Sermon from Sunday, August 28, 2016

Reading:  Mark 2:1-5 (Jesus began healing and teaching in Capernaum and people there were immediately drawn to him.  Then he left them without warning early one morning, and soon he was healing and teaching people in all kinds of other places.  Now he is back, and the people of Capernaum are glad he is back with them, to heal and teach them.)

Hard to imagine on a Sunday like this, when so many of our people are either resting up from Peach Festival work already done, getting ready for more this afternoon, or taking time to enjoy one last weekend away before the back-to-school crush … but the story this morning is about a house – Peter’s mother’s home in Capernaum, so jam-packed with people, standing-room-only, flowing-out-and-blocking-all-the-doors-regardless-of-what-the-fire-marshall-may-say, all there for one thing and one thing only – to see and hear and be touched and healed by Jesus, the holy healer and teacher who’s back in town.

If you can imagine that scene, imagine too this conversation among some of the people standing in the door, patiently (and also impatiently) trying to see and hear, hoping that if they are patient (and also pushy) enough they too might get close to the promise of healing that’s there.

__________

Wow.  A lot of people here!

Yeah, I didn’t even know there were this many people in Capernaum.

Not this many sick people, anyway.

You think they’re all sick?

You think they’re all from Capernaum?

You mean there’s outsiders here?  I thought this was just for us, this time.  He’s been away and helping all the other towns a lot.  Isn’t it our turn again?

What if it’s like before?  What if he heals and teaches the ones who get close, and then even though there’s all kinds of others that need him – like us in the doorway here, and those poor people still out in the yard … hey, that’s my aunt and uncle out there, they must have just got here.  And they really need help.  They should be head of the line ‘cause they were left out last time he was here...  So what if he helps all the people who got in ahead of us, and then leaves?

Yeah, that’s how the world works, isn’t it?  Only so much to go around, they say. 

Yeah, the people on top say.  God’s blessings don’t grow on trees, you know.

Yeah, and even if they do, there’s always some who get lots, and others who just stay lost.

I sure wish there’d be all we need of what we need.

Yeah.  As much food as we all need.  And as much water as Earth can hold. 

As much healing as waves in the ocean.  As much hope as stars in the sky. 

As much compassion and love as grains of sand by the sea.  As much forgiveness and new life as tears and regrets.

Yeah.  Can you imagine?  Enough for everyone.  But who ever heard of such a thing?

Yeah, can you imagine living in that kind of kingdom?

Yeah … I wonder …

Do you think maybe … when you think about Jesus … I mean some of the things they say he says …

Yeah … what he says about the coming of God’s kingdom …

Yeah … it makes me …

Hey!!  What’s going on?  Something’s happening up there.

Where Jesus is?

I think so.

What is it?

Is he leaving again?  Can you hear?

Is he coming our way?  Can you see?

No, there’s something … no, someone, being lowered down from the roof above him.  It’s a man on a pallet!  Coming down to Jesus from the roof!!!

You mean by magic?  Someone is doing a magic trick?

Jesus is a magician?

No, it looks like someone – a few people, it must be – are up on the roof, they’ve cut a hole in it, and now they’re lowering a sick man down through the hole, to where Jesus is.  There’s four ropes attached to the pallet.

I wonder how they got up there. 

I wonder what the people around Jesus think. 

Some are clapping for joy.

Others seem angry.

I wonder what Peter’s mother thinks.  It’s her house.

I wonder what Jesus thinks.

I know what I think.  I think …

___________

At which point, in the crush of the crowd, excited and stirred by this turn of events, we are separated from the people we have been overhearing. 

Left to our own devices, our own imaginations, our own feeling responses to the way the kingdom of God appears then and now and always in and around Jesus, I wonder how we most easily imagine the conversation finishing.

Might it be:    

Queue-jumpers!  It happens all the time. 

Yeah, it just isn’t fair.  Why do some people always get special treatment? 

Why do foreigners get more than we do? 

Yeah, we have a lot of needs right here.  When is it going to be our turn again? 

Yeah, it all depends who you know, and how many strings they can pull.  Why isn’t it us?

Or might it be:

Wow!  I’m so glad for that man. 

There’s no way he could have got in there on his own.  I’m glad someone was able to help him …

He could have gone unnoticed forever and just died out there …

glad Jesus is here and so open. 

Yeah, imagine a world like that – no boundaries between in and out, no one excluded or left out, new life and hope for all …

even the poor and powerless …

So glad I saw it … so blessed to see something like this happen …

so happy to be part of this.  I love how good the world can be. 

It’s just gotta be good for all of us together in the long run.

I wonder …

left to our own devices,

our own imaginations,

our own feeling responses

to the way the kingdom of God

appears in the world both then and now,

I wonder what we most often are able to add

to conversations like this around us,

and how we help lead them to some good end.

Sermon from Sunday, August 28, 2016

Reading:  Mark 2:1-5 (Jesus began healing and teaching in Capernaum and people there were immediately drawn to him.  Then he left them without warning early one morning, and soon he was healing and teaching people in all kinds of other places.  Now he is back, and the people of Capernaum are glad he is back with them, to heal and teach them.)

Hard to imagine on a Sunday like this, when so many of our people are either resting up from Peach Festival work already done, getting ready for more this afternoon, or taking time to enjoy one last weekend away before the back-to-school crush … but the story this morning is about a house – Peter’s mother’s home in Capernaum, so jam-packed with people, standing-room-only, flowing-out-and-blocking-all-the-doors-regardless-of-what-the-fire-marshall-may-say, all there for one thing and one thing only – to see and hear and be touched and healed by Jesus, the holy healer and teacher who’s back in town.

If you can imagine that scene, imagine too this conversation among some of the people standing in the door, patiently (and also impatiently) trying to see and hear, hoping that if they are patient (and also pushy) enough they too might get close to the promise of healing that’s there.

__________

Wow.  A lot of people here!

Yeah, I didn’t even know there were this many people in Capernaum.

Not this many sick people, anyway.

You think they’re all sick?

You think they’re all from Capernaum?

You mean there’s outsiders here?  I thought this was just for us, this time.  He’s been away and helping all the other towns a lot.  Isn’t it our turn again?

What if it’s like before?  What if he heals and teaches the ones who get close, and then even though there’s all kinds of others that need him – like us in the doorway here, and those poor people still out in the yard … hey, that’s my aunt and uncle out there, they must have just got here.  And they really need help.  They should be head of the line ‘cause they were left out last time he was here...  So what if he helps all the people who got in ahead of us, and then leaves?

Yeah, that’s how the world works, isn’t it?  Only so much to go around, they say. 

Yeah, the people on top say.  God’s blessings don’t grow on trees, you know.

Yeah, and even if they do, there’s always some who get lots, and others who just stay lost.

I sure wish there’d be all we need of what we need.

Yeah.  As much food as we all need.  And as much water as Earth can hold. 

As much healing as waves in the ocean.  As much hope as stars in the sky. 

As much compassion and love as grains of sand by the sea.  As much forgiveness and new life as tears and regrets.

Yeah.  Can you imagine?  Enough for everyone.  But who ever heard of such a thing?

Yeah, can you imagine living in that kind of kingdom?

Yeah … I wonder …

Do you think maybe … when you think about Jesus … I mean some of the things they say he says …

Yeah … what he says about the coming of God’s kingdom …

Yeah … it makes me …

Hey!!  What’s going on?  Something’s happening up there.

Where Jesus is?

I think so.

What is it?

Is he leaving again?  Can you hear?

Is he coming our way?  Can you see?

No, there’s something … no, someone, being lowered down from the roof above him.  It’s a man on a pallet!  Coming down to Jesus from the roof!!!

You mean by magic?  Someone is doing a magic trick?

Jesus is a magician?

No, it looks like someone – a few people, it must be – are up on the roof, they’ve cut a hole in it, and now they’re lowering a sick man down through the hole, to where Jesus is.  There’s four ropes attached to the pallet.

I wonder how they got up there. 

I wonder what the people around Jesus think. 

Some are clapping for joy.

Others seem angry.

I wonder what Peter’s mother thinks.  It’s her house.

I wonder what Jesus thinks.

I know what I think.  I think …

___________

At which point, in the crush of the crowd, excited and stirred by this turn of events, we are separated from the people we have been overhearing. 

Left to our own devices, our own imaginations, our own feeling responses to the way the kingdom of God appears then and now and always in and around Jesus, I wonder how we most easily imagine the conversation finishing.

Might it be:    

Queue-jumpers!  It happens all the time. 

Yeah, it just isn’t fair.  Why do some people always get special treatment? 

Why do foreigners get more than we do? 

Yeah, we have a lot of needs right here.  When is it going to be our turn again? 

Yeah, it all depends who you know, and how many strings they can pull.  Why isn’t it us?

Or might it be:

Wow!  I’m so glad for that man. 

There’s no way he could have got in there on his own.  I’m glad someone was able to help him …

He could have gone unnoticed forever and just died out there …

glad Jesus is here and so open. 

Yeah, imagine a world like that – no boundaries between in and out, no one excluded or left out, new life and hope for all …

even the poor and powerless …

So glad I saw it … so blessed to see something like this happen …

so happy to be part of this.  I love how good the world can be. 

It’s just gotta be good for all of us together in the long run.

I wonder …

left to our own devices,

our own imaginations,

our own feeling responses

to the way the kingdom of God

appears in the world both then and now,

I wonder what we most often are able to add

to conversations like this around us,

and how we help lead them to some good end.

Towards Sunday, August 28, 2016

Reading:  Mark 2:1-5 (Jesus began healing and teaching in Capernaum, then just when the people got excited about it and drawn to him, he left to heal and teach others.  Now he is back, people are lined up to see him, and four men are able to jump the line to get an especially sick man to Jesus.)

Queue-jumpers.  How do you feel about them?

About people who get help because of who can pull strings (or ropes) for them?

About special people of the day who get help when there are so many others (like "us") who need it just as much.

Our summer sermon series is about celebrating and listening to the little people of the story, and there are lots of little people in this story:

• the little people of Capernaum who were left out of the healings the first time Jesus was there, and now are lined up ten and twenty deep at the doors waiting again for something good to happen to them
• the four nameless men who give up their place in the line to help a friend get in while they watch from outside on the roof
• the equally nameless but deeply powerless man who is airlifted by friends and deposited safely to a place of healing for his life  

I wonder if at some time in our life, each of us has been in that third position -- deeply indebted to others (or even just one other) for helping us be saved and healed.

If we have ever been -- or have a chance, now, to help some desperate other (or others) to get to a place of healing for their life.

And how we handle all the feelings that arise in our hearts when it seems that others are somehow ... maybe unfairly ... maybe always ... getting help and support ahead of us. 

From Sunday, August 21, 2018

Reading:  Daniel 3 (Three Jews in exile in Babylon -- Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, are working for the Babylonian imperial civil service and no one around them has any reason to suspect they are not just good Babylonians doing their job until their commitment to Yahweh and the ways of Yahweh bring them into conflict with the gods and ways of the empire.)

It can be discomfiting, but it’s good to be on the hot seat – to be in a situation where like gold or silver or steel being refined, we have a chance to show what we’re really made of – what the heart of our way of being human really is. 

It can be as simple but far-reaching as teaching your son to drive in a community arena parking lot in the winter, and after he slides your car into a parked car, leaving a dent in the bumper, having to choose whether to go in and find the car’s owner, leave a note with your name and number and an offer to make it right on the windshield, or just leave.

It can be as sudden as someone striking out against you, maligning you, hurting you, and people who know you are Christian watching to see what you say and do in response?

It can be as common as listening to others scapegoating immigrants or refugees or First Nations’ people or people of different gender identities, and having to choose if you will join the conversation and what you will say.

In the ancient folk tale of the fiery furnace, until Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are tossed into the fire they are not much different from other civil servants and citizens around them.  They are hard-working, honest, upright people -- just like other hard-working, honest, upright people of the empire.

They are Jews, of course, while their neighbours and co-workers are Babylonians.  They worship Yahweh and obey Yahweh’s Law, while their neighbours and colleagues worship the gods of Babylon and embrace the kind of violence, greed and brutality that those gods encourage.  But in their day-to-day work and life, there is not much difference, and no reason for anyone not to suppose these three are just good Babylonians like everyone else.

It’s only when their core allegiance is questioned and they face the fiery furnace of socio-politico-cultural-religious testing, that their relationship with a different God and their commitment to a different view of the world than their neighbours live by, becomes evident.  It is only then that people looking at them can see the "fourth figure" -- the living presence of God, with them.  It is only then that people who know them have any reason to make a decision themselves for or against the God these three men believe in and trust. 

And I wonder would any of them have done what they did, alone?  If even just one had backed out – had not been willing to endure the furnace, would the other two have had the faith and courage to do what they did?

Not that there’s anything magical about the number three.  We like the number three because of our trinitarian experience of God, and in engineering a triangle is the strongest and most stable of shapes.  But how stable is a lovers’ triangle?  And in family systems, triangulation and the inability of two people to deal with one another directly, is maybe the worst of all family dysfunctions to wander into.

So the point of the story is not the absolute value of three, but the fact of faithful companionship.  As much as we each have our own journey to live, our own faith to grow into, and our openness to God to affirm, we also all depend on the company of others for our journeys, our faith, and our openness to God to be good and strong.  Courage, commitment and comfort come to us in community.

I think of the den Hollander clan and all the families and friends who come to be attached to you and be part of your life in the world.  This is the second triple baptism we have shared and celebrated with you, and it happily reminds us of the communal nature of our faith and faithfulness.

I think of other families that have been at the heart of this church for generations, and how they help bring a particular vitality and resilience to this place.

I think of the church as a whole, and how we depend on, and reach out to one another to get through difficult and trying times.

I think of the global community of interfaith relationship – people of different religious traditions from all over the world today finding common ground and strength together against the evils and anxieties of our time that threaten to tear us apart as a human race, and destroy life on Earth.

In all this connectedness, being “one of the gang” and taking our place, as little as it may seem, in the larger cohort of all Earth’s people of faith, hope and love, is one of the more important things we do – for our own life and witness, for others who are encouraged and strengthened just by our being part of them, and for the well-being of Earth itself.

Because in the furnace of our time, through the horrible tests we face today as a species – as humanity on Earth, is it maybe not only our openness to one another within our own circles, but also our openness to others beyond ourselves that opens us in significant and saving ways to the One beyond us all?