Holy Shift (with a shout out to Gord Dunbar – Hamilton Conference
President)
January
24/2015 3rd Sunday after
Epiphany
The
president of Hamilton Conference this year is Gord Dunbar, he is one of the
ministers of Port Nelson United Church in Burlington – but his roots are in
Grey county as he hails from Owen Sound.
I have known Gord since seminary.
You can’t be around Gord for very long before you encounter his sense of
humour – this man is funny – he make me laugh, he makes many people laugh and
this might explain to you why he would make as his theme the year he is
president for Hamilton Conference – ‘Holy Shift ‘– except when you say it – it
makes way more of an impact if you say it like Gord does– HOLY SHIFT! There is something irreverent about a theme
named ‘shift.’ You can bet that this is
deliberate. But you can also bet that
this is completely grounded in scripture and God and church and sacred because
what Gord is able to do with his humour is to clear the clutter of our crazy
church world, where sometimes we end up focusing all sorts of time and
attention on things that do not really matter in order to shift us around to
the holy, with a pun or a witticism or a joke that has you pause and shake your
head and go – ohhhh, that’s what’s going on – that’s where God is – and your
thinking shifts, and God gets in and the world is transformed. A holy shift.
The
people in the Nehemiah story this morning are desperate for a holy shift. These two historical books of Ezra and
Nehemiah are focused around the time directly after the exile. The people have been allowed to come home,
and been granted permission to rebuild their city and their temple. Nehemiah upon learning that the walls of
Jerusalem have fallen down negotiated
with the king of Persia – Artaxerxes, and convinced him to pay for them to be
rebuilt and then to repopulate the city – but there is a lot of work to do– the
temple is in ruins, the city has been neglected for the last 70 years – imagine
the amount of infrastructure that has been ignored during that time. I suspect that the people although delighted
about being able to reclaim what was once theirs, they must be overwhelmed by
the amount of work that needs to be done to return this city and temple back to
a liveable state. It is up to Nehemiah
who has been appointed the governor to make this work happen, to encourage the
people, to motivate them to restore the city and its temple.
Do you know how he does it? Do you know what he used to motivate the
people to find a passion about the restoration of the city? Scripture – he used God’s word to motivate. Nehemiah gathered all the people who lived
there; young and old, rich and poor, men and woman – gathered them all in the
square by the watergate in the midst of the ruins the prophet Ezra climbed up
on the platform and started to read. For
you see, underneath all that broken walls and crumbling stone, the found
something that was forgotten from long ago, they found their scripture, they
found their word of God, they found their Torah – the law – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy. This is what Ezra reads to
the people: “In the
beginning when God created[a] the heavens and the earth, 2 the
earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a
wind from God[b] swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” And the people stood there and listened and
listened and time passed, hours passed and still the people remained captivated
by what Ezra was reading….can you imagine – hours of listening to the bible –
from early morning until midday; hours. And
there they were, the people in the square mesmerized by the Word of God.
Isn’t it remarkable –
that these people were so captivated by Ezra’s reading of the bible. Think about it, here they were these hundreds
of people all different ages and stages in their life – some, the elderly
especially could have a vague memory of this book, this sacred scroll that Ezra
read. The next generation would have
only heard about it from their parents and grandparents, and the third
generation, the youth and children may never have heard the stories at
all. And yet these stories passed down
while they lived in exile for some would have been the first time they heard about
who God was, and how God had worked in their world through Abraham and Isaac,
Moses and Miriam, and the story of creation and Adam and Eve and Noah, and
Joseph and his many colour coat….but that not all they stayed and listened to
Leviticus and Number too, which for any of you that has not tried to read the
bible in a while is pretty dry and not much story – lots of rules and very
little plot. They stayed and experience
scripture in a way that they never had before…and they were moved some were
moved to tears – this word of God got into them and they remembered who they
were and whose they were, and that they were connected one to the other, and
they remembered that they were God’s people, and this city, this temple site
was about them and it connected them to each other, and solidified their
purpose –there was a holy shift, and God got in and gave meaning to their work
– and the city got built, the walls put back up and the temple – well the
temple arose from the rubble.
And lets not forget
what also happened that day, as the people stood there with tears streaming
down their face – Ezra did not leave them like that, he did not dust off his
hands and roll up the scroll and walk away – no, he tells the people to go and
celebrate – you just heard the word of God, you just experienced a grace filled
moment were God was here and you were remembered a holy shift happened so go
and celebrate. This is a happy occasion,
this is a joyful event, this is a moment that needs to be honoured and
treasured and celebrated –so laugh and sing and dance and eat well…God has come
in the Word has been revealed and this day is holy – a holy shift day.
Jesus and his story
today is yet another example of scripture being read and a holy shift happening
– imagine what is going through the minds of those who witnessed this event,
Jesus standing in their midst and reading from the book of Isaiah, sitting down
and saying today you have witnessed scripture being fulfilled in your
midst. We will find out next week when
the second half of this scripture passage is read what the reaction was– all I
am going to say about this event right now is that something powerful definitely
happened in that synagogue in Galilee and many who was there had a holy shift –
more about that next week.
But for today, lets
fast forward a few thousand years and consider this holy book in today’s
context. This bible, this living book,
this word of God still has the power to mesmerize and captivate and holy shift
us into a new reality where God gets in and we are transformed.
When is the last time
that scripture has done this to you – where it knocked your socks off – where
you experienced a holy shift in your world – cause the Word was spoken. I am blessed you know, this work that I do,
which keeps me immersed in scripture whether I want to or not. It is a gift that weekly I have to read and
think about sections of the bible, it is a gift that I get to use scripture is
sacred moments such as weddings, funerals, bedsides…cause you know what happens
when you hear scripture in holy moments, it does knock your socks off. Like when your in the middle of a wedding and
1 Corinthians is read – really read – and people really hear it and you realize
that this commitment that the couple is making to each other is a moment of
profound trust in each other and whether it is spoken or not, God is getting in
and is blessing this couple and making their wedding a marriage. It is a
transformative moment when is ceases to be about the dress and the catered meal
and the guess list – it is about two people and God making a commitment to each
other. ‘Love is patient, love is kind,
it envious not nor is boastful and it never, never ends’ (1 Cor 13)…a knock
your socks off proclamation. Holy Shift
isn’t God’s love amazing!
And when I privileged
to share scripture at bedsides in sacred times and human vulnerability times
such as illness and death - …God our refuge and strength a very present help in times of
trouble (Ps 46)- -God will keep your life, from your going out and your coming
in (psalm 121) – words to assure that even life and death and everything in
between God is with us we are never alone holy Shift even in death God is with
us, we are never alone!
But you know these
are not just minister moments. We
ministers are not a privileged bunch of people the word of God only blows us
away. No, in fact I bet that everyone
here today has had a holy shift moment in their lives. We have all had moments like this, moments
when the word of God spoke into our hearts and broke us open, moments when God
got in and our lives were transformed. That
is partly what brings us here today, hoping for another holy shift. An epiphany when the light penetrates the
darkness and God is revealed in the light.
Those moments
· when we hear the word
and know deep deep in our entire being that we are loved and we matter: ““You are my Son, the Beloved;[h] with you I am well pleased.”(Mk 1:11)
· when the word of God
speaks into a situation that we are going through, where all of a sudden in a
scripture story or sentence or even a word, clarity comes and understanding
happens: “I can do everything through him who
gives me strength.” (Phil 4:13)
· or when you are feeling that who you
are and the choices that you made could not possibly be acceptable and that you
are outside of the fray and then the
words of belonging come: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not
so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (Jn14:2)
· when darkness and
despair have all but taken over your life and everything seems to be dark: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path. (Ps 119:105)
so many moments when
words like,
· ‘even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me’(Ps 23)
· and ‘give us this day
our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses’
· and ‘you search me
and know me’ (Ps 139)
· and ‘be still and
know that I am God’(Ps 46)
· and ‘we know that all
things work for good for those who love God’ (Rom 8)
· and ‘come to
me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Mt 11)
Those moments when scripture has broken
you open, when has the Word lit a pathway in the midst of darkness? When God got in and the light shone forth and
holy shift – you were comforted, or set at ease or knew you were forgiven, or
your fear disappeared – poof – just like that – or your anxiety was eased and
you stopped worrying in short – you shifted, you shifted because the word of God
got in and you were transformed. Holy
shift – isn’t God amazing – holy shift.
Amen and amen.
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