A Sermon for November 16 - 2014

November 16 – Children’s Sunday

The past weeks for me have been about death – with three deaths in this congregation, two last week and one the week before  - and two funerals in two weeks and Remembrance day on Tuesday it gives an interesting perspective to the world.  I also appreciate these times that focus on the end of life, because it is at death beds, and during funeral visitations, and in memories of the loss of loved ones where people are most real, and moments are most real.  There is something in this time that appears like the veil that we wear to protect ourselves from the world becomes a little thinner and it is easier for God to get in.  

I have had some interesting funerals in my time as a minister because life no matter how short or how long a life is lived on this earth, it is important and it matters and it is deeply connected not only to others but also to God– And even though for some life is short - I once performed a funeral for a 6 month old baby – or long – Harriet Archer’s funeral on the 29^th  at 99 years old will be the oldest person I will have had the privilege of honouring their life…everyone’s life, from sweet baby Daisy to cranky 96 year old Mrs. Lidstone, to mild manner 66 year old Ian Robertson – to young and not yet 20 year old Trevor Wheler and even to the old reclusive hermit – Stinky Bill…

Yes,  you heard right – his name was Stinky Bill – I not sure if he was ever called that to his face but that is how the town of Tara referred to him.  He lived on the Grey-Bruce line, alone with his dog and made a poor living by collecting other peoples junk and selling it but mostly just storing it on the property that he rented.  When he died – it was about a week before anyone knew – and his body was taken to the local funeral home for arrangements – I was called because in small towns often the United Church minister gets the generic funerals – it was my first ‘welfare funeral’ – where the funding for the end of life rituals are paid for by the government – it is a no frills package – and I think only because it was important to the funeral director that a life did not go unrecognized – that was there a funeral at all.

So I set out to find out anything I could about this man – as it was my responsibility to conduct his funeral – not very many people knew very much about Bill – only that he did not have any family that anyone knew about – and he kept pretty much to himself.  His landlord provided as much as she could, but for the first time I was facing a funeral without even having the basic history of the person.  A college of mine suggested that in the midst of the funeral I open the floor and see if anyone had any stories about Stinky Bill – The day of the funeral come – about thirty people showed up which was about 25 more that either the funeral director or myself expected – and I did ask for stories and low and behold people started to talk – I remember when, when Bill decided he needed a car and so he got himself over to Chatsworth and bought himself one and then drove home and gave me a call and aksed me where he had to go to get a licence – I remember Bill – spoke another – when we hired him to help us launch our boat and while the boat was by the dock and Bill was holding the line – he put one foot on the boat and something happened and the boat started to move away from the dock and there he was with one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock with his legs spreading wider and wider and wider until ‘splash’ there he was in the water…I remember Bill said another and another and another – and pretty soon this really interesting man emerged from these stories – who was funny and loyal and caring and a hard worker and kind – and his life as reclusive and as hermitted as he lived it touched many people – his life was wound up in the tapestry of the community of Arran.  And his life connected to mind in that moment as well – I will never forget Stinky Bill.

This theme, this interconnectedness – the idea that all we do matters, who we interact with matters, who we are, how we live our life, who we connect to – matters and has meaning not only for us but also for those whom we interact with.  Our lives are not a few years of just living and eating and sleeping and getting up and going to bed until we get to the end – No! our lives are deeply intertwined in the fabric of life and we matter and how we live matters and how we treat others matters, what we do matters.  

The parable of the talents brings home this point – that the choices that we make regarding the talents that we are given – matters – each of us human beings are born into this world gifted and grace with talents – gifts from God.  And each day we have opportunities to use our talents or not, to share ourselves with others, to be part of a community, treat our brothers, sister neighbours friends or enemies kindly or unkindly.  We can choose to walk in the world in love or to walk in this world in hate.  The three servants in the parable illustrate this.

David Lose brings this point home he says:  “what strikes me is how deeply affected the third servant is by his perception of the landowner. We should note that there is no clue ahead of time about the character of the landowner. The first we hear about it is from the lips of the third servant: “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed.” Neither the first nor the second servant voices this concern or affirm this sentiment, and the landowner himself neither confirms nor calls this assessment into question either. Notice that the landowner’s retort is in the form of a question. We might therefore hear it as, “If you thought I was so awful, then why didn’t you choose another strategy?” The landowner’s response might be a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as he decides to act in just the way the third servant has characterized him.

And here’s the thing: I wonder how often this happens in our relationship with God. We imagine God primarily as an enforcer of rules, and we get hung up by the legalism of religion. We visualize God as stern and prone to punishment, and we come to believe that everything bad in our lives is punishment from God. We see God as arbitrary and capricious, and that’s what we experience, a fickle and unsympathetic God who meets our expectations.

On the other hand, when we view God primarily in terms of grace, we are surprised and uplifted by the numerous gifts and moments of grace we experience all around us. And when we imagine God to be a God of love, we find it far easier to experience God’s love in our own lives and to share it with others.[1]
 
It is as the saying goes:  What you see is just what you get. If the God you have in your mind is a punitive and judgemental God, that is what you experience – so if a tragedy happens in your life, you look back and find a time when you made a poor choice so you can say – God is punishing me for the times when I lied or cheated or was a smuck.  But if the God you believe in is a God of grace, than tragedies are not punishments they are tragedies and God does not take away loved ones to get back at you, God walks with you in the midst of your sorrow and pain while you learn to live in this new world without your loved one with you.

Tom Long writes:  “If one trusts the goodness of God, one can boldly venture out with eyes wide open to the grace in life and can discover the joy of God’s providence everywhere. But to be a child of the generous, gracious, and life-giving God and, nonetheless, to insist upon viewing God as oppressive, cruel, and fear-provoking is to live a life that is tragically impoverished.”

I think perhaps that this parable is inviting us to examine closely the pictures of God we each we each carry around inside of us.  The question then is what do you think about when think of God?

·       Is God gracious or stern?

·       Is God loving or judgmental?

·       Is God eager for peace or prone to violence?

·       Is God patient and kind or vengeful and punitive? 

And the big question beyond this one is whether the picture we carry of God matches the picture of the God we know in Jesus?  Does the God in our heads resemble the man that we meet when we read the stories in the Bible, the man who healed the sick and helped the lame to walk, who gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and fed 5000 with a little bit of bread and fish – the one who talked of love and justice and caring for the ones who lived on the margins – proclaiming that the last shall be first, and that the kingdom of heaven is everywhere – and preached a radical forgiveness that transforms the world.
David Lose again:  “Jesus tells this parable just days before he will give his life on the cross, not as a substitute or surrogate to be punished in our place, but rather as testimony to just how far God will go to communicate God’s love for us and all the world. Jesus has spent his life and ministry proclaiming God’s kingdom, feeding the hungry, healing and sick, offering forgiveness, and welcoming ALL who recognize their need into the loving embrace of God. And for that message he is crucified. That’s how much God wants us to know of God’s love. And just in case we miss or underestimate that message, God raises Jesus on the third day that we might know that life is stronger than death and love more powerful than hate.

That’s the God we proclaim, that’s the God we should be carrying in our hearts, this God of grace, this God of love, and hope and peace and compassion.[2]  This God, our God, Stinky Bill’s God, who loves us, and forgives us and calls us beloved children.  This God of grace that goes with us as we share our talents with the world….Thanks be…..Amen.

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[1] David Lose:  In the Meantime:  http://www.davidlose.net/2014/11/pentecost-23-a/

[2] Ibid.

Saints and Sinners

Saints and Sinners

November 2, 2014

I have been preoccupied this week with the ever growing - morphing - fluid story of ex- CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi.  What appeared last Friday to be a leave of absence due to personal circumstances precipitated by the death of his father is now is a salacious, seedy, deviant, sexual story that keeps on growing and growing – by Saturday afternoon; three woman had come forward to police about abuse and violence at the hands of Ghomeshi.  For here he was – at the height of his career – CBC’s front man – his own show, interviewing the top athletes, entertainers,  politicians, and the cover face of prestigious awards ceremonies like the Giller’s – hobnobbing with the rich and the famous – and underneath the façade of this likeable, easy going authentic, humble man lurks – this deviant sexual being – or at least that is the implications of the media stories at this time – for nothing has been proven or disproven – everything is speculation – and all information is not verified at this time.   I am not sure what all this attention to this matter says about us with this preoccupation that we have on this one man’s fall from grace – his moving in our minds from saint to sinner – but there is something compelling about this story that is keeping it front and centre in the media for the last 7 days.  One commentator this week on CBC was remarking on how because we allow Jian in our homes and cars for two hours each morning and see him hosting some of Canada’s top awards shows we think we know him, that he is our friend and yet when his image becomes tainted we realized that we do not know him at all but we are still so disappointed in him, we feel he has let us down personally.  

The way we look at a person can shift quickly when we discover something about that person that we did not know before – especially if it is sexual deviancy.  People fall from pedestals – all the time – how many political scandals have there been in the past few months?  What about our sports stars, our entertainment icons – how many times do we turn on the news or open a newspaper to witness their shame as the headlines– and we all know that my profession is certainly not immune - I think when one of my colleagues crosses those lines it is especially hurtful - we breach a sacred trust, and when our baggage and personal demons come out to play it is often devastating to the congregations that we serve. 

But you know – and this is the hard piece – our bad behaviour does not define who we are, our screw ups, our mess ups, the times in our lives when we do not live the golden rule and focus solely on our selfish wants and desires – you know – when the seven deadly sins – lust, pridefulness, arrogance, sloth, gluttony, hate ---are a part of our everyday life – those moments, or weeks or months or even split seconds when decisions that are made are stupid, selfish, or downright – should I say the word – sinful….. we have all been there.  We have all had times of transgressions both in little ways and in big ways - from that mean little word you utter for that hurt someone’s feelings or the plot that you hatched to kill your cheating spouse – all wickedness of various different degrees – and you know that sliding scale – the meter where we place our sins into that says that cheating on your taxes is not as bad as extorting your business partner – that is a human invention and does have any biblical support, and not something that comes from God.  And if you really study the biblical support in this matter of sin, you come realize from story after story after story, first off, that the human capacity to hurt others, to live selfishly and to ignore our Creator is enormous and that God recognizes this human capacity for sin, and what God really is about is forgiveness.  Most judgement comes from humans which brings us back full circle to God.  

So, you may be asking yourself, if we are all culpable in this sin game, what makes a saint – as this is the day that we celebrate All Saints Sunday – I suspect that like myself we may have a bit of a distorted sense of what a saint is – . If you ask the average Christian what that means, they will probably tell you that we remember and honor holy and extraordinary people who have gone before us — most likely leaving behind them a trail of miracles and amazing acts of self-sacrifice, suffering, heroism and the like.  And there is of course the “official” saints – St. Paul, St. Mary, St. Peter and who can forget St. James – it is who we named our church after of course – but at one time he was a real life human being and for him at least – his sainthood comes from his connection to Jesus and the way that the lived his life after Jesus was gone – I am not sure which James – the church is named afterur church after – James ‘son’ of Zebedee who asks Jesus to sit on the right hand side after death – or James the Just who was the brother of Jesus, either way sainthood was earned because of he knew Jesus personally. 

And then we see the saints in the Revelations reading dressed in white surrounding the throne – and they will hunger and thirst no more and every tear will be wiped from their eye….people who have died and through their life fought the good fight for God and Jesus and so are rewarded according to the writer of Revelation, with white robes and no tears.

But this is a narrow definition of sainthood which undermines and excludes all the rest of us that did not walk with Jesus, or suffer under persecution of the early church.  What I believe was the original intention of “All Saints" was to honour more than just those of stellar reputation and close association to Jesus.  A couple of thousand years ago being a follower of Jesus was not a easy thing to do.  The early church, having survived over 300 years of persecution, and they wanted to remember and celebrate those Christians who had remained faithful in spite of the fear, the hostility and the very real danger of living and expressing their faith. So they allocated a special day to honor all those who had endured and persevered during those violent times. 

My hunch is that the vast majority of these believers were ordinary folks who were probably scared out of their wits, but hung in there because of their faith.  And these were the ‘saints’ – these ordinary people who were able to remain faithful in times of trouble and persecution.  Who kept their devotion to God in times of trouble.  

I think we need to step back and recognized that really more times than not and I would gather to guess that all the saints that we hold before us, as pretty amazing and wonderful people where human beings with flaws and failing just like the rest of us.  I think if funeral preparation has taught me anything is that it is ordinary human beings that are the saints –the stories that I hear from loved ones so often tell about lives that are lived that touch and support others, often in the simplest and smallest of ways….lives which so many would feel would be unremarkable had a huge impact in the world.

For instance…

Eileen Tackaberry, who lived all her life in Lion’s Head, she was shy simple woman who was not really involved in the community – she had 8 children and when the kids were growing up, they had friends who needed a safe place for a while, and so she opened up her home and her oven and fed these kids safety and support and caring and amazing pie….a saint.

And speaking of food, there was Vivian Kerr-Taylor of Blind River, formerly of country Clare in Ireland, strong capable woman who immigrated to Canada with her brood in tow, forged a place for them in Northern Ontario and in the small plot of land that surrounded her little house, she grew a garden like no one else, she loved fiercely – a saint.

And Bob Robertson, he was in Walkerton at the time of the tainted water and had meal at a restaurant and drank the water, he contracted colon cancer.  He was farmer, lived in Derby township, cared for cows and home and family – and he cared about others, and lived integrally and his word was his bond… a saint.

Pretty much every single one of the people that I have had the honour to get to know through preparing funeral and memorial services have lives filled with moments of sainthood…

Ye, we are all sinners, but more often than not –it is saintliness that is remembered, and missed and grieved…and I imagine that everyone that we lit a candle for this morning, Bob and Jack and Stephen and Willis and Jeffery – they too saints….and to take this one step further – us too – this amazing combination of saint and sinner…

Blessed are those who mourn says Jesus, blessed are poor, blessed are the meek, these are not traits that we normally attribute to ‘saints’ This is what it is to be human and in spite of our sinfulness or maybe because of our sinfulness Jesus calls us blessed.  We are blessed as sinner and saint.

Blessedness is something that God gives to us, not something that we earn through our actions, not something that the world always recognizes. Likewise with All Saints – not everyone who died actually lived a wonderful life, but we celebrate their memory today anyway, and more importantly, celebrate the eternal life that they now enjoy, that awaits us also – because God says so, not because we’re so saintly.

Let’s think about that word “blessed” for a moment.  The Greek word, makarios, is often translated as “happy” or “fortunate.”… When have you felt most happy or fortunate in life?  When have you felt most blessed?”[1]

Was it in times of meekness, mourning, when you were feeling poor in spirit or where hungering of thirsting for righteousness?  I suspect not – for when we think about it – certainly as a culture we do not think that meekness and mourning and thirsting for righteousness as strong and dominant ways of being in the world that we expect to be blessed.  But Jesus says – let’s look at that again – let go of what the world sees as right and correct and focus on what God sees as right and good and true.

So what does it mean to be blessed – what does it feel like to be blessed?  Times in my life when I have felt blessed are when someone I value looks at me – really looks at me and says that they value me, that what I have contributed has been important and I am worth something.  Being  blessed can feel like accompaniment, that you are never alone, that someone is with you, is on your side – it could be another person or it could be God who cares enough about you that where ever you go, whatever you do – you don’t do it alone. 

Being blessed allows you to feel that you can rise above your circumstances even when they are really challenging and that your circumstance do not define you, nor do your sins, or your failings or your limitations or even bad choices you made in your past.  

Being blessed feels like you have worth,  not because of what you do, or what you have done, or who your parents are or what your job is or how big your house is or your bank account either – 

Being blessed means that you have value and worth just because you are you and you deserve to be blessed.  You are a beloved child of God blessed in your meekness and mourning and poverty of spirit, blessed in your truth. 

When we live a blessed life, something in us shifts and we begin to see the world with a different focus – no longer are we seeing the world through the filter of our desires and longing, through our brokenness and pain – instead the life lived in blessing sees the other and sees in the face of the other – a glimpse of their creator, a glimpse of God – sees another as a blessed and beloved child of God. 

We see each other as the saints that we are – beloved children of God

Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek and blessed are those who mourn, the peacemakers and the pure of heart – blessed are you – holy are you – God’s beloved child.  Amen.

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[1] Mary Craig:  Beautiful and Terrible; http://metanoia-mrc.blogspot.ca/ (2014)