Pieces of Easter -- Days 15-27: Happy for you...

“Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” 

It’s apparently a line from King Lear.  Also the title of a little pastoral essay I read this morning.  And advice I choose to trust in writing this long-simmering (or marinating) little piece of Easter.

I’m troubled that this year one little part of my inner response to well-meaning wishes of “Happy Easter!” has been a somewhat saddened “Happy for you.”  (I recognize that speaking what I feel, not just what I ought to say, is risky.)

I do not doubt Easter and the risen Jesus.  I rejoice in the power of love and of God over evil and death.  And in the persistence of Jesus in the affairs of the world.  So why the sad reserve and slightly cynical reply somewhere deep down inside me?

I know it’s connected to the experience of futility and powerlessness in the face of Japhia’s illness and weakness, continued pandemic isolation, and tiredness from the daily dance of the variety of things to attend to.  But everyone is facing similar challenges these days – including, for many, the challenges of ill health and worse.

So why this Easter is the stone not rolled away for me?

It makes me wonder what I expect Easter to be.

I wonder if I expect it to be like Christmas.  A time for gifts for me.  Everything from chocolate eggs to a promise of life after death, and all kinds of good things in between to make my life happy along the way.

But in the Gospel stories, Easter isn’t like that.

When the risen Jesus appears to the startled disciples, neither he nor they understand his resurrection to be somehow an assuring sign of their own life after death.  No one says a word about that in any of the Gospel stories.

Nor does he come bearing gifts.  Well, except for a few fish he cooks for their breakfast one day at the seaside. 

But by and large, the focus of the stories is the assurance that he is still with them, that God’s kingdom and not evil and death have the last word in the affairs of the world, that in spite of the kinds of people they are he still counts them and counts on them as his friends in the revealing of the kingdom, and that they are (or soon will be) empowered to carry on in the way he has taught them to live in the world.

In other words, to put it in 2021 terms for myself, regardless of personal illness and weakness, pandemic isolation, futility, powerlessness, and tiredness, Jesus is here … the list of woes is not the whole story …and even when we are weak and near-dead in body and soul, there is still some way for each of us to be used by God bring a taste and glimpse of love to someone else.

In other words, Easter is a call.  Less about gifts we get to make our life happy, than about seeing that no matter what our life may be like, we are always able to be a gift of God to others.

This change in focus makes me feel a certain kinship with Thomas.  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

Except maybe what I need to see is not so much the nail-scars in the hands of the risen Jesus, as to see the hands of the risen Jesus somehow alive and present in my hands, as weak as they are and as powerless as they seem. 

 

 

Easter is for other sheep (Sermon from April 25, 2021)

 Reading: John 10:11-18  

The Gospel of John was the last of the Gospels to be written – around 90 to 100 of the Christian Era, showing the fruit of decades of reflection about Jesus.  One feature of the Gospel is seven “I am” statements in which Jesus says he is the bread of life; the light of the world; the door; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth and the life; and the true vine. 

The “good shepherd” saying in John 10 is actually a number of sayings about Jesus as shepherd, that the gospel writer has gathered together – kind of like a shepherd gathers sheep.

The first hearers and readers of these sayings were familiar with shepherds, and would have known their share of reliable and unreliable ones.  They counted good shepherding of the people as one of the marks of a good king or other leader.  They knew also that God aspired to be their shepherd, with all that it entailed and demanded. 

I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep.  She when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the flock and runs away.  Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.  The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cared nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd: I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.  The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.  I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.  This command I received from my Father.

Meditation  

Some people just don’t retire.  Ever.

Not because they need the money and need to keep working.  But because they love what they are working for so deeply, and it’s so much of who they are and want to be, that they can’t imagine ever stopping.  They would die and just not be themselves anymore if they did.

 

When David Suzuki – the noted environmentalist, turned 80, he was asked why he was still speaking, writing, documenting and advocating.  By that age and with all he had already done, surely, he had earned the right to retire, relax and just enjoy himself.  His answer was that he was enjoying himself – and enjoying being himself as fully as he could.

What began years earlier as an interest in the natural life of Earth became a job.  The job grew into a career.  The career, a commitment.  And the commitment – to help celebrate and nurture good life on Earth, and to highlight threats and risks to it – had long since become a passion and a reason for being.  On the one hand, life-consuming; on the other hand, life-giving, life-enriching and life-deepening. 

And how do you walk away from that?  Especially when now, because you can do it for free if need be, you can do it more freely than ever before?

So just when you think you’ll start seeing less of someone, and hearing less of their message, they keep coming back and keep preaching what’s dear to their heart.  And not just repeating themselves like an old rock band on a reunion tour, but doing what they love and speaking the truth they know in new ways and more widely and unconditionally than before.

I wonder if this is one of the things Jesus is saying about himself in the good shepherd “I am” sayings in the Gospel of John. 

“I am the good shepherd,” he says.  “I know my sheep and my sheep know me … and I lay down my life for the sheep.” 

In three years of activity in and around Galilee, like a good king – even though he had no throne, and like the God he embodied – even though this is called blasphemy, Jesus came to know and love the people around him, served them and saved them, gathered them into a new and gracious community of God’s love for all, and in the end laid down his life for them.

Surely, that’s enough, we might think.  As Jesus says on the cross, “It is finished.”  As he cries out to God in the song “Gethesmane” in Jesus Christ Superstar,

Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations,

Tried for three years, seems like thirty.

Could you ask as much from any other man?

Time now to be able to retire.  Whether it be to the realm of the dead to await the final resurrection of the just, or directly to heaven to return to the holy, who would deny Jesus his golden handshake and his commemorative plaque of appreciation? 

Except Jesus himself. 

“I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen,” he says.  He has in mind more than just the gaggle of Galileans he’s managed to gather.  “And I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”  

Beyond those already gathered, are others he also loves with all his heart and who are waiting as much as the Galileans were to hear his voice.  And not to be with them, not to speak to them where they are, and not to bring them along on the journey of new life would be a greater death and a more real end to him as good shepherd than the cross of Calvary ever was.

So, he comes back.  He is raised from the dead – actually decides to be raised, he says, to pick up where he left off, and continue what gives him life – what is his life.  To be bringing more and more of God’s sheep into gracious community, and to do it more widely, more freely, and more unconditionally than he was able to before.

Peter Woods, a minister of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, makes the provocative comment that in this Jesus reminds him of a Buddhist Boddhisattva.   

A Boddhisattva is one who spends his life cultivating supreme moral and spiritual perfection in order to be of service to others, and does not rest from the task until all beings are enlightened.  In other words, in the Buddhist frame of reference, a Boddhisattva keeps re-incarnating until they have helped every other being attain Nirvana ahead of them.

“Kind of like a shepherd,” Woods writes, “who won’t go home to rest until he knows all the flock have entered into their rest.  A shepherd, who even when he is dead tired or just plain dead, gets up and continues seeking and calling until all the sheep are home.”

This can be hard on the followers of the shepherd.  After all, we are only sheep and hired hands at best.  We don’t see the big picture the way the shepherd does; we don’t feel the same relation to all the other sheep that he does.  We get kind of attached to our own little flock and the sheep fold we’re gathered safely into.  And we might think our being safely gathered in, is a happy enough ending to the story.

But the shepherd has other ideas, and isn’t finished yet.  In the context of The Gospel of John, the next step the risen Jesus is taking is to reach out to the Gentiles to bring them in and establish open and welcoming community with them as well. 

It’s upsetting at first to the Galilean and other Jewish followers of Jesus.  Peter especially has a hard time accepting Gentiles as equal brothers and sisters in Christ.  But that’s the mission the risen Jesus reveals to Paul, and of course it prevails because it’s what the risen Jesus is doing.  What’s first experienced as an upsetting infusion of new ideas, experiences, customs and assumptions in a very short time becomes the new lifeblood, energy and creativity of the community.  The sheepfold is only enriched as it expands to include sheep previously left out.

And isn’t this part of our history as church and community of faith?  Step by step, the risen Jesus keeps reaching out to other sheep and calling to those inside to open up to those still outside. 

It’s often a bit of a struggle – but as men and women, black and white, European settlers and First Nations peoples, straight and the LGBTQ communities, traditional Christians and seekers of other faith traditions, and even just individual brothers and sisters at odds with one another, come together in openness to how each hears the voice of the Shepherd, step by step the community of God’s people in the world is only strengthened and enriched.

“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says, “and I’m not about to retire.  I live and I die and I live again for the sake of going out to all the sheep, and gathering in those still left out to bring them all into one flock.  To ever stop doing this would be a greater death and a more real end to my being who I am, than any cross and tomb I might suffer along the way.”

That’s who our shepherd is.  That’s why he is good.

And as sheep and hired hands of his flock already gathered in, I imagine we have some part to play in this.   

I wonder what it is.

 

The spirit of resurrection comes packaged in flesh and bone (Easter 3 - April 18, 2021)

Reading: Luke 24:36b-48

After Jesus dies and is buried, the disciples do not expect to see him again.  They accept that his body is in the tomb, and his soul has gone on to the world of the spirits – a world separate from this one. 

But when some of the women go to anoint his body, they find the tomb empty.  When two other disciples walk home from Jerusalem, a stranger starts walking and talking with them, and when they stop and break bread they recognize him as Jesus.  Immediately they go back to Jerusalem to let the others know what they have seen. 

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.  He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds?  Look at my hands and my feet.  It is I, myself!   Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”  They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  He told them, “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Meditation

A half-century ago in a land and a time far away, a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was in trouble with the elders of the church he was serving.

Some members of the congregation had heard him on a local radio station a few days before, calling in to an afternoon talk show.  They thought they recognized his voice.  Their suspicions were confirmed when he identified himself as the senior pastor of their church.  And they were livid that he was phoning in to criticize, in the name of God and of their church, a decision of City Council to cut support for a number of welfare programs in order to balance the budget.

Because of the neighbourhood – welfare and working poor – that had grown up near the church he was serving, he knew the plight of the poor.  The proposed cuts to social assistance programs would make it more difficult for many families to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.  He urged the members of City Council to change their minds, and ended his call with a prayer – on local radio! – for God’s compassion and wisdom to be known and to prevail.

 

Some of the church members who heard his call, or heard about it, were furious.  A silent few were supportive.  Others were puzzled and confused.  Many said they were embarrassed, ashamed and afraid for the church’s good name among their friends in other churches.

When the elders heard the concerns and complaints, they asked the minister to stop this new direction he was one, and never do that again – at least not in his role as minister of the church. His job, they said, was to preach the Gospel and save souls – in other words, to bring people to their knees before God and prepare their souls for heaven.  There were spiritual and physical realms, and heavenly and earthly concerns, and it was important to distinguish the two and keep them in the right priority.

I wonder what the elders would have suggested he do if some day – maybe even at Sunday worship after opening prayer, Jesus were to show up at the door, hungry and alone, asking, “Please, do you have something to eat?  Some food you could give me?”  Because that is part of the story about the risen Jesus we’ve read this morning, isn’t it?

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Going back to the story, the response of the elders to the minister’s foray into prophetic ministry on local radio fits well with an image of spiritual life I grew up with, and that’s still common.  It’s the image of climbing a mountain that rises up and away from the world, that stage by stage, trial by trial, renunciation by renunciation, and commitment by commitment takes us higher and away from Earth below, and nearer to heaven above and to God.

I think of Thomas Merton’s autobiography of his journey into his calling to be a monk and to grow in prayer and understanding of the mystery of God.  It’s called The Seven Storey Mountain and none of us bats an eye the title and all its suggests. 

The mountain even becomes an image of charity and inclusiveness towards people of others religious and spiritual traditions, when we allow that there may be a variety of paths up its slopes.  Paths with different names, teaching and rituals that in the end lead us all together to the one peak.

But what if … what if when we get to the top, and we expect, and ask to see God, the answer is either an angel or a hand-painted sign that says, “The One you’re looking for is not here, but is gone down to the valley below.  And the message is, ‘Come find me.  Be with me in the valley.  Walk with me and work with me for the good of all down there.'"

Isn’t this the point and the conclusion, for instance, of the story of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration?  To start with, he takes only three of his disciples with him; he doesn’t want to give the whole group of them the idea that the mountain top is the goal.  And when the three see him there with Moses and Elijah as the living fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, a voice from heaven tells them not to start building a shrine up there, but instead to follow him back down to the valley where God and the kingdom of God are really wanting to be, are needed to be, and will be.

And isn’t this also the point of the story today?  That Jesus is not raised to some ghostly, spiritual realm beyond the reach of Earth and worldly concerns, but to continuing life within the realm of Earth and in the midst of all its daily, physical, flesh-and-bone concerns and issues.

“Do you have something to eat” he asks.  And just as they always have the disciples gather what they have and share a meal with him.  Then, after their physical hunger and their body’s needs are met, Jesus helps them understand how this fits with what the Law and the Prophets say about good and truly human life, and with the way the Psalms point to the presence of God in all aspects of earthly life, through praise, lament and faithful prayer.

Last Sunday two things happened here at Fifty. 

One was the online worship, posted as always mid-morning on the church Facebook page, and we hope it was faithful, helpful and meaningful.

The other was a pop-up, drive-through collection of food for the Stoney Creek Food Bank just down the highway from us, that was the best we could do in the midst of pandemic orders to stay at home except for essential services, assuming that essential services includes feeding the poor.

From 1 to 4 last Sunday afternoon, two members of the Mission and Outreach Committee were in the church parking lot with a car with an opened trunk.  People drove up, placed their contributions for the Food Bank in the trunk, chatted with the Committee members at a safe distance, and went home.

By the end of the afternoon there was a carload of food that one of the Committee members then drove down to the Food Bank the next day.  And as she pulled into the parking lot there, she saw ten people – representing ten different households, standing silently in line waiting for a chance to “shop” for food.  Two of the people, she says, were carrying babies.

And who is to say which of the two things – the online worship or the pop-up Food Drive, more clearly bore witness to the Gospel of Jesus the Christ and the kingdom of God.  

As though we even need to choose between them.And one more thought. 

The pop-up food collection brought together and connected a lot of different people – the Mission and Outreach Committee organizers, the people from our church and from the community who drove by to drop off contributions of food, the Food Bank organizers and volunteers, and the people in need all around us who were lined up to get food.

In what group of people do we recognize the face and the hands of the risen Jesus?

Is it even just one group in particular? 

Or is the risen Jesus and the kingdom of God on Earth somehow known in the loving and generous inter-relationship of them all? 

Is it maybe any time people come together in ways that help make life good for all, that the Word still lives, the Spirit still moves, and God becomes more and more the kind of God that God wants to be in the life of the world?

Thanks be to God.

 

(The hymn following the meditation was “As a Fire is Meant for Burning.”  The lyrics to the first verse resonant strongly with the famous direction of Francis of Assisi to “preach the Gospel always; use words when necessary.”)

As a fire is meant for burning with a bright and warming flame,

so the church is meant for mission, giving glory to God’s name.

Not to preach our creeds or customs, but to build a bridge of care,

we join hands across the nations, finding neighbours everywhere.