Baptizing children in the light of the TRC (sermon from Sun, Sept 26, 2021)

 Reading: Matthew 18:1-5; 19:13-14

The Gospel stories about Jesus and his disciples do not romanticize or idealize his disciples as much as we sometimes do.  When you read the Gospels without the rose-coloured glasses that we sometimes wear in church, you see the disciples as real people who don’t always get it right.  In fact, often get it wrong.

Why Jesus put up with, or even picked them in the first place, is a bit of a mystery.  But then, why he picks us and puts up with us, is often just as much a mystery.  It’s one of the mysteries of God that we are best just to be grateful for.

We read in 18:1-5:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  (Sounds like something we might ask?)  

He called a child ... (and we have to remember that children in Jesus’ day had no standing really in society, and no rights.  They were the property of their parents.  They were expected to stay in the background where they belonged.  They had no voice or power of any kind.) 

So … he called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” 

Well, Jesus made his point.  And in the next chapter we see how well it stuck, in 19:13-14: 

Then – a little further on – little children were being brought to him that he might lay his hands on them in blessing, and pray for them.  The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them, but Jesus indignantly said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”  And he laid his hands on them to bless them and pray for them, and went on his way.

 

Reflection 

“Welcome the little children, for it is to them and those who welcome them, that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

This week, in our in-person worship, we welcomed the youngest son of one of our families into the church and into family of God, in baptism.  It was easy.  Fun.  Familiar.  And everyone was one their best behaviour. 

But what about in the real world?

I wonder, what do you do … what do you say when a four-year child of your neighbour, who normally greets you with a happy “Hi Bwian,” one day bursts happily out of the back door of his house, sees you working in your back yard, and delightedly hollers out, “Hi Poopoo Bwian!”? And laughs his head off with delight at his own marvelous wit?

Do you – as you may be tempted by the rebel child within yourself, join him in the game and greet him with a similar title?  Probably not with his mother standing just fifteen feet away, working in her garden, and overhearing the whole of whatever conversation will ensue.

So, thinking quickly and letting the rational part of take over, do you take this moment to try to chide the child on his poor manners and instruct him in social etiquette – no matter how sternly or gently you phrase it, speaking down to him as someone to be corrected and fixed by you?  Taking the side, you might think, of the parent standing nearby.

Third thought: do you just ignore what you’ve heard?  Take the easy way out, not acknowledge what you’ve heard, and not speak with or to the child at all?  Just carry on with your own business in your own backyard, and let someone else – let mom, deal with this?

Or – maybe you get to this point, do you walk over to the four-year-old happily waiting for a response, lean on the face to be close to him, and try to find the words to tell him you feel sad to be called – you know what – because you don’t think you are. And can you and he make a deal to try not to call one another that in the future?

In other words … welcome him in.  Welcome him into conversation together.  Open the door – not just of your backyard, but of your heart – and welcome him in to see a little more fully who you are inside, how you feel in your heart at that moment, and what’s important to you in this relationship.  Speaking not down or even just to him, but straight across and with him – inviting friendship with him, increasing awareness of how you each feel by telling him honestly how you feel, inviting respect for one another’s feelings, and maybe together being able to agree on how to treat one another well.

It’s amazing what a child can draw us into.  What a child can draw out of us and the kind of people they can help us become, when we choose to be welcoming – which really means opening the door and inviting in.  More than just a passing “Hi! How are you?” it kind of means, “Well, there you are – come in.”  It means opening the door of your home, your heart, your life, so the other can come for a while, have a look around at what’s in there, and get to know you better.

It doesn’t always happen that way, of course.  We hear too much in the news about how children are treated, and when we’re honest, also know too much about ourselves, to think we’re always that good, creative, and self-opening in our responses to little children.  With their innocence, powerlessness, irrationality and difference from how we prefer to be as adults and grown-ups, as big people in control, they can bring out and reveal the worst in us as well as the best.  I don’t even have to name any of the ways in which we have seen this happen over and over again.

But Jesus, as aware as he is of the worst in us, never fails to invite us also to know and to show the best.  Because the best is in us – it’s breathed into us at our creation and birth, and maybe only just needs encouragement to come out, affirmation when it does, and remembering what it is to help it keep being shown again and again.

So, to rephrase in a Gospel way what was just said above, it really is amazing how children, in their innocence, powerlessness, irrationality and difference from how we are as adults and grown-ups, as big people in control, can bring out the best in us, as well as the worst.

Probably no one in our time, for instance, will forget the name and the story of Alan Kurdi, the 3-yrear-old Syrian boy found on a Mediterranean shore, whose picture was seen around the world in a matter of minutes, and within hours and days sparked and ignited a global commitment to help find safe places for Syrian refugees to live.

No one in Canada – at least in our time, will forget the number 215.  No matter how many more unmarked graves are found, the number 215 will be the one we remember.  The thought of 215 little lives lost, and the displays across the country 215 pairs of little shoes will continue to prick our conscience for some, and drive at least some a few more steps in the journey towards truth and reconciliation with the First Nations, with others, and with our own past.

It really is amazing how children, in their innocence, powerlessness, irrationality and difference from how we are as adults and grown-ups, as big people in control -- and maybe especially when they are radically different from us, can bring out the best in us, as well as the worst.  Maybe and hopefully, the best in us instead of the worst.

Jesus says, “Welcome the little children.  It is to them and to those who welcome them – it is in their connection and relationship together of welcome, that the kingdom of God is.”

 

Questions for Consideration and Reflection  

What children have you welcomed in some way – either big or little, into your home, your heart, or your life?  How have they changed you for the better?   

Give thanks to God for them and for their effect on you … as well as for any good you might have done them.

Knowing that in Jesus’ time as well as ours, little children are just the tip of an iceberg of all kinds of people in the world -- adult and young, who are powerless, overlooked, pushed aside, expected to stay quiet and subservient in the background, who else around you today, is powerless … or overlooked … or pushed aside … or expected to stay quiet in the background … that you might feel called to welcome in some way into your heart, your home, your round of activities, your range of concerns, your life?   

Give thanks to God for them … and answer the call.

May God be with you, and may God be between you and them, as you do.

The Light of the World: Re-Connecting with the Source

 Jesus bids us shine, with a clear, pure light,

Like a little candle burning in the night;

In this world of darkness, we must shine,

You in your small corner, and I in mine.

Jesus bids us shine, then, for all around,

Many kinds of darkness in the world abound;

Sin and want and sorrow, so we must shine,

You in your small corner, and I in mine.

Reading: Matthew 5:14-16 

Chapters 5-7 of The Gospel of Matthew comprise what we know as the Sermon on the Mount, a series of teachings offered to the crowd that gathered around Jesus early in his ministry.  Taken all together, the Sermon on the Mount is a bold statement of the kind of life, the kinds of choices, and the kind of relationships that Jesus expects of those who follow him.

Remarkably, Jesus addresses this teaching to the crowd – to ordinary people, who normally expected the rabbis, the teachers and the priests to be the ones to set the example for others.  Jesus calls on them – on people just like us, to be an example to the world of how God intends all people to live.

You are the light of the world. 

A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl;

Instead, they put it on a lampstand, where it gives light for everyone in the house.

In the same way, your light mist shine before before people,

so that they will see the good things you do

and praise your Father in heaven.

Reflection

You are the light of the world.  How does it feel?

The song says we “shine with a pure, clear light, like a little candle burning in the night.  In this world of darkness, so let us shine, you in your small corner, and I in mine.”

Do you feel like you’re shining like that right now?  Or do you feel somewhat dimmed?  Starting to flicker and fade?  Or even snuffed out?

Jesus means us when he says “you are the light of the world.”

In the story, he is talking to ordinary people just like us.  At this point in the story – the chunk of chapters called The Sermon on the Mount, he’s not talking with the rabbis.  Not talking shop with the teachers and the lawyers.  Not discussing the mystery of God with the priests.

He’s standing on a hillside preaching to a crowd of ordinary people just like us, who struggle day by day to get by, who live a lot of their life hand to mouth, who’ve been hurt and humbled along the way, who’ve been wounded by life and step by hard step been opened up to become real people – real, down-to-earth human beings.

The other thing about them is that they’ve gathered around him specifically to listen to the good news of God’s love for them, to hear and learn about how to live in a truly holy way, and to find their place in bringing the kingdom of God to light on Earth. 

And isn’t that also us?  For 225 years – yes, it’s been 225 years! – the Fifty congregation has been like that in this little corner of the world.  Since the first Methodist assembly of United Empire Loyalist refugees gathered on the bank of Fifty Creek, this has been a place where people have gathered in and around the name of Jesus for worship and for education in the faith, for mutual support and care, knowing God’s love for themselves and sharing God’s love for all others around them.

A lot of good has been done here.  Over its history, this congregation has produced civic leaders.  Has offered all kinds of charitable and compassionate outreach.  Has supported people in times of need, and celebrated with them in times of joy.  Generations of children have been nurtured in Sunday school and vacation Bible school.  Funerals and weddings and suppers and sales have all had their place here.  And everyone in the community knows that on Christmas Eve there’s a place for them, no matter how crowded.

"You are the light of the world” because a city set on a hill – or a church built along the highway and beside the creek, cannot be hid… Your light must shine before people, so they will see the good things you do, and praise your Father in heaven.”

Is this still the case, though?

I don’t doubt it is in our private and personal lives.  I think of you who are seniors in apartments and long-term care facilities, and how you most likely conduct yourselves in the hallways and with other residents in your building, and on the phone with friends and family.

I think of you who work and are in the community, and of the character and behaviour and the kinds of choices you’re know for, by the people you work with, the customers you serve, the children you teach or care for.

I think of families and single households and the way you are at home, with your neighbours, and with people you encounter along the way.

I think of all the gestures of kindness and the acts of self-sacrificial charity that are expressed day by day, house by house, neighbourhood by neighbourhood all around the world, by us and by others.

“In this world of darkness, still we all shine, you in your small corner, and I in mine.”  But are we still “the light of the world” in that larger way – as a church, as a community of faith doing more and different kinds of things together than we can do separately, and that the world still needs? 

And even with Zoom and Facebook, email and texts and phone calls linking us in a vast network of good will and good words, do we have the ways we need of really gathering around Jesus, to feed the flame that we have from him, and to replenish and strengthen the light of God we carry within us?

The job of being the light of the world is not onerous.  Once the city is set on the hill, it just has to be there and let itself be what it’s meant to be.  Once the lamp is lit, it just needs to let itself be put somewhere where it’s dark, to do people do some good.

The thing that really needs to be worked at, is letting ourselves be built and maintained as the community Jesus makes us to be together.  To let ourselves be lit, and re-lit as needed as the lamp Jesus uses to bring light into a world and to other people in need of it.

So how do we do that these days, as we live into the fourth wave of the pandemic?  How do we gather around him –around Jesus, to hear and to see what we need, to be the light of the world? 

Where do you go, and what do you do, to stay in tune with God?  To hear again the good news of God’s love for you?  To learn to live in a truly holy way?  And to find your place in bringing the kingdom of God to light on Earth? 

A Little Spiritual Practice 

Find a candle.  Any kind of candle.  Whatever kind of candle makes sense to you.  Whatever candle just calls to you when you see it. 

Then take the candle to someone else – someone close to you, or a stranger – whatever you dare. 

Ask them to light it for you.  Because you cannot light it by yourself, or for yourself!

Ask them to light it for you, and then to give it back to you, with these words or something similar, spoken to you, “In the name and spirit of Jesus, you are the light of the world.”

And then, in the name and spirit of Jesus, why not do the same for them, with a second candle?

 

"I Got You" -- God in and of relationship (sermon from Sun, Sept 12, 2021)

 Opening Focus: 

It’s the week after the Labour Day weekend. So, happy new year.  And we wonder what this year will bring.

We’re unsure about it, aren’t we?  Everything these days seems so unknown, not guaranteed, a real journey of faith.  With that in mind, Linda, our liturgical imaginator and decorator, has created a focus for reflection in the sanctuary.

 

Here’s how she described it by email: 

I’ve just set things up in the sanctuary. I have placed an old church window at the centre below the pulpit.  Behind it, I have placed a battery-operated candle (one is not enough, so I will be back with more). [I see there are three now … nicely trinitarian!] 

Going on the themes of light (with the candles) … not knowing for sure what lies beyond the door …  returning to normal, but what normal?

I thought that the opaque glass of the window represents us not knowing what is in store for us as we return.  But the Light still shows through the window.

A question: what’s the window, through which we “see darkly” (to use Paul’s words from I Corinthians 13)?  How are the light and the mystery of God’s presence, good will and love transmitted to us?

Over the next three weeks, our worship is focused on three things through which we come to know and experience God’s saving presence in our lives.  The first of the three and the focus of this service and sermon, is relationships we have with others.

Reading: Ecclesiastes 4: 7-12 

The Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the Wisdom Books in the Hebrew Bible – what we call The Old Testament.  The author of the book knows that life isn’t always fair, and that good and bad things happen to people quite randomly.  But the author also sees that through it all, it is always possible to enjoy the love and goodness of God.  In the passage we read today, the author focuses on the gift of other people.

I have noticed something else in life that is useless.

Here is a man who lives alone.

He has no children, no siblings,

and yet he is always working, never satisfied with the wealth he has.

For whom is he working so hard, and denying himself of pleasure?

This is useless, and a miserable way to live.

 

Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively.

If one falls down, the other can help him or her up.

But if someone is alone and falls, it’s really too bad

because there is no one to help him or her up.

If it’s cold, two can lie together and stay warm,

but how can you keep warm by yourself?

Two persons can stand up to an attack

that would defeat one person alone.

And a threefold cord – a rope made of three cords – is hard to break.

 

Reflection 

Recently there’s been a series of TV commercials for Expedia, the travel-booking website. They tell the story of a young woman journeying alone to wine country – a valley of vineyards. 

In the first scene, she just misses her flight, is left behind, and finds herself flopping dejectedly on a small bed in a sardine-can of a hotel room somewhere, until another woman – Expedia, of course, in oversized yellowish shirt and black pants appears at her door, smiles gently, says “I got you,” and snaps her fingers to transform the poor room into luxury art-nouveau accommodation.

Next, the young woman is looking forward to a vineyard tour she has booked, when she looks at her phone and sees a forecast of thunderstorms for the day.  Her long-awaited day is washed out.  Until Expedia appears at her side, says “I got you”, and turns the day into a joyful tandem bike ride where the rain don’t fall.

In the third scene, a day of sightseeing in the city becomes a confusing, overwhelming and scary jumble of jolts and jabs from an uncaring crowd of the “beautiful people,” until Expedia appears at the young woman’s elbow to guide her skillfully and quickly out of danger, and once again – “I’ve got you” – turn the day into a soulful delight.

The ads are brilliant.  Two things are genius about them.  One is the soundtrack – a remake of the Eric Carmen song: “All by myself; don’t wanna be all by myself."

The other is that they give Expedia a face.  Expedia becomes a real person just like you, only better, who is with and on your side.  Expedia is not a company or organization.  Not a network, nor a website, nor an operator at the other end of a phone call.  Expedia is a friend who is near at hand, who appears as soon as you stumble and fall, and says, “I got you.”

Moving from TV to radio, this week I heard part of a podcast interview with some survivors of Lytton, B.C. – the first and biggest casualty of the forest fires that ravaged south-central BC this summer. Two months ago, the town went up in flames one day in about a half-hour.  Literally in minutes, almost everyone lost almost all they had.  The town is still just a pile of rubble, possibly too toxic for anyone to begin to rebuild for some time yet.

The people are living wherever they can with whatever little they carried out the door – in motels, with friends, one family of four in a fifth wheel in a family member’s driveway in a nearby town.  Their lives are still in pieces.  Near the end of the piece, one couple talks about their struggles, and their closing words are, “It’s day by day, and we don’t know how it will all turn out.  But we’ll be okay.  We have family and friends behind us.  We have a whole community in this with us.”

Two are better off than one…

If one falls down, the other can help him or her up…

If it’s cold, two can lie together and stay warm …

Two persons can stand up to an attack that would defeat one person alone… 

And then, that last line with the unexpected twist – the enigmatic addition at the end:  

And a threefold cord – a rope made of three cords – is hard to break. 

One commentator I read this week says, “Notice the increase in number from two to three.  The more friends the better.  The picture of the three cords woven together is a beautiful picture of what real friendship is.  Perhaps each of us needs to take time and reflect about the quality, or lack thereof, of our friendships…” and of our willingness to be a friend for others who need us to be the face and the helper near at hand to say those magic words, “I got you.”

Others see something else than just more friends in that last line, and in the change from two to three.  Some see, and know from experience, that when two choose to be woven together, a third cord appears in their union and inter-wovenness that is God.

Not God, far off in some distant heaven, receiving and answering myriad prayers and calls for help with super-lightning speed like Bruce Almighty answering floods of emails on a heavenly computer. 

Nor God, like a patriarchal king high and lifted up, receiving pleas and petitions from below, and every now and then with royal privilege deciding to intervene.

But God, as Paul Stookey sings in The Wedding Song:

He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts

Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part

The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain

For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name

There is Love, there is Love …

… And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?

Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?

This is God, alive and coming to life in and through relationships that emerge and are created between people.  The genius – not of the Expedia ads this time, but of the Gospel, is that God is near at hand, comes with a human face, and comes to life in and though relationships of love, mutual support, care, and generosity of spirit.  In and through relationships that are long-term and lifelong.  And in and through relationships that are momentary, one-off connection or contact at an especially critical time. 

The mystery of God and the strengthening presence of God become real and part of our life, as people come together for good purpose.  And when I say people, I mean people like family and friends.  I mean people like neighbours and strangers.  I also mean people like enemies, because when Jesus utters his famous “when two or three are gathered in my name,” he is talking about people at odds who come together for reconciliation. 

It’s about relationship with anyone in need of someone willing to be there and say, “I got you.”  And, whether it’s us reaching out to connect with someone else, or someone else reaching in to be with us, all of us in one way or another who have the ears to hear, hear the speaking of that sacred and healing promise: “I got you.”

As we say in A New Creed of our church, “We are not alone.  Thanks be to God.”

Two questions to ponder

•          Who is in your life right now – who is really and actually present and near to you right now?  What do you admire, need, count on, cherish about them?  Give thanks to God.

•          Who is missing from your life – either lost along the way, or ignored and passed by?  Name them, hold them in your hand, and lift them to God.  And listen, then, to what God says.