Sermon for December 21, 2011 - Longest Night

The carols are being played, the stores are bursting at the seams with product on display.  Lights are up around town, and everyone is talking about their Christmas plans.  Though this can be a joyful season, it can also be an isolating one, a season that makes us feel left out because there are times when we just can’t wear that same saccharine smile that is on everybody else’s face.  It might be because we have lost someone near and dear to us, and the holidays are flooded with painful memories or just a sense of something missing; it might be because the season overwhelms us with ever growing to-do lists and we long for some moment of peace and pause that we just cannot find; or it might be because our hearts are just heavy and we feel like crying, and there is just no place to share that, to let it go.

And so we come to the longest night.  Only eight hours of light boxed between sunrise, sunset, and the long dark.  And even when the sun is out, it is so low in the sky as to create the feeling of eternal dusk.  It can weigh heavily on us at times.  This year especially, not only the cold and the dark, but the damp makes a potent mix that can chill us to our very core.

And in the midst of this natural movement of the seasons, we have Christmas.  It is funny how the Holy Spirit works.  The past couple of days I have been wondering about the relationship between Christmas and the Longest night of the year, in preparation for tonight’s service.  This morning I received an email from the Center for Action and Contemplation written by Richard Rohr.  In his brief message he describes the historical view of the Winter Solstice, not as a day that embodies the death of the sun as we might think about it, but rather as the day which marks its rebirth.  For early Christians, who lived in the Northern Hemisphere, this was significant and could not be overlooked.  Christmas and the Winter Solstice used the symbol of the rebirth of the sun in the sky, as a sign of the birth of light on earth.

When it comes down to it, Christmas is about one simple story.  A story so precious and gentle, so beautiful and meaningful that it has carried on for two thousand of years.  It was not on a bright sunshiney morning that God came into the world, but rather on a dark cold night.  That is where we meet God.  On those dark cold nights, when we feel like the light of the world is barely creeping over the horizon, if at all.  In Christ, born in a stable, living with the lonely and the isolated, mourning the death of a friend and weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see God’s promise being fulfilled.  We have become engraved on the divine palms, as nails driven into the cross.  God does not abandon us to the darkness alone though at times we may feel it.  God walks with us through those darkest times, carrying whatever burden we carry, weeping whenever we weep.

All the while whispering into our ears, “Oh my precious Child, wherever you walk, I will walk with you.”  Speaking to all of creation, “Oh my love, my love, wherever you go, I will go.”  Sighing with a weeping heart, “You are mine.  I am with you in all things.  You are not alone.  I am there, and my heart is breaking with your.”

Sermon for December 18, 2011 - Ramifications

The Scripture Passage for this week was Luke 1:26-38

Has anyone seen the movie Saved?  It’s a great movie, and it does a good job of pointing out some of the inherent hypocrisies of Christianity.  The story is of a young girl who goes to a Christian High School, and she discovers her boyfriend is gay.  She doesn’t know what to do, and she worries for his immortal soul.  She soon comes to the conclusion that sex before marriage is less of a sin than being gay, so she decides to have sex with her boyfriend, with the hopes that it will make him straight.  That’s the first 10 minutes.  Well, she ends up getting pregnant, and the movie goes on from there.

The persecution, the condemnation, and the judgment that she faces at school from her peers, and from the school’s principal are a key theme in the movie.  But held against that, is the love, the compassion, the Grace she receives from all the other outcasts in the school.  From the only Jewish kid at the Christian school, from the brother of the seemingly perfect Christian girl, who is a self professed agnostic, but readily points out all the hypocrisy of the school, from the principal’s son, and from her gay now ex-boyfriend.

What does it mean to be the Body of Christ in the world, and who embodies Christ more in this movie?

Last week, we spoke about the Magnificat, about Mary’s song of Joy to God.  It was a joy that swelled within her, as she experienced and encountered the wonder of God’s Grace.  We spoke about how important and yet how difficult it is to truly understand and accept that Grace which is freely offered to everyone.  We spoke about how wonderful an idea it is, that our value is not dependant upon what the world around us says about us, but is based only on the faith that we, as in all of creation, are the Beloved of God.  Our value does not come from anything we do, or anything the world says about us, it is simply a matter of faith that we have value.

That love of self is important.  It should not be confused with selfishness and egocentricity.  But rather it is a marveling at our own createdness, a respect and admiration for God’s handiwork in our very nature, and a honoring of that handiwork by devoting our lives to figuring out who we truly are.

But you may recall, I ended with some words; they might be hopefilled, they might be ominous, they might be a bit of both.  I said, “There are ramifications of such a notion.”  Since we’re continuing with Mary in our scripture readings for this week, I’d like to continue with our discussion of Grace as well, and what those ramifications are.

Today we’re going to talk about that love of the other.  I’m cautious about separating love of self and love of other.  I don’t think we can love the other as deeply as we do when we love ourselves, and I don’t think we can love ourselves as deeply as we do when we love the other.  But for the sake of practicality, today we’re talking about the love of the other. 

Once again, we need Mary’s help in this understanding of the ramifications of Grace, and how that Grace calls us to love the world.  Mary brings that love out in all of us.  She draws it forth from us, and helps us to see how possible it is.  And she does it all under the radar.

A teenage girl, pregnant out of wedlock, mystery father, from a poor village in the backside of a rebellious country in the dusty corner of the Roman Empire.  And remember from last week, by proper Law, so great was her sin that she could by all rights be stoned to death.

And we love her.  We love this social deviant, this outcast, we love this young girl who according to society did something so horrible as to deserve death in her time of history.  Gabriel is right, she is the most favored.  Not only favored by God, but favored by the world, by two thousand years of history.

And that we do hold her up is a sign of how possible grace is.  Love is possible, and not just for those we like, or agree with, or think are morally upright.  Love is possible, and fully embodied, when we realize what Grace says.  That everyone, that all of creation, has value, simply because of the love of God.

This Sunday is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent.  It is the Sunday of Love.  And what better way to celebrate love than to see how broad, and how far reaching it can be.  Yes, loving family is good.  Yes, loving friends is good.  Yes, loving our community is good.  Yes, loving ourselves is good. 

But who are the “social deviants”, who are those outsiders that we stone every day, not literally but metaphorically?  Or even literally!  How many gay kids get beaten up every day as we sit back silently?  Often it is Christians who do it!  “Send them to a special camp to get fixed.  Because it says in the bible that it is wrong.”  Yeah, well, it said in Mary’s sacred text that she should be executed, and how well would that have worked out for us?

We were able to move beyond social convention when we first held up Mary as beloved in God’s eyes and in our own eyes.  What other social conventions can we move past today?  Who else in the world needs to be held up as beloved? 

What about addicts?  What about the homeless?  And not just saying “yeah, the mentally ill ones should be helped”, but what about the ones who got there because of poor decisions?  What about our First Nations sisters and brothers?  What about prostitutes?  What about the billions of poor in the world?  What about the earth?  The earth is groaning under the weight of humanity, do we need to hold up the earth as a beloved creation of God’s, rather than as an impediment to our wealth?  Who or what are all those aspects of creation that we stone everyday, stone with our economic systems, stone with our politics, stone with our words, that deserve to be loved?

One week from now we will be celebrating Christmas.  We will be celebrating how God’s love became embodied in the world, in Jesus.  And let’s ask ourselves how that love became embodied.  Did it come into the popular crowd? Did it come in the hallways of power?  Did it come with all those perfect people who followed all the rules, and condemned anyone who didn’t?  Did it come to people who had made all the right decisions?  Did it even get a room at an inn?  Or did it come into the world in a stable, with the animals, stinking of crap, born to a woman who by all rights could have been condemned, worshipped by poor shepherds and foreigners, living, sleeping, and eating with sinners, with prostitutes, with outcasts, with people who had made mistakes in their lives, with deviants, with people no one else wanted to touch, with those who the rest of the world thought they were better than?  Did it come breaking all the rules and conventions itself?

And when you answer that, answer this, what does it mean to love?  Where is God’s love in the world?  Yes, there are ramifications of accepting God’s Grace.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

Sermon for December 11, 2011 - Mary's Revolution

Scripture Reading for this week: Luke 1:39-56

Every year in December I have a list of movies that I try to watch before Christmas.  Since it is entirely unacceptable to watch a Christmas movie in May, I think I feel I need to get it all in now, because it will be another year before I have the opportunity again.  My list contains movies like A Christmas Story, with Ralphie longing for an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.  Scrooged and Elf are both on the list somewhere, along with a few others.

But the movie I most associate with the season is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.  I have watched it every year since I was a little kid.  This wonderful movie is about a man who wants his Christmas holidays with his family to be absolutely perfect.  And as I reflected on this sermon, one scene came to mind.  Chevy Chase as Clark Griswald has spent all day with his son putting lights up on the house.  When all the work is done, he calls everyone, wife, kids, parents and in-laws out for the plugging in ceremony.  A drumroll, a loud singing of “Joy to the World!” and then… Nothing.  This moment I think defines the movie.  Clark, imagining something perfect, longing to offer and to feel that sense of Christmas joy, is sadly disappointed.

This Sunday is the Sunday of Joy.  And as I prepared for today’s service I really struggled trying to figure out what joy is and where it comes from.  Is it really about getting the right present, having the perfect meal, spending time with family and loved ones?  I think those are all wonderful things, and we should not belittle them.  But if we don’t have those, are we resigned to be joyless?  Like Clark Griswald, so often we associate our joy with the world around us, some ideal vision of how things should be.  “The only way I can be happy is if….”  Our sense of worth becomes dictated by the world.  And then we fill in the blank.

In our Gospel reading for today, we read about Mary’s encounter with her cousin Elizabeth, and more than that, we hear her wonderful and joyous song, the Magnificat.  To be honest with you, as I re-read it this week, initially, it made me a little bit mad.  “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  I read that.  Then I read it again.  And I thought to myself, “Really? Has God done that?“ I mean maybe occasionally, but it doesn’t take long to find hungry people in the world, it doesn’t take long to look upon the faces of the lowly.

But as I reflected on this reading, I began to get a glimmer of the joy that Mary is sharing in her song.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant, so from now on all generations will call me blessed.”  Think about who is singing these words: a country girl, who could have been stoned by Deuteronomic law.  She wasn’t just nothing in the world, she was less than nothing.  A social deviant, a misfit, an outcast.  And yet she is singing.  She is singing about how blessed she is.  She has a powerful song of joy because she has tapped into a source of joy that is beyond the world around her.  

At its heart, the joy that resonates throughout this song, is the joy that comes with a profound and embedded acceptance of grace.  This song embodies that essential component of Christianity, Grace.  Mary has done absolutely nothing to be called blessed by all generations.  Nothing.  From the perspective of the world, she is worthless, a hell-raiser who would best serve society by being stoned to death.

But she’s experienced something.  She gets it, and it lives within her.  “I might not be worth anything to anybody else.  I might deserve to be killed in the eyes of everyone I meet.  I might have no value to the world around me.  But I am worthy.  I am worthy of dignity, of compassion, of care, I have an intrinsic value simply because God says so.  Simply because God has given me the gift of having value to the world.”

That is Christ.  That is Grace.  Mary doesn’t just carry Jesus in her womb.  She carries Christ within her heart, and that is the joy she is singing of.  The joy of someone who knows there is nothing she can do to earn God’s love, because it is there, first and foremost before we do anything,  And it is that love which makes her worthy of all the value in the world.

And we fight this!  We fight this tooth and nail because it is so counter to everything that the world wants us to believe.  Kids bullying someone in the school yard because they are different; Economic systems that say some people are of more worth than others; Social systems that say anyone who does not fit into our definition of normal (by race, or gender, or sexual orientation) is of less value; Media saying you have to look a certain way in order to be considered beautiful; Religious institutions that say you need to do this or believe certain proper dogmas in order to be considered one of the saved; these are some of the weapons we use against grace.  And they are powerful.

We fight the idea of grace, because we cannot fathom it.  Because we cannot control it.  Because it doesn’t make sense.  And we have gotten very good at fighting it.  So good that the fight even begins to invade our very selves.  We begin to question our own worth, our own value. 

I have spent a tremendous amount of time considering whether or not to go to school next year.  One of the reasons I have decided to put it off was because I looked at my own motivations.  Ministry is not the most respected position anymore, and I realized a part of me longed for that “Dr.” in front of my name so that I would be seen as more valuable by the world.

We cannot comprehend that each and every person in this room is worth no more, and no less than anyone else in the world, and yet we are all worth a tremendous amount, simply by the virtue of God’s love.  That is grace.

Now be aware.  When you let this idea wash over you.  When you contemplate the ramifications of such a notion.  When you realize the world we live in and the tremendous systems that push against the very idea of Grace.  When you understand that we do not come anywhere close to loving the way God loves, because we truly cannot comprehend how it is possible.  When you do this, you begin to see cracks in the system, you begin to see gracelessness everywhere, and you will not be the same.  You will long for the Reign of Christ, and you will live a life that tries to embody it.

The Magnificat of Mary are words of a revolution.  The powerful are brought down, and the lowly are raised up.  The coming of Christ turns the world upside down.  The rich lose what they think they have, and the hungry are filled.  A life filled with the acceptance of Grace will break through the shackles of despair, of condemnation, of judgment, and will begin to sing with that worthless young girl who we call blessed. 

Everything in creation is of intrinsic value.  That is Grace, that is love, that is joy.

Sermon for November 27, 2011 - Immanuel

The Scripture reading for this Sermon was Isaiah  64:1-9

Has anyone seen the movie 500 Days of Summer?  It’s the story of a young man, Tom, moving through the 500 days of his relationship with a woman named, Summer.  It’s one of my favorite movies.  The movie starts with his desire for the unattainable girl that works in his office, moves through their relationship and breakup.  And throughout it all, it is the story of Tom longing for something beyond himself; so much so that the movie begins with the quote “Tom believed he would never be truly happy until he found the one.”  He longs for the one. 

But it is not until he discovers that there is something within himself, that things start to happen.  A transformation occurs in his life.  He begins to see a power from within making its presence known; a power that is not dependant on anything in the world around him.  It is only as he begins to discover that true self that he becomes happy, that he becomes content, and that relationships begin to flourish.

Our scripture reading for today comes the book of Isaiah; Third Isaiah as this section is called.  Isaiah was probably written by three writers, or three groups of writers, from different times in the history of the people of Israel.  Third Isaiah is often located after the Exile into Babylon, as the Jews have returned to Israel, and are undertaking the work of reconstruction.

What we heard today was actually a psalm of lament on behalf of the entire community.  All those who had returned to the Promised Land are crying out to God in one voice, all of them longing for a response.  They have wondered where God was in the midst of their Exile, and now they wonder where God is as they go about rebuilding their home.

“We hear stories,” they cry out, “stories of mountains quaking at your presence; stories of nations trembling; stories of how you meet those who serve you, who work with you, who remember your ways!  Where are you O God?!  We long for you!  Our very being yearns to know your presence!”

As with all of our most intense emotions and feelings, that sense of longing is both wonderful and painful at the same time.  I remember when I turned nine or ten, I really wanted a Gameboy for my birthday.  I longed for one, and all day I was running around the house singing the Gameboy song from the commercial.  But I also remember the anxiety that came with it.  What if I was wrong?  I really wanted one, the prospect of not getting one was at times overwhelming.

Longing can make our minds fill with excitement at a possibility, it can make our hearts soar with the prospect of romance, it can give us energy and motivate us into some sort of action.  But it carries with it the sadness that comes with something unattained, something beyond our reach.

The Jews cry out, longing to know God again, longing to feel God’s countenance upon them.  And very often this relates to our own longing for God.  There is the wondrous hope that somehow, someway we will find what we seek, that the Holy will fill our hearts and our minds. 

But in the midst of this hope, we ourselves cry out as we look at the world around us, as we see the wars, the violence, the destruction.  We ourselves cry out as we gaze within our own hearts, as we know pain, as we know anxiety and uncertainty, fear and trepidation. 

We ourselves hear stories, of a world at peace, of justice reigning.  We ourselves hear stories of those who claim to have felt God touch their hearts, who claim to experience God every minute of every day, who claim themselves as enlightened. 

We long to have something solid to grasp onto, some voice that cries out within our hearts so loud that we can literally hear it within our ears.  “Just give me a sign, O God!  Just show me where to go, what to do, touch my soul in such a way that all doubt is banished from my being and I can rest in you!  I long for you, O God.”

At its heart, longing is trying to fill a void.  To fill some sense that a piece of me is missing, and perhaps this will fill it.

The passage from Isaiah ends with a wonderful image of God as a potter.  As the community cries out with longing, wanting to know God again, the psalmist writes,  “We are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” 

This is one of my favourite images in the bible, “we are the clay, and you are the potter.”  Isn’t that marvelous?  That image of each of us being handcrafted; every aspect of ourselves, our bodies, our hearts, our minds; our emotions, our feelings, our thoughts, our sexuality, all those things that we like about ourselves, all those things that we don’t like about ourselves, have been created and contain some indescribable aspect of the Holy.

There is something powerful in this image.  It shows us that what we truly long for, we already have; it already exists within ourselves and those around us.  As we long for a God beyond ourselves, we begin to see that God exists within ourselves.  The divine has been woven into our very being, the way a potter puts herself into her work, the way an artist puts herself into her paintings.  This is the essence of incarnation, of Immanuel, of God with us.  This is the essence of Christ that we have seen embodied in Jesus, for whom we now wait.

This is the essence of Advent, of what we are symbolically waiting for over the next few weeks.  Not the idea of a world RE-made in God’s image, but rather the knowledge that the world IS made in God’s image!  A world where we can cut through all those ideas of who we think we should be, no longer seeking solace in things beyond and see ourselves for who we truly are.  And more than that a world where we can look at others, not looking for who they should be, but looking at who they are, in all their wondrous createdness.  A world where we fill those voids of longing, with the knowledge that God exists here, in the world, and that we are a part of it.

Sermon for Covenanting Service

The Scripture for this sermon was Genesis 9:8-17

A few weeks ago I was sitting in my dining room, and I got a phone call.  It was one of the women in my congregation.  “Tim?  You need to go outside right now, and look up at the sky!”

This was the call I had been waiting for.  I have experienced a lot of new things since I moved out to Manitoba a couple of years ago, but this was it.  For some time I had been announcing at church, “I have never seen the Northern Lights, if you are outside, and you see them, give me a call.  I don’t care what time it is.”

I’d received a call here and a call there, and seen a bar or two in the sky for each of those, but this night it was unbelievable.  Did anyone else see them?  Reds, yellows, and greens, shimmering and waving in a dome covering the whole sky, north south east and west.  This was the night that they could see them all the way down in Texas.

When Rachel told me that one of the themes for this covenanting service would be rainbows, all I could think about was the utter sense of awe and humility that was created within me as I sat out there that night looking up at the sky and seeing the lights.  I know, they’re not rainbows, but that was the image that kept flashing to my mind.

Today we’re gathered here to celebrate a covenant.  But I have to admit while I was writing this sermon I really struggled with a lot of terms and ideas, the whole notion of a covenant confounded me.  Who is the covenant between?  What does it mean to have a ministry?  Whose ministry is it?  What goes on whenever a new minister joins with an established faith community?

I spent a long time pondering over this scripture passage, trying to flush out some ideas on what happens, on what exactly we’re celebrating here today.  Because it has to be more than simply, “Hey, great.  Hamiota got a new minister, that’s awesome.  Rachel got a new job, fantastic.”  What exactly are we marking here?

In our scripture reading for today, all but a remnant has been destroyed by the chaotic flood waters.  That remnant has arrived and touched the earth again.  It is then that God makes a covenant. It’s not just a covenant between God and Noah, its not just a covenant between God and humanity, it’s a covenant between God and the remnant of creation that survived the flood.

This covenant does something.  It transforms this rag-tag bunch of drifters into something new, something wondrous.  It unites them into something that is more than simply the sum of their parts, but rather transforms the rag-tag remnant into the new creation. 

Today we are covenanting with each other.  And when we say that, I don’t think we mean that we’re all making a covenant to each other.  Noah didn’t make a covenant with the animals and the birds.  Instead we are all being bound together as one, while God makes a covenant with us.  God is uniting us into something that is more than just the sum of us.

This is why I like the image of the rainbow as a sign of a covenant.  When we look at a rainbow, do we say to ourselves, “Well, I’ve seen all those colours on their own before, nothing too spectacular about it.” Or is there something more to it? 

When I went outside however many weeks ago, I didn’t just look up and say, “Yeah, yellow, green, red.  I’ve seen them all before on there own.  I’ve seen a few scattered bars and waves in the sky.  This is essentially the same, just bigger.”  Big Whoop.  No, it was something new entirely.

This is the basis of covenant.  It is about creation.  When these three groups come together, Hamiota and Kenton as the local faith communities, Rachel as the minister, Assiniboine Presbytery on behalf of the wider church, something new is created.  Something that has never been seen before, and will never be seen again.  It is marvelous and it is holy.  This is the essence of covenant.  We three groups are no longer a band of rag-tag drifters, but suddenly we are a new creation, we are all part of a new ministry, and it is far more awesome than the sum of the three parts.

Something new and exciting has already happened here.  A new ministry began on November 1.  Today we’re celebrating the covenant that God made with all of us.  I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know what to anticipate, but any time a new ministry is formed we should celebrate the wonder of a new creation, and I for one, am excited by the prospect.  Thanks be to God.

Sermon for November 20, 2011 - Reign of Christ

Reading for this week: Matthew 25:31-46

I’ve only picked up one hitch hiker in my life.  Often I’ll drive past them, and make up some excuse in my mind.  “Oh, I don’t have time to slow down.”  Or, “Oh I’m only going up to Shoal Lake or to Neepawa, that won’t be helpful for them.”  Other times, I’m a little more honest with myself, “Ugh, don’t like the look of that guy!”  I’ve heard all the reasons not to pick them, all the horrible stories that come with hitch hikers, and it scares me.  But after I drive past them.  After I congratulate myself on making a wise and safe decision, I’m often left with a pang of guilt.  “What if that person was my sister or my brother?  What if that person was Jesus?”  And based on our reading for today, in many ways, that person probably was Jesus.

Set scene for “the Messiah is among you”*

It sounds like a familiar story doesn’t it?  How many times have we all lamented the state of the church, of this congregation in particular?  Not a week goes by when I don’t hear about how sad it is that the church is dying, that there doesn’t seem to be much hope, etc. etc.  I don’t mean to belittle that sadness, that fear, that pain.  But we have all heard it, and I’m sure at some point or another we have all said it, or felt it.  Myself included.

Tell the rest of the story

In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds his followers that his presence goes beyond the body.  Christ is present and participating in the world, and we are invited to embrace that.  “When you feed someone who is hungry, you are feeding me.  When you give a drink to someone who is thirsty, you are giving a drink to me.  When you nurture and care for the sick, when you visit the prisoners, you are doing that to me.  All those places, where you may not want to go?  I’m there!”

There is something incredibly powerful and transformative about understanding that Christ is among us. Take a moment and look around the room.  Now start to imagine what that means, to say that Christ is among us.  And I don’t just mean looking at friends and family.  Maybe look at people you have not always gotten along with.  What does it mean to say that we can encounter Christ through them as well?  How does that change our own lives?  Like the monks in the story, how would living as though each and every one of us, offers a chance to experience Christ, change who we are as a church?  How we do things?

And if we understand Christ as being among us, if we understand and hold up that holy belief in incarnation, in the idea that God can and does reside in this world.  What does that say about us as individuals?  The abbot himself asked this question, “could it be me?”  Could we possibly be how others encounter God in the world?  And if I were to say right here and right now, a resounding “Yes!, I promise you that others can encounter God, that others can live some part of the Reign of Christ through you, through each and every one of you”, how does that make you feel about yourself?  Though perhaps you may not deem yourself fit, God does deem you fit to reside somewhere within you, how does that idea make you want to live?

And then looking at the world beyond our doors; this is a world that abounds with opportunities to live and move in, as well as to experience Christ, to know God is among us.  So often we judge others.  We say “Get a job!”  We say “Take a shower!”  We say “Well, you shouldn’t have made a mistake!”  How often do we cut ourselves off from meeting God, from knowing God, from being transformed by God?  How often do we cut ourselves off from the opportunity to embrace God the way we have been embraced?  To nurture and nourish God the way we have been nurtured and nourished?  To comfort and care for God the way we have been comforted and cared for. 

Christ lives within the world!  We are an incarnational faith, a faith that says God is among us.  Our call is to understand that, to accept that, to share that, and to learn to live on this earth, with one another and with ourselves, with that truth being central to our lives every minute of every day.  That is the Reign of Christ.  Thanks be to God, Amen!

*there are numerous versions of this story online

Sermon for November 13, 2011 - Interpretation

Scripture Reading: Matthew 25: 14-30

I have to say, I was very tempted this morning to get up here and preach two short meditations, interpreting today’s parable from the Gospel of Matthew in two entirely different ways.  I would have then walked away and let you rummage through the contents of both sermons, trying to discern for yourselves what felt right, or asking yourselves why I would have done such a thing.

As the two stories that we read today during our scripture readings indicate, this passage is open to some very broad interpretation and understanding.  I’m going to read the New Revised Standard Version of the text, just to give you a base to go from.

Read Matthew 25:14-30

Historically in our Western world, I think this story has been interpreted one way.  Jesus is the landowner, and each member of the church has certain gifts that they are called to use on behalf of the Kingdom of God.  Those who use their gifts well, will receive a great reward.  But those who do not share their gifts, who do not go out and make full use of them, will find themselves condemned.

We can easily look at this from the perspective of the church today.  Though we are anxious about the future, this is not a time to conserve our resources, to circle the wagons and buckle down.  We are called to risk sharing everything that we have with the world around us with tremendous joy in our hearts and hope in our souls.  This call goes out to both individuals and communities.

But the second reading we had today, from the Lectionary Story Bible, seemed to look at this passage entirely differently.  It takes an approach that comes out of Liberation Theology, where the landowner is no longer the benevolent giver of gifts.  The Master is someone who “reaps where he does not sow, and gathers where he does not scatter.”  This is not really a nice description, it sounds like the Master is a thief; someone who scavenges off of those who have done hard work.  Furthermore, the closing message from the Master is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Now this seems to contradict a lot of the stuff that Jesus has said in the Gospels.

As I watch the Occupy Wall Street protests, I wonder what they would think.  Jesus, the man who cleaned out the temple of money changers, suddenly telling a story like this?  There is a wonderful image making the rounds online, with a picture of Jesus waving his whip through the temple, with the caption “the original Occupy Wall Street protestor”. 

This parable does seem a bit out of place.  Is it too much of a stretch to interpret this story as Jesus emphasizing that in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we will encounter the Kingdom of God among those who are cast out?  Jesus taught that we encounter God with the lepers, the widows, the children, the strangers, and generally with those who have been abandoned by society.

Truthfully, I don’t know what the original author intended.  I have my guesses.  I raise this, because I think in many ways, both interpretations are valid.  They both have their points.  I raise this to show that scripture is open to very wide interpretation, and we must caution ourselves from assuming that we have understood everything correctly; or perhaps more accurately, we must caution ourselves from assuming that there is only one correct way to understand scripture.

Give me any argument and a day, and I imagine I can take this bible home, and come back tomorrow able to convince you of either side of that argument.  Does this make scripture meaningless?  Absolutely not.  Instead what it does is invite us to engage the text, engage the world around us, and engage one another in dialogue that would not have been possible if everything were precisely clean cut.  It takes into account the shear complexity of all things rather than assuming that the world is simply black and white.  It says what matters is the struggles we have in our souls trying to figure these things out.

Now there are many different ideas out there about how to interpret things, like scripture, or books, or any media really.  It is a branch of study called hermeneutics.  People devote their whole lives to it, and I certainly don’t have the opportunity to even scratch the surface here.  But I am always willing to talk about it.

What I’d like you to walk away from this sermon with is this: never let yourself get comfortable with a single interpretation of the bible. Because, I think how we interpret scripture says less about the bible than it does about who we ourselves are.  So, always, always, always, ask questions.  Questions about who wrote it, who it was written to.  Wonder what a specific passage would mean to someone who is in an entirely different context from you, someone of a different race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or just in a different situation.  Learn to encounter the holy within these pages from an entirely different perspective, and you’ll begin to see how vast the holy really is.

I do believe God inspires this library of books (and it is a library, it is not a single book – always remember that).  But not necessarily in the sense that God whispered in someone’s ear while it was being written.  I believe, when we read these texts with our hearts open; when we read these texts being truly honest with ourselves about our presuppositions, fears, and desires; when we read these texts prayerfully and with a hunger, I do believe we can be inspired by God through our readings, we can learn to encounter God in our own lives.  And that is good news.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

Sermon for November 6, 2011 - Resting for the Kingdom

Ask for examples of things that we prepare for.  Ask for examples of how we prepare for them.

In our Gospel reading for today Jesus tells this wonderful little parable about the Kingdom of God.  He describes the Kingdom as a party, a time of joy, or festivity.  It is a celebration.  But layered within this text is a not so subtle warning.  He comes out and says it.  We need to be prepared for the Kingdom.  If we’re not prepared, we might miss out on a wonderful opportunity.

Our role as Christians is to prepare for the Kingdom of God.  The tough part is discerning how we actually do that.  Throughout history the church has offered a number of ideas about how we prepare for the Kingdom.  Some of these ideas are for individuals, like certain sacraments or having a strong pious nature.  Correct action or correct belief.  You need to do this that or the other thing, God will check it off some divine list, and you get your invite.  Some of these ideas were more corporate, envisioning preparing the whole world for the Kingdom.  This could be disastrous, as in the case of the Crusades, or have a nobility to it, as in the Social Gospel movement of the early 20^th century.

How do we prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of Heaven today?

This image that Jesus uses for preparation I think is very helpful in our current world.  He envisions being prepared for the Kingdom as having enough fuel to let our own lights shine.  Think about that for just a minute, Jesus envisions being prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven, as having enough fuel to let our own lights shine.

One of the greatest struggles in our world is finding time.  We all lead such busy lives, running here, running there, doing this and doing that, we have work, hockey, volleyball, curling, events, clubs.  Our days, our evenings, our nights are full.  And it is exhausting.  Many of us have run out of fuel, we just don’t realize it, and so we are not prepared.  We cannot truly let our own light shine because our lights are sputtering at best.  We go many miles a minute, burning our wicks at both ends.

As we ask questions about the future of the church, as we wonder about what direction we are going in, I think one answer is quite clear.  In a world that defines everything in terms of productivity, the church stands alone offering Sabbath.  And I don’t mean Sabbath, as in everyone has to come to church on Sundays, though that can be a part of it.  But I mean the church can offer Sabbath, the church can offer peace, the church can and should offer above all things, holy rest.  In a world that pulls us in so many directions, the church should be a place where people can stop, can pause, can listen to their very souls, can bear witness to their own Inner Light (to steal a Quaker term). 

This is how we will help people prepare for the Kingdom.  Unfortunately, very often, the church becomes a source of even more work, more being overwhelmed, more business to do and structures to maintain.  We are called to break out of that.  To pause and ask ourselves as a community, how are we offering a much needed rest to a world that is over worked and over tired?  How are we offering communion with the Holy to a world that has become detached from itself?

Our world is exhausted, it is run ragged.  Social pressures and systemic demands for productivity often push people to the brink, and we struggle just trying to keep up.  These voices are so loud that we are afraid to let go, afraid to reorient ourselves.  Now more than ever the world needs a voice of calm, a voice of quiet, a voice of rest that says, Stop!  It is time to refuel ourselves.  Our tradition is filled with wonderful spiritual practices that invite us to discipline ourselves into rest and relationship with the Holy. I am not a fan of do-it-yourself spirituality.  But these are practices that I believe can only truly be shared within a community. Practices like Contemplative Prayer, Lectio Divina, Labyrinth walking and pilgrimage, silence, hospitality, fasting or feasting. 

To quote Henry Nouwen, “The challenge is to let go of fear and claim the deeper truth of who I am… When you make space for God in your life and begin to listen to God’s loving voice, you suddenly start to realize perfect love…These spiritual practices and other disciplines remind us that we are the Beloved.”

As we look forward to the future of the church, it is these very questions we need to be asking.  How are we refueling ourselves in a world that tries to push us over the edge?  How are we offering rest to people in a world that is tapping their energy?  How are we prophetically standing against a world that would make so many demands?  How are we inviting people to let their own lights shine in a world that could always be brighter?

Sermon for October 30, 2011 - Journey of Faith

The Scripture for this Sermon was Joshua 3:7-17

Once upon a time, I used to run somewhat regularly.  I was a member of my high school cross country team.  I don’t actually remember us doing very well.  I remember us playing a lot of ultimate Frisbee.  And I also remember one year pulling in the last five spots at an All-Colony track meet.  Still throughout my life, barring a time here or there, I have been a somewhat consistent runner.

Well, I didn’t run at all this summer.  I began in the spring with high hopes.  I quickly rebelled against those high hopes, finding a number of excuses which threw off my discipline and any inertia I might have gathered.  That being said, once late summer came around I decided I really wanted to run 5k again.  That’s about 30 minutes of running.  Nothing too significant, but something I would still have to commit to.  So I began very slowly.  I used a program I found online that I put on my phone.  Its called the 5k101 training program.  It is eight weeks, essentially going from the couch to running for 30 minutes straight.

The first week it had me running for two minutes, and walking for three, then repeating that set for a total of 8 minutes of running.  The first time I tried it, I was beat and realized how out of shape I had become.  I had to do that three times that week.  The next week, the running went up a little bit, and the walking down a little bit.  I think it was two and a half minutes of running, followed by two and a half minutes of walking, then repeating over until I had run for a total of ten minutes.  I’m on week five now.  The sets are eight minutes of running, and two minutes of walking for a total of twenty four minutes running.  And it feels really good.  I’m not there yet, but I can see myself getting there.

The most difficult thing about it, is developing a sense of patience.  Being patient with myself.  Accepting that I’m not there yet, that I can’t run for 30 minutes straight anymore.  Sometimes it is hard not to rush the whole program.  Instead I have to learn to let my body, let my legs and my lungs, let my heart, as well as my mind get used to the whole process.  It may surprise some of you (or not) that patience with myself does not come easily to me.

Has anyone heard the Chinese proverb, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”?  Can anyone think of something else that requires time and energy to accomplish?  Can anyone think of a journey of a thousand miles that starts with a single step?

In our scripture reading for today, we encounter the Israelites entering into the Promised Land.  That place which had been promised to their ancestors hundreds of years earlier.  But this is not the same group of Israelites that first went into the desert out of slavery in Egypt.  Though they were initially excited about leaving Egypt, they quickly grew disgruntled.  They argued with God, with Moses, and with themselves.  They complained about hunger, about thirst, worshiped a golden calf, doubted God’s promise.  And so they wandered in the desert for forty years.

Forty years later, we find the Israelites a completely different group of people.  They have become something else.  They have been changed.  This next generation of Israelites no longer fears entering the Promised Land.  Aware that God is among them, this is a spiritually transformed group.  And so they cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land in much the same way that they crossed the Red Sea.  Only this time they are not driven by fear, but instead by hope. 

This is not a small trickle of a river, this is a river at full flood, and we in Manitoba have seen what a flooding river looks like.  Imagine crossing the Assiniboine or the Souris this past spring, knowing that the only thing stopping you from being swept away was the presence of God.

Where did this trust come from?  Where did this faith in God come from?  How were the Israelites transformed so dramatically?  It came from forty years of wandering through the desert.  Forty years of living in the wilderness.  It did not come over night.  The faith of the Israelites was hard fought.  It was not a momentary, “Hey, we trust in God.  Look at us.”  It takes a long time for that relationship to develop.

And this is a wonderful model for our lives as Christians.  Our lives are a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage always moving towards that promised land of deeper relationship with the holy.  Our lives are a pilgrimage seeking wholeness, moving through our own brokenness.

And here’s the best part!

For me, the joy of running doesn’t come from hitting that end goal.  The joy of running comes from simply doing it.  I feel good about myself when I’m running, when I get out and enjoy the day, when I feel my own heart beat and spend time concentrating on my very breath.  I didn’t pick up the guitar in order to become a rock star (although lets face, you all heard my rendition of Tom Dooley, I’m pretty sure I will become one), I picked it up because I think it will be fun just to mess around with it.

As I was cleaning up some files in my study, I found a scrap piece of paper with something written on it.  Based on the papers around it, I think it was Shane Claiborne who said it at our Conference Annual Meeting last year, but I’ll stand to be corrected.  “Christians are so often worried about life after death, the we never even think about life before death!”  i.e. We are so worried about the destination, about the end goal, that we never even notice the pilgrimage itself.  How does our faith affect our lives here and now?

Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  It’s not tomorrow, its not a week from now, its not December 21, 2012.  It’s here!  It’s now!  He’s not talking about the afterlife, he’s talking about this world!  He’s talking about today!

There is a wonderful story I once heard a minister tell.  It was about a teacher living in Africa.  One day one of her students, gave her a beautiful gift, a certain kind of shell that could only be find at a beach miles away.  The student, who had no mode of transportation, had walked out there, found the shell and brought it back.  The teacher said, “That’s such a long journey for a gift!”  The student’s reply was “But don’t you see?  The journey is the gift!”

The Israelites could have wandered through the desert another forty years and still would have been in their promised land because they realized that through all that wandering, they remained in the presence of God.  It is the pilgrimage of our lives themselves that are holiness, not some end call that we are constantly striving for.

It doesn’t happen overnight, we never get to that final end goal we think we long for.  Transformation, relationship with God, encountering the holy and embodying Christ is not an on/off switch that we just need to find so we can flick it. And so we must be patient with ourselves.  We must learn throughout our lives that it is the path itself that is the pilgrimage, it is the forty years of wandering that is the promised land, the journey is the gift.  We are pilgrims together, seeking the God who exists within all of our lives and supporting one another in our travels.  In that way, we come to see that God is with us, always and in all ways.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sermon for October 16, 2011 - Venting

Scripture Passage: Exodus 33:12-23

There is something incredibly endearing and human about so many characters in the bible.  Anyone who tells you the bible is full of saints and angelic people, probably hasn’t read it too closely.  On the other hand, anyone who tells you it is chock full of humanity, I think, gets it.

Moses is one of those humans, and as I read this passage over and over, I find I like him more and more.  I like him, because there is so much truth to him, he is very human, just like you and me.  I love Moses.

So how did we get here?  The Hebrews had been wandering around the desert for three months since being liberated from Egypt.  They are eating manna and quail, they are drinking water that flows from rocks, and they arrive at Mount Sinai.  Moses, their leader, heads up the mountain, and receives a number of laws from God, most notably the ten commandments.  Moses receives the two tablets with God’s testimony on them, inscribed into the rock by God’s finger, and he begins to head down the mountain.

While Moses was up on the mountain, his people began to get nervous.  They worried about what was going to happen.  He’d been gone so long, was he ever coming back?  Mumbles and grumbles began to work their way through the encampment.  Those mumbles and grumbles grew louder until they became a cacophony of noise.  “Oh we’ve been abandoned! We need new gods to lead us now that Moses has obviously been lost to us!”  Aaron, Moses’ brother and the high priest, appeases them with a Golden Calf.  And that’s when everything goes Kaput! 

Violence, disease, punishment, and abandonment.  God sends them away from Mount Sinai, with the words of an angry parent “I’ll decide what to do with you, later!”  Eventually going with, “I will no longer be leading you.”  And that’s when Moses turns to God.

“God, where are you?  Don’t stop leading us now, we need you so much!  We’re lost without you!  I thought I was your friend!  You keep promising things, so what’s the deal?  Show yourself to me!”

This is what I love.  This is the humanity of Moses, as the voice of the people, a voice that we can recognize really carries a strength with it.  “God, where are you?”  This is a question that resonates throughout the human consciousness spanning our history.  “Where are you God?  What’s going on?  Just show me where to go and I’ll go there! Lead me!”

This pleading is at the heart of our religious experience.  It is at the heart of our search for meaning, the heart of our greatest existential questions as people of faith.  “Where are you God?  Please! I don’t know what to do!”

Who has not faced great times of trial and tribulation in their lives?  Who has not been confronted by a difficult decision, a decision they long for guidance in, but when we ask, we find only silence?  It is entirely human for us to turn to God, and say “Hey God?  Where are you in the midst of all this?  I need you!”

This pleading, and yelling, this questioning and venting is present across the biblical narrative.

Not only Moses, but Elijah too.  Alone and lost in the desert, hunted by his enemies, Elijah throws up his hands and says to God, “That’s it!  I’m done!  I’ve done everything you ask, and look where it has gotten me!”  Elijah is mad, and tired, and sad, and afraid.  He’s had enough!

Jeremiah, similar sentiment.  “You know God, everyone says you’re so righteous!  That you are just and good!  But looking around, I have some serious questions about how just and good you are!  Where are you God?”

Even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to God, asking not to be in the position he finds himself.  Then on the cross crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Where are you God?  I need you right now!”

These are the voices that join with us, when we cry out, “God just speak to me!  I want something solid and tangible.  I want to know where you are in the midst of all of this!  Because right now, I can’t find you!  I can’t hear you!  Give me a sign!  Show me a direction!”

These are not only human questions to ask, human cries to make; they are GOOD questions to ask, they are GOOD cries to make.  They are cathartic!  They help us pour out those emotions that have been created into us.  They are a form of prayer.  But more than that, in asking them we are saying we trust God’s grace, we trust our relationship with God.  When crying out we are saying we trust that God can handle our venting.  And trust me, God can!

Being angry, or afraid, or sad, or lost; and venting that towards God is a Holy Experience in itself.  It was when Moses put his questions to God, that he came into the divine presence, and that the covenant between God and the Israelites is renewed.  It is when Elijah cries out, that he was invited to encounter God at Horeb.  It was when Jeremiah laid into God, that God speaks to him.  It was when Jesus cried out, that he died and the curtain in the temple was torn in two; and the world saw there was no division between God and creation.

Now, none of them got exactly what they want.  Moses only saw the divine presence from a distance.  Elijah encountered God, not in an storm or an earthquake or a fire, but in a whisper. Jeremiah was essentially told, “All those promises you’re waiting to be fulfilled, I’m just going to make those same promises again.  Deal with it.”

God is never what we expect.  Actually, God is often never what we really think we want.  But during those times in our lives when we are overwhelmed;  During those times in our lives when we are lost, or afraid, or angry;  During those times in our lives when we are without hope, without direction; Offering that up to God, in any way, is a sign of our tremendous and awesome relationship with the Holy One, in whom we live, and breathe, and have our being.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sermon for October 9, 2011 - Something From Nothing

Scripture Passage for this Sermon: Luke 17:11-19

Read Something From Nothing by Phoebe Gilman

You can’t get something from nothing.  These are the words, the little boy in the book we just read, was told.  You can’t get something from nothing.  It seems logical.  Matter cannot be created right?  You can’t have an effect without a cause right?  In general, people get what they deserve right?  But the story doesn’t end there does it?  The little boy does indeed get something from nothing.  He gets a story.

You can’t get something for nothing.  Jesus, called to the lepers, he invited them to lean in just a little bit.  They had been told many times over, “You can’t get something for nothing.”  They were unclean, cursed with an illness that separated them from the world around them.  They could not offer anything to the world, and so they would get nothing in return.  They were nothing, and people treated them that way. 

They leaned in towards Jesus.  Then he invited them to lean in a little bit more, and at this time, all the disciples and the whole crowd was starting to lean further and further away, because, come on, its lepers, and no one wanted to be anywhere near them.  So Jesus began to whisper, he said, “All these people will tell you, you can’t get something from nothing, but you know what?  You CAN!  And somewhere, deep down inside each of you, you believe it, you know it.  You wouldn’t have called out to me if you didn’t.  You CAN get something for nothing.”

The lepers were in shock! Could it be?  Was it possible?  They ran to the priests who confirmed that they did indeed get something for nothing.  They had been cleansed, they had been healed.  And they didn’t have to make promises about what they would do, they didn’t have to be wonderfully good people, they just had to believe that they might get something from nothing.

They had nothing!  They had absolutely nothing.  They were unclean.  They were diseased.  They were on the outside looking in.  They had no access to society.  They had no access to the temple.  They had no access to anything.  They couldn’t offer anything to the world around them.  They had nothing.  And yet they trusted that even though they had nothing, they could get something.  And they were right.  A scandalous thought in the first century CE, and still a scandalous thought today.

This is not a story about miraculous healings.  This is a story about grace.  This is a story about getting something from nothing.  These lepers were not healed, they did not encounter God because they were deserving.  All the rules and regulation, all the laws of the day, in fact, insured that they would NOT have access to God. 

And yet… Sure enough.  They woke up one morning as lepers, as outsiders, as marginalized members of society, as excluded, as unclean.   And they went to bed with the ability to fully participate in the community.  From nothing, they suddenly had something.

This is what grace is.  It is the idea that we can get something from nothing. This is the faith that Jesus compliments at the end of the story.  The faith in God’s grace; a grace that is boundless and that is freely given.  A grace that is something from nothing.  We just get it.  We just get God’s grace.

In our world, we have created a deceptive reality.  Because we ourselves so often struggle with the idea of getting something from nothing (or worse yet – giving something without reason); subsequently, our image of God is one that often demands sacrifice, demands saintly perfection, demands correct doctrinal belief.  God will love us if we believe this… God will love us if we do that…  That’s counter to the Gospel.  Jesus heals first, before anything else happens.  God’s love always, always, always, comes first.  That is grace.

But the story does not end there.  One of the ten lepers comes back.  And he’s all healed, all clean, possibly skipping like the ex-leper from The Life of Brian. And this leper, responds to that grace which all of them had received.  He says, “thank you.”

And though Jesus is saddened that the others have not come back, he is delighted with this one man.  Jesus sees in him the model of his disciples, the model of who Luke thought Christians should be.  We are all recipients of God’s grace.  We are all bound up in God’s love, created and cherished.  To be Christian is not to be loved any more than anyone else.  All ten lepers were healed.  To be a Christian is to respond to that grace with gratitude.  To be Christian is to respond to that grace with humility.  Remember, grace touches everyone, we’re not better than anyone, we are just called to be grateful for it.  To live in response to that love God gives to the whole world.  We are called to live lives within that grace.

The question I’m going to leave you with is, and this Thanksgiving Sunday, is how do we show our gratitude to the God that loves everyone and everything?  How do we live lives that say “thank you”?  How do we fully live lives that embody that grace we are freely given?