Our Next Chapter: A Sermon for the 10th Sunday After Pentecost

Photo Credit: Markus Spiske on pexels.com

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Well today’s readings are fun, aren’t they? There’s the writer of Isaiah singing a mournful song to an unfruitful vineyard. The letter to the Hebrews speaking about the difficulties of following Christ and the elusiveness of faith. And Luke is talking about Jesus causing division rather than peace and how families and households will be torn apart. These are pretty severe readings, ones that probably make you upset when you hear them. What a great selection to start off my preaching ministry here at St Peter’s. Sheesh! That said, I think there are some nuggets in here that we can lean on as we head into our ministry together, especially considering all of the change that St Peter’s has had to face recently.

 

We know that Jesus was a disrupter. He fought against the Romans and wanted change for a better life for his followers. He tossed tables. He changed peoples’ lives just by walking into those lives. Jesus was a disrupter. But he was also supposed to be a bringer of peace. He was supposed to be the one to join the world in unity. So why are we talking about division and disunity? Is this the same Jesus? We don’t want to think of Jesus as a bringer of division, but there is some truth there.

 

When you think back on the last few years here at St Peter’s, I could probably guarantee that there wasn’t 100% agreement 100% of the time. We’d be kidding ourselves if we thought that. I think the point Jesus is trying to make is that there isn’t anything wrong with disagreement. Jesus is telling us that we are called to the work of discerning, of arguing, of bringing our varied places of experience and individual truths to the table, so that we can work towards peace, unity, and the future of St Peter’s place in the world in relationship with one another.

 

While the words in today’s Gospel are hard to hear, the message we can take away is that if we work hard at it, peace and unity will come. And it is our faith that will move us towards that day through grace with one another. Grace with each other as we learn how to work together, learn how to worship together, and learn how to be at peace with one another. Through all of this, one of the things that we will have to manage during yet another time of transition for St Peter’s, and for me, is expectation, which is a theme I see running through our readings today.

 

We’re all familiar with the anguish of unmet expectations. We’ve done everything right, but nothing is going as we planned. In Isaiah, the gardener is trying to figure out what happened to his vineyard. He was expecting grapes in order to make wine, and he got nothing but rotten grapes, even though he did everything right in caring for his vineyard. The gardener’s expectation of a full harvest of grapes wasn’t met and now he’s asking why. We know that feeling. We all know that even if we follow every proper step, sometimes the unexpected happens. And often we don’t see it coming because it’s not like we can see into the future.

 

Luke also talks about how things don’t always happen as we expect them to. When we see clouds in the sky, we expect rain. But does it always rain? We feel hot winds, so we expect a scorching heat. But is that always the case? We expect Jesus to bring peace, and yet he talks about bringing division. So, what can we do about our expectations, and the knowledge that sometimes our expectations fall short of reality? Let’s turn to the reading from Hebrews. Perhaps there’s some answers there.

 

The letter to the Hebrews tells us what we know in our hearts as Christians. That we can look to Jesus for strength and for perseverance through anything that we are going through, including disagreements, transitions, and expectations, met and unmet. And we can be reassured that God walks with us through our entire faith journey. This knowledge is something important that we need to hold on to.

 

At the end of July, I turned the page on the previous chapter of my faith journey. A leap of faith that was taken almost a year ago has come to fruition with me standing here before you. Having left everything I know behind, including my family, nothing has gone as expected since I left Winnipeg at the beginning of the month. But in situations like this, I can find support when I surround myself in a community of faith, with people of faith. When you are surrounded by a living cloud of witnesses to Jesus, you can’t help but feel uplifted and not alone.

 

Now that I am here, the work has begun, and we will be turning the page on our next chapter together. Sure, there will be bumps in the road, disagreements, and unexpected events. But no matter what, we are in it together, our faith in Jesus will keep us strong, and God will be walking with us every step of the way.

I want to leave you with two questions to ponder as you leave this place. I hope they spark conversation amongst us all.

1)      What are your hopes for our ministry together?

2)      How do you think God will speak through this church to share the gospel?

I think it’s important for us to share how we each hear God speaking to us, even if it’s not in the same way that other people hear it. It will help us to understand each other’s hopes and dreams for this congregation as we start our new chapter together. As we take these first steps together in our faith journeys, I pray that God’s love and mercy will uphold us all by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Resources:

pulpitfiction.com

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David L Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor

Pastor Tyler Gingrich

Bishop Jason Zinko

The Next Chapter: Extension to my Final Sermon

On July 27, I delivered my last sermon in the IRSM. You can see that sermon in a previous blog post. Once I was finished, I added on a final farewell to the IRSM. I have thought long and hard about whether or not to share it, but I'm hoping that by doing so, it will help me jump into the work that I need to do here in BC, maybe give me a bit of mental closure as it's been kind of a rough ride since that last Sunday in July. So here you go, my final words of goodbye to the IRSM.

Usually after I finish my sermon, I say, "As we ponder these words..." I have been doing a lot of pondering over these last few months, especially as I wrote this sermon, especially as I prepare to say goodbye to this chapter of my life.

My first call in the Anglican church was only half-time. There was a need to fill the other half in order to support my family. So I prayed on it, and I considered our joint relationship (Lutheran and Anglican), and I went to Bishop Jason and asked if he had anything available. There was only one thing - the IRSM. Could I actually start my ministry with 7 parishes?? I searched my heart and answered the call - the knock at the door of my heart that said I could do this.

In the same way I said the IRSM grew over the last 5 years, I have grown right alongside of you. I have learned leadership, planning, pivoting, pastoral care. From you, I have learned how to be a priest and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Alongside each other, we have asked, searched, and knocked. And today marks another door that I have knocked upon. Ten years ago, Cass and I visited Chemainus, BC and decided that in 10 years, we wanted to move out there. In 2020, we had adjusted that to be more like 15 years to line up with the kids' education.

And yet here we are, at the 10 year mark anyway. When the post came up last fall, Cass and I talked a lot about it and I prayed a lot about it. Our decision was that if I knocked and the door was answered, then I would know I made the right decision. So almost 10 years to the day, I stand here saying goodbye to a group of wonderful people who made me into the priest I am today, with plans for Cass to follow closer to our 15-year time line.

As the IRSM turns the page to its next chapter, so do I turn the page to my next chapter, knowing that God walks with me every step of the way.

Thank you, for everything.

The Next Chapter: A Sermon for the 7th Sunday After Pentecost

Photo by Pixabay on pexels.com

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. 

Jesus’ followers have been watching him pray day in and day out for as long as they can remember. They sit and they watch as he either prays in front of them or wanders off for a bit of private prayer. Finally, one of them pipes up and says, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And thus, Jesus gives us the prayer that has been around 2 millennia, one which are to be reciting daily.

 

Prayer is very important to our spiritual life. It is the way we connect our hearts, minds, and souls to God and there are so many lessons I could teach today about prayer. But I’ve chosen to look beyond the 4^th verse of today’s passage because I think there are a couple of sentences further into the reading that are quite applicable to what today represents for the IRSM.

 

Verse 9 and 10 go like this,

“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

 

These verses remind me of one of my favourite hymns, “Seek Ye First”. If you pull out the blue hymnals and turn to hymn #783, I’d love it if we could sing it together.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God

And His righteousness;

And all these things shall be added unto you.

Hallelu, Hallelujah!

 

Ask, and it shall be given unto you;

Seek, and you shall find.

Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Hallelu, Hallelujah!

 

Man shall not live by bread alone,

But by every word

That proceeds out from the mouth of God.

Hallelu, Hallelujah!

 

Thank you for indulging me in singing that lovely hymn!

 

Now that we have those beautiful words in our minds and in our hearts, I want you close your eyes for a moment and think back through your lives, whether it be your lives at home, at church, or within the IRSM. Think about the asks that have been received, the searches that have been successful, and the knocks that have been answered. Let’s take a moment to do that…

 

Since I arrived in the IRSM in January of 2020, it feels like we have been in a constant state of transition. Having only just created the IRSM a couple of years earlier, you called your first set of permanent pastors. Four months later, we shut down for the pandemic. It was supposed to only be until Easter. Then the pandemic went beyond Easter (how do we celebrate Easter without gathering?!) and just kept on going, with no relief in sight. Every month, we were trying to figure out how to do new things when we barely knew each other. Then came the craziness of 2021 which brought on a change in pastoral leadership. For one reason or another, in the 5 years I’ve been with the IRSM, we have not had one single year, liturgical or calendar, where everything went as planned. Isn’t that incredible to think about?

 

But each time we hit a roadblock, we found a way to make it through. We asked what we could be doing, we searched for answers, and we knocked on doors to see what was on the other side. We worked within our limits while also looking for new ways to worship, new ways to be together, and new ways to do church and be the church. We have grown and learned together about what it means to be the church in our communities and how to use the tools we have in front of us.

 

And here we are, having found ways to figure out, still continuing on as the IRSM, even bringing a 7^th parish into the mix! Each time questions arose, we took time to ask them, get answers, and continued on. Each time we needed information, we searched, found the answers we needed, and continued on. Each time a door came before us, we knocked, it opened, and we continued on.

 

And here you are today, still gathered as the IRSM, still looking towards the future. And, once again, things will look different than it did last year, and you remain in a state of transition. But, as Father Shannon Kearns says,

“Transition doesn’t have to be bad.

Upheaval can be positive.

Shifts can lead to growth and new opportunities.”

 

As we sang earlier, we do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And the words that God has for you today are these:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

 

Yes, things are changing yet again in the IRSM, but keep asking, keeping searching, and keep knocking for good things are still coming your way and God will be walking with you each and every step. It’s time to turn the page and get ready for your next chapter.

 

Amen.

References

shannontlkearns.com

hymnal.net

A Review of the Book "How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You" by The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman

Title: How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You

Author: The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Year: 2012

131pages

From the Back: A hilarious, brilliant offering of cat comics, facts, and instructional guides from the creative wonderland at TheOatmeal.com. Fan favorites plus a crapton of new, never-before-seen comics are presented in this must-have collection.

Personal Thoughts: Sometimes you just need something silly to read and this book certainly was silly! I didn't stop laughing for the first dozen pages at least! I will warn that the language is crass and the jokes are very much toilet humour, but if you don't mind that, then this book is at least good for a few giggles.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 27

Chapter 27 – When You Pray

 

Prayer is an important of our Christian life. Jesus calls on us to always be in prayer. It can be hard to know how to pray. We are so worried about saying the right things, or not asking for too much, or knowing what to ask for in the first place! And sometimes talking about praying can bring mixed emotions. How often have you heard “thoughts and prayers” over the last several years? While the phrase has lost its meaning, praying is one of the things that we, as Christians, can do always and often, and we trust that praying has an effect on the world.

 

There are several points that catch my attention in this chapter about prayer. One of them has to do with thinking that we ought not bother to pray because we don’t know the right way to do so. Daniel Doriani says that our words don’t need to be good enough, they just need to be. He says, “The problem in prayer is not that God is too busy for us, but that we feel too busy for him.” (p. 170) How often have you said to yourself, “I’ll pray later because I don’t have time now”? Our lives are busy, but you don’t need a lot of time for prayer. Walking to the bus? Pray! Driving in your car? Pray? And the prayer doesn’t need to be long. It could be a single word: help! God is never to busy to hear what you have to say. You shouldn’t be so busy that you can’t take a moment to speak to God.

 

Karl Barth tells us that no matter how we pray, make sure our heart is in it. Without heart, the prayer is meaningless. He also says that “prayer uttered in a language that we do not understand or which the congregation at prayer does not understand is a mockery to God…for the heart cannot be in it.” (p. 169) A previous bishop of mine always introduced the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “Now, in the language and words with which you are most comfortable, let us say together the Lord’s Prayer.” It’s such a small thing, but inviting people to pray in their own language allows them to connect to the prayer not only with they tongue, but also with their whole heart.

 

Finally, Mother Teresa reminds us that after you’ve spoken with God, remember to listen for a response. She says, “Listen in silence, because if your heart is full of other things, you cannot hear the voice of God. But when you have listened to the voice of God in the stillness of your heart, then your heart is filled with God.” (p. 173)

 

If prayer is about God, and not about us, how might this change the way you pray?

(Reflection question from p .347)

A Review of the Book "As Old as Time" by Liz Braswell

Title: As Old as Time

Author: Liz Braswell

Publisher: Disney Press

Year: 2016

484 pages

From the Back: Belle is a lot of things: smart, resourceful, restless. She longs to escape her poor provincial town for good. She wants to explore the world, despite her father's reluctance to leave their little cottage in case Belle's mother returns - a mother she barely remembers. Belle also happens to be the captive of a terrifying, angry beast. And that is her primary concern.

    But when Belle touches the Beast's enchanted rose, intriguing images flood her mind - images of the mother she believed she would never see again. Stranger still, she sees that her mother is none other than the beautiful Enchantress who cursed the Beast, his castle, and all its inhabitants. Shocked and confused, Belle and the Beast must work together to unravel a dark mystery about their families that is twenty-one years in the making.

Personal Thoughts: The first time I read one of these "twisted tales", I didn't really find it enjoyable, so it took me a long time to pick up another one (I have a few on my shelf). I'm sure glad I gave this style another chance because "As Old as Time" was really quite good! There was humour; there was action; there was suspense. And if you've ever watched Disney's Beauty and the Beast (the cartoon version, thank you very much), you could almost break out into song where appropriate! It was a very fun read that changes my mind about "The Twisted Tales" and so, perhaps, I'll pick up another one off my shelf sooner rather than later.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 26

Chapter 26 – When You Give

 

Mother Teresa asks us, “Have you ever experienced the joy of giving?” (p. 166) She goes on to say how she doesn’t want to see people giving simply to give away their stuff or their money, as in to hide the money from the government, but to give because they want to do so, to give from their heart.

 

So often in today’s society, the people who give the most are those who have the least. I think it’s because they understand what it means to be without, so when they see their fellow human beings in need, their first instinct is to help them. On the flip side, there are a lot of people who live with such abundance that they could never spend all the money they have, or they fill their house (or maybe more than one) with more stuff than they could ever use. Now perhaps it’s because they grew up with nothing so there is an instinct to surround themselves with everything they couldn’t have earlier in life. But there are certainly plenty of people who grew up wealthy, remain wealthy, and yet can’t seem to part with their money or their possessions. And when they do decide to give, there needs to be all this fanfare around it. I suppose it makes them feel important?

 

Jesus says, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets…to be honoured by others.” (Matt 6:1-2) It is important that we share our resources, that we give from what we have, but it’s just as important to do so with humility. If we make giving all about us, then we’ve missed the point.

Both/And: A Sermon for the 6th Sunday After Pentecost

May only truth be spoken, and truth received. Amen.

Interesting things always seem to happen when Mary and Martha are involved. It was Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus that Jesus called out of the tomb and into new life. And it was at a dinner at their house just before Passover that Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with a pound of costly perfume. Makes me wonder if Jesus routinely heads back to visit these friends because he felt most comfortable there, and they provided a change of pace to the stress and hard work that occupied most of Jesus’ time. In any case, here we are, once again, at Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem.

 

They say that the biggest motivator to clean one’s house is to have a guest arrive on their doorstep. How about if you have 70 guests show up? The disciples had just returned from their travels, weary and probably hungry. Jesus probably thought, “hey my friends Mary and Martha live around here. I bet they won’t mind if we drop in!” As you could imagine, Martha went on a tear around the house – cleaning, getting started on cooking food, putting out drinks, filling bowls of water for people to wash their feet – all of the things a good host would do. Is it any wonder that Martha felt a little annoyed when she looked in on the company and found her darling sister Mary just sitting there, listening to Jesus teach. What would you do if it were you? How would you feel?

 

Martha put up a stink and complains to Jesus, trying to get him to convince Mary to help her with the chores and the tasks. I suppose she has grounds for such a complaint because, in that time, women were supposed to be servers not learners. So, by sitting at Jesus’ feet instead of running around taking care of their guests, Mary was going against acceptable customs. Martha’s expectation that Jesus would chastise Mary for going against the rules makes sense. Instead, Jesus takes Martha to task, telling her, “You are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed – indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

The competition between Mary and Martha has always been the typical understanding of this story. Mary, the ever-loving disciple who sits obediently at Jesus’ feet and is often described as the ultimate goal for all Christians. Martha, the always-busy never-just-sitting-and-listening host who cries to Jesus about how she has to do all the work while Mary just sits there at Jesus’ feet. The common lesson being a plea for us to be less like Martha and more like Mary. But this is an awful lesson, one that pits two sisters against each other, that pits women against each other, and pits each of us against the other as we fight to win some sort of “I’m a better Christian than you” competition.

 

There is no reason for this to be an either/or situation. There are times for listening and there are times for action, with no need for debate on the priority of contemplative listener and the dutiful activist. It’s not about choosing to be one or the other, but about doing what is needed in the moment, being in the moment, and focusing on God in the midst of duty and routine. As Rachel Held Evans states, “If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving altogether, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever.  There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect.  Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment.” Jesus is not chastising Martha for her hospitality for hospitality is very important to Jesus. The work that Martha is doing is necessary and important, but it seems that she has put being the perfect host above hearing the word of God. And that is the warning Jesus is giving to Martha in this moment. It’s also a warning to us that if we make ourselves too busy, we might miss out on hearing God’s message.

 

What Martha needed was to just stop. Sit down. Listen. Sometimes, whatever we are doing, even if we’re trying to do good, God really needs us to stop. Stop doing so much, stop trying so hard. Stop trying to fix everything. Stop trying to justify yourself by looking busy. Stop doing and start listening. Sit down at Jesus’ feet and try to hear where God’s Spirit is moving in your life and in the world around you. The world we live in is full of problems, problems we all want to fix. But sometimes we want to fix problems more than we want to understand them. The problems we are facing today don’t have easy fixes: how best to protect the environment? How to distribute resources fairly? How to protect ourselves while staying open and welcoming? All of these issues require careful, prayerful discernment. At least, they do if we are going to respond from a place of love and not fear. Jesus’ call is to come more and more into the way of love. But finding love amid the fear that surrounds us takes some work on our part. We have to seek out God’s presence. We have to set aside the noise and distractions of the world before we can best hear God’s voice. Today, we need to sit and listen. Tomorrow, we can act.

 

Mary chose to sit still at the feet of her teacher, Jesus. Martha was asked to stop and join them. And we too are called to stop, to put aside our many tasks and all that distracts us, and to sit at Jesus’ feet. We can pray to God, read the Scriptures regularly, be present to God and God’s presence in Christ to us, and listen for the still small voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It is there and God is always reaching out to us in love. During St. Joan of Arc’s trial, she was questioned as to whether the voice of God she claimed to hear wasn’t merely a voice in her head. She responded by saying essentially, “How else do you think God speaks to us?”

 

Amen.

Resources:

pulpitfiction.com

episcopalchurch.org

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David L Bartlett and Barbara Taylor Brown

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 25

Chapter 25 – From the Heart

 

We live in a very transactional society. We do things in the expectation of something in return, and if we don’t see the benefit or the fruit of the transaction, we are less likely to do again. On the flip side, we have become a culture of people who distrust those who act in pure kindness. There is always a question of why they are doing this, or what do they want for it.

 

Jesus says that when you are giving, praying, and fasting, don’t do it in such a way that is obvious to others that you’re doing these things. Not because we should be ashamed that we are doing them, but that we should be humble about it. Our lives of faith shouldn’t be transactional, and part of the faith is knowing that we may never see the fruition of our giving, our praying, or our fasting. We do these things out of relationship with our neighbour, not relationship with our status or reputation.

 

Abraham Joshua Heschel states,

“A moral deed unwittingly done may be relevant to the world because of the aid it renders unto others. Yet a deed without devotion, for all its effects on the lives of others, will leave the life of the doer unaffected. The true goal is to be what we do…The means may be external, but the end is personal. Your deeds are pure, so that ye shall be holy.” (p. 161)

 

We are called by Jesus to act from our hearts – to love God, to love our neighbours, to love ourselves. Not because we want something in return, but because it’s what we are meant to do. God made us as creatures of love, but society has taught us that what we do means nothing unless someone has noticed and points it out – in recognition, in reward, in accolades. It is becoming increasingly rare that good deeds are done simply because they are good deeds that should be done.

 

Consider how you live your life of faith.

    Do you seek recognition for your actions?

    Do you act because it’s who you are?

    Do you need to see the results of your work?

A Review of the Book "The Tommyknockers" by Stephen King

Title: The Tommyknockers

Author: Stephen King

Publisher: GP Putnam's Sons

Year: 1987

558 pages

From the Back: It begins with nothing more frightening than a nursery rhyme; yet in Stephen King's hands in becomes an unforgettable parable of dread, a threat from an unimaginable darkness that drags the practical inhabitants of a New England village into a hell worse than their own most horrible nightmares...and yours.

    It begins with a writer named Roberta Anderson, looking for firewood in the forest that stretches behind her house. Bobbi stumbles over three inches of metal, which unusually heavy spring runoff has left sticking out of the soil. A logger's beer can, she thinks at first, but "the metal was as solid as mother-rock."

    It begins with Bobbi's discovery of the ship in the earth, a ship buried for millions of years, but still vibrating faintly, still humming with some sort of life...faint...weak...but still better left alone.

    Bobbi then begins to dig - tentatively at first, then compulsively - and is joined by her old friend (and onetime lover), Jim Gardener. Aided by a weirdly advanced technology, their excavation proceeds apace. And as they uncover more and more of an artifact both familiar and so unbelievable it is almost beyond comprehension, the inhabitants of Haven start to change.

    There is the new hot-water heater in Bobbi's basement - a not-water heater that apparently runs on flashlight batteries. The vengeful housewife who learns of her husband's affair...from a picture of Jesus on top of her TV, a picture that begins to talk. Not to mention the ten-year-old magician who makes his little brother disappear...for real.

    The townspeople of Haven are "becoming" - being welded into one organic, homicidal, and fearsomely brilliant entity in fatal thrall to the Tommyknockers.

Personal Thoughts: This was a very strange book. While I would typically categorize King as a horror writer, Tommyknockers was definitely more along the lines of the science fiction genre. Although the description of the alien creatures could be quite scary depending on either your imagination or the movie artist. While the sheer volume of words in this book resulted in my taking a long time to read it, the story was excellent and captivating. It was just weird enough that you wanted to keep reading to find out what happens next, but not so weird that it made me want to give up on it. Luckily I enjoy reading science fiction. So my only warning on this book would be that if you were looking for horror, you won't get it, and if you don't like science fiction, then you may not enjoy this particular novel. And, as I am discovering to be typical of King's writing, the story starts out slow but really builds by the halfway point and truly rollercoasters to the finish line. Overall, an excellent story that was worth the read.

A Review of the Book "Inspired" by Rachel Held Evans

Title: Inspired

Author: Rachel Held Evans

Publisher: Nelson Books

Year: 2018

221 pages

From the Back: If the Bible isn't a science book or an instruction manual, then what is it? What do people mean when they say the Bible is inspired? When Rachel Held Evans found herself asking these questions, she began a quest to better understand what the Bible is and how it is meant to be read. What she discovered changed her - and it will change you too.

    Drawing on the best in recent scholarship and using her well-honed literary expertise, Evans examines some of our favorite Bible stories and possible interpretations, retelling them through memoir, original poetry, short stories, soliloquies, and even a short screenplay. Undaunted by the Bible's most difficult passages, Evans wrestles through the process of doubting, imagining, and debating Scripture's mysteries. The Bible, she discovers, is not a static work but is a living, breathing, captivating, and confounding book that is able to equip us to join God's living and redemptive work in the world.

Personal Thoughts: I so love reading RHE's works. She has an incredible way of reassuring you that doubt is not the opposite of faith, and that she is willing to sit down and have that conversation with you. This book was no exception and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets tripped up on the Bible being the literal word of God, rather than the inspired word of God. Her choice of book title was no coincidence. RHE's style of writing makes it so easy for anyone to pick up her books and read them. No theological degree required!

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 24

Chapter 24 – Perfect Love

 

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt 5:48)

 

Thanks for the pressure, Matthew. God is perfect, so we must be perfect. There’s no way we can live up to that! We know we aren’t perfect; we will never be perfect. To err is to be human. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Do we really think that Gods expects us to be perfect? No. But God does expect us to love.

 

In this chapter, Addison Hodges Hart writes about the false idea that “perfect love” means we need to feel love for everyone. (p. 150) She discusses the impossibility of that idea but asks us instead to consider that God wants us to do good to all people, regardless of how we might feel about them. Not that this is an easy task to do, either. Being prepared to do good to all means having to acknowledge our prejudices and then put them aside for the needs of others, and to do good anyway. I cling to the hope that this is how people will act, especially if they are in any sort of position of leadership. I want to have hope that those in power whom I know to have bigoted ideas are able to compartmentalize their opinions from the person standing in front of them. We all have prejudices, but if we can’t even see the humanity before us, how will we ever learn to love perfectly?

 

In conjunction with these thoughts from Hart, Chiara Lubich reminds us that God’s love is free. (p. 152) Unlike the world’s love that is transactional in nature, expecting something as payment for being loved, God requires nothing from us to be loved and desires no payment of any kind. God doesn’t love us because we are good and perfect and deserving. God loves us even when we are not good and perfect and deserving. Ultimately, God’s love is transformational. If we allow ourselves to be loved without expectation, we can learn to love others in the same way.

 

This is the path to perfect love.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 23

Chapter 23 – Love of Enemy

 

One of the two most important commandments that God gives to us through Jesus is to love our neighbours as ourselves. It is the divine instruction that our entire lives as Christians ought to be based upon. And it really shouldn’t be that hard to do. But it is, isn’t it?

 

Loving someone you like is easy. Your parents, maybe? Or your siblings? Other members of your family? Your best friend? That neighbour you like? These can all be easy people to love. But what about that kid who teased you in school? Or your bully? Or that one person who always needs to be the center of attention? Or how about the stranger you meet in the street? Or the homeless person? Or someone of a different culture than you?

 

Both lists are endless. It is human nature to find it easier to love those who are like you than to love those who are different from you. It is easier to keep hating someone, than to start loving them. It is certainly hard to love someone who hates you.

 

Martin Luther King Jr states, “hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe…The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate.” (p. 143) The easy path is to seek revenge on another person rather than to seek reconciliation.

 

That said, reconciliation takes both parties but there’s no rule that states you can’t love the other person, allowing yourself to heal while working on everything external. King also states that, “love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.” (p 145) Love leads to transformation; hate stalls it - whether in yourself or in others.

 

God, through Jesus, calls us to be people of love. And sometimes that means loving our enemies as much, maybe more so, than ourselves or our neighbours. Because, in the end, we are all neighbours to each other, connected to one another simply by the fact that we are all human.

Let There Be Peace! A Sermon for the 4th Sunday After Pentecost

Photo by Steve Johnson on pexels.com

May only truth be spoken, and truth received. Amen.

In the first century of the Common Era, the Roman Peace was the promise of peace through the conquest of lands. Roman armies traveled from place-to-place conquering smaller powers and ushering in protection and hopes for prosperity in exchange for tribute and obedience. The spoils of their campaigns brought material and cultural wealth to the Roman center, while leaving the townspeople in the subject lands to pay the price.

 

Starting with a small circle of twelve disciples which, in today’s Gospel reading, has now become seventy, Jesus instructs his followers to go from town to town to “share in peace” with whatever household they enter. What is this peace that Jesus instructs his apostles to proclaim? It is not a peace won on the backs of commoners and soldiers, it is not a peace reserved for the wealthy at the expense of the elite, nor a peace through destruction or death. The peace that Jesus’ apostles bring to each town is the peace of life.

 

But this was no starry-eyed expedition expecting universal interest and welcome. Jesus talks about the cities and homes that will welcome them, and about those that will not. They will not have been the only travelers on the road who had to rely on the hospitality of people who did not know them. The Seventy join the people who travel without resources, a group of wanderers and refugees, of aimless people, and people who have a definite goal, whether it is asylum or escape or a chance to earn money to support the family at home. There have always been such people on the road, then and now, and they have always met with both hospitality and hostility. And now the Seventy learn what that does to a person.

 

Sometimes, the common lectionary omits lines that someone doing the editing felt were unimportant. A lot of the time, the lines omitted are genealogies or mundane facts. But today, a line was omitted that I think is important for today’s lesson. Verse 12 says: “I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.” Now why does Jesus bring up the city of Sodom?

 

We all know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the book of Genesis. Throughout Jewish Scripture, with echoes also in Christian Scripture, Sodom and Gomorrah are remembered as examples of horrifying destruction, cities destroyed because the people were sinful and therefore God destroyed the cities. That’s a simplified telling of the story, but my point is that most people erroneously identify the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as one of sodomy, of sexual misbehavior. But, in truth, their sin was one of inhospitality. Both Isaiah and Ezekiel identify the sin of Sodom as refusing to defend widows and orphans and not helping those in need. According to these prophets, the depravity of the city of Sodom showed itself in their refusal to offer hospitality to the travelers who came to them needing shelter. Instead of feeding and protecting these visitors, they demanded to be allowed to do some not-so-nice things to them. Isaiah and Ezekiel say that by loving religious ritual instead of caring for the poor and powerless, the people of God demonstrated deep depravity. Throughout Scripture the consistent analytic is clear: the real quality of a people is revealed by how they welcome travelers without resources.

 

In the households who do receive them and among the towns in which they reside, the disciples spread Jesus’ healing power, proclaiming the word of God. And it is significant that the only specific instruction given by Jesus to the seventy is to heal the sick. Increasingly for Christians today, the ministry of healing is strong and widespread. There is a realization that in a frantic and tense and fearful world, the strength of the Christian faith can bring healing to the lives of individuals, a renewed sense of peace. Peace is, and always has been, a catchword in politics. Everyone wants peace. No one (or, at least, only a small minority) wants conflict. And yet our world is ridden with conflict. Wars waged in the name of peace. Low-income homes leveled in gentrified neighborhoods for the sake of prosperity. Treaties are broken and religions demonized for the illusions of security and independence.

 

The Roman Peace was a great and glorious time for the elite few. For the rest of the world, it was a time of fear and trial. There are voices in our world who, for example, want to “make America great again”. Others are claiming a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous People but are not following their words with actions. For example, of the 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a measly 13 have been proven to be completed. These movements will, without a doubt, benefit elite subsets in each nation. But, as Christians, we are called not to ask whether we will be on the side that benefits from or suffers from this imposed greatness. Rather, we are called to ask how to serve the only Great One, who sends us “like lambs into the midst of wolves” to bring a different kind of peace.

 

God’s peace is a peace founded on life, rather than death. On relationship, rather than enmity. On engaging in and accepting mutual hospitality, rather than building walls of division. Today’s generation of Christians are called to a ministry of healing, both in individual lives as well as in social and political situations.

 

Luke’s passage ends with the Seventy being surprised that they were able to heal others. But Jesus wasn’t surprised. He had faith in his followers then, just as he has faith in us now. While the road may be paved in hostility, let us be the ones to be hospitable to the visitor, the ones to bring healing to the people and to our nation. Do this, and “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Amen.