Stories from the Dead: A Sermon for Dedication Sunday

Almighty God, we have heard your words to us in holy scripture, and know your call to each of us. In every age you have spoken through the voices of prophets, pastors, and teachers. We give you thanks that over the years we have heard you speak to us through the preaching of your word in this place. Grant that those who preach in this place may proclaim the crucified and risen Christ and interpret your word with sensitivity and insight, that we may hear that word inwardly and respond to it in all our life. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, your living Word. Amen.

 

This last Sunday in October is often used by churches to celebrate the Feast of Dedication. Typically, this feast would be on the date of dedication or consecration of the church. St Peter’s date of consecration is June 14, but as we didn’t acknowledge our anniversary at that time, I thought that this was a perfect way to end our 160^th anniversary celebrations from last night. For those who attended, you heard storytelling from various parishioners who are still with us, talking about the past, the present, and the future of the parish. This morning, acknowledging that our cemetery is older than the parish and is a very important piece our of ministry here at St Peter’s, we will hear stories from those who have died. I have done my best to honour the stories as best as I could with the information that I had.

 

Buried in our cemetery are people from various wars such as the Crimean War, the New Zealand War, both World Wars, and even the Riel Rebellion. For those who may not know, there’s a very interesting war memorial outside the south door. It is a 10 on granite rock with a cross on top. The rock was found in April 1919 by Carlton Stone and Charles Palmer on Colonel Roome’s property. It took most of April to move this rock along Maple Bay Road using sleigh, skids, blocks, cables, and 4 horses!

 

Charles Palmer was born in India. His mother died when he was 9 so he travelled with his father’s military regiment in India. During the Siege of Lucknow in 1857, he was hiding in a room with his older sister and her 2 children, and his younger sister. He was 10 years old, and the only one to survive. Small boys were sent to grind wheat, but he hated it so much that he went off to be part of his brother-in-law’s army troop as an ammunition carrier and messenger. For his efforts, Charles received the India Mutiny Medal and Clasp for the Defense of Lucknow. It’s believed this medal has been buried with him in our cemetery.

 

During his adult life, Charles worked in the Public Works Department in India where he was renowned for his work as an Irrigation Officer during the drought of 1877 and the famine of 1895. He is credited with preventing the spread of cholera by insisting on the use of permanganate of potash in all wells. Charles eventually came to Vancouver Island and served on the North Cowichan Council and with the Cowichan Creamery. He died at 93 years old.

 

Carlton Stone was the first of many Stone family members to be part of the Duncan and St Peter’s community. He was born in 1877 to parents who were farmers. He was 1 of 9 children and just shy of his 15^th birthday, Carlton left his family and his Essex home to follow the sea aboard the barge Hector. Carlton spent about half a decade on various barges and freighters before deciding that he was ready to leave his life as a sailor behind him. In 1904, Carlton made his way to Canada seeking an opportunity for a better living, arriving in Duncan in 1909. Carlton began working in the sawmills, eventually founding the Hillcrest Lumber Company, once employing 500 men and ranking 3^rd among the Island’s lumber producers.

 

Carlton was a deeply religious man and gave generously to St Peter’s. He embraced the Christian life and encouraged others to do the same. He had 5 sons and a daughter who were also a big part of the parish life. The Good Shepherd stained-glass window was donated to the church in Carlton’s memory, the 1966 organ was donated by the Stone family, and the grand piano that Ron beautifully plays was donated by Carlton’s grandchildren, Mike and Barb. Carlton died in 1950 and his legacy is felt all throughout St Peter’s history.

 

Of all the stories that I’ve been told about our cemetery, one that gets repeated to me often is “Bram Stoker’s brother is buried here.” Lt Col Richard Stoker was born in Dublin in 1851 and came to the Cowichan Valley at the end of the 19^th century. The Stoker family was quite well-known with one brother a Dublin physician and another a London physician. And, of course, Bram, author of Dracula. Richard Stoker was also a doctor and entered the Indian Medical Service, retiring in 1900. He had active service in the Afghan War, the Sikkim Expedition, and the Chetral Relief Force. In his retirement years, Richard was an accomplished zoologist and botanist. His wife was an artist who donated paintings to the Royal BC Museum. The Stokers owned 25 acres of lake-front land near Marble Bay at Lake Cowichan, which was eventually donated to the University of Victoria. It is now the Jeanne S. Simpson Field Studies Resource Centre.

 

These were just three stories from people who decided to make St Peter’s their final resting place. There are so many more stories out in the cemetery. Know that you are always welcome to wander the grounds, and please join us every other year for our Veteran Cemetery Tour.

 

May we always honour those who came before us and built St Peter’s into what it is today.

 

Amen.

A Letter to You from Paul: A Sermon for the 21st Sunday After Pentecost

Photo Credit: Cottonbro Studio on pexels.com

May only truth be spoken and truth heard. Amen.

 

Imagine if the diocese existed during a time where there were no phones, or internet, and slow-moving vehicles. Our community would have looked like Paul’s. Maybe a couple of times a year, a priest would make it to each of the parishes on the Island for a service and some visiting, but all other pastoral care would have been through writing letters. Having come from a shared ministry spread over hundreds of kilometers, I felt a bit of a kindred spirit with Paul in that he would have been a pastor to several churches, and he would have travelled many miles to visit them.

 

Paul was a circuit-riding preacher, and his main form of communication was letter writing. Because of the large distances between these communities, Paul didn’t have the ability to go back and forth all the time, so he relied greatly on his skill at writing pastoral letters as a way of mentoring his communities. Paul founded many Christian churches and wrote many letters, many of which were chiding communities that he heard were going against what he had taught and trying to set them once again on the right path. So, while it may strike us as odd that what would be considered old pieces of mail from Paul would be important enough that they are included in the scriptures, and that they would be studied and commented upon, it is in these letters that we gain historical and theological insights into the beginning of the Christian movement.

 

This is especially the case with the letter to the Thessalonians. Scholars believe that this letter was the first of Paul’s epistles, which would make these words very old. And since these scholars are quite certain that the writing of the epistles pre-dates the writing down of the Gospels by a good bit of time, 1st Thessalonians is thought to be the earliest document ever written about following the ministry of Jesus Christ. In other words, this may be the first bit of Christian writing and theological reflection ever.

 

The purpose of the letter is pretty clear. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy had worked in Thessalonica to successfully establish various house churches that were united enough that he addressed his letter to “The Church of the Thessalonians.” It appears that these three men were forced to flea Thessalonica, likely due to local opposition, and very likely before they were ready to leave. Paul’s concern for this community is evident in the fact that he sent Timothy back into the den, as it was, to check up on everyone.

 

What he heard back must have been really good because Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, the opening of which we heard today, is full of praise and thanksgiving. Because Timothy’s report was reassuring, Paul transitions from his short greeting immediately to expressions of gratitude for the community. He is especially encouraged by their perseverance despite persecution in the “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope.” You will hear this pattern of faith, love, and hope again later in the letter.

 

One of the most notable features of this section is Paul’s emphasis on the power and presence of the living God who has been at work among the Thessalonians. He does not seek to prove that God has acted powerfully in him and the community; he takes it for granted. In fact, the experience of God’s powerful presence serves as a key premise upon which Paul writes his thanksgiving and later exhortations. And we should not dismiss this vibrant awareness of the nearness of the living God as an outdated premise. Being aware of God’s power and presence in our lives holds rich vitality for our spiritual life.

 

We will never be able to fully understand the experiences of Paul, Silvanus, Timothy, and the Thessalonian community. But we can remain prayerfully aware of the presence and power of God who is constantly working in and around us. It is this awareness that will allow us to be transformed by the experience of the living God.

 

On the basis of such experience, Paul writes that the Thessalonians became imitators of him, his colleagues, and of Christ, as well as examples and messengers for others. Now it’s not that Paul feels people should copy their lives after him because he thinks he’s “all that”. In Paul’s ancient Greco-Roman context, imitation of models was the basis of education and moral formation. In order to learn how to write, form arguments, and live a good life, people would follow the examples of others who modeled how it should be done. Paul bore the responsibility of providing such a model for the communities he founded in the early Christ movement. What Paul was encouraging the Thessalonians to do was to imitate his efforts to serve God in anticipation of the return of the Messiah, which they all thought would happen in their lifetime.

 

So, what does it mean for us to be aware of the God’s power and presence in our lives? To imitate Paul and the Thessalonian community in imitating their servitude to God? It means to turn, serve, and wait in faith, love, and hope. The Thessalonians turned from idols, served God, and now wait for the return of the Messiah from heaven. Paul’s practical advice is that they are to not wait idly by, that faith and work are not mutually exclusive. He instructs the Thessalonians to continue in their work, specifying even the tangibility of working with their hands, so that need would not exist among the believers, and they would give a good witness to others. They have been transformed by their belief in Christ, but that does not mean that regular life has come to an end. They are still responsible to be faithful in their vocations. For them to continue to grow into their stellar reputation, work needs to be an element right along with faith, hope, and love.

 

In order for us to be imitators of Paul, we must have a faith that is active and productive, building muscles of faith that requires going out on a limb for Jesus, trusting him when all about us denies the wisdom of that trust. In order for us to be imitators of Paul, we must have a love that labours. The very character of God is love so in imitation of God, we should also be love. Love is a quality that should consume us and we should look to Jesus that this love may grow in us as a gift of God's grace. In order for us to be imitators of Paul, we must have a hope that strengthens. Developing strong hope in the coming of the Messiah gives us the ability to handle anything that life throws at us. Hope is knowing that no matters what happens today, we will have eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

 

In his very first epistle, Paul wrote a glowing letter to the Thessalonian community that was full of praise and thanksgiving. According to his opening dialogue, he was glad for the work they were doing, for their desire to imitate his servitude to God, and that they were doing so while full of faith, love, and hope. If Paul were writing a letter to the diocese, whether to an individual parish or the ministry as a whole, what do you think he would have to say?

 

Amen.

Living a Eucharistic Life: A Sermon for Thanksgiving Sunday

May only truth be spoken and truth heard. Amen.

 

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Maybe some of us will be celebrating with family, eating way too much food, perhaps football will be on the television. But, following up on last week’s discussion on truth and reconciliation, as well as the Truth About Cowichan event on September 30, there is a dark history to Thanksgiving in Canada.

 

Celebrating the harvest was always an important event for Indigenous people. It was a time to give thanks to nature’s bounty and for the health of the community. First Nations across Turtle Island have traditions of thanksgiving for surviving winter and for receiving crops and game as a reward for their hard work.

These traditions may include feasting, prayer, dance, potlatch, and other ceremonies, depending on the community.

 

When European settlers began coming to Turtle Island, Indigenous people saved them from starvation by sharing their food and their knowledge of survival on the vast lands of trees, water, and wild weather. Without having learned skills in planting, hunting, and fishing, the colonialists would have surely died. In return, the following year those same colonialists burned and murdered the Indigenous people. Not a great way to say thank you.

 

It's easy to see why many people feel a little ambivalent to this holiday. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good turkey dinner with all the fixings just as much as the next guy. But it sure is hard to be thankful around a table full of food when you know the history of the holiday and you consider what’s happening all around the world, and especially in our own backyards.

 

Wouldn’t lament be more appropriate? Or a cry for justice? Or a call to action?

 

Certainly, these are also possibilities and have their time and place. But for just this moment, and given today’s reading, I am reminded that of all of our responses to events, blessed or challenging, great or small, one of the most powerful is that of thanksgiving.

 

In the passage of Luke before us we have one of many stories of Jesus healing people with whom he has no business interacting. Ten men approach him, unclean and outcast, pleading with Jesus to heal them. Which, of course, he did. All these men would have been quite surprised to find themselves healed. Perhaps some were overjoyed. Perhaps some celebrated. Perhaps others ran to tell their family and friends. Perhaps a few even took it for granted. We don’t know what happened to nine of the men, but we know that only one returned to thank Jesus for curing him. Only one decided to actually express his gratitude to Jesus and to God.

 

Were all ten lepers healed? Yes. Were they all saved? Yes, in the sense that they were rescued from their disease. But not in the sense of drawing close to God in thankfulness and appreciation. The nine were saved physically but not spiritually.

 

Our natural response here would be to rebuke those nine men who ran off without even a slight word of thanks. But consider this. The other nine did nothing wrong. In fact, they did exactly as they were told and presumably also enjoyed being healed. Again, they didn’t do anything wrong and received the blessing promised them. So, what does the man who returned receive? Certainly, the blessing of healing, as did the other nine. But also the blessing that comes from recognizing blessing and giving thanks — the blessings, that is, of wholeness and even salvation.

 

Returning to God and giving thanks and praise is central to our faith. When we read this account of the ten lepers, we can’t help but be drawn to our central liturgical eucharistic prayer. “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God.” This Eucharistic prayer is like our weekly dose of gratitude. The words of the prayer are meant to characterize every part of our Christian living – our mundane, trivial, ordinary, everyday life. It’s our duty to show ourselves grateful to God with our whole life. The words of the Great Thanksgiving calls us to live Eucharistic lives.

 

But what does it mean to live a Eucharistic life? It means loving others. After hearing stories of how Jesus showed love to others, we try to show God’s love to everyone we meet. It is easy to show love to the people who are nice to us, but it is very hard to be nice to the people who we find hard to love. This is exactly what Jesus asks us to do!

 

It means looking after creation. God has made so many beautiful things for us that we need to make sure we look after them. God wants us to look after the people, the animals, the plants, and everything else in creation. It means caring for those in need. Jesus taught us to care for others who have less than we do. We can do this through prayer and through giving to places like the local food bank.

 

It means announcing the Gospel. God wants us to be evangelists! At the end of each service, we are sent out into the world to take what we have learned through the readings and prayers and live like Jesus and show God’s love to people in our daily lives. It means to do your best. Even when it was really hard, Jesus always did his best to do what he knew God wanted. He often prayed to God to give him the strength he needed to do what was right.

 

It means to help, share, and show kindness. Through his life, Jesus was always aware of people who needed his help. We too, need to always be ready to help others. Another way of showing God’s love to others is by sharing. There were many times when Jesus shared with others. And we can show kindness to other people, especially people who others are not kind to.

 

This world is full of blessing and challenges. Which will we focus on? Truth be told, there is a time for lament and cries for justice and activism. But given that we live in a culture filled with blame and accusation and almost devoid of thanksgiving, maybe on this day, and remembering the tenth leper, we can go forth to be heralds of blessing and bearers of powerful words of gratitude and to live the Eucharistic life to which we are called.

 

Amen.

A Lesson From St Francis: A Sermon for the Blessing of the Animals Service

We praise and bless you, Lord, and we give thanks to you. Amen.

 

Our Season of Creation is winding down, but it's a season we should always lift up! And what a great way to end the season! Having God’s wonderful creatures join us for worship and to receive a blessing, today we celebrate our four-footed and two-winged family members. October 4 is designated as the day to celebrate the feast of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology. This 13th-century Italian friar is often remembered for his deep humility, his simple life of prayer, and as someone who loved creatures and creation.

 

You will often see St Francis depicted surrounded by birds and animals, as he is this morning up here at our altar. Francis had a special connection with all of God’s creatures. I read a story about how he preached a sermon to 100 birds about being thankful to God for their wonderful clothes, for their independence, and for God's care. The story said that the birds stood still as he walked among him, only flying off when he said they could leave!

 

I think my favorite part of our creation story is that God created the animals and the birds first. “God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.” (Gen 1:25) It was only once God saw that creation needed caretakers did God create humans. (And honestly, they probably would have be fine without us!)

 

We humans think that we’re the top of the power pyramid, but if it weren’t for the animals, birds, and fish, we’d be nothing. We’d have no purpose. We’d have no source of food or income. Genesis 1:28 states “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” We often mistake this verse to mean that we have been given divine power to control and dominate everything on the earth, that we can use the earth’s resources in anyway we deem fit.

 

But in that verse, God is giving us a creation mandate. We are told to procreate and grow the population. We are told to spread ourselves all over the earth. And we are told to be stewards of the earth, called to protect animal life and care for the planet with the justice and protection of a righteous caretaker, not through cruel exploitation. We are meant to safeguard creation, not manage it.

 

St Francis’ example of selfless love inspired others to follow him and together they preached the love of God to all and sought “to follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps”. For St Francis, the teachings of the gospel extended to all of God’s creatures, not just those who walk upright on two feet. Francis was in awe of the swallow and cricket and rabbit and saw sacredness even in the smallest bug. His teaching to us is that the world of nature and the world of God are one. When Jesus calls on us to love our neighbour, that includes every living thing in creation. St Francis reminds us that we are a part of our environment and are called to love and protect it.

 

As we head into the blessing of our beloved pets, I leave you with this prayer from Sacred Pauses:

Blessed are you, Lord God,

maker of all living creatures.

You called forth fish in the sea,

birds in the air

and animals on the land.

You inspired St. Francis to call all of them his brothers and sisters.

We ask you to bless this pet.

By the power of your love,

enable it to live according to your plan.

May we always praise you for all your beauty in creation.

Blessed are you,

Lord our God,

in all your creatures!

 

Amen

Resources:

franciscanfriars.co.uk

catholic.org

franciscanmedia.org

re:worship.blogspot.com