"Christmas Every Day" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 25, 2024 (Christmas in August!)
Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 35:1-10

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 Muppet Christmas Carol. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here.


Even though the movie trailer doesn’t give a good sense of the story of A Christmas Carol, I think that it is a story that many of us are familiar with.  Ebenezer Scrooge begins the story as a miser – focused on making money, no matter who is hurt in the process. He especially hates Christmas, because at Christmas he sees the world being wasteful with their money rather than making money. On Christmas Eve, he is visited by a series of ghosts.  First of all, the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, visits him and warns them that he is destined to an eternity of fire and chains if he doesn’t change his ways.  Then he is visited by the ghost of Christmas Past, who reminded him that when he was young, he didn’t hate Christmas, but his life was gradually turned away from relationships with people and towards a relationship with money.  Then he is visited by the ghost of Christmas Present, who shows him that people in his life are to be filled with the joy and love of Christmas, despite not having much money or facing other challenging circumstances.  And finally he is visited by the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come who shows him the bleak future he will face if he doesn’t change his ways.

At the end of the morning, Scrooge wakes up a changed person.  He is generous, he builds relationships with the people in his life, and Charles Dickens tells us, at the end of the book, “it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”

 

To me, A Christmas Carol is a story of transformation.  Scrooge is one person at the start of the story, and another person at the end of the story.  He is transformed by his encounter with the ghosts.

 

And, if you’ll pardon the cheesy word play, our lives as followers of Jesus are also transformed by an encounter with a ghost… though not the ghost of Christmases past, present, and yet to come!

 

The work of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, is the work of transformation.  We are created in the image of God, but then, because of our human nature, all of us fall short of God’s expectations in different ways.  I can only truly speak from my own experience here, but I don’t think that anyone is able to be completely perfect 100% of the time (and as I mentioned one Sunday earlier this summer – if you have figured out how to be completely perfect 100% of the time, I want to talk to you to learn your secret).  We may not be as miserable and miserly as Ebenezer Scrooge, but every person has their foibles and imperfections.

 

But like I said, the role of the Holy Spirit is one of transformation.  She works in our hearts and in our lives, transforming us more and more into who God created us to be, transforming us more and more into the image of Christ.

 

We don’t have to do it alone.  In fact, I don’t think that any of us can change either our own lives nor the lives of another person.  But the Holy Spirit, working in us, is able to turn us towards goodness and love.

 

The reading from Isaiah that ______ read for us is one of the traditional Advent readings, and it is full of images of transformation. The desert will be filled with abundant blossoms.  Weak hands and feeble knees will be made strong.  Streams of water will appear in the desert and springs of water will appear in the thirsty ground.  Sorrow and sighing will be replaced by joy and gladness.

 

Now, the context of Isaiah is of exile.  The Babylonian army had laid siege to Jerusalem, and eventually destroyed the city and carried the people away from the only home they had known, carried away to a foreign land.

 

There are three distinct parts to Isaiah, and the voices are different enough through the three parts that most scholars strongly suspect that there were three different authors writing in three different generations.  The first part of the book speaks about the movement into exile; the second part of the book holds the promise of return to the land; and the third part of the book speaks of restoration and rebuilding the city and the temple.

 

To hear chapter 35 of Isaiah, with its images of transformation, you might assume that it comes in the second part of Isaiah that speaks of the promise of return, but this chapter actually comes from the first part of Isaiah.  These beautiful images of transformation are being written in the context of being carried off into exile.

 

Even in the midst of destruction and death and exile, First Isaiah is able to assure people that it wasn’t going to be this way forever.  Even if this is a desert time in your life, a time will come when water will flow and flowers will blossom.

 

And transformation is the heart of the story of Christmas.  At Christmas, God is born as human flesh and blood.  God is born as a vulnerable baby, forever transforming our vulnerable flesh and blood and bringing it into contact with God.  The world is being transformed, because of Christmas.

 

So hear the song that the angel sang when they appeared to the shepherds that first Christmas, “Don’t be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people!”  The good news of Christmas is that God meets us in our vulnerability, in our frailty, in our imperfection.  But the good news continues, because God doesn’t leave us there, but is always transforming us, by the Holy Spirit, so that we can flourish.

 

No matter what desert you are traversing in your life – I don’t think that we have any Scrooges in the church, but we all face different sorts of deserts at different times in our lives – and no matter what desert you are currently traversing in your life, know that this isn’t your forever.  Know that the Holy Spirit is working her transformation in your life, and that springs will flow and flowers will blossom.  The peace of Christ is yours, and the joy of Christmas will sing in your heart, not just at Christmas but every day and always.

 

Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

"Solidaridad" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
August 18, 2024
Scripture:  Luke 4:14-21

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 Pride. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here. If you want to learn more about the story behind the movie, there is an excellent but longer (40 minutes) historical analysis you can watch by clicking here.



The first short-term mission trip that I went on with my home church in Thunder Bay was to El Salvador in 2002. The country had been hit by a massive earthquake the year before, and as the church we fundraised to re-build three houses through Habitat for Humanity in partnership with one of the United Church of Canada’s ecumenical partners in El Salvador.

But in addition to fundraising for the houses, we also learned about the social-political situation in El Salvador. We learned about how the church in El Salvador had participated in the oppression of people who were poor and marginalized. We learned about how foreign intervention had led to the civil war there.  We learned some of the more recent history too – about how neoliberalism and corporate globalization, combined with pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had led to near-slave-like working conditions (and near-slave-like salaries) for too many people.  We even learned some basic Spanish so that we would be able to speak with people in El Salvador, even if only a little.

 

Finally, in March of 2002, after a year of preparation, we traveled down to El Salvador for two weeks.  When we got to the village where the houses were to be built, we worked alongside actual builders who knew what they were doing, while we did what we were asked to do – mixing cement by hand, or moving the bricks from a pile over here to a pile over there.  We got to know the people in the village, despite the language barrier.  We shared meals together; we stayed with a family in the village, sleeping on the floor of their house; we laughed and sang together as we worked, and again in the evenings.

 

One word that we learned in our Spanish language training, along with greetings and how to ask “where is the toilet?” was “solidaridad.” (And I still have my “Solidaridad” apron that was one of our fundraisers!)

 

 

We also talked about solidarity as a concept in our preparation to go.  Our trip was about so much more than building three houses – our trip was about showing that we cared for the people who would live in those houses, about coming alongside them and offering support with no agenda or expectations or strings attached.  And that is what we heard again and again from the people of Los Talpatates, the village where we were staying. They couldn’t believe that a group of Canadians would love them enough to make the long journey to meet them and stay with them and learn their stories.  Our trip was about more than houses – it was about standing in solidarity with people who felt forgotten.

 

Now, I’ve just broken one of the cardinal rules for preaching – never make yourself the hero of the stories you tell – so I’m going to twist this story just a little bit at the end.

 

When we went to El Salvador, we definitely saw ourselves as the heroes in the story – as the people who were giving to those in need.  But in our time there, that narrative shifted a little bit.  Yes, we were going down in a spirit of assistance and solidarity, but when we were there, we were the recipients of such incredible grace and generosity.  We were welcomed into a village who had never met us before.  A family moved out of their house so that we could sleep on their floors.  Even the builders were gracious in their acceptance of “helpers” who had absolutely no idea what we were doing!  We thought that we would be giving and the Salvadorans would be receiving; but in the end, it was a much more mutual relationship, and in fact, I might even say that we received even more than we gave on that trip. And that is the way that it goes with solidarity – it is about building relationships and mutual sharing.

 

In our bible story today, we are at the very beginning of Jesus’s public ministry.  After his baptism, and after spending 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth where he goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath, reads from the scroll of Isaiah, and then proclaims that he is the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied.

 

If you look back to the book of Isaiah, there is a bit of a discrepancy, as the words that Luke places in Jesus’s mouth are actually a mishmash of both chapter 58 and chapter 61 of Isaiah.  But if you look at the literary structure of Luke, this scene is setting the stage for all of Jesus’s public ministry.  This is his first public appearance, and it is almost as if Jesus is presenting his mission statement to the world – this is what my ministry is going to be all about.

 

Bring good news to the poor.

Proclaim release to the captives.

Offer healing.

Free the oppressed from whatever binds them.

Proclaim God’s blessing to the world.

 

Jesus’s initial listeners – devout Jewish people in the synagogue – they would have been familiar with the source of what Jesus was reading, and their ears would have filled in other parts of these chapters of Isaiah that Luke leaves out.

 

Bind up the broken-hearted.

Provide for those who mourn.

Share bread with the hungry.

Loose the bonds of injustice.

Shelter the homeless poor.

 

All of these things – both the parts of Isaiah that Luke includes, and the parts that are left out – all of this is the work of Jesus that will unfold from this moment right up until the end of his life.

 

And after the end of Jesus’s life – after he dies and is resurrected and ascends into heaven – in these after-times, it is the church who is the Body of Christ.  It is the church who is responsible for continuing the work that Jesus started.  We are the ones responsible for loosing the bonds of injustice and bringing an end to oppression.  We are the ones responsible for proclaiming good news and freedom and blessing.  We are the ones responsible for feeding anyone who is hungry and comforting anyone who mourns and binding up the broken-hearted.

 

Which is how this reading ties into my initial story – to be in solidarity, to wholeheartedly support another without any agenda or strings attached, is part of the work of Jesus.

 

I began with one story of solidarity, and I’m going to end with another, and this is our movie tie-in for the week.  The 2014 movie Pride is based on a real-life story of the Gay and Lesbian community in London, England, offering their support to striking coal miners in 1984.  They raised money to support families in a village in Wales who were trying to get by on strike wages, and not only that, but they visited the village a number of times to offer moral support, and built friendships – genuine relationships – with the people there.  There was no expectation of reciprocity – they didn’t have an agenda, they didn’t have any expectation of receiving anything in return.  They were doing this because they knew what it was like to be mistreated by the press, the police, and the government.

 

But at the end of the movie, the solidarity went both ways, and the Mineworker’s Union showed up in London in 1985 to march in the Pride Parade with them; and then used their political ties to have the Labour Party add protections and rights for Gay and Lesbian people into their party platform.

 

In their acts of solidarity and relationship building, I truly believe that this movie shows the love of God and the work of Christ in action.  In binding up the broken-hearted, in provided food for the hungry, in working to overturn oppression and injustice, we see the work of the Body of Christ.  Whenever we see the true colours of another person, and create space for them to shine, we are doing the work of Christ.

 

And so my prayer for the church – not just for our churches of Two Rivers, not just for the United Church of Canada, but for the universal church of all times and all places – my prayer is that we might continue to be the hands and feet of Christ as we continue the work that Jesus began.  That we might continue to loosen bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free.  That we might continue to proclaim good news of unconditional love to anyone who needs to hear it, and bring healing to the broken-hearted. That we might be spaces where everyone’s true colours can shine through.

 

And whether this work looks like marching in a Pride Parade, or using our voices to advocate politically, or sharing our resources where they are needed – may the Holy Spirit be always working in the church, in all of our hearts, transforming us more and more into the Body of Christ.  Amen.

Hope When Everything is Hopeless: Rebuilding Hope in Montgomery's Post-War Novels

 

There are two origin stories to this paper. Origin story #1 takes place in my first year at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax (incidentally, Ewan MacDonald’s alma matter). I was sitting in a United Church of Canada Doctrine class, learning about the theological movements in Canada in the first quarter of the 20th century, and as I sat there listening, I was thinking to myself:  “I’ve read these conversations before, but in novel form. I could be listening to a conversation between Mr. Meredith and Norman Douglas right now.” I realized that Montgomery, as the wife of a Presbyterian minister, must have been aware of the theological conversations of her time and place, in order to be able to incorporate them into her novels.

 

The second origin story is more recent. In 2020 in the L. M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group, we were discussing The Blue Castle, and one of the discussion questions that was posed was around where Valancey drew her hope.  To me, “hope” is a theological word, and this question got me thinking about the time period in which this novel was written. This was a time when the theological world’s understanding of hope had been shattered by the Great War. I then started thinking about how some of Montgomery’s most hope-filled novels, including The Blue Castle, were written in this time period.

 

And so, with this presentation, I plan to bring together some of Montgomery’s novels that were written in this post-war period alongside the North American Protestant theological discourse of that time, looking at them all through the lens of hope. I will be drawing on Montgomery’s journals as well; however we know the layers of self-editing that went into these journals in their final form, so they won’t be my primary source – they will appear primarily on the screen behind me.

 

I’ll begin by painting a picture of the theological movements of the first quarter of the 20th Century, then move on to explore the novels – I’ll look at Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside together, since they follow the same narrative arc with the same characters, and finish with The Blue Castle. I hope to show connections between Montgomery’s work and the theological world in which she was living and writing.

 

First of all, because I am looking at her work through a lens of hope, I should begin by defining what I mean by hope.  Theological hope is more than simple wishful thinking.

 

 

The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines Christian Hope as:  “The Christian anticipation of the future as the fulfillment of God’s purposes based on God’s covenant faithfulness and the resurrection of Jesus Christ as known by the work of the Holy Spirit in the church.”  And so hope is a future-oriented virtue – it looks at all of the problems of the present moment, and trusts that God has a better future planned for all of creation.  Hope isn’t needed when everything is going well – hope means acknowledging the pain and suffering of the present moment, and trusting that this current state is only temporary.  It has sometimes been said that hope is only possible when everything is hopeless.

 

In Protestant North America in the years leading up to the Great War, the understanding of hope was tied to the unbridled optimism and positivity of the 19th century.

 

 

Modernity and the Enlightenment meant that many scientific advances were being made. Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall writes of this era:  “so much of what had come to be by the end of the nineteenth century was sheer illusion:  the illusion of unimpeded progress, of the moral neutrality of science and technology, of the essential goodness of the human spirit, of humanity’s rightful mastery over nature, of the victory of rationality over ignorance and superstition, of the socially beneficial character of individual pursuit of wealth and power, and so on.”  The prevailing belief in this time period was that the world was getting better and better, and that this progress would continue until the Kingdom of God was present here on earth; and that by the efforts of the church, the coming of God’s Kingdom could be sped up.

 

In this time period, you see theologians like Canadian Presbyterian R. G. MacBeth writing in 1912:  “Christians are not really owners; they are stewards and trustees of what they possess, and as such it is their bounden duty to expend it in the way that, in their enlightened and prayerful judgement, will conduce most to the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom.”

 

You also see hints of this in the Basis of Union of the United Church of Canada, written by the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational Churches and adopted by all three denominations in 1908.  “Article XX. Of Christian Service and the final Triumph.  We believe that it is our duty, as disciples and servants of Christ, to further the extension of His Kingdom… We confidently believe that by His power and grace all His enemies shall finally be overcome, and the kingdoms of this world be made the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.”

 

And then the Great War started in 1914.  With such a massive conflict on an international scale, the world’s understanding of hope was shattered.  If the world was continually getting better and better until the Kingdom of God is here, then something like the Great War shouldn’t be possible.

 

Between 1914 and 1930, theologians had to re-work their understanding of hope to account for these events of history. Within the Presbyterian Church in Canada, two main strategies for understanding hope emerged.

 

 

Contemporary Presbyterian Theologian, Brian Fraser, writes about how the majority adopted a chastened optimism, with a “providential progress brought about by the gradual spread of moral and spiritual ideas through institutions.”  Events like the war could then be seen “as a continuation of that struggle for justice, purity, and peace” and the response to war could be seen as an opportunity to further progress God’s kingdom.

 

Alongside this majority view, a minority of Canadian Presbyterian theologians moved in the direction of neo-orthodoxy, a movement most associated with German theologian Karl Barth, but there was a Presbyterian in Toronto, Walter Bryden, who was, to quote one of my mentors Laurence DeWolfe, doing Barthian theology before Barth.

 

 

This neo-orthodoxy re-emphasized the divinity and omnipotence of God, while minimizing the ability of humans to change the course of God’s history. By this way of thinking, the war could be seen as absolute tragedy, neither hindering nor progressing the coming of God’s kingdom.

 

And into this milieu we have L. M. Montgomery, wife to a Presbyterian minister in rural Canada, writing books set in this time period in Protestant Canada.

 

 

Even though she denied that being a minister’s wife impacted her writing, she must have been aware of the theological conversations going on around her.  From her journals, we know that much of their social life in this time period, outside of their congregational obligations, revolved around friendships with other Presbyterian ministers and their families. I would love to have a recording of the conversations over dinner when Mr. Fraser was visiting the manse at Leaskdale, or when they were staying with the Stirlings in the manse in Cavendish. As someone who is frequently part of gatherings when clergy are present, as well as clergy spouses, I can attest that our conversation isn’t just about the price of gas or current movies!

 

I also wish that there was a record of what Ewan was reading in this time period. Montgomery writes in her journal about many of the books that she was reading; and we know that Ewan was reading, as she used his ability to read as a measure of his wellness, but as far as I know there is no list of his books. I can only speculate that his reading, alongside the reading of his colleagues and friends, included the books that were shaping the theological discourse at the time.

 

 

Montgomery began writing Rainbow Valley in 1917 when the war was raging and it was published in 1919, shortly following the war. Her next novel, Rilla of Ingleside, published in 1921, was set in the same community with the same cast of characters and takes place during the Great War.

 

In addition to the war and the subsequent influenza pandemic, this was not a peaceful period in Montgomery’s life. In 1919, her husband Ewan began to experience symptoms of the mental illness that he would struggle with for the rest of his life, placing strain on their home life. This was also the time period when Montgomery was involved in a series of lawsuits with her original publishers, L. C. Page, alongside a lawsuit following an automobile accident in June 1921 that would haunt the MacDonalds for many years.  Montgomery’s close friend, Frede Campbell, died in 1919 in the pandemic, as did many family members and neighbours; and Montgomery herself had lingering symptoms following her bout with the Spanish ’Flu.

 

And yet into this seemingly hopeless situation, both in her home life and in the wider world, Montgomery wrote what she hoped would be the last “Anne” books – books that are full of hope.

 

In Rainbow Valley, we see echoes of the pre-War optimistic hopefulness – the idea that the world was going to get better and better until the kingdom of God is here. When commenting on Jem Blythe’s fascination with soldiers, Cornelia Elliott comments, “Well, thank goodness, he’ll never be a soldier. I never approved of our boys going to that South African fracas. But it’s over, and not likely anything of the kind will ever happen again.”  This is especially poignant, given that Montgomery was writing these words in a time when a war even more devastating than the Boer war was raging around her.

 

An interesting thread to follow through both Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside are the conversations involving Mr. Meredith, a character who is a Presbyterian Minister. These are the parts of the books that jumped into my mind when I was sitting in class learning about the theological movements of this time.

 

 

In Rainbow Valley, set around 1906, we see Mr. Meredith conversing with Ellen West about the German Kaiser. They agree that he is dangerous, but disagree on the damage he could do. Mr. Meredith repeats the pre-war theology of hope, stating that the day for great wars is past, but Ellen rebuts him, saying:  “The day never goes by for men and nations to make asses of themselves and take to the fists. The millennium isn’t that near, Mr. Meredith.”  In her statement, Ellen seems to be anticipating the neo-orthodox theology of hope that would emerge following the war – a belief that human nature can’t be overcome, and that God’s promised future will only be achieved by God Themself.

 

Jumping forward in time, to Rilla of Ingleside and the start of the war in 1914, we see Mr. Meredith already needing to adapt his theology. The war that he thought impossible has come to pass, and he needs to make meaning of it.  He tells Sophia Crawford:  “I don’t think the war has been sent as a punishment for sin. I think it is the price humanity must pay for some blessing – some advance great enough to be worth the price – which we may not live to see but which our children’s children will inherit.”  This is the sort of theology you can find in a 1917 report written by T. B. Kilpatrick for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, titled War and the Christian Church.  Kilpatrick writes of how the war has challenged the faith of the church, and how, in response to this:  “We commend to all our brethren, in the membership, and in the ministry of our Church, the renewed study and the diligent pursuit, of all means and methods, whereby the cause of Christ may be furthered, and the world prepared for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.”

 

 

By 1916, Mr. Meredith seems to have developed this theology even further, maybe even leaning a little bit away from the social gospel perspective where it is by human work that God’s future will unfold, towards neo-orthodoxy where it is all up to God.  He tells Miss Oliver:  “We are witnessing the birth-pangs of a new era – but it will be born a feeble, wailing life like everything else. I am not one of those who expect a new heaven and a new earth as the immediate results of this war. That is not the way God works. But work He does, Miss Oliver, and in the end His purpose will be fulfilled.”

 

At the end of the novel, it is Jem Blythe who speaks the renewed Social Gospel that was the majority Presbyterian understanding of hope in the post-war era.  Upon returning from the war and more than 4 years of fighting, Jem tells Rilla:  “We’re in a new world, and we’ve got to make it a better one than the old. That isn’t done yet, though some folks seem to think it ought to be. The job isn’t finished – it isn’t really begun. The old world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. It will be the task of years. I’ve seen enough of war to realize that we’ve got to make a world where wars can’t happen.”

 

I wish that I could get into more threads of hope from these books – Mary Vance’s journey from despair to a cautious hope; Miss Oliver’s dreams; moments when the characters sway between despair and hope. Unfortunately I only have 20 minutes! Before leaving these books though, I want to say that Dog Monday is the most hopeful character I have ever read in literature. After seeing his human board a train in uniform, Dog Monday stayed at the station, looking for his human to return on every train. For almost 5 years, Dog Monday didn’t give up.  He had no evidence that his human was going to return on which to base his hope, yet he trusted that it was going to happen some day.

 

 

Turning from the world of Anne to the world of Valancy, I want to take a brief look at The Blue Castle.  This is a book about a character with a bleak past and a bleak future who manages to break away from it and discover a future that she had dreamed of but never expected to experience.

 

The theme of hope is introduced in the opening paragraphs of the book. Valancy wakes up early, “in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding dawn,” and she is described as having been relegated “to hopeless old maidenhood.” But we are also told that “Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that romance would come her way yet.”  It is a medical diagnosis that shakes Valancy from her hopelessness to live into that tiny flame of hope that she had carried with her through her whole life. The thought that she might never get to experience her Blue Castle gave her the courage to step away from the hopeless situation that she thought she was trapped in, and live her life to the fullest.

 

 

Even though this book is less explicitly theological than Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, I see in Valancy’s actions a hint of the renewed social gospel understanding of hope in the post-war period, whereby humans are expected to do the things that are within our grasp to bring about God’s better future. If Valancy hadn’t taken her first step away from her family, nothing would have changed for her.

 

 

I want to conclude today with a quote that is found in both The Blue Castle and Rainbow Valley, as well as twice in Montogmery’s own journals in 1922-1923.  “Despair is a free man; hope is a slave.” Ellen West tells herself this, trying to convince herself not to be enslaved to a hope that she might be able to marry Norman Douglas. Valancy tells herself the same thing at the moment of her decision to change her life, thinking that it is despair over her diagnosis that frees her.  And the context from Montgomery’s journals is once with respect to the Pickering lawsuit, and once with respect to Ewan’s health.

 

As far as I’ve been able to discern, this quote originates with Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammed. 18th Century British Orientalist, Simon Ockley, in his commentary on this saying, writes, “So long as a man is in expectation, his thoughts are in suspense and he is in a slavish condition; but as soon as he gives over his pursuit, he is free and at liberty.”

 

I want to push back a little bit on this aphorism. Montgomery would have seen in her own home life how her husband, Ewan, was paralyzed by despair about his own perceived damnation. Despair didn’t free him, rather it enslaved him. And was it Valancy’s despair over not having a future beyond 12 months that allowed her to break free of her family; or was it her hope that her Blue Castle was out there that gave her the courage to break free?  And for the Blythe, Meredith, Douglas, and Elliot families, despair about the war would have sunk them, but instead it was their hope in a better world that gave them the strength to keep on moving from one day into the next; and their hope in God’s coming kingdom that allowed them to start to make sense out of the War.

 

When everything seems hopeless, sometimes hope is all that we have left.

 

 

 

Thank you to some of my mentors, who gave me some initial direction towards what theologians might have been influencing the discourse around hope in the post-war years.

 

 

 

And finally my references:

 

"Let it Go" (reflection)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 11, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Colossians 3:12-17

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 Frozen. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here.


Jesus liked to teach his listeners using parables – stories that contain a nugget (or often many nuggets) of wisdom that help his listeners better understand the message he is trying to get across.

 

And so today, I’m going to tell a teaching story too, though in the form of a fairy tale rather than a parable – a story that I think teaches some of the messages from the passage from Colossians that ______ just read for us.  The biggest difference between fairy tales and parables is that parables are usually grounded in familiar objects and people and situations, while fairy tales are set in far-away or even mythical times, with elements of the magical or fantastical.  But both contain kernels of truth or wisdom.

 

And so let our story begin:

 

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there were two sisters who lived in a castle. The elder of the sisters was born with a special talent that was both a gift and a curse. Everything that she touched with her hand or her foot froze and turned to ice and snow.

 

When she was young, the sisters would play with her gift, creating skating rinks in the great hall, and building snowman companions.  But then one day, the gift became a curse, and some of the magic from the elder sister injured the younger sister. Her parents took her to visit the healer trolls who told them that they could cure their daughter as the magic had hit her head – a frozen head could be thawed, but a frozen heart could not.

 

When they returned home, the parents told their first-born child that her gift was not a gift at all, it was a curse. She had to stay away from all human contact in case she caused harm to another. Because she was angry at herself for the harm she had caused to her sister, the elder sister obliged.  She lived behind a closed door.  She wore gloves at all times.  She tried to control her emotions, as feeling her emotions led to less control over her magic.

 

The years passed.  The sisters grew up.  Their parents died, and it was time for the firstborn sister to inherit the throne. For the first time, she was going to have contact with other people.

 

And it all went wrong. Her guilt over what she had done to her sister, her disgust about her curse, her anxiety about causing more harm all came together, her frozen magic flowed out of control, and the whole kingdom labeled her a monster.

 

She tried to isolate herself even more. She ran alone into the mountains, and let the magic take over her body.  Winter took over the land.

 

Her younger sister was the only one who cared for her as a person, and thought that she could be the one to bring her sister back and end the eternal winter.  But when she found her sister in the mountains, her sister’s magic hit her for a second time, this time freezing her heart.

 

The healer trolls were dismayed.  You see, a frozen heart isn’t as easy to thaw as a frozen head.  The only thing to thaw a frozen heart and save her life was an act of true love.

 

Having read all of the fairy tales, the younger sister thought that true love’s kiss was the thing to save her. But the prince she thought she loved proved false, and the peasant boy she had learned to love was too far away.

 

But when her older sister came down from her ice palace in the mountains to find her younger sister, the townspeople saw her and wanted to kill the monster. The younger sister, knowing that she was dying from a frozen heart, stepped in front of her older sister and was turned to an ice statue and saved her older sister’s life.

 

In that moment, the older sister forgave herself for harming her younger sister.  She forgave her parents for keeping them apart. And in that moment of forgiveness, the ice of her frozen younger sister began to melt.

 

You see, it wasn’t a kiss from a prince that was an act of true love needed to break the magic – it was the self-sacrificial love of one sister for another that could make her whole.

 

And with that healing, and with that forgiveness, the two sisters were restored to one another. The older sister was able to embrace her gift as not just a curse but a blessing as well, and together the sisters were able to face the future.

 

So maybe this story is a bit longer than the parables that Jesus told; and maybe it involves magic rather than everyday people and situations, but I think that this story does teach us about the passage from Colossians that we heard earlier.  It is a story about a story.  Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Forgive each other.  Clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.  Be thankful.

 

To me, Frozen is a story about forgiveness and reconciliation.  Ana, the younger sister, easily forgave Elsa, her older sister, for harming her with her magic, both when they were young and when they were older.  She even forgave Elsa for isolating herself within the castle and later in the mountains.  She didn’t let her pain and anger hold her back – all she wanted was to have the relationship with her older sister that they had had when they were young.

 

Elsa, on the other hand, struggles with forgiveness – not necessarily forgiveness of another person, but forgiveness of herself.  She struggles to forgive herself for hurting Ana when they were young.  She struggles to forgive herself for causing an eternal winter.

 

One of my mentors describes withholding forgiveness as being like letting someone or something occupy space in your head, rent-free.  Until you can let go of the pain, it will continue to weigh you down and keep you from moving on from it.  And until Elsa could forgive herself, she and Ana could never be reconciled – they could never rebuild a relationship because her lack of forgiveness was holding her back.  Reconciliation is only possible when both parties seek it – if only one party is able to forgive and seek to restore the relationship, it can’t happen, as both sides are needed for a true relationship.

 

In the movie, it was only when Elsa witnessed Ana’s selfless love – throwing herself between Elsa and the murderous crowd – that she was finally able to let go of the hurt she was carrying – to finally forgive herself.  And then, through the magic of fairytales, Ana’s selfless act of true love for her sister unfroze her heart and her body and the sisters were re-united and reconciled.

 

As Paul writes in Colossians, clothe yourselves with kindness and with love; let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts; and forgive each other… to which I would add, “and forgive yourself.”  And then, then we can truly be one community, the Body of Christ.

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

 

Sometimes a “frozen” world is beautiful!

Photo Credit: K. Jones

"Resurrection Everywhere" (Sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 4, 2024
Scripture Reading:  Luke 24:13-35

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 Toy Story 3. You can read a summary of this movie by clicking here, or watch the trailer by clicking here.


This story from the Road to Emmaus is maybe my favourite resurrection story about Jesus.  The setting is the afternoon of Easter Day, and two of Jesus’s disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a 7-mile journey.

 

I can only imagine what they must have been feeling at that moment.  Two days previously, they had watched their beloved teacher and friend cruelly tortured and murdered by an oppressive empire.  And then just that morning, some of the women who were part of their group had discovered that the tomb had been opened and the body was gone.

 

I can only imagine that they must have been feeling a mixture of deep grief, deep anger, and deep fear.  Not only had they lost the person who was at the centre of their lives, but now it seems as though his body had been tampered with, and there was a cruel rumour that he was actually alive.  But it would be too painful to hope.  In fact, we’re told that they are living in the past tense of hope:  “We had hoped.”  Nothing in their lives is ever going to be the same again.

 

The story continues, and a stranger joins them on the road and asks what is wrong. They share their story with the stranger, who then begins to teach them from the scriptures.  They arrive at their destination for the night, and when the stranger goes to continue walking along the road, they extend hospitality to him, and invite him to break bread with them and stay the night.  Even in the midst of their grief and anger and fear and hopelessness, they haven’t forgotten the basic guidelines of hospitality.

 

And then there, in the middle of the meal, the stranger takes bread.  The stranger blesses the bread.  The stranger breaks the bread.  The stranger gives the bread to them.

 

In the middle of confusion, a moment of clarity.

In the middle of mystery, a moment of familiarity.

In the middle of grief, a moment of hope.

 

And in that moment, the two disciples of Jesus recognize the stranger.  For it was only 3 days ago that their beloved Jesus had taken the bread, blessed the bread, broken the bread, given the bread.  The two disciples recognize that the stranger who had been travelling with them wasn’t a stranger, but was Jesus himself.  The rumour about him being alive wasn’t a rumour at all, but was the truth.  And in the moment of their recognition, Jesus vanishes, and the two disciples rush back to Jerusalem, all 7 miles along the road, to share the good news with the others.

 

I love this story, and the detail that causes me to ponder, every time I read it, is how the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus as he travelled with them.  Had their eyes been blinded by grief, so that they hadn’t been able to recognize the one they were grieving?  Or had Jesus’s outward form been changed by death and resurrection, so that they weren’t able to recognize him?

 

Jumping from Easter to Toy Story 3, to me, this is a story about resurrection.  It is the perfect conclusion to the Toy Story trilogy… like I mentioned last week, I’m going to pretend that Toy Story 4 doesn’t exist, and that they aren’t making a 5th film in the franchise!

 

In the Toy Story universe, the toys have their own lives.  When they are around humans, they are the passive objects that we are all familiar with, but when the humans aren’t around, they have lives of their own.  And in the Toy Story universe, the primary purpose of a toy is to be played with.

 

The movies focus on the toys belonging to one particular child named Andy.  The first two movies take place when Andy is young, and the toys have all sorts of adventures as new toys are acquired by Andy, and as they get played with in the rambunctious way that many children have.  But at the start of Toy Story 3, Andy is 17 years old, and is heading off to college at the end of the week.  His mother tells him that he has to clean out his room before he goes, and gives him three options for his things:  take to college, put in the attic, or trash.  Shenanigans ensue, and even though Andy had originally planned to take his favourite toy to college with him and store the rest in the attic, the lot of them end up donated to a daycare where they end up in the chaotic toddler room, and under the dictatorship of a cruel stuffed bear who rules over all the daycare toys.

 

From the perspective of Andy’s toys, watching their kid grow up and become less interested in toys has been a painful and lonely time. If a toy’s primary purpose is to be played with, what happens when their kid doesn’t want to play with them any more?

 

The toys are divided on what to do.  What they all long for is for things to be the way that they were 10 years ago, when all that Andy wanted to do is to play with them.  Some of them think that they should wait patiently in the attic – to always be there for Andy, and maybe some day he will have children of his own, and they can be played with again.  Some of the toys think that they should embrace the daycare lifestyle, where at least they will be played with regularly, even if they never get to bond with one particular child again since the children turn over every year.

 

But what none of the toys could imagine is that a resurrected future that is even more beautiful than their wildest dreams.

 

Now I’m about to spoil the ending of a 14-year-old film, so if you don’t want to know how the story ends, I suggest covering your ears for the next minute or so!

 

At the end of the movie, Andy donates his toys to a young child – the daughter of one of his mother’s friends – and she then plays with the toys the way that they want to be played with.  This is a resurrection moment for the toys.  They haven’t been able to go back in time to the way that things were, we can only move forward in time.  Their future is going to look very different from their past, but it is going to be good.

 

Before they get to this Easter moment, before they get to this resurrection, they do have to go through a Good Friday moment of death and destruction – but there is a beautiful moment in the midst of their Good Friday that made me tear up on Tuesday even though I’d seen the movie before.  As the toys are being pulled towards a garbage incinerator and they realize that there is absolutely nothing that they can do to escape, they reach out and hold each other’s hands.  As they move into a terrifying future and they realize that they can’t go back, they recognize that the future will be bearable only if they face it together.

 

We can never go back to the way things were – we can only ever move forward through life.  It is OK to honour the past, but if we try to hold on to it or re-create it, we will only face disappointment.  But the good news of Easter, the good news of the Road to Emmaus, is that even though the future looks very different than the past, the future is even better than we could have imagined.  And so, like the toys in Toy Story 3, let us hold hands and face the future with courage together.  And so, like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, let us recognize Christ as our companion on the way.

 

And always, always hold on to hope, knowing that new beginnings are always possible, whether you are a toy or a human, and trusting that our future is held in God’s hands.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

 

"Take. Bless. Break. Give."

(Loaf from our Wild Worship service last Thursday)