5 December 2015

Things I've Learned This Term

I'm afraid that I've been lousy at updating this blog this term - it has been a busy time, and I guess I just don't think that I have anything to say that people would be interested in!  It is hard to believe that in less than a week, I will have half of the credits that I need for my M.Div. - it seems like just yesterday I was starting here and feeling like a fraud and panicking about all of the work I was going to have to do.

So what has been keeping me busy?  School, mostly - I've had another full-time load of 5 courses - a continuation of my Supervised Field Education, United Church History (online), Introduction to Christian Ethics, New Testament Greek, and Theology and Literature.  I've also continued a little bit of physiotherapy work from one of my summer jobs.  And I've been working as a research assistant for one of my professors.  And we've had a school choir this year so I've been singing with that.

So here, in no particular order, is a list of things that I've learned this term:

  1. New Testament Greek is hard.
  2. I am able to be present pastorally for someone who is grieving without it triggering my own grief.  This is huge.  Seriously, it was one of my biggest fears about pastoral visiting.
  3. I am learning to integrate all of the little bits of me into one person without needing to compartmentalize my life.  My identity is Kate, and I am all of these parts of me, but I am not defined by any one of them.  I feel relief at this.
  4. I am able to make myself vulnerable in certain situations, and still be OK.
  5. Have I mentioned that New Testament Greek is really hard?  Seriously!  I had to keep reminding myself that I am taking this for fun (it is one of my New Testament electives, but I am not required to take a language).  I'm at the point where I'm glad that I took the course, but I am even more glad that it will be over next week.
So it's been a big term, wrestling with fun stuff like identity and vulnerability and grief.  My last assignment of the term will be handed in on Monday, and classes end on Tuesday, and then I'm ready for a break since I'm exhausted.  I'm looking forward to having a month off from poking at these issues - time to let the Spirit blow away the debris that has been left behind, and see what emerges on the other side!

(On a lighter note - pun intended - this is the sunset from Monday afternoon as I was crossing the harbour.  I was enjoying a moment of quiet as it was chilly and I was the only one sitting outside on the ferry, and when I looked over my shoulder, this is what I saw.)

15 November 2015

Prayers of the People - November 15

Prayers of the People
November 15, 2015
Knox United Church, Lower Sackville


We look around our hurting world, O God,
and we lament.
We lament the acts of war and terror around the world,
in Baghdad
in Beirut
in Paris
in Syria.
We grieve the lives lost,
the blood shed,
the families torn apart,
the people left homeless.
In the silence, we pray.

We turn to you, God of peace and God of love.
Wrap the world in your love.
Hold the world tight in your embrace,
            like a mother holds a baby,
so that every single person may know love.
Blow your Holy Spirit through the whole world,
filling the world with love and peace and joy
so that there is no more room for fear and hatred and terror.
In the silence we pray.

We pray for our broken world –
where some lives are valued more highly than others;
where some people have access to food and shelter and clean water,
            while others go without;
where access to medical care is not always based on need;
where resources are not fairly shared between nations and people.
Stir up in us, O God,
a spirit of compassion,
a spirit of solidarity with those who are oppressed,
a spirit of love.
May your Holy Spirit blow through us,
            transforming us into the Body of Christ,
            the eyes and ears and hands and feet of Christ,
            present to everyone who needs Christ’s presence.
In the silence we pray.

We look around us, and we pray for those who are close to us.
We pray for our families,
            our friends,
            all who are sick,
            all who are lonely,
            all who are mourning,
            all who are questioning,
            all whose needs are known to you.
In the silence we pray.

And as we look around your world,
we can see signs of hope and love.
We see doors opened for people who need a place to stay.
We see borders being opened to refugees.
We see friendships that cross barriers put up by society.
We see people standing in solidarity with one another.
We see a new baby’s eyes opening to a new world.
We see baptism, a visible sign of your love.
We see the sun breaking through the clouds.
And we thank you.
We thank you for your light which shines in the darkness,
            and the darkness does not overcome it.
We thank you for your promises,
            and we thank you for the hope you give us
which gives us confidence in your promises.
We thank you for your ever-present love,
            and we thank you for your grace and mercy
                        which can reach every corner of the world.
In the silence we pray.

All of these prayers we pray in the name of Jesus,
            the Prince of Peace,
and we pray the prayer that he taught us to pray, saying,

Our Father, who art in heaven…

5 September 2015

Repentance - a Sermon about Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman, and Refugees

Scripture:  Mark 7:24-37
Windsor United Church
September 6, 2015

I want to talk this morning about the Syrophoenician Woman.  The woman who approached Jesus to ask him to heal her daughter who had an unclean spirit.  And Jesus insulted her, and said “no.”  This is a difficult story.  Jesus does not come off in a very flattering light.

Let’s take a few steps back.  Up until this point in his ministry, Jesus had been hanging around the Galilee region – the area around the sea of Galilee which is located in the north of the modern-day country of Israel. Jesus had been teaching and healing and performing miracles; and he had attracted a crowd of followers as well as his inner circle of disciples.

At the beginning of today’s reading, Jesus leaves the region of Galilee and heads north-west to the region of Tyre.  This is on the shores of the Mediterranean ocean, in the modern-day country of Lebanon.  More importantly, for our story this morning, Jesus has left the land of the Jewish people, and is traveling among the Gentiles – the non-Jews.  We aren’t told if his disciples have travelled with him or not – as far as our narrator is concerned, Jesus and the woman who approaches him are the only two characters in today’s story.

And so Jesus has traveled to a foreign land, and he enters a house, trying to escape notice, we are told.  I wonder why Jesus was trying to escape notice?  Maybe his reputation for wisdom and healing and miracles has followed him, and he is looking for some peace and quiet.  Maybe he stands out as a foreigner – looking different and sounding different and with different customs.  We aren’t told why he doesn’t want anyone to know that he is there.  But he isn’t alone for long.

Enter the Syrophoenician woman.  Somehow she knows that Jesus is in that particular house.  Somehow she knows that he is able to heal her daughter.  And so she enters the house, and falls down at Jesus’ feet, and she begs Jesus to heal her daughter.

Now this would have been a highly unusual occurrence.  First of all, it is a woman approaching Jesus – in the culture of the place and time, it would have been unheard of for a woman to approach a man that she wasn’t related to.  Secondly, we are told that she isn’t Jewish – she is Greek and follows different beliefs and traditions.  Why did she think to approach this Jewish healer to ask him to heal her daughter?

I can’t help but wonder about this nameless woman.  What was her story?  Why was she the one to approach Jesus to beg for healing for her daughter?  Maybe she was a widow with no other family to request the healing.  Maybe her family had abandoned her and her daughter due to her daughter’s condition.  Or maybe she was just so desperate for a miracle that she was willing to cross the cultural and societal boundaries.  We don’t know.

So there she is, at Jesus’ feet, begging for a miracle that would heal her daughter.  And Jesus says no.  Well, not quite.  He insults her by calling her a dog, and tells her that because she is not Jewish, she and her young daughter are not deserving of a healing miracle.

Wait, what?!  This sounds so unlike the Jesus that we normally hear about – the Jesus whose message was of unconditional love.  Jesus, the perfect son of God.  Think of the Jesus that we sing about in our hymn books – Jesus, friend of little children.  Jesus, lover of my soul.  Jesus, priceless treasure.  Jesus, teacher, brave and bold.  Jesus, joy of loving hearts, the fount of life, the light of all.  Is this the Jesus who would insult a woman begging at his feet?  Is this the Jesus who would refuse healing to a young girl?

And that is why the title of this sermon is “Jesus had a bad day.”  Maybe he got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.  Jesus was fully God, but Jesus was also fully human; and in his first response to the Syrophoenician woman, his human nature is shining through.  According to the human culture of his time and place, she probably shouldn’t have approached him.

Some theologians have tried to explain Jesus’ response by saying that he must have been testing the faith of the woman.  But if that is the case, then why aren’t we told that.  There is no verse in the text that says, “Jesus said this to test her faith.”  Without evidence, I have difficulty accepting this explanation.  Other theologians have tried to explain her response by saying that he wasn’t really insulting her – dogs are pets, after all.  But further analysis of the language used shows that the word “dog” probably had a meaning closer to the derogatory and insulting word in modern English for a female dog that I’m not going to repeat here.  Jesus wasn’t calling her a cute little puppy.

If the story ended here, we would be in trouble.  Why would Jesus, friend of little children, insult a woman and her daughter this way, and then deny them healing?  And why would the author of Mark’s gospel include this story that doesn’t show Jesus at his best in his re-telling of the life of Jesus?  Why not jump straight to the punch line?  Why not jump straight to the healing and leave out the dialogue?

It is what happens next that is amazing.  After being insulted, and after being denied the miracle that she so desperately longs for, the woman doesn’t leave.  She argues back.  She argues back to Jesus, a man with so much more power and privilege than she could ever dream of having.  She reminds him that God’s love and God’s healing isn’t limited.  Healing her daughter, or anyone else from outside of the Jewish faith, won’t diminish the love and healing available for those on the inside.  She reminds Jesus that God’s kingdom is one of abundance, not of scarcity.

And Jesus listens to her.  Jesus tells her that he has healed her daughter.  She leaves the house where Jesus is staying, and goes home, and finds that her daughter has been healed.

All through the Old Testament, the history of the Jewish people, there have been prophets who have come forward.  These were women and men who were led by God, especially in times when the kings and leaders and people had forgotten or turned away from God’s commandments.  They would speak to the kings and leaders and people through words and actions, calling on them to repent and change their ways, to turn back to God.

I believe that the nameless woman in today’s story was speaking with a prophetic voice.  She saw wrong, and she spoke out against the wrong.  In our world, we so often operate under the assumption of scarcity – there isn’t enough to go around, so if I give what I have to those people then there won’t be enough for me.  This prophetic woman sees Jesus slipping into this way of thinking, and she calls him on it.  She reminds him that God’s kingdom isn’t limited by scarcity.  There is always more than enough to go around.

And Jesus hears this prophetic voice, and he repents.  Repentance is more than just saying that you are sorry.  Repentance is being sorry, but then also changing your ways to correct what was wrong.  Repentance is living in to the apology.  Repentance is changing your ways so that they are lined up with God’s ways once again.  Jesus hears the prophetic voice, recognizes that his original answer was wrong, and he changes his answer and his actions so that the woman’s daughter is healed.

And that, to me, is the heart of this story.  That is why the full story was included in Mark’s telling of the life of Jesus.  Jesus was modeling repentance – he recognized that he was doing something wrong; and rather than stubbornly persisting in his ways, he was able to change his course of action.

As I was preparing this week’s sermon, I couldn’t help but think of the current situation with refugees trying to escape war in Syria and Iraq to make it to Europe and beyond.  There was that gut-wrenching, heart-breaking picture of a dead toddler, Aylan Kurdi, on a beach in Turkey that went viral this week.  There are stories of boats overturned in the Mediterranean Ocean, refugees waiting in train stations, journeys of hundreds of kilometers on foot.  And at the same time, our own country of Canada is accepting 10,000 fewer refugees per year than it did just a decade ago.  In the past decade, over 100,000 refugee claimants have been detained and then deported from Canada.  Jesus said no to a healing requested; he repented; and a young girl was healed.  Canada and other countries have said no to requests for refuge and asylum; we haven’t repented; and the bodies of babies are washing up on beaches.

I’m not going to preach party politics from the pulpit; but the Christian message is a political message.  Jesus taught us, through words and actions, that the core of God’s message was to love God and to love our neighbours.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they don’t look like us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they don’t sound like us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have different customs than us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have different beliefs or religions than us.  We are to love our neighbours, even when they have a different social standing than us.  We are to love our neighbours, period.  The world says that if we help those people and their children, then there won’t be enough for us and for our children.  God’s kingdom says that there is always more than enough for everyone.


And so my question for you today is how can we take the message from today’s gospel reading to heart?  How can we be like Jesus, and not only recognize when wrong has been done, but then to take concrete actions to correct that wrong so that our actions are lined up with God’s teachings?  How can we live the gospel message today here in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in Windsor, in our communities, in our churches?

1 August 2015

Prayers of the People

Sunday August 2, 2015
William Black Memorial United Church (Glen Margaret)


Refrain:          Lord, listen to your children praying,
                        Lord, send your Spirit in this place;
                        Lord, listen to your children praying,
                        send us love, send us power, send us grace!

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,
We approach you today like children,
            thankful for all that you have given us.
We thank you for both the rain and the sunshine this week,
            helping gardens to grow and flourish.
We thank you for the every-day gifts:
            for food to eat
            and for roofs over our heads
            and for safe water to drink
            and for the freedom to gather to worship.
We offer our thanks.
Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,
We approach you today like children,
            railing against the injustice of this world.
We pray for a world where the killing of a lion by a human
provokes a bigger outcry than the starvation of millions of humans caused by other humans.
We pray for a world where the latest celebrity gossip
attracts more attention than the lack of safe water to drink on First Nations reserves in our own country.
We pray for a world where too many politicians
            make decisions based on the next election rather than the effect on people.
We pray for a world where too many people react out of a fear of scarcity
            rather than a trust in God’s abundance.
Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father of all of us,
We approach you today like children,
            with hearts open to everyone that we meet.
We pray for all who are sick,
all who are hungry,
all who are travelling,
all who are seeking,
all who are questioning,
all who are young,
all who are old,
all who are in-between.
Loving God, hear our prayer.

Refrain

Loving Parent, mother and father to all of us,
We pray all of these prayers in the name of Jesus Christ,
            who taught us to pray, saying:
Our Father, who art in heaven…

25 July 2015

What if? A Semi-Spoken-Word-Sermon

Sunday July 26
Kingston Pastoral Charge
Proper 12
John 6:1-15
Ephesians 3:14-21

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

5000 hungry people.
            5000 people.
            That’s a little bit more than the population of this town.
            5000 hungry people.
What if Jesus asked us that question today?

I can imagine some of the churches that I know.  Good people, all of them.  I can imagine treasurers and finance committees raising concerns about the budget – “but we only have this much money to spend on outreach this year, so we can only feed this number of people.”  I can imagine worship committees concerned about planning liturgies – “it is more important to feed the spirit than to feed the body.”  I can imagine property committees looking at fire regulations and tables and chairs – “the church hall only seats 150 people, so we will have to have 34 seatings in order to get everyone fed.”  I can imagine UCWs and Outreach Committees working together to fundraise the money – “in 5 years, we should have raised enough to provide a meal for everyone.”

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

Would we react like Philip reacted?  Would we throw up roadblocks in the way of Jesus’ question?  “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”  Actually, Philip’s math isn’t too far off, even today.  Minimum wage in Nova Scotia is $10.60 an hour.  Assuming 40 hours of work per week and 52 weeks of work per year, this works out to an annual salary of $22,048.  Six months’ salary would therefore be $11,024.  Assuming that a loaf of bread costs $3.50, for six months’ salary at minimum wage we could buy 3,150 loaves of bread – just over half a loaf for each of the 5000 people who have gathered.

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

Would we react like Andrew reacted, offering impossible solutions to the problem at hand?  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.  But what are they among so many people?”  Shared among 5000 people, each person would get barely a crumb of that bread.  Do we do that today?  When faced with a problem, do we talk around in circles?  Do we propose non-solutions, and argue back and forth until the problem is lost amidst the debate?

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

We are told that when Jesus asked the question, he already knew what the answer was going to be.  Jesus already knew that God was going to provide for the people gathered.  John writes that Jesus asked the question to test Philip.  What was the test?  Did Philip pass the test?  Was Jesus testing Philip’s creative problem solving skills?  Was he testing Philip to see if Philip had paid attention to Jesus’ previous miracles?  Was he testing Philip’s faith – could Philip see though the problem to God?  Could Philip trust that God would provide abundantly?

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if?
What if instead of reacting out of fear
            or bewilderment
            or a sense of scarcity,
What if we could react like the young boy,
            offering his lunch to Jesus and the disciples?
Knowing that his five loaves of bread and two fish
were nowhere near enough to feed a crowd of 5000.
Knowing that once he gave away his bread and fish,
            he would go hungry with no food to eat.
Knowing that he had followed Jesus a long way to get there,
            and that he would have a long walk home afterwards.
What if we could react like that young boy?

I can just imagine that nameless boy – one boy who, along with 4999 others, made up the crowd that followed Jesus and the disciples.  I can imagine his mother packing his lunch for him in the morning, with freshly-baked bread, tucking in a few extra loaves so that he could share with his friends.  Maybe they bought the fish from a fisherman, or maybe his family caught them in the Sea of Galilee.  He had enough food for himself, and maybe a bit extra; and then he gave it all away.  He trusted Jesus.  He trusted that Jesus would take whatever it was that he could offer, and make it enough to feed the whole crowd.

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if we could offer whatever we have to Jesus,
            whatever small amount
            a ridiculously small amount
            so small as to be laughable
What if we could offer that to Jesus,
            and have the faith to know that Jesus will see it as enough.

Jesus took the loaves and the fish.
Jesus gave thanks for the loaves and the fish.
            Gave thanks to God for providing.
            Gave thanks to the boy for sharing.
Jesus began sharing the loaves and the fish
            and he kept sharing
            and he kept sharing
            and he kept sharing
Until all 5000 people had been feed.
Until all 5000 people had eaten enough.
Until all 5000 people had eaten as much as they wanted.

If we look around the world today, there is so much cause for despair.  There are so many hungry people in the world – many, many more than just 5000.  There are so many people living without adequate shelter.  There are so many people living in fear.  There are so many people crying out for justice.  There are so many people living in war zones.  It is so easy to look at the problems of today’s world from the perspective of Philip and Andrew.  We don’t have enough resources to solve all of the world’s problems, so why should we even try.

But then we can look to the example of the boy.  He knew that what he could contribute wasn’t enough.  But he did anyways.  He did what he could do, and trusted that God would do the rest.  He trusted that God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.

Jesus taught about God’s kingdom of abundance, where there is more than enough for everyone.  Too often, the world follows a teaching of scarcity – a fear that there isn’t enough to go around, so we should look out only for ourselves.  If that one boy had followed this teaching, he would have kept what food he had for himself.  But instead he took an attitude of abundance, and he shared, and trusted that there would be more than enough.  And there were twelve baskets of leftovers at the end of the feast.

What if?
What if Jesus walked into a church today
            a church somewhere in Canada
            a church somewhere in Nova Scotia,
and asked the same question that he asked
            on that grassy hill
            by the sea of Galilee?
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”
How are we going to feed these hungry people?

What if?
What if each person, each group, acted like the young boy?
What if each person, each group, gave,
            trusting in God’s abundance?
What if each person, each group,
acted as though we believe in the God that Paul wrote about,
God who is able to accomplish abundantly,
            far more than all we can ask or imagine.

What if?