Scripture: Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 and Matthew 22:34-40
Sermon: Even if Canada will never be the same ...
In
two incidents this past week, Canada has suffered some of the effects of
climate change. I don’t mean the environmental
change of global warming, extreme weather patterns and sea-level rise. I mean the change in the world’s spiritual
climate.
For
some time political and social scientists have been writing and speaking about
the polarization of the world, the radicalization of the disenfranchised, a
rise in the politics of fear and of hate, the increasing militarization of
societies, and the spreading combination of violence and fundamentalist faith –
whether Zionist, Christian or Muslim, as a political tool.
Not
that Canada has been unaffected until now by this global spiritual change. Forty-four years ago this month we suffered
the crisis of the FLQ terrorist campaign of attacks, bombings and the assassination
of Pierre Laporte, Minister of Labour in the Quebec government. There was the Air India bombing, homegrown anti-abortion
terrorism, and between 1960 and 1990 159 separate terrorist incidents in Canada
by right-wing groups like anti-Castro Cuban nationals, the KKK, Croatian
nationalists, and skinheads.
Nor
is it that we have not helped contribute to the change in the spirit of the
world. It’s hard to be a player on the
global stage without helping to shape the tragic script that’s being
written. Action leads to re-action. Intervention has consequences, both intended
and unintended, but all of them real.
And even in our own affairs, many suffer the kinds of poverty and
isolation, disenfranchisement and powerlessness, prejudice and hatred against
ethnic and religious minorities that help nurture openness to fundamentalist
rhetoric and violent action.
The
two men who committed the terrorist murders of the past week were Canadian citizens
who suffered repeated frustration, felt alienated from society, suffered mental
instability, and turned to violent fundamentalism because it promised meaning,
belonging and a power to change the world.
And they are not alone. There are
the two young men from London who joined an Islamist-led plot against
foreigners at an Algerian oil refinery a year ago, the Canadians who have gone
to fight with ISIS in Syria, the 90 citizens currently on the RCMP watch list.
Some say
Canada will never be the same again. We
are now aware in a new way that the spirit of the world has changed, and we are
part of it.
The
question is what to do, how to live in this kind of world and in this climate
as part of the body of Christ, as people of God, as a community of holy rather
than violent spirit.
The
answer is, the same as always. As much
as Canada may never seem the same again to some, for us the call we hear and
the life-rules we follow are the same as ever.
Psalm
90 says it this way.
1Lord,
you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2Before
the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the world
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
In other words, there is a constancy
to the world greater than any change and instability we see around us, greater
than any evil or darkness that may seem to dominate at any time, and that
constancy is God and God’s good desire for Earth and our life upon it.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling
place…” There are people who live within
the structure of God’s laws and God’s way of being, who honour and seek to live
out God’s will for right relations between all creatures and the well-being of
all, and it is they who help keep the world right, who are God’s partners in
keeping it from spinning completely out of control.
Last week we saw the second half of
the video about Betty Bridgman’s life as a mission doctor in Angola. The first half was about the work she and
Edith Radley accomplished in Angola, and how it ended with their imprisonment
by one of the factions in the civil war that had torn apart the country. Months went by with no word to the outside
world of their whereabouts; the time was dark and fearful.
But do you remember Betty’s comment
about that? She and Edith, she said,
knew they might suffer and die. Faith in
God would not insulate them from the events and the climate of their time. But they also believed that nothing they did
of God’s work would be in vain – that what was truly of God would survive, or
if knocked down, would be resurrected.
And in that faith they prayed for the strength to endure.
And that’s exactly what
happened. They survived the ordeal, were
released to come home to their families and friends, and then return to the
mission field. And even more, when they
returned to Africa they witnessed beyond the momentary, heart-breaking
destruction of things they had built, the deep and continuing growth of all the
good they had helped to plant in the hearts and spirits of the people they had served. The love and care they offered to all they
met in their time in Angola – friend and foe alike, bore fruit and was alive
and well and still growing years after the passing of the storms of the civil
war.
They had lived out what Jesus says is
the heart of God’s law for all time and all people – the two-fold rule to love
and honour God rightly in everything, and to love your neighbour as yourself. And having lived out these two commandments
they found the closing prayer of the psalmist answered:
16[In the face of our mortality and beyond the weakness of our efforts]
Let
your work be manifest to your servants, [O God]
17Let
the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands --
O prosper the work of our hands!
Love
God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbour as yourself.
Neither
one is easy. It wasn’t easy for Betty
and Edith in war-torn Angola, and I wonder if any find it easy in today’s
polarized and terrorized world.
But
this is the unchanging call, especially in a time like ours.
This
past week Canada suffered from the terrible combination of fundamentalist faith
and violent action. But we also saw the
leaders of all of Canada’s religious communities publicly denounce this
aberration of God, and speak of God’s will for the well-being of all, for the
creation of just and peaceful society, for healing of wounds, for right
relations in all creation.
Love
God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; in all things, remember and
honour God rightly.
This
past week we witnessed murder of the unsuspecting and death of the guilty. But we also saw others reaching out in love
to do what they can for their neighbour – in the immediate action of those who
tried to help Cpl. Nathan Cirillo n spite of the possibility of further sniper
fire; in the ways in which people reached out to protect and comfort one
another in all parts of the country; in the people on Friday who lined the
bridges over the 401 to honour Cpl. Cirillo on his way home; in the gathering
of local Muslim leaders at his home Armoury in Hamilton to lay a wreath and say
prayers for him and his family, and in the heartfelt welcome and words of appreciation
they were offered by others already gathered there; in the public statement from
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother of dismay at her son and his actions, and her honest
sorrow and pain for the Cirillo family.
Love
your neighbour as yourself – and is there ever any limit to who our neighbour
is?
These
two commandments and our commitment to keep living them out is what plants the
seeds of the future and helps keep the world from spinning out of control. This is the world`s stability, and it’s what
we are called to practice – always have been, always will be, as the body of
Christ, as people of God, and as a community of holy spirit still at work in
the world.
