a bit scary to open ourselves up to that fact that we could be loved wholly and completely without having to ask or work towards it.

Repenting is a form of pruning.  Repenting brings us into deeper relationship with God.  Repenting is a hand held out to inviting us into who we are called to be.  God calls us to repent and re turn to God.  God calls us to seek God just as God seeks us.  God calls us to listen.  Repenting is an action we can do, yet it is the gardener who does the work of the repentance.  The work I would say is the pruning, is the bearing of fruit.   The gardener bears the fruit within us.  We are the fig tree.   When we settle into the trust of knowing we are not the gardener, we do not live this life by ourselves, I don’t know about you, but for me there’s this incredible sigh of relief.  That I am not alone.  That I can not prune myself or bear fruit by myself.

So I invite you into the joy of repentance.  I invite you to continue to live into this beautiful, real, honest, season of Lent.  I invite you to see the beauty of repentance, of drawing nearer to God.

We may think of God as being removed from ourselves, but of course it is actually us who removes ourselves from God.  God is actually nearer to us than our own self.  We are surrounded by images of God in the sky, or simply a God up above us somehow.  However, God is here among us, between us, with us.  When my mom died, I sat by her bed and the doctor sat beside me and he asked: where do you think your mom has gone?  And I said: well, I’m not entirely certain but the one thing I don’t think is that she has floated out of her body and is up in heaven somewhere.  The doctor looked surprised.  But all the images, all the ancient and classical paintings depict a God above, or the actual paintings are on the ceilings he said.  I said yes that’s true, and, our understanding has evolved and changed over time.  God is not some distant removed supernatural being.  God is right her with us.  My mom is right here, right here with God.   Heaven is here on earth.

Repentance brings us into the heaven that is here on earth.  Repentance draws us to God.

Who is your gardener?

Who prunes your branches?

Who bears your fruit?

February 13, 2022 – Epiphany 6

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15: 12-20; Luke 6: 17-26

How we live our life matters.  We get one chance at this life.  There are no do-overs.   Well, there are do-overs as we go along, second chances, as we live, chances to repent, to forgive, to love, to live into who we are called to be as God’s beloved, but there is no overall do-over.  No second life to live in its entirety.  So I say to you live your best life now.  Make the hard the decisions.  Have the hard the conversations.  Be honest with yourself, with others.  Make the joyful decisions. Have the joyful conversations.  Have fun.  Feel pain.  Feel grief.  Experience it all.  Take chances.  Take risks.  Live.  Give your time and attention to your loved ones.  Give your time and attention to God.  Relationships matter.  In fact, I would say the only thing that matters are our relationships.  Even if we lived monastic lives, we would be doing so in community.  And if we were in a hermitage, living solo, even there we would not be alone.  We would be in relation to God.  Relationships matter.  We are in relation with God, with ourselves and with each other.   How we live our life matters.

          Our scriptures tell, show and teach us, how to live our best life.  We hear it throughout all our readings today.  We hear that when we trust in the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind, we are like trees planted by a stream whose leaves do not wither, whose leaves stay green, who are not anxious and do not cease to bear fruit.  We are blessed beyond our wildest imagination.  We are Makarios.  In the Greek world, the adjective Makarios denoted a person’s inner happiness.[1]    Our inner happiness.  This is the door that opens our understanding of where are text leads us this morning.  The Sermon from the plain as it is called in Luke, reveals instructions for discipleship, instructions for joy, instructions for the kingdom of God.  Instructions for those with ears, hearts and minds who want to listen and hear.  Who seek to listen and hear.  Who come to seek to listen and hear.  One of the themes of the blessings is an emptying and hunger, so that we can be filled with God.  When we are already full, there is little to no room for God.  We have everything we need when we are full.  That type of fullness sees happiness sitting on the surface.  That type of happiness withers and dies.  That type of happiness does not bear fruit.  That is a happiness built from the fullness of satiated earthly wants, desires and riches.  That is not inner happiness, joy.   An emptiness, a hunger, means we’re still wanting God, seeking God, wanting to listen, seeking to listen, wanting to be in relation, seeking to be in relation, wanting justice, seeking justice, wanting fairness, seeking fairness…the list goes on.

          Jesus comes down off the mountain with the Twelve disciples, and stands with the great crowd of disciples and people,who seek to hear Jesus and be healed.  This is powerful.  Jesus is standing with us, with his disciples and with those who are seeking.  Jesus is with the oppressed, with the captives, with the hungry, with the poor, with those who weep, with those who are reviled.   Jesus is with you and I.  There was a literal understanding of the day where Luke truly meant the poor and hungry, and, Luke is also laying out the instructions for discipleship, for the kingdom of God.  How can we enter the kingdom of God, for those of us who believe we enter the kingdom of God as a heavenly realm, if we have hearts and minds that are full and rich?  How can we live into the kingdom of God, for those of us who believe the kingdom is here and now, if we have hearts and minds and that are full and rich?  These are the questions our text invites us to think about.  As always, they are questions not for the faint of heart.  When you address the questions and sit with them for a while, when you let the questions sit with you…when you let Jesus sit with you, it can be hard and requires honesty.  I’ll share the bravery of a woman I met who asked herself: why did I collect crystal for all those years?  It was so important for me to have these beautiful crystal pieces.  And now I look at them and think, what am I going to do with all this crystal?  Why did I collect all this crystal? That is a brave and courageous question to ask.  It may seem simple, but it is actually incredibly revealing, and requires honesty and courage to accept the answers that come.  What need, what emptiness, what hunger, was that filling?

          What is your crystal?  The crystal will be different for each of us.  What do you fill yourselves up with?  How we live our life matters.   There is only one.

[1] Joseph A. Fitzmyer S.J., The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, The Anchor Bible Volume 28, (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 632.

February 6, 2022 – Epiphany 5

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5: 1-11

This image of catching people is an image with which I struggle greatly.  I often think I simply do not fit the mould for which I have imagined a priest.  All the ‘shoulds’ of what a priest ‘should’ be like and ‘should’ do run around in my mind.  I think a priest should be interested in catching people.  But of course, these are all stemming from doubts and fears that are not of God.  You may note the ‘I’ in my thoughts and the ‘shoulds’.  Two classic red flags.  The ‘I’ denotes the agency I am giving myself and the ‘shoulds’ are the worries and fears that distance myself from God.  The sin of pride runs underneath those, that I am not good enough or priestly enough.  So, I’ll declare, I am a priest who is not interested in catching people.  I still ask, how can this be possible?  I have little desire to be trying to fill our pews, our seats, with bums in seats.  I have little desire to be making disciples of all nations, because I strongly feel that I as an Anglican, as a Christian, am one perspective sitting in a circle with many other denominations and religions.  An image Harry Maier shared during this past Tuesday’s lecture some of us have been attending.  I do not think that the way to which I feel called and the denomination to which I most identify is the only way or is the right way or is the best way.  Nor do I feel our parish is the best or only parish, we are one of many.   Love does not insist on its own way (1 Cor 13:5) shapes my theology, my christology and my ecclesiology.  So, this image of catching people is a challenging image.  But of course, our scriptures have multiple layers of meaning and interpretation, and the image with which I struggle is a superficial and literal interpretation, as French philosopher Paul Ricoeur describes, a first naivete understanding.

            Let us enter the text and go beyond the literal understanding and move into Ricoeur’s second naivete.  There are two areas that really called to me in today’s readings, one: verse 5 Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing; and two: verse 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”   Verse 10 pulls my thinking together so we’ll end in Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

            Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.  I see so much of what we have done, and continue to do, as a church seeking growth, embodied by this verse.  This longing for large numbers sitting in our pews, sees us desperately conjuring up ways to attract people, desperately developing strategies for growth, desperately counting the attendance numbers each week placing the onus of success, the representation of success, on a number.  These are ways in which we are working all night long, but are catching nothing.  Calling up people individually who no longer attend who have found their church home or faith home elsewhere, asking if they’d like to come back and attend, feels like sending up SOS signals for a sinking ship.   I think letting down our nets is as the Greek verb chalasate, to lower, to slacken, to loosen, which comes from the base of chasma, to lower, requires us to loosen, to slacken, to let down.[1]   When we hold on so tight, we form a net upon ourselves, upon our parish, upon our diocese, upon the church.  Holding on tight is when we’re working from desperation, ruled by fear and doubt.   Growth does not occur from desperation.  Lowering, loosening, slackening is like abundance thinking.   Abundance thinking is the opposite to fearing scarcity.  Abundance thinking grows from a gratitude thinking, not counting your pennies, counting the number of people in the pews.  Growth, abundance, comes from a mindset, that lets down, that loosens, that slackens, that opens, that fosters conversation, that fosters thinking, that fosters discussing, that fosters exchanging, that fosters creating, that fosters relating.   Growth occurs from a mindset that begins from the inside out, within ourselves in our individual lives, and organizationally, a growth mindset begins at the core leadership levels.  Growth begins from the inside out.  A growth builds from an enthusiasm, a passion, that is unextinguishable.  A fire that is lit that can not be put out.  When the fire is burning bright it radiates outwards.  It radiates in openness, in grace, in conversation, in ideas, in imagination, in dialogue, in relations…so let us not work so hard all night long that we are catching nothing.

            But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” invites us to reflect upon ourselves.  Simon Peter is so awed by Jesus that his amazement makes him aware of his humanness.  To be in the presence of the divine, of the sacred, makes us aware that we are not.  Simon Peter knows Jesus is in a realm, a sphere, to which he himself does not belong.  Draw here the parallel to Isaiah 6:5 where Isaiah expresses a similar reaction: I am a man of unclean lips; and I live among a people of unclean lips.  Simon Peter’s humanity connects to his desire to be working all night long, yet catching nothing.  It reveals the human desire to control, to achieve, to solve, to succeed, to work, work, work.  Giving that desire over to Christ, which then loosens, which then slackens, which then frees, creates an overflowing abundance of grace.  The undercurrent here is agency, when we stop working all night trying to do things according to our own agency, we loosen and give ourselves over to God’s agency.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”  In this verse we move to the crux of the story, Simon Peter learns he is not to catch fish, he is to catch people.  One translation reads: you shall be taking them alive.  As Joseph Fitzmyer writes “The implication is that they shall be saved from death and preserved for life, as they are gathered to become followers in the kingdom.  Thus Simon is to become “from now on” a leading missionary in the cause of Jesus.”[2]   Jesus is calling disciples to share in his ministry.  Again, we are invited to understand agency.  A slightly nuanced understanding of agency, that in sharing in Christ’s ministry, Jesus is calling us to walk in his agency.  We’ve heard this before, that Christ gives his power to his disciples.

This I can get on board with.  This is the fire that burns bright, that comes from the inside out: following Christ preserves life, following Christ gives life.  This is what I leave everything for and follow Christ.  This is unextinguishable.  This is relational.  Jesus calls us to be Easter people, to be people of the Resurrection, and to do so sitting at the circle with other denominations and religions knowing this is one way.

 January 23, 2022 – Epiphany 3

Scripture Readings: Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Well, God is at work, whether we know it or not.  I began this sermon last week actually, unintentionally, when I addressed Paul’s letter very briefly.  So today we’ll carry on with looking at spiritual gifts in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The first thing to situate ourselves is that Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth are in response to concerns that have been expressed to Paul either orally or in writing.  So as readers today, we hear only one side of the conversation.

          The two letters to Corinthians we have in our biblical canon are a compilation of about eight, if not more, because some responses are missing, and we know this because the missing responses are referenced in the letters themselves.   These letters are in response, in the case of the church in Corinth, to deep divisions and factions that Paul was written to, and spoken to, about.  And Paul in return, both writes in response, and sends people to communicate in person, in response.

          Last week, today, and next week, we hear the portion of Paul’s response concerning spiritual gifts.  It’s a good idea to read this in its entirety which goes from chapter 12 to chapter 14:40, for anyone who feels so inclined!

          There were many divisions and factions within the church in Corinth and spiritual gifts was one topic creating factions among the many.   We learn through Paul’s writings that there was a religious enthusiasm of a sect or cell (a group) of converts who believed and understood that life in Christ bestowed gifts of the Spirit that became a marker of authentic life in Christ.[1]  The division lies in the thought that ecstatic speech, speaking in tongues, may have been thought to induce salvation, rather than it is Spirit led salvation that induces the ecstatic speech.  This language of angels, that we hear ecstatic speech referred to as next week in Chapter 13, may have become the metric, the currency, for deciding who was in tune with the divine or who had “knowledge.”[2]  This understanding of the possession of “knowledge” was also a division itself.  Boasts of exclusive truth and claims to exclusive religious “knowledge”  and conflicting claims to a superior “knowledge” gained from a favourite mystagogue (someone who teaches or propounds mystical doctrines such Peter, Paul, Apollos, or Christ) spawned a factionalism that imperilled the church.[3]  It created a spiritual elitism and fostered contempt for those with “lesser” gifts.

          Paul was known to be a speaker of tongues, we hear it self referenced in chapter 14, and demonstrated other charismatic gifts.  So, he lives with this gift and believes in this gift, however, the crucial difference is his Christological understanding of the gift.  The gift is because of, brought about by, Christ, because of, brought about by, the Holy Spirit; the gift does not bring about Christ.  You could see how this would create significant divisions and factions.

Paul expounds on this in order to break down the elitism that built.  Paul’s Christology, his belief in Christ of who Christ is, the nature of Christ, what Christ does, is the core upon which his arguments stand.  To state clearly where people’s gifts and knowledge come from, we heard repeatedly last week it is the Spirit who activates gifts, it is the Spirit who gives gifts, and that To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

This is developed in today’s reading, with the one body of Christ.  A body consists of many parts, each having its own function.  A body can’t really be all arms, all legs, all ears, all eyes, it wouldn’t be a body.  It wouldn’t be able to move.  It wouldn’t be able to function.  It wouldn’t be able to exist. So there are many members, part of one body, not many members in many bodies, there is one body.   And within this body, God turns things upside a bit.  The greatest honor is given to the inferior member.   God flips elitism on its head.  Paul understands this, and describes the body the way he does, to dismantle assumptions and disrupt the factions, so that the members have the same care for one another.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

I came across a different translation of Paul’s writing which I think is a really super summary: You claim to follow my example in practicing ecstatic speech.  You do well to exalt the spiritual gifts, but if those who speak in tongues despise those who do not, how does that build up the church?  Strive for the higher gifts, like teaching and interpreting, gifts that edify.  Allow all to contribute in their own way with whatever gift they have, and subordinate all of the gifts to love, the most excellent of all charismatic gifts.

Why does all this matter?  Do we actually live like this?  Is this relevant at all to our lives?  The answer is no, we do not live like this, and that is why it is as relevant today in 2022 CE as it was at the time of writing in 53 CE.   This matters for how we function as individual parish communities, as a diocesan community…the ecclesiology of Anglican polity (governance) is that the diocese is the local, in many ways it doesn’t matter what parish we go to, because the parish is an extension of the diocese, each with its own culture and ethos, but we are part of the diocese.  I see Paul’s teachings actually embodied in our ecclesiology.  It matters in our civil society at the municipal, provincial and national level, and it matters in our global society at the international level.  Can you imagine if in all those layers of community and society we were all working for the common good???  Well, you’d think you had died and gone to heaven…a heaven here on earth.

Paul’s words are especially poignant this week, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Individual parishes and denominations can quickly turn into individual fiefdoms, and everything Paul warns about runs rampant: elitism, power, possession of knowledge, determining salvation…Christian unity reminds us of what it means to be Spirit led, what it means to be rooted in Christ.  And as I mentioned in my Angelus article, THIS IS NOT EASY!  Because Christ calls us to look to the greater common good, to being led by the Spirit, not ourselves.  Christ calls us to see those denominations and Christians with whom we do not agree, especially those with whom we vehemently do not agree, to acknowledge and respect their expression of faith, which looks very differently than the ways we think about God, we think about Christ, and how we think about the church.  Thanks be to God.

January 16, 2022 – Epiphany 2

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 62: 1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Cor 12: 1-11; John 2: 1-11

Did Jesus really turn water into wine???  Honestly, I have no idea.   And that’s okay.  Because the story, the narrative, isn’t solely about the sign itself, it is about what the author of John is using the sign for.  Which she tells us in verse 11: Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.  From this we know the purpose is to reveal Christ’s glory, and to believe in Christ.  (What beautiful ties to Epiphany…the revealing of Christ’s glory and belief.)

The purpose of the sign is consistent with the overall purpose of the gospel, which as Sandra Schneiders describes, is written so that we may believe.   In the Gospel of John we encounter the difference of believing and faith.  So that’s where we’re landing this morning: exploring belief and faith.

Belief and faith are these crisscrossing moments on a journey with, and towards, Christ.   It’s a chicken and egg situation, which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Does belief or faith come first?  The author of John draws the reader, invites the reader, into thinking about belief and faith.  In our passage today, and when we explore the purpose of a sign, the author appears to be suggesting that an experience is required for belief, which can then evolve into faith.  The gospel author writes this story, whether real or elaborated, to provide an experience for the reader.  The author describes an experience that people may have witnessed, but not actually in the Johannine community, because the Johannine community is a generation removed of Jesus followers.  Or perhaps it’s the generation that did witness the event that then is passing it down to the next generation.  Jesus died in either 30 or 33 CE, the date is not definitive, and the gospel is written sometime between 70-130 CE with many scholars landing around 90 CE.  So, the story we hear today is not a current story the Johannine community has experienced itself.  But it is a story that is being told to both the community and to us the reader.  The author’s brilliance shines in this moment, to provide an encounter with Jesus just as real and alive for Jesus followers in the first or second century CE, and for us today in the twenty-first century.  It kind of takes one’s breath away.

The author uses symbols to bring belief to life.  She uses scriptural symbols that are familiar and meaningful and that would have been known to the disciples.  A wedding, a banquet, wine, an abundance of wine.  Symbols that would communicate meaning and understanding without words.  Symbols that would touch people.  Symbols that would have double meaning: understanding from what they meant in Jewish culture and what they would mean to Jewish Christians, Jesus followers.  These would have been such familiar symbols, and pointed the disciples in Cana to the sign of the messianic times; and the revelation of divine glory would have been a mark of the last times, Jesus as the alpha and the omega.   Jesus is crucified and resurrected at this point, and you can just imagine people talking and passing the stories of his ministry, of his wonders, of his signs, onto one another, in a both a casual chit chat mode, and in a deliberate method, as a means to build belief and discipleship.

What better way to build belief than to share a story that brings people into experiencing the revelation of God’s glory in Christ.  Is faith in something possible without any experience?  This first sign in Cana follows on the heels of the calling of the disciples in chapter one, and we see the evolution of disciples’ belief…belief is the culmination of the following of the disciples that began in chapter one, what they see at Cana fulfills Jesus’ promise of seeing greater things.  We witness as readers an evolution of belief, but we too as we are reading it, experience an evolution of belief within ourselves.

I think faith without belief, is perhaps a faith that sits on the surface, that can only deepen and growth so far if we never actually have an experience, an encounter, with God.   It’s almost like a naïve faith, that is sustainable for a while, but eventually runs the risk of fizzling out.  It has little depth; it has shallow roots.

Just as the disciples in the first and second century CE, and disciples throughout the ages encounter signs, and experience, so too do we.  What symbols in our world, in your day, in our communities, point you to believing in Christ?  What signs do you experience that tell you without hesitation that Christ reveals God’s glory? That God reveal’s Godself in Christ? What signs do you witness that point you to the revelation of Christ?  When you experience such a moment, what happens to your belief and to your faith? Where do you encounter God?  Our passage does set us up for the eucharist, but is it only at the eucharist that we encounter God? What if we see our relations with each other and the world around us as eucharistic?  What if the life we live is a feast at the banquet table?  What if we witness water being turned into wine each and every day?

This week go looking for God.  Be on the lookout for moments when God reveals Godself to you.  Because God is doing it all the time.  God turns the ordinary into extraordinary. May you encounter and experience God this week and every week, and may your faith grow deeper and deeper.