"O Holy (Awe-full) Night"

I wonder…

How did you travel

            from Nazareth to Bethlehem?

On the back of a donkey

            or by foot,

belly swollen,

            ankles swollen,

one tired foot in front of the other

            your beloved at your side

            and your God with you.

 

I wonder…

Did you know what was happening

            when your labour pains started?

Had you watched your mother giving birth,

            or another kinswoman;

or were you terrified,

            convinced you were dying?

 

I wonder…

Did you labour alone,

            or did a midwife attend you?

Who reminded you to breathe,

            encouraged you to push,

            reassured you that it would be over soon?

 

I wonder…

On the threshold of new life

            emerging into this world,

you also stood on the threshold of death,

            blood and amniotic fluid

            staining the hay.

Did you have a sense of the shadow of death

            lurking in the corner,

            waiting to pounce

                        should anything go wrong?

 

I wonder…

Did your baby latch easily to your breast

            or did he squawk and squall,

            hungry for that which only you could give?

Did your baby settle easily,

            “no crying he makes”;

or did he fuss

            at the unexpected shock

                        of air?

 

I wonder…

As you slipped into exhausted sleep,

            overwhelmed by the newness of it all,

did you remember

            that the newness in your life

            was an echo of the newness in the world?

Did your soul still magnify the Lord?

Did the light of love

            shine from the manger,

on that holy, awe-full night?

 

 

"A Blessing of Joy" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

December 18, 2022 – Advent 4

Scripture:  2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:10

 

 

(Note:  this Advent, we are exploring the stories from Jesus’s family tree recounted in Matthew 1:1-17 – specifically the stories of the 5 women who are named there. Each week, one woman is going to visit us, share her story, and offer a blessing to the newborn child lying in a manger.)

 

 

I was the lamb in that story that Nathan told to David.  Only I wasn’t a lamb – I was a human woman, and I have a name.  I am Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, and later the wife of King David.

 

I was beautiful when I was young, and Uriah and I were very much in love with one another.  But one day the king woke up from his afternoon nap, and strolled out onto the patio on his roof where he could spy into all of the gardens of the houses around him.

 

I thought that our garden was private, and I was taking advantage of the warm afternoon to bathe so that my long hair could dry in the sun.  But the king saw me, and he lusted after me, and he had his servants fetch me to bring me to him.

 

What could I do?  He was the king.  He was stronger than me, and more powerful than anyone else in the land.  If I had refused, what might he have done to me, or to my loved ones?

 

When I got home, I wept for days on end.  I wept for the violation of my body.  I wept for the woman that I had been.  I was afraid to go back into the garden.  I was afraid to even open the curtains on the windows.  I sat in the dark hot house and let the tears run down my face.

 

My husband was in the army and he had been away fighting, and around the time that he came home, I discovered that I was pregnant.  I sent word to the king, because I didn’t know what else I could do.

 

But instead of helping me, instead he sent my beloved, my Uriah, back into battle, right to the front lines where he was sure to be killed.  And he was killed.  And my heart kept on breaking.

 

At some point, in the middle of my grief, I was brought to the palace again, and the king made me his 8^th wife.  My baby was born, but he never thrived.  I think that even without realizing it, my baby was carrying the grief of his mother and the guilt of his father.  He didn’t eat well, even from the time he was born.  Perhaps grief made my milk bitter.  And when he got sick, his frail little body couldn’t fight it, and before I knew it, he was gone.

 

I would later bear another baby boy who I named Solomon, but he would never replace my first baby who died.

 

I experienced so much suffering in my life.  The violation of my body.  The murder of my husband.  The death of my baby.  By all rights, I should have become angry and bitter.  By any logical reasoning, my heart should have never stopped grieving, and I never should have left the seclusion of my room.

 

But I have always been a woman of faith.  I have always known that God-whose-name-is-Holy is with me.  I think that even in my moments of deepest grief, I have been able to sense that divine presence.  And despite everything that happened to me in my life, joy gradually seeped back in to my heart..

 

Joy doesn’t make any sense.  It’s not linked to anything that happens in our lives – if it was, then I don’t think that I would ever have been able to feel joy after what I went through.

 

But one day I noticed that I woke up with a song playing in my heart and in my head.  The next month, I found myself laughing at a joke that one of the other women in the palace made.  And then one day I was alone in the garden and the sunshine was dancing with the shadows, and the scent of the flowers was in the warm air, and I could hear the sound of the bees buzzing gently, and I found myself filled with a deep sense of peace, with a deep sense of the presence of God-whose-name-is-Holy, with a sense of deep joy.

 

These moments of joy that are always so unexpected gave me the courage to keep on living despite everything that had happened to me.  They gave me the strength to care for my children.  When my son Solomon was crowned as king after his father’s death, I was able to smile with him.

 

And you, child – you carry my blood in your veins, even though my name is not included in your genealogy.  I am only listed as the “wife of Uriah” but my name is Bathsheba.

 

And I offer you my blessing of joy.  Your life, like mine, isn’t going to be easy.  Your life, like mine, is going to have hardship and suffering and pain.  Your body, like mine, is going to be violated against your will by those with power.

 

But I offer you my blessing of joy, so that no matter what you are experiencing, no matter what hardships and suffering you face, your inner joy might flow through you like a mighty river, strengthening you and giving you the courage to face whatever your future might hold.  And may you always know the presence of God-whose-name-is-Holy.  Amen.

 

 

Hanging Gardens

Mumbai, India

(c) Kate Jones, 2013

 

"A Blessing of Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday December 11, 2022 – 3^rd Sunday in Advent

Scripture Reading:  Ruth 1:1-18

 

 

(Note:  this Advent, we are exploring the stories from Jesus’s family tree recounted in Matthew 1:1-17 – specifically the stories of the 5 women who are named there. Each week, one woman is going to visit us, share her story, and offer a blessing to the newborn child lying in a manger.)

 

 

I had three great loves in my life.

 

I am Ruth, the Moabite woman.  I was born in the land of Moab, and I died far from my birthplace in the land of Judah.

 

When I was young, my parents married me to Chilion.  Our neighbours thought that this was a strange choice – after all, he was the son of migrants, the son of people who had left their home because of drought and famine.  His family had no roots in Moab – on our wedding day, his only guests were his parents and his brother.

 

Chilion was my first great love – the love of my girlhood.  We had seen each other around our village, and we were the ones who had approached our parents to ask to be wed.  Once my parents saw that we were genuine in our affection for each other, they agreed.

 

And oh, we were happy together, but we had such little time together.  Only a few years after our marriage, Chilion woke up with a fever one morning, and by the next morning he was dead.

 

I thought that my heart would be buried along with his body.  The sobs and the grief felt like they would choke the life out of me.

 

But gradually I rediscovered the beautiful world around me.  The song returned to my heart and I began to notice the flowers again.  I owe so much of this to Naomi, Chilion’s mother.  She was grieving both of her sons as well as her husband who had all died from the same fever; and yet she still had a space in her heart to hold me tenderly.

 

Naomi was my second great love.

 

When our mourning period had ended, she announced that she was going to return to the land of Judah.  Word had reached her that the rains had begun to fall again, and there was food to be found in her homeland, and without her husband or her sons, she had nothing to keep her in the land of Moab.

 

She came to me and to my sister-in-law Orpah and told us that we should return to our parents’ homes.  She wasn’t going to be able to provide for us any longer; and since we were still young, maybe our families would be able to find new husbands for us.

 

Orpah went, but I couldn’t bear to be separated from Naomi.  No one in my family loved me the way that she did; and I couldn’t imagine loving another husband more than I loved Naomi.

 

I told her that I would go where she went and that I would stay where she stayed.  I told her that her people would be my people, and that her God would be my God.  I told her that I would be buried in the same place where she was buried so that even in death we would be together.

 

We made the journey together to Bethlehem in the land of Judah.  We lay together at nighttime, and were companions for each other along the way.  Despite the difficulty of that travel, and despite our vulnerability as two women traveling together, those months stand out in my memory as a time of beauty and of love.

 

It was not long after we reached Bethlehem that I met my third great love, Boaz.  He was a kind man, and a good man.  He didn’t harvest his field right to the edge, so that people like us who needed food would be able to glean from the edges.  He offered employment to people who needed it.  He made sure that anyone who was vulnerable was safe.  He did everything that our God commanded of him, and more.

 

And when he came to Naomi and offered to marry me, and to give the two of us a home, how could we refuse?  I went to Naomi and told her that I felt like I was abandoning her, and abandoning the love that we shared.  She held my shoulders, and looked me in the eyes, and said, “My Dear, you have so much love in your heart to give.  Your love for Boaz doesn’t mean that you have any less love for me.”

 

And now I offer you the same, my child.  You carry my blood in you.  My marriage to Boaz was blessed with children.  Our son Obed became the father of Jesse, and I lived to see the birth of Jesse’s son David who would become the king of all of Israel and Judah. And you, my child, you are the descendant of David.

 

I offer you the blessing of love.  Know that you are loved by the people around you, and know that you are loved by our God.  May this love that you receive flow through you, and become the love that you give.  May your love for the whole world be abundant and unconditional; and may your heart always dance in the pattern of love.  And may our God make it so.  Amen.

 

 

 “Ruth og Naomi” – Laurits Tuxen

Public Domain

"A Blessing of Peace" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday December 4, 2022 – 2^nd Sunday of Advent

Scripture Reading:  Joshua 2:1-16

 

 

(Note:  this Advent, we are exploring the stories from Jesus’s family tree recounted in Matthew 1:1-17 – specifically the stories of the 5 women who are named there. Each week, one woman is going to visit us, share her story, and offer a blessing to the newborn child lying in a manger.)

 

 

All that your book records about me is that I was a prostitute.  I was someone who sold my body in exchange for money that would buy me enough food for the day and keep a shelter over my head for another night.

 

What your book doesn’t tell you is that I had no other choice.  I stand in the middle of a long line of women stretching through history who have not had a choice about their own lives and their own bodies.  Tell me – if you had to choose between selling your body and starving to death and watching your whole family starve to death, what would you choose?

 

My name is Rahab. I lived in Jericho, that great walled city.  In such a large city, with so many traders and travellers passing through, I was never short on customers.  I could almost always earn enough coins to be able to buy bread for my parents and my siblings.

 

It wasn’t a very joyful existence, but at least it was existence.  It was better than the alternative.

 

Before this day that I’m telling you about, we had heard rumours about these descendants of Israel.  We had heard that their God was powerful enough to part the waters of the sea so that the people could just walk across to the other side like it was dry land.  We had heard that their God was travelling with them, through the desert, as a pillar of smoke during the day and as a pillar of flame during the night.  We had heard that their God had promised them land, and we had heard that the land that their God had promised them was the same land on which we were living.  Can you imagine that?  Their God had promised them our land? I’m not quite sure how that is supposed to work; but now that I can see across time and space, I know that this is something that has happened in many times and places in this world.  And now the latest rumours said that 40 years after they had left Egypt, some of the descendants of Israel had crossed the Jordan River and were now right here, in our land.

 

Rumour was, that war was right on our doorstop.

 

And so, when two unfamiliar men showed up at my door, I suspected right away that they were descendants of Israel.  They told me that they had been sent to spy on the city, to get the lay of the land, and then report back to their leader.

 

In that split second, I had to make a decision.  War was inevitable.  My city of Jericho was likely going to be the first target.  So… do I stay loyal to my people and turn these spies away and likely be killed by them so that I couldn’t reveal their presence?  If I had died, my family would have starved to death.  Or do I become a traitor to my own people, and let them into my home and hide them from my own people?

 

I believe that you have an expression, being stuck between a rock and a hard place.  That is where I was.  Living on the margins, and living in a time of war forces us to make difficult decisions in order to survive – which is the least worse of two bad options?  I’ve spent my whole life always trying to make the next best decision for me and for my family.

 

I let the spies into my house.  My family couldn’t afford to lose me.  But as I did so, I negotiated the best deal that I could.  In exchange for sheltering the spies from my own people, they had to promise safety for me and for my family.  When the invasion of our city came, they had to get all of us out of there.

 

And that day came, and first there was a siege of the city and a time of hunger, a time of starvation; and then the walls of Jericho fell; and then everyone who lived in Jericho was killed.

 

Everyone except for me and my family.  We were given a home within the descendants of Israel and came under the protection of the God of Israel.  Even with my past, I was given a husband, and I had a family of my own.

 

Was I a hero, or was I a traitor?  I don’t know.  Both, maybe?  I was just doing what I needed to do to survive in a time of war.

 

And you, my child – many, many generations later, you carry my blood in you.

 

And I offer you my blessing of peace.  Like me, you are going to live through troubled times; and as you navigate the troubles of your times, I give you the blessing of inner peace so that you know that your God is with you.  May your God guide you, so that you can know that you are always doing the next best thing.  May that peace fill your heart and your whole self, my sweet child.  Amen.

 

 

Stained Glass Window over the door

at Westfield United Church

"A Blessing of Hope" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday November 27, 2022

First Sunday in Advent

Scripture Reading:  Genesis 38:1-30

 

 

(Note:  this Advent, we are exploring the stories from Jesus’s family tree recounted in Matthew 1:1-17 – specifically the stories of the 5 women who are named there. Each week, one woman is going to visit us, share her story, and offer a blessing to the newborn child.)

 

 

At one point, long before my story was over, it felt like it was over.

 

My name is Tamar.  Your book doesn’t record anything about my life before I was married to Er, but please believe me when I say that it was a happy one.  I was the firstborn child of my mother, but I don’t remember a time when I was her only child.  I spent my time helping her with my younger brothers and sisters.  She used to tell me that I needed to get lots of practice now, because some day I would have my own children to look after!

 

I used to bring them with me when I went to fetch water from the well.  I used to tell them stories about El, the God of our people.  Sometimes I had to chase a snake away from them, but sometimes we would watch the birds as they hopped from tree to tree.

 

Then the day came when my parents told me that I was old enough – it was time for me to be married and have a family of my own.  They had arranged for me to be married to Er, the son of Judah and the grandson of Jacob.

 

There was much celebration that day.  I had been the first-born child of my parents, and now I was the first child to leave their tents.  I remember feasting and music and dancing, and palm wine.  I remember meeting my new husband and feeling shy, and a bit afraid, and yet full of dreams for what our future might hold.  The family I had grown up in had been a happy one, and I knew that ours would be too.

 

But it wasn’t to be.  We had only been married for a couple of months when Er died.  People said that he must have done something wrong, for God to have taken him so suddenly, but I don’t think that this could be true.  He was a good man, and he was always kind to me.  But we had barely had a chance to get to know each other, so while I went through the motions of mourning, I didn’t really feel deep sadness at his loss.

 

Our people believe in caring for widows, and so according to our practice, when the period of mourning was over, rather than being thrown from the tents of my in-laws, I was married to Er’s brother Onan.  There was less celebration this time – this marriage was a duty.  Onan was to keep me safe, and in exchange I was to provide children so that their family could continue.

 

But again, it wasn’t to be.  No children were to be had, and before a year had passed, Onan died too.  I was now a double-widow.  People started to whisper that I was bad luck, having lost two husbands.  I saw Judah and his wife, Bat Shu’a, start to look at me a little bit sideways.  People were afraid to talk to me.

 

When my second period of mourning was over, rather than marrying me to their third son, Shelah, Judah and Bat Shu’a told me that he was too young to be married, and they sent me back to my parents’ tent to wait.

 

And I waited.  Being in my parents’ tent wasn’t the same as it had been before I was married.  My help wasn’t needed with the children any more, as they were all old enough to watch themselves.  My sisters who were closest to me in age had been married and were looking after families of their own.  I had nothing to fill my days but to sit in my widow’s clothes, and wait, and feel the disappointment of my family wrapped around me.

 

And I waited.  Bat Shu’a died, but still Judah didn’t send for me to marry Shelah.  I waited, and eventually I realized that he was never going to send for me.  Shelah was grown up and old enough to be married, but Judah was so afraid of losing him, the way he had lost Er and Onan, that he was never going to send for me.

 

I was still young, but it felt like my life was over.  I was going to have to spend the rest of my years wrapped in my widow’s clothes sitting in my parents’ tent.  No husband. No family of my own.  This was to be the end of my story.

 

But then one day, I remembered the stories of El, the God of our people, that I used to tell to my siblings.  I remembered the story of the rainbow which promised Noah that the end was never the end.  I remembered the story of Sarah who had born a child decades after it should have been possible.  And I remembered that with El, the ending is never really the ending.

 

And so I did what I needed to do.  I exchanged my widow’s robes for coloured robes with a veil over my face.  I sat by the road where I knew Judah was going to pass, but I didn’t tell him who I was.  He thought that I was selling my body, and I didn’t dissuade him.  I let him lie with me, and when I returned to my parents’ tent, I discovered that at last I carried a child within my body.

 

When Judah heard that his widowed daughter-in-law was pregnant, he was scandalized.  He said that I must be stoned to death, as is the punishment for adulterers.  He didn’t want me to marry his son, but now it seemed that he didn’t want me to marry anyone.

 

But I am craftier than he is.  You see, when he lay with me, he had given me his ring; and when I was called before him, I was able to show him his own ring, and then he knew that this was his child.  And then he realized that he had done me wrong.

 

When it was time for my baby to be born, I learned that there were two of them within me, twins, and I named them Perez and Zerah; and they grew up and had families of their own, and then I was a grandmother.  And the generations passed, until you were born, sweet baby, a descendent of Perez, and a child who carries my blood in you.

 

And I offer you the blessing of hope, sweet one.  As you go through your life, know that the ending is never the ending.  Even when it seems as though death and despair are all that you will ever know, I give you the blessing of hope so that you can know that new life awaits you on the other side.  May the hope that helped me in my life, guide your heart through yours.  May El, the God of our people, make it so.  Amen.

 

 

 Our Advent Candle of Hope shines brightly,

dispelling the gloom.

"This Isn't the End of the Story" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday November 13, 2022

Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 65:17-25

 

 

Earlier this year, I told a family member that I had made a donation on their behalf to Hestia House; and because my family isn’t from here, I had to explain that Hestia House is a shelter for women and children who are escaping domestic violence and abuse.  My family member said thank you for the donation, and that women’s shelters were something that they thought should always be supported; and I made a passing comment along the lines that I agreed, and that they are organizations that I will support until a time comes when they aren’t needed any more.  And to that, my family member laughed – “Ha!  Like that time will ever come.”

 

And that took me aback and made me think.  And I realized that I have to believe that the time will come.  I have to believe that a different world is not only possible, but it getting closer and closer all the time.  I think that if I wasn’t able to believe this, I would fall into despair, and the despair would paralyze me so that I wouldn’t be able to do anything.  I have to believe that the future holds something better than the brokenness of the present; however unlikely that future might seem from the perspective of the present.

 

Isaiah, like several other prophets in the bible, was a prophet of the exile.  (Side note – the book of Isaiah was likely written by three different people at three different points of time – before the exile to Babylon, in the middle of the exile, and just before returning to the land they had been taking from.)  The passage we heard today is from almost the very end of Isaiah – the people had seen their city and their temple destroyed 70 years ago, and had been carried away into a foreign land.  They had deeply grieved everything that they had lost, but then had built houses for themselves, they had learned to grow crops in this new place, they had married and children had been born.  Two generations had passed.  Almost everyone who was originally brought to Babylon is now dead, and it is their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are living in Babylon.  70 years and two generations – talk about circumstances where you can’t imagine anything ever being any different.

 

And yet God promises them that something different and something better is coming.  In the middle parts of Isaiah, God talks about raising the valleys and lowering the mountains and smoothing out the road so that the people would be able to return from exile.  And now at the end of Isaiah, God looks even further into the future and using beautiful poetic language describes a time that is coming – a new heaven and a new earth.  A time when there will be no more weeping and no more distress.  A time when a person a hundred years old will be considered young.  A time when there will be food enough for everyone.  A time when all of creation will be governed by peace so that a lamb is safe to lie down next to a wolf, and not a single person will hurt another single person.

 

And I have to trust that God, who has been trustworthy in the past – a God who did make a way for the people to return home from exile; a God who did lead Moses and the people to safety through the waters of the sea; a God who created the whole universe and called it good – I have to trust that since God has been trustworthy in the past, God will be trustworthy in the future.

 

And more than just God’s previous track record – I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it – but we are an Easter people.  We know that the end is never the end.  We know that Good Friday with all of its suffering and death and despair and abandonment isn’t the end of the story, because Easter and new life and new beginnings is just around the corner.  Because, as author Frederick Buechner wrote, “resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.

 

I don’t know everything that is going on in your life right now.  I don’t know if you are going through a time of exile like the ancient Israelite people – the exile of grief, the exile of illness, the exile of a struggling immune system that means that you have to be very careful these days about contact with other people.  I don’t know if you are going through a Good Friday time in your life right now – a Good Friday of despair, a Good Friday of exhaustion, a Good Friday of abandonment, a Good Friday of pain and suffering.

 

But while I don’t know everything that you are going through right now, what I do know is that exile isn’t the end of your story.  Good Friday isn’t the end of your story.  God gives us a glimpse, through these words of Isaiah, of what is coming.  Jesus gives us a glimpse, through his resurrection, of what is coming.

 

And once we catch a glimpse of what is coming, that doesn’t mean that we sit back and passively wait for it to get here.  No – instead once we can see what is coming, then the Holy Spirit working in us makes us increasingly uncomfortable with the brokenness that we see in the world around us.  We look around and we see poverty and hunger and violence and war and abuse and inequal sharing of the world’s resources… and none of this lines up with God’s dream for the world.

 

And that is when the vision for the future has the ability to transform the present – it has the ability to transform our lives so that we can be people who work for a better world.

 

As I said to my family member earlier this year – I will continue to donate to Hestia House and other shelters for people fleeing domestic abuse until the time comes when they aren’t needed any more.  And I have to believe that this time will come – even if it isn’t in my lifetime – because that is what motivates me to work for change in the right now.

 

For this isn’t the end of the story.  The wars and the violence and the suffering that we see around us or that we experience ourselves isn’t the end of the story.  God’s dream for the world is more beautiful, more loving, more peace-filled than anything that we could ever imagine.  We have to trust that the exile will end someday, that Easter will eventually dawn, that the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and all of creation will be at peace.  And may this time come soon.  And may it come soon.  And may it come soon.  Amen.

 

Right after the sermon, we sang “When Hands Reach Out Beyond Divides” – the words matched this reflection perfectly.

 

 

 

Photo Credit:  “hope” by fen-tastic on Flickr

Used with Permission