"God is God (And We Are Not)" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 20, 2024
Scripture:  Job 38:1-7, 34-41



So – after taking a week off for Thanksgiving last weekend, we’re back in the story of Job this week.  If you were with us two weeks ago, you might remember the beginning of Job’s story, where he lost his home, his health, and his family in one fell swoop.  Job remained silent in his suffering, while Mrs. Job raged against God, and I suggested that both of these were an equally valid response to suffering.

 

We then skipped over the middle section of the book of Job.  In that middle section, three so-called friends showed up to offer their condolences to Job.  After sitting together in silence for a full week, Job finally opened his mouth, let out a cry, and cursed the day that he was born. What was the point of life, if he was only going to suffer?  Friend #1 suggested that Job must have sinned in some way, to have suffered so much.  Job replied that he did nothing to deserve such suffering.  Friend #2 then suggested that Job should change his ways, to turn away from his wrong-doings. Job replied that if all humans were measured against God’s goodness, all of us would fall short.  Then Friend #3 suggested that Job’s guilt deserved whatever punishment he received. And Job replied with a prayer asking for God to stop hiding and be present.

 

You can see why I have named them “so-called friends.” I think that they were more helpful to Job in that first week of shared silent grief than when they tried to offer justification.

 

We then go through a couple more rounds of argument back and forth, and a fourth visitor arrived on the scene and preached at Job about God’s goodness and majesty and justice.

 

We’ve skipped over 35 chapters of this back-and-forth dialogue before we get to the reading we heard today.  After 37 chapters, God finally speaks directly to Job, answering him with a voice out of a whirlwind.

 

We only heard part of chapter 38 today, but God’s reply carries on for all of chapters 38, 39, 40, and 41.  Even though I struggle with much of the book of Job, I love these chapters.

 

God basically puts Job in his place, and reminds him that God is God, and Job is a mere human, definitely not God.  It is four chapters of God asking a great long string of rhetorical questions.  “Where were you, when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and have you caused the dawn to know its place?  Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?  Can you establish the movement of the stars in the heavens? Can you satisfy the hunger of the wild lions?  Do you give the horse its might? Is it at your command that the eagle soars up and makes its nest on high?” And on, and on, and on, and on.

 

At one point, God demands an answer from Job, and Job stammers out a short reply.  “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer to you, my God?”  God continues their questions, and finally Job is able to formulate a response.  “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

 

(And in case you are curious, in the closing chapters of the book, because Job has been able to understand that God is God and he is not, he is experiences a reversal of fortune, twice as much as he had before – wealth, and livestock, and children.  And Job lived for 140 years and saw 4 generations of descendants before he died, old and full of days.)

 

Like I mentioned two weeks ago, Job is a book that wrestles with questions of tragedy.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  How do we respond when faced with un-understandable tragedy?  How do we make meaning out of tragedy and loss?  These are questions that are fundamental to the human experience.

 

And I think that the answer that this book gives us is that they happen for no reason.  Bad things just happen.  Job’s tragedies didn’t happen because he was a bad person, or because he did something wrong.  And likewise, his fortunes were not restored at the end of the story because he was an especially good person, or because he prayed the right prayer.  Things just happen.

 

And to me, the message that I can take away from God’s reply to Job from out of the whirlwind is that God was there all along; God was with Job through the tragedies, even when, in his grief, Job wasn’t able to sense the divine presence.

 

God is God and we are not.  God is the Creator of all that is – of everything that we can see, and of everything that we cannot see.  God is the only one who can bring the morning stars together to sing with joy.  God not only created the land and the seas and all of the animals and birds and fish; but God also cares for each and every one of them, making sure that the animals have food to eat and water to drink.  And if God loves and cares for all of them – even for the sea monster Leviathan who shows up in chapter 41 – then of course God loves and cares for Job.  And of course God loves and cares for you.

 

God loves you – you are a part of God’s beloved creation, alongside the stars and the lions and the horses and the eagles.  God cares for you and for what you are going through in your life.  And just like God was with Job through all of his suffering, God is with you whenever you are suffering, even when pain and grief don’t allow you to perceive that divine presence.  There is absolutely nothing that could ever make God abandon you; or that could ever make God stop loving you.  Just as Job was precious to God, you too are precious to God.

 

I want to end today with the poem that is printed on the back of the bulletin, written by pastor, poet, and hymn-writer Steve Garnaas-Holmes.  This one is simply entitled “Job.”

 

Last night I woke from a dream of doom

fearing for the future of the world,

mummy-wrapped in despair, dread burning hot

in my basement. I couldn’t sleep.

 

When fear for the world overtakes me

I join Job on the ash heap, questioning suffering,

ranting against injustice, suffocating for hope.

 

And God answers.

Creation is bigger than you,

and greater than your suffering, even greater,

far greater, than all the suffering of the world.

It’s hard to see from your little corner

but the universe is good, and beautiful.

Stars and whales sing of it; your breathing proclaims it.

My grace is in it; my hands are beneath it all,

and you belong to it, even as you are,

though you can never know this mystery,

your part in this wonder and blessing.

 

My dread is small, even all our death;

God’s goodness is infinite. Praise.

 

 

“Lord Answers Job Out of the Whirlwind”

William Blake circa 1805-1806

Used with permission.

"At the Intersection of Thanksgiving and Hope" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 13, 2024 (Thanksgiving Weekend)
Scripture:  Joel 2:21-27


This is Thanksgiving weekend – a time when we gather with friends and family, a time when we enjoy a feast that celebrates this year’s harvest, a time when we have an opportunity to appreciate the spectacular fall colours everywhere we turn.  This is a weekend when most of us make time to pause and to say “thank you” – a weekend when we give thanks to the people in our lives, a weekend when we give thanks to the land and to the farmers for feeding the world, a weekend when we give thanks to God, the Creator of all that we can see and of all that we cannot see.

 

In times of abundance, it is easy for us to remember to say thank you for all that we have.  When we are surrounded by our loved ones, when we have plates overflowing with delicious food, when the rest of creation is being kind to us and allowing us to appreciate the beauty of the natural world – in these times, gratitude comes easily.

 

But you all know me well enough at this point to know that I have to ask the question – what about the other times?  What about the times when we’re experiencing the loss of a loved one, whether through death or estrangement?  What about the times when it is a challenge to put any food on your plate, let alone a feast?  What about the times when it seems as though creation is out to get us – I’m thinking this week especially about the people of Florida who have been hit by not one but two major hurricanes in the space of just a couple of weeks.  Should we be expected to give thanks in those times too?

 

I think that the Ancient Israelite people in the time of the prophet Joel must have had similar questions.  Joel is an interesting little book. It’s short – just 3 chapters long, and I confess that it’s one of those books that I need to use the table of contents to find in the bible.  We don’t know anything about Joel himself, other than his father’s name was Pethuel.  There is nothing in the book that ties the events he is writing about to historical events written about elsewhere; and I’m not a Hebrew scholar, so I trust the experts who date this book using language to relatively late in the Old Testament timeline, just a couple hundred years before the birth of Jesus and long after the major events of the Old Testament like the Exodus with Moses, the Kings of Ancient Israel, and the exile in Babylon.

 

And yet despite its shortness and its situation outside of the major story arc of the Old Testament, this book has a seemingly disproportionate significance in the cycle of the church year.  We hear bits of Joel read on Ash Wednesday at the beginning of the season of Lent; we hear other bits of Joel read on Pentecost, either on its own or as quoted in the second chapter of the Book of Acts, about the Spirit being poured out on all flesh. And then we hear Joel again on Thanksgiving weekend. It is a book that really does punch above its weight!

 

What we can dig out from the book of Joel, is that the people in his time and place (whenever and wherever that was) had faced or were facing some sort of environmental disaster.  The opening chapters of the book make reference to locusts devouring everything in the field, it compares the locusts to an invading army laying waste to orchards and fields so that the ground is mourning, the wine dries up, and the olive oil harvest fails.  Joel also writes of droughts that have dried up the waterways, and wildfires that devour the fields and forests.  The language then becomes apocalyptic, describing a day of darkness and gloom, of fires in front of and behind you charging at you like war horses, of earthquakes, and a dimming of the sun, moon and stars.  Joel says, way back in chapter 1, “Surely joy withers away among the people.”

 

Yet, after all of these horrific images have been described in great detail, there is a promise of restoration, and that is the part of Joel we heard today.  Joel talks about a reversal of all of the horrors of the first part of the book, with drought replaced by abundant rain, threshing floors full of grain and vats overflowing with olive oil and wine.  The people will eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of God.

 

Reading through the whole book of Joel this week, I don’t think that I was able to come to a satisfactory answer to my questions about whether we should give thanks in the hard times of life too.  Should the people of Florida give thanks, even as they are trapped by fallen trees and houses have been swept away by wind and by water?  Should the people of Gaza give thanks as their homes and hospitals crumble around them?

 

But what I do see in Joel is a message of hope – a message that the bad times won’t last forever.  Hope is always looking to the future.  Hope looks at the world as it is, says, “well, this sucks” and then hope reminds us that the bad times won’t last forever.  The drought will end and rain will fall.  The famine will be over and there will be plenty to eat.  The war will be over, and rebuilding will happen.  Hope gives us confidence, to borrow a phrase from author Frederick Buechner, that the worst thing is NEVER the last thing.

 

I don’t know where each of you is in your life this Thanksgiving weekend, but if you are hearing these words from Joel from a place that feels more like the locusts and drought and wildfires from the first part of Joel, the message for you is that these too will end.  Trust that God is with you through whatever it is that you are going through, and a time for feasting and rejoicing is coming.

 

And if you are hearing these words from Joel from a place of abundance and peace, then the message to you is also clear.  Like the soil and the animals of the field, be glad and rejoice! Like the people resorted, be glad and rejoice in your God!  Feast and be satisfied and praise the name of your God!

 

But maybe in the midst of your feasting and praising and rejoicing, I might add another little nudge; and that is to remember that not everyone is there yet.  There are still people living through the locusts and droughts and wildfires of the beginning of Joel.  And the challenge that this carries to the rest of us is – is there some way that our rejoicing and thanksgiving can flow into generosity?  Can part of our gratitude be giving support to people who are still in the literal or metaphorical locusts, droughts, and wildfires?  For in doing so, we can not only offer material support, but we can also help strengthen their hope until they too can reach a place of rejoicing.

 

Maybe this weekend, as you gather with your loved ones to give thanks and share a feast, you might also want to talk about how your gratitude can be expressed through generosity.  Maybe you want to make a donation to the Food Bank or Hestia House or Romero house.  Maybe you want to make an extra donation to Mission & Service so that God’s love can reach people who need to know that love across Canada and around the world.  Or maybe you want to bring good news and hope to non-human parts of creation by investing in a way to live that leaves a smaller environmental footprint.

 

This weekend, let us all live at the intersection between hope and thanksgiving, with hope that the worst thing is never the last thing, trusting that a time of rejoicing is coming; and with Thanksgiving flowing into generosity that strengthens the hope of those who are still waiting.

 

And may it be so, not just this weekend, but always.  Amen.

 

 

What are you grateful for today?

How is your gratitude going to become generosity?

Image Credit: K. Jones

"Why Do We Suffer?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 6, 2024
Scripture Reading: Job 1:1, 2:1-10


I will be the first person to confess that the Book of Job troubles me, and I know that I’m not the only one. When I was off on Sabbatical earlier this year, I downloaded a couple of bible studies for the Wednesday morning group to use, one on Job and one on Ecclesiastes, and the first thing that I heard from the group when I got back in May was “We don’t like Job.”

 

Our reading today introduces the book, but it also skipped over most of Chapter 1, so let me just give you a quick summary of what happened first.  We heard that Job was blameless and upright, a good man who revered God.  Chapter 1 also tells us that he was a wealthy man, with many children and much livestock; but he never forgot to give thanks to God, knowing that God was the source of all that he had.  Then, in Chapter 1, we encounter the first dialogue between God and Satan (whose name literally means the Accuser or the Tempter), where God is bragging about Job’s faith, and Satan says that Job has it easy, because look at all of his material belongings, no wonder that he is faithful.  God and Satan then make a bet – God believes that Job will remain faithful even if he has nothing, but the Tempter believes that Job’s faith will falter if he has nothing.

 

Then, in one fell swoop, all of Job’s livestock are taken away by raiders, and a building collapses killing all of Job’s children.  And Job mourns – he tears his robe and shaves his head – but he also remains faithful to God, saying “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

 

And then we come to chapter 2 that we heard today, and Job’s tragedy continues.  God and Satan, the tempter have another conversation, and God continues to brag about Job’s faith.  Even throughout his tragedies, Job has remained faithful.  But the Tempter still wants to tempt Job away from worshipping God.  Satan says, “That’s nothing. It was just things that Job lost.  What will Job do if his own health is affected. Surely he will forget to praise you when the tragedy touches his very body!”  So God agrees, Satan inflicts a painful affliction on Job’s whole body, and yet still Job doesn’t lose his faith.

 

His wife doesn’t understand.  She says to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity?  Why don’t you just curse God and let God strike you dead?”  But Job replies, “Why should we only receive the good things in life, and not the bad?”

 

On the surface, it seems as though Mrs. Job is on the side of Satan, tempting her husband away from worshipping God.  But that interpretation troubles me.  I don’t think that God’s ego is so fragile that our questions or even our anger would bruise it.  I sometimes say that God can handle our questions, our anger, our grief better than any human can.

 

And also, if we believe that God is love, if we believe that God’s love is unconditional, then our anger, our questions, shouldn’t have any effect on that love.

 

Those of you who are parents might be able to relate to this.  Especially in the teenage years, children can say some very cruel things – things that are intended to cause hurt.  But even in your hurt, you don’t stop loving your children less.  In your compassion, you know that hormones are raging, you understand that they are figuring out who they are, you understand all of the different pressures and expectations that they are trying to navigate, you know that they are lashing out at you because you are a safe person to receive their anger.  You are hurt, but you still love them unconditionally.

 

And if a human parent is able to be this compassionate, think of how much more compassionate God is.  Our questions, our anger, our words – none of these can ever make God love us less.

 

In some ways, I almost wonder if Mrs. Job’s response is just as faithful as Job’s response.  We don’t get to see Job’s thoughts that led him to his words, that led to his acceptance of the bad alongside the good.  It’s likely that he has been wrestling with similar questions of “why me” as his wife, but we don’t get to see his inner dialogue.  We only get to see the conclusion that he has come to – that life brings both good and bad.

 

But Mrs. Job has lost just as much as her husband has. The children that she has carried in her body have all died, and her family’s livelihood has been lost.  And she doesn’t hold back from blaming God.  (With very good reason, as we have seen in our behind-the-scenes view of the theatre of the heavens.)

 

I don’t know about you, but when I’ve experienced loss, one of my first reactions is to be angry at God.  When my brain is trying to make sense out of loss or tragedy, there is often no meaning or sense to be found, so God is the only one I can blame.

 

I also need to point out that Mrs. Job is not struck dead, despite her outburst. If cursing God was all that bad, surely she wouldn’t have survived this moment.  But she did.

 

Job is a book that wrestles with questions of tragedy.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  How do we respond when faced with un-understandable tragedy?  How do we make meaning out of tragedy and loss?  These are questions that are fundamental to the human experience.

 

It's not a historical book.  There has never been a place called Uz.  There are no indicators of when the book is set – no historical references.  It is almost as if the book begins, “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.”  It is a story written specifically to wrestle with questions of suffering.  And while I don’t agree with the premise of the book, that God permits suffering, I do relate with the urge to try and find meaning in suffering.  There must be a reason for it, so why not a wager between God and the Tempter?

 

We’re going to get more of Job’s story in two weeks’ time (next weekend is Thanksgiving, and it didn’t feel right to focus on Job on Thanksgiving weekend) when we’ll hear how the story ends; but for this week, the message that I will take away is that there is no wrong way to respond to tragedy.

 

Whether you respond like Job, steadfastly praising God through the bad times as well as through the good; or whether you respond like Mrs. Job, shouting at God, cursing God, or blaming God – both of these are faithful responses.  And there is nothing about how we respond that will ever shake or lessen God’s love for us.

 

No matter what tragedies or curveballs life throws your way, you are a beautiful and beloved child of God.  You are loved more deeply than you can ever know.  God’s unconditional love is always wrapped around you like a warm blanket or a hug, whether our senses are able to perceive it or not.

 

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

“Figure of Job” circa 1750-1850

Used with Permission

"Whoever Welcomes this Child of God" (reflection)

Anglican Parish of Kingston
Sunday September 22, 2024
Scripture:  Mark 9:30-37

This Sunday I did a pulpit exchange with an Anglican colleague, and so this sermon was preached in his church, while he preached and led worship at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge.

Jesus welcoming the little children is possibly the most common image for Christian art, appearing in stained glass windows, in paintings, in illustrated bibles, in sculptures.

 

Stained glass: Alfred Handel, d. 1946[1], photo: Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0

Used with Permission.

 

When you think about the image of Jesus welcoming the little children, what sort of feelings does it evoke in you?  Feelings of nostalgia?  Feelings of comfort?  Feelings of coziness?  Feelings of peace?  I suspect that the image of Jesus welcoming little children is a popular one because it is one that makes us feel good.

 

But I also think that we might be doing this story a disservice if this is the only layer of meaning that we give to it.  It’s challenging, because we are living 2000 years after Jesus and we are living on the opposite side of the world from Jesus. We have lost some of the nuances that this lesson would have held for Jesus’s original listeners – nuances that were so linked to their culture that they wouldn’t have had to think twice about it.

 

In the time and place where Jesus lived, children were understood very differently than in our time and place.  In our culture, children are precious, they are valued members of their family as well as wider society, they are respected, they are protected, they are loved.  In our culture, childhood is a phenomenon that is studied, that is cherished.  We have professionals from all different fields dedicated to serving children – from doctors to authors to musicians to counsellors to ministers.

 

In Jesus’s world, children were also valued, but not necessarily for their own sake.  In Jesus’s world, children were valued because of their potential.  It was only when they reached the age of 11 or 12 that children became fully functional adults – until they reached that age, children were considered to be potential humans rather than fully humans.  In a very hierarchical society, children were on the very lowest rung, having a status even lower than slaves; though with the potential to have a higher status once they reached adulthood.  It was a very different understanding of children than we have today.

 

And with this understanding of children, the story of Jesus welcoming a little child takes on a much different meaning.  Jesus reaches out and takes this not-quite-human-yet, and places them in the centre of a crowd of adults.  Jesus says to his listeners, “Whoever welcomes this not-quite-human-yet in my name, welcomes me.”  Jesus is identifying himself with a person who is on the very furthest margins of society.

 

There are some pretty serious implications of this.  In effect, Jesus is saying to his listeners, “Unless you are able to welcome this person on the lowest rung of society, you aren’t able to welcome me.”

 

Something that I like to do, when I encounter a story in the bible where the culture of Jesus’s time and place is so very different than our time and place is to wonder how Jesus might teach the same lesson were he here today.  We live in a time and place where children are still vulnerable – they have less power than grownups, but there are laws in place to protect them, and there is even a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child.  Children are still vulnerable, but they don’t occupy that very bottom rung on the social ladder; they aren’t on the very fringes of society.

 

So how might Jesus teach this same lesson, were he to be sitting here in front of us today?

 

Would Jesus take a homeless drug addict, embrace them, and say: “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a transgender teenager who is unsafe at home and unsafe in school, embrace them, and say:  “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a recently released prisoner – someone who had committed horrific crimes, but who had served their time – embrace them, and say:  “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus walk down Water Street in the Pride Parade, embrace the marchers, and say, “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Would Jesus take a person with a disability, struggling to pay their rent out of their too-low disability payments, embrace them, and say, “Whoever welcomes one such child of God in my name welcomes me.”

 

Like I said, there are some pretty serious implications to what Jesus is telling his listeners, if we can go beyond our nostalgic association with the image of Jesus welcoming the little children, and dig into how his original audience would hear what he is saying.

 

Because it is a very radical message that he has for them.  God’s love isn’t just for the people who are in positions of power in this world.  God’s love is for all people, and maybe especially for people who have been pushed to the margins of the power structures of society.

 

In the gospels, we see Jesus hanging out with people that his society wouldn’t expect him to be hanging out with – women (who shouldn’t be found in the presence of a man they aren’t related to), people with illnesses that made them ritually unclean, the dreaded tax collector who earned his livelihood by extorting as much money as possible out of the taxpayers.  And now we see Jesus embracing a not-quite-yet-human in the form of a child.

 

And so I’d like to encourage you to consider, not only who Jesus might be embracing were he teaching us the same message today, but also how we, as the church, are called to this radical welcome that Jesus calls us to.  As the church, not only are we called to welcome those on the margins of society as a way of welcoming Jesus, but we are also the Body of Christ.  We are the literal hands and feet of Christ in our world, called to welcome and embrace anyone who might be marginalized by the world, just as Jesus welcomed and embraced a child.

 

And may the Holy Spirit give us the courage so to do.  Amen.

"Who is Jesus to You?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 15, 2024
Scripture:  Mark 8:27-38


The bible story that ______ just read for us comes at a big pivot point in the story of Jesus’s life.  Up until this point, he has been travelling and teaching and healing in the north country, around the Sea of Galilee.  Right after this conversation with his disciples, Jesus is going to climb up a mountain with the three disciples that seem to make up his inner circle and we’ll get the story of the Transfiguration when those disciples see a bit of the awe-inspiring glory of God in Jesus.  And when they come down from the mountain, their path will turn south and they will begin their journey to Jerusalem where the events of the last week of Jesus’s life will unfold.

 

So we’re at a pivot point here, and it’s almost like Jesus is giving his disciples a mid-term exam.  OK – we’re finished the Galilee portion of our ministry – let’s see how much you’ve learned.  First of all, what’s the word on the street – what are people saying about me – who do people say that I am?

 

His disciples, who surely have been keeping their ears open as they’ve been travelling around, let Jesus know what they’ve heard.  Some people are saying that he is John the Baptist. That is a logical answer, even though it’s not quite logical since John the Baptist was executed by King Herod not too long ago.  But if we were to flip back a couple of chapters we would see this rumour reported elsewhere – when Jesus first caught the attention of King Herod, it was because some people were saying that he was John, raised from the dead.  And after all, both John and Jesus tended to stir up controversy and provoked people in power with their ministry.

 

Other people are saying that Jesus is Elijah, one of the ancient prophets. After all, Elijah never died, but was carried away to be with God, so maybe now is the time that he has returned.  Elijah had similar powers to Jesus, the ability to multiply food and cooking oil, and to control the natural elements.

 

And still others say that Jesus is one of the prophets in his own right.  He must be part of the lineage of prophets who point people back to God and to God’s vision for the world.

 

OK, so that’s what people are saying about Jesus.  But then he asks them the second question on their midterm exam – “Who do you say that I am?”

 

A couple of times this week, I’ve invited you to consider this question – in my Mid-Week Message, and again on Facebook in my Theology Thursday post.  If Jesus was standing right in front of you asking you this question, how would you answer it?  Who do you say that Jesus is?

 

And at this point, I’m going to step away from my prepared sermon and throw the question out there.  Who do you say that Jesus is?  As we talked about in the Story for All Ages, there are lots of different names and titles that we can give to Jesus, and the more that we can come up with, the more complete picture we can paint of who Jesus is to us.  So I invite you to answer Jesus’s question – who do you say that he is?  (And if you need some ideas to get you started, you can turn to the poem on the back of the bulletin.)

 

(Congregation Participation Time! Invite people to share, and explore the answers that they give.)

 

When it comes to talking about God, we are limited by human language.  We have these different names or titles or descriptions of Jesus, and each one can capture part of who he is, but none of them captures the fullness or completeness of who he is.  It is only by holding them up together that we can start to paint a picture of who Jesus truly is.

 

I mentioned to our Bible Study group on Wednesday that today and the last Sunday in November almost act like bookends to the fall season in the lectionary cycle of readings that we follow.  The last Sunday in November will be the last Sunday before the season of Advent begins, and on that week we celebrate Reign of Christ Sunday, sometimes known as Christ the King Sunday.  On that Sunday, we’re going to be reading part of the Good Friday story, when Jesus is standing before Pilate who represents the power of the Roman Empire. When we read that story on Christ the King Sunday, we are being asked which of these kings we are going to put our ultimate trust in.  Are we going to follow the king of Empire, who holds all worldly powers, or are we going to follow the servant king who embraces the power of silence and humility?

 

And today, at the start of our journey to Jerusalem and to the court of Pilate, we are asked to begin to consider who it is that we are following to Jerusalem.  Who do we say that Jesus is?  My inner bible geek is intrigued to notice the location of this conversation – Jesus and his disciples are talking at Caesarea Philippi, to the north of Galilee – a place named after two kings, the Caesar or Emperor in Rome, and Phillip, the father of King Herod.  It’s almost as if he is saying to us, “Pay attention – not too long from now you’re going to be looking at two kings, and you’re going to have to choose between us.  Who do you say that I am?”

 

Is Jesus enough, that when you reach the end of the line in Pilate’s castle, you’re going to cast your lot with him?

 

Like I said at the beginning, this was the disciples’ mid-term exam. As they leave one chapter of their ministry to begin another, Jesus tests them on what they have learned about Jesus.  Peter replies, “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One.”  He passes this part of the exam, but he still has more to learn.  When Jesus presses him about what all this implies, Peter objects.  He still has much to learn from the events of Holy Week that are going to unfold for them next.  He’s not quite ready for the final exam.

 

But all of that is yet to come for them.

 

At this point in your journey of discipleship, who do you say that Jesus is?

 

 

(The back of this week’s bulletin)

"Turning Towards Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 8, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Mark 7:24-37

This week was our annual church picnic (even though the weather pushed our worship and potluck lunch inside). The service also included a baptism and communion.


Our scripture reading this week was actually two stories back-to-back.  The second story is the story of Jesus giving hearing and speech to a man who was deaf. We have lots of healing stories if you read through the gospels, so I’m going to save this story for a different day.  Instead, today I want to dig into the first story from the passage because, at least to me, it is a much more challenging story.

 

To me, the most challenging part of this story is how Jesus responds to his visitor.  She is a Syrophoenician woman – a foreign woman – a woman from outside of the faith that Jesus lived in.  She came to Jesus looking for healing for her daughter, and Jesus’s response was to say:  “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

 

On the surface, this should probably be the expected response.  Men from the time and place where Jesus lived weren’t expected to have anything to do with women.  And then add the complication of the fact that she was a foreigner – she wasn’t Jewish – and Jesus, as a Jewish man of his time and place definitely shouldn’t have had anything to do with her.

 

But I expect more from Jesus.  Because I believe that Jesus is the embodiment of God – literally God in the form of flesh and blood – I expect more from Jesus.

 

He could have just said no, but instead he insults his visitor by implying that she is a dog, and this wasn’t meant as a compliment – in contemporary English, he would be calling her by a fairly rude name that begins with B.

 

I’m also troubled by the fact that his initial response implies that there is some sort of scarcity around love and grace and healing – that if her were to heal the foreign woman’s daughter, that there would be less healing available for his own people.

 

Like I said, I find this to be one of the most challenging stories in the gospels.

 

But to me, what redeems this story is the ending.  The unnamed Syrophoenician woman doesn’t accept Jesus’s first answer.  She doesn’t just go away, go back to her sick daughter.  Instead, she argues back.

 

If Jesus’s initial response was the expected response for his time and place, her reaction is completely unexpected.  For a foreign woman to argue back with a man in that time and place is completely counter-cultural.

 

But she does.  She tells Jesus:  “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  She gives Jesus a message of abundance – even when it seems like everything is gone, there is still more than enough to go around.

 

And with her response, Jesus changes his answer to her.  He doesn’t stubbornly insist on his first answer.  He doesn’t insist that only he can be right.  Instead, he hears her voice, he acknowledges that he was wrong, and he heals the woman’s daughter.

 

It’s still not a perfect story to me.  I would still have preferred it if Jesus had healed her daughter on the first request.  But maybe Jesus can teach us something new with this story.  Maybe Jesus is modeling for us what repentance can look like.

 

Repentance is more than just saying that we are sorry, and it’s more than just feeling sorry for what we have done.  Repentance is changing our path, changing our ways, turning away from the wrongs that we have done.  Jesus didn’t just say to the women, “I’m sorry for calling you a dog, and I’m sorry for not healing your daughter.”  Instead, Jesus turned away from the path that he had been on, and healed the woman’s daughter.

 

And the changed path seems to have stuck for him; and this is where I think that the second story in the reading comes in.  In the second story, Jesus is travelling in the Decapolis, which is on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus is in foreign territory here.  And even though he isn’t named as a foreigner, when they bring him a man in need of healing in this foreign land, we can assume that there is a pretty good chance that Jesus is dealing with another foreigner here.  And instead of calling him a dog and telling him that he doesn’t have healing to go around, instead, Jesus heals the man brought to him.  Jesus has not only learned with his head from the Syrophoenician woman, but he has changed his ways because of her.

 

I still believe that Jesus is the flesh-and-blood version of God, but Jesus was also fully human at the same time.  In that first story, he reacted exactly the way that you would expect a human to react, even if his reaction was less than loving, less than compassionate, less than grace-filled.  But then his response, when he realized that he had messed up was to do exactly what all of us should do when we realize that we’ve messed up.  He changed his ways towards goodness and love.

 

And so not only does Jesus, God’s Word-Made-Flesh, teach us about who God is; but Jesus, fully human, can also teach us about how to be human, how to turn towards God, and how to live love more fully in the world that we inhabit.

 

And when we mess up or miss the mark, may the Holy Spirit always be turning us towards love.  Amen.

 

 

Image:  “Baptismal Font” by Bill Herndon on flickr

Used with Permission

"God Speaks" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday September 1, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Genesis 32:22-32

Note:  Every summer, we gather weekly for Church Family Movie Nights; and this year we are linking our Sunday morning worship to the movie we watched the previous Tuesday. This week’s reflection is tied to the movie Field of Dreams. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here.


An Iowa farmer walks into a corn field and hears a voice saying, “If you build it, he will come.”  If you have seen the movie, Field of Dreams, you know that this is how the story begins.  I don’t think that I could do justice to the story by trying to outline the plot of it here, but as the story unfolds, the voice continues to speak to Ray, the main character, eventually switching from “If you build it, he will come,” to “Ease his pain,” and later, “Go the distance.”

Ray and his wife Annie both know that it seems ridiculous; but they listen to the voice; and as the movie goes on, they continue to receive guidance from a mysterious source.  Ray has a vision of a baseball field in his corn field.  Ray and Annie have a shared dream one night.  Ray has sudden moments of inspiration where he knows something, even though he doesn’t know why he knows something.  A stadium sign board flashes a message that only he can see.

The movie never tells us where these messages are coming from, or how.  The movie ends with so many unanswered questions.

But we know that in real life, outside of the movies, we know that we too can receive communication from someone that we can’t see, someone that we can’t understand, messages that don’t always seem logical.

 

Just as Ray in the movie receives a series of messages in different formats that guide his actions through the movie, God communicates with us in so many different ways, guiding us on our life journey.  Some people do hear a distinct voice, like the one that Ray hears, but I think that that might be one of the less common ways that God communicates with us.  Sometimes God speaks to us through the voices of people in our lives.  Sometimes God speaks to us through nudges that pass through our hearts or our minds.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself, “I should call so-and-so to check in with them and see how they are doing,” only to make the phone call and discover that something significant is happening in their life.  I’ve learned not to ignore those nudges.

 

In our Wednesday morning bible study, one topic that sometimes comes up is wishing that we could have experiences like some of the people did in biblical times – wishing that we could hear God’s voice clearly; wishing that we could walk with God as we would with a friend; wishing that we could see visions.  Usually these conversations leave me with more questions than answers.  I don’t know why some people experience God’s presence more immediately than other people.  I don’t know why, when we are crying out for answers, God sometimes remains silent.  But I also wonder if, when God communicates with us, do we ever brush it off as something that couldn’t really have happened?

 

I think that there might be some wisdom for us in the movie.  As improbable as it might have been, and as unexpected as that first voice was, Ray and Annie don’t discount it.  As the story unfolds, they continue to expect to receive communication from this mysterious source.  If they had written that first voice off as indigestion, would the voice have persisted, or would the voice have gone on to find another farmer passionate about baseball?

 

If we expect God to speak to us, then we are much more likely to hear God’s voice than if we go through life assuming that God will never speak.  For God longs to be in relationship with us, longs for our senses to be open to perceive their divine presence.

 

I also have to ask the flip side of the question – if we do sense something, how do we know it is from God and not from another source?  Here, the tradition of the church is clear – we need to test the message, preferably with other people, against who we know God to be.  We know that God is good, we know that God is love, we know that God is just, we know that God is merciful, we know that God is beauty.  And so any message from God must be in keeping with what we know about God – God isn’t going to give us a message that works against love.

 

Sometimes it is hard to know on our own, which is where other people can help us out.  Ray consulted with Annie about the voice; we can talk to trusted people who share our faith.

 

And just as the results of Ray’s actions led to several points of reconciliation within family, as well as the fulfilment of dreams for a group of baseball players; when we act on what God is telling us to do, the love, the joy, the peace, the hope in the world will all increase.

 

When I was paring our summer movies with scripture readings, I had a lot of options to choose from for this movie.  There are lots of stories in the bible of people communicating with God and acting on what God tells them to do.  But I chose to pair it with my favourite story about Jacob, son of Rebekah and Isaac, grandson of Sarah and Abraham.

 

Jacob was a stiff-necked, stubborn sort of person – you may have gotten a sense of that from this story when he refuses to let the mysterious stranger go until he had received his blessing. They wrestle all night there on the banks of the river, and in the end, Jacob received not only his blessing, but a new name to go along with it – a new name that would bring with it a new calling.

 

And so my wish for all of us is that we might have the tenacity of Jacob – I’m going to call it tenacity now, rather than stubbornness, but choose whatever word suits you better.  I wish for all of us the tenacity of Jacob, that we might move through the world expecting to encounter God in every moment, expecting to receive a blessing from God, expecting to be given a mission to complete.  I wish for all of us the tenacity of Jacob, and also the courage of Ray from the movie – the courage to follow through on the mission we are given.  Because if each one of us was able to do that, can you just imagine what we would be able to do.  Never stop expecting, and never stop following, and we will be the hands and feet of Christ, bringing love and hope to the world.

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

Field of Dreams – a baseball movie

that is about so much more than baseball.

Photo Credit: Oregon Department of Agriculture on flickr

Used with Permission.