"Clothed with Christ" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 29, 2023
Scripture:  Matthew 22:34-46


(In our Story for All Ages, we talked about Galatians 3:27, and how we are called to “clothe ourselves with Christ” – not like a Hallowe’en costume for one day but for every day.)


I said to a couple of people this week, that this sermon is one of the harder ones I’ve had to write… not because the reading from the bible is challenging, but for the opposite reason. This teaching of Jesus is so core to my beliefs, so central to how I try to live out my faith, that there really isn’t much more I can say about it. A lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?” and Jesus replies, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbour as you love yourself. All the Law and the prophets depend on these two commands.”

 

Love God. Love your neighbours. Love yourself. That’s it.  I really don’t have that much more to say about this teaching.

 

In the overall story of Jesus’s life, this teaching happens almost right at the very end of it.  We’re in the middle of Holy Week.  A couple of days ago, Jesus and his disciples entered Jerusalem in the parade that we remember each year on Palm Sunday.  If you skip ahead, Matthew tells us that we are currently two days away from Passover, so this would make it the Tuesday of Holy Week.  We are two days away from Jesus’s arrest, and three days away from Jesus’s death.

 

Tensions are running high.  Jesus has been saying some very pointed things at the authorities – secular authorities, yes, as they were living under the oppression of the Roman Empire, but especially pointed towards the religious authorities who were interpreting God’s laws in less-than generous ways. That’s why Matthew tells us that the Pharisees were testing Jesus with this question – maybe they will be able to catch him out on heresy and be able to punish him on those grounds.  But alas, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy with the commandment to love God with our whole selves, and then he quotes from Leviticus with the commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves – a fairly orthodox answer.

 

I rather suspect that Jesus knew that the end of his life was drawing closer.  He knew that he was provoking the authorities with his teachings, and he seems pretty determined not to back down, no matter the consequences.  And so I wonder if he seized this opportunity to sum up all of his teachings into a small, easy-to-remember package, almost like a sound bite.  “Love God.  Love your neighbour.  Love yourself.  Even if you don’t remember anything else I’ve said, or anything else that I’ve done, remember this:  love God; love your neighbour; love yourself.”

 

Like I said, this passage is the foundation of our faith, but it’s a hard one to preach about, since Jesus is summarizing everything else that he has taught and everything else that he has done.  To expand on this, I would almost have to go backwards and start re-telling Jesus’s other teachings and telling the stories about the things that he has done.  I’d have to go back and repeat Jesus’s teachings about forgiveness; I’d have to re-tell the stories about the times Jesus fed a crowd of thousands of hungry people; I’d have to repeat Jesus’s teachings about sharing generously the things that we have; I’d have to re-tell the stories about the times that Jesus healed people who were sick and raised the dead.  All of these things can be summarized by “love God with your whole being; and love your neighbour as yourself.”

 

I wonder if I can go back even further than Jesus’s life.  Jesus was a Jewish man living almost 2000 years ago.  He seems to have been very observant of his faith, even when he had a more generous interpretation of the scriptures than some of the other religious leaders of his time and place.  And these scriptures that Jesus was steeped in – they would have been what we call the Old Testament.  Our Old Testament is the Jewish bible, which makes it Jesus’s bible as he was Jewish.

 

And Jesus tells us that all of the law and all of the prophets – essentially, all of the bible – can be summarized by “love God with your whole being, and love your neighbour as yourself.”  All of the laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – they can be summarized here.  You find laws about having no other gods other than God, laws about how to worship God… these are all of the details about how to love God with your whole being.  You find laws about how to care for orphans and widows and foreigners living your land, laws about how to provide food for people who are hungry, laws about how business people are to conduct their business fairly… these are all of the details about how to love your neighbours.  And then you have laws like keeping the Sabbath which I think straddle loving God, loving your neighbours, and loving yourself all at once.

 

Then when you flip past the books of the law into the prophets of the Old Testament, what is the eternal cry of the prophets?  “Look at where you’ve strayed away from God! Look at how you are causing harm to God’s children! Turn back to God by keeping God’s commands, and by doing justice and kindness to the most vulnerable among you!”  Again – love God and love your neighbours resounds in the voice of the prophets.

 

So I think that the whole of our bible today – all of the teachings of the Old Testament which was Jesus’s bible, and all of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament – the whole of our bible today can be summed up in these words of Jesus – love God; love your neighbours; love yourself.

 

Those of you who attend bible study know that one of the things that we wrestle with as we read the bible is what to do when passages seem to contradict each other.  God says do not kill; God says enter the land and kill the people you find there.  God says that the people of Moab are evil and shouldn’t be allowed into the temple for 50 generations; God says, well, maybe I’ll make the great-grandmother of the person who built the temple come from the land of Moab.

 

Along a similar vein, we also struggle when we realize that a story can be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on the perspective that you bring to a story.  What is the right way to interpret the bible?

 

These are the sorts of things that we all have to wrestle with in our faith lives, as we read the stories in the bible, and as we talk about our faith with others… people who might question us along the lines of “how can you be a part of a church when the bible says <insert horrific teaching or story here>.”

 

Which brings us back to why this teaching of Jesus is so important to me.  We are always interpreting the bible as we read it. There is no such thing as truly neutral reading.  We are always choosing which teachings to emphasize and which teachings to give less importance to.  We are always making decisions about how we are going to understand the stories… both the stories we like and the stories that challenge us.  We are always interpreting the bible as we read it; and it can be very powerful to recognize the lens or the framework that we are interpreting it through.  And for me, when I read the bible and all of the stories you find in it, I am interpreting it through the lens of these words of Jesus.

 

Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

 

When I come across any other passage – especially the passages and the stories that challenge me; especially the teachings that I find off-putting – I ask myself, how can I interpret this story in a way that loves God and/or loves my neighbour as myself?

 

For me, this is the lens that I try to read the bible through; and it’s also the lens that I try to live my life through.  As I move through the world, I try to remember to ask myself, “how is this thing that I’m doing or this thing that I’m saying love God, love my neighbour, or love myself?”

 

I don’t always succeed.  In fact, I don’t know if I ever succeed very well at this.  But I also know that God forgives me when I stumble, and that I will always be given another chance to try again, maybe in the very next minute.  And I also trust that I’m not doing it alone – I trust that the Holy Spirit is working in me, working in all of us, transforming us slowly over time more and more into the image of Christ, so that the work of Christ can be done through us.

 

And really – isn’t this what it means to be a Christian?  To follow the path that Jesus shows to us… to follow the path of loving God with our whole being, and loving our neighbour as ourselves; while letting the Holy Spirit gradually transform us into who God created us to be, so that we can more perfectly reflect the image of Christ to the world around us. To “clothe ourselves with Christ” or “dress up like Christ” by loving authentically and whole-heartedly, and showing the world the face of Christ.

 

And may this be so in all of our lives.  Amen.

 

 

Today was the first of our “Sock it To Me” Sundays,
collecting new warm socks for the clients of the
Romero Van. Each church donated ~100 pairs of new warm
socks. In the Story for All Ages, when I asked what “clothing
 ourselves with Christ” or “dressing up like Jesus” might look like,
someone suggested that it looked like collecting socks
to Romero Van.

"What Would You Do with a Million Dollars?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
October 22, 2023 (21st Sunday after Pentecost)
Scripture:  Luke 22:15-22


In our "Story for All Ages" times this fall, we have been doing different things with some chocolate coins. Today we pretended that each coin was worth $1Million (or $2Million for the coins shaped like toonies). I asked who wanted a million dollars, and gave the coins out to the congregation; then I asked a couple of questions:
- What are you going to do with your million dollars?
- What do you think that Jesus would do if he had a coin worth a million dollars?
In the church, we say that we are the "Body of Christ" - we have the opportunity to be like Jesus when we decide what we are going to do with the things that we have.

This seems like a pretty straight-forward story, and I could probably make a pretty straight-forward sermon out of it.  “Give to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.”  Jesus almost preaches a mini-sermon there for us at the end of this story.

 

But did you notice that he doesn’t really explain what he means by this?  Is he saying that yes, you should pay your taxes to the Emperor, because taxes are paid using coins with the Emperor’s image on them?  That meaning would make him pretty popular with half of his questioners, the Herodians, the people who supported King Herod who was essentially the Emperor’s puppet king in the region; but this answer wouldn’t make him very popular with the other half of his questioners, the Pharisees who believed that our full allegiance must belong to God.

 

Or instead, is Jesus saying that we should pay our taxes because the Emperor is only able to govern because God ordained the Emperor to govern?  Again, a popular answer for his Herodian questioners, and maybe a bit more acceptable to his Pharisee questioners, because this meaning to Jesus’s answer gives God the ultimate authority.

 

Or, instead, is Jesus saying that we shouldn’t pay our taxes because everything belongs to God including our coins?  This interpretation would be popular with the Pharisees, and probably all of the people in the land – no taxes! – but it is the wrong explanation in the eyes of the Herodians, and an answer seen as treason and deserving of immediate arrest.

 

Jesus never clarifies what he means here.  “Give to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.”  Is it a split allegiance between God and the earthly ruler with the things of the earth belonging to the Emperor and the spiritual things belonging to God.  Or is it all things belonging to God, and the Emperor acting on God’s behalf?  Or is it all things belonging to God, full stop?  I don’t know.  Jesus doesn’t clarify.

 

We are told that this answer amazed his questioners and they left him alone after that.  Were they amazed at his ability to give an answer so ambiguous that all sides were happy?  Or were they ashamed at being called out for possessing a Roman coin in the temple where, technically, they should only have been carrying temple currency?

 

Maybe this story isn’t so simple after all.

 

For me, the interpretation angle that I tend to fall into is that everything belongs to God, full stop.  Even the coin in the story – it is made of metal that came from the earth that God created, so the metal in the coin belongs to God.  And the coin bears the image of the Emperor, who, in turn, is an image bearer of God; meaning that the coin bears the image of God on it.

 

Give to God the things that are God’s.  What belongs to God? Everything belongs to God!  All of my possessions come from God.  All of my skills and my talents are given to me by God.  The air that I breathe, the water that I drink, the words that I speak, the love that I experience – all of these come from God.

 

So here comes simple sermon number 2.  Give to God the things that are God’s; and since everything comes from God, we owe everything to God.

 

How does that thought make you feel?  The thought that everything that you are and everything that you have belongs to God?

 

To say “All things belong to God” may be a simple answer; but it is anything but simple when it comes to practicing it!

 

To me, it comes back to what we were talking about in the Story for All Ages this week – how would God want us to use the gifts that we have been given?  How can we use our gifts in ways that honour God?

 

All of us, as Canadians, have a certain amount of material possessions, especially when we look around the world for comparison.  Jesus summarizes all of God’s commandments into love God with your whole being and love your neighbour as yourself; and so how can we use our material possessions in a way that loves God and loves our neighbour?

 

One of the greatest gifts we are given is time – how do we use the time we are given in ways that love God, love our neighbours, and love ourselves?

 

The same goes for the talents that all of us possess (especially evident after our Time and Talent auction on Friday night!). Same question here – how can we use our talents, whether those talents be musical or culinary or public speaking or prayer or healing – how can we use our talents in ways that love God with our whole being, and that love our neighbours as ourselves?

 

We all have a certain amount of societal power, whether that power comes from the colour of our skin, or our nationality, or our gender, or our sexual orientation, or our class, or the language we speak, or from who we know.  How can we use this power in a way that loves God and that loves our neighbour?  This question is especially fresh on my mind this week, having spent some time learning how to use my voice and my power as a Canadian voter to advocate for change so that there is no more hunger in the world.

 

What belongs to God?  All that we have, and all that we are belongs to God; and I think that God cares about how we use these things.  But when we use them in ways that love God and that love our neighbour… then I think that God is pleased.

 

Author C. S. Lewis tells a story in his book Mere Christianity in response to a question about why God could possibly care about what we do with the resources that we’ve been given – after all, God is all-powerful, and the Creator of all, while we are merely human.

 

Lewis compares God to a parent.  If a child comes to their parent and asks for sixpence in order to buy a gift for that parent, the parent is going to give them the sixpence.  (Lewis was British – maybe we would say that the child asks for a $20 bill to buy the parent a gift!) The parent is going to give the child the sixpence; and when the child gives the gift to the parent, is the parent going to say, “Well, that isn’t much of a gift since it was purchased with my sixpence to begin with”?  No – the parent is going to unwrap the gift with great anticipation, and be delighted with what their child has given to them.  Everybody knows that the parent is sixpence none the richer for the exchange, but everyone also knows that the parent is delighted with what their child has done.

 

And so it is with us and with God.  When we use our material resources; when we use our time, when we use our skills, when we use our voices in ways that love God and that love our neighbours, God is delighted.  For then we are truly giving to God the things that are God’s.

 

And may this be so.  Amen.

(Note:  I did clarify later in the service that I didn’t want people to go away with the impression that I don’t think that we should pay taxes. I think that things like health care and education and foreign aid are things that make God happy!)

 

 

Our $1Million and $2Million coins

from the Story for All Ages

"An Outpouring of Gratitude" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 8, 2023 – Thanksgiving Weekend
Scripture:  Luke 17:11-19

(In the story for all ages earlier in the service, I invited everyone to imagine themselves into the scripture story, walking through a guided mediation. I invited everyone to consider how it felt to be exiled from their families and communities for so long, how it felt to be healed, and then what the first thing that they wanted to do after being healed would be.)

 

 

This week, we have a story about Jesus healing 10 people – I think that this story is assigned to Thanksgiving weekend because of the 10 people who were healed, only one of them returns back to say thank you to Jesus, while the other 9 go on their way.

 

On the surface, it seems like a pretty straightforward story – be like the one who came back to say thank you; don’t be like the other 9. A simple story with a simple message.

 

But simple stories are boring, (and simple stories make for boring sermons,) and there are a couple of details in this story that have me asking questions, and that have me wondering if there is more to this story than just what’s on the surface.

 

I wonder about the other 9.  What was going on in their minds or in their lives so that they didn’t come back to say thank you?  Were they so eager to see their families and loved ones after years of being exiled due to their illness; in so much of a rush of excitement that they couldn’t take the time to come back to say thank you to the healer?  Or were they resentful – resentful of the society that they lived in that had insisted on their exile for so many years? And did resentment for the lost years prevent them from feeling any gratitude for their healing?

 

A common assumption is that if someone doesn’t say thank you, it is because they didn’t appreciate the gift; but in this story, the profound implications of what Jesus did for the 10 people would make that an unlikely explanation for why 9 of them didn’t come back.

 

I wonder about those other 9.

 

The other curious detail in this story that, at least for me, adds depth to the story, is the very last line.  Earlier in the story, Jesus cures all 10 of the people in the group. He says to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” – this would have been so that they could get confirmation that they were now ritually cleansed to be allowed back into regular society – and we’re told that “as they went, they were made clean.”  All 10 of them have been cured from the disease that separated them from their communities.

 

But after the one comes back to praise God and say “thank you,” Jesus tells him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  It’s almost as if he has been healed twice – once with the other 9, and now this extra layer of healing added on at the end.

 

Most of you know that I worked in health care for many years as a physiotherapist; and those of us who work in health care learn that there is a difference between curing and healing.  Sometimes a person will experience both, but you can also have one without another.  Healing tends to refer to a wholeness, body, mind, and spirit well and in harmony with each other. Curing refers to the disease process.  Someone might be cured from the injuries sustained in a car accident, but still carry the emotional and spiritual trauma of the accident, so still have some distance to travel in terms of healing.  Or the other way around – a person may have a condition for which there is no cure, yet can experience healing in terms of being at peace with themselves, with their family, and with God.

 

And I’m left wondering – did the other 9 experience a curing of their disease process without the healing that would make them fully whole?  When Jesus told the 10^th person – the one who came back to offer thanks and praise – that their faith had made them well, did that one alone experience the fullness of healing that Jesus was able to offer?

 

I do think that this story goes deeper than it might appear on the surface.

 

I also think that this story invites us to ask ourselves some questions as well.

 

What if we imagine ourselves into the sandals of one of those people who approached Jesus on his way to Jerusalem.  If you were to come face-to-face with Jesus, crying out, “Jesus, have mercy on us!” what would be the substance of your request?  What needs or requests would you bring to the feet of Jesus? Fortunately, leprosy is no longer a big concern in our time and our place, and even in places in the world where it occurs, it is easily treatable these days.  But all of us carry needs and longings in our hearts that we bring to Jesus.

 

And then this story invites us to dig a little bit deeper.  When you go into the very core of your being, what is those deepest needs, those deepest longings that are maybe even too tender to put into words?  What is the thing that Jesus can give to you that will bring the deep healing that goes beyond a simple cure that was offered to the 10^th person in our story?

 

I also think that the story invites us to think about gratitude.  I invite you to imagine yourself back into the story the way that we did during the story for all ages, and if it’s easier for you to close your eyes again, I invite you to close your eyes. This time the circumstances are different.  This time, you don’t have leprosy, but you are simply yourself.  You are yourself at your most authentic – this is Jesus, and you don’t need to hold anything back.  Jesus is looking at you with deep, deep love in his eyes, and you hear him saying your name.  He reaches out and puts his hand on your shoulder.  He tells you that your faith has made you well.  As you return Jesus’s gaze, let yourself feel the love that is radiating from him.  What things are you thankful for in this moment?  What gratitude is welling up in your heart?  Let this gratitude move from your heart to your voice? What words do you use to say thank you to Jesus?  What actions to do you do to express your gratitude?

 

Thanks be to the God of life and of healing and of love!  Amen.

 

 

“Healing of the Ten Lepers”
JESUS MAFA
Used with Permission.

"Transformed By and For God" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 1 (Worldwide Communion Sunday)
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-13

(Note: This sermon builds on what we have been discussing the past two weeks – I’ve tried to link through to those reflections and readings in case you missed them the first time around!)


I’ve warned you the past couple of weeks that Jesus spends a lot of time talking about money this fall, but we get a couple of weeks’ break from talking about money – this week for worldwide communion, and next week for Thanksgiving.  But I do think that there might be a connection between what the Apostle Paul is saying to the church in Philippi and what we were talking about last weekend!

Last Sunday, we read a story that Jesus told – a story about farm workers, where every worker was given a full day’s salary, regardless of whether they had worked all day or just for the last hour of the day. We talked about how Jesus presents us with an alternate economic system to the systems of the world we are living in – Jesus shows us a way of being where things are given rather than needing to be earned.  Jesus gives us an example of an economy of grace, where grace is any unearned gift.  Jesus tells us that this is what the kingdom of heaven will be like – the world isn’t like this yet, but our faith tells us that some day it will be like this.

 

I also suggested both last week and the week before that here in the church, we can start to live, in a small way, the kingdom of heaven right now, even before the whole world is like this.  A good example is Ida’s Cupboard, where food is given based solely on need, no strings attached. The kingdom of heaven can break in to our every-day lives, and we can begin to live in and by this grace that Jesus teaches us about.

 

After last Sunday, a couple of people shared their thoughts with me about this economy that is grounded in grace.  And even though their specific words were different, the underlying concern was the same – “But this would never work in the real world.”

 

And this is where I see the connection with this week’s reading!

 

I agree, that this economy of grace would never work in this so-called real world.  We, as humans, are flawed, and so every human-created system is going to be a flawed system.  We can’t swap out one human-created system for another human-created system and expect it to be perfect, because humans aren’t perfect.

 

But what if there was a world that was even more real than our real world?  A real-er world?

 

Humans aren’t perfect… except for one, and he was God in human form. And that human, the one named Jesus, is teaching us not about a human-created system, but a God created system.

 

And Paul, writing to the very early church in the city of Philippi – he writes to them, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ.”  We are to be Christ-like.  We are to have the same heart and the same mind that Jesus had – we, as the church, are to have the heart and the mind of God.  And so we will be able to live in a God-visioned system of grace, because we will be able to set our flawed human nature aside.

 

Hearing myself say that, I’m now going to start arguing with myself over this sermon – I’ll take over the job of telling myself that what I’m saying is impossible!

 

We’ll never be able to do everything that Paul suggests that we should be doing – to never do anything out of selfish ambition, to always be looking out for the best interest of others rather than to our own interests, to be perfectly obedient to God.  We are human after all; we aren’t Jesus.

 

But then if you turn right to the end of the passage, Paul answers this conundrum for us.  The very last verse in the reading that ______ shared with us goes, “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”

 

We don’t have to do this perfectly because it is God working in us that allows us to do all of these things.  The name that we give to God working in the world is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is working in us, transforming us so that our hearts and minds can be more and more like the heart and mind of Christ.

 

The Holy Spirit is always working in us, but there are certain moments that infuse us with the Holy Spirit, moments that give us an extra little boost of Holy Spirit.  Today, one of these moments is communion.  I don’t know how God works, but I know that God works through the bread and through the cup that we share.  One of the things that communion does for us is to transform us to be closer to who God created us to be.

 

God is working in us.  I agree with everyone who told me last week that God’s economy of grace would never work in the “real world,” but God’s economy isn’t of this world – it is of that real-er world that is the kingdom of God.  And it is God working in us – the Holy Spirit – who transforms us so that we, as the church, can participate in this radically transformed way of being.

 

Today especially, on Worldwide Communion Sunday – think about all of the faithful people in all of the churches, large and small around the world who are sharing the bread and the cup.  Think of people of different languages and different creeds, different ages and different skin colours, different gender identities and different sexual orientations, all coming together to share the bread and the cup right now.  Think of God’s transforming power at work in the world right now, at this very moment, at all of the communion tables around the world.  Think of God’s world, the kingdom of heaven, breaking into our right-now world all around the globe.  This isn’t our forever way of being yet, but it can be real in small ways as we wait.

 

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”  Amen, and amen!

 

 

A Transformative Meal
Photo Credit: Torrenegra on flickr

Used with permission.