http://www.nytimes.com/news/the-lives-they-lived/2013/12/21/joy-johnson/
This is for everyone who wonders if there is hope for them.  Take Joy's story as your inspiration for 2014!  She is awesome: competitive with herself, a marathoner, and a Lutheran to boot.
To all of your dreams....

It was a snowy day here in Halifax.  14 came to service.  Here is the sermon.

Advent 3A-2013

2 minutes of not starting the sermon

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a three year old girl in her cart.

As they passed the cookie section, the little girl asked for cookies and her mother told her no. The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss. The mother said quietly, 

“Now Monica, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”

Soon they came to the candy aisle, and the little girl began to shout for candy. And when told she couldn't have any, began to cry. The mother said, 

“There, there, Monica, only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.”

When they got to the check-out stand, the little girl immediately began to clamor for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased. The mother patiently said, 

“Monica, we’ll be through this checkout stand in 5 minutes and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her.

“I couldn't help noticing how patient you were with little Monica,” he said.
Whereupon the mother said, 

“I’m Monica . . . my little girl’s name is Tammy.” 

 The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.

Chinese bamboo is crop demanding, producing patience.  The first year a seed is nurtured and watered; it doesn’t grow even an inch.  The second growing season the seed is nurtured, watered, fertilized; and again it doesn’t grow even an inch.  Year three the seed is cared for and again it doesn’t grow even an inch.  The fourth year, the same outcome.  Then in the fifth year an amazing thing happens, the bamboo shoots from the earth and grows to 80 ft. in height; all in one year!  What really happens is that the seed grows a system underground where the farmer cannot see it; roots spread far and wide, growing a foundation to support the upward growth of the stalks for years to come. 

The farmer is patient over the seed, until it sprouts in abundance.

You also must be patient.  Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

How many of you were agitated waiting for the sermon to start?  You were patient enough not to call out and ask what-on-earth I was up to; patient enough not to get up and walk out; patient enough not to talk with your neighbour.  Where you patient enough not to reposition yourself, cough, play with your hands, or reread the bulletin?

Patience.  In the four verse reading from James this morning, we heard reference to patience four times.

Patience is often described or thought of as a passive personality trait; with the feeling that if one only had patience, life would somehow be easier, or at least not as frustrating.  The verb used by James is one that means not only patience but “to wait with patience.”  To wait with patience is not like a child waiting for Christmas, for when Christmas comes the event does not really change anything; the child just has more stuff. However, waiting with patience is like the farmer, who patiently is waiting “over” something (the seed) until a significant change happens (growth all over the place). 

How many of you would like to be more patient?

Robbie MacKenzie a youth pastor in Tennesee, commented on a blog that the two top reasons for impatience are that one: we are selfish and secondly, we are limited in seeing the big picture. 

Selfish –means that we seek instant gratification, instant everything: whether it is instant mashed potatoes, answers via our Smart phones,   or relationships requiring little effort.  We don’t have time to wait for seeds to grow.  We want what we want when we want it. 

Limited in seeing the big picture, is that our lives get muddled up in day to day tasks, things we think are important; our eyes are done, focused, and concentrated...but if we looked up, towards the horizon, what a different view.  Yesterday’s newspaper had a story that is a fitting example: the story is told of a geologist who was doing research on the Arctic glacier, he measured the distance to the edge of the glacier from a set point.  At the set point he built a cairn out of rock and buried a bottle with the data he collected.  This bottle has just been found by geologists from Quebec.  They re-measured the distance, added a note to the note, and reburied the bottle, requesting that those who find the bottle send the data to the address given.  In 1959 the geologist expected, in a time before global warming was even thought about, that the ice was significantly changing.  He would wait patiently for someone else to contact him in years to come with the new data. 

Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.  See, the Judge is standing at the doors!

James gives an example to guide us as to how to be patient. Imagine the big picture, if everyone, or even just a few us seriously practiced to not grumble against one another; to practice setting our hearts toward being mature and continue growing; in this exercise we would learn patience. 

There was once a very, very big mountain where there were lots of trees and bushes. It was also the home of a group of humans that lived in caves dug out of the mountain rock. In fact, there were two families there. One lived in a grey-coloured cave, the other in a greenish cave (which was due to the type of rock). Naturally, they were known as the Greys and the Greens.

The Greys had a father, a mother and a fourteen-year-old son called Peter, while the Greens had a father, a mother, a four-year-old boy and a wise old grandfather.

The two families sometimes ate together, when they would talk about the mountain trees and how to fell them to obtain the wood with which to make fire and heat. One time, Peter felt he was ready to join the conversation. The wise grandfather listened intently to the young man, because Peter believed that the trees were there to be felled, and that it didn’t matter if they were replanted or not because they took so long to grow back.

Once Peter had given his opinion, the wise grandfather told him this: “Nature is patient, and we humans must be patient too,” and he proposed a challenge: “I’m going to shave all my hair off, and we shall see what nature does to maintain the balance on my head. Come and see me in a month.”

Young Peter couldn’t understand what on earth the grandfather meant by this, and went home none the wiser.

The wise grandfather from the Greens waited exactly one month inside the cave for Peter to come. He knew that all he needed was patience for his hair to grow back, and to teach the boy a lesson.

At the end of the month, Peter entered the Green cave and was surprised to see the grandfather with a full head of hair again. But he understood the grandfather’s message, and said: “Thank you, Grandfather Green, I’ve learned a lot from you. You have taught me two things: the first is that we must look after our natural resources in order to continue using them, for example by replanting the trees we have cut down. The second is that I must be more patient with nature and try to learn from it.

To become patient is to not grumble at others, to listen to wisdom of those who are becoming patient, and to continue to learn, and thus grow.

As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

A colleague shared online, that they were talking with a woman who was facing circumstances of terrible hardship. She was telling of a friend who had encouraged her significantly.  The colleague was keenly interested to know what the friend had done to minister to her. "What helped me the most," she recalled, "was that he reminded me with assurance that these circumstances will come to an end. It looks so dark and unending now; I needed to be told that it would not last forever."

That is what James is encouraging the readers of his letter with, his persecuted readers are being encouraged with the hope of Christ's return and so helped them choose a stance of patience.  Isaiah’s poetry, Mary’s magnificat song, do the same thing.  When heard the words expand one’s view to a wider vision, turning one from selfish thoughts to the possibility of significant change and growth: waiting in patience.

Jacques Ellul is a cultural analyst who specifically speaks about the dehumanizing function of money. In both capitalism and socialism he says that money functions as measuring value and worth. Under this principle what happens in the world is that lives are lived from a bases of having to have something rather than being something.  For those who have seen the movie “The Iron Lady”, based on remembrances of Margaret Thatcher, the film has her declare more than once that people and politicians especially, care more about having than being.

We are asked by James to BE patient, not have patience, but to be patient.

Monica who was in the supermarket with her little girl was on her way to being patient.  Every time she spoke over the situation in which she was in, she did not grumble about her little girl’s tantrums; she spoke words to change her vision; she spoke words to invite herself to mature, to wait with patience for the seed to grow, to endure, and in the end she became patience; wisdom; significantly changed.

Go not seeking to have patience but rather to be patient; waiting with patience for Lord, for a time beyond what we can see when God will surprise and whelm with the fulfillment of the big picture.  

 

Advent 1A -sermon.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you're not here with me

And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That's when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas.                 

(You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas.)

                 

Most of you will recognize this Billy Hayes, Jay Johnson country song; popularized for the rock-in-roll world by Elvis Presley.  It is a tale of unrequited love during the holidays.

The season of Advent has a lot of similarities to country music.  It has been said that a good country song includes: a broken relationship, a well-loved old pickup truck, and a faithful dog –all sung to a lamenting sort of tune that in the end somehow has spoken to the soul and healed the heart.  Country music, now in its 6^th generation of artists is American grown beginning at the turn of the last century in the South, amidst rural living peoples who combined Western music with African folk music.  Each generation has recreated the old songs, wrote new ones, changing the style to address social ills and blue hearts and souls of their time.

The season of Advent is a season, that when observed well includes: recognizing and grieving broken relationships, well-loved passages of scripture especially from Isaiah, and a faithful God – all sung to lamenting tunes of Advent hymns that in the end somehow speak to the soul and heal the heart.  Christian liturgical tradition, now in its umpteenth generation, is an ancient practice preserved in communities around the world. Each generation recreates the old songs, writes new ones, changing the style, applying the Word, to address social ills and blue hearts and souls of their time; our time.

When you look around this worship place you will notice it is blue, and it will remain this way throughout Advent.  It is about the church, this community and other Lutheran brothers and sisters across this country, standing in the world and offering a place where people can come undecorated, with no expectations upon them, and with a tenure created giving permission to sit and breath; to decompress and if necessary to cry.

Every year, a little earlier, Christmas begins to creep into the stores.  People start earlier to parcel things up in pretty paper, to cover stuff with tinsel, and to wrap objects in lights.  Have you ever considered that there is a correlation between chaos, sadness, mental health, and ultimate lack of control in society, with an earlier start to attempt to cover the gloom with “happy?” 

Isn’t that what the world is so skilled at doing?  Covering up –whether its wrinkles, saying we’re fine, we’re doing alright, showing we’re put together at work when home is falling apart, looking happy when we are anything but happy.

Advent is a season not of happy per say, although it may contain happy:  it is a season of coming and hope.

People, you, are invited to come and be yourself.  The hustle and bustle to Christmas is full of lies, the truth is here.  You are invited to come and be yourself.  This is physically the darkest time of the year; the earth around us dies.  It is a time of year that emotions match the lack of light and the cooling of the weather.  It is a time when people face a looming “happy” celebration, and feel the need to be happy, when in reality they may be anything but.  This time of year many are grieving a loss of job, a loss of friend or family member; the feeling of loneliness or inadequacy rises; stress, addictions, and expectations of others are compounded; some feel a sickness of the pervasive consumer machine.  Christmas is not what we are told it will be and unfortunately we are asked to buy in to it.  But not here.

 Here we are invited to sit in the darkness, to lay bare our hearts, to lament with our souls, and to grieve the visions we have of a world that is not what it could be.  Here we acknowledge the chaos in which we live.

As we allow ourselves to wait in darkness, our hearts and souls slow down enough that they wade through the fake tinsel and the festive junk of the world, so we can hear and see and anticipate God’s coming –and that fills one with hope.  Blue is the colour of Advent.  Research has shown that blue is a colour that evokes psychological calm and relaxation to counter chaos and agitation.  It is a colour that opens the flow of communication and broadens perspective when learning new information.  It helps create a sense of peace and solitude.  The very colour paints the season with a vision of what the world is to be.

In this place as we open ourselves to be vulnerable, to be blue, the words and images of the season will flood our beings and produce hope. 

“...In the days to come...the Lord’s house shall be established...many people shall come and say, ‘come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.’...they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning-hooks”....

Ingest these words of hope and these words of blessing: “...Peace be within your walls...Peace be within you.”

What is expected of us at this time of year? 

Take a look at the blue art produced last week.  You were invited to paint chaos and to paint “how you feel.” Through movement -blue blobs of paint, turned to chaos on canvas, and then for the artist a sense of release, of accomplishment, and a movement towards hope.  The idea is that movement and feeling continues to vibrate around us, each of us being awakened by the feelings of another; we are opened to a slightly different variation of the same tune.  This art is the country music of this season.  It is rural, grass roots, hits the heart of the matter, and allows us to sit in its midst and calls us to wait in the tension.

The works are busy and simple at the same time, calling us to  wake from sleep...to keep awake...and deeper calling us to an attitude that says “let us walk in the light of the Lord...Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.”

We can do this only if we sit and wait for Christ’s coming, with open hearts, souls laid bare, vulnerable –quiet-so that light can fill us from the inside out.

As we share the lament of our hearts, we take a moment to pause and pray, to set aside Advent as a gift to ourselves so that we may be filled to be Christ’s in the world.  The prayer comes to us from Ted Loder, a United Methodist pastor, world-renown preacher, and writer.  This prayer is from his book, Guerillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle:

O God of all seasons and senses,

 grant us the sense of your timing to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant us the sense of your timing.   Amen.

Waterdom (Christ the King Sunday Year C -sermon)

In July, of this past year, the Anglican Church of Canada and the ELCIC, met in Joint Assembly in Ottawa.  The Saturday morning event was a prayer service on the front lawn of parliament hill.  The young adults of both denominations and our National Bishop and the Anglican Primate led the service. We gathered in circles of 10-12 people to pray, to share stories, to engage the topic of water, and to consider how to be active in water justice.  The service was meant to make a public statement as two national church bodies that water is a gift from God, a gift that we have in abundance. With the gift comes responsibility, as people, as parliament, to protect, to clean up that which we have polluted, and to insure access to potable water for all people.

On the main steps of the hill, between the peace flame and the peace tower, the youth ran strips of bright blue and silver cloth, moving like a river.  The circles of people gathered below.  For me it painted a picture of the kingdom of God:  free flowing water, the gift of life, for all people, living in relationship and community.

This picture of kingdom is in process of being developed and built in places around the world.  If any of you have looked through the “Gifts of the Heart” catalogue from CLWR you will notice that some of the gifts are about water: gifts of water storage and diversion projects and community water systems –the building of wells. Through CLWR we are involved in fair water access around the world.  This said we live with a disaster at home:  a 2011 Canadian government study demonstrated that the water management systems on more than 300 reserves were at high risk of malfunctioning? Some communities have no water system at all.  There are problems with legal systems controlling water; insufficient government funds; a lack of public awareness not helped by racism against First Nation’s people. In some places, in this country, bottled water sells for $100 a case.  In rural areas, speaking of my experience in Northern NB, has people  -those who are poor- drinking from wells that have not had yearly testing; some have been and contain chemicals from crop sprays, or eccolli from manure runoff.  New wells need to be drilled or treatment systems put in place in order for safe drinking water, but that population is forgotten; it is their problem.  So too when wells run dry because the neighbour has put in a well draining the aquifer, or a company takes water to bottle and sell, or the land shifts as the ground is fracked. 

In HRM every year the church receives more and more phone calls, that people cannot pay their water bills; for the poor -water is becoming inaccessible.  And this in a cultural context, where there is a corporate feeling that there is lots of water, that everyone has access to it -but we do not live in the kingdom of God-yet. 

I read this week an opinion piece reflecting on the millions of dollars Canadians and the Canadian government are sending to the Philippines.  The reflection was that if there is that much money to go to disaster because our hearts are moved, changed, saddened, and feel helpless; that means there is that much money to rid Canada of poverty... why do we not see the disaster we live-in-the-midst of? Why are our hearts hardened to the plight of the poor and First Nations communities, instead of being broken such that water justice issues are addressed here at home?

The readings today talk about leadership in a way that we do not usually see in practice. In fact, the readings speak to a different kind of understanding than most human beings can accept, let alone live.

Jeremiah speaks of leaders as either having or not having a shepherd’s heart.  What does such a heart look like? Think of the news of late, is a shepherd’s heart that of some Canadian Senators, Rob Ford? Of course not, the most profound characteristic of a shepherd’s heart is that it is selfless, gaining life and energy by looking out for the flock; having the flocks best interest at heart.  It doesn’t mean being all nice and schmultzie all the time; it could mean tough love, partnership, always give and take....shepherds have one focus, every decision and action is for one reason and one reason only, the  best for the sheep, the flock.  Now there is a definition of the kingdom of God: everyone living not for themselves but for the good of all people.

Today we also hear the recount of Jesus’ crucifixion; the shepherd heart taken to extreme.  Jesus’ lays down his life for the sheep –as the Gospel of John would say. This is a form of leadership few venture to accept.  There are examples:  Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King.  There are more recent examples, within the last few years, of Christians, some leaders, some living out the Gospel through service ministries, who have been killed in places like Iran, Turkey, Korea, Uganda, because of their shepherd hearts.   

As I spoke with the children about water, I am amazed by the Mystery and message in the invisible.  I am amazed that in the life giving gift of the creator, we are given a visible sign, and that we have been given the power to recreate that which through human sin has become broken.  Is the Gospel message in water, a sign that hearts can change in the same manner?  Scripture talks about the disciples being given power to heal and to forgive the sins of any.  ...to forgive the sins of any... whose heart does that change?  The one who hears the words, the one who proclaims them, or both; and does the actual substance of the water in the heart visually change?

We have come here, or have brought our children, or chosen ourselves to become part of the Christian community through baptism.  We pray for the baptized. We come and as we did this morning give thanks for the gift of baptism, the gift of life giving water.  We believe that the Spirit, in, with, and under the water, whelms those who are baptized with it.  Mr. Emoto has photographs that illustrate that Holy water is different, its nature is crystal pure.    When it whelms us, we are changed.  When we come back to this place to remember, to hear the words “your sins are forgiven”, to sing our praise, to offer prayer –once again our being is whelmed so that we can live as if the kingdom were present.

When Tim and I were married and moved into our first place together we began a tradition where, in every home we have lived, there is a shell above the sink in the bathroom, right above the taps, with the words “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, painted on it.  Luther said that every day as one washed their face in the morning, as the water ran over the face, to recommit to living baptized by setting the day’s focus, “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  This was meant to be a heart changing action, reconfiguring one’s own desires and selfish aims, to a DNA of living for others –in other words living the kingdom amidst being in bondage to sin.

There is water all around us.  There is an abundance of God’s gift.  There is life giving water for everyone.

As a baptized people living in Canada, what does it mean to live with a shepherd’s heart?  It means water justice is demanded of us, protection expected, responsibility to sustainable usage, and a responsibility to wholeness  –the Gospel message in water speaks to our hearts, changing us to have shepherd’s hearts. 

Live your baptism this week.  Treat water as the Mystery –as God- in, with, and under every drop.  Save it, share it, fight for it, build facility for it –in other places in the world and here.   There is no excuse, we can be held accountable, there is water for all in this country.  So what is your shepherd’s heart going to do for water justice for all people?