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.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Good Friday - A Funeral Semon

Isaiah 25:6-9; Romans 6:3-11; John 19:16b-40

Did Jesus’ mother, and his aunt, and the two Mary’s who were his followers grieve? I mean, I’m sure they did, they must have, because grief is connected to love, and they loved him deeply, so they must have grieved deeply, but the Gospel only tells us what they did, not how they felt. I’m not blaming the Gospel––emotions were not a huge part of the vocabulary of those times. In the last few decades especially, we have progressed in our understanding of emotional and mental health and trauma. Words like PTSD, depression, anxiety, trauma––these are words that weren’t in the Bible, although the experiences were probably the same. And so today, we can name what those women, and indeed all of Jesus’ followers were experiencing, and we can call it grief.

We are in grief. It’s important to say that, and to hear it, and to acknowledge it. Each one of us, to varying degrees, are experiencing a global grief that is both specific and general. On an individual scale, we may be grieving the death of a loved one, made more intense because we cannot gather together and share one another’s burdens. Some of us are grieving the loss of work. Losing one’s job causes grief. Not just because the income is lost, which is always significant, but also because the meaning and worth that we derive from working is lost, too. If we are lucky enough to still be working, we may be grieving the loss of daily interaction with our co-workers, or the loss of our normal workplace. These are genuine losses.

If you are a student or a teacher, you will be grieving the loss of your classrooms and your learning communities. If you are still working in the public sphere––if you are a health worker, or a postal worker, or a retail worker, or a utility worker––you are probably grieving the loss of security and safety, as you must wonder which of the people you come face-to-face with might get you sick.

If you are a senior, you are likely grieving the loss of your social gatherings, of seeing the faces of young people, of getting together for coffee and a chat.

If you are a parent, especially of school-aged children, then you are likely grieving your own losses and those your children’s.

You may be grieving the shut-down of those things that give you joy, like the arts, or sports leagues. It may sound silly to say that we grief the loss of the Stanley Cup or NBA playoffs this year, but some of us do. The grief is real.

And those are just the specific losses. We are also grieving the death of systems that are almost too big to grasp but have an impact nonetheless. The death of the economy as we know it, of the world as we know it. We are grieving the profound loss of a future on which we built our present.

Today is a day to grieve. It is a day when we can gather together and acknowledge that death is real, that loss is real, and that in the face of all this, we are exhausted and overwhelmed. Oh yes, the exhaustion that you have been feeling is a symptom of grief. I am guessing that most of you are more tired than usual, even if you are doing less than usual. That is a manifestation of grief. As is being constantly forgetful, short-tempered, and easily distracted. You are not the only one experiencing these things. We all are. This is grief. All of the manifestations of grief that we have heard about––denial, depression, bargaining, anger or blame (either of others or ourselves)––these are all our daily realities right now, along with having trouble sleeping or needing to sleep more, having poor appetites or eating more junk food, and decreased motivation. Made worse, of course, because we are protecting one another by staying apart. Technology, as life-saving as it is right now, is no substitute for physical presence. Another loss we grieve.

But here is the thing about grief and Good Friday. About grieving on this day of crucifixion. We are not grieving alone.

Today, above all other days, we proclaim that God is with us in grief, because it is God who is on the cross. Today is the day that we proclaim that God the Son, Jesus Christ, experienced what it is to die alone. What it is to be separated from family and friends as you take your last breath. Today is the day that we proclaim that God the Father experienced what it is to grieve the loss of a beloved. God did not turn away from the pain of the world, did not escape into some heavenly cloud until it was all over. God descended into the pain, into loss, into grief. 

God not only experienced it two thousand years ago, God continues to experience it today. God has never abandoned God’s creation, not even in its darkest moments, and so God is with the seniors in McKenzie Towne, God is with the critically ill in ICU, God is with the nurses and doctors and morgue workers in cities overwhelmed by death, God is with those who are sitting at their kitchen table crossing items off a grocery list because they can’t afford all of them anymore. God is with you, and God grieves with you. This not some abstract statement. God became human, and God suffered, and God died. God knows, in bone and flesh, in heart and mind, what you are going through, because––as Emmanuel, as the Word made flesh, as Jesus of Nazareth––God has felt it, too.

And yet, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” We cling to this promise, and we proclaim it even today, especially today, because it means that just as Christ shares our loss with us, we share new life with him. We know that Good Friday is not the end. We know that the crucified one is raised, that the tomb is empty. Jesus was raised, the first of us all, as a fulfillment of God’s promise that God “will destroy ... the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; God will swallow up death forever.” We know that the Lord “will keep [our] going out and [our] coming in from this time on and for evermore.” We have seen this accomplished in Jesus’ resurrection to new life, and we will share in that, because we are united with him.


 Grief does not mean we have given up hope, and hope does not mean that we do not grieve. Grief and hope, the cross and the empty tomb, go together. We know that death is real, and we proclaim that it is not the end. Today is a day to lament and grieve, and it is okay to take the time to acknowledge the pain of our losses. And so, for now, we will sit with our grief, and we will lament, both our own pain and the pain we have caused others. But we will do so knowing that God is with us at every moment, and we will do so secure in the promise that new life is coming. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Maundy Thursday - Communion in the Holy Spirit

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
How shall we follow Jesus’ commandment this year? How shall we do as Jesus did? We cannot wash one another’s feet, or hands. We cannot come to the rail to have our sins forgiven, or to receive Holy Communion. We cannot visit the sick or those in prison, we cannot invite strangers, or even friends and family, to share an Easter meal with us. We cannot do any of the things that Jesus and the disciples did on their last night together, because those things are the very opposite of love. This year, gathering with others is the opposite of love. We might even say that gathering with others, being in the presence of one another, is a betrayal. We might carry this virus unknowingly to those we love, we might infect someone else without realizing that we can, we might be an agent of death for them, and so we cannot do what Jesus did for us.

Of course, we know that all of these things are not the only ways to love. Love is more than just physical presence. Love manifests in a myriad of ways, because love always finds a way. As we have come to experience in this past month, love includes praying for one another, and staying away from one another. Love in this time includes making the sacrifice of giving up our own desire for personal presence in order to save the lives of those very ones we want to be with. 

Now, Jesus did know this kind of love, too, and it is superficial to interpret him as saying that that the only way we can give and receive his love is if we are physically together in one place. You see, the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus himself knew that he would not be physically present with his disciples for much longer. In order to prepare his disciples for their separation during his arrest and crucifixion, and then for his ascension into heaven, he told them, “I will be with you only a little longer.” And then he told them that when he was gone, he would send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, to be with them.

This is our comfort, on this evening and this coming Sunday, and all the days to come: that God’s Holy Spirit, who brings us together, whom Jesus promised to send, is coming, has in fact already come, and is far more powerful and glorious than we can imagine. This is the same Spirit that was present at creation, that was the breath of God blowing over the waters. This is the same Spirit that was present at Pentecost, coming upon the disciples who were separated from their friends as they gathered behind locked doors. This is the same Spirit who encountered Paul on the road to Damascus, who revealed Christ to Paul, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. 

Most importantly for us right now, this is the same Spirit who came upon Jesus in his baptism, and came upon each one of us in our own baptism, making us one in Christ and with Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit is the power that makes each one of us part of the whole body of Christ through baptism. Not just each of you listening now, but across time. The power of the Holy Spirit transcends the separation of time, and makes you one with your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, your ancestors in faith, and with your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be born. In baptism, the Holy Spirit makes us one together. And not just with our family members, but with those around the world and across time. I know there have been people from all over Canada and the States joining us for our services. In our shared baptism in Christ, we are really, truly one, and we always have been. The power of the Holy Spirit, the glory of God, transcends all boundaries and gathers us all together. We are knit together with the first disciples, and with those who will be the last, all together in Christ.

It is this same Spirit who is at work among us this evening, calling us to gather and inviting us to the table for Holy Communion. It is the same Spirit of God who enables us to see and to believe that Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the bread and the wine of this table, and of every table where Jesus is invited. Even on a normal Maundy Thursday, when thousands of churches around the world celebrate Communion in their own ways, with their own bread and their own wine, the Spirit gives us the faith to believe that Christ is present in each place, gathering us together in one.
This year, it is this same Spirit whose power is manifest in our gathering this evening, who brings us together even though we are physically apart. The Holy Spirit is not limited by our inability to be in the same physical space. God’s Spirit is powerful enough, transcendent enough, to cross the boundaries of space and time, through whatever tools are available. In this time, that means the tools of technology. Through cameras and screens, through fibre optic cables and satellites, through phone lines and network servers, the Holy Spirit yet again overcomes the barriers that keep us apart, and holds us together in Christ.

On this Maundy Thursday, we are not able to follow Christ in the ways we’re used to, but there is something miraculous in this night that we have not experienced before. Every year until now, we have been in the same physical space to receive God’s love in the body and blood of Christ. In all those years, it was an easy thing to believe that we were one in Christ. But this year, God shows us something even greater, which is that despite our physical distance from one another, we are still gathered in Christ. We are still one Body. We still taste the one bread and drink from the one cup because it is still the one Spirit who is at work in our midst, it is still the one Lord who tells us that “this is my body given for you, this is my blood shed for you.” One bread and one cup does not mean that each bite is from the same loaf or each sip from the same bottle; it means that it comes from one body and from one blood, which comes from Christ who died for us. Our physical distance cannot prevent Christ from coming to us, our physical separation cannot undo the bonds that make us one in Christ through our baptism. Of course, it has always been this way––we have always been one in Communion with every Christian around the world, with the saints of every time and every place, but this year we experience it anew for the first time. We experience the power of the Holy Spirit and the glory of God in new ways, an ongoing revelation of the greatness of the Triune God.

And this is the glorious love of God for us: that God’s Spirit of love never stops finding new ways to reach us and to gather us together with one another. Yes, we are physically alone, and must stay this way in order to love one another, but Christ has been sent out to us. Christ comes to us where we are, so that one day, whenever that day comes, we might go out to where others are, knowing truly now that Christ really is present everywhere. God really does transcend all boundaries. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”


Christ is with us, the love of Christ among us, and so even as the night grows dark, even as we flee from one another, even as we face death, even the death of Christ, we walk through the valley knowing that the risen Christ walks by our side, that God has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemy, and that Easter is coming. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sunday, April 05, 2020

Palm Sunday - In the Midst of this Earthquake

Matthew 26

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? There’s different kinds, you know. There’s the sharp jolt kind, that feels like something hit the house. The first time I felt one those, it was over before I even realized what happened, and I thought, “oh! Well, okay then,” and I carried on with my day. There’s another kind, which is fairly short and rumbly, and feels like a heavy truck rolled right by the living room window. You might hear some glasses in the cupboard tinkling against each other, or dishes rattling. Those ones are often long enough for you to notice that they’re happening, but just as you notice, then they’re gone. Both of these kinds of earthquakes are alarming, but they’re usually over pretty quickly.

The scariest kind of earthquake is the one that starts slowly, like you’re standing on a swaying floor, and then builds up and sways more and more, and goes on and on. I was in one of those once where I actually heard the earthquake come rolling down the street towards our house. It wasn’t enough time to get ready, but it was enough time to get scared. Those slow rolling ones are the worst. You can’t tell when they’re going to end, and you can’t tell how bad they’re going to get before they do. You just run and hide under the table, and hang on for dear life, and pray.

The Gospel of Matthew mentions earthquakes a couple of times. It’s the only Gospel that does, actually. In our reading for today, the Gospel says that at the moment Jesus breathed his last, the earth shook and the rocks were split. 

We can imagine what that must have been like for the disciples. Remember, with the exception of some of the women, none of them were at Jesus’ crucifixion that morning. They had fled only the night before. Perhaps they were hiding out in the houses of their friends. Maybe they were hunkered down in an alley in Jerusalem, hoping that the Roman soldiers wouldn’t find them. Maybe some of them started back to Galilee the moment Jesus was arrested, risking being out on the open road at night. Wherever they were, as the evening of Jesus’ arrest became the morning, they would have experienced an increasing fear that his death was coming. Their world began shaking and falling apart the moment Jesus was arrested, and so when the earthquake at Jesus’ death rocked Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, they would have been terrified. Nobody knew how this was going to end, whether there would be more earthquakes to come or whether this earthquake would be big enough to destroy everything. They didn’t know whether the Roman soldiers would find them where they were hiding, whether they, too, would die. The week that had started with the triumphal procession in Jerusalem, with what was actually a protest rally against the Roman Empire, ended with each of them fleeing, with Peter separated from his beloved Jesus, with Jesus himself isolated and awaiting death. They were in hiding and the earthquake was coming.

Is it too cliched, too trite, to say, I know how they felt? Because we do. This year, this week, we do. We know the feeling of being in hiding, in isolation, of being separated from those we love. We know the fear of being exposed, of being “found” by this virus, we know the fear of losing family and friends, we are coming to know the fear of our loved ones dying alone because going to be with them means risking ourselves and others whom we love. 

And, even though we live in the prairies, we now know the fear of being in an earthquake, as this slow-at-the-beginning virus picks up in intensity and speed. It has hit the world like a rolling earthquake, and as we hang on for dear life and pray, we don’t know when it will end, or how much damage will be done when it does. As this Holy Week progresses from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, we identify even more closely with the journey of the disciples than perhaps ever before.

But there is one key difference between us and them. One absolutely critical difference that we cannot overlook.

We know how their story ends. We know that their earthquake stops, and that when it does, the cross is empty, and so is the tomb. We know that their fear ends in rejoicing with the risen Christ. We know that their hiding behind locked doors ends with them being found by Jesus himself, the Lord of life. We know that their week ends in Easter.

Now normally, pastors don’t like to rush from Palm Sunday to Easter. It’s important to take the time in the middle for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, to lament and grieve and understand our part in Jesus’ death. But I think this year that we are lamenting and grieving and understanding our part in the death of others enough. And to survive through our earthquake, to have hope even, we need the reminder that Easter is coming. In fact, Easter has already come. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.


And so, just as the disciples’ story ends in Easter, we can put our hope in the promise that our story will end that way, too. The resurrection on Easter, the new life promised to all, the defeat of the power of death, this is the way all stories end. No matter how bad it gets in the middle, we always end with Easter. We do not know how long this earthquake will last, although we know it will get worse. We do not know how long we will be separated from those we love. We do not know which of our loved ones will die, and which of the structures that we thought would stand forever will fall. But we do know that the earthquake will not last forever, we know that separation is not forever, we know that even death is not forever. The disciples’ story, and ours, ends in the resurrection of the One who was betrayed, isolated, and died. It ends in the risen Christ. And so, even this week, and especially this week, as we take shelter and as we pray, we know that God hears us, and so we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.