"Gratitude, Service, Love, and Feet" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 26 – 5^th Sunday in Lent

Scripture Reading:  John 12:1-8

 

 

Last week we read about the time when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and we pondered how both Lazarus and Jesus were changed by this episode in their lives.  This week, we are back at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, but this time Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, takes centre stage.

 

What must these days have been like for Mary?  She and Martha watched their brother get sicker and sicker.  They sent word to their friend Jesus, someone who was known to everyone to be a healer and miracle worker, someone who could give sight to a blind man, someone who could make a lame person walk again, someone who could even walk on water.  But then after they had sent word to ask their Jesus to come to their brother’s side to do for his friend what he had done for strangers, after they had sent word, but before Jesus arrived, Lazarus died.

 

And still Jesus didn’t come.  They prepared their brother’s body for burial.  They anointed his body with the prescribed ointments and perfumes.  They wrapped his body in bands of cloth.  They had someone unseal the family tomb by rolling aside the stone that covered the entrance.  They laid the body of their brother in the tomb, and then they resealed the mouth of the cave.

 

And then they and their community continued to mourn, but still Jesus didn’t come to them.

 

Four days after they buried their brother, finally Jesus shows up.  Martha runs out to greet him first, and then tells Mary that he is here.  Mary leaves her house and goes to the edge of the village where the tombs are, and standing there is Jesus.  She falls at his feet, and there in the dust she sobs out her accusation, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

 

Her heart must have been broken into a million pieces.  Her brother is dead, and the one person who would have been able to save him didn’t get there until 4 days after he was buried.

 

But she watches.  She watches as Jesus begins to weep, mourning the death of his friend.  She watches as he orders the other people in the village to move the stone away from the mouth of the grave.  She watches and listens as her sister protests – after 4 days, Lazarus’s body would be beginning to decompose and the stench is going to be some awful.  She watches as Jesus prays, then calls into the mouth of the cave.  And then she watches as her brother scrambles out of the tomb, still with the bands of cloth wrapped around him.

 

From grief to amazement to joy to maybe a little bit of fear at what is happening, all in one short story.

 

And now, with today’s story, we are back at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and this time the siblings are hosting a banquet in honour of Jesus.  Lazarus is there at the table, along with Jesus, his disciples, and the other guests.  Martha is busy in the kitchen, overseeing the food preparation, and serving their honoured guests.

 

And in comes Mary, carrying an extraordinary amount of expensive perfume made of pure nard – a thick, yellowish coloured oil with a heavy, woody, sweet, spicy, musky smell.  As she pours it over Jesus’s feet, the smell of it would have filled the room. The smell of it likely lingered in the room for days, for weeks after that night.  And then to the amazement of everyone watching, she gets down and uses her hair to rub the oil into his feet.

 

Washing the feet of a guest isn’t what is amazing about this story – it was the practice to welcome guests to your house by washing the dust off of their feet… or, more likely, having a servant was their feet for them.  Oil for anointing isn’t what is amazing about this story – again, it was the practice to pour a little perfumed oil on the heads of your guests as a sign of welcome.

 

What is amazing about this story is the extravagance of the gesture, almost a pound of rare oil, costing 300 denarii, or almost a full year’s salary for a day labourer.  Can you imagine taking $20,000 worth of perfume and pouring it over the feet of a guest to your home?  This is Mary’s gesture of gratitude for what Jesus has done for her family.

 

This story that we heard today looks back to the chapter that came before – the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  But I also think that it looks forward to the story that comes in the next chapter.

 

The next day, when Jesus and his disciples leave the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, they are going to enter the city of Jerusalem. This is the Palm Sunday parade that we are going to read about next week.  And then in a few days, Jesus and his disciples are going to gather together to celebrate the Passover… this is the story that we will be reading on Maundy Thursday at Westfield.  Remember that during this meal, Jesus pours some water in a basin, and gets down on the floor, and washes the feet of his disciples.  Granted that this is water that he is using, rather than perfumed oil, but Jesus is now putting himself in the same position that Mary was in just a few days earlier, washing and drying the feet of the people around him.

 

And Jesus tells his disciples, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”  Mary washes Jesus’s feet.  Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.  Jesus tells his disciples that they are to wash each other’s feet.

 

Which, I think, circles us back to the story we heard today.  One of the challenging bits of the story is when Judas argues that the perfume ought to have been sold and the money given to the poor.  This is challenging because I have a deep sympathy for what Judas is saying here, and given what is about to unfold, I don’t want to find myself on Judas’s side!  And then Jesus replies that “You always have the poor with you, but you don’t always have me.”

 

We are to serve the poor in the world as if we are serving Jesus, literally or metaphorically washing the feet of anyone who carries the image of Christ within them… which, to me, is everyone.  Every time we love our neighbour with our actions, we are serving someone who carries the image of Christ.  Every time we live our love in the world… making sandwiches for Romero House, putting food in Ida’s Cupboard, offering a ride to a neighbour who doesn’t drive, phoning someone to check in with them, offering to pray for someone… every time we live our live, we are serving Jesus in the same way that Mary did.

 

And so this story of extravagant service, when we read it alongside the story of raising Lazarus that came before, and alongside the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples which is going to come next – these stories become an interconnected web of love and service and gratitude, looping back and forth, weaving together into one story.

 

And at the heart of that story is love.  We are grateful for what we have.  We love God and love our neighbour.  We serve God by serving our neighbour.  And at the heart of all of it is love.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

Image:  “foot washing at FPCD – symbols of Maundy Thursday”

by Jim on flickr

Used with Permission

"Death is Not The End" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 19, 2023 – 4^th Sunday of Lent

Scripture:  John 11:1-44

 

 

This year, during Lent, we have been reading stories about people who encountered Jesus, people whose lives were changed because of their encounter with Jesus.  And today, we probably have the most dramatic story of a life that was changed by an encounter with Jesus.  At the beginning of the story, Lazarus is dead. By the end of the story, after Jesus shows up, Lazarus is alive.

 

When I read this story, three thoughts come immediately to my mind.  The first thing I think of is how hard this story is for any of us who have ever lost a loved one, how hard it is to read the story of Lazarus for any of us who have prayed through our tears for just a little bit more time with a loved one.

 

My second thought is to wonder if Jesus was also changed by his encounter with Lazarus.  After all, Lazarus had been his friend, and Lazarus had died.  We hear that Jesus wept at the grave of his friend.  I think that all of us are changed by grief – we aren’t the same person after we have experienced grief as we were before… even when we have figured out how to keep on going; even once laughter returns to our life; even when we have reconnected with the people in our life, and even when we have connected with new people.  Grief changes us; and so I wonder if Jesus was changed by his experience of grief at the death of his friend.

 

My third immediate thought is that I wonder what Lazarus’s post-death life was like.  We read stories and newspaper headlines about people who have had a near-death experience, and how their subsequent lives have been changed and shaped by that near-death experience.  And here we have Lazarus – his experience wasn’t a near-death one, but an actual death experience.  Did he live the rest of his life appreciating every moment as it came, savouring every conversation, relishing every hug, seeing the colours of the sky and the trees with increased vibrancy?  Or did he mourn the loss of his connection with God that he had experienced when his body was dead and in the tomb?  Did he live the rest of his life longing to get back to the love and the peace that he had experienced there?  His post-tomb life must have been different than his pre-tomb life, and I wonder how he was changed.

 

Those are my thoughts, my ponderings when I read this story; but the question that I always wrestle with when I read this story is the same question that I ask every year on Good Friday.  Why did Lazarus have to die?  Why couldn’t Jesus have just transformed him without the pain and the messiness of death and the tomb?  We hear this same question in the form of an accusation on the voices of his sisters, Mary and Martha when they cry out to Jesus – “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

 

Their accusation becomes even more heartbreaking to those of us who overheard Jesus and his disciples, because Mary and Martha had sent word to him ahead of time to let him know that his beloved friend was sick.  We read that Jesus and his disciples lingered for two more days in the place that they were before making the journey to Bethany.  And when they did finally get to Bethany, Lazarus was already dead and buried.  It might not have made a difference in the outcome – after all, Lazarus had been in the tomb for 4 days by the time Jesus and his disciples arrived.  He wasn’t just dead but he was dead-dead.  But I always wonder if, just maybe, if Jesus had rushed to his friends’ side, the story might have been different.  Why did Lazarus have to die?

 

The thing about being a follower of Jesus is that it doesn’t protect us from death.  Lazarus had to die because every human dies.  Jesus doesn’t remove death.  Stopping death isn’t the good news of Jesus’s message.

 

But the good news of Jesus is that death isn’t the end.  We see this every year on Good Friday and Easter – when Jesus dies and it seems as though death has won, every year resurrection is waiting for us on the other side.  No Good Friday lasts forever, even when it seems as though the pain goes on and on and on.  Death isn’t the end of our story.  Pain isn’t the end of our story.  Abandonment isn’t the end of our story.  No Good Friday, no time of pain and suffering lasts forever.  Easter is always coming.

 

And so the good news in this story is for you any time you are going through Good Friday moments in your life.  Suffering is not the end of your story.  Pain is not the end of your story.  Abandonment is not the end of your story.  Your gut-wrenching grief is not the end of your story.  Your life is going to bloom in ways that you could never expect in the right now.  Resurrection, in whatever form it might take, is waiting for you just around the corner.

 

And even more than that, even as you wait through your Good Friday times, the other part of the good news is that God is with you.  God isn’t like Gonzo in A Muppet Christmas Carol – incidentally, the very best Christmas movie ever.  If you have seen this movie, you might remember that when the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come appears at the end of the movie, Gonzo, playing Charles Dickens, says that this part is too scary for even him, and he will meet the viewers at the end of the story.  This isn’t God’s way.  God doesn’t disappear on Maundy Thursday and say “See you on Sunday!”  God is present in the pain of crucifixion.  God is present in the suffering of a child abandoned by a parent.  God is present in the suffering of a parent who loses a child.  God is present in the heart-breaking tears at the death of a friend.  God is present in all of these times because God has been there before.

 

And so even though Jesus doesn’t remove death, and we don’t get to bypass around death or suffering or heartbreak, even still God is with us and death is not the end.  Easter is coming.

 

And just as Lazarus left the tomb and began again, we too are continually being given the opportunity to begin again.  The way of Jesus doesn’t bypass the valley of the shadow of death, but rather travels through death, through anything that seems to be an ending, and on to new life and new beginnings.  Even the longest night eventually ends, the sun comes up, and a new day dawns.

 

And so the question I leave with you to ponder this week is, how are you going to live your new beginning?  As you emerge from the shadows of the tomb like Lazarus, as you step into the rising sun of a new day, how are you going to live your resurrected life?

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

Image Credit:  “Lazarus” by Robin on flickr

Used with Permission

"God of the Mud" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 12, 2023

Scripture:  John 9:1-41

 

 

Our bible story this week is another long story, like all of the stories we’re reading this Lent, and on the surface, it feels like a short episode that has been padded out to fill a chapter… not that students or writers ever do anything like that, right?!  We have an encounter between Jesus and a man who had been born without sight.  Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud out of spit and dirt then smears the mud on the man’s eyes.  Jesus tells him to go to an ancient pool of water in Jerusalem to wash, and when the man came back to Jesus, he could see for the first time in his life.

 

And then the rest of the chapter is dialogue – Jesus, his disciples, the man who can now see, his parents, and the Jewish leaders, all trying to understand what has happened. But despite all of their talk, I still have questions.

 

How come his neighbours don’t recognize him?  The only thing that has changed about him is that he can now see – there shouldn’t be any obvious outer change.  Are we the ones who are blind – blind to anyone who is different than us, to the point that we can’t see them unless they fit in with what we define as “normal”?

 

I also wonder about his parents.  We are told that they are afraid of the temple authorities, but I wonder how they felt about this change in their son.  Are the delighted that he can see, or do they mourn the loss of the son who they raised?

 

And finally – how can a gob of spit and some dirt make someone see?

 

But John doesn’t answer any of these question for us.  We have a man who begins the story in one place, he encounters Jesus, and he ends the story in another place.  His body is transformed by his encounter with Jesus, and now he can see.  The world which was previously hidden from him has now been revealed to him.  Jesus, an unknown stranger, is now literally visible to him, but also metaphorically he can now truly see who Jesus is.

 

And the religious leaders of the day… they don’t trust this sort of revelation.  They don’t trust a revelation that they don’t have control over.  And this is why Jesus tells them that even though they can see with their eyes, they are blind to who Jesus is and how God is working in the world.

 

To me, this is less a story about a man who was blind who can now see, and more a story about revelation.  Jesus has revealed the world to him, literally, in the sense of giving him sight, but also opening the eyes of his heart so that he can see God-in-Jesus, re-shaping and transforming the world.

 

Yesterday was the 3-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic.  I’m sure that most of us remember this time 3 years ago in great detail.  On March 11, I was in Halifax attending research presentations; on March 12, I came home a day earlier than planned; on March 13, we were convening an emergency meeting of the Official Board and Session to make decisions about how we were going to make decisions in the pandemic.

 

The lectionary – the cycle of readings that we usually follow in worship – it follows a 3-year cycle.  As I was planning out worship for Lent this year and going through the readings, they brought back very vivid memories of worship through Lent and Easter of 2020.  The last time that we read this story of a man born blind who encountered Jesus was on March 22, 2020.  That was the first Sunday that we were fully virtual, with Ross on camera, Bertis at the piano, and me here in the pulpit.

 

This week, I looked back to see what I had said about this reading three years ago.  After the announcements in which I simply said “everything is cancelled,” let you know where to find the bulletin to follow along with, reminded you to check in with friends, family members, and neighbours, and let you know about the daily check-ins at 1pm on Facebook Live which had started a few days earlier, we read the same bible story that we heard today.

 

From my reflection that day:  “I want to ask the question of what is being revealed.  Five years from now, when we look back at the time of Covid-19, what will be the revelation of this era that we are currently living in?  Is it selfishness that is being revealed, or is it generosity?  Is it fear that is being revealed, or is it love?  Will we hide our eyes so that we don’t see the plight of others, or will our eyes be opened to see the face of Christ in the face of our neighbours?”

 

It's only 3 years later, not 5, but I think that a lot has been revealed to us.  The past 3 years have revealed deep divisions in our society.  They have revealed systemic racism that causes great harm.  They have revealed, to those of us who are descended from settlers, the depths of the horrors of the residential school system that our church participated in.  But I also think that the past 3 years have revealed depths of generosity in our world.  They have revealed to us how important community is.  They have revealed a need to re-set our priorities for how we use our time.  They have revealed how powerful it is to be able to gather together and sing together.  They have revealed the truth of John Donne’s famous poem written 400 years ago, and because it’s 400 years old, I can forgive it for its lack of inclusive language.  The poem that begins, “No man is an island, entire of itself,” and later on says “any man’s death diminished me, / because I am involved in mankind.”

 

Much has been revealed to us.  Much continues to be revealed to us.  And just as Jesus was with the man in the story as the world was revealed to him – the world in all of its painful beauty – Jesus has been with us through the past three years.  Jesus is present in all of the mucky, muddy, messy places in life… and Jesus sometimes even uses a gob of mud made out of spit and dirt to bring about revelation.

 

And may the God who has been present since before the beginning of time, the God who works in the mud and muck of this world even today… may this God be with us through all of our tomorrows, bringing insight and enlightenment and revelation and transformation.  Amen.

 

Image:  "Mud"

by backonthebus on flickr

Used with Permission.

"Rivers of Living Water" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 5 – 2^nd Sunday in Lent

Scripture:  John 4:5-42

 

 

Have you ever been thirsty?  Really, really thirsty?

 

When my friend and I go on canoe trips, we bring either chlorine drops or a gravity filter with us so that we can safely drink water from the rivers and lakes we are travelling through.  One of the challenges though, is that if you are travelling through swampier areas, you can’t use that water. If there is too much algae or other matter in the water, it will clog up the gravity filter; and if there is too much bacteria or other potentially harmful things in the water, then even the chlorine drops might not get them all.  So you need to scoop water that is relatively clean to begin with and then purify it so that it is safe to drink.

 

I remember one trip where I didn’t plan well.  If I had looked more closely at the map, I would have seen that we were going to be travelling through a swampy area, followed by a portage through the woods, and then through another swampy area before getting back to an open lake.  If I had looked more closely at the map, I would have filled up my water bottles before entering the swampy area, but I didn’t.  I had about half a litre of water when we paddled into the swamp and I finished it up as we began the portage.  By the time we launched the canoes again on the other side, I was definitely feeling thirsty.  As we made our way through the second swampy area with the sun beating down on us, I began to feel desperate for water.

 

Finally, we reached open water and left the swamp behind us.  As soon as we were a little bit away, I scooped water from the lake and started the process of purifying it with drops.  Those 15 minutes I had to wait were possibly the longest 15 minutes I’ve ever been through.  But finally, I could lift my water bottle to my mouth and take a drink, and nothing has ever tasted sweeter to me than that first mouthful of water.

 

When I think of the nameless Samaritan woman at the well, and her conversation with Jesus, I am drawn to the image of water.  Jesus is thirsty and asks her to draw some water up from the well for him.  But then he goes on to say that whoever drinks water from the well will eventually be thirsty again and need more water.  This is true – that water that I drank after leaving the swamp was beautiful and life-sustaining in the moment, but its effects didn’t last forever.  The effects didn’t even last for a day, as I needed to drink more water later that same day.

 

But then Jesus tells her that he can offer her Living Water, and that whoever drinks of this living water will never be thirsty again.  I’m reminded of St. Augustine writing in his Confessions, “My heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”  Our souls are thirsty until we drink of the living waters.

 

In this season of Lent, we are reading stories of people who encountered Jesus, and in the gospel of John, this story comes almost immediately after the story we read last Sunday, the story of Nicodemus. And I don’t think that it is an accident that there are so many things to contrast between these two encounters.

 

Nicodemus is named; the woman in today’s story remains nameless.  Nicodemus is male; she is female.  Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a leader in the temple, the ultimate insider in their society; the woman at the well is a foreigner with different religious practices.  Nicodemus sneaks in to where Jesus is staying at night; the woman at the well meets Jesus out in the open at midday.  Nicodemus slips back out into the night and takes a long path to becoming a follower of Jesus; this unnamed Samaritan woman hears and believes in him right away.  She goes back into the village centre and persuades her neighbours to come and listen to Jesus.  She becomes the first evangelist in the gospel of John, bringing the good news to others.

 

She has obviously said yes to the Living Water that Jesus promises – this water is springing up in her, bringing the eternal life that Jesus promises.

 

The thing about “eternal life” is that I think that it has to do with more than just the duration of life. It’s not just the same old life as right now but continuing to eternity – it has to do with becoming a part of God’s life – the life that has been since before the beginning and will continue to be forever.  Eternal life is qualitatively different, and not just a quantitative difference.  It is a different kind of life.  Some of you know that I’m a bit of a word and language geek… the New Testament is translated for us from Greek, and in ancient Greek there are two different words that both mean life.  Bios, refers to our physical bodies and biological life – this is the root of our word biology.  And zoe refers to the life that includes but is so much more than the biological life. It is the fullness of life.  It is our life in God.  And this is the life that Jesus is talking about when he talks about “eternal life.”

 

When we drink from this living water that Jesus offers, when the Holy Spirit pours through our life, we are changed.  We are nudged just a little bit closer towards who we were created to be.  Maybe you feel just a little bit more peace in your heart.  Maybe you sense the love that surrounds you.  Maybe the candle of hope that seemed to have been extinguished in you sparks to life again.  Life takes on a different quality.  The eternal life begins in the here and now.

 

There are so many different ways we can drink from this living water; so many ways we can satisfy our thirsting souls.  The sacraments – baptism and communion – are obvious ways.  Maybe you drink from the living waters through the caring act of someone else.  Maybe you see God’s artistry in the natural world and drink of those life-giving waters.  Maybe it is in a quiet time of meditation or prayer; or maybe it is through moving the body that God gave to you.  There are so many different ways that we can tap into the living water that Jesus offers freely.

 

And once the living water is flowing into our hearts, then it can flow through our hearts and overflow to the world around us.  Through our acts of love and caring, inspired by the Holy Spirit, others can receive the living waters of God.  The other place where Jesus talks about living waters is a couple of chapters further on in John’s gospel, and there Jesus proclaims that rivers of living water will flow out of a believer’s heart (John 7:38).  We receive the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit flows through us and out towards others.

 

My prayer for all of us is that we might drink deeply from these living waters; that the life in God that Jesus promises might spring up in all of our hearts; and that this water might flow through us to bring fullness of life to the world.  May it be so.  Amen.

 

 

 Filtering Drinking Water from the Bloodvein River

Photo Credit:  Laura Marie Piotrowicz

(This was not the canoe trip I ran out of water on -
I had learned my lesson well!)