"What Does it Mean to Be Human?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday June 7, 2026 – 2^nd Sunday After Pentecost
Scripture Reading:  Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

What does it mean to be human?  What makes us human?  How are we different than, say, a robot powered by AI?  These are some of the existential questions that I like to ponder, but they are also questions that have been in the front of my brain in the past week or so.

What makes us human, and what defines our worth as humans?

If you were to listen to politicians, you might get the impression that it is paying taxes that makes us human, that makes us matter.  Politicians of every party like to refer to us as “taxpayers.”  “Elect us, and we’ll make the standard of living better for all taxpayers.”  “Canadian taxpayers have been telling me that these are the issues that are important to them.”  “Our taxpayers deserve better.”

That doesn’t work for me though.  What about people who don’t pay taxes, either because they are too young, or who are unemployed, or who are underemployed?  Do they not count?

Capitalism gives us another option for defining worth or human-ness.  Under the capitalist-consumerist system that we live in, the more that we spend, the more worthy we are as humans.  Loyalty points or loyalty status rewards those who buy more.  YouTube and TikTok videos attempt to make us jealous of the lifestyles of the creators, and you too can have that lifestyle if only you buy these products that we are promoting.  Give us your email address so that we can send you opportunities to spend more.  I shop, therefore I am.

But do we really want to be defined by our possessions, by what we buy, by what we spend?  To me, consumerism makes us less human, not more, because we are defining ourselves not by our human-ness but by our bank account and our credit card.

Social media tells us yet another story – who we are is what we post.  The pictures and videos that show the highlights of our lives, passed through the filter of our phones; the memes and articles we choose to share; who we follow and who follows us – Social media tells us that this is who we are as we live out our lives online.

But am I more than what I post?  It’s a bit of a joke, but like all jokes it contains a kernel of truth – if something hasn’t been shared on Facebook, has it really happened at all?

What does it mean to be human?  How do we define our worth as humans?

I heard a beautiful interview this week on CBC radio with actress and comedian Andrea Martin, and she told a story about taking her 10-year-old granddaughter to meet an actor-friend.  She told her granddaughter that she should prepare some questions that she wanted to ask the actor, and no, they couldn’t all be about the time that this actor had worked with Leonardo DiCaprio!  They had a lovely dinner in a restaurant together, and her granddaughter asked insightful questions, and listened to the answers, and asked follow-up questions.

And when they got on the subway to go home after the dinner, Andrea Martin looked around the subway car, and every single person on the car, except she and her granddaughter, every person was staring down at a cell phone.  She told her granddaughter:  you want to grow up to be the person that you were at the dinner table this evening, not like the other people on this subway.

It was the connection with another human that made her granddaughter more human that evening.

In the story from the gospel of Matthew that we heard this morning, we have three beautiful stories of Jesus helping people to become more human.

The third of the stories is probably the most obvious.  A young girl is raised back to life.  She goes from being a former-human to being human-once-again.  Jesus gives her the gift of breath, the gift of a heartbeat, and she is restored to her family.

The story that comes before that one – the story of a woman who was healed after 12 years of hemorrhaging – there are a couple of layers of restored humanity here.  There is the physical healing that happens – her human body is made more whole.  But I think that maybe the more important healing that happens, the healing that may not be obvious from the story, is that she is restored to her community.

You see, for 12 years this woman would have been an outcast from her people.  The hemorrhage that she was suffering from would have made her ritually unclean, and because the bleeding was ongoing, there was nothing that could make her ritually clean again.  And this ritual uncleanness would have meant that no one could be near her, no one could touch her, otherwise they would be made ritually unclean too.  For 12 years, this unnamed woman hasn’t been fully human, because she hasn’t been able to be in relationship with other humans.  And I believe that part of what makes us human, like for Andrea Martin’s granddaughter, is our connection with other humans.

The first story in that reading from Matthew was the story of Jesus calling the tax collector named Matthew.  I think that there might be a couple of layers of becoming more fully human in this story too.

First of all, as you may have heard me or other preachers say in the past, tax collectors weren’t exactly beloved in the time and place of Jesus.  They were colluding with the oppressive Roman Empire, collecting money from their neighbours, sometimes like squeezing blood from a stone.  And so they generally didn’t have very robust social lives, rejected by their family members and neighbours for what they chose to do.  And by choosing to dine with Matthew, Jesus is restoring Matthew to the humanity of community and relationship.  Matthew is no longer alone.

But I think that there is another layer to Matthew’s restored humanity.  As a tax collector, like the politicians I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, Matthew has learned to value people based only on what they give.  A rich man who can pay more taxes is more valuable than a poor widow who has to be squeezed to get just the smallest coin.

Jesus can see this dehumanizing attitude in Matthew, and chooses to call him anyways.  “Follow me, and I will show you a different way.”  Matthew gets up and follows Jesus, and he is going to see a different way of being human – a way where the first are last and the last are first, a way where love is the most important value of all, a way of relationship and community and care.

So here we have three stories of people that Jesus healed so that they could be more human, healed in the places where relationships and community and love had been broken.

A couple of weeks ago, Pope Leo released his first encyclical since he was chosen to be pope a year ago.  You are excused if you missed this news, but it was all over my social media feeds in the past couple of weeks, and was a hot topic of conversation when I was in class in Toronto.  An encyclical is a circulating letter that popes write – not addressed to any one person, but addressed to the church as a whole, teaching about how Roman Catholic doctrine can be interpreted in the context of the time in which it is written.

And I think that this encyclical has a great deal of wisdom, even for those of us who aren’t Roman Catholic.  It is titled “Magnifica Humanitas” – I don’t speak Latin, but I’m told that this translates as “Magnificent Humanity” – with a subtitle, “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the time of Artificial Intelligence.”

He opens by talking about the context of today, and the role of technology.  He acknowledges all of the good that technology has brought to the world, improving the living conditions for so many. Remember that even something as simple as a shovel was new technology once upon a time!  Technology is value-neutral – in its own, it isn’t evil.  But then he goes on to talk about the harm that technology has caused when the user doesn’t intend it for the good.

He sets out his argument in the very opening paragraph:

Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together. Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world. Whenever humanity is in danger of marring its true identity, we Christians lift our eyes to the Incarnate God, knowing that it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear.

And then towards the end of his introduction, Pope Leo comes to the point that connects with the stories we read today:

In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace. True progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.

What does it mean to be human?  What makes us different than a robot powered by Artificial So-Called Intelligence?

AI can never be human.  AI can never be in a genuine reciprocal relationship.  AI can never feel love.  AI can never know God or be known by God.  But we can.

What makes us human?  I believe that it is our ability to create, as we are made in the image of the Creator.  We create music, we create art, we create a meal to share with a friend, we create gardens, we create poetry and novels and essays, we create quilts and blankets and buildings.

What makes us human?  I believe that it is our ability to love; to love one another and Jesus loves us; to love God, to love all of our neighbours, to love all of creation on God’s behalf.

What makes us human?  I believe that it is because we are guided and transformed by the Holy Spirit, transformed more and more into the Body of Christ, the literal presence of Christ in this time and in this place.

You are loved by God – loved deeply in the essence of your human-ness. God wants you to be as human as you can possibly be – loving and connecting with other people, living in community, and in relationship with the people in your lives, and always finding ways to help other people be more fully human too.  Just as Jesus reached out to the three people in today’s story, Jesus is reaching out to you too, longing to restore you to your full humanity.

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

Image Credit:  ThaQeLa on flickr
Used with Permission

"Angels, Nostalgia, and Dangling Feet" (An Ascension Sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 17, 2026 – 7^th Sunday in Easter (Ascension Sunday)
Scripture:  Acts 1:6-14

Jesus’s ascension into heaven is a story that comes around every year.  It’s not one of the big flashy church holidays like Easter or Christmas or Pentecost.  It doesn’t even fall on a Sunday – technically last Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension.  But it is part of the story of Jesus, and it bridges the gap between Easter and Pentecost.

Easter is a season in the church year – one that stretches on for 50 days, or 7 full week.  Today is the last Sunday in the season of Easter, but Easter doesn’t end until next Saturday.  And I love how long the season of Easter is.  The 40 days of Lent can feel like a slog, in a season of contemplation and repentance and continual turning back to God and extinguishing our candles as we move into the shadows.  But then we get 50 days to celebrate the joy and the hope of Easter before the year asks us to move on to the next exciting festival.

But 40 days into the season of Easter – it’s always on the Thursday between the 6^th and 7^th Sundays of Easter – we encounter the curious story of Jesus ascending into heaven to return to be with the one whom he calls Father.

It is a strange and holy moment of transition, equivalent to his birth at Christmas, his death on Good Friday, his resurrection on Easter - a moment of transitioning from one way of being to another.  And holy moments can be hard to translate into words or into images.  Jesus’s disciples were there to witness Jesus’s ascension, yet it hasn’t become a core story to our faith the way that the resurrection has.  In my Mid-Week Message last week, I said that the strangeness of this story often gets translated into art as pictures of Jesus’s feet dangling down from a cloud.

 

“The Ascension of Christ”
Hans Süss von Kulmbach, 1513
Public Domain

 But I actually think that the story of the resurrection is just as strange, or maybe even more so.  Have you even noticed, though, that there is no witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  His disciples see his dead body being laid in the tomb.  They witness the tomb being sealed shut.  But then the next thing that they see is the empty tomb.  No-one witness the moment when Jesus’s body goes from being dead to being resurrected.  I also sometimes wonder – if there had been witnesses to the resurrection, would Easter art be equally as strange as Ascension art?  Paintings of Easter usually focus on Jesus’s lifeless body lying in the tomb, or of the empty tomb, or of the already-resurrected Christ meeting with his disciples.  When artists try to depict the moment of resurrection, they usually turn to very abstract art to try and convey the holiness of the moment.  And here with the ascension, we have Jesus’s dangling feet.

Anyways, all of this to say that the Ascension is a key story in Jesus’s life, but one that we usually don’t usually linger on.  But it’s a story that we read every year, and every time I turn to a familiar story, I like to ask myself, “What detail in this story is jumping out to me this time?”

This week, the detail that jumped out at me were the angels in the story.  Or were they angels?  They actually aren’t identified – the author of Acts only names them as “two men in white robes” standing next to the disciples.  But I think that this might be the case for a lot of the angels who appear in the bible.

Sometimes the angels are definitely named as angels.  The heavenly choir that appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus – they were definitely angels.  The angel who appeared to Mary and invited her to carry, birth, and raise God’s son – again, explicitly named as an angel.

But do you remember the story in the Old Testament of Jacob wrestling an angel on the banks of the river, trying to win a blessing?  That angel was only ever named as a man.

Going back even further, Sarah and Abraham saw three men standing outside their tent, and welcomed them and fed them, and it was only later that they realized that they had been entertaining angels.

Even when you look at the resurrection stories from the four gospels, and who was at or in the empty tomb when the disciples showed up on Easter morning, the accounts don’t agree with each other. in Matthew, he is named as an angel, a being dressed in white with a face like lightning.  But in Mark, sitting in the tomb was a young man in a white robe who tells the women not to be afraid.  In Luke there are two men standing there in gleaming bright clothing. And in John, we are back to two angels named as angels, sitting where Jesus’s body was.

But taking all of this together, I’m fairly confident with naming the two men in white robes standing next to the disciples after they have watched Jesus be carried away – I’m fairly confident with naming them as angels.

And angels, at the core of their being, are messengers from God and bringers of good news.  So what good news do they have for the disciples in this moment?  Their message is “Stop standing here, staring up into the heavens. Get yourselves back to Jerusalem, the way Jesus told you to do!”  Which is a strange bit of good news to go with a story that is always strange.

But then I think about those disciples who were standing there.  They had been with Jesus through his life and had witnessed his ministry.  They were the first ones to hear the parables he told and had front row seats to see his miracles.  But then they had been through the utter devastation and grief of watching their beloved teacher and friend arrested and tortured and murdered by the state.  Two days later though, they encountered the empty tomb, and once they were able to overcome their fear, they have just had 40 days, once more in the presence of their beloved.  But now they have just seen him carried away on a cloud, back to the fullness of the presence of God.

And I can totally understand their inclination to stay there staring at the sky, focused on the place where he has just disappeared.  I can even imagine them choosing to stay there, setting up a picnic lunch, remembering Jesus as they broke the bread and poured out the wine.  I can picture them reminiscing about the good old days, and re-telling the parables that Jesus has taught them, every so often glancing back up at the sky to see if Jesus is going to float back down, “Just kidding – did you really think I was gone?!”

But then those messengers from God, those two angels show up, and basically tell them to get on with things.  Don’t stand here looking up at the sky; get back to Jerusalem just as Jesus told you to do.

I think that maybe God saw that the disciples risked getting stuck there, that they were at risk of spending so much time reminiscing and looking backwards that they might forget that they had to keep on moving forward.  If they had stayed there staring at the sky and watching for Jesus’s feet to come back, they would have missed everything that comes next.  Ten days later is going to be Pentecost – if they were out in the field staring at the sky, then they would have missed that whole event where the Holy Spirit shows up with a rush of mighty wind and tongues of fire, and the ability to speak in different languages to reach all of the people.  They would have missed the opportunity to be the church moving forward if they were stuck looking at the sky feeling nostalgic for what used to be.

Sometimes I wonder if we in the church need a visitation of angels like these two – a message to stop lingering in the past, a message to stop staring at Jesus’s feet up there in the sky; a message to instead move into the future with excitement and anticipation.  Churches – and I’m not necessarily talking about our churches specifically, but churches in general tend to be very good at nostalgia, very good at remembering the good old days.  But we don’t want to get stuck staring at the sky, visions of former Sunday Schools, visions of past events and gatherings, filling the clouds where Jesus’s feet used to be.  Because if we get stuck there, then we’ll miss our Pentecost moment – that moment that catapults us into the future.  We can’t be the church that God is calling us to be if we are stuck reminiscing about the church that we were ten years ago, or thirty years ago, or fifty years ago.

And even if this might be a hard message to hear, the message of the angels is good news.  Don’t stand there staring up at the sky where Jesus’s feet used to be.  Get on with life, keep moving forwards, for Pentecost is coming!

And so today, as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost next week, let’s wave goodbye to the space where Jesus’s feet used to be, and let’s start dreaming about where God is calling us next.  Let’s intentionally release the burdens of the past that are weighing us down, so that we can dance our way into Pentecost; for the future that God has planned for us can be much more vibrant than the echoes of the past, if only we have the courage to be the dreamers who will lead us there.

And may it be so.  Amen.

"Spiritual Curiosity" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 10 – 6^th Sunday of Easter
Scripture Readings:  Acts 17:22-29 and John 14:15-21

This week, as I was driving to a meeting in Rothesay, I heard an interview with author Yann Martel.  He is probably best known for his book, Life of Pi, but he was being interviewed about his newest book called Son of Nobody.  Part-way through the interview he started talking about faith, and though he speaks of himself as someone with no specific religious faith - he talked about growing up in a world post-silent revolution where religion was actively discouraged at home and within his family - and yet he had some very interesting things to say about spiritual curiosity.

The whole interview was fascinating, and he has a lot to say about art and writing and faith, but then towards the end he says:

“Why, in an age of computers and vaccinations, do some people still have faith in these un-provable entities called gods?  But I’ve switched around 180 degrees in my thinking, and I don’t see the point of acting like a computer. Yes, I still disdain organized religion, but the quest for the divine, this idea that there’s more than just this material reality that surrounds us – it’s not a question of finding the answer, but why don’t you at least ask the question that there might be something beyond this?

“And once you start exploring that question of what might be beyond the rational, while still using the rational, you can still use your computer to analyze the sayings of Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with using rationality, but use it to go beyond the rational.  Because we’re not computers…  You want to make those leaps of faith, not that are violent, not that hurt anyone, but why not believe in those things if they make life more of a dance than a shuffle.  So my faith now is why wouldn’t I believe that there is more than all this

“I find that very act of faith, that leap, that investigation into the beyond, completely transforms the today. It makes it easier to let go, it makes an aspirational kind of life easier.  It is easier to be loving in a framework where love actually matters.”

*****

Because I heard this interview on Wednesday afternoon, as I was pondering today’s sermon, my brain connected it right away with the reading we heard from Acts this morning.  Yann Martel might have been the perfect audience for the Apostle Paul as he was speaking in Athens!

Paul has been on a couple of preaching tours around the Mediterranean, finding openings to tell people about Jesus.  Usually the first place he would go in any city was the synagogue – after all, Jesus was Jewish, Paul himself was Jewish, and both of them were interpreting the Jewish scriptures.  And that is what Paul did when he arrived in Athens, just before the story that _____ read for us today.

But in Athens, after visiting the synagogue and speaking with the Jewish community there, Paul goes out into the public square and takes an opportunity to preach to the non-Jewish residents of Athens, and that is the story that we heard.

And Paul begins by commending the people of Athens for their spiritual curiosity.  He talks about all of the statues to different gods that he has seen around the city, including a statue to an unknown God.

And into this context of a pantheon of gods, Paul tells them about the God that he worships.  He never tells them that they are wrong, but is rather presenting his God as another option.

And in contrast to an unknown God, Paul tells the people that the God that he worships is a very present God.  The God that Paul worships isn’t a statue, but is present in every place and in every time.  The God that Paul worships created everything in the universe.  To borrow Yann Martel’s language, this Divine Being is who is behind the material reality that surrounds us.

But not only that, the God who created the material world chose to become part of the material world in the person of Jesus.  God didn’t just create the world and walk away – God became present in the world.  On Christmas morning, I shared the image from author C. S. Lewis that it is as if an artist paints a landscape, then finds a way to step into the painting and become part of what they created.

And even though Jesus lived 2000 years ago, and died, and was resurrected, and then ascended into heaven, God is still very present with us by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God working in every atom of creation, in every person, in every rock, in every tree, drawing us all into the dance of God.

And so today, I invite you to embrace your spiritual curiosity.  I invite you to look beyond the material world and embrace the quest for what is in and through and beyond the material world that we see around us.  For God is very present, if only our senses are tuned in to notice.

God is present in the bread and the cup that we will share in a few minutes – every crumb of the bread and every drop of the juice is God saying to us, “I love you.”

God is present in all of the love that we share with one another and with the people in our lives.

God is present when we make an offering to help another, whether we are offering our time, our talents, or our treasure.

God is present when the sunlight sparkles on the water of the river.  God is present when the bird sings on the branch of the tree.  God is present when a piece of music speaks to our heart.  God is present when space is created so that those without a voice can be heard.

We aren’t computers.  We aren’t robots.  We aren’t driven by artificial so-called-intelligence.  We are living, breathing human beings, created in the image of God and given life by the divine breath.

And so let us embrace our spiritual curiosity!  Let us keep our hearts open to perceive that which is beyond the mechanical and material, and let us keep our hearts open to love.

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

“Cloud of Unknowing”
Kelly Latimore
Used with Permission.

"Of White Hearts and Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 3, 2026 – Mental Health Sunday
Scripture Readings:  Lamentations 5:15-22 and John 13:31-35

So… Lamentations… probably not the most popular book in the bible.  When I was putting together today’s service, I actually had to look it up in the table of contents – I thought that it was closer to the Psalms, but it is there in the midst of the prophets, right after Jeremiah.

Though if I had thought about it a bit more, I might have been able to guess where it is found, because we looked at Lamentations in bible study a couple of months ago; and I if I had remembered the context for this book, that would have given me a hint.

Lamentations is a collection of five laments, each one presented as a different chapter, lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple after the invading Babylonian army came through.  And since Jeremiah was prophesying at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, it makes sense for Lamentations to be the next book in the Old Testament.

When we lament, we cry out to God.  We complain about the unfairness of the world.  We rage at the injustices.  We ask God, “how long?  How long until you will make the world right?  How long until you will answer our prayers?  How long will you be silent?  How long will you ignore me and my cry?  How long?”

The people of ancient Israel have every cause to lament at this point in their history.  They have been taken away from their land, from the Promised Land, from the land that Moses had led their ancestors to after escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert wilderness for 40 years.  This promised land has now been taken from them.  And the temple too – the temple where they used to offer their sacrifices to God, the center-point of their religious life, the very home, the dwelling place of God – this temple has been reduced to rubble.

And the people lament.  They cry out to God.  God, why have you forgotten us?  Our hearts are sick, our joy is gone, our dancing has been turned into mourning.  Why, God, have your forgotten us?  Why, God, have you forsaken us?

The purpose of lament isn’t to try and justify suffering.  There often isn’t any explanation for suffering, or way to justify it.  The sole purpose of lament is to let out the pain, to let out the rage, to let out the grief.  And sometimes, just sometimes, by letting it all out, there is some relief felt because we are no longer keeping it all bottled up inside.

And if you think about it, lament is an act of deep faith.  Because if we didn’t believe that God could hear us, then there would be no point to it.  When we are yelling at God, when we are pouring out our anger and our pain, we are trusting that somehow, somewhere, God hears us.

I am going to circle around to our theme for today, which is Mental Health Sunday.  And I chose to read a lament today because sometimes lament is the only appropriate response to things.

In our world today, mental health disorders tend to be the illnesses that come with the most stigma attached.  Our society tends to downplay the impact of mental health challenges.  We wouldn’t say to someone with cancer, “Oh, you don’t need to see an oncologist. You just need to think positive thoughts and you will get better.”  And yet people think that it is OK to say to someone with an anxiety disorder, “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little optimism won’t cure.”  Likewise, we wouldn’t say to someone with a deadly infection, “You don’t need antibiotics – prayer will cure you.”  And yet people think that it is OK to say to someone with depression, “Medication won’t help you – you just need to pray harder and you’ll feel better.”

Society tends to blame people for mental health disorders, and fear people with mental health disorders; and as a result, people who are struggling can find it difficult both to admit that they are struggling, and to seek out help.  People with severe mental health conditions, whether it be schizophrenia or an addiction, can find it difficult to access other services not related to their mental health.  And all of this can lead to isolation.

And sometimes, the only appropriate response is to lament.  We lament the stigma in our world towards mental health disorders.  We lament the underfunding of mental health treatment programs.  We lament all of the barriers to access help.

And for those of us who have struggled or continue to struggle with our mental health, the words of a biblical lament might also apply.  How long, O God?  How long am I going to have to suffer?  Why, O God?  Why do you feel so far away?  Why have you abandoned me?  Why have my friends and family and neighbours abandoned me?

But you may have noticed – and since you have been here for the past half hour or so, and, I assume, have been paying at least a little bit of attention – you probably noticed that we didn’t just hear from Lamentations.  We also heard a reading from the Gospel of John.

And the reading that we heard is probably best known as one of the readings on Maundy Thursday.  This is a section from what is often called Jesus’s Farewell Discourse, running from chapter 13 to chapter 18 of the Gospel of John.  Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples, his beloved friends, and leaving them with his final teachings.

And he says to his friends, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I, Jesus, have loved you, you also should love one another.”

This is the heart of who we are as a church.  We are a community that loves.  We love one another.  We love God.  We love our neighbours.  We love the world that God created.  We know that we are loved; and we know that we are called to love.

It was an intentional pairing today, bringing together this teaching with Lamentations on Mental Health Sunday.  I said that lament alone won’t cure anything, but it can make things easier to bear when we aren’t keeping our feelings bottled up inside us.  In the same way, a loving community won’t cure all mental health struggles, but a loving community can make those struggles easier to bear.

Because we are not alone.  We don’t need to navigate the world alone.  We know that God is with us; but even at times when it is hard to sense God’s presence, we have the love of this community, the love of this church, always surrounding us.  And that love can make it a bit easier to put one foot in front of the other as we navigate our struggles.

In a minute, Natalie is going to be talking about something that we, as a church, can do to share the love of this church with the wider community; but I hope that the ultimate take-home message from today is a message of love.  God loves you.  Even when you are struggling, God loves you.  Even when you are pouring out your lament, God loves you.  And this church loves you too.  No matter what you are going through in your life, this church loves you and will travel every step of the way with you.

For just as Jesus loves us, we are called to love one another.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

Operation White Heart was started by Gary Brown Sr.
in 2022 in New Brunswick after losing a friend to suicide.
Each heart gives a message of:
“You are not alone”
“We care”
“It’s OK not to be OK”
“You matter”
After today, there is now a white heart in front of both
Westfield United Church and Summerville United Church.

"Mary Magalene, The Tower" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday April 5 – Easter Sunday
Scripture:  John 20:1-18


I want to talk a bit about Mary Magdalene, since she plays kind of a big role in today’s story.  We don’t know a lot about Mary Magdalene from the bible, but all four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – have her present at the cross, witnessing Jesus’s crucifixion, and then present again at the empty tomb.  The details of the story in each gospel are different, but Mary Magdalene’s presence is one of the things that they have in common.

The gospel of Luke and the gospel of Mark tell us that Jesus had healed Mary Magdalene from seven demons; and Luke includes her in a list of wealthy women who were financing Jesus’s ministry.  And whenever there is a list of female disciples, Mary Magdalene is always listed first, as if she held a position comparable to Peter’s role in lists of male disciples.

It is almost more interesting to look for what the bible doesn’t tell us about Mary Magdalene.  No matter what you might have heard, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute.  That rumour goes back to Pope Gregory I in the year 591, more than 500 years after Mary was counted among Jesus’s disciples.

And we can probably thank author Dan Brown for popularizing the idea that Mary Magdalene was in a romantic relationship with Jesus – again, there is nothing in the bible that even hints at this.

Much as I love the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, when I was watching it on Friday afternoon, I was noticing how it latches on to both of these rumours.  Judas sings:  “It seems to me a strange thing, mystifying / That a man like you can waste his time / On women of her kind / It's not that I object to her profession / But she doesn't fit in well with what you teach and say.”  And then Mary herself sings, “I don’t know how to love him.”

So… Mary wasn’t Jesus’s wife, she wasn’t a prostitute, she was present for Jesus’s death and resurrection, and she held some sort of leadership role among Jesus’s disciples.

Probably the most popular explanation of her name says that she came from the town of Magdala, on the shore of the sea of Galilee – Mary of Magdala.  The only problem with this theory is that the town of Magdala didn’t exist in the time of Jesus.  Some recent scholarship suggests that possibly her name is a title – that she was Mary the Magdalene, not Mary of Magdala.  (In fact, in Greek, the writer of the gospel of John includes the article – she is Mary the Magdalene.). And the word Migdal means tower.  She is Mary the Tower.

Which can then lead to all sorts of speculation as we now have Mary the Tower alongside Peter the Rock serving as leaders among the disciples.

Looking at today’s story, on the first day of the week, on the day after the sabbath, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb where, just two days previously, she had seen her teacher’s body laid.  We aren’t told why she has come – possibly to mourn at the grave of one who was so cruelly murdered by the state.

But when she gets there, the massive stone that had covered the opening of the grave has been moved, and the body is gone.  I can only imagine her grief now mingled with rage.  What has happened to the body of her beloved?  She runs to get two of the other disciples who come, look around, confirm that there is no body, then go back to their homes, still not understanding what has happened, home to hide once more behind closed doors.

But not Mary – no, Mary stays there at the grave.  Even though the body she came to mourn is no longer there, she stays at the place where he was last seen.  She doesn’t rush past her grief, but she doesn’t hide away either.

And when Jesus appears, at first she doesn’t recognize him, so deep in her grief as she was.  But even though Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus, he recognizes her.  He recognizes her, and he calls her by name. And when Mary hears her name on the lips of the one she has followed, the blinders of grief fall away, and she knows, even as she is already known.

What a journey she has been on, from disciple, to mourner, to the first one to witness the risen Christ.  She is living out the words of Psalm 30 – her mourning has been turned to dancing, and her sackcloth of grief has been replaced by a garment of joy!

But her story doesn’t end here.  Jesus tells her to go – to go and find the other disciples and tell them what she has seen.  She doesn’t linger in the peace and joy of the garden, but goes to share the good news with others.  She becomes the apostle to the apostles.

And that, maybe, is the message for all of us.  We have been on a journey this week, from last Sunday’s parade of palms, through the tenderness of Thursday, through the pain and grief of Friday, through the waiting of Saturday.  And now we have come to the moment of fulfillment.  Our grief falls away, and we sing our Hallelujahs!  Christ the Lord is risen today!  The purple that adorned our church for the past 6 weeks has been replaced by gold and white, and we have feasted on chocolate eggs and hot cross buns.

But we can’t linger here at the empty tomb.  Just as he sent Mary out from the garden, Jesus sends us out to share the joy of Easter with the world.  The message of Easter – this message of new life and new beginnings and fresh starts – this message of hope, that the worst times we go through are never the last times – this message of Easter is too important, too exciting to keep to ourselves!  In a world where the dominant message seems to be one of death and despair, we are called to be bearers of hope.

So let us sing our Hallelujahs here this morning, but then let us carry our Hallelujahs out into the world, so that the whole world can share our joy!  Amen.

 

 

“Easter – Christ Appears to Mary”
JESUS MAFA
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Courage" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 29, 2026 – Palm Sunday
Scripture:  Matthew 21:1-11

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

When I think of Palm Sunday – and I suspect that the same might be true for many of you – I think of waving branches, of parades up and down the aisle of the church, of pageantry, of “All glory, laud, and honour / to you, Redeemer, King; / to whom the lips of children / made sweet hosannas ring.”  I think of the event that is usually titled “Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem” – Jesus riding on a donkey, cushioned by crowds of people shouting and singing their songs of praise.  I think of this event as a celebration, of a spiritual high to kick off Holy Week.

But if you look closely at what is happening, you might notice that something more is going on just below the surface.

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

When you look at that verse, the word “turmoil” is translated differently in different bible translations.  The whole city was in turmoil.  The whole city was stirred up.  The whole city was shaken.  The whole city was thrown into an uproar.  All the city was moved.  All the city was trembling with excitement.

But if you were to look back to the original Greek, the word used here means literally shaken.  The Greek word here is the origin to our word seismic.  There is a metaphorical earthquake going on in Jerusalem.  The city has been shaken to the very core of it’s being. The city was shook.

Our bible study peeps know that I don’t usually consider The Message to the most accurate translation of the original, but in this case, I think that maybe The Message is the most literally accurate:  “As he made his entrance into Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken.  Unnerved, people were asking, What’s going on here?  Who is this?’”

So maybe, instead of imagining cute children waving their branches and singing songs of praise while Jesus rides in to the city as the triumphant king, we might do better to imagine something a little more ominous, a little more foreboding, a little more fearful.

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

Remember that Jerusalem, and all of the land of Judea, was a country under occupation.  The Emperor off in Rome was calling the shots, and his army was enforcing the sometimes-arbitrary rules.  It was a superficial peace enforced by the threat of violence – pay your taxes, and don’t put a toe out of line or you’ll end up on the cross like all those other rabble-rousers and insurrectionists.

We’re also at the time of the Passover – a time when faithful Jewish people from all around the known world would have journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and worship at the temple.  The population of the city has swollen to two or three times the usual number of people.  It’s crowded.  It’s noisy.

And don’t forget that the festival of Passover celebrates their deliverance from slavery.  Their deliverance from a cruel empire that had treated them as less than human, and who had governed through violence.  What better time and place to plot deliverance from the current system of oppression?

The messiah, the saviour that people longed for was one who could deliver them from Rome and from the oppression of Empire.  Was this the year that their deliverer would arrive?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

At the time of the Passover, Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, would usually ride a war horse into Jerusalem in a show of military might and power, surrounded by legions of soldiers all armed with the most modern weapons, ready to keep the peace by violence if necessary.

Some people have speculated, have wondered if it is possible that Jesus was riding his donkey into Jerusalem at the same time as Pilate.  What a piece of theatre that would have been!  Here on one side of the city, the pomp and power of the Empire.  And here on the other side of the city, a lowly donkey, a rag-tag group of followers from the backwater of Galilee, and people waving branches cut from the nearby fields.  And the people shout out to Jesus, “Hosanna!”  “Save us, Son of David!”

The Power of Empire, or the Prince of Peace.  Where do you want to put your trust?  Which parade do you want to be in today?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

I don’t know if you have been following the news this weekend, but yesterday, millions upon millions of people across the US, across Canada, and around the world to protest against the power of empire.  And as I watched the news unfold this week, I thought that the timing of these marches was particularly striking, falling on Palm Sunday Weekend.

On one side, you have the power of Empire – the power to fire missiles and drop bombs; the power to block the movement of food and fuel; the power to arbitrarily detain people who are simply trying to live; the power to choose who lives and who dies.

And on the other side, we have throngs of people gathering together, choosing the power of non-violent protest.  People carrying signs that read:  “Support Biblical Values:  welcome migrants, believe women, and feed the poor.”  People carrying signs that read:  “Unity in our Community.”  People carrying signs that read:  “No kings. No ice. No war.”  People carrying signs that read:  “Democracy is worth protecting.”

The Power of Empire or the Prince of Peace.  Which parade do you want to be in today?

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.”

It is fun to wave our branches and sing our favourite Palm Sunday hymns – my personal favourite is coming up momentarily.  It is fun to kick off Holy Week with a parade.  But if we scratch even just a little bit below the surface, there is a lot more going on than it may seem.  There are forces at work in the story that want to silence Jesus and his message of peace.  There are forces at work in the world today that want to silence Jesus and his message of peace.

Between now and next Sunday, Jesus is going to go through a lot; and we, as the church, have a choice.  Our mission, should we choose to accept, is to accompany Jesus to the end of his story, and then beyond the end of his story to what will come next.  We could jump over the messy middle bits.  We could jump straight from today’s parade to next Sunday’s empty tomb.  Or we can stay with him.  We can stay with him through the tenderness of Thursday’s meal.  We can stay with him through the pain and grief of Friday.  We can wait outside the tomb through the stillness of Saturday.  And then we can be there next Sunday when the stone is rolled away and resurrection joy replaces the pain.

By choosing to wave our branches and march in the Jesus parade today, choosing the Prince of Peace over the Power of Empire, can we commit to seeing this journey through?  Can we commit to keeping our faith strong, even when things seem hopeless, trusting that peace will eventually overturn empires, and love will defeat death?

Which parade are you marching in today?

 

 

“Palm Sunday”
by Brandon Barr on flickr
Used with Permission

"Hungering for Newness" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 22, 2026 – 5^th Sunday in Lent
Scripture:  Ezekiel 37:1-14

I have a core memory of this story from Ezekiel, from my time at the Atlantic School of Theology.  My former classmate, David, is a drummer, and he brought a selection of hand drums and other percussion instruments to the chapel, and as the story was read, he used them to create a soundscape.  As the dry, desiccated bones began to shift around, and be connected one to another, the hollow rattling of the drum made it sound as though we were there, watching it happening alongside Ezekiel.  It still gives me goosebumps to remember how it sounded.

Now Ezekiel was a prophet from a time of exile.  The Babylonian army had laid siege to the city of Jerusalem, and eventually both the city and the country of Judah fell.  Lives were lost.  Families were torn apart.  Houses were destroyed.  Even the temple, the home of God, was reduced to rubble.  And then all of the leaders – anyone who was anyone in ancient Judah – was carried off to exile in Babylon.  And this was the place and the time where Ezekiel was a prophet.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the people in exile felt like they were old dry bones, thrown away into the pit of a valley.  Everything that had given their lives any meaning was gone. They were grieving the loss of their homes.  They were grieving the loss of their family members and friends.  They were grieving the loss of their old, familiar routines.  They were grieving the loss of their God, for the very home of God had been destroyed and they had been carried away into a land where foreign gods were in charge.

When I think of this time of early exile, I think of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon –
         there we sat down and there we wept
         when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
         we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
         “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
         in a foreign land?

It is no wonder that the people felt as dried up as dust, their flesh wasted away, their bones come out of joint, no marrow left in them. They didn’t just feel dead and lifeless – they felt dead-dead, so that there wasn’t even a hint of life left, and definitely no future for them.

And into this time and place of death and despair, God tells the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.  And with a hollow rattle, the bones begin to move.  More rattling and the bones begin to join together, joints forming where the humerus meets the ulna and where the femur meets the tibia.  More rattling, and then the rattling stops, as muscle and skin begin to form, flesh covering the bones that were.

And then God tells the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath.  And Ezekiel calls to the four corners of creation, and the wind, the breath, the spirit the ruach of God comes rushing in, filling the flesh-covered skeletons, and once again there is life.  The same breath of God that brought life to the first human made of dirt has brought the dry bones back to life.

And with this vision of new life, the people of God have been freed to dream of a future.  They are now free to imagine a future for themselves and for their children and for their grandchildren.  No longer are they marrow-less bones disposed of in a dry valley somewhere in exile – now they are vital, vibrant, joy-filled people filled with the breath of God.

It is such a powerful image of transformation.  I wonder what the people began to dream of, there in Babylon?  Did they dream of settling in to exile, of building homes and gardens, of weddings and new families?  For all of this took place in the generations spent in Babylon.  Or did they dream even bigger, dreaming of a time when their descendants would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and the temple?  Because even though the exile would last for three generations, a time would come when their descendants would return, and the rebuilding and restoration would happen.

Now what about for us?  How can we hear this vision of Ezekiel and take it in to our hearts?  In what places in your life to you relate to the dried-up old bones at the start of the story?

Are you carrying grief in your heart right now – grief over the loss of a loved one; grief over the loss of a relationship; grief over the loss of health; grief over the loss of independence.  In what places does it feel like your life is over, and there is no hope for the future?

But in to your personal valley of dried bones, the breath of God comes singing in.  God is a God of new beginnings and new life; and even when it feels like there can be no future for you, the breath of God only needs to turn the page, and a whole new chapter is waiting there for you to explore.

And what about the state of the world?  There is so much turmoil and disruption going on right now, from wars to inflation to homelessness to political instability on a global scale.  In some places, we seem to be moving backwards, losing progress that has been made on care for creation, on care for immigrants and refugees, on care for our trans and queer siblings.  Sometimes it feels as though we are slipping in to chaos, and will never be able to take a deep beath again.

But in to the valley of dried bones that is the world right now, the breath of God comes singing in.  For God is a God of new beginnings and new life; and even when it feels like there is no future for the world that doesn’t involve further destruction and despair, the breath of God can blow away the chaos and breathe new life and love and hope.

This winter, I’ve also been running up against despair for the future of our church – fear that we are entering our valley of the dried bones stage of our existence.  I’ve been running up against an inability to imagine a future for the church that is both lively and life-giving.

But into the valley of dried bones that some see the church lying in, the breath of God comes singing in.  The breath of God won’t blow us back to the church that was 10 years ago or 50 years ago, but will instead blow us into a future that we can dare to dream of – a future of rainbow-coloured beauty, a future of vibrancy and love, a future that is brought to life by the spirit-breath of God.

So Church – dearest, beloved Church – today, I hear a call to all of us from Ezekiel, calling us to prophesy to the Breath, prophesy to the Spirit, prophesy to the ruach.  Let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into our lives, giving life to our dry bones.  Let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into the world, giving life to all of the places of dry bones.  And let’s all of us call on the life-giving Breath of God to flood into our churches, restoring our imaginations so that we can dream the future in to being.

For if the Breath of God can bring life back to those hollow old bones, just think of what the Breath of God can do with all of us, who are already living!

 

 

“Life After Death”
by Willy Verhulst on flickr
Used with Permission