Semon for February 5, 2012 - Getting Away

The Scripture Reading for this Week is: Mark 1:29-39

Who knows what the fourth commandment is?

I have to say, I really feel for Jesus in our scripture reading for today.  His Sabbath day of teaching and exorcisms has ended.  No sooner does the sun set on his “day of rest” than people begin streaming towards Peter’s house where Jesus was staying.  They are pounding on the door, wanting to be healed, wanting to have demons exorcised.  The whole city was waiting for him, ready to run to him as they watched the sun.  As soon as it was below the horizon we can imagine them swarming to where he was.  Yelling, demanding, shouting, wanting him to work his power upon them.

It’s like getting back from a vacation to a mountain of work, to the phone ringing off the hook, to people knocking on your door.  We’ve all experienced that.  I think that is why much of the world hates Mondays, because they are forced to go from 0 to 100 in an instant.  For myself, I know after a vacation I need a day or two to catch my breath, to get rolling, to ease into things.  Even after a single day off, work is that much more exhausting and tiring.

So the people are knocking on the door, reaching out to him, begging him, crying for him.  And Jesus dives into the middle of the crowd.  He heals people to the left, to the right.  Moving slowly through the swarm as they cluster around him, as it pushes towards the centre.  They claw at him, they pull at him, they tug on him.

And he has to leave, he has to get away from it.  The story implies that he got a bit of sleep, but still, early the next morning, before the sun has even begun to rise, Jesus slips away.  In the darkness, when the rest of the town was asleep, Jesus leaves.

And he prays.  He gets away, to a deserted place.  No one else around, and he spends some time with God.  He prays.

Pause

But it isn’t long before his disciples find him.  They hunt him down, and explain to him that everyone is searching for him.  Everyone wants something from him.  He is being pulled back.

I love this story about Jesus.  He is so vulnerable in it.  I think we can all empathize with that feeling of being pulled in many directions at once.  It can be overwhelming, it can be exhausting.  I think we can all appreciate Jesus’ desire to throw up his hands and just get away from it.

This is one of those remarkable stories where we see that Jesus is not some super-human.  We see that Jesus, in his humanity is bound and constrained by those same limitations that we are all so familiar with.  I just feel for him in this, I think most of us can feel for him because we have been there.

Who here hasn’t at least once in their life, though likely more than that (possibly monthly or weekly) been pulled by many different people, by many different demands, by many different things to do?  All of us have.  All of us have experienced that.  And truthfully, all of us have been on the other side as well.  We’ve all demanded.

But God gets it.  God knows how it is.  After creating the world in 6 days, God rested.  Jesus was overwhelmed more than once after healing people, more than once while living out his public ministry.  In our scripture reading for today, Jesus knew he needed Sabbath, he needed his own rest in order to return to public ministry.

So the question I have is, “Why do we think we’re special?”  Why do we think we are better than God and Jesus, why do we think that we don’t need rest?  Why, when our world says “Go! Go! Go!” do we always respond with “Ok!”?  What has happened to our Sabbath?

I’ve heard it said about that fourth commandment, that it is no longer relevant.  Worse still, it is often argued that keeping a Sabbath is not practical or even possible any more.  That makes me sad.  More than that, I think we may have confused ourselves with what Sabbath actually means.  I think often we convince ourselves that we know what Sabbath is, and that we are honoring it to some degree.  We need to be careful about that as well.

Who knows what the word Sabbath means?  It comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means not only rest, but also, cease.  Sabbath means, “cease”, to stop.  This is hard for us to understand because we are such a “doing culture”.  Sabbath means stop, it means “don’t do”.

How many of us actually take a day when we “don’t do”?  How many of us even take an hour?  What does that even mean, “to cease”?  Does running around and doing all those odd jobs that need to get done but have been put on the back burner because of work mean “to cease”?  No.  Does hanging out and watching TV mean we’re “not doing”?  I’d argue that it doesn’t.  Not necessarily anyways.  It certainly doesn’t mean that for me, in my life.

So, what is Sabbath? 

When I ask this question I look to Christ for answers.  Because this is a hard question.  He stops his work, moving away from all the demands the word is making on him.  He spends time with God.  I think these are the two key ingredients.  And they are huge. 

First, Sabbath is that time when we step away from the demands of the world.  Jesus slips out before the sun rises.  More than that when his disciples track him down saying the world is demanding his presence, he just leaves.  Stepping away from the demands of the world can be a difficult thing to do.  It is that time when we just stop, when we rest, when we have the strength to say to ourselves, “All those things I should be doing, I’m going to put on pause.”  All those things the world shouts at me, I’m going to tune out.  There are so many ways that this can happen, and I can’t tell you what they are.  They can be quiet and meditative, they can be active if we feel they need to be.

Every morning and night I try to take 15 minutes to do some yoga stretching.  This is hard for me.  It’s hard because in the morning, I’d either rather be sleeping.  If it is a really busy day, it is very easy to say to myself, “well I should be getting to work, I don’t have time for this.”  At night, I just want to goto sleep. And if I am too tired, it is very easy for me to convince myself that my mild yoga and meditation is not as important as sleep.  But, what I’ve noticed is that when I give myself this half hour every day, I am more energized and focused when I do have to do things.  And at night, I truly sleep better.  This has become a part of my Sabbath practice.  I’m not as good at it as I’d like to be, but I am starting to see the tremendous importance.  There are other practices that work, depending on our motivations and our mindsets.  Contemplative prayer, labyrinth walking, pilgrimage, even going for a run can be a Sabbath activity if it helps us pull away from the demands of the world.

Moving away from the demands of the world for a few moments or a day or a week of vacation does not just mean stopping work.  It is deeper than that.  It is allowing ourselves a chance to drop all those masks that we put up at the world’s request that hide our true selves.  For example, in a world that demands we be happy all the time with a smile on our face, Sabbath could simply be a moment when we let ourselves cry.

Secondly, Sabbath has to be about God. It is why Jesus didn’t simply sleep a bit longer on that early morning.  For his rest, for his ceasing, for his rejuvenation he needed God.  Jesus’ power comes from God.  His strength, his authority, his ability, all of that came from God.  We are no different.  I can’t tell you what it means to spend time with God.  I can’t tell you what it means to pray.  It is different for each and every one of us.  But somehow, our rest is tied to our admission, our conviction, that we are utterly dependant upon God for who we are.  This is where I struggle, and often my Sabbath days will consist of me confusing watching tv and playing video games with holy rejuvenation.  I’m not beating up on those things, we need to unwind, but Sabbath does not mean entertainment.  True rest, Sabbath rest must be cradled within the arms of God.

I cannot tell you what the key ingredient is to Sabbath.  I cannot tell you what you need to do to find this holy rest.  Church should not be a place which places more demands and strict orders on how you experience and encounter God, on following legalistic rites to enter into a time of Sabbath.  Church should be a place where we explore that together, where as a community we can bring our true selves forward, those selves we hide from the rest of the world, to explore how we rest in the presence of God.  If anyone is interested in exploring this, please talk to me.  I can think of nothing more joyous, more communal, more holy than sitting down with a sister or brother in Christ and asking what does it mean to rest in God.

Sabbath should be exciting.   It should be demanding, but paradoxically, it should also be easy.  It should be something that once we’ve experienced it, we can’t wait to experience it again, and again.  In a world that demands so much from us, we must learn to join with Christ when we take time to pull away from those demands.

Sermon For January 29, 2012 - What's in a name?

Scripture Readings for this sermon: Mark 1:21-28

I remember once I got into an argument with my dad.  It was a stupid argument, over nothing really.  It was about which is better, soccer or hockey.  And it got so heated, there was yelling and everything.  And to be honest with you, I don’t even care that much.  I like hockey well enough, but not that much.  I’ll watch it if it is on, but since I got rid of cable, I find myself caring progressively less and less.  I’ll periodically check the scores and standings, but beyond that, meh.  Maybe that’s because I’m a Leaf fan.  I don’t know why what he was saying was pissing me off, but it was.  And I argued.

And suddenly, I said to myself, “Oh!  I’m angry!”  As if I was caught by surprise. I was arguing so heatedly over something that was absolutely meaningless. I had become irrational, I was yelling.  I had to say to my dad, “I need to end this right now.  I can’t argue anymore.”  It was ridiculous.  But I didn’t realize how ridiculous I was being, until I saw and said to myself, “Oh, I’m angry.”  Anger had taken control of me, and whisked me away.

In our scripture reading for today we read the first story in Mark about an exorcism, about casting out a spirit that had taken control of man.  Jesus is teaching in the synagogue, when a man, possessed by an unclean spirit, approaches him.  Such a man would likely not have been welcome in the synagogue, or the town for that matter.  He was unclean, and very likely there would have been fear of him, or of being infected by him.  Jesus, however, is unwilling to allow this man to be cast aside to the margins.  Rather than sending the man away, the way the rest of the world would have and probably did, Jesus heals him.  People are in awe of this power, and quickly, word begins to spread beyond the town about this man, this teacher, this healer.

Something really surprising happens in this story that today’s readers may not catch.  The words from the man with the unclean spirit carry an extra element of danger that we might not pick up on.  “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” the man cries out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”  Whatever is possessing the man, whatever controls his body, knows exactly who it is confronting, and the unclean spirit names him.  “Jesus of Nazareth” it says, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”

During the time of Jesus, it was believed that knowing the true name of someone gave you power over them.  The unclean spirit that is controlling the man knows the name of Jesus.  It is so obvious to the unclean spirit who it is facing, it recognizes Christ instantly and clearly states it. 

And it has absolutely no effect. 

This is noted a few times in Mark.  Immediately after this story, it describes Jesus casting out demons that he would not let speak because “the knew him.”  Whether this is to protect his identity from the public is unclear.  In fact this secrecy is another common theme of Mark, Jesus seems determined not to let too many people know he is the Messiah.  But again, in chapter five of Mark, a demon once again states Jesus’ name and identity, and it holds no power over him.  But when Jesus demands the name of the demon, it immediately speaks, saying “I am Legion” and Jesus casts it out.

Knowing and naming those demons, knowing and naming the spirits, knowing and naming what dwells within is a tremendously powerful tool.  And in this story, we see Christ embody his authority, calling those demons, calling those unclean spirits out into the light.  Though he is known by whatever dwells within, though they have seen into his very soul, his very being, they have no power over him.  And when they try to control him, he simply brings them out into the light. And everyone is in awe.

There are so many things in this world, that we hide from.  So many things that we never talk about, that we may never even admit to ourselves.  My earlier story was not a criticism of anger.  Anger can be a good thing.  Anger can be an energizing, positive force for change in the world.  Martin Luther King Jr. was angry, and thank God that he was.  Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians, “Be angry, and do not sin.”  There is nothing wrong with anger in itself.  The danger comes when it goes unrecognized.  When we do not know its name is when it has power over us.

This goes for so many of our emotions.  Fear is another big one that can control us if we do not know its presence.  Fear in itself need not be a bad thing.  If there is a tiger running at me, fear is a good thing.  Not having fear at that moment is stupid.  But fear can also creep into our very being and take control of all things.  I have to watch myself, I have a fear of conflict, and so I need to be very conscious of checking myself, that in certain situations it is not that fear driving me.  We all have fears that go unknown and unnamed, and it is then that they become dangerous.

This goes beyond simple emotions.  Our desires as well can be viewed the same way.  What about sexual attraction or romantic desire?  Are those bad things?  Of course not!  They’re awesome.  One should not feel bad about being attracted to someone.  We can’t pick and choose who we think is sexy.  It just happens. If we see it, if we admit it to ourselves we can take appropriate measures, we can say to ourselves “Uh oh, better be careful around her, or him.”  Or we can say to ourselves, “Yeah! This is a good thing, and I’m pretty happy about it.”  It is when we cannot admit it to ourselves, when we cannot name it, when we bury it because for some reason we feel it is wrong; it is then that we begin to cross boundaries that need to be checked.  The desire controls and corrupts from the inside.

Needs become addictions when they go unnamed.  There is a reason that someone must admit they have a problem before an addiction can be overcome.  They have to name it, name that demon and call it into the light.

Even at a social level these demons take effect.  We call them taboos.  Those topics that are so difficult to bring up, so they remain hushed whispers.  I’ve had it said to me by a number of different people that at the funeral on Thursday, when I first said the word “suicide” there was an inaudible intake of breath.  It was the elephant in the room, the unspoken word, the unnamed presence.  Once it was named however, it lost all its power. 

We need to be talking about these things.  Especially in church.  This should be a place where it is safe to talk about those taboo issues, and yet ironically throughout history we have been the purveyor silence.  We should be talking about suicide, we should be talking about mental illness, depression, addiction and alcoholism.  They should not be whispered topics of conversation we say under our breath.  We should be talking about domestic violence and abuse because it happens.  In this community, I promise you it happens.  Probably by someone you know and love to someone you know and love.  We should be talking about sex, and not just in the old churchy way about why it can be dangerous, but also about why it can be awesome.  There, if that doesn’t get you coming to church anticipating that sermon, I don’t what will.

This is the power of Christ, to bring things out into the light.  This is the authority of Jesus, he didn’t cast off all those taboos, he dwelt among them, casting love and compassion onto all of them.  We are an incarnational faith, we believe God existed and continues to exist here in the world.  My appreciation of this has grown tremendously over the last little while.  If God is in this world, then that is where the Church should be.  If Christ cast light upon, taught to embrace, and named all those powers which take control of us, then so should the church.  Because if not even the church can have those conversations in healthy, life giving ways, then who can?

Sermon for January 22, 2012 - Following

The Scripture reading for this sermon is Mark 1:14-20

Why are we Christian?  Why do we come to church once a week on Sunday mornings?  Do we come because we just like it?  Do we come because we’ve always come?  Do we come because it is a good place to socialize?  Why are we here?

Following last night’s events I went back to my office and typed a lot.  I didn’t know what to do with my sermon.  So I would write, then cut, then paste, then erase, then write some more, then lie down on the floor, then pace, then write some more.  Rarely have I felt so openly helpless, so ill-equipped in my ministry than I did as I sat staring at a computer screen last night.  Where was my faith in the midst of all this?

At a time like this, the rubber meets the road.  So why are we here?

In our Gospel reading for today we read a truly ridiculous story.  Possibly one of the most outlandish stories in all of the bible.  And it isn’t about a healing.  It isn’t about someone walking on water.  It isn’t about God siding with one army over another.  It isn’t even about the glories of creation or re-creation.  And yet it is one of the most miraculous stories I have read.

It’s about Jesus saying to a few people, “Hey, come and follow me.”  And do you know what?  They do.  Immediately.  Without thought.  They drop their very livelihoods, they leave their families, their possessions, and they follow.  In all honesty, there are no stories in all of scripture that I find half so terrifying as this one.

Think about it.  This is scary.  How many of us, myself included, would walk away from our jobs, would leave our possessions, would abandon our families if Jesus asked us to?  Don’t worry, I don’t think Jesus is asking us to.  But, what did these four disciples encounter? To be honest, though it scares me, I marvel at it as well.  What did they experience in Christ?  What was it that just made them drop everything?  Immediately?

Maybe the question is not, “Why are we Christian?”, maybe the question is more basic than that entirely, “What does it mean to be Christian?”  “What does it mean to cast down our nets and follow Christ?”

It is so easy to drop frivolous words around this story.  Words like, “Oh they found Christ.”  But what do we even mean by that?  “Oh, they accepted Jesus.”  Really?  So what does that mean?

These days words like that imply that we have some sort of choice in the matter.  Some sort of agency in accepting Christ.  We have turned it into a rational head game.  Do this, that, and the other thing and you will be a follower of Jesus.  Believe this, that, and the other thing and you accept Christ.  (Act it out)…  Oh, ok.  Now I guess I’m a Christian.

But look at these four disciples.  They had absolutely no control over what they were doing.  The bible is very clear that they immediately followed Jesus.  They didn’t stop to think about whether or not they should, whether it was a good idea or a bad idea.  They didn’t pause and consider the ramifications of their actions.  They just went. 

So what was it that swept them up?  What took their control away?

My own answer is simple.  They experienced God, they experienced the divine, they experienced holiness, whatever you want to call it when they met Jesus.  Richard Rohr writes that “Anyone who has any authentic inner experience knows God is only beauty, mercy and total embrace.”  To be wrapped up in total embrace, how could they not be swept away?  Once you’ve felt that, once you’ve known that, is there any choice?

More and more I’m coming to the realization that everything about our faith comes down to grace.  That’s all there is, that is all that matters.  Grace! Grace! Grace!  The idea that God’s love comes first.  That all things are created out of love and dwell within that love.  That God’s love is freely and adoringly given.  That there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn that love.  No hoop to jump through, no ritual to perform, no set of beliefs to have.  Alternatively there is absolutely nothing we can do to lose that love, no sin so great, no belief so outlandish.

As Christians we see that Grace embodied in the self giving love of Jesus.  No wonder these disciples dropped everything.  They encountered and knew divine love, and it blew them away.  They were absolutely taken by it!  Because this is so foreign to us, we try to take control of it.  We have created systems that tell us what we need to do in the world or believe about Jesus in order to receive it.  But we can’t control it.  God’s love comes first.

 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This is Paul, and I think it is the Gospel, it is Grace, in the most eloquent language I’ve ever read.  NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.

I think it is important for all of us to know that.

But here’s the question, how many of us know that for ourselves?  It is, in many ways, relatively easy to think it about other.  But, when we’re well and truly honest with ourselves, how many of us think, “My value comes from God’s love for me.  And God’s love is enough.”

That is the basis of all things.  That is where the rubber meets the road.  If we don’t have that, if our value comes from somewhere, something, or someone beyond ourselves, it is that somewhere, something, or someone that we will follow.  If the fishermen saw their value as being the work that they did, they would have never left their boats.  If the fishermen saw their value as what they possessed, they would never have dropped their nets.  If the fishermen saw their own value as being their families, they would never have gone.  The bible is not saying any of these are bad.  The bible is simply saying, our value does not come from them.

This is the most basic element of our faith.  Our value comes simply from God’s love.  Our role as Christians is to long to experience that for ourselves and for the world around us.  That is the basis upon which all things must grow.  I wish I could say what needs to be done to experience that.  But I can’t.  That’s not the way it works.  However, if anyone wants to know that, if anyone longs for that.  Talk to me.   I would love to explore with you, as I explore for myself.  Because God’s love is present, it resides deep within and around us.  We’re invited to know it and to share it.

Sermon for January 15, 2012 - Remit 6

The Scripture passage for this sermon was 1 Samuel 3:1-20, 1 Peter 2:9-10

In Kelowna BC, in August of 2009, the 40^th General Council of the United Church of Canada met and approved a motion to add three statements of faith to the Doctrine section of the Basis of Union.  They are the 1940 Statement of Faith, the New Creed, and A Song of Faith.  Various other General Councils since Church Union in 1925 has approved each of these.  Subsequently, a remit has been issued to all presbyteries and pastoral charges across Canada.  We have been called upon to vote on this matter, and I think this provides an excellent opportunity to discuss this church we claim membership in.

So here’s what the next few weeks will hold for us.  This week, I’ll be talking about what exactly a remit is, and why remits are important.  More importantly, I’ll talk about why I think the polity and structure of the United Church of Canada is messy but wondrous. Next week, we’ll talk about the Basis of Union, about what doctrine is, and whether or not it is important, and I’ll also do a bit of an introduction to the 1940 Statement of Faith.  And finally, the next Sunday I’ll talk about why this particular Remit is important, and what it might mean to have three different statements of faith in our Doctrine.  I’ll also give an introduction to the New Creed, which you are familiar with as we say it every week, as well as the 2006 Statement entitled, A Song of Faith.

I won’t be reading aloud each of the statements.  For the 1940 Statement and the Song of Faith, that would be a sermon in and of itself.  But I will be leaving copies at the back of the church for those who are interested, and I encourage all of you to pick them up. And if we run out, I can print off more, or you can find them all online at the United Church of Canada website.

So I get it.  Some vote, that has absolutely no bearing on our lives is coming down from General Council, a body that is detached from the realities of church life in rural Manitoba.  Let’s just do whatever they want us to do, get them off our backs and stop wasting our time with meaningless measures.  Vote yes or no or whatever, and move on!

Sometimes I agree with that sentiment.  Sometimes I get so frustrated with the bureaucracy of the church that I want to throw up may hands in frustration at whatever form I need to fill out or whatever hoop I need to jump through.  Believe me, when you go through discernment and candidacy process to becoming a minister, there are a lot of those hoops.  I get it.

But while this bureaucracy does get under my skin.  I think the upcoming remit is a sign of incredible vitality within the church.  First off, what is a remit.  When we want to change the Basis of Union, the constitution of the United Church of Canada, a remit is issued to test the will of the church.  When it is a question of Doctrine, of asking what do we believe as a church, that remit has to go to all presbyteries and all the pastoral charges.  Fifty percent of the presbyteries and fifty percent of the pastoral charges have to vote “yes”, for the remit to go back to the 41^st General Council in Ottawa this upcoming summer for final approval.

So.  That’s what is happening.  We’re all caught up.  Onto the far more interesting stuff:  Why I think this is a sign of vitality for our church.

In our Old Testament Lectionary reading for today, we hear the story of God’s call to Samuel.  Three times, God calls, and finally it is the old Priest, Eli, who discerns that it is God, and that Samuel should answer.  It was Eli, the priest who discerned God’s will, who interpreted God’s words.  This was very much a function of priests.

In our Epistle reading today from First Peter, this is not contradicted.  What is different, is the claim that Christians are a holy priesthood.  This was a fundamental part of the Reformation, it is part of our identity, especially as a Reformed Church.  These words from First Peter, along with a few others throughout the bible, inspired the phrase “Priesthood of all believers”.  And though this phrase has meant different things over the course of Protestantism’s 500 year history, it is wonderful to grapple with.

For me, I struggle defining what, “Priesthood of all believers” actually means.  I don’t think it just means that lay people sometimes read scripture on Sunday.  Instead I see it resonate in all the ways that we are living the Way of Jesus Christ, that Way which we would ideally see embodied within the Church.  I see the priesthood of all believers as the myriad of ways we participate in the church, the ways we participate in trying to create a holy community.

In the United Church of Canada, one of the ways that we live this out, is through our grassroots, democratic structure.  Yes, at times democracy can be messy.  It leads to argument, it leads to debate.  It requires a tremendous amount of energy and resources to function, in its own inefficient way.  But in our church, in theory, every single person who wants a voice, can have one.  And it is the cacophony of voices that make us great. 

When we vote on these remits at the Annual Meeting, don’t think of it as another hoop that we’re jumping through.   Think of it as us interpreting God’s call to the Church.  Think of it as us as a large group of people across Canada, collectively trying to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit within all those voices.  Think of it as us fulfilling our role as a priesthood of all believers. 

There are a number of different ways of doing this.  If you’re coming to the meeting, great, read these.  Talk about them.  Ask questions.  Questions like, “Does this mean anything to me?  Does it resonate with my experience of faith within the United Church of Canada?”  Questions like, “Why would I include a document from 1940 as a statement of our doctrine if we’ve had two newer documents since then?”  Or, “Is this statement consistent with the way I encounter God through scripture?”  If you’re not going to be at the meeting, then talk to someone who is. 

The words around a remit are that we are “testing the church’s agreement”.  It is not some small group of people, saying “Hey, this is what your doctrine will be.”  Rather it is a small group of people saying, “Hey what is our doctrine?” So what is the church’s will?  You are all a part of something bigger than yourselves, so push yourselves.  Participating in democracy doesn’t just mean voting.  It means understanding what you are voting for or against.  It means listening to different opinions, struggling with new ideas.

You are priests, all of you.  This is what you are called to.  You are ministers, each and every one of you, and so you have a voice in this church.  Yes, I am a paid accountable minister, but the only reason I am is because I was elected to this office by democratic processes by people like you; by this institution which you support through the same democratic processes.  Do you wonder why I need to ask your permission to do baptisms?  Or communion?  You have been entrusted by the wider church to discern when baptism is appropriate, when communion is appropriate.  And again, in this remit, you have been entrusted by the wider church to discern whether or not to include these documents in our constitution.

This is a sacred obligation.  As we discuss this, you are living out your Holy calling.  Do not take it lightly.