Promises - promises

Promises, promises

November 1, 2015   All Saints Day

I have been thinking about what it means to be Canadian recently, about what it means to belong to this country.  Citizenship is a conversation I am hearing relating to many current events in recent months, the niqab conversation around facial covering and the oath of citizenship, Prime Minister Harper using the term ‘old stock’ when referring to Native North Americans, talks of refugees and migrants and immigrants in news stories.  I also have been spending some time on the Cape, and meeting people over there and learning about their history.  It really has me thinking about what it means to be a Canadian especially when the folks I am meeting have been in this area forever – long, long, long before any of our ancestors thought of getting on a boat and sailing to this part of the world.   I am only a first generation Canadian on my father’s side – he was born and raised in Australia, he arrived in Canada in 1961 but did not become a Canadian until 2005.  On my mother’s side, her family has been in Canada since about the 1850’s, her father side came from Ireland escaping the potato famine and her mother’s side, immigrated from England – the family myth has my grandmothers – grandfather or great grandfather being the second son from a wealthy family whose behavior embarrassed the family and so was sent as punishment to the colonies.  In comparison – I am a newbie in this country even though I have lived here all my life.  And to top it off, I was at a meeting last week that began a conversation about whether we in Northern Bruce Peninsula could band together and sponsor a few refugee families seeking asylum from their countries.  What does it mean to be a citizen, what does it mean to belong to this country?
When my father became a Canadian Citizen.  Our family went to a courthouse in Barrie and with about 40 other people from about 30 other countries my father stood up and before a judge and our family said: 
“ I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen”.
It was big day for us, and we listened carefully as my dad made his pledge – that day I experienced a profound moment as I watched him pledge his allegiance to Canada and I was reminded that sometimes we take our citizenship for granted and by my father making a conscious choice to become Canadian, he made a conscious choice to live in this country intentionally observing the laws and intentionally fulfilling his duties as a Canadian citizen.  I thought at the time that it would be a good reminder to all of us who never had to pledge to our country, just because we were born here, that we do have rights and responsibilities as citizens.
We all make such promises to organizations and societies, and churches and institutions.  Doctor’s take the Hippocratic oaths which gives them the mandate to do no harm, lawyers get called to the bar where they swear an oath not to pervert the law, ministers are ordained into sacrament, word and pastoral care and have a code of ethics we are to follow.  Brownies promise to do their best to God the Queen and Country and to help other people everyday especially those at home.  When someone becomes a member of the church they stand in front of the congregation and make promises about honoring the denomination and promises about how they are going to live in their faith journey.  When you become a cadet, a legion member, a Rotary member, a Lion or Mason you make promises to be loyal to the organization.  When you become a member of parliament, soldier, justice of the peace, police officer or boy scout you make oaths about how you are going to live the mandate of your organization and take your new place in the community that you will serve. 
The implication of oaths, promises, commitments and belonging are common themes in this morning’s scripture readings.  The relationship between Naomi and her faith, Naomi and her country and Naomi and her daughter-in-laws play itself out in this short book of Ruth.  Here is a story about loyalty and promise and commitment and faith and risk.  And to Jesus and his encounter with the scribes – the questions asked about what is the level of commitment God wants from us - What do we do when we make promises to God.  This commandment – the greatest of all commandments is like an oath that we take about God.  This oath of allegiance outshines all other oaths of allegiance, for when we enter into this one we become fully participating members of the human community.  When we say, okay God, I can do this – I can live this way, loving you fully, deeply and then I can go and show this love to myself and my neighbor – we have made the oath of all oaths, the pledge of all pledges the promise of all promises. 
Ruth made a promise – a pledge in love a pledge to her mother-in-law Naomi, this promise of loyalty, this commitment and pledge forever changed Ruth’s life.  And I wonder that when she made this promise that was she fully aware that this choice – this oath – would so dramatically change her world.  I do not think she really understood was that from that decision to follow Naomi, she allowed the hand of God to be active in her life.  For this is the woman who becomes the great-grandmother of David who for the Jewish people is the best king that ever was.  Ruth and Boaz had a son called Obed, Obed had a son called Jesse and Jesse had a son called David – and genealogically speaking – at least genealogically biblically speaking – when you read the first part of the book of Matthew – you see the link from David to Jesus – from Ruth to Jesus.  This woman’s pledge allowed her to be a participant in God’s plan that transformed the world.
The scribes ask Jesus – what is the greatest commandments – the scribes – they should know the answer to this as they are the ones who are learned in the law – they are the one whose lives are dedicated to preservation of the Holy Scripture – day in and day out they are focused on the sacred texts – rewriting them and preserving them for future generations – yet they ask – we are in the place again that Jesus is confronted with a question that is suppose to trip him up – suppose to make him look foolish in front of those who are listening – suppose to discredit him as there is no really right answer here – at least to the Scribes – 10 major laws at this time – the 10 commandments – the big 10 and then also another 600 other laws meant to protect the people from themselves – laws about food, cleanliness, how to treat people, who is in, who is out, how to deal with dead bodies and how long woman are separate from the group after they have a baby.  Rules, rules and more rules…610 rules attributed to God and good practice as a faithful Jews 2000 years ago – and so to Jesus is asked –which one – which one the most important, which one the truest, the best, the greatest….And with no hesitation…
Hear O Israel – listen up everybody – the Lord is one – God is one, not many but one and you should love God with all your heart, all you soul  with all your mind and with all your strength – love God with everything you’ve got and then love yourself and everyone else – love.
Sound easy – sounds easy?  Do you think that it is easy?  I wish it were – because I think that if it were easy and we could do that and if everyone in the world could do that  - then world issues would cease to exist, there would be no more war as people love, hunger would dissipate as people share, Citizenship in a nations would be irrelevant because we would all be citizens of the world.  God’s kingdom would come as God’s will is done – on earth as it is in heaven…
But we don’t  - we don’t love as we are called to love.  I am not even sure if we really understand what it means to love – to love God, and self and neighbor.  It’s more than just lip service, more than “hey God – ya know I love ya!”  More than saying – Hey neighbor- your pretty cool, you are really different than me but that’s okay – if only it was about lip service!
What does it mean to love God with heart, mind, soul and strength?  What does it mean to love self and neighbor.  Being in relationship with God works the same way as being in relationship with another human being.  How much time you spend getting to know a person, being with them, listening to them, talking to them, liking them, enjoying their company, sharing your self, being intimate is directly proportional to how strong and solid a relationship it is.  If you spend no time thinking about, being with, learning about a person, you are not in relationship with them – you are in acquaintance with them.  If you say hi every now and then, have a quick call, look them up when you are in need of something – it’s a kind of a relationship but it’s pretty superficial. 
To develop a deep and meaningful relationship means putting in time, enjoying the good times, and growing through the bad.  It means trust.  It means pain.  It means joy and commitment.  It takes work yet reaps tremendous rewards.  And this is the type of relationship that God wants to have with us.  Yet you know, even with all that the one thing that it is, with all intimate relationship- is that it is personal, your relationship with God, and my relationship with God is unique to each of us.  And a relationship so personal and unique has the capacity to get into our whole being and transforms us.  It changes us.  And although we will still have pain and discomfort, we would not change it for the whole world.  This is what love is about, and this is what happens when you enter into a deep loving relationship with God.  This is what happens when you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
And you know what the second commandment proceeds out of the first – when you love God you begin to see God in many places and faces.  For we know that we are all part of God’s creation – all human beings on the face of the earth are created by our wonderful God – so when we look around – into the face of another and also into the face we see in the mirror – there is God – in me, in you, and in you and you and you and you.  God all over the place, God all over the face.  The welcome on your neighbor’s face you greeted them, the sorrow in another’s eyes as you said hello – God in the midst of this community.  And that’s not all, its not only here in this moment in this church– God is all over the place, in our day to day encounters, in the lives of others, in the work of strangers- God is there, God gets in, God goes with us…
Being in deep relationship also means that wherever we go – God goes with us
Wherever you go, I will go – just like Ruth’s promise to Naomi – when we enter into relationship with God, God makes that promise to us.  So if we go down to the darkness, and live in sorrow and despair – God goes with us.  And if we go to the place of fear and disease, we can count on God’s presence.  And when we have moments of joy and celebration – there too will we find God.  Wherever you go – there is God.  It’s a pretty good deal, this God promise – wherever you go – God will go – you are never alone, God is with you.  Amen

I am God and you are Not!

I am God and you are NOT!

October 16/15             21^st Sunday after Pentecost

My family and I went for a walk on the Bruce Trail yesterday.  It was overwhelmingly gorgeous, in this beautiful season of fall, it is one of the times that I completely see the glory of God displayed in the colours or the leaves, the bright brilliant blues of sky and shimmer of Georgian Bay, the greys and greens of the rocks – all that surrounded us from the sky to the earth to the water was a wondrous reminded of all that God has made, of the intricacies of the Creators handiwork.  It was a great and glorious day to spend time in the forest and praise God for Creation.

But remember I said that I went out with my family – five of us – a three year old, 9 year old and a fourteen year old – and it is when I am trying to mold my children into an activity that is more my idea than their idea that I learn pretty quickly that what I want to do and what they want to do is often two different things.  I like to walk on a walk, to move at a pretty quick pace, I like to cover ground and breath in the fresh air and get as far as I can in the limited time we have.  My three year old on the other hand does not seem to have my goals in mind when we walk.  She likes to explore, she takes times to look in holes and pick up leaves, and have stick fights in the middle of the trail.  She also likes to change her mode of transportation, sometimes she likes to walk, sometimes she will ride on shoulders and other times insist on being carried.  A walk with my three year old takes tons more time than a walk on my own. 

And the 14 year old, we are never sure what a walk with a 14 year old will mean – it could be quick with her trudging on ahead of us and waiting for us as we catch up or just the opposite where she will trail along behind us, kind of slouchy and sullen.  And the 9 year old is anybody’s guess often she is a delightful companion who loves to hang out and hold hands as we walk, but yesterday the path was too rocky so she led the way following the blazes – a couple of time we had to call her back because she had veered off the trail and was headed in the wrong direction. 

The wonder of creation, the majesty of the Almighty, the sacredness of the land we were walking on was lost in the midst of the keeping the family on track and safe and in motion   We were not a quiet crew, with our banter and our bickering, the quiet peaceful cooperative family moment I was hoping for did not materialize.  I was reminded of just how little control I have.  I cannot control how my children will behave, I cannot control whether my children will have a good time, I cannot control their bickering in the car.  I cannot control very much actually and to top it off - I did not make the trees and rocks that we walked amongst, and I did not paint the sky nor did I fill the bay with water. I did not turn the season into autumn.   Yesterday’s walk was a really good reminder to me of just how much I do not control the world.  It was one of my God speaking into the crisp fall afternoon air moments for me, reminding me that God is God and I am not.

Job’s whirlwind experience seems quite a bit different than mine, but both of us come to the same conclusion.  It is a really intense moment for Job after such a long period of suffering.  What is immediately striking about what God has to say to Job is the powerful images that are focused almost entirely on workings of the universe itself, on things which humans know little about and over which we have no control. – God is the one calling creation into being and setting it in motion before humans even existed. This God, our God, just has to say the word and the forces of nature obey.  We can’t do that.  We do not control that.  God is saying to Job today – hey buddy who do you think you are?
You may wonder though, how these words of God serve as an answer to Job?  Remember how we got to this reading today, Job had everything, a great life, lots of kids, lots of livestock, lots of prosperity and it was all taken away from him. And then if that was not bad enough, he was inflicted with a dread disease and he ends up on a ash heap at the gate of city, poor and sick, dressed in rags with nothing left except a wife who advises him to ‘curse God and die’.  And the thing that is really difficult about this story is that all of Job’s problems come about because God is trying to prove to Satan that in a world filled with wickedness and distress Job is the one human  - being that is faithful and good - when  he has prosperity and wealth and health and also God will prove that he is faithful and good when he doesn’t.  So as he sits on the ash heap, Job has had four friends come to him and try to convince him that he must of done something bad to deserve this treatment, that God was punishing him for some misdeed or another.  And all through the attempts of Job’s supposed friends Job remained loyal to God and argues why he was not unfaithful, and all he wanted what for God to come and speak to him about why Job’s life had bottomed out.  And today, in our reading this morning – God comes – God’s comes as Job wished.  God comes in a whirlwind.  But God does not exactly come as Job wished him to.
God’s words are clearly not a response to Job on Job’s terms or even to Job’s particular concerns. In fact, God’s many questions seem to be a pretty straightforward way of showing, according to biblical scholar Carol Newsom that “God is God, and Job is not.”
What the book of Job is clearly showing the reader that the understanding that the world is a place where the good prosper and the bad get punished is a false understanding of the world.  It is hard sometimes when we witness tragedy, when our own world falls down around our ears, we look for a reason, we look for something or someone to blame.  We may even search inside our previous behaviours to see if we have done something that God is punishing.  This is a false assumption, God does not punish us for misdeeds and bad behaviour – Our God is a God of forgiveness and understanding.  Nevertheless, our lives can be blown apart by misfortune and there is no reason or no one to blame.  Sometimes bad things happen and there is no good reason.  And this is what happened to Job.  Sometimes your world falls apart and your life ceases to exist as you know it. 
Just like l could not control the atmosphere of our walk yesterday, and just like Job did not create the circumstances to which he suffered through, and just like the situations the surround us often are not of our making – we live in context and we choose how we will respond in to our life conditions. 

Last Sunday night when all the turkey had been eaten and the pie plates polished clean, and after the kids were in bed, my family and I sat down and watched the movie ‘Selma’ on Netflicks.  Selma is a movie about Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.  We were overwhelmed by the film, even though we all had a basic understanding of the events that were happening in Selma in 1964, even though we had heard about the oppression and the segregation and the prejudice and powerlessness of the African American people – watching this movie shocked us with the hate and the intolerance and the bigotry of the white people towards the Black people.  And so much was carried out in God’s name with people believing that they were doing God’s work when they blew up churches and killed little girls, and beat people up just for walking down the street.  So many bad things happened with no good reason.  It was remarkable to watch how these incidents of hate and maliciousness galvanized the people to protest in peaceful ways, to use their disadvantages to their advantages.  It was a powerful movie and it really brought into focus the character of Dr. King – you watch him struggle with the decisions that needed to be made about how much danger to place people in – you witness to the his popularity among his followers and also you see just how much some hated him. You also observe his questioning himself about his loyalty to his family and his dedication to movement for equality and justice.  The underlying force though, of Martin Luther King’s power was God; his deep connection to his Creator is the strength that carried him through all of his struggles.

In the speech called the Drum Major’s Instinct, spoken about two weeks before his assassination, Dr. King says that the great task of life is essentially to transform our ego, by redirecting our desires away from selfish, competitive goals and towards our spiritual growth and service to others.

“He says before we judge others for their selfishness, “let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance… We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade…”[1]

Just like James and John in this morning’s gospel reading – wanting to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, and just like Job being reminded that he is not God, and Job’s understanding of the way the world should be – is not how God created the world into being.  We all want to feel important.  But we need to remember who God is and who we are.  And that our importance is not because we are God.  Our importance is about how we can love and serve others.

And these are Martin Luther King’s words: “It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. (wanting to be important)  Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity.”

·       Be first in kindness

·       Be first in caring

·       Be first in loving our neigbours

·       Be first in forgiveness

·       Be first in understanding

“If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) (and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all) That’s a new definition of greatness.”[2]

The world is not centered on human beings. Nor is it an entirely safe or predictable world, but the world is beautiful and the world is good nonetheless. And God invites Job, and God invites us to live in this wild and beautiful world.

So let us all aim to be truly great, so our lives may be a blessing in this unpredictable wild and beautiful world.  Amen.

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[1] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. :  Excerpt from a sermon preached in Ebenezer Baptist Church April 4, 1968

[2] ibid

The Elephant in the Room

The Elephant in the Room

October 11, 2015

A few years ago a colleague of mine was going through a really rough time.  There were many challenges in her life but from the outside the biggest challenged seemed to me that her work was not longer working for her.  She was a very private person and did not open up to very many but we had established a friendly relationship and because she and I also had many life circumstance in common. I thought we had a somewhat close relationship, we used to get together every month or so to share some time together, we knew what was going on in each other’s lives.  I had heard through the grapevine, that her work world was really shaky and she had been asked to leave her present position.  Trying to be supportive, I called her up and invited her out to lunch.  We met and shared a meal together, and I will never forget our time together that day.  It was not so much about what was said, but what stands out is what was not said.  We spent a good two hours together having a leisurely lunch.  The whole time we were together we filled with conversation, there was never long periods of silence.  I asked what I thought were leading questions to move the conversation towards what was going on in her life and tried to be a responsive presence so that she could share or talk about what was going on, but the harder I tried the more the conversation stayed on superficial levels.  It felt like we were running around and around an elephant that was smack in the middle of the conversation, but we never ever addressed it.  I never seemed able to say – ‘hey friend, I am so sorry you lost your job’ and she never seemed to be able to say – ‘I am really struggling right now, or even ‘mind your own business I don’t want to talk about it’, instead we kept circling the elephant named Job-Loss, pretending he wasn’t there.

This Mark scripture today is an elephant in the room scripture.   This story is about recognizing the ‘elephant’ that is in the middle of our rooms and being able to let them go and move towards a deeper richer relationship with God.  Each of us have an ‘elephant’ gets in our way, and blocks us from being fully present to God. 

Okay – some of you may be scratching your head right now and wonder what the heck I am talking about – elephants?  There are not elephants in the reading this morning.  But bear with me…I am using elephants as a metaphor for something that is within us that is being ignored or not looked at and is blocking us from a truer relationship with the Holy.  For that the man that approached Jesus this morning his elephant was wealth and possessions. 

It probably makes us squirm a bit as people who have many possessions to witness someone be confronted about selling all his stuff in order to ‘gain eternal life’.  That’s a pretty big elephant that I think we all recognize.  I just moved again and gave away more stuff and threw away many of my possessions and still I was able to more than fill a four bedroom home.  This elephant makes us very uncomfortable.  Especially if addressing this elephant would mean that we would have us giving away our savings accounts and our GIC’s to the poor and the homeless or selling our big screen tv’s and computer equipment to sponsor a refugee family or cashing in our wedding rings and heirloom jewellery to feed the hungry. 

Jesus is journeying this morning moving from one place to another to continue to share the good news about God in the world.  In the past few days he has been in Capernaum and now he is in Judea.  He has been challenging his disciples and has been challenged by the Pharisees. He has blessed some children and talked about the law. He is about start a new journey but before he can leave, a man rushes up to him, falls at his feet and asks what it is he can do to ‘earn eternal life.’  Obey the commandments and sell your possessions and follow me is Jesus answer.  If only it were that simple.

Some context around this story could help us here.  Remember where we, this is in the last part of Jesus ministry.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, which is bible code for preparing for his betrayal, and death.  He has been to the mountaintop, where he was in transfigured, and now has come down to move into the final phase of his ministry and also his life.  The disciples have been trying very awkwardly to figure things out and where they fit into the story – they have been having conversations about which is the greatest and Jesus continues challenge their thinking about the world and God and what God wishes for them.  So the kingdom of God, that is the world according to God’s plan the hoped for dream of people, the kingdom of God is far from being realized instead it almost feels like a direct contradiction.   Jesus is also continuing to be tested by the Pharisees who are challenge him and his teachings and try to make him appear ridiculous so that the large group of followers that are surrounding him will fade away and things will go back to the way they were before Jesus. 

And some context about the culture, in Jesus time, there was no middle class, there are only two classes of people, the wealthy and powerful or the poor and helpless.  The culture beliefs of his day implied that wealth is deserved, and for the wealthy it means that God if you are Hebrew -- or the gods if you are Roman- - are reward you for being faithful by providing you with wealth.   And conversely, being poor means that if you are not being provided with wealth than God does not look with favour upon you.

We have a parallel to this way of thinking in our modern world as well – it is called the gospel of prosperity in church circles – which is where we believe that the creature comforts that we enjoy are our rights and we are entitled and we deserve them because we worked hard to get them.  We are being rewarded for our faithfulness by the material goods that we have accumulated.  And when we are surrounded with so much wealth, we no longer recognize that it is wealth. 

It gets lost in our culture and in Jesus society too that the things that really matter, that all good gifts are God given and not something that we earn or even deserve.  That it is the grace of God that saves us and it is not something that we do or something that we earn, grace alone saves. 

Jesus message today speaks clearly against this thinking that monetary rewards are about getting in good with God and poverty as an indicator of distance from God.  Jesus is speaking against the culture and reminding us about the Kingdom.  – that is to say, Jesus is speaking about God’s wish for the world –the kingdom -  how the world would be if we lived according to the will of God.  The kingdom

But there are so many obstacles; our society and culture are struggling against hearing this message.  Jesus has just made a couple of strong pronouncements about the kingdom of God …about who belongs and what it is all about - the paradoxical first being last and the last being first and a child, a child who in Jesus time has no status, no value, and no authority has been held up as those to whom the kingdom of God belongs.

It is pretty clear here that the elephant in the room is wealth is very complex.  The man that approached Jesus knew that there was something lacking in his life, knew that Jesus may just have that answer about what he needs to live a full and rich life – and yet when he got his answer from Jesus, to sell his possessions and follow he turned away and left because he was unwilling or unable at that time to face the elephant in the room. 

David Lose suggests that we look at this man in a different way, not as someone who is devout Jew looking for more godly advice but instead as a someone who needed to be healed, he writes:

“Did you ever notice that all the people in Mark’s gospel who kneel to Jesus and ask for a blessing either have some dread disease or are demon possessed. And almost every time Jesus orders someone to go, like he does this guy, it’s in relation to a healing.
So what if this guy isn’t just pious but sick, heart sick, and somewhere deep down he knows this and so seeks out Jesus with his question about heavenly entrance exams because he knows that whatever his appearance on the outside, whatever his faithful and pious life, he’s still missing something, something important, something that matters, something that’s a matter of life and death. If this is the case, then maybe Jesus really does love him. Maybe Jesus sees that all this guy has – his knowledge of the law, his perfect piety, his abundant wealth – has distorted his sense of himself, and of God, and of his neighbour. And so maybe Jesus tells him to divest so that he can really live by faith in God and in solidarity with neighbour for the first time in his life, which would be like having, when you think about it, treasure in heaven.”[1]

Is our wealth making us sick?  Do our possessions possess us?  Or is it something else that keeps us from living the kingdom.  If we lost everything today – we went home from church and found out that our house had burned with all our stuff and our insurance was not going to cover….how would we be?  Would we be cursing God?  Or would we trying to figure out what is next?  If everything was gone, would if feel lighter, would priorities shift?  Without all our stuff, would things seem clearer?  Would we be like the king in the Quiltmaker’s Gift be happy with our new life of no possessions, our new health?  Or would we do everything in our power to try and recoup all that we used to have?

This is Thanksgiving weekend and many of us will be sitting at heavily laden tables with family and friends for a feast.  We will be taking to time to thank God for the gifts that surround us, for the gifts of love and companionship we receive from others.  It might a good time to stop and think for a moment whether we have an elephant or two that is blocking us from our relationship with God.

We don’t always walk the path God calls us to walk, nor do we always love our neighbour.  We may have made choices and decisions based on fear or regret or pain or to avoid the elephant, sometimes we don’t even know why we feel the way we do about issues that confront us and we act without thought or care for the other.  Anytime we have missed seeing the Christ in another and have excluded instead of included, anytime we have come to a firm decision about an issue and stand solid on one side or another unable to hear or consider that there might be another way to think about the issue or situation, anytime a choice is made that causes harm to another – But here is the thing, Jesus is talking about a God of forgiveness, a God of love and a God of do-overs a God who will help us face our elephants in the room.  We get the chance to bring healing to brokenness, to offer forgiveness to pain, to care for each other again, to love God and to love our neighbour.  And when we do this, and when we see the Christ in another’s eyes and open up our hearts and minds in love, the kingdom comes and God’s will is done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.

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[1] David Lose:  In the Meantime  http://www.davidlose.net/2015/10/pentecost-20-b-curing-our-heartsickness/

Beauty in Brokeness

Beauty in Brokenness

October 4 / 2015                  World Wide Communion Sunday

A few years ago a woman in a congregation I was serving contacted me to get together to talk about some stuff she had going on in her life.   Although she was a member of the congregation I had never met her as she did not attend worship.  She came to my office, spent some time doing idle chit-chat – and then with much hesitation she began to tell me about how her marriage was falling apart.  She had discovered that her husband had been having an affair and she did not know whether the marriage was going to survive this betrayal.  As we talked, and shared, it became clearer and clearer that she was not seeking my advice or looking to me for counselling, or even wanting to enter into a pastoral care relationship – she came to see me because she was scared, scared that if her marriage ended in divorce that God would be mad at her.  She came seeking reassurance from the minister that God would not hate her because her marriage was falling apart.  I find this quite disturbing that this woman who was suffering and sad and barely holding it together and in her sorrow and pain had to question whether or not she was destroying her relationship to God because her relationship to her husband was falling apart.  It seems to me that when we read texts such as the one we just heard from Mark – for people living a broken relationship, it is hard to feel supported by the story we just heard. 

Let’s look at this from another perspective – when we read this text we often skip right to what Jesus is saying about marriage, commitment and relationship.  But this story is set in a context – that is to say – this story is happening in the midst of the whole of Jesus story – and this story happens in the middle of the story. Jesus has been teaching and preaching and healing and exorcising demons for a couple of years now and he has begun to make an impression on those around him.  This story continues on from last week, they have left the house in Capernaum and have moved on to Judea, and when they stopped Jesus was one again surrounded with crowds of people who have come to see what is going on.  Jesus popularity is growing but also he is making enemies.  Those who particularly do not like what he has to say and what he is doing are the religious authorities.  The Pharisees are taking exception to what Jesus saying and they using every opportunity to challenge what he is say – to question the authority from which Jesus speaks.  They are seeking to make Jesus look foolish, to make him look like he doesn’t know what he is talking about so that he will loose his popularity and go back to obscurity.  And if Jesus is made to look foolish than those who are listening may begin to doubt what he is saying to. 

This text, though, is not so much about what Jesus says about divorce as it is about how Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees as they try to trick him into saying something they can call him out on – they are trying to make his say something that will alienate from the people who are listening to him in this moment.  And so they challenge him about the law – and the law they hold up as a challenge is the divorce law. 

David Lose writes:  “ This isn’t a casual – …, conversation about love, marriage, and divorce. It’s a test. Moreover, it’s not even a test about divorce, but about the law.   “Some Pharisees came and to test him they asked, is it lawful”  There were, you see, several competing schools of thought about the legality of divorce. Not so much about whether divorce was legal – everyone agreed upon that –that it was legal - but under what circumstances, that was the challenging question. And with this question/test, the Pharisees are trying to pin Jesus down, trying to label him, trying to draw him out and perhaps entrap him so that they know better how to deal with him.” [1]

The Pharisee’s asked is it lawful, not – ‘what do you think about divorce’ or ‘what do you believe God wants people to do when their marriages is no longer working’, or not ‘give us your opinion Jesus on the state of married life in Judea two millennium ago’ - what the Pharisees are asking Jesus to do is to interpret the law – But as we know when Jesus is challenged he rarely ever answers the challenging question in the way that is expected of him – tell us about the law Jesus and so Jesus starts to talk about relationships

I think it is really important that we listen to what Jesus has to say next– how many of us here in this places lives have been impacted by divorce – either ourselves living in a marriage breakdown – or our parents – or our children, or others in our families – I bet that everyone here has had someone they love live through a divorce…we know how painful they are, how much people suffer – how it hurts to live in a broken relationships…we know…and we also know that this text has been used to justify bad marriages staying together – to judge people who have made the divorce choice – so please be careful how you hear the next words that Jesus says.

Jesus says what Moses said – Moses who was human, Moses the one that God gave the law to –on the stone tablets – and then he talks about God’s place in all of it – how we are all male and female both part of the creation – and so partnerships with another are entered into on equal footing with both partners on the same ground, no one better than the other, neither one with advantages over the other.  Jesus was talking about healthy relationships with each other.

David Lose again:  “Jesus isn’t speaking to individuals, you see, he’s making a statement about the kind of community we will be. In fact, he’s inviting us to imagine communities centered in and on real relationships; relationships, that is, founded on love and mutual dependence, fostered by respect and dignity, and pursued for the sake of the health of the community and the protection of the vulnerable…

This whole passage, I think, is about community. But it’s not the kind of community we’ve been trained to seek. It’s not, that is, a community of the strong, or the wealthy, or the powerful, or the independent. Rather, this is a community of the broken, of the vulnerable, of those at risk. It’s a community, in other words, of those who know their need and seek to be in relationship with each other because they have learned that by being in honest and open relationship with each other they are in relationship with God, the very one who created them for each other in the first place….

When we look at this passage this way, …, not so much as instructions about divorce but instead as an invitation to see our communities as those places where God’s work to heal and restore the whole creation is ongoing, not by taking away all our problems but surrounding us with people who understand, and care, and help us to discover together our potential to reach out to others in love and compassion  We are communities of the broken, but we are those broken whom God loves and is healing and, indeed, using to make all things new?[2]

Which is what we are about to do and experience when we move in the next few minutes to the table – the table that is spread in our midst the holds for us this community of faith - the bread of Christ and the cup of salvation – we come to this table this morning as individuals who have been broken, people who have struggled, some who are doubting, some strong in faith, some who are despairing others who sing with joy – but all of us children of God

It is only in recognizing our brokenness do we come to the table in truth – it is only when we realize that this table is about accepting our brokenness, and seeing the beauty.  This table that holds the Lord’s supper is our table of blessing, our table of wholeness where the lost become found and the weak become strong, and the last is first and a little child belongs to the kingdom.

This table is a place of restoration.  This communion an opportunity for the kingdom to come into this place if only for just a moment.  This meal is an invitation for our community to be place where God’s work is done.  This table offer’s the invitation to see our communities as those places where God’s work to heal and restore the whole creation is ongoing, not by taking away all our problems but surrounding us with people who understand, and care, (that would be your neighbour sitting in the pews beside you right now) the ones that help us to discover together our potential to reach out to others in love and compassion.  We are communities of the broken, but we are those broken whom God loves and is healing and, indeed, using to make all things new.  Let us share this feast of healing as a community of the beautiful broken God’s beloved people.  Amen. 

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[1] David Lose:  In the Meantime  http://www.davidlose.net/2015/09/pentecost-19-b-communities-of-the-broken-and-blessed/

[2] ibid.

Tattle Tale - A Sermon for September 27/2015

Tattle Tale

September 27, 2015                       Pentecost 18

The year is 1975, and I am 12 years old.  I am in grade 7 and I want to fit in.  I want to be part of the group; I want to look like everyone else.  You would think in a WASP community that a white girl would fit in, but this is Jr. High and this shy awkward redhead is struggling.  My school was in Burks Falls – and we were bussed.  There is lots of trash talk on a bus filled with 12 and 13 year olds – most of the girls my age had pierced ears – and the talk was that if your ears aren’t pierced either you parents were too mean and you were afraid of them or you are too scared to get it done.  For me it was my mean parents that kept me back from popularity– they – no, my dad did not believe that pre-teen girls should have pierced ears, wear makeup or try to look in anyway more grown up than they were.  It was at that time, one of the great tragedies of my life.  So one day, a friend smuggled her own earing studs from home and a big needle and she pierced my ears in the girl’s bathroom during recess.  I was delighted and thrilled, the adrenalin rushing through my body because of the power I felt being so defiant to my oppressive parents was amazing.  I was however, a little disappointed about how lopsided they were but most of me was thrilled with the huge act of independent rebelliousness although I will admit to being frightened about my parents finding out.  When I got home, I kept my long hair down covering my ears  so that no one would see– but I couldn’t keep it to myself so I showed my sisters what I had done after I swore them to secrecy.  That act of sharing my rebellious nature was a big mistake.

My little sister Judy’s conscious was more highly developed at that time than my pre-teen one.  And as the days went by with my parents not finding out, I became more and more relaxed about the earrings festering in my ears – because you must realize a 12 year old girl knows very little about hygiene and infection and my ears were starting to ooze by about day two – my sister, however, began to have sleepless nights, her anxiety about my transgressions were so large they were causing her to endlessly worry and eventually – about a week after my ears were pierced, my parents found out because my little sister told them. 

Needless to say, the earrings had to go – and I had privileges removed from me, and it was a full two years until I was allowed to get my ears pierced, this time in a shop with a trained woman and lots of rubbing alcohol  – yet, I always felt an injustice in this story - not that I did not deserve punishments I received, but that Judy was touted as the hero – not the tattletale that she was.

I think Jesus would side with me on this one.  It is pretty clear in the story we just read that the disciples are not coming out well because they have chosen to tell on others, who are not apart of the inner circle, for healing and teaching in Jesus name.  It seems that Jesus does not like a tattletale either….

Remember where we are in the Jesus story– last week in our readings we witnessed Jesus and his disciples coming to the community of Capernaum, they are on their way to Jerusalem which in Bible talk means we are getting to the end of the story, closer to the betrayal, the death and the resurrection.  The disciples are trying to understand what the last three years have been all about, understand what Jesus has been talking about all that time, and where they fit into this – and so they begin to argue with each other as to which one of them is the greatest – Jesus turns and asks what they are talking about, and then takes a child, moves him into the inner circle and says ‘whoever welcomes one such as these welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.’(Mark 9:37)

This radical statement of Jesus should really be telling the disciples about a God of inclusiveness, a God of hospitality, a God of welcome to all including the ones that society and culture consider the last and the least.  Not so the disciples, they still continue to struggle with what Jesus really means about inclusion and welcome and hospitality.  And into the very next sentence uttered in that room in Capernaum into that moment in time, with the child still in their midst – John says:  ‘There are others, who are casting out demons in your name – and we tried to stop them because they did not belong to our inner circle’…which are words which seems to be the opposite of what Jesus is saying; exclusive, not welcoming and non-hospitable….to which Jesus says:  “tattle tale”.

The thing about a tattle-telling is that

·      it is not about telling on someone to make the world right, it is about telling on someone to make your world right. 

·      It is not about telling on someone to bring about justice, it is telling on someone to promote your cause

·      the thing about a tattle telling is that it is about comparing your self to another where you come out looking the best, were you always look like the better choice, the right one. 

·      That compared to so and so…well you are on top. 

My sister Judy was the obedient daughter where her sister Heather was the disobedient one – They cast out demons in your name and you have not given them permission to do so – we are the only ones you have given permission to cast out demons, we are your chosen ones. 

This is the thing about Jesus – is that he has this amazing ability to cut to the chase – he does not get caught up in discussions about best and worse, or comparing people to other people – or even calling out those who are doing good in his name with out his permission.  As a commentator said this week – “there is no copy write on the realm of God”.  That is to say, working to bring about the kingdom of God by caring for others, and sharing what we have, and loving our neighbour and putting aside our petty differences to be inclusive and welcoming and hospitable – bringing about the kingdom – it does not matter whether you are sanctioned by the church, whether you use the right words or the proper formulas - for the kingdom, is not something that one group or another or that one way or another has priority over or a monopoly on actions – the realm of God is something that is done.

So, says Jesus; ‘back off, let those who are working for the kingdom be, let the realm of God come into the world in the hands of many in spite of whether they belong to the right group or not’.  Regardless of who is reaching out, Jesus says, a cup of water given in my name is bringing about the kingdom.  And to take things further, if you get in the way of someone bringing about the kingdom – that’s a problem – any stumbling block needs to be removed – and then Jesus gets into some pretty descriptive and disturbing language – I think that the shock value of his words would indicate that this is really, really important message– don’t get in the way of the kingdom.

·      Make sure what you do with your hands does not hurt, maim or hold back another.

·      And if your feet cause you to stumble – if you are walking a path blindly where you trod on others, push people out of your way or carelessly consider only your own path…. step back says Jesus, slow down or stop.

·      And if you see things that cause you to be jealous or envious or covets or judgemental – consider the lenses that you are viewing the world with – maybe that is what needs to change.

Cause you know when you read this scripture and consider Jesus words, he is saying that the opposite of the kingdom of God is hell – and by blocking another who is working for the kingdom because of our own bias and prejudice we create hell on earth and thwart the kingdom of God.

The disciples were not stupid people, we are not stupid people – but like the disciples we too are looking for a sense of assuredness that what we are doing, how we are living, how we see the world and how we interact with the world is the right and only way.  We like to feel that the choices we make are the right one – and it makes us feel better to think that the choices another makes which are different from ours are the wrong ones.  Our focus is wrong, the disciple’s focus is wrong.  We need to be focused within ourselves – ‘the salt’ says Jesus so that we can season the world.  ‘have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”

Karoline Lewis writes:  (We) They need to know that the goal of faith is not winning, unlike our culture. They need to know that the goal of believing is not who can be better, whatever that means. They need to know that being a Christian is not about comparison but individual expression, as individual as the incarnation. Good grief, if we all believed the same way, how boring would that be? Not even our Scriptures propose that. The reassurance of particularity is grace itself, so says God’s commitment to the incarnation. Our penchant for “we saw someone” (this tattle telling – judging another’s contribution through our distorted lenses) needs to be replaced by faith’s “we see Jesus.” And in Jesus, we see God. Our God is here.”[1]

It is not about tattle telling it is about the kingdom of God being expressed by so many people in so many ways – we see Jesus…

We see Jesus

·      When the stranger is welcomed

·      When the refugee finds a home. 

·      When scales are removed from eyes and we see God inside another even when they challenge our prejudices. 

o   It could mean that we are called to stand in solidarity with those who are poor or disabled or live on government subsidy. 

o   It could mean that we walk hand in hand with gay people and indigenous people and all those who express their faith differently than us, even when we have to give up long held ideals about the way of the world.

o   It may mean that children and the differently abled have an equal voice at the table.

o   It may mean that we may need to confront our long held believes about justice and equality and view the ‘other’ from how Jesus sees them.

We see Jesus when we see the world as Jesus does – when we view the other through the eyes of God.

It all comes down to the life lesson we all have to learn and learn again throughout our life – all we can do and all we can be is ourselves – with our gifts and our challenges – for me I need to remember that there will always be better preachers and teachers and ministers but God called me too to bring about the kingdom in what ever way I can with the gifts and skills I have– and it is not for me to judge the other, to diminish the other’s work or to criticize it as a way of making me look good.  Karoline Lewis shared a personal story which I think really brings this point home – she writes:

This weekend, I will attend my 30^th high school reunion. Long, long, ago, back in a former life, when I thought that being a professional violinist was my future, I had a rather difficult violin lesson with my teacher. I was trying to play like those around me, those who were getting accolades, who were moving ahead, or so I thought, who sounded better than I, or so it seemed. Mr. Meacham, my violin teacher, said, “What’s going on?” I told him I want to sound like, play like…. He said to me, “Karoline, never compare yourself to anyone but yourself.” At the time? To be honest? I didn’t get it. It didn’t make sense. Now it does. Or a little more, anyway. He was trying to say, “Karoline, you are you. There is no one else like you. Let go of all judgment, competition, and expectation.”[2]

You are you, there is no one else like you.  You are God’s beloved child – God does not compare you to another, or do you need to compete for God’s love, because you are already wonderfully and fiercely loved by God.  You are God’s beloved child with gift abounding to bring about the kingdom of God.  Let it be so.  Amen.

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[1] Karoline Lewis:  Dear Working Preacher; http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3694

[2] ibid.