Yr C ~ Pentecost 2 ~ 1 Kings 19:8-15a

A person has a need, a deep spiritual need. They’re at the end of their rope. They’ve realized that their own energy and capacity is maxed out, and they need more than what they’ve got. They’ve had tremendous highs, accomplished incredible things, done tremendous good, but at this point they’re just done. The accolades have faded, the tides have turned, and now they’re shaken to their core. The appropriate word just might be despondent.

And so with nothing left in the tank they completely let down their guard and surrender to God. I would imagine that, “I’ve had enough, God! I give up!” is a prayer just about every person here has prayed.

And then, exhausted, they fall asleep. And in their sleep, when their guard is completely down and there are no distractions, an experience of the Holy happens. Presence is felt – spiritual nourishment is given – energy is restored. The person then goes through a time of spiritual transformation and growth, has even more powerful and transformative experiences of and in God’s Presence, and is refreshed, renewed, and given a new mission of living God’s way.

That pattern of spiritual renewal is exactly what the prophet Elijah experienced, and it can be true for us today too.

Elijah was perhaps the greatest prophet of Israel. Just before today’s reading he stands alone in a foreign land (albeit one where many Jews are living) and challenges 450 prophets of the god Baal. You see, the Israelites there were falling away from God and turning to the cult of Baal, in the land ruled by Queen Jezebel. Isaiah had to prove that Yahweh, the one true God, the God above all other gods, was worthy. So he challenges the Baal prophets to a prophet-off! The problem was if he lost the challenge he’d be killed, but if he won the challenge Jezebel would still probably kill him. But he had to fight.

It’s a colourful story. There were pyres erected, and bulls were cut up, and the challenge was that using only prophecy and spiritual power could the fires be lit and the bulls burned. 450 prophets of Baal danced and chanted themselves into a stupor and a big fat nothing happened. One lowly prophet of God, Elijah, prayed and called forth God’s power and lightning came and started the fire and burned it all up. Elijah won, and all 450 prophets of Baal were put to death.
Winner winner chicken dinner, right? Big man on campus, right?

The next day, Elijah was visited by a messenger of Jezebel who said the queen sent him to kill Elijah.
So Elijah fled for his life, thinking he was done for. He ran and ran, deep into the wilderness, expecting to be killed. Despondent, he laid down under a desert bush and he prayed, 1 Kings 19:4 “I’ve had enough, Lord! Take my life. I’m no better than my ancestors.” The last part is pretty cryptic but the first part is pretty relatable. “I’ve had enough, God! I give up!”

He slept, and an angel visited him, woke him, and provided food and water.
Refreshed Elijah travelled for 40 days and 40 nights – sound familiar? That’s a number signifying transformation.
And he comes to Mt Horeb, where Moses got the 10 Commandments, and just like Moses, Elijah experiences God’s Presence in a magnificent way.

Ok, that’s the background.
How did Elijah get there, and how do we get to a point where we’re ready to experience God so vividly?
There’s a pattern: openness and surrender, receiving spiritual nourishment, a time of transformation, and physically being in a quiet place where deep experiences have a greater chance of happening, and making yourself ready, preparing yourself, to hear.

Now let’s look at the experience.
How do we expect to encounter God? What would it be like to encounter the very Presence of God?
Here’s how it was for Elijah. 1 Kings 19:11-12

(Elijah is told) “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

The King James translation says it was a still, small voice.

That ain’t how it works in the movies!
Generally, God is depicted as all-powerful, shaking mountains, causing earthquakes, chucking lightning bolts.
We expect God to dazzle and amaze, to knock our socks off with power, and fireworks, and throngs of angel choruses singing alleluia!

Silence is the opposite.
Silence is the absence of all those flashy things.
I guess it’s because we have a sense that God is so great, and so awesome, and so holy, and so magisterial that we can’t help but associate those things with showy and noisy displays of such awesomeness.
But clearly, according to this scripture and many others, God’s Presence is known in the silence.
In the silence!
It’s completely counter-intuitive.
It turns our perception and expectations completely upside down.
Come to think of it, that’s exactly how God usually seems to work!

It shouldn’t surprise us though. read on →

Pentecost 1 ~ Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

The passage from Romans that we started with today makes a huge assumption.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since we’re justified.
To be justified means to be declared righteous, innocent, cleared of all charges.
That’s nice. When did that happen?
It happens as you grow ever deeper in the way of Jesus.
Presumably Paul knows that he’s talking to insiders, to long term church people, to the regulars. In other words, most of us!
We arrive here every week knowing we are already doing pretty good, right?
We participate. We worship. We pray.
We do good things. We’re the A Team. We’re awesome!
Everybody turn and high five somebody.

I mean, look at this place. This is a healthy and positive congregation.
We do all sorts of community work.
We help local and distant ministries with physical, spiritual, and financial assistance.
We’re an Affirming church.
We have vibrant worship. We have warm fellowship.
We have an amazing staff! We have fantastic lay leadership.
We may not be among the biggest but we might just be among the best congregations in the whole United Church.
We really are awesome!
That needs another high five, and maybe even a wooot!

Does that feel weird?
Does it feel weird to celebrate like that? To boast like that?
Christians aren’t supposed to boast or brag, right?
We’re supposed to be all humble and self-deprecating. Right?
Not according to Paul!

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

Ok, so actually we boast about how good God is and not so much about ourselves. But how do you think God’s goodness is communicated and shared? It’s mostly through people like us! God works through us. God loves via you and me. So when we boast of God’s love we pretty much have to talk about ourselves because we’re the ones that love comes through! High five again!!!

We call this Sunday “Celebration Sunday” and we really do have a lot to celebrate.
We’ve already recognized the folks who do some of their ministry with children and youth through Joyful Noise and Family Fun Night and such. And yes, I purposely call it ministry and not volunteering!
You aren’t volunteers; you’re all ministers living out Christ’s call on your life.

Other folks do some of their ministry through committees or through our church Council. I forgot to do the covenanting piece with all those folks a couple of months ago so right now I’d like to invite anyone who serves on a committee or is a member of Council to please stand. Thank you for your ministry, and blessings be upon it! (You may be seated.)

Many of you do your ministry in countless ways behind the scenes – cutting grass, gardening, doing dishes, moving chairs, knitting prayer shawls, I could go on and on. So much ministry is done here! There’s so much to celebrate and boast about.

We’re also celebrating today the anniversary of our officially becoming an Affirming church – a church that commits to being public, intentional, and explicit about its openness. We describe ours in our mission statement on our bulletin:

We affirm that we strive to provide a spiritual home that is openly welcoming, nurturing and safe whatever a person’s ability/disability, age, ethnicity, exceptionality, gender identity, sexual orientation, or social or economic circumstance.
We may not be perfect, but we’re striving!

You may not think that’s all that big a deal but I assure you it has meant the world to some people – and the defacing of the rainbow crosswalk in Bowmanville a few weeks ago is ample proof as to why being Affirming is so important.
It may surprise you that across our denomination there are still only around 15% of congregations that are Affirming!
I’m wondering why it’s not closer to 100%? You’d think it would be. We are, after all, famous for being a cutting edge, social justice Church.
I guess all those churches are not ready yet.

This is the Sunday we’re also celebrating the anniversary of our denomination. read on →

Yr C ~ Pentecost ~ Genesis 11:1-9, and Acts 2:1-8, 11-18

We’re starting today with the famous story of the tower built in the land of Shinar – except we don’t call it that.
We all know it as the tower of…?

Let’s start a fight! The word b-a-b-e-l rhymes with what? Raise your hand when I get to your pronunciation!

Table? Scrabble? Hobble? Or is it something else?

The answer is…it depends!
The proper Hebrew is pronunciation is baw-Bell with emphasis on the 2^nd syllable.
But the proper English, according to the dictionary, rhymes with ‘table’ – so it’s Bay-bull.
But many of us learned it as babble, which sounds like confusion, and also sounds like Babylon, which is where the land of Shinar actually is, so maybe that’s right?

It doesn’t really matter. Pronounce it however you like!
My point is that even though we’re all English speakers here we can’t agree on how it should be pronounced. Add in multiple languages, and translations from ancient languages, and it’s a recipe for confusion!
Language can be confounding.
Eventually I’m going to make a big point about language and communicating and understanding, but for now I was just looking for a fun way to get started!

Before I go any further I just want to say the obvious that this story is just a story.
It’s never meant to be accurate history. It’s a teaching story – so we need to look carefully at it to learn its lessons!

The tower of…Babel (however you say it) story happens right after the Noah’s ark story. That’s important for interpreting it. After the flood the first thing we hear about is a story about how the people came to one place, under one language, and began to build an audacious, amazing tower. One language, working together – what’s the problem?

The problem is arrogance!
The problem is that God has repeatedly told humankind to “spread out and fill the whole earth” (Genesis 1:28, 9:1) – and here in Genesis 11, having been given a clean slate after the flood, the first thing humankind does is gather together in one place under one language.

God says “spread out.”
Humanity says, “Nope, we’re staying right here – and we’re going to build a tower that reaches the heavens – because we’re just as important and good as God is! We’ll be equal with God!”

Yikes! Friends, that’s called rebellion!

But instead of punishing humankind for this rebellion of arrogance – again – God chooses to reinforce God’s desire that humankind should spread out and fill the whole earth.
Do they like it? Of course not!
It’s like being told that vegetables are actually better for you than chocolate chip cookies! We may not like it, but it’s right!
So the people are scattered – not as punishment, but as a righting of the course.
A scattered, diverse humanity is God’s plan. One in love, but diverse in identity and expression.

So now let’s turn to the story of the disciples in the upper room at Pentecost. Just by way of background, Pentecost is a Greek word for the Jewish pilgrimage festival called Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks – commemorating the giving of the Law on Sinai – Moses, tablets, all that. We know Pentecost as a hugely important Christian day, but it’s roots are Jewish.

It’s called Pentecost (meaning 50th day) because it came 50 days after Passover. And just like on Passover, Jerusalem would have been bursting with pilgrims – Jews from all over the place flocking to the city for the festival. That’s why the long list of countries (that we mercifully left out of the reading) is there – to explain why people from all over, who speak all kinds of languages, are all together. The people have been scattered in diversity, and they have gathered together for worship.

Let’s turn to the text.
I think we all probably know the story well. While the disciples are gathered, presumably in worship, (Acts 2:2) suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

I love the imagery of the Holy Spirit blowing as a wind, but if you read this carefully it suggests that what they experienced was a “sound” like wind.
A sound – a powerful sound that reverberated so resoundingly that it filled the entire house.
Isn’t that fantastic?!

Have you ever stood in front of a loud speaker, like at a concert or something, and you can feel the vibrations of the music actually buzzing in your body?
Wind blows and musses up your hair. You feel it, but mostly on the outside (until you breathe it in, of course!).
But sound reverberates and moves your whole body from the inside out.
Spirit doesn’t just stir and blow – Spirit resounds and shakes your very being.
It’s a very powerful, moving, pulsating image.

I always struggle with the next bit though. read on →

Yr C ~ Easter 6 ~ Revelation 21:10, and 21:22 to 22:5
(part 4 of a 4-part series – please read the whole series!)

We’ve been delving into the last book of the bible, a book called Revelation, for the whole month of May.
Primarily, it’s a book about encouraging 7 churches who are struggling to keep the faith in the midst of an overwhelmingly oppressive Empire that threatens to suck them in and knock them off their spiritual path.

The genre of the Book of Revelation is called an apocalypse, which uses fantastically wild, sci-fi, end-of-the-world-battle imagery to paint a picture of how dire the consequences are if one doesn’t do the thing, and how beautiful and rewarding it is if one does. The ‘thing’ in this case is to endure, to keep faith, to hold fast!
I suggested that I like to think of the book as a one person, tour de force, Broadway show with a lone actor spinning a fantastic tale and mesmerizing the audience, for the purpose of encouraging them and teaching them.

In the first week we explored the ‘Jesus as the Lamb of God’ language – which I suggested does not have to mean sacrificial substitutionary atonement theology that says Jesus died to appease an angry God. I reject that.
Instead I offered a lens that sees the Lamb language as something like an honorary title, almost a reverent nickname that imagines Jesus, after the fact and upon reflection, as the ultimate fulfilment of the sacrificial system – not to appease God but to reveal God’s presence everywhere and always.

Next we explored the ‘great ordeal’ of the oppression of Empire and focused on Chapter 7’s lovely, peaceful, worshipful time in the midst of the cataclysmic destruction going on.
We saw how endurance, holding fast was key, and how a life of faith is a strong and helpful way to face the challenges of Empire and oppression – even as we come to realize that in some ways we are actually complicit with Empire and are part of the problem.
We are reminded that no matter what we face, no matter how hard our own personal great ordeals may be, that we are not alone. We are known and loved by God – marked by our baptism and our faithfulness.

Last week we described the great battle between good and evil and learned how Jesus is the hero who defeats the evil enemy (Empire, Caesar) not with force and violence but with the “sword of his mouth” – the Word of God.
We were introduced to the idealized city of God – a physical imagining of the kingdom of God – and how the ultimate purpose of God is to live with God’s people and help us flourish. That means ultimately heaven isn’t ‘up there’ or ‘out there’ somewhere – it’s right here!
And we don’t have to wait for the end of the world as we know it – that kingdom is emerging here and now. God’s home is here among us – a new heaven and a new earth – in our midst, within us, now!

It’s been a wild ride so far. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
If you haven’t been here all month I strongly encourage you to go to our website and read the whole series.
I’ve really liked diving into this book in this way. I’ve learned a lot too!

And today we get to have some final thoughts, about the final chapter, of the final book of the New Testament.
I doubt the author had any clue they were writing the big finish of the bible. They were just trying to offer encouragement to a group of 7 struggling churches.
But the message caught on in wider circles, and when it came time to assemble the canon (250-300 years later), to decide what books and letters got to be in the New Testament and in what order, this book got the final word.

Let’s hear some of those final words! read on →

Yr C ~ Easter 5 ~ Revelation 21:1-6
(part 3 of a 4-part series – please read the whole series!)

The Book of Revelation is so convoluted and complicated with layer upon layer of imagery, and double meanings, and numerology, and symbolism, that we could take dozens, maybe hundreds of different approaches to it and still claim to say something authentic.
Or, like many of the loudest voices seem to do, say something inauthentic about it.
One thing’s for sure, you can’t cover all the bases. You have to choose your lens, your theological interpretive tool, and go with it.

We’ve been looking at Revelation all through the month of May and if you’ve been following along you’ll know that my lens has been the way Revelation critiques Empire – how Empire crowds out the recognition and flourishing of God’s Kingdom – how Empire wreaks havoc on the lives of Christians – and how the struggle against Empire represents our “great ordeal” in life and how we need strength to keep on keeping on.

So today’s reading, Revelation 21, the arrival of the new heaven and the new earth is a dreamy envisioning of what it would look like if Empire had actually been defeated, and God’s Kingdom was able to flourish.
But the great problem we have, because we use the Lectionary that only does little snippets of scripture at a time, is that the new heaven and new earth seem to appear out of the blue and we miss out on how we got there and what it all means.

Last week we did chapter 7 – this week we’re on chapter 21. Do the math! We’re missing most of the story.
Some of you may have been adventurous and went ahead and read those chapters this week. If you need some counselling I can recommend some names! Because it’s crazy, wild stuff. There are plagues and cataclysms that destroy a third, or a half of the planet, and there’s a massive war with dragons and beasts, and the amount of killing and bloodshed is overwhelming.
It’s pure mayhem.

And it’s 100% fiction.
It was never meant to be taken literally in any way, shape, or form.
Whoever wrote it may very well have been at a party and ate from the wrong tray of brownies!
But if you strip away all that sci-fi wildness there’s actually a remarkably simple and theologically profound message.
And I’m going to tell you what it is. Soon.

First, I’m going to talk about the arc of those skipped over chapters.
At its heart it’s a simple good vs evil story and in the end good prevails. Jesus is the hero, of course, and he even rides into battle on a white horse as he defeats the beast. Who’s the beast? – the Emperor, Caesar, and symbolically Empire itself.
But check this out – in the description of battle-Jesus Revelation 19:13 says, “…and his name is called the Word of God”, and the wicked are slain by the “sword of his mouth” – in other words, the Word.
So what defeats the wicked? Ultimately, it’s the word of God!

Aside from the Emperor who are the wicked?
Revelation 11:18 says it’s those who “destroy the earth!” – economically, environmentally, socially.
In other words, it’s anyone who participates in or is complicit with Empire. In particular, it’s the accumulation of wealth and privilege at the expense or oppression of others that seems to invite judgment. (That ought to catch our breath and give us pause.)

But judgment is not absolute – over and over there are opportunities for these people to repent. In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock!” After each wave of mayhem the text laments that despite seeing the destruction of those around them because of the evils of participating in Empire (in oppression) the people still will not open the door; they won’t repent.
To repent is to turn from one way and live a new way – to let go of the old and embrace the new.
And the heartbreak of the Book of Revelation is that no matter how terrible people’s lives get because they’re clinging so hard to the evils of oppression they won’t let go.

In contrast, we have the faithful.
Remember, Revelation is a book written to encourage the faithful in the face of a great ordeal – namely, the power of the Roman Empire and its threat to undermine one’s holding fast to Jesus’ way.

Most of the book is about the devastation unleashed by the angels, but in chapter 12 the Devil gets his due. In Revelation 12:17 it says that the Devil, the dragon, “makes war…on those who keep the Commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.” It’s personal!

And over and over again there is the encouragement to endure in the face of such a great ordeal.
The words ‘endure’ and ‘hold fast’ are sounded repeatedly – and the whole point of the entire book is explicitly stated twice: read on →

Yr C ~ Easter 4 ~ Revelation 7:9-17

It’s weird, but I think it’s wonderful! I really like this Book of Revelation, even as I struggle with wading through the language and the imagery. It’s really worth the effort because the message is really apropos for today. That’s why I have us spending this whole month looking at it. Last week we dove into the really complex imagery of Jesus as the Lamb, and we wrestled with all that blood imagery and sacrificial language. I offered a couple of lenses to help us navigate that. Maybe as you pondered it over the week some questions or thoughts arose. Cool! I’d love to hear about that at coffee time or whenever.

I told you last week that my own personal lens for approaching the Book of Revelation is to see it as a masterful, one-person tour-de-force Broadway show. Imagine the narrator standing on stage, spinning this crazy sci-fi, fantasy tale, dazzling and mesmerizing the audience.

Revelation is not a letter to teach a ‘theology of the end times’ to the broader church. Like most scripture it’s written to a particular audience of people who were experiencing a specific set of circumstances. Revelation is a wild, sci-fi movie of a letter written to encourage the churches in a certain region because they’re experiencing tough times.

That is certainly applicable today! (even if the dragons and plagues are a little much!)

In Greek, the word ‘revelation’ is apocalypsis – an apocalypse. It literally means an uncovering, a revealing, hence “revelation”. It’s not about destruction, per se. While destruction happens in the telling of the vision, the point of the vision is not destruction, rather it’s to reveal the promise of the Presence of God.

Primarily, the book is an encouragement to those still in the “great ordeal”.
It’s meant to be a present help in hard times! We’ll talk more about that in a few minutes.

The writer of Revelation is writing to a group of seven churches in his charge. He’s like a bishop, and he’s writing a pastoral letter of encouragement – except instead of writing like a pastor he writes like Stephen King! (He’s a horror novel writer.)
Revelation is dripping in numerical imagery – there’s 7 churches, and a scroll with 7 seals, and 7 angels with 7 trumpets, and on and on it goes. And there’s all manner of wild creatures too – including (“living creatures”) 4 faced cherubim with 6 wings, and dragons, and horsemen, and beasts.

It truly boggles the mind that anyone could ever think any of this might be taken literally.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have really important things to say – it does – but to take this stuff literally, as if it actually happened (or will happen) this way, is absolute madness and a complete betrayal of the text.
So I encourage you to embrace the wildness of it, let it freak you out, and see what it’s really trying to tell us.

Today we’re in chapter 7. It’s a lovely, pastoral kind of reading.
But you should know that it comes as a breather in the midst of a huge cataclysm.
To understand that I have to tell you about chapter 6.

God produces a scroll with 7 seals.
The first 4 seals let loose the infamous four horsemen of the apocalypse.
The fifth seal reveals the martyrs who cry for vengeance – although a better translation would be justice, as in they cry for justice being served (which could look a whole lot like vengeance).
The sixth seal brings earthquakes, and eclipse, and the “powers that be” (the human kings and rulers and power-holders) go running for the hills because they fear the coming wrath.

And here we see the real target of this destructive fury.
Revelation is not about punishing individuals who are not Christians, or who are lapsed Christians.
It isn’t damning nice Christian folks who have strayed from the path, or committed sin, or have fallen short.
They aren’t the ones all this mayhem is aimed at.

No, it’s the powerful – it’s Caesar, it’s the Roman oppressors, it’s Empire that breeds injustice. read on →

Yr C ~ Easter 3 ~ Revelation 5:11-14

Today’s passage in Revelation 5 is a beautiful celebration of praise and adoration for the risen Christ, and for God. Unfortunately, many of us in modern, Mainline Protestant churches can’t hear that because the other language about the slaughtered lamb leaps out and dominates our reading – and we can’t get past it. Maybe you’ve had a hard time singing some of the words in the music we’re singing today. I get it! I hope by the end of this sermon you’ll have a way to sing those with authenticity! I’m going to take it straight on and try to give us a way to redeem and transform these words and images into something lovely and helpful. Kind of a tall order, but I’m game if you are. (Yes, this is going to be a heavy one!)

Let me start by saying that whatever you started thinking when we said “A reading from the Book of Revelation” is probably a view distorted by terrible interpretations of the book. It’s actually quite a beautiful and powerfully helpful part of the bible – but over time, especially in recent time, it has been used in ways it was never intended to be used, and interpreted in ways that would make Jesus spin in his grave – if he were in a grave, but he’s not, because as we know from a couple of weeks ago “He is Risen!” (Notice how I tied Easter in there?)

The Book of Revelation is, frankly, weird – but only because we don’t easily understand what’s going on. The style is called an apocalypse – which was a known genre or form of writing in which a representative seer goes on a journey up into heaven and then returns with an urgent message to the community. It’s basically a dream – and aren’t some of your dreams kind of wild?

It’s a kind of writing that uses crazy weird imagery and dazzling, mystifying metaphors to try to make a point.
What’s the point? The point is that God is present, Jesus is present, the Spirit is present, the kingdom is present, and we are all blessed beyond imagining.

The book is centred around a series of report cards on seven fledgling Christian communities. It’s really kind of an oversight report from a ‘bishop’ to the churches in their charge – and the bishop isn’t all that happy! These seven churches all have good points, but they are all being kneecapped by their bad points – and the bishop wants a change – or else!

Now, this is my take on Revelation, you may have another, and scholars may disagree with me, but I like this take.
For me, Revelation is like an epic one person play on Broadway. It’s a theatre piece!
Remember, scripture in the ancient church was not mass produced and read at leisure at home – there was one hand-written copy, and it was read out loud to the gathered community – usually in one sitting!

But Revelation, with all its sci-fi special effects – fireworks, dragons, horsemen, fabulous cities descending from the clouds, threats, promises, angels, rivers of life – all that stuff demands much more than a straightforward reading like we read it in church.
It would take a tour-de-force dramatic oration to bring it to life.
And when that happened it would be like us going to watch the Avengers: Endgame movie, or Star Wars, or Game of Thrones, or something spectacular and dazzling like that. The listening audience would be blown away – and you’d better be sure they’d get the message to pull up their socks and do church better – because the promises that await if they did so were inconceivably wonderful.

The Book of Revelation is NOT about the end of the world and the rapture. In fact, the rapture isn’t even in this book, it’s in 1 Thessalonians, kinda – then certain folks read it into Revelation and make scripture say something it was never meant to say!

So, let’s dive in, let’s look at this lamb language (that I said at the start we can have a hard time getting by), and try to figure out exactly what it IS meant to say. The lamb is referring to Jesus. Let’s find out why.

Jesus and his followers were initially observant, practicing Jews. Jesus certainly preached a reformed vision of Judaism, but it’s an outright error to say that they were Christians. They weren’t; they were Jews. They lived in and adhered to a sacrificial system, even as Jesus taught that spiritual transformation, and oneness with God, and the revelation and unfolding of God’s Kingdom made that system (or any system, for that matter) unnecessary. The sacrificial system was the intermediary between the person and God – but Jesus taught that we had direct access and didn’t need an intermediary, not even him!

So, (stay with me here), if for his Jewish-based followers, Jesus and his transformational, world-changing Way fulfilled and transcended their previous “system”, then its logical that they would talk about him, and describe him, and theologize him as the ultimate feature of their system – the perfect answer for their system, the ultimate fulfillment of the purpose of their system.
So they call Jesus the purest and most complete sacrifice, an unblemished lamb.

In order to understand this language and why they used it we have to understand that if your entire religious and social culture is immersed and enmeshed in a sacrificial system that says the way we get harmony with God is through physical, ritual sacrifices, then regardless of whether Jesus ever sanctioned the sacrificial system or not (he didn’t) they will still see him through that lens.
They cannot help but see him through that lens. So they reach into the only religious language they know and call him the Lamb of God.

You could think of it as a nickname. Simon became Peter. But Peter in Greek is petra, which means rock. Jesus essentially nicknamed him the rock, or rocky. And now they’re naming Jesus the Lamb.

Then we add on another layer. read on →

Yr C ~ Easter Sunday ~ Luke 24:1-12

Think of something in your life right now that’s very good – something that’s going well, it’s on the right track – something that wasn’t going so well before maybe, but now it’s really good – something that required some kind of change in your life, and you made it, and now that something is much better. Think for a moment of that – a change for the better.

Now think about how it wasn’t so great prior to that. Something happened that nudged you, or compelled you, to make that change and to embrace the new path you’re currently enjoying around that something. But in order to get to where you are now, you had to let go of that former way.
You might say you had to “die” to that former way in order to live this new, better way.

And if you were to cast that in spiritual, religious terms, you might say you experienced a resurrection.

Take another moment now, and think about something in your life that isn’t going quite so good, or at least not in the way you’d like it to go. Sadly, most of us have a much easier time coming up with this list than the “going well” list. Something in your life that you’re just not happy with, that doesn’t feel like you think it should.

Now imagine for a moment how that something might be better. Picture your life with that something going the way you’d prefer. In order for that to happen, something is going to have to nudge or compel you to make that change – to let go of how things are so you can embrace how things might be.
Again, I’d call that resurrection – the need to die to what is in order for what will be to be born.

Resurrection is a fundamental truth in our existence.
Nature does it all the time – dying and rising, the end of what was and the emergence of what’s next – this is simply how it works.

And it’s how our spiritual life works too.
The point of the resurrection story isn’t to try to convince anyone that Jesus was magic and got to come back to life and keep on chugging after he was killed.
Because he didn’t.
After he died, his presence was mystically experienced in incredibly profound ways – in life changing ways – but he didn’t get to just come back to life and carry on with business as usual.
The point is not resuscitation it’s transformation!

I think we’ve done ourselves a disservice in some ways by making such a great big deal out of Jesus’ resurrection – as if his is the only one that has ever happened and will ever happen – until the last days when we all die.
That’s some pretty sketchy theology in my book.

I’d prefer resurrection to be absolutely ordinary.
Everyday resurrections.
I think we’d be way better off spiritually if we pointed to Jesus’ resurrection as him embodying and laying out a pattern for our lives – a pattern that we’re invited to follow. That’s what being a disciple means, after all.

(I’ll be saying a lot more about this, and getting right into the theological heart of it in a sermon series through the month of May – so if today’s explanation doesn’t go far enough for you be here through May!)

This is what we talked about a few days ago on Maundy Thursday when we heard Jesus say “I’m laying down a pattern for you. Do as I have done.”
He’s embodying the same thing here.
On that Thursday he didn’t just mean that we were supposed to engage in foot washing because he did.
He meant that his life and his actions constituted a pattern – a pattern we are called to follow.
Jesus was laying down a pattern in the resurrection. A “death” has to occur, and then new life can begin.

You’ve already experienced resurrection today. You woke up! You had to “die” to yesterday and let it go in order to be “reborn” into today, and rise, and make your way in the world.
Where we get into trouble is when we forget the “let go” part and try to hold on to what was – which never works – and stops us from entering into what’s next.

Easter Sunday always brings visitors to church! Welcome! read on →

Yr C ~ Palm Sunday ~ Luke 19:28-40

Try to picture the scene. Jesus is with his disciples on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and they and thousands of other faithful Jewish folks are making a pilgrimage to the holy city for the biggest and most important religious festival of their year – Passover – an event that Jesus and his disciples are journeying to attend.

Jesus has been toiling away for a couple of years, preaching, teaching, and healing all over the region, spreading his message about this alternative way to live in and experience the world – a way he called the Kingdom of God.

This kingdom would be very different from the one that seemed to be ruling the day in their time.
It wouldn’t be about “power-over” it would be about “power-with”!
It would be a way of living that was fully grounded in love for God and love for neighbour.
Sadly, it was a kingdom that was pretty impossible to imagine actually happening considering their current status as being occupied by the Roman Empire and being oppressed at every turn.

And, perhaps most significant for today’s scripture reading, it was a kingdom that was fully resonant with the ideas that the festival of Passover celebrated – remembering how the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and how God was said to be displeased by that, and at Moses’ instruction those who were faithful and put sacrificial blood on their doorways would be “passed over” when the power of God came to punish those who were not faithful.

Now, there’s a whole lot of theological ground to cover in the Passover story, and we don’t have the time to unpack it all right now – suffice to say that it’s a story where the faithful win and the oppressors are defeated in the name of God. It’s an alternative to the conventional understanding of power in the world.

Jesus is a smart guy!
He knows he can leverage the Passover vibe and that it will amplify his Kingdom of God message.

The Romans are pretty smart too, and they know that the Passover celebration is a direct provocation to their imperial power, so they allow it to go on but they establish a formidable and intimidating military presence in the city to remind the pilgrims that they can have their festival but the Romans aren’t going anywhere!

Jesus knows that the Roman military procession will be parading in full regalia through the streets to establish their dominance.
So Jesus decides to organize what one might call a bit of political street theatre.

You could make a case that the jubilant parade Jesus and his followers are having is just celebratory and innocent.
But I don’t think you have a very good case!
I think he’s doing political street theatre here.

Now, he can’t actually hold a protest march where they carry signs denouncing some malevolent oppressive system. He can’t make placards that say “Romans go home!” or “Caesar is a geezer!” That kind of thing would get squashed in a heartbeat.
Jerusalem is teeming with Jewish pilgrims and it’s also teeming with legions of heavily armed Roman soldiers who will keep the peace by any means necessary. So Jesus cannot actively protest and confront.

But he can practice a little passive aggressive behaviour!
He can have what looks like a simple parade, but when the symbolism of it is looked at we start to realize that he’s actually being quite provocative.

He instructs his disciples to get him a colt, a donkey, so he can ride into the city. Why a donkey?
Could it be because Jesus knows Pilate, the Roman governor, will be riding in on a mighty steed? The powerful, and the royal, ride on stallions – Jesus will ride a donkey. He’s turning power on its head.
Plus, in Zechariah 9:9-12 the prophet wrote about a vision of a new king ushering in a new era by riding into town unconventionally on a donkey. Symbolism matters!

Bystanders to the Roman imperial procession might bow their heads as a sign of deference to power – Jesus’ followers lay their cloaks down before him, symbolically giving him the red carpet treatment, but it’s all voluntary and out of love.
And more than that, one’s cloak is one’s protection, so removing it makes one vulnerable – not the usual response to encountering power.

As they crest the Mount of Olives and start the final leg toward the city it says, Luke 19:37-38 – the whole multitude of the disciples [notice it’s a huge group now!] began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

They’re quoting Psalm 118 – a victory psalm that celebrates defeating enemies while enjoying God’s favour. Again, this is no accident. It’s calculated street theatre. Psalm 118 also includes the “Hosanna” language – which means “save us now” – and talks of waving branches (which is where we get much of our Palm Sunday imagery from). I’m not sure why Luke’s telling doesn’t include that when it clearly includes other aspects of the psalm. Nonetheless, the connection to the psalm and the prophets would have been clear for the other hundreds of Jews making the pilgrimage along that same road.

What I find fascinating in this is that while I argue that this is calculated political street theatre the only people in on it are Jesus and his core disciples, and possibly some of the wider group of followers. By and large, what happened was that as they enacted this theatre piece pilgrims along the road were swept up in it and joined the parade.
I don’t know about you but if a commotion happens along a road I’m walking and a large, boisterous crowd appears I’m not sure I’m going to be very quick to jump in unless I understood the reason for it and agreed with it.
But that’s the genius of this theatre piece!
Jesus chose symbols that clearly communicated to those along the road, and it was a pointed anti-oppressors message, and one that was done right under their noses. read on →

Yr C ~ Lent 5 ~ Psalm 126 Communion

On one level, our text today, Psalm 126, is simple to interpret. The psalmist is clearly in one of those in-between places in life, remembering when life used to be great, and how it felt like God did all sorts of wonderful things for them, but currently things aren’t so great and they need God to do it again, but they still have faith and trust that even though today they have tears they know that in time God will bring joy.
Things used to be great, they’re not now, I want them great again, I trust God will help.
Simple. Of course, we’re going to dig a little deeper than just that.

As we’ve seen with many psalms there’s a major turn in the middle of Psalm 126. The first three verses are teeming with joyful memories of God’s Presence and blessings. Then, out of nowhere verse 4 pleads, “Restore us!” Clearly, the joy is gone! The remaining three verses are all about tears, and hope, and not knowing, but trusting.

Where does trust come from?
What makes you likely to trust that God will again feel Present and bring joyfulness?
The psalmist starts with remembering how God moved before. That’s intriguing. It means that the psalmist was aware of God’s Presence before, “noticed” it, identified it as being God, embraced it as being God, and expressed gratitude for that Presence.
You can’t ask God to “do it again” if you’ve never had an inkling that God did it before!

And according to the psalmist God really did it before! It’s impossible to say if the psalm is about a specific incident but it’s likely referring to the return of the exiles from captivity. Israel was invaded and all their leaders and movers and shakers were marched away into exile, captivity, leaving only the poor behind as essentially slave labour. Eventually those exiles were returned – and the people of Israel thanked God for moving!

Now, I doubt any of us have ever been exiled or held in captivity!
Or have we? Maybe not politically, or physically, but we’ve all certainly be held captive by prejudice, or inexperience, and certainly by bad theology!
So this all begins with a sense of awareness that once we were captives, and it was unpleasant, and then somehow God moved in our lives and we were no longer held captive by whatever and it was joyful! Our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy! (v.2)

Sounds great! But what do we mean by “God moved in our lives?”
Some folks are really comfortable with that language and if you hear them talk you’d think God was actively responsible for every single thing in their life. “God gave us a beautiful day today. God blessed me with good health today. God helped me find my car keys!” – every aspect of life is infused with God’s movement for them.

Others among us are pretty skeptical about that kind of language. They’d probably never ascribe actual actions to God but would name God’s Presence in situations and be grateful for it – a more metaphysical approach.

I’m not taking sides – and there’s a whole spectrum of ways you might think of God moving between those extremes. But on some level, as people of faith, we need to find a way to acknowledge that God has moved and is moving in our lives.

What really intrigues me about this is that verse 2 suggests that God’s movement was so powerful, and so obvious, that even “the nations,” meaning others, outsiders, could see it and would exclaim that God moved there. It would certainly be noticeable if all of a sudden all those powerful people who had been exiled came strolling back into town!
But what about less dramatic things? Is God’s movement visible to outsiders? read on →

Yr C ~ Psalm 32 ~ Lent 4

Sin, confession, and forgiveness. It’s a big, heavy topic today (yes, that means the sermon is long!), and it’s a topic that we tend to avoid in our church tradition (which is kind of ironic, considering Psalm 32), so let’s dive in.

What does it mean to say that God forgives? Forgiveness indicates an “offence” has occurred. In Hebrew the word for offence is sin. It’s not a word we like to talk about in United Churches but today we’re going to! Sin means offence, so in order to offend there must have been something that said that somehow this action, thought, intention, omission etc. did not meet some standard that must exist. A judgment had to have happened. How do we know we’ve offended? How do we know we’ve sinned? One way to think about sin is to say it is a falling short. Falling short of what? Falling short of that “standard”.

Ok, now we’re into it. What is God’s standard?
Love! Light. Holiness. Kindness. Mutuality. Harmony. Relationship. Shalom.

God is not just a highly evolved, spiritually mature person who practices those things at a supremely high level.
No, God IS those things – entirely, substantively, unchangingly.
So think that through.

God IS harmony.
If I do something that causes disharmony in any way, I have fallen short of God’s way, God’s standard.
I have sinned.
But God doesn’t desire punishment, or recompense, or vengeance, or even shame or guilt!
God only desires harmony, because God IS harmony. So the only way to make things “right” with God is to regain harmony!
Are you with me?

How do I do that? How do I regain harmony?
Well, let me tell you how NOT to do it, but how we usually choose to do it, and how it always causes more trouble than doing it right.

Psalm 32:3-4 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up – as by the heat of summer.

While I kept silence, while I kept everything to myself, while I kept pushing down my short-fallings and letting them stew and fester and eat me up inside my body wasted away through all my groaning. It literally says that it makes our bones grow old, or turn to dust.
Swallowing all that trouble, keeping it all locked away and not facing it, wears us out and kills us inside.
This psalmist knows a lot about the human condition!
Have you ever been worn out by situations you couldn’t, or wouldn’t speak about? I bet you have.

And when we do then it feels like day and night God’s hand is heavy on us – we can feel the burden of our un-faced failings. It says “my strength was dried up” but it literally means my “juice” or my “vitality” is like a drought.
That’s what not owning up to things does to us. It robs us of our juice! It sucks the life out of us.

So, how do I make things right? How do I work to regain the harmony?
If holding it in is killing me then obviously I need to do the opposite.

I recognize somehow that I have caused or contributed to disharmony.
Doesn’t matter if I meant to or not.
Doesn’t matter if I did something or neglected to do something (commission or omission).
I recognize that I’ve brought about disharmony.

Then, instead of denying it I admit my part. I “acknowledge” my part – which in Hebrew means to “say it out loud.” There’s something about saying things out loud that make them more real and make us own them more!
In other words, I confess, which literally means that I lay it all out in the open.
This all carries the assumption that in doing all these things I have every intention to do better in the future, that I resolve to try not to sin (fall short) in this way again. And that in doing so I’ll be moving forward in a new, healthier, deeper, more spiritually mature way.

That’s confession. When we’ve realized we’ve fallen short, we lay it all out and seek forgiveness. That’s our side of it.

What’s God’s side?
What does God want or desire in all this? read on →

[began with a body prayer of Psalm 63 in Kids’ Time]

You are my God (hands on heart)
I seek you (hand horizontal at forehead)
I need you (palms up)
Like water in a desert (acting parched)
You are the best thing ever (hands high, arch back)
My lips praise you (hands to mouth and then open forward)
I kneel before you (kneeling)
I lift my hands in praise (lifting)
You fill me up like Christmas dinner! (hands on belly!)
I dream about you (tilt head, hands as pillow)
I think about you (touch finger to temple)
I feel safe in you (self hug)
I cling to you (hands clenched under chin)
You hold me (hands cupped)
Those who try to hurt me (make fists)
Will fail (palms down, horizontal, outward in opposite directions)
And I will rejoice (hands waving)

[Sermon]

Be Longing

Yr C ~ Lent 3 ~ Psalm 63

We’ve been looking at psalms as our text through this season of Lent, and I don’t know about you but I’m loving it! The thing I think I love best about psalms is how real they are. Two weeks ago we encountered a psalm that wrestled with our human desire to have immunity from all life’s ills if we have faith. The psalmist goes up and down, and all around, and finally lands in a place where they know that immunity just isn’t on the table. What God offers isn’t bubble wrap, but Presence! And that is everything.

Last week the psalmist was riding high on the top of the world fully immersed in God’s loving Presence when all of a sudden they look around and can’t sense God anymore, and they freak out! Again, how real is that! In the end that psalmist comes to the understanding that knowing and trusting that God IS Present, even when we might not be able to feel that at a given moment, is enough. So they commit to prayerfully waiting for God – which really means prayerfully waiting for themselves because God is already there. Remember, if God seems absent, but we know that God is ever-present, then the one absent from the equation is US – so the waiting is for us, ourselves, to turn back and open up again to sense and savour God’s Presence. Another hard, but beautiful dose of spiritual reality.

And this week we get a different kind of psalm again. There’s no big existential struggle in this one. There’s no plea for safety or protection. At the end there’s even a confident expression of overcoming one’s enemies, which serves to remind us that the psalm isn’t just abstract theology, but the victory in the end is by the psalmist’s doing, not God’s.

No, what we get in Psalm 63 is pure, heart-wrenching, soul-bursting, overwhelming yearning for God. It’s all about desire, and longing, and thirst. It’s quite passionate, and that’s what makes it really important for people like us to embrace this psalm and let it speak deeply to us.

What do I mean by “people like us”? I mean those who are at home in what is generally referred to as the mainline church. The mainline protestant church in North America includes us, the Anglicans or Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the United Methodists, the United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and others like that. The common things among us are that we are liturgically based (our worship looks more or less like what we do here), we use classic hymns (among others), and we are, generally speaking, on the “liberal” side of the theological spectrum.

Those who aren’t in the mainline are the Catholics and the Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Catholics are in their own kind of category, but Evangelicals and Pentecostals are generally known for being far more free in their worship forms, they use much more praise music, and are much more likely to be on the “conservative” side of the theological spectrum.

But perhaps the most distinctive difference is in what we do with our hands.
Charismatics wave them – Mainliners sit on them!
The mainline church has jokingly been called the “Frozen Chosen”. Where does that come from? It’s because, generally speaking, mainline churches are not known for being emotional, or demonstrative. We tend to prize dignity, order, and the intellect. It doesn’t mean we’re not passionate – it just means we tend not to outwardly show it. We keep our faith to ourselves. Whenever I say the word “evangelism” I can feel people squirm. That would mean I’d have to be public about my faith – I’d have to try to be persuasive – which means I’d have to say out loud why it’s important to me.

Now, Psalm 63 has absolutely nothing to do with evangelism – but it has everything to do with passion. Its themes are not our regular mainline themes. And that can make us uncomfortable. And if we embrace it, it just might serve to thaw some of the frozen chosen! Good!!!

Every syllable of this psalm is geared toward expressing the psalmist’s deepest desire – God. The yearning is palpable. Listen to the first verse, and hear how passionate the psalmist is about this:

Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

O God – reverence – you are my God – intimacy – I seek you – desire – my soul thirsts for you – longing – my flesh faints for you – almost desperation – as in a dry and weary land where there is no water – absolute need, utter yearning.

Notice what the psalmist is comparing their need for God with – thirst. It’s far more than just desire. I desire lots of things – warmer weather, longer holidays, more hair, chocolate chip cookies – but water is different.

What happens if I don’t get what I desire? I’m sad.
What happens if I don’t get water? I die!

And so what is the psalmist saying about their need for God’s Presence?
Without God’s Presence, they’ll die!
God’s Presence is the difference between feeling dead and feeling alive.

“My God, I seek you, I thirst for you, I faint for you, I need you, I desire you, I long for you, I yearn for you, I’m desperate for you, I’ll die without you” – said no United Church person ever!

Even right now some of you are sitting there thinking, “Gee, something’s got into Larry today!” read on →

Yr C ~ Lent 2 ~ Psalm 27

[monologue paraphrasing Psalm 27]

This is so great! I never could have imagined it – it’s better than I’d ever hoped! I have sensed God’s Presence. I am savouring God’s Presence. This is fantastic. It feels so real, and true, and great. I feel alive! I feel loved. I feel strong. I feel confident. I feel powerful! I can do anything! Bring on the world! I got this! They said to seek your face, and I did, and I found it! Wow, did I find it! How could I have missed it before? I’ll never be without you again!

I sing your praises, O God! I love your Presence. You are awesome! You da man! Or woman, or, I don’t know but you are the One. You are my All In All. I’ll shout it out at the top of my lungs and I don’t care who knows it! I love you, God. I love you Ja-eez-us-ah! I’ll fill this place with praise. It’s all just so beautiful. Life is beautiful. You are beautiful. Everywhere I look, I see you. Everywhere I go, you’re already right there. You are everywhere! You are here! Thank you!

(pause)

Where’d you go? Where are you, O God? I’m calling but you don’t hear me. You used to be right here! Why are you hiding from me? Why are you turning away from me? What did I do wrong? Don’t leave me! Don’t abandon me! I can’t do it on my own. I’m afraid. They’re out to get me! Everybody wants me to fail. I deserve to fail. I deserve to be abandoned. I’m worthless. I’m stupid. Everyone has walked away from me. Even my closest people don’t care.

(pause)

But I know that you are still there, even if I can’t see you, or feel you right now.

I know that you’ll gather me up and hold me, even if I can’t imagine that happening right now. Teach me about trusting you, Lord. Point me to the way. Lead me down that smooth path that helps me keep my bearings even when everything’s a mess. Don’t let me get tangled up with those things that hurt me so much. Remind me that it doesn’t matter what people might say about me; what matters is that I strive to love people, and let myself be loved.

I can’t see you right now, Abba, but I know you’re there. Here. You’re always here. Always. I know I’ll be able to see that again very soon, even if right now I’m kinda blind to it. Surely, O God, you are in this place. I wish I could notice.

Soon. It comes back. It always does. We won’t play hide and seek forever.

So I’ll just stop trying so hard. I’ll stop trying to push the river. I’ll step off. I’ll wait.

I’ll breathe deep. I’ll let it be. I’ll trust. I’ll wait.

[end monologue]

This is a powerful psalm.
I think it’s powerful because it’s just like my faith life. It describes it perfectly – up, down, near, far, joy, bewilderment, turning in an instant.
And in the end there is no resolution in the psalm. There’s no pretty bow tying it up into a neat and tidy little package.
Life’s not like that, and faith’s not like that.
It’s messy. It’s changeable. It’s human. read on →