Towards Sunday, Jan 3, 2016 (Sunday of Epiphany)

Reading:  Matthew 2:1-12

What do we do with the wise men?

They don't really belong in the same pageant as the shepherds, do they -- even though we usually manage to squeeze them in?  (What would a Christmas pageant be without bathrobe-clad, cardboard-crowned magi regally bearing gifts up the aisle of the sanctuary?)  They come from a different Gospel (Matthew, rather than Luke) and it's clear that in the story they arrive some time later -- up to two years after the birth of Jesus, rather than the night of his birth.

So ... to be true to the story, how about an Epiphany pageant?

It's a great story, and could be great fun to act out.

On one hand, we have the magi -- strangers and seekers from another country, curious and open to truth and goodness wherever it is found, ready to journey and move into new territory, willing to pay homage and offer their gifts to truth of any colour or creed -- all in the name of greater truth.

On the other hand, we have the king and his Book-keepers -- fixed but insecure in their positions among and above the people of God, guarding the inherited tradition, wary of change and foreign influences, ready to resist and destroy challenges that arise to what they see as the best way for things to be -- all in the name of God. 

Like us, the king and his Book-keepers must have wondered what to do with the wise men, and with the one they were looking for.

This Sunday, we're going to celebrate the story with our first-ever Epiphany pageant -- a simple little thing, and we'll see where we're led as the story plays out.

Sermon from Sunday, Dec 6, 2015 (Advent 2)

Reading:  Luke 1
Sermon:  No way, God!  Yes, Way!  (God)

It takes all kinds of people – heralded and unheralded, doing all kinds of things –mostly ordinary and sometimes extraordinary, to make the kingdom of God happen on Earth, and make God’s promise of good news come true. 

When it was Zechariah’s turn to do and be part of something special, though, the old priest doesn’t think he has it in him.  Nor does he think his wife Elizabeth has it in her either.  I understand that. 

He and his wife are already doing God’s work in the world.  He is a priest to God’s people, and a good priest, helping people be reconciled with one another and with God all through their life.  And she is his wife, doing the things a priest’s wife is to do.  They’ve been good people, doing their part of God’s good work all their life, and surely that’s enough. 

So when the angel Gabriel meets Zechariah one day in the temple, and tells him they will have a son who will help the appearing of God’s messiah in their time, the old man’s first thought is, “No way!  Me – at my age, a father?  And my wife – at her stage in life, conceiving and giving birth to a baby?” 

Zechariah is more mindful of his and his wife’s limitations and the barrenness of their relationship, than he is of the power of God.  He may also be thinking he’s done enough for God already, without this extraordinary thing being added to his to-do list. 

But God has a plan and work to be done.  God will help Zechariah and his wife to accomplish something they have not been able to do themselves, and will use who they are and what they have as part of something greater unfolding in the world.  And there are three stages to this – three stages to how Zechariah comes to fulfill the role he is given in God’s work of redeeming the world. 

The first is silence.  When Zechariah starts off with disbelief, rather than argue with him, God simply shuts him up for 9 months while God goes about the business of doing what is promised.  God silences Zechariah’s disbelief.  And is it a punishment and a curse for questioning and doubting God’s promise?  Or is it a gift and a discipline that help the promise begin to unfold? 

I wonder how many times I have hindered the seeds of good ideas from other people from being sown and then taking root to grow, by the way I often respond to them right away with all the problems about the idea, rather than silencing that impulse and taking time to look first at the possibilities and then sort out the problems later?  In my own life as well, how many good impulses and creative urges have I too quickly and easily said “no” to and laid to rest, just because I thought I couldn’t do it and didn’t have it in me – whatever the “it” is that I thought I needed to have. 

In any process of spiritual discernment I’ve ever learned or read about, silencing our first responses – either negative or positive, is always one of the important early steps because we respond too easily out of habit, or fear, or self-protection, or all kinds of reasons and agendas that have nothing to do with the question or hand and what God may actually be doing and wanting us to do at that moment. 

Sometimes the most important thing God can do is make us be quiet – to silence our first disbelieving thoughts and our instinctive negative response, because God does not need us to completely believe the promise.  Nor does God need us to be able to see and explain the whole picture to others.  What God needs is that we act – that we be willing to take our part as it’s revealed and given to us, that even if we don’t quite see what good this will do, for the moment we act “as if” it will make a difference that’s needed. 

When Gabriel tells Zechariah that he and his wife will have a son who will help pave the way for God’s good news to come into the world, Zechariah doesn’t quite believe it.  He and his wife have not been able to have children all their long life.  What’s to make anything different now? 

But between the lines where it says “when his time of service was ended, he went to his home,” and then “after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived,” we know what took place.  Zechariah acted on the promise he was given.  He did his part, as did Elizabeth, and that allowed the work of God to be done through it.

How often do we doubt the value of what we do, but do it anyway when it’s given to us to do?   

Christmas is a great example.  We know that giving hats, mitts, scarves, socks, quilts, gifts and donations to the Wesley Christmas Store, and buying gifts and gathering money for Christmas dinner for a family in Niagara, and making dinner and serving it in the Wesley Centre dining hall do not solve the problem of poverty in the city and in the peninsula.  But we do it anyway – generously and are happily, because these are things we are given to do.  They are offered to us, as our part of God’s work of healing and redeeming the world. 

And there’s what you also do beyond what we do as a church – through your work, with your families, in your neighbourhoods, through donations to other organizations – all of whom are doing their part as well.  It takes all kinds of people and actions to make the kingdom of God happen on Earth, and to make the promise of good news come true. 

And sometimes, as with Zechariah and Elizabeth, there’s the extraordinary – the unusual and above-and-beyond that we are called to embrace as well.  Do you remember the Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, and how just as we were ready to sit back and enjoy a break after all the Christmas busy-ness and charity, we were asked suddenly to care and to pray and to give over-and-above? 

Some feel the same way about the Syrian refugees. It seems like maybe one thing too many to care about and take on at this time of year, but people find ways when the opportunity to do their part is offered to them. 

We even see this in our yearly second-Sunday-of-Advent stint at Wesley Urban Ministries.  Before the dinner at 4, there used to be worship at 3 that we “brought” to the Wesley patrons as though worship itself was a kind of “gift” we were bringing.  The last few years this changed.  Worship was made more participatory for all, with us just invited to share in the time with them – more mutual and collegial, but the divide between them and us was still pretty visible.   

And now this year a new approach.  Instead of worship at the Centre at all, Wesley patrons who like to worship do so in churches in the neighbourhood, and what happens at 3:00 is that the Wesley Centre chaplain will meet with us to talk and pray about the time we will have with them at dinner, and to help us be able to sit and eat and really share dinner-time with them in the dining hall. 

My first thought?  “Oh no!  I can’t do that.”   

But God doesn’t need me believe it can happen and that I can do it.  God just needs me to do it – to be part of living the kingdom of God in our time when the opportunity is given. 

Which hopefully, in God’s own time, leads to the third thing – the stage when like Zechariah, I am aware of being changed within, of being opened in new ways to Spirit, and I open my mouth not with questions and misgivings and hesitations, but with praise of the work God is doing in the world, and that I am happy to be part of. 

May it be so … for me, for you, and for all who are called and given a chance to be part of God’s good work in healing and redeeming life on Earth.

Readings:

Malachi 3:1-4 (There is a day promised when God will save the people from their enemies and give them a place to live free in the world.  But it sounds almost like bad news instead of good, when it becomes clear what kind of deep cleansing and purification of the people this will involve.)

Luke 1:67-79 (When the angel told old Zechariah that he and his equally old wife would have a son who would pave the way for Jesus, Zechariah couldn't believe it and God silenced his doubting oice by shutting his mouth.  When John is finally born, Zechariah is opened to holy Spirit in a new way, and bursts into a song of praise to God's good will and promises fulfilled.)

Zechariah didn't think he had it in him.  Nor did he think his wife had it in her. When the angel Gabriel (Gabriel of all angels!) told Zechariah that he and his wife would have a son who would pave the way for God's messiah to come to the world, his first thought was, "No way we can do that!"  He was more mindful of their limitations and the barrenness of their history, than he was of the power of God.

Rather than argue with him, though, God simply shut Zechariah up and went about the business of preparing and doing what was promised, using and helping Zechariah and wife to accomplish something they had not been able to, to that point in their lives.

God doesn't need us always to believe right from the start.  But God does require our willingness to take part -- and sometimes a hard silence about our doubts and misgivings while we are doing our part. 

And then, when what was promised comes to be, willingness on our part to give credit where credit really is due, is always a beautiful thing.

Sermon from Sunday, Nov 29, 2015 (1st of Advent)

Readings:  Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:35-46
Sermon:  What's in a name?

What’s in a name?   

Sometimes a lot. 

We have read these words of the prophet Jeremiah:  “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”  And what a wonderful promise – and what a hopeful word this was for the people of Israel to hear at that dark time in their life. 

But I wonder how many people today, when they hear “a righteous Branch for David,” think immediately of Branch Davidians and that horrible debacle down in Waco – or as some say, Wacko, Texas?  Didn’t they see themselves as the righteous branch for David, and take that name for themselves, and “execute justice and righteousness” under it?  Can we ever hear that name again, without thinking “Wacko”? 

It’s the same with the public name of Christian in the North American media for at least the past generation.  For at least that long the mainstream church has suffered the Moral Majority and the Religious Right and the particular crusades they identify to save the world, becoming so associated in the public mind with what is “Christian” that it sometimes leaves the rest of us a little embarrassed and defensive about using the name ourselves. 

The same with ISIS or ISIL, and the way Muslims around the world now find the name of Islam dragged into support for a world-terrifying movement that none of them support.  To counter this, Barack Obama and Francois Hollande and other world leaders are beginning to refer to ISIL as “Daesh” instead, which is the Arabic acronym for the English name ISIL – to separate the group from Islam in the public’s mind.  But will it catch on? 

The same with ultra-Zionism and Jews.  Not all Jews are Zionists, but how often are they all tarred with that brush? 

It’s no wonder many today think that the variety of religious traditions – at least those within the family of Abrahamic faith and those that feel especially called to save the world in some terrifying way, to rid the world of evil and bring in the kingdom, and whose name ends up in all the headlines because of it – written on the clouds in glory, are part of the problem rather than part of the solution to the world’s woes, and that if we really want to move ahead to a better world we need to do it without our inherited religious connections and commitments and communities. 

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago of the Holy One and a little angel leaning over the edge of a cloud to look down on Earth.   

The little angel, troubled look on his face, says, “Protestants and Catholics in Ireland are killing each other in your name, Jews and Muslims in the Middle East are killing each other in your name, Christians and Muslims in Europe and America are at each other’s throats in your name, and even different Muslims are counting each other as enemies in your name.  What are you going to do?” 

To which the Holy One says, with a deep sigh, “I think I need to change my name.” 

What’s in a name?   

Sometimes a lot, depending on who uses it, and to what end. 

But I wonder – does one bad apple spoil the barrel?  Or, to follow the image Jesus uses in the Gospel reading this morning about the coming of God’s redemption into a troubled world, does one bad branch of figs mean we cut down the whole tree? 

Or do we who see God in more open, compassionate and healing ways just keep doing what we are doing in the name we are given in the way we are given to understand it, and let our actions, our lives, and the fruit of our faith be known in the world for what it is?  

Because what can we do about those who act in God’s name in ways not in keeping with how we have been given to know God?   

The prophet Jeremiah is clear that the name of the messiah and of God’s salvation is “the Lord is my righteousness” – an awkward name, but one meaning it’s God and not God’s servant who ultimately is responsible for the redeeming and healing that are done – that the work is not something any servant of God or even the messiah can properly take into his or her own hands and make just their own as they wish.

In the way Jesus talks about the coming of healing into a troubled world, it’s something that comes in God’s own time and God’s own way – not his, because he is just the servant.  And what’s required of his followers is simply to be ready for its coming, alert to the ways it begins to appear in our time, and free enough of the constant temptations to comfort and self-centredness that we be able to take our part in whatever good thing God is doing in our time and not embarrass the One in whose name we live. 

So what else can we do but take seriously the name of “Christian” we are given, take seriously how we are given to understand it, and live it out as best we can in works of charity and peace, works of forgiveness and healing, works of care for Earth and its creatures, works of compassion and God’s way of justice? 

And as we do this alongside brothers and sisters with slightly different names given to them, but with the same understanding of who God really is, we encourage and inspire them and they encourage and inspire us, and maybe – just maybe, as we work together in  the name of God as we understand God, we help the world see there really is hope, not all the news is bad, and God and God’s people really are part of the solution for the world in its sorrow. 

This week I saw on the CBC website, this headline:  “This happens in Canada: Peterborough synagogue welcomes Muslims displaced by mosque arson” and underneath the headline was this quote from the president of the mosque when asked about his people offering their weekly prayers to Allah in a synagogue: “At the end of the day,” he said, “it's a house of God.” 

It made me proud to be Canadian – that this kind of leadership toward a better world is practiced here and makes the news.  It also made me proud to be Christian – that I can be brother to people who act this way in the name of the same God that I worship. 

Because what’s in a name?                                                  

As we try to find God’s way towards a better world beyond and in the midst of the troubles of our day, maybe everything – depending on who uses it, and in what spirit.

 

Towards Sunday, November 29, 2015 (1st of Advent)

Readings:

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (Seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, in a time when the people of Israel still suffer the loss of their kingdom and live under the control of foreign empires, the prophet looked forward to a day when God will gather them under an ancestor of ancient King David, so they can live in peace and justice.)

Luke 21:25-36  (The early church also looked forward to a great act of God to redeem them and the world; their life as a community was largely built upon the expectation of the return of Jesus to save them and the world from its troubles.  The way they expressed this hope is heavily influenced by traditional Jewish apocalyptic language and imagery.)

We get the picture -- signs in the heavens, distress among nations, the rise of chaos, people fainting from fear and looking for someone (or Someone) to step in and take charge. 

Sounds like the nightly news and the morning paper.  Should it also be the Sunday sermon and liturgy?  It was in the earliest church; should it be a big focus of our faith and life as a church now?

And if so, how?  Leading (and being led) in what direction?

There are (always?) some in the world who see themselves as "the righteous branch" that God uses in their time to cleanse and save the world from evil.  But has there been any case where such apocalyptic leaders and communities have not themselves been part of the evil the world suffers from -- Christian apocalypticists over the ages included?

For good reason we are suspicious of that kind of faith.  But is it a good idea to stay completely out of the conversation, and let the apocalypicists highjack our religion?

Jeremiah says the name of the redeeming movement or leader will be, "The Lord is my righteousness."  What might happen if we begin to engage in more public debate about who "the Lord" and "God" really are in our understanding?

Luke advises Christians not to be so weighed down with the comforts of this life that we are not alert and able to be engaged in whatever redemption God is bringing into the world in our time.  What does this mean for us?  What good fruit is starting to blossom in history, and how are we able to be part of it?

Towards Sunday, November 22, 2015 (Reign of Christ Sunday)

John 18:33-37  (Jesus is being examined by Pilate, and Pilate is trying to figure out who and what Jesus is, and what to do with him.  "Are you a king," Pilate asks.  "You say that I am a king," Jesus replies.)

Pilate didn't really get Jesus because Pilate saw the world only through the lens of political hierarchy and authority in the Empire he served.  In trying to figure out if Jesus was claiming to be king or not, and therefore a threat to the Empire or not, he kind of missed the point and missed getting to know who Jesus really was.

If Pilate had been able to see Jesus for who he really was, would he have treated him differently?  We'll never know.

It does raise the question, though, of whether we always see Jesus as completely as we'd like, or do we also sometimes or in some ways miss seeing him for who he really is today? 

Unlike Pilate, we accept and embrace Jesus as our Lord and as messiah, but like Pilate do we also sometimes see him too much through the lens of our own world and our own concerns and fears, and miss seeing the whole of who he is and wants to be today?

Sermon from Sunday, November 15, 2015

Reading:  Mark 13:1-8
Theme:  What are we doing here?

I had a sermon written by Friday noon.  Maybe some day I’ll even preach it. 

But then I watched the news Friday night and Saturday morning out of Paris, and suddenly the only question that made any sense to wonder about was “what are we doing here?” 

What are we doing here?  Why are we in church this morning? 

Why aren’t we gathering and gathering our friends and neighbours at City Hall, holding French flags and praying together for the victims of the attacks, and sharing in the sorrow of the people of Paris? 

Why aren’t we on our way to Toronto or maybe even Ottawa to stand in front of a French embassy, sign La Marseilles, and hold signs that say “Nous sommes parisiennes” and “Nous sommes unis”? 

Why aren’t we on-line or in line trying to reach out to local Muslims, assuring them of our support should they face any backlash or persecution because of the attacks carried out by ISIS? 

Or some may wonder why aren’t we home, limiting our movements, creating even more secure and insulate lives, to save ourselves from any terrorist attacks that are just as possible in Canada? 

What are we doing here? 

In the words of last week, let us remember what it is we are doing here.  Lest we forget. 

For one thing we are here to celebrate an anniversary – the 219^th anniversary, of this church.  For 219 years there has been a community of faith and a body of Christ in this place – on this spot – on the banks of Fifty Creek.  First the people met in the woods.  Then when that was no longer adequate, in a little wooden structure they built.  Then, when that burned down in the late 1860’s, in this fine brick building that still is standing and that we’re in today. 

It makes us sound a little like the three little pigs – over 219 years of faith and faithfulness to God and the way of Christ, looking for a place of security and stability in a world of wolfish winds and terror – looking for something to help us survive threat and fearful vulnerability – something that will withstand the shifting sands and storms of time and history. 

And in a sense that’s not an untrue image, because prominent among the first European settlers of Winona and founding members of this church in 1796 were United Empire Loyalists – in other words, refugees fleeing persecution and displacement in the revolutionary turmoil of the United States.  And this community and church have been fed, time and time again, by the arrival of new immigrants, refugees and settlers looking for a good, safe place to call home. 

For another thing, we are here to celebrate a baptism – the baptism of Julia Johanna into the body of Christ and the community of Christian faith in the world.  And we are glad that you – her family, are finally here.  This is a special place for you, Hollie.  It’s where you first experienced Christian community and friendship, and where you received your grounding in faith.  We’re so glad that this is a homecoming for you, and that you want to build on what you received, for Julia. 

And we were ready to do this in the spring, until life – and death, intervened and interrupted so tragically.  There was Ethel’s stroke and disability.  Then Bob’s death.  And even more tragically, Bob Jr’s.  It just wasn’t the time to celebrate – not the time to start looking ahead yet in quite that way.  As it says in Ecclesiastes 3, there is a time to mourn and a time to dance, and we needed to honour each time for what it was and what it needed. 

So that’s what we’re doing here, and both of these things – the anniversary of this church and the baptism of Julia, have everything to do with how we face and live into what’s happening elsewhere in the world this weekend and every other week and weekend of the year. 

Because did you notice and do you remember what we said together as a congregation as our statement of purpose at the beginning of the liturgy of baptism – the words taken from “A Song of Faith” – the United Church’s new statement of faith adopted in 2006? 

“Before conscious thought or action on our part, we are born into the brokenness of this world,” we said. 

And isn’t that true?  And don’t we feel it this weekend? 

There’s no escaping our share and our partnership in the world’s brokenness.  There is no way really to escape and insulate ourselves from it, or deny our engagement in it.  Justin Trudeau poetically called the people of Paris, “our French cousins.”  Barack Obama rightly called the French, “America’s oldest allies.”  And David Cameron, British Prime Minister said, “the victims of these attacks were not being political or trying to make any kind of statement to anyone; they were simply going about their way of life – our way of life.”   

It really was an attack on us as well.  There really is a deep sense in which nous sommes parisiennes, and nous sommes unis. 

But even then and at the same time – and this is important – it’s not simply a matter of us and them – of us all and ISIS – even though there are ways we are forced – and they are forcing us into thinking and acting that way.  Because in a larger sense and in a larger perspective, we are all – us and them, friend and foe – we are all in this together.  We are all of one race, one species and one humanity on the face of Earth, all creatures of God in one web of life, and we either somehow make it together, or we don’t really make it at all. 

That’s the first thing we have remembered and affirmed this morning. 

Then the second is, “before conscious thought or action on our part, we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.” 

Is this really true?  Can we see this and do we believe this – can we believe this, this weekend? 

We look for signs, and we celebrate them when they appear.  Like in the way Parisians used social media immediately in the midst of the attack under the hash tag “portes ouvertes” to let people caught on the streets and unable to get home, where they could go and find safety and be taken in. 

 

Like in the way cities and governments around the world Friday night illuminated their landmarks in blue, white and red – the colours of the flag of France – the CN Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, the Sydney Opera House, and scores of other landmarks around the world illumined in the colours of sympathy and support. 

 

Like, too, in the way news commentators showed restraint in the way they reported the attacks, not leaping to conclusions before all the facts were in, and then when it was clear it was ISIS making sure they included in their coverage, honest concern over the unsteady and vulnerable place that the Muslim population as a whole is in, in France and many other Western countries. 

Which raises the question of what happens now?  Where do we and our neighbours of all kinds go from here? 

For us, the third thing we have remembered today is that “baptism by water in the name of the Holy Trinity is the means by which we are received, at any age, into the covenanted community of the church.  Baptism signifies the nurturing, sustaining, and transforming power of God’s love and our grateful response to that grace.” 

In a nutshell, this means that we together with others who bear the name of Christ and Christian, are among those who are called to be salt and light, to be leaven for good in the world. 

Do you remember the reading this morning?  Jesus and the disciples are in the Temple of Jerusalem.  It has only recently been rebuilt to its magnificent state, and the disciples like most other Jews of their day are in awe of it.  They take it as a great and wonderful sign of God’s presence among them, and God’s renewed faithfulness to them as a people.  

But Jesus tells them not to get too attached.  It will soon be destroyed, he says.  In a generation.  By the Romans.  Not one stone will be left on another.  It will be rubble. 

But, he says, it will not be the end of the world.  It will not be the end of life.  It will not be the end of God’s kingdom on Earth.  It will not be the end of your life and calling and service and mission as my disciples and as servants of God.  In fact, all these terrible things that will happen not the death throes of the world, they are the birth-pangs of new life. 

And the question is, what is it that will be born?  What is it that God is struggling and labouring to bring forth?  What is it that you are called to help bring to birth as midwives of the kingdom of God in your time? 

The pains are many.  The attacks in Paris are among them.  The day before, there was the suicide attack in Beirut that killed 43 moderate Muslims.  In the weeks before that, the explosion of a Russian airliner over the Sinai that killed over 200.  And who knows what more pains there may be for us and the world to suffer. 

But it’s not the end of the world, Jesus tells us.  It’s the pain of new life -- the pain of restriction against new life, of reaction against the new life that God is labouring to bring into being among us and within us. 

I’ll end with – and give the last word today to a simple text exchange with my son Aaron from Friday night: 

“It makes me angry and sad,” he texted, “that people are capable of doing this to each other.  I’m still waiting for our global community to be realized where religion and politics don’t necessitate violence.  So much has to happen to get there but I’d like to keep hoping.” 

“Me too.” I texted back.  “I’ve been told Martin Buber once said that the purpose and meaning of each human life is to help move the world one inch in a good direction.” 

“I like that,” he replied. 

The question for us?   

Maybe just, what and where is your one inch?

Second Thoughts Towards Sunday, Nov 15, 2015

Reading:  Mark 13:1-8  (The disciples are in awe of the magnificence of the Temple; to many Jews it is a sign of the solid faithfulness of God towards them.  Jesus tells them not to get too attached, though; it will be destroyed within a generation.  And what's more, all the world as they know it will be thrown into such chaos that people will be grabbing on to any life preserver and saviour that comes along.)

How can Jesus practice such non-attachment to the Temple?  He knows its importance to the people.  He also makes good use of it as a place to teach people about God, just like he used the synagogues in the towns and villages he visited on the way to Jerusalem.  So how can he now seem so non-attached to the people's holy places?

Is it because of the corruption and abuse he sees there, so that when push comes to shove and you have to make a choice, it's better to throw out the building with the dirty bath water?

Or is it because he is aware that what the building points to, is not dependent on any particular building for it to be true?  Something like ... the faithfulness of God?  The presence and persistence of God's kingdom in the world?  The reality of God's love and good will for us and for all the world, with or without buildings?

A few questions for the few days that remain before Sunday:

• what is your attitude, and your level of attachment to our church building?
• does our church building and what it's used for, express God's love and good will for ourselves, for Winona, and for all the world?
• if we ever lost our building, what would we do to continue to express God's love and good will for Winona? 

Towards Sunday, November 15, 2015

Reading:  Mark 13:1-8 (The disciples marvel at the magnificence of the Temple, and Jesus warns  them not to get too attached.  Soon it will be totally destroyed by the Romans, he says -- something that happened 30 years later, just a few years before this Gospel was written.  He also warns of even greater apocalyptic chaos to come to the world, and when his disciples ask when that will come, Jesus says he has no idea.)

There was a time in my life when I would have been all over this passage like a dirty shirt -- schooled as I was in the end-time schematics of Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, inspired by the evangelistic fervor of the Jesus Movement, and very content with a fundamentalist faith that offered me both eternal security and special -- even exclusive, control of the truth. 

Not surprising that one New Year's Eve at our church's Watch-night Service I preached a sermon likening Western culture in the 1970's to the end days of the Roman Empire, suggested we were living in the end times, and telling the people in worship not to go home that night without knowing where they would spend eternity. 

That sermon is not one I regret preaching, but neither, I expect, is it one I will repeat.

I wonder ... how do you feel about a passage like Mark 13?  What thought, feeling and action does it inspire in you?   Do you get anything from Jesus when he talks about a coming end to the world?

I wonder because sometimes much of the secular world is more attuned to the apocalyptic than we are.  Anxiety about the end of the world as we know it is felt in all kinds of ways by people of no religious faith -- from disasters as global as climate change and environmental collapse, nuclear war, world-wide economic collapse and zombie invasion, to crises as personal as terminal illness, loss of job and livelihood, or death of a spouse or a child, no one of us is ever more than one step away from the terrible end of the world as we know it.

So I wonder again, how we feel about a passage like Mark 13?  What does it inspire us to think, feel or do?  From the way Jesus talks about the end of the world as we know it, do we receive anything we can offer in turn to others around us?

Sermon from Sunday, Nov 8, 2015 (Remembrance Sunday)

Reading: Mark 12:38-44
Theme:  How does God build a house of peace on Earth?

We remember. 

This weekend, we and other people of faith around the community and across the country remember in our places of worship those from our congregations who risked and lost their lives in the Great Wars of the last century.  Here at Fifty in World War I, four went overseas and did not come back; in World War II, five – the hopes of their families, part of the heart of the community lost in war.   

On Wednesday we take time as a nation to remember and honour those who paid the supreme sacrifice, and grieve the human cost of war.  In World War I, close to 18 million people were killed – 11 million military personnel, and 7 million civilians.  Another 20 million injured.  Sixty thousand of the military personnel who died were Canadian, and 2,ooo of the  civilians killed were Canadian. 

In World War II the numbers are even greater.  Between 60 and 80 million people were killed – about 3 % of the world’s population at the time.  20-25 million of the deaths were military personnel, about 50 million were civilians. 

And the numbers don’t end there.   

Last week the federal government released the information that in addition to the deaths of 158 Canadian military personnel that we knew about in our mission in Afghanistan, 54 other soldiers have committed suicide since returning from their time there. 

Also last week, the paper reported the killing of a four-year-old Syrian girl by a Russian missile while she was enjoying a special visit with her grand-parents at their house.  The story also reported that according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Russian air strikes in Syria in the last month have killed 131 IS fighters, 279 Syrian rebels, and 185 civilians including 46 women and 48 children.  US-led air strikes have killed close to 4,000 IS fighters (an average of 252 a month) and 225 civilians. 

What do the numbers mean?  Whether it’s 4 and 5 from Fifty in Winona, or 18 and then 60-80 million around the world, or 54 military suicides, or a single Syrian girl killed from above by a missile, what do the numbers add up to?   

Peace?  Security?  Democracy?  A better world?  The answer is not simple. 

It leads to the bigger question and mystery of how God brings peace on Earth?  Unless the Lord builds the house those who labour, labour in vain.  But how does God build a house of peace on Earth, or turn all the world into a temple of peace for all its people and creatures? 

This morning we have read of Jesus teaching in the Temple, and one day seeing there a woman – a poor widow – always a widow, putting into the Temple treasury two copper coins.  In value they are only about a penny, but they are all she has to live on and she is giving – sacrificing, all she has. 

Jesus sees this, and honours her for it.  “All the other people,” he says, “are giving out of their abundance; they are not sacrificing anything.  But she has given all she has to live on; she has sacrificed everything.” 

It reminds me of the Dead Man’s Penny first issued by the British Government in the First World War and given to the widows and next-of-kin of soldiers killed in action, accompanied by a letter from King George V that said, “I join with my grateful people in sending you this memorial of a brave life given for others in the Great War.”  It was a way of honouring the sacrifice made. 

But in the story of Jesus in addition to honouring the sacrifice made, he is also saddened and even angry about its having to be made.  A few days before this, when Jesus first enters Jerusalem and goes to the Temple – the first place he wants to be once he reaches the city , he is appalled at the corruption and thievery going on, and the way the poor and powerless are being exploited.  That’s when he overturns the tables and drives the moneychangers out. 

Then in today’s reading he warns the people against the lawyers and leaders in charge of the temple who sound good and committed to what’s right, but who are really just profiting off the people who support the Temple and all it stands for.  Instead of the Temple and its leaders serving the good and well-being of the poor and powerless, the poor and powerless end up supporting and serving the well-being of the Temple and its leaders.  In Jesus’ eyes, that’s just wrong. 

And it’s then Jesus sees the poor widow coming to drop into the Temple treasury her last two coins.  And there’s something about her – about the few coins of her life, and what she chooses to do with them, that touches him – moves him in some way, maybe stirs and strengthens him in his own openness to the way of God for him. 

Oh Jerusalem, he laments, if only you knew the ways of peace – only know the things that make for peace!  But alas, you do not! 

One other thing I heard in the news this week is that this week past was the 20^th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Itzak Rabin.  Rabin was shot 20 years ago in a public square in Jerusalem by a Jewish ultra-nationalist – by one of his own people, when Rabin began making serious overtures of peace towards the Palestinians and offering to cede part of the disputed territories of the West Bank to Palestinian authority for the sake of peace together.   

So how does God build a house of peace on Earth?  How does God engage us in making of the Earth a temple of peace for all? 

It may be that peace only and always comes through sacrifice – through the sacrifice, through the giving and the giving up of something precious to ourselves, for the sake of meeting the needs and serving the well-being of others – of others beyond ourselves, of others even against ourselves. 

But oh!  When the cost, and what is sacrificed is human life!  When what’s given and taken is human life!  No matter how many and what the number – whether 1 or 100 million, and whether a four-year-old girl or a Prime Minister.  That we lament! 

And in our lament – in our joining with God in the valuing of human life – in our openness to the pain, the injustice, and the sorrow of that kind of sacrifice – we open ourselves to real prayer.  We let ourselves be cast and drawn into the deep mystery and life of God.  

And we ask quite simply to know what is required of us.  What are we asked to give and give up?  What are we asked and called to sacrifice of our life – of our time, talent and treasure, to be part of God’s peace-making work on Earth in our time?

Towards Sunday, November 8, 2015 (Remembrance Sunday)

Readings: 

Ruth 3:1-5 -- Naomi (estranged from her own people) and her foreign daughter-in-law Ruth are back in Israel widowed, alone, and desperate.  As often happens in a time of scarcity and fear, the people are neglecting their calling to be hospitable to foreigners and to the needy.  So Naomi counsels her daughter-in-law to help them survive in the only way available to them -- by making herself sexually available to a rich kinsman in the hope he will marry her.

Psalm 127:1-2 -- The only real hope for the homes, the kingdom and the world we build is God's good and mysterious will, not our own best but never-quite-good-enough efforts.

Mark 12:38-44 -- Jesus warns against lawyers and leaders who look good and sound committed to the right things, but who in the end just profit from their position and from others' sacrifices -- especially those of the poor, that make the whole thing work.


The Gospel story of the widow's sacrifice lends a poignant perspective to Remembrance Day, as we remember and share in the grief still felt in families of all the young people who risked and lost their lives in wars of the last century. 

This poor widow has put in more than all those who are leading the people. 

For all of them contributed out of their abundance; but she

out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

 



Throughout church history, this poor widow who gives beyond her means has been held up as an example of faithful giving.  But Jesus' attitude is more one of sorrow and despair -- even anger, that she is put in this position at all, and that the lawyers and leaders take such advantage of it and of her faithful gift. 

Perhaps we are reminded that even if history still is written by the victors, the history of God is shaped always by the victims -- all victims, and by God's radical love for them.  The story of Ruth emphasizes this, because when we read it through to the end we find that this poor woman -- a victim of circumstance and prejudice who has to sell herself to a rich man in order for her and her mother-in-law to survive, is the very one through whose life and womb God makes flow the holy and messianic line of David and Jesus.

In our worship of God this Sunday we remember the victims we know -- the young men who gave their lives during the great wars of the last century, and the families that still grieve their loss.

And we wonder: who are the victims of war today, both within and without our circle of friendship and familiarity, whom God would also have us remember?  Is it somehow through them and their story today that God makes flow the healing and saving love that heals and saves all the world?