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 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 23, Year A

You’ve Been Unfriended

Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

When I looked over the gospel earlier this week, I quickly dismissed it as being one which I would really rather avoid. It is a difficult reading. Who wants to preach about dealing with conflict? Conflict is not easily dealt with, except, of course, on Facebook, where you simply ‘unfriend’ the offending individual. They may not even find out for months that they have been unfriended. It would solve a lot of problems in the Church, or would it?

After all, that avoids the real reason for Church. If the Church truly is to be the Body of Christ then our purpose is to build community. And that begins with us asking ourselves what kind of community we want our congregation to be. Our community could be largely social, a place to meet a few likeminded people who could get along together. But that is superficial to say the least. Perhaps we want a place that holds us accountable, where we can be honest about our hopes and dreams, our fears and anxieties. That could be risky, of course. Do we want a place where we can remain anonymous, unchallenged, uninvolved, where we can simply blend in? Or do we want to make a difference, not only in our own lives, but in the community? Do we want people to say, “Look at those Christians, how they love one another?” If we do, then it is going to take what is at the heart of this morning’s gospel in order to accomplish it.

The gospel provides us with some perspectives on the meaning of love and compassion at times of conflict and trouble. What is our Christian call when things go wrong? What do you do when things go wrong in the church? It provides some fascinating insights into communal relationships that deal, not just with the Church, but permeate all of life and society. How important that is if we truly want to be relevant in a society that says we are not! The resolution of conflict is a personal responsibility. Confrontation is something few people enjoy. Most of us will do anything to avoid it. And yet if the community, any community, is to work together, disputes require reconciliation.

And so in Matthew’s gospel we are given a process for dealing with conflict and finding it in our hearts not only to forgive, but also to reconcile. It is a process that recognizes the struggle of the early church to work harmoniously. The need for resolution when disputes arise is part of our human nature. That is exactly why confession and absolution are part of every liturgy in our church. When we pass the Peace in worship it symbolizes our willingness to be reconciled one with another.

The Gospel continues, "For when two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." Simone Weil, the 20th Century French philosopher, activist and mystic, writes, "Two and three, and there should be no more." She was not saying that larger groups of people should not pray together. She was saying that something special happens when two or three people gather together in prayer. Anyone who has ever prayed at the bedside of someone who is ill or on a special occasion knows the power of that kind of prayer. It shows us how good the Lord is and how present in our lives.

In 1998 when I went to Africa to participate in the Women’s Gathering and the World Council of Churches, I stayed with some families in one of the townships in South Africa. My host families gave me a wonderful sense of what it means for Christ to be present in prayer. As soon as I entered a home I was invited to pray with the family. As we gathered in prayer all the barriers dropped away. It is something we are not accustomed to, but that is our loss. Many people will ask me for prayer, but they squirm if I actually begin to pray out loud. They want me to go off on my own and pray for them. They don't understand the relationship that comes through praying together. It isn't even about finding the right words to say. The idea behind such prayer is to allow God to work in and through our lives. We continue to trust in God who helps and protects us. Then we are able to fulfill the great commandment, that we love one another as God loves us.

But on this weekend, I cannot help but think that the global implications are far more important for us to discern. What do these readings have to say to us on the heels of one disaster after another? Fire, famine, earthquake, hurricane – what a list of disasters across every part of the globe! Just before we come to September 11th, a day when the world changed, the world has changed once again. Once more we have a date that will not be forgotten. This time the watchword will be ‘Irma’, a storm of epic proportions that has unleashed its fury on the Caribbean and is heading towards Florida, a country still reeling from the effects of ‘Harvey’. Once more the media is filled with heart wrenching stories of loss and tragedy. Whole islands are devastated. Nothing prepares you for any of that. It does not prepare you for the kind of devastation that so many people are facing. To see the widespread destruction that nature can unleash, to know that once again so many lives have been lost, to witness the despair of the victims of this disaster, people in dire need, cannot help but change the way we live our lives.

At such times we turn to our faith for answers to the deep questions that arise within us. Is God in charge of our world? Is God watching over us? Does God even care? Or have we so destroyed our world through our lack of stewardship that it can never recover? It tries our faith. It becomes painfully obvious that Christian faith gives rise to more questions than answers. If that is true of us, how can we possibly convey to people who have not experienced it, the kind of strength we receive through our faith, the nurture that we receive through worship and prayer?

We struggle together as the people of God, certainly in moments of personal conflict, but also in times of national distress, in times of instability. We trust in God who helps and protects us. How do we share that with others? How do we put into words what can only be experienced through participation in the community of faith? How do we tell people the things that we learn through a lifetime of searching for the truth?

It isn't just about sharing our faith with others. We struggle as we live out our faith with what it means to be a Christian. We have a conviction as Christians that we need to live in harmony with God's creation. Yet tensions arise between what we believe and what is going on in the world. The tension arises because living the Christian life is not a matter of black and white. Truly, there are laws to follow. There are the Ten Commandments. There is the great commandment to love God and to love neighbour. Yet so many things in our Christian lives fall into grey areas that are matters of the heart. We can search for rules to guide us in making right decisions in such matters. We can pray for discernment. But when it comes down to it God simply calls us to do the loving thing.

That is the basis of Paul's reminder to the Christians in Rome. I would remind you that they knew a great deal about living in a troubled world. Paul affirms the need to follow the Ten Commandments, but sums them up as "love of neighbour". "Love does no wrong to a neighbour: therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." The law to love supersedes all other laws for the Christian. Such teaching about love fits well with the Ten Commandments. Old Testament rules are good rules, not because they are in the Bible, but because they are based on love. If we always do the loving thing, we find that we are following God's rules. In fact, if we always did the loving thing then there would be no need for rules. It is our frailty, our inability to put our neighbour first, our inability to see Christ in others that dictates our need for rules.

Love calls us to repentance. Instead of complaining about the high cost of gas, perhaps a true sense of repentance calls us to examine our sense of stewardship. Are we good stewards of God’s creation? Are we using more than our fair share of the world’s resources? Are there things that we can do to reverse the damage that our wastefulness has caused in the world?

Love calls us to action. We need to give with compassion. How do we help the devastation that is faced at this moment by so many in our world?

And finally, love calls us to prayer. And so today we pray for the people who have been so devastated by this storm. We pray for their safety and for their well-being. We continue to trust in God who helps and protects us. Amen.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, Year A

The Calm After the Storm

Readings: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45c; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

Karl Barth writes about fear: “Fear is the shock caused by the supposed knowledge that I shall not be able either to be or to do what I should be and do in face of that which gloriously and fearfully confronts me.” We have all faced times of fear in our lives, events that made time seem to last forever, when we thought that our very lives were in the balance.

I think of the times that I have been most fearful. One is the event that led to my learning to swim. I was four years old and at a camp where my father was the chaplain. I did many of the activities of the campers, who were, of course, quite a bit older than I. Each day I would go swimming. I would paddle in the shallow water and play in the sand. I watched the children in their free time going down a slide into the water. I longed to try it out. So one day I asked the swimming instructor if I could go down the slide. “Of course!” she said to me, not thinking about how small I was, or the fact that I couldn’t swim. I flew down the slide and out into water that was quite deep. I felt myself sink below the surface and was filled with fear and panic. In my panic I thrashed around for what seemed like hours but must have been less than a minute. Then I became calm. I remember thinking, “This is what it is like to die.” And suddenly I was buoyed up by the water and bobbed to the surface. Realizing that I could float, that I could trust the water to hold me up, I began to dog paddle to shallower water.

It was a good learning, because trust, that sense of calm, is what it takes after all when we get into that state of fear. And fear can easily take over when life seems out of control as our world so often does these days. It seems we live in a world filled with fear. It is often through fueling that fear that people come to power. We are faced with so much violence; war, terrorist acts, strange viruses and other health issues, economic and environmental issues. Consider what is going on in the world today with the bombastic rhetoric between President Trump and Chairman Kin Jung-li. Guam must be a very fearful place to live. Fear takes over unless we remember just who is in charge. We trust, knowing that God is as good as God’s word.

It seems to me that it is fear that is at the centre of the stories in Scripture today. There is first of all the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours. Joseph is the baby of the family. Being the youngest, he is a favourite with his father. To make matters worse, he makes a bad report to his father about one of his brothers. They fear the power and influence that he has over his father. They wait for an opportunity to get back at him. It comes. They are looking after the sheep in a remote place. Joseph comes out looking for them. They conspire to kill him. Reuben, one of the brothers persuades them not to kill him, but to put him into a pit. His intention is to come back and rescue him. Then they seize upon an opportunity. They sell their brother to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt where he faces slavery and imprisonment. This new saga in Joseph’s young life must have filled him with fear.

Then there is the gospel for today. Jesus performs miracles. He feeds the crowds. Their curiosity satisfied for the moment he sends them off to their homes. He also sends the disciples out in a boat. Meanwhile he heads away by himself to pray. The Sea of Galilee is known for its sudden fierce storms. This day is no exception. The disciples are far from the shore. The winds come up. The waves toss the small craft about until they are sure they will all drown. Towards morning they see Jesus walking on the sea. It is not a reassuring picture. They think that Jesus is a ghost. In fact, the storm becomes less threatening to them than the sight of the ghost. And Jesus speaks those reassuring words. “Take heart. Don’t be afraid!” They trust him. They trust the calm and peace that his words bring.

The ever-brash Peter gets out of the boat and walks across the water towards Jesus. What is he thinking? Does he think he can walk on water? Maybe he hopes that by stepping out on the sea it will be the act of courage he needs to find faith. Maybe Peter wonders if he will be convinced of Jesus’ promises if he thinks big. Perhaps he thinks that he will believe in himself if he is able to do what Jesus does. Whatever he is thinking, he gets distracted by the gusts of wind. He becomes frightened and begins to sink beneath the waves. Just as he thinks that all is lost he remembers. “Lord, save me!” he calls out.

We have all been there, haven’t we? We have all been out in those heavy waves, blown about by fierce winds. Life produces strong and daunting waves. We can all look back at times when we have felt swamped. We have felt totally inadequate. We have felt helpless. We have let our fears and worries take over. We have felt as if we are sinking. We want to believe, but our faith is fragile. Just when we think all is lost we remember. We cry out, “Lord, save me!”

Peter called out to Jesus; Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. They made it back into the boat safely. The storm ended. All was well.

When have you experienced inner calm and strength amid external turmoil? What was the source of your strength? What does it mean to trust God? How do you nourish your faith?

Some of you may be in the midst of a storm at this very moment. You may be buffeted about by the wind. You may fear the difficulties that you are facing in your life. You may be wondering how you can face another day, how you can ever trust again. You may be facing sickness, your own or that of a loved one. You may be unemployed, wondering where God is leading you. You may be facing a broken relationship.

Others could no doubt tell us about overcoming those same fears and inadequacies. You can tell us of the miracles that have unfolded for you in your lives. You can tell of the storms that you have walked through, knowing that God was ever present with you on your journey. You can tell us of sicknesses overcome, of answers to prayer, of help in time of need, of unexpected miracles.

Jesus asks Peter, “Why did you doubt?”

Faith, he is saying to Peter and to us, means living out of your heart. Fear destroys. Trust yourself. Trust that what you do and say makes a difference. Trust that Jesus is with you and trusts you. There are times when you will feel as if you are walking on water. There are other times when you feel yourself sinking beneath the waves. Both are times to put your trust in God. Daily life is not extraordinary acts of faith, but hoping for enough faith to give us courage to face life’s difficulties.

I can’t always say that I am glad to be one of Jesus’ disciples. There are times that I would like to be left alone. It is too overwhelming. There is too much going on in my life. Jesus is asking too much of me. My cross is too heavy. My faith is too weak. I have nothing more to give. All I have to support me is my weak faith. At such times it is all that I can do to pray, “God, help me! Give me the ability to reach out to you even though I have only my faltering faith to support me.” It is then that I hear that invitation that Jesus extended to Peter. “Come! Don’t be afraid. Reach out and take my hand.”

And I reach out. I acknowledge my helplessness. It opens some gate in me that accepts help. It opens the way for others to respond to my need. I experience God’s love and forgiveness and healing and challenge. I am able to see Christ in others and allow them to see Christ in me. Amen.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, Year A

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like …

Readings: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 128; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Jesus was a great storyteller. He told parables about the kingdom of God that opened up what God’s kingdom is like. It is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a plant large enough and secure enough to harbour nesting birds. It is like a fish hiding in the deep water that should be fished out. It is like a pearl, like a treasure, hidden in the earth. It needs to be found. It is like yeast that one puts into the dough to make it rise.

And the people listening to the stories nod their heads in agreement. They can picture it. They have planted tiny mustard seeds and seen them grow to be twelve feet high. The smallest of seeds becomes a plant that expands out and is so large, secure and encompassing that the birds of heaven come and nest in its branches, hidden and safe where their young can be nurtured.

They can see themselves finding the pearl of great price. “It really is possible,” they are thinking to themselves. Palestine was infested with brigands and soldiers. The best way to ensure the safety of treasure was to bury it. You could happen upon a great treasure. “Why, there could be treasure buried in my own back yard,” they think, “and wouldn’t that be wonderful!” And that is what God’s kingdom is like. It could be mine. The kingdom of God is within my reach.

They heard as well the ominous tone in Jesus’ voice as he told them about their responsibility. The kingdom of God is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind. The net is a drag net that sweeps along the bottom of the sea and catches every imaginable kind of fish. At the end of the day they are sorted and some are thrown back. “Could I be found wanting at the end of time?” they consider. “What do I have to do to make certain that I live as God wants me too?”

The parables that Jesus tells are attempts to grasp hold of our hearts and shake us into a new position. They are meant to be unsettling, to overturn our certainty and startle us into insight and vision into God’s kingdom. Jesus’ purpose is to reveal what God’s kingdom is about. It is a new kind of kingdom, a spiritual one that will include people of every nation and race. An inclusive kingdom that does not judge us by the colour of our skin, our sexual orientation, our intelligence, but rather by our faith in God and by how we have lived our lives. In other words, it is about our commitment to God. When we offer ourselves to God we fid a deep sense of meaning and satisfaction in our ongoing life, but we become accountable to God.

That means that the Church is like the net. Its community contains a whole spectrum of human motivations and intentions from the most self-centred to the most self-sacrificing. All are brought into the net. We are all called to a process of change, transformation and growth in Christ. As with the first disciples, we are a varied catch, ranging from the totally committed to the lukewarm.

So the question is, how much is our Christian life worth to us? How much is a sense of the presence of God, of the love of Christ, of the peace and meaning that such realities can bring into one’s life? How much are these things worth? The ultimate truth is that these realities are worth everything.

The parable is intended as a message to Jesus' disciples. "The cost of discipleship," he tells them over and over again, "is very great. It costs everything." They have found a great treasure in Jesus. At the moment it is hidden from the world. It is their secret. They must leave everything to follow him. They must look to God, not humanity, for their reward. The claims of the kingdom are total. They leave no room for self-interest. Discipleship demands total response, total commitment.

As Christians we are searching for a great treasure. We are children of the kingdom, living in a kind of exile from it, discovering glimpses of it from time to time. It is worth the search, for it is a great treasure. But the search is costly. It will cost everything we have. But the transformation in our lives will make it a treasure worth having.

Most of us would like our faith to make a difference – but perhaps not too much. We may have had a wonderful mountain top experience in our lives, a Conference, a retreat weekend, or a moment in our lives when everything came together for us. We perceived God in a different light. But over time the experience fades. We think about it once in a while. But there are problems in our lives. We have to earn a living and raise our family. There are the stresses and conflicts of life to deal with. There is sickness. We go to church on Sunday. But to make a commitment to the faith, to work at it, to read our Bibles, to pray, to reach out to others in Christian love, to give of ourselves – those things we put aside. We want to be committed Christians, but on our own terms.

There is a Japanese folk saying that goes this way, “The scent of the flowers remains on the hands of the person who gives the gift away.” That is the way of the kingdom of God. That is the way the kingdom comes, yielding the treasure to others, giving away the pearl of great price, making bread and opening our arms so that others can come and find a home secure in us.

We have access to a treasure so great and awesome that it is enough to share with a hungry world. What a treasure we have in our Christian faith! What a treasure it is to know what it means to be loved by God, to be totally accepted by God. The tragedies and conflicts of life can discourage us but they do not change God's love for us. Failures and defeats may bother us, but they do not affect our relationship with God. God's love and reconciling grace are forever. God's will is carried out through us. We are children of God.

Of what value is a sense of the presence of God, of the love of Christ, of the peace and meaning that such realities can bring into one's life? How much are these things worth? The ultimate truth is that these realities are worth everything. The Christian story is one of miracles. It is the story of lives turned around, of hope reborn, and of amazement at how, when we seek to live in concert with God's will, great things can happen. May we find that great treasure!

Proper 15, Year A

What is God’s Spirit Saying to the Church?

Readings: Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Jesus leaves the house and goes down to sit beside the sea. What a natural thing for him to be doing! It is something all of us like to do now and then, especially during the summer months. We leave everything behind, head out into nature and sit quietly at the lakeside. In Jesus case, more is going on than we have been told. He has faced some difficulties in his hometown. People think he is out of his mind. Even his disciples don’t always understand him.

Then the crowds gather. Jesus leaves his solitude, slips into a boat and addresses them from the shore. He tells a parable, a story to which people in this agrarian society can relate. As the story unfolds, they can picture it. They can picture themselves walking through the unploughed field, scattering the good grain they have kept from the last harvest. There is lots of seed. They simply scatter it. They know that some will land on the hardened soil that forms into paths through the fields. It may be lost. The wild thorns that grow up after the ploughing will choke some of the seed. There are stones just under the soil. You can never tell just where they are, out of sight until the field is ploughed. The seed that lands there will surely be wasted. Some seed even gets scattered to the very edge of the field. Birds scoop up some of the grain. But there is plenty of seed. You can afford to lose some. And some of it will produce even in the poorest soil. As he tells them about the sower they understand what is going on. They get it. That is, until he tells them about the bounty of the harvest.

They cannot even imagine producing that kind of a yield. With even a small harvest a farmer is able to put aside enough seed for the following year. What if the harvest was thirty times what was sown? “With that kind of yield,” they are thinking. “I could pay off my debt, put in irrigation ditches and erect a new barn. With sixty times what was sown I would be the richest person in the area. And if it were ninety percent, I would be able to export grain to other countries. I would own it all,” the dream continues.

Jesus simply ends the story there. “Let anyone with ears listen!” he says. They are all ears. Jesus is speaking to them.

But what is he really saying? What does he expect them to make of the story? The parable contrasts seed that never grows and bears fruit with seed that is fruitful. And yet somehow the fruitful seed makes up for the waste that has been involved. We might hear it as a story contrasting faith and unbelief. God’s realm will flourish with or without our help.
Matthew had ears to hear. He interpreted the story for us. He made it a parable about different degrees of faith. It is a very different interpretation, a pep talk to the early Christians. Some were excited by the faith initially, but did not understand. They were unable to receive the message. Some, no doubt, did not put down roots. They lasted for a time, but when troubles arose, persecution, suffering they lost faith. They may even have seen it as proof that there is no God. Some were lured away by worldly possessions. It was more important for them to get ahead in life. Or maybe they simply became too busy to deal with spiritual matters. They put other things first. “But” Matthew points out, “there were enough of those who were fruitful” in good works. Hearing was matched by understanding. They responded to God’s call and were open to God’s leading. They bore fruit.

And what about our own ears? Do we have ears to hear what God’s Spirit is saying to us today? What is the Spirit saying to the Church? What is the Spirit saying to the world? How are we to hear this parable, here in the 21st century in Port Hope? Do we get it? It isn't enough to hear. We have to understand. And even understanding is not enough. At its earliest level, the parable on Jesus’ lips may have been saying that despite all the setbacks they were facing, God had other ideas. God’s realm would come with all of its surprises. The rewards, the outcome, would be beyond imagination. To the uninformed that would have seemed stupid, just as ridiculous as scattering seed willy-nilly seems to us. Who could have imagined that a motely crew of fishermen, tax collectors and sinners could spawn a worldwide religion that would exist two thousand years later? It is absurd, isn’t it? It is Paul’s folly of the cross!

It is easy to look at the Church and see its shortcomings and failures, its lack of relevance. But perhaps that is our failure to recognize what the Church is. It is not our building, beautiful though it might be. We are the Church. That is why we need to meet Sunday after Sunday. How can we be renewed and go out into the world and be the Church if we are not sustained and nurtured by our faith? Are we in our lives and in our work in the world, bringing God's love to a world that needs to hear it? Are we committed to the faith? Are we sowing the seed lavishly? Or have we just given up. We look at the world and its problems. We look at our dwindling numbers and aging congregations and throw our hands into the air.

We need to remember that God has not given up. Faith is empty without action on our part. Church isn't about a building. It also isn't about insightful preachers having wonderful messages to share Sunday by Sunday. It is about the commitment of the Christian community. It is easy to listen to the parable of the sower and gloat about how responsive we are to God, to see ourselves as good seed landing on good soil. Many good churchgoing people are unresponsive to God's call. We have all sorts of excuses for our lack of faith. It isn't our fault. It is the way we were brought up. It is because of what happened to me in my childhood. It is God's fault for treating me this way.

We choose our own paths. The good news is that God is there to give us guidance and support. The church is there to nurture us on the way. But it requires action on our part. We who are privileged to hear need to respond. We don't need to find excuses. We just need to do what God calls us to do.
If we would believe the parable of the sower, although God does not seem to be at work in the world, although God does not seem to be in control, nevertheless, God's realm is coming. In its coming it will make up for all the failures and disappointments which have gone on before. We are assured of abundant success despite failure. We are privileged – we Christians – to be bearers of God's truth in the world. We bear a message of great hope. "Let anyone with ears listen!"

The Feast of the Ascension

Loss, or Promise

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

We are celebrating the Feast of the Ascension today. It occurs forty days after Easter – last Thursday to be exact. But being midweek it often gets overlooked. So we are marking it today. It is a fitting day for the whole people of God to gather in celebration.

During my high school years, I went to St. Mildred’s, a Private Girls' School run by an Anglican religious order. We had some unusual holidays, including the Feast of the Ascension. We would begin the day by trekking down to the local church for Eucharist, and then we piled on buses, and the whole school went to the island for a picnic. It was a day of celebration and fun. It marked the beginning of the end of the school year. We ate and played and raced and generally had a good time.

So whenever I come to reflect on the Feast of the Ascension, those memories come flooding back to me. They influence my thoughts. Indeed it always surprises me to find out that the Ascension is not about a picnic. In fact, it is anything but a picnic.

Jesus in his full humanity has been given new life in the resurrection. It has been a time of great hope for the disciples as they have been reunited with the risen Saviour. Then just like that, Jesus is gone. He has reappeared to them just long enough for them to say goodbye. Like a dream, he leaves behind no children, no estate, no writings, no trace of himself except this feeling that his presence was real, that uncanny feeling that he was just here, that he must have just stepped out for a time, that he will return at any moment.

It is a feeling of mixed joy and grief, of doubt and certainty. It marks the moment when the disciples came into their own time, and indeed when we pass from Jesus’ time into our own.

We read in Scripture that he was taken up into Heaven. We see it portrayed in stained glass windows and art, Jesus’ feet disappearing into the clouds. We may puzzle about how it happened, but emotionally we do understand it on a deep level. That is because we have experienced it with the loss that comes when a loved one dies. Death, even a lingering death, is so sudden and subtle. It is so peaceful. One moment you see the rise and fall of breath, the next it stops. Loved ones are suddenly taken from us, and the manner in which they go fills us with awe. It is an amazing, yet dreadful thing. We say and perhaps even know on some level that they are going to “a better place”. And yet we are confronted with the harsh reality that they are gone.

The stories of Jesus’ ascension are, it seems to me, about a Christian attitude towards death. The disciples and we are confronted with the hard reality that Jesus is gone. He has risen, not just from the dead, but from the world. Yet we cannot get away from the miracle. In fact, the miracle is the whole point, isn’t it? The disciples see with their own eyes that Jesus is gone, but he has gone to be with God. He is alive, so maybe their loved ones are alive. Maybe death does not have the final word. What a miracle that is! What a cause for rejoicing!

The Ascension, as he withdraws from his disciples, as he is carried from them into heaven, marks the end of Jesus' earthly life. Before he makes his final departure from them, he commissions them to continue his earthly work. As witnesses of the resurrection, it is their task to continue his proclamation. It is their responsibility to carry on the work that Jesus began. Jesus lives! Jesus reigns! Yet there is a catch! Jesus has left his disciples holding the bag!

So yes, this feast day is about loss. And we all know from personal experience that is no picnic. If we have ever suffered loss, then we can imagine how the disciples felt. This is a very difficult time in their lives. It is a time between loss and promise. How are they to face the future without their leader? How are they to trust that they will have the resources to carry on and to proclaim the great message of salvation that Jesus has given into their care? How are they to know that they are equal to the task that lies ahead? How are they to overcome the grief and pain that surrounds the loss of one they love?

So before Jesus leaves them he gives them a final blessing. That is, after all, an apt ending to his earthly life, a life wholly focused on blessing and forgiving. He died with forgiveness on his tongue; he rose with blessing upon it. And the disciples did not depart in sorrow, but in rejoicing. They may need to wait for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. But they wait knowing that Jesus has made good on every promise and they go out rejoicing in the courage of the Lord.

Part of the commissioning is a promise, the promise of power from on high. They will be “clothed with power”, covered head to toe with the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the promise they take with them. It will comfort them. It will sustain them. They go, not to the Upper Room, a place of protection and nurture, a place of locked doors and fear, but to the temple in Jerusalem. They did exactly what Jesus commissioned them to do. They immediately took their worship public.

We have all faced times of loss in our lives – the death of a loved one, broken relationships, empty nest syndrome, retirement. Even loss of innocence and problems related to addiction are about such in-between times. They are times of fear and confusion as we face change beyond our control. How do we deal with such events in our lives? How do we allow ourselves to know the promise of God to be with us?

We live in an in-between time in the Church's history. We see signs of moral decay in the fiber of society. At the same time we see a decline in attendance in the mainline churches. We see an aging congregation. We hear that the Church has lost its relevance in society. How do we hold on to the promise that God is with us and that we will be witnesses to the ends of the earth? How do we rejoice and witness to the power of the Spirit at work in our lives? In our own church, how do we discern the future that God holds in store for us?

The Scripture suggests a course of action. It suggests some things that the disciples did.
It should not be any surprise that the first thing they did was to gather in prayer. They didn’t know what to do, so they prayed for guidance. They prayed for the fulfillment of the promise that Jesus made to them. They gathered the community together and in solidarity they prayed to God, that God would be with them.

That is an important model for us as the community of the church. You may be saying to yourself, "Well that's pretty obvious. Of course we should pray." Gather the community together and pray. Pray for God's guidance about our future. Pray that God will be present with us. Pray that God will be at work in our lives.

But it is important for us to remember in our own lives as well. It is important for us to remember when we face a time of loss or change in our lives. Pray even when the only prayer you can pray is "God, I can't pray". Because that kind of prayer will help us to look back and remember the times when God has been with us. It will help us to remember the promise that God made to be with us always.

And pray in thanksgiving. We so often neglect to thank God for all of our many blessings. We are so blessed that we come to expect it.

Finally we await the fulfillment of God's promise. We live in hope. There is such an air of expectancy about the disciples during this period of waiting. There is a sense of building urgency. "What next?" they seem to be asking. They are about to embark on a new way without Jesus to guide them. The path ahead is not yet clear. It is a time of testing and discovery. Such times in our lives can be fruitful as we learn to trust our own resilience, our own abilities and our God given talents.

The Ascension is not the end of the story.
"I am risen. I am still with you." That is the message to the disciples. It continues to be the message to the church today. We still encounter the risen Lord. Yet that is a mystery that, not surprisingly, eludes our grasp. Our encounter is rather like trying to view a beautiful painting through a venetian blind. We can see the image, but not clearly enough to understand its beauty and perfection. We get flashes of insight. But to full appreciate its beauty, we would have to view it under the proper conditions, with our view unobstructed, with the proper lighting.

When the risen Lord encounters us, we do, for a moment, fully comprehend. Yet it is difficult to hold on to the image.

If we have eyes to see the mystery of the resurrection, we will glimpse it all around us. We will catch sight of it in nature – the smell of rain, the wildness of a thunderstorm, the beauty of a flower unfolding, the sight of a starry sky. We dream it. The kind of dream you wake up out of without quite remembering what it was about, and yet you feel better for having dreamed it. We meet it through the liturgy, through music, through the world of books. And most of all we meet it in our relationships with other people.

And so it may not be a picnic. But we are not left alone. Jesus parted from the disciples. But he promised the Holy Spirit. That promise is there for us as well. May we too be clothed with power from on high.

The Second Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Call of Faith

Readings: Acts 2:14a & 22-32, Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Easter is a call to faith, the Christian response to the Easter event, faith that believes even though it cannot see. That is what Peter boldly proclaims to all in Jerusalem who will listen. "Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy."

But do we? Let’s face it! It is easy for Peter and the other disciples to believe. After all, they were witnesses to the risen Lord! They talked to him. He appeared to them offering them peace. He sent them out filled with the Holy Spirit. He gave them power to forgive. How could they not believe?

And there is Thomas! He could not take their word for it. He wanted proof. "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

Aren't we like that? I know I am. I want proof positive. I want to see for myself. For most of us, seeing is believing. We rationalize. We question. We want to know the outcome before we commit ourselves.

There is something more in Thomas's story that has always intrigued me. It is a seemingly trivial fact that John chooses to include. He tells us that Thomas is a twin. Do you ever wonder why he put that in? Why was it important enough to add? Was it to make the story more interesting? I truly doubt that, although twins are interesting characters. I remember a set of twins that I once taught. They were a real challenge. That whole year I never learned to tell them apart. I was never quite sure when I called one of their names just who actually answered. And being Jane and Joan it probably wouldn't have mattered much. They kept the class guessing about what they would get into next. They knew without saying a word what the other was thinking. They were bright and fun. To have twins must be both a double joy and a double challenge. But that doesn't explain why John told us that Thomas was a twin.

He also didn’t tell us whose twin Thomas was. We can read in Scripture about James and John being brothers. Whose twin was Thomas? Could it have been Mary Magdalene, or perhaps even Judas? Nothing even begins to explain why he made a point of telling us that Thomas was a twin.

That is, unless you read between the lines. Who is Thomas’s twin? The answer is evidently meant to be “us”. We are Thomas’s twins. Like Thomas we all experience times of fear and doubt, pessimism and trust, belief and unbelief. And that is a difficult place to be, because we don’t like to live with ambiguity. We want a sense of certainty.

We see it in the priorities of society. Billions of dollars are spent every year developing new technologies. Meanwhile millions of people starve to death. We worry less about improving our present existence than about the unknown, those things which are just beyond our reach. We want to know.

When it comes to God we are even more anxious to know with a sense of certainty. We want signs, wonders, miracles. We want to prove the existence of God. Is God really out there looking after things? Is the world in good hands? Is everything going to turn out all right after all? Are the good going to be rewarded and the bad punished? Is there something to look forward to when our earthly life is completed?

There are uncertainties in life as well. How can we be certain that we are really loved? Is there meaning to life? What legacy will we leave behind us? We want certainty about who we are and what we have accomplished. That makes us Thomas’s twin. He just wanted to be certain. He wanted tangible proof. He didn’t want to be told. He wanted to see for himself. He wanted to see the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands. He wanted to put his finger in the mark of the nails. He wanted to put his hand in Jesus’ side. Only then could he be certain that there would be no disappointments, no false hopes.
Let’s read between the lines again. When Jesus came to the Upper Room to see the disciples, Thomas wasn’t there. Whatever good reason he may have had, he missed out on what the rest of the community shared. He missed the encounter with the risen Christ. He missed the words of peace. He missed the outpouring of love and concern and blessing. He missed the pep talk that sent the others out carrying the message of forgiveness.

Many good people have the mistaken notion that they don’t need the community of faith. They think they can make it on their own. “What purpose does church serve?” they ask. “I can live a Christian life on my own terms. I can be good. I don’t need the church. After all, it’s filled with a bunch of hypocrites who just want my money.”

Others think that once you become a Christian, once you accept faith, all the doubts simply disappear. They think that with faith all our rational faculties cease to be used. We simply park our brains at the door. We accept the Church’s teaching and follow blindly.
That will never be enough. For doubts come. In fact, I am skeptical of anyone who says they have no doubts. I fear they may be fanatical in their faith. Doubts come to all of us.

Doubts come to us when we look at all the terrible things that are going on in the world. What kind of God allows the terrible suffering that comes about because of war, or famine, or terrorist acts? What kind of God allows disasters to strike innocent people?

Doubts come most of all when we face difficulties and hardships in our lives. We question the very existence of God. Why am I sick? Why did my child die? Why can’t I find a job? Why did my spouse walk out on me? Why is God letting this happen to me? I am faithful. I believe. Why? What use is faith if bad things still happen? Where are you God when I need you? If that is the basis of our relationship with God, then doubts will simply overwhelm us. We will lose hope. Doubt is not the opposite of faith; hopelessness is!

I had this very conversation this past week with a close friend. She is a faithful Christian, raised in the Roman Catholic Church and active in her parish. Lately any number of things have caused her to question her faith – the death of a close mutual friend, another friend’s struggle with a debilitating disease, her son’s continuing struggle with depression, her own chronic pain. “I went to all the services during Holy Week and Easter,” she said to me, “but somehow I am just left with emptiness. I know it is wrong. I need to have faith, but …”

That is where Thomas’s story comes in. It continues to be so reassuring. It says to me that it is reasonable to have doubts. It is understandable. It is human. Everyone has doubts about their relationships at one time or another. There is not a husband or wife who has not at some time had doubts about their relationship. There are no two friends who have not at some time in their relationship wondered whether it would last. And there is not a believer who has not experienced Christ as absent from their lives at some time or another. We have all had times when it was difficult to believe.

Thomas challenges us to persevere when we have doubts. He got to the place where we must get. Like him we must cry out, “My Lord and my God!” It may sound more like a question than a statement. Never mind. Persevere in the faith. Witness to how God is working in your life and in the lives of others. Deepen your commitment to God day by day. Commit yourself to the work of the Church.

And most of all, watch for the signs of resurrection around you. We need moments of evidence, moments of feeling God’s presence. Such moments are given so that our faith can survive the periods of seeming absence of God, the times when we do not see, yet believe.

Where is the risen Lord to be seen?
• In the bursts of colour as spring returns
• In the face of the stranger who smiles as we pass by one another
• In the voice of a friend who calls just to say hello
• In the laughter of children
• In a moment of joining hands with another person in the exchange of the peace
• In bread broken and wine poured
• In looking into another’s eyes and seeing Christ

The gospel is about us after all. It tells us that Thomas was a twin. It leaves us with the tantalizing question, “Who is Thomas’s twin? And there is only one possible answer. I! I am Thomas’s twin. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!

The Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

Enjoy the Mountain, Live in the Valley

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; Matthew 17:1-9

The word 'Lent' although we quite properly associate it with fasting and penitence means literally 'spring'. When we consider the coming of spring we think in terms of growth and new life. Despite the cold, already around us are signs that say that spring is on its way. Daylight is coming earlier and staying longer. Whether we see it or not the earth is warming up and preparing for the growth that marks our spring weather. I know that we consider Lent as a rather dreary time in the church year, a time of giving up, a time of penitence, and dreary hymns in minor keys. However, Lent, as the springtime of the year is a good way for us to consider the season, for this is a time of spiritual re-awakening and growth. It is a season of great hope.

If Lent is a season of hope it is also a time to reflect on change and transition in our lives. When our lives change we are often faced with a new awareness of how attached we are to our old ways. We find it difficult to put down new roots and grow in new directions. To do so takes more trust than most of us can muster.

Abraham's story is an important one for us, for it is not only a story of the great faithfulness of God, but also of our human ability to put our trust in God through all the changes and transitions of life.

God called Abraham to begin a new life in a new place. It was a call, not only for Abraham, but also for the people of Israel. It is the beginning of their history of salvation – a moment of transition in their lives. God calls Abraham to leave his homeland and set out to a strange place. God makes a seemingly impossible promise to Abraham that his descendants will become a great nation with a territory of their own. It is on the basis of God's promise that he leaves the familiarity of his life and sets out to live as an alien resident, far from his roots. It is a story that touches us as part of our human heritage. Being uprooted and displaced, whether by war, disaster or choice is the experience of millions of people in our own time. Consider the story of the Syrian family that the River of Hope is sponsoring in our community.

The wonder of the story is not only that Abraham was obedient to the call of God. It is that he trusted so implicitly in God's ability to accomplish what was promised. Wouldn't our human tendency be to take control, to try to orchestrate things so that God's promise came about through our own efforts? Abraham didn't raise an army and march on the Canaanites. He didn't enact laws and find people to enforce them. He didn't get himself a crown. For Abraham, faith meant believing in God's promise and trusting that God would make it happen in God's own time, in God's own way, through God’s grace.

Speaking for myself, I find that kind of faithfulness to God's promises very difficult. In my head I know the promises that God has made to us; in my heart I find it difficult to simply trust. I know intellectually that God's grace is free and abundant. Yet I find it impossible to give up my own need for control and let God work in my life.

That is one of the themes that I find in the Transfiguration passage in the Gospel. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain. There on the mountaintop, Jesus is transfigured, changed. He appears before them in dazzling white, a sign of God’s presence. They witness Elijah and Moses talking to Jesus.

During that encounter, Peter feels led to build three tabernacles, three altars as memorials, shrines to his sacred experience. What could possibly be wrong with doing exactly that? Whenever Abraham found signs of God’s presence on his journey, he built an altar and called on the name of God. It is part of our human nature to do so. We build churches. We want holy places in which to worship God. We think that by memorializing God we will somehow capture the holy. God will surely be with us.

But as God would have it, Peter will not build altars on the mountaintop. Altar building will take place in changed lives in the valley below. The vision ends as quickly as it began, like a bursting bubble. The disciples are transported back to the valley. It is in the valley, after all, that they are called to serve lovingly and faithfully. It is in the difficult arenas of the world that their ministry will unfold.

That does not mean that the experience will be forgotten. Mountain top experiences change our perceptions of God and of ourselves. The disciples will carry that experience with them. Later when they look back on what has happened it will help them to face the difficult days ahead, days of loss and confusion.

We tend to think of "mountaintop experiences" as being ecstatic experiences, emotional highs. That is because true revelations are very difficult to express to other people. They are uniquely personal experiences. It is meaningful to the person within his or her own context. And so we search for the right words to describe our experience of God. It is that inexpressible quality that leads us to call those deep revelations "mountaintop experiences".
Those of us who live a normal Christian life spend most of our time with both feet firmly on the ground. We try to live the Christian life. We participate in worship. We give our time and talents to the work of the Church. We spend time in prayer and study. We try to live a good and moral life.

Life is not an easy journey. We all experience wilderness times in our lives, times of frustration, pain, suffering, difficulty. Sometimes it seems as if there will be no end to the wilderness time. When one thing after another happens to us, we ask the age-old questions. Why is this happening to me? Why must I suffer? Our faith comes into question. It is at those times that we call on our mountaintop experiences, those times when God was revealed to us in some inexplicable way that gave us a glimpse of glory.

It is those deep experiences of God that make it possible for people facing deep tragedy not only to sustain their faith, but to continue to affirm that God is a God of love, that God is there for them. When I look back over my life I become aware of many such moments. They are often just fleeting glimpses of the grandeur of God. The easy ones to express are times when I have experienced God through a great piece of music, a walk in the woods, a stimulating conversation with a friend, a synergistic moment when the right story or the right word came at exactly the right time. I have to say that some of them I would have great difficulty even beginning to explain to you. There have been moments of great clarity when I knew that God was with me. There have been times of prayer when I felt a deep connection to God. There have been times of danger when life was spinning out of control, and yet I knew that God was there.

I consider the Camino to be one of those mountaintop experiences in my life. I find it difficult to explain exactly what it entailed. I am without words to name it, other than its impact on my relationship to God. I am at just as much a loss of words to express the experience of praying on the beach at St. Columba’s Bay in Iona. In fact, the whole Iona journey is another of those inexpressible experiences that have brought me into closer relationship with God.

They are not experiences that we can go looking for. They are ways in which God chooses to be revealed to us. It is about letting God lead us. It is about opening ourselves to God. It is about letting God come into relationship with us. And especially it is about allowing ourselves to return to the valley. It is the changed lives that take place in the valley that are the tangible results of the mountain top experience. Jesus’ immediate act on descending from the mountain was to heal a young boy suffering from epilepsy. That boy, Peter as he becomes the ‘rock’, the foundation of the Christian faith, the lives of all of the faithful, the Church, the body of Christ; these are the living altars that proclaim the glory of God. That is pure grace.

Let this Lent be a time to reflect on change and transition in our lives. Let it be an opportunity to grow in new directions, to come into a deeper awareness of God's grace at work in our lives and to know God's abiding presence in our lives and the life of the world. Let it be a time to experience God’s grace at work in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Beyond Call

Readings: Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 51; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12

During the season of Epiphany the readings focus on God’s call to us. It is a call that goes beyond giving gifts to God. It is a call to give of our deepest selves. That is very much reflected in the readings for this particular Sunday.

The Old Testament reading begins with a courtroom scene; God is the prosecutor and the mountains are the judges. God is upset that despite all of God’s generosity and grace, the people of Israel have turned away. Micah reminds the people of how blessed they have been by God’s grace. And then he asks them a question. “What does the Lord require of you?” Not waiting for their answer, he follows it with a very succinct and poignant response. “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.” It is the call of the people of Israel. It is the call of the Christian, yet it goes far beyond even the Christian call. It touches our deepest humanity. It is a call to social responsibility, to the kind of personal behaviour and interior spirituality that epitomizes ethical living. What God requires goes beyond the norms of everyday living, of society. God requires people to turn their lives around, to live their lives differently.

Micah has so much to say to us today. He reminds us that, although it is a sign of spiritual awareness, it is not enough to go to church. It is not enough to have the outward trappings of religion. Our lives must reflect our relationship to God. If we truly want to worship God it must show in our daily lives, not simply in our practice of worship. Our lives must reflect that desire to live justly, to do the loving thing.

Furthermore, for Micah it has nothing to do with religious rituals. No animal sacrifice could begin to make a difference. It has to do with a sacrifice of the heart and the spirit. It has to do with the way we live our lives. It has to do with the change that takes place in our lives when we decide to follow God.

The Gospel also reflects that need to change the way we live our lives. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims a new way of living, a new character of faith. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says knowing that the poor in spirit already belong in the kingdom of God. They are the ones who know that the kingdom of God is not yet fully realized here on earth. They know that society leaves out too many people. There are too many who suffer, who starve and who are abused.

The poor in spirit are the ones who want to change all that. They want a world where justice reigns. They want to put an end to injustice. They want a world that is free of weeping and arrogance, of homelessness, injustice, darkness and war. They look out on our world and weep. They weep for those who will go hungry this day. They weep for those who languish unjustly in prison. They weep for those shot down on our city streets. They weep for the child abused by a parent. They weep for the family in turmoil. They weep for the denuding of our forests and the polluting of our waters. They weep for those who are excluded because of the perceptions of those around them.

“Blessed are the meek,” Jesus says. Doesn’t that contradict everything that the world stands for? To the world the meek are the ones that get walked all over. It challenges the world’s moral values. The very ones the world dismisses as unrealistic and naïve become the radical subversives who can change the world into a place of peace and justice. They are the advocates for the poor and for those in need. In terms of Christian faith a seeming defeat emerges to be the great moral victory of history, inspiring and calling people in every age to give their allegiance to Jesus Christ.

Our Christian faith searches for the paradox at the heart of everything. The unimportant becomes important. The marginal becomes central. Think of the blessing that the Martin Luther King’s of this world bring to society. The course of action of the meek is often the most courageous. It is often the most effective as well. While God will use those with gifts, the powerful and influential, the bright and talented, it is often the rejected, the despised, the imprisoned, the martyred who become real instruments of God’s peace in the world.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, Jesus says. And I wonder, do I hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness or do I find excuses and simply look the other way? Do I assume that it is not up to me, that someone else will look after things, make certain that justice is served? Do I hunger and thirst for righteousness, or am I indifferent to the suffering I see around me? Do I avoid becoming too caught up in it? Do I keep silent when I see injustice so that I do not offend those around me?

The message of the beatitudes is not for the past. It is not for some distant future. It is relevant to the present moment. We are called to trust in God in difficult circumstances. They are unavoidable in our lives. There will always be times of difficulty, for it is part of the human condition. The beatitudes help us, not simply to endure life’s difficult times, but to accept and live a sustaining relationship with God throughout our whole lives. This was never more true than at this moment. In Africa, in Asia and the Middle East millions of our fellow human beings suffer disease, privation and the effects of war and natural disasters we have never experienced, let alone imagine. Many of our First Nations People live in poverty in the midst of our plenty.

That call to give of our deepest selves is reflected in our Baptismal covenant. Can you hear Micah’s powerful words reflected as we make this promise? “Will you strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being?” What a challenge that presents to us!

We know that to live as Micah proclaims is to live as God would have us live. We know in our hearts that what Jesus is saying calls us to change our lives. It calls us to the sense of joy that comes with serving God. It calls us to see our sacrifice of love as the way in which we serve God and bring about God’s kingdom of peace. And there lies the challenge! For to even come close to living our lives that way we will have to make changes. We will have to make a commitment to follow God and live our lives in a way that reflects God’s love. We will see it in the face of Jesus. We will want it in our own lives.

Sunday by Sunday we gather at the table. We break bread. We share the cup of salvation. As we do so we see foreshadowed the gathering of the hungry, the poor, the marginalized in the kingdom of God. As we come forward to receive the body and blood of Christ, we are responding to the altar call. We are committing ourselves to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” Amen

The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year A Sermon Series Pt 3

Truth and Reconciliation: An Ongoing Process

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

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 once more 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?

It is no mistake that during the season of Epiphany the consistent theme is our call to discipleship. Epiphany is about the many ways in which God is revealed to us. From the revelation of God to the Magi to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan to our own call as Christians, it is about our relationship with God. It is about how God's coming to us changes us.

God calls us as a society. Isaiah speaks to Judah, a nation in exile. They have lost their relationship with God. Here finally he gives them a message of hope. In spite of their lack of faithfulness, they will know joy in the midst of darkness. God will not abandon them. It is such good news to people who are experiencing pain and suffering. Isaiah links the coming of new light with regaining their freedom, with bringing an end to the oppression that has caused them to abandon their faith in the first place.

God calls us as Church. Paul writes to the churches in Corinth tackling the problem of their many divisions. He reminds the people that their loyalty must be to Christ and not to the particular leaders in their community. It is God who calls them. It is God who gives them their unique gifts. Their relationship needs to be with God and it needs to be a strong one that moves them past the quarrels and divisions so that they are able to be the people of God and bring transformation to their community.

And God calls each one of us as individuals. Matthew recounts the story of Jesus calling the disciples. What has gone on before is of real significance. John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan. Jesus went into the desert by himself for forty days. He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. He refused to use his divine powers for his own ends. Now he is ready to begin his ministry in earnest. He settles in Capernaum, rather a strange choice of place. It is a harbour town, home to cutthroats and pagans, not the easiest setting in which to begin his ministry. The words of Isaiah about bringing light into darkness flood into his consciousness. Empowered by those words, he realizes that God is with him illuminating the path. He sets out to find disciples to assist with the work.

The story of the call of the disciples is really pretty simple. Jesus sees Peter and Andrew casting their nets into the sea. He must have seen them on many occasions. He invites them to follow him. "I will make you fish for people," he says. They respond immediately. James and John are also fishermen. They are helping their father mend the nets. He calls them. They leave their father and the boat and follow Jesus.

Being a disciple involves making decisions. If they were to do God's will they first had to respond to Jesus' invitation! As Christians, we too need to respond to the invitation. We need to make a conscious decision about what we will and will not do. Only then can God reach out to a society in need of transformation. So what is our response to the invitation? What will we do to bring light and healing into the lives of others?

God calls us at this time and in this place. God calls us where we are. Where is God calling this community of faith? Are we being faithful to our call? I believe with my whole heart that God is calling us at this time and in this place to a ministry of Truth and Reconciliation. First Nations People need to experience first hand what Isaiah is speaking about. They have experienced, indeed, they continue to experience, pain and suffering because of Canada’s colonial attitudes and our continuing racism and apathy to their situation. The dream that one day our nation will live up to its promises remains largely unfulfilled. Darkness continues to cover the land. They need that sense that God is with them to bring light, to increase joy, and to break the rod of the oppressor. They need to experience joy in the midst of darkness. It is in this moment that we hold out hope that light will shine in the darkness.

The mood of the passage is one of celebration and trust that God will shine into the darkness. It is one of trust in God even if events seem to be anything but joyous. Let us continue to bring light to bear on the oppression under which they have lived. Let us find ways of turning that oppression into hope and freedom. Then we will have achieved reconciliation.

But what is reconciliation anyway? How will we know when we have achieved it? It starts with doing what we are doing right now, educating ourselves about our complicity in their plight, acknowledging that we are the problem and that we need their forgiveness. When Michael Peers issued an apology on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada in 1993, it began the process of reconciliation that continues to this day. He told the people of the shame and humiliation he felt in listening to their stories of abuse and thinking of the part that the Church played in that suffering. He confessed his failure. He did it on behalf of all of us; even those of us who did not at that time know the story. He did it knowing that it could result, as it did, in costly suits against the Church. He did it because he knew that the Church needed healing every bit as much as First Nations People. We are sorely in need of reconciliation.

In 2008 then Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology. “The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this Chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada's role in the Indian Residential Schools system.”

And here we are almost ten years later still pondering what Truth and Reconciliation means. What more do we need to do?

The first step to reconciliation is an apology. The second step is forgiveness. That is certainly never a given. People can be so hurt by what has happened that forgiveness is the last thing on their mind. When we have hurt someone we think that forgiveness should somehow be automatic. “Of course,” we think, “if we apologize then we should be forgiven. Whatever happened to forgive and forget?” Much work needs to be done to regain trust, to assure First Nations People that the apology stands, that we are doing everything in our power to make amends. And so I believe that the ball remains in our court.

There is a story about reconciliation that I want to share with you. I am not certain where it comes from. There was a woman, a weaver, who was renowned for her beautiful tapestries and carpets. People came long distances to buy them from her. They knew that there was something unique about every piece that she did. One of her customers spoke to her about it. “It must be painstaking work,” he said. “No two carpets are alike. How do you do it? What happens when you make a mistake? You must take hours going back and fixing your mistakes?”

“No!” replied the woman. “You see! My mistakes are the reason that each piece is unique. When I make a mistake I weave it into the pattern.”

We cannot undo the mistakes of the past. We cannot forget. In fact it is important that we not forget. Reconciliation calls us is re-member the past, to weave it into the tapestry of our lives.

How do we re-member First Nations People? How do we honour them and ensure that the darkness in which they are living does not continue? It begins with our own acknowledgement of our complicity in their circumstances. It continues with our making certain that it is not forgotten, that we know our history, that our children are taught the real history of Canada and the contribution of our First Nations People. As Christians that is our call.

As our Primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz writes in the response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “We will continue to share in the work of healing and reconciliation, respectfully following the leadership of Indigenous communities and leaders, and to offer leadership among non-Indigenous Canadians where that is appropriate.”

“May the Creator guide us as we continue in the work of healing, justice, and right relations for the generations it will take to address that harm “and guide this country on a new and different path”. (Remembering the Children prayer, 2008)”

And to that I say, Amen!

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!”

Baptism of the Lord, Year A

Treaty as Covenant

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

You in Orono live, as many Canadians do, on Treaty land. In fact, you live under the same treaty as I do in Port Hope. This community is part of Treaty 20 known as Surrender M. It consists of almost two million acres of land for which the British paid $10 in goods to each person. And so 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.

This series of sermons is intended to help educate this congregation about the process of truth and reconciliation. How will we share in the ministry? How will we honour the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? My intention in this sermon is to focus on our Baptismal Covenant and how it calls us to that ministry. It is no accident that I focus today on our Baptismal Covenant. This Sunday celebrates the Baptism of the Lord. Baptism for Jesus was an encounter with the Holy Spirit that led him into a life of ministry. We like Jesus encounter the Spirit in our baptism. How do we live out that encounter? We do it by affirming the promises of our baptism. We revitalize our sense of mission, our sense of what we are called to through baptism. We live in an age of fulfillment. Jesus came; he was baptised by John. He was filled with the Spirit. He entered into mission with us. We are redeemed and reconciled. We are charged with the task of being "a light to the nations…." And whatever our avocation – that which we do to feed and clothe our bodies – our vocation is to serve God, to emulate Christ, to witness through word and deed and to communicate God's love and grace. That is our baptismal call. That is the promise that we made, or that was promised on our behalf in our baptism.

Following this sermon, we will renew our Baptismal Covenant. One of the questions that I will ask is, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” It is an important question as we focus on this issue. One of the vocations of contemporary Christian life and witness is to shed light in human society on issues to which many are blind. We Anglicans have a history with our First Nations people of being, not only blind to, but also complicit in the abuse that has taken place. It is important for us to know and understand the history, but even more important to find ways to bring God’s justice to our First Nations brothers and sisters who have been so hurt.

Today as we renew the promises of our baptism, let us consider what our mission is. What is God calling us to do? How can we respond to that call? How can we learn and grow and be transformed by God's love? The heart of the Christian faith is that by baptism each of us is brought into intimate relationship with a loving God. The simple fact is that you are God's beloved son or daughter. It is for each of us to claim that and to live in the joy and confidence of it. Then we will follow Christ with the conviction that we are following God's design and destiny for our lives.

I see a deep correlation between Covenant and Treaty. When our First Nations people were “discovered” by European explorers some five hundred years ago, their communities were based on values of freedom, equality and the worth and dignity of the individual human being. If that sounds rather like our baptismal covenant, consider these facts. Our First Nations people helped the early explorers survive the hardships of our northern climate. They cured the settlers of scurvy. They treated the newcomers with respect. That is the foundation for the peace and friendship treaties negotiated and finalized with the Europeans. The treaties recognized the sovereignty and nationhood of Aboriginal peoples. Both sides agreed to respect each other’s territories, cultures and political systems. They agreed to share the land and its resources.

Unfortunately that is a far cry from what occurred. We have not honoured the treaties. We have not respected the territories. Rather we have taken the best for ourselves and relegated the First Nations people to the leftovers. Rather than experience the peace and friendship between nations that the original treaties envisaged, First Nations people have experienced violence and dislocation. Their nationhood has not been recognized. We have not respected their culture. In fact, our policies have been designed to deprive them of their land and assimilate them into our culture. Generations of systematic racism and government policies stripping them of their rights have left them amongst the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society.

So how must we as Christians understand treaty? It has similarities to Covenant, and we believe ourselves to be people of the Covenant. In an article by Stan McKay, a “Treaty Indian” from Saskatchewan, he speaks about it as a covenantal relationship.

“When the treaty party arrived in the Qu’Appelle Valley,” he says, “they were met by First Nations leaders who then left after initial conversations. They went away for ceremonies and prayer. The government officials grew impatient, but the First Peoples returned to complete the process. The elders had guided the leaders to understand that the agreement through treaty was a tripartite project. It involved the Creator, the Queen’s representatives and First Peoples. We have spoken often about the spirit of the treaties and have maintained that it is much more than a legal document. We are bound by a covenant.”

He goes on to explain that if you look at covenant in the Old Testament it follows the same pattern. The covenant in with Noah in the Book of Genesis is between “all living beings, and all birds and all animals”. God makes an everlasting covenant with creation, a binding promise between God, creation and Noah.

He also notes that the Queen’s representatives did not hold the treaties as sacred documents, but as a means to gain access to the land.

The Old Testament reading from Isaiah speaks about God’s servant, God’s chosen. The intention is to introduce Israel as God’s servant. For Christians the portrait drawn is of Christ. He has the task of being a light to the nations, of opening blind eyes, of bringing prisoners out of bondage, and feeding and clothing the poor and hungry. It points out our need for justice that goes far beyond our human understanding of justice.

That is what the story of Jesus’ baptism is all about. Jesus, the righteous one insists on being baptised by John. God’s covenant, God’s promise to humankind, God’s promise to all of creation, is captured in that moment. The covenant is renewed. And Jesus begins his earthly ministry of healing and reconciliation.

And is that not the purpose of the Church? We are called to be a servant community. We are to pursue justice until it is brought to the ends of the earth. So let us hear ourselves as the servant, the chosen of God. Let us know that God’s Spirit is in us. We are redeemed and reconciled by the Spirit. We are called to follow Jesus who is sent by God. We have the task of being light to the nations, of opening blind eyes, of bringing prisoners our of bondage, and feeding and clothing the poor and hungry. Our baptismal ministry is to serve God by emulating Christ through witness in word and deed. That is how we communicate the love of God to all. Especially let us be agents of healing and justice for the First Nations people of our land. Amen