Do you like to travel? You all probably know that Norio and I travel a lot, and love almost any mode of travel. In 2008 - between us - we went to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cuba, Japan, and the eastern US. Some of those trips were by land, some were by air, and some by sea. In 2009 we went to Panama, Colombia, the western Caribbean, Japan, Cuba, and the eastern provinces of Canada. Once again it was by land, sea, and air. Norio has just returned from yet another trip to Japan, and I am just preparing to go to the western Caribbean. We don’t seem to get tired of it. I’d say the only thing is we don’t get to spend nearly long enough in any one place, and always see just enough to make us want to go back and explore some more.
The first time I travelled was as a three-year old, moving from one town in Saskatchewan to another. Then, as a four-year-old, to yet another town in the northern parts of Saskatchewan; then as a 12yr old to Winnipeg, and as a 24 yr old to Japan - and of course on to Viet Nam, Australia and the US.
I suspect that travel is something which gets into the blood - especially for those of us who were children of ministers, where moving was a part of life all the time. I still feel a little sorry for my childhood friends, who have never left the home where they were born, never seen another part of even this country. They always comment on how busy Norio and I are, how do we manage it. The notion of travelling to other places frightens them.
Travelling, even going somewhere for just a few hours, changes us if we have our eyes, ears, and senses open. Last January, I went to a city in Colombia - Cartagena de Indias - for just a few hours - but in that time I saw the Museum of the Inquisition and heard tales of Spanish torture; saw a church where Jesuit priests who defended the indigenous peoples were slaughtered; and heard stories about the heroics of some of those priests. I saw enough of Colombia to be changed by the experience, and to want to go back again and learn more.
In Panama, I saw a country struggling to modernise itself - building everywhere - and heard the pride of people who now have control of their own destiny. They have a vision for their country, and are working to make it happen. If we are open to seeing, even such a short time can change us, because it changes how we see our own lives as well.
As we come into a new year, - 2010 - what is it which leads us as a congregation? What are the ideas, hopes, plans which may be born in us today? What ideas to we want to honour and worship? What is our potential for life in the future??? What makes us look up, look forward, step out on the road? There are many churches whose primary goal is keeping the doors open. I’ve served a couple of them. That is their star. They will follow that star with enthusiasm until either the church closes, or, until they realise that God has many bright lights which can lead s journey.
What about spiritual growth? Being a caring community, lively community of faith? What about faith exploration with young and old together? What about pastoral care and outreach being done by this congregation? If we can get ourselves out of “survival” mode, and spend more time focusing on what we are being called to be and to do now, where would the journey take us? Who else might be drawn to the light?
When the magi left their home countries, heading for Judea, they were not tourists, not on a trip to have some fun, or to get away from a cold Canadian winter. They believed their journey had a purpose of incredible importance. But stars don’t always shine in clear skies, and a trip following a star using hand-held instruments is full of danger. They were following a brilliant light, some of the time, but it was far away and not always reliable. They wanted to follow the way that they were being shown, even though they did not have a clear idea of where it would take them, but sometimes they could not see the way at all, and had to stop and ask for directions.
It sounds an awful lot like where we often find ourselves, doesn't it? We have some idea of where we would like to go as we look to the future. We know what kind of changes would make our lives better, and our world better, but we have no clear idea of how to get there. That is the part which frustrates us - because we are so used to having clear ideas about everything - that letting go and trusting even if we don’t see ready answers is the hardest thing to do.
And in the middle of all of this, Jesus is born; he is on a journey himself, growing up as a child of oppression, through pain and joy, being led by a light, and striving to teach people around him about what God is doing in the world. He trusted; he had questions, but he trusted God. We have to trust that the light which leads us will help us to set life-giving priorities. We have to resist being deterred when we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, and on a journey which asks us to search even we cannot see completely clearly.
The magi didn’t know how the story ended - and in fact for them it didn’t end. They met Herod, and with a flash of insight knew that was not the way to go; they found the child, and knew they had found something special; and at the end they knew they could not return home the same way. They didn’t spend years in Egypt and then go home. If the story is true, they were in one place briefly - Matthew says the found the house where Jesus was, and offered their gifts. They might have stayed overnight, or a couple of days. Yet their lives were completely changed by the experience.
Throughout Advent, through Christmas, and into Epiphany we travel a road - to a town where Jesus was born, and then on into Egypt. We try, in this short season, to find new insight; to learn new things about ourselves and our faith. Today, with the Magi, we come to the house and find the child. We offer our gifts, and we leave again on the journey, trusting that God is with us.
Sources: With material from Rev. Tim Dayfoot, Orono Pastoral Charge, Ontario.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Glory to God! Luke 2:13-14, Col. 3:12-17 December 27, 2009,
On Christmas Eve, around 6:30, I hopped into the car to come here. There was a bit of snow everywhere, just enough to add some sparkle - and unfortunately just enough to make the roads greasy. On the news, reports of accidents all over the city, one particularly tragic accident in which four men died when the scaffolding under them collapsed.
Here at the church, our absolutely wonderful youth were rehearsing their play. People were setting things up, and there was a generous and warm atmosphere around. The service came together as a piece, we sang Silent Night, and in that candlelight I saw faces glowing too.
Driving home, the Hallelujah chorus was on the car radio - and I bellowed along at the top of my lungs. Above everything, there was indeed angel song - oh, not MY voice, but the voice of the angels was there. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to all people.”
I found myself wondering again why it is that we have made such a commercial venture out of Christmas, that people rush to the point where they lose track of care, and end up either being hurt, or hurting someone else. I wondered why there were people working so late on a Christmas Eve; I wondered about the company that allowed such a shabby scaffold to be built and put people up there. I wondered about all the hurt people do to each other in so many ways, how we become so obsessed with the giving and getting, and the commercial ventures, that the voice of angels is drowned out. I know, this isn’t a new sentiment - but the contrast was particularly striking.
Humanly speaking things weren't really that joyful for Mary and Joseph either. The entire Christmas story is one of human dilemma. We have a tendency to romanticize it, but I doubt Joseph or Mary found it romantic. The whole of their known world was in bad shape, and they really didn’t want to be where they were. More than 2000 years later, we celebrate God's display of peace, and things are still pretty bad in the world. We are surrounded by a world that seems doomed to unrest. In the midst of such uncertainty, we're supposed to celebrate Christmas and sing "Glory to God in the highest!” and “Joy to the World!” like we really mean it.
Circumstances couldn't have been much worse for Mary and Joseph. There was no medical care for Mary or her baby, they could not even find a decent place to have the baby. There was a question surrounding the birth of her baby, since she and Joseph weren’t married. All of this was happening amidst a political crisis forced upon the Jewish people by then super-power Rome.
How do we sing “Glory to God” and “Joy to the World” in this world of today? In the letter to the Colossians, Paul - who is under house arrest and likely facing his own death for being a follower of Jesus - writes about relating to each other in the community of faith. He squeezes everything in - be good, kind, humble, patient, forgive each other, be thankful, help each other understand the way of Jesus. The instructions can be summed up in one line - “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony”. His version of how to sing Glory to God, and Joy!!!
Apparently, in Paul’s mind, Christians have a choice about how to live. In his mind living out our Christianity--loving one another--may be like putting on a new, freshly washed piece of clothing. Putting on love….
I got to thinking about clothing, and how different cultures treat clothes. In Japan, for instance, putting on traditional clothing is a very exact process. Every piece has to be put on in a particular way. The whole ensemble is held together with a wide band of woven stiff fabric called an “obi”, tied on with.......if it is not put on properly, even if it does not all fall off - it will certainly look funny.
Stacey Nicholas, in Canton Missouri, talks about being a firefighter. There is a whole outlay of uniform, and everything has to be put on, and it is all important. There isn’t one piece which can be left off.
Paul’s instructions for living together - cast in the framework of putting on the virtues like clothing - include the one thing which is important. The text in the more modern translation uses the word “love”, but the original Greek translates the word “agape” as ‘charity’. While I don’t normally read from the King James version - it’s a little stilted for today - this translation uses the word ‘charity’.
“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
So we live together, in a community which celebrates a birth of a child, and together we celebrate being children of God. We are asked to put on the clothing of charity - kindness, humility, peace, patience, gratitude, and teaching and encouraging each other. We are asked to sing - psalms and hymns and spiritual songs - and Paul says “Singing with grace in your hearts.” Above all else, we are asked to hear the song of the angels, and sing it back in full voice, wearing the clothing of faith - “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to all people!”
Sources:
1. “Last Words to Live By” a sermon based on Colossians 3:12-17 by Rev. Frank Schaefer.
2. Stacey Nicholas, Canton, Missouri
Here at the church, our absolutely wonderful youth were rehearsing their play. People were setting things up, and there was a generous and warm atmosphere around. The service came together as a piece, we sang Silent Night, and in that candlelight I saw faces glowing too.
Driving home, the Hallelujah chorus was on the car radio - and I bellowed along at the top of my lungs. Above everything, there was indeed angel song - oh, not MY voice, but the voice of the angels was there. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to all people.”
I found myself wondering again why it is that we have made such a commercial venture out of Christmas, that people rush to the point where they lose track of care, and end up either being hurt, or hurting someone else. I wondered why there were people working so late on a Christmas Eve; I wondered about the company that allowed such a shabby scaffold to be built and put people up there. I wondered about all the hurt people do to each other in so many ways, how we become so obsessed with the giving and getting, and the commercial ventures, that the voice of angels is drowned out. I know, this isn’t a new sentiment - but the contrast was particularly striking.
Humanly speaking things weren't really that joyful for Mary and Joseph either. The entire Christmas story is one of human dilemma. We have a tendency to romanticize it, but I doubt Joseph or Mary found it romantic. The whole of their known world was in bad shape, and they really didn’t want to be where they were. More than 2000 years later, we celebrate God's display of peace, and things are still pretty bad in the world. We are surrounded by a world that seems doomed to unrest. In the midst of such uncertainty, we're supposed to celebrate Christmas and sing "Glory to God in the highest!” and “Joy to the World!” like we really mean it.
Circumstances couldn't have been much worse for Mary and Joseph. There was no medical care for Mary or her baby, they could not even find a decent place to have the baby. There was a question surrounding the birth of her baby, since she and Joseph weren’t married. All of this was happening amidst a political crisis forced upon the Jewish people by then super-power Rome.
How do we sing “Glory to God” and “Joy to the World” in this world of today? In the letter to the Colossians, Paul - who is under house arrest and likely facing his own death for being a follower of Jesus - writes about relating to each other in the community of faith. He squeezes everything in - be good, kind, humble, patient, forgive each other, be thankful, help each other understand the way of Jesus. The instructions can be summed up in one line - “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony”. His version of how to sing Glory to God, and Joy!!!
Apparently, in Paul’s mind, Christians have a choice about how to live. In his mind living out our Christianity--loving one another--may be like putting on a new, freshly washed piece of clothing. Putting on love….
I got to thinking about clothing, and how different cultures treat clothes. In Japan, for instance, putting on traditional clothing is a very exact process. Every piece has to be put on in a particular way. The whole ensemble is held together with a wide band of woven stiff fabric called an “obi”, tied on with.......if it is not put on properly, even if it does not all fall off - it will certainly look funny.
Stacey Nicholas, in Canton Missouri, talks about being a firefighter. There is a whole outlay of uniform, and everything has to be put on, and it is all important. There isn’t one piece which can be left off.
Paul’s instructions for living together - cast in the framework of putting on the virtues like clothing - include the one thing which is important. The text in the more modern translation uses the word “love”, but the original Greek translates the word “agape” as ‘charity’. While I don’t normally read from the King James version - it’s a little stilted for today - this translation uses the word ‘charity’.
“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
So we live together, in a community which celebrates a birth of a child, and together we celebrate being children of God. We are asked to put on the clothing of charity - kindness, humility, peace, patience, gratitude, and teaching and encouraging each other. We are asked to sing - psalms and hymns and spiritual songs - and Paul says “Singing with grace in your hearts.” Above all else, we are asked to hear the song of the angels, and sing it back in full voice, wearing the clothing of faith - “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to all people!”
Sources:
1. “Last Words to Live By” a sermon based on Colossians 3:12-17 by Rev. Frank Schaefer.
2. Stacey Nicholas, Canton, Missouri
Saturday, December 19, 2009
“We Need a Little Christmas” Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:39-45 Fourth Sunday of Advent 2009
Haul out the holly; put up the tree before my spirit falls again.
Fill up the stocking, I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now.
For we need a little Christmas, right this very minute,
candles in the window, carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute.
It hasn't snowed a single flurry, but Santa, dear, we're in a hurry.
So climb down the chimney; put up the brightest string of lights I've ever seen.
Slice up the fruitcake; it's time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder,
grown a little sadder, grown a little older,
and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder,
need a little Christmas now.
For we need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing, ringing through the rafter,
and we need a little snappy "Happy ever after,"
need a little Christmas now.
Such a joyous seasonal song - and most of the time we don’t really listen closely, do we? We just sing along, smiling and tapping our toes, right? But there’s a kernel of reality buried in the middle verse.
Around this time of year, people often become depressed. Particularly if there has been a loss, there are questions about life, and faith. Does God really exist, was Jesus real, if the stories in the Bible are allegory and myth, what can we believe?
There’s a sadness, and even a little despair, hidden in this Christmas song....
“For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder,
grown a little sadder, grown a little older,
and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder,
need a little Christmas now.”
Behind all the activity of Christmas, these are really the questions. Even people for whom religion doesn’t play much of a role ask the questions about Christmas. Was it real? Did Jesus exist? How do we know?
Well, unfortunately I am not one of the preachers who will tell you it’s all true. I am not even sure that’s the right question to ask. But let’s take a little side-trip into some of the parts of the story. Some of the things we have taken as literal are a long stretch from any reality. First, the date of December 25 isn’t the date of Jesus birth. Eastern churches celebrate it in January on the feast of Epiphany; in the second century, Clement of Alexandria pegged it as either April or May. The date we have was chosen by Constantine in the fourth century - an emperor who, at the time, was not a believer and wasn’t baptised.
Nothing in the Gospels suggests Joseph was an old man. He might have been older than Mary, who was likely about 14, but that would not make him OLD. Nothing says Jesus shared a stable with animals, and nowhere does it say the Magi who arrived two years after the birth were kings. Note as well that Matthew is almost preoccupied with the genealogy of Jesus, to try to prove who he was - but the genealogy doesn’t hold up; Luke is clear he is writing down what he has been *told* happened. Mark’s Gospel - the oldest - doesn’t mention it at all, and neither does John. The conception of Jesus is announced to Mary in Luke, but only to Joseph in Matthew.
Then there’s the notion of a “virgin” birth, or I should say, virgin conception. Aside from the fact that the word really meant a young woman of marriageable age, there is nothing in the original text which suggests that. Rudolph Bultmann, one of the great interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures in the 20th C, states flatly that there is nothing in Matthew’s original infancy narrative which would point to such a thing, and that it was a later addition as the texts were translated into Greek. It would have been unheard of for the early Jews. David Jenkins, the former Anglican bishop of Durham, is reputed to have said “I wouldn’t put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if He wanted, but I very much doubt if He would.”
Is this what is really the important thing, though? Isn’t it possible to recognise these myths as part of the story which has grown up over the years around Christmas, without taking them absolutely literally? What was really important? To each of the authors of the four Gospels, the important thing was that they all believed Jesus was really the anticipated Messiah, who the prophets foretold. Each of the Gospels was written to point to Jesus as the one. They are not historic or literally true, they are literary devices to make a point.
And central to all of them was one major theme - hope. Hope in the face of great loss, hope in a future, hope in a life different from this earthly one, hope for a new kind of justice and compassion, hope for the coming of God’s realm in the here and now.
The Prophet Micah would recognize us and our time. He wrote to a nation in distress. Jerusalem was under siege, the economy was in tatters, the king had been humiliated, the people saw little hope. Micah sees that there is more to our existence than what we can see. There is also what God sees, and what God is promising to do. In spite of distress and despair everywhere, the messenger testifies to God’s future, which we may not see now, but which is promised.
We have something in common with the people of Micah's day. Many live in fear. We look, not to ourselves, but towards the seats of power for rescue, trusting that our leaders will meet our needs and the needs of the most vulnerable among us. We look to established professionals to protect us from perceived threats that make us feel vulnerable. We look for pat simplistic theologies which will simply hand us answers, and save us from having to grapple with the tough questions.
My friend, Rev. Judith Evenden, says “Micah is jumping up and down, desperately waving his arms and pointing us to a small, out of the way place in a town called Bethlehem”, where Hope would be born.
Funny how Micah knows us. Micah knows the ache in which we live today. Micah tells us that God is at work; in the nooks and crannies of the world, the townships and the barrios, the refugee camps and in the slums. God is at work among the homeless and the hopeless and the poor. God's activity is found off the map in the stables of the world. But Micah also tells us God’s activity can be found in us, if we let it.
The Hope which was born, the Love which was born, continues to be born into the world. Mary was not literally impregnated by the Holy Spirit, and while that has some importance, it really isn’t *the* most important thing in the story. Mary’s joy at having a child, and feeling that this child would do great things which would change the world - that is the Hope. The birth of that child was the Hope, and that is why we have the stories decorated with the elaborate myths.
This is the message of Christmas: that human beings have been impregnated with God's peace and love. Each child born into this world has great potential just as Jesus did, for each human is a beloved child of God. It doesn't matter where we are born, or to whom we are born.
The question to be asked is this: are we going to receive God anew at Christmas, to have God - Emmanuel - born in us? If we say yes, then are we ready and willing to be God's gift of hope and love to the world? Are we willing to let something be born in us this Christmas? And then are we willing to share ourselves as a God-given gift to the world?
We need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing, ringing through the rafter,
We need a little Christmas now.
Sources:
1. Rev. Judith Evenden, Land ‘O’ Lakes Emmanuel Pastoral Charge, Flinton, ON. from the Advent IV sermon "What is There Yet to Be Born?".
2. Rev. David Shearman, Central Westside United Church, Owen Sound, ON.
3. Geza Vermes, The Nativity: History and Legend. Penguin Books, 2006.
4. “We Need a Little Christmas”, from the Broadway musical “Mame” by Jerry Herman.
Fill up the stocking, I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now.
For we need a little Christmas, right this very minute,
candles in the window, carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute.
It hasn't snowed a single flurry, but Santa, dear, we're in a hurry.
So climb down the chimney; put up the brightest string of lights I've ever seen.
Slice up the fruitcake; it's time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder,
grown a little sadder, grown a little older,
and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder,
need a little Christmas now.
For we need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing, ringing through the rafter,
and we need a little snappy "Happy ever after,"
need a little Christmas now.
Such a joyous seasonal song - and most of the time we don’t really listen closely, do we? We just sing along, smiling and tapping our toes, right? But there’s a kernel of reality buried in the middle verse.
Around this time of year, people often become depressed. Particularly if there has been a loss, there are questions about life, and faith. Does God really exist, was Jesus real, if the stories in the Bible are allegory and myth, what can we believe?
There’s a sadness, and even a little despair, hidden in this Christmas song....
“For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder,
grown a little sadder, grown a little older,
and I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder,
need a little Christmas now.”
Behind all the activity of Christmas, these are really the questions. Even people for whom religion doesn’t play much of a role ask the questions about Christmas. Was it real? Did Jesus exist? How do we know?
Well, unfortunately I am not one of the preachers who will tell you it’s all true. I am not even sure that’s the right question to ask. But let’s take a little side-trip into some of the parts of the story. Some of the things we have taken as literal are a long stretch from any reality. First, the date of December 25 isn’t the date of Jesus birth. Eastern churches celebrate it in January on the feast of Epiphany; in the second century, Clement of Alexandria pegged it as either April or May. The date we have was chosen by Constantine in the fourth century - an emperor who, at the time, was not a believer and wasn’t baptised.
Nothing in the Gospels suggests Joseph was an old man. He might have been older than Mary, who was likely about 14, but that would not make him OLD. Nothing says Jesus shared a stable with animals, and nowhere does it say the Magi who arrived two years after the birth were kings. Note as well that Matthew is almost preoccupied with the genealogy of Jesus, to try to prove who he was - but the genealogy doesn’t hold up; Luke is clear he is writing down what he has been *told* happened. Mark’s Gospel - the oldest - doesn’t mention it at all, and neither does John. The conception of Jesus is announced to Mary in Luke, but only to Joseph in Matthew.
Then there’s the notion of a “virgin” birth, or I should say, virgin conception. Aside from the fact that the word really meant a young woman of marriageable age, there is nothing in the original text which suggests that. Rudolph Bultmann, one of the great interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures in the 20th C, states flatly that there is nothing in Matthew’s original infancy narrative which would point to such a thing, and that it was a later addition as the texts were translated into Greek. It would have been unheard of for the early Jews. David Jenkins, the former Anglican bishop of Durham, is reputed to have said “I wouldn’t put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if He wanted, but I very much doubt if He would.”
Is this what is really the important thing, though? Isn’t it possible to recognise these myths as part of the story which has grown up over the years around Christmas, without taking them absolutely literally? What was really important? To each of the authors of the four Gospels, the important thing was that they all believed Jesus was really the anticipated Messiah, who the prophets foretold. Each of the Gospels was written to point to Jesus as the one. They are not historic or literally true, they are literary devices to make a point.
And central to all of them was one major theme - hope. Hope in the face of great loss, hope in a future, hope in a life different from this earthly one, hope for a new kind of justice and compassion, hope for the coming of God’s realm in the here and now.
The Prophet Micah would recognize us and our time. He wrote to a nation in distress. Jerusalem was under siege, the economy was in tatters, the king had been humiliated, the people saw little hope. Micah sees that there is more to our existence than what we can see. There is also what God sees, and what God is promising to do. In spite of distress and despair everywhere, the messenger testifies to God’s future, which we may not see now, but which is promised.
We have something in common with the people of Micah's day. Many live in fear. We look, not to ourselves, but towards the seats of power for rescue, trusting that our leaders will meet our needs and the needs of the most vulnerable among us. We look to established professionals to protect us from perceived threats that make us feel vulnerable. We look for pat simplistic theologies which will simply hand us answers, and save us from having to grapple with the tough questions.
My friend, Rev. Judith Evenden, says “Micah is jumping up and down, desperately waving his arms and pointing us to a small, out of the way place in a town called Bethlehem”, where Hope would be born.
Funny how Micah knows us. Micah knows the ache in which we live today. Micah tells us that God is at work; in the nooks and crannies of the world, the townships and the barrios, the refugee camps and in the slums. God is at work among the homeless and the hopeless and the poor. God's activity is found off the map in the stables of the world. But Micah also tells us God’s activity can be found in us, if we let it.
The Hope which was born, the Love which was born, continues to be born into the world. Mary was not literally impregnated by the Holy Spirit, and while that has some importance, it really isn’t *the* most important thing in the story. Mary’s joy at having a child, and feeling that this child would do great things which would change the world - that is the Hope. The birth of that child was the Hope, and that is why we have the stories decorated with the elaborate myths.
This is the message of Christmas: that human beings have been impregnated with God's peace and love. Each child born into this world has great potential just as Jesus did, for each human is a beloved child of God. It doesn't matter where we are born, or to whom we are born.
The question to be asked is this: are we going to receive God anew at Christmas, to have God - Emmanuel - born in us? If we say yes, then are we ready and willing to be God's gift of hope and love to the world? Are we willing to let something be born in us this Christmas? And then are we willing to share ourselves as a God-given gift to the world?
We need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing, ringing through the rafter,
We need a little Christmas now.
Sources:
1. Rev. Judith Evenden, Land ‘O’ Lakes Emmanuel Pastoral Charge, Flinton, ON. from the Advent IV sermon "What is There Yet to Be Born?".
2. Rev. David Shearman, Central Westside United Church, Owen Sound, ON.
3. Geza Vermes, The Nativity: History and Legend. Penguin Books, 2006.
4. “We Need a Little Christmas”, from the Broadway musical “Mame” by Jerry Herman.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Joy Shall Come Philippians 4:4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Third Sunday of Advent 2009, Glen Ayr United Church
Friday evening, as I sat thinking about a sermon, I happened on the Christmas movie, “Home Alone”, followed by the movie “Prancer”.
In the first movie, there is an old man who is the neighbourhood grouse,and of course stories have grown up among the neighbourhood kids about him. The young boy who is the central character in this story encounters the old man in the church, listening to his granddaughter sing. The man says he never talks to his grand-daughter because he and his son had a falling out and don’t speak to each other. The boy suggests he might call his son, especially since it’s Christmas. Towards the end of the movie, the boy looks out the window, to see the old man hugging his granddaughter close, and the most profound joy on his face.
In the movie Prancer, a little girl finds a reindeer with a broken leg and nurses it back to health. She is convinced it is Prancer, one of Santa’s reindeer. The reindeer is set free in time for Christmas Eve, and wonder of wonders, it is indeed Prancer who is reunited with the other reindeer in time for Christmas. Jessica sees the light of the reindeer, and joy shines on her face, Prancer is alive and well. The Spirit of Christmas lives in the heart of a child.
Jesus said, in fact, that to enter the realm of God one had to become as a child. Buddhist wisdom tells us that as we get older we must become more child-like, in order to become enlightened.
For some reason, we have this nonsense idea that to be good Christians we have to be dour, proper, look bored, and above all look uncomfortable if we’re asked to anything which appears remotely joy-filled.
The great writer C.S. Lewis - author of the Screwtape Letters, and the Chronicles of Narnia, was anything but a dour, proper churchman. In 1947 Time magazine portrayed Lewis on its cover alongside a pitchforked, horned, and tailed devil. The magazine accused Lewis of heresy. His heresy, interestingly, was Christianity in a world gone awry. Lewis was a man of laughter and surprises, of jokes and joy. He had a ruddy face because he had a sunny heart. A publisher, in collecting selections from Lewis’s works for a book, called it The Joyful Christian.
Lewis identified joy as the highest and most sublime cause of laughter. For C.S. Lewis, the purest laughter on earth dwells in the kingdom of joy. When joy reigns in the land, the sound of laughter is never far away. Silvery volleys of laughter fall on every dale and in every valley of the countryside where the king of joy rules. In Lewis’s underworld kingdom of pride and selfishness, the devil Screwtape reserved some of his sharpest criticism for this seemingly hallowed laughter of joy. He found it utterly repulsive and repugnant to the ego-infested environs of hell. He attacked its exhilaration and merriment as inappropriate for creatures whose cardinal value is self-importance.
The Atlanta Journal, a while back, carried an article that which talks about depression, particularly around the holidays. Christmas is often a season of unmet expectations, because in some ways it touches the most idealized memories of our childhood; we get nostalgic over the loss of that time in our lives…over losing the ability to enter innocently into the joy of the season. The parties we thought would be great aren't; we see all sorts of ads on TV about toys and realize we can't get our kids everything they want. At Christmas dinner mom or dad gets drunk again, a family argument erupts, the car breaks down, a family member gets the flu and joy is sucked away.
In that same article an expert was asked if a person's faith plays a role in the holiday blues and the expert said no. What he was being asked was if a person's faith adds to the blues many have at this time of year. What he wasn't asked is if a person's faith helps with the blues. The answer to that question is yes.
The theme of joy surrounds the whole Christmas story. The angel said "I bring you good news of great joy" (Luke 2:10). Peter writes of the Jesus movement, "Though we do not see him now, we believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" (1 Pet. 1:8). In the New Testament the word for "joy" occurs 60 times. The verb form, which means, "to rejoice" is used 72 times. If we do not see the New Testament as a book of joy, we fail to understand the message.
So, why don’t we have more joy today? Joy is not a prevalent attitude among modern Christians. How often do you hear people associate "joy" or "enjoyment" with their religion? A better term on many counts today would be "solemn." How often do we still succumb to the notion that our Sunday services should be “solemn” rather than celebrations of joy?? How often do we think we need to have quiet throughout the services? A congregation which understands the meaning of joy in our worship is a congregation which welcomes every age from the youngest to the oldest, with joy and laughter.
Well, what are the joy-busters in life?
I can think of one - anxiety. The scriptures tell us “Do not be anxious…” In the rush of the season, shopping, exams, service planning, extra activities, we become agitated and fearful. Clergy get into a panic because services have to be prepared, the church decorated in a meaningful which helps enhance the worship experience, we want to offer messages which provide food for the soul and the mind; you get anxious because of the extra things to be done, family gatherings, getting exactly the right gift for each person, and wondering if it’s good enough. But particularly at this time of year, we can know the joy of God if we remember God knows us, loves us, and is with us. We are known, and we know God.
Then there’s guilt. Guilt is a huge joy-robber, isn’t it? There is a reality - which we confess almost every week in our service, as a corporate body. We recognise that we all do things which are less than desirable - we all fall short of our own ideals, and the ideals of our faith. That is what sin is - falling short of what our faith calls us to be, and in doing so hurting ourselves and others. Our sins cannot be excused. But, in our confessions we are repentant and ask for forgiveness and the strength to learn to turn away from those actions in the future. Guilt is a tremendous joy-robber. So today, hear your pastor: I believe with all my heart that God loves and knows each of us, and we are all a forgiven people.
In our hymnbook, we have the wonderful closing chorus:
"You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and the hills will break forth before you,
there’ll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands."
And on Christmas Eve, and the Sundays following, we sing one of the greatest hymns of Isaac Watts. Watts was in poor health most of his life, and for the last thirty years was an invalid, unable to leave home. He could have been bitter, instead he wrote: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King."
Joy is our theme in this season. Joy which comes from the knowledge of the love of God, the love which holds us in spite of ourselves. Joy shall come, even to the wilderness.
Sources:
1. Mars Hill Review 8 (Summer 1997) “Joy and Sehnsucht: The Laughter and Longings of C.S. Lewis” by Terry Lindvall
2. Sermon “All I Want for Christmas”, by Rev. Steve Jackson, New Song Church, 230 Elm Street, Cumming, Georgia. Dec. 2000.
3. Voices United 884 “You shall go out with joy”
In the first movie, there is an old man who is the neighbourhood grouse,and of course stories have grown up among the neighbourhood kids about him. The young boy who is the central character in this story encounters the old man in the church, listening to his granddaughter sing. The man says he never talks to his grand-daughter because he and his son had a falling out and don’t speak to each other. The boy suggests he might call his son, especially since it’s Christmas. Towards the end of the movie, the boy looks out the window, to see the old man hugging his granddaughter close, and the most profound joy on his face.
In the movie Prancer, a little girl finds a reindeer with a broken leg and nurses it back to health. She is convinced it is Prancer, one of Santa’s reindeer. The reindeer is set free in time for Christmas Eve, and wonder of wonders, it is indeed Prancer who is reunited with the other reindeer in time for Christmas. Jessica sees the light of the reindeer, and joy shines on her face, Prancer is alive and well. The Spirit of Christmas lives in the heart of a child.
Jesus said, in fact, that to enter the realm of God one had to become as a child. Buddhist wisdom tells us that as we get older we must become more child-like, in order to become enlightened.
For some reason, we have this nonsense idea that to be good Christians we have to be dour, proper, look bored, and above all look uncomfortable if we’re asked to anything which appears remotely joy-filled.
The great writer C.S. Lewis - author of the Screwtape Letters, and the Chronicles of Narnia, was anything but a dour, proper churchman. In 1947 Time magazine portrayed Lewis on its cover alongside a pitchforked, horned, and tailed devil. The magazine accused Lewis of heresy. His heresy, interestingly, was Christianity in a world gone awry. Lewis was a man of laughter and surprises, of jokes and joy. He had a ruddy face because he had a sunny heart. A publisher, in collecting selections from Lewis’s works for a book, called it The Joyful Christian.
Lewis identified joy as the highest and most sublime cause of laughter. For C.S. Lewis, the purest laughter on earth dwells in the kingdom of joy. When joy reigns in the land, the sound of laughter is never far away. Silvery volleys of laughter fall on every dale and in every valley of the countryside where the king of joy rules. In Lewis’s underworld kingdom of pride and selfishness, the devil Screwtape reserved some of his sharpest criticism for this seemingly hallowed laughter of joy. He found it utterly repulsive and repugnant to the ego-infested environs of hell. He attacked its exhilaration and merriment as inappropriate for creatures whose cardinal value is self-importance.
The Atlanta Journal, a while back, carried an article that which talks about depression, particularly around the holidays. Christmas is often a season of unmet expectations, because in some ways it touches the most idealized memories of our childhood; we get nostalgic over the loss of that time in our lives…over losing the ability to enter innocently into the joy of the season. The parties we thought would be great aren't; we see all sorts of ads on TV about toys and realize we can't get our kids everything they want. At Christmas dinner mom or dad gets drunk again, a family argument erupts, the car breaks down, a family member gets the flu and joy is sucked away.
In that same article an expert was asked if a person's faith plays a role in the holiday blues and the expert said no. What he was being asked was if a person's faith adds to the blues many have at this time of year. What he wasn't asked is if a person's faith helps with the blues. The answer to that question is yes.
The theme of joy surrounds the whole Christmas story. The angel said "I bring you good news of great joy" (Luke 2:10). Peter writes of the Jesus movement, "Though we do not see him now, we believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" (1 Pet. 1:8). In the New Testament the word for "joy" occurs 60 times. The verb form, which means, "to rejoice" is used 72 times. If we do not see the New Testament as a book of joy, we fail to understand the message.
So, why don’t we have more joy today? Joy is not a prevalent attitude among modern Christians. How often do you hear people associate "joy" or "enjoyment" with their religion? A better term on many counts today would be "solemn." How often do we still succumb to the notion that our Sunday services should be “solemn” rather than celebrations of joy?? How often do we think we need to have quiet throughout the services? A congregation which understands the meaning of joy in our worship is a congregation which welcomes every age from the youngest to the oldest, with joy and laughter.
Well, what are the joy-busters in life?
I can think of one - anxiety. The scriptures tell us “Do not be anxious…” In the rush of the season, shopping, exams, service planning, extra activities, we become agitated and fearful. Clergy get into a panic because services have to be prepared, the church decorated in a meaningful which helps enhance the worship experience, we want to offer messages which provide food for the soul and the mind; you get anxious because of the extra things to be done, family gatherings, getting exactly the right gift for each person, and wondering if it’s good enough. But particularly at this time of year, we can know the joy of God if we remember God knows us, loves us, and is with us. We are known, and we know God.
Then there’s guilt. Guilt is a huge joy-robber, isn’t it? There is a reality - which we confess almost every week in our service, as a corporate body. We recognise that we all do things which are less than desirable - we all fall short of our own ideals, and the ideals of our faith. That is what sin is - falling short of what our faith calls us to be, and in doing so hurting ourselves and others. Our sins cannot be excused. But, in our confessions we are repentant and ask for forgiveness and the strength to learn to turn away from those actions in the future. Guilt is a tremendous joy-robber. So today, hear your pastor: I believe with all my heart that God loves and knows each of us, and we are all a forgiven people.
In our hymnbook, we have the wonderful closing chorus:
"You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and the hills will break forth before you,
there’ll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands."
And on Christmas Eve, and the Sundays following, we sing one of the greatest hymns of Isaac Watts. Watts was in poor health most of his life, and for the last thirty years was an invalid, unable to leave home. He could have been bitter, instead he wrote: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King."
Joy is our theme in this season. Joy which comes from the knowledge of the love of God, the love which holds us in spite of ourselves. Joy shall come, even to the wilderness.
Sources:
1. Mars Hill Review 8 (Summer 1997) “Joy and Sehnsucht: The Laughter and Longings of C.S. Lewis” by Terry Lindvall
2. Sermon “All I Want for Christmas”, by Rev. Steve Jackson, New Song Church, 230 Elm Street, Cumming, Georgia. Dec. 2000.
3. Voices United 884 “You shall go out with joy”
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Who is In??? Philippians 1:3-10, Acts 15:4-11 Glen Ayr United Church Second Sunday of Advent December 6, 2009
The progress of the Gospel has often been held back by closed-minded religious people who block the doors and keep others out. The outcry when women were to be ordained in the church was fearsome to behold. If women were going to be ordained, the whole Christian movement would go to hell in a handbasket. Yet, today most mainline Protestant denominations have ordained women.
Two of the kinder arguments used are that Jesus didn’t ordain any women, that women cannot be a likeness of Jesus. Well, technically Jesus didn’t ordain any men either! This notion came much later in the history of the church. Jesus called women as well as men to be his disciples. Luke tells us of the women and men who travelled together. The Book of Acts tells us of the women who led churches. The first witnesses at Easter were Mary Magdalene and her friends. Genesis, in the creation story, says both male and female were created in the image of God, and it’s interesting that the Catholic Catechism also says that both men and women are made equally in God’s image.
In 1921, Archbishop Jan Maria Michal Kowalski began the Catholic Mariavite Church of Poland. In 1929 Izabela Wilucka Kowalska was consecrated a bishop. As Polish nationalsim grew, the group was persecuted by the mainline Polish Catholic Church, with the support of the Polish government. Innovations such as the endorsement of marriages between priests and nuns, and later the ordination of women as priests and bishops, took this group out of fellowship with the Catholic Church altogether. The group is led by a female bishop, and while considering itself the true church, the theology is very liberal.
During the 12-13C CE, the Cathars, also called Albigensians by Rome, lived in the area of Languedoc, in southeastern France, bordering on Spain. The Cathars rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary lives, and an inner group of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led ascetic lives, but worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Men and women were regarded as equals; there was no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the majority religion in the area, supported by the nobility as well as the common people. Not only did many Catholics, priests included, defect to the Cathars, but the group refused to pay tithes to Rome. Accusing the Cathars of heresy, Pope Innocent III instituted a Crusade against the Cathars, and by the end over 500,000 people, Cathar and non-Cathar alike, had been killed.
Jumping back to the current times - many of us remember the debates over the admission of gays and lesbians to ordained ministry in the church. I would find letters on my desk at the national office, accusing gays of having sex with animals, that anyone who supported gays was outside the church, that the Bible specifically prohibited homosexual behaviour. At a meeting of General Council in Camrose, Alberta in 1997 - bags of dog poop were left on the chairs of people who were either suspected of being gay, or supported gay ordination. These things were always done either overnight, or early enough in the morning that no-one saw who it was. Walter Wink, who is Professor of Theology at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, as early as 1978 put together a paper which managed to debunk every argument against homosexuality, and point out that the constant ethic in the Bible is love, and inclusivity.
Well, less than 20 years after Pentecost, Paul and Barnabas faced pretty much the same challenges. As long as there are institutions, and churches, and societies - there will always be arguments about who is in and who isn’t. Acts 15 records the most controversial and pivotal event in the life of the early church, because it called into question whether or not the church was a Jewish reform movement, a sect, or was becoming a wider movement where all racial and cultural barriers had been removed. Following his conversion, Paul had visited Jerusalem, met Peter and James, caused a stir there among the Jews, been shipped off to Caesarea and then home to Tarsus. He spent the next eleven years in Cilicia and Syria. Around 40-41 CE rumours of Greek converts in Antioch went around, and the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to check it out.
Barnabas got on board, and together with Paul became pastor of a new church which was young, dynamic, and mostly Gentile converts. But the church in Jerusalem was strongly Jewish, and steeped in the Jewish traditions. The church leaders in Jerusalem thought that any Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus had to become Jews first, by being circumcized. They could buy the idea that proselytes to Judaism like Cornelius could receive the Holy Spirit, for he was already a "God fearer", but accepting out and out pagans was another matter. Its wasn't long before matters came to a head.
On the first journey Paul and Barnabas witnessed to Jews and Gentiles alike. They founded churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe in the Southern region of the province of Galatia. Again, and increasingly, it was the Gentiles who believed. The Jews got jealous and incited the rabble, and the authorities, to throw the apostles out of each town, one after another. When the dust had settled, and their visas were running out they turned round and worked their way back to the coast visiting each of these newly formed churches, and appointed leadership teams. Eventually they returned to home base, Antioch in Syria, tired but fully convinced of the rightness of their strategy. The hostility of the Jews, the responsiveness of the Gentiles, and the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit convinced them that it was the grace of the Spirit, not law or text, which decided.
In today’s first text, Paul prays that love will increase in knowledge and depth of insight. In the second text, the words of some believers who were Pharisees insisted that new believers must be circumcised and require to obey the Law of Moses. Peter points out that God made the choice that the Gentiles would hear the message; that God had given them the Spirit, and that God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And Peter asks “Why do you put God to the test?”
If we are followers of Jesus, then we are in fact followers of the most radical and inclusive way. Everyone receives wisdom and Spirit, regardless of race, language, age, gender, or sexuality. If God makes no distinction, we cannot either. If all are acceptable to God, then all are acceptable to us as well. There is no “in” and “out”. Our churches are open to all, recognising the gifts of the Spirit given to all. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Sermon by Rev. Stephen Sizer, www.cc-vw.org/sermons/ibsacts15.htm
2. www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk/old-site/against.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Mariavite_Church
Two of the kinder arguments used are that Jesus didn’t ordain any women, that women cannot be a likeness of Jesus. Well, technically Jesus didn’t ordain any men either! This notion came much later in the history of the church. Jesus called women as well as men to be his disciples. Luke tells us of the women and men who travelled together. The Book of Acts tells us of the women who led churches. The first witnesses at Easter were Mary Magdalene and her friends. Genesis, in the creation story, says both male and female were created in the image of God, and it’s interesting that the Catholic Catechism also says that both men and women are made equally in God’s image.
In 1921, Archbishop Jan Maria Michal Kowalski began the Catholic Mariavite Church of Poland. In 1929 Izabela Wilucka Kowalska was consecrated a bishop. As Polish nationalsim grew, the group was persecuted by the mainline Polish Catholic Church, with the support of the Polish government. Innovations such as the endorsement of marriages between priests and nuns, and later the ordination of women as priests and bishops, took this group out of fellowship with the Catholic Church altogether. The group is led by a female bishop, and while considering itself the true church, the theology is very liberal.
During the 12-13C CE, the Cathars, also called Albigensians by Rome, lived in the area of Languedoc, in southeastern France, bordering on Spain. The Cathars rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary lives, and an inner group of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led ascetic lives, but worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Men and women were regarded as equals; there was no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the majority religion in the area, supported by the nobility as well as the common people. Not only did many Catholics, priests included, defect to the Cathars, but the group refused to pay tithes to Rome. Accusing the Cathars of heresy, Pope Innocent III instituted a Crusade against the Cathars, and by the end over 500,000 people, Cathar and non-Cathar alike, had been killed.
Jumping back to the current times - many of us remember the debates over the admission of gays and lesbians to ordained ministry in the church. I would find letters on my desk at the national office, accusing gays of having sex with animals, that anyone who supported gays was outside the church, that the Bible specifically prohibited homosexual behaviour. At a meeting of General Council in Camrose, Alberta in 1997 - bags of dog poop were left on the chairs of people who were either suspected of being gay, or supported gay ordination. These things were always done either overnight, or early enough in the morning that no-one saw who it was. Walter Wink, who is Professor of Theology at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, as early as 1978 put together a paper which managed to debunk every argument against homosexuality, and point out that the constant ethic in the Bible is love, and inclusivity.
Well, less than 20 years after Pentecost, Paul and Barnabas faced pretty much the same challenges. As long as there are institutions, and churches, and societies - there will always be arguments about who is in and who isn’t. Acts 15 records the most controversial and pivotal event in the life of the early church, because it called into question whether or not the church was a Jewish reform movement, a sect, or was becoming a wider movement where all racial and cultural barriers had been removed. Following his conversion, Paul had visited Jerusalem, met Peter and James, caused a stir there among the Jews, been shipped off to Caesarea and then home to Tarsus. He spent the next eleven years in Cilicia and Syria. Around 40-41 CE rumours of Greek converts in Antioch went around, and the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to check it out.
Barnabas got on board, and together with Paul became pastor of a new church which was young, dynamic, and mostly Gentile converts. But the church in Jerusalem was strongly Jewish, and steeped in the Jewish traditions. The church leaders in Jerusalem thought that any Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus had to become Jews first, by being circumcized. They could buy the idea that proselytes to Judaism like Cornelius could receive the Holy Spirit, for he was already a "God fearer", but accepting out and out pagans was another matter. Its wasn't long before matters came to a head.
On the first journey Paul and Barnabas witnessed to Jews and Gentiles alike. They founded churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe in the Southern region of the province of Galatia. Again, and increasingly, it was the Gentiles who believed. The Jews got jealous and incited the rabble, and the authorities, to throw the apostles out of each town, one after another. When the dust had settled, and their visas were running out they turned round and worked their way back to the coast visiting each of these newly formed churches, and appointed leadership teams. Eventually they returned to home base, Antioch in Syria, tired but fully convinced of the rightness of their strategy. The hostility of the Jews, the responsiveness of the Gentiles, and the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit convinced them that it was the grace of the Spirit, not law or text, which decided.
In today’s first text, Paul prays that love will increase in knowledge and depth of insight. In the second text, the words of some believers who were Pharisees insisted that new believers must be circumcised and require to obey the Law of Moses. Peter points out that God made the choice that the Gentiles would hear the message; that God had given them the Spirit, and that God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And Peter asks “Why do you put God to the test?”
If we are followers of Jesus, then we are in fact followers of the most radical and inclusive way. Everyone receives wisdom and Spirit, regardless of race, language, age, gender, or sexuality. If God makes no distinction, we cannot either. If all are acceptable to God, then all are acceptable to us as well. There is no “in” and “out”. Our churches are open to all, recognising the gifts of the Spirit given to all. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Sermon by Rev. Stephen Sizer, www.cc-vw.org/sermons/ibsacts15.htm
2. www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk/old-site/against.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Mariavite_Church
Saturday, November 28, 2009
“Moved by the Spirit” A sermon based on Acts 16:12-15 November 29, 2009 Advent 1 Glen Ayr United Church
From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. We stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God; God had opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.
*****************************************************************************
Today’s text is part of Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul's intent was follow-up on all the churches he had planted on the first trip. Here, Paul goes to Philippi where there was at least one church. Philippi was a Roman colony, in the area of Macedonia. The first convert there was a woman named Lydia, who traded in purple cloth. Tyrian purple was a very rare and expensive color made from a Mediterranean snail, reserved for kings and royalty. Lydia was not poor; she had a good business, and was probably well-regarded in the community. Yet when Paul told her about Jesus, she and the members of her household were moved to become followers. She talked Paul into using her house while he was in the city - and her house was probably the first church - ekklesia - in Europe.
We have to remember that for the first three hundred and fifty years after the death of Jesus, there was no such thing as Christianity. The first followers of Jesus were all Jews, but as Paul travelled throughout the Middle East, Greeks and Romans also became converts. They didn’t meet in the synagogue, they didn’t meet in cathedrals - they met in homes. There were no churches in the sense we think of them.
As Paul was travelling, he also wrote letters to the newly-established house churches. In the early days, there were no written gospels. Paul’s letters to the churches were written long before the Gospels were, and probably after the death of Paul as well.
People being people, they hadn’t been in community long before differences about worship, the role of women, membership, and leadership arose. In large places like Corinth, there were several groups; so we have to take into account that there were many different communities of small house churches, with many different ideas about community and leadership.
Philippi was a Macedonian city , but also a Roman colony, so its house church communities would be based on a Roman model and Roman construction. One or more families formed a single house church, according to size of the household. Congregations met in the homes of more affluent members because they owned larger houses. Everything in such a situation favored the emergence of the host as the most prominent and influential member of the group. Eventually the strong leader of one house church might assume leadership throughout a city or section.
Some of the women did not behave in the way expected in Roman culture. They headed households, ran businesses, were independently wealthy, and traveled with their own slaves and helpers. In the congregations, women took on the same leadership roles as men. In Roman society, the assumption was that subordinate household members would share the religion of the head of the household, but that wasn’t the case in the house churches.
So - in the midst of a predominantly Greco-Roman political and religious world where there is a plurality of gods and worship styles, we find a minority religion called Judaism which worships one God - and emerging from that Jewish faith a smaller group of people who were labelled heretics. In every way, the Jesus movement was an emerging faith group.
The early house churches which formed the basis of what later became Christianity, emerged out of a messianic movement within an existing established faith tradition. But sometimes new forms of church come about because of political need. For example, the house church movement in China. They operate independently of the government-run Three-Self Patriotic Movement, China Christian Council for Protestant groups and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Chinese Catholic Bishops Council. As non-registered religious groups they cannot independently own property, so they meet in private homes, often in secret for fear of arrest or imprisonment.
The Chinese house church movement developed after 1949 as a result of the Communist government policy which requires the registration of all religious organizations. This registration policy requires churches to become part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement/China Christian Council set-up, which may involve interference in the church's internal affairs, by officials approved by the Communist Party of China's United Front Work Department. During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 all Christian worship was forced underground. The official churches were closed, and the underground house church movement filled the need.
In the 1980's and 1990s in Japan, a movement called “mukyokai” began to emerge. Mukyokai means essentially ‘outside the church’. It was a house church movement, an attempt to establish small mission communities which incorporated understandings of the early house churches of Paul’s time. This movement emerged largely because of dissatisfaction with the rigidity of the established denominations in Japan.
The current “emerging church” movement is a product of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is variously described as evangelical, post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, charismatic, neocharismatic and post-charismatic. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. Proponents of this movement call it a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints and its commitment to interfaith dialogue rather than verbal evangelism. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.
This is a really fast overview of some Christian church history - but it is clear that as long as faith and religion have been around, there have been emerging movements, groups which pushed change in the way we see the church. The Reformation started by Martin Luther is a good example. Emerging churches can be found all over the world. Some are independent churches, some are house churches, some are traditional Christian denominations. There is no one standard or “norm” for emerging church. The one commonality is that they are all struggling to find new ways to be church, to find ways to re-frame what it means to be church in a new world, in an ongoing way.
Today, the world in many ways has come full circle. With travel and the kinds of communication we have, we are back into a world where the Christian God and the Christian church as we knew it is once again, like the small groups in Philippi, a new form of church emerging. It is a long, slow, and often frustrating process. It is easy to want to stay with old habits because they are comfortable.
Advent, the first Sunday of a new church year, is also a time to begin to re-tell the story of faith - just as Paul and the early Christians did. We have to recognise what it is about our faith that is really important, and we have to tell the stories again - in some ways, we have to evangelise ourselves. I don’t mean nostalgia for a past time which we see through rose-coloured glasses. I mean we have to take the time in Advent to tell the stories again of why we are, who we are, and whose we are. We have to be willing to find new ways of speaking the stories to others, and to each other.
So today we turn our eyes to a star, to a birth, to a beginning of something new in the world. May the story be fresh in our hearts and on our lips, as we look for illumination, on the road to Bethlehem and beyond, to find a new way of being church.
Sources:
1. http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/corinthians/housechurches.stm
2. www.churchinchina.com
3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_house_church
4. www.kantohousechurches.com
5. “A Lot More Here than Meets the Eye”, Acts 16 sermon by Michael Fischer.
*****************************************************************************
Today’s text is part of Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul's intent was follow-up on all the churches he had planted on the first trip. Here, Paul goes to Philippi where there was at least one church. Philippi was a Roman colony, in the area of Macedonia. The first convert there was a woman named Lydia, who traded in purple cloth. Tyrian purple was a very rare and expensive color made from a Mediterranean snail, reserved for kings and royalty. Lydia was not poor; she had a good business, and was probably well-regarded in the community. Yet when Paul told her about Jesus, she and the members of her household were moved to become followers. She talked Paul into using her house while he was in the city - and her house was probably the first church - ekklesia - in Europe.
We have to remember that for the first three hundred and fifty years after the death of Jesus, there was no such thing as Christianity. The first followers of Jesus were all Jews, but as Paul travelled throughout the Middle East, Greeks and Romans also became converts. They didn’t meet in the synagogue, they didn’t meet in cathedrals - they met in homes. There were no churches in the sense we think of them.
As Paul was travelling, he also wrote letters to the newly-established house churches. In the early days, there were no written gospels. Paul’s letters to the churches were written long before the Gospels were, and probably after the death of Paul as well.
People being people, they hadn’t been in community long before differences about worship, the role of women, membership, and leadership arose. In large places like Corinth, there were several groups; so we have to take into account that there were many different communities of small house churches, with many different ideas about community and leadership.
Philippi was a Macedonian city , but also a Roman colony, so its house church communities would be based on a Roman model and Roman construction. One or more families formed a single house church, according to size of the household. Congregations met in the homes of more affluent members because they owned larger houses. Everything in such a situation favored the emergence of the host as the most prominent and influential member of the group. Eventually the strong leader of one house church might assume leadership throughout a city or section.
Some of the women did not behave in the way expected in Roman culture. They headed households, ran businesses, were independently wealthy, and traveled with their own slaves and helpers. In the congregations, women took on the same leadership roles as men. In Roman society, the assumption was that subordinate household members would share the religion of the head of the household, but that wasn’t the case in the house churches.
So - in the midst of a predominantly Greco-Roman political and religious world where there is a plurality of gods and worship styles, we find a minority religion called Judaism which worships one God - and emerging from that Jewish faith a smaller group of people who were labelled heretics. In every way, the Jesus movement was an emerging faith group.
The early house churches which formed the basis of what later became Christianity, emerged out of a messianic movement within an existing established faith tradition. But sometimes new forms of church come about because of political need. For example, the house church movement in China. They operate independently of the government-run Three-Self Patriotic Movement, China Christian Council for Protestant groups and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Chinese Catholic Bishops Council. As non-registered religious groups they cannot independently own property, so they meet in private homes, often in secret for fear of arrest or imprisonment.
The Chinese house church movement developed after 1949 as a result of the Communist government policy which requires the registration of all religious organizations. This registration policy requires churches to become part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement/China Christian Council set-up, which may involve interference in the church's internal affairs, by officials approved by the Communist Party of China's United Front Work Department. During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 all Christian worship was forced underground. The official churches were closed, and the underground house church movement filled the need.
In the 1980's and 1990s in Japan, a movement called “mukyokai” began to emerge. Mukyokai means essentially ‘outside the church’. It was a house church movement, an attempt to establish small mission communities which incorporated understandings of the early house churches of Paul’s time. This movement emerged largely because of dissatisfaction with the rigidity of the established denominations in Japan.
The current “emerging church” movement is a product of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is variously described as evangelical, post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, charismatic, neocharismatic and post-charismatic. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. Proponents of this movement call it a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints and its commitment to interfaith dialogue rather than verbal evangelism. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.
This is a really fast overview of some Christian church history - but it is clear that as long as faith and religion have been around, there have been emerging movements, groups which pushed change in the way we see the church. The Reformation started by Martin Luther is a good example. Emerging churches can be found all over the world. Some are independent churches, some are house churches, some are traditional Christian denominations. There is no one standard or “norm” for emerging church. The one commonality is that they are all struggling to find new ways to be church, to find ways to re-frame what it means to be church in a new world, in an ongoing way.
Today, the world in many ways has come full circle. With travel and the kinds of communication we have, we are back into a world where the Christian God and the Christian church as we knew it is once again, like the small groups in Philippi, a new form of church emerging. It is a long, slow, and often frustrating process. It is easy to want to stay with old habits because they are comfortable.
Advent, the first Sunday of a new church year, is also a time to begin to re-tell the story of faith - just as Paul and the early Christians did. We have to recognise what it is about our faith that is really important, and we have to tell the stories again - in some ways, we have to evangelise ourselves. I don’t mean nostalgia for a past time which we see through rose-coloured glasses. I mean we have to take the time in Advent to tell the stories again of why we are, who we are, and whose we are. We have to be willing to find new ways of speaking the stories to others, and to each other.
So today we turn our eyes to a star, to a birth, to a beginning of something new in the world. May the story be fresh in our hearts and on our lips, as we look for illumination, on the road to Bethlehem and beyond, to find a new way of being church.
Sources:
1. http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/corinthians/housechurches.stm
2. www.churchinchina.com
3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_house_church
4. www.kantohousechurches.com
5. “A Lot More Here than Meets the Eye”, Acts 16 sermon by Michael Fischer.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The End of All Things???? or the Beginning??? Acts 2:1-41 November 15, 2009
There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings stories, just near the end. The two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, have carried the ring of evil all the way to Mount Doom, where it was created. They have thrown it back into the fires where it is destroyed. They just get out before the mountain erupts - and we see them marooned on a huge rock - lava flowing all around them, the mountain blowing rocks and flames. They weep about what might have been, and Frodo says to Sam “I’m glad you’re here with me, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.”
The city of Jerusalem was a busy place during the celebration of the first harvest, the Feast of Weeks known as Pentecost. Pentecost was part of the Hebrew celebrations in the religious year, and for the disciples it was a natural thing to go to Jerusalem for their religious observances. Many people would be there, to be part of this celebration to commemorate God's bounty to them in the first harvest of the year. Others would be there on a pilgrimage, or to study there, or just soak up the richness of their Jewish heritage. It was in this time - around 30 AD - that the unexplainable happened.
Jesus had already promised the coming of the Spirit. On a much earlier occasion, Jesus had stood, at the later harvest celebration, the Feast of Booths, and offered an invitation:
"If any one is thirsty, they can come to me for drink. The Scripture says that whoever believes, from their “innermost being rivers of living water shall flow.'" John tells us that the disciples had not yet received the Sprit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Well, why Pentecost now? Didn’t we just have Pentecost in the spring? Yes, we did. But Pentecost is not just one Sunday, nor even really one season. Pentecost - the coming of the Spirit - should be all year every year. In our church year, today is the last Sunday in the season of Pentecost. Next Sunday is the last one in the Christian church year - known as Reign of Christ. The Sunday after that is the beginning of a new church year - the first Sunday of Advent. We also have a study group beginning, called “The Church We Are Becoming”, based on the Book of Acts. The very first part of the book of Acts is about the coming of the Spirit, and the time of Pentecost.
There is something extremely important here, which is crucial to our life as a community. If you minimise, or remove, the work of the Spirit, you have taken the very core out of Christianity. Without the Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible. There is no life without the power which gives life, no community without the Spirit.
The disciples were all together on the day of Pentecost, and they really had no idea what was going to happen. They only knew that Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem. The sudden-ness of the arrival of the Spirit took them all by surprise, and they were taken aback - and likely frightened. It was a noise like a mighty rushing wind, "a violent, rushing wind," and all the people were totally "immersed" in the Spirit.
Together with this mighty wind, appeared "tongues as of fire," offers us a marvelous picture of what the Spirit was doing. But we need to be careful that we do understand what the passages here mean. The kind of tongues mentioned were known languages - much as Danish, Swiss and Austrian are related to German, or so the languages heard were similar, and yet different. Far from being simply noises or sounds, they were able to communicate in the known languages or dialects, and be understood. Nor was it a forced or artificial experience, but the Spirit making it possible, opening them to understanding in a new way.
In the same way, today, the Holy Spirit is working in us. We want to be sure that we don’t do anything to inhibit the work of the Spirit. The great German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, talked about the church in the “power of the Spirit”. For Moltmann, the church is the open community of the Spirit, and the active ministry of the church community. It cannot happen without the action of the Spirit. This means, of course, that the church is always “becoming” something else. It means that the church always has to be in the process of reinventing itself - or perhaps I should say being reinvented by the Spirit.
I come back to the two small hobbits, Frodo and Sam, there at what appears to be the end of all things. They both believe that their lives are over. They weep for what might have been. But the cataclysmic changes, far from being the end of all things - turn out to be a new beginning in which the worst side of the human condition is overcome, and replaced by true peace, true shalom.
It seems to me that is the meaning of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit, A fresh wind blew through Jerusalem, and with it came dramatic changes - but for a reason. What may appear to us to be the end of things, or the end of something as we know it, has all the potential to be a beginning for something fresh and energetic, something which calls on the discipleship of all of us, to do whatever it is we can with optimism and energy. May it be so.
The city of Jerusalem was a busy place during the celebration of the first harvest, the Feast of Weeks known as Pentecost. Pentecost was part of the Hebrew celebrations in the religious year, and for the disciples it was a natural thing to go to Jerusalem for their religious observances. Many people would be there, to be part of this celebration to commemorate God's bounty to them in the first harvest of the year. Others would be there on a pilgrimage, or to study there, or just soak up the richness of their Jewish heritage. It was in this time - around 30 AD - that the unexplainable happened.
Jesus had already promised the coming of the Spirit. On a much earlier occasion, Jesus had stood, at the later harvest celebration, the Feast of Booths, and offered an invitation:
"If any one is thirsty, they can come to me for drink. The Scripture says that whoever believes, from their “innermost being rivers of living water shall flow.'" John tells us that the disciples had not yet received the Sprit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Well, why Pentecost now? Didn’t we just have Pentecost in the spring? Yes, we did. But Pentecost is not just one Sunday, nor even really one season. Pentecost - the coming of the Spirit - should be all year every year. In our church year, today is the last Sunday in the season of Pentecost. Next Sunday is the last one in the Christian church year - known as Reign of Christ. The Sunday after that is the beginning of a new church year - the first Sunday of Advent. We also have a study group beginning, called “The Church We Are Becoming”, based on the Book of Acts. The very first part of the book of Acts is about the coming of the Spirit, and the time of Pentecost.
There is something extremely important here, which is crucial to our life as a community. If you minimise, or remove, the work of the Spirit, you have taken the very core out of Christianity. Without the Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible. There is no life without the power which gives life, no community without the Spirit.
The disciples were all together on the day of Pentecost, and they really had no idea what was going to happen. They only knew that Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem. The sudden-ness of the arrival of the Spirit took them all by surprise, and they were taken aback - and likely frightened. It was a noise like a mighty rushing wind, "a violent, rushing wind," and all the people were totally "immersed" in the Spirit.
Together with this mighty wind, appeared "tongues as of fire," offers us a marvelous picture of what the Spirit was doing. But we need to be careful that we do understand what the passages here mean. The kind of tongues mentioned were known languages - much as Danish, Swiss and Austrian are related to German, or so the languages heard were similar, and yet different. Far from being simply noises or sounds, they were able to communicate in the known languages or dialects, and be understood. Nor was it a forced or artificial experience, but the Spirit making it possible, opening them to understanding in a new way.
In the same way, today, the Holy Spirit is working in us. We want to be sure that we don’t do anything to inhibit the work of the Spirit. The great German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, talked about the church in the “power of the Spirit”. For Moltmann, the church is the open community of the Spirit, and the active ministry of the church community. It cannot happen without the action of the Spirit. This means, of course, that the church is always “becoming” something else. It means that the church always has to be in the process of reinventing itself - or perhaps I should say being reinvented by the Spirit.
I come back to the two small hobbits, Frodo and Sam, there at what appears to be the end of all things. They both believe that their lives are over. They weep for what might have been. But the cataclysmic changes, far from being the end of all things - turn out to be a new beginning in which the worst side of the human condition is overcome, and replaced by true peace, true shalom.
It seems to me that is the meaning of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit, A fresh wind blew through Jerusalem, and with it came dramatic changes - but for a reason. What may appear to us to be the end of things, or the end of something as we know it, has all the potential to be a beginning for something fresh and energetic, something which calls on the discipleship of all of us, to do whatever it is we can with optimism and energy. May it be so.
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