The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Come and See

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Invitations come in many shapes and sizes. They may come in the mail, or by email. They may come by telephone or by word of mouth. They even come on street corners, or in unexpected ways. Some are personal, almost intimate. That first date kind of invitation! Whatever the form, invitations always ask the same question, “Why don’t you come and see?”

“Come and see,” is almost the first thing that Jesus says in John’s gospel. He says it to two of John’s disciples. They had gone out into the desert to see John the Baptist, to hear him preach, to be baptised by him. He had announced the Messiah to them. “Look! The lamb of God!” he had said of Jesus.

And so they went looking for Jesus. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asked them.

“Where are you staying?” was their response.

And then the relationship really begins. For that is when Jesus issues the invitation. “Come and see!” Isn’t that a wonderful way to begin a relationship? With an invitation? Isn’t that the way a truly good relationship unfolds? “Leave behind whatever you have to leave behind,” Jesus is saying. There is always something that needs to be abandoned. “Come, leave your nets and boat,” Jesus said to James and John. “Leave your counting table and ledgers,” he said to the tax collector, Matthew. “Leave everything you have and follow me,” he said to a young wealthy man. “Leave your past. Leave your home, your friends, your enemies, and come and follow me. Come and see what lies ahead.”

Why do we come? What are we seeking? What are we willing to leave behind? ‘Come and see’ is an invitation that is offered to each of us over and over in our lives. Come and see what lies ahead. Leave your work, leave school, leave retirement. Leave your old self behind, because the fact is, you cannot take any of it with you. What’s more, you probably won’t need it when you get to where you are going. Abandon your accustomed world of IPhones, computers and coffee cups.

“Come and see” invites us into an alternative world, a place we have never been. And after all, you cannot have one foot in Leamington and the other in some far away, exotic South Sea Island. You cannot begin the journey without leaving. That is why “come and see” is such an amazing invitation.

I consider the times that I have accepted that invitation to come and see. As a young teacher it took me up to James Bay where I taught for Indian Affairs in a Residential School. What a journey that was! I look back on that first experience of teaching and realize that God was in it, preparing me for a lifetime of listening and responding to God’s call. I had so many new experiences. I got a wider perspective of the diversity of our country. I was able to use my gifts and talents as I responded in faith.

But it was not an easy place to be. It was a lonely experience for a teenager away from home for the first time. I often went weeks at a time without hearing from family or friends. I was teaching children who were lonely, far away from their homes, grieving their loss of language and culture. Later on as we began to hear of the abuses of the residential school system and the history of our First Nations People began to be told, it became a source of great pain to me that I had been a part of that abuse. That too, led to a new invitation to come and see. During the Truth and Reconciliation process I became an Ambassador for the Anglican Church of Canada. I learned so much in that process about the history of our First Nations People, about all that they suffered. I began to do workshops and to do what I could to right the wrongs of the past. I was able through listening to their stories to find a place of reconciliation for myself.

My call to ordained ministry was certainly a call to come and see. I left behind many facets of my life – my teaching, a good salary, music, my home down on the lake in Etobicoke. I took up the uncertainty of becoming a student once again. There was even the uncertainty of whether or not I would ever be ordained. It is a long and involved process of discernment. I knew that it was not just something that I thought should happen, that I wanted to do. It was something that needed to be discerned by the wider church. But I had a sense of trust that whatever God was calling me to come and see was a part of the journey that I needed to experience. Indeed, perhaps the most important thing I learned was to be the best Ann I could be.

We need to learn and discern about out call. Yet there is another, perhaps even more important aspect to the invitation. It is an invitation that we as Christians need to offer to others. Jesus says ‘come and see’ through us. A simple invitation can be life changing. Come and see … That invitation can come in so many ways. It might be in a letter, or a look, or a simple act of unselfish love. When we invite others to faith, we invite them to encounter Christ, to join us on our faith journey.

“Come and see the Lord,” we are saying. “He will show us new ways of loving. He will show us new ways of living. He will give us a new identity as a Christian. He will show us the way to God. Come and see …”

How have you influenced others to become Christ-like? Have you extended them acts of love? Have you invited them to join you at church? Have you offered to pick them up and bring them to church? Have you invited them to stay for coffee and meet others in the congregation? Have you shared your own faith journey?

The story begins as it did for the disciples who wanted to meet Jesus. “Come and see,” Jesus said to them. And they followed him.

This whole congregation needs to be alert to the needs of those who come to see, those who are seeking Christ. That is our job as Christians. Is this a welcoming community of faith? Have you made an honest assessment of how welcoming you are? Our churches can be so inaccessible to people. There are many barriers to overcome. I was speaking to someone some time ago and I invited her to come to church with me. She told me she wouldn’t know what to wear. What keeps people from coming here?

What about once someone enters an Anglican church? How user friendly is our service? First of all there are the acronyms that we use so freely. The BAS, the BCP, PWRDF, the ACW. It must be very confusing for someone who comes to church for the first time. Then we flip pages. And as if that is not enough we have not one, but two books to handle. Are you attentive to those who are visiting or who are checking the church out? Do you make sure they know their way around the service?

What about where you sit? Do you always sit in the same seat? What if you happen to come in and someone is sitting in your place? What do you do? A little story about one of the churches that I served in. It was a tiny church in a village that was growing rapidly. The church also was experiencing great growth, especially young families with children. A long-time member of the church came in, looked around, and then searched me out. “There are people sitting in my pew,” she said to me. I turned to the sidespeople and asked them to find her a place to sit. I continued to get ready for the service. When I entered the church, I was flabbergasted to see that she was sitting in her pew by herself, while the family were on chairs at the back. That is a pretty extreme example, but does it happen here? What if you were to sit in different places just to get to know other parishioners? Would it give you a new perspective?

How do you make coffee hour more welcoming to newcomers? There is an excitement in this congregation as you chat with one another. It is wonderful. There is no doubt that it is a friendly place. But that can be intimidating to someone new. It can feel like a club. I challenge you to talk to someone each week that you have never spoken to before.

God uses us, each one of us, to communicate the faith. Every day of our lives, that welcoming message needs to come across loud and clear. “Come and see! Come and see where God is leading you. Come and see what wonderful things God has in store for your life. Come and see Jesus. Come and get to know him. Come and see…”

The Second Sunday after Epiphany Year A

Sermon Series Part 2
My Truth

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

I begin this sermon by acknowledging the First Nations in whose territory we live and express my thanks for this opportunity to meet here today. And I put before you two questions. How will you in this parish share in the ministry of truth and reconciliation? And more importantly what does it even mean?

As the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceeded, we have heard the stories of abuse and hardship that our First Nations people have endured. I hope that you have followed those stories as they have unfolded. That is the ‘truth’ part of the equation. As I speak about Truth and Reconciliation I still hear stereotypical responses from people. You know what I mean. Lazy! Welfare bums! Drunks! Dirty! What I hear most of all is that it was a long time ago. “It has nothing to do with me!” people will tell me. “Besides, the Church has already paid out compensation. That should be the end of it.” But here is the difficulty for me. It took generations to make the mess; it will take generations of truly listening to the stories and making amends to undo the problems that were created by our racist attitudes.

Having chosen to preach a series of sermons on the Truth and Reconciliation process, and more importantly having decided that this week I would focus on the truth part of the equation, I found very little in the readings that opened up the story for me. They are for the most part a wonderful list of ‘how to’s’. How to get along as a community! How to reach out to others! How to respond to God’s call! All wonderful topics, of course, but not helpful to me in focusing on my chosen topic. And so I turn to the psalm for today. It too gives us a ‘how to’. It is a psalm of Thanksgiving, but also a lament. It suggests how to find inner strength, how to tap into our hidden gifts and resources. And so I find myself pondering whether it might echo the lament of our First Nations People. Can we see this as a lament turned to praise that First Nations People might use? They have waited patiently for their condition to change. They wait for that sense of deliverance that is God’s promise to God’s people.

The Psalmist, presumably David as this is considered one of his psalms, gives a picture of his life before and after God responds to his plea for help. David was in a miry pit. It was muddy, sticky and difficult to maneuver in. He needed help to free himself from the difficult circumstances in which he found himself. He was ready to give up. “Before,” David says, “my life was terrible. But I waited patiently and God came to my help.”
You can hear the fatigue in his lament.

As I have listened to the stories of truth from First Nations People, I hear that same fatigue. They are tired. They are tired of yearning for what was. They are tired of feeling inadequate. They are above all tired of feeling powerless to bring about change. How do we turn their lament into a song of praise?

I want to share a little of my story, my truth, and of some of the steps that I have taken to reconciliation. My first year of teaching was at St. Philip’s Residential School in Fort George, Quebec, on the Quebec coast of James Bay about two hundred air miles north of Moosonee. It is now called Chisassibi; it is where the James Bay Power Project went in. It was, when I taught there, a rather isolated village. Except for the six weeks or so of freeze up and whatever time it took for the break up, there were three planes a week if the weather cooperated. The moment I stepped off the plane, a “veteran” teacher asked me if I was a “reject” or a “misfit”. “That is all we get here!” he went on to say. Although I do not believe either of those words describes my reason for going north, after all, I was a mere seventeen, I certainly had an idealized view of what it meant to be an “Indian”. My concept of First Nations People came from the pictures of cute little pig-tailed Aboriginal children on the mission boxes that we got at church. I decided it was my mission to go north to teach.

There were seven classes in our school. Not all of the children lived in the residence. Perhaps a third of them lived in the village. It was made clear to all of us that we were there to teach the children English, in fact to turn them into white children. They were not to speak their language. If we heard them speak we were to correct them. I had one little girl, Dora Ekumiak, an Inuit, who, while she did her work just fine, would not say a word. She finally spoke to me out in the schoolyard towards the end of the year. After that she never stopped. I suspect she was simply waiting until she got it right. The children were quiet and very respectful. There was never any need for discipline.

There was not enough room for all of the teachers to have their own apartment in the Teacherage, so two of us, the youngest, had rooms in the residence. We were directly under the primary girls’ dorm. It is heart breaking to me to remember the sobs that I often heard at night as the children settled down to sleep. I know that I felt lonely and isolated away from family for the first time. And I had chosen to be there. How much more those little ones must have felt in that strange environment without the comfort of parents and siblings! I have learned that brothers and sisters were often split up and sent to different schools. Many would not see another family member for years.

What I remember most about teaching the children was their creative ability. They were wonderful artists. Supplies were often unavailable, and so I would beg my family to send me paper. They sent rolls of wallpaper, which became wonderful murals on the classroom walls. I also got them to send me bars of ivory soap so that the children could carve them like soapstone. The results were amazing.

I had to laugh hearing one man’s story about how much time was spent in prayer. The children in the residence went to chapel every morning before going to school. I put together a little choir that sang on Sundays and sometimes in the chapel in the morning. I never could get them to sing up to speed, but they enjoyed it, especially if I accompanied them on the wheezy old pump organ.

Although it was discouraged, I did get to know a family from the village and spent a week during our Easter break on their trap line. It was a life-changing experience, one that I cherish. But on our return, the Principal called me into his office, and threatened me with being fired if I ever did anything like that again.

That is the ‘truth’ part of the story. I would not trade that teaching experience for anything. Yet I lost it! When information began to emerge about abuse in the schools I was horrified, especially when teachers were blamed for the children’s loss of language and culture. I avoided telling anyone about my experience. Then I went to a conference. I found myself signing up for a workshop on the Healing Circle. It was led by an elder, and was attended by about a dozen or so First Nations women and me. We sat in a circle. The elder explained the process. She would pass a feather around the circle. When it came to us we could hold it as long as we wished. We could speak whatever we wished to say. When we were finished we could pass it on to the next person. As it was passed around the circle, most of the women told stories about the residential schools, and about the abuse they had endured. I planned to just sit there without speaking, but when the feather got to me, I heard myself telling them my story. I told them about the children in my class and how much I had cared for them. I told them how ashamed I felt now, but also how I had lost that precious time that was so pivotal in my teaching career. I expressed my sadness at their pain. I passed the feather on to the next woman. Suddenly there was a loud ‘Whoop!’ They all joined in. The elder thanked me and said that I was their sister. That is reconciliation.

The First Nations People have a great capacity for praising God. God continues to speak to them through all of creation. The rocks are grandfathers, rock solid, dependable, ancient. The moon is the grandmother, source of life, controlling the waters of the earth, bringing about life. The feather speaks of gentleness, of the ability to go with the flow. It symbolizes reverence for the Creator and all of life.

It is time for us to start listening to First Nations People. It is time to walk with them. It is time to allow their stories to turn form lament to praise. It is time to hear their stories and learn from them who God is and how to worship.

My hope is that we will listen to the truth, hear with our hearts, and stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters. Let us put our minds together in Thanksgiving. In Ojibway, “Chi-miigwech”! “Thank you very much!”

Second Sunday of Epiphany, Proper 2, Year B

Called to Be!

Readings: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20); Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

We Canadians, as most of the world, are addicted to our phones. Consumer studies show that almost eighty-five percent of Canadians have a Smartphone. We are used to calling others and to being called. In this day and age we feel uneasy if we go out the door without our cell phone. What if someone needs to get in touch with us? But when it comes to being called by God, we are less sure. We wish it were as easy as receiving a phone call. We question. What does it mean to be called? How does it happen? How can we discern God’s call? Are we all called by God? Our readings today explore the ways in which God reaches out to us and helps us to discern our calling.

Samuel received a call from God when he was just a child. He was three years old when his mother took him to live in the temple at Shiloh where he was to serve. Eli, the priest in the temple, was an old man. His two sons were servers in the temple. But their greed had given it a bad name amongst the people. Eli had not spoken out about their bad behaviour. This had cut him off from God’s good graces.

There in the darkness of the night, God called Samuel. Samuel heard the call, but not on his own. He needed Eli, the very one who was out of favour with God, to help him respond. He needed someone’s guidance. He needed help to know that it was God calling him.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites Philip to follow him. He in turn finds his friend Nathanael and invites him. Nathanael’s first response is negative, even scornful. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” He retorts. Philip knows better than to argue. But he also knows Jesus. And indeed the answer for him is a resounding “yes!” So he invites Nathanael with the same words that Jesus used in inviting him. “Come and see.” What is he inviting him to come and see? Come and gain insight into the mind and purpose of God. Come and deepen your relationship with God. Come and answer the call to serve.

A number of years ago I read a book about our sense of call as humans. It was called The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, by James Hillman. His is not by any means a Christian way of looking at call, but he comes surprisingly close to describing the process through which God helps us to determine who we are meant to be. He says that even very young children have a sense of call, and that if we really listen to what they are saying, we can help them to discern their life’s work. He recounts the story of the English philosopher, Collingwood, who at eight years of age tried to read Kant’s Theory of Ethics. He could not understand it. He knew with a sense of urgency that he needed to. It became his life’s work. Did God call him? That is how I see it.

Martin Luther King was aware even as a young child that God was calling him to fight against racism. Even when his family, worried about his safety opposed his efforts, he continued to challenge racial discrimination.

How do we personally discern God’s call? Sometimes it happens through other people in our lives, people like Eli who have insights into the way God works. Such people are able to share their insights with us and help us to discern God's call. I had such a mentor when I came to discern my call to ordination. I made an appointment with my parish priest to talk to him about the process. Now you have to know that I was the organist in the parish, and he was sure that I was going to hand in my resignation. He opened the conversation by telling me that he realized that they were not paying me very much and that it would be redressed at the next Vestry. I thanked him, saying, "That will be very helpful given what I am hoping to do." I went on to tell him about my sense of call. He leaned back in his chair, gave his characteristic ‘humph’! "It's to be avoided if at all possible," he said to me. I spent the next two hours explaining why it was that I could not avoid it. He repeated his admonition. "It's to be avoided if at all possible." In exasperation I reiterated that it was not something that I could avoid. He simply commented, "Well, that's wonderful, isn't it!" He opened up his library to me and mentored me through the process. What a gift that was as I began to articulate the longing in my heart!

Sometimes it happens through invitations like the one of Philip to come and see. God calls us as individuals in a personal way to serve, to follow, to share. Where have you heard God’s call? How have you passed on that call to others? How do we become open to God’s presence and call?

Sometimes it happens to a group of people who begin to listen and act on God’s call to them. It rather reminds me of the movie “Field of Dreams”. In it, a man receives the message, “Build it and they will come.” ‘It’ is a playing field. And he builds it, although not without the usual obstacles. He converts the field on his farm into a playing field complete with lights and seats for people to watch. ‘They’ are the great players of the past. And they come out of the corn stalks to play great baseball. People come from all over to see the games. But most important, the builder is confronted by his own past.

“Build it and they will come” seems sometimes to be the way we operate in the church. A few people get together and build a lovely church. They begin to hold services and wait for people to come. And it may work for a time. Given the right location, people may notice the church and come. Like Samuel, they may come in to find out what it is all about. They may even become involved and begin to serve in some way. But, like Samuel, they may not yet know the Lord they are serving.
Or they may be like Nathanael, hanging around the fringes, rather angry and suspicious. Yet there is some sense of longing they cannot seem to fulfill, a sense of need, or a sense of duty, a sense of guilt. ‘I come to church for my children, for my family.’ 'It’s the right thing to do.’

But if the church is really going to be vital, if it is really going to reach out to the community, then just building it and waiting will never work. The people who come will never be enlivened. You see, invitations need to go out. People need to be invited to come and see, to come and meet Jesus, to come and see who we are, to come and see what Christianity has to offer, to come into relationship with the God who walks with us.

It is not enough to assume that people will hear the message. We need to invite them in a personal, eyeball-to-eyeball way. So 'unanglican', isn’t it! We are all ministers of the Gospel. We all have parishes or arenas of service. We can invite. People should be able to see something of God’s love and saving power in our lives, in the things we say, in the things we do and primarily in how we live our lives.

What about this congregation? As you enter your sixtieth year in this corner of Oshawa, what is God's call to you? You proclaim that you are "the Church with a heart". Are you the heart and soul of this community? Are you here to meet the needs of the long-time members of this church or are you an inviting and vital congregation reaching out to others, serving Christ in this place? How is God calling you to be the church?

People are looking for fulfillment and renewed spiritual life. They are looking for God. If God is at the centre of our lives, they will find what they are looking for. This place will be alive in Christ. We will discover what Paul wanted the Corinthians to discover. It is not simply a matter of following the laws set out by the community, but of living our lives centred in Christ Jesus. Being different. Being set apart. Living lives of prayer, discipleship and service to God, and then sharing it with a needy world. Amen.

The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Proper 2) Year C

When the Wine Runs Out

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

There is something in our human nature that loves a miracle. The more astounding the better! Consider the Guinness World Book of Records. For instance did you know that “a crowd of thousands turned Seattle into a blizzard of snow balls last week as the US city's downtown area played host to area a record-breaking icy battle?” Almost six thousand people helped set a new world record for the largest snowball fight.

Perhaps it comes as no surprise to you that Facebook currently holds the World Record for the largest online social network.

However, I doubt that you know that Ann Atkin has two thousand forty-two gnomes and pixies, on her Gnome Reserve in West Putford, Devon, UK. Or that Donald Gorske of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USA has consumed twenty-three thousand McDonald's Big Macs . He has been eating them on a daily basis for almost forty years.

But when you come down to it, what difference does it really make? And for whom? What difference does it make in the whole scheme of things? And yet these records are kept, and people keep trying to do better in order to get their names published in a book. And obviously other people buy the book and are fascinated by the many feats that are accomplished.

And so we come to the wedding feast in Cana. The “wow” factor in the story is astounding. It is one amazing fact after another. It is a Guinness World Book of Records in itself. Five hundred litres of wine produced from water! And not just your run of the mill wine! The best wine these people have ever tasted! But I have to ask, what difference did it make? Who even knew that Jesus had performed such a miracle? His mother, his disciples, the stewards who took the wine into the host? Really, who cares?

For that very reason the miracle at Cana is often referred to as the “luxury miracle”. “Was it even necessary?” scholars ask. It took place in the everyday occurrence of a wedding. The same Christ who refused to turn stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger turned water into wine to allow some guests at a wedding to make merry. What is that all about? Apart from helping the host out of an embarrassing situation, it had no lasting effect or benefit for those present.

And so as we look at this story we need to look deeper, past the glitz, past the “wow” factor, past the sensationalism, to the real reason that John told the story in the first place. I think he told it for many good reasons.

He told it because he wants us to remember that we have a God who graces us, who is lavish with love. Our loving God does not worry about what is practical. God does not worry about the impact of God’s actions. God simply connects with humankind where we are. God reaches through time and space to be in relationship with us.

He also told it because he wants us to remember that the very ordinariness of life is the source of the celebration. While we in our humanity are impressed by big things, and oppressed by great problems, God demonstrates power in a simple, unassuming way. Observing what God has created should convince us of that. The lacy pattern of a single flake of snow, the beauty of a weed along a country lane, a rainbow arching across the sky!

The best reason of all is simply that there are times when we have no wine. It runs out. There are times when it happens suddenly and without warning. Disaster strikes and we have no energy to face what has happened. A close friend dies, suddenly, without warning. An accidental death rips the whole community apart. The world is ripped apart by terrorism, by pandemic.

At other times it is so gradual that we don’t even notice it happening. The joy simply fades from life. We lose our job. Unemployment insurance runs out. We face sickness in our own lives or in the lives of those we love. We face broken relationships. A marriage falls apart. A child is alienated from the family. We are betrayed, hurt by the actions of a friend.

At those times in our lives we need to know that we can do something about it. The wine that has run out can be replaced. We have resources at our disposal. God will listen to us. We can pray, openly and honestly, knowing that as we come into closer relationship with God that God will reach out to us with that healing touch. God gives us friends, people who will listen to us as we pour out the troubles of our hearts. They will hear our pain. In their concern we will find healing.

We can pray. Paul talks about the spiritual gifts that grace our lives. Prayer is surely one of those gifts. God gives us the resources that we need to face the down times in our lives. The Spirit at work in our lives is a miracle. It does not have to be a mountaintop experience. It needs to be whatever brings us into a deeper relationship with God. God will hear our simple, heartfelt prayer asking for help from the depths of our being. God will hear our prayer of thanksgiving. God will hear our anger and hurt. God will hear our prayer for forgiveness and reconciliation.

And we can be perfectly honest with ourselves. We can look at our actions. We can assess the things that have gone on. In all of those ways we can make new wine. We may even discover that the new wine is better than the old; after all, it is enriched through our tears and pain.

We can be open to the gifts that God has given to us, accepting them, using them. The best spiritual gifts are the ones we don’t even know we possesss. They are the ones that enhance the life of the whole community, things like wise advice, a listening ear, time, joy, thoughtfulness, patience, spirituality …

Paul reminds us that ecstasy or enthusiasm is no criteria for true spirituality. A deep religious experience is just not enough. God is the giver, the source of every gift. Each, even the one that seems the least significant, is a spiritual gift. There needs to be a quality of spirit in the life of the Christian, he tells them, a quality that enhances the life of the whole community. And you know, the wonder of it all is that the gift used for the common good offers the most back to the one who offers it. It makes new wine.

And we can celebrate! We come together as community. We break bread together. We share the cup of blessing. We open ourselves up to all that God has done for us. God is revealed to us, and through us wine is poured out abundantly to a needy world.