"You Will Never Be Alone" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday July 28, 2024
Scripture Reading:  1 Corinthians 13:1-13

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


This chapter of 1 Corinthians is one of the most well-known passages in the whole bible – I would hold it up alongside the 23rd Psalm, the passage from Ecclesiastes made popular in the song, and maybe the 10 Commandments (though I suspect that the actual content of those 10 commandments isn’t as well-known as people think that it is).

 

1 Corinthians, chapter 13, is a reading that I hear as often at funerals as I do at weddings.  At weddings, it is often interpreted as the love between two people that will make the marriage succeed.  At funerals, it is often interpreted as the love that the person who died had for the people in their life.

 

And so, (at least to me,) it’s interesting to read this passage outside of the context of a wedding or a funeral.

 

This is an excerpt from a longer letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the very early Christian church in the city of Corinth, and it is the pinnacle, the culmination of everything that comes before it.

 

We only have one side of the correspondence – we have Paul’s letters to the church, but we don’t have the letters that the church was writing to Paul – but based on what Paul wrote to them, it is a pretty safe assumption that the church in Corinth was a community divided. The letter, as a whole, reads like something that a loving but exasperated parent might write to their children who are continually arguing and fighting with one another.  Why do you guys have to fight like this? Why can’t you get along with one another? Why do you have to celebrate one person’s gifts while negating another person’s gifts? When you come to the communion table, why is there inequality between what you are receiving?

 

In the chapter right before the one we heard today, Paul reminds his readers that together they are the body of Christ.  It takes all of their gifts together to make up the church, so they need to honour the gifts of each other. And, if nothing else, if one part of the body comes to harm, the whole body suffers.

 

Chapter 12 ends with Paul saying, “And I will show you a still more excellent way,” leading us in to the beautiful poem about love that we heard this morning.

 

The love that he is writing about, like the love we celebrate at weddings, is the love the holds people together – not just two people, but a whole community.  The love that he is writing about, like the love that we celebrate at funerals, is love that persists even when circumstances are challenging.

 

Paul writes about a love that endures, a love that never ends. It is a love that is unselfish – it wants the best for the other person.  It is a love that is patient and kind – that keeps on going even when it isn’t reciprocated.  It is a love that rejoices in goodness and truth.  As I sometimes say at weddings, when the going gets tough, the love gets going.

 

And even though Paul isn’t explicit about it here, if we believe that God is love, then when we are living our lives in this sort of love, we are both living our lives in God and reflecting God’s love to the world.

 

Which brings us to our movie tie-in for this week! On Tuesday, we watched the movie Turtles All the Way Down. The main character in the movie is Aza Holmes, a high school student who has been dealt a pretty lousy hand when it comes to life. Her father died suddenly when she was younger, so she has spent much of her growing-up years working through grief. She also has severe mental health challenges in the form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that she is working through with the help of a psychiatrist and medication that she doesn’t always like taking. Obsessive thoughts take over her brain and lead to thought spirals that block out the world around her, and also lead to compulsive actions to try and get the thoughts to stop.  For Aza, this takes the form of obsessive thoughts about germs and bacteria and illness, and her compulsive actions include picking at a scab, and when it is severe, eating soap and hand sanitizer.

 

In addition to her grief and her mental health, Aza is also dealing with the more universal challenges of being a teenager. She has a best friend, Daisy, but in the timeline of the movie, they get into a fight that results in a car accident. There is also her relationship with her mother – Aza had always been closer with her father than her mother, and her mother is over-protective of her because of her obsessive-compulsive disorder, and afraid to let Aza spread her wings as she approaches adulthood. And there is a romantic timeline, where Aza and her childhood friend get together, then break up because he needs a partner who is more present than Aza’s illness allows her to be.

 

So overall, Aza, at a young age, is facing more challenges than many of us had to deal with at her age, and more challenges than some of us face in a lifetime.  She does not have an easy path to travel.

 

One thing that I love about this movie, unlike so many other movies and novels in the Young Adult genre, is that Aza isn’t healed or made whole through a romantic relationship.  There isn’t a 3rd Act reconciliation between her and her boyfriend – they stay broken up at the end.  But there is a beautiful reconciliation with her best friend after the fight and accident.  Aza is able to grow and recognize how her illness impacts her best friend; and at the same time, Daisy is able to grow in her empathy towards Aza and everything that she is dealing with.

 

And at the very end of the movie – the closing words of the movie to be exact – there is a speech from Daisy towards Aza that made me think of the Corinthians reading we heard today.  And I’m going to quote it verbatim here, because I don’t think that I could do it justice in a paraphrase.  Aza asks Daisy, “do you think I’ll ever be able to actually be with someone?”  And Daisy replies:

 

“Yes, I think you will. I think you, Aza Holmes, will have a very full life. I think you’ll go to college, and study whatever you want. And you’ll have a career. One that you’re proud of. And I think you will be with someone – someone great. I think you, Holmsie, will have an incredible love story. I even think you’ll have a family of your own one day. You’re going to make a whole damn life for yourself, and know what? I don’t want to lie to you. I think it will be hard sometimes. I think sometimes you’ll see that life un-built. But you’ll always re-build it. And you will never be alone. I promise. Because you will always love and be loved. And love is both how you become a person and why. Love, Holmsie, is how you become real.”

 

Aza is never going to be alone, because she is surrounded by a community like the one that Paul is writing about.  A community founded in unconditional, unselfish love that keeps on going even when the going is tough.

 

And because of the love that surrounds Aza, in the form of her community, she will never be alone.  The love that surrounds her will help her to become more human; and, even though it isn’t a Christian movie, I would say that the love that surrounds her will help her to become more like Christ.

 

And may the same be true for all of us.  May we be a people who not only are surrounded by love, but a people who emit a web of love that wraps around all of the people in our lives – in our church family and beyond.  May we be a people who are continually reflecting the love that is God.  Amen.

 

 

 

Inter-generational Church Family

“Love is both how you become a person, and why”

"Sin and Grace and Chimpanzees" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday July 21, 2024

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

Also – I split both the scripture reading and reflection into two halves, so that is how I have laid it out here.


First Scripture Reading:  Romans 7:15-20

I don’t know about you, but the Apostle Paul’s words here in the 7th Chapter of Romans really resonate with me at times.  Paul is being almost brutally self-aware and honest here.  He writes that he wants to do what is good, but even so he finds himself not doing the good, but doing what is wrong instead.  He writes, “The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do.”

 

I suspect that if I took a poll (don’t worry – I’m not going to!), asking do you want to do good or do evil in the world – I suspect that all of us would put our hands up saying that we want to do good instead of evil.  It’s who we are.

 

But if I were to take a second poll (and again, don’t worry, I’m not going to!) asking if you were always able to perfectly do good 100% of the time, I rather suspect that not many hands would go up.  (And if you are someone who is able to do perfect good 100% of the time, I want to talk with you and learn your secret!)

 

I can only speak on my own behalf here, but I know that I mess up sometimes, both in little ways that have few consequences, and in bigger ways that carry more significant consequences.

 

And so, like Paul, I suspect that most, if not all of us, live in that same tension of wanting to do good, yet sometimes falling short or missing the mark.

 

When I was planning out movies for this summer, you might be surprised to learn that Rise of the Planet of the Apes was the first movie that jumped into my head.  I think that it is a deeply theological movie, as it wrestles with this same tension that Paul is writing about here.

 

Most of the characters in the movie want to do good.  (Though it is a movie, so we have to have villains, and there are some characters in it who seem to want to do evil for the sake of evil.) But if we look at the heroes of the movie, the main characters, they are good people who want to do good, yet they keep messing up every step of the way.

 

The movie begins with a pharmaceutical company researching a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.  The individuals have mixed motivations – the company owner seems to be in it for the money that the company will be able to make, but the lead researcher – the main human character in the film – has more personal reasons as his father is suffering from dementia and he wants to find a cure.  He wants to do good in the world by curing a life-altering disease.  And because of his love for his father, when safety concerns are raised about the drug and testing is halted, he steals some from the lab and conducts a single-human-subject experiment on his father, setting into action a chain of events that will eventually lead to the destruction of human civilization.  He wants to do good, but ends up doing evil.

 

And then there is his research assistant.  When concerns are raised about the safety of the drug being tested, the assistant is ordered to euthanize all of the chimpanzees who have been dosed with it. The assistant does so, until he discovers a newborn chimp and he can’t bring himself to do it.  The lead researcher – the main human character in the story – repeats the order, and his assistant tells him that he has caused too much death that day, and the researcher will have to do the deed himself.  The researcher can’t do it, and brings the infant chimpanzee home, initially as a pet, but when he discovers extraordinary intelligence in the baby chimp, now named Caesar, he raises Caesar as a son.

 

Which is well and good until Caesar starts questioning whether he is family or a pet. Until Caesar learns about what is going on at the drug company. Until Caesar is confiscated as a dangerous animal and locked up in a so-called sanctuary. Until Caesar figures out how to enhance the intelligence of all of the other primates incarcerated there. You get where I’m going. When he made the decision to raise an infant chimpanzee as his son, he thought that he was doing a good thing, but a chain of evil ensued.

 

And the apes aren’t free from sin either in this movie – they too are caught up in systems and cycles of violence and oppression, and the only way to escape being oppressed is by becoming the oppressor.

 

Fortunately this movie is “just” science fiction, but I do think that it illustrates what Paul is writing about in Romans 7. We can never know all of the consequences of the decisions that we make, and so often the decisions that we make lead to negative consequences. And so often we are trapped in systems – like the chimps in the movie – where we are doing wrong, and we know we are doing wrong, but we aren’t able to escape them. Think of how humanity is trapped in systems that depend on fossil fuels that are destroying our planet. Think of how any human-made economic system causes suffering to some for the benefit of others. Think of how it is almost impossible to ensure that all of the things that we buy haven’t been produced through the exploitation of people. These are systems that we can’t escape.

 

As Paul writes, I keep on doing the evil that I know that I shouldn’t be doing.

 

But the good news is that God doesn’t stop at Romans 7. I’m going to invite ______ to come forward and read part of Romans 8 for us.

 

Second Scripture Reading:  Romans 8:9-11

 

We are trapped in systems that I name as sin, but the good news is that God is always pulling us out of these systems.  God desires good and not evil in the world; and so God is working in each and every one of us by the Holy Spirit, transforming us gradually into who we were created to be – as people who bear the image of Christ.

 

The work is ongoing, even though we might wish it to have been completed yesterday.  We might wish that the world had been perfected and these systems of sin eliminated yesterday.  But we trust that by the Holy Spirit, the work is underway.  The same God who raised Jesus from the dead is working in us, working to liberate us from all of these systems that ensnare us.

 

And all that we can do is allow the Holy Spirit to work in us – to allow ourselves to be transformed – to say “yes” to God.  We can become co-conspirators with God when we subvert human-created economic systems and put food in Ida’s Cupboard where it is available to hungry people with no conditions attached; or when we pull weeds and plant seeds in the Harvest Garden for the same purpose.  We can become co-conspirators with God when we figure out ways to be on this earth with a smaller footprint, lessening our negative impact on Creation.  We can become co-conspirators with God when we listen – when we truly listen – to where we are being called to next.  We become co-conspirators with God every time we increase the amount of love in the world.

 

We may feel trapped by the sin in the world, but by the Holy Spirit, God is reaching into this world and pulling us out of the messes that we make, and loving us into wholeness.

 

Getting back to the movie… this side of the coin isn’t a big part of the film – it focuses more on the chain of events that leads to disaster – but there is one beautiful moment of grace near the end where I see systems of sin being broken.  After the apes have rebelled and left human civilization behind to create their own civilization, the main human character goes after them, looking to bring his son, the chimpanzee named Caeser home with him.  They meet in the forest, and the human invites Caeser to come home.  Caesar leans in, and says in the human’s ear, “Caeser is home.” The human embraces him, and lets him be.  He doesn’t try to do anything; he doesn’t try to fix anything; he acknowledges the autonomy in the other, and they are reconciled at the moment of their parting.  A tiny moment of grace that hints to us that the systems of sin that ensnare us can be broken.

 

And so when you feel like Paul in Romans 7, like nothing that you do can make the world a better place, like you are trapped in these systems and cycles that we name as sin; remember that the story doesn’t end there.  Remember that Romans 8 follows Romans 7.  Remember that you are God’s beloved child, and that by the Holy Spirit, God is helping you to break free and to be wholly and completely who you were created to be.

 

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

Image:  “grace”

by glasseyes view on flickr

Used with Permission

"Pilgrim Journey" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday July 7 & 14 (Flower Services)
Scripture:  Psalm 130:1-6

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



Why are you here?  Why are you here?

 

The movie, The Way, is set on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, an ancient pilgrimage route in Europe that pilgrims have walked for over a thousand years.  Even today, you can travel to Spain, to France, or to Portugal and join one of the many trails leading to the church of St. James, Sant Iago, dedicated to James, the brother of Jesus.  Throughout the movie, as different pilgrims encounter each other, the question is heard, why are you here?  Why have you left your home to travel hundreds of miles on foot? Why are you here?

 

People walk the Camino for many different reasons – there are maybe as many reasons as there are people who walk it.  In the movie, there are four main characters walking together and they each have their own reasons – one is walking carrying the ashes of his son who died on the Camino; one is walking to lose weight; one is walking to quit smoking; and one is walking to overcome writer’s block.

 

At least that is what they say, and that is what they appear to be doing on the surface.  But as the film unfolds, there are deeper meanings, deeper purposes to the walk that arise for each one of them.  Walking the Camino is a spiritual quest for each of them, even if they might use different words to describe that experience..

 

Several years ago, just after I graduated from AST, I took on a Research Assistant position and I spent a month researching pilgrimages, particularly the theological side of pilgrimages, working for one of my professors who was writing a book. For a month, every day I dove into the literature about pilgrimage to learn what researchers and authors were thinking about and writing about and what questions they were asking; and much of what I learned from them resonates with me when I watch The Way.

 

Researchers disagree about which is more important – the journey or the destination?  Is it all about where you are going, or how you get there?  And how much hardship does there have to be in order for the journey to be considered a pilgrimage?  Is it still a pilgrimage if you travel to your destination in an air conditioned coach, or do you need the experience of walking the trail in order for the destination to have meaning?

 

There is also interesting discussion about the line between pilgrim and tourist.  When does a tourist become a pilgrim; and when does a pilgrim become a tourist?

 

Most researchers agree that a pilgrimage experience can transform your life that follows the pilgrimage, but there is disagreement on how important the intention is.  Do you need to enter the pilgrimage with the intention that this is going to be life-changing, or does the transformation sneak up on you as you journey?

 

And finally there is the thread of pilgrimage as a metaphor.  If you take a pilgrimage and scale it down, you end up with a labyrinth; and if you take a pilgrimage and scale it up, you end up with life.  Life is a journey, life is a pilgrimage, and many of the teachings about pilgrimage can also apply to life.

 

In life, which is more important, the journey or the destination?

 

Are you a tourist as you move through this world, experiencing things so that you can have the memories of them to reflect back on; or are you a pilgrim, allowing the people you encounter and the things that you experience to shape and form and transform you?

 

Who are your companions on your Camino through life?  Who is traveling with you for part or for all of the journey?  How are you helping each other along the trail?

 

And finally, that question that I started with – why are you here?  Why are you on the journey that you are on?

 

I wish that I could stand up here and tell you that I’ve got the meaning of life figured out, and that I can share some great wisdom with you.  But I truly think that this is part of the pilgrim journey for each one of us.  And just like the characters in the film came to realize that maybe their stated purpose for walking the trail was hiding a deeper purpose, I think that the same is true for our pilgrimage through life.  As we go along, as our experiences of life deepen, we discover more meanings to this journey.  New depths of purpose and of experience are revealed.

 

Today, at our Flower Service, we are remembering those who have completed their pilgrimage through life.  They have arrived at the metaphorical cathedral that marks the end of their pilgrimage.  They now know the meaning of both the journey and the destination.  And for those of us who are still on the road – we continue to learn from and appreciate the journey, even as we anticipate the destination.

 

Out of all of the films that we are going to be watching and discussing this summer, The Way is probably the most explicitly spiritual film that we are going to watch; and yet I actually found it the hardest of all of the films to pair with scripture.  I ended up choosing Psalm 130, even though there were a couple of other Psalms that might have fit as well.

 

Psalm 130, to me, is a prayer of longing.  “Out of the depths, I cry to you.”  “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits; and in God’s word I trust.” “More than those who watch for the morning, I wait for the Lord.”  As we travel our pilgrimage through life, I think that it is maybe this longing that allows us to deepen our understanding of why we are on the journey that we are on.  And every so often, a layer peels back, and a deeper meaning is revealed.

 

If I had to answer that question, “Why are you here?” at this moment in my life, I would probably answer that I am here because of love.  I am here to learn how to let myself be loved more deeply, by God and by the people in my life; and I am here to learn how to love more deeply, by God and by the people in my life.  But this answer is likely to change when another layer gets peeled away as my journey continues.

 

And so I ask you, one more time – why are you here?  Why are you here on this pilgrimage that you are on?

 

 

The Bouquet of Memories that we built this

year at Long Reach United Church