Vocation (Not Jobs) Is Working Community

 

Have you met your Walmart greeter? I know the greeter at the Walmart I go to: what she looks like, her smile, her kind actions. For years she has been a consistent and calm presence. One of the recognizable hallmarks of Walmart was the greeter, who welcomed shoppers to the store. CEO and founder Sam Walton implemented the role to show customers that they are persons who are valued. The role helped shape the identity and culture of the company. You can google ‘Walmart greeter’ and meet a host of exceptional greeters who have special relationships with the community who comes through the store’s doors.

According to American reports, effective April 2026 the role of greeter has come to an end. Greeters are being replaced with what the company is calling a “customer host” whose job now includes the requirement of being able to lift 25lbs, climb ladders, and stand for long periods of time. Their job will involve much more – for example carrying and packing bags into cars. The job’s sole purpose is no longer forming relationship with customers and making everyone feel seen and welcomed upon arrival.  

 This corporate move means that seniors and those with disabilities who often fill the roll of greeter are systematically being removed from work that is meaningful and life-giving to them, and life-giving to the world receiving their gifts.

 

Today’s reading from Acts highlights how the early church worked together to bring the kindom of God. Today it would be called a model of leadership. It would be considered an organizational structure that lives out the values of the community.

From the early days of the Protestant church, a model of leadership was articulate in theology that eventually had the church use the tagline “priesthood of all believers.”

 

Luther in, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, wrote: In fact, we are all consecrated priests through Baptism, as St. Peter in 1 Peter 2 says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a priestly kingdom.” In this way we are all priests, as many of us as are Christians, there are indeed priests whom we call ministers. They are chosen from among us, and who do everything in our name. That is a priesthood which is nothing else than the Ministry. Thus 1 Corinthians 4:1: “No one should regard us as anything else than ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God.”

 

Letters written in and to the early church often contained lists of gifts and talents of members in a Christian community. Gifts included: service, knowledge, wisdom, preaching, teaching, healing, faith, prophecy, miracles, speaking in tongues. The Letters indicate that communities have a host of individuals with varying skills and talents, all to be used for wholeness of community and the spread of the Gospel. Every person does not have every gift. Each person does have a gift to contribute, and each gift is vital for the health of that community.

 

The early followers of Jesus, as described in the book of Acts, were a community that was out in the community, bringing the kindom of God. Each one’s skills and passions were being used to live resurrection and to share Jesus’ mission in the world. Christ was being proclaimed in word and deed!

 

The example given to us this morning is of Stephen. Stephen along with six other men were chosen by the Apostles to the ministry of service. The men were responsible for feeding people and the distribution of goods to those in need. The Apostles continued their call to preach and teach. This does not mean that the Apostles didn’t participate in the ministry of service, or that Stephen and team didn’t preach. It simply means that their calling – their skills – their vocation, was to a specific role; one that used their gifts to the fullest.

Lutherans have two streams of rostered ministers. There are some ordained to the ministry of Word and Service -  our deacons; and others ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament- our pastors. Each order of ministry has specific skills and purposes. Through baptism we are all welcomed into God’s family and into a community of faith. The Holy Spirit calls us to lives that benefit the whole community. Living among God’s faithful people, we are empowered to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, and to serve all people, following the example of Jesus. This is what we promise and what we pray for at baptisms and in affirmations of faith.

 

In our society, youth are directed and pressured to think about their futures. Often this simply means careers, jobs; the purpose to make money. They think about: part-time jobs, summer employment, school to gather skills for jobs, climbing-the-ladder jobs, good-paying jobs, jobs with benefits. Faith community understands ‘job’, ‘work’, in a different way. Rather than jobs, faith community is about encouraging the community to focus on vocation.

Vocation - is a calling or strong inclination of the heart, toward a particular course of action, way of life, and purpose. I don’t have a job – I have a vocation. You have met people in all walks of life that have a vocation – nurses, teachers, accountants, plumbers, librarians, baristas, musicians, Walmart greeters, long-term care workers - you can tell it is not just a job by the way the person’s heart is in their work. They love their work and the people they serve. Their work creates energy, good feeling, and benefits everyone around them. There is authenticity that shines their true self and passion in their role in the community. The community is blessed because of their contribution.

 

Unfortunately, society has skewed our understanding of jobs, and debased work to only be about money.

I appreciate the Acts story of Stephen because something powerful came from his working from his heart.

Prior to the snippet we read, Stephen’s purposeful work and passion for the gospel had Stephen brought before the Sanhedrin court. Acts 7 records the longest speech in Acts – and it is not Peter’s or Paul’s - it is Stephen’s defense – where Stephen speaks truth to power. The speech includes the history of God’s relationship with God’s people and God’s continued faithfulness to the covenant despite the people turning away. The powers that be are angry? Ashamed? Scared? – that a community was living the sacred texts, the covenant promises, bringing God’s kindom into their midst without the authority’s permission, assistance, power, resources, status, institution. The marginalized, the widow, the forgotten, the foreigner, the poor, the sick, the unhoused, the hungry, the landless, the slave, the elderly, the orphaned, the disheartened, the day labourer are welcomed into the community and become a community.

 

Stephen was so committed to the ministry of service and the Word proclaimed through deed, that he passionately expressed the core of the work, his vocation, in proclamation to the court. Stephen’s vocation lead to a martyr’s death which demonstrates the costly nature of serving Christ and the reality of God’s presence amid suffering and injustice.

Stephen was called to service. Called to share the gospel in word and deed. He fed people and distributed goods to those who had need. Vocation that today might be – kitchen workers at care facilities, homecare assistants, dishwashers, hospital porters, delivery drivers, crop pickers, waitresses, non-profit outreach workers  … the Walmart greeter

 

Resurrected One, In all we do – work, volunteering, jobs, interactions, buying or selling services – help us apply a sense of vocation, where we act from our hearts, passionately proclaim Christ in word and deed, and purposefully share our God-given gifts for the wholeness of the community. Amen.

Possible! All in Common

 

The biggest bruise I ever had was the size of a small dinner plate. I was the extra set of hands needed to make an outside shelter. My main job was to simultaneously hold the ladder and pick up metal roofing nails that were dropped. This was very important as the sheep, for whom the shelter was being built, like to eat shiny things. Holding the ladder – well more like protecting the ladder- was important because sheep like to throw their weight around and would purposefully take the ladder down. Most of the time I was able to get my steel toed boot up to meet the alpha male’s head butt. His name was Simon.

I slipped while picking up a nail, Simon took a run for it, and his head rammed my lower thigh. Thus the story of the biggest bruise I have ever had.

I have had experience shepherding real sheep. Since then, Good Shepherd Sunday has changed for me. I no longer hear an idyllic image that has a shepherd who is warm and fuzzy tending cute little sheep; all standing serenely in a field with the shepherd cuddling one in their arms.

 

Sheep are trouble. They are enticed by shiny things. They take and eat shiny things even though it is bad for them. They wander off to what looks like greener pastures than the one they are in. They are easily distracted and go to investigate. They escape and get into serious situations. They do runaway. They are stubborn. They head butt those trying to help them. They can be brought back home with a pail of oats; their tummies do the talking.

Jesus being considered the Good Shepherd has Jesus’ followers in the role of sheep. This is not a compliment!

Rather it is a pithy comment on human behaviour.

 

Keep this in your mind as we turn our attention to the post-resurrection story from Acts. The resurrection of Jesus, and the proclamation of the story, so enthralls listeners that the story is embodied. People are changed by the hearing of the story.  There is no sign of people being like sheep. Jesus’ followers have gathered in a ‘Fellowship of the Believers,’ as one Bible titles the text.

A reminder of the behaviour of the fellowship of believers:

 

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.

 

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

 

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple,

they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,

praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

 

And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

 

For me, this is one of the most beautiful and encouraging passages in the whole Bible. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ when proclaimed and embodied has the power to change human beings. It certainly changed the large groups of listeners we hear of in Acts. I am encouraged and have hope that this kind of fellowship and community is 100% possible. Today.

But… we have to be willing to drop our sheepskins.

That is dropping our proclivity to acquire shiny things – voraciously consuming natural resources and material goods; to drop the need to continually search for something better; to let go of stubbornness and that which distracts us; to loss the blinders and notice those helping and supporting; to stop running away;

 to drop being controlled by our stomachs and appetites to lean into living from our hearts.

 

This passage from Acts, is one that illustrates how much we are like sheep. If I had a loonie for every time someone has told me that it is impossible to live the way the text describes, I would be a millionaire. It is absolutely possible! We just don’t want to do it.

We don’t have the will – the heart- to do it.

 

I think it is helpful to take the points presented in the text from Acts and change their order around to get fuller understanding of how hearts lived into the embodiment of Christ’s resurrection. With each point we can assess how our hearts lean into the embodiment of resurrection.

 

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple – this is dedicating time to pray together, worship, sing, study, preach, teach, learn, converse, fellowship, in their holy place, like church is to us. How much time does your heart lean into being present and participating in togetherness in this holy place? Like a distracted sheep do you wander off after Sunday worship, get lost, spend the week chasing shiny things?

they broke bread at home – remembering in the night Jesus was betrayed. Our hearts lean into communion here, but do we take it home? Do we share the story of Jesus’ breaking bread with those who share our dining room tables?

and [they] ate their food with glad and generous hearts, - does your heart lean into saying a table blessing, being glad for the food, having a generous heart to share your table? Or are you sheeplike, eating to eat, overindulging, eating your emotions, eating because you have to, eating what you know you should not?

praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. – does your heart proclaim praise or does it sheepishly grumble and complain? Does your way of living return to you the goodwill and blessing of others? Or like sheep do you forget those around you, hurting those who are in your space?

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. – because of the fellowship of believers – their time in the temple, breaking bread at home, eating with glad and generous hearts, praising God, having the good will of the people – this part of the passage is possible. The sharing of all in common, the selling of possessions, and distributing to any as they have need. This is possible because all the other points directly speak of how to embody that resurrection and in community become Christ resurrected.

 

For the sceptical, the adamant, please don’t come and tell me it is impossible, until you have sincerely put into practised and lived the first four points. They will change your life and your heart.

 

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. – I have always wondered why this sentence was not at the end. When hearts change, when resurrection is embodied, when fellowship and community abound … it is a state of awe. It is in this state that signs and wonders are manifest, embraced, and spill out into community.

 

The Apostles were a fellowship that lived Christ’s resurrection. In their living the resurrection additional fellowships of believers sprang up, from them additional fellowships of believers sprang up. Down to this very day.  And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Acts 2 - Basic Equation to Be Church

 

This morning we are presented with the basic equation for a growing and vibrant church.

It is repeated many times in the book of Acts and the other letters that follow in our Bibles.

What, stands out from the reading in Acts chapter 2? Let’s review:

vs 14: Peter, standing with the eleven… addressed THEM, “MEN of Judea and ALL who live in Jerusalem”;

vs. 36-37: Let the ENTIRE house of Israel know … when THEY heard this THEY were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other Apostles;

vs 39: For the promise is for you, for your children, and for ALL who are far away, EVERYONE whom the Lord our God calls;

vs 41: we hear That day 3000 persons were added, baptized into the body of Christ.

If we continue with vs. 42, we read:

THEY devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers. (v.42)

 

The basic equation has – Peter and the Apostles (more than one person), + add,

Preaching and proclaiming the gospel, + add, in a public setting, x multiplied by more than one listener = equals the body of Christ. The body of Christ are the baptized, a community who joins immediately in

 fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers.

 

Notice that the teachers and preachers are a group.

Notice that the language is plural – they, the entire, men, all, everyone.

We will notice in coming weeks that the collection of post-resurrection writings, have the body of Christ working as community. We will notice the sharing of resources and holding all in common.

There is no I. There is no my.

There is no building. There is no restriction on who can belong.

The church is the body of Christ - a living community working to manifest God’s kindom; resurrection now.

 

Baptist Pastor James Bell speaks about American Christianity, reflecting on how the culture of consumerism, the ideal of the American dream, and individualism, has skewed Christian values and been a detriment to the witness of the body of Christ. He writes:

We have millions of ‘saved’ individuals and no body. We have customers and no church. We have consumers and no community. We have people who love Jesus and cannot stand each other.

Because we made self the centre. And when self is the centre, the church becomes optional, community becomes inconvenient, and discipleship becomes shallow. The New Testament vision is far bigger than “me and Jesus.”

 

The 40^th Anniversary of the creation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada recognizes that the Canadian Lutheran church has structured itself and its weekly operations in congregations, like this one, to be heavily invested in the “me and Jesus” movement. We have practiced 40 years of this and are very good at it. Worship is for us. Programming is for us. It is what we want. It is saving what we own. It is controlling our space and our resources. It is deciding who belongs. We say all are welcome, as long as they venture in the door on their own and subscribe to the way we operate.

The 40^th Anniversary of the ELCIC is inviting the whole church, across the whole country, to reset –

to resurrect as the body of Christ. The idea of May 31^st as a Day of Action focuses on the basic equation for a growing and vibrant church. More than one person (a congregation), preaches and proclaims the gospel in a public setting – that is outside the building on the streets and in the neighbourhood. It is a return to a vision where church is bigger than “me and Jesus;” It is a return to living as a body – the body of Christ - in action in the world.

 

This week there has been a lot of action in this neighbourhood. Long-term-care workers from St. Vincent’s, the nursing home next door, are on strike. The church has been their rest stop. Picketers come in to use the bathroom, help themselves to food and drink, make signs, rest their feet and warm up and dry out.

Neighbours and organizations have been in and out supplying coffee and treats. Neighbours have stood on the picket line with them, encouraged them with honks and waves, and signed petitions.

Regardless of what one thinks of unions – as a group, a community, they have lived gospel outside of these doors. They stand together for all their members. They are in the community preaching their truth. They are working as one unit, one body in solidarity.

 

Offering hospitality has meant that the Tuesday Loneliness Café met surrounded by the hubbub of union work and people coming-and-going. There was a flourish of listening and conversation. For Pastor Kimber it has been the ministry of being present: listening, offering hugs, being calm, answering questions; gifts of time and hospitality. For church council -being the body of Christ- was sharing space; two meetings were held in the sanctuary this week so the larger community could keep on doing their work.

Regular groups who use the hall have graciously accepted the bigger vision – setting up their meetings in different configurations than their norm, to accommodate the extra items in the kitchen and hall.

There is energy in the building, on the corner, in the neighbourhood.

 This week living as community – symbiotic with another expression of community – together we have been manifesting God’s kindom.

 

Consider for a moment – that the union’s request to use the hall was denied.

We would have a nice quiet space, to do our regular programming, where we could meet where we wanted.

We would be comfortable and able to control the resources used. When entering the building everything would be where we left it and how we like it. As customers we would be satisfied.

 

The union – the actual human beings on the picket line – would see a church building with closed doors. The closest space to their need, not offering comfort of bathroom, a cup of water, or shelter; a congregation living for itself, oblivious to the world around them. The neighbours would have nowhere to bring coffee and treats; seeing the closed door they would wonder, “Of what use is the Church?” Not opening the door, would signal to this part of HRM that we do not live what Christians preach and profess: to love your neighbour, feed the hungry, do justice, show mercy, live kindness, welcome the stranger, do unto others as you would have them do to you.

 

This is but one immediate example of applying what we read in the Bible to every day living. The post-resurrection followers of Jesus and those baptized into the body of Christ were figuring out how to be the church -faith community, in community, as community.  

Returning to the words of Pastor James Bell:

The New Testament vision is far bigger than “me and Jesus.”

It is a people. A body. A family. A living witness to the world that Christ is real.

Until we get back to that, we will keep filling rooms while emptying the Church.

We will keep producing consumers who know how to attend church but do not know how to be church.

"Low" Sunday

 

This is “low” Sunday. The Sunday following the hype and excitement of Easter has generally been a Sunday of low attendance and quiet services. People stay away, whether tuckered out and recouping from Easter celebrations or taking a weekend to enjoy spring-like weather. Perhaps people feel so filled up that they feel no need to go to church.

 

I think that the designation “low” Sunday is a good one, for another reason.

Through the season of Easter our first readings are from the Book of Acts, and second readings are from 1^st  Peter. I really like these readings. It is not the resurrection stories that I get excited about, as much as these snippets from Acts and Peter. The texts follow the early church who is applying the resurrection to their daily lives and communities. We witness the church figuring out the Jesus story – Jesus’ death and resurrection – and the cataclysmic change taking place at that time because of it.

 

Low Sunday  - the disciples after Jesus’ death and resurrection hole up in an upper room. Grieving and scared. As we follow believers in Acts, we notice that there are highs and lows. This fledgling movement starts in Jerusalem. Moving out from there, we hear stories from what are now, communities in present day Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. As the Apostles go out, preaching and teaching the good news, there are

low days when nothing happens. There are low days because they are persecuted, scared. not knowing what to do. They sit in jail or defend themselves and their faith before authorities. Yet, in the low, resurrection moments, miraculous experiences, and extreme spirit events, surprise everyone. There are stories: of crowds coming to hear them preach. Thousands of people at one time believing in Jesus and being baptized. Converts unexpectedly and immediately changed, when hearing the gospel, freee their slaves and have their households baptized. Others who leave everything to follow in Jesus’ ways.

These experiences -with hype and glamour, excitement and far-spreading news- begin and end in a “low” Sunday.

 

When I go on my daily walks I take note of peoples’ flowerbeds. Snowdrops are out and crocus are opening. They have been resurrected. One can see the green beginnings of daffodils and tulips, and the sprouts on forsythia bushes. For these it is not yet time to bloom. To a viewer they are in a “low” period, but much is going on under the surface as they get ready to bloom.

I think conversion, faith, and belief take time – the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection has to settle into hearts and minds – a ‘”low” period where greening and growing are happening undercover. And then in a bold moment, “low” bursts into full bloom. Full bloom could be a big event, an influx of seekers, adults requesting baptism, an overwhelming number of newcomers. Full bloom is a church, a faith community, in a moment of transformation, transition, resurrection, … whatever you want to call it.

It is a time that is: Exciting. Fear inducing. Hopeful. Encouraging. And Daunting.

 

On this “low” Sunday the death and resurrection of Jesus is settling into our bones. There is stuff going on that is not visible. In this state we hear stories from the Petrine and Pauline traditions that shared the gospel and were the church at the end of the 1^st century in the Roman Empire. We witness the highs and the lows. We witness a church that rapidly expands, faces persecution, and struggles in their social and cultural situations. We witness communities applying and living Christ’s resurrection as they wait for Christ’s imminent return.

 

Two thousand years later the church waits on a “low” Sunday, where imminent return is still in the making. Be not hasty to turn to doubt, just because it appears as if nothing is happening. Under the surface resurrection is percolating.

 

In 28 years of pastoring, much of my ministry has been working in the “low” times. Planting seeds, tending hearts, shepherding faith, fertilizing spirits. This has been your work too. We don’t always get to see the full bloom of resurrection.

 

Walter Bruggemann a theologian and influential Old Testament scholar, wrote, “The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.”

In the readings from Acts and Peter, we learn that this is how the early church applied and lived the death and resurrection of Jesus. They spoke truth, grieved, and expressed hope. They spoke into a world lost in illusion, denial, and despair.

Consider the world we live in. Is it not lost in illusion, denial, and despair?

 

We are like the early church, having experienced the high of Easter Sunday, we set to work figuring out how to apply and live Jesus’ death and resurrection. We speak truth, grieve, and express hope. All of these are done in “low” time – with the expectation that our work will radically change, transform, invigorate, gladden, enliven, convert, redeem, renew; and YES resurrect, - people, communities, societies, cultures, and the whole world. This we believe.

 

This is how Easter people live. We believe that much is happening in that which is considered “low.”

We expectantly, and with great anticipation, await big Easter moments of resurrection.

And so, we carry on resurrection as we address illusion, denial, and despair by boldly telling the truth, grieving openly, and expressing hope.

 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Three Days - Grounded: Sandpaper, Nails, Colour (Part 3)

 

Nailed it!

Incarnate love was poured out for the world – all creation connected - heart to heart with the Source of All Being.

Whether it was the experience of the earthquake, the sky turning dark, the spectacle, the suffering, the dying, the grieving, or the burying.

… maybe it was in the silence that followed …

 

 

I invite you to hold your colour patch.

 

This morning, what is the colour of your heart? Your spirit? What colour describes how you feel?

 

As the first day of the week was dawning, Mary and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

… amid the screeching of bombs, obliterated streetscapes, grey mounds of rubble, clouds of dust, scorching fire, shaking of the ground, wails of the people, and never-ending prayers …

Earlier this morning in the Old City of Jerusalem, amid the grey of violence and the colourlessness of fear, there was a faithful remnant whose hearts and spirits coloured over, around, and in the ashes. Palestinian siblings gathered in community, sang joyous hymns, dressed sanctuaries, heard the Word, declared Christ’s resurrection, and proclaimed good news --- resurrecting hearts and spirits, and hope through vibrant colourful alleluias.

 

Wednesday night a group of us joined for Bible Study, Raised from Dead. We explored four resurrection stories.

In an upper room, the dead on their bed, the bystanders sent out, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and Peter…cried out to God and life was restored. God breathed life – raising the dead- through an array of people and over a great expanse of time, God’s breath raised the dead. The colourful stories are set in colourless times; times of famine, drought, foreign occupation, and persecution.

The Bible Study group noticed similarities and patterns in the raised-from-dead stories. There was a hope that coloured us as we saw instances of continued presence and connection with the Source of All Being.

Just the simple hearing and talking about the stories was uplifting, happy, and hopeful for us. We left the session brighter.

 Hearing the Word changed the colour of our being.

This morning what is the colour of your heart? Your spirit? What colour describes how you feel?

 

I entered the Three Days – in a mix of grey and colourlessness –

Gloomy skies and dusty lungs. The draining of colour with every act of aggression, posture of war, and civilian with nowhere to go. I felt covered in the grey wash of the world’s sadness and grief.

This morning, although my heart was not fully invested, I dared to venture out and come here – to face an open tomb.

The Word of an open tomb doesn’t immediately spark joy or have me jump to talk of resurrection; to celebrate that all is made new and all will be okay. But over the morning, in the gathering of community, the aroma of breakfast, the hearing of the Word, the fullness and joy of the singing, the decorations, the declaration of Christ’s resurrection, the expectation of the effervescence of the Eucharist, and the proclamation of the good news ---- I am growing in colour.

 

The colour of my heart and my spirit is not one colour. It is a swirl, a little bit of colour from each of you, colour from the ambiance and everything here that is twinkling – sharing an expression of glory. It’s the bits and pieces, the scraps of colour, never-ending prayers, resistance and defiance to colour over the grey, that speak to me of resurrection – a collage put together to breath life into a colour-draining world.

 

This morning dawns with steaks of colour growing stronger as the woman encounter the angel, embrace Christ, and proclaim resurrection to the other disciples.

Last Sunday and again in worship on Thurs and Fri we heard colour-filled words by Oscar Romero. This morning he colours our hearts and spirits with words to breath colour – bring Christ’s resurrection- into the places where colour has and is being drained.

Oscar Romero wrote in the poem: A Future Not Our Own

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.  

 

I invite you to take the sandpaper heart and the nail from the past two days. The heart has been pierced by the nail. -incarnational love poured out for the world – piercing our own heart. We long for colour and resurrection as we push the nail through the centre of our cross-flower shaped colour patch.

 

From ash – sand and grit –

From the cruelty and violence of the cross – death-

Colour is breathed into the world to blossom – into love, into hope;

Flower blossoms are coloured hearts and spirits – resurrected in Christ, empowered and enabled to do something, and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

 

May this be so. Amen.

The Three Days 2026

 

GROUNDED: SANDPAPER, NAILS, AND COLOUR PATCHES

 This is a three part sermon preached in parts on Maundy Thurs, Good Friday, and Easter. At each in person event a tangible item is provided to hearers.

MAUNDY THURSDAY

 

I invite you to hold your sandpaper heart.

 

One summer I was hired as a student summer worker by a woman who was redoing the entrance hall of her Victorian house. The hall was typical for a home of this era. To the right of the door a stained-glass widow, under it the start of a long set of stairs that rounded up to the second level. To the left of the front door were pocket doors closing off the parlour. Straight ahead there was a door to the back of the house and to the right of that a coat rack and bench.  The entrance could hold 10 people comfortably.  The wood floor was well-worn and various coloured stains were visible, some had gone tacky.

The staircase had been painted a few times, the last was in a thick white oil paint. The 12inch high baseboards that continued up the stairs, the spindles, railing, Newel post, and window frame were also painted white.

The woman decided it was time to return everything painted and stained to the oak that was buried underneath.

 

Did I tell you that that was my sandpaper summer?

Sandpaper in a plethora of grades from gritty to soft, was aided by scrapers and heat guns; no toxic strippers were used to remove all the paint and stain. The most ridiculous tool was a double handed electric floor sander, where the user, me, bent over holding both handles for dear life, as the sandpaper disk whisked all over the flat entryway floor. It was dangerous and dusty work. It took all summer and then some to finish the project.

When the wood was freed from layers of past sin, I mean paint, it was beautiful to behold. It was smooth to touch.

 

It is amazing that I still like sandpaper. But I do, I really do.

I appreciate the texture – textures. I appreciate the repetitive and meditative movement of sanding.  I appreciate the satisfaction of seeing and feeling the results of the physical effort put in. I appreciate that simple sandpaper can transform something so completely.

 

Maundy Thursday is a liturgy of tactile experiences.

The rituals of anointing with oil, foot washing, communion, and stripping the altar, engage all our sensate senses. We see. We hear. We smell. We touch. We taste. We embody the journey of the cross.

 

Maundy Thursday is the sandpaper of the Three Days. We come this evening covered in thick white oil paint and tacky stain. Each Sunday in Lent we were dismissed to go in peace. Do justice. Love mercy. And although we went and lived like nice people, we didn’t strive to do justice, we loved those we love but were shy on mercy, and in a troubled world went in peace but didn’t always surrender to that same peace to stay grounded. We are covered in layers of missed opportunities, nudges from the Spirit that were not put into actions, and hopes for justice in the prayers of others that we left undone.

Maundy Thursday is the sandpaper that works on removing the layers that bind and bury us.

 

Feel your sandpaper heart.

Whoever you are. Wherever your heart is. Whatever the condition of your spirit. However you live. Whatever has been done or left undone. Regardless of your perception of worthiness, forgivability, and belonging – the meditative rituals embrace us where we are, and sand away the layers that bury us.

 

Motion of sanding

Anointed, washed, fed, uncluttered

 

Oscar Romero said: A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed --- what gospel is that?

 

Sanded – our skin unburied- we- are grounded in an uncluttered place. Beautiful to behold.

With our senses engaged we embody the walk to the cross. Identifying and reflecting on the layers that bury us from going in peace, doing justice, loving mercy. As the story unfolds in these days we follow the disciples, paying attention to their layers, and through the experience we confess our sleepiness, betrayal, abandonment, and denial of Jesus. We openly lament our human nature that when confronted or bullied by Empire, religious authority, societal expectation, or cultural convention, we shy from proclaiming the gospel.

 

The gospel that is sanding away layers, provoking a crises, unsettling, getting under the skin – comes as heart shaped sandpaper. God’s heart - that was and is and will be poured out for all – embodied through Jesus’ incarnate action proclaims peace, justice, and mercy. And to the accepting and unaccepting alike the proclamation to each heart and community is simple: you are worthy, forgiven, belonging.

The sanding down of layers, with time and patience and care, transforms completely. Just like the entrance way in the Victorian home, once uncovered, freed, the wood was beautiful to behold.

 

Feel your sandpaper heart. Gospel is sandpaper. You are:  Anointed. … Washed. … Fed.  … Uncluttered.

 

Gospel transforms completely.

Gospel is in the shape of a heart.

 

 

GOOD FRIDAY

 

Last night -

Anointed. Washed. Fed. Uncluttered.

Sanded by rituals, freed from that which buries, we encountered God’s heart -  

We left the upper room, with the disciples, following Jesus. Although not understanding, knowing in our bones - the

Gospel transforms completely.

Gospel is in the shape of a heart.

 

I invite you to hold your nail.

 

Good Friday is represented in this tactile object.

In our world, nails fix things. Build things. Secure things. Connect things.

Nails we understand.

 

Gospel in the shape of a heart, not so much.

Jesus – God incarnate- is nailed to a cross.

The cross, a human instrument of torture and death, used by God to connect human beings, human hearts, human will, to the lengths to which God will go to love; to what lengths God will go to nail down connection and relationship --- to nail to our human nature a compulsion to peace, justice, and mercy for the healing of the whole world.

 

Oscar Romero in The Violence of Love wrote:

We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.  

 

The nail pierces the heart.  push nail through sandpaper heart

God’s heart – and it stops –

 

This love – tears, sweat, blood, life

Is poured out for the world –

The nail pierces the heart.

Our heart – and it stops-

 To be filled with this incarnate love

NAILED.

Heart to heart.

 

 

To Be 'Great' Has Everything to do with Love

 

20 years ago, in the Palm Sunday sermon I asked: What does it mean to be great?

We considered Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. It was said that if humans had planned it, it would have been a grander and more spectacular hero entrance; picture the Lone Ranger on a white horse, swashbuckling sword in hand, with strong accompanying music. Along side this image we dared to explore the nature of God, learning that to be “great” has everything to do with love. We learned that it is here, through the donkey ride into Jerusalem, the journey of Holy Week, the day on the cross, that God meets us. Here God becomes present...hidden in weakness, vulnerable, suffering, forsaken, dying. In the abyss of despair in the deepest darkness God comes. In the painful reality of our mortality, our ultimate loneliness, our weakness, God encounters us. This is what it means to be great.

 

20 years ago, Palm Sunday fell on April 9^th, which is the day Lutherans commemorate Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The discussion of ‘greatness’ was applied to the actions and writings of Bonhoeffer. For those unaware, Bonhoeffer was executed as WWII drew to a close. He openly participated in actions to overthrow the Nazi regime, took a segment of the church underground, and wrote about Christ being present in community and the cost of discipleship. Bonhoeffer is considered a martyr.

While we may or may not face martyrdom, I preached that Sunday, that God has holy jobs for all of us. Jobs that have been chosen for each of us alone. There are special unique times and circumstances that you alone are the one called to be love.

 

This past week was a commemoration of another person exemplifying God’s view of ‘greatness.’ 46 years ago, in March, Archbishop Oscar Romero was martyred while presiding at Holy Communion. He was shot while standing at the altar. El Salvador was in turmoil, the Salvadorian Civil War was raging, injustice was prevalent, government harassed priests to silence them, and the regime publicly removed dissenters. Oscar Romero was a growing voice for the poor, a voice denouncing social injustice and violence. He spoke openly, giving power to the poor and marginalized, reimagining land reform, social transformation, inclusiveness, and workers’ rights. The liberating power of the gospel and its application was front and centre.

 

But this ‘greatness’ was not how Romero began. When appointed to archbishop he was considered a social conversative. He presided at worship, did baptisms and confirmations, shook hands with the church’s rich donors and catered to their needs. He did not ruffle feathers and did not speak out against the government or the growing violence. But one day everything changed!

Romero had a friend, Rutilio Grande, who was a fellow priest. Rutilio was part of a Jesuit evangelization mission team focused on liberation theology, working and walking with the poor and marginalized. For them living the gospel was central, its application meant speaking out on social and political issues.

Rutilio was removed by the regime for living the gospel. Martyred. His death profoundly affected Romero.

At the funeral in Rutilio’s hometown of El Paisnal, as he was interred under the altar, people chanted:

“Rutilio’s walk with El Paisnal is like Christ’s journey with the cross.”

 

What does it mean to be great?

Before us once again is the nature of God, lived out in the lives of follows, who with their very lives show us that to be “great” has everything to do with love.

I learned something about palm branches this week. In the ancient world, Levantine and Mediterranean peoples, associated palm branches with victory, triumph, peace, and eternal life. Christian artists, shortly after Jesus’ death, marked graves of martyrs with a drawing of a palm branch. Paintings of martyrs through the centuries have in their hands a martyr palm. There are depictions of Oscar Romero holding a palm branch. The palm branch represents the victory of spirit over flesh. God’s nature over human nature. Romero expressed the living of this as: Aspire not to have more, but to be more.

 

Every year, Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, has the streets crowed with palm branch bearing pilgrims. Organized processions journey from the Mount of Olives through the Old City of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa, translated as the ‘Way of Suffering.’ The route represents Jesus’ journey to the cross. Along the route are the 14 stations of the cross, where people pause to pray. But not this year. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has cancelled the procession due to security reasons – due to war.

The Easter letter from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem begins:

In the weeks leading up to this year’s commemoration of Christ’s death and resurrection, a new and devastating regional war has once again plunged the Holy Lond and the wider Middle East into turmoil. Each passing day has brought increasingly fierce escalations – a relentless cycle of death, destruction, and frightful suffering that now ripples across the globe in rising economic hardship. From the blackened smoke of this expanding wreckage, a deep darkness has engulfed our region, as stifling as the air inside the sealed tomb of the crucified Christ. Hope itself appears to have abandoned us.

 

Yet as Scripture teaches and our faith reveals, the desolation of the tomb was not the end of the story. Death did not have the final word … but this week we do not jump ahead to Easter, rather we allow ourselves time to be sad. We allow ourselves to grieve for the world, to cry with the suffering, to lament injustice, to weep at the human need to have more, to ache for a peace that the world cannot give, and to mourn all that is broken and not whole. This is our prayer.

 

This Palm Sunday and Holy Week we are invited to reflect on what it means to be great. What it is to be more. What is greatness in a world where from the blackened smoke of this expanding wreckage, a deep darkness has engulfed [the world], as stifling as the air inside the sealed tomb of the crucified Christ?

 

Greatness - to be more – is to walk with love following Christ’s journey with the cross.

The heads of churches in Jerusalem bid the faithful and all those of goodwill to work and pray ceaselessly for the relief of the countless multitudes throughout the Middle East and beyond who are suffering severely from the ravages of this war. … advocate and interceded for an immediate end to the bloodshed and for justice and peace to finally prevail…

 

Romero, in troubled times, encouraged El Salvadorians:

Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. The church will always exist as long as there is someone who has been baptized…Where is your baptism: you are baptized in your professions, in the fields of workers, in the market. Wherever there is someone who has been baptized, that is where the church is. There is a prophet there. Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people.

 

And 20 years ago the blessing for the confirmands, is true for this community and each of us: We believe that the Holy Spirit will become ever more alive in our life, that our faith will grow, that we will be guided, empowered in serving God. We believe that today we are ordained for ministry. God is reaching out and embracing each of us; calling us … to greatness.