Easter Sermon

In my last parish, confirmation students arrived at the church on Tues. afternoons, dropped by their buses after school. The buses never arrived at the same time –so I would have an activity for the students to begin with.  One of the activities was put in the kid’s Easter bags this morning.

The activity was a drawing page, where there is a large tree trunk and branch reaching out over a garden.  In the background is the tomb with the stone sitting to the side.  On the branch is a bird –beak open.  The instructions say to write the resurrection story from the eyes of the bird.  What happened according to the bird in the tree?

This morning began with yet another interruption in my beauty sleep.  As if the raucous band of people entering the garden Thursday night, awakening us from our slumber, scaring us into the air out of our night time rousts, was not enough; Friday followed with a day of weird weather, the sort that had every bird in the district hidden in the nooks and crannies of every tree, the sky was dark in the middle of the day and the air was ominous.  As if all this was not enough, this morning, in that time between sleep and awake, I heard faint music, the lilt of women’s voices in quiet conversation.  It was beautiful   -like listening to crickets, or the coo of a dove – I could have listened all day; but no - then came a sound worse than a blaring alarm clock.  The tree shock, rocks cracked, the ground groaned, the women screamed  -bang- I was awake.

Yes, as the dust settled and I straightened my feathers, all was not well with the world. I was disturbed, annoyed, put-out.  Can I not have one night of real bird sleep? Normal, without interruptions.

But as I watched and felt the morning sun rise over the garden, the air changed, something had happened.  And I was right there in the middle of it all.

I overheard Matthew’s version of the story being proclaimed to you earlier.  I suppose that is how it happened to the human eye.  From the branch of the olive tree, the scene seemed far away, hazy.  The story for me is not what I saw, it is what I heard; snippets of songs I had heard before, but now in  a new way; snippets of songs sung by my ancestors for centuries –and now human beings had heard them, and were starting to sing them –a little tenuous at first, but as the women left the garden the sound, the first movement of the music started to swell.

The snippets of the creator’s song from that morning were sung in a new light –resurrected.  God had never sung love like God sang love on this morning.  The angel sang...”do not be afraid” –one of the creator’s favourite tunes.  And God sang, not through someone, or something, or a creature, or through the wind...God’s own voice rang clear “he is not here, he has been raised from the dead”; then the angel repeated it to the women, the crickets cheeped it, the ants marched it, the spiders spun it, the dew dripped it, the flowers swayed, the trees waved –the world was alive with God’s growing, resurrected love song.  Yes, I was the closest bird...the tune floated to me with the words...”this is my message for you”....and that is the tune I tweeted to the other birds, who in their own languages added to the song, and the message of God dying and rising spread from garden to garden, forest to forest, and ocean to ocean.

Take a moment and think about a time when a piece of music touched you. Think of a time when you heard a song that pulled at your heart, caused an emotional reaction, perhaps tears or goose bumps, or joy so great you had to dance.  That piece of music was God’s love song of hope for you at that moment in time.  You encountered the resurrected God.  God put love in your heart, a lilt in your step, a song on your lips.  Isn’t that pretty amazing?!  A song, that humans finally heard in a garden 2000 years ago, echoes and continues to be sung now to us, experienced for real, and sometimes even sung through us to others.

For many years I took piano lessons from Mrs. Sudden, who lived in a quaint green house at the other end of the village.  You entered her house through the front door, where there was a coat rack, chair and stool –where one waited for their turn.  There was a floor to ceiling fenestrated screen that ran from the waiting chair almost to the piano –normal except that there were little mirrors and odd plastic toys twist-tied to it.

As one played the piano, not just plunking out tunes or notes, but when one played a little ditty one started to hear accompaniment.  You see, in the darken half of the front room, Mrs. Sudden had a budgie.  And did the budgie love to sing, and the better you played the louder the budgie sang.

Apparently the budgie was let out of the cage when students were not in the house.  It would take flight, particularly flying up a storm when Mrs.Sudden’s husband played his violin.

The bird loved music.  The bird loved to sing.  There was no amount of darkness that would keep the bird quiet- when it heard even just a little bit of music.

This is Easter Sunday and we have come to hear the Good News.  We have come and heard ALLELULIA, resurrection music.  When we leave here today, we return to our lives, to the distractions of the everyday, to those things that trouble us or are weighing on our hearts.  The prayer is that this morning you leave with God’s love song of hope resonating in your ears, your heart, your very being –and that at least a little bit of Good News music goes with you, so that despite what darkness may surround you –the music is enough hope that you can do no other than hum, than sing God’s love song that can heal any wound.

We have a story to tell, to sing to the world.  The song is one of hope, healing, and resurrection.  It is God’s love song, meant to be shared, for there are no copyrights on it.  The more we sing Good News, the more we excitedly pass on the chorus –with hummings of hope, jingles of justice, arias of action, rhythms of resurrection -  the other budgies will sing; and the better we play and sing, the louder our brother and sister budgies –the world-will sing with us; and ultimately the world will be resurrected through God’s love song.

 

Good Friday sermon

GOOD FRIDAY A

It was one of those times; a time of day when the birds should have been singing, when the trees should have been full of birds flitting from here to there, calling back and forth, playing.  But it wasn’t.  Standing on the porch that day overlooking the treed escarpment and the park below –there should have been birds.  But all was silent.  That eerie silence that is unsettling; the sort of silence that gives one goose bumps; a silence that says all is not right in the world.

And then it happened, the sky turned a sick shade of green –then from a pregnant pause; a stillness so great one dare not breathe; it came in an immediate wind and the rain began to pour.  And at the rain, the immediate world off the porch on which I was standing exhaled the breath it had been holding, a breathe of relief –only rain.  But we had groaned knowing the tornado had struck down somewhere nearby.

Friday on the hill, outside Jerusalem –where Jesus and two others with him, one on either side, hang on wooden crosses –the sky has turned a sick shade of green -and one can not but be overwhelmed with the deafening silence.

-silence-

In our everyday lives silence is avoided.  We have IPOD’s, Blue-tooths, cell-phones; radios in cars, musak in malls; television or you-tube as background noise. We walk with earphones in, missing the songs of the birds, the tune of the breeze, the rustle of the trees, voices of other human beings. In fact there is so much noise we hear neither God’s love song of hope for a wounded world, or God’s silence.

-neither do we hear, Jesus words: “It is Finished”...or the pregnant pause, a stillness before the last breath.

Where as we stand facing the cross, daring not to breathe we encounter Jesus entering into the fullness of being human –God dares to die –and there is silence

And in the deafening vacuum of silence, Jesus has inhaled in that last breathe -our humanity -pain, vulnerability, suffering, our woundeness...and in the vacuum holds it, holds us...

And sighs out a breathe that is only pure spirit.  

And at the breathe, it is as if the sky has opened and the rain begins to pour –tears run down our faces, as we exhale – a breathe of thanksgiving, a breathe of relief – only Jesus.  But we have groaned knowing the tornado was meant for us.

After the tornado, after the wind had returned to a breeze, after the sky started returning to a pale blue, the birds slowly ventured out from their hiding places. They quietly hopped from bush to bush, pulled a few worms; a few tweets were heard, slow lament songs echoed on the horizon.

The birds were going to wait and see –

They were going to hold their jubilant song for another day – they, like us, would wait in hope for the su/on to rise.

Maundy Thursday Sermon: April 21

I grew up in a village, where the lots were quite deep.  At the back of our property, just where the swamp began, there was a big old maple tree.  It was great for climbing and it held our big tire swing.  It was at night as the sun was setting behind it when the tree was at its most magnificent. As evening rolled around, 30mins or so before dusk, the tree was a gackle of activity. Red-winged black birds by the hundreds rested in the tree –singing rocous songs and muting all other creatures in the neighbourhood.

As the sun set, the birds became quiet –the last hurrah for the day was done, and sleep was upon them.

Supper is done and the day is drawing to a close.  The last gackle of activity is entering the streets to sing traditional psalms, walk off dinner in the garden, and return to the place where one will spend the night. Jesus and the disciples are out and about migrating towards the garden, just as the birds migrated to the old maple tree.  There is singing for awhile but as the sun sinks lower over the western horizon of Jerusalem the garden –the birds, the disciples became quiet – the last hurrah for the day was done, and sleep was upon them.

Well that is how the day had ended so many times before. But tonight was different.

It was the dreams as they drifted off – when one is neither awake nor asleep –when the mind tries to make sense of all the tidbits of songs heard over the past few days –that were an overwhelming cacophony of sound.  The disciples minds whirled from all the happenings in the past few days, no wonder they were exhausted: it started with the raising of Lazarus –the disciples trying to tell Jesus not to go towards Jerusalem –for fear that he and they would die; but Thomas had stood up and said “I’ll go, even if it means dying with him.” And that was just the beginning: there was the entry into Jerusalem on a donkey surrounded by a huge crowd, then there was confrontation in the temple as Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers, then the healing of a blind man on the Sabbath and more confrontation with the religious leaders.

Tonight was nice, they had made it to a sit down dinner; in a rented room, where no one knew where they were, and everyone else was busy with their own celebrations anyway.  All was good.

But the disciples’ minds, in those moments before sleep, must have thought about dinner and how it was different.

During supper Jesus washed their feet.

During supper Jesus said one of them would betray him.

During supper Jesus said he would only be with them a little longer.

During supper Jesus said Peter would deny him, not once but three times.

During supper Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And then sleep came and all was quiet.

Quiet until the birds slumbering in the bows of the olive trees were awaken by a noisy group of intruders to the garden.  The birds rose upward in a squawk startling the disciples awake.

From here we remember the story, Jesus is carried off for a quick trial and sentencing –the disciples scatter while Peter follows at a distance.

The importance of this account by John is the song that is sung; a song whose melody swirls in the hearts and minds of the disciples enough that through the chaos of the next few days, the song is remembered. It is remembered because the disciples’ hearts didn’t just hear the song, they were invited into it  -

Listen...pour water...

Accompanying this melody is the encounter with Jesus –with Jesus hands, with Jesus touch, God’s love song of hope to the wounded.

The action struck a chord, with the disciples –“not my feet”

But God’s music is kind of like a blaring radio, the music is for everyone whether they want to hear it or not, the pounding of a pumped up bass that one feels in their very being –can’t be avoided.

This love song, the disciples remember and it is the song they return to as they form their community. God’s love song, sung through water and Jesus’ hands –plays new variations as it warms, encourages and encounters human hearts.  Love blossoms in major and minor chords, swells in arpedigos, crescendos in spirit; God’s love song of hope –through Jesus death –sings through acts of loving kindness; intentional loving of others.

The church, this community, is kind of like the tree from my childhood backyard.  Tonight we are birds that have come to rest in a sacred place. As we came in our songs quieted; we settled in for a quiet service –where silence continues well into tomorrow morning.

But God has a surprise for us, God comes to us with Jesus’ command to love one another.  We are asked –to start and practice here in a common bird bath – to practice God’s love song of hope with each other; a song to carry us through woundedness, through darkness, through death.

Tonight we are invited to sing love with water, with hands, with a touch.

Come encounter Jesus.  Come encounter love.

Dance Your Shoes Off

"A PERFECT WARRIOR"

A great movie to redirect one's thoughts and reason for enjoying every moment...
grace was watching this movie and being reminded to walk with one's heart and eyes open.
 A whole world of grace opens up when one lives in the moment.

Bright Pink Nail Polish

Bright pink nail polish, can you imagine that it has recently put a J.Crew ad in the hot seat?  The magazine ad page has a mom and her son enjoying an afternoon together.  The looks on their faces are full of grace!  Looks that any parent would want to exchange with their children.  A precious and gracious moment.
Well apparently, people are in a flap because the enjoyment included painting the little boys toenails bright pink. When first looking at the ad, the grace I saw was in the faces and interaction.
The toenails only add to the grace.  If a little boy has the self-esteem to wear pink nail polish -go for it.  At my age, and being female, I'm still hesitant to wear certain colours of nail polish.  To have the grace to be who you are, to wear what you like, and not care what others say...that is awesome.  This is definately a lesson I still need to learn and an identity issue to wrestle with.
for the article go to:
www.ca.shine.yahoo/hot-pink-toenailed-boy-in-j--crew-ad-sparks-controversy-20110414

The Power of Words

15min.

Look at that! Fifteen minutes in the middle of the day -grace!
I am sitting on a soft leather couch in the church nursery. The sun is coming in the coloured glass windows, sounds are muffled from outside, and it is so peacefully quiet inside. To relax and have a moment to de-compress during the journey to Easter is a gift. My prayer is a few really big sighs, that all might be right in the world as it is in this sacred moment in the nursery where I sit.
May you be blessed with such a moment today. +

MISS READ TEXT

Today I had a running date with a friend.  I was to meet her at her house at 4:30pm and we would run the waterfront.  I set out early to run 5k before picking her up.
 It was a fast 5k as I was on the heals of another girl who jumped off the curb before me at a stop light.  I kept pace and stayed behind her 2 sidewalk squares.  She probably was not very happy with me; eventually she pulled over to stretch -my pace bunny who was stretching my capacity was gone.  Well, I arrived at my friends apartment buzzer and buzzed; no answer, waited 10 min and tried again, waited a little longer and then set out.
She heard my message and started our waterfront route backwards, almost at her house we met up. Well I was a little on the tired side having now done 10k -she ran the 5k home with me.  The GRACE was that I think I would have taken the 2k way home if she wasn't with me.  So I did the 15k and feel better for it.  AWESOME!

To finish the distance when the pressure was changing, getting damp, and much colder.  It was hard to breathe. Thanks for being my grace to day bestie.

(My friend had texted earlier about changing the  time, followed by lets do the waterfront.  I only read text #two and missed the time change.  Missing the text meant a challenge pace run and longer distance for me.)