True Faith: Ducklings into Swans

Acts 2:14. 22-32

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them,  “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Holy One always before me, for God is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;  therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ “Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.  Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that God would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Saviour. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As God has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Saviour.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Child of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

****

Will you pray with me? We come before you, Holy Friend, with the greetings of the risen Christ ringing in our ears! You have done great things for us, though we barely understand them. You have done great things for us, though we sparely share their riches. You have done great things for us, though we rarely live in their full glory. Today in this ongoing Easter season, may the Spirit of Christ surprise us again with all his deathless truth and grace, and raise us up from the mediocre worship  into which we sometimes slide. In his name we pray. Amen!

When I was young, one of my favourite fairy tales was “The Ugly Duckling.” Written by Hans Christian Anderson (a bisexual man, by the way), the story tells of a young bird hatched into a nest of ducks. Because he does not resemble the others, he is harassed and teased. He sees wild swans flying high in the sky and admires their freedom and beauty, but knows he cannot join them. Forced out of his first home, he wanders from place to place, living with wild geese for a while, and with a farmer over the winter. In the spring he goes down to the pond for the first time, and in the water he sees a lovely white bird—himself—and realizes he is a swan. When the swans return, they take him as one of their own, and he is able to fly away with them, at home and himself for the first time.

It’s a wonderful story on many levels—there’s a subtext of being misunderstood, of not belonging where we are, that is common to us all as we grow up and find our place in the world. There’s a strong current of the LGBT person, too, not at home until they find others like themselves, and can know themselves as part of a caring, supportive group.

The theme I want to look at, though, is that of recognizing ourselves, of growing into truth and faith, living through the doubt until we see ourselves as we really are.

This is Thomas’ position. He missed the “big reveal” of Jesus’ first appearance to the other disciples on the afternoon of that first Easter Sunday—and he insists on proof. But let’s not be too hard on him—it is often said that the opposite of faith is not doubt but apathy. Thomas wants to believe—he followed Jesus through many difficult times, and is still part of the disciples. He just wants to be sure.

Maybe Thomas has a hard time trusting—maybe he has that familiar-to-many-of-us concern of abandonment. He wants to believe Jesus has risen, but he doesn’t want to be made a fool of, either. Maybe he has had his hopes and faith dashed too many times before this. For whatever reason, Thomas cannot, dares not, trust that what the others—John, Peter, James—tell him is really true. He cannot accept it as simply true, and so he makes extreme statements about what he needs to do in order to believe. And when Jesus calls his bluff, Thomas falls on his knees and believes. He cannot resist the truth—and he comes to know himself.

It’s a gradual process, like the duckling-into-swan. It doesn’t happen overnight—remember, it was a week later before Jesus appeared again. Thomas had seven days to think and remember and pray and listen to what the others were telling him.

True faith—whether it’s faith in ourselves or in something else—doesn’t come easily. It is a product of wrestling with what we know and don’t know, what we wish we didn’t know and what we long to know. It is precisely because it comes from this struggle that faith and apathy are opposites, not faith and doubt. Those who doubt want to believe—otherwise they simply would disbelieve, and be done with the matter. So they move from doubt to faith as a result of their struggle.

Sometimes there’s fallout, some other damage done on the way to that faith, though. In the case of the writer of the gospel of John, that damage was a legacy of anti-Semitism, of a bias that fosters a negative attitude to Jewish people and Judaism.

You see, at the time when this gospel was composed and recorded, the early Christians—who mostly began their lives as Jewish people—were in the process of leaving the synagogues. This was partly because their faith was leading them a different way, one in which they knew Jesus was the Messiah, and partly because they were seen as heretical by the Jewish authorities and were gradually being made to feel unwelcome in the synagogues. So they had to come to terms with this separation—which meant not only leaving their place of worship, but their extended families, their communities. How do humans often deal with forced separation? We get angry, we demonize the ones we are separating from—or at least we want to see them as completely wrong or foolish or unseeing or not understanding.

We do this when we end relationships—the ex-partner’s faults become magnified, and their good traits shrink to the vanishing point. All we want to remember is how selfish they were, or how they didn’t understand our needs, or were not willing to commit to the relationship. We do when we leave a job sometimes—the company was too demanding, or demeaning; or our boss stole our ideas. Many of us did this when we were adolescents and were in the necessary process of separating from our parents—our parents suddenly didn’t understand us, were out of touch, didn’t really care about us. Maybe we fantasized that they weren’t our “real” parents—that our genuine parents would swoop down out of the blue and take us off to live our “real” lives as princesses or in the circus or as superheroes—and adopted children have these fantasies, too, by the way; this fantasy of being foisted onto other people to raise, whether by accident or design—like the ugly duckling, forced to live as a duck when he was really a swan.

So John and the Christians of his time had to struggle with separating from Judaism—and so they demonized the Jewish people as a whole—even though they knew that what they were saying was not literally true, and was an exaggeration. It was part of the separation process. Unfortunately, after a few generations went by, the awareness of the context of those early Christians was lost, and Christians took the gospels literally in every detail, and Jewish people became seen as devilish, wilfully evil, and just plain wrong.

We have to recognise this and see the truth through modern eyes. Remember that Jesus was Jewish—God chose to be born into a Jewish family, into the Jewish faith. Jesus was an observant Jew of Palestine. We cannot allow the biases of the past to affect our understanding of eternal spiritual truth.

That was part of the struggle of faith of the early Christians.  Thomas had to overcome his fear of trusting that Christ was risen in order to be the apostle he was meant to be—the apostle who, tradition says, travelled to India to spread the gospel there, whose spiritual descendents are the Mar Thoma Christians of today’s India. The early Christians of John’s community, however, were not able to make that leap—they were not able to accept that the Jewish faith that nurtured Christ could, in another way, continue to nurture them. Instead, they turned away in recrimination, declaring like a teenager, “I hate you!” Most teenagers eventually come to terms with their parents—not all, of course—but most come to some kind of accommodation and acceptance. The early Christians, sadly, could not do that—and their poisonous legacy is the centuries of oppression, bigotry, and slaughter of Jewish peoples.

It’s appropriate to remember this today; it’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to remember all those slain in the Nazi concentration camps. They were killed in the millions because they were Jewish, or Polish, or Catholic clergy, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or lesbians, or gay men, or developmentally challenged, or twins, or physically challenged, or political dissidents.

This is the fruit of unquestioned faith, of faith that has not struggled to be born and sustained, a faith without insight into its own faults and weaknesses and thin spots. A faith that doesn’t know its own weaknesses will be convinced it doesn’t have any—and will act as if it is responsible to no-one. Have you seen the bumper sticker that says, “God said, I believe it, that settles it?” That takes a lot for granted, doesn’t it? For instance, that humans know exactly what God says, and what God means by it, and what humans are supposed to do with it. But an unquestioned faith, a faith that has not wrestled with the deeper meanings, is a faith that is afraid to look at these things—afraid, perhaps, that it will be toppled by a single word or action that casts any doubt. A muscle grows stronger through use—so does faith, through the struggle and doubt and wrestling.

It is through that work of faith, that struggle and doubt, that need to know for ourselves, not what another person has told us, that we come to know who we really are and what we believe. It is through the wrestling with difficult times—being thrown out of a nest we didn’t really belong in, sometimes even alienation and harassment, that we come to the knowledge of who we are, and to a stronger faith.

We may be ducklings today, placed in the wrong nest; we may be Thomas on that first Easter Sunday, doubting what we want to believe. But, praise God, through work and doubt and struggle, we will come to be swans, we will fall to our knees like Thomas, and cry out, “My Lord and my God!” and our faith will be strong. In the name of the one redeeming God, amen.

Psalm 23

Yesterday's Lectionary Psalm--in two very different but equally lovely settings...

Bobby McFerrin:



John Rutter:

"Jesu Joy of Our Desiring"

One of the hymns we sang yesterday--in a very different version!

Catch Up...

I know I keep saying I will do better at this. I really mean it this time!

Things are hopping in River City! We now have a children/youth ministry, we have partnered with a local domestic violence shelter, and we have consecrated a new deacon! There's an energy and excitement I love to see. The church is doing well.

On a personal level, I am not doing as well...

My sister, the middle of the five of we five sisters, passed away a couple of weeks ago. She had been diagnosed with a return of breast  cancer (after ten years' remission) at Christmas. Chemo and radiation didn't slow it much, and she slipped away peacefully, in the arms of her daughters, at home, in her favorite place, with her cat and dog next to her.


This is the sister who taught me to read ("Are You My Mother?" was the book), and all the words to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and how to bake Mexican wedding cakes. She let me shave  my legs for the first time when I was staying with her, against my mother's wishes, and had me stay with her when she lived in the college dorm. She was nine years older than me, and I thought for a long time that she knew everything I needed to know. Even though we had drifted apart in later years, with living geographically far apart and the busy-ness of life, I treasure the memories of her.

It's been difficult for the family, and will continue to be. I ask prayers for our family as we come to terms with this loss.

"At the Right Time"

Message on March 20, 2011 (Lent 2)

Genesis 12:1-4a

Now God said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your parents’ house to the land that I will show you. ²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the realm of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the realm of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Human One. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Child, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send God’s Child into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Will you pray with me? God of our birthing and our dying, God of all our times and all our lives; open our hearts to awareness of your presence as we seek to understand your word; to know what it means to have a new beginning, a fresh start, to be born again, in this world in which we see so much pain, suffering, and dying. Give us grace to feel your love and mercy with us as we walk through the dark valleys and come to the other side. In all your names, amen.

I would like to thank the Board as well as all of you in the congregation, for your prayers, thoughts, cards, and support in the last couple of weeks.  Thanks also to John, Jason, and Rev. Kevin for preaching and leading worship for me on the Sundays. I was able to go to Boston and be with my sister Faye, to be part of the circle of love around her as she passed on. This is a difficult time for my family, but all of us are mourning Faye’s life, cut short too soon. With our love for each other and faith in a loving God, we will be better—but as my sister Sandra said, there is a hole in our hearts with Faye’s loss. Again, thank you for your care and concern, and I would ask for continued prayers as we continue to heal.

So…here we are in the second week of Lent. We are still in the early stages of this journey towards Easter, and already we read of new life, new beginnings, of taking a leap of faith and gong where and how God calls us.

Abram and Serai—later known as Abraham and Sarah—left their home, ventured out into unknown territory, on the word of God, whom they did not know until then. Like so many of the Biblical narratives, we take this one without thinking of that that must have meant, and without wondering why they might have been willing to do such a thing.
They lived in a city—Haran—and were not, until then, nomads. Their families were in Haran—their property and animals and connections. They left it all because God commanded them to go. Why? What in the world would induce them to do that?

Think about it. If you were settled in a home, with your extended family nearby, employment and belongings…and then an unknown God speaks to you, says, “leave all this, pack up your stuff on camels and donkeys and go out to a place you don’t know…” well, would you do it? Could you do it? What would lead you, enable you, to drop everything in favour of a mysterious command from a God you had never heard of before?

I wonder if maybe they were unhappy in Haran, if they had felt an urging, a pull to go elsewhere, to do something elsewhere—that there was nothing more for them to do there. Had they been wondering what they should do next in their lives? Were they maybe in a time of transition?

We don’t know. But clearly they were ready to answer that call from God.

Another question. Why did Nicodemus go to meet with Jesus? He was learned, a scholar—he knew the law of Moses and used it to guide his life. He didn’t need instruction in the law—but maybe he wanted to discuss it. It was actually common for teachers of the law to meet together and discuss the finer points of what was meant by this or that word or phrase. And they often met at night—nothing sinister there, in reality—it was the only time they had to meet, because they made their living in other ways during the day—as farmers or schoolteachers or merchants or artisans. Most Jewish scholars of that time could not afford to be full-time scholars. I think Nicodemus went to see Jesus because he thought of Jesus as a new voice, an interesting voice, who had something different to say, and Nicodemus wanted to hear more. He was ready, too, to hear that word Jesus spoke of new life.

I wonder what it takes to get us into that space, that place where we can hear God’s voice and have the faith to follow? Sometimes it’s a place of joy—we complete a training course, or graduate school, or have a baby. Sometimes it’s a place of sorrow and pain—we’re fired from a job, or a relationship ends, or our home is destroyed. Whether in joy or pain, God opens up a space for us—a place for us to move, a time for us to lift our heads and see beyond the everyday ruts we are in. It’s hard to know sometimes which comes first—the opportunity or the emotion.

But if we allow ourselves to trust, to have faith in the direction in which God is leading us, then we can step into that new life, that new beginning. We can take that journey of faith, as Abram and Sarai did; like Nicodemus,  we can venture out to meet Jesus and study with him.

It’s not always easy, and it’s not always possible for us to take that step of faith though. Perhaps we aren’t ready when others think we should be, or we are afraid.

It’s way too early for the people of Japan to begin a new life—their struggle isn’t over yet. They are still sorting through rubble, burying loved ones, desperately attempting to stop radiation leakage.The struggle is continuing.

As a nation, we are reaching out to help them with the immediate crisis. Both the US and Canada are sending help to our sisters and brothers in Japan, with food, rescue workers, and equipment. But the need for help will continue, in a different form, in a different way. Hope will be needed. A way to see a path to new life, a new beginning is needed. Remember how long it took life in New Orleans to get back to some approximation of normal after Hurrican Katrina—reconstruction is still going on. It will take even longer and more assistance for Japan.

It’s too early for me, too. Faye died just about two weeks ago. How can I assimilate the loss of someone with whom I was intimate for many years, and always close to, in so short a time? How do I even accept that she really is gone, even though I know, intellectually, that she is? How can I grasp that we’ll never have tea together again, never discuss books and language, never talk about Ben and Lily, our children of the same age, again? Even though I know we will meet again in God’s time and God’s place, our relationship then will be unimaginably different. We will not have the relationship we did here and now—and that is what I mourn.

So I’m not ready for that new life yet. I’m not ready to say, “I will always miss Faye but I’ll move on with my life now.”  Japan isn’t ready either—they are still seeking their lost, trying to repair their buildings and roads and nuclear plants.
If we take a closer look at Nicodemus and Abram and Sarai, I wonder if we might not see that they weren’t actually ready yet either. They had taken the first step, but they weren’t really committed to everything God was asking of them. They were still, in religious terms, “discerning” where God was calling them.

Abram and Sarai left Haran; but they wandered for a long time before God settled them. They weren’t ready yet. Nicodemus spoke with and learned from Jesus, but he didn’t commit himself to be a follower yet. He wasn’t ready.

And it was OK. God took them where they were, and led them until they did have faith, until they were ready. When the time was right, Abram and Sarai settled in what would become Israel. When the time was right, Nicodemus believed in Jesus—he helped bury Jesus after the Crucifixion.

When the time is right, I will lift my head and remember the joys of my relationship with my sister Faye, and her memory will not bring sorrow. When the time is right, Japan will step forward into new life, a renewal of life.

Jesus did not rise on the same day he was crucified; nor on the day after. But when the time was right, on the third day, he rose from the grave into new life.

When the time is right.

In the name of God, creator, redeemer and sustainer, amen.

"Light-Changing"

Isaiah 58:1-12
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
3“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. 4Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to our God? 6Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

8Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Holy One shall be your rear guard. 9Then you shall call, and God will answer; you shall cry for help, and the Holy One will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11God will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. 12Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

1 Corinthians 2:1-12

2When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

6Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love God”— 10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

Matthew 5:13-20

13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to our God in heaven.

17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the realm of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the realm of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the realm of heaven.

*****

Will you pray with me? Light of light, shine in our lives and hearts today. Illuminate our path; show us your way, your will. May the words we speak and hear give us guidance in the days to come. Amen.

Here’s a question for you—how can salt lose its flavour? If it gets wet, it dissolves. If it gets too hot, it dissolves—as in baking or cooking. I don’t think it can get too dry or too cold for salt… In any case, it doesn’t lose its flavour. Salt can’t lose its flavour unless it stops being salt. And here’s another thing about salt. Any cook will tell you that most recipes require salt in some form—as one of the ingredients or as part of one of the components. It is impossible to make bread without salt, for example; and even a cake needs salt. You can’t always taste it—in fact, you shouldn’t be able to taste it. If you can taste the salt in a cookie or soup or bread, the cook put in too much salt. It should simply bring out the flavour of the other ingredients—the chicken in the soup, the chocolate in the cookie. Salt is not the star of the show—but it is still salt, even though its presence isn’t obvious. It’s there and it makes a difference.

Light is like that as well. Even under that bushel basket, the light is still shining. Unless the light goes out—ceases to exit—the light is still a light, and when the basket is off, will shine out into the whole house. Or, we could say, when the bulb is burned out, and needs to be replaced—only then will the light shine.

In other words, we must be ourselves—our own authentic selves, in order to do the work we are called to do. We can’t be what our parents or teachers or managers or friends or partners, even, think we should be, if that’s different from who we really are. God calls us, uses us, as we truly are, as God has made us, as God sees us, not in the way anyone else sees us. We are the salt we are meant to be—sea salt, iodized salt, kosher salt—or the lightbulb (fluorescent, three-way, tulip) God created us to be, not what anyone else believes we should be.

Getting to that place of knowing who we are can be a difficult journey, and it is different for each of us. For some people, it means coming out of a closet—of a spiritual tradition that doesn’t fit, of a sexual orientation that is not right, of a career or job path that isn’t true to God’s plan. For others, it means letting go of an addiction—food, alcohol, drugs, sex. Whatever it might be, it is a movement into light—God’s light, that light that never is hidden.

But—and here’s the crucial thing—until we do that, until we are who we are meant to be, we cannot do the work God has for us. As long as we are not true to ourselves, we cannot be true to God, cannot do the work to which God calls us for God’s glory.

And, like the salt that doesn’t draw attention to itself as it does its work, we too are not the main attraction. We do God’s work for God’s glory, not ours. It is what we are called to do—and each of us has a different task, and each is needed, as Paul talks about when he mentions the different members of the body being needed, even the ones that don’t seem so important.

Augustine of Hippo put it this way: “It is only for the sake of God’s glory that we should allow our good works to become known.”

This is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. He doesn’t want to be known for his education (although he had a good one) or his excellence in speaking (although he was apparently a great speaker), or his suffering for Christ (although he did suffer, a great deal). Rather, Paul wants to be known only for the word of Christ he brings, only for the good news of the gospel. “I vowed to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified.” Moreover, Paul says, we can’t really know Christ on our own, either—but only through the Holy Spirit’s gift. That is, we can know of Christ, but the gift of the Holy Spirit is the deeper knowledge of the reality of Christ and his presence and his acts of salvation for us. The Holy Spirit is like salt, too, you see—working through us and in us in unseen ways, giving us the flavour of God, the ability to do God’s work through our faith in Christ.

Are we salt? Are we all we are meant to be, expressing God in us through works for God? And do we bring out that flavour in others, doing our works for God without hope of—or even desire for—glory or recognition? If we aren’t, my sisters and brothers, we need to regain our saltiness. Jesus says salt can’t regain its flavour, but we are metaphorical salt—we can become the salt, the light, we are meant to be. He says a light hidden under a bushel—or, we could say, a lightbulb that is burnt out—does no one any good. Does your lightbulb need to be changed?

In whatever tradition or way you are called, be sure your light is shining; be sure your salt is salty.

In the name of the God of light, amen.

"Wrestling with God" October 17, 2010

“Wrestling with God”

Invocation
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Readings
Gen 32:22-31
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."

But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

The man asked him, "What is your name?"

"Jacob," he answered.

Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."

But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about people. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about people, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

And Jesus said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for God’s chosen ones, who cry out to God day and night? Will the Holy One keep putting them off? I tell you, God will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Human One comes, will he find faith on the earth?"


***
Will you pray with me? Holy One, you are always ready to listen to our prayers; remind us that “no” is an answer, and that your wisdom is beyond our knowledge. Bless our seeking and our prayers—in the name of our saviour, Jesus the Christ.

Prayer. So many books have been written about it, so many courses and workshops and retreats held, so many Bible studies and discussions…but it all boils down to two things Jesus said, One, of course, is the prayer he taught us, often called the Lord’s prayer. The other is this parable, which repeats themes found in some of his other discussions of prayer.

But let’s take a look at it. Parables are stories with a point; the characters in them aren’t always exact parallels or symbols, but may often be the opposite of what we expect—for example, the “good Samaritan” was a startling story for the disciples because the Samaritans were enemies of the Jewish people. It’s true of this parable too.

As with most parables, there are several ways to interpret this story. Whom do the judge and widow represent? Is the judge like God, whom we, symbolized by the widow, beg for mercy until, tired of our begging, God gives in? Or is the point that God is so much more willing to give us mercy than the judge, that if even that unjust judge decided to give in, how much more quickly will our loving God give us justice?
That’s the most common interpretation.

There’s another way of looking at it, though. What if we are the judge and God is the widow? God is begging us for justice—not because God needs it, but because our human sisters and brothers need it. We—in the general sense of “human beings”—often don’t seem to fear God or care about people. And yet God continues to reach out to us, asking us to deal justly with other people.

Remember Jonah? God called him to go to Nineveh, and Jonah didn’t want to go, judging the people of Nineveh as too addicted to their evil ways, and unable to change. Jonah tried to hide from God’s call. The book of Jonah says Jonah ran to Tarshish, which is in exactly the opposite direction from Nineveh. Jonah didn’t get away, though—God sent a storm, which threatened the ship Jonah was in, and so the sailors threw Jonah overboard, at his request. He was swallowed by “Leviathan,” whatever that was—some kind of huge sea creature, often translated as “whale.” And three days later, Jonah came to shore—near Nineveh. Grudgingly he went there and preached repentance—and the Ninevites proved him wrong by repenting. That still wasn’t enough for Jonah, who then complained to God about them repenting!

Jonah was asked to deal justly with the people of Nineveh by God and he refused and refused, until, exhausted by his trials, he finally gave in and did as God asked.

Paul too, resisted acting justly. He was a central figure in the persecution of the early Christians, ferreting them out and hunting them down; even standing by while Stephen, the first deacon, was stoned to death. But God kept calling and calling, begging Paul to do justice—until finally Paul listened to God, and answered God’s call to justice and mercy. Paul became one of the foremost disciples, even though he never met Jesus on earth, travelling all over the eastern Mediterranean, establishing churches and encouraging ones that were already begun.

Do we run away from God’s call for justice?

Jacob, now—he is the Trickster character in the Hebrew Bible, always up to something, tricking his brother Esau out of Esau’s birthright, tricking his father-in-law out of livestock…but this time, he is out-tricked.

Jacob wrestles with—someone—all night long, and in the morning, although lamed, he is given a new name, Israel, meaning, “God Strives.” We don’t know for certain that Jacob is wrestling with God, but that is the implication from that name and from the fact that no noun—like “person,” or “angel,” is used in the Hebrew, which doesn’t need a noun like English does. In Hebrew, the passage says that Jacob wrestled “with one,” all night. Notice that Jacob doesn’t actually defeat the person he wrestles with—the being—probably God—confers a blessing on Jacob, but it’s not forced or demanded, it is freely given. And God gives him a reminder of the struggle, too—that limp that Jacob will carry forever

But we’ve come back to the judge and the widow, haven’t we? Jacob, now Israel, struggles with God—just as Paul did, and Jonah—and like some of us.

Are you wrestling with God?

Jesus wants his followers to respond to God’s call, to do the justice God requires of God’s people. Jesus reminds us that God will do whatever it takes to evoke that response from us—send us to te ends of the earth, have a ginormous fish swallow us, knock us off our—donkeys—even wrestle with us all night long. But in the end, God will prevail.

How is your faith?

I wonder how those miners in Chile felt, when they realized they were trapped. Where was their faith? I know I would find it very difficult—I tend to a bit of claustrophobia! But they managed to hang on—and I have to believe their faith—whether in God or something else—had something to do with that. As Christians, our faith is in God—isn’t it?

John Wesley used to ask, “How is it with your soul?” I would ask you the same thing—“how is it with your soul this lovely morning in mid-October, 2010?” Are you willing to give in to God’s importuning? God has something to say to you—listen to God through your prayers, open our heart and spirit to God’s voice, open the eyes and ears of your heart, your faith, and do God’s will—justice, love, mercy, righteousness, lovingkindness, God’s shalom, God’s wholeness, intended for all God’s people.

In the many names of the one true God, amen.

Proper 11
Colossians 1:15-29
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel. I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.

Luke 10:38-42
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

***
Will you pray with me? Holy and loving God, you are present in our lives, as near as our breath, as close as our hearts. Give us grace to perceive your presence, and to speak with you honestly, lovingly and often; to hear your word for your lives, and having heard, to do. In your own holy name, amen.

Sisters. I know something about sisters, being the fourth of five girls—no brothers. Having four sisters gives me some experience and authority on the subject, I think! With seven people in the household, we all had chores to do. I don’t have to tell any of you about the many jobs that have to be done to keep a house clean, organized and functioning—and of course those get more complicated with more people. I remember emptying wastebaskets at the age of six or so as one of my first tasks—taking the trash bag around the house to the various wastebaskets in bedrooms, bathrooms, the laundry room, the kitchen—and then hauling it out to the garbage. Later I was responsible for mowing the lawn and gardening—which I loved, because I was good at it and also because we had one of the first riding mowers in the neighbourhood and I got to drive it! But trying to get help around any of it---well, my sisters had their own jobs and didn’t think they needed to help me too!

Can you imagine what it must have been like in Jesus’ day to run a household? Talk about a full-time job! The bread—which was a big part of their diet—had to be baked fresh every couple of days, from scratch; marketing had to be done pretty much every day because there was no refrigeration and food didn’t keep for long; meals had to be cooked over fires and in ovens fuelled by charcoal; small gardens of vegetables and herbs had to be planted, weeded, and harvested; goats to be fed and milked; clothes had to be washed by hand (which is probably why they were only washed every few months!); sweeping the floor was done with a straw broom….everything done by hand and many things we do once a week or less had to be done every day.

That was everyday reality for Mary and Martha. And then Jesus drops in with 12 friends—suddenly Mary, Martha and Lazarus had 13 more mouths to feed, 13 more beds to find and arrange, not to mention the usual weeding, feeding, milking, etc. No wonder Martha snapped at Jesus! Here she is, working hard to be sure everything is right for Jesus and the disciples, taking on more chores and tasks—and there’s Mary, sitting and just listening.

I wonder if Martha wasn’t thinking something like, “Great, MARY gets to sit and listen to Jesus. I’d like to do that too, but if I don’t make sure there’s enough bread and go next door to borrow a couple of serving bowls, and get to the shed and milk the goat, there’s not going to be enough for everyone to eat, and that’s not how I want to treat Jesus. Why can’t she help me to get done earlier and then maybe we both can listen to Jesus?” I know I would be thinking something like that!

So—Martha’s pique is understandable, for sure. But listen to what Jesus says. He doesn’t say that what Martha is doing is useless or shouldn’t be done. He does say that Mary has chosen the “better part,” though, and I think that needs some examination.

Often this text has been used to insist that women should be liberated from their traditional roles and freed for study and contemplation. Certainly that is true—prayer and learning and teaching shouldn’t be confined to men only.

But the larger message is that no one should be kept from a closer experience of God because society expects something else from them. Last week we talked about the Good Samaritan, a person on the margins of society who acted as if he were in God’s realm; he did what others did not expect—he cared for someone whom society expected him to ignore and not care for. In today’s reading, Mary, who as a woman would usually be expected to in fact help her sister (I’m guessing Martha is the big sister; don’t you think?) is also transgressing those expectations, behaving in ways not accepted or usual for women in her society—and Jesus defends her.

Most of us, I think, want to take Martha’s part—I know I do, and not just because I’m her namesake—but because we’ve been in her place. We see something we think needs to be done and someone we expect to help us is off doing something that we think is useless or beside the point at that moment. My sisters talking to friends or playing or reading instead of helping me weed the garden irritated the heck out of me.

But I know that I also feel a bit guilty about Martha’s attitude, because I tend to see myself in this scene way too easily. I can see several issues—for one thing, why didn’t Martha talk to Mary herself? Classic triangulation there, where Person A, who has an issue of some kind—anger, annoyance, affection even—with Person B, talks to Person C instead of Person B. More importantly, though, I recognize my own tendency to get caught up in the maintenance kinds of things, to do what is, maybe, mindless and easy instead of the hard and challenging work—making dinner instead of making disciples.

Don’t get me wrong—both are needed. Once people are committed Christians, they need to be fed—or at least to be shown how they can feed themselves, so to speak. We need Marthas to feed people, and Marys to listen to God. Both are needed—one is not better than another. In order to have a good, balanced relationship with God, both personally and in church, we need not only prayer but action. Martin Luther put it this way: "I have so much to do today, I'd better spend an extra hour in prayer."

Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae is emphasizing two things—one is the glory of Christ. That’s the first part of the reading, what is often called a hymn to Christ. But in the second part, he is emphasizing the need for focus on God and God’s teaching, not shifting around to find something more interesting or exciting or, maybe, easier. He talks about the difficulty of this—it’s not easy, he says, but the ultimate reward is beyond words—God’s realm, our presentation “whole and blameless” before God.

Religion, someone once said, is easy—read the Bible, go to church, pray, visit friends in hospital. Faith, however, is more demanding.

In other words, it’s not difficult to go through the forms—to do the expected thing, to act the way others expect you to act. It gives a form and a shape to your life—church on Sunday, Bible study Tuesdays, and Thursday night is choir practice—and helps you look good in your family and friends’ eyes. But to have faith is much harder. It’s about believing, about doing what you do because you have thought and prayed and considered and listened to God and know it is the right thing to do—even if other people don’t think it’s a good thing, or a wise thing.

Mary was acting in that faith—she recognized the presence of God and was available, listening, learning, at his feet as a disciple would be. I think that Martha was jealous of that—that she wanted to be there listening to Jesus too, that she wasn’t just cranky about having to do all the work—maybe because I think that is how I would feel!

The church feast of Mary and Martha—which is celebrated on July 29, coming up next week—is shared between the two sisters to reflect how they balanced each other out, and that the church recognized it. It is entirely appropriate too, that the first women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, the Philadelphia Eleven, as they were known, were ordained on that day in 1974. One of those eleven women, by the way, was the well-known theologian Carter Hayward.

We need both action and reflection in the church, and in our lives. We need to listen for God’s voice—take that time to just sit and listen and pray—and then take what we have heard and go into the world in the strength of that word and act on it. There was a time in my life when I was making some major decisions and I needed to really talk with God. I would get up very early, before anyone else in the house, make coffee, and then just sit and think and pray. I had long conversations with God in those mornings, about what I was doing, what I needed to do, whether what I had done was the right thing.

There are so many things to distract us from spending time with God in this world—some of them fun, like computers and sports and movies and music; some of them serious such as our paid work and our partner and family. Some of them provide excellent—we think—excuses for not taking the time, such as church work and those simple household chores everyone has to do like paying bills and doing laundry. Sometimes I look at people I know who clearly speak to God regularly and listen for the answers, and I think they must be smarter or better or maybe even more committed to Christ than I am—as many people think of Mary, and so say that Martha was treated unfairly. But the story of Mary and Martha is not about who is better or more committed. Both Mary and Martha were committed to Jesus—Martha offered him hospitality, Mary wanted to learn from him. Luke doesn’t imply that Mary is better than Martha, and Jesus doesn’t say that either. This is about recognizing, knowing, what is important and urgent—when there are so many demands on us, many of them legitimate and moving—and knowing what is truly urgent and necessary, what is really needful, and focusing on those things first. It’s about setting priorities.

Management theory and books are full of ways to set priorities—they are usually in the context of to-do lists or goal-setting. Generally they talk about setting priorities and making time for them each day, or perhaps goal setting and then breaking down those goals into do-able chunks. My favorite is the story of the jar. The idea is that you put the big rocks (or tasks and goals) in first, then the gravel, then the sand, and then water. These represent the various tasks and goals in your life. The point is not that there is always room for one more task. All those items would never have fit if you had tried to put the gravel in, then the sand, then the big rocks. But if you place the biggest, most important items in first—the big rocks—then the less important ones (the gravel), and so on, they will all fit in.

Our relationship with God is the biggest rock there is. Put that in the jar of priorities first; make that time to pray, read, listen and talk to God. It doesn’t matter so much what it looks like, as long as it is time with God. Coffee on the deck first thing in the morning, as I did; a soak in the tub in the evening; time after dinner in a quiet room—they’re all ways to have that time with God. The important thing is to do it.

Does anyone remember the next story in the Gospels about Mary and Martha and Lazarus? Lazarus dies, and Jesus comes back to Bethany. Martha must have really wanted to listen to Jesus too, that day when he was at the house, because she clearly has done some thinking and praying. When Jesus arrives to resurrect Lazarus, Martha and Jesus have an extended theological discussion about Jesus being the messiah—she’s the first to use that term to him—and he treats her as an equal in that discussion. She has learned that time with Jesus is more important than worldly things—important as they may be on a daily basis—and that in order to keep her focus on God, to keep from shifting, as Paul puts it, she needs to take that time to simply BE with God.

Take that time; whatever it looks like for you—but take it, away from any other distractions like driving or a workout, even a devotional. Listen for God speaking to your heart; respond; carry on that conversation with God. Hear what God is saying to you.

And then, having heard it, get up and go out and do what God has for you to do.

Without that time of listening, our activity is busywork. But without action, our listening becomes passive self-absorption. Both are needed.

Pray—and then act.

In the name of the living God, amen.

Catching up yet again....

The road to the Bad Place is paved with... and all that...

Things in River City continue apace. We have settled our finances a bit, but are likely to take a bit of hit again.

This is because, as happened three years ago, the roof/ceiling caved in on the church office as a result of standing water on the roof (we lease space from another congregation). This time, no one was around, and the damage wasn't discovered until the next morning. We lost a laptop (the main church computer), a tower CPU (used to store data), some files, and most of our office furniture. Our second laptop (the clerk's laptop) and the rest of our electronics survived. My vestments mostly survived, with some water stains on one of my stoles (of course it was one with a great deal of sentimental value, being the one that my home congregation gave me when I graduated from seminary).

As a result of this damage, we will have to replace furniture and the laptop, not to mention the storage drive (our data was mostly backed up off-site, with the exception of the last couple weeks of offerings, which was easily reconstructed). This will take money, and we have a sizable deductible.

On a decidedly upbeat and happy note, however, Beloved and I have become engaged! Yes, they do that in Canada... We're looking at a year from now for the wedding--to give us time to save up for it as well as settled a few other things in our lives.

I miss my blogging, and I do intend to be better about it, even if it's only to write a paragraph a day or so...better than nothing!

It looks as if I will be sermonating for much of tomorrow, so I will be dropping in on the RGBP 11th hour party.

It's good to be back!

A Start on Catching Up...

Wow, where to begin? Yes, I know it’s been forever. The usual excuses apply—work, church, life…

Update: The church continues to flourish. We took in five new members on Easter Sunday, and we’ve begun semi-regular social events. I was not selected for the retreat, but have reserved space at my favourite retreat center and will be heading there in a week or so.

On a personal note, I am in a new, wonderful relationship. Beloved is amazing; she is the partner I never thought I would find. She is committed to Christ, is intelligent and intellectual (not the same thing), willing to commit to our relationship, willing to take on the role of pastor’s spouse, a caring and involved part of my discernment, willing to be vulnerable and share her discernment process with me as well. In short, we are more compatible than I ever thought to be possible in this world, from our tastes in food and literature to our life goals.

I have continued my discernment down some surprising roads, which have proved fruitful and rewarding. I haven’t made any decisions yet, preferring to wait, like Anne Morrow Lindbergh, on the gifts of the sea. I will probably have something more to say about this after the retreat. At the moment, let me just say that one path that has opened to me (and is looking very much like the right path) is one of immense change. I am not so fond of change anymore, especially change that may involve a fair amount of tears. However…as God calls me, so must I go.

Because Beloved is involved with her church, we worship there as well as another congregation we have found to feel like home (we alternate Sundays); and then to River City for afternoon worship. The opportunity to simply rest and worship has been a tremendous gift. I know some pastors can lead worship and be present for worshipping at the same time—I have a difficult time with sustaining that through a whole service.

And another thought…I am having an Important Birthday tomorrow—reaching 50. This milestone has added urgency to my discernment quest. If there is to be a major change (undecided at this point), then I had best be about it before I run out of time to actually minister!