Towards Sunday, August 6, 2017

Reading:  Genesis 32:3-21 
(Jacob is on his way back home to find his brother.  Outwardly he has all the signs of success; he's actually quite a scoundrel, but in many ways his life has been charmed, and all he has done has worked out to his benefit.  But inside he still carries the emptiness of broken relationship with his brother and the unresolved guilt of wounds he has caused along the way.  He is afraid of what he has left behind, of what he carries inside his heart, and of what he must come home to.)

We have a Joel Osteen book in our house.  It's the one called Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day.  

My step-son encourages me to read it because he finds Osteen "so encouraging," and I can see how that can be.  But, at least at this stage in my life, I just don't see good news in Osteen's version of the prosperity gospel of More, Higher, and an always Better, More Improved "Me." 

Two other books that speak more deeply to me right now are Pema Chodron's The Wisdom of No Escape, and Elizabeth Lesser's Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.  

The first, which I stumbled across in a used book store, is a series of morning meditations offered by Pema Chodron, abbess of Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Cape Breton, to retreatants over the course of a month-long retreat.  The second, which I began reading three years ago while on medical leave to deal with a variety of disorders, is a collection of life-stories of people who have found new and more whole life by facing and embracing, rather than running from and "overcoming" whatever darkness they encountered or were carrying in their life.

Both of these books speak of going deeper, rather than higher; of looking inside with honesty and gentleness at who you are, rather than reaching out with aggression, self-determination, and "a plan" to make yourself who you want to be (or think you need to be); and finding the wholeness and goodness of your inner self (in all your light and darkness mixed together), rather than having to prove yourself by constantly improving what you have and seem to be in your own eyes or the eyes of the world.

I wonder if Jacob, in the part of the people-of-God story we are reading in worship this Sunday, is in the midst of a transition from running with Joel Osteen and the prosperity gospel, to sitting with Pema Chodron, Elizabeth Lesser and the wisdom of no escape.

And if what we see, read, hear, pray and sing to God around that story this Sunday, will somehow touch our own longings for a deeper way of facing our own inner contradictions, and of glimpsing gracious wholeness through and beyond the unresolved emptinesses of our lives.  

Sermon for Sunday, July 9, 2017

Reading:  Genesis 15:1-6
(Abram and Sarai have been on the road a long time, following the call to find a place in Canaan, make a home there, and raise a family that will make its mark and leave a legacy of good in a world in need of good legacies.  But the journey has not worked out as they thought it would, and the dream they lived for seems unachievable.)

Theme:  Looking for a legacy

Abram is having one of those days.  It’s not that he doesn’t believe.  It’s just that he is having trouble seeing the value and worth of his own role in God’s plan.

He knows he is part of something bigger than himself – a journey to a far-off land of milk and honey – the land of Canaan, making a home there, and raising a family that will make its mark and leave a positive legacy in the life of a world sorely in need of positive legacies.  The journey began years before in the city of Ur in the land of the Chaldeans – what is now southern Iraq.  And it was his father, Terah, who started it. 

Terah lived in Ur with his three sons – Abram and his wife, who was also his half-sister and was barren; Nahor and his wife, Milcah; and Haran, who died, leaving his son – Abram’s grandson, Lot, fatherless.  And it was Terah who started the whole journey west in search of new life in Canaan, taking Lot, and Abram and the Sarai with him.  It was a grand vision, but Canaan was 1000 miles away and Terah never got there.  He got only as far as the city of Haran – about half-way, where he stopped and decided to settle.

So then it was up to Abram.  After settling in with his father for some years in Haran and building up his herds and household, Abram heard the call of God to continue the journey – to go west to Canaan, make a home there, and raise a family that would be a source and a channel of blessing for all the Earth.  So Abram did just that.  It was his turn now to play his part in the grand design of Almighty God to make the world good.

And the plan really is bigger than him – bigger even than just his family, because along the way to the land of Canaan, then beyond it to Egypt because he finds Canaan occupied, and then a little while later back to Canaan, he meets people of other cultures and traditions who also are in touch with Almighty God who works to make the world good, and they help and even bless Abram along his way. 

So he knows the plan is a big one.  The dream he is following is as big as God’s love for Earth and all its life.  And just as it started before him, it will go on after him, and it will be done, praise be to God. 

It’s just that right now, Abram is having trouble seeing the value and worth of his own part in it.  Because what has he done?  What has he really accomplished?

He’s continued what his father began; he’s left Haran behind and journeyed with Sarai and Lot as far as Canaan.  They made it that far.  But when they get there, the land is already occupied, so they just stop for a bit, build a shrine at Shechem, and keep moving.

They go as far as Egypt – as good a place as any, but along the way and in Egypt there are a few spots of trouble with some of the kings and rulers in the lands they enter, wanting Sarai for themselves and Abram’s life being a little in jeopardy because of it.

So they head back to Canaan, this time near Hebron where finally there’s a place they can settle.  But once they are there, tensions come up between Lot’s household and Abram’s and they split up and go their separate ways, with Lot choosing for himself the better portion of the land they have, leaving Abram a bit of scrub land to live in.

Then Lot finds himself caught in disputes between rival kings around the land he’s chosen to live in.  He’s kidnapped, loses what has, and Abram has to go rescue him.  Abram also has other kings in the area trying to make him their subject, and he really begins to wonder just how much of a failure he has proven to be.

He knows he is not alone.  He has God and the call of God for the journey he’s on and the plan that he’s part of.  He also has his whole household.  He has built up his herds and increased his servants, and has a lot of resources and support in the world for anything he does. 

So things can and will continue very well even without him once he is gone.  And maybe that’s part of what bothers him. 

Because in addition to all the other problems and failures that he feels, Sarai is still barren.  Lot is a fatherless disaster, but even worse is that Abram is not a father himself.  He and Sarai have no child to carry on the family name.  So Abram really wonders about the value and worth of his own life and life story.  When he dies all that he has will pass to Eliezer of Damascus, his head servant, the CEO of the household he has built up.  And what then will be his place in the story of God’s plan for the world to be blessed and made good?

Like Abram, do you ever have one of those days – or months, or years – when you really wonder about your place in God’s good plan?  You don’t doubt or disbelieve that God has a good purpose for Earth, and will make life good in all the world.  But do you wonder some times about your own place in it – whether you play any important and lasting part at all in its being realized?

Do you find yourself in your own way feeling, maybe even praying what Abram does: “O Lord God, I am childless still – and how shall I not be always?  I have brought nothing good – no new life that I wanted to bring, into this world.  When I die, my heir will be Eliezer of Damascus, a slave born in my house!  O Lord God, is my life really worth anything at all?”

And God says, “Come outside!  Come out from the smallness of what you are feeling and into the darkness of the night.  Look up – look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you can.  So shall your descendants be.”

We know, of course, that the promise came true.  Not right away.  It comes a few chapters, and few more steps and even mis-steps later.  But by the good will of God Sarai does conceive and bear a son, she becomes a mother and Abram a father to Isaac, and in their lives the good will of God for making life on Earth good is fulfilled.

Abram is no hero.  He is not a solitary warrior of faith.  He is much like us – a single person in a long line and great company of God’s chosen people … living out his part as best he can … not really doubting God’s good purpose, but some days wondering if he has any part in it, if his life has any real value or worth in the greater story being lived out beyond him.

But when he brings his self-wondering to God, he believes what God tells him – that yes, his life is important … that his place in God’s good will is one that only he can fill … that what’s inside him and what he is able to express in the world will bear good fruit … and that when the story of God’s good will being done in the world is told, his name and his part in it will not be forgotten.

Can we believe it too?  Those days when we just can’t see the value or worth of our part in God’s plan of blessing the Earth and making life good, can we believe what God and others around us see and affirm of the value and worth of our life, and our part in God’s good plan?

 

Sermon from Sunday, July 2, 2017

Reading: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:22-24
Theme:  Looking for The Garden

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me

I’m goin’ on down to Yasgur’s farm

I’m going to join in a rock-n-roll band

I’ve got to get back to the land

I’m going to try and get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

These words are the first verse to a song Joni Mitchell wrote almost 50 years ago about Woodstock – one of my generation’s attempts to get back to The Garden.  The song is bigger than that, though, because it seems to come from and speak to a larger and more universal longing than just that one event.

The Garden – capital T, capital G – is something deep in the human psyche as an image of something that’s been lost, something we have lost or thrown away, something we deeply miss as we seek refuge – a safe place to be, a placed where we can feel good and be good together beyond our own sin and shame, in the world as it is.

The Garden in that sense is a universal myth – an image that we and other people of vastly different cultures and faith traditions, carry within us about how the world is created to be, how maybe it once was, how it is not now, but maybe still can be at times.

I’m not even a gardener, and I can appreciate this.  Even I feel the lure of the garden and the way it quiets and satisfies something deep within.  Many of you are gardeners – very good ones, and Winona as a place to be has a feel of garden about it.  So you know what I mean.  You live it.  I’ve no doubt you love it – love whatever time you can have in your garden – whether it’s an orchard out behind the house, a vegetable patch, a perennial and annual flower garden surrounding the house you live in, or a little cluster of plants you lovingly tend and enjoy in your house or apartment.

All of these little, individual gardens we enjoy for ourselves are just part of The Garden – capital T, capital G again, The Garden that’s more common and communal, The Garden that’s even global in its size and meaning, The Garden that all of humanity deeply longs to be in as one, enjoying together the goodness of life, the fruitfulness and fullness of Earth, and the endless love and blessing of God for all that is.

Of all the pictures we have seen of the Assad family over the last year and then especially the last few months – of them in hiding in Syria, then hiding but more safe in Beirut, then arriving at the airport in Toronto and being in their new home in Grimsby for the first time with their sponsors and new friends, I think the one picture that touched me the most was of their two children at play on a play structure in a playground in a park right behind their new home. 

That picture more than any made me feel happy and hopeful for them, because that was a picture of their children in The Garden – safe and free in a place in the world that they don’t need to earn or deserve or pay their way in, no doubt bearing the memory and the scars of human sin and evil, but at the same time able to gather with other children and adults of all colours and castes and creeds, open to the heavens and to sun and sky of God’s blessing, each one clothed with signs of God’s endless love for all, every one free to grow in their own way, everyone there free to reach out, love and be loved by others around them.

And isn’t that what The Garden is in our deep sub-conscious, in our archetypal human memory of what life really is, in the holy stories of our own and other people’s religious and spiritual traditions?

I’m happy and proud to be able to say as well that this same vision – this same hope of knowing and living with others in The Garden at least in some way and some time in the world as it is, is also very much part of what Canada is, or at least aspires and tries at its best to be.

Just three quick images from what I saw in yesterday’s all-day TV coverage of the national celebration.  I’m sure each of you has at least that many and more that stand out for you, but these three are among the ones that caught me.

One, from Parliament Hill, is of the teepee of re-occupation that was erected, then resisted, then moved far off to the side, and then moved in closer to the Peace Tower where it became a place of dialogue, of education and sensitization, and of peaceful face-to-face conversation between First Nations and other people of Canada.

A second was from PEI, and a band of young First Nations singers and dancers drawn from every province and territory of the country, offering a song they wrote themselves about their hopes for their future and Canada’s future, their smiles as they sang and danced, and the closing line about coming together now after 150 years with the confident assertion that “this time we’ll get it right.”

A third was a little video montage of individual persons from all over the country of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, each singing one line at a time of “O Canada” in their native languages that include Mic-Maq, Ukrainian, Cree, Chinese, Inuit, German, Spanish, French, English and I can’t even remember what others.

Isn’t that what The Garden is?  That way of being in the world – that way of being a world, where you and I and all others of all colours, castes and creeds … are able to gather in safety and freedom …not needing to earn it or deserve it or pay their way in … open to the heavens, to the sun and the sky … aware of human evil, sinfulness and shame … but every one clothed in signs of of God’s endless love of all that is … everyone free to grow in their own way … everyone free to reach out, to love and to be loved by others around them?

Happy Canada Day weekend. 

And even more, happy are they anywhere in the world, who know The Garden in some way in their lives – who are able to know it and enjoy it in the midst of their own sin and shame, and in the midst of the world as it is … and who are able to share it, and invite others into it, to know and enjoy it with them!

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

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!