Stand Tall

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy

Stand Tall

August 25, 2013          Luke 13 and Jeremiah 1          13^th after Pentecost

(Michelle’ s adoption court delay - tell the story)

It’s the Sabbath!   The day when the focus of life is shifted from the worries and cares of everyday life and instead focused on God.  It’s the Sabbath!  This is the time between Friday night sunset and Saturday night sunset, when time is sacred.    It’s the Sabbath!  This is when families gather in their homes and in their synagogues and participate in rituals that have been handed down to them from generation to generation.  It’s the Sabbath!  And it is time to light the candles and say the prayers and partake in the special food, but more importantly, it is time to remember – remember who they are and whose they are.  It’s the Sabbath!  And it comes around once a week and it is sacred time, time set aside for God, which means that no one works, and stores are closed and business transactions are put on hold for 24 hours.  It’s the Sabbath!  So instead of work we are supposed to use the Sabbath...to connect to our creator, and be re-created, and to be re-newed, and to be re-juvenated.  For the Sabbath is a gift a gift from God to the people a day set aside in a week to nourish and nurture and be restored to right relationship with God.  It’s the Sabbath!  And some gather as a family in their homes pray and light candles, share a meal and practice the Sabbath rituals.  It’s the Sabbath and others gather as a community in the Synagogues to listen to pray, to light the candles to listen to scriptures, and talk about them and practice the Sabbath rituals.

On one such Sabbath, in a small synagogue in the ancient Meditarian world, Jesus was in the midst of the worshipers that day.  And while he was teaching and sharing scripture, he notice a woman in their midst.  No one else seems to notice her – this may be because they have seen her so often, she is almost invisible to them – or this may be because she is infirmed – and people who have disabilities are often invisible – and this woman was disabled- she was bent over – she walks with a shuffle – for when you are bent over and can’t see in front of you, you would have to walk slowly and carefully so you did not run into anything or anyone – and as she shuffled passed – Jesus calls her over – lays his hands on her – and she stood up – she stood tall for the first time in 18 years.

Kay Heuy writes:  On the way to Jerusalem, while Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, a "bent-over" woman passing by evokes Jesus' compassion. Does the woman ask for healing? No. Does Jesus seem to care that it's the Sabbath, when healing non-life-threatening conditions is not permitted? No. Without being asked, he calls her over to him, and sets her free from her longtime ailment by placing his hands on her, just as one would in blessing. And the woman is blessed, and freed, and has sense enough to recognize the source of the freedom she's been given at last, freedom from the little bit of square footage she's been limited to visually for almost twenty years. Now, is everyone amazed and grateful to witness such a thing?  

No, indeed. The leader of the synagogue is in fact upset by this breach of the Law and tells the crowd, which undoubtedly includes many others in need of healing (aren't we all?), that they should come back tomorrow, when the timing will be more "appropriate" for such things as healing.

“This woman's ailment may not threaten her life, but her life is so precious that each day is a gift and an opportunity to praise God. We are fortunate in many ways in our culture, but we are burdened, too. For example, many children in our society are as pressed down as the bent-over woman with schedules that leave them no time to play or to just "be" with their families, friends, and nature. We adults are the same way. Our health and the well-being of our families, our churches, and our communities are affected.   We are bent over with stress and worry.

Look at the rocks we have on the communion table – are there any there that resonate with you?   Do you carry around burdens that weigh you down.  Envy, jealousy, apathy, anger and fear are all heavy burdens to carry.  Jan Richardson asks the questions:   “What are the habits, patterns, and rhythms by which we live our lives? Do they enable us to live in freedom, fully open to the presence of God? Or does our way of life hinder us from this? Are there patterns and habits that, over time, have become confining, keeping us bound and bent and feeling less than whole?  What are we carrying around that weighs us down?

These burdens are not just words we use to explain some weightless emotions we carry inside –these burdens of grief and sorrow and apathy and intolerance and greed – they attach to our human frames and weigh us down.  It sets deep down in our bodies and has a hold on us.  A hold that is physical.

Ten years ago my first marriage was ending – and my first pastoral relationship was drawing to a close – it was a time of anxiety, fear, sorrow, heartache, and a mired of others emotions I struggled to name.  I thought I was handling things very well and that no one could see the burdens I was carrying.  I prided myself on my ability to go into worship each week and lead service and preach the sermon.  I also went about my daily tasks, I thought, with dignity and grace.  But every once in a while I would notice that I would have my arm crossed over my heart – and often I would find myself sitting all wrapped up, with my knees drawn up to my chin and my arms wrapped around my legs – and when I was talking to people or visiting with them, I would often place my hand on my head and hold it there.   My body was bent over and twisting itself in knots - in the emotions of that deeply troubling time and even though in my head I was handling all the pain that was coming my way, my body told a different story.  It was only after time had passed, months and months had passed that I began to feel my body relax, that I began to straighten out and release all the emotional burdens that were weighing me down.  The healing took a long time, because the burdens were very heavy.

I think that the healing that Jesus offered the woman in the synagogue was remarkable for it was immediate and transformational.  But, you know, we are offered this type of healing – this touch of wholeness from the Christ –often however, our healing is over a longer period of time.  Our healings are gradual – but they are healings none the less.  And over time we are able to lay aside the burdens we carry – this is Christ gifts of healing to us.  Our willingness to be open, to the healing touch of Christ and to witness the miracle even when it is gradual like the a slowly opening flower instead of the immediacy of the bent over woman.

Kay Heuy again:  “Sabbath observance, rather than being a burden, challenges us to make a regular spiritual practice of setting aside a time of peace and rest, but even more, to immerse ourselves during that "special" time in the promises of God, the promises that sustain us each day, during "regular" time, too. As the bent-over woman's gaze was "lifted up" to God in praise, perhaps our perspective, too, will be raised and will lead us to new and deeper faithfulness and praise.”

The story really portrays Jesus as keeping the Sabbath because he sees it differently, and because he has a different sense of timing. The time is now for God's grace and healing, not later. This is an urgent matter. Jesus has just spent much of the previous chapter speaking about "the hour" and about the ability to see what is really important. This woman's ailment may not threaten her life, but her life –like our life - is so precious that each day is a gift and an opportunity to praise God. According to Barbara Reid, "When the purpose of Sabbath rest is to be free to praise God, Jesus deems it necessary to free a bound woman so as to do precisely that." What matters to Reid in this text is Jesus' timing, because "Jesus is urgent that now is the time of salvation" (The Lectionary Commentary).

 

Liz a Presbyterian minister shared this :  “Our gospel today, though it speaks of physical appearance, takes us to a much deeper place.
A place where rules are broken, where conformity is cast aside.
A place where what you see is NOT what you get.
Because the love of God confounds expectation.
And allows miracles to happen.
Allows despair to become hope.
Allows dire straits to become places of possibility.
Allows the trials of life to become places of growth.
And allows those on whom we would look down or pity to teach us the most valuable lessons about life and about the transforming love of God.
We're very good at jumping to conclusions.
At deciding how things will turn out before we've even given them a chance.
At dismissing the possibility of being surprised by joy
We're bent down by rules and expectations.
Just as burdened as the Daughter of Abraham whom Jesus healed on the Sabbath.
And when we close ourselves off to new possibilities we limit that slow winding work of God.

So let us be open to the possibility of God’s healing power in our midst – releasing us from the burdens we carry.  The time of God’s healing power is now – today in this Sabbath place of worship – the healing hands of Jesus are extended to you – for you to lay down the burdens that you carry – to place them amongst the stones on the communion table and then to walk from this building – erect – standing tall – and praising God for the blessings and the healings and the daily miracles that we live.

Thanks be to God, Amen.

A Basket of Summer Fruit - off lectionary - August 18

A Basket of Summer Fruit

August 18, 2013  Amos 7: 1-12

Once, a long long time ago there was a simple man named Amos, who raised some sheep and tended some fig trees. One day when he was tending his sheep in the field the voice of God came to him and said – “ I am not happy with the way things are going in the world – people are not treating each other well – they are worshipping other gods and expecting me to come through for them, those who are wealthy are exploiting those who are poor.  I want you Amos to go to Judea, and let them know that I am not happy with what is happening here –tell them that there will be consequences for this distance that is now between the people and me. 

So that is what Amos did, although he did not have any experience being a prophet – going out and sharing with his world the words God had given to him – he went anyway and as you can well imagine –because he was not coming and bringing good news the people and the power of his land and time rejected him and his prophecy.  But he spoke it anyway – for what else could he do, God had given him a job to do and Amos was going to do it no matter how much he was rejected.   Amos is able to exert a certain amount of influence as he shared the visions that God has given.  He manages to make it to the inner circle and let Amiziah – the chief priest, the head God expert of the nation (or at least so Amiaziah thought) Amos tells Amiziah, the priest at Bethel, the visions that God has given to him – he is like conduit where God speaks to Amos and Amos speaks to Amiziah – Five visions Amos has – a vision of locus, eating up the land, a vision of fire consuming the land, a vision of God as plumb line measuring the people, a vision of God standing by the temple alter and a vision of a basket of summer fruit. 

A basket of fruit?  What a strange vision that was - why would a basket of fruit get any one upset – what about a basket of summer fruit would freak out the priest at Bethel.  Well first off – prophecy is first and foremost a spoken thing – its about words spoken out loud - and the words that are spoken to the priest at Bethel sound like other words – for ‘ripe fruit’ and ‘the end’ sound the same in Hebrew.  So Amiziah, the priest at Bethel may have heard Amos say – God showed me the end instead of God showed me a basket of ripe fruit’.  Nevertheless it is a wonderful image – this basket of fruit.

For think about it –imagine this fruit , all plump and juicy and rich in colour and aroma – part of the wonder of ripe fruit is how it smells – yesterday afternoon my kitchen smelt wonderful and all this fruit sat out on the counter top waiting to be put away.  This fruit that I know if I did not put away would be spoiled by this morning – sitting on the counter – it would not take long for a gazillion fruit flies to come, and for the plump sweetness of the fruit to become the messy rottenness and an oozing mess.  And in a time before refrigeration when produce needed to be eaten almost as soon as it was picked – ripe summer fruit to Amiziah, who must have know just how far off course the people of God were living their lives – for him this vision of a basket of fruit was a curse instead of a blessing.

But does it have to be – we too are living in a world pretty similar to the world of Amos – the rich get rich on the backs of the poor, more and more people turn from God to worship others gods, the gods of consumerism and money and power and prestige – and yet in the midst of this here sits before us ripe fruit – moist, juicy, delicious ripe fruit –and we have a choice – we can look at this fruit and say isn’t it lovely and look how much we have – but very quickly, the fruit will become soft and start to rot and within a day or two, this rich goodness becomes a mass of stinking rotting mess.  Or another choice – we can take this fruit and we can share it amongst ourselves and share it with others and enjoy the flavours and benefit from the nutrients.  We can take the gifts that are in front of us right now – thank God for them and partake of them. 

The ripe fruit reminds us of the gifts the come to us all the time in our now, not our tomorrow or not our yesterdays – the gifts of today – which can be as simple as the sunshine, the beauty that surrounds us, the friendly word of a stranger, the touch of a child’s hand – the gifts of now –that come all the time – even in the midst of fear, of pain or frustration, or sorrow.  Like fruit ripening on the vine everyday is filled with gifts of blessings that we are invited to partake and share in.

And so, as we continue this service and sing some more favorite hymns, and later go and share a meal and some conversation at the picnic – look around for the fruit that is in your life – the gifts that you have been blessed with – and then eat them, consume them, thank God and enjoy them.  I guarantee you that every day, every single day God provides for us gifts of ripe fruit, gifts of beauty and blessing into our everyday.  We have a choice – we can partake of the gifts or we can let them rot on the counter – our choice.

In Rememberance - A Sermon on Communion - August 4

This Do in Remembrance of Me

August 4, 2013            Luke 22

As a minister I get an interesting amount of email sent my way about God and God things and church and church things.  One such email was a video link to a bunch of wedding bloopers – most of them were yeay!!! Very ‘America’s Funniest Video’ category - But there was one that still makes me smile whenever I think of it – the video was taken at a young catholic couples wedding, by the looks of the dress sometime in the 1990’s – for the bride had a big poofy head dress and large shoulders puffs and it was quite low cut.  The couple are standing in front of the priest who is in the midst of the Eucharist – sharing the bread (the small round wafer) in this case – as the priest goes to place the host in the brides mouth – the wafer slips out of his hands and lands right down the front of the brides dress – now before anyone can even think to react the priest shoves his hands down the brides dress searching for the lost wafer.  He digs until the bride regains her composure and slaps his hand away.  And you may wonder why a priest would be so brash, would be so bold as to chase a little piece of bread down the cleavage of a woman –we need to remember though, that to that priest, in that moment, it was not just a piece of ordinary bread, that wafer was part of a Eucharistic meal, and in that moment retrieving that piece of bread, however misguided - was the most important thing – for that bread represented so much more.  That thin small coin of flour/water/salt,

the bread –  was about the memory,

the bread - the remembrance,

the bread  - the story,

the bread - about connection to the Divine

the bread  – it was an outward sign of inward grace – it was sacred, it was sacrament.

Sacrament is about the memory, about the ritual about the vast meaning behind the very simple food.

And we remember – we remember Jesus who on a certain night gathered with his friends and shared a meal – yet underneath that layer of memory there is another because Jesus and his disciples  were sharing a meal of remembering – for they were gathered on a certain night sharing in a ritual to remember others who gathered on a certain night hundreds of years before – a night unlike any other when all around them the world seemed to be falling apart. 

We remember the first bread

A series of terrible plagues had come and gone – pestilence and frogs and flies and gnats and locus – the river had run with blood, the cattle had died people were covered with boils and all around the land there was fear in the air.  The pharaoh, the leader of the country and self proclaimed God of the land of Egypt had hunkered down in his palace bunker refusing to acknowledge what was going on around him – he was at war with God and he was losing. 

The terms of the war had been spoken – let the Hebrew people go –

the Hebrew people who were slave for the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people –

let the slaves go where the terms–

but Pharaoh for reasons of commerce

or reasons of pride

or reasons of self righteous indignation –

or for no reason at all –

 refused to let the people go in spite of the plethora of pestilence and plagues and powerful storms to convince him otherwise. 

After nine different afflictions  tonight was the night when the final battle of this war of plagues would be fought – the Hebrew people had some notice that it was coming down tonight and they were told to prepare – to get ready for something was about to change. 

They were to prepare a meal –

 a simple meal –

slaughter a lamb –cook it all – leave no part untouched –

and make bread – simple bread – plain bread – bread that has no Levin – bread that has no yeast –

bread that is made in haste,

so that they are ready to go as soon as they are set free. 

The most dreaded plague is about to occur – the death of the first born – and therefore over the lintels of the doorways on each of your houses, the Hebrew people are told – paint a marking of blood – and when the final plague comes – the blood will make a barrier from the shadow of death and he will not cross the entrance way but will pass over.  And so it came to pass. The shadow of death passed over and the Hebrew people were set free.

And so every year around about the time when death passed over the Hebrew people come together and bake the bread and shared a meal to remember  - and they remember that once they were slaves and now they were free,

And they remembered  that once they lived in Egypt under the tyranny of the Pharaoh and now they had been delivered by God and Moses to live in the promise land –

And they remembered that even though they were once again conquered and once again sent into exile – they still needed to gather together and to remember and to share the bread and the memory of the Passover.  It became the ritual to remind the people who they were and to whom they belonged – and they remembered that they were God’s people, delivered out of Egypt – and that they belonged to God. 

And so even after hundreds of years when Israel, their promise land is yet again occupied by an alien power called Romans as it is in Jesus time– the Hebrew people still gather and still make the bread, without the yeast and without the leaven, and still share a meal and remember.

It is hard to believe that something so simple as sharing bread and sharing a meal – would have so much underlying meaning – but it does – because that is how it works with God – the stuff of life, the ordinary is really extraordinary and the simple is really the complex –

so the last is first and the first is last

and the one who serves is the greatest of all,

and the kingdom of God is here amongst and within us. –

and love and forgiveness is something that is extended to all no matter who you are,

Regardless of you postal code, or your gender or you sexual orientation or the colour of your skin or the number of your IQ score – God’s love, God’s grace is extended to you and we remember – we remember

How on a night long ago, Jesus was gathered with his disciples to share a meal and eat the bread of the Passover meal – but in the midst of the meal he took, the bread – the simple bread, made just like it had been hundreds of years before when it was prepared in haste, bread without yeast and bread without leaven –

Jesus took that simple bread and shared it with those around the table and invited them to take and eat and remember.  But he said other words too – words that took the simple bread of the Passover and made it about more –and he said “this is my body, and it is broken for you -  whenever you do this – remember me”  He made the bread’s meaning deeper and richer and now kneaded into the memory of the Passover bread is  Jesus,

who he was and

what he did and

what he said,

and what he shared about God and God’s love for the world.

It actually is quite a burden to put on bread – especially this poor striped down version of bread – not some of the heafty chunky crusty loaves of bread we consume in our everyday - – all this simple bread consists of is a little flour, some salt and some water –and now not only was it used to remember the events of the Passover by hundreds of thousands of Jews, it is also going to be used by millions of Christians the world over to remember Jesus and his body, his physical presence on this earth, broken for us. 

And here it is – it is our turn, our turn to remember, our turn to take this simple meal of bread and juice and infuse it in memory so big and vast in encompasses all the people and history and meaning of every meal such as this from the time of Passover, and as it intersects the time of Jesus and right up until Sunday August 4 – Pike Bay – 10:15 EST – Lions Head – 11:40 EST.  That’s alot of memory to pack into a little piece of bread.  Which is what makes this meal sacred – this food -sacrament

And we remember that meal of Passover and the meal in the upper room – in this really  simple meal, we remember about God and God’s love and forgiveness and Jesus and his life and who we are and whose we are – we remember  – with simple food, bread and juice.

And as our service book says when we share this simple food:  “The brokenness of our world is lifted up in the bread broken. The bloodshed of our world is remembered in the cup shared. In the gathered grain we are brought together and grounded in God’s good earth. In the fruit of the vine we are united with the groaning of all creation. We do this at table to remember our identity as a covenant people of God. We receive, and are sustained as, the body and blood of Christ. This is our eucharist, this is our thanksgiving.”

So this meal – these simple foods of bread and juice on the table in front of you – this table is set the food is ready - and you are invited, you – yes you – you there sitting in these pews – you are invited - not because you are perfect and whole, but because you are imperfect and broken – this meal is for you.

Not because you are free from faults and faultless in all you do – but because you makes mistakes and fall down and pick yourself up again – this meal is for you.

Not because you have arrived and have become the person you are meant to be – no those who are invited to this table are still on the journey and have a ways to go – this table is ready for you who would like some nourishment in the midst of your travels – this meal is for you.

And so we pray before we share this meal together – pray to God and give thanks for this food and all the sustenance we receive, and we pray to be reminded who we are and whose we are – we are God’s people and these are the gifts of God for us – the people of God –this is our meal.  And we remember

Let us pray......

A Hobby

I have been reading Terry Tempest Williams book An Unspoken Hunger.  In it she remembers her grandmother telling her that it is important to have a hobby, something to possess you in your private hours.  I have been pondering this - because quilting and fabric art is one of my hobbies and it does possess me but I let the mundane things of everyday keep me from pursuing this hobby.
I have beautiful bunch of fabric cut and ready for a quilt but I have not sewed on it since mid July and the quilting group and it was June before then.  Instead of inspiring me sitting out it brings a bit of guilt when I walk by and do not sit down at the sewing machine to work on the quilt - it is easier to sit in front of the television when I have a spare moment and not think about things- but the problem is that when I get up from the TV - I am left with a bad taste in my mouth that I should have been more productive - but when I sew - I feel that the time is well spent.
I need to be possessed by my hobby more often!!