Hebrew 12: 18-29 as told by a story teller

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a mix-matched group of people.  The people were from all over the known world and they found themselves living in a foreign land, welcomed by the rulers of the land, to live and to prosper; to share in the bounty of the land.  At first the relationship was good, with the people owning farms, selling produce, setting up communities, and working even in the ruler’s courts as high officials. One day everything changed. 

The ruling family died out, and the next family was not so generous.  Resources were tight and the foreigners had amassed into great numbers.  They were sent to work on big building projects, to make the ruler’s look great and mighty to the whole world.  The people entered servitude and as the years went on, had fewer and fewer privileges, and finally were all considered slaves.

The people, a million or so, finally had enough... so under the leadership of a gutsy 40-something they left; marched right out of their towns, across the river, and into the desert.

Now the desert was the place of demons and gods.  To the people facing demons or gods sounded better than the task-masters they were barely able to live under.  The people after days of journey arrive at a mountain, and everyone knew that gods lived on the mountains.

And this mountain had a god; for the mountain shook; it was covered in smoke, cloud, and wind.  There was fire and lightening.  There were trumpet blasts from the darkness –not from the people but somewhere from the courts of the god.  Then there was a voice.   ...

Until this point the people were brave, daring to encounter God..... but the voice, the power, God; was more than they bargained for.  So they decided to turn away, run away...just like they had from their task-masters; but the only place to run was the desert.  Everyone knows the desert is full of demons.

The mountain became a scary place, in fact it became forbidden ground where even animals who may wandered in that direction would be killed.  The people were terrified. They were willing to take their chances in the desert, where demons dwell.

Once upon a time, in land far far away, in a time closer to our own, there was a mix-matched group of people. The people were from all over the known world and they found themselves living in a land of their own, but ruled by foreigners.  For a time the rulers and the people more or less got along; everyone went about their everyday activities: growing and tending, buying and selling, living and dying.

One day everything changed.

The head of the foreign rulers changed and so did the heart of the ruling court.  The people of the land were showing too much hope.

You see they had come to the big holy city on the mountain, that is in the middle of the desert; a different mountain than their ancestors, but a mountain, the home of God.  For centuries this was the place of the Temple – the seat of God.  The people had decided to allow for a place, setting God in a shrine so the mountain became safe to dwell on.  God was put in a box; but God was present.  The people talked to God and worshiped via priests who would go in and out before God when it was their turn.  This suited everyone’s sensibilities; for a time.

But there was a longing amongst the people; particularly those who were slaves, or poor; the widows and orphans; the sick and lame; women and children forgotten by society. The poor began to seek and follow teachers.  Into the desert they would wander, to face demons and fight them off, to encounter God for themselves. The poor found God waiting; left by past generations out of fear –now the poor were ready to embrace God and God’s power.

The poor were filled with hope.  They encountered God.  They were being encouraged with miracles: healings, being fed, welcomed, and taught.  

For decades, the people were hope-filled, speaking of God as if God had been encountered and lived among them...the people were excitable and began standing up demanding rights; and expressing notions of self-governance.  The rulers wanted to put an end to such crazy notions –since such notions could lead to revolt and civil war.    So the Temple, on the holy mountain, came down. God’s seat of safety disappeared...

But low and behold, God was no longer in the box.

God had moved, as the poor encountered the man who came out of the desert, a fire burned inside them, as they were touched, healed, fed, and welcomed the fire burned brighter. When the man from the desert, came to the big holy city on the mountain, he came to die for the people...and when he did God’s fire burned brighter.  A few days after the death on the mountain, the man rose from the dead, and God’s fire burned brighter still. The flame was fueled and spread through the desert, to neighbouring communities...Good News, that death had been conquered, that the people were saved, that hope and abundance was for everyone, that there was a new way to live, that encountering God was for everyone, anywhere, anytime –if hearts and minds and communities set fear aside and dared to be open to power and mystery.

Once upon a time, in lands far far away, and in lands right here at home; in the past and in the present, there was and is a group of mixed-matched people.  The people were from all over the known world.  Some were foreigners; others were not; rulers came and rulers went.  The people lived on two different mountains –both surrounded by the desert where demons tend to dwell.

Well people only lived on one of the mountains; people ran in fear from the other.

The difference in people was how they had decided to approach God, or how they would let God approach them.  The uninhabited mountain was interpreted to be uninhabitable because God might show up and God was scary –far more scary than running away and living with the demons in the desert.  The inhabited mountain was filled with people who dared to be open to encountering God, despite any fears, and lived anticipating miracles and mystery.

The moral of the story of the mountains –the explanation for the reading from the book of Hebrews -  is that in the end, when humans decide not to run on their own into a desert  of demons –whether distractions, thoughts of grandeur, or filling oneself with the fascinations of the time; when humans decide to face their fears and dare to open themselves to a holy encounter, God will be present to set hearts and wills on fire.

When hearts and wills are set on fire; when miracles become real and expected –then the fire is fanned and flames of Good News spread to all people, everywhere, and deserts become places where fear is banished:  there is passion for justice, the orphan and widow are cared for, the hunger are fed, and a vineyard is planted.

And the hope is that the best is yet to come. ”Yet once more”, on another mountain, in another place, years down the road, in a place where death is no more, where tears are wiped away, where the sun cannot strike us by day nor the moon by night; when we have passed from here into the mystery that comes next, when we are fully embraced in encounter with God –whelmed by the holy – that holy mountain will not be shaken; we as a people will have come full circle, welcomed back into the arms of the energy of the universe, God, the holy, the beginning and the end, and the  beginning.

Thanks be to God.                                                                                            

Incense

It is a lovely summer day on the front porch of the parsonage.  There is only one annoyance, mosquitoes.  Once upon a time the yard did not have any.  The neighbourhood was considered close enough to the ocean that mosquitoes stayed away because of the salt in the air.  That is until two years ago when pine mulch was put on the gardens.  It looked so pretty.  Days later there were mosquitoes everywhere!
 Bug spray is not something one wishes to put on every time they go outside to sit on the porch, or to enjoy the backyard -cup of tea in hand.  A rather reverent alternative has been found; church incense.
I was given an old incense burner from a retired pastor, along with jars and boxes full of incense.  Another pastor moved and left more incense. 
I sit and write with the incense burner just up wind on the floor of the porch.  The breeze gently wafts smoke across the floor, around ankles, up the bottom of legs, and mysteriously the mosquitoes disappear, hunkered down in a corner to pray, or heaven forbid high as holy kites. 

"I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" - Sermon

So picture the beginning and ending of this sermon with music: the singing of "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night."  At the end the congregation sang the line over and over.  It was awesome!!! It was also sunglass Sunday, so people were encouraged to wear their sunglasses to and in church.

This song belongs to the Canadian song writer Corey Hart.

What I like about the song is that it is an afterthought in many ways.  It was an unfinished track 12, for a record produced in the UK and originally had another name, that is until Corey recorded the rest of the record.  Just before his 20^th birthday he put down 11 tracks, and while he did this, it rained and rained, and rained.  He had with him a brand new pair of Ray Band sunglasses –which were very cool in the 1980’s – and in London, while recording, he never had a chance to wear.

Wouldn’t it be great if the world was such a bright place, if the kingdom of God were here, such that we needed to wear our sunglasses at night, or on days when it rained– for the glory of the Lord was so bright?!

How often do we see sunglasses in the newspaper? Big sunglasses that are meant to cover bloodshot eyes of those who have drunk too much; or to cover black eyes from where partners have left marks of abuse; worn to cover eyes puffy from tears; or worn as a disguise to hide faces and emotions from others?  In some ways we all have glasses that we wear, to hide parts of ourselves from others, or to hide parts of ourselves from God.  Some of us have secrets, things we don’t want God or other people to know about us. There are things we hide because we are afraid that if we share them, others will think less of us, or tease us, judge us in some way.

The song says... So I can see you live and breathe the story line...

We all wear sunglasses, and perhaps that is the meaning of the Colossians letter.  We are all human beings, all with a life before accepting the life of following Christ, even if we have been in the church all our lives.  But we are not to dwell on the past.  We are to live the present in the fullness of God.  There was a point when we agreed that we would be part of the community, that we would keep coming and worshiping with the community.  It is here we watch each other live and breathe, and journey.  It is here that we support each other and encourage the taking off of the sunglasses, to share intimate things about ourselves.  This is the place where we can share questions, doubts, troubles, circumstances...because it is here that we are fully who we are called to be.  It is here that we can cry in grief, in joy, in frustration, in excitement.

This place is meant to be a place to,

Keep track of visions in my eyes...

This is the place we come to be reminded that we are not alone.  Today’s reading from Colossians reminds us, “if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.  Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.  Lookup, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is.  See things from God’s perspective.” In saying you were dead and now are alive –, Paul refers to baptism.  On baptism Sundays we are reminded, “to let your lights so shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.”

Corey Hart’s song says, “She’s deceiving me, seeks security”...

...we get deceived don’t we? Our eyes are darkened and we fail to see God, perhaps even believe in God.  We get distracted and deceived by all those things that Paul mentions in Colossians.  Things that belong to the old life, the life before we knew differently; the life before committing to BEING a Christ follower...a light bearer...  meaning we commit to, in the word’s of Eugene Petersen’s translation of Colossians, “That means killing off everything connected with that way of death:  Sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy.  That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.”

This week at camp I was reading a section of a book on liturgy.  This particular portion spoke about the use of candles in church.  The writer was adamant that it be REAL candles used on the altar, beside the lectern, by the baptismal font.  You see modernity has allowed for gas fuelled or electric candles, where the sheath of the candle never changes. Churches have gone to fake because it is cheaper.  At this the author suggests candles might as well not be used.  The idea of REAL candles, is that as the light burns, the candle in order to give light, and be about what it was created to do – it has to sacrifice itself.  To BE, the candle in essence has to die.

And in essence that’s what Colossians is about –BEING; being dead to the old life, and embracing new life in Christ which is REAL life –even though, as Paul admits,  it may be invisible to spectators; and definitely at times goes unnoticed, unappreciated, and seemingly not worthwhile.  Eugene Petersen’s translation says, “Christ is your life.  When Christ (your life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up too –the real you; the glorious you.  Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.”

...Christ was that candle, who in living, gave of himself, sacrificed himself out of love for the world...

and we are asked to do the same.  We are lit by the Spirit in baptism to be alive, to be passionate, on fire; a candle lit...

meaning that as we live we sacrifice ourselves for the healing and wholeness of others.

So I can see the light right before my eyes...

...it has been one of those months for me.  Nine years of ministry in this place has let me see candles burning, people sacrificing while happily sharing Christ’s light and faith.  It has been one of those months because for the first time in nine years –everything has happened...it has been one light before my eyes after another...it has been calls at midnight, bedside prayers for the dying, the rising, the dying; it has been sicknesses, deaths, funerals, funerals yet to come, burials two years later from bodies given to science...it has been bizarre circumstances warranting private baptisms, rescheduling of wedding plans...and in each case there is faith, hope, an assurance that God is and will be present from beginning to end; that light will endure.

Don’t switch the blade on the man in shades...

Don’t masquerade with the man in shades...

It has been a time when I have no tolerance for lies, ho-hums, or nonsense.  It is time for the all of us to take off our sunglasses and look into each other’s eyes and tell the truth.

At camp this week, the campers tried various kinds of contemplative prayer.  On Thursday night following live worship, which is like line dancing to praise songs, the campers ages 13-15 gathered in a circle, shoulder to shoulder.  They were invited to breathe, in for four counts and out for four counts, in and out, in and out.  While they breathed I intoned short worded prayers, and allowed for silence.  At the end of the prayer, after breathing in and out, amen was said...and then there was silence...

13-15 year olds, 75 of them, were silent.  The spirit had settled, a moment to want to put the sunglasses on so that the brightness of that moment might stay on the inside of the glasses, in the depths of the soul forever. Christ was alive, present.

And that is it, we are being asked to be light in the world, to burn with love, flickering in faith, hope and action, until we are spent.  We are to as the song says, “Forget my name”, so that others may revel in the glory and collect the claim. We seek not reward, but only to be a beautiful light  -to dispel darkness is our only desire.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had to wear our sunglasses at night because the glory of the Lord shining through creation was so bright...it is to this end that we spread the Gospel, the love and light of Christ; to put an end to darkness, evil, human nature’s propensity to deceive and to seek fame and glory.  Let us live into the fullness of God, alive, passionate, BEING through sacrifice...

...everybody put on your sunglasses and sing along...

 

Contemplative Camp

This week was spent at Camp Mush-a-Mush, NS.  As chaplain, there was lots of praying to lead.  Campers, ages 13-15, were introduced to a variety of prayers coming from monastic traditions and spiritual exercises.  Prayers were sung, offered in silence, comtemplated through the observation of pine cones, expressed in tongue yelping, chanted in a harp-singing type circle, thanks offered via the focus of working through the alphebet.  The best was after Thurs. nights hip, hop, dance to praise songs.  Evening prayer had 75 campers form a circle in the picinic shelter and they breathed in for four counts and out, in and out...as the campers kept breathing breathe prayers, and other words were spoken, in hushed tones, breathing... and it happened...there was a calm presence, an experience...it was felt, for when the prayer was done, there was still silence.
What an awesome reminder that prayer is powerful!   Amen.