Toward Sunday, Nov 2, 2014

Who are the heroes who make the world go ‘round?  And how do we recognize them?

 

As after 9/11, the recent murders of unsuspecting Canadian soldiers in Quebec and on Parliament Hill remind us of the daily heroism of people in the particular roles of soldier, fire fighter and police officer who give their lives to preserving and protecting the lives of others.  Their uniforms become a sign of honour.

 

This week I was also struck, though, by the thoughts expressed by a local man who joined thousands of others in lining the overpasses on the 401 to honour Cpl. Nathan Cirillo on his procession home.  He was moved by his experience of the people he met, and In a letter to the editor of The Spectator he said in part:

 

     To the people who preach intolerance and hatred, and who initiate this and any

     other kind of violence against the innocent and those who stand up for them: now,

     more than ever in my life, I know something you don’t seem to realize.  We

     outnumber you – in immense proportions – and we outdo you in courage, and

     kindness, and love.  There is nothing you can do to win this fight.  There will be

     peace one day, and you might be a part of it.  I hope so.  But with or without you,

     it will happen.

 

Is this also what Jesus and the early church are saying in this week's reading of the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount? 

 

     Blessed are you poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

     Blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted.

     Blessed are you meek, for you will inherit the earth.

     Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be filled.

     Blessed are you merciful, for you will receive mercy.

     Blessed are you pure in heart, for you will see God.

     Blessed are you peace-makers, for you will be called children of God.

     Blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for yours

          is the kingdom of heaven.

     You are the salt of the earth ...

     You are the light of the world ...

 

Sunday is All Saints' Sunday -- a day to remember and celebrate the call upon all our lives to live on this earth as part of the company of heroes who make the world go round.  No uniform required and no particular profession other than a living profession of faith in the way of life God calls us to in Jesus.

Sermon from Sunday, Oct 26, 2014

Scripture:  Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 and Matthew 22:34-40
Sermon:  Even if Canada will never be the same ...

In two incidents this past week, Canada has suffered some of the effects of climate change.  I don’t mean the environmental change of global warming, extreme weather patterns and sea-level rise.  I mean the change in the world’s spiritual climate.

 

For some time political and social scientists have been writing and speaking about the polarization of the world, the radicalization of the disenfranchised, a rise in the politics of fear and of hate, the increasing militarization of societies, and the spreading combination of violence and fundamentalist faith – whether Zionist, Christian or Muslim, as a political tool. 

 

Not that Canada has been unaffected until now by this global spiritual change.  Forty-four years ago this month we suffered the crisis of the FLQ terrorist campaign of attacks, bombings and the assassination of Pierre Laporte, Minister of Labour in the Quebec government.  There was the Air India bombing, homegrown anti-abortion terrorism, and between 1960 and 1990 159 separate terrorist incidents in Canada by right-wing groups like anti-Castro Cuban nationals, the KKK, Croatian nationalists, and skinheads.

 

Nor is it that we have not helped contribute to the change in the spirit of the world.  It’s hard to be a player on the global stage without helping to shape the tragic script that’s being written.  Action leads to re-action.  Intervention has consequences, both intended and unintended, but all of them real.  And even in our own affairs, many suffer the kinds of poverty and isolation, disenfranchisement and powerlessness, prejudice and hatred against ethnic and religious minorities that help nurture openness to fundamentalist rhetoric and violent action.  

 

The two men who committed the terrorist murders of the past week were Canadian citizens who suffered repeated frustration, felt alienated from society, suffered mental instability, and turned to violent fundamentalism because it promised meaning, belonging and a power to change the world.  And they are not alone.  There are the two young men from London who joined an Islamist-led plot against foreigners at an Algerian oil refinery a year ago, the Canadians who have gone to fight with ISIS in Syria, the 90 citizens currently on the RCMP watch list.

 

Some say Canada will never be the same again.  We are now aware in a new way that the spirit of the world has changed, and we are part of it.  

 

The question is what to do, how to live in this kind of world and in this climate as part of the body of Christ, as people of God, as a community of holy rather than violent spirit.

 

The answer is, the same as always.  As much as Canada may never seem the same again to some, for us the call we hear and the life-rules we follow are the same as ever.

 

Psalm 90 says it this way.

¹Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

²Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the world

from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 

In other words, there is a constancy to the world greater than any change and instability we see around us, greater than any evil or darkness that may seem to dominate at any time, and that constancy is God and God’s good desire for Earth and our life upon it.  

 

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place…”  There are people who live within the structure of God’s laws and God’s way of being, who honour and seek to live out God’s will for right relations between all creatures and the well-being of all, and it is they who help keep the world right, who are God’s partners in keeping it from spinning completely out of control.

Last week we saw the second half of the video about Betty Bridgman’s life as a mission doctor in Angola.  The first half was about the work she and Edith Radley accomplished in Angola, and how it ended with their imprisonment by one of the factions in the civil war that had torn apart the country.  Months went by with no word to the outside world of their whereabouts; the time was dark and fearful.

 

But do you remember Betty’s comment about that?  She and Edith, she said, knew they might suffer and die.  Faith in God would not insulate them from the events and the climate of their time.  But they also believed that nothing they did of God’s work would be in vain – that what was truly of God would survive, or if knocked down, would be resurrected.  And in that faith they prayed for the strength to endure.

 

And that’s exactly what happened.  They survived the ordeal, were released to come home to their families and friends, and then return to the mission field.  And even more, when they returned to Africa they witnessed beyond the momentary, heart-breaking destruction of things they had built, the deep and continuing growth of all the good they had helped to plant in the hearts and spirits of the people they had served.  The love and care they offered to all they met in their time in Angola – friend and foe alike, bore fruit and was alive and well and still growing years after the passing of the storms of the civil war.

 

They had lived out what Jesus says is the heart of God’s law for all time and all people – the two-fold rule to love and honour God rightly in everything, and to love your neighbour as yourself.  And having lived out these two commandments they found the closing prayer of the psalmist answered: 

 

¹⁶[In the face of our mortality and beyond the weakness of our efforts]

Let your work be manifest to your servants, [O God]

¹⁷Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,

and prosper for us the work of our hands --

O prosper the work of our hands! 

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  And love your neighbour as yourself.

 

Neither one is easy.  It wasn’t easy for Betty and Edith in war-torn Angola, and I wonder if any find it easy in today’s polarized and terrorized world.  

 

But this is the unchanging call, especially in a time like ours.

 

This past week Canada suffered from the terrible combination of fundamentalist faith and violent action.  But we also saw the leaders of all of Canada’s religious communities publicly denounce this aberration of God, and speak of God’s will for the well-being of all, for the creation of just and peaceful society, for healing of wounds, for right relations in all creation.

 

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; in all things, remember and honour God rightly.

 

This past week we witnessed murder of the unsuspecting and death of the guilty.  But we also saw others reaching out in love to do what they can for their neighbour – in the immediate action of those who tried to help Cpl. Nathan Cirillo n spite of the possibility of further sniper fire; in the ways in which people reached out to protect and comfort one another in all parts of the country; in the people on Friday who lined the bridges over the 401 to honour Cpl. Cirillo on his way home; in the gathering of local Muslim leaders at his home Armoury in Hamilton to lay a wreath and say prayers for him and his family, and in the heartfelt welcome and words of appreciation they were offered by others already gathered there; in the public statement from Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother of dismay at her son and his actions, and her honest sorrow and pain for the Cirillo family. 

 

Love your neighbour as yourself – and is there ever any limit to who our neighbour is?

 

These two commandments and our commitment to keep living them out is what plants the seeds of the future and helps keep the world from spinning out of control.  This is the world`s stability, and it’s what we are called to practice – always have been, always will be, as the body of Christ, as people of God, and as a community of holy spirit still at work in the world.

Towards Sunday, Oct 26, 2014

Scripture:  Matthew 22:34-40 (The Two Great Commands of Love)

Love God and love your neighbour.  Sounds simple, but it shouldn't surprise us it isn't always so.

The three great religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have these two fundamental life-rules on their books.  And people in all three traditions (and beyond) manage to live both loves well -- some in publicly celebrated ways; many others more quietly and under the radar of public notice.  They are the saints and we do well to aspire to their example. 

But we also know the other sides of the story -- that sometimes these two life-rules get garbled in the translation from Book to real life.

What are we to make, for instance, of the "love of God" professed by those who combine it with violence toward their neighbour -- be they members of the KKK, Nazi Germany, either side of the Irish troubles, or religiously-affiliated terrorists and ethnic cleansers.  This sort of love of this kind of God gives contemporary atheists good reason to plead for a ban on religion for the sake of the world's well-being.  

And what kind of "love of others" is expressed when a preacher tells parents in his congregation (in a sermon Japhia and I heard a year or so ago) to love their unlovable teenagers (who are sitting beside them at this point) because "God tells you to"?  "Unlovable" was the minister's word, and he mentioned it repeatedly.  If I were one of those teenagers -- or one of those parents, I wonder how long I'd be staying in that church.

Some people suggest we don't need God to love our neighbour -- that natural altruism, the good feeling we get when we do good for someone, and practical concern for our survival as a species and a planet are enough to impel us to act well towards one another and to care for other creatures' well-being.

But what about God?  Does love of God help us or hinder us in loving our neighbour? 

Maybe it depends on what we know and love about God.

In ancient Israel these two life-rules were originally shaped in the specific context of the exodus from Egypt.  The people had experienced God as their liberator from slavery.  They knew God first-hand as the One who hears the cry of the oppressed, delivers them, and leads them to well-being as a people. 

So in that setting the original meaning of the double life-rule is this: in all you do, remember and honour God who reached out to you in your distress to save you when you could not save yourself, and love your neighbour as you have been loved -- especially the poor, the widow, the orphan, the alien and others among you who (like you were) are without support and unable to save themselves.

Seeing the double life-rule this way makes me wonder what experience of God, or what side of God we might be aware of today that, were we to focus on it and love God for it, would impel us to love our neighbours, especially the troublesome or troubled ones, more honestly? 

Maybe in our worship this Sunday we'll glimpse something of God that is helpful to good life in the world today.  We can hope.

To prepare for that ... what do you know and love about God that helps you honestly love your neighbour, whoever that neighbour may be?

Towards Sunday, October 19, 2014

Scripture:  Romans 8:18-28

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God..."

Like me, do you sometimes repeat this Bible verse when something works out well? 

Is it a way of giving thanks to God for the good fortune?  Maybe a way of assuring our soul that God is on our side?  Maybe a way of feeling blessed rather than just lucky?

This week in worship we will watch the second half of the video about Betty Bridgman's life as a mission doctor, and in it she makes reference to this verse as a way of understanding her experience.  As we watch her story, we have reason perhaps to expand our understanding of what it means to "love God" and to become a little clearer about what kind of "good" (and whose good) is worked together and accomplished by those who love God.

We are glad to know Betty, and that she is one of us.  This week and next we have a chance to listen to what her story can teach us about serving God and God's kingdom where we are.

This week we watch the second half of the video in our worship.

Next week, you are invited to stay after worship to discuss the video and what her story can teach us.  Soup and bread will be provided by the Faith Development Committee.

Towards Sunday, Oct 12, 2014 (Thanksgiving Sunday)

Scripture:  Matthew 22:1-14
Sermon theme:  Who wouldn't want to enjoy a wedding?  (please RSVP)

Why would someone not go to a wedding?  It's a privilege to be invited, and a pleasure to attend.

Or why would someone go not properly prepared for the occasion?  We diminish ourselves and cheapen the time when we fail to properly recognize and celebrate its meaning.

Jesus says this is how many treat the kingdom of heaven, though. 

Every day we are invited to a feast of God's love, a living marriage of heaven and earth (did you see that sunrise?  appreciate the beauty of those flowers?  feel awe before the innocence in that child's eyes?  feel warmed by that embrace?  feel freed by that forgiving word?  know the joy of forgiving another?  know the power of making peace with an enemy?  give in to that stir of new life in your heart?  sense the passion within that strain of music?  enter into the mystery of that moment of silence?)

The kingdom of heaven really is always as near as the present moment.  But every day untold numbers of people fail to show up for this on-going, never-ending feast of God's love.  We are too distracted by other business that at the moment seems more important. 

Or we try to enjoy God's feast in some only-half-prepared kind of way, on the run, only half-present.  We try to turn God's feast into fast-food take-out that we can pick up at a drive-through.

This Sunday is Thanksgiving Sunday in Canada.  I wonder if in our worship (of the Giver of the feast) we can grow into the luxuriatingly grateful spirit of this poem by e.e.cummings:

     i thank you God for most this amazing
     day :for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
     and a blue true dream of sky ;and for everything
     which is natural which is infinite which is yes

     (i who have died am alive again today,
     and this is the sun's birthday ;this is the birth
     day of life and of love and wings :and of the gay
     great happening illimitably earth)

     how should tasting touching hearing seeing
     breathing any--lifted from the no
     of all nothing--human merely being
     doubt unimaginable You?

     (now the ears of my ears awake and
     now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Towards Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014

Scripture:  Romans 14:10-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Yes, I know these are the same readings as last week!  And that you've already heard a sermon on them!

But ... anytime we start talking seriously about forgiveness in the church, our ears perk up, questions start to emerge, and serious discussion begins.  So when a member invited me to consider staying with the subject and pushing it (or following it) a little farther this week, after some initial hesitation it seems I cannot but say yes in some way.

Not because I am an expert on forgiveness; rather, precisely because I am as unschooled in it as anyone.

I doubt this is uncommon in the church.  How often have I heard -- and you felt, that the church can be a fairly unforgiving place?  That we're not always practiced at forgiving one another when it really counts?  That any one of us can sometimes go for a long time without feeling forgiven ourselves?

I suspect it's always been this way.  Why else would Paul be so direct in his letter to the earliest church in Rome: "why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister?" he asks.  Why else would the first-century church tell so many stories in the Gospels (like the whole of Matthew 18) about the disciples having to learn the fullness of forgiveness, if not because the church that followed them needs to learn that, too?

So, even though the sermon this week will not be a return to the readings above, I assume the liturgy will in some way carry echoes of some of my own questions and un-knowing about forgiveness, and my desire for us all to grow more fully into its mystery.  I hope you bring your questions and desire as well -- not only to the liturgy, but to everything we do as church.  Maybe it will be the start of a beautiful, faith-renewing, life-renewing, church-renewing conversation.

Sermon from Sunday, Sept 14, 2015

Scripture:  Matthew 18:21-35
Sermon:  Why on earth forgive?

I think I am a fairly forgiving person.  

 

I try not to hold grudges – at least, not anything so strong as to call it a grudge.  I think I’m not too hard to get along with.  When someone says or does something hurtful, thoughtless or unkind I try to understand why, and what might lie behind it.  I believe whatever they have done somehow makes sense to them, and I try to understand it from their point of view.

I don’t get fussed up when someone speaks ill of me, or acts against me.  Most often I just shrug and go on, and if there is real harm or hurt, I step back, call a little truce, get a little distance, and let time do its supposedly healing work.

But I wonder, is that really forgiveness?  Or is it something else, like avoidance?  

If it was real forgiveness, for instance, would there be so many gaps and distances in my life?  People I’m no longer close to?  Family I don’t see?  Parents I spent so much time alienated from?  

There’s all kinds of issues involved in that, but is it at least in part an avoidance of really dealing with issues and conflicts in a way that makes forgiveness, reconciliation and real relationship possible?

If I knew how to practice real forgiveness, would there be the deeply stored resentment that I feel being touched and stirred within me at times in some relationships?  

 

If I knew how to practice forgiveness, would there be the quick flare-ups of anger that I then have to get over and try to explain or justify?  

 

If I knew how to practice forgiveness, would the horn in my car still be working, instead of being disabled from an overly long and loud blast I levelled one day at another driver beside me because she annoyed me?

 

In our reading, Peter thinks he’s pretty good at forgiveness.  Someone in the church has hurt him – maybe slandered or criticized him unfairly, cheated him out of something, snubbed or insulted him.  Peter has forgiven him and given him a second and a third, and even a 4^th and 5^th and 6^th and 7^th chance.  Peter feels he’s handled it pretty well, so he brings the matter to Jesus’ attention.

 

“How many times must I forgive a brother?” he asks. “As many as seven?”  Maybe he’s growing tired of how one-sided this relationship seems to be, how he seems to be the one who’s always forgiving  and reaching out to be reconciled.  Maybe he’s looking for affirmation and praise for how well he’s done.  Maybe permission to finally give up on making this relationship good.  Seven, after all, is the number of perfection.  Even God stopped and called it enough when God reached the seventh of the days of creation.

 

But Jesus doesn’t play along:  “No, not seven; rather, seventy times seven.”  

 

In other words, if you think you know when there’s been enough forgiveness – and that some day there may have been enough, think again.  Because there really is no end.  Rather it is all there is, and without it, there is nothing.  Without unending forgiveness, everything falls apart and is lost.

 

And with this we begin to scratch the surface of an important question about forgiveness, which is why.  We often wonder about the how of forgiveness – how do we do it, and how it happens.  We also wonder about who and what and when to forgive.  Whether to forgive.  In what situations it may or may not be called for.  We also wonder, as Peter did, about how often.

 

And why forgive is also a good question.

 

One answer that’s big these days is that we forgive for the sake of our own well-being.  When we hold a grudge and hang on to a hurt, it’s really ourselves we hurt the most.  We harden our heart and limit our spirit.  We close ourselves in and we bind ourselves for longer than necessary to the pain of whatever happened.  I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying that holding a grudge is like drinking poison, and hoping your enemy will die.  Lewis Smedes, a Christian psychologist and therapist says “to forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you.”   As I saw on a poster this week, “forgiveness is not something we do for other people; we do it for ourselves – to get well and move on.”

 

All this is true.

 

Yet, there’s also something else about the why of forgiveness – why we do it, learn it, and seek to grow into it as a practice, something less self-centred and less self-serving.  It’s that forgiveness is most often the most honest thing we can do.  However we understand the how and who and when and what of it – in relationship the most honest way of being true to what we know most deeply about ourselves and about God, is to forgive another.  It’s a witness – a way of openly living out and affirming what we know about ourselves and about God.

 

In the story Jesus tells it’s easy to see ourselves as the middle manager who when called to a true and honest accounting of himself – of herself, of myself – cannot but be aware of how dependent on mercy and the forgiveness of another he is. 

“Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything I owe,” he says, when confronted with his debt.  To which the master says, “I know you can never pay back all you owe.  I forgive you your debt; go free and let’s move on in a new way from here.”

 

One of the simplest and most ancient and universal of Christian prayers – so old and so common it’s known simply as the Jesus Prayer, is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”  It’s a prayer Eastern Christians pray over and over at different times of the day.  And which of us has never had occasion to pray it as well?

 

And we know it’s not just Jesus’ mercy we depend on.  When I think of people I have hurt, let down, or betrayed, I know how dependent on forgiveness I am in my own life.  When I think of promises I break, relationships I damage, and thoughtlessness or selfishness I practice, I know how much my own life is supported by, and dependent upon the tolerance and forgiveness of others.  Without that, how on earth could I ever be and continue to be where and who I am?  

 

So who am I, the story makes me ask, not to forgive others in turn and be part of the world that God builds and sustains with the mystery of this most special of all graces?

 

Which leads to a second thing that forgiveness is honest to – it’s a way of being true to what we know of God.

 

Like the master of the household in the story, it’s not really God’s desire to punish anyone or bind anyone and their household forever to the wrongs they have done and the debt they have rung up.  If God were to do that, there would soon be no household, no family or community, no world at all that would be left.

 

Rather, God forgives the debts, takes the loss, absorbs the cost so that all may continue to work and grow into new life together.  It’s not a matter of just letting everything go.  Forgiveness is neither blindness to, nor avoidance of the issues.  But it’s a matter of letting go of the past to let the future still be a future – letting go of the past in such a way that lessons can be learned and the future can unfold in a better and healthy way.

 

To borrow a word from Rev. James Eaton that’s the heart of a sermon he’s preaching today to First Congregational Church in Albany NY, it’s about opening up and leaving open the possibility of transformation for all concerned – both the wronged and the wronger, both the sinner and the sinned-against.  It’s God’s deepest desire that the household, the family, the community of earth stay together and learn step by step and day by day to work together well, to be good and profitable, to be holy and life-giving.  And one thing that makes this happen – one thing without which it can never happen, is forgiveness, the practice of honest and open, personal and mutual forgiveness.  

 

It’s only when we force God’s hand that the master comes down hard to divide the bad from the good, and to punish the wrong-doer.  And even then, the one who is defined as being in the wrong and who faces stiff punishment is very simply the one who fails to forgive as he has been forgiven, the one who fails to grow into God’s eternal and ongoing practice of world- and life-sustaining forgiveness.

 

I know there’s still a lot unanswered about how and who and when and what to forgive, but we cannot escape the why – that forgiving others is the best way – sometimes the only way, of living true and being honest to what we know about ourselves and about God.