Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Advent 1 - The Darkness of the Womb - Nov 24, 2020 - LTS Chapel

 Mark 13:24-37


So, I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, which means that as the hours of darkness increase, my brain tells me it’s time to sleep. Maybe I was a bear in a past life. Coincidentally, sleep is also what my brain tells me to do when my stress increases, when my emotional darkness increases, if you will. It’s how my brain protects me from being overwhelmed by all of the stresses and anxieties that exist, or that I can imagine. I’m guessing you can guess how desperately I constantly want to be sleeping these days. And you might understand how irritated I am by Jesus’ words to us that, in the middle of the night, in the midst of the darkness, we are supposed to “Keep awake.” I’m trying to pull the covers over my head and hide away from everything, not keep awake.


Although I may be alone in my need for so much sleep, I know I’m not alone in experiencing this time as one of increasing darkness and stress, and something that we want to get away from. I’ve stopped asking people I haven’t seen in a while “what’s new?” because I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. We are tired of hearing bad news, we are tired of hearing about death, we are deep-in-our-souls tired of whatever dreadfulness 2020 is going to throw at us next.


And our Gospel reading for today isn’t helping. It’s almost as if it’s written to generate fear and anxiety - from the sun and the moon and stars growing dim, to Jesus’ words “Beware!”, it doesn’t initially seem to be a very reassuring text. This is no lullaby. The light of the celestial objects going out isn’t meant to bring a comforting end to the day’s business, but to tell us that the world is becoming unglued. It’s not meant to bring that calming “hush” that descends on a summer evening as we enjoy a drink on the patio, but a gasp as the power cuts out in the middle of eating supper when it’s dark in November. I hear in Jesus’ words a foreboding darkness; a darkness that seems to me to presage death. A darkness and a death I would rather just sleep through.


And yet… I can’t help but wonder if the darkness is as dreadful and fearful as I make it out to be. The dimming of the sun and moon and stars in the Gospel of Mark was actually a good thing for Mark’s audience. These stellar objects represented Rome’s emperors from Caligula in 37 CE all the way through to the end of the Flavian dynasty in 96 CE. The emperors frequently utilized the image of the sun in the heavens to represent themselves, to lend themselves divine stature, and these were the same emperors who presided over the destruction of the Israelite people and their Temple in 70 CE. That their brightness and their power should dim was indeed a sign that the world was ending, but a world that had brought pain and suffering to Jesus’ people. The lights of the Roman Empire going out was not a time of fear for the Israelites, but a time for rejoicing. Who among the children of Israel would want to sleep through those lights being extinguished?


We Christians have our own moment of darkness that is meant not to be feared, but to be celebrated, and that is the darkness of Holy Saturday. After Jesus was crucified, after the sun grew dim, he was placed in the tomb and the stone rolled across the doorway blocking all light, engulfing his body in complete darkness, in the darkness of death. And yet I don’t think it would occur to any of us to want to sleep through Holy Saturday as it transitions into Resurrection Sunday. We welcome those sunrise services, we welcome the sun emerging from the darkness, we welcome the Son of God emerging from the tomb. We don’t want to sleep through the darkness of Holy Saturday, because we would entirely msiss the glorious dawn of Easter! No one among us wants to sleep through the birth of new life!


The most stirring articulation of this transformation in how we perceive the darkness that I have ever heard comes from Valerie Kaur. Kaur is from the Sikh religion, and is an activist in the States on issues of racism and gender inclusion, amongst other justice issues. Almost four years ago exactly, two months after Trump was elected, she delivered what I would call a sermon, at an interfaith New Year’s Eve service in New York City. She described how dark the world had become for her, particularly as she contemplated the world her children would live in. She talked about her fear about what the darkness seemed to be bringing, and then she paused and she said, “what if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?” 


What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? As Christians, we get this. We know this. The tomb, the place of death on Holy Saturday, the dimming of the Roman Empire––yes, these were moments of death, of the tomb, but they were also moments of the womb, of the entrance into new life, into the light of the true Son, not to be slept through, but to be joyfully anticipated. To watch out for, to keep awake for, so that we don’t miss its arrival.


This emergence from the womb, this new birth is actually what we anticipate in the season of Advent. We’re not retroactively anticipating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago, we’re not going back in time. We are actually going forward, to Easter, to the resurrection of Christ, and anticipating that time when that resurrection will come to the whole world, when the kingdom of God, rather than the kingdoms of the current empires, will reign. We are waiting for this current suffering to end, for these current empires to grow dim, we are waiting for the One who gathers people from all the corners of the earth under his wings, as a hen gathers her brood, to come into the world again. This is what keeps us awake at night, not waiting through the darkness of the tomb, that would shut us into death forever, but waiting through the darkness of the womb, that will open to the light of God, bringing new life and new light to its darkest recesses. 


‘“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.’ It is like a woman going into labour, when she leaves the main room and puts her servants in charge, each with her works, and commands the midwife to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake––for you do not know when the baby of the house will be born, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else the new baby may find you asleep when they come suddenly. And what I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake.”


The powers of death are dimming; new life is coming. May the reminder that Advent brings not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb keep you awake in joyful anticipation. Thanks be to God, Amen.


Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Nov 10, LTS Chapel, Investing God’s Resources

 Matthew 25:14-30


“It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them, ... then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.”

   

Well, I want to know who their financial advisers were because - wow - that’s a great return on investment! The investment return these days is so low that sometimes I think I would make more money if I buried my money in a hole in the ground! The market right now just seems way too risky to put anything in, and I can’t afford to lose anything.


Of course, it does raise the question, why is Jesus telling a parable about investing money? Shouldn’t he be telling a story about how the kingdom of heaven is as if a rich man went away and the slaves took all his money and gave it away to the poor? Wouldn’t that be more in keeping with Jesus’ basic principle that God is concerned for the poor and the oppressed? After all, it was in this very same Gospel where Jesus says to the rich young man, ”if you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” So why, in this parable, is Jesus lifting up the first two slaves’ actions as models of what to do with a rich man’s money?


Well, it turns out that Jesus may have been alluding to how money was meant to be invested in the actual economy. You see, the Roman Empire at that time had this idea of what is called a “moral economy.” Now I know that today we might think of that as an oxymoron, but back then it was this idea that the circulation of money and resources was for the good of the whole community. People who were blessed by the gods with riches were morally obligated to put those riches into circulation: to take them to the market and spend them, to pay people for their labour, to have households, ekonomia to switch into Greek, where more than just the immediate family was taken care of. 


Of course, this wasn’t just a Roman idea. The books of Torah and the story of Ruth make reference to this same idea: a landowner who is wealthy enough to have fields of grain is commanded not to reap every last stalk, but to leave the edges and to leave the grain that gets missed for the needy in the community (Leviticus 19:9, 23:22; Ruth 2:15-16). There is this idea that the entire community is meant to be blessed by the wealth of the individual - that God has created the entire system so that, as a whole, with proper distribution, everybody really does have enough. Those who are born into positions of privilege are morally obligated to share with those who aren’t. If you happened to be blessed enough to have 1 talent, or 5, or 10, then you are expected to put that back into the community, back into the economy, so that everyone can benefit from it. Burying the riches you have, hoarding it, holding onto it means keeping it from others who would benefit from it, and defying God who has given it to you to share.


Of course, since this is a parable, we know that Jesus was talking about more than just money. His audience were his disciples, who were perhaps not blessed with money, but were blessed with his presence among them. They had been entrusted with the riches of Jesus. Not money, but his words of love, his words of wisdom, his acts of healing and forgiveness. They had been given Jesus’ own power to cast out unclean spirits, to cure disease and sickness, to show people that the world was more than what it appeared.


And Jesus, who knew that he was about to leave them, was telling them that they were to take that love and wisdom, to take those acts of healing and forgiveness, and to invest them in the world. Not to limit them to their inner circle, not to share them only amongst others who followed Jesus like they did, amongst those who would pay it back, so to speak, but to go out, into the public market, as it were, and to invest it.


Which is, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, Jesus’ message for us, too. This parable is Jesus’ word to us, his followers today, that while he is away, we are to take the love and forgiveness that he has extended to us, loaned to us, and to extend it and give it to others. We are to take the Gospel and go out, into the public market, and to invest it.


Which sounds good, that’s why we’re all here, but i have a slight problem with investing, I’m afraid. And that’s that it’s risky. There is no such thing as an actual guaranteed return on investment. Not with the “moral economy” of Jesus’ time, and not today. We can put our “money” out there, and it might disappear. I think that’s what that last slave was afraid of, actually. I think he was afraid that he would invest that one talent that his master had entrusted to him and that it would be lost. That he would come back empty-handed. He was afraid of losing his master’s money, and so he hid it.


And I think we, too, are more like that last slave than we like to admit. We become afraid of wasting the message of love and wisdom and healing and forgiveness that Jesus has given to us to share. Or, at least, I am. I am afraid that if I love my enemies, they will use it against me. I am afraid that if I share Jesus’ words of wisdom, I will be exposed as a naive fool. I am afraid that if I reach out in healing and forgiveness, and am rejected, too many times, that if I do it the “seventy times seventy” that Jesus commands, that I will end up burned out. I am afraid that, in the end, Jesus’ love and wisdom and healing and forgiveness is simply not enough to supply the needs of the entire world, and so I want to hide that love and forgiveness, to bury it, so that at least there’s enough for me and the others who really deserve it.


But where I and that last slave are so mistaken is in our thinking that the master has limited resources. That our master can’t afford to lose in the public market. That our master doesn’t want us to waste what we have been given on those who will just throw it away. Where we are mistaken is in forgetting that what we consider risky, our master does not.


This is the Good News for today, as we continue to wait for the Son of Man to return in glory, as we continue to wait for the kingdom of God to manifest in all of its fullness, as we continue to wait for the economy of God to fill the hearts and bellies of everyone: the Good News is that God has more than enough to go around. The Good News is that it is impossible for us to waste Christ’s message of love and forgiveness because there is no end to that love and forgiveness. We do not need to be careful, we do not need to be afraid of losing what has been given to us to share, because there is more of that where it came from. Christ is not going to be mad if you share his forgiveness with someone who just takes advantage of it. Christ is not going to accuse you of wasting your time and energy when you proclaim his love to someone who refuses to change. Christ is not going to shame you when you proclaim his wisdom and get taken for a fool.


Instead, regardless of the return on investment you receive, Christ welcomes you into his joy. No matter how effectively, or ineffectively, you invest Christ’s words into the world, Christ is joyful and wants you to share in that joy. His joy––your joy––does not come from seeing the return on investment of sharing the Gospel, which may or may not turn a profit, but simply from the act of sharing. The effectiveness, after all, is not up to us, and whenever we think it is, we are sure to be miserable and afraid. Instead, we are free to put Christ’s message of love out into the world, wherever we like, to share it with whomever we like, like Oprah Winfrey giving away cars––”You get Christ’s love, and you get Christ’s love, and you get Christ’s love!” And that, sisters and brothers, is a joy.


As you wait for the master to return, as you wait to report to him on what you have done with his resources, have no fear. Our Lord does not jealously guard his resources, but shares indiscriminately from his abundance, and entrusts and empowers you to do the same. So, since it’s not yours to begin with, share Christ’s love, invest it, waste it, with the joy and abandon of God. God can afford to lose it, praise be to God. Amen.

Sunday, June 28, 2020

June 28 - Sacrificing the Plan for the Promise

Genesis 22:1-19

So, we’re looking at Genesis today, and I wonder what Abraham thought about on his three-day trek with Isaac to the mountains in Moriah. Three days is not a long time to mull over the most momentous act of one’s life, but I’m guessing that what kept returning to mind was God’s promise to Abraham so many years ago. On that day, God proclaimed, “This is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. ... I will establish between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant.” (Genesis 17:4, 7) This must have jumped immediately to Abraham’s mind when God told Abraham to go and sacrifice his beloved son Isaac.

And I’m guessing that the next thing he thought was, “Again?” If you remember, just before this happened, Abraham had been told by God to obey his wife Sarah, and send Hagar and Ishmael, his first-born, away into the wilderness of Beer-sheba. Even though God promised Abraham that God would take care of Ishmael, Abraham didn’t actually know that that had happened. All Abraham saw was the back of his first-born son, disappearing over the horizon and away from shelter and water and protection. 

God had promised Abraham that God would make him the father of nations, and continue in covenant with his offspring for generations to come, and then God encouraged Abraham to send his first-born son away, and was demanding the life of his only remaining son. God had promised a future for Abraham and his children, but how could that possibly happen now? What was Abraham thinking in the midst of this? We know how the story ends, how God would work it out, but Abraham didn’t. We don’t know whether Abraham took every step towards that mountain of sacrifice with reluctance, or with eagerness to witness a miracle, or with confusion, or all of the above. Scripture tells us that Abraham said to his men that both he and Isaac would return from the mountain, and that he told Isaac that God would provide a lamb for the offering. Whether Abraham truly believed this to be the case, or was engaged in deception, either of himself or others, we don’t know. 

All we know is that Isaac embodied the living, breathing future that God had promised, and now God was telling Abraham to give Isaac up. To continue to trust God’s promise, but to let go of any plans for how that promise would come to pass.

That’s what this story is telling us today. This isn’t a story about child sacrifice, which was actually pretty common in that part of the world at that time, thank goodness we’re past that. This is a story about future sacrifice. More specifically, this is a story about sacrificing our plans of how we think God’s future for us will come about. What the stories of Abraham and Isaac, and of Abraham and Ishmael, tell us is that we shouldn’t hold too tightly to our ideas of how exactly God is going to deliver on God’s promise; we shouldn’t get too caught up in our own plans. Because, as we see with Abraham, at some point, God may ask us to walk a very different path than the one we planned to take to get to where God is calling us.

I think this is God’s message for us today. As we try to make plans for the future, we know that God promises a future for us, and we know that that future is good, but just how we are going to arrive at that future is a bit of a mystery. And, as so often happens when we’re in uncharted territory, we’re tempted to make a lot of plans. Which is not a bad thing. Plans are not bad. I am a planner. But we go astray when we put our faith more in our plans than in God’s promise. And so God sometimes has to encourage us to let those plans go.

Which is very unsettling, especially when we face uncertainty on all sides, and are trying to discern and plan a lot of different things in our lives. From trying to plan how to gather together as a congregation in-person, to trying to plan how the call process should proceed, to personal things like trying to plan how kids will go back to school in the fall, or how work will unfold in the months to come, or travel plans, or plans for retirement, or for family gatherings. For the last three-and-a-half months, we have been living day-to-day, at most week-to-week, and it is exhausting. We want to be able to start planning. Of course, we all trust that God will provide us with a future, and we trust that that future will be good. It’s just that we’re less inclined to trust the process of how that future will come to be. We want to know how exactly that future will arrive, we want to feel some control over our lives. And along comes this story of Abraham and Isaac, and here I am telling you that this story means that we need to sacrifice our plans, that we need to lay our plans on the altar of our Lord, and say goodbye to them. I don’t like this story.

But we’re only halfway through this story, and we can’t stop here, because this is also a story about how God does keep God’s promises. Abraham had to sacrifice his plans and expectations for how the future would come to be, but Abraham did not actually have to sacrifice Isaac. God did indeed bring about the future that God promised––we are here, after all. And this is also the message of this story for us today. God does have a good future in mind for God’s children––for all of you and each of you––and God will bring it to pass. Not always the way we expect, but in God’s own way. When we sacrifice our plans, when we lay our plans before God and give them up as an offering, as Abraham did with his plans named Isaac, God quickly steps in to provide a plan of God’s own. God offers a new path––God’s own path––for getting to the future God has promised us. And, just as God fulfilled God’s promise by blessing Isaac, and then Jacob, and then Joseph, and the generations that followed, God fulfills God’s promise by blessing you and your children and your children’s children.

So how do we actually live this out? How do we sacrifice our plans to God? After all, we really can’t just live with no plans whatsoever. That’s foolish and, as we’ve seen in this COVID time, dangerous. But there is a middle-of-the-road way of living that involves planning only a few steps at a time. God does gives us wisdom and discernment for at least a few steps forward, just as God gave Abraham direction to go to the mountains of Moriah. And so we are called to identify those first few steps, and to embark on them with prayer and trust, even if they seem like they’re going in the wrong direction. And as time progresses, God grants us the wisdom to see the next few steps, and then the next after that, just a few at a time, but enough times that we are finally where we are supposed to be, receiving the fulfillment of God’s promise. 

And I think we are also called to hold these few-steps-at-a-time plans loosely, as we might hold a kitten or a puppy, ready to calmly release them when they start to wiggle free. Because sometimes we do end up on the wrong path, through honest misunderstandings or through deliberate choice, and God is gracious enough to offer us a course correction. We don’t know why, but it was clear that God needed Abraham to let go of Isaac––maybe he was in danger of worshipping him, as so many parents end up worshipping their children. Maybe Abraham was clinging to Isaac too tightly, clinging to Isaac as the manifestation of God’s promise, and so God asked Abraham to loosen his grip. To hold Isaac, to hold Abraham’s plan for the future, loosely. To let go of him, if need be, so that God could make the necessary course correction and set them on the right path again, and so that Abraham, in addition to trusting God’s promise, could also trust God’s plan. We are called to do the same with our own plans and expectations, whether that be expectations for the call process, or for the resolution of COVID, or for anything in this coming year. To hold the plans loosely, and to offer them to God.

Now this is hard, but it is clear that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, you are all capable of doing this. I have seen it over the last two and a half years. It may have seemed that when I first got here, I knew exactly how our time together was going to unfold. But I had no idea. I only knew that God had called me here, and that God promised to work healing of some kind, but I did not know that it would involve going back to the beginnings of this church, or sharing stories of spiritual abuse, or Lenten reflections and Easter healing services. I did not know that God would take the pieces of Advent’s broken history and disrupted plans and make an Easter cross out of them. None of us knew that it would involve what it did. And yet, as we took a few steps at a time together, and then a few steps more, as you sacrificed the expectations of outcomes, as you held our time together loosely, God’s promise of healing was fulfilled, and is being fulfilled, and God continues to bless you. I have seen that you have the trust of Abraham to let go of your plans and to trust in God’s promise. I have seen the Holy Spirit accomplish this in you, and so I know you will allow the Spirit to do it again. 

For the last three months, we’ve been praying the same prayer every time we gather for morning prayer, starting in those first days immediately following the COVID closures. It’s a prayer for God’s guidance, but also a prayer of thanksgiving that God is with us always, leading us along the way step by step, towards the fulfillment of God’s promised blessing. And, with gratefulness to God for all that God has accomplished among us together, it is my prayer for all of you, through the weeks and months and years to come, and I offer it now:
O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go [forward] with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. [ELW, pg 304]

Sunday, June 21, 2020

June 21 - A Sermon for Our Confirmands

Matthew 10:40-42

“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”

Well, L----, that’s what you’re about to do, isn’t it? In a little bit, you are going to stand up here at the front of the church and streaming live on Zoom, and acknowledge your commitment to following God above all others. You’re going to officially renounce, or reject, all the forces that oppose God, or that try to replace God. You’re going to affirm, or agree, that being baptized was a good thing, and that you are happy to be part of Christ’s family and that you recognize that God claims you as God’s own beloved child. And you are going to announce in front of everyone, in “public,” as it were, that going forward you are committed to “proclaim[ing] the good news of God in Christ through word and deed..., serv[ing] all people...., and striv[ing] for justice and peace in all the earth.”

Wow. That’s a lot of pressure! Especially that last bit, serving all people and striving for justice and peace in all the earth. After all, you’re only a few years into being a teenager and already you’re expected to stand up and do the right thing, no matter what anybody says.

And, just to be clear, when you stand up and do the right thing, people are going to say a lot. Adults are going to say a lot. That’s actually what Jesus is trying to warn us about in the Gospel reading we just heard. Following Jesus in doing the right thing often puts us into conflict with others, especially with those in positions of authority over us. Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father,” and “one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” And then he says, “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Yikes! Those are harsh words, especially on Father’s Day! I bet you didn’t think you were coming to church to be told that!

Jesus even says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Which is weird because when we talk about Jesus we call him the prince of peace, and that he brings peace on earth, and that he gives us the peace that passes all understanding. So how can he be talking about bringing a sword? Well, what Jesus is saying is that God did not send him to earth to support the peace that existed at his time, which was the peace of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire established peace by force. If slaves didn’t like being slaves, and tried to escape from slavery, the Empire’s soldiers just killed them, and look, peaceful again. Jesus definitely did not come to support that kind of peace. Instead, he actually came to expose that peace as a lie and to fight it and to dismantle it. It’s hard for us to believe, but he’s saying that if the government is acting in an unjust way, that establishes peace by force, then he is calling us to stand up to it, no matter what the consequences. 

And that’s because the ultimate authority for Christians isn’t the Roman Emperor, or the government, or even our parents. Jesus is our Lord, our Saviour, our Emperor, our King, our boss, and the one that we should obey even if it means disobeying someone else. It’s right there in Luther’s explanation to the First Commandment, “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” Jesus is very clear. We are to follow God as we see Christ do, even if it means contradicting our parents or our teachers or our pastors. “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” And by cross, he means bearing the disapproval and consequences of standing up for justice and peace. Sometimes when you stand up for what’s right, people with authority will tell you to be quiet or to sit down because you’re just a kid. 

Now, I’m not that worried about you sitting down and being quiet. And I don’t mean just you, L----. I think that you and other kids your age are a real gift to the church, because you challenge us to think more deeply about what we really mean by following Christ. You all ask us lots of questions, uncomfortable questions sometimes. And your questions expose where we are being inconsistent between what we proclaim and what we actually do. You all truly believe that God loves everyone, and you call us out when we don’t act that way. You all also bring your Christian beliefs into the world. You want things to be fair and right not just in church, but in school, and where people work, and in the world in general. You lead us by example, and when you say to today that you “intend to continue in the covenant God made with you” by doing all these things, I know that you will, because I’ve seen that you already do.

But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you do. None of us should be surprised that the babies and children who were baptized in the church are growing up and proclaiming the good news through word and deed, serving all people, and striving for justice and peace. We shouldn’t be surprised because when you were baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon you and filled you, and what do we know about the Holy Spirit? We believe “that by [our] own understanding or strength [we] cannot believe in Jesus Christ [our] Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called [us] through the gospel, enlightened [us] with his gifts, made [us]holy and kept [us] in the true faith, just as the Spirt calls, gather, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.”

All baptized Christians are called to take up their cross and follow Christ, and all Christians are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do it. The rite of Confirmation is a bit misleading, because it seems like we are asking you to commit to something new, to commit to a new way of being a Christian, to live out a more adult faith, but Confirmation is actually just a reminder of what we have all already been called to do, from the moment we were baptized. It’s not a new way, it’s not a more adult way. It’s just the way. 

More importantly, it’s not a way that you are being asked to commit to and follow on your own. The Holy Spirit carries you and all Christians along this journey, and works in your hearts, and directs your actions, and guides your words. Every time we renounce the devil and all his empty promises, every time we say the Creed and proclaim that Jesus Christ is our Lord, every time that we stand up for what’s right and work for justice and peace, we are doing so with the power and the authority granted by the Holy Spirit. And the power and authority of the Holy Spirit is far greater than that of any earthly authority, even our parents. (And believe me, I’m saying this knowing that my own children are listening and these words are going to come back to me one day... But I’ll also say, as a parent, that as annoying as it is when our children point out to us where we are not living with integrity, we are actually secretly proud of them for standing up for what’s right, no matter what.)

This is what it is to follow Christ, because this is what Christ himself did. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he stood up to the Roman Empire which proclaimed that only some lives were valuable, which said that there should be unified obedience to the Emperor at all costs, who even said that the Emperor was God. He stood up for those who were silenced, for those who were injured, for those who were insulted or ignored, for those who were shoved to the side. He knew that he would lose his life for it, that the Empire would crush him just like it crushed those he was standing up for, but he did it anyway.

And God rewarded him with new life. God acknowledged him as God’s own beloved Son, and God raised him to new life. And L----, God will do the same for you. God is already doing the same for you. God sees all the times that your heart is open to the Holy Spirit and you proclaim God’s love for all people in word or deed, and serve all people, and strive for justice and peace. God sees all the times you stand up for others, whether it’s a big thing or just a little thing. God sees all the times you help someone out who needs a hand, and all the times you think, “that’s not fair!” when you hear about an injustice. God sees the cost you pay for all those moments, too. And God rewards you, with peace in your heart, for knowing you did the right thing. God rewards you with the satisfaction of knowing that you are indeed following in Christ’s footsteps. God rewards you by freeing you from “the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw you from God.” And God rewards you with the strength to do it again, and then again, for your whole life, until one day, when you are old and wrinkled, you will look back and you realize that you have walked the path of Jesus for your entire life and have been blessed by your Father in heaven. 


Many years ago, God brought you to baptism, L----, by working in the hearts of your parents. Today, God is working in your heart by bringing you to this day. And even though you are the only one standing up here today, you are not alone. All of us who are baptized stand with you, and with one another, in responding to the Holy Spirit’s call to the whole church to follow Christ, no matter what. We will stand with you when you face consequences for doing what is right, and we will be cheering when God grants you new life in the midst of that. But even more importantly than us standing with you and cheering, is that Jesus himself is doing it, on behalf of God the Father, through the Holy Spirit. And so we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, June 07, 2020

The Sin of Racism

Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20

I remember the first time I became conscious that people saw me differently. because of the way I look. I was actually an adult, which already makes me more privileged than most people of colour, who have experienced this since they were children. But in any case, what I remember was being asked, in a seminary-related interview, “What was it like growing up in an ethnic household?” Now I was confused, because I’d never actually heard “ethnic household” before. And since it was an American asking me, I said, “Oh, Canada’s pretty much the same as the United States.” And the interviewer said, “No, I mean Japanese.” And I sat there kind of stunned. I had never before been identified as “ethnic.” I knew the word, I knew about “ethnic cleansing,” I knew about the “ethnic vote,” as Jaques Parizeau said after the ’95 Quebec referendum. But I didn’t know that *I* was ethnic. And I stumbled through the rest of the interview, talking about eating Japanese food and celebrating Christmas, but from that moment on, I never stopped being aware that, at least in the North American Lutheran world, I don’t look like everyone else.

Now, that was more than twenty years ago. And in the States. But my most recent memory of being treated differently because of the way I look was last year, here in Calgary. I had to do a funeral at a funeral home. And I got there early, as I always do, in my black suit, wearing my collar, and carrying my alb. And I walked into the building, and one of the staff came up to me, and I said, “I’m here for the funeral.” And the staff person did a double-take, and said, “Which funeral?” Which was a bit odd, because there was only one, but I said the name, and this person said, “Just a minute, I have to go check with the director.” Which never happens. Every single other funeral, I walk in the door, and the staff immediately show me to the little clergy office and hand me a bulletin and ask me if I need water, and all that stuff. But not this time. And the staff person was gone for a while, and then a second staff person comes out and says, “What’s your name?” And I give it, and they disappear again. And finally, a third staff person comes from somewhere else, and says, “Can I help you?” And I say, “Yes I’m here for the funeral,” and although they give me a look, they show me to the office, and things carry on. Now here’s the thing. I realized later why they reacted that way. There was another pastor, there as a guest, wearing a collar, and he was white. The staff assumed that *he* was there to do the funeral, even though he wasn’t wearing a black suit and he wasn’t carrying an alb and he was already sitting with the other guests. I didn’t *look* like a pastor, let alone a Lutheran pastor, and the staff just couldn’t believe what I was telling them.

Christians are not exempt from racism. Canadian Christians are not exempt from racism. We judge people on the basis of the way they look. And I have it easy, just to be clear. What I experience is nothing compared to the way others in this country are treated. I’m half-white, I was born in this country, I speak English “flawlessly,” my vocabulary reflects my level of education, I know our cultural jokes, my last name is very European. These are all privileges that protect me from the more overt racism that people experience here. If I go missing, the authorities will not wait to alert the public, like they have for thousands of indigenous women and girls. If I get into an elevator and there’s someone already there, I don’t start whistling or humming music or be sure to say a friendly hello to show that I’m harmless, as black men do. I’ve never had to teach my children how to respond to racist comments, either from friends or from complete strangers, like every Canadian parent with children who are not white has had to do. Racism exists in Canada, among Christians.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image. ...’ So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them.” Racism is a sin. It’s a sin, not just against our neighbour, but against God. I don’t know how to make it more clear than this. Sin is turning our back on God. Racism is turning our back on a person made in the image of God, because of the way they look. Do you understand the connection here? The way a person looks is a reflection of the image of God. God is not white. Or rather, God is not only white. God is Asian, and Black, and Brown, and indigenous. When God became human, it was as someone from the Middle East. When we look at someone, and react to them because of the colour of their skin, we are reacting to God. And when our reactions are demeaning, or belittling, or skeptical, that’s how we are reacting to God. When we hear of violence against people whose skin is different than ours, and we wonder, did they deserve it? was this an exception? was there an excuse? were there extenuating circumstance?, then that is how we wonder about violence against God. God created humankind in God’s image. Racism is a sin of the highest order.

And we are all sinners. Didn’t we start our service that way? With a confession that we have sinned against God “in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and what we have left undone?” The alternate version of the confession says, “forgive us our sins, known and unknown.” Christians especially cannot exempt ourselves from this sin. We are in bondage to sin and we cannot free ourselves. We don’t like to think of ourselves as committing racist thoughts, word, or deeds, and it’s likely that nobody here has ever used a racist slur or committed a hate crime against someone because of their skin colour. But what have we left undone? What have we thought or said or done unknowingly? Where has our failure to act or failure to speak been a sin?

I remember the first time that I became conscious that I was treating others differently because of the way they looked. I was an adult, and I was walking through a downtown neighbourhood by myself, and there was a group of three or four black teenage boys walking towards me. And I crossed the street. I have two cousins who are half-Jamaican, who would have been the age these boys were at that time, and *I* crossed the street. I wasn’t thinking “racist thoughts;” my sin, which I committed in “deed,” was unknown to me in the moment I committed it. It was only after I had crossed the street that I realized what I’d done. These boys were not behaving in a threatening manner, I think they were even laughing. But I do know that if they had been white, I would not have crossed the street. But they weren’t, and I did. I sinned.

I confess that there have been times when I have kept my mouth shut when people have said things about blacks, or natives, or Pakis, or Arabs, or Africans, or Mexicans, or immigrants. When I should have defended those people made in the image of God, I left that deed undone. In those moments, I sinned against my neighbour, and against God.
This is how the sin of racism manifests in our daily lives. In reflexive actions, in failures to speak, in hesitating to give the benefit of the doubt, in questioning motives, in making excuses for acts or words of violence or even just plain intolerance committed against someone. It manifests in our acceptance of the treatment of people of colour that is anything less than the way we would treat God in our midst. We all commit this sin. The sin of racism is systemic. We are in bondage to it.

But Christ, God-in-the-flesh, God-in-the-Middle-Eastern-flesh, came to free us from bondage. By dying on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, yes, but also by sending us the Holy Spirit, who moves among us so that God’s will for equality be done here on earth as in heaven. 

And the Spirit is moving. That uncomfortable feeling you get when you hear a racist joke? That’s the Holy Spirit, calling you to say something. That prick of conscience you get when you see someone not white being treated disrespectfully? That’s the Holy Spirit, calling you to do something. That lingering feeling of guilt you get when you become aware of all the times you’ve subconsciously reacted to someone on the basis of their skin colour? That’s the Holy Spirit, calling you to repent. The growing skepticism you have when people insist that Canadians, or Christians, aren’t racist? That’s the Holy Spirit, calling you to a deeper awareness of our collective sin. And this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit sent by Jesus Christ, is acting through pricks of conscience, through feelings of guilt, through growing skepticism, through rallies and vigils and protests, through shared videos of police brutality on social media, to commission you to bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth. It may feel overwhelming and scary. But it is, in this time and in this place, how God is calling us proclaim the Good News for all nations, including our own.


Black and indigenous lives matter, because black and indigenous people are made in the image of God, and their lives are under very real, very physical threat. There have been times in our Canadian history when other groups have been under threat, and I’m thinking particularly of our German communities during World War I and in World War II, along with our Japanese communities. Today it is our black and indigenous communities. Every time this happens, we sin against God, especially when we let it continue. But God is working within us to do better, the Spirit is moving to free all people from bondage to this sin, and Christ will be with us always as we resist this hatred together. And so we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Pentecost - The Spirit of Peace and Justice

Acts 2:1-21; John 20:19-23

What does peace look like? I mean, the peace that Jesus sends through the Holy Spirit––what does it look like? Or feel like?

What comes immediately to my mind is the passage from Isaiah 11:6, “and the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, and the calf and the lion, and a little child shall lead them.” And then I think of Psalm 23, or an of the shepherd images in the bible, and sheep grazing peacefully in the field, warm in the sunshine, safe from all enemies. And then there’s our Gospel reading, where Jesus talks about peace as a state of forgiveness––relationships restored, peace between peoples. Long-standing conflicts resolved, people previously at war standing arm-in-arm. When I imagine the peace of the Holy Spirit, that’s what I picture––calm, serene, restful. The Spirit of gentleness.

I would love that kind of peace in the world. Especially after watching the news yesterday, and seeing what is going on in the United States. And I want to say, it’s easy for us up in Canada to look down south of the border and shake our heads, and say oh, well, and shrug. But, as Christians, we ought not to be quite so dismissive. For one thing, those are people, just like you and I. They are our neighbours, whom God calls us to love and care for. The peaceful protestors out in the daytime, and even those destroying property after the sun goes down, they are fellow human beings, one with us in God’s eyes. The police officers who are continuing to use violent means––pepper spray, tear gas, vehicles as battering rams, knees on backs and throats, and the black men and women who are bearing that violence on their bodies, all of them are our neighbours, fellow humans, one with us in Christ. We cannot dismiss what is going on to the south of us. And, for another, we are not exempt in Canada from our own forms of racism, against indigenous people, and yes, even against people with different skin colour than our own. And so, seeing all of this, I yearn for the peace that Jesus promises to send through the Holy Spirit. The bringing together of all people from different places, with different languages, into one.

But I admit that I experience some unease when I hear the actual words from our reading from Acts. Peter says, quoting the prophet Joel, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” I love those verses. The Holy Spirit comes to all, regardless of status or age or gender. The Holy Spirit does not discriminate. This is why we have children’s Sunday, you know––because the Holy Spirit does not bless only those who have reached a certain age.

But those aren’t the verses that make me uneasy. What makes me uneasy is what comes after: “And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.”

Those are not descriptions of the kind of peace that we would want. These are not times where lions and lambs lie down peacefully. These are not times of warm sunshine in a field of flowers, or cool clean water to drink. This peace does not sound calm, or serene, or restful. This is a Spirit of upset, of tempest and earthquake.

And yet, to people whose lives have been misery, who have been trampled on and oppressed, who are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being assaulted, maybe these words do bring peace? This was the situation of those early Christians for whom the book of Acts was written. And the situation of those for whom the prophet Joel was writing. And the situation of black people in America, whose grandmothers and grandfathers still remember segregation and various states preventing black voters from registering and their young men being killed by white mobs for not crossing to the other side of the street when a white woman walked their way. This is not ancient history––this is less than 80 years ago. All around the world, actually, there are people whose lives are being made such a misery that Joel’s words of the day of the Lord being preceded by fire and blood and darkness, by the complete overturning of all the structures of the world, sound like the prelude to peace.

So which is it? Which does the Holy Spirit bring? Which verses embody what happens when the Holy Spirit is present? It is calm or is it destruction? Does the Spirit bring sunny meadows or burning cars?

I think it’s both. When the Holy Spirit is present, there is both justice and peace. There can’t be one without the other. Peace without justice is peace only for some. It is a fake peace, it is like smiling when you don’t mean it. Peace without justice is like leaving the room rather than continuing the argument, but the feelings still linger and poison the air. Peace without justice is like shunning someone––sure, the conflict has stopped, but there is no true reconciliation.

And justice without peace is justice only for some. It’s a fake justice, like one sibling getting sent to their room for something the other sibling did. Justice without peace is what happens when a government jails political prisoners. Justice without peace is like someone being forced to apologize when they don’t mean it. Again, sure, the conflict has stopped, but there is no true reconciliation.
True peace requires justice, and true justice leads to peace. This is very hard to accept. It is very hard to accept that the Spirit brings both. We usually tend to fall on one side or the other––it might be easier for us to accept justice, but not peace, or it might be easier for us to accept peace, but not justice. But that is not the new life that Jesus brings, that is not the vision that God has in mind for us. God wants more for us––God wants true peace and true justice for us, and so they must go hand in hand.

Now normally, I like to have something practical in my sermons, but I’m not exactly sure how to do that in this case. The gap between what God wants for us and what we want for ourselves seems too vast to cross in this case. But this is what I will say: if you yearn for justice, try working a bit for peace. Maybe there is a situation in your own life where you are bothered by injustice, where you feel oppressed or wrongly treated. In that situation, maybe the Holy Spirit is calling you to work for peace, as your path to justice. And if you yearn for peace, then try working for justice. Maybe people are around you are fighting, and you wish they would just stop. Maybe the news bothers you, maybe protests unsettle you, and you wish they would just be over and everybody would go home. In that situation, maybe the Holy Spirit is calling you to take steps towards acting for justice, to find out what is actually going on, to engage in the issue, maybe the Spirit is calling you to work for justice, as your path to peace.


We need both. We need those prophets whom the Spirit calls to speak and fight for justice. And we need those calm voices whom the Spirit calls to speak and plead for peace. When we pray, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven,” this is what we’re praying for. We’re praying for the Holy Spirit to bring peace and justice together. We’re praying for the wolf and the lamb to lie down together, and we’re praying for the blood and fire that precedes the day of the Lord. We’re praying to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus, who flipped tables in the Temple and died on the cross asking for forgiveness for those who put him there. And God will answer. The Holy Spirit will come. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Easter 7 - Children's Sunday - Praying

Acts 1:6-14; John 17:11

[This is a summary of the children's sermon conversation. It was preached by Pastor Daranne Harris for me.]

In Acts, Jesus leaves the disciples. They are alone, and so they go to an upper room where they are staying, and they spend time praying together.

What is praying?

  • Communicating with God
  • Letting God communicate with us

What are ways that people communicate?
  • Talking, sign language, singing, laughing, crying
  • Non-verbal--faces, hugs, dancing, writing and reading, drawing

What are ways people and God can communicate?
  • All the ways people communicate are ways God and us communicate
  • That's called prayer!

In Acts, the disciples prayed together. How can we pray together?
  • Aloud together (using our own words, or the Lord's Prayer)
  • Silently together (listening, reading prayers)
  • Being still together (sitting, kneeling, standing, holding hands)
  • Moving together (dancing, waving arms, rocking)

(Do we have to be together to pray together?
  • No! We can pray any time and any where, and God gathers us together.
  • God makes us one, just like Jesus said.
  • Of course, you can always call up anybody from church, especially me, and ask to pray together, and we always will.)

Why do we pray together?
  • The disciples prayed together because they felt lonely after Jesus left.
  • We pray together to feel God with us.
  • We pray together so others feel God with them.

God gave us lots of different ways to pray together so that we will never feel lonely, and so hat we will feel that God is always with us!

Thanks be to God for prayer! Amen!

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Easter 5 - God's Love for God's Other Children

John 14:1-14

Oh, the Gospel of John. Full of so much beauty, and so many memorable verses. “In the beginning was the Word...” “For God so loved the world....” “I am the good Shepherd...” and this, Jesus’ proclamation, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.” Even those who have not grown up in the church can recite this one––it’s been recited throughout history. But, as I asked last week, with another of John’s verses, what does it mean?

It seems pretty obvious on the surface. Jesus is the way––the only way––to God. And, as a corollary, it seems to say that the only way that God loves us is through Jesus, particularly when the Gospel says later that the Father is shown in the Son, and the Son reveals the Father. It fits with what we heard last Sunday, that Jesus is the gate, the only way to enter the sheepfold. It certainly supports centuries of the church saying that Christians are the only ones who are walking the way, the only ones who are entering the proper sheepfold, and therefore the only ones who are recipients of God’s salvation.

But there’s a problem with this surface-level interpretation, not the least of which is that we are no longer quite so comfortable with asserting our Christian superiority. The big problem is in the Gospel of John itself: when Jesus says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” and when Jesus says, in the passage we read today, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.... In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” The problem is that when we look closely, the Gospel has a contradiction in it.

So what does this mean? How can Jesus say he is both the only way to God and that there are other sheep that do not belong to this fold? How can he say that belief in him is the only way to eternal life and say that there are actually many dwelling places that God has built?

So today is Mother’s Day. Before I had children, I had this idea that a mother is supposed to love all her children exactly the same. And, as I have siblings, as a child, I would be perplexed that my mother seemed to love us all in different ways. One of us would get a privilege, or a a punishment (they were called responsibilities), that the others didn’t. It was confusing, and a source of feelings of either superiority or inferiority, depending on the situation.

This is not to say that I doubted my mother’s love––I knew that she loved each of us equally, which is to say with all her heart. But what I didn’t understand, until I had to raise my own children, is that the way a mother loves each of her children depends on the child.

You see, each child has different needs for love. Some children need a snuggly, cuddly kind of love, with lots of reassurance and hugs. Other kids find being hugged to be too much, and they need more of a challenging kind of love, that encourages them to take risks and go out on their own. Some kids thrive under a quiet, soft love, while other kids need a loud, boisterous love. Some kids do well with gentle cautions, while others only learn what they need to know the hard way. Misreading what a child needs can mean that the love a mother shows is not felt by her child––quite the opposite. Love is not one size fits all. It is one of the challenges of motherhood to figure out what kind of love each child needs, and then to give that to them, and then, as the child grows and their needs change, to respond appropriately. 

This is also true of us in our relationship with God and the love we need from God. Probably one of the worst assumptions anyone can make is that we all relate to God the same way, and that we all need the same things from God. We all need to be loved by God, but how we need that love to take shape is different for each of us. Some of us need God to comfort us, like a mother comforts her child when things are scary. Some of us need a challenging God, who encourages us to take risks on behalf of our neighbours, who pushes us to fight for justice. Some of us need God to be vulnerable with us, to love us by sharing our suffering, while others of us need God to be the mighty protector, taking control of our lives in times of crisis. I would even guess that most of us, throughout the course of our lives, have needed all of these things from God at various times. There is a reason Scripture describes God as both merciful and mighty, as both judging and forgiving, as both nurturing and awe-inspiring. 

Like a good mother, like “the best mother in the whole world,” God loves each of us in exactly the way we need. When we need a protecting God, that is how God loves us. When we need a challenging God, that is how God loves us. God doesn’t always love us the way we want, mind you, but God always loves us the way we need. When we say that God is love, this is what we mean. The problem comes, though, when we believe that the way we need love is the way that everyone else should need it, too. The problem comes when we proclaim that our need is everyone else’s need, when we assume that God loves each of God’s children in exactly the same way. 

And so we come back to the Gospel reading for today. When this Gospel was written, it was for a very specific group of God’s children, who had very specific needs for God’s love. The original audience of this Gospel was Christians who were gathered together, most probably in Ephesus, which is in modern-day Turkey, at least fifty years after Jesus’ death. It’s highly unlikely that any of them would have known Jesus personally, or that any of them would have experienced worshipping as Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem. The best guess of biblical scholars is that they were a community of non-Jewish Christians who were being told by those outside their community that they could not be loved or saved by God because they were not part of the covenant God made with Moses at Sinai. In other words, they were not Jews, and they would not be saved, because they did not have the love of God’s covenant through Torah.

And so Jesus’ message of love is to these non-Jewish Christians, to reassure them that they don’t need to be loved through Torah to be saved by the love of God. Jesus is telling them that they can rely on God’s love through Jesus. They don’t need to look elsewhere. Jesus is telling them that God loves them in a way that is particular to what they need, which is through Christ, who suffices as their way, and their truth, and their life.

But while this was Jesus’ message to this particular group of Christians, it doesn’t mean that this message is meant for all of God’s children everywhere. Again, a good mother doesn’t love each of her children the same way, or show that love in the same way. We, as Christians, need the love of God that we experience through Christ. But that is not necessarily the case for those who aren’t Christian. It’s certainly not the case for Jews, whom God continues to love through Torah. After the horror of the Holocaust, Christians finally realized that Christ is not the way, the truth, and the life for Jews. Quite the opposite. God does not show love to them the same God shows love to us. And perhaps this is true for people of other religions, or no religion, as well. The love we need is not the love they need, but they are God’s children, too. And so perhaps God shows love for them differently than God shows love for us.


So how can we say this? How do we know this is true? Well, there are those other verses in the Gospel of John––Jesus has other sheep, and God’s house has many dwellings. But other than that, we don’t know. I could be wrong. But I do know that a good mother loves her children the way each one needs, and God’s love for all of God’s children is deeper than even the best mother’s love. God loves us Christians through Christ. Nothing else will work for us. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life––for Christians. As for those who are not Christian, who need God’s love in a different way? Well, it’s not a child’s place to tell their mother how she should love her other children. We know that God is full of love for all of God’s Creation, and that God will not turn aside or abandon those who are not of Christ’s fold, just as God has not abandoned us. And so we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Easter 4 - What is Abundant Life?

John 10:10

What makes for an abundant life? Jesus says to his disciples, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” In other places in this Gospel, he talks about coming so that people may have eternal life, and in this Easter season, we talk a lot about resurrection life, and about Easter life, and about new life. It sounds simple, it sounds wonderful, it’s what we need to hear right now. But what is life? What is this thing that Jesus promises in abundance? What does he mean?

Well, we could start with a medical definition of life––life is when our heart is still beating, our brain is still operating, our lungs are still breathing. Those seem to be pretty standard baselines. 
But already we’re in murky waters––what about people who are brain-dead, where these things are all happening but only because there are machines helping. If a machine is breathing for someone, is that life? Is that abundant life? What about people who are able to breathe on their own, whose bodies are functioning well, but who are at the most extreme spectrum of dementia? Who can’t talk or recognize the loved ones who come to them? Is that life? Is that abundant life?

I suspect that as I ask these questions, you are already beginning to form answers in your mind. And I suspect that even as you do, you may be having second thoughts about your first reactions. The difficult thing about the question of ‘what is life’ is that there is no universal answer to this question. Each of us answers it in our own way, based on how we have lived our own lives up to now, and even now, our answers might change.

It’s an important question though, because our answers shape how we live right now. We are actually experiencing this. Everyone has their own opinion on what life is, and on what kind of life is the best life to live, and now that we are collectively choosing to limit our lives for the sake of others, we are having to figure out what those limitations should be. What do we need to live, and what makes life worth living? What makes life abundant? What is essential, and what is extra?

Some things are obvious––food is essential. Shelter is essential. I think we have rediscovered that relationships and companionship are essential. I think we can agree on all these things. But what about personal freedom? Is getting outdoors essential? What about a functioning economy? Or meaningful work? Is music? Is art? Are any of these things essential? Would we risk our biological life––our physical life––for them? Do they give us abundant life? These aren’t rhetorical questions, and once again, we are back to each of us having our own answers. It’s just that now, we have to make real-life decisions based on them that impact not only ourselves but those around us, and we don’t all agree.

We don’t all agree and there are lots of people trying to tell us what the answer should be and promising that if we follow their advice, we will experience abundant life. Some people promise that opening up the economy will give us all new life. Others promise that staying closed is the only way forward. Some people promise that herd immunity will give the whole community true life. Others promise that universal testing and vaccinations are the only way. I like to believe that each group has very sincere reasons for promising what they do, and that each really does believe that they are right. And so the question becomes, who do we trust? Whose promises are reliable? Whom do we allow to shape how we live right now?

This is really what it’s about. It’s not about whether or not we can agree on what is life, it’s about whom we trust to give us that life, whose promise we trust about how to achieve that life, whatever that life might turn out to be. I don’t think we can ever come to an agreement on the definition of what life is, never mind what abundant life is. I don’t think we can come to an agreement because I don’t think there is one single answer. What life is for me, will not be the same as what it is for someone else. I got life this weekend from sitting on the roof of our deck and taking it apart. That’s not life for everyone. I could promise you that doing the same would give you life, but I would be making a lot of assumptions about what gives you life.

So, if you don’t trust me, who do you trust to give you life, whatever that life might be? Who do you allow to shape the way you live right now? Well, as Christians, we trust the one for whom we are named, Jesus Christ. We trust the one who says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” even if we don’t know exactly what that means. We trust the Son sent by the Father who created the world and started life. We trust the One who sent the Son, who delivered God’s people from slavery in Egypt, who worked through Elijah and through Jesus to raise the dead, who brought the people back from exile, who sent the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism, who raised him from the dead. We trust the One who knew us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139), who sent the Holy Spirit to us at our own baptism, and who has been with us every minute of our lives. We trust God––Father, Son, and Holy Spirit––because we have seen God deliver on these promises of life, and we have experienced that life, however momentarily, for ourselves. We don’t know exactly what the promised life looks like, but we do know exactly who the promise-giver is.

Of course, there are certain things that Jesus said and did that tell us a lot about what kind of life he is promising. We know that, in the Gospel of John, his first miracle was to attend a wedding and turn the plain water into good wine. So there is definitely something there about the quality of life being important.

We also know that Jesus’ second miracle was to bring back from the dead the child of a royal official, one of Herod’s lackeys. So we know that there is definitely something there about life being for everyone, for our enemies as well as our friends.

We know that the life Jesus promises is eternal, it is life that comes after death, Jesus does not promise there is no death. This is hard when we’re enjoying the life we have, but it’s also a gift when we realize that death is inevitable. There is something after this.

And, we know that the life that Jesus promises is for all. It’s for the community––it’s not just for the rich, or the privileged, or even the deserving. It’s for each of us and for all of us. The life that Jesus promises is not life for some at the cost of others. It does not require compromise. It is, somehow, through the mercy and might of God, for all. Good life, abundant life, eternal life, for enemy and friend alike.


And so, knowing that, it turns out that we do have an idea about makes for an abundant life. We live so that life might be good, for ourselves and for others. We love our neighbours as ourselves. We live believing that this life is not all we have, that there is more to come. We live trusting in the promise that Easter is real, because we live trusting the promise-giver himself. We trust the One who laid down his life for ours, we trust the One who was himself raised to new life, we trust the One who sends the Holy Spirit to us. We trust the One, Jesus Christ, who said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Third Sunday of Easter - Children's Sunday

Luke 24:13-35 (*NB - the Children's Sunday sermon is dialogue-based, with me asking questions and the children answering. The bullet points are points I want to make sure come across.)

What does Easter feel like?

  • Happy, calm, hearts are lifting, exciting
  • In our Bible stories about Easter - the Marys at the tomb, Thomas, the road to Emmaus - Easter feels like excitement, fear, "hearts burning within us"

Sometimes feeling Easter is hard.
  • Cleopas and his friends didn't feel Easter right away. They walked with their heads down, they were confused, they were sad.
  • Lots of people (adults) find it hard to feel Easter right now.

Why might it be hard to feel Easter?
  • Sadness is a very strong feeling. Fear is strong.
  • Because we don't always recognize Easter, because it's something new!
    • When a butterfly lands on your hand, how do you feel?
    • Do you feel the same way if a caterpillar suddenly landed on your arm?
    • They are the same thing, but we don't automatically recognize that a caterpillar is also a butterfly.
    • If I give you a cup of flour, would you be excited?
    • What about if I gave you some cookies?
    • They are the same thing, but we can't always see what the flour is going to be, so it can hard to be excited.

Sometimes we need help to feel Easter. God helps us to feel Easter when it's hard.
  • In the story for today, when did the disciples first recognize that Jesus was risen and feel it?
    • When he broke bread with them.
  • When do we "break bread" in the church?
    • In Holy Communion.
  • God has given us Holy Communion as a way to help us feel Easter when it's hard to.

Easter has happened no matter what we feel. It is Easter right now, even if we are not feeling excited, but we are feeling tired, or overwhelmed, or sad, or scared, or angry.

In times when you don't feel Easter, know that God will help you feel it eventually, just like God helped the disciples, and the women at the tomb, and Thomas, because God gives you Communion.

Thanks be to God!

Let us pray:
Dear God,
Thank you for Easter.
Thank you for Jesus and his new life.
Help us to feel Easter when we can't.
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Easter Sunday - Back to the Beginning

Matthew 28:1-10

That first Easter was unlike any that came afterwards. The followers were scattered, on the run, hiding. The minute the sabbath ended on Saturday night, some of them would have been rushing on the roads back to their hometowns, fleeing Jerusalem, afraid of getting found by the Roman soldiers and arrested as compatriots of Jesus, as rebels against Rome. All four Gospels tells us that the women stayed, and they were first at the tomb, but the others were nowhere to be found. And I’m not going to disparage them, their fear was genuine, and the arrest of one would likely have led to the arrest of the others. The women might be overlooked by the soldiers, but not the men, who would have faced the same interrogation and then crucifixion as Jesus. And so they stayed away, they didn’t gather, as they would in the years following, to celebrate that Jesus who died was now raised. Every year after that, the followers of Jesus would come together as a community and proclaim the glory of God with one voice, and eat from one bread and drink from one cup together, singing Alleluias and greeting stranger and friend alike with the words, Christ has risen! But not that first Easter. That first Easter was different.

Until now. This is the hardest Easter of the church since that first one. Yes, there have been wars, where congregations in certain cities or certain countries would not have been able to gather, but this is the first time in history when the global church, around the world, has not come together––to be in our congregations, in our buildings, side-by-side with fellow Christians, raising one voice and greeting stranger and friend. We are, like Jesus’ followers on that very first Easter, dispersed––spread out, out-of-touch with one another, literally–– desperate for Good News. 
And so this year, the story of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to those very first disciples resonates more deeply than ever. We know the isolation, we know the fear, we know the uncertainty, and we want, more than anything, to believe that Christ’s promise to be with us always is true.

Did you notice the last thing that Jesus says to the women who have found him? “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” 

It’s a kind of a throw-away verse. Most people focus on the second half of the sentence, that the disciples will see Jesus. And this very important––the disciples will see Jesus, no longer dead, but risen. What a glorious thing––this is why we are gathered today!

But what is also important, particularly for us today, is where the disciples will see Jesus. In Galilee. Galilee is where it all began. Matthew is actually directing the readers to go back to the beginning of the Gospel and read it all again. And when we do, we find that it was in Galilee that the disciples Peter and Andrew first met Jesus. Remember that? They were fishermen, who lived next to the sea of Galilee, and Jesus came and found them with their boats, and called them to be with him.

And now Jesus tells the women that he’s going back to where it started, back to their hometown, where the disciples had probably fled already, to meet them all there. He wasn’t abandoning them, or turning his back on them, as they did to him. And he wasn’t asking them to come the empty tomb, or to the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead, he was going to be with them, to reconnect with them, to show himself as the Lord of Life at their homes.

At their homes.

I think that this Easter has more than one thing in common with that very first Easter. Just as the disciples could not go to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to be reunited with the risen Lord, we cannot go to church. And so, just the risen Lord went to Galilee, to the disciples’ homes to be with them, Jesus Christ comes to be with us. In our homes.

This is the message that we have always proclaimed, that Jesus is with us always. That there is no place too humble for Jesus to go, that there is no person whom Jesus will reject, but this year, it takes on new meaning. Like the first disciples, we are met by the risen Jesus in places we least expect. Not in a glorious sanctuary, with dozens of lilies, and shining white paraments, crowded with family and friends, but in our homes. With floors that probably need vacuuming, and shelves that need dusting, and driveways that might still need shovelling. Whether you are dressed in your fancy Easter clothes, or you are still in your pajamas, you are being met by the risen Jesus who is not ashamed to be at your table, however messy it might be. You are being met by the risen Jesus who brings new life wherever he goes, who brings resurrection to your home.

This is what the disciples discovered that very first Easter and what we celebrate today––that Jesus is risen, that death is not the end, and that God is always with us.


We will remember this Easter for the rest of our lives, as the year we could not go to church. But my prayer to God is that you will also remember it as the Easter that you experienced that Christ came to you, in your homes, where you are. And that even though you are all apart from one another, that you know that God gathers you together with one another, and with the whole Christian church, in the new life of the resurrected Christ. My prayer is that this Easter you experience that there truly is nothing, not death, and not even this quarantined life, that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our risen Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.