Reading:  Isaiah 11:1-10
(The people are at risk, scattered in exile in foreign countries, subject to -- and being victimized by, alien laws and powers.  Through the prophet, God promises a new leader who will be rooted in the ancient wisdom, and will embody the best essence of their history and tradition, who will gather them again in a kingdom that is safe for all -- safe for all life together -- for the poor, the meek, children, babies, bears, wolves, lions, lambs, asps and adders all dwelling together in peace.)

 "The Peaceable Kingdom" by Edward Hicks (1780-1849)

Hicks was an American folk painter and a 

religious minister of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Recently, at a meeting in the Board Room at another Hamilton church, I noticed a wonderful old nativity set sitting atop a cabinet in a corner of the room.  From where I was sitting I could see enough of the set to discern a moss-covered stable made of thick bark with a variety of hand-painted figures arranged inside it. And I also noticed something else a little odd, placed at a strange angle at the very front of the set, near where I imagined the holy manger (which I could not see) must have been placed.

Once the meeting was over I went over to the cabinet, stood on a chair to be able to see the whole of the creche, and sure enough ... I was right, there was a lion with fearsome mouth wide open standing just inches from the manger and its precious baby.

I was tickled by the sense of humour someone had to add this lion to the traditional nativity set.  I wondered if it was an import from a Lion King set.  But the scale of the lion was perfectly matched to that of the other characters; it was as though it had always been meant to be there.

And I was reminded of the prophecy that in the kingdom of the leader who most embodies God's righteousness and justice, the lion and lamb will lie down together, and not even the poorest infant will suffer hurt.

I wonder how we get there, though.  The world has known a number of leaders who in their own ways have not only taught but have practiced the vision and hope of the peaceable kingdom -- Jesus among them, but not only Jesus.  

So why are we still in a world so much at odds?  Part of a race so fearfully at war with itself and with the rest of Earth?

Are we simply to wait for "the end of time"?  Is it somehow out of our hands, and out of reach?

Or is it already and always time to be doing something about it?  To be discovering, embracing and even creating ways of making the peaceable kingdom come true, at least for some little part of this planet and its life -- whatever little part we can have a hand in helping to arrange in some new, delightfully holy way?

Towards Sunday, Nov 27, 2016 (Advent 1)

Reading: Isaiah 2:15 and Romans 13:11-14

"We have to start over again?"
"Always."
"But I thought we had come so far."
"We did.  And we have."
"Then why are we back where we are now?"
"Because each good thing must be done not only once, but over and over again."


Where, and between whom, do you imagine this conversation happening right now?  You can pick a country -- almost any country, and realize that some of the lost ground and resurrected demons that are the reason for conversations like this, are truly frightening.


"We have to start over again?"
"Always."
"But I thought we had come so far."
"We did.  And we have."
"Then why are we back where we are now?"
"Because each good thing must be done not only once, but over and over again."


This is also the conversation of Advent in Christian churches around the world.

Since last Christmas we have journeyed through a whole liturgical year

• seeing Jesus be born (Christmas) and the light of Christ enter the world (Epiphany), 
• confessing that we and the world resist it (Lent) to the point of death (Holy Week and Good Friday), 
• celebrating that God's light returns (Easter) and then even becomes part of us as we allow ourselves to be aware of it (Pentecost), 
• so we then actively become part of the light, spreading all through the world (Ordinary Time),
• towards Earth coming to show the fullness of the kingdom (Reign of Christ Sunday).

But alas!  


"We have to start over again?"
"Always."
"But I thought we had come so far."
"We did.  And we have."
"Then why are we back where we are now?"
"Because each good thing must be done not only once, but over and over again."


This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent -- time again to open ourselves anew to the promise of Christ, the hope of the kingdom, and the continuing transformation and liberation from evil -- stage by steady stage, step by painful step, year by holy year, of ourselves, humanity and all Earth.

On Sunday the choir presents its annual choral worship -- this year around the theme of not losing, but rather re-finding Christ at the heart of Christmas.  

And surely this is a good place for us to start.  

The world's religious traditions are not just a nice add-on to human life on Earth.  At times, misinterpreted and mis-used, they are a big part of the world's woe.  But today we especially need the people of all religious traditions to rediscover and reclaim the real central core of their faith, and to begin to live more vigourously and co-operatively than maybe ever before the real and true core of what all religious traditions most truly teach and enable -- a life of love for all that is, of right relations, of peace and well-being for all. 

And we are no exception to this call to return to the start.  It's what Advent is. 

  
"We have to start over again?"
"Always."
"But I thought we had come so far."
"We did.  And we have."
"Then why are we back where we are now?"
"Because each good thing must be done not only once, but over and over again."


And ... if you feel like a little more reading, a personal rendering of Isaiah 2:1-5:

In a time when the people were anxious and afraid -- 
    when all they had built up, as a society,
    when all they had trusted in, as a nation,
    when all they had begun to hope, as a race
was corrupted and collapsing,
    and they were afraid for the future,
God sent them a messenger, named Isaiah, who said:

There will come a time -- do not worry,
    when the word and ways and wisdom of God
    will be revered;
    when people of all nations will know
    their need of wisdom and a way,
    and people of all kinds will be ready
    to be taught.
Then those who have let themselves be taught shall teach,
and the wisdom of God shall be sown in the earth.
God's ways shall become the ways of judging conflict,
might shall no longer over-rule right,
tools of peace will be valued over weapons of war,
and people will be taught to make peace, not violence
in all their relations.

So come, 
you who are willing to struggle with God through the night,
let us walk by the light we are given by our Lord.

Sermon from Sunday, Nov 20, 2013 (Reign of Christ Sunday)

Reading:  Luke 23:33-43

The appointed Gospel reading seems odd and unsettling for this time of year.  It is part of the story of the death of Jesus, which we normally read on Good Friday.

But on the Sunday that some call “Christ the King Sunday,” this reading makes us wonder: what kind of king is Jesus? what does the kingdom of God mean to Jesus?  what kind of kingdom does Jesus practice, and invite us to be part of as well, in the midst of the kingdoms of the world?

 

It really is an odd, unsettling reading for today.

For one thing, don’t we do the cross just on Good Friday?  For another, is this the best story we can find for Reign of Christ Sunday – a story of Jesus in the hands of his enemies and doing nothing to save himself, and of him hanging with thieves and simply opening the door to paradise – just like that, to one of them?

It’s an odd, unsettling story.  But we are living in a time of unsettling stories.

My wife’s sister has a friend you may have heard about or seen in the local news in the last week or so.  Her name is Janice and she was standing one day in a check-out line at a grocery store or drug store in Dundas.  Beside her was the usual display of chocolate bars, mints and cough drops, tabloids and newspapers.  Janice is black, and an older man just ahead of her -- maybe in his 70's and white, turned around to look at her, pointed to a newspaper in the display beside them showing a picture of the recently elected president of the United States, and said to her, “That's why we elect people like that – to get rid of people like you.”

The worst part of that story – to her who lived it, and to others who have heard it, is that no one in that line said anything.”

And this is becoming more common.  This week the front door of a Rabbi’s home in Ottawa was painted with swastikas and an anti-Semitic word was painted across the wood.  Parkdale United Church, again in Ottawa, was painted with racist graffiti on Thursday of this past week – for the second time this year.  A mosque in Ottawa was also targeted.

We like to think we are decent, honest, kind people.  But who knows what darkness, what anger, what hurt has been brooding beneath the surface, hidden in the DNA of our dominion – our kingdom, and now has been set free, has been given permission to come out into the open?

It’s Reign of Christ Sunday.  Some call it Christ the King Sunday, and today’s Gospel reading makes us wonder what kind of king Jesus is; what the kingdom of God means to him; and what kind of kingdom Jesus practices, and invites us to be part of as well, in the midst of the kingdoms of this world?

From a colleague, Rev. David Shearman of Owen Sound, I read this story as well this week – one that Salma Hamadi of Toronto shared on Facebook.

Hamadi, an Iranian immigrant who has lived in Canada for approximately 12 years, says when she was on the subway last week, a Latino man threw down his skates and sat down in front of her holding his head repeatedly saying, “Oh God!”  He was alone and distraught.

But then a fellow passenger reached out.   Hamadi says, “The Russian guy sitting beside him asks if everything is OK in a pretty heavy accent.  The Iranian says he has a horrible headache and he’s running late for an interview.”

That's when Hamadi offers him an Advil.  He thanks her, but says he has nothing to take it with.  So, says Hamadi, “the Middle Eastern woman sitting beside me wearing [a] hijab, takes out a juice box from her kid's backpack and gives it to him, telling him that if he takes it now he'll feel better by the time he gets to the interview.”

The man says he’s nervous.  Being an employer, Hamadi assures him that everything will be okay.  She recommends that he not make excuses, but rather simply say that he's late and apologize.

Then others on the train also decide to help him prepare for his interview.  “The Russian tells him to walk in confidently and to tie his hair back if he [can],” she says.  “A Chinese teenager sitting on his other side hands him a hair tie, saying she has a million of them.”  The Muslim woman tells him to smile a lot as people are more willing to trust you if you smile. 

And when the man gets to his station, they all wish him good luck in his interview.  Hamadi concludes her story by saying, “Now if THIS isn't the ultimate Canadian experience short of a beaver walking into a bar holding a jar of maple syrup, I don't know what is!”

I wonder if it’s also a little more of a kingdom of God story – Jesus-style.

It’s hard to imagine Jesus as King building walls against people who want to come in.  It’s hard to imagine Jesus not reaching out to any who need help.  It’s hard to imagine the Kingdom of Jesus having slogans like, “Make America Great Again” or “Canada for Canadians” – especially with all that these slogans really mean under the surface.  It’s hard to imagine the kingdom of Jesus having hard and fast boundaries, barriers or barbed wire fences between people who are “good” and people who are “bad,” as though “we” and “they” – whoever “they” are, whoever “the other” is, need to be kept out and separate from “us.” 

In the story of Parkdale United in Ottawa that was painted with racist graffiti both this week and back in January, David Shearman went on to mention the response of Anthony Bailey, the minister at Parkdale, when he was asked by the Ottawa Citizen what he would say to the perpetrators if they were caught.  He replied, “If I could ever meet these perpetrators, I'd love to take them to lunch and sit down and talk with them about why they believe the way they do and invite them to a different way of looking at how we ought to live together.  They'll get a free lunch out of it if nothing else.”

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

And so to return to the story of Janice in the check-out line.  I wonder how that situation might have been saved, might have become a moment of healing and saving grace, might have become an instance of the kingdom of God on Earth, if only one person in that line overhearing that old man’s vicious comment, had just stood and quietly said, “I don’t feel that way; I don’t think that’s right.”

No more need have been said.  Certainly not something like, “Maybe it’s you who should go.”  Nor anything like, “We’d all be better off without you.”  But, if someone were really moved by the spirit of Jesus and courageous enough to express it, maybe they’d also say something like, “You must be hurting a lot, to say that.  You must have lost a lot, to feel that way.”

Because there it is.  Isn’t that the good news, and what Advent and the promise of God’s kingdom is about? 

It’s about a kingdom of life that’s open to all who are capable of being honest about themselves and lovingly open to others and to God all around them – a kingdom that Jesus brings to life in the midst of all the other kingdoms of the world, a kingdom we are graciously invited by him, to be part of ourselves.

Towards Sunday, November 20, 2016 (Reign of Christ Sunday)

Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6 

Looking at the people in exile, having lost their kingdom to barbarians and other powers, Jeremiah says:

Woe to the leaders who have not taken care of the flock! says God.
It's the old leaders who are to blame, for not taking care of all the flock.
So I will take care of them! says God.

And then I will gather together all the bits of the flock they didn't take care of;
I will bring them together, and I will give them new leaders who will listen to them
and take care of them better than the old leaders did, says God.

Wow!  So easy to imagine Donald Trump and the alt-right interpreting these verses as divine justification -- even premonition, of their electoral win, and the defeat of Hilary Clinton and the old political establishment.

I think it just goes to show, though, how dangerous Bible proof-texting can be.  Because the next verses go on to describe the new leaders (or leader?) that God will provide:

I will cause a righteous branch to grow up from the stump of what they have become, God says;
a leader who will deal wisely,
who will execute justice in the land, fairly giving all, all that they need;
who will cause righteousness and right relations to flourish;
who will save all the people, by helping them live in harmony with God's good will for all.

Okay, so the old leaders and the establishment had their (severe) faults -- including corruption, but also in the way they did not listen to, or execute real care for those who were left behind in the globalization of the last decades and who still resisted and felt betrayed by the progressive reforms of those same decades.  And there is something right about those leaders finally being brought up short, for their short-comings and sins.

But the new leaders -- in the way they have managed to normalize hate, greed, lies and untruth, and disregard for -- even attack against, anyone who is "other" to them, cannot be God's promised shepherds either.

All of which seems to make Christmas and maybe especially Advent all the more significant this year as celebrations of faith -- of faith in a particular incarnation of God and God's promised way of wholeness and healing in history and among us.

As we think of our current political and cultural climate, what really does it mean this year to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnation of God and of God's good will?

Sermon from Sunday, Nov 6, 2016 (Remembrance Sunday)

Reading:  Haggai 1:15b - 2:9

How many people, how many nations, how many cultures have stood in history and on the face of the Earth, where Haggai and the people of Israel stood in 520 BCE? 

In a broken space.  In the ruins of their culture and society.  Their life destroyed.  Landmarks gone.  All they had been and all they had built up, broken down by the power of others against them.

Maybe it was the consequence of their own pride, arrogance and evil – a just punishment that they were suffering.  Or maybe they were a victim of others’ pride and evil.  Whatever the reason, though, they are in ruins and are broken.

Think of Germany after the First Great War.  Japan after the second.  The American South after the Civil War.  The First Nations of Canada, and the United States, and Central and South America even today.

So what is God’s way and will and word in the face and in the wake of that kind of destruction and ruin?

According to our faith tradition – the story of Israel and of Jesus, God’s word, will and way is about rebuilding.  And rebuilding not for the sake of re-armament, nor for revenge.  Not even for defence.  But rebuilding towards peace – towards a new beginning, a new and better way forward for all together.

In the story today, there are three movements we can see in that direction – three directions in which to look and live in rebuilding towards peace.

The first is to look at the ruin.  Really look at it.  Take the time to see brokenness of what is there, the scattered remains of what was.  Take the time to lament the loss and the state it’s all in now.

Because it was worth something.  That which was destroyed, counted – and still counts in the history of Earth and humanity.  It is not just dead and gone, disappeared forever, because what was and what was destroyed, was part of the image of God on Earth, part of the wisdom and fullness of God breathed into and lived out in history and in humanity – and that never disappears or is gone.

No people, no culture, no nation ever really just dies and disappears, and those whose country, whose culture and whose life have been destroyed need to be able to lament and grieve the brokenness and the scattered pieces.

And the victors over them – the victors in the strife, the conquerors and dominators of the time, if they are wise, let them do it.  They don’t demand that the weaker ones assimilate.  They don’t demand that they let go of what and who they were.  They don’t practice cultural genocide, or any kind of genocide.

In Israel’s story, for all the barbarity and evil of their conquerors – of the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians in turn, their conquerors and dominators still allowed the people of Israel their identity.  Even in defeat and exile, even as they took them captive and made them serve the empire, they allowed the people to maintain themselves as a distinct and separate community.  They allowed them their own ways of gathering, of believing, and of practicing and even growing their faith tradition.  In time, they even let them return to their land; they let them go home.

Which leads to the second thing – the second direction and movement of rebuilding towards peace, which is looking back and remembering the glory of what was and what they were.  This is where the people are in the story today.  They are sorting through the rubble, remembering what was good, remembering the glory that was theirs, and they are sifting and sorting it out from what was bad and unfaithful.

Because every story, every people, every culture is a mixture of both.  And it’s the people themselves – not some outsider, but the people who are that culture, whether at the moment they are the winners or the losers, who need to sort out for themselves what was good and bad.  It’s the people of every culture who need to tell their own story to themselves and to others, as honestly and faithfully as they can.

And that then opens the way for the third thing – the third movement of rebuilding towards peace, which is to look beyond one’s self and one’s own culture, to what all the world has to offer in finding and fashioning a new way of being together.

Haggai says an interesting thing in his preaching to the people.  According to Haggai, God says of the rebuilding of the temple: “Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor…The silver is mine, and the gold is mine … The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former … and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

There are at least two ways to interpret and live this out.  One, which is how different people all through history, including us, have often taken it, is an imperialist reading that says in effect, “O good, now it’s our turn to be on top.  For so long others were simply taking from us, and now it’s our turn to take from them.  All the world is ours to use, and we will gather what we need for our benefit.  Our temple now will be the one that is glorious with all the good things of the world.”

We know well that way of taking the promise, because that’s so often the way rebuilding goes in the world.

But there is another way of understanding it – a way more in keeping overall with our faith tradition and the story of God that we know.  It’s that this promise of shaking the earth and bringing forth all kinds of good treasures and gifts, is a promise and a sign of a new kind of openness, a new kind of dialogue, a new kind of sharing among all peoples and nations and cultures – with each having some part to play, some gift to offer, some wisdom to share, some good thing to contribute towards a new day of well-being for all.

And isn’t that really the promise, and the kind of rebuilding that is God’s will and way for humanity and for the good of all Earth?

God’s will in the wake of brokenness – which always is, and God’s way in the face of destruction – which always happens, is rebuilding towards peace. 

And the only question may be, are we up to it?

Or, because in Christ and by the power of Spirit we are, maybe the question is simply, what is my part?  What is your part?  What part are we invited to play with others in God’s work of rebuilding towards peace in our time?