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
Saturday, June 12, 2010
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.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Dramatic Encounters a sermon based on Acts 9:1-6 Third Sunday of Easter Glen Ayr United Church
For most of his life the late Malcolm Muggeridge professed to be agnostic. In 1969 he became a Christian, publishing “Jesus Rediscovered”, then “Jesus: The Man Who Lives” in 1976, a more substantial work describing the gospel in his own words. He also produced several important BBC documentaries with a religious theme, including In the Footsteps of St. Paul.
In 1982, Muggeridge converted to Roman Catholicism. He was 79. His last book “Conversion”, published in 1988 and recently republished, describes his life as a 20th century pilgrimage - a spiritual journey.
In today’s reading from Acts, there is a word which never shows up, and yet its presence almost screams out of the story. Rev. Tom Hall calls it “a disruptive word--a word that intrudes into our life, a word that rocks our boat, threatens us with priority shifts.”
The story of Saul on the road to Damascus is not a story about a conversion to the Christian faith. Saul was a Jew, and remained a Jew even after his experience. It is a story about a change in nature or character. Unfortunately, the Damascus Road incident has become kind of the yardstick by which everyone measures “conversion”. I suggest that this story is one of a huge epiphany for Saul.
A little background. Saul seemed to arrive just when he was needed most. The religious leaders and the sanhedrin thought new the movement could not be stopped even after the death of Jesus. Saul volunteered to take on the job of getting rid of the Jesus movement. He was young, intelligent, well educated as a rabbi and absolutely committed to the traditions of the faith. There were reports of followers in Damascus, and off went Paul, determined to stomp them out.
And he finds himself flat on his keester in the road, blinded by an incredible light. He has to be led into Damascus, and wait in the city for instructions. So he sits for three days in a room in an inn - hungry and unable to function. A human comes into the room, he feels hands on him and then hears "Brother Saul; Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." The lights come back on, and suddenly he sees more clearly than ever. He really sees, for the first time in his entire life. His perspective changes. His commitment changes. His relationships change. Even his name changes.
We tend to think of conversion as someone becoming a Christian when they were some other faith prior to that. Saul, now Paul, was still the same man as before in the sense that he was still a practicing Jew. He hadn’t changed his faith, but he had changed his perceptions and understandings of how that faith was to be lived out. His understanding of God changed.
Paul had a conversion experience - no question of that - but his experience was one of conversion to a new life in ministry within the faith he had professed all his life. He understood his scriptures and his faith differently, and the new insight propelled him into ministry with the small group he had elected to eliminate. Sometimes conversions are loud and bold affairs--much like Paul's. Often they are not.
One of the most well-known conversion experiences is that of Kagawa Toyohiko. He had been an orphan from an early age, and became a Christian while learning English from western missionaries. His extended family disowned him. He studied at the Tokyo Presbyterian College, in the United States. The real conversion, I believe, came when he attended Kobe Theological Seminary, and found himself distressed by the pickiness of the seminarians around technicalities of doctrine. He believed that Christianity in action was the real truth of those doctrines.
In 1909 he moved into a Kobe slum as a social worker, and sociologist. He recorded many aspects of slum society previously unknown to middle-class Japanese - illicit prostitution (i.e. outside of Japan's legal prostitution regime), informal marriages (which often overlapped with the previous), and the practice of accepting money to care for children and then killing them.
Kagawa was arrested in Japan in 1921 and again in 1922 for his part in labour activism during strikes. After his release, he helped organize relief work in Tokyo following the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, and assisted in bringing about universal voting rights for men in 1925. He organized the Japanese Federation of Labour, as well as the National Anti-War League in 1928, and continued to speak on behalf of Japan's poor; he pushed for the vote for women, and a peaceful foreign policy.
His conversion began through a simple prayer: "O God, make me like Christ." That was it. That was the blinding light and heavenly voices that accompanied his conversion. He was an orphan, half blind, always sick, yet he walked into the slums of Tokyo and became the greatest slum reformer.
Conversion is not a word we associate very often with our own lives. We don’t often have those wild experiences where we see with absolute clarity, if even for just an instant, and find ourselves blinded by the insight. Sometimes it’s something very small, which we might easily overlook. Other times the mighty persistent God breaks in to disrupt our lives completely. Saul’s experience on the Damascus road challenges us to be open to conversion. The Good News of Easter, and for us, is that God brings a profound change in nature or character. As Christians, we have to be open to conversion. That means seeing our selves, our lives, our congregation, our church - differently - and making a commitment to being a part of the church’s life, in whatever way we can.
Sources:
1: “Conversion”, a sermon by Rev. Tom Hall
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiko_Kagawa
In 1982, Muggeridge converted to Roman Catholicism. He was 79. His last book “Conversion”, published in 1988 and recently republished, describes his life as a 20th century pilgrimage - a spiritual journey.
In today’s reading from Acts, there is a word which never shows up, and yet its presence almost screams out of the story. Rev. Tom Hall calls it “a disruptive word--a word that intrudes into our life, a word that rocks our boat, threatens us with priority shifts.”
The story of Saul on the road to Damascus is not a story about a conversion to the Christian faith. Saul was a Jew, and remained a Jew even after his experience. It is a story about a change in nature or character. Unfortunately, the Damascus Road incident has become kind of the yardstick by which everyone measures “conversion”. I suggest that this story is one of a huge epiphany for Saul.
A little background. Saul seemed to arrive just when he was needed most. The religious leaders and the sanhedrin thought new the movement could not be stopped even after the death of Jesus. Saul volunteered to take on the job of getting rid of the Jesus movement. He was young, intelligent, well educated as a rabbi and absolutely committed to the traditions of the faith. There were reports of followers in Damascus, and off went Paul, determined to stomp them out.
And he finds himself flat on his keester in the road, blinded by an incredible light. He has to be led into Damascus, and wait in the city for instructions. So he sits for three days in a room in an inn - hungry and unable to function. A human comes into the room, he feels hands on him and then hears "Brother Saul; Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." The lights come back on, and suddenly he sees more clearly than ever. He really sees, for the first time in his entire life. His perspective changes. His commitment changes. His relationships change. Even his name changes.
We tend to think of conversion as someone becoming a Christian when they were some other faith prior to that. Saul, now Paul, was still the same man as before in the sense that he was still a practicing Jew. He hadn’t changed his faith, but he had changed his perceptions and understandings of how that faith was to be lived out. His understanding of God changed.
Paul had a conversion experience - no question of that - but his experience was one of conversion to a new life in ministry within the faith he had professed all his life. He understood his scriptures and his faith differently, and the new insight propelled him into ministry with the small group he had elected to eliminate. Sometimes conversions are loud and bold affairs--much like Paul's. Often they are not.
One of the most well-known conversion experiences is that of Kagawa Toyohiko. He had been an orphan from an early age, and became a Christian while learning English from western missionaries. His extended family disowned him. He studied at the Tokyo Presbyterian College, in the United States. The real conversion, I believe, came when he attended Kobe Theological Seminary, and found himself distressed by the pickiness of the seminarians around technicalities of doctrine. He believed that Christianity in action was the real truth of those doctrines.
In 1909 he moved into a Kobe slum as a social worker, and sociologist. He recorded many aspects of slum society previously unknown to middle-class Japanese - illicit prostitution (i.e. outside of Japan's legal prostitution regime), informal marriages (which often overlapped with the previous), and the practice of accepting money to care for children and then killing them.
Kagawa was arrested in Japan in 1921 and again in 1922 for his part in labour activism during strikes. After his release, he helped organize relief work in Tokyo following the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, and assisted in bringing about universal voting rights for men in 1925. He organized the Japanese Federation of Labour, as well as the National Anti-War League in 1928, and continued to speak on behalf of Japan's poor; he pushed for the vote for women, and a peaceful foreign policy.
His conversion began through a simple prayer: "O God, make me like Christ." That was it. That was the blinding light and heavenly voices that accompanied his conversion. He was an orphan, half blind, always sick, yet he walked into the slums of Tokyo and became the greatest slum reformer.
Conversion is not a word we associate very often with our own lives. We don’t often have those wild experiences where we see with absolute clarity, if even for just an instant, and find ourselves blinded by the insight. Sometimes it’s something very small, which we might easily overlook. Other times the mighty persistent God breaks in to disrupt our lives completely. Saul’s experience on the Damascus road challenges us to be open to conversion. The Good News of Easter, and for us, is that God brings a profound change in nature or character. As Christians, we have to be open to conversion. That means seeing our selves, our lives, our congregation, our church - differently - and making a commitment to being a part of the church’s life, in whatever way we can.
Sources:
1: “Conversion”, a sermon by Rev. Tom Hall
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiko_Kagawa
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Butterflies in the Garden A sermon based on Luke 24:1-12 Easter Sunday April 4, 2010 Glen Ayr United Church
But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.
The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.
****************************************************
Two weeks ago on a Saturday, a call came from North York General Hospital that a United Church chaplain was needed in the intensive care unit, as a patient was going to be removed from breathing support. I arrived to find some of the family gathered around the bedside, and a woman with a breathing mask lying on the bed. She struggled to breathe even with the mask on, and with morphine to ease to the pain. In some ways it was as if she struggled to get free of her body. I was reminded of the struggle of butterflies to break free from the chrysalis, to shed the thing which held them trapped to this earth, to spread their wings and take off into a new life.
Luke tells us that it was very early Sunday morning when a group of women went to the tomb. There was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women who are not named by Luke - but clearly it was important enough to include. The women went with their spices to prepare Jesus’ body for a proper burial. Luke infers that these are the women who provided for Jesus out of their own resources, when the twelve were on the road. These women arrive to see the yawning entrance to the tomb, and the mighty stone rolled away. It is hard for us to imagine, we are so used to the stories now. It must have been at first puzzling, but when they find themselves confronted by two men in dazzling white, they were absolutely terrified - so afraid, in fact, they fell to the ground and covered their faces. The men asked the most confusing question, too: Why do you look for the living among the dead. He is not here, he is risen. Remember, he told you this would happen.
I’d be willing to bet the women were thinking - what did he tell us? What are these men talking about? The women were probably physically and emotionally exhausted from the events of the week, and in the midst of those events, being bound by religious law, that they could do nothing till the Sabbath was officially over. They had seen the excruciating execution and death of Jesus, and probably wanted to forget - not remember. They were moving on autopilot, in many ways, but still thinking enough to go to the tomb, taking the spices needed to prepare a body properly for burial.
Remember what? Remember how Jesus told you this would happen? It was back in Galilee! Remember he said he would be handed over? He told you that he would be crucified! Remember? And he said that he would rise again on the third day. Well, it happened just as he promised. Remember?
Suddenly it all came back to them - like a flood of light- not that it made any sense- but the women remembered that this was what Jesus said would happen and it did. The women remembered and so they returned to tell the others. They were met with disbelief, and even some concern that they were hysterical women who couldn’t accept real life. Isn’t that the human reaction, after all?
And yet, Luke tells us Peter got up and ran to the tomb, saw the gravecloths - went away wondering what had happened.
It’s the statement, and the question of the two men which are so significant for this day. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here any more, he is alive. Remember what he told you? Remember?
In the first letter to the new house church in Corinth, the apostle Paul had his work cut out for him. None of the converts was an eye-witness to any events; Paul himself was not an eyewitness. Yet he accepted on faith that the Jesus had been resurrected; some of the other converts obviously weren’t so sure, so they wanted some explanation - some proof. Paul says to them “You ask how the dead can be raised? How silly can you be? Of course, the dead do not get up and walk again, in the same body. But each kind of life is given a body - one kind of body for plants, another kind for animals, another kind for birds, one for fish. And just as there all these different kinds of flesh, so it is with the human body.
Remember, says Paul, what you plant cannot live unless it first dies. A grain of wheat in the ground looks like nothing and appears dead, yet when it grows it has a body completely unlike the grain of wheat. It’s that way with humans and resurrection. Only by dying do we live.
So why go looking for the living among the dead? A lowly and often mundane caterpillar disappears inside a chrysalis, but when it finally struggles and pushes and breaks its way free, what emerges from the chrysalis is something completely changed from the body which went in.
Remember. Resurrection can happen in so many ways. A dying person’s soul struggles to emerge from the chrysalis which holds it to this earth. A living person’s soul can also struggle to break free, to come out of the closed chrysalis and spread out its wings. Resurrection is an invitation to make such major change in our selves, that we truly become something wholly new.
Sources:
1. "They Remembered" by Rev. Cynthia Huling Hummel
2. "Finding Out for Ourselves", by Rev. Elizabeth Darby
The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.
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Two weeks ago on a Saturday, a call came from North York General Hospital that a United Church chaplain was needed in the intensive care unit, as a patient was going to be removed from breathing support. I arrived to find some of the family gathered around the bedside, and a woman with a breathing mask lying on the bed. She struggled to breathe even with the mask on, and with morphine to ease to the pain. In some ways it was as if she struggled to get free of her body. I was reminded of the struggle of butterflies to break free from the chrysalis, to shed the thing which held them trapped to this earth, to spread their wings and take off into a new life.
Luke tells us that it was very early Sunday morning when a group of women went to the tomb. There was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women who are not named by Luke - but clearly it was important enough to include. The women went with their spices to prepare Jesus’ body for a proper burial. Luke infers that these are the women who provided for Jesus out of their own resources, when the twelve were on the road. These women arrive to see the yawning entrance to the tomb, and the mighty stone rolled away. It is hard for us to imagine, we are so used to the stories now. It must have been at first puzzling, but when they find themselves confronted by two men in dazzling white, they were absolutely terrified - so afraid, in fact, they fell to the ground and covered their faces. The men asked the most confusing question, too: Why do you look for the living among the dead. He is not here, he is risen. Remember, he told you this would happen.
I’d be willing to bet the women were thinking - what did he tell us? What are these men talking about? The women were probably physically and emotionally exhausted from the events of the week, and in the midst of those events, being bound by religious law, that they could do nothing till the Sabbath was officially over. They had seen the excruciating execution and death of Jesus, and probably wanted to forget - not remember. They were moving on autopilot, in many ways, but still thinking enough to go to the tomb, taking the spices needed to prepare a body properly for burial.
Remember what? Remember how Jesus told you this would happen? It was back in Galilee! Remember he said he would be handed over? He told you that he would be crucified! Remember? And he said that he would rise again on the third day. Well, it happened just as he promised. Remember?
Suddenly it all came back to them - like a flood of light- not that it made any sense- but the women remembered that this was what Jesus said would happen and it did. The women remembered and so they returned to tell the others. They were met with disbelief, and even some concern that they were hysterical women who couldn’t accept real life. Isn’t that the human reaction, after all?
And yet, Luke tells us Peter got up and ran to the tomb, saw the gravecloths - went away wondering what had happened.
It’s the statement, and the question of the two men which are so significant for this day. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He isn’t here any more, he is alive. Remember what he told you? Remember?
In the first letter to the new house church in Corinth, the apostle Paul had his work cut out for him. None of the converts was an eye-witness to any events; Paul himself was not an eyewitness. Yet he accepted on faith that the Jesus had been resurrected; some of the other converts obviously weren’t so sure, so they wanted some explanation - some proof. Paul says to them “You ask how the dead can be raised? How silly can you be? Of course, the dead do not get up and walk again, in the same body. But each kind of life is given a body - one kind of body for plants, another kind for animals, another kind for birds, one for fish. And just as there all these different kinds of flesh, so it is with the human body.
Remember, says Paul, what you plant cannot live unless it first dies. A grain of wheat in the ground looks like nothing and appears dead, yet when it grows it has a body completely unlike the grain of wheat. It’s that way with humans and resurrection. Only by dying do we live.
So why go looking for the living among the dead? A lowly and often mundane caterpillar disappears inside a chrysalis, but when it finally struggles and pushes and breaks its way free, what emerges from the chrysalis is something completely changed from the body which went in.
Remember. Resurrection can happen in so many ways. A dying person’s soul struggles to emerge from the chrysalis which holds it to this earth. A living person’s soul can also struggle to break free, to come out of the closed chrysalis and spread out its wings. Resurrection is an invitation to make such major change in our selves, that we truly become something wholly new.
Sources:
1. "They Remembered" by Rev. Cynthia Huling Hummel
2. "Finding Out for Ourselves", by Rev. Elizabeth Darby
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