I Am What I Am: A Sermon for the 5th Week After Epiphany

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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, for you are our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

Today’s reading from Corinthians feels like we’ve shot forward to Easter. Paul talks about the death and resurrection of Jesus and plenty of preachers will lean that way this morning. It makes sense. As Christians, the Easter message of Christ’s death and resurrection is the biggest piece of good news that we have! It’s our Gospel! Why wouldn’t we talk about it every chance that we get? We could and we should!

 

But there is a little nugget in verse 10 from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that appears to have been glossed over, overshadowed by Christianity’s most important event. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” Just before this line, Paul shows his doubts and expresses his unworthiness to stand in the presence of a God of such great mercy and grace. When Paul refers to himself as “one untimely born,” he uses harsh language to contrast his own worth in the presence of the wondrous gift of the God’s resurrection of Christ. But still, he recognizes that by God’s grace he is able to stand with confidence in God’s presence. “I am what I am”, he says.

 

I am what I am. It’s quite the statement. It can have some negative connotations to it, as in “I am what I am and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” I am what I am so just live with it. Sounds pretty negative when said a certain way. But “I am what I am” can also be a statement of courage in oneself. A lot of people struggle to accept themselves. Perhaps they have been bullied, or abused, or fall outside societal norms, or know they are different but can’t or won’t name it, or have experienced rejection from friend, family, or church. To say to yourself “I am what I am” is one of the hardest things to do. And even if you can say it to yourself, can you say it to everyone else? Can you push aside how you are treated by the public so that you can live the life that you love, to be the person that you are? Many, I might even throw out the word most, people struggle with this on a daily basis. Instead of being themselves, they push it down (whatever “it” might be) and try to live how their friends, family, society, want them to be. Deciding to live by the phrase “I am what I am” will determine the state of your relationships.

 

In the case of the verse in question, Paul is putting his trust in God’s grace and that he knows that relationship has not been in vain. I am what I am, and God loves me anyway. Living as yourself strengthens your relationship with God, even if it weakens it with others. I can tell you that many people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, especially the transgender community, especially now, struggle with this question. Being told they are an abomination, they go against nature, they go against God…eventually it becomes easier to hide than to take the bullying and negativity. But one can only hide for so long before it eats away at you. When you hear “no” enough times, you begin to believe it.

 

For queer Christians, for transgender Christians, for non-binary Christians, there is a battle raging on whether or not they will be accepted by church peers, and more importantly by God. But verse 10 here can be used to reassure us all that God does indeed love us and accepts us, just the way we are. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”

 

I came out as transgender near the end of my ordination process and wondering if I would be accepted by other Christians was constantly on my mind. Most especially as I went into one of my final meetings with Bishop Don as he had the power to halt the process and turn me away. I kept hearing Paul’s words, “I am what I am”, but I also took Isaiah to heart, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” In my heart, I just kept saying those words, “Here am I, send me!” God gives us strength when we accept our call. In the midst of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, God is with us. God was with me that day in the bishop’s office and I knew that God’s grace towards me had not been in vain.

 

So, in the midst of the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that is exploding around us, here I am, still standing before you. I am what I am. God’s grace exists for me just as much as it does for you. I am what I am by the grace of God in a private capacity and upon a level with other Christians. I am a chosen vessel of salvation, not by works, nor on account of faith, or any holiness on my part, but by the grace of God. I am regenerated, called, sanctified, justified, pardoned, and adopted by God’s grace. I am a believer in Christ through faith, as a gift of God's grace, and have the hope of eternal life. I am what I am – a minister of the Gospel, a disciple – and I am in this office purely by the grace of God. I did nothing to earn God’s grace and love except to be who I am – a child of God in the perfect way that God made me. I pray that you can say the same for yourself and to yourself, with strength and with courage, knowing that God will never turn you away.

 

God’s grace works in and through us, shaping our lives so that we, too, can mirror the love and redemption that Christ demonstrated, living with purpose according to his word. I am what I am. You are what you are. We are what we are. And God loves us anyway, today and forever more.

 

Amen.

A Review of the Book "The Wake" by Linden MacIntyre

Title: The Wake

Author: Linden MacIntyre

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Year: 2019

336 pages

From the Back: On November 18, 1929, a tsunami struck Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula. Giant waves, up to three storeys high, hit the coast at a hundred kilometers per hour, flooding dozens of communities and washing entire houses out to sea. The most destructive earthquake-related event in Newfoundland's history, the disaster killed 28 people and left hundreds more homeless or destitute. It took days for the outside world to find out about the death and damage caused by the tsunami, which forever changed the lives of many in habitants of the fishing outports along the Burin Peninsula.

Personal Thoughts: This book was not what I was expecting at all. Perhaps I didn't read the cover properly, but I thought The Wake was going to be about the 1929 tsunami. That storm took up perhaps a dozen pages of the entire book. The rest of the pages were filled with the decades of aftermath that followed. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; it just wasn't what I was expecting. The title was misleading because although none of the subsequent events would likely have happened without the tsunami, the narrative was almost solely about the mining that happened in Newfoundland. So perhaps a better title would have been The Mines.

    Because I was disappointed in how the book was turning out, I found it difficult to read. Not that the writing was bad, but it felt slow and repetitive as it jumped from one person's story to the next. It probably could have been half the length and still gotten the point across. Again, that could have been because of my unmet expectations.

    In the end, it was an interesting piece of history to have learned, especially as it appears to be a very little known piece of our Canadian history. It is always sad to learn about how poorly we can treat our fellow humans.

A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 4

 Chapter 4 – Blessedness

 

The pursuit of happiness. Isn’t that what life is all about? The constant pursuit of that one thing, that one item, that one activity, that one person, that one event that will bring us the happiness that we long for. The search for the next best thing that will bring us perfect happiness. Social media is the perfect medium to show us all of the ways we should be happy, and all of the reasons we’re not. We envy what others have and the perfect life you see in their pictures and their posts, and we do everything we can to emulate those supposed perfect lives. But what we see on social media are the edited and filtered images of strangers and acquaintances that we know nothing about. Just because you see someone smiling on their latest Facebook or Instagram post, do you know if they are truly happy? To bring it back inward, consider how many times you may have posted a smiling picture of yourself, but you weren’t really feeling like smiling? Or how many times you’ve bought, chased, or pursued something you though would make you happy, but in the end, that one item, that one activity, that one person, that one event didn’t bring you the happiness you were expecting?

 

Jesus’ beatitudes are sometimes considered a happiness checklist. If you just did the things on Jesus’ list, you would find happiness. But, according to one of this week’s authors, James Howell, “to be ‘blessed’ isn’t catchy advice on how to go and be happy; ‘blessed’ is being swept up in God’s decisive movement in the world.” (23-24) Being blessed means to accept the gifts God has given you, even if they aren’t the gifts you expected. You might feel blessed to have a lot of money or plenty of material possessions, but they won’t necessarily bring you happiness. However, you could feel blessed to be alive, to have a roof over your head, or to have friends and family in your life, and those things might bring you all the happiness in the world.

 

The beatitudes are meant to help us build our relationships, not our happiness. Although, doing so will almost certainly raise our level of happiness. The beatitudes are meant to show us how to treat our fellow human beings and to remind us that even when we are feeling at our lowest, we know that God calls us blessed. As Saint Francis of Assisi states, “be unassuming in speech, be grave in your manner, and grateful for the favors and benefits you may receive. The kingdom of God, which is eternal, will be your reward.” (27)

The Call of Jeremiah: A Sermon for the 4th Week After Epiphany

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, for you are our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

Jeremiah was born and raised in a retired preacher's home. Surrounded by priests and priestly talk, it is hardly a surprise when he hears the voice of God calling him to ministry. Ultimately, he became the most notable Hebrew prophet because of the almost impossible mission that God tasked him to do. He preached before and during the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, with God commissioning him to recall the people of Judah back to an observance of divine law in a time where they were poised on the brink of national and spiritual catastrophe. Jeremiah’s life work was to deliver God’s word and bring change to the house of Israel and the Book of Jeremiah is filled with stories of his living out the calling of receiving God’s word and delivering the good news to the people of Israel. But, in the beginning, Jeremiah didn’t want to be a prophet.

 

The lectionary passage for today records the prophet’s call to ministry: one to whom “the word of the Lord came.” Like many of the other prophets, Jeremiah is called by God in four steps: commission of the prophet by God, objection of the prophet, God's reassurance to the prophet, and God's sign to the prophet. But unlike other prominent call narratives where God either introduces Godself or the situation (Exodus 3:6 and following) or speaks to the prophet after his sins are purged (Isaiah 6:7 and following), in Jeremiah’s call, God first establishes the nature of Jeremiah’s birth and God’s intimate relationship with him.

 

We begin with God claiming Jeremiah as God’s own in four verbs: formed, knew, sanctified, appointed (Jeremiah 1:5). Each of these verbs indicates a sense of intimacy between the One who forms and the one who is formed. By establishing an intimate relationship with Jeremiah at the outset of his call in the womb, God communicates to the prophet that his birth and call are unique and special because he was appointed when he was in the womb to be a prophet to the nations. This is not an argument for predestination, but as a description of the nature of the loving relationship between God and Jeremiah. Living with priests and being one himself, Jeremiah would understand the nurturing and loving relationship he would have with God. That’s not in question here. But Jeremiah is most certainly objecting to his commissioning to be God’s voice to the nations. That’s a way bigger task than being called to the local church!

 

Jeremiah’s objection echoes statements made by Moses, who claimed he has difficulty speaking (Exodus 4:10; 6:12, 30). Jeremiah says, “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” (6) Jeremiah is telling God that he feels inadequate to be God’s voice, that because he is so young, no one will listen to him. God counters Jeremiah’s objections by reiterating his having been chosen by God from the beginning and assuring Jeremiah that he should not fear because God will be with him. This is the same assurance that was given to Moses.

We can’t help but note the similarities between Jeremiah’s experience and Luke’s story of Jesus’ reception in his hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:21-30). The passage from Jeremiah, placed on the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, accompanies the story of Jesus’ own announcement of his ministry in Nazareth, and of his near demise at the hands of townspeople (Luke 4:21-30). Like Jeremiah, Jesus is understood as a prophet (Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 4:24). Like Jeremiah, he is questioned and rejected by his own people, who attempt to kill him, though he survives to continue preaching (Luke 4:29-30). The people listen to Jesus at first, then turn hostile when he begins to condemn their unwillingness to accept him as God’s representative. Jesus is commissioned to speak difficult words to his people. He knows that if they listen to those words and carry them out, they will have cause to rejoice. No doubt Jesus, like Jeremiah, is disappointed when they reject him. Like Jeremiah, he becomes the ‘outsider’. Also, like Jeremiah, that does not stop Jesus following his calling. He seems resigned to the fact that the word he carries will bring its own difficulties; “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” (4:24). Jeremiah and Jesus both attest to the truth that the most difficult ministry for anyone is among his or her own people.

Jeremiah's call speaks to our own call as Christians. We are all called by God from the moment of our creation in the womb for one purpose: life with God. Witnessing through our words and actions is our "yes" to God's call. While we might not be called to be an international sign like Jeremiah, we are called to make a difference in our world. We are called to speak the Word of God – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah was so desperate to wiggle out of his called that he tried the strategy first attempted by Moses, who said he could not speak. Jeremiah and Moses, and so many others right from Adam and Eve, have made excuses as to why they couldn’t accept God’s call. We still make these excuses today – “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t have much to give”, “I’m just a (insert any descriptor here).”

But do not fear! God’s call is enveloped in love and God would never abandon us. Jeremiah is not left to his own devices. God tells him what to say to the people. After establishing the intimate relationship with Jeremiah – forming, knowing, sanctifying, appointing, touching his mouth, and giving God’s own words to him to speak – God invites Jeremiah to the arduous task explained in the six verbs found in verse 10: pluck up, break down, destroy, overthrow, build, and plant. Four of the six verbs God uses to describe Jeremiah’s appointment have negative connotations. Only two verbs (build, plant) have positive connotations. The use of twice as many negative verbs as positive ones affirms that Jeremiah’s message will largely focus on destruction and devastation. This isn’t a surprise because reconstruction and rebuilding are possible only with deconstruction and dismantling. Systemic structures of oppression rooted in denying dignity and humanity to God’s beloved children need to be overthrown in order to rebuild systems that are welcoming and affirming of God’s love for all. The positive words “build” and “plant” imagine a new world of possibilities where covenant faithfulness is restored.

Jeremiah’s call was to pull down those things which did not lead to life as well as to build up those which did. So too with Jesus. The fact that the crowd were ready to throw him from a cliff indicates that his message, what was fulfilled in their hearing (v. 21), was not simply the message of healing they wanted to hear (v. 23). This one, attested as the one who fulfilled the hopes of the people, was not what they had expected. Neither was Jeremiah called to be a prophet who simply gave the people the hopeful words they desired to hear. Epiphany is a time when we not only celebrate the presence of God with us in Jesus Christ, but also a time when we discover both sides of the message our saviour brings to us. Christ is here not only to build up, but to pull down as well so that he may build.

Jeremiah reminds us of our baptismal vocation and createdness in one conversation. How often do we sell ourselves short, forgetting that we have been created for the purpose of partnership with God? Just imagine, God working with and through the human creature, mere mortals: some of us tillers and tenders, some of us namers and proclaimers, some healers, some teachers, each of us called and gifted – just as we are. Jeremiah’s call and his subsequent ministry illustrate the risk of discipleship. But they also testify to the joy of such discipleship. We are all called to gospel proclamation, and we can be sure that God will support us as we seek to make God’s Word known. So, let us hear the call and carry the message to a lost and broken world. The life that we find when we give up our lives to follow God’s call, is, after all is said and done, the life most worth living. To become the people that God calls us to be, to become disciples of Jesus Christ, is to become really and truly human at last.

 

Amen.

Resources

workingpreacher.com

pulpitfiction.com

patheos.com

"Jeremiah and Lamentations" edited by D.J. Wiseman

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

"New Collegeville Commentary: Old Testament" edited by Daniel Durken

A Review of the Book "Elatsoe" by Darcie Little Badger

Title: Elatsoe

Author: Darcie Little Badger

Publisher: Levine Querido

Year: 2020

353 pages

From the Back: Imagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.

    Elatsoe lives in this lightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, an friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.

Personal Thoughts: This book has all sorts of things in it - magic, vampires, love, murder, mystery. It was a charming book that was enjoyable enough to read. And I was glad to read a book written by an Indigenous author that was fiction, rather than non-fiction. For some reason, my imagination kept making the characters young children instead of the young adults that there were, but I can't say whether that had anything to do with the writing or just my inability to keep focused during this book. However, it was an entertaining story with many unexpected twists and turns and quite an interesting ending.

A Review of the Book "To Tell You the Truth" by Gilly MacMillan

Title: To Tell You the Truth

Author: Gilly MacMillan

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Year: 2021

327 pages

From the Back: Lucy Harper's talent for writing bestselling novels has given her fame, fortune, and millions of fans. It's also given her Dan, her needy, jealous husband whose own writing career has gone precisely nowhere. Now Dan has vanished. But this isn't the first time that someone has disappeared from Lucy's life. Three decades ago, her little brother, Teddy, also went missing and was never found. Lucy, the only witness, helplessly spun fantasy and fantasy about Teddy's disappearance, to the detectives' fury and her parents' despair. That was the start of her storytelling - a talent she has profited from greatly.

    But now Lucy's a grown woman who can't hide behind fiction any longer. The world is watching, and her whole life is under intense scrutiny. A life full of stories, some more believable than others. Could she have hurt Teddy? Did she kill Dan? Finally, now, Lucy Harper's going to tell the truth.

    Cross her heart.

    Hope to die.

Personal Thoughts: The storyline goes so much further than what you'd expect upon reading the above summary. There's a exploration of denial, multiple personalities, mental health under duress. It's an amazingly woven story full of excitement and intrigue. It was quite well-written, despite the pieces here and there that reminded me I was reading an advanced copy. It was a fun and easy read, really quite enjoyable. I may seek out more of MacMillan's work.

A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 3

Chapter 3 – Foolish Wisdom

 

Some call the Sermon on the Mount a list of guidelines by which a person can live a life full of good manners. But it is so much more than that. These words that Jesus delivers are ones that can and should lead us to lives lived that puts human dignity at highest importance. But they are not easy words to live by. But then again, when has Jesus ever given us the easy way out?

 

There are two shocking things about this sermon right from the beginning. First of all, the crowd in front of him isn’t a group of rich aristocrats or powerful politicians. No, the crowd is full of farmers, shepherds, working-class folks who are struggling with day-to-day life under oppressive rule. These are everyday people like you and me. Secondly, the message Jesus delivers is one of empowering the people who are in front of him. The message isn’t about blessing the rich, the violent, the oppressors, those who never mourn, those who are never persecuted, etc. (p. 20-21). The Sermon on the Mount insists that we are blessed even when we don’t feel blessed. When we’re mourning, when we feel powerless, when we feel lost – no matter what, we are blessed by God. And it is in us that God trusts to pass on all of these blessings.

 

I think the hardest one to take is Matthew 5:11, which reads, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Love thine enemies, right? It sure is hard to feel blessed when you’re feeling reviled, or hated, persecuted, and even more so when the people doing the hating, the reviling, and the persecuting are claiming to be doing so in the name of God and/or Jesus. Of the entire Sermon of the Mount, I still struggle with this one because it feels like the hardest to do.

 

The Sermon on the Mount is something that we can hold on to as a guide to how Jesus wants us to live, and as a reminder that we are blessed in our imperfectness.

Unity, Not Uniformity: A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday After Epiphany

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, for you are our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Throughout Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, you can see that the community at Corinth was characterized by rivalry; obsession with status and superior wisdom leading to arrogance; disregard for the less spiritually enlightened and gifted, as well as for the economic have-nots; sexual immorality; and assertiveness with regard to individual rights.[1] Paul had to deal with this reality and, using his correspondence, he does everything possible to refocus the community to the gospel. This morning, we have been given one of Paul’s most famous analogies that he uses to do the work of refocusing the Corinthian community.

Let’s consider our own bodies for a moment. The average human body has 206 bones, 639 muscles, and about 6 pounds of skin, along with ligaments, cartilage, veins, arteries, blood, fat, and more. Every time we hear a sound; every time we take a step; every time we take a breath, hundreds of different parts work together so that what we experience is a single movement, our minds and bodies working one unit. That is why the human body is one of the most powerful images for the church offered in scripture.[2]

The body analogy was a common figure of speech during Paul’s time and in this passage, he lays out a pretty straight-forward extrapolation of what the body is about:

• Each body part has its own function
• All parts are of the same body
• No function is more important than another. All work together as a part of the whole.
• Division of labor is not a class-system or hierarchy.
• No one can be everything.

Paul is using the body analogy to stress the diversity, interdependence, and importance of all members of the community, who together form one body. Paul’s lesson to the Corinthians is clear, the human body can’t be a body without the diversity of parts, nor can the body of Christ function without each distinct believer. God doesn’t differentiate between members as there can be no division because the body relies on interdependence of its parts for its functioning. The body of Christ must be unified in order to serve God to its fullest. If there is division or discord, the whole body suffers.

Let me be clear here, though, that we are talking about unity, not uniformity. We often confuse unity with uniformity, because it is much easier to gather with people who are like ourselves than it is to reach across the divisions which mark our culture. To be uniform, means to be the same – look the same, act the same, believe the same. Whereas unity is the totality of related parts, a combination of parts that promotes an undivided total effect. Unity can happen even when people don’t look the same, act the same, or believe the same. Rather than expecting everyone to be like us, we ought to celebrate the differences graciously provided by the Spirit, the God who called us all together. It is unity, not uniformity, that we seek as members of the Body of Christ.

Being a member of the body of Christ means an absolute, out-and-out conjoining of one with the other. To exist in division, to see only difference and not the unity we are able to profess because of Christ, to demand conformity without celebration of difference, is to entertain the notion of dismemberment. We will find ourselves cut off from the very source of our life, our existence, and in a way, our ability to be most fully who we are.

Last Tuesday, The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Wahington, delivered a powerful sermon about unity. She stated that “for unity as a people and a nation, not for agreement, political or otherwise, but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division, a unity that serves the common good.” She also said that “unity, in this sense, is a threshold requirement for people to live in freedom and together in a free society” and that “unity is a way of being with one another, that it encompasses and respects our differences, that it teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect, that enables us in our communities and in the halls of power to genuinely care for one another, even when we disagree.”

That was just the beginning of a very powerful sermon. I truly recommend that you go find it on YouTube and watch it, if you haven’t already. She made many gospel statements in her sermon, but her call to unity is the same as Paul’s call to unity to the Corinthians. Both Bishop Budde and Paul call us to work together in all of our diversity to build up the kingdom of God. It is the essence of who we are as the church – the body of Christ and individually members of it. In Christ, the church is a unified body, a unity that is present and possible because of the death and resurrection of Christ.

Going back to Bishop Budde’s sermon, she declared that there are three foundations of unity that can be drawn from scripture. The first is “honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, which is the birthright of all people as children of God.” This means refusing to mock, demonize, or discount those with whom we differ, but instead be respectful of differences and work towards finding common ground.

The second is honesty. Without honesty, our actions work against our words, creating a false sense of unity. We should always endeavour to speak the truth, even in difficult times.

The third foundation of unity that Bishop Budde mentions is humility. She says, “we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. We say and do things that we later regret. We have our blind spots and our biases, and perhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded, without a doubt, that we are absolutely right, and someone else is absolutely wrong, Because then we are just a few steps from labeling ourselves as the good people versus the bad people, and the truth is that we're all people. We're both capable of good and bad.”

Diversity in the church is not a problem to be solved, but a gift of God’s grace. And just as the human body needs all of its different parts to function as a whole, the Body of Christ needs a diversity of gifts, unified to function for the common good.

Let us pray.

O God of unity and not uniformity, help us to discover and use our varied gifts for the building up of your kingdom. As we call again and again for unity in Christ, may we know the abundant grace and forgiveness only you can give. Amen.

---

[1] Pascuzzi, Maria A. "The Letters to the Corinthians." New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament, edited by Daniel Durken, Collegeville, MN, Order of Saint Benedict, 2009, p. 479.

[2] Bartlett, David L., and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. Feasting on the Word. Year C ed., vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p. 279.

Resources

"New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament" edited by Daniel Durken

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

pulpitfiction.com

workingpreacher.org

A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 2

Chapter 2 – Good News

 

Often when people talk about the Kingdom of God, they are referring to what happens to us after death. The Pearly Gates in the clouds, the hopeful entrance into Heaven where God sits on a throne waiting for us to join the crowds of people who died before us.

 

But when Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God, especially through the Sermon on the Mount, he is talking about what the Heaven on Earth is supposed to look like. As it says in the Lord’s Prayer, “on Earth as it in in Heaven.” When we worry too much about trying to make it into the better afterlife, we forget about what it means to follow Jesus while we’re still alive. The Sermon on the Mount tells us exactly how we are to live in God’s Kingdom while we’re on this side of those Pearly Gates.

 

As we witness throughout the whole bible, God is the God of the poor, afflicted, and the marginalized. For those who experience rejection because of their social-political identities, excommunication due to their gender identities, or marginalization and discrimination of any form, God promises that they have a place in God’s plan and that God will never abandon them but, rather, will find delight in them, seek them out, and call them “holy people.”

 

The author of this week’s chapter is Christoph Blumhardt, and he says, “Today God wants to rule, and God is already making a beginning.” (12) Sometimes it’s hard to see the Kingdom of God around us, so how do we know that God has made a beginning? Watch for the kindness that is happening around you. Despite all of the bad news that is easily found on social media, on television, and in the newspaper, good news can be found if you take time to notice the world around you.

 

And it doesn’t help that we are always so busy. The world has become fast-paced and people are always on the go. We fill our time up because we have forgotten how to be still and be with God. Slow down. Take time to notice the world around you. That is how you will notice that God’s Kingdom has indeed arrived and surrounds us. Look for the mourners, the hungry, the meek, the merciful, the persecuted, and the peacemakers. These are the people who can lead you to the kingdom. If only you’ll take a moment to notice them.

I Will Not Keep Silent: A Sermon for the 2nd Sunday After Epiphany

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from the Triune God. Amen.

 

The Book of Isaiah is an amazing piece of religious literature. It is a huge 66-chapter book and uses both prose and poetry to tell the story of the peoples’ life with God and the unrelenting insistence that the foundation of that life is God’s commitment to Jerusalem. The Book of Isaiah is part of the Hebrew Scriptures, but the writers of the New Testament gospels often quote the prophet Isaiah, so it is also an important piece of literature for us as Christians.

 

Scholars have determined that Isaiah can be broken into three sections: chapters 1-39 were written in the 8^th and 7^th centuries BCE, chapters 40-55 concern the Babylonian exile, and chapters 56-66 were written in the postexilic period of Judah. As you read through the book, you can see the shift in writers because of the shift in literary style.

 

Today’s reading comes in the middle of that third section, where the community has just come out of exile, and they have lost vision and focus. They are looking for the extravagant promises that God made to God’s exiled people. Earlier in the book of Isaiah, God promised to build up the barren and forsaken city of Jerusalem with foundations of sapphires, ruby towers, gates and walls of precious jewels. God promised to bring the exiled people home and promised them the richest of feasts. However, the reality people returned to was far from glorious. The land seemed to them like a desert. when the exiles returned, it was all they could do to secure homesteads for themselves and try to grow crops to feed their families. Times were difficult, and people were hungry.

 

Jerusalem seemed forsaken, bereft of God’s sustaining presence. But as we begin chapter 62 today, there is a proclamation of God’s radical hope and the rebuilding of God’s community. Unlike the silence of God, often understood as God’s anger, abandonment, or disinterest, Isaiah 62:1 opens with the words “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,” declaring an end to the time of silence.

 

Silence is a double-edged sword. It can be equally beautiful and comforting, and dangerous and scary. There are moments in life where being silent or sitting in quiet can be important. In church liturgy, there are various periods of silence strategically placed throughout a worship service so that a person has time to reflect on what has been said, to meditate and pray, and to open their heart to God.

 

Sitting in a silent vigil next to a dying friend’s bed can be quite powerful, for both people. While it may take time to acclimate yourself to simply sitting in silence with another person (plenty of people find silent pauses uncomfortable), allowing for that quiet to permeate the room can bring moments of reflection, meditation, and prayer similar to those found in a worship service.

 

Jonathan Bartels, a registered nurse in the US, created the Medical Pause. This event is a moment of silence taken by medical staff and friends and family of the patient immediately after death. This sacred moment of silence “allows individuals to personalize their practice while not imposing onto others and is a means of honouring a person’s last rite of passage.”

 

These silent moments are precious, beautiful, and comforting. They break up our busy lives, give us time to hear our own thoughts, and they can reconnect us to God. These golden moments can be tranquil and healing and are sometimes so rare that when they do happen, one needs to take hold of them and cherish them.

 

However, silence has a dark side to it, as well. While there are times in our lives when silence is required, an imposed silence has a very different feeling. When a silence is imposed, it means there is a voice that has been silenced. Perhaps someone is making decisions for another person without consulting with them. Perhaps a voice is silenced by passive aggressive comments. More than likely, this imposed silence means that not all voices are being heard. Who is it that we are listening to and who is it we are silencing?

 

Being unable to tell your story could mean life or death. A person being abused, especially a woman being sexually abused, is often silenced by dismissing comments or outright declarations of denial by others. The abusee’s voice gets lost in the noise generated to protect the abuser.

A transgender person living stealth will be in constant fear that their secret will be discovered. It only takes one slip of the tongue or one tiny rumour to destroy a person’s life and possibly cause death, whether by their own hand or another’s. These are only two examples of people are being silenced in one way or another. The only thing worse than voices being silenced are the bystanders who remain silent.

 

Desmond Tutu is attributed with the quote, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” and Martin Luther King, Jr said, “In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” By silencing your own voice in situations of abuse or intolerance, you are encouraging harassment, bullying, dismissal, and humiliation. Whose voice is being labelled as more important? Who is it that is being silenced?

 

We need to break the silence and change the course of history. Breaking the silence can change laws and as a result change a person’s life. Maybe even save a life. It brings to mind Simon and Garfunkel’s song “Sound of Silence”, particularly this verse:

            “And in the naked light, I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never shared

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence”

 

We have become accustomed to the evil around us, desensitized to the point that we no longer raise our voices against cruelty and injustice. No longer do we dare “disturb the sound of silence.” Instead, it’s become easier to turn the other cheek and allow the voices around us to be silenced. If we ignore a problem, it will simply go away, right?

 

Clinical Pastoral Care students are taught that a silent listener is important for voices to be heard. That is what we need to be today – silent listeners. Space needs to be given to all the voices who have been silenced over the years. To do this, we need to shed our indifference and stand beside those who have been silenced, historically and presently. What would happen if we stood up for others? Poet and activist Audre Loudre once proclaimed that our silence will not save us.

 

God in the Old Testament, and especially in today’s passage from Isaiah, only sides with the oppressed, the marginalized, and those who do not have power. As we witness often in the Hebrew Bible, God is the God of the poor, afflicted, and the marginalized. For those who experience rejection because of their social-political identities, excommunication due to their gender identities, or marginalization and discrimination of any form, God promises that they have a place in God’s plan and that God will never abandon them but, rather, will find delight in them, seek them out, and call them “holy people.”

 

We can no longer be bystanders as victims of harassment, abuse, and violence are placated with half-promises and told to keep silent about events that have unfolded. We can longer be indifferent as death tolls rise from murder and suicide, or as laws are written that bring an end to a person’s right to live. It is long past the time for silent voices to be given the space they need to speak up against cruelty and injustice. It is time for those of us who have a voice, to speak up for those who have been silenced. It could mean the difference between life and death.

 

Amen.

Resources

"New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament" edited by Daniel Durken

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

workingpreacher.org

pulpitfiction.com

thepause.me/2015/10/01/about-the-medical-pause

A Review of the Book "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

Title: The Girl on the Train

Author: Paula Hawkins

Publisher: Penguin Random House Canada

Year: 2015

395 pages

From the Back: Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She's even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

    And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Personal Thoughts: Suspense stories like these are probably one of my favorite genres. While it got off to a slow start, it didn't take too long for me to get invested in the character stories - which turned out there were three, not just one! It was a fun book that only took me a few days to read. A good start to my reading challenge of 2025!

A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 1

One of the challenges I’ve decided to put on myself this year is to write blog posts that go beyond book reviews and sermons. To help me do so, I’ve picked up a book called “Following the Call”. This book is a collection of 52 essays by various theologians and prophetic voices, creating a year-long exploration of Jesus’ most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. My goal is to read the essay at the beginning of the week, ponder what I’ve read, and then reflect on it on my blog. I hope that you will join me on this journey. Time to take that first step!

 

Chapter 1 – Master Teacher

 

“The whole message of the gospel is this: become like Jesus.” ~Henri Nouwen

 

Well, isn’t that the whole thing summed up quite nicely? Become like Jesus. What would Jesus do? Be more like Jesus.

 

As we read through the gospels, we are meant to take away lessons from Jesus’ journey. Throughout his ministry, Jesus is trying to teach us all how to be better human beings, both to ourselves and to each other. The Sermon on the Mount contains some of those biggest lessons.

 

In the first portion of this week’s essay, E Stanley Jones talks about a “beyondness” found in the Sermon on the Mount, as in Jesus goes “above and beyond.” If someone needs a coat and you have a coat, give up your coat. Love your friends and your enemies. If you can go one mile, go two. Jesus teaches that it is our duty to do more than the bare minimum for our fellow human beings. But sometimes these requests seem impossible, as if they are hard commands rather than pieces of good news. However, we can find comfort in the words that through God, all things are possible.

 

Henri Nouwen contributes this week and gives us a warning – “When we want to become more like Jesus, we cannot expect always to be like and admired. We have to be prepared to be rejected.” The “beyondness” that Stanly discusses goes against the grain of society; it goes against everything that we know to be important for people today – status, money, material things, individualism, etc. Putting another person ahead of yourself is not the default reaction. It is for this reason that the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are so important. And we need to be aware that if we are going to live in the ways of Jesus’ teachings, we will be a threat to societal norms, we will be the voices that stick out in the din, and people aren’t going to like it.

 

But we know that we have God’s strength at our backs, Jesus’ faith on our side and, and the Holy Spirit’s support behind our words and actions. With all that in mind, there isn’t anything we can’t do.

 

So get out there and become like Jesus!

It All Starts with a Baptism: A Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from the Triune God. Amen.

"Epiphany" is a word that means "to appear" or "to make known." Last week I spoke about it being a mystery revealed. The First Sunday after the Epiphany is always the Baptism of Our Lord – a time when the voice from heaven "makes it known" or “reveals” that Jesus is "my son, the Beloved."

Baptism is naming and identifying someone as “beloved.” Baptism reminds us that we discover who we are in relation to whose we are, God’s beloved children. We belong to God’s family, and baptism is a tangible sign of that. Baptism is wholly God’s work that we may have confidence that no matter how often we fall short or fail, nothing that we do, or fail to do, can remove the identity that God conveys as a gift.

Our relationship with God is the one relationship in life we can’t screw up precisely because we did not establish it. And it is in God, not the church, that we are baptized. Has baptism lost its meaning and purpose in today’s society?

When the gospel writers tell Jesus’ story, his baptism is a crucial piece of that story. Everything starts at the river where Jesus entered the waters and placed himself in the arms of his cousin John.

“And the heavens were opened. And the Spirit descended upon him as a dove. And a Voice came from heaven saying, 'This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Despite the beauties and sentiment of the birth narratives, in truth, the ministry and teachings and trials and triumphs and almost all that make us remember Jesus took place after his baptism. It was at the moment of Baptism that Jesus was claimed and called.

Jesus’ baptism is a way of understanding our own baptism. For some people, baptism is “just joining the Jesus club.” Everyone knows what it means to join a club such as the Scouts, Air Cadets, or Kiwanis. We have all joined clubs and every club has its rules and regulations. Baptism is joining the “Jesus club” and we now have to follow the “Jesus rules”.

For others, baptism is like “hell insurance”, though it’s not what I believe. I remember when my oldest was born and I went to my priest to talk baptism and she emphatically said to me, “you know baptism isn’t a ‘get out of hell free’ card, right?”

Baptism is a key part of the Christian faith, but the Bible really says little about it other than Jesus was baptized, and that apostles were told to do it too. Most of our traditions, however, have a lot to say. Here are some of the questions asked and answered in Luther’s Small Catechism:

What is baptism? Baptism is not simply plain water. Instead, it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word.

What then is this word of God? Where Jesus says in Matthew 28, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

What gifts or benefits does baptism grant? It brings about forgiveness of sin, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the words and promise of God declare.

What are these words and promise of God? Where Jesus says in Mark 16, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.”

How can water do such great things? Clearly the water does not do it, but the word of God, which is with and alongside the water, and faith, which trusts this word of God in the water.

For without the word of God, the water is plain water and not a baptism, but with the word of God, it is a baptism, that is, a grace-filled water of life and a “bath of the new birth in the Holy Spirit”, as Paul says to Titus in chapter 3.

“Through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

So, in the sacrament of baptism, the triune God delivers us from the forces of evil, puts our sinful self to death, gives us new birth, adopts us as children, and makes us members of the body of Christ.

That is a lot to take in, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to studying the theology and ritual behind baptism. It is why, for some, infant baptism is unimportant. They want to let the child grow up until they are old enough to make a decision for themselves.

Which brings up an interesting question – is there such thing as a second baptism?

There are many people I have met who were baptized as a baby into one denomination or another. But then they didn’t go to church, or had a falling out at the church, or simply found a different church or denomination that connected more with them than the one in which they were baptized.

I am no exception to this story. I was baptized Roman Catholic but left that denomination a long time ago. When I found my faith again, I had a discussion about a “rebaptism” into the Anglican Church.

But whether we are baptized as a baby or a child or a young adult, we are baptized into God, not into a church or a denomination. That is why we have things like renewal of baptism, or redeclaration of faith, or, in my case, Confirmation, which is the route I took to reaffirm my faith in God and in Jesus.

Another situation I have come across with regards to “second baptism” is for those who are transgender and want to be rebaptized in their new name and identity. Theologically, that person is still a baptized child of God, thus there is no need for a second baptism.

The Anglican Church now has an approved set of liturgies that includes a renaming ceremony. The goal being that a person can have a special reaffirmation of faith as they are now, as opposed to who they were before.

I am going off on tangents here but what I want to say is that with our baptism, we are fully and wholly children of God, with all the gifts and benefits that come with it. And each week we reaffirm our baptism with either the Apostles’ or Nicene creed. We also do so during baptisms when we join the baptism candidates, parents, and sponsors during the profession of faith.

So today, on this the day of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, I give you these statements of thanksgiving for our baptism:

Holy God, mighty Lord, gracious Father: We give you thanks, for in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and you created heaven and earth. By the gift of water, you nourish and sustain us and all living things.

By the waters of the flood, you condemned the wicked and saved those whom you had chosen, Noah and his family. You led Israel by the pillar of cloud and fire through the sea, out of slavery into the freedom of the promised land.

In the waters of the Jordan, your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Spirit. By the baptism of his own death and resurrection your beloved Son has set us free from the bandage to sin and death and has opened the way to the joy and freedom of everlasting life. He made water as sign of the kingdom and of cleansing and rebirth. In obedience to his command, we make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit.

For some people, baptism has lost its importance, becoming just sprinkling of water on a baby’s head. Baptism is often considered hell insurance and protects you from the fiery wrath of God. Baptism is joining the Jesus Club with all its rules and regulations.

But what happened in Jesus’ baptism? The Spirit of God came upon him. He was declared to be the Son of God in whom God delighted. He was called to be the Suffering Servant who carried the whole sins of the world.

In our baptism, similar things happen to us as happened to Jesus when he was baptized: The Spirit of God comes into us and remains in us. We are declared to be a child of God. We hear that God is well pleased with us.

And so, on this Baptism of Our Lord Sunday, remember your Baptism and live into your calling.

Let us pray.

Lord, pour out your Holy Spirit, so that those who are here baptized may be given new life. Wash away the sin of all those who are cleansed by this water and bring them forth as inheritors of your glorious kingdom.

To you be given praise and honour and worship through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.