The Light and Legacy of Jean Vanier: Sept 10, 1928 - May 7, 2019 (sermon from Sun, Sept 29, 2019)

Reading:  I John 4:6-7, 12-13, 18 

The early Christian church lived and carried out its mission in a culture as religiously diverse as ours.  The Roman Empire brought together all kinds of religious traditions, philosophies and spiritual cults.

In this setting, the Christians did not argue with others about doctrine, ideas, or articles of belief.  They focused instead on what they called “the way” – the way Jesus showed them of living God’s love into the world, and which they saw as the highest calling of every person.  God was not an abstract idea to discus, nor a distant being to study and describe.  Rather, God was a living, present spirit of love that they could open themselves to, and whose way of love could be their way of life by way of well.

Jean Vanier was born into privilege – on Sept 10, 1928, the 4^th of 5 children to Canadian Major-General George Vanier, who 30 years later was appointed Governor-General of Canada, and his wife Pauline while George was serving a diplomatic post in Switzerland.  Jean was educated in France and England, from the age of 13 trained for a career as a naval officer, and in World War 2 served with both the Royal and the Royal Canadian Navy. 

In 1945 while his father was Canadian ambassador to Paris, he and his mother went to assist survivors of Nazi concentration camps, and he never forgot the experience.  He went back to his naval career, but with a deep spiritual restlessness to do “something else.”  So he resigned his commission, and began studies in Paris towards a Ph.D. in philosophy and ethics which he got in 1966.

In 1964, though, through friendship with a local priest he became aware of the plight of thousands of people institutionalized with developmental disabilities.  He felt led to invite two men he came to know – Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, both severely disabled, to come live with him in an old house he bought in Trosly-Breuil, that he nicknamed l’Arche (the ark).  And that was the beginning of the rest of his life – living with and being a servant to developmentally challenged adults.

And in what he learned and how he was changed, through what he became and wrote and inspired others to see and to feel themselves, he became the founder of the worldwide network of l’Arche houses, the author of over 30 books about learning to be human together in this life, and a voice of wisdom that still reaches around the world.

With little bits like this:

YOU TUBE VIDEO:  “What it means to be fully human” (4:25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWrru31ZPzo 

If we were to list the major problems the world faces today, we might list things like hate, oppression, violence, injustice, greed, self-centredness, pollution and the destruction of creation. 

I wonder if Jean Vanier might say these are not the real problem – that they are critical issues we need to understand and address well and quickly if we or our grandchildren are to have a world left to live in, but that these are more symptoms and consequences of the realest and deepest problem, which is lack of love. 

Because without love – real, deep love for ourselves, for others, and for the world we will never really find the right answers to any of these issues. 

And without love – without knowing that I am loved, that I am important and that I count, which is something we all need and long to know all our, without being assured of this in deep ways within ourselves, in our resulting need to prove ourselves we simply continue to cause and create more of the trouble we already have.

So, how do we get to where we need to be?  All Jean Vanier can do is tell us how he got there in his life.

YOUTUBE VIDEO:  “Seeing God in others” (3:43) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_xDRTXb-_o 

So how do we get there in our lives?  And find our way into the covenant of life, and for life?

After Jean Vanier’s death Tina Bovermann, executive director of l’Arche USA was interviewed and was asked how we might find our way in to the legacy of Jean Vanier.

She said, of course, that some might choose to connect and engage with a local l’Arche community.  And there is one in Hamilton.

But, she goes on to say, “It’s not just about l’Arche.  It’s about reaching out to the person you don’t know, to the person who is ‘other.’

“Any of us can wake up in the morning and say today, at some point during the day, in the grocery store, in the bus, in some line where I’m waiting I’m going to engage with someone who is different, with someone who looks different from me, who speaks differently than I.  And we can try to have an encounter with that person.

“And to some extent that is Jean Vanier’s legacy.  And the ripple effect of these little acts in our daily living might be just as big as the ripple effects of his life.”

The last word goes to Jean Vanier. 

In one of his books, Life’s Great Questions, he writes about the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Jesus has been approached by a lawyer who wants to follow God’s way by loving his neighbour, so he asks Jesus, maybe in all good conscience, “Who is my neighbour?” 

To which Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan – a story about a person who proves to be a neighbour to someone who despises him.  Because what have Jews to do with Samaritans?  And therefore also, Samaritans with Jews?  

Which means, Vanier says, the point of Jesus' story is we do not get to choose our neighbours; rather, we choose only whether and how to love.  Our neighbour is whoever comes into our life, our world, our country, our community.  And the question, Jean Vanier says, is not, “who is our neighbour?” but rather, “how can we love?”