Dear friends -
October is the 50th anniversary month at Glen Ayr, and there will be some guest preachers for most of the Sundays, so this sermon will likely be the last until November 7th.
From November 14, I will be posting from Humber United Church in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. I have accepted a call to Humber and am in the process of packing and getting ready for the move.
Many thanks for your comments so far, and I hope to continue hearing from you.
Fran Ota
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A Life of Gratitude A sermon based on Deuteronomy 8:7-18, and Luke 17:11-19 Thanksgiving Sunday October 10, 2010 Glen Ayr United Church
Deuteronomy 8:7-18 For God brings you to a good land, with flowing streams, waters in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, olive trees and honey; you eat bread whenever you wish, where you lack nothing. You shall eat and bless for the good land. Take care that you do not forget God, or fail to keep God’s laws. When you have eaten, built your homes to live in, and you have all that you need each day, do not exalt yourself, forgetting God, who brought you out from Egypt, from slavery, led you through the terrible wilderness, made water flow, and fed you with manna that your ancestors did not know, to test you, and to do you good. Do not say to yourself, "My own power has got this for me.”
Luke 17:11-19 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus went through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." As they went, they were made clean. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He bowed at Jesus' feet and thanked him. This one was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
***************************************************
The Feast of Shavuot in the Jewish calendar follows Passover, but comes before Pentecost. On the day after Passover, a sheaf of new wheat or corn is waved over the altar, as a sign of gratitude to God for bestowing blessings. At Pentecost two loaves of leavened bread made from the new wheat are waved over the altar. All the first fruits are to be offered to God. “You shall bring the first fruits of your land to the house of Hashem, your God.”
***************************************************
Autumn is my favorite season of the year--especially with the kind of autumn weather we’ve been having recently. All of the seasons have their charm, of course: I love the spring, watching all the new things come up once again, the pale lacy trees as the leaves just begin to come; I love summer, even if I spend some of the time grousing about the heat; and the winter, if there is enough snow. But autumn is my favourite - the lighter air, the clear blue skies, bright colours, a difference to the quality of the sunshine. There is an explosion of colors.
Thinking about our autumn, consider what a contrast it is to the treeless desert in which we find Jesus and the group on their journey in today’s story.
Luke’s text takes place in a "liminal space". The word liminal comes from the Latin for limnus, meaning "doorway". Jesus and the followers met the lepers in a region between Samaria and Galilee - they were neither in one place or the other. So they were in a place that was neither here not there, a place of transition, in a place of possible danger, but also a place of incredible opportunity.
Most of the time there isn't a soul seen for miles. Jesus and the twelve and all the various family members have been on the road for weeks. The kids are cranky, the women beginning to despair, the men no longer even talking to each other. Nothing left to talk about. Just more heat, dust, and desert.
On the horizon, they see a collection of mud- baked, one-room hovels clumped around a small watering hole. Still in the distance, Jesus thinks he can make out the shapes of moving figures. But you know how eyes play tricks when overexposed to intense light, and the heat which rises off the hot land. Mirages. At first, it almost looks like a herd of animals, maybe desert jackals. But the shape and the pace are strange. Some hobble. Others limp.
It turns out that the figures are ten human beings, all in thick, black wool tunics. They hang around just outside the village walls, and Jesus knows instinctively that they are lepers. Despised by everyone, cast out by everyone. You know them too - the ones who panhandle on streets corners that we make judgments about without even knowing them;, the ones who are passed out on the floor of busy subway terminals, whose clothing reeks of old food, sweat, alcohol and urine. Can't miss lepers. They're easy to pick out.
Not all those who were called lepers actually had leprosy - what we now call Hanson's Disease. Any skin condition - psoriasis, lupus, ringworm, anything - was enough to remove people from the community for life. What did they feel like, being pushed outside the community by their own tradition. Humiliated, sneered at, no reason to go on. Used as object lessons about sin. Charity cases. Hopeless. Subhuman. Proof that God elects some for higher purposes and others for destruction. Sinners, outsiders, worthless.
What would it be like to be avoided as one who spread a dread disease, to live with the fact that no one in the community will be willing to come close, no home of their own, no chance at employment, reduced by circumstances often outside their control, to the life of a beggar on the streets. What would it be like to be judged all the time, to have assumptions made about you, to be treated as less than human?
Jewish law said that these lepers were never to enter the villages, they must coverr their face and shout out "Unclean, Unclean." They were forced to walk around with hair disheveled and clothes ripped. The law said they must live alone, outside the community. Even if they were to recover, the law prescribed a specific cleansing ritual that had to be obeyed to the "T."
The ten knew exactly how far away to stand, so they stood just within hearing distance and yelled, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Who told these outcasts about Jesus? Maybe they had caught wind of another leper that Jesus had healed. However it happened, they knew, and there they were asking Jesus for help - meaning they needed money and food. But they also needed some kind of deliverance for the hand they had been dealt by life.
"Go show yourselves to the priests," Jesus yells back. Now, note that both Jesus and the lepers are performing according to the laws of their tradition. Lepers were supposed to beg for mercy, and Jesus instructs them to follow tradition's procedures for lepers who received cures. "Go and show yourselves to the priests." The announcement could only mean one thing - they were healed.
So they went to find the local priest, as they discovered that they were healed, and hurry to begin the purification ritual. Except one. In the midst of dashing back to the town, he screeches to a halt. He realizes that right out there in the dusty back roads of eastern Palestine, he's been cured. He looks at the other lepers as they hobble over the hill, then at the man who did the healing.
Now, this one man is a foreigner, not of the same faith as the others. As he realises he is healed, he turns back, to thank Jesus for the incredible gift of healing. Jesus asks, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And then he says , "Your faith has made you well." Only one recognised that his body had been healed, but more importantly, his spirit had been healed of its disease.
We get sentimental at Thanksgiving, and I think we confuse sentimentality with gratitude. We single out this one part of the year - a long weekend - to cram in food, family, and a side=helping of gratitude for life - if we remember. In all the hurrying, and the consigning of gratitude to one weekend a year, we’ve lost the meaning of the word “holiday”. ‘Holiday’ doesn’t mean a day off from life, it doesn’t mean time to do all the things we want and maybe remember blessings - in a fleeting sort of way. The word “holiday” literally means Holy Day, a day to remember and give thanks, *precisely* for all the blessings we have.
Virtually every culture celebrates thanksgiving and gratitude in some way - and the thanks is also connected to sharing of the blessings with others. In those ‘thanksgivings’, it is recognised that the fruits of creation are there not only to be used, but to be shared with those who may be considered outcast - the lepers who stand at a distance and are denied life. The fruits of creation are everything we have, and they do not belong to us. They have been given to us through the generosity of God, to be shared with the rest of creation. When we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we are literally celebrating a Holy Day, the giving of thanks to a generous God, who asks us to be generous as well.
But this story also raises questions about worship and tradition. Traditions tell us who we are, give us identity, shape our values. Thanksgiving is a tradition for us. Family gathers around the table, or the barbecue or whatever, and family stories are told and retold. The stories live on, and tradition is passed on.
But we can be so locked into tradition - in fact, I’d call it nostalgia rather than tradition - that we miss the time of our lives now. Traditions prevent us sometimes, from seeing new needs and challenges. The problem with the nine lepers was not that they followed their tradition. Jesus told them to obey what their tradition required, and they did it. The problem was that they were so engrossed in keeping that tradition, that they missed the most important thing that ever happened to them, the most important opportunity in their lives. In order to carry on doing things the way they always had been, they missed altogether the very different thing, the person who gave them the reason to be celebrating.
Did you happen to catch what Jesus said to the one who returned to give thanks? Jesus said he was well, but didn't they all get well? They did. But in this passage the Greek word “sozo” or “salvation.” is used. They all got healed, but Luke implies that this one person experienced something the others missed or ignored..
Gratitude for life is not something we can pay attention to one a year and forget about the rest of the time. Gratitude is more than that; we are called into healing - and from the healing we are called OUT from the sidelines, and IN to life. We can’t stay in one place, hold things the way they are, and not participate fully. If we refuse to participate, we dismiss the gifts given - and that means we are not grateful. Life calls us back out, God calls us back out....and we have only one choice, and that is to risk being changed, to risk being made new, to risk something totally unknown, and to give thanks for it.
Sources:
1. “First Fruits”, a sermon by Rev. Fran Ota, Thanksgiving 2005.
2. “Grace and Gratitude”, a sermon by Rev. Thomas N. Hall.
Luke 17:11-19 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus went through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." As they went, they were made clean. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He bowed at Jesus' feet and thanked him. This one was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
***************************************************
The Feast of Shavuot in the Jewish calendar follows Passover, but comes before Pentecost. On the day after Passover, a sheaf of new wheat or corn is waved over the altar, as a sign of gratitude to God for bestowing blessings. At Pentecost two loaves of leavened bread made from the new wheat are waved over the altar. All the first fruits are to be offered to God. “You shall bring the first fruits of your land to the house of Hashem, your God.”
***************************************************
Autumn is my favorite season of the year--especially with the kind of autumn weather we’ve been having recently. All of the seasons have their charm, of course: I love the spring, watching all the new things come up once again, the pale lacy trees as the leaves just begin to come; I love summer, even if I spend some of the time grousing about the heat; and the winter, if there is enough snow. But autumn is my favourite - the lighter air, the clear blue skies, bright colours, a difference to the quality of the sunshine. There is an explosion of colors.
Thinking about our autumn, consider what a contrast it is to the treeless desert in which we find Jesus and the group on their journey in today’s story.
Luke’s text takes place in a "liminal space". The word liminal comes from the Latin for limnus, meaning "doorway". Jesus and the followers met the lepers in a region between Samaria and Galilee - they were neither in one place or the other. So they were in a place that was neither here not there, a place of transition, in a place of possible danger, but also a place of incredible opportunity.
Most of the time there isn't a soul seen for miles. Jesus and the twelve and all the various family members have been on the road for weeks. The kids are cranky, the women beginning to despair, the men no longer even talking to each other. Nothing left to talk about. Just more heat, dust, and desert.
On the horizon, they see a collection of mud- baked, one-room hovels clumped around a small watering hole. Still in the distance, Jesus thinks he can make out the shapes of moving figures. But you know how eyes play tricks when overexposed to intense light, and the heat which rises off the hot land. Mirages. At first, it almost looks like a herd of animals, maybe desert jackals. But the shape and the pace are strange. Some hobble. Others limp.
It turns out that the figures are ten human beings, all in thick, black wool tunics. They hang around just outside the village walls, and Jesus knows instinctively that they are lepers. Despised by everyone, cast out by everyone. You know them too - the ones who panhandle on streets corners that we make judgments about without even knowing them;, the ones who are passed out on the floor of busy subway terminals, whose clothing reeks of old food, sweat, alcohol and urine. Can't miss lepers. They're easy to pick out.
Not all those who were called lepers actually had leprosy - what we now call Hanson's Disease. Any skin condition - psoriasis, lupus, ringworm, anything - was enough to remove people from the community for life. What did they feel like, being pushed outside the community by their own tradition. Humiliated, sneered at, no reason to go on. Used as object lessons about sin. Charity cases. Hopeless. Subhuman. Proof that God elects some for higher purposes and others for destruction. Sinners, outsiders, worthless.
What would it be like to be avoided as one who spread a dread disease, to live with the fact that no one in the community will be willing to come close, no home of their own, no chance at employment, reduced by circumstances often outside their control, to the life of a beggar on the streets. What would it be like to be judged all the time, to have assumptions made about you, to be treated as less than human?
Jewish law said that these lepers were never to enter the villages, they must coverr their face and shout out "Unclean, Unclean." They were forced to walk around with hair disheveled and clothes ripped. The law said they must live alone, outside the community. Even if they were to recover, the law prescribed a specific cleansing ritual that had to be obeyed to the "T."
The ten knew exactly how far away to stand, so they stood just within hearing distance and yelled, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Who told these outcasts about Jesus? Maybe they had caught wind of another leper that Jesus had healed. However it happened, they knew, and there they were asking Jesus for help - meaning they needed money and food. But they also needed some kind of deliverance for the hand they had been dealt by life.
"Go show yourselves to the priests," Jesus yells back. Now, note that both Jesus and the lepers are performing according to the laws of their tradition. Lepers were supposed to beg for mercy, and Jesus instructs them to follow tradition's procedures for lepers who received cures. "Go and show yourselves to the priests." The announcement could only mean one thing - they were healed.
So they went to find the local priest, as they discovered that they were healed, and hurry to begin the purification ritual. Except one. In the midst of dashing back to the town, he screeches to a halt. He realizes that right out there in the dusty back roads of eastern Palestine, he's been cured. He looks at the other lepers as they hobble over the hill, then at the man who did the healing.
Now, this one man is a foreigner, not of the same faith as the others. As he realises he is healed, he turns back, to thank Jesus for the incredible gift of healing. Jesus asks, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And then he says , "Your faith has made you well." Only one recognised that his body had been healed, but more importantly, his spirit had been healed of its disease.
We get sentimental at Thanksgiving, and I think we confuse sentimentality with gratitude. We single out this one part of the year - a long weekend - to cram in food, family, and a side=helping of gratitude for life - if we remember. In all the hurrying, and the consigning of gratitude to one weekend a year, we’ve lost the meaning of the word “holiday”. ‘Holiday’ doesn’t mean a day off from life, it doesn’t mean time to do all the things we want and maybe remember blessings - in a fleeting sort of way. The word “holiday” literally means Holy Day, a day to remember and give thanks, *precisely* for all the blessings we have.
Virtually every culture celebrates thanksgiving and gratitude in some way - and the thanks is also connected to sharing of the blessings with others. In those ‘thanksgivings’, it is recognised that the fruits of creation are there not only to be used, but to be shared with those who may be considered outcast - the lepers who stand at a distance and are denied life. The fruits of creation are everything we have, and they do not belong to us. They have been given to us through the generosity of God, to be shared with the rest of creation. When we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we are literally celebrating a Holy Day, the giving of thanks to a generous God, who asks us to be generous as well.
But this story also raises questions about worship and tradition. Traditions tell us who we are, give us identity, shape our values. Thanksgiving is a tradition for us. Family gathers around the table, or the barbecue or whatever, and family stories are told and retold. The stories live on, and tradition is passed on.
But we can be so locked into tradition - in fact, I’d call it nostalgia rather than tradition - that we miss the time of our lives now. Traditions prevent us sometimes, from seeing new needs and challenges. The problem with the nine lepers was not that they followed their tradition. Jesus told them to obey what their tradition required, and they did it. The problem was that they were so engrossed in keeping that tradition, that they missed the most important thing that ever happened to them, the most important opportunity in their lives. In order to carry on doing things the way they always had been, they missed altogether the very different thing, the person who gave them the reason to be celebrating.
Did you happen to catch what Jesus said to the one who returned to give thanks? Jesus said he was well, but didn't they all get well? They did. But in this passage the Greek word “sozo” or “salvation.” is used. They all got healed, but Luke implies that this one person experienced something the others missed or ignored..
Gratitude for life is not something we can pay attention to one a year and forget about the rest of the time. Gratitude is more than that; we are called into healing - and from the healing we are called OUT from the sidelines, and IN to life. We can’t stay in one place, hold things the way they are, and not participate fully. If we refuse to participate, we dismiss the gifts given - and that means we are not grateful. Life calls us back out, God calls us back out....and we have only one choice, and that is to risk being changed, to risk being made new, to risk something totally unknown, and to give thanks for it.
Sources:
1. “First Fruits”, a sermon by Rev. Fran Ota, Thanksgiving 2005.
2. “Grace and Gratitude”, a sermon by Rev. Thomas N. Hall.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
“Hope in Perilous Times” A sermon based on Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 Glen Ayr United Church September 26, 2010
What a really odd story from the scripture this morning! At the core of the passage from Jeremiah, is a Word. Word, you say - so what? Yet this is no ordinary word, but extraordinary Word. Think about some times when there were extraordinary words, which located us so completely that we remember to this day where we were and what we were doing. They might be words of disaster, words of insight, or prophetic words which stop us short in our tracks.
Have you had an experience where a word comes, just an ordinary word, but it comes in such a powerful way that it is WORD.
Back in my administrative days, around 1990, I was discouraged by a superior from applying for a higher position because - he said- a Master of Divinity degree was needed. Yet that requirement was not listed in the job description; I was too naive then to realise that the motives were political and personal on the part of the other person, and not even legal. I remember sitting in a car venting to a trusted friend, who responded “Well, why don’t you just go get the degree!”. The effect was jarring, and I can still feel it. It might seem like a simple thing to say, but the words stuck as prophetic. .....it was the equivalent of God telling Jeremiah to go out and buy land.
The Word from God comes to Jeremiah with such jarring effect that the text is even precise about the timing - right when Zedekiah the Israelite King was finishing his first decade, and King Nebuchadnezzar was finishing nearly two decades of fierce rule.
Probably the worst possible time for this Word to come: Jerusalem is outnumbered, surrounded by a superior force. They have tried to ally with Egypt to fight the Babylonians. That, according to the king of Babylon, is the end. It gets worse - the Babylonian army sets up a siege against Jerusalem; Jeremiah is in jail. He is there because he dared to speak the annoying Word from God. He has dared to speak up and speak the truth about reality. Now, if the King has a different view than God has, obviously there is a problem.
Here’s the Word which landed Jeremiah in the guardhouse:
This is God speaking . . .the thing you have ignored, hoping it would just disappear, is about to happen. So I’m going to tell you plainly- your dreaded enemies are going to break through, and I’m the one letting them in. Your king Zedekiah will surrender, Nebuchadnezzar will take him to Babylon, and he will stay put there till I say otherwise.
So listen up - keep on fighting, you will lose.
Now, that should have resulted in Jeremiah being executed - yet he wasn’t. There must have been something about the unvarnished, raw quality of the Word that had the ring of truth to it. The message was clear: God?s judging actions would seem to end things forever for these people.
That raises questions for us. How do we masking our real condition by choosing only what we want to hear? Prophets speaking prophetic words better be on the appointment system and not the popular vote system - because otherwise they won’t be around long. How do we dance around reality and the truth about our lives because to do otherwise would be painful?
It’s easy, actually, to become the villagers who see the truth about the emperor and his clothes when he’s making a naked fool of himself. Everyone of the villagers see his nakedness but keep silent, because they have been told, "only the dull and incredibly stupid cannot see the new clothes." So the silence goes on; we continue believing in life as usual, choosing to ignore the messages that God sends to our bodies, our neighborhoods, our congregations, and our nations.
So Jeremiah sits in jail, silenced for speaking out and breaking the silence about the truth.
Strange thing, though. Even though the villagers ignore Jeremiah?s words, as they have throughout his gadfly career, deep down they know he?s right. They know the truth when they hear it. So the story begins with nothing in the present that encourages any investment in the future. "Hey, Jeremiah," God whispers to the prophet who sleeps between two guards.
"That you again, God?" “Yes, it’s me. Listen up. When your cousin drops in for a prison visit and starts talking about the family farm, go ahead and buy it.”
Note that Jeremiah says no fewer than five times "this is the Word of the Lord", as if to say, not my idea! So Jeremiah buys property from jail with the Babylonians at the gate. Imagine the press coverage in the village paper the next week: Real Shekels Nets Worthless Land." S
So what did the writer want us to walk away with? What is it about this story that will help us in our own discipleship?
This story is about betting on the future. It is the gospel of grace that promises a future even when we barely have a present. What a daring, risky act of faith in God-to believe the Word that says, "Don’t despair, don’t fear; this is not the last chapter for my people. In my time and through my grace, you will once again be back and buying and selling and living in peace."
To those who didn’t believe Jeremiah, his actions would have been cause for great humour. His purchase of land would seem completely against logic and completely silly. But the point is, even when things looked totally hopeless, Jeremiah didn’t just sit on his hands - he still did something to bring about significant change in the fortunes of the people. God doesn’t say to him “Leave it all to me.”, God says “Do something while you’re trying to see what comes next.” His purchase of the land is God’s Word of blessing in the midst of the reality of hopelessness. We discover that God has placed the people and land on loan to the Babylonians, but both will be given back, because the God of hope sent a Word.
This story reminds us that there will always be Babylonians on the doorstep. They have been there before, and they will be back again. In a struggling church facing financial difficulties - expenses seem to go up annually, making the budget shrink even as you seek new ways to be in mission-this story is for you. Not hard to feel surrounded by gloom and negatively that sees only next week, let alone a renewed, empowered future. Take this story and own it. Devour the Word
of God to this ancient people. Take a risk. Trust God. Even while you are trusting God, do something, but still continue to trust that God sees, hears and knows. Let this story be your hope - God’s grace will sustain where God leads.
There will be times when we face our own "self-invited troubles."times when we get boxed into a corner through misguided choices. That is, of all times, when we turn to God for courage and wisdom to go forward, to return to where God wants us to be. We can bet against the future because we know that God invites us into a hope of recovering, and becoming fruitful again.
Finally, the story teaches that God has no limitations - but that we do, and we cannot overcome those limitations without God. God can break out of all conventions and overcome all constraints - to bring about a new reality.
May the God of all hope in our future produce from our wayward fearful hearts a new spirit, new life, and a new way of living and thinking in the presence of God.
Sources:
1. Buying New Land - a sermon by Fran Ota
2. Betting on the Future, a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall
Have you had an experience where a word comes, just an ordinary word, but it comes in such a powerful way that it is WORD.
Back in my administrative days, around 1990, I was discouraged by a superior from applying for a higher position because - he said- a Master of Divinity degree was needed. Yet that requirement was not listed in the job description; I was too naive then to realise that the motives were political and personal on the part of the other person, and not even legal. I remember sitting in a car venting to a trusted friend, who responded “Well, why don’t you just go get the degree!”. The effect was jarring, and I can still feel it. It might seem like a simple thing to say, but the words stuck as prophetic. .....it was the equivalent of God telling Jeremiah to go out and buy land.
The Word from God comes to Jeremiah with such jarring effect that the text is even precise about the timing - right when Zedekiah the Israelite King was finishing his first decade, and King Nebuchadnezzar was finishing nearly two decades of fierce rule.
Probably the worst possible time for this Word to come: Jerusalem is outnumbered, surrounded by a superior force. They have tried to ally with Egypt to fight the Babylonians. That, according to the king of Babylon, is the end. It gets worse - the Babylonian army sets up a siege against Jerusalem; Jeremiah is in jail. He is there because he dared to speak the annoying Word from God. He has dared to speak up and speak the truth about reality. Now, if the King has a different view than God has, obviously there is a problem.
Here’s the Word which landed Jeremiah in the guardhouse:
This is God speaking . . .the thing you have ignored, hoping it would just disappear, is about to happen. So I’m going to tell you plainly- your dreaded enemies are going to break through, and I’m the one letting them in. Your king Zedekiah will surrender, Nebuchadnezzar will take him to Babylon, and he will stay put there till I say otherwise.
So listen up - keep on fighting, you will lose.
Now, that should have resulted in Jeremiah being executed - yet he wasn’t. There must have been something about the unvarnished, raw quality of the Word that had the ring of truth to it. The message was clear: God?s judging actions would seem to end things forever for these people.
That raises questions for us. How do we masking our real condition by choosing only what we want to hear? Prophets speaking prophetic words better be on the appointment system and not the popular vote system - because otherwise they won’t be around long. How do we dance around reality and the truth about our lives because to do otherwise would be painful?
It’s easy, actually, to become the villagers who see the truth about the emperor and his clothes when he’s making a naked fool of himself. Everyone of the villagers see his nakedness but keep silent, because they have been told, "only the dull and incredibly stupid cannot see the new clothes." So the silence goes on; we continue believing in life as usual, choosing to ignore the messages that God sends to our bodies, our neighborhoods, our congregations, and our nations.
So Jeremiah sits in jail, silenced for speaking out and breaking the silence about the truth.
Strange thing, though. Even though the villagers ignore Jeremiah?s words, as they have throughout his gadfly career, deep down they know he?s right. They know the truth when they hear it. So the story begins with nothing in the present that encourages any investment in the future. "Hey, Jeremiah," God whispers to the prophet who sleeps between two guards.
"That you again, God?" “Yes, it’s me. Listen up. When your cousin drops in for a prison visit and starts talking about the family farm, go ahead and buy it.”
Note that Jeremiah says no fewer than five times "this is the Word of the Lord", as if to say, not my idea! So Jeremiah buys property from jail with the Babylonians at the gate. Imagine the press coverage in the village paper the next week: Real Shekels Nets Worthless Land." S
So what did the writer want us to walk away with? What is it about this story that will help us in our own discipleship?
This story is about betting on the future. It is the gospel of grace that promises a future even when we barely have a present. What a daring, risky act of faith in God-to believe the Word that says, "Don’t despair, don’t fear; this is not the last chapter for my people. In my time and through my grace, you will once again be back and buying and selling and living in peace."
To those who didn’t believe Jeremiah, his actions would have been cause for great humour. His purchase of land would seem completely against logic and completely silly. But the point is, even when things looked totally hopeless, Jeremiah didn’t just sit on his hands - he still did something to bring about significant change in the fortunes of the people. God doesn’t say to him “Leave it all to me.”, God says “Do something while you’re trying to see what comes next.” His purchase of the land is God’s Word of blessing in the midst of the reality of hopelessness. We discover that God has placed the people and land on loan to the Babylonians, but both will be given back, because the God of hope sent a Word.
This story reminds us that there will always be Babylonians on the doorstep. They have been there before, and they will be back again. In a struggling church facing financial difficulties - expenses seem to go up annually, making the budget shrink even as you seek new ways to be in mission-this story is for you. Not hard to feel surrounded by gloom and negatively that sees only next week, let alone a renewed, empowered future. Take this story and own it. Devour the Word
of God to this ancient people. Take a risk. Trust God. Even while you are trusting God, do something, but still continue to trust that God sees, hears and knows. Let this story be your hope - God’s grace will sustain where God leads.
There will be times when we face our own "self-invited troubles."times when we get boxed into a corner through misguided choices. That is, of all times, when we turn to God for courage and wisdom to go forward, to return to where God wants us to be. We can bet against the future because we know that God invites us into a hope of recovering, and becoming fruitful again.
Finally, the story teaches that God has no limitations - but that we do, and we cannot overcome those limitations without God. God can break out of all conventions and overcome all constraints - to bring about a new reality.
May the God of all hope in our future produce from our wayward fearful hearts a new spirit, new life, and a new way of living and thinking in the presence of God.
Sources:
1. Buying New Land - a sermon by Fran Ota
2. Betting on the Future, a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall
Saturday, September 11, 2010
A Land of Desolation and Mourning sermon based on Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 September 12, 2010 Glen Ayr United Church
At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told, "A scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward my people, but not to winnow or cleanse; a wind too strong for that comes from me. Now I pronounce my judgments against them.
"My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good." I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before God’s fierce anger. This is what God says: "The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back."
************************************************************
Nine years ago, terrorsts hijacked four passenger planes, flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The other two crashed. More than two thousand people from seventy different nations died. We relive the images this weekend, and commensurate with the reliving has come the inevitable flag waving and false patriotism, with overtones of semi-Christian self-righteous anger.
In the reaction following that day, a so-called War on Terror was declared, which included both Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, war was waged on a country which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Yet by the time the war on Iraq was declared, more than fifty percent of North Americans had been hoodwinked into believing he was responsible.
Documented deaths in Afghanistan are 19,629 as of 2010. Documented deaths in Iraq are over 150,000 since the war began in 2003. Terror has been used to attack terror. Lands have been reduced to desolation, and destabilised to the point where they may never recover.
I can almost hear the words of God through Jeremiah’s mouth. My people do not know me, they are senseless children, they are skilled in doing evil, they don’t know how to do good. The earth will mourn and the heavens will grown dark.
As I watch the videos, the memorials and the services remembering those days - there is a part of me that knows it would be easy to fall back into a run-down of the number of times the US interfered in the Middle East in ways which were less than constructive - its role in supporting Afghanistan against the Russians, and funding Osama Bin Laden. It would be easy to go back and look at the history of the US in Iraq, Iran - and so many other places. It is easy to say when you meddle with other people’s countries, you have to expect something to happen sooner or later.
All of those things are true, documented historical events. But I think that is no longer where we have to put our focus. What has been learned? Has anything been learned?
Rev. Ron McCreary in Florida comments in his sermon “Prophets have the gift to be able to "see through"...if there had been a State Department or Pentagon analyst on the ground with Jeremiah the analyst would have seen the same thing Jeremiah reported. How can Jerusalem and Judea be so blind? How can they not have seen the buildup of Babylonian strength and come to the obvious conclusion? Often we see what we expect to see, and cannot comprehend what we do not expect even when it is right in front of us.”
Rev Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, had planned to burn copies of the Qur'an yesterday on the anniversary of the attacks. I believe Jones was an opportunist of the first order. Had he wanted to burn the Qu’ran with his congregation, he could have just done it - but instead turned it into a media event. I also believe he had in his head a very clear picture of what he thinks Christian faith and American citizenship are about, and what Islam is about; and this is a picture which, truth be told, others share as well.
Jones discovered that a lot of people, Christians and Jews and Muslims, liberals, moderates, conservatives, religious leaders, political leaders and just plain common folk thought his ideas were all wrong. How could he have been so isolated in his thinking?
Jeremiah’s words echo - the land shall be desolate and the earth shall mourn. I don’t think we should ever forget the desolation and the mourning - those are part of learning. But if we continue to repeat the same patterns, we are doomed over and over again. Hatred, bigotry, media manipulation breed more hatred and bigotry, and more violence.
I have been heartened, in these days, to see that wisdom and sense have prevailed. The outcry from everywhere, directed to Rev. Terry Jones, has made it clear that we have indeed learned a lesson about fanaticism of any kind. I want to read to you part of an open letter from clergy in Tallahassee, Florida - directed to Rev. Jones.
“Although our faith traditions differ in significant ways, we have many things in common. Among these principles we share are respect for one another as human beings created in the image of God, love of neighbor, and the obligation not to bear false witness against one another.
To burn the Koran would violate all of these principles, and has already fanned the fires of religious hatred and bigotry. “
I asked a friend in New York to reflect on the days following the attacks. Here are her thoughts:
“I was overseas on Sept 11, 2001, but live about a 10 minute walk from the World Trade Center. When I saw the live footage on television, I said to myself, "what an awful movie!" It took me several minutes to realize that this was the news, and yes, this was happening in my hometown.
I arrived back in the US on September 15, on one of the first flights back into New York. JFK, unsurprisingly, was chaotic, though surprisingly lax with security at customs and at baggage claim. Outside the airport, which is about 12 miles east of Manhattan, huge smoke could be seen coming out of what was now renamed Ground Zero. As much as I wanted to look away, my eyes kept veering southwest, towards Lower Manhattan.
I wasn't able to get into my apartment for weeks, and it was only by luck that I had my passport with me, which was required to get back into the neighborhood. Our building super left messages on his voicemail daily to apprise us of the current status in the neighborhood while making sure that the building was secure. He and his team were just a few of the many, many everyday heroes during that time. A Red Cross station was set up in the building lobby, and huge piles of debris were stacked up, 1-2 stories high, at intersections. One apartment, in a building a few blocks closer to me to Ground Zero, had its entire external wall ripped off, and the insides could be seen, like a dollhouse had it been in a war zone. A smell of burnt building material filled the air, and there was constant noise of things being moved and rearranged.
As weeks went by, though, New Yorkers adapted to a new normalcy. The ever present National Guard became a part of the neighborhood. Walking right on the West Side Highway - which was closed for traffic - seemed like a regular thing. Seeing straight through what were the World Trade Centers gave the neighborhood new views, and going around Ground Zero, instead of zipping through the mall at the WTC was an inconvenience but not unlike other pedestrian issues the New Yorkers faced daily.
While we could never go back to before 9/11, little signs of New York as we remember it began cropping up. The newspaper guy outside the corner deli reappeared one morning. New palm trees were carted into the famed Winter Garden, promptly greeted with New York-style graffiti on the particle boards holding the place together welcoming them back. Ads featuring New York celebrities appeared on TV telling tourists that it was not only ok, but encouraged them to come visit.
And thus we plodded on. Streets reopened and new buildings popped up. Defiant barriers were erected around 'high alert' sites, such as the Stock Exchange and the train stations. A major effort to revitalize the downtown resulted in a rebirth of the area. There is now a Tiffany's on Wall Street. Around the corner is Hermes, and Whole Foods is just a couple of blocks north of Ground Zero on the West Side Highway. During the blackout of 2003, the city again came together with most people remembering how it was that awful day.
Nine years later, I'm not sure what we've learned. As with many large cities, much of the population is transient, so a good number of people who live here now weren't even in the city when it happened. Tourists walk by Ground Zero with a Starbucks iced latte in hand, some posing in front of it with a smile. Many do remember bitterly, though, and there is currently staunch opposition against building an Islamic Cultural Center several blocks from Ground Zero.
I've got mixed feelings, as do most New Yorkers I think. Sad doesn't seem to convey them completely enough. It's more of a combination of a loss of innocence and resolve to move forwards while not forgetting. As trite as it sounds, though, I think the least we can all do is to count our blessings and to appreciate the most basic things in life. Even the toughest and strongest of us can be made vulnerable.”
On this day - and on days to come - we mourn with New York. We know nothing will be the same. We mourn with all those who lost loved ones, not only on that day, but in the nine years of war which have ensued. The land in Iraq is desolate, and there is mourning. The land in Afghanistan is desolate, and there is mourning. God looked at the desolation, and mourned. God mourns yet. If you read Jeremiah carefully, God has not done this. God looks and sees the evil humans are capable of perpetrating on each other. God is angry that the children - all of them - have learned nothing.
We - each of us - can do something. Each of us individually has a power which, together, makes us strong enough to change the world. Our faith is supposed to BE a world-changing faith - the call of the Gospel is to change the world.
Today - I’m going to try to change the world.....
Sources:
1. Rev. Ron McCreary, Gray Memorial United Methodist Church, Tallahassee, Florida.
2. Open letter - Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy
"My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good." I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before God’s fierce anger. This is what God says: "The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back."
************************************************************
Nine years ago, terrorsts hijacked four passenger planes, flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The other two crashed. More than two thousand people from seventy different nations died. We relive the images this weekend, and commensurate with the reliving has come the inevitable flag waving and false patriotism, with overtones of semi-Christian self-righteous anger.
In the reaction following that day, a so-called War on Terror was declared, which included both Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, war was waged on a country which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Yet by the time the war on Iraq was declared, more than fifty percent of North Americans had been hoodwinked into believing he was responsible.
Documented deaths in Afghanistan are 19,629 as of 2010. Documented deaths in Iraq are over 150,000 since the war began in 2003. Terror has been used to attack terror. Lands have been reduced to desolation, and destabilised to the point where they may never recover.
I can almost hear the words of God through Jeremiah’s mouth. My people do not know me, they are senseless children, they are skilled in doing evil, they don’t know how to do good. The earth will mourn and the heavens will grown dark.
As I watch the videos, the memorials and the services remembering those days - there is a part of me that knows it would be easy to fall back into a run-down of the number of times the US interfered in the Middle East in ways which were less than constructive - its role in supporting Afghanistan against the Russians, and funding Osama Bin Laden. It would be easy to go back and look at the history of the US in Iraq, Iran - and so many other places. It is easy to say when you meddle with other people’s countries, you have to expect something to happen sooner or later.
All of those things are true, documented historical events. But I think that is no longer where we have to put our focus. What has been learned? Has anything been learned?
Rev. Ron McCreary in Florida comments in his sermon “Prophets have the gift to be able to "see through"...if there had been a State Department or Pentagon analyst on the ground with Jeremiah the analyst would have seen the same thing Jeremiah reported. How can Jerusalem and Judea be so blind? How can they not have seen the buildup of Babylonian strength and come to the obvious conclusion? Often we see what we expect to see, and cannot comprehend what we do not expect even when it is right in front of us.”
Rev Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, had planned to burn copies of the Qur'an yesterday on the anniversary of the attacks. I believe Jones was an opportunist of the first order. Had he wanted to burn the Qu’ran with his congregation, he could have just done it - but instead turned it into a media event. I also believe he had in his head a very clear picture of what he thinks Christian faith and American citizenship are about, and what Islam is about; and this is a picture which, truth be told, others share as well.
Jones discovered that a lot of people, Christians and Jews and Muslims, liberals, moderates, conservatives, religious leaders, political leaders and just plain common folk thought his ideas were all wrong. How could he have been so isolated in his thinking?
Jeremiah’s words echo - the land shall be desolate and the earth shall mourn. I don’t think we should ever forget the desolation and the mourning - those are part of learning. But if we continue to repeat the same patterns, we are doomed over and over again. Hatred, bigotry, media manipulation breed more hatred and bigotry, and more violence.
I have been heartened, in these days, to see that wisdom and sense have prevailed. The outcry from everywhere, directed to Rev. Terry Jones, has made it clear that we have indeed learned a lesson about fanaticism of any kind. I want to read to you part of an open letter from clergy in Tallahassee, Florida - directed to Rev. Jones.
“Although our faith traditions differ in significant ways, we have many things in common. Among these principles we share are respect for one another as human beings created in the image of God, love of neighbor, and the obligation not to bear false witness against one another.
To burn the Koran would violate all of these principles, and has already fanned the fires of religious hatred and bigotry. “
I asked a friend in New York to reflect on the days following the attacks. Here are her thoughts:
“I was overseas on Sept 11, 2001, but live about a 10 minute walk from the World Trade Center. When I saw the live footage on television, I said to myself, "what an awful movie!" It took me several minutes to realize that this was the news, and yes, this was happening in my hometown.
I arrived back in the US on September 15, on one of the first flights back into New York. JFK, unsurprisingly, was chaotic, though surprisingly lax with security at customs and at baggage claim. Outside the airport, which is about 12 miles east of Manhattan, huge smoke could be seen coming out of what was now renamed Ground Zero. As much as I wanted to look away, my eyes kept veering southwest, towards Lower Manhattan.
I wasn't able to get into my apartment for weeks, and it was only by luck that I had my passport with me, which was required to get back into the neighborhood. Our building super left messages on his voicemail daily to apprise us of the current status in the neighborhood while making sure that the building was secure. He and his team were just a few of the many, many everyday heroes during that time. A Red Cross station was set up in the building lobby, and huge piles of debris were stacked up, 1-2 stories high, at intersections. One apartment, in a building a few blocks closer to me to Ground Zero, had its entire external wall ripped off, and the insides could be seen, like a dollhouse had it been in a war zone. A smell of burnt building material filled the air, and there was constant noise of things being moved and rearranged.
As weeks went by, though, New Yorkers adapted to a new normalcy. The ever present National Guard became a part of the neighborhood. Walking right on the West Side Highway - which was closed for traffic - seemed like a regular thing. Seeing straight through what were the World Trade Centers gave the neighborhood new views, and going around Ground Zero, instead of zipping through the mall at the WTC was an inconvenience but not unlike other pedestrian issues the New Yorkers faced daily.
While we could never go back to before 9/11, little signs of New York as we remember it began cropping up. The newspaper guy outside the corner deli reappeared one morning. New palm trees were carted into the famed Winter Garden, promptly greeted with New York-style graffiti on the particle boards holding the place together welcoming them back. Ads featuring New York celebrities appeared on TV telling tourists that it was not only ok, but encouraged them to come visit.
And thus we plodded on. Streets reopened and new buildings popped up. Defiant barriers were erected around 'high alert' sites, such as the Stock Exchange and the train stations. A major effort to revitalize the downtown resulted in a rebirth of the area. There is now a Tiffany's on Wall Street. Around the corner is Hermes, and Whole Foods is just a couple of blocks north of Ground Zero on the West Side Highway. During the blackout of 2003, the city again came together with most people remembering how it was that awful day.
Nine years later, I'm not sure what we've learned. As with many large cities, much of the population is transient, so a good number of people who live here now weren't even in the city when it happened. Tourists walk by Ground Zero with a Starbucks iced latte in hand, some posing in front of it with a smile. Many do remember bitterly, though, and there is currently staunch opposition against building an Islamic Cultural Center several blocks from Ground Zero.
I've got mixed feelings, as do most New Yorkers I think. Sad doesn't seem to convey them completely enough. It's more of a combination of a loss of innocence and resolve to move forwards while not forgetting. As trite as it sounds, though, I think the least we can all do is to count our blessings and to appreciate the most basic things in life. Even the toughest and strongest of us can be made vulnerable.”
On this day - and on days to come - we mourn with New York. We know nothing will be the same. We mourn with all those who lost loved ones, not only on that day, but in the nine years of war which have ensued. The land in Iraq is desolate, and there is mourning. The land in Afghanistan is desolate, and there is mourning. God looked at the desolation, and mourned. God mourns yet. If you read Jeremiah carefully, God has not done this. God looks and sees the evil humans are capable of perpetrating on each other. God is angry that the children - all of them - have learned nothing.
We - each of us - can do something. Each of us individually has a power which, together, makes us strong enough to change the world. Our faith is supposed to BE a world-changing faith - the call of the Gospel is to change the world.
Today - I’m going to try to change the world.....
Sources:
1. Rev. Ron McCreary, Gray Memorial United Methodist Church, Tallahassee, Florida.
2. Open letter - Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy
Saturday, August 7, 2010
God Hates Our Worship????? a sermon based on Isaiah 1:10-20 Glen Ayr United Church August 8, 2010
Hear, you heavens! Listen, you earth! God has said this: "I raised children but they rebel against me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." You sinful nation, a people burdened with guilt, children given to corruption! You have forsaken God, and turned your backs on the Holy One. Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole being is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there are only wounds, and open sores, none of them cleansed or bandaged or soothed with ointment.
"All your sacrifices - what are they to me?" says God. "I have had more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the grease which comes from the fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of sacrifices. When you come before me, who asked this of you, this trampling of my house? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! I cannot stand the smell of your incense. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations - I cannot bear your evil assemblies. They have become a burden, and I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will not look; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
"So come let’s reason it out together," says God. "Though your sins are red as crimson, they shall be white as snow, like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be eaten by the sword." God has spoken.
************************************************************
Well, God is surely angry. Nothing can be more clear than the incredible anger God lets loose - at the wilful and destructive ways of the people. You can almost see the smoke and flames, hear the thunder. All of the promises and the covenant have been disregarded. Yet when the people come to worship they offer sacrifice of animals, incense, and as God says - insincere prayer. God says clearly, I’ve had enough! Not only that, God says “who asked you to do this? I didn’t!” God says clearly that the worship practices of this people are a travesty - charades, smoke and mirrors, incessant talk of religion and faith even while the sins and evil continue.
And what is it about worship that’s got God’s dander up? What makes God’s nostrils flare so?
Note, that it isn’t particularly the ‘order’ of worship that is the problem. If that were all, we could make a few editorial changes in the bulletin. God isn’t particularly upset by the content - the call to worship and prayers of the people are fine. I don’t think God even gets too upset about the chaos of Passing of the Peace. Nor do I think God is really worried about whether we use new or old hymns, Taize or Iona - we do those things out of choice to allow a wide variety of worship experience.
What has God incensed is that worship lasted but an hour on the Sabbath, and that there were people consulting their portable sundials if worship went overtime. People didn’t want to spend any more time than they had to in the temple - there were other things to do. Worship was fine, but don’t take any more time than necessary to get through the rituals. Fire up the altar, light the incense, pray hard - and get it all into an hour.
God’s intent was that worship would be a 24/7 expression of faith. For too many Israelites in Isaiah’s day, worship was a performance - an intentional, carefully enacted-performance. The rest of the week they went back to live the way they wanted with no reference to God, and certainly no interference.
Hypocrisy is the sin here - singing one thing and doing another. Offering prayers but never being part of an answer to prayer. Preaching against the enemy on Sunday and making deals with the enemy on Monday. God says to these worshipers, "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
The great Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard, says that worship minus direct impact on our neighborhoods = silly geese.
Here is a paraphrase of Kierkegaard’s story. There was a barnyard full of a gaggle of geese. Each Sunday they gathered to hear wonderful words about creation, God’s plan, and extol the glorious destiny of geese. "We were meant to become air-borne on the winds and to soar in the heavens," the leader of the flock would tell them. At the mere mention of heaven the ganders would cackle and the rest would curtsey. After the meeting they would waddle home. But that’s as far as they ever got. They grew fat and plump and at Christmas they became Christmas dinner - that’s as far as they ever got.
Behind the story of tubular necks and webbed feet, Kierkegaard saw weak worship that had its “performance” of religion once a week, but failed to impact the neighborhoods in practical ways.
Yesterday, while putting this sermon together, I was watching a drama called Hitler: The Rise of Evil. One of Hitler’s arguments in the early years was that people were indifferent, didn’t care about their country. He was able to play on emotions and fan the flames of racism and hatred, yet few in Germany stood up to him. The church was conspicuously absent in opposing him, with the sole exception of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Indifference, and fear, prevented those who might have stopped him.
I decided to look a little at what happened with Denmark during the war, keeping Kierkegaard’s words in mind. Denmark had an uneasy kind of agreement with Hitler, and yet were able to refuse to allow his excesses. By far the greatest success in Danish policy toward Germany was the protection of the Jewish minority. Throughout the years of its hold on power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews. They would not enact special laws concerning Jews, and their civil rights remained equal with those of the rest of the population. German authorities became increasingly exasperated with this position but concluded that any attempt to remove or mistreat Jews would be "politically unacceptable."
Then I looked at the Norwegian resistance to Hitler following Hitler’s ultimatum. King Haakon reported the ultimatum to his cabinet, mindful that although he could not make the decision himself, he could use his moral authority to influence it. He told the Cabinet:
“ I am deeply affected by the responsibility laid on me if the German demand is rejected. The responsibility for the calamities that will befall people and country is indeed so grave that I dread to take it. It rests with the government to decide, but my position is clear.
For my part I cannot accept the German demands. It would conflict with all that I have considered to be my duty as King of Norway since I came to this country nearly thirty-five years ago.[4]”
Nor, he said, could he appoint any government headed by Quisling because he knew neither the people nor the government had confidence in him. However, if the Cabinet felt otherwise, he himself would abdicate so as not to stand in the way of the Government's decision.
Nils Hjelmtveit, Minister of Church and Education, later wrote: "This made a great impression on us all. More clearly than ever before we could see the man behind the words; the king who had drawn a line for himself and his task, a line from which he could not deviate. We had through the five years [in government] learned to respect and appreciate our king and now, through his words, he came to us as a great man, just and forceful; a leader in these fatal times to our country".[5]
Inspired, the Government unanimously advised the King not to appoint any government headed by Quisling, and telephoned its refusal to Bräuer. That night the government's refusal was also broadcast to the Norwegian people. The government announced that they would resist the German attack as long as possible, and expressed their confidence that Norwegians would lend their support to the cause.
Well some of this rings a bell in the New Testament too, doesn’t it? Jesus coming into the temple in Jerusalem, all those hundreds of years later, and seeing that nothing has changed since Isaiah’s words? Throwing animals out, turning over tables, money on the ground, claiming that worship has become an excuse to take advantage of people. It’s not accidental, this story about Jesus. There is a clear parallel.
Look at the end of today’s passage - God says stop doing wrong, learn to do right, defend the oppressed. Worship is meant to strengthen and prepare us so that who and what we are has a positive impact in our neighbourhoods. It means that when someone speaks hatred against Moslems, we are willing to speak back. It means when someone is treated poorly because of their colour, faith, economic status, we speak back. Worship - true worship - doesn’t begin when we walk *in* the door of the church, and it doesn’t end when we walk *out*. True worship *begins* when we walk out the door, and come into contact with the world, with all of its failings. Particularly in these times, when phobias and fear of those who believe differently provokes legislated, and unlegislated injustices, we who are Christians must exercise our worship in a way which counteracts those injustices, and holds them up to the light.
Sources:
1. Telling the Truth about Worship a sermon based on Isaiah 1:1; 10-20 by Rev. Thomas Hall
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Denmark
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler:_The_Rise_of_Evil
"All your sacrifices - what are they to me?" says God. "I have had more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the grease which comes from the fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of sacrifices. When you come before me, who asked this of you, this trampling of my house? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! I cannot stand the smell of your incense. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations - I cannot bear your evil assemblies. They have become a burden, and I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will not look; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
"So come let’s reason it out together," says God. "Though your sins are red as crimson, they shall be white as snow, like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be eaten by the sword." God has spoken.
************************************************************
Well, God is surely angry. Nothing can be more clear than the incredible anger God lets loose - at the wilful and destructive ways of the people. You can almost see the smoke and flames, hear the thunder. All of the promises and the covenant have been disregarded. Yet when the people come to worship they offer sacrifice of animals, incense, and as God says - insincere prayer. God says clearly, I’ve had enough! Not only that, God says “who asked you to do this? I didn’t!” God says clearly that the worship practices of this people are a travesty - charades, smoke and mirrors, incessant talk of religion and faith even while the sins and evil continue.
And what is it about worship that’s got God’s dander up? What makes God’s nostrils flare so?
Note, that it isn’t particularly the ‘order’ of worship that is the problem. If that were all, we could make a few editorial changes in the bulletin. God isn’t particularly upset by the content - the call to worship and prayers of the people are fine. I don’t think God even gets too upset about the chaos of Passing of the Peace. Nor do I think God is really worried about whether we use new or old hymns, Taize or Iona - we do those things out of choice to allow a wide variety of worship experience.
What has God incensed is that worship lasted but an hour on the Sabbath, and that there were people consulting their portable sundials if worship went overtime. People didn’t want to spend any more time than they had to in the temple - there were other things to do. Worship was fine, but don’t take any more time than necessary to get through the rituals. Fire up the altar, light the incense, pray hard - and get it all into an hour.
God’s intent was that worship would be a 24/7 expression of faith. For too many Israelites in Isaiah’s day, worship was a performance - an intentional, carefully enacted-performance. The rest of the week they went back to live the way they wanted with no reference to God, and certainly no interference.
Hypocrisy is the sin here - singing one thing and doing another. Offering prayers but never being part of an answer to prayer. Preaching against the enemy on Sunday and making deals with the enemy on Monday. God says to these worshipers, "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
The great Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard, says that worship minus direct impact on our neighborhoods = silly geese.
Here is a paraphrase of Kierkegaard’s story. There was a barnyard full of a gaggle of geese. Each Sunday they gathered to hear wonderful words about creation, God’s plan, and extol the glorious destiny of geese. "We were meant to become air-borne on the winds and to soar in the heavens," the leader of the flock would tell them. At the mere mention of heaven the ganders would cackle and the rest would curtsey. After the meeting they would waddle home. But that’s as far as they ever got. They grew fat and plump and at Christmas they became Christmas dinner - that’s as far as they ever got.
Behind the story of tubular necks and webbed feet, Kierkegaard saw weak worship that had its “performance” of religion once a week, but failed to impact the neighborhoods in practical ways.
Yesterday, while putting this sermon together, I was watching a drama called Hitler: The Rise of Evil. One of Hitler’s arguments in the early years was that people were indifferent, didn’t care about their country. He was able to play on emotions and fan the flames of racism and hatred, yet few in Germany stood up to him. The church was conspicuously absent in opposing him, with the sole exception of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Indifference, and fear, prevented those who might have stopped him.
I decided to look a little at what happened with Denmark during the war, keeping Kierkegaard’s words in mind. Denmark had an uneasy kind of agreement with Hitler, and yet were able to refuse to allow his excesses. By far the greatest success in Danish policy toward Germany was the protection of the Jewish minority. Throughout the years of its hold on power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews. They would not enact special laws concerning Jews, and their civil rights remained equal with those of the rest of the population. German authorities became increasingly exasperated with this position but concluded that any attempt to remove or mistreat Jews would be "politically unacceptable."
Then I looked at the Norwegian resistance to Hitler following Hitler’s ultimatum. King Haakon reported the ultimatum to his cabinet, mindful that although he could not make the decision himself, he could use his moral authority to influence it. He told the Cabinet:
“ I am deeply affected by the responsibility laid on me if the German demand is rejected. The responsibility for the calamities that will befall people and country is indeed so grave that I dread to take it. It rests with the government to decide, but my position is clear.
For my part I cannot accept the German demands. It would conflict with all that I have considered to be my duty as King of Norway since I came to this country nearly thirty-five years ago.[4]”
Nor, he said, could he appoint any government headed by Quisling because he knew neither the people nor the government had confidence in him. However, if the Cabinet felt otherwise, he himself would abdicate so as not to stand in the way of the Government's decision.
Nils Hjelmtveit, Minister of Church and Education, later wrote: "This made a great impression on us all. More clearly than ever before we could see the man behind the words; the king who had drawn a line for himself and his task, a line from which he could not deviate. We had through the five years [in government] learned to respect and appreciate our king and now, through his words, he came to us as a great man, just and forceful; a leader in these fatal times to our country".[5]
Inspired, the Government unanimously advised the King not to appoint any government headed by Quisling, and telephoned its refusal to Bräuer. That night the government's refusal was also broadcast to the Norwegian people. The government announced that they would resist the German attack as long as possible, and expressed their confidence that Norwegians would lend their support to the cause.
Well some of this rings a bell in the New Testament too, doesn’t it? Jesus coming into the temple in Jerusalem, all those hundreds of years later, and seeing that nothing has changed since Isaiah’s words? Throwing animals out, turning over tables, money on the ground, claiming that worship has become an excuse to take advantage of people. It’s not accidental, this story about Jesus. There is a clear parallel.
Look at the end of today’s passage - God says stop doing wrong, learn to do right, defend the oppressed. Worship is meant to strengthen and prepare us so that who and what we are has a positive impact in our neighbourhoods. It means that when someone speaks hatred against Moslems, we are willing to speak back. It means when someone is treated poorly because of their colour, faith, economic status, we speak back. Worship - true worship - doesn’t begin when we walk *in* the door of the church, and it doesn’t end when we walk *out*. True worship *begins* when we walk out the door, and come into contact with the world, with all of its failings. Particularly in these times, when phobias and fear of those who believe differently provokes legislated, and unlegislated injustices, we who are Christians must exercise our worship in a way which counteracts those injustices, and holds them up to the light.
Sources:
1. Telling the Truth about Worship a sermon based on Isaiah 1:1; 10-20 by Rev. Thomas Hall
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Denmark
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler:_The_Rise_of_Evil
Saturday, July 31, 2010
“A Little Greed Goes a Long Way” a sermon based on Luke 12:13-21 Glen Ayr United Church August 1, 2010
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
Jesus replied, "Who appointed me judge or arbiter between you?" Then he said to the crowd, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life is not found in the abundance of his possessions."
He told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced an exceptionally good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have saved up for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
******************************************************************
I hope that your summer has blessed you with some special moments of contentment. Maybe at the beach or beside a cold mountain stream. Maybe when you had some fun with grandchildren, or lunching with friends, or a short trip (or long) to a place of quiet and rest; maybe you took some pride in the amount of money you had to retire on; sat back with a satisfied smile and said to yourself “Soul, relax; eat and drink, be merry. Nothing to worry about.”
This morning's lesson from Luke has a lot to do with leisure, with living, with getting a fresh perspective on things. You can almost visualise Jesus perched on a huge boulder, perhaps an outcropping of rock on an otherwise pretty flat plain. Thousands of people have travelled to hear his revolutionary words, perhaps in the hope of healing and exorcising of evil spirits. Jesus knows the time is short. With his own death before him, he preaches his "No Fear" sermon one last time.
But as he begins to move into his second point - a heckler in the crowd shouts: "Hey, Jesus, would you please order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance." Who is this guy? He has one thing on his mind, and he hasn't heard a thing that's been said. Jesus angrily snaps a retort back to the heckler: "Who do you think I am, buddy? Some judge that God has personally assigned to you? Take care, my friend, about greed; there's more to life than getting things. "
What Jesus says next should be plastered across every billboard in North America. It's a story about a man whose land produces a bumper crop. He's blessed with abundance. So Jesus says that this little guy knocks down his existing buildings in order to make room for the surplus crop. Well, he's worked hard, so we can kind of see where he’s coming from. But now adequate facilities need to be built. So far, we're exactly in line with this fellow; we've done the same thing we do in most of our churches - we add air conditioning, new wall to wall carpeting and fresh paint, add extra storage space and give the youth their own room. So we've torn our barns down in order to build bigger ones. No problem here. But then Jesus lets us overhear this guy as he begins to talk to himself; a sort of brain to wallet to soul meeting.
"You've made it! You’ve really made it! No more work for you, buddy roo; you can just ease on into retirement and live off the interest. You know eat, drink, and be merry kinds of stuff."
Now we do have a problem. Just live off the interest? Just ease out of life? Just unplug ourselves from life and take it easy? An interruptive voice breaks up this guy’s thought. "Fool," says God. "Tonight death may come for you, and your very soul will be required. So then who'll get your things; you certainly won't."
Seems to be a straightforward story about greed. Greed is probably one of the biggest temptations we face. We're trained to be greedy quite early in life, brainwashed, all of us, into being unable to discern between real need, and just want. The average child has watched 15,000 TV commercials before he or she even starts school. We spend more money on advertising than on our public institutions of higher education. Billions of dollars have been pumped into our world by greedy people, to try and convince us that Jesus was wrong about greed.
When I was in Japan this summer, a huge scandal broke around the sport of sumo. Now, the origins of sumo are religious; the ring is considered holy ground, and those who participate in the sport, are supposed to be above reproach in everything they do. Some of them however, got greedy. They got involved with mafia middlemen, and began betting on baseball - heavily - and ran up huge debts. Greed overcame commitment to something which has elements of both religion and sport. Some of them got caught - and some didn’t. They did more, though - they let go the principles which had brought them to the sport, in favour of feathering nests for the future.
Jesus seems to be warning us against being greedy. But there is also something more here, much more than human greed. Something to do with the way we view life--and death. The heckler seemed to subscribe to the same belief as many today - that you only go around once in life. That the only life we have is the here and now.
We may or may not believe there is an afterlife, but what we think we do have is the here and now. Jesus says that ain’t necessarily so.
Paul says with this “Get it all now just in case” philosophy, we might as well be greedy; might as well cheat, might as well get even; because if all we have is this life, we sure can’t enjoy it after we’re dead.
I prefer a slightly different tack: I believe that there is another life beyond this one, but I want to live this life as if there isn’t. Because that, actually, if I am quite honest about it, puts me on the proverbial hot seat. Just in case there is no afterlife and no second chances, I need to do the best job with this life that I possibly can.
It’s a difficult conundrum. One could say that if we believe in an afterlife we need to be better in this one, in case we are judged in the next and found wanting; but the Christian hope tells us that we are forgiven no matter what we do, in God’s prevenient grace. But if we live as if there is no afterlife, then we really do have only this chance, right now, to make it worthwhile.
Jesus seems to be saying that. We can accumulate goods, make investments to cover us after we retire, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, sit back and relax - and our very soul might be required while we are patting ourselves on the back for being wise and prudent.
The Good News of the Gospel reminds us that though we live in the world like everyone else, life is centred in our relationship with God. God alone can fill us with good things, that God's love is steadfast and sure.
That doesn’t mean we should not enjoy our lives - Jesus certainly had time to sit with friends and family, to enjoy a glass of wine on a summer’s day, to laugh and celebrate the very act of living. Of course we need to take moments to eat, drink, and be merry! That's what summers and families are about. But for Jesus it was not the end goal. He didn’t get to a certain point and say “that’s it, I’ve done my bit, someone else’s turn now.” Life - and faith - are continuing. If we have faith, we cannot stop living life, to its fullest and to the best of our ability, *because* we have faith. When it comes to how we view this world, and ourselves in it, perhaps we need to eat, drink, - and be wise-- for tomorrow we may die, but we may also live another day.
Sources:
How Much Is Enough? by Rev. Thomas N. Hall
Jesus replied, "Who appointed me judge or arbiter between you?" Then he said to the crowd, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life is not found in the abundance of his possessions."
He told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced an exceptionally good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have saved up for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
******************************************************************
I hope that your summer has blessed you with some special moments of contentment. Maybe at the beach or beside a cold mountain stream. Maybe when you had some fun with grandchildren, or lunching with friends, or a short trip (or long) to a place of quiet and rest; maybe you took some pride in the amount of money you had to retire on; sat back with a satisfied smile and said to yourself “Soul, relax; eat and drink, be merry. Nothing to worry about.”
This morning's lesson from Luke has a lot to do with leisure, with living, with getting a fresh perspective on things. You can almost visualise Jesus perched on a huge boulder, perhaps an outcropping of rock on an otherwise pretty flat plain. Thousands of people have travelled to hear his revolutionary words, perhaps in the hope of healing and exorcising of evil spirits. Jesus knows the time is short. With his own death before him, he preaches his "No Fear" sermon one last time.
But as he begins to move into his second point - a heckler in the crowd shouts: "Hey, Jesus, would you please order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance." Who is this guy? He has one thing on his mind, and he hasn't heard a thing that's been said. Jesus angrily snaps a retort back to the heckler: "Who do you think I am, buddy? Some judge that God has personally assigned to you? Take care, my friend, about greed; there's more to life than getting things. "
What Jesus says next should be plastered across every billboard in North America. It's a story about a man whose land produces a bumper crop. He's blessed with abundance. So Jesus says that this little guy knocks down his existing buildings in order to make room for the surplus crop. Well, he's worked hard, so we can kind of see where he’s coming from. But now adequate facilities need to be built. So far, we're exactly in line with this fellow; we've done the same thing we do in most of our churches - we add air conditioning, new wall to wall carpeting and fresh paint, add extra storage space and give the youth their own room. So we've torn our barns down in order to build bigger ones. No problem here. But then Jesus lets us overhear this guy as he begins to talk to himself; a sort of brain to wallet to soul meeting.
"You've made it! You’ve really made it! No more work for you, buddy roo; you can just ease on into retirement and live off the interest. You know eat, drink, and be merry kinds of stuff."
Now we do have a problem. Just live off the interest? Just ease out of life? Just unplug ourselves from life and take it easy? An interruptive voice breaks up this guy’s thought. "Fool," says God. "Tonight death may come for you, and your very soul will be required. So then who'll get your things; you certainly won't."
Seems to be a straightforward story about greed. Greed is probably one of the biggest temptations we face. We're trained to be greedy quite early in life, brainwashed, all of us, into being unable to discern between real need, and just want. The average child has watched 15,000 TV commercials before he or she even starts school. We spend more money on advertising than on our public institutions of higher education. Billions of dollars have been pumped into our world by greedy people, to try and convince us that Jesus was wrong about greed.
When I was in Japan this summer, a huge scandal broke around the sport of sumo. Now, the origins of sumo are religious; the ring is considered holy ground, and those who participate in the sport, are supposed to be above reproach in everything they do. Some of them however, got greedy. They got involved with mafia middlemen, and began betting on baseball - heavily - and ran up huge debts. Greed overcame commitment to something which has elements of both religion and sport. Some of them got caught - and some didn’t. They did more, though - they let go the principles which had brought them to the sport, in favour of feathering nests for the future.
Jesus seems to be warning us against being greedy. But there is also something more here, much more than human greed. Something to do with the way we view life--and death. The heckler seemed to subscribe to the same belief as many today - that you only go around once in life. That the only life we have is the here and now.
We may or may not believe there is an afterlife, but what we think we do have is the here and now. Jesus says that ain’t necessarily so.
Paul says with this “Get it all now just in case” philosophy, we might as well be greedy; might as well cheat, might as well get even; because if all we have is this life, we sure can’t enjoy it after we’re dead.
I prefer a slightly different tack: I believe that there is another life beyond this one, but I want to live this life as if there isn’t. Because that, actually, if I am quite honest about it, puts me on the proverbial hot seat. Just in case there is no afterlife and no second chances, I need to do the best job with this life that I possibly can.
It’s a difficult conundrum. One could say that if we believe in an afterlife we need to be better in this one, in case we are judged in the next and found wanting; but the Christian hope tells us that we are forgiven no matter what we do, in God’s prevenient grace. But if we live as if there is no afterlife, then we really do have only this chance, right now, to make it worthwhile.
Jesus seems to be saying that. We can accumulate goods, make investments to cover us after we retire, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, sit back and relax - and our very soul might be required while we are patting ourselves on the back for being wise and prudent.
The Good News of the Gospel reminds us that though we live in the world like everyone else, life is centred in our relationship with God. God alone can fill us with good things, that God's love is steadfast and sure.
That doesn’t mean we should not enjoy our lives - Jesus certainly had time to sit with friends and family, to enjoy a glass of wine on a summer’s day, to laugh and celebrate the very act of living. Of course we need to take moments to eat, drink, and be merry! That's what summers and families are about. But for Jesus it was not the end goal. He didn’t get to a certain point and say “that’s it, I’ve done my bit, someone else’s turn now.” Life - and faith - are continuing. If we have faith, we cannot stop living life, to its fullest and to the best of our ability, *because* we have faith. When it comes to how we view this world, and ourselves in it, perhaps we need to eat, drink, - and be wise-- for tomorrow we may die, but we may also live another day.
Sources:
How Much Is Enough? by Rev. Thomas N. Hall
Saturday, July 24, 2010
“A Marriage Made in Heaven” a sermon based on Hosea preached at Knob Hill United Church July 25, 2010
You should have seen the babies! Just so beautiful, each one of them. Black curly hair, dark raisin eyes, dimpled cheeks, a sparkle in their eyes, and light in their laughter. Each baby had a different laugh. We had three children. Each time I carried the baby well...and easy births, all three. The mid-wives used to say I was just made for having babies, that it was too bad I only had three, that with the number of babies around dying, we could have had a family as big as Abraham's"
My name? I am Gomer. I have no idea what my father was thinking when he named me, but it was nothing compared to the names Hosea chose for our children. What was *he* thinking? Jezreel for our first born son, Lo-ruhamah for our only daughter, and Lo-ammi for our lastborn son.
The names won’t mean anything to you, but they mean a lot to my people, the Israelite people. It’s a mystery to me what was going on in his head; he got this religion thing, and kept on telling me that God had even told him who to marry. Well, the other girls couldn't believe it that day when Hosea walked into the place, took one look at me, and said "That's her!" "That's the one!" At first it was misunderstood; everyone just thought the woman he wanted in the brothel was me, as if we were just to treat him as a regular customer. Then he said he wanted to marry me!
"Oh yeah" I said to him. “They all say that when they want something, but then when it’s over, where am I? Back in my little hovel with a few coins in my hand...waiting for the next one.” Hosea was different. He talked to me gently. He said he meant it, that I would belong to him...be his woman...have his children, that I didn’t have to work as a prostitute any more. I could have a regular fire for cooking, and a regular tent for sleeping, and I would belong to his people.
Now I'll tell you what the names meant. Jezreel, the first one; his name is really about sowing seed...in the ordinary sense, but not in those days. In fact it was a really big threat. It has to do with how the Omrites got overcome in the valley of Jezreel, and how God meant that to be a message for the people of Israel. You should have seen how mean the kids were to Jezreel. He came home many a time beaten up because of his name.
Then the second one, our daughter. I begged for a nice plain name like Sarah, but he insisted. This one was called Lo-ruhamah. In our language it means "Unloved". I just didn't get it. How could we raise a daughter named “Unloved”? But Hosea explained that God meant to love the people of Israel no longer. The people of Judah would be favoured, but not our people. Why? I asked, what have they done?
Hosea replied that they had spent too much time going after other idols......they couldn't take a commitment to God through thick and thin. So Hosea named our daughter "No more love".
Then the third child came - another boy. Would you believe it? This name topped it all off. His name is Lo-ammi. It meant our people were gone, out of the sight of God. Cut off. Finished. In my language his name meant "You are not my people, and I am not your God".
But without God, we were a people in darkness. Hosea told me that it was all about his people and how they'd been unfaithful to God, how they'd take wool and flax, bread and water, and even raisin cakes, down to the idols. How they forgot who is the Creator of the Universe when it comes to our daily bread. How they danced and pranced before the idols and gave their silver and gold...just as if Ba’al and the other idols were God.
Well, the other people started to talk, and it got bad. They talked about how my children, now orphans they called them, were no better off than the children of Israel, since they'd gone running off after idols and forgetting their faith. My children were OK but the talk was awful. I left Hosea, taking the children with me; I couldn’t take the laughing and the jeering any more, but Hosea came after me again.
In our culture, there was a punishment for leaving a husband and going back to the old business; a woman would be put out in the desert with no cover, no food or water, just left to die. I had made it to the city again. That's where he found me. I was going back to my former business, to make some money to support my children, when he came looking for me again. He put out more money than I had seen at one time; fifteen silver shekels...and a bushel and a half of barley. That's the price of freeing one slave. And I was bought back. More than bought back. It was like he was courting me all over again. There was tender talk, fresh dates and figs. There was no talk of the past. He treated me as if I was going to be his new wife, and start all over again. I wasn't sure at first. Was this just more of the same? Was I going to be treated just like another example? Yes, and No, said Hosea.."You'd better explain" I said.
So he did explain. The tender love he was giving me was just like the tender love that God has for people....just so long as they don't go off worshipping idols. The covenant, it's called. The tender love he had for me was something he just enjoyed doing. He wanted me back as his own faithful wife. Well...he kept on loving me, and this time I stayed. I settled in to the family and started learning about his people. His people became my people.
Jezreel kept his name, but the land became good again, so Jezreel’s name was about the goodness that God sows in our hearts even when we stray. Lo-ruhamah..the one called "unloved"...became known as "the loved one". She's a beautiful girl....just about to have a child of her own. As for Lo-ammi..."no people of mine"...his is the best! "You are my people" says God. And Lo-ammi says"You are my God". And all comes right for us; but we have to watch the people, says my Hosea. They do like to go off on their own ways so easily. Some day, I told Hosea, some day there's going to be a great teacher in Israel. Someone so great, that he'll teach them of the great tender love of our God. But he may have to die to prove it.
My name? I am Gomer. I have no idea what my father was thinking when he named me, but it was nothing compared to the names Hosea chose for our children. What was *he* thinking? Jezreel for our first born son, Lo-ruhamah for our only daughter, and Lo-ammi for our lastborn son.
The names won’t mean anything to you, but they mean a lot to my people, the Israelite people. It’s a mystery to me what was going on in his head; he got this religion thing, and kept on telling me that God had even told him who to marry. Well, the other girls couldn't believe it that day when Hosea walked into the place, took one look at me, and said "That's her!" "That's the one!" At first it was misunderstood; everyone just thought the woman he wanted in the brothel was me, as if we were just to treat him as a regular customer. Then he said he wanted to marry me!
"Oh yeah" I said to him. “They all say that when they want something, but then when it’s over, where am I? Back in my little hovel with a few coins in my hand...waiting for the next one.” Hosea was different. He talked to me gently. He said he meant it, that I would belong to him...be his woman...have his children, that I didn’t have to work as a prostitute any more. I could have a regular fire for cooking, and a regular tent for sleeping, and I would belong to his people.
Now I'll tell you what the names meant. Jezreel, the first one; his name is really about sowing seed...in the ordinary sense, but not in those days. In fact it was a really big threat. It has to do with how the Omrites got overcome in the valley of Jezreel, and how God meant that to be a message for the people of Israel. You should have seen how mean the kids were to Jezreel. He came home many a time beaten up because of his name.
Then the second one, our daughter. I begged for a nice plain name like Sarah, but he insisted. This one was called Lo-ruhamah. In our language it means "Unloved". I just didn't get it. How could we raise a daughter named “Unloved”? But Hosea explained that God meant to love the people of Israel no longer. The people of Judah would be favoured, but not our people. Why? I asked, what have they done?
Hosea replied that they had spent too much time going after other idols......they couldn't take a commitment to God through thick and thin. So Hosea named our daughter "No more love".
Then the third child came - another boy. Would you believe it? This name topped it all off. His name is Lo-ammi. It meant our people were gone, out of the sight of God. Cut off. Finished. In my language his name meant "You are not my people, and I am not your God".
But without God, we were a people in darkness. Hosea told me that it was all about his people and how they'd been unfaithful to God, how they'd take wool and flax, bread and water, and even raisin cakes, down to the idols. How they forgot who is the Creator of the Universe when it comes to our daily bread. How they danced and pranced before the idols and gave their silver and gold...just as if Ba’al and the other idols were God.
Well, the other people started to talk, and it got bad. They talked about how my children, now orphans they called them, were no better off than the children of Israel, since they'd gone running off after idols and forgetting their faith. My children were OK but the talk was awful. I left Hosea, taking the children with me; I couldn’t take the laughing and the jeering any more, but Hosea came after me again.
In our culture, there was a punishment for leaving a husband and going back to the old business; a woman would be put out in the desert with no cover, no food or water, just left to die. I had made it to the city again. That's where he found me. I was going back to my former business, to make some money to support my children, when he came looking for me again. He put out more money than I had seen at one time; fifteen silver shekels...and a bushel and a half of barley. That's the price of freeing one slave. And I was bought back. More than bought back. It was like he was courting me all over again. There was tender talk, fresh dates and figs. There was no talk of the past. He treated me as if I was going to be his new wife, and start all over again. I wasn't sure at first. Was this just more of the same? Was I going to be treated just like another example? Yes, and No, said Hosea.."You'd better explain" I said.
So he did explain. The tender love he was giving me was just like the tender love that God has for people....just so long as they don't go off worshipping idols. The covenant, it's called. The tender love he had for me was something he just enjoyed doing. He wanted me back as his own faithful wife. Well...he kept on loving me, and this time I stayed. I settled in to the family and started learning about his people. His people became my people.
Jezreel kept his name, but the land became good again, so Jezreel’s name was about the goodness that God sows in our hearts even when we stray. Lo-ruhamah..the one called "unloved"...became known as "the loved one". She's a beautiful girl....just about to have a child of her own. As for Lo-ammi..."no people of mine"...his is the best! "You are my people" says God. And Lo-ammi says"You are my God". And all comes right for us; but we have to watch the people, says my Hosea. They do like to go off on their own ways so easily. Some day, I told Hosea, some day there's going to be a great teacher in Israel. Someone so great, that he'll teach them of the great tender love of our God. But he may have to die to prove it.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
“The Cost of Discipleship” based on 2 Kings 2, and Luke 9:57-62. Preached at Glen Ayr United Church, June 27, 2010
When they came to the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken away.” Elisha replied, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor.”
“You have asked a difficult thing,” said Elijah. “If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won’t.” As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha saw it and cried out, “My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!” As they disappeared from sight, Elisha tore his clothes in distress. Elisha picked up Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen when he was taken up. Then he returned to the Jordan River, struck the water with Elijah’s cloak and cried out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” Then the river divided, and Elisha went across.
Luke 9:57-62
As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
****************************************
While I was working on this sermon yesterday afternoon, I was also watching one of the Star Trek movies, the Search for Spock. In the story Captain Spock has given up his life for the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, but before he died, he put his living spirit into safekeeping with the ship’s doctor, Leonard McCoy. In response, the crew essentially hijack their old ship and go in search of the physical body in order to rescue Spock. The physical and spiritual parts of Spock can be reunited, but not without significant physical and psychological danger to both people. Having explained the purpose and the risks, the Vulcan High Priestess says to McCoy “The danger to thyself is grave, but thee must make the choice.” McCoy responds “I choose the danger.”, and then mutters in an undertone, “Helluva time to ask!”.
A little later, Captain Kirk is discussing his choice to risk everything. Spock’s father says to him “But at what cost? Your ship, even your son!” The answer is telling. Kirk responds “If I hadn’t done it, the cost would have been my soul.”
Some people have no option for choice - unless that choice is to live or die. Sometimes they do not even have that choice. For us, choice is one of our freedoms. We can choose just about anything we wish, and some things we don’t. We can choose our friends, choose our spouses, choose what to eat, what to wear - to go to a movie or not, to travel, to read, to think. We can choose what to believe, choose if we want to eat or not, answer email or phone, read or watch TV. The times where we make choices are endless.
Many of us would likely say we are Christian by heritage - but at some point there is a choice we have to make too - and that choice is what discipleship means for us in this day and age, and if we are willing to accept the cost of discipleship - because discipleship costs: it costs from our pocketbooks, sure, but it costs far more in our everyday lives.
While Jesus was travelling, someone asked if he could go along. "I’ll go with you, wherever," he said. Jesus was pretty sharp to this would-be disciple: "Are you read to rough it? We don’t know where we are sleeping from day to day.” Jesus was probably able to tell from the man’s clothes whether or not he could do it.
He said to another "Follow me." That one said, "Sure, but first I have to make arrangements for my father’s funeral." Jesus’ response was a little cryptic - “Let the spiritually dead do the burying. Your business is life, not death. The message is critical - Announce God’s kingdom!"
Another one said, "I’m ready to follow you, Master, but first let me get things settled at home, and then I can come with you."
Jesus said, "Anyone who looks back has already lost. Seize the day. Go forward, regardless of risk"
In 1977 Oscar Romero was the bishop of El Salvador. At the time sharecroppers had no rights and rich landowners and the military kept each other in business. Priests who stood with the sharecroppers and fought back were considered "subversive."
It wasn’t long before this quiet priest became archbishop Romero. He was torn between sharecroppers and subversive priests who promoted violence, but on the other hand were the landowners, military, and President-elect. Then, a close priest friend of his was murdered, and he went to the village where the president-elect had closed that priest’s church. The militia had turned it into a barracks. Romero simply said he was there to take the Eucharist - the soldier opened fire on the cross and the altar. Romero left, but came back - put on his clerical robes, and then resolutely set his face toward the church; two priests joined him, then the village people. Romero and the people walked into the church, and Romero cried out, "I have come to retake possession of the church, to strengthen those who the enemies have trampled."
Romero, a priest, had not realised where following Jesus might lead him. The learned Romero knew intellectually about Jesus, but the man who took back the church knew personally the human cost of discipleship, and in the end it led to his assassination..
Well, we aren’t Jesus, or Romero. Most days we just do our jobs, and then go home and have a life with family. But Jesus, Elisha, Romero, and the fictional characters of Spock, Kirk and McCoy know that the decisions are not easy and often go against accepted logic. It may mean going against our culture, giving up a good job as captain of a starship; it might even mean doing something totally contrary to what or families might ask or expect. It is a choice between the good and the best.
Nowadays, most churches don’t talk a lot about discipleship. We are suspicious of those religious groups which do. But the reality is that it’s not possible to be a Christian without being a disciple. Just saying we are Christian, and showing up at church - is only the first step. Discipleship - following Jesus wherever that might lead - is a difficult choice - but it is a choice between the good, and the best. Jesus calls us to sleep in the hard places, to stick our necks out in the difficult times, to take risks.
Is there any good news here? Of course - the good news is that if we take up the mantle left behind, God goes with us no matter what the risk. Jesus left his mantle behind; it is our role to choose to pick up the mantle and follow - wherever that leads.
Sources:
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
2. An Easy Choice? Homily based on Luke 9:51-62 by Rev. Thomas Hall
3. http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/Heritage/Oscar%20Romero.htm
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero
“You have asked a difficult thing,” said Elijah. “If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won’t.” As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha saw it and cried out, “My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!” As they disappeared from sight, Elisha tore his clothes in distress. Elisha picked up Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen when he was taken up. Then he returned to the Jordan River, struck the water with Elijah’s cloak and cried out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” Then the river divided, and Elisha went across.
Luke 9:57-62
As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
****************************************
While I was working on this sermon yesterday afternoon, I was also watching one of the Star Trek movies, the Search for Spock. In the story Captain Spock has given up his life for the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, but before he died, he put his living spirit into safekeeping with the ship’s doctor, Leonard McCoy. In response, the crew essentially hijack their old ship and go in search of the physical body in order to rescue Spock. The physical and spiritual parts of Spock can be reunited, but not without significant physical and psychological danger to both people. Having explained the purpose and the risks, the Vulcan High Priestess says to McCoy “The danger to thyself is grave, but thee must make the choice.” McCoy responds “I choose the danger.”, and then mutters in an undertone, “Helluva time to ask!”.
A little later, Captain Kirk is discussing his choice to risk everything. Spock’s father says to him “But at what cost? Your ship, even your son!” The answer is telling. Kirk responds “If I hadn’t done it, the cost would have been my soul.”
Some people have no option for choice - unless that choice is to live or die. Sometimes they do not even have that choice. For us, choice is one of our freedoms. We can choose just about anything we wish, and some things we don’t. We can choose our friends, choose our spouses, choose what to eat, what to wear - to go to a movie or not, to travel, to read, to think. We can choose what to believe, choose if we want to eat or not, answer email or phone, read or watch TV. The times where we make choices are endless.
Many of us would likely say we are Christian by heritage - but at some point there is a choice we have to make too - and that choice is what discipleship means for us in this day and age, and if we are willing to accept the cost of discipleship - because discipleship costs: it costs from our pocketbooks, sure, but it costs far more in our everyday lives.
While Jesus was travelling, someone asked if he could go along. "I’ll go with you, wherever," he said. Jesus was pretty sharp to this would-be disciple: "Are you read to rough it? We don’t know where we are sleeping from day to day.” Jesus was probably able to tell from the man’s clothes whether or not he could do it.
He said to another "Follow me." That one said, "Sure, but first I have to make arrangements for my father’s funeral." Jesus’ response was a little cryptic - “Let the spiritually dead do the burying. Your business is life, not death. The message is critical - Announce God’s kingdom!"
Another one said, "I’m ready to follow you, Master, but first let me get things settled at home, and then I can come with you."
Jesus said, "Anyone who looks back has already lost. Seize the day. Go forward, regardless of risk"
In 1977 Oscar Romero was the bishop of El Salvador. At the time sharecroppers had no rights and rich landowners and the military kept each other in business. Priests who stood with the sharecroppers and fought back were considered "subversive."
It wasn’t long before this quiet priest became archbishop Romero. He was torn between sharecroppers and subversive priests who promoted violence, but on the other hand were the landowners, military, and President-elect. Then, a close priest friend of his was murdered, and he went to the village where the president-elect had closed that priest’s church. The militia had turned it into a barracks. Romero simply said he was there to take the Eucharist - the soldier opened fire on the cross and the altar. Romero left, but came back - put on his clerical robes, and then resolutely set his face toward the church; two priests joined him, then the village people. Romero and the people walked into the church, and Romero cried out, "I have come to retake possession of the church, to strengthen those who the enemies have trampled."
Romero, a priest, had not realised where following Jesus might lead him. The learned Romero knew intellectually about Jesus, but the man who took back the church knew personally the human cost of discipleship, and in the end it led to his assassination..
Well, we aren’t Jesus, or Romero. Most days we just do our jobs, and then go home and have a life with family. But Jesus, Elisha, Romero, and the fictional characters of Spock, Kirk and McCoy know that the decisions are not easy and often go against accepted logic. It may mean going against our culture, giving up a good job as captain of a starship; it might even mean doing something totally contrary to what or families might ask or expect. It is a choice between the good and the best.
Nowadays, most churches don’t talk a lot about discipleship. We are suspicious of those religious groups which do. But the reality is that it’s not possible to be a Christian without being a disciple. Just saying we are Christian, and showing up at church - is only the first step. Discipleship - following Jesus wherever that might lead - is a difficult choice - but it is a choice between the good, and the best. Jesus calls us to sleep in the hard places, to stick our necks out in the difficult times, to take risks.
Is there any good news here? Of course - the good news is that if we take up the mantle left behind, God goes with us no matter what the risk. Jesus left his mantle behind; it is our role to choose to pick up the mantle and follow - wherever that leads.
Sources:
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
2. An Easy Choice? Homily based on Luke 9:51-62 by Rev. Thomas Hall
3. http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/Heritage/Oscar%20Romero.htm
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero
Sunday, June 20, 2010
“Power” Galatians 3:26-29; Matthew 22:35 – 36; 23:1-13 Glen Ayr United Church June 20, 2010
Galatians
For you are all children of God through faith in Jesus. All who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Jesus. And now that you belong to Jesus, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Matthew
“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
******************************************************************************
“There will always be free thinkers and heretics, unless we deal with the root of the problem. It is our duty to protect the children from the corrupting influence of dust, and nurture a generation at peace with itself, one which will never question authority again. We owe it to the young, do we not?”
So says the Magisterial Emissary, in the story “The Golden Compass”.
The Golden Compass, part of a trilogy of stories by author Philip Pullman, follows the young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua through her world in an effort to find and save her friends Bill and Roger. In Lyra’s universe, there are witches and armoured polar bears; yet, like our world, there is also a broad range of studies involving particle physics, philosophy, theology and spirituality.
In Lyra’s world, people’s souls are external to their body, an animal-shaped "dæmon" that always stays near its human counterpart. During childhood, a dæmon can change its shape at will, but with the onset of adolescence it settles into a single form which reveals the person's true nature and personality, implying that nature and personality stabilise after adolescence.
The Magisterium is the equivalent of the religious leaders of the church in this parallel world. The Magisterium exerts a strong control over this world, and wishes to control everything. Their greatest fear is people who do not accept the dogma and doctrine, and think outside the box.
Under the direction of the Magisterium, a group known as the Oblation Board kidnaps children and subjects them to a process called “intercision”, whereby the daemon and the human are literally separated by a laser guillotine. This renders the human unable to think independently, and removes their ability to care. The same is true for the daemon soul.
The children who are kidnapped are sent to an “experimental station”, far north on the island of Svalbard, where they are essentially in a boarding school where experiments can be conducted on them without their parents around. Those who try to run away are caught an punished. They come mostly from a nomadic group of sea people, or poorer people who are indigenous to the land. Children of wealthy or educated people do not get taken, and don’t have their daemons removed.
Now - it’s important to note that the word daemons in this case is quite different than our word “demon”. The words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek used to distinguish the daemons of Hellenistic religion and philosophy, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, from the Judeo-Christian usage demon. In his writing “Theogony”, the poet Hesiod relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daemons by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals. Their function is that of the soul.
In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed that the best chance for aboriginal peoples to succeed was to learn English, and adopt Christianity. Ideally, they would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, hence abolishing any native traditions within a few generations.
This policy was known as "aggressive assimilation". The government of Canad provided the funding, and the churches managed what were first called industrial schools, and later residential schools. Children were easier to mould than adults, so children of aboriginal peoples were forcibly removed from their families, taken to the schools where they were required to speak English, not allowed to speak their native tongue, and forced to accept the Christian God. Many were beaten and punished if they spoke their own language. Those who tried to run away were caught and punished. Many committed suicide.
Residential schools were federally run, under the Department of Indian Affairs. Attendance was mandatory. Agents were employed by the government to ensure all native children attended.
At first there were about 69 schools operating, but by 1931, at the peak of the residential school system, there were about 80 schools operating in Canada. All together, 130 schools operated in every territory and province except Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick from the earliest in the 19th century to the last, which closed in 1996. Approximately 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools.
It was believed that native children could be successful if they assimilated into mainstream Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. Students were discouraged from speaking their first language or practising native traditions. If they were caught, they would experience severe punishment. They lived in substandard conditions, endured physical, emotional and sexual abuse. All correspondence was written in English, which many parents couldn't read. Brothers and sisters at the same school rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by gender.
In 1994, I had the privilege of sitting for a day listening to aboriginal survivors of the residential schools. No one in that room left the same person. I heard more than one person say their soul had been ripped out of them.
In Lyra’s parallel universe, the Magisterium covers up its lust for power and control by claiming that what they are doing is for the good of those children they kidnap. - just a little cut, and then the children would be sent home. In reality, once the children are taken, they never return home. Life is literally never the same, for their souls have been taken from them. They practice a patronising and patriarchal system of religious teaching which removes any question of their authority.
Here in the real world of Canada, both the government and the churches practiced a patronising and patriarchal system of assimilation. There was a common, and quite racist belief, that aboriginal peoples were somehow “less” than white peoples. Perhaps there was a belief that by becoming Christian, and learning western ways, aboriginal peoples “put on new clothes” and became new people. I am being generous here. For I believe that while they may have said “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek”, it was not a real commitment of faith. Galatians says clearly that everyone is equal in the sight of God, yet even today we can see that aboriginal peoples are still not seen as equal, either in the eyes of the church or the eyes of the various governments. Extinguishment of aboriginal rights and claims is very much still an item on the agenda. The fact remains that those aboriginal children and families were ripped apart in the name of the Christian God. Note that although hundreds of Chinese came to Canada in this period - and there is no doubt they were badly treated - they were not required to give up their language, religion or families. No other ethnic group has been treated quite as badly as the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
The words of Jesus in this rarely-read passage are important to remember. He is more than scathing of the religious leaders. Jesus says “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
Two worlds, where children are taken and abused - where families of those who are deemed “lesser” are abused. Where a policy of extinguishment extends to particular cultures. Two worlds where religious leaders, more interested in control of thought and action, delude themselves that they have the way to enter the realm of God. In their need to exert power, and control, they deny others the opportunity to go there.
So after a delay of more than a year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins in Winnipeg. It is not an end, and it will not solve everything. Native peoples are already saying that apologies are a step, this commission is another step, but they are also looking for justice to be done. Churches can take a strong role in supporting aboriginal peoples as they struggle to find that justice. Everyone is equal in the sight of God; we can do no less.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28classical_mythology%29
2. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials). Philip Pullman. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, c. 2002.
3. CBC website - Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
For you are all children of God through faith in Jesus. All who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Jesus. And now that you belong to Jesus, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Matthew
“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
******************************************************************************
“There will always be free thinkers and heretics, unless we deal with the root of the problem. It is our duty to protect the children from the corrupting influence of dust, and nurture a generation at peace with itself, one which will never question authority again. We owe it to the young, do we not?”
So says the Magisterial Emissary, in the story “The Golden Compass”.
The Golden Compass, part of a trilogy of stories by author Philip Pullman, follows the young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua through her world in an effort to find and save her friends Bill and Roger. In Lyra’s universe, there are witches and armoured polar bears; yet, like our world, there is also a broad range of studies involving particle physics, philosophy, theology and spirituality.
In Lyra’s world, people’s souls are external to their body, an animal-shaped "dæmon" that always stays near its human counterpart. During childhood, a dæmon can change its shape at will, but with the onset of adolescence it settles into a single form which reveals the person's true nature and personality, implying that nature and personality stabilise after adolescence.
The Magisterium is the equivalent of the religious leaders of the church in this parallel world. The Magisterium exerts a strong control over this world, and wishes to control everything. Their greatest fear is people who do not accept the dogma and doctrine, and think outside the box.
Under the direction of the Magisterium, a group known as the Oblation Board kidnaps children and subjects them to a process called “intercision”, whereby the daemon and the human are literally separated by a laser guillotine. This renders the human unable to think independently, and removes their ability to care. The same is true for the daemon soul.
The children who are kidnapped are sent to an “experimental station”, far north on the island of Svalbard, where they are essentially in a boarding school where experiments can be conducted on them without their parents around. Those who try to run away are caught an punished. They come mostly from a nomadic group of sea people, or poorer people who are indigenous to the land. Children of wealthy or educated people do not get taken, and don’t have their daemons removed.
Now - it’s important to note that the word daemons in this case is quite different than our word “demon”. The words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek used to distinguish the daemons of Hellenistic religion and philosophy, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, from the Judeo-Christian usage demon. In his writing “Theogony”, the poet Hesiod relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daemons by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals. Their function is that of the soul.
In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed that the best chance for aboriginal peoples to succeed was to learn English, and adopt Christianity. Ideally, they would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, hence abolishing any native traditions within a few generations.
This policy was known as "aggressive assimilation". The government of Canad provided the funding, and the churches managed what were first called industrial schools, and later residential schools. Children were easier to mould than adults, so children of aboriginal peoples were forcibly removed from their families, taken to the schools where they were required to speak English, not allowed to speak their native tongue, and forced to accept the Christian God. Many were beaten and punished if they spoke their own language. Those who tried to run away were caught and punished. Many committed suicide.
Residential schools were federally run, under the Department of Indian Affairs. Attendance was mandatory. Agents were employed by the government to ensure all native children attended.
At first there were about 69 schools operating, but by 1931, at the peak of the residential school system, there were about 80 schools operating in Canada. All together, 130 schools operated in every territory and province except Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick from the earliest in the 19th century to the last, which closed in 1996. Approximately 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools.
It was believed that native children could be successful if they assimilated into mainstream Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. Students were discouraged from speaking their first language or practising native traditions. If they were caught, they would experience severe punishment. They lived in substandard conditions, endured physical, emotional and sexual abuse. All correspondence was written in English, which many parents couldn't read. Brothers and sisters at the same school rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by gender.
In 1994, I had the privilege of sitting for a day listening to aboriginal survivors of the residential schools. No one in that room left the same person. I heard more than one person say their soul had been ripped out of them.
In Lyra’s parallel universe, the Magisterium covers up its lust for power and control by claiming that what they are doing is for the good of those children they kidnap. - just a little cut, and then the children would be sent home. In reality, once the children are taken, they never return home. Life is literally never the same, for their souls have been taken from them. They practice a patronising and patriarchal system of religious teaching which removes any question of their authority.
Here in the real world of Canada, both the government and the churches practiced a patronising and patriarchal system of assimilation. There was a common, and quite racist belief, that aboriginal peoples were somehow “less” than white peoples. Perhaps there was a belief that by becoming Christian, and learning western ways, aboriginal peoples “put on new clothes” and became new people. I am being generous here. For I believe that while they may have said “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek”, it was not a real commitment of faith. Galatians says clearly that everyone is equal in the sight of God, yet even today we can see that aboriginal peoples are still not seen as equal, either in the eyes of the church or the eyes of the various governments. Extinguishment of aboriginal rights and claims is very much still an item on the agenda. The fact remains that those aboriginal children and families were ripped apart in the name of the Christian God. Note that although hundreds of Chinese came to Canada in this period - and there is no doubt they were badly treated - they were not required to give up their language, religion or families. No other ethnic group has been treated quite as badly as the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
The words of Jesus in this rarely-read passage are important to remember. He is more than scathing of the religious leaders. Jesus says “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
Two worlds, where children are taken and abused - where families of those who are deemed “lesser” are abused. Where a policy of extinguishment extends to particular cultures. Two worlds where religious leaders, more interested in control of thought and action, delude themselves that they have the way to enter the realm of God. In their need to exert power, and control, they deny others the opportunity to go there.
So after a delay of more than a year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins in Winnipeg. It is not an end, and it will not solve everything. Native peoples are already saying that apologies are a step, this commission is another step, but they are also looking for justice to be done. Churches can take a strong role in supporting aboriginal peoples as they struggle to find that justice. Everyone is equal in the sight of God; we can do no less.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28classical_mythology%29
2. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials). Philip Pullman. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, c. 2002.
3. CBC website - Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Hospitality and Life a sermon based upon Luke 7:36 - 8:3. June 13, 2010 Glen Ayr United Church
I am sure lots of us have seen the movie “Sister Act”. Whoopi Goldberg, playing the part of Vegas lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier, witnesses a brutal mob murder. To keep her safe, the police hide her in a convent and she becomes Sister Mary Clarence.
There is a scene in which the Monsignor is explaining the situation to Mother Superior. Mother Superior is only too happy to take in this poor unfortunate woman - until her horrified eyes behold the purple sequined body suit, designer sunglasses and huge afro hairdo. When the Monsignor reminds her she has made a vow of hospitality to everyone, regardless of who they are, Mother Superior responds “I lied.”
The word hospitality comes from the Latin ‘hospes’, which is formed from ‘hostis’, which meant to have power. The meaning of "host" can be literally read as "lord of strangers." But ‘hostire’, from which we get the word ‘host’, means equalize or compensate.
In the Homeric age, hospitality was under the protection of Zeus, who also had the title 'Xenios Zeus' ('xenos' means stranger), emphasizing the fact that hospitality was of the utmost importance. A stranger passing outside a Greek house could be invited inside by the family. The host washed the stranger's feet, offered food and wine, and only after the guest was comfortable the host could ask his or her name.
Hospitality is about making a stranger equal to the host, making him feel protected and taken care of, and when his time is up, guiding him to his next destination.
Did you know that hospitality, a generous and cordial welcome of strangers, was considered most important not only to Greeks, but to both Jews and Christians. Nothing was more important than showing hospitality - offering strangers a generous and cordial welcome by providing a sustaining environment. People believed that in the next life God would serve them as Host, and would show them the same kind of hospitality, the same kind of welcome as they had shown to strangers during their time on earth.
When Norio got off the plane last Monday, he had with him a somewhat strange woman whose money and credit cards had been stolen. She had no money to stay anywhere, or to eat. All she had was her passport and a plane ticket for the next morning. I didn’t know until I got to the airport. Would it be all right if she stayed overnight with us? There was a part of me that didn’t wanted to be bothered - after all, I had just got home from a trip myself, just sent my sister off, had a busy weekend and wanted to rest. Sending her to a hotel would have been easier. But we took her to dinner with my niece, and then took her home for the night. Next morning we were up at 5 to get her back to the airport. In some ways, Norio is far better at that radical and open hospitality than I am.
In his sermon about hospitality, Rev. Thomas Hall tells about a bishop in the United Methodist church, who was visiting churches in the Conference. He stopped at a small church, and not sure where to go, wandered into the church basement. A woman there eyeballed him and said, "What are you doing here? Can’t you see that we’re getting ready for the bazaar? You don’t belong here." So the bishop backed out, and made his way up to the sanctuary. He was met warmly by the pastor. "What is one of your greatest assets in this church?" the bishop asked, still shell-shocked. "That’s easy," the pastor said grinning broadly, "we pride ourselves on being a friendly church."
Tom Hall reflects that the bishop probably wondered, "Oh really? And what are your liabilities."
Now, Luke’s story is full of holes - as are most Biblical stories. Jesus is invited to dinner, and his host doesn’t observe any of the common courtesies. Somehow, an “immoral” woman manages to get in. Or is she already there? Or is she a member of the household who broke one of the myriad pharisaical laws? Simon figures Jesus couldn’t actually be a prophet, because if he were he would denounce this immoral woman - and certainly she would not be able to touch Jesus. That in itself would be a scandal. Jesus, true to form, not only proceeds to instruct Simon the Pharisee in interpretation of the law and scripture, but goes further and gives him a lecture on hospitality. He points out that Simon observed *none* of the regular customs - water and a towel to wash the feet, a kiss of greeting, olive oil on the head. Yet a woman, pushed to the side by others, observes those customs, and does it weeping.
Simon takes his faith seriously. He fasts, tithes, and attends worship. He’s a model for people who take the spiritual life seriously. But he has a serious disconnection between faith and hospitality.
Just for a moment, jump back to Sister Act. Mother Superior admits that she is far less adept at giving hospitality than she would like to think. The arrival of Deloris, as Sister Mary Clarence, brings the very being of the Holy Spirit into the convent. She upsets every apple cart, every single barrier Mother Superior has so carefully constructed. The other sisters have been *thinking* it, but Sister Mary Clarence *does* it. Fences come down, doors open, people find the church relevant - and the church becomes a part of the neighbourhood, instead of a bastion keeping people away and keeping the sisters in. Mother Superior notes how dangerous it is outside, and forgets that the other people have to live out there with the danger *all the time*. Completely unwittingly, Mary Clarence gives the whole convent new confidence, and a new understanding of what hospitality really means.
And in one telling line, Sister Mary Patrick notes “after all, that’s why we became nuns in the first place.”
Interestingly, the passage from Luke ends with Jesus and the disciples going into towns and villages preaching the good news, accompanied by women who provided for them and took care of them. They looked after each other on the road, and the women were not afraid to go with them.
Hospitality, to others and to ourselves, means going out on a limb and doing things that others might think are irresponsible. Hospitality means getting to know people right here, those that we don’t know as well as others. As we spend time today, over lunch and then in discussion about the church and its life, how we work towards living our faith is part of that discussion.
Sources:
1. Jesus and Hospitality, a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality
There is a scene in which the Monsignor is explaining the situation to Mother Superior. Mother Superior is only too happy to take in this poor unfortunate woman - until her horrified eyes behold the purple sequined body suit, designer sunglasses and huge afro hairdo. When the Monsignor reminds her she has made a vow of hospitality to everyone, regardless of who they are, Mother Superior responds “I lied.”
The word hospitality comes from the Latin ‘hospes’, which is formed from ‘hostis’, which meant to have power. The meaning of "host" can be literally read as "lord of strangers." But ‘hostire’, from which we get the word ‘host’, means equalize or compensate.
In the Homeric age, hospitality was under the protection of Zeus, who also had the title 'Xenios Zeus' ('xenos' means stranger), emphasizing the fact that hospitality was of the utmost importance. A stranger passing outside a Greek house could be invited inside by the family. The host washed the stranger's feet, offered food and wine, and only after the guest was comfortable the host could ask his or her name.
Hospitality is about making a stranger equal to the host, making him feel protected and taken care of, and when his time is up, guiding him to his next destination.
Did you know that hospitality, a generous and cordial welcome of strangers, was considered most important not only to Greeks, but to both Jews and Christians. Nothing was more important than showing hospitality - offering strangers a generous and cordial welcome by providing a sustaining environment. People believed that in the next life God would serve them as Host, and would show them the same kind of hospitality, the same kind of welcome as they had shown to strangers during their time on earth.
When Norio got off the plane last Monday, he had with him a somewhat strange woman whose money and credit cards had been stolen. She had no money to stay anywhere, or to eat. All she had was her passport and a plane ticket for the next morning. I didn’t know until I got to the airport. Would it be all right if she stayed overnight with us? There was a part of me that didn’t wanted to be bothered - after all, I had just got home from a trip myself, just sent my sister off, had a busy weekend and wanted to rest. Sending her to a hotel would have been easier. But we took her to dinner with my niece, and then took her home for the night. Next morning we were up at 5 to get her back to the airport. In some ways, Norio is far better at that radical and open hospitality than I am.
In his sermon about hospitality, Rev. Thomas Hall tells about a bishop in the United Methodist church, who was visiting churches in the Conference. He stopped at a small church, and not sure where to go, wandered into the church basement. A woman there eyeballed him and said, "What are you doing here? Can’t you see that we’re getting ready for the bazaar? You don’t belong here." So the bishop backed out, and made his way up to the sanctuary. He was met warmly by the pastor. "What is one of your greatest assets in this church?" the bishop asked, still shell-shocked. "That’s easy," the pastor said grinning broadly, "we pride ourselves on being a friendly church."
Tom Hall reflects that the bishop probably wondered, "Oh really? And what are your liabilities."
Now, Luke’s story is full of holes - as are most Biblical stories. Jesus is invited to dinner, and his host doesn’t observe any of the common courtesies. Somehow, an “immoral” woman manages to get in. Or is she already there? Or is she a member of the household who broke one of the myriad pharisaical laws? Simon figures Jesus couldn’t actually be a prophet, because if he were he would denounce this immoral woman - and certainly she would not be able to touch Jesus. That in itself would be a scandal. Jesus, true to form, not only proceeds to instruct Simon the Pharisee in interpretation of the law and scripture, but goes further and gives him a lecture on hospitality. He points out that Simon observed *none* of the regular customs - water and a towel to wash the feet, a kiss of greeting, olive oil on the head. Yet a woman, pushed to the side by others, observes those customs, and does it weeping.
Simon takes his faith seriously. He fasts, tithes, and attends worship. He’s a model for people who take the spiritual life seriously. But he has a serious disconnection between faith and hospitality.
Just for a moment, jump back to Sister Act. Mother Superior admits that she is far less adept at giving hospitality than she would like to think. The arrival of Deloris, as Sister Mary Clarence, brings the very being of the Holy Spirit into the convent. She upsets every apple cart, every single barrier Mother Superior has so carefully constructed. The other sisters have been *thinking* it, but Sister Mary Clarence *does* it. Fences come down, doors open, people find the church relevant - and the church becomes a part of the neighbourhood, instead of a bastion keeping people away and keeping the sisters in. Mother Superior notes how dangerous it is outside, and forgets that the other people have to live out there with the danger *all the time*. Completely unwittingly, Mary Clarence gives the whole convent new confidence, and a new understanding of what hospitality really means.
And in one telling line, Sister Mary Patrick notes “after all, that’s why we became nuns in the first place.”
Interestingly, the passage from Luke ends with Jesus and the disciples going into towns and villages preaching the good news, accompanied by women who provided for them and took care of them. They looked after each other on the road, and the women were not afraid to go with them.
Hospitality, to others and to ourselves, means going out on a limb and doing things that others might think are irresponsible. Hospitality means getting to know people right here, those that we don’t know as well as others. As we spend time today, over lunch and then in discussion about the church and its life, how we work towards living our faith is part of that discussion.
Sources:
1. Jesus and Hospitality, a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Interlude Part 1
For the next three weeks there won't be any sermons published. I am on my way to the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville, Tennessee - and will likely post some comments about the preaching and sermons heard there. The next regular sermon will be posted to this blog on June 5, 2010.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Vision and Church a sermon based on Acts 16:11-15, and Revelation 21:10, 22 - 22:5 Sixth Sunday of Easter Glen Ayr United Church
Acts
We boarded a boat at Troas and sailed straight across to the island of Samothrace, and the next day we landed at Neapolis. From there we reached Philippi, a major city of Macedonia and a Roman colony, and stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city to the river, where people were meeting for prayer, and sat down to speak with some women. One was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshiped God. As she listened to us, God opened her heart, and she heard what Paul was saying. She was baptized along with others in her household; she asked us to be her guests. “If you agree that I am a true believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my home.” And she urged us until we agreed.
Revelation
So he took me in the Spirit to a high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for God and the Lamb are its temple. The angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God. It flowed down the centre of the main street; on each side grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and the servants will worship; they will see God’s face; God’s name will be written on their foreheads. There will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for God will shine on them.
*****************************************************************
Remember this old joke? Why did the children of Israel wander the wilderness for forty years when the promised land was less than 50 miles from their starting point? Because Moses would not stop and ask for directions.
Due to John Gray’s description in the book ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’, men have been identified as the ones who would drive right past two Petro Cans, several Timmies, rather than admit that they’re hopelessly lost, and they have no idea how to get where they are supposed to be going.
My husband bought himself a GPS, but you know what? Even when it’s on and set, he won’t listen to it. He still thinks he knows how to get where we are supposed to be going, better than the GPS. And of course he hates it no end when I tell him I *do* know where we are going, because I am listening to the GPS *and* looking at a map.
...I remember one time last summer, on our road trip to the Maritimes, where he did (knock on wood) listen, and we stayed on the road the map told us to stay on.....the poor GPS had us driving in the middle of empty space. The road map was up-to-date, the GPS was not....
Getting clear directions requires asking, and it requires discernment. The asking and the discerning both help us determine our destination. Both the reading from Acts, and the one from Revelation, suggest that churches need to get directions straight in the carrying out of mission. At the best of times, congregations need to move from a place of self-preservation to a place of genuine vision and mission. If we don’t discern a direction, we are going to end up wandering around! The conundrum is that it's the wandering around which helps us discern where we are supposed to be!
Paul and Silas are all ready to do another mission with the Good News. But did you notice one thing? Luke includes a suggestion that they had to keep asking directions - they traveled through the area of “Phrygia and Galatia, because the Holy Spirit had told them not to go into the province of Asia at that time . . .Then coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed for the province of Bithynia, but again the Spirit did not let them go . . .”
Now, you would have thought Paul and Silas of all people would have a handle on what they had to do and where they had to go. But no...they needed directions - not literal directions, but spiritual. They had no specific guidance from God. Every time they started off in another direction, God shut the door. "No, I don’t want you to go to Asia." So they go in the opposite direction - Bithynia. "Nope - not there". I am sure they got frustrated, because they were all ready and the door was closed.
Paul and Silas wander outside the doors, and find a small group in prayer by the river, and one of that group is a woman named Lydia. She is wealthy and influential. She becomes the first follower of Jesus in Macedonia. One person who heard a message. Is it possible that all of Paul and Silas’s to-ing and fro-ing might have been for this one encounter? Luke says Lydia already believed in God, and was ready to hear the Good News. The church in Philippi came into being through one person.
Here is something for us to think about. How is the Spirit already at work behind the scenes here? We need to remember that *we* don’t do it, the Spirit does. We need to wait for the directions. When we are in partnership with God, listening for any directions, we cannot expect to see spectacular results right away. Our frustration comes because we want to see results of *all* our efforts; we just want to see people fall in the door, yesterday - instead of recognising that's not how it happens.
Here’s where we connect to Revelation. Here we have a metaphor for the realm of God, intersecting with human existence. Humans can be the means of channeling God’s grace, the notion of ‘building the kingdom’. Human agents infused with the Spirit of the new creation may contribute to that future reign of God here and now - and it might only be one person at a time.
We may think churches are necessary for Christian community, but Revelation intimates that put too much investment in our buildings, instead of a closer relationship with God. So the question is how can we be more more in relationship and less building-dependent?
How can we keep our faith alive in the vision of the new city if we still think the old vision worked fine? How can people of faith live now as if God were already building the realm through their words and actions.
The word *worship* means "to declare what is worthy." What do you declare is "worthy" by your worship? Is it worship once a week for an hour, and no longer? A friend of mine was criticised for “preaching too long.” Have we so much other important stuff to do that giving five or ten minutes extra to God on a Sunday morning is too much? What does that say about our worship? Is worship part of the very fabric of our lives in faith? What do we say about God?
Both Acts and Revelation show us a vision of the realm, beside a river....remember that part. Luke tells us that Paul and Silas spoke to Lydia and baptised her beside the river. John tells us in Revelation that the new realm is beside the river of the water of life.
Revelation offers us God’s vision - a new realm in which all people are blessed. Is that our vision? Is that our church? Are we only here for ourselves, or are we here for something more? Do we want everything to happen according to our schedule? Or are we willing to listen for directions, and along the way - one person at a time - bring about the “new heaven and the new earth”?
Sources:
Directions a sermon based on Acts 16: 9-15 by Rev. Thomas Hall
We boarded a boat at Troas and sailed straight across to the island of Samothrace, and the next day we landed at Neapolis. From there we reached Philippi, a major city of Macedonia and a Roman colony, and stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city to the river, where people were meeting for prayer, and sat down to speak with some women. One was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshiped God. As she listened to us, God opened her heart, and she heard what Paul was saying. She was baptized along with others in her household; she asked us to be her guests. “If you agree that I am a true believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my home.” And she urged us until we agreed.
Revelation
So he took me in the Spirit to a high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for God and the Lamb are its temple. The angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God. It flowed down the centre of the main street; on each side grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and the servants will worship; they will see God’s face; God’s name will be written on their foreheads. There will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for God will shine on them.
*****************************************************************
Remember this old joke? Why did the children of Israel wander the wilderness for forty years when the promised land was less than 50 miles from their starting point? Because Moses would not stop and ask for directions.
Due to John Gray’s description in the book ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’, men have been identified as the ones who would drive right past two Petro Cans, several Timmies, rather than admit that they’re hopelessly lost, and they have no idea how to get where they are supposed to be going.
My husband bought himself a GPS, but you know what? Even when it’s on and set, he won’t listen to it. He still thinks he knows how to get where we are supposed to be going, better than the GPS. And of course he hates it no end when I tell him I *do* know where we are going, because I am listening to the GPS *and* looking at a map.
...I remember one time last summer, on our road trip to the Maritimes, where he did (knock on wood) listen, and we stayed on the road the map told us to stay on.....the poor GPS had us driving in the middle of empty space. The road map was up-to-date, the GPS was not....
Getting clear directions requires asking, and it requires discernment. The asking and the discerning both help us determine our destination. Both the reading from Acts, and the one from Revelation, suggest that churches need to get directions straight in the carrying out of mission. At the best of times, congregations need to move from a place of self-preservation to a place of genuine vision and mission. If we don’t discern a direction, we are going to end up wandering around! The conundrum is that it's the wandering around which helps us discern where we are supposed to be!
Paul and Silas are all ready to do another mission with the Good News. But did you notice one thing? Luke includes a suggestion that they had to keep asking directions - they traveled through the area of “Phrygia and Galatia, because the Holy Spirit had told them not to go into the province of Asia at that time . . .Then coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed for the province of Bithynia, but again the Spirit did not let them go . . .”
Now, you would have thought Paul and Silas of all people would have a handle on what they had to do and where they had to go. But no...they needed directions - not literal directions, but spiritual. They had no specific guidance from God. Every time they started off in another direction, God shut the door. "No, I don’t want you to go to Asia." So they go in the opposite direction - Bithynia. "Nope - not there". I am sure they got frustrated, because they were all ready and the door was closed.
Paul and Silas wander outside the doors, and find a small group in prayer by the river, and one of that group is a woman named Lydia. She is wealthy and influential. She becomes the first follower of Jesus in Macedonia. One person who heard a message. Is it possible that all of Paul and Silas’s to-ing and fro-ing might have been for this one encounter? Luke says Lydia already believed in God, and was ready to hear the Good News. The church in Philippi came into being through one person.
Here is something for us to think about. How is the Spirit already at work behind the scenes here? We need to remember that *we* don’t do it, the Spirit does. We need to wait for the directions. When we are in partnership with God, listening for any directions, we cannot expect to see spectacular results right away. Our frustration comes because we want to see results of *all* our efforts; we just want to see people fall in the door, yesterday - instead of recognising that's not how it happens.
Here’s where we connect to Revelation. Here we have a metaphor for the realm of God, intersecting with human existence. Humans can be the means of channeling God’s grace, the notion of ‘building the kingdom’. Human agents infused with the Spirit of the new creation may contribute to that future reign of God here and now - and it might only be one person at a time.
We may think churches are necessary for Christian community, but Revelation intimates that put too much investment in our buildings, instead of a closer relationship with God. So the question is how can we be more more in relationship and less building-dependent?
How can we keep our faith alive in the vision of the new city if we still think the old vision worked fine? How can people of faith live now as if God were already building the realm through their words and actions.
The word *worship* means "to declare what is worthy." What do you declare is "worthy" by your worship? Is it worship once a week for an hour, and no longer? A friend of mine was criticised for “preaching too long.” Have we so much other important stuff to do that giving five or ten minutes extra to God on a Sunday morning is too much? What does that say about our worship? Is worship part of the very fabric of our lives in faith? What do we say about God?
Both Acts and Revelation show us a vision of the realm, beside a river....remember that part. Luke tells us that Paul and Silas spoke to Lydia and baptised her beside the river. John tells us in Revelation that the new realm is beside the river of the water of life.
Revelation offers us God’s vision - a new realm in which all people are blessed. Is that our vision? Is that our church? Are we only here for ourselves, or are we here for something more? Do we want everything to happen according to our schedule? Or are we willing to listen for directions, and along the way - one person at a time - bring about the “new heaven and the new earth”?
Sources:
Directions a sermon based on Acts 16: 9-15 by Rev. Thomas Hall
Saturday, May 1, 2010
“Celebrations” A sermon based upon Revelation 21:1-6 and Luke 17:33 Glen Ayr United Church May 2, 2010 Fifth Sunday of Easter
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared, the sea was also gone. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
The one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” He also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.” (Revelation 21:1-6)
“If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” Luke 17:33
******************************************************************
In Buddhist practice, there is an exercise called “holding on and letting go.” It is based in the knowledge that all things are impermanent, that they cannot continue forever. The exercise consists of taking an object which is of great value to you - something to which you are strongly attached, something with strong memories attached - and throwing it away. You literally throw it, over your shoulder, and from then on it is gone.
In the Christian scriptures, a story is told about a young man who asks Jesus what he should do to enter the realm of God. Jesus says, essentially, go and get rid of everything you have - then you will be able to enter. The young man, unable to give up all his riches and possessions, goes away.
Jesus wasn’t talking literally about getting rid of everything, he was addressing that very fine line between holding on, and letting go - and when it’s the right time to do which.
In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. His most prominent remnant in modern culture is his namesake, the month of January. He is most often depicted as having two faces or heads, facing in opposite directions.
In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, human life, new historical ages, and economical enterprises. He was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another.
There’s a fine line between holding on, and letting go.
To “let go” means not to worry about the future, but look forward to what might happen
Havelock Ellis once said, “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” It seems like the further you go in life the more you are faced with the decision of what to hold on to, when to hold on, and when to let go and trust. It becomes more and more important to consider what you need to keep and what you need to change.
Sometimes we have to do both at the same time. The word for this is “risk” . The Japanese character for “hope” involves danger and opportunity.
When it comes to change and risk, today’s successful organizations are traveling the super highway, schools are starting to get on the county highways, but the church is still trying hard to continue plodding down the old and familiar paths. So many congregations are reacting when it’s time to act. Reacting to choruses, reacting to different worship styles, reacting to the changing neighborhoods around their church. Congregations have somehow learned how to say no more than yes, and end up stuck on the same old cow paths.
Rev. Thomas Hall talks about the different stages of a church committee - and these stages can be applied to almost any activity we have in the church. Here are some of them:
Wild enthusiasm. “Let’s begin a new outreach to children in the inner city—I’ve seen so many kids on the street corners on Sunday mornings; we could bring them to church for Sunday School and a lunch, then drive them back.” “Yeah!” “What a great idea!” “All in favor, say aye!” “Can you believe it—everyone voted yes! “What an exciting idea!”
Disillusionment when things don’t happen yesterday. Three weeks into the new ministry . . . “We don’t have enough people signed up.” “I never intended to help out every Sunday, I just thought it was a really good idea for the church.” “We need to find volunteers to take on this job.”
Search for the guilty. “Whose idea was this?” “I just want to go on record that this was not my idea; I had reservations about this whole thing from the start.” “I think the pastor needs to step up to the table and take responsibility for this failure.” “I don’t think we really did this the right way, there was a better way to do it. After all, we are in a crisis.”
Over the last five weeks, Glen Ayr has been working at a stewardship programme. Maybe you weren’t sure, maybe you didn’t read all the material, maybe it just didn’t sink in because it wasn’t like a stewardship programme you remember. It wasn’t designed as a hard sell, it was designed to ask each of you to think about what you can offer to help support all of the ministries in which Glen Ayr is involved. Just as you are feeling the bite in your grocery bills, heating and hydro, gas for the car, all kinds of things - so this church feels that too. But we also believe that Glen Ayr is growing into a new role in this community, and that we have something vital to offer to the community around us. That’s the holding on part.
At the same time, we are called by faith to live out of a sense of abundance and gratitude. Without every single one of you here - and all of those who might be but cannot - Glen Ayr would not be here at all. We started out almost five years ago together, on a path into the unknown. We had no idea where this would take us, and to a large extent we still don’t know exactly where we are going. But we engaged a new and energetic musician who, with considerable talent and sensitivity, has brought a new dimension to our worship and our life together. We have begun to see a new group of people finding something here. We have many people who quietly give of their time and talent to the church; some have been here a long time, some are newer. In the process of that, there has been some letting go - there has to be.
The quote from Havelock Ellis says much to me. All of our endeavours have to be a fine mingling of holding on and letting go - of doing things a different way, and of not reacting if something doesn’t work. Everything we do is an experiment - there are no hard and fast rules for what will work and what won’t. There are no rules for how fast it is going to happen - because it happens in God’s time, not ours. In short, there are no guarantees - yet in the midst of no guarantees we are called to faith and hope.
Part of living a faith of gratitude is to celebrate what we have, even when we might see clouds on the horizon. We have to be willing to let go of certain concepts, and do something differently, in faith and trust that God will make something out of it. It may not happen, in which case maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s the danger. But there is also the opportunity: at the same time that we try to look to the future and do some responsible planning, we also have to look at who we are now, right here, today - and celebrate who we are and what we have. For part of this year we will be celebrating a lot of the past of Glen Ayr. We will also celebrate the future of Glen Ayr, unknown though that may be. In the midst of that danger and opportunity, we also have to celebrate each other - with gratitude and thanks. So today we come together around God’s table for the communion celebration, and then we go to lunch together - a lunch provided as a way of saying thank you to each of you, for who you are, and what you bring to Glen Ayr. Because there is a time for just letting go and being...right now. May it be so.
Sources:
1. “Trouble Back At Headquarters” a homily based on Acts 11:1-18 by Rev. Thomas Hall.
2. Henry Havelock Ellis 1859 - 1939 - physician and social reformer.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
The one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” He also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.” (Revelation 21:1-6)
“If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” Luke 17:33
******************************************************************
In Buddhist practice, there is an exercise called “holding on and letting go.” It is based in the knowledge that all things are impermanent, that they cannot continue forever. The exercise consists of taking an object which is of great value to you - something to which you are strongly attached, something with strong memories attached - and throwing it away. You literally throw it, over your shoulder, and from then on it is gone.
In the Christian scriptures, a story is told about a young man who asks Jesus what he should do to enter the realm of God. Jesus says, essentially, go and get rid of everything you have - then you will be able to enter. The young man, unable to give up all his riches and possessions, goes away.
Jesus wasn’t talking literally about getting rid of everything, he was addressing that very fine line between holding on, and letting go - and when it’s the right time to do which.
In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. His most prominent remnant in modern culture is his namesake, the month of January. He is most often depicted as having two faces or heads, facing in opposite directions.
In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, human life, new historical ages, and economical enterprises. He was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another.
There’s a fine line between holding on, and letting go.
To “let go” means not to worry about the future, but look forward to what might happen
Havelock Ellis once said, “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” It seems like the further you go in life the more you are faced with the decision of what to hold on to, when to hold on, and when to let go and trust. It becomes more and more important to consider what you need to keep and what you need to change.
Sometimes we have to do both at the same time. The word for this is “risk” . The Japanese character for “hope” involves danger and opportunity.
When it comes to change and risk, today’s successful organizations are traveling the super highway, schools are starting to get on the county highways, but the church is still trying hard to continue plodding down the old and familiar paths. So many congregations are reacting when it’s time to act. Reacting to choruses, reacting to different worship styles, reacting to the changing neighborhoods around their church. Congregations have somehow learned how to say no more than yes, and end up stuck on the same old cow paths.
Rev. Thomas Hall talks about the different stages of a church committee - and these stages can be applied to almost any activity we have in the church. Here are some of them:
Wild enthusiasm. “Let’s begin a new outreach to children in the inner city—I’ve seen so many kids on the street corners on Sunday mornings; we could bring them to church for Sunday School and a lunch, then drive them back.” “Yeah!” “What a great idea!” “All in favor, say aye!” “Can you believe it—everyone voted yes! “What an exciting idea!”
Disillusionment when things don’t happen yesterday. Three weeks into the new ministry . . . “We don’t have enough people signed up.” “I never intended to help out every Sunday, I just thought it was a really good idea for the church.” “We need to find volunteers to take on this job.”
Search for the guilty. “Whose idea was this?” “I just want to go on record that this was not my idea; I had reservations about this whole thing from the start.” “I think the pastor needs to step up to the table and take responsibility for this failure.” “I don’t think we really did this the right way, there was a better way to do it. After all, we are in a crisis.”
Over the last five weeks, Glen Ayr has been working at a stewardship programme. Maybe you weren’t sure, maybe you didn’t read all the material, maybe it just didn’t sink in because it wasn’t like a stewardship programme you remember. It wasn’t designed as a hard sell, it was designed to ask each of you to think about what you can offer to help support all of the ministries in which Glen Ayr is involved. Just as you are feeling the bite in your grocery bills, heating and hydro, gas for the car, all kinds of things - so this church feels that too. But we also believe that Glen Ayr is growing into a new role in this community, and that we have something vital to offer to the community around us. That’s the holding on part.
At the same time, we are called by faith to live out of a sense of abundance and gratitude. Without every single one of you here - and all of those who might be but cannot - Glen Ayr would not be here at all. We started out almost five years ago together, on a path into the unknown. We had no idea where this would take us, and to a large extent we still don’t know exactly where we are going. But we engaged a new and energetic musician who, with considerable talent and sensitivity, has brought a new dimension to our worship and our life together. We have begun to see a new group of people finding something here. We have many people who quietly give of their time and talent to the church; some have been here a long time, some are newer. In the process of that, there has been some letting go - there has to be.
The quote from Havelock Ellis says much to me. All of our endeavours have to be a fine mingling of holding on and letting go - of doing things a different way, and of not reacting if something doesn’t work. Everything we do is an experiment - there are no hard and fast rules for what will work and what won’t. There are no rules for how fast it is going to happen - because it happens in God’s time, not ours. In short, there are no guarantees - yet in the midst of no guarantees we are called to faith and hope.
Part of living a faith of gratitude is to celebrate what we have, even when we might see clouds on the horizon. We have to be willing to let go of certain concepts, and do something differently, in faith and trust that God will make something out of it. It may not happen, in which case maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s the danger. But there is also the opportunity: at the same time that we try to look to the future and do some responsible planning, we also have to look at who we are now, right here, today - and celebrate who we are and what we have. For part of this year we will be celebrating a lot of the past of Glen Ayr. We will also celebrate the future of Glen Ayr, unknown though that may be. In the midst of that danger and opportunity, we also have to celebrate each other - with gratitude and thanks. So today we come together around God’s table for the communion celebration, and then we go to lunch together - a lunch provided as a way of saying thank you to each of you, for who you are, and what you bring to Glen Ayr. Because there is a time for just letting go and being...right now. May it be so.
Sources:
1. “Trouble Back At Headquarters” a homily based on Acts 11:1-18 by Rev. Thomas Hall.
2. Henry Havelock Ellis 1859 - 1939 - physician and social reformer.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Two Kinds of Life, a sermon based on Acts 9:36-43. April 25, 2010, Fourth Sunday of Easter, Glen Ayr United Church.
Try to imagine what it would have been like in Joppa. In this story, a kind of parallel to the story of Lazarus, Dorcas is raised from apparent death, and picks up a new life. Like much of the world today, including Canada, people spoke more than one language. In Joppa, they spoke at least Greek and Aramaic - some would probably have spoken Hebrew. Depending where she was and with whom, Dorcas was also known as Tabitha – both names meaning gazelle.
You probably know people like her. Most of us know there are only so many hours in a day or days in a week. Dorcas wasn’t one of those people - she always seemed to have more than enough time to get more done than is possible to do in the regular day or week. Somehow, though, despite al the things she did, it seemed as though she always had lots of time to give her undivided attention. If there was a job that needed to be done, she was always there to do it; doing it well and with a smile..
Sounds like some people we know, doesn’t it?
What few people saw in Dorcas, however, - and what we probably don’t see in some of the seemingly tireless people around us - is that Dorcas was becoming weary of requests for her time,
weary of the hurts and sorrows she was carrying for people, weary of the growing expectations that she could do it all.
“She was devoted to good works and acts of charity,” but it seemed as though no one else was devoted to them (v 36). The church in Joppa loved having Dorcas do the work.
Maybe it was a combination of her personal style, and a complacent church, but no one else seemed able or willing to carry some of the load. So when Dorcas died, there was a crisis. No one else knew what to do. All they could think of was who would replace her. No one had taken time to thank her. They just compared themselves to her, and decided that she was so talented, their gifts didn’t measure up to hers. So they would find a way to say “Oh, I don’t have any gifts or talent, I can’t really do anything.” Rather than recognise that God had given everyone gifts, they were happy to leave it to Dorcas.
Funny, though, when she died they found a way to minister to her. They gently and carefully washed her body and laid her on a bed (v 37). The woman who had in many ways washed their feet is now being washed from head to toe by the people she had served.
Dorcas was an exceptional woman, and the only women named in the Bible specifically as a disciples. But her ministry had allowed people to think that the church was there to serve them - that it was OK to expect it. Dorcas’ way of caring for people created a self-centered group who thought there was no future if she wasn’t there. To them, her death spelled death for the church.
But God had something else in mind. God’s vision of the church was larger than their vision of the church. God knows there is more to the church than just caring for the people who attend.
So when God raises Dorcas from the dead, there is a dramatic change as God’s vision for the church comes into focus. The church begins to change from simply caring for the “widows and saints” who had benefited from her charity to one concerned about the community around them. The people begin to share the good news of God’s love and grace as they tell her story (v 42).
In the book “The Holy Longing”, Ronald Rolheiser talks about two kinds of death and two kinds of life. He uses a word that not too many people are familiar with. This particular word is “paschal.” It comes from the Hebrew word ‘pesach’, which means Passover. In Christian circles, it’s often used to speak about Jesus’ death as the Passover lamb given for the people of Israel.
Rolheiser talks about terminal death and paschal death. Terminal death ends life and ends possibilities. Paschal death is a death that, while ending one kind of life, opens the person to a deeper form of life. Paul spoke to the Corinthians about a grain of wheat being planted and dying but returning as new life in a new form - that is a paschal death.
There is resuscitated life and resurrected life. Resuscitated life is, for example, someone who has been clinically dead and is resuscitated, brought back to the physical life they left. Resurrected life is not a restoration of the same old life but the entering into a radically new life. Lazarus got his old life back, a life from which he had to die again. Jesus did not get his old life back. He received a new life – a richer life and one within which he would not have to die again.
Dorcas died a terminal death and was gifted with resuscitated life. She takes up where she left off, so to speak. Dorcas’ church died a paschal death, and from is death came a resurrected life.
Dorcas doesn’t change - she carries on as before
Her church, however, changes. Their resurrection helps them change the basis for their existence, change the way they live and contribute to the life of their congregation. They find ways to respond to God’s love and grace by living out - within the congregation and outside it - gratitude for what has been given.
They participate in acts of piety and commitment, they participate in acts of charity, they are open and welcoming, they witness to the good news by working to ensure the church is able to live fully, they imitate the Disciple Dorcas.
If you read through the entire book of Acts, you begin to understand that this isn’t just about Dorcas, but about the work of the Spirit - which is a story without end. The Holy Spirit begins work among us as we experience a paschal death and our own resurrection.
If the ultimate aim of stewardship is that our whole lives are to honour God, then we need to work from theologies of abundance, gratitude, and active discipleship. A theology of abundance celebrates that God created all that is and generously gives us every gift that we have and are. God calls us into relationship, to make our world better. We honour God when celebrate the abundance of God’s love for us, when we celebrate our lives together; we also honour God when we respond with gratitude.
Discipleship means a focus on Jesus, God’s great gift, who shows us how to live in ways which reflect our relationship with God in community. Through our giving - of time, of talents, of money - we participate in the preaching, teaching, healing, feeding and caring. We are the embodiment of God’s love, and the hands and feet of Jesus.
God also gives us the gift of the Spirit. We honour God by being open to the Spirit’s guidance. In opening ourselves to the Spirit’s leading, we are able to discern God’s call to both abundant living, and abundant giving.
The work of resurrection - and it is work - is not something that happens fast. It takes a change in our focus, a revitalisation of our purpose. The story of Dorcas, and the life of her congregation, is a story about stewardship. Each of us has something which is vital to the life of our congregation. Each of us has Spirit-given gifts, and the only way the congregation can experience the paschal resurrection is if those gifts are put to the best use possible. It has always been a reality of the church, that it cannot be resurrected without the hands, feet, and gifts of everyone in it.
May it be so.
Sources:
1. Based on the sermon “ Resuscitated for Service”, a sermon based on Acts 9:36-43 by Rev. Randy Quinn
2. Ronald Rolheiser, “The Holy Longing”. Doubleday, 1999, p. 146
3. “Celebrate Stewardship”, by Judith and Warren Johnson, copyright 2004The United Church of Canada. Used with permission.
You probably know people like her. Most of us know there are only so many hours in a day or days in a week. Dorcas wasn’t one of those people - she always seemed to have more than enough time to get more done than is possible to do in the regular day or week. Somehow, though, despite al the things she did, it seemed as though she always had lots of time to give her undivided attention. If there was a job that needed to be done, she was always there to do it; doing it well and with a smile..
Sounds like some people we know, doesn’t it?
What few people saw in Dorcas, however, - and what we probably don’t see in some of the seemingly tireless people around us - is that Dorcas was becoming weary of requests for her time,
weary of the hurts and sorrows she was carrying for people, weary of the growing expectations that she could do it all.
“She was devoted to good works and acts of charity,” but it seemed as though no one else was devoted to them (v 36). The church in Joppa loved having Dorcas do the work.
Maybe it was a combination of her personal style, and a complacent church, but no one else seemed able or willing to carry some of the load. So when Dorcas died, there was a crisis. No one else knew what to do. All they could think of was who would replace her. No one had taken time to thank her. They just compared themselves to her, and decided that she was so talented, their gifts didn’t measure up to hers. So they would find a way to say “Oh, I don’t have any gifts or talent, I can’t really do anything.” Rather than recognise that God had given everyone gifts, they were happy to leave it to Dorcas.
Funny, though, when she died they found a way to minister to her. They gently and carefully washed her body and laid her on a bed (v 37). The woman who had in many ways washed their feet is now being washed from head to toe by the people she had served.
Dorcas was an exceptional woman, and the only women named in the Bible specifically as a disciples. But her ministry had allowed people to think that the church was there to serve them - that it was OK to expect it. Dorcas’ way of caring for people created a self-centered group who thought there was no future if she wasn’t there. To them, her death spelled death for the church.
But God had something else in mind. God’s vision of the church was larger than their vision of the church. God knows there is more to the church than just caring for the people who attend.
So when God raises Dorcas from the dead, there is a dramatic change as God’s vision for the church comes into focus. The church begins to change from simply caring for the “widows and saints” who had benefited from her charity to one concerned about the community around them. The people begin to share the good news of God’s love and grace as they tell her story (v 42).
In the book “The Holy Longing”, Ronald Rolheiser talks about two kinds of death and two kinds of life. He uses a word that not too many people are familiar with. This particular word is “paschal.” It comes from the Hebrew word ‘pesach’, which means Passover. In Christian circles, it’s often used to speak about Jesus’ death as the Passover lamb given for the people of Israel.
Rolheiser talks about terminal death and paschal death. Terminal death ends life and ends possibilities. Paschal death is a death that, while ending one kind of life, opens the person to a deeper form of life. Paul spoke to the Corinthians about a grain of wheat being planted and dying but returning as new life in a new form - that is a paschal death.
There is resuscitated life and resurrected life. Resuscitated life is, for example, someone who has been clinically dead and is resuscitated, brought back to the physical life they left. Resurrected life is not a restoration of the same old life but the entering into a radically new life. Lazarus got his old life back, a life from which he had to die again. Jesus did not get his old life back. He received a new life – a richer life and one within which he would not have to die again.
Dorcas died a terminal death and was gifted with resuscitated life. She takes up where she left off, so to speak. Dorcas’ church died a paschal death, and from is death came a resurrected life.
Dorcas doesn’t change - she carries on as before
Her church, however, changes. Their resurrection helps them change the basis for their existence, change the way they live and contribute to the life of their congregation. They find ways to respond to God’s love and grace by living out - within the congregation and outside it - gratitude for what has been given.
They participate in acts of piety and commitment, they participate in acts of charity, they are open and welcoming, they witness to the good news by working to ensure the church is able to live fully, they imitate the Disciple Dorcas.
If you read through the entire book of Acts, you begin to understand that this isn’t just about Dorcas, but about the work of the Spirit - which is a story without end. The Holy Spirit begins work among us as we experience a paschal death and our own resurrection.
If the ultimate aim of stewardship is that our whole lives are to honour God, then we need to work from theologies of abundance, gratitude, and active discipleship. A theology of abundance celebrates that God created all that is and generously gives us every gift that we have and are. God calls us into relationship, to make our world better. We honour God when celebrate the abundance of God’s love for us, when we celebrate our lives together; we also honour God when we respond with gratitude.
Discipleship means a focus on Jesus, God’s great gift, who shows us how to live in ways which reflect our relationship with God in community. Through our giving - of time, of talents, of money - we participate in the preaching, teaching, healing, feeding and caring. We are the embodiment of God’s love, and the hands and feet of Jesus.
God also gives us the gift of the Spirit. We honour God by being open to the Spirit’s guidance. In opening ourselves to the Spirit’s leading, we are able to discern God’s call to both abundant living, and abundant giving.
The work of resurrection - and it is work - is not something that happens fast. It takes a change in our focus, a revitalisation of our purpose. The story of Dorcas, and the life of her congregation, is a story about stewardship. Each of us has something which is vital to the life of our congregation. Each of us has Spirit-given gifts, and the only way the congregation can experience the paschal resurrection is if those gifts are put to the best use possible. It has always been a reality of the church, that it cannot be resurrected without the hands, feet, and gifts of everyone in it.
May it be so.
Sources:
1. Based on the sermon “ Resuscitated for Service”, a sermon based on Acts 9:36-43 by Rev. Randy Quinn
2. Ronald Rolheiser, “The Holy Longing”. Doubleday, 1999, p. 146
3. “Celebrate Stewardship”, by Judith and Warren Johnson, copyright 2004The United Church of Canada. Used with permission.
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