Follow Me: A Loaded Request

Epiphany 3A-2020
1 Corinthians 1: 10-18 and Matthew 4: 12-23
Rev. Dr. Kimberlynn McNabb

January 26th is the date on the Christian calander that commemerates Timothy, Titus, and Silas; as missionaries in the early church.  All were at one time companions of Paul, who accompanied him on missionary journeys.  Timothy and Titus ended up as Bishops, Silas was imprisoned and later freed by earthquake. One needed to watch what one declared. Saying, “I belong to Paul,” could have had you either thrown in prison or elected Bishop.
Paul tells the people of the church in Corinth to only declare that one belongs to Christ.
This declaration will change one’s life, more than being elected Bishop or thrown in prison.
Let us consider what it means to belong to Christ; to be a Jesus follower.

Social media is full of platforms, like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook; each is used by people to gather followers. One can follow groups and people who interest them. Sites have follow buttons, and once clicked, you are a follower. The more followers, the more famous you are.
In a world where follow buttons are common place, how do we hear Jesus’ words, “Follow me?”
My guess is that Jesus would have had millions of social media followers.  Some would be watching for words of wisdom or challenge; others would follow his whereabouts so they could join him to learn, debate, or be healed.  Others would be followers to see what crazy things this man Jesus was going to do; Jesus actions would be their entertainment. He would be as popular on Twitter as Donald Trump.
To be a follower today only takes the clicking of a button. That’s all. There are no requirements to actually read the posts or content created by the person they are following. One need not comment or scroll through all posts.  One doesn’t even have to like the person or their beliefs. There is no commitment to being a follower. You are a follower forever, unless you click the unfollow button.
Jesus, social media free, calls to Andrew and Peter, “Follow me,” and immediately they leave their boats and nets.
Jesus calls to James and John, “Follow me,” and immediately they leave their boats, nets, and father.
Andrew, Peter, James, and John did more than simply click a button, and let life carry on as it was.  Everything changed, there was commitment, from the moment they chose to follow Jesus.

In the early 90s, Wilfrid Laurier University had a Hebrew professor named Dr. Fischer. Dr. Fischer was a gentleman in his 70s who wore thickly knit Scandinavian type sweaters and a poor-boy cap. He was a quiet teacher, methodical in method, and more or less succeeded in getting all his students to pass.  He was a favourite teacher for many because if you followed his lesson one learned about his passions.  He loved talking about his passions. Students could get him to regale stories or points of astute academia, or tidbits of new texts being found.  Dr. Fischer would get all excited, worked up he would bounce through the class, and talk with his hands.
A favourite topic was verse 6 of Psalm 23: “Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”  Excitedly he explained to students that the word “follow” was a poor English translation of the Hebrew text. The English “follow,” makes the words of the Psalm comforting and reassuring.  In Hebrew, the word in the text is better translated as “pursue.” Meaning, God’s goodness and mercy will  pursue you, stalk you. You can’t, no matter how much you try, get away from God’s grace and mercy. Grace and mercy will chase you, even harass you.
What happens, then, if we were to hear Jesus’ invitation to the disciples as, “Pursue me,””Chase after me?” The invitation is not a simple click of a button. Pursue and chase is dangerous.  Consider Hollywood movies that contain car chases, police in pursuit; they are full scale drama, speed, aggression, high energy. There is collateral damage, and the possibility of prison, or life, or death. The chase is not for the weak of heart, or the stomach as may be the case for some.
Thesaurus.com suggests these words as alternatives for follow:
go after, seek, pursue; accompany, attend; badger, bate, but; hound, hunt; persevere, persist, plague; shadow, stalk.
After reading the synonyms, knowing that “pursue” is the best translation for the word in Psalm 23, the best translation for the original word in Matthew is worth investigating. The Greek word that we hear as “follow” literally means, “to be in the same way with;” as in two people were walking along the same road, or travelling a similar journey. The appropriate English translation is, to accompany.
Jesus calls Andrew and Peter, “Accompany me,” and immediately they leave their boats and nets.
Jesus calls James and John, “Accompany me,” and immediately they leave their boats, nets, and father.
Andrew, Peter, James, and John, did more than simply click a button, and let life carry on as it was.  Everything changed, there was commitment, from the moment they chose to follow Jesus.

This morning Jesus invites you, calls to you, “Accompany me,” and immediately...
Do you click a follow button? Do you leave your car, and job, and family?
I suspect that some of us dropped what we were doing when we heard the Gospel.  Jesus’ invitation was a recognition that we needed to, wanted to, change our lives and the way we were living. For many more of us, immediately following, has been a growth process that has been a journey of relationship with God and others over years.
Unfortunately, we have read a weak translation of what Jesus was asking, and calling the disciples to.  We now have to shift our understanding from “Follow me,” to something far more difficult.  Jesus invites us to accompany him.
Rachel Svenson, who works with young adults on ELCA Global Mission projects, begins her “Living Lutheran” blog with a quote from Linda Crockett’s book, “The Deepest Wound:”
Accompaniment goes beyond solidarity in that anyone who enters into its risks suffering the pain of those we would accompany ... accompaniment may include all of these acions (protest marches, pressing for change in law, civil disobedience) but it does not necessarily share the assumption that we can fix, save, or change a stiuation or person by what we do.  It calls for us to walk with those we accompany, forming relationship and sharing risks, joys, and lives.  We enter into the world of the one who suffers with no assurance that we can change or fix anything ... accompaniment is based on hope despite evidence that there is little reason for optimism.
Accompanying Jesus -Belonging to Christ – is not for the faint of heart or stomach.
Jesus called Andrew, Peter, James, and John into a life of accompaniment.  The passage we read this morning has John the Baptist in prison for his speaking truth to the powers of the day.  Jesus and his followers – people accompanying him – were often protesting and breaking laws (Jesus healing on the Sabbath, Jesus touching untouchables); the group as a whole gathered in large numbers for sit-ins to listen to Jesus (an illegal action in the Roman Empire); Jesus and those accompanying him bated the religious leaders with near heretical blasphemies, and insighted angst by taunting the authority of the Roman Empirer.  Every moment was a risk, as Jesus entered into relationship, with the powers of the day. Every moment was a risk for those who would accompany him.  Every moment was a risk as Jesus gave hope to the poor, the widow, the children; justice to the oppressed and imprisoned; and healing for the lame, the leperous, and demon possesed.

Jesus’ call, “accompany me,” was a loaded statement. Jesus did not invite people for a walk in the park, or stroll around the Sea of Galilee. Jesus’ call was for followers to risk being in relationship, knowing that God’s grace and mercy would be in pursuit to assist those who say “yes” to accompany others with all their hearts and souls and minds.

God, this morning we declare, “I belong to Christ.” We immediately drop our excuses, our fears, and all present preoccupations, to accompany you. Give us the courage “to belong to Christ” in a time when we are taught that to follow requires no commitment.

the Voice of the Lord: Louder and Louder

Baptism of our Lord A -2020
I once attended a rather interesting play at the Elora Gorge Conservation Area in ON. The Elora Gorge is a large section of parkland, full of trails above and below a 22 metre high cliff-face that runs along the deep and fast moving Grand River. It really is spectacular and the sound of the water in some spots is almost deafening. On this particular evening a group of people gathered at the remains of the old mill; remaining is part the foundation platform, and a few walls a little taller than myself.  This was the backdrop for the play. I assumed the play would happen in the ruin and we would simply watch and enjoy. 
It was past time for play to start, when there was commotion in the gathered audience.  It took a few moments to realize that the play had started.  One really had to pay attention and look around to catch what was going on.  We had no idea who the actors were and there was no sound system. We gathered what was happening from watching the reactions of those closest to the characters, or catching the actions that the actor had made; the audience spread what had happened to those standing behind them.  It was rather chaotic with the actors not being discernable from the audience.  We became as much a part of the play as the actors.  At one point there was a wedding, and towns-people came through the crowd handing out noise makers, banging pots and pans, dragging bystanders by the hand, dancing in jovial lines, moving the crowd around... I was cajoled into joining a party reveller, to refuse would make a worse scene than going along; I ended up on the foundation platform three feet from the bride and groom – I was all of a sudden part of the wedding party; the crowd was cheering and clapping and the pots and pans were being banged... I was like a deer in headlights...  I was uncomfortable, not sure I was to be where I was.  I felt out of place. The scene was WAY too loud, and I didn’t want to be asked to do anything or be pushed into an another unexpected role.  The wind picked up, the dew fell and settled, night descended, lanterns were lit--- and eventually the play came to an end as we all left the scene.
This is the image that came to mind when I reflected on the Psalm for this morning.
We have a very loud psalm.  The Voice of the Lord is over the waters, the voice thunders, the voice breaks and splits trees, the voice shakes the wilderness; it is mighty and full of splendor. I picture the wilds, with mighty wind, dust swirling, chaos, danger; a place for people not to be.

The origins of the psalm are found in the land and peoples North of Israel. Mentioned are the places of Lebanon, Syria, and Kadesh.  The words of the psalm echo the Mediterranean sensibility that it was the  gods that were the power of the natural phenomena – thunder, waves, wind, earthquake, volcano, storm- chaos and grand sound. There was other noise in the wilderness too.  Since the forming of peoples, caravans have come and gone, armies have trudged across the desert and back again – land has been laid waste, crops burnt, resources pillaged.  In more recent years, the land has been littered with landmines and missile shells; flattened by armoured tanks and the flight of millions of people.  The sound in the wilderness is loud – it is gun fire and rockets, mother’s wailing for lost fathers and children crying as they run for their lives. It is chaos and it is loud!

The Psalm and the Voice from heaven that we hear in the Gospel sit in contrast to each other.
As the psalmist sings, the voice of the Lord is over the waters, so the voice of the Lord is over the Jordan; yet, the voice heard comes from the heavens as the heavens open up to Jesus.  Matthew tells us that Jesus sees the heavens open and the dove descend, so we know Jesus also hears  - This is my Son the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.  The way the story is told it is rather undramatic in comparison to the Voice of the Lord from the Psalm. The event is somewhat underwhelming and subtle; one would have had to be paying attention, listening.  There would have been a large crowd out to see John the Baptist, and I imagine it was kind of like the play at the Elora Gorge – figuring out who was John, pushing yourself through the crowd to see and hear, but not too close so you could escape if you wanted to. The passage does not tell us who else hears the voice confirming that God is pleased with Jesus. The voice is not thundered across the wilderness in a grand majestic announcement; it is whispered and will grow in strength in coming days and weeks.

Jason Byassee from Vancouver School of Theology notes that, The voice of the Lord comes to the world as a baby - born without the ability to speak – just like Alastor who is being baptized today. Now Jason also reflects that the inability to speak is simply a loll before the storm; after Jesus’ baptism the voice of the Lord gets louder and louder.  The voice will call for justice, the voice spoken will have the blind see, prisoners  set free, and those who have lived in darkness will see a great light;  through the voice the dead will be raised.          
This is not unlike what is to happen and does happen through the sacrament of Baptism, for now Alastor is quiet—well mostly quiet... but there is to come a time when baptismal promises get lived out, what we learn in this place gets lived out with our voices and our words getting louder and louder; we are given voices to proclaim Christ in word and deed, to care for others and the world God has made, to work for justice and peace.

I just finished reading a memoir by Stephanie Saldana, an American student, attending a Catholic University, who after 9/11 went on scholarship to Syria to learn Arabic; the idea of the scholarship was to foster relationships with Arabs and teach young bright Americans that Muslims were not terrorists. While she was in Syria there was a lot of movement of people, displaced by civil unrest, conflict, and war.  She lived in the Orthodox Christian section of the old city of Damascus. It was not all that safe to be in Syria: one had to watch what one said, where one went, how one dressed; to be cautious as neighbours often informed authorities about people stepping outside the rules. There were the sounds of parades yelling for Americans to go home; there was the sound of rumbling tanks, missiles, explosions.  There was the sound of religion, the call of the minaret for prayer, church bells from Orthodox buildings and Catholic cathedrals; there was the noise of people in the streets and crowded markets. She recounts all sorts of situations and instances where the world descended on Straight St. in Damascus – Jews, Christians, Muslims; Arabic in dialects from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestinian territories...it was a microchaosim of peoples who in other places simply did not get along.  And here amidst loud voices from the wilderness, Stephanie talks of her daily routine and conversation with neighbours and street vendors – these relationships formed because everyone was displaced – here everyone belonged. And it is here that Stephanie found God, whom she had lost so many years before – in the voice of the rug repairer who quoted the Koran, a fellow Jewish classmate who continued to observe holy days despite it being illegal, in learning to speak Arabic in an array of dialect --- it was poetry.  Arabic’s unique phrasing was the music – the quiet voice, beauty that whispered to the heart. It was the quirky greetings in the neighbourhood that fostered peace  – when peace was the last thing one would expect.

At the beginning I talked about my experience of unexpectedly participating in an outside play that was chaotic and loud, ---how I felt out of place, uncomfortable, unsure, and hesitant as to what could come next. There were voices and noise swirling all around and I did not feel like I belonged. Since then I have experienced a similar sensation living life.  There is a lot of noise and chaos.  There are many voices in the world. Often I feel like I do not belong.  ...  until I am reminded that the voice of the Lord moves over the waters. I am drawn in by the thought of the psalmist who speaks of the Voice of the Lord being a majesty and splendor above the chaos and being in the chaos – a creating power – Word to infuse the very elements of life.  Today I am drawn back to the voice of the Lord moving over the waters, in water of the baptism font and the promises of the hushed voice whispering “you are a child of God, beloved” – a creating power – Word to infuse my spirit with life, with belonging, a naming.  

Beloved, the Voice of the Lord is loud, the voice of the Lord whispers – God is in all and is all. Listen for the voice of creating power – Word that infuses the elements of life.  Participate in creating power, in word that infuses life, do so by claiming the words of baptism; you are a child of God, beloved... now therefore be the Voice of the Lord getting louder and louder: proclaiming Christ in word and deed, caring for others and all God has made, and working for justice and peace.   Amen.

Advent 2A: The Peaceable Kingdom

Today’s headline:  John the hippy is in the desert smoking weed!  .....

I editorialized the story for the modern ear.  John the Baptist was not a hippy and was not smoking weed, however, the headline is directive as to what was going on in the desert.
John was preaching a message that was anti-establishment.
John’s vision of the future and the kingdom were very different from what was being spoken by the religious leaders of his day.
John was partaking in activity, that although not illegal, was off-putting to many, not understandable, and not acceptable in polite society; for goodness sake, his father Zechariah was a priest and along with wife Elizabeth were upstanding citizens.
John was out in the wilds not caring what people thought – or at least he didn’t let what other people thought, stop him from harshly proclaiming a baptism of repentance; to be followed by a life that bore fruit worthy of repentance.
John demanded of those who came to be baptized a sincere resolution to reform their life. Those who simply came to see, and gawk; to get a selfie with the passionate windswept John, or to capture a video or blip for the social media frenzy that would take place today ---with hashtags like #crazyprophet #voicecriesinthewilderness #camelshair #locustsandwildhoney #youbroodofvipers --- John vehemently confronted this group called them names, accused them of false pretenses, more or less told them they would go to hell (but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire).
John, labelled eccentric and indignant, claimed to be a mere shadow of the baptizer to come- Jesus. Terrifying.
John was wild with the urgency for conversion, high with the urgency for people to prepare for the coming Christ, ferocious with an urgency to be awake for the end of time.

There is no headline that could sanitize John the Baptist and his work in the desert of Judea. There is no headline that could make John’s message palatable; repent for the reign of God is at hand. There is no headline that could twist the words into something comfortable.  The message is harsh, direct, and painful.
Look at the images of the text:
It is painful - to make roads straight – if you have been on highway 103 over the past year and witnessed the dynamiting of bedrock, the crushing of stone, the spreading of gravel to make the new highway, it has been hard, dirty, and time-consuming work.
It is painful- to wear camels hair – if you have ever worn something that is made of wool and it has made you itch, or it gets wet and smells like farm, you know.
It is painful – to be called names, you brood of vipers; to have one’s ego knocked down, you’re not so great, God can make children for Abraham out of these rocks;
It is painful – if you are a tree- to be cut down; or for some people to watch trees get cut down for no reason.
It is painful – to think of baptism with fire rather than water; to consider judgement and purification in the process.
It is painful – to think about death, our death, the death of loved ones; where do they go? Where do we go? Is it a metaphor or is there unquenchable fire?
John the hippy -I mean- Baptizer is in the desert proclaiming –Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
This is both frightening and exhilarating! Welcome to the tension of Advent.

The tension is evident throughout Advent scripture.  The prophet Isaiah began his words this morning with images of judgment, striking the ruthless, and slaying the wicked; in turn the poor and afflicted receive justice. Then Isaiah, in a very non-John-the-Baptist-way, created a beautiful piece of poetry, not to frighten us into repentance, but, to draw the hearers heart into an exhilarated moment of believing the possibility of a peaceable kingdom. The wolf and lamb will lie together, the leopard and the goat side by side, the calf and lion grazing together with a child guiding them, lion and ox eating hay together, and children playing in the dens of snakes and not being hurt. This comfortable poem is an indirect way to weave into a human heart a truth not heard in the surrounding world.  The story is very serious, although couched in comfort, the poem describes earth-shattering change, an upheaval of the natural order; as John the Baptist’s story indicates this kind of change is painful. Isaiah describes a change in the very nature of the animals; none of the animals in the poem are acting in the way they were created to act in order to survive. They are not living by animal instinct. Fear, protection, preservation – have all dissipated, vanished. The subtle idea being planted is the hope, the possibility, that if animal nature can so drastically change, so too can human nature.  Imagine human beings dramatically changed, turning from a proclivity to live from our shadow side. Fear, self-protection, self-preservation ---dissipated; jealously, anger, coveting, vengeance, judgement, bullying, lust—vanished; gone.
Isaiah painted for us a picture of John the Baptists’ railings in the wilderness: repent for the reign of God has come near. When come in its fulness it is a complete change of nature. Frightening and exhilarating.

In the early 1800s there was a Quaker minister named Edward Hicks. He was captivated by the words of Isaiah 11. Over a lifetime he painted more than 62 works of this prophecy – called the Peaceable Kingdom.
His early work had delightful animals – lions, leopards, cows, ox, sheep, goats, snakes, with little children- all happy, content, serene, filled with hope. In the pictures there were often groupings of people sometimes Quaker siblings, numerous examples that included prominently placed people of the Lenape First Nation.
Edward was deliberate in the inclusion of the Lenape who illustrated his sense of reconciliation and the Quaker practice of the values of friendship an love which Christ came to teach humans.  This relationship reminder was to direct people to honour the 1681 treaty of perpetual friendship signed with Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn—a treaty that by Hicks’ time had been disregarded.
The Quakers of Goose Creek, (later Lincoln, Virginia) acted like John in the wilderness – anti-establishment, creating a different vision. Before the American Civil War, they publicly acted and spoke against slavery; official written documents included an acknowledgement of women friends being part of the collective voice; and took an anti-war stance and declared themselves conscientious objectors. They practiced passivism, showing kindness and courage.
Hicks returned again and again to the peaceable kingdom because it was an expression of the Quaker understanding of the Inner Light, which referred to an understanding that salvation could be attained by yielding one’s will to the Christ-with-in.  Isaiah expressed the idea in the breaking down of barriers so that all could work and live together in peace.  Unfortunately, Edward’s art caused trouble; it was a bit of a John the Baptist move on his part. Quakers were a Society of Friends who shied away from any sort of ornamentation in their meeting halls, and also in their homes. Edward was between a rock and a hard place, as it was the selling of ornamental work – pictures of the peaceable kingdom-that gave him the means to support his family of five children.
In the early years, Edward had hope that humankind would establish peace on earth, by exercising biblical principles; that others would join Quakers in a bringing near the kingdom of God.  As years went on,  as Edward became more cynical about human beings abilities, the animals in his renderings of the peaceable kingdom became tense, exhausted, sometimes showing teeth; and the last paintings have animals like leopards depicted fighting with each other. He was disappointed that God’s kingdom would never be a reality on earth in its fullness --- in this loss of hope, he turned fervently towards Christ.

Advent 2 traditionally lights the candle of peace – Edward wrestled with the tension of the Advent season – the Peaceable kingdom, Christ’s kingdom now and not yet.  Isaiah offered a poem to inspire -the Peaceable Kingdom, to draw humankind to the possibility that humankind can change; be different, live peace. John the Baptist with no holds bar, demanded -demands- repent for the kingdom of God has come near; the reign of God is at hand. Frightened and exhilarated--- we go this week, to wrestle with the tension of what currently is, and what -if we turn our will to the Christ-with-in-  is promised possibility!

De-creation. Recreation. Reading Aloud in times of Apocalyptic Text

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed up on the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pilotless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This is the Word of the Lord according to...? The prophet Haggai? Malachi? Isaiah? Wait – its from the beginning of a Gospel, Mark? Luke? ... It is the Gospel according to Irish poet, William Butler Yeats.
We heard from Isaiah: For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. We heard from Luke: The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down. Nation will rise against nation... and so on.
What is it about this kind of literature that it is repeated from generation to generation across cultures and boundaries?  Texts that speak of DE-CREATION. The texts mention the noisy din of war and rumours of war, the devastation and upheaval of environments and ecosystems taxed beyond limits, the disrespect and ill-regard  ---cruelty--- toward fellow human beings.  This de-creation was not meant to be --- it seems humans are insistent on messing up God’s continued creating of a new heaven, a new earth.
What is it about this kind of literature? This kind of literature -the language of apocalyptic text- challenges the status quo, continually planting the idea that there are other options as to how to live – NEW, re-newed, wisdom led and fed ways. Apocalyptic texts tell us that whatever the circumstance we are facing, it will not always be this way; change is inevitable. In Luke’s apocalyptic moment he reminds us – as he always does: do not be terrified.
When one hears the text it is sometimes hard to not get pulled into the images of fire and destruction, of war, persecution, and terror ---  to listen with different ears, to pull out the Gospel (which is God’s continued action to bring life), and in this to find hope.  God is creating and we have been invited to be a part of it.
This new thing God is creating – is about to create--  is described in the final sentence of every piece of apocalyptic literature.  We heard read aloud from Isaiah, Luke, and Yeats:
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
By your endurance you will gain your souls.
Its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born
In some text there is promise throughout. Luke’s rendition is a foretaste of the what is to come in his Gospel sequel – the book of Acts, where the Holy Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost – changing the disciples lives forever.  Luke’s Jesus promises: I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. Wisdom is not just a state or a quality someone possesses. Wisdom is described as the breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of God’s goodness. This description comes from the extra biblical book, The Book of Wisdom.  Imagine --- God giving such to human beings; new creations where the breathe of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of God, an image of God’s goodness, comes through us. There is power in the words of apocalyptic text; planting the idea that some day God will use us in this way to confound the status quo and say “there is a different way.”
Scripture has been told and read, poetry recited, stories recounted, ALOUD for as long as humans can remember.   The tales tell of war, struggle, famine, sickness; anger, revenge, sadness; overcoming monsters and obstacles; finding love, hope, acceptance; the literature contains woes and blessings, opens the hearer to the intimacy of human relationships, and seeks to make sense of a world -and life- that is fraught with complexity and confusion.
I have been reading a book about the importance and benefit of reading aloud, and being read to. Church is one place where adults are read to. Every week we hear various pieces of literature read from sacred text – and sometimes from works that are outside the Canon of Scripture. The texts we hear help us strive to make sense of the world, to say and wrestle with what is written, and feel what we might not be able to express.  Literature allows us to move through a vast array of emotions quickly, stretching the brain by imprinting ideas to be tucked away for later reflection. 
The book reflects on the studied healing power of reading to those in the hospital, rather than conversation that often gets stuck in the complaints of the day. The book remarks on the improvement of function and emotional calm brought by reading to those with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Meghan Gurdon, also tells a beautiful story from history, which I recount in my own words:  Once upon a time, 1865 in Cuba to be exact,  a man named Martinez organized public readers to read the newspaper to the working class- only 15% of whom could read for themselves. The next year, public readers moved into the Havanna cigar factory – the cigar-rollers even pitched in to pay the reader.  Listening sure helped the workers by offering a distraction, something of interest, outside the mundane and repetitive rolling of tobacco leaves hour after hour. For six months the workers revelled in a sea of words and thoughts and ideas, until --- until the authorities put a stop to filling workers with dangerous ideas.  Afraid of the power being given to the working class, growing ideas and thoughts, public readings were banned. It wasn’t the first time books and literature were taken from the hands of the working class and it wouldn’t be the last.
A few years later, a son of a public reader, had moved to Florida with other Cubans seeking a new life. Remembering the heart of his father, and his father’s love of literature, and his sense of purpose to read aloud, the son began to read to cigar workers in Key West; the newspaper in the morning and novels in the afternoon.  He sat above and behind the cigar-rollers so his voice would carry, there cross-legged and spectacled he took the whole factory to places of great imaginings: around the world on pirate ships, to deserts and oasis, to great kingdoms, and to walk in the shoes of the cigar workers favourite character, the Count of Monte Cristo.
In the time of Jesus, the authorities did not much like the literature that Jesus shared with the disciples and the people (including the marginalized, the poor, the forgotten, the widow) who gathered around to hear Jesus. Jesus’ words were a disruption to the status quo and gave people ideas that balked against a heavy handed wealth acquiring ruling class.  As Jesus told stories, read scripture, wrestled with the Law, made apocalyptic pronouncements, people’s imaginations grew, affecting emotions, imprinting ideas, and bringing hope to a people who had forgotten how to hope, and thus, how to live into God’s new creation.
It was the same in the time of the prophet Haggai, Isaiah, or poet Yeats.  Text was read to empower human beings, to remind them of the essence of their being – created by the great Creator and then filled with Wisdom who would speak holy words through ordinary people, to continue the work of creation.
The beauty of being read to is not the expectation that we understand every word.  It is a growing of capacity for language, idea, vision, and a turning from de-creation to NEW CREATION.  I will admit poetry was never my favourite type of literature – at least not when every ounce of meaning was to be taken from the words – for me it was the feeling left behind by the hearing of the words, it was the communion of the community listening together and interacting in the process; it IS the ahhs and ooohs and yikes and the AMENs collectively shared.
Yeats poem, the Second Coming, is a foretaste of the readings to come over the next five weeks.  Next week we celebrate the reign of the Christ – the last Sunday of the church year.  We collectively read about Christ dying and rising, to remind us the ‘why’ of returning to Advent the week following and progressing via sacred text to the celebration of Christmas. In times when the noise of the world overpowers the falconer, when anarchy is loosed, innocence lost, and it feels like the centre is about to let go, and around us things fall apart...We come to read the texts aloud, so to stir up the Wisdom of the creator, so that facing a world rushing to consumer Christmas and wars and rumours of wars, we might be given the words to speak louder than the status quo, words that signal:  a new way -HOPE- ; a new vision -PEACE; a new heaven -JOY; a new earth - LOVE.

ReMembered Word -All Saints Sunday

... Before us loomed what to my eyes seemed the carcass of a palace, a place of echoes and shadows. ...
A blue-tinted gloom obscured the sinuous contours of a marble staircase and a gallery of frescoes peopled with angels and fabulous creatures.  We followed our host through a palatial corridor and arrived at a sprawling round hall, a virtual basilica of shadows spiraling up under a high glass dome, its dimness pierced by shafts of light that stabbed from above. A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelves rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive woven with tunnels, steps, platforms, and bridges that presaged an immense library of seemingly impossible geometry.  ...
Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. ...
 This is a place of mystery...a sanctuary.  Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul.  The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it.  Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs [their] eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.  This place was already ancient...many years ago.  Perhaps as old as the city itself.  Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. ... when a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here.  In this place books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands.  In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner.  Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.
                                                                     -The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, pg. 5-6.

What a delight, to have sat down at the beginning of this week with the novel, The Shadow of the Wind, and within a few pages read the words I just shared. How fitting when spending the week preparing to celebrate All Saint’s Sunday, to remember those who have died over the past year.
As I look back over the year, I am amazed at the variety of texts and hymns chosen by you or your loved ones, as words to be read at funerals and gravesides to bring comfort and hope; to help you grieve; to start your journey of letting go, healing, and looking forward. The books accessed from the library -from the Bible, from the hymnbook, were holy words written across centuries:
Our spirits were lulled by Psalms and words of the Prophets – the Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want; you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb; for you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace, the mountains and the hills before you shall burst in song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands; I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
Our hearts heard the Gospel proclaimed: do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day; do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me; I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am you may be also; I am the resurrection and the life; Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; they will be guided to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more; mourning and crying ad pain will be no more; listen, I tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Our voices sang hymns that wound hope into our beings: O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder  consider all the worlds thy hands have made; Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; Blessed assurance Jesus is mine, oh what a foretaste of glory divine; I come to the church in the wildwood; true man, yet very God, from sin and death He save us, and lightens every load.
This is a smattering of the texts that we shared as a community when facing death.
We could easily add the texts read at Bible Study this past week from Revelations, 1 John, and Matthew. We can add the texts we heard this morning: 
The book of Daniel shares with us a vision of the four winds of heaven; four great beasts; and the promise that the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever- forever and ever. Ephesians regales the power of salvation, the riches of God’s glorious inheritance, and includes a vision of  God’s immeasurable greatness, above all rule, authority and power and dominion, not only in this age but also in the age to come, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And then Luke, in a comfortable rhythm, satisfies with the poetry of the Beatitudes, encouraging that yours is the kingdom of heaven; you who are hungry now will be filled; rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven.
The snippets of holy words that we turn to when we face death are like the books found in the cemetery of forgotten books – a place described as a mystery, a sanctuary; where every book has a soul – that of the writer, of the first reader, of every subsequent reader; every time the words are read they grow in spirit and strength. How strong must be the words we take comfort in? How many funerals have you found yourself singing, Amazing Grace, or hearing the words from Paul, for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. For thousands and thousands of years Hebrew scriptures have been passed along, for just shy of two thousand years Christian texts have been proclaimed, for a few hundred years faith communities have found solace in the hymns we sing. When the words are spoken and sung, the words and thoughts are re-membered, brought back to life, resurrected- to be what we need for the day, to grow for what we, or someone else, will need for tomorrow. The words re-member us.
At times of loss we loss pieces of ourselves. You could say that we become dismembered – pulled apart, shaken, confused, anxious, -- simply put we are not the same. The mystery of the word of God -the words that we turn to for comfort and strength- put us back together by helping us remember who we are, by reminding us of the promises of faith, by re-membering us by bringing us together with other members in the body of Christ – people who can share our burden and grief, people to share the mystery of faith and the promises of resurrection when such words may not remembered in our grief.
I think I appreciated the idea of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books because I see the community as a repository, full of guardians. In places like this, names are written down in the church record book, and remembered, long after stories are no longer told of our loved ones, long after their deeds are forgotten, long after there are no more relatives or friends. Future generations – pastors for sure- come along and  gaze over the pages of who was here, to understand the great cloud of witnesses who came before, and the inheritance in which they now accept to work and serve. By remembering and re-membering, our spirit grows and strengthens.
I have my own pastoral record book that goes with me from place to place, recording all baptisms, confirmations, marriages, special sermons or presentations, students I’ve mentored, and of course funerals. As I re-membered people while writing this sermon, I resurrected memories and re-membered myself by remembering what I was taught by the faithful and the not-so-faithful, and their families. I was amazed by the diversity of people who make up ‘the great cloud of witnesses;’ I was astonished by the vast holdings of those who are members of the same church community and neighbourhood --people who because of a sharing of Word and sung hymns-- communicated with each other, shared faith, sat side-by-side, and worked at getting along with each other so that they could be God’s hands in the world. The 138 people recorded in my funeral section covered the spectrum: politically right of right and left of left,  homophobes and those in same-sex marriages, those condemning mixed race marriage, those adopting children of other ethnicities, both those who supported and did not support females in ministry, gun carriers and hunters and pacifists and vegans; people calling God he and others who welcomed the occasional she; those who saw communion as a symbol, eating beside those for whom it was holy sacrament. You get the idea. Despite differences that could have been very divisive, the Gospel and Mystery of God, was a unifying force. Together in all our uniqueness we were a member, all members, re-membered in the family of God.
 The Gospel and the Mystery of God shared in holy space is truly amazing.  Our togetherness, what we share here, is experienced and shared as holy text for those who follow.
I have witnessed the effect of hearing and voicing the texts we turn to at times of death.  From the 138 written in my book I witnessed:  strength when facing debilitating disease, visions of angels at bedsides, the peace brought by communion, slipping into the next life while saying the Lord’s Prayer, the singing of hymns while dying to express thanks and joy for what has been, final words of great hope, the waiting to offer forgiveness and a last hug, the humility of confession and beauty found in the acceptance of absolution, exchanging peace in the holding of a hand, the presence to be patient and welcome basking in the richness of silence ... and in all these circumstances entering the great Mystery – where sacred texts and words come flooding to the surface and work as holy ointment.
Today may you be re-membered as you remember your loved ones. Be encouraged by the voice of God spoken through texts and hymns, be supported by the voice of the community of faith, and may you grow in strength and spirit. Through Word receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever --- forever and ever.

Once, in my father’s bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into [their] heart.  Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later ---no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget--- we will return.  For those enchanted pages will always be the ones I found among the passageways of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. 
                                                                             – The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, pg 8.

A Human Condition (Reformation C-2019_

The worship book is a rich resource. Not only does it provide a form of prayer and hymns through which we worship God, it gives a daily scripture reading plan, and teaches, including Luther’s Small Catechism. The book in it’s prayers, hymns, and extras expresses a Lutheran theological perspective; a perspective that speaks to the scripture texts read on Reformation Sunday.
Truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ... if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.  The truth will make you free. This passage from the Gospel of John sums up today’s take away. It is the same take away present each week in the liturgy.
In the worship book, pg 94 right column, the prayer of confession that we have been using prays; we have turned from you (you being God) and given ourselves into the power of sin. The alternative prayer in the left column, has us pray; we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. For those of us who are regular worshipers we have said these words hundreds of times; at Bible Study the participants recollected them from memory. These words are part of our DNA, we know them by heart.
A gentleman in the New Denmark parish, explained the confession and church to me this way. On Sunday morning we come to church with a used suitcase. During the confession we open the suitcase and dump the contents – the dirty shirts, socks, and underwear from a week of being on the road as a travelling sales person. We come with empty toothpaste tubes and spent soap, missing socks, and an unorganized mess. Once the suitcase is dumped before God – and is completely empty, then one is ready for church. As one journeys through the service, one picks up Good News, clothes that are neatly paired, folded and pressed, and places them in the suitcase.  One packs helpful scripture, ideas to wrestle with, love from the community, hope, forgiveness, joy, and a sense of belonging. God takes a look and fills up the rest of the suitcase with additional items -grace- that we might need for another week on the road.  With God’s strength, God closes the overflowing suitcase. We leave church with a clean suitcase, stocked full, to go and share the contents with the world. As we live our week, once again the suitcase ends up in disarray. There is no way to stop it from becoming so.  The next Sunday we once again bring the suitcase to dump and be refilled.
This little parable tells us how sin works- we are captive to sin, it puts our lives in disarray, and empties our hearts; making us weary and weathered. Reading from the book of Romans we learn a number of things: through law comes the knowledge of sin. We understand this, the Law in a form of rules like the Ten Commandments help us to gage how we are living, how much sin we commit, how messy the suitcase is.  Romans goes on to explain that sin is sin, meaning sins are not ranked by lesser or greater, venial or mortal. With human beings, Paul writes: There is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Also attached to Paul’s description and understanding of sin is a promise -the Good News that refills our empty suitcases; They are now justified by God’s grace as a gift (through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus).  We hear this Good News every week in the absolution that follows confession, where the pastor says: in the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.
Again later on, to drive the Good News home, such promise is reiterated in the communion liturgy found on pg 108 in the grey coloured box, this blood was shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Take note that there is  no ending ‘s’ on sin.  The word is not pointing to you directly in the sense of your sins, but, collectively has made no distinction between people; all sin and fall short.  Jesus’ blood is offered – redemption- for all people for the forgiveness of sin.  Sin – a collective- within the human condition.
As part of confirmation class, each student is given a copy of the catechism, just as many of us were given catechism to learn for confirmation. Some of us have misplaced them or our dogs have eaten them, the worship book creators have our backs, they made it available to you in the back of the worship book. I invite you to turn to pg1160, where you will find the 10 Commandments. As the Catechism teaches about the Ten Commandments, one takes an eye opening journey -well a heart opening journey- in what sin is. We could talk through each one as an example, but, this morning we will look at 2.  Let us turn our attention to the fifth; You shall not murder.  Spoken in this straightforward way, I am guessing that most of us will say that we have kept commandment number five.  We have not murdered, in the sense of killing another human being.
I recently finished a non-fiction book that tells the tale of the sinking of the whaling ship, Essex; sunk by two blows to the hull from a sperm whales’ nose and large jaw. The tale of the Essex is the tale that inspired countless poems and the novel Moby Dick. As the large transport ship went down, the crew cut loose three smaller whaling boats, loaded them with as many provisions as possible, jumped on board, and set sail for a 3000km ride across the Southern Pacific ocean to the western shore of South America.  The voyage took three months in an open boat, with the whalers continually at the mercy of the weather and the seas.  The men rationed the food and water aboard; it didn’t take long for the men to become weak, thirsty. Due to dehydration and malnutrition, some turned delirious, sick, and sunburned. Provisions ran exceedingly low and so did morale and hope. People started to die. To survive the crews had to eat the remains of those who had died in their boats. In one boat the decision to eat each other was tricky – no one had died. The decision was made to draw lots on who would be killed to feed and save the rest; a lot was drawn to see who would do the killing. The sound of the tale is too extraordinary, too foreign, for us to understand the desperation of starving men, stuck in a boat on the open seas. In such a situation, what is sin?  What does it mean, you shall not kill? Perhaps this circumstance illustrates that sin is not so easily defined, that there is more to the Law than a simple rule.
For this, I appreciate that the hymn book includes Martin Luther’s catechism and his reflection on what each commandment means – Luther’s writing is quite clear that all fall short of the glory of God, by each of us not keeping any of the commandments. Correct, he would tell you that you most definitely have committed murder. Hopefully the circumstances were not as dire as starving to death in a whaling boat, more often, our circumstances reflect the things we have left undone; sins of omission. On pg 1160
Luther explains: You shall not kill. What does this mean?  We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbours, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs. X2
Being captive to sin means that within our relationships there is always room for improvement. We can increasingly take steps to help and support one another in all of life’s needs. This is a never ending concern.
For a second example, on the next page, look at commandment seven. It reads: You shall not steal.
Fleshing out the meaning Luther explains: What does this mean?  We are to fear and love God, so that we neither take our neighbours’ money or property nor acquire them by using shoddy merchandise or crooked deals, but instead help them to improve and protect their property and income. Just as in murder, stealing is part of the human condition. Similarly to commandment five, I suspect that often we break it via omission, not helping others to improve and protect their property and income. Once again this is a never ending concern.
The words of weekly confession are working on us, so that we take to heart that sin is:
Known and unknown, things we have done and things we have failed to do  and stated in the other prayer option, we have sinned against you in thought word and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
Sin is imbedded in human condition – and is corporate as much as it is individual. We all sin, as much in inaction as by our actions. In acknowledging the depth of the words and thoughts in confession, in accepting that we are in sin, allows us to turn and hear the truth.
The truth will make you free. The truth is there is no distinction, all sin and fall short of the glory of God. ...and... Justification comes thanks to God’s grace and it is a gift. Justification comes thanks to God’s grace and it is a gift!
Theologian Frederick Buechner wrote: theology is reasoned, systematic, orderly whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises...Faith is less a position on than a movement toward.”  X2 This quote reminds me of the suitcase.  It reminds us that we are continually reforming, continually moving toward a freedom from the bondage of sin -moving toward a wholeness of relationship with God, people, and creation. 
Joshua is confirming his faith this morning. He has learned the catechism. He has talked about sin. He has wrestled with scripture and learned important texts. He has learned the Good News; he has talked about grace. Just as most of us have at one time or another in our church lives. The message for you Joshua, for all of us is that through life you will find that faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises.  Accept this.  See faith not as something you receive today in the laying on of hands, but, rather, as a movement, a life-long journey to living into the promises you make today; promises that direct your attention to living a life of faithful relationship; relationships that move us farther from captivity to sin and move us towards God relationships.
Hold on to the promise of God:
From the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; ... I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
This comes thanks to God’s grace. It is a gift.

A Place for Tears and Difficult Texts

Pent 17C-2019

Be prepared for something that is not stereotypical, modern, Protestant, or dry-eyed. Be prepared to be overcome.
The first time I experienced such a spectacle in Canada, I was a Vicar in Sault Ste. Marie, ON. I was with a family in the city cemetery concluding a burial, when a group of women dressed in black, heads covered, scurried by to a grave not so far away. The women huddled together and began murmuring.  As we departed, the women, speaking Italian, grew louder and louder, lamenting, crying, wailing; as one they moved in agitation and angst. Later, I learned that the women were professional mourners, attending to their practice for days or weeks following a funeral.  The practice of the community was to wail for the dead, to give voice to the grief of the family, and to articulate the loss for the whole community. Although outside of anything I had witnessed, and strange as I thought it might have been at the time; the dedication of the women and their freedom to openly express deep emotion has stayed with me.  I now appreciate and see value in the practice.
A couple of years ago the New York Times interviewed anthropologist James Wilce about his research study on lamentation.  He noted that lamentation, wailing, and other corporate dramatic expressions of grief and sadness are disappearing out of people’s practice. Many of us never experience graveside wailers, in fact many of us try really hard not to cry at a funeral. Somehow stereotypical, modern, Protestant funerals are quiet dry-eyed affairs, where we try so hard to be stoic, show a stiff upper lip, be so-called strong for our families. Wilce believes we are losing an important way to express human sadness and grief. Wilce found a group of people, the Karelians – a people of Northern Finland, who to this day, teach workshops on lamenting.  The lamenting practice is taken outside just funeral practices and is used to address a diversity of emotional hardship including illness, divorce, relocation, reconciliation.
 The workshops teach that short phrases, descending melodies, and the alliteration of words help the human spirit to process sadness and grief. Vocal expressions of unpolished words interrupted by sobs connect one to the rawness of their own emotions and connect them to the larger community. Wilce wrote the phrase I began the sermon with, to describe how he experienced the Karelian workshop, where he worked through the grief of his sister’s death from years before.  He wrote: “Be prepared for something that is not stereotypical, modern, Protestant or dry-eyed. Be prepared to be overcome.”
Today is a break from nine weeks of scripture from Jeremiah. It is one of the only times we turn to the book of Lamentations to hear the word of the Lord. Although not likely written by Jeremiah, it is in the time that follows his prophecy where the people are returning to exile. Lamentations and  Psalm 137, chanted earlier, go hand in hand. Both are songs written around 586 BCE by the waters of Babylon.  This means that the people of Israel are in exile in an alien land, dispersed, taken there by the Edomites and the Babylonians.  From the songs, listeners rightly gather that the Temple, Zion, has been destroyed and lays in ruin. The songs are laments, wailings, sung to express the grief and sadness of the people living by unknown waters.
The five poems in Lamentations are in the qina metre, a specific form of poetry that has a rhythm when read.  It sounds like a dirge; in fact the Hebrew word qina can be translated lamentation or dirge.  The function of a dirge is to express and try to come to terms with grief. And what grief the people are experiencing. In verse 2 and 3 of Psalm 137, the people’s dirge conveys that their captors are taunting them to sing, to sing one of their happy songs of thanksgiving or praise, of celebration in the glory of the Temple that once was; their hearts and spirits are so devoid of such song, they sing unaccompanied as harps have been hung in the trees, not used.
Through the centuries Psalms have continued to be part of our practice, sung in simple chant, to allow the words to filter through us and express emotions we might not even realize we are holding. Psalm 137 is read in synagogues in ordinary liturgy, particularly at times when the Roman destruction of the temple in 70 CE is remembered.  Psalms continue to be an active practice – not yet lost – and so important because exile, emotions of sadness and grief are very real and present; despite our denial and attempts at stoicism.
Over the years, some communities have dropped the Psalm from their Sunday morning services, suggesting that they are outdated, use words and thoughts not held by a modern world, and in fact say some passages are plain inappropriate.  An example is verse 9, the ending of the Psalm of the day; happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock.
 But in our context, the passage is real: in Jedwabne, Poland, in 1941, 1600 Jews were killed – men’s beards were caught on fire, babies were killed in mothers’ arms. Before death people were dashed and beaten, then forced to sing and dance, before being corralled into a barn that was set on fire by non-Jewish townspeople.
And yes, we experience exile in so many ways: bemoaning our situation and thinking or articulating thoughts of revenge. Exile is experienced by the divorced who live away from family or a family home; the unemployed are in exile of being without a job; there are those in exile by leaving home because of deteriorating health or leaving for school or for a job in another place; exile is experienced because of no affordable housing, environmental devastation, or war. And how often in such cases do we demonize and wish harm (in word, not in actuality) on those we deem responsible for casting us into exile – the corporate giant who downsized, the spouse who for whatever reason was intolerable to live with, the government for not providing services.
Psalms like 137, and the poems of Lamentations remind us of the need to articulate sadness and grief.
Without cries of anguish and vengeance human beings are incapable of dealing with the experience of violence. Let me repeat that: without cries of anguish and vengeance human beings are incapable of dealing with the experience of violence. Repressed emotions from perpetrated violence are played out in future generations. We experience this today: anger, depression, pain, mass shootings, bombs in public places, road rage, substance abuse...
In an article in Christianity Today,  author David Stowe includes work by Croatian-born theologian Miroslav Volf, where he says that: “Psalm 137 gives voice to violent emotions, so as to diffuse the impulse toward violent actions: by placing unattended rage before God we place both our unjust enemy and our own vengeful self face to face with a God who loves and does justice.” Psalm 137 is a reminder that “everyone is potentially Judean, potentially Babylonian; potentially a victim, potentially a perpetrator.”
Psalm 137 and Lamentations 1 are community dirges. This is part of the Good News for today. Exile is not an alone affair. In Sault Ste. Marie, it was not one wailer who went to the cemetery, it was a group of women. In community there is freedom, support, healing, a movement from grief to a place of hope and new life. Wailing and lamentation is rage directed to God, where we place the enemy and ourselves side by side, and God faces back with love and justice.
Laments also have function as a corporate confession. Note in verse 5 of the Lamentations’ poem, the song includes a phrase the multitude of her transgressions, in other words, the peoples’ sin; verse 6 of the Psalm refers to forgetting God and turning from the ways of the covenant, the joy to be found in the practice of offering and giving in pilgrimage practice. For a brief second an acknowledge of being part of the cause of destruction and exile is spoken. People articulate the pain of being a part of the ‘why’ people are faced with disasters and experiences of exile. As Volf explains, in real time, we are potentially Judean, Babylonian; victim, perpetrator.  Such expression allows for the possibility, that bewailing human condition, we might come out of grief and sadness, to turn and rise from the ashes.  Corporate lamentation holds that the community has a role and responsibility to turn from disaster and set a new course. Together may we never be stoic, stiff upper lipped, or afraid to express the depths of sadness and grief within. As individuals, as a church, as citizens in a troubled world let us acknowledge that there is a lot to grieve; loss is real and present. As a community let us be free, supportive, healing – professional wailers, raging at a God who looks back at humanity with love and justice- and come away as transformers of grief to a place of hope and new life.

Be prepared -or better yet, unprepared but open- for something that is not stereotypical, modern, Protestant, or dry-eyed.  Be prepared to be overcome.

Gnats

Tackling the News of the Day

You probably saw in the news that, Friday Sept. 27th was a day of activism for climate justice.  Around the world people gathered at marches, rallies, and events to pressure governments to work together to address climate crisis. A global cry is outpoured: creation, the environment, the world is not ours. We do not own it.  It belongs to our children and our children’s children – if it survives. It has been put in our hands for a time – to manage. As a people, we are not gifted managers.
The Gospel for this morning talks about a shrewd manager. Shrewd is polite – honestly, the manager squanders the owner’s property, is dishonest, buys off friends, is focused on self-preservation, and tries to keep all options open and both sides content. The manager demonstrates a lack of being a gifted manager.
This portion of Gospel text is a convoluted parable that comes at the end of Jesus’ response to the scribes and Pharisees who have grumbled that Jesus eats with tax collectors and those they deem sinners.  Jesus has been pointing his finger at the grumblers to hold them accountable for missing the point of the covenant and the Law.  Jesus has used the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son, and now this parable of the dishonest manager to call attention to the heart of the matter – self provision has become more important than the fortune of others, the care for the widow and the orphan; mercy, compassion, justice are not the terms of management being used. Living covenant life where relationship is fostered through just management of the abundance of God’s world has become an absurd idea. Jesus tells this confusing parable, where a dishonest manager is rewarded for being a poor manager. Why?  Because are we not all poor managers of all that has been entrusted to us? We squander the owner’s property – the earth and the environment. We mismanage relationships, often for our own gain.
The mismanagement of relationships, also hit the news this week; the issue of race was used for self-serving purposes to confuse, confound, and complicate the politics of the day, as we move to the fall election. The issue was put on an individual and their actions, lost is an honest conversation about societal racism and relationships requiring  justice. Once again as a people, we are not gifted managers.
Today I need to be honest with you:
I confess that I have used single use plastics.
I confess that I have wasted water and electricity.
I confess that I have used insecticides, rat poison, and plant-killer.
I confessed that I have told off-coloured jokes in public spaces about people from specific geographic areas and cultures different from my own.
I confess that I have made judgements of others due to their religion, gender, and/or skin colour.
I confess that I have avoided areas of the city with a high volume of public housing.
I confess that I have believed that reserves and tax free status meant that Indigenous people were taken care of.
I confess that I have called people debasing names and used language, knowingly and unknowingly, that is  racist and homophobic.
There are no pics or videos, that I am aware of, of me doing any of these things. I am not anticipating anything from my past coming back to bite me in the rear end. None of these things were okay.  None of these things are okay. I apologize for these words and deeds. I am a dishonest manager.
Although you can likely make a similar list of confessions, I would like to think that most of us aren’t actively racist or purposefully destroying creation.  That said we are passively participating in climate crisis and systemic racism.  We are adjudged as dishonest managers. Now let us not get disheartened by this fact or use it as an excuse to continue on as if we are oblivious to the cries of the world.
Jesus’ parable speaks to this week’s top news items: climate crisis and systemic racism. Jesus plunges listeners into a story that throws out the idea of the ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’; where the ethical will win and the immoral will loss. Jesus has everyone in a entangled circumstance where options are not easy to choose, where choices are affected by a wide range of variables, and that poses the manager as a villain regardless of actions taken.  Let us take this to heart. No human being is owner, only a poor manager – can we not just start with the truth and accept and admit that each of us as individuals, and collectively as: special interest groups, political parties, societies, countries, and world organizations are dishonest managers.
Since last Sept. we have been reading and studying the Gospel according to Luke. Luke has been forthright with us about his understanding of the Gospel, about the meaning of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, and how the gospel and Jesus’ teachings are to be applied in our own lives. Luke’s story consistently speaks to the stewardship of material possessions and questions people about their ongoing obedience to the Law. Luke focuses on these two items because, as I delightfully read in a commentary, Luke was a hippy.  Luke’s description and presentation of Jesus came from his passionate desire for love among all  people and as an advocate for the poor and excluded. Luke recorded Jesus as compassionate to outcasts and in relationship with the poor, the sick, women, foreigners, Samaritans, Gentiles, tax collectors, and sinners. Jesus tells a lot of parables about money and wealth in the Gospel of Luke., but Jesus is not to be seen as rich person hater, rather one is to see Jesus’ concern in what wealth does to people.  Luke’s theology is serious about sin, but when judgement is cast somehow God’s mercy is greater than anticipated. This abundance of compassion is to turn individuals and whole peoples to living a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds.
With this in mind, although dishonest managers, as part of this community and as followers of Jesus we have been welcomed here in this place.  When we gather we experience a portion of God’s mercy and God’s grace. Jesus’ parable sets up the opportunity for Luke to compel listeners to live, not from the accusation of being a dishonest manager, but from the overall theme of the parables as recorded – turn to living a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds; sharing the compassion you have received or experienced, or if you think you have not received or experienced God’s mercy and compassion than be dishonest about it and live that way any way.
As I have moved off the playground, matured, and grown older, I have found myself more willing and able to change, to accept, to appreciate, to try my best to build relationship; to be more passionate like Luke the hippy, and Jesus the revolutionary.   To counter dishonest management on my part, I strive to live a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds.
Years ago, I was telling a story to a group of clergy. In the telling of the story I used the term Paddy Wagon to refer to the police vehicle that transported people to jail. A colleague interrupted and asked that I not use  that term; it was offensive. I apologized and then with a little embarrassment asked for an explanation because I didn’t understand. Paddy was a derogatory ethnic slur used to describe the Irish in 19th Century America. During riots of 1860’s, where poor Irish immigrants were protesting the army draft while the rich were given provision to buy a waiver, police arrested the Irish and took them to the station in horse drawn wagons; thus Paddy wagon.  For the next century the term associated a particular people with disorderly conduct, violence, drinking, and the criminal.  I no longer use the term, because I listened and learned the hurt that is experienced when the term is used.  This is a small example, where managing includes changing language to be loving and inclusive. In like manner, I no longer use the term Indian summer, as it is a derogatory stereotype put on indigenous peoples.  I now use, harvest summer. As one learns one can turn from dishonest management to a new wholeness, and in that wholeness experience a place of compassion and mercy beyond one’s understanding.
The Atlantic Ministry Area clergy met this past week and it was time for us to pick our next study book. We have decided to read a newly released book published by Augsburg entitled: Dear Church: a Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US. The author, Lenny Duncan, is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He preaches that, symbols are important; they shape the way we think about the world, often without us knowing it.  If we don’t deconstruct harmful symbols, we will slowly poison our children. Luke’s Gospel has been teaching us this too.  We are all sinners, get over it already; we are all dishonest managers.  Now get to work: love, include, right your relationship with the wealth you manage, and opulently administer compassion and mercy.
The product description for the book commissions dishonest managers who make up the church: It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice.  Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow the revolutionary path of Jesus.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is certainly revolutionary.
In the complexity of the parable, the dishonest manager who has acted shrewdly, making friends and building relationships through dishonest means to protect his own self-interest... when all is said and done, when all is gone, the manager is welcomed into eternal homes. Yes, what a revolutionary, upside down, “say-what,” conclusion. At the end the manager is welcomed home – despite the inability of being a gifted manager, and by the lack of mention in the parable of no remorse or apology or I will try to do better. The parable points to compassion, mercy, and welcome; period. Once again we are told a Jesus’ parable where God’s activity – God’s final judgement, the kingdom principle -   is outside of what we can conceive and imagine. The opulence of welcome, the extravagance of compassion and mercy, are given... this is Good News.

A Mantra at the Point of No Return

Pent 14C-2019
Thursday was a visiting day for me. During one visit, the conversation turned to the state of the world – the synopsis being that it might be too late to fix the current problems in the world; just as it was too late in the time of Jeremiah. One can turn around, peoples can turn and change their ways, but, there comes a point of no return.  It is as the saying goes, at the point of no return one can only stand back and watch the train wreck.  Or once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can not put it back.
The conversation turned to questioning, that when it is too late, or we deem it too late, or we are beyond the capacity to work towards a solution, what are one’s options? In the moment of no return and the aftermath, what options are there?  The thought of the wise person I was visiting was that there is only prayer.  Asking what one should pray, the words that came to us were very simple:
Strength for today, and hope for tomorrow.
Later in the day, another visit happened via text because our face-to-face meeting was interrupted due to circumstance, the very words that were needed were the prayer: strength for today, hope for tomorrow.
I looked the prayer up, the words  are from Thessalonians.  Although not from the texts for today, the words speak to the texts of today as a whole.
Strength for today, and hope for tomorrow.
After the warnings voiced by Jeremiah the prophet last week, today’s text has moved on to a point of no return.  The people find themselves estranged from God. Their communal relationships are broken. Their relationship with the land is in peril. Armies have crossed into their territory and the land is being laid waste. The people can no longer turn around, can no longer make peace; destruction has started. What options do the people have?; to run – there are other armies on their other borders-, to fight – without weapons, without leaders, with a lack of will, to acquiesce -to be led away into exile?  In whichever choice there is an option available to the people, to pray. I have noted in conversations with people who have lived through war, various disasters, or trying circumstances, that in the telling of their tales most acknowledge turning to prayer. When everything is gone and chaos is the norm, prayer becomes the stable item; a place to turn, a concrete action, a connection, a hope, an option. Crazy though, is that it takes extenuating circumstances to draw people back to prayer – to relationship with God, with others, with creation. Everyday, not just those that fall apart, we could certainly pray: Strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
I am sure that you have noticed election signs going up around the city. I would love to see a party use the campaign slogan: strength for today and hope for tomorrow, to see those words on signs dotting the neighbourhood.; to have politicians who live the motto and provide strong leadership to tackle the tasks at hand -the environment, medi-care, immigration, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, electoral reform, and so on; and in their actions and decisions grow hope for tomorrow. Unfortunately, too often people are praying the words strength for today and hope for tomorrow, as they witness and experience chaos at the hands of poor leadership, poor government.
And that is where we find Jesus – confronting poor leadership and poor government; while sitting with those who are in the kind of circumstances that require a prayer of strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
 It is the scribes and the Pharisees who start the interaction with Jesus.  Under their breathes they note that Jesus is eating with tax collectors and those whom the scribes and Pharisees label sinners. So, as was Jesus’ practice, he told them parables. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin are meant to point a reflective and accusatory finger at the grumblers; Jesus is confronting poor leadership by addressing the actions -or lack there of- of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Jesus confronts the leaders of the time who are responsible for interpreting the Law, that is the covenant God made with the people in the time of Moses.  The Law was a set of rules to assist people in strengthening their relationship with God, and with other human beings. In Jesus’ time the scribes and Pharisees taught the law and policed the Law.  They were responsible for executing judgement against people seen to be deviating from the Law.
So what were the parables about?
Is Jesus suggesting to the scribes and the Pharisees that they are the sheep or the coin - the lost?  They were lost; lost in the sense that the policing of the Law had become more important than the relationships it was meant to foster. The scribes and Pharisees had lost touch with God, with the people; they were out on their own, lost in their own self-righteousness. Or are the Pharisees and scribes the shepherd, the woman? In this case could Jesus be implying that the Law requires the leadership to be responsible, to focus on protecting, finding, restoring, every person, and to be about the wholeness of the community; where no one is lost or forgotten?
These thoughts are not new to us.  All year we have been listening to Luke’s theological themes. Again and again Luke writes stories where all those who are deemed outsiders are included in God’s grace. He emphasizes that the kingdom comes for everyone. Luke points fingers at a society that has become legalistic, rather than compassionate and merciful.  The Law is not being lived according to the heart, and when this happens everything falls apart. There are those who are forgotten and neglected, called sinners and kept out of relationship by being held at arms length.  If the scribes and the Pharisees were living the Law there would not be sinners because their needs would be met in community, met with compassion and mercy.  Right relationships would mean strength for today and hope for tomorrow for everyone.
Luke also tells us when we will know that we are living in a time of right relationships – where compassion and mercy abound- it will be at the time when people rejoice for each person who is restored into community.  There will be joy and rejoicing. Luke says it five times in just a few lines.
That is not the reality of the world – joy and rejoicing.
Jeremiah’s dower words, the lament of the Psalm, the self-righteous leaders labeling sinners and shunning tax collectors,  this sounds like a world moving towards a point of no return.  This sounds like now. The texts resonate because they capture some of what we feel when we look at the state of the world, the environment, relationships,  and another election season. In this climate before I consider my options – our options – with conviction I will pray: strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
National Bishop Susan Johnson has invited congregations, has invited you, to join her in a year of prayer -beginning now and running to the end of August 2020. The insert in today’s bulletin is a resource to help you in forming a daily prayer practice. She has said more than once, “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were known as the church that prays.” Her conviction is that prayer is the essence of all that we say and do; prayer overtime works at a heart level. When we pray – connections are made – with God, with people, with creation.
This morning we were blessed to be part of Rebeca’s baptism.  Collectively we promised to pray for her in her new life in Christ. That’s relationship building. In the rite of Baptism, parents and God-parents are entrusted with responsibilities: the responsibility includes teaching the Lord’s prayer and nurturing the child in faith and prayer. This is important.  The why is written into the liturgy, so that the baptized (that’s us) can learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God has made, and work for justice and peace. Prayer does this to us.
When we stop praying, the opposite comes about, we do not work for justice and peace, we lack in our care for others and the world God made, we no longer proclaim Christ through word and deed, and our trust in God falters... and then we find ourselves at a point of no return, toothpaste out of the tube, a train-wreck in process.
I’m with Bishop Susan, I invite you to pray with me this week. My prayer for this week is the wise words from Thursday’s visit; I plan on praying the words before I put my feet on the floor in the morning, after listening to the morning news; when out walking I will silently pray the prayer for each person I pass; I will share the words aloud with those whom I visit; the prayer will be the last words I say before going to bed.Through prayer may we be once again washed in the waters of baptism, and by nurturing ourselves in prayer may we once again learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God has made, and work for justice and peace.
...to you and your household, strength for today and hope for tomorrow. Amen.

Better Than Biscuits

A pastor was attending a men’s breakfast in Farm Country. He asked one of the senior farmers to say grace before the meal.  The farmer began: “Lord, I hate buttermilk.” The pastor opened one eye and wondered where this was going. The farmer continued loudly proclaiming, “Lord, I hate lard.” Now the pastor was worried. However, without missing a beat the farmer prayed on, “And Lord, you know I don’t much care for raw white flour.” Just as the pastor thought to stand up and stop the prayer, the farmer said, “But, Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them up, I do love fresh biscuits. So, Lord, when things come up we don’t like, when life gets hard, when we just don’t understand what you are saying, we just need to relax and wait until you are done mixing, and probably it will be something even better than biscuits. Amen.”
A little levity on a Sunday when the readings are anything but funny. In Jeremiah God compares God’s self to a potter, who in the making a vessel reworks the clay many times over.  The prophet tells the people God’s work as potter includes shaping evil against the people and devising a plan against them; unless they turn around; turn and amend their ways and their doings. In Luke Jesus continues the conversation in a similar vein, teaching what amended ways look like, and graphically explaining what ‘doings’ are expected of followers.  Jesus is blunt; you did hear the Gospel read correctly, “whoever comes to me and does not HATE father and mother, wife, children...even life itself cannot be my follower.”
It is one thing to hate buttermilk, to hate lard, but, to hate father and mother and all those familial relationships where one hopes for relationships that are right and good and healthy. To hate, Jesus, are you being serious?
Yes, this passage is Jesus being very serious. Although perhaps with too much hyperbole, Jesus is stressing that being a disciple could lead to losing relationships with loved ones ... because you will be different. You will be set free to live, not for oneself, but, rather, for the health and wellbeing of the world. It might mean altering beliefs, affiliating with a different political party, changing one’s lifestyle, befriending a new group or groups of people, advocating for  ideals that contradict others in one’s own family circle. It means choosing beliefs, morals, ethics, attitudes, and actions for oneself; sometimes this is a drastic turn----and it can cause irritation, fights, and broken relationships. It will also create and build new relationships.
Jesus isn’t mincing his words. After the potential loss of relationship he comments that one needs to carry the cross, and this is not hyperbole to the hearers.  Rome was very adept at killing rabble-rousers, advocates, and social change makers.  The land was littered with people dead or dying on crosses along roadsides; the idea was to deter uprising; to deter people thinking for themselves; to deter people from giving hope and power to those who were hopeless, helpless, and powerless.
 Years after Jesus’ strong words, workers in the church were carrying the cross; literally dying for sharing the Gospel, for living a different way, for challenging the powers of the time to address social injustices, for giving hope to the forgotten, for lifting the poor out of poverty, for loving their neighbours, for opposing the Empire, for advocating for rights, for redistributing resources.  Paul writes his letter to Philemon, while in prison for preaching the Gospel. Others at the time had been killed -crucified on crosses- and more deaths followed. Paul writes Philemon with a very big, life altering ask. He asks that Philemon put his faith into action – to live the Gospel- by giving his slave Onesimus his freedom.  This is a big ask! Slavery was the norm in Roman households of Philemon’s time.  Colossae, the city, where Philemon, lived had many merchants, land owners, and magistrates who had slaves. To make ‘the ask’ more difficult Onesimus was a run away slave, this explains why Paul had met him while in prison.  Onesimus has been changed by the Gospel and wants to be an emissary for the Gospel – to do this he needs to be free, so he has the ability to go and teach, preach, and serve.
 Philemon is a Christian.  He has resources such that the church in Colossae meets in his house. He is seen as a patron of the church.  Paul fills his letter with accolades, and pressures Philemon to make the ‘right’ decision for the Gospel – to free Onesimus.  To do this was to carry a cross.  Philemon’s fellow social and class group would be upset at this revolutionary move, and it would ostracize him from colleagues. For goodness sake, such actions might give slaves ideas; it set people free, it changed the balance of power, it changed society values, it was not the perceived best practice, it would disrupt the comfort of the status quo, it could start a rebellion. This is exactly what Jesus meant in the Gospel – warning of hating father and mother, and that being a disciple was costly.
I had a Christian history professor in seminary who over and over again, preached, that if the church is not being persecuted, it is not living the Gospel. He came out of a seminary experience that included participating in the labour union movement, the Pittsburgh steel riots of the 1970s, and various marches for this or that. He fought hard for the rights of workers...this came out of his understanding of the Gospel, that all should be free from slavery, whatever its form.  He carried this cross - losing relationships, building others, to follow Jesus’ revolutionary ideals – for the healing of the world.
Today’s scriptures tell us, in blunt and shocking words, exactly what being a follower – a Christian is about. We are told exactly how much it will cost us.  I wonder, how much has being a Christian cost you? Have you carried a cross?
Peter Claver was born in 1581 into a devout Catholic family.  His parents were prosperous farmers and land owners. As a young adult he attended the University of Barcelona and was known for his intelligence and piety; this led him to more study within the Society of Jesus. At the time, there was a lay brother, Alphonsus Rodriguez, at the college; he was known for having a gift of prophecy. Alphonsus believed that God had called Peter Claver to spend his life in service in the colonies in the new world – in New Spain.
In 1610, Claver arrived in New Spain, in the city of Cartagena, in what is now Columbia. He spent six years in study and living with the Jesuits before being ordained a priest. In these years, Claver was deeply bothered by the harsh treatment and living conditions of slaves being brought in from Africa. Slaves arrived on ships that were overcrowded and despicable in condition, with an estimated third dying on the voyage across the ocean. Cartagena was the hub of the slave trade, with 10,000 slaves coming into port each year; despite papal decrees having denounced slavery, it continued because it was a lucrative trade.
  The Jesuits had been ministering with the slaves for many years before Claver arrived to carry on the work of Fr. Alonso de Sandoval. Claver set up shop on the docks and met the ships -met the slaves- with medicine, food, clothing, and brandy, in hand.  In the off-season of shipping, Claver visited plantations taking along items in short supply. Claver took time to learn the language of the people, and taught Christianity in a vast number of African dialects. It is estimated that in his 40 years of ministry he personally taught and baptized 300,000 slaves.
But the Jesus work – the work talked about in today’s Gospel was his work that shock the powers that be.
He fought for Christian slaves to ensure they received their Christian and civil rights. Claver would return to plantations to continue to keep owners accountable. On such trips, he would accept the hospitality of slaves and lodge in these homes, refusing the hospitality of owners, overseers, and traders. His persistent advocacy for the rights of slaves annoyed city officials and magistrates.
His unrelenting work, determination, outspokenness, and actions saw the change, as slave situations improved. In time Claver was considered a moral force – and called the Apostle of Cartagena. Claver up to his death in 1654 from a prolonged sickness, referred to himself as “the slave of the slaves forever.”
Peter carried a cross;  a cross that set others free.  Because of the Gospel, whom have you free?
Jeremiah ends with the words of the Lord, Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. We are invited to live big picture thinking.  Philemon has the choice to free his slave Onesimus, Paul saying it is the ethical, the Christian thing to do, even though in his world this would have been a revolutionary act. We are told that carrying the cross is the expectation, the Christian best practice.
We might hate buttermilk. We might hate lard. We might not like raw white flour very much. BUT, we do like biscuits.  God is mixing the dough, mixing us up, cooking up a batch of Christians that are not afraid to live Christian lives... lives that through the Gospel set people free. Please God, when things come up that we don’t like, when life gets hard, when we just don’t understand what you are saying, help us relax, and let you mix....so that we have the power to act and to live into freedom...to participate in creating something way better than biscuits. Amen.

note that the joke was sent to me via social media