Towards the summer sermons 2017

Sermon and Worship series for summer 2017

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

(You, Too?)

Recently we celebrated and gave thanks for the safe arrival of the Assad family, refugees from Syria.  We are happy to have helped sponsor them, and to be able to help them find their way in their new home.  We hope that here they will find what they are looking for.

Their arrival got me thinking of my father -- a refugee from Russia in 1918 when he was only a few months old and his family was part of the wave of German families that had to flee for their lives after the Revolution, with only what they could carry with them, and then 11 years later an immigrant from Germany, where the family found a temporary home, to Canada where they settled for the rest of their life.  Looking back, I think I can say he and his family found what they were looking for -- which was mainly a safe and hopeful place to raise all of us who have come from them.

It does get me thinking, though.  Gets me wondering if I have found what I am looking for -- that is, most deeply looking for, in my life.

Have you?

The Bible is full of stories of people looking for something -- all kinds of things, things they have lost, things that have been taken away from them, things they've never had but that their hearts long for -- the kinds of things that make life whole and good, the way it's meant to be.

Their stories are our story as well, so this summer we'll spend a little time with some of them, with the deeper longings of our own hearts, and with God's care for us and what our hearts are still looking for.

Coincidentally ... and maybe reading about this got me started on this theme ... this summer U2 is on a 25th-anniversary tour of their landmark album, "The Joshua Tree" and one of the huge songs on it is "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."  Just to refresh your memory, here's a link to an old video of U2 singing the song with a Harlem Gospel Choir, with the choir absolutely taking the song over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MprgIton-W8&list=RDMprgIton-W8#t=16

And here's a tentative schedule for our summer worship and sermons:

July 2     Adam and Eve: looking for the garden
July 9     Abraham: looking to be a blessing (even though such a poor choice)
July 16   Ruth: looking for love, home and family
July 23   Joseph: looking for God and God's purpose in the chaos of his life
July 30   to be determined - a special treat
Aug 6     Jacob: looking (aching) to be forgiven, reconciled and at peace
Aug 13    David: looking and longing for a chance to do God's will
Aug 20    the exiles: looking for a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th?) chance
Aug 27    child Jesus: looking for a safe little place in the world to grow
Sept 3    John on Patmos: looking for a reason to believe

So I wonder, this summer can we get in touch with our own refugee nature?  With what our hearts are really looking for?  And with how God leads and helps us to find it?

Towards Canada Day Sunday, July 2, 2017

This morning a group of volunteers was hulling strawberries in the Lower Hall at the church.  As they finished and people began to leave, along with the words of thanks and farewell some offered their friends warm wishes to "have a good Canada Day."  A mix of life-long residents and immigrants who have done well in their adopted country, the wishes they shared for the national celebration were warm, sincere and grateful for the country they are part of.  

Earlier on the way in to church, though, listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio I heard one of three people interviewed about the holiday explaining why she will not be celebrating Canada Day and the 150th anniversary of Confederation this year.  Just recently sensitized in new and deep ways to Canada's historical and continuing abuse and neglect of the First Nations' peoples, she says honestly, humbly and even tearfully that right now she feels nothing to celebrate.

How do we honestly celebrate this occasion?

If you were to write A Prayer for Canada (which I hope still to do, to be part of our liturgy this Sunday), what would you write?

Things seem more complicated now than in 1967 when we so innocently celebrated Canada's Centennial.  In the past 50 years we have learned a lot of dark things about our history and culture that we still are needing to absorb, that we still need to learn from, and that will somehow have to be integrated in our self-image and conscious identity if we are really to be a mature, grown-up and healing society.

A few weeks ago we were blessed to receive back a quilt that was given 50 years ago as a wedding gift by one of our members to one of her grand-daughters.  It was a Canada Centennial quilt made by quilters at the church, with the Centennial logo and 1867-1967 on the front of the quilt.  The logo and the whole of the front are still in really good condition -- clean, well-cared for, still beautiful.

The back of the quilt, though, shows the wear of the years.  The back side is raggedy and worn thin, with a few holes showing, and it's clear that most of the batting is long gone.  In short, seen only from the back, the quilt looks a wreck.

Is that quilt a helpful image for Canada as we mark our 150th anniversary as a constituted country?

Can we at one and the same time, 

• celebrate 150 years of being a grand experiment in bringing together different cultures and peoples in co-operative peace and common vision, rather than just declaring the usual state of winners and losers (which vision is the genius of the BNA Act, at least as it concerns the French and English realities of the country),
• and lament that the vision was tragically restricted to French and English Europeans, that First Nations and other non-white and non-European peoples were not only excluded but were actively oppressed, and that our national history includes great hurt inflicted for a long time on many First Nations' and non-white and non-European peoples,
• and commit to the kind of learning, listening, repentance, growth and shared healing that we are called to, if we are really to be faithful to this grand 150-year-old experiment in being a nation of diverse and equal peoples living together in true peace?

Things really are more complicated for us at 150 than they were at 100.  But I guess that's the price of growing up.


The liturgy this Sunday will not be all about the 150th.  We will be starting a summer series that I'll say a bit about tomorrow or the day after.

But our liturgy will include A Prayer for Canada.  And whether you are here or elsewhere on Sunday, I trust you say will also say a little prayer for our country as we celebrate, lament and commit to being the kind of country God desires us to be.

From Sunday, June 25, 2017

Reading:  Mark 2:17
"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come not to call the righteous but sinners."

There was no sermon this week -- rather, some sharing, prayers and songs.  The following prayer (by a French priest named Michel Quoist) and story (offered by Karen Segrave) helped provide the heart of the liturgy.

“The Wire Fence,” Fr. Michel Quoist

The wires are holding hands

around the holes;

to avoid breaking the ring,

they hold tight the neighbouring wrist,

and it’s thus that with holes

they make a fence.

Lord, there are lots of holes in my life.

There are some in the lives of my neighbours.

But if you wish, we shall hold hands,

we shall hold very tight,

and together we shall make

a fine roll of fence

to adorn Paradise.

 THE QUILT HOLES

 

As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls.

Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life.

But as my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was.  They were filled with giant holes.  Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations I was faced with in everyday life.  I saw hardships that I endured, which were the largest holes of all.

I glanced around me.  Nobody else had such squares.  Other than a tiny hole here and there, the other tapestries were filled with rich color and the bright hues of worldly fortune.  I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened.

My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together, threadbare and empty, like binding air.

Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed, held up to the light, the scrutiny of truth.  The others rose; each in turn, holding up their tapestries.  So filled their lives had been. My angel looked upon me and nodded for me to rise.

My gaze dropped to the ground in shame.  I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes.  I had love in my life and laughter.  But there had also been trials of illness and wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world, as I knew it.  I had to start over many times.  I often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again.  I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life.  I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly judged me.

And now, I had to face the truth.  My life was what it was, and I had to accept it for what it was.

I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light.  An awe-filled gasp filled the air.  I gazed around at the others who stared at me with wide eyes.

Then, I looked upon the tapestry before me.  Light flooded the many holes, creating an image, the face of Christ.

Then our Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes.  He said, "Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles.  Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let Me shine through, until there was more of Me than there was of you."

May all our quilts be threadbare and worn, allowing Christ to shine through!

Towards Sunday, June 25, 2017

Reading: Mark 2:17 -- Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners."

Niceness can kill the church.  

Or at least, keep it from being the kind of church that we and other people sometimes need it to be. 

One Sunday maybe 45 or 50 years ago, Richard -- a minister at my family's church in Winnipeg, was preaching about anger.  He had our rapt attention.  In the few years he had been serving our church, we had come to know, love and respect his gentleness of spirit, his honesty and openness, and his amazingly deep biblical and theological understanding.

He was preaching about what it means to feel and face anger, to confess it and to find a faithful way through it, and he fleshed out the message with a story of his own life.  It was one Saturday night and early Sunday morning a few years before when both he and his wife had reached the end of their resources in trying to comfort their chronically cholicly daughter.  Around 3 am his wife -- completely exhausted, tried to sleep, while he -- with sermon still not quite finished because of a horrendous week he had, tried to quiet the little girl in his arms.  But she would not be quieted.  Her crying continued, and in one brilliantly flashing moment, Richard confessed, he found himself lost in total anger and imagining himself throwing his daughter against the wall just to make her be quiet.

I think at that moment I loved and respected Richard as my minister -- and just as a person, more than I have ever loved and respected any other.  All these years later, I still remember that sermon.  And I probably still cannot fathom how deeply it has shaped everything I really believe about God, life, love, faith and the meaning of church.

Others in the church felt differently, though.  Within days a number of people -- some of the elders included, made it clear how inappropriate they thought it was to hear such a thing in church, and from the minister of all people.  They never wanted to hear such a thing again.  It wasn't the kind of thing to talk about -- let alone preach about, at church.

It makes we wonder what church is for.

It makes me thankful for the times and ways the church has been what I needed it to be.  When and where it was a place to be able to talk about and deal with what I needed to talk about and deal with.

It makes me want the church to be that kind of place for others as well.

Sermon from Sunday, June 18, 2017

Reading:  Genesis 18:1-15

The location for this story – the Oaks of Mamre, is sacred to this day to Jews and Muslims -- lineal children of Abraham and Sarah, and to Christians -- adopted into their family.  An ancient oak still standing in what is now the city of Hebron, shows where once there was just an oasis where, according to the family story, Abraham and Sarah settled for a spell after separating from their nephew Lot, who chose instead the fertile plain around the ill-fated Sodom and Gomorrah.  While at Mamre, Abraham and Sarah receive three visitors who tell them God’s earlier promise of a child to be born to them will still come true, in spite of their advanced years.  Sarah’s derisive laughter provides the narrator an opportunity to ask, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”  

So that’s the story of how we began – the story of mom and dad, or maybe grandmom and grandpa, and how the family came to be.  Abraham and Sarah are lineal parents to the world-wide family of Jews and Arab Muslims, and spiritual parents or grand-parents to us as well – the outsiders adopted in. 

Who would have known that such a large and influential global family would come from two people that old – Abraham 99 and Sarah 90, kind of homeless in the world, and not overly successful by worldly standards?

But they were promised great things by God – things they could never have accomplished on their own, or just by themselves.

Mom, of course – grandma, Sarah – laughs.  She always is the practical one – the one who has to make ends meet.  She knows the limits they are living within.  She sees the losses and the things given up along the way.

She is also the bitterer one.  The one who by times can be resentful.  Cynical.  And if not depressed herself, certainly depressing for others around her.

I know sometimes I’m like that, and I wonder if I get it from her.  All through my life I’ve suffered a kind of anxiety about whether I have what it takes and have what’s needed.  I second-guess my own decisions.  I worry about failure and of not measuring up.  To what, I’m not always sure – and maybe that’s why the anxiety is so difficult to deal with. 

And as I get older, it only gets worse.  I’m not ninety like Sarah, but as I look back on a long road behind and a short road ahead, I wonder sometimes if there still will be time to learn what I haven’t yet learned, become what I haven’t yet become, correct and create what I haven’t yet corrected or created.

Sometimes the doubts weigh heavy, like a great overcoat or heavy cloak weighing down the soul, limiting the mind, and keeping the body from really doing what it most wants to be able to do in the world.

So what a telling image it is of Sarah, while Abraham is chatting about the promised future with God and God’s angels – that Sarah is back in the tent, isolated and cut off, both God’s and the angels’ faces hidden from her because she is behind them, and she hidden from them because of where and how she is.

Of course she is expected to be in the tent.  It is her place to be because she is a woman of her time, and also because it is the safer place to be against any harm.

But it is also welcome to her.  It is easy and comfortable.  It is the safer place to be against having to take any risks, or trust any promise.  It’s a guard against being open and vulnerable.

So unlike Abraham – her partner, our father, our grand-father in the faith. 

He sits in the entranceway of the tent – on the threshold between what and who is inside and what and who is outside; between what we have and already know, and what may come and is yet to be seen; between what we can control and try to maintain, and what others, the world, life and even God may yet bring and reveal to us.

And when Abraham sees the three strangers approaching, does he know from the start that he is looking at angels and at the Lord?  Or does he see only strangers, three “others”?

There’s no way of knowing because Abraham doesn’t say much about it.  He tends more to listen than to talk.  He watches to see what’s going to happen, and what may emerge.  He is open, and willing to wait for what is true and good to unfold.

And on one level the hospitality he offers is nothing exceptional.  It’s the practice of the time of that kind of place.  In the wilderness and as a nomad, it’s the custom when strangers come to your encampment, to offer them water and a meal and a chance to rest.  Because who knows when you may be in the same position yourself someday, dependent on the kindness of strangers?  Not being readily hospitable is not a way for any society to be.

And Abraham doesn’t do it all by himself.  He tells Sarah to bake the cakes.  Tells the servant to prepare the calf.  Probably has other servants help bring the water, and serve the curds and milk.  The whole household is involved in this act of charity and service of others, and of openness to receive the seed of whatever holy future this present moment might hold.  As open as Abraham is to God and God’s good will, he is open as well to his need of other people to help him live within it and towards it.

And sometimes I’m like that, too – sometimes I am aware of his DNA in my spirit as well, when I am able to be open to others and to what they bring, receiving and accepting others as I know I am received and accepted, believing in the promise of something good being done in me and through me and even because of me, waiting in faithful patience for the future to be revealed, trusting in God’s good will being done even through me and living towards it even when I can’t yet see just how on Earth it will happen.

Sometimes like Abraham I come out from the tent and sit in the entranceway – on the threshold between what is and what is not yet.  And as I sit there with my father, with all our father and grand-father in the faith, it feels good to be with him and be like him – maybe even be a father for someone else in the way I am able to be open to the possibility, the presence, the promise and the power of God in the present moment – be a father, a mother, a parent or grand-parent of faith to people who for better and worse look to me – look to us, as examples of how to live in the ongoing family of faith.

A final thought, though, before I celebrate too simply the moments when I am able to find my way into the way of Abraham – we read three chapters later (in Genesis 21:1-7) that:

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.  Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.  Abraham gave the Isaac (meaning, "to laugh" or "he laughs") to his son whom Sarah bore him... Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.  Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me."  And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?  Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."

Isaac is the son of both Abraham and Sarah together.  It's not just one or the other, but the two together and out of the relationship, the openness, and the dialogue between them -- or the tri-alogue between them and God, that new life is born and they become the blessing to the world they are promised to be.

I am both Sarah and Abraham -- both imprisoned and burdened by doubt, cynicism and regret, and open to what is not yet, but is promised, will be accomplished in me, and will be seen.  And the fruitfulness of my life comes from learning to know these two very different spiritual realities within me, the room I make for them both in my journey and in my prayers, and the ways I allow them to be in relationship and dialogue together.

Father Abraham, open to God's promise.  Mother Sarah, closed up in doubt.  What a pair you are.  And what a wonderfully complex family of children we are who God brings into the world through you.

Sermon from Sunday, June 11, 2017

Reading:  Psalm 8 and Matthew 28:16-20

There’s something about the deep silence of the stars at night and the vast expanse of the sky above, when we open ourselves to it, that brings out and puts us in touch with a kind of holiness within ourselves, and about us. 

And there’s something about the happy gurgling of a baby and the unfiltered chatter of a little child that, when we open ourselves to it, brings out and puts us in touch with a particular depth and gentleness of humanity within ourselves, and around us.

I know when I walk first thing in the morning, often just as the sun is beginning to rise, it makes a world of difference if I walk with head down and eyes focused mostly on the sidewalk at my feet, the street alongside me, and the houses on either hand, or whether I walk with head up and eyes opened to the vastness of the sky above, the clouds, the rising sun, the darkness gradually giving way to the changing hues of dawn, the awareness of the world turning surely and slowly  towards the light of a new day.

The first way, I am very much just a little man bent over, thinking ahead of my plans and projects for the day, already arranging what I will do, wondering if I will perform well, worrying if I will succeed, or am I a failure, and what must I do to prove my worth today.  And isn’t that the way much of life is lived?  Isn’t that the way of much of the world, and the way of many of my own days?

The second way, though, I am an upright man, opened to a world and a cosmos beyond my design and control, grateful for it, aware of a Creator in whose loving hands all things are held for good, greater than myself, in whom and to whom I can trust my being.  I become aware of the holiness of Earth and cosmos, grateful to be raised up for one more day to be part of it, and wanting only to love and care for what I see and what is around me.

And it need not be the stars, the sky or the morning sun that draws us into this grateful and holy humility.  It might be a morning or evening or even mid-afternoon walk by the lake.  A walk up the escarpment and a look back at the view beneath.  For me, it was always the sight of the prairie opening out in all directions forever.  It might be a storm of especial ferocity, a field of sunflowers, the mountains.  But there is something – always something in this world that God has gathered together, to draw the human soul to a place of wonder, a place of grateful trust, and a place of longing for right relation with all that is.

And isn’t that the way of Jesus?  The way of his life, the way of his followers, and the way he says will save us and save the world around us?

One thing that was revolutionary about Jesus is the way he sums up all the law and the prophets, all the rituals and teachings that people try so hard to live up to, to just two commands – the two great commandments that were there all along, but had gotten buried under a boatload of other stuff – the two commands to love God with all our being and doing, and to love our neighbour as ourself.

It is also Jesus who not only takes a little child – maybe a gurgling baby or a babbling little toddler, up into his arms to lift them up and bless them as bearers and images of God, but also tells his followers and his detractors and all of us to become like them if we want to be healed and made whole, and want the world to be healed and made whole as well.

Like children, to have our lives be bracketed behind and before by the love of God, like the psalm this morning is bracketed with the praise of God’s creative love, beginning with the memory and the praise of God’s creative love: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” and coming to rest at the end the exact same praise: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Like a child going out in the morning from God’s house, aware of God’s love, returning in the evening to the same home and same loving embrace, and in the time in between – the day-time of all our living, opened to a world and a cosmos of God’s design, aware of its holiness, grateful to be raised and sent out to be part of it, wanting only to love and care for what is around you, wanting only to be in right relation with all that is.

It’s a way of true and truly human living that we and the world are in need of, and isn’t that at least part of Jesus’ way of being in the world?  The kind of opened-ness to Creator and to all creation that Jesus lives, that he shows, and that he encourages and enables and expects in his followers as well, and that he helps us get in touch with within ourselves? 

In the Gospels when people see and hear him, he is like the starry night sky, like the morning sunrise, like the baby’s innocent gurgle, like a little child’s unfiltered conversation that helps others get in touch with their own inner holiness and their own deepest humanity. 

And when the first disciples see Jesus again after he has been put to death on a cross – when they go to the mountain in Galilee that he told them to go to, and they see him there raised up from death by God, they simply know again what they really already knew all along – that they just have to tell whoever they can that this is the way we all are meant to live, that this is the way the world is saved.

It doesn’t mean we need to make everybody Christian, and get all the world signed up as members of the church – offering envelopes included, maybe put them on a committee as well.

It does mean, though, that we live as consciously as we can with the inner holiness and opened humanity that starry night skies and morning sunrises put us in touch with.  That we live as intentionally as we can with the kind of compassion and openness to all others and to all creation that Jesus puts us in touch with. 

And that we let people see it.  In the way we treat others.  In the ways we talk about other people.  In the things we give ourselves to, and the things we care about.   In what we post on Facebook and share by email.  In how we spend our time and money.  In what we live for, and what we want out of life.  In what we give to life.  In what we support and give our energy to, and what we volunteer for.

In all these ways, we let people know what gives us real life.  We let people be touched by it.  We let the world be aware that there is a way of being human that is good, that we all are capable of, for the good of all the world that God has gathered together.

And as Jesus says, there’s no end to all the ways in which true and deep humanity can be lived out in God’s good and holy world.