The Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

Deny Yourself

Readings: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-19; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38

In an old cartoon, B.C. is down on his knees. “God,” he says, “If you’re up there, give me a sign.” Suddenly something falls from the Heavens right in front of him. A neon sign flashing, “I’m up here!” If only faith were that easy! If only God could give us a sign once and for all! If only it meant giving intellectual assent without worrying about its connection to our daily lives! If only it meant never doubting! But the problem is that real faith involves passionate engagement. It involves entering a relationship with God. It involves giving one’s heart to God and holding it actively with love. It means having enough confidence in its reality to act on it, as incredible as it may seem.

And when all is said and done, the way we come to faith is by trusting in the promises of God. We look at our past history and see where God has been at work in our lives, and use that knowledge to bring meaning to our existence. Faith is, after all, intended to be reasonable.

That seems fine until we come to the difficult choices and tests of life. When we face times of tragedy, everything we know about faith can simply vanish. How do we achieve a vision of faith that sustains us through such times? It is the reality of the cross that needs to be behind everything that we do to give us that sense of wholeness, of holiness, that carries us when nothing else will.

Abraham had to come to that point. At the age of ninety, he questioned the possibility of making a covenant with God. “How can I,” he asks, “believe that at my age I can still become the ancestor of a multitude of nations?” He is asked to simply believe that God keeps promises. God has made that promise to Abram and sealed it with a new name. God promises also that Sarah, his wife, will bear a son. Abraham takes God’s word and makes that commitment. He embraces the gift that God has promised. And of course, God makes good on the promise.

Paul in writing to the church at Rome acknowledges that faith is anything but easy. Then he reminds them that faith brings new life, in Sarah’s case, a new life from a barren womb, and in the case of Jesus, resurrection from the dead. He goes on to remind them of the necessity of taking up the cross, not in order to earn salvation. Paul knows that Jesus has already done that. They must take up the cross in response to God’s salvation. That is what leads them, and ultimately us, to the possibility of resurrection.

But does that possibility even occur to us? We think about it at Easter, of course. But what does the risen life of Christ mean in our everyday existence? How do we allow its truth to speak to us?

Jesus reminds his disciples of the cost of following him. It is a reminder of what living in covenant with God means. He reminds them that it begins with denying themselves, taking up the cross and following him. As soon as Jesus begins to talk about the cost, about the possibility of suffering, rejection and ultimately death, the disciples change their tune. Like us, they like to hear the comfortable words, but when it comes to cross bearing and dying to sin, then they miss the real point of their faith.

Let’s face it! Self-denial is not big on any of our lists. We have all kinds of questions about what it means. What self am I denying? Is it a matter of not doing what I want to do for a while during Lent, and then going back to what I want to do? Is it about putting myself down? What are the rules anyway? Why should we “give up” during the season of Lent, or indeed at any time?

The cross is at the heart of our Christian faith. We were signed with the sign of the cross at Baptism. What did it mean for us, both as individuals and as a community? What a paradox it is! For it helps us to understand that dying is the step we must take in order to really live. It reminds us that we are called to offer the self to be formed by God for God’s purposes.

Self-denial, then, is about an alternative way of being. It is not about giving up for the sake of giving up something. It is not about giving up for a period of time, like Lent and then going back to the same way of being. It is a challenge to want something different. Instead of thinking only of ourselves and believing that it is to our good to gain wealth and avoid any path that may lead to suffering, we are challenged to be generous. We are challenged to give of ourselves, even when it may mean suffering on our part. We are reminded that all of that comes at great cost! There are times when love, if it is to mean anything, will expose us to grave danger. We are challenged nevertheless to embrace the way of Jesus. And in doing so, we will find ourselves. We will become truly human.

Christ’s message is inescapable. Self-denial is not about the good it does for me. The sort of giving up that works best is that which has a deeper purpose behind it. If you want to give to others, it will almost always involve giving up something you would rather keep for yourself. Caring for a sick or elderly family member will almost certainly involve a loss of time and freedom. And yet that may be what God is calling you to do. Giving through the church or other charities means not spending money on something you might otherwise be able to afford. Being a good steward of God’s creation may mean taking the time to walk instead of using your car. It may mean doing menial labour like picking up garbage. Being an advocate for the poor and disadvantaged in our community may mean giving up time to lobby our politicians.

We in this congregation live a comfortable existence. We may not be wealthy in Canadian standards, but we have central heating and hot running water. We do not go to bed hungry like much of the world. We dress well. We live in relative luxury. And I for one have no real desire to give up any of those things. The closest I have ever come to being a missionary was teaching in an Indian Residential school on James Bay. Even there, when I think about it, the only thing I really gave up was easy access to the telephone. However, I would like to think that if God called me to go to some Third World country to feed refugees or to help grandmothers look after their grandchildren, orphaned through AIDS, or to bring relief to people made homeless through some natural disaster, that I would do it. I would like to think that I am not so accustomed to my lifestyle that I could not meet that kind of challenge. The question is, am I so addicted to the comfortable existence I live, that I have already missed such opportunities? All I can do is to trust that when God calls I will respond.

Our mission as Christians is to permeate and transform the world. Our Lenten journey is about seeking that kind of transformation in our own spiritual lives so that the transformation can begin with us. It requires examining our lives for the things that keep us from changing. May God grant us grace to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus!

Proper 29, Year B

Proper 29, Year B

What God Expects From Us

Readings: Job 38:1-7; Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

Most of us aspire to greatness at some time in our lives. It is ingrained in us as we go through school. It is part of the work ethos in our North American culture. It can lead to a top of the pile mentality that causes frenzied activity in our lives. We are not alone in that kind of aspiration. It appears from the gospel reading today that the disciples of Jesus were like that too. They had listened to Jesus countless times talking about the kindgom of God. Yet here are James and John making an outlandish request.

Rather than coming right to the point, they begin with a little manipulation. It is a line we have all tried at some time or other. “Will you do for us whatever we ask?” they say to Jesus.

And he responds in probably the only way he can. “What is it you want me to do for you?” And then it comes.

“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory.” What are they thinking? Had they ever listened to one word that Jesus said to them about the kindgom?

And Jesus goes on to explain to them once again what it takes to be truly great. “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant. Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” And he reminds them of his own call, a call that ultimately leads him to suffer for the sins of humankind.

The disciples needed to learn the price of greatness. They needed to know what was at stake. They needed to know that greatness consists of understanding what your particular call is. They needed to know what God expected from them. They needed to know that there was a price to be paid. They needed to know whether they were ready to pay the price.

It is important for all of us to understand at the end of the day what really motivates us. When all is said and done, what really matters? The reason it is so important to know and to understand is that it will determine the way we live the whole of our lives. It is important in our personal lives.

Jesus was certain about the mission that God had sent him to do. He understood the purpose of his life and indeed of his death. There was nothing that would keep him from fulfilling it. We see that throughout scripture. It is an integral part of the gospel passage. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

We are all candidates for that kind of greatness. It is a call to servanthood. It consists of knowing what your particular call may be. Take for example the story of a young woman who aspired to become an Olympic champion. Her aspirations absorbed her in intensive training until she finally ranked ninth in the world in the women's hundred yard dash. She had everything she needed to achieve greatness including talent. It looked as if she would participate in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

“Competing in a sport sounds glamorous,” she said. “But when you are standing outside ready to begin a run at five o'clock on a cold and miserable morning, with every muscle aching from a weight-training session the evening before, there is nothing to hold you there except your goals. Yet eventually,” she goes on to say, “ I got to the point where I realized that as much as I loved my sport, there were some values that were even more important to me. I wanted to get married and have a family. I wanted to be more involved with my friends and in my church community. I could not fit everything into my life. The realization led me to give up my Olympic aspirations.”

Was it an easy decision for her? Not at all! She agonized over it. Particularly when the Olympic Games were on. Yet it was in watching her team mates as they made the finals that she came to accept that it was, for her, the right decision.

You won't find her name in any book of records. But she did go on to live the life that God was calling her to live. I would say that she achieved true greatness.

It is just as vitally important for us to understand our call as a parish. Some years ago I received a short article adapted from “Good News People” by Harold Percy. In it he outlines the difference between parishes which are simply sustaining themselves and parishes which are mission minded. He gives many examples of the difference between maintenance and mission. As I reflect on this parish I see us moving from maintenance to mission. I see us beginning the transformation from a congregation that struggled simply to maintain its presence in this place to a church that is reaching out beyond itself into the community. We are beginning to think about how we can best support the community. We are raising up good leaders.

We have responded to God's call to servanthood. I see the many ways in which that is happening. As I look at our Apple Tree Banner on the back wall I am constantly amazed at how many people take an active role in this congregation. You give freely of your time and talents. There are names of young people who offer their time as servers and assistants. We would not have been able to host a wonderfully successful Vacation Bible School last summer were it not for the time given by our teens. In total, they scored up a whopping one hundred and eighty hours of service amongst them. That is just our teens. We have lectors, teachers, Bible Study leaders, the ACW, secretarial help … The list goes on.

You give generously, both for the work of this parish and for our Outreach into the community. During the last four years our givings have steadily increased so that we are more and more able to meet our commitments.

This is the beginning of our Stewardship campaign for this year. The theme for this year is “What God Expects of us”. That is a wonderful theme. So often we let God know what we expect of God. That is what James and John did when they asked to sit by Jesus' side in the kingdom. But what does God expect from us? Over the next few weeks, we will keep that theme before us. We will be reporting to you about the needs of this church as we move forward into a new year. We will present our budget in the form of a narrative so that everyone can plainly see the needs of the congregation. Hopefully it will be a reminder of our mission to respond to God's call, to serve, and to commit ourselves to the gospel message.

This morning we have another task. Actually as I think about it, it is not another task. It is part of our stewardship. For this morning we are also holding a special vestry. I want to bring before you briefly a couple of issues of importance not only to this parish but also to the Church Centre. Let us move into our Vestry.

The Reign of Christ, Year A

Finding God

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

This last Sunday of the Church Year is called the Reign of Christ. On this day we celebrate Christ as king. We celebrate Jesus' reign that began with his ascension and continues as Paul expresses it in the letter to the Corinthians, "until all are made alive in Christ". It is a celebration that calls us to look at the whole concept of leadership within the kingdom of God.

And here, as so often in our life of faith lies a great paradox, for Christ our King is a king so different from any earthly experience we might imagine. To begin with, there is Ezekiel’s image of kingship. It is one that provides both pastoral faithfulness and justice. While he demands repentance on the part of the people, he also offers such hope and consolation. He speaks of God as the shepherd King, the one who searches for his lost sheep. Like a shepherd caring for the sheep, the shepherd King rescues the strays and binds up the ones who have been hurt. It is an image of kingship which lays out the standard for the whole community. No fat, strong sheep push aside the weak or the sick. In God’s kingdom of shalom all are valued and live together in peace.

The image of the reigning Christ in Matthew’s gospel offers us that same sense of God’s grace. Jesus appears on the clouds at the end of time as a king sitting in judgement on those who stand before him. As we stand there looking up at his grace and majesty he questions us about the way we lived our lives. “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” he says, and we wonder when it was that we saw Jesus thirsty. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was sick and you took care of me,” Jesus says to us. And we look back in our lives and remember the times we have seen the face of Christ in those we have met along the way.

It is a passage of Scripture which evokes many memories in me. The first is an incident that happened to me many years ago when a friend and I visited my parents who were living in Christiana in Jamaica. On the last day of our holiday we headed off towards the airport in Kingston in our rental car. We did not get very far. Still in the mountains close to Maypen, we were involved in an accident. We found ourselves in serious trouble. My friend was charged with careless driving. I was charged with aiding and abetting. We were taken to jail in Maypen. I finally got permission from the police to make a phone call. My sister answered. My parents were out.

“Get someone to come and get us out of jail,” I pleaded with her. And a couple of hours later, who should come but my parents’ friend, the priest in Maypen, Neville De Souza, who would later become the bishop. His arrival changed everything. The hostility against us abated. We were allowed to leave, although we still faced charges and had to appear in court a couple of weeks later. I love to remind Bishop de Souza that “when I was in prison, you visited me”. I like to remind him that he is the face of Christ for me.

It reminds me for a completely different reason of the weekend I spent living on the streets of Toronto. I was doing a course in Urban Ministry which involved doing a ‘plunge’, living as a homeless person for two days. It was a life changing experience for me on a number of levels as I came face to face with poverty. I ended up in a hostel for battered women. There I shared a room with a young woman whom I will call Elaine. She had fled an abusive relationship. She was a recovering drug addict, probably a prostitute, but she was truly trying to get her life together and hoped that she would be reunited with her children who had been taken into custody by the CAS.

On Saturday evening she said to me, “Come to church with me tomorrow. You look like someone who would like to go to church.” I looked at my grubby jeans and sweatshirt, the only clothing I had. She saw my reluctance. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing,” she said to me. “Just come.” And so off to church we went. What’s more, it was a rather highbrow church in a good neighbourhood of Toronto. There was no room at the back of the church, of course, so Elaine led the way up the aisle to the front where she sang the hymns loudly and with obvious enjoyment. People around us tried hard to ignore us. I have to say, they did a really good job. We were not asked to sign the guest book. We were not invited to coffee hour. For “we were strangers and they did not welcome us.” Sadly I did not see the face of Christ in them. It was in Elaine that I saw that beautiful reflection.

Matthew wants us to know that our relationship to God is judged by our treatment of the oppressed. That judgement comes to all of us. Believers, those who have faith in God, are judged. And judgement is very much a question of our relationship to Christ. Do we see Christ in others? Do we reach out to those in need, not in judgement, but in true compassion for their need? Our guilt arises not from doing wrong things, not from being evil, but from failing to do what is right.

Our Christian calling is to be Christ like. Everything we can learn from Scripture leads us to know that Jesus makes himself one with those in need. He allies himself to the poor and the oppressed. As the shepherd of Israel, he is in solidarity with the whole of human misery in all its range and depth. He came to see that everything is as it should be.

He came as an amazing gift of God’s grace to help us to find God. And that happens in the most unexpected places, and in the most unexpected ways. We might think that we will find God in some mountaintop experience that lifts us from the everyday into the sublime. Those mountaintop experiences are important to us. They open our eyes to God’s awesome glory. But when it comes down to it, it is in the midst of the dirty, the grubby, the smelly and the unlovely that we will truly know God. It is in our actions that we will live out our faith.

One of our young people was relating an argument that a classmate had proffered about world poverty. He argued that with the number of people in the world who die every day because of poverty related issues, buying a television set is an act of killing. The money could save hundreds of lives. While I think his argument is flawed, in the light of the gospel there is a ring of truth to it. For we all have a part to play in ending the cycle of poverty. I hope you all saw the article from our Diocese in the Toronto Star. If you didn’t I have posted it on the bulletin board. It is a call to action on the part of Anglicans and other like minded people to call on the government even in the midst of recession to live up to its commitment to end poverty.

We are in the midst of our Stewardship campaign for this year. We have put the needs of our parish forward. We know the needs in our community. It is up to us to let our actions speak. Because that is how we will truly find God. We will find God in the hungry and thirsty. We will find God in the smelly and unlovely. We will find God in the sick and the dying. We will find God in those to whom we reach out. We will even find God in those who take advantage of our generosity. There is no other place that we can expect to find the body of Christ.

Proper 33

Talents! Talents! Talents!

Readings: Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

Once again I am not preaching. I wish I were. The readings are very timely for St. Francis where we are in the midst of our annual stewardship campaign. This Sunday one of our lay people is presenting the narrative budget.

The Gospel is the Parable of the man going on a journey and leaving his servants with the responsibility of investing some considerable sums of money, in this case 'talents', on his behalf. Two of the servants do well in investing. The third person plays it safe. He literally hides his talents.

It may not seem fair, but it is reality. Some are more gifted than others. We are not in competition with each other. We need only celebrate and develop our own gifts. We need to consider ourselves as the talent. "What have I made of myself?" is the real question.

God's purpose is to bring order into disorder, peace into destruction, purpose into purposelessness, fullness into emptiness, healing into sickness, to restore aching, hungry hearts. Is it possible that we, by our neglect to lovingly invest our talents and gifts in the needs of people, are contributing to the end of Christendom? Certainly worth some contemplation.

Proper 32, Year A

I am not preaching this Sunday. I may be able to post the sermon our Deacon is preaching later today. For the time being I am posting a sermon I preached a few years ago as part of our stewardship campaign.

Making Choices

Readings: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Today I am going to talk about commitment, yours and mine; our commitment first of all to God, but also to this community of faith. Faith is a very personal thing. While faith can be caught from someone else, while it can be fanned into flame through the encouragement of others, the resources to keep the flame of faith alive come from a personal sense of commitment. They come from making a choice.

The Israelites after years of wandering in the desert were settling into life in the Promised Land. Life was good. It was easy for them to forget the struggle that had brought them there. So Joshua did a very astute thing; he assembled all the people. He reminded them of the gracious acts of God toward them throughout their history. He reminded them of Abraham's relationship to God and the covenant made between them. They remembered the time of slavery in Egypt and of God's faithfulness to them in the wilderness. "Now is the time," he told them "to make a choice. Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and turn back to God." His warning is that they cannot go along with the crowd and still be God's people.

The parable of the ten bridesmaids has a similar theme. The five foolish bridesmaids took their lamps with them to the wedding, but didn't bring any oil. The five wise bridesmaids came prepared. It does seem rather mean-spirited that they didn't simply share what oil they had, but the point of the story is that we are to be ready to serve God wherever and whenever God appears. It is a choice we have to make between the way the world lives and the way our Christian faith calls us to live.

Life is always confronting us with alternatives and choices. For the most part, we live comfortable and settled lives. It is easy for us follow the way of the world. Many times the choices are between two different kinds of good. Children want to participate in sports that often happen on Sundays. Parents are caught between the importance of helping their children keep commitments to a team and serving the Lord through Sunday worship. When the team is consistently chosen, we are saying that other commitments are more important than our commitment to God.

What does it mean to live a life of commitment to the Gospel? Like the Israelites there are choices to be made. How do we choose to spend our time, our talents, and our wealth? How do we share our experience of Christ with others? How do we prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ?

My personal commitment is first of all to God. I remind myself of how God has been present with me in my life. I try to live a life of commitment, praying, reading and studying scripture, and sharing my faith with others. I also have a commitment to the church and in particular to this congregation. It starts with a vision for this church that I hope you share. It is a vision that keeps my faith alive and my level of commitment high. It comes most of all when I think about the people in this community of faith. I think about your generosity of spirit. I think about your caring ways. I think about the kindnesses that I see you do. I think about the way you reach out to one another. I think about the prayer list that grows and changes each week. I think about your commitment to the work of the church.

Those are the things that I hope you will see reflected in Geoff's presentation. It is the first time that we have presented a narrative budget, a budget that reflects our mutual ministry. But as with any budget, it is going to take total commitment on our part if it is to be met.

As Anglicans it is through baptism that we gain membership in the Church. If we are baptised we are full members in the body of Christ. Our commitment is through the promises made at Baptism. We promise to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. It is a promise to attend church regularly, to study Scripture and to pray for one another. We promise to persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord. That is a promise to ask God for forgiveness and to be forgiving people. We promise to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ. Our call is to share the stories of how God is at work in our lives. We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbour as ourselves. Like the five wise bridesmaids we are called to be ready to serve. Finally we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. We are called to see Christ in those we meet. We are called to be Christ for them. We are called to reach out to the poor and to those in need. That ministry takes the commitment of each one of us. I hope that you will consider what commitment you are able to make to God and to this congregation.