Towards Sunday, July 26, 2015

Reading:  Luke 8:26-39 (healing the man named Legion)
Theme:  Our of our comfort zone, and into the kingdom of God

Last Sunday before worship I was talking with someone who said that the night before and still that morning hey were feeling so rotten about everything, they almost decided not to come to church.  I replied that when we're feeling rotten about things is probably exactly the right time to come to church. 

But even as I said it, I realized that's not how we usually live it out -- not how we handle our feeling rotten about things, nor what we expect ourselves and others to be feeling and expressing when we come to church.

So many people stop coming to worship and to other things at church when they begin to feel rotten ... or when they begin to have real questions and doubts about their faith ... or when they have questions and doubts about the church itself, or out absome people in it.

When that happens they may find real peace and a satisfying spiritual home elsewhere, and how can we not to be glad for that progress in their spiritual journey? 

But at the same time, it also means we are impoverished as a church because it's exactly the rotten feelings and the real questions and doubts that, when embraced and faced together, become the doorway to spiritual growth and deepened community both for them and for all of us together.

How can we make room in our worship and in our fellowship for the ways and times we and others feel rotten?  For the questions that shake us?  For the doubts we and others have about our faith, our church, ourselves, other people, and maybe even our God?

This Sunday's reading is the only story in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus leaves Jewish for Gentile territory -- journeying to "the other side" of Lake Galilee -- "the wrong side" of the human story and community.  There he meets a really scary person torn apart by all kinds of conflicted influences, voices and demons in his life.

What do Jesus' disciples feel as they follow Jesus out of their comfort zone in exploring "the other side."  When they meet the torn-apart person, do they feel at all akin to him?  Feel sympathy with him?  Or are they more simply glad not to seem as sick as he is? 

What does it do to them and to their idea of what it means to be a faith community, when they see Jesus able to bring new wholeness, peace and an awareness of the fullness of God to such a person as that? 

What's the take-away?

Sermon from Sunday, July 26, 2015

Reading:  Exodus 2:1-10 and 15:19-21
Theme:  Where would Moses, Aaron and all the rest of them have been without Miriam?

They were as close as Israel got to a royal family in their early days as a people.  They had charisma, and the people followed them out of slavery to Egypt through the wilderness all the way to the edge of the Promised Land.

There was Moses, the fearsome one whose words and actions fairly flashed with the power, the presence, and the purpose of Yahweh God.  We have lots of stories about him, and he was clearly the leader through many difficult times and seemingly impossible situations. 

There was Aaron, his younger brother – or maybe step-brother, who was Moses’ second-in-command.  We know a fair bit about him too – both flattering and not so flattering.

And then there was Miriam, their older sister.  There aren’t as many stories about her, but what has been preserved makes us wonder just where Moses and Aaron and the people of Israel would have been without her – wonder if maybe she was the nerve and the heart of the operation that really brought things – and brought the people together.

Think of the very beginning when baby Moses is placed in a reed basket and hidden among some rushes on the Nile to avoid the Egyptian’s genocidal slaughter.  If Miriam his older sister had not stood watch, the little basket might have been pushed by the current downstream and Moses lost, or he might have been swallowed by a crocodile, for which the Nile is famous.  And even when baby Moses is found and taken in by the pharaoh’s daughter, if Miriam had not quickly intervened and arranged for their mother to be employed as nursemaid for the baby, Moses would have been given to an Egyptian nursemaid and would have been raised without any knowledge of his Hebrew heritage – would have been swallowed up in the Egyptian court and equally lost to the Hebrew people.

In some ways it’s Miriam who at the beginning is the real hero of the story – or at least the one without whose nervy and ingenious help the hero could not have begun his journey.

And I wonder if it’s the same years later at the time of the exodus – the actual, critical moment the people of Israel are led to freedom through the Red Sea – or the Sea of Reeds, as the Egyptian army is bogged down in it and drowned.

It’s Moses who leads the people through – who channels for them the power of Yahweh to make the passage possible, under whose outstretched staff they find safe passage through the sea.  And it’s Moses who then is said to sing a song of praise to Yahweh for leading the people through, letting all the people know Who it is who is really their Saviour, and who they should commit to follow on the journey ahead.

Except is it really Moses who leads in the post-passage celebration?  In the official record, in Exodus 15:1-18 there’s a long song of Moses that begins with the words, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” and then continues to recite the details of the day and what’s happened, as well as details about the rest of the journey and how God has saved the people all along the way from different peoples and problems they encounter in the wilderness.  And that’s the problem – those things haven’t happened yet, leading scholars to suggest that this long song of Moses has been written later, and then inserted into this section of the story.

More original to the story is the three verses after this – verses 19-21, that we have read today, in which it’s Miriam, described as a prophetess – one who helps the people understand the work of God in their time, who takes a tambourine in her hand and leads the women in a festive dance, singing the simple song, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” 

These two lines of song are some of the earliest Hebrew poetry we have.  They were used later as the first two lines of the long song of Moses.  But they come first from the lips of Miriam, and they are used to help the people really come together around the great thing that Yahweh has just done for them.

 

 

It’s not just a spontaneous little song and dance that Miriam is leading here.  This was a structured and highly religious festivity – the kind of public celebration of the power of God that would be used to bring the people together at critical times.  One scholar puts it this way: 

          The place of the dance in Old Testament worship has been ignored and the

          importance of solemn assemblies has been over-emphasized – maybe because most

scholars and saints are middle-aged before they are scholars and saints.  So the importance of Miriam has been forgotten.  Dancing as a social pastime is a modern invention; in the ancient community dancing was an act of worship, in which body, mind and spirit together are committed to God and to the story of God’s great deeds.  It was a way in which the community of faith was really welded together and cemented. 

And it was Miriam who did this – who led the people in the song and the religious festival that really helped them understand what had just happened, and to commit themselves as a people to the God whose salvation of them they were celebrating.

I don‘t know if Moses could have done this – could have brought the people together in quite this way.  There is always something a little fearsome about Moses, and a little aloof.  He speaks and acts with the power of God – the people know that and respect him for it.  But he is so hard to follow and challenges the people in so many ways.  To be sure, Moses and his God always see the people through.  But after a while, a steady diet of impossible situations and miraculous solutions gets very tiring, and it’s understandable the people always feel a certain distance from Moses.

Miriam, though, is the one who is able to touch their hearts, and bring them together as a people.  She knows how to gather them around the power of God, and feel it themselves in their bodies and bones and spirits.  She’s the one who helps them sing and act out their faith together in ways that are natural to them.  So I really do wonder where Moses and Aaron and all the people would have been without her.

 

 

In a way, Miriam is kind of a matron saint or an exemplar of a lot of things that still are necessary and true in the formation of real faith community.  It’s the spirit of Miriam that’s channelled in our worship in the ministry of the music director and choir, and is brought to life in the hymns we sing and anthems we hear that give us a tune to hum on the way home and a way to sing the goodness of God for ourselves through the week.

It’s the spirit of Miriam that comes to life in gatherings like the Friendship Circle and the Now Group – circles of women who gather to share life and sacred support for one another. 

It’s the spirit of Miriam that is felt at the after-worship fellowship at Timmy’s, as well as coffee hour here. 

It’s the spirit of Miriam that is shared in the on-going pastoral care that you and others in the congregation offer one another in visits to someone who’s ill or under the weather, in telephone calls sometimes just to say hi and share what’s going on, in the daily ministry of the Prayer Chain. 

It’s the spirit of Miriam that is given time and space to work around the peach-peeling or pie-rolling tables, or around the tables and in the kitchen of the spaghetti and lobster dinners. 

Perhaps it was the spirit of Miriam that led us a few weeks ago to spend the first hour of our worship time on the front lawn of the church with muffins and juice so we could welcome and cheer the Pan Am Torch Relay, before coming inside for the second half hour and a wonderfully informal communion service.

The spirit of Miriam is alive and well in so many ways in the shared life and concern and personal relationships of our own community here.  It’s what helps us really feel ourselves to be a people of God and a community of faith.

Towards Sunday, July 26, 2015

Reading:  Exodus 15:19-21
Theme:  Miriam -- a woman with a lot of nerve

Our "favourite biblical character" this week is Miriam, older sister to Moses and Aaron, who even as a little girl and well into her older age showed a lot of nerve that the people of Israel really needed. 

Moses and Aaron may have been their leaders, but I wonder if Miriam was the real heart (and maybe backbone) of the enterprise who really brought the people together under God (and Moses) at least at the beginning.  Behind every successful man, is a mostly over-looked woman who really made it happen?

Three parts of Miriam's story are preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures:

• Exodus 2:1-10 where as Moses' older sister, she watches over him as a baby in the basket, and cleverly arranges for their mother to nurse him while the pharaoh's daughter takes him in  
• Exodus 15:19-21 where as "prophetess" (inspired interpreter of the events of the day, and thereby the people's faith-shaper) she leads the people in celebrating God's deliverance of them at the Sea of Reeds.  In the religious practice of the time this was a great liturgical occasion that did much to bring the people together under God's saving care at the beginning of their monumental journey.
• Numbers 12 where Miriam and Aaron together publicly criticize Moses for marrying a Cushite woman, and Miriam is struck with leprosy as punishment by God for her opposition to God's chosen leader.

A few interesting notes:

• In Exodus 2:1-10 Miriam is not named.  She is just "his sister".  Were the editors of Scripture afraid that naming her might make her, rather than Moses, the real hero(heroine) of the story?
• Miriam's simple, two-line worship-poem in Exodus 15:21 is one of the earliest fragments of Hebrew poetry we have.  It was later (sometime near the end of the time of the kingdom) expanded by the editors of Scripture into an 18-verse grandly-patriotic song, and inserted into the story (15:1-18).  But this new and expanded version is put into the mouth of Moses and positioned before Miriam's song, making it seem Miriam is only copying Moses.  Why?
• In Numbers 12 Moses is clearly in the wrong in marrying a Cushite woman, but God is said to be angry with Miriam and Aaron, because Moses needs to be upheld in the minds of the people as God's leader.  And then only Miriam is punished with leprosy; Aaron is given only a reprimand.

Is it any wonder the official rabbinic interpretation of the name "Miriam" is "bitter"?  Might she have reason to be bitter?

But the more popular and linguistically correct interpretation of her name is "plump one" which is better than it sounds, because in those days a sturdy, strong, well-rounded woman was highly regarded.  Go girl!

So ... this Sunday we will focus our attention on Miriam's simple little worship-song that helped solidify Israel as a people living under the saving care of Yahweh.  And we will open ourselves to what her prophetic leadership might mean for us today.

Sermon from Sunday, July 19, 2015

Reading:  Job 2:11 - 3:1; 16:1-4; 42:7-9
Sermon:  "With friends like this...?"

If you remember the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” you’ll remember Calvin as a bizarrely imaginative and recklessly adventurous young boy, who has a stuffed tiger named Hobbes as his constant companion, and a calm, philosophically forgiving victim of his adventuresomeness. 

In one arc of the story, though, Hobbes is lost.  Calvin has gone to the park to see what adventure he and his tiger can find, when suddenly Calvin comes running home and bursts through the front door of his house screaming, “Mom!  Mom!  A big dog knocked me down and stole Hobbes!”  He finds his mom – or she finds him, and as he hugs her legs and she bends down to touch his head, he says with terror in his eyes, “I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t, and now I’ve lost my best friend!” 

You feel so bad for him.  In the next frame, his mother kneels down to speak to him on his level, and these words come out of her mouth, “Well, Calvin, if you wouldn’t drag that tiger everywhere, things like this wouldn’t happen.”  In the last frame, Calvin is alone, and says, “There’s no problem so awful that you can’t add some guilt to it and make it even worse.” 

Anyone here ever found yourself in Calvin’s place – feeling bad at what’s happened, and then only feeling worse as the guilt for the way things are is piled on?  It’s a lonely and unhappy place to be. 

And what about the mom’s role in this little drama?  Anyone ever played out that role – “well, if only you hadn’t done such and such … you know why this happened, don’t you?”  I have some sympathy for the mom; she’s trying to turn a crisis into a teachable moment.  But I also know the times I’ve responded that way are among my biggest regrets as a parent, or a spouse, or a friend.   

And this is the role Job’s friends fall into as well.   

The Book of Job is an ancient tale of the universal experience of bad things happening to good people, of innocent creatures suffering needlessly or unjustly, of life not being fair.  Job is a good and righteous man blessed with good fields and farms, healthy herds and flocks, a good wife and prosperous children.  Then for no really good reason it is all taken away.  Fields and farms fail.  Herds and flocks are stolen.  The children all die in a terrible storm.  And Job himself becomes hideously sick, until all he can do is sit on an ash heap, near naked, his wife – embittered by it all, telling him to just curse God and die. 

At which point three friends arrive and for a week they simply sit with Job in silence.  They take into themselves the horror of all Job has lost and all he suffers.  They quietly share his shock, his sorrow, and his confusion, offering only their presence as support. 

Then Job breaks the silence, cursing the day he was born and saying he wishes he’d been still-born so he could have gone directly to whatever rest lies beyond this life, without suffering anything of life on Earth. 

At which point his friends reply, “No, no.  You musn’t say such things.  What will others think?  Have faith.  Turn to God.  Consider your life.  You’re sure you did nothing wrong?  Things happen for good reason even when we can’t see it.  Submit to God’s good will, and you will be saved.” 

Things any of us might say – and probably have said at some time to a friend in grief, or a neighbour or family member in trouble.  And none of it is untrue. 

But when Job’s friends try to say these things, and insist on saying them over and over again, it only leads to a breakdown in relationship between them and Job.  It happens over 28 chapters of back and forth argument about what’s happened and what it means – 28 chapters of Job’s friends telling his what he should believe and do and say – 28 chapters of Job saying “you just aren’t listening … you don’t really get it” – 28 chapters of increasing anger and frustration – 28 chapters of deepening depression and doubt. 

And maybe it’s because it is 28 chapters of Job’s friends thinking they know what Job should believe and do and say – for them to feel good, rather than letting and encouraging Job to come to his own way of believing and doing and saying.   

It’s interesting that it’s when the friends finally shut up and are quiet again, that Job is able to hear the voice of God for himself beyond the whirlwind of conversation with his friends.  And when you read what he hears and comes to accept and is able to live with, it’s really not a lot different from what his friends were trying to convince him of.  Except it’s in his own words.  It comes from his own interior encounter with God as he understands God.  It’s shaped in images he can see, and focused in questions and mysteries he can live with. 

When my dad died, my first and deepest thought when I and my sisters saw his body lying motionless and lifeless in the hospital bed at 3 or 4 in the morning, was “Is this what it comes to?  After all his lifetime of building, repairing, maintaining, helping and caring for others, is this what it all comes down to?”  It was not – and still is not, an easy question. 

And the way I come to peace with it, is with the image of him living in heaven now – one of heaven’s handymen – putting up shelves for people, building cupboards, fixing stuck doors, doing what he can to help maintain and repair the places people live in, in the Father’s household. 

And I know it’s my image.  It doesn’t come from the Bible.  When I mention it to my sisters, I get a bit of a blank look.  The minister who visited us after my dad’s death and who planned and led the funeral didn’t suggest it.  I actually don’t remember any real answers he tried to talk us into – and maybe that’s part of what freed me to come to my own answer. 

What I remember of his visit is that he shared with us what he knew of our dad, shared our sorrow at losing him, and said that like us, he wanted to help plan and lead a good funeral for him.  I don’t remember telling us what to believe, how to feel, or what to say.  In my memory, he gave us time and space to do our own work of listening for God as we each could understand God at that time. 

It’s St. Francis who is credited with saying, “Preach the Gospel always; use words when necessary.”   

I wonder if another way of saying this is that in some situations God – or at least what we think about God, is not the answer, but Love is – because God is love – and if we simply love, even silently, as we are able, the other will come to their own understanding of who God is for them.

Towards Sunday, July 19, 2015

Reading:  Job 2:11-3:1; 16:1-4; 42:7-9
Theme:  Job's Friends -- with friends like that...?

What do you say when something bad happens to a good person, or an innocent creature suffers needlessly or unjustly?

No point in denying that it happens.  That such things happen ... and that we are asked by others, or feel compelled in ourselves to say something meaningful and helpful about it.

But what is there we can say that does not come off sounding trite and unconvincing?  Or, in another direction, hurtful and judgemental?  Or in another direction still, simply wrong and not satisfying even to ourselves? 

It's for good reason most of us feel uncomfortable in the presence of unjust suffering.  It challenges much that we believe.

Sounds like heavy going for a warm summer morning worship service.

But don't worry.  To get a bit of a handle (and yes, only a bit ... but hopefully a good bit) on this real, down-to-life question, we'll read the verses above from The Book of Job, but then we'll turn to two great sources of wisdom -- "Calvin and Hobbes" and St. Francis, to help us find a way through.

I'm looking forward to it.  Dare I say it even sounds like fun?

Sermon from Sunday, July 5, 2015

Reading:  Psalm 23
Theme:  Quit calling me Shirley

Psalm 23

A new responsive reading 

One:   The psalmist tells a friend in distress

                    what  he … (or she?)  …

is glad for in times of fear or upset.

All:     The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

                    He makes me lie down in green pastures;

                    he leads me beside still waters;

                    he restores my soul.

                    He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. 

One:   While the psalmist’s friend mulls this over,

and lets it sink in,

                    the psalmist is inspired

to offer a word of thanks straight to God.

All:     Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

                     I fear no evil;

                    for you are with me;

                    your rod and your staff – they comfort me. 

One:   And the psalmist goes on;

                    sometimes when he … (or she?) …

                    starts talking to God, there seems no end.

All:     You prepare a table before me

                    in the presence of my enemies;

                    you anoint my head with oil;

                    my cup overflows… 

One:   Until the psalmist remembers

his … (or her?) … friend, and says:  Shirley …

All:     Shirley?

One:   Yes, Shirley.

All:     Shirley, goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life

                    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

                    my whole life long.                        

It must be nice to be Shirley.  Shirley Edwards, Shirley Durfey, Shirley Davidson…   

As long as you’re a Shirley, you know at some point that the Bible – or at least, the psalmist, is speaking to you.  And you alone. 

Isn’t that how it seems sometimes to the rest of us?  That the Bible – especially in its words of promise and good news, is really meant for someone else? 

We get to listen in.  And we know all about the bad stuff the Bible talks about -- – the hard stuff of life – the sorrow and sickness, loss and grief, struggles and trials that this psalm and the rest of the Bible assume to be the common stuff of life, the background to everything.   

But when it comes to the happy ending – the last few lines that somehow turn it all to some good conclusion, we find out maybe it’s not really meant for us – that when it comes to the concluding, redeeming words of hope, healing, and help we aren’t included in quite the same way.  Those things are meant for, and come to someone else.  To Shirley.  But not to us.  Not to me. 

Have you ever felt that way?  Do you maybe feel this way right now in your life?  That no matter how hard we try, we are not and maybe never will be Shirley? 

At this point, a voice from the wings:  Excuse me … you may not be reading that psalm quite right … I think what you think what one of the words means isn’t really what you think it means … try having another look at it.  Instead of … 

One:   Until the psalmist remembers

his … (or her?) … friend, and says:  Shirley …

All:     Shirley?

One:   Yes, Shirley.

All:     Shirley, goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life

                    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

                    my whole life long.                                    

          It should really be: 

One:   Until the psalmist remembers

his … (or her?) … friend, and says:  Shirley …

All:     No.  Surely!

One:   Ohh… SURELY??!  Are you sure, “surely”?

All:     Yes, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life

                    and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

                    my whole life long.                      

 Well … that really changes it doesn’t it?   

Instead of telling just Shirley that goodness and mercy are always there for her, the psalmist tells us all that for sure goodness and mercy really are there all the time, for all of us – and because of it, we can all be sure – if we have eyes to see and heart to feel, that no matter what happens, we are living in the house of God and in God’s care all our life long.

There’s one word – besides “surely,” that the psalmist uses in these last two lines that really brings the point home.  It’s the word “follow” – the English translation of the Hebrew radaph.  Radaph means “follow” in the sense of chasing, pursuing, overtaking, capturing and overpowering – the way an enemy would follow you to catch you up and take you prisoner – the way evil, heartbreak, sickness, bad news and loss can seem to follow us, dog our steps, wait in ambush for us at every corner, thoroughly overwhelm us and beat us down.   

What the psalmist is saying is that goodness and mercy come after us in just the same way – that no matter how dark the night, the light of a new day will come – no matter how lonely we feel, we are not alone – no matter how hard life is, life is still a great gift with more good things in it that we can ever number or imagine – no matter how downward our spiral may be, when we come to hit bottom God is there waiting for us with a map to a way up and out, a lamp to light our steps on the way, and provisions to nourish us for the journey. 

But I wonder.  When the psalmist says this, and even now that we know it’s addressed to us as well as Shirley, do the words really make a difference?  Do they change what we feel?  Or what we experience? 

Sometimes yes, for sure.  But always?  And for everyone? 

I read recently “there’s nothing worse for a depressed person than to be confronted by someone who can’t find fault in anything and who wants nothing more than to be grateful for being born into God’s world.”  (Daniel Goodwin, Sons and Fathers, 80-81)  And sometimes that’s how a believer’s affirmations of life’s ultimate goodness and the absolute loving care of God can come across to someone who just doesn’t feel it, or experience life that way at that moment. 

So how to bridge the gap?  How to help the relentless pursuit of goodness and mercy come true, and be recognizable for someone who really is on a downward path into a valley of deep and only darkening shadow? 

I want to suggest something – which may not be literally true to the text, but may be absolutely true to life and how God’s goodness and mercy are known. 

In the verses just before the last two, where the psalmist says:

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

                    I fear no evil;

                    for you are with me;

                    your rod and your staff – they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

                    you anoint my head with oil;

                    my cup overflows…

we imagine the psalmist is talking to God – that he has shifted from talking to Shirley – or all of us, about God, to talking to God instead and letting us listen in, and then at the end switches back to us, to tell us what a difference it makes in the trials of life to be able to be sure of God’s goodness and mercy. 

But what if … in these middle verses the psalmist is still talking to us and is saying that although the Lord is his shepherd who ultimately guides him to green pastures and places to rest and be restored, it is through the presence of others – the Shirleys in his life who  

·         have quietly sat with him in a hospital waiting room,

·         have been a shoulder to cry on or an arm to lean on,

·         have listened to his first reaction to things and offered and been brave enough to ask a few critical and challenging questions about it,

·         have left a casserole on the front step or shared a meal,

·         have swabbed his lips or soothed his hot brow or massaged his feet,

·         have raised funds or given money from their pockets to help him pay for an operation, a wedding, a child’s trip home, or a fresh start of any kind? 

Might it be these kinds of people in his life that the psalmist is speaking to the most – the ones through whom he comes to know and really feel the goodness and mercy of God in life, so that he is able to end with as peaceful an awareness of God’s lifelong grace as he does? 

It that’s the case, I think there are at least two questions to consider. 

One is:  in the dark times of life that I feel, when I feel alone or overwhelmed or depressed, how do I allow other people to be with me in the darkness, to share the walk with me, to feed me, soothe me, and fill my cup for me?  I am sure they are there; do I recognize them, and let them in? 

And the other question is:  when others around me are caught in dark times, when they feel alone or overwhelmed or depressed, how do I allow myself to be with them in the darkness, to share their walk (and not just my words or God’s words) with them, to set a table for them, provide food for them, anoint them and soothe them in some way?  Just knowing about God’s goodness and mercy is not the point; the question is do I let myself put it into practice, to quietly fill someone else’s cup, that at least right now might seem to them, pretty empty? 

If the Lord is my shepherd, how can I not allow myself to be caught up in the life-long gift and the day-by-day practice of his goodness and mercy?