"Joseph's Journey" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 30, 2025 (Advent 1)
Scripture:  Matthew 1:18-25

This is the first week of a 4-week (plus Christmas Eve) story-telling series. Different people who are part of the nativity scene tell the story of how they ended up at the manger.


You asked me how I came to be at the manger.  Well, my journey here started a year before I arrived.

My parents named me Joseph, after our ancestor, one of the sons of Jacob.  That Joseph became one of the most powerful people in Egypt after he interpreted some dreams for the Pharoah, and I think that maybe my parents hoped that my name would lead me into a position of power.  But I think that it was Joseph’s dreams that I inherited instead, and a sense of the Divine Presence with me.

Like my father, and his father before him, I am a carpenter.  We work with our hands, building things for other families in our village.  One day it might be a new door for a house, another day it might be a set of shelves for a groom’s family to give to a new bride.  We aren’t wealthy by any means, but we have never gone hungry.  Occasionally one of us will get a contract for a couple of months to labour on one of the Roman building projects.  When that happens, we have a little to set aside for either a party or to save for a rainy day.

Our family is well-respected in the village synagogue.  We don’t come from the priestly class – we are from the tribe of Judah rather than the tribe of Levi – but we are often called upon to read the scriptures in the synagogue, and our family is sometimes held up as an example of a God-fearing family.

I trust that the God of my ancestors – the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Rebekkah and Isaac, the God of Jacob and his many wives – this same God isn’t done with us, even though the prophets have seemed to be silent for many generations now.  God-whose-name-is-holy was with our ancestors when they were in exile in Babylon, and surely God-whose-name-is-holy is with our people now.  God (whose name is too holy to speak aloud) is with us, even when we can’t hear the Divine Voice.

I think that this is maybe what Isaiah and the other prophets meant when they talked about hope.  When we went into exile, surely it must have seemed as though the world had ended and that God-whose-name-is-holy had abandoned us.  Yet the prophets always remind us that the end is never really the end, and God-whose-name-is-holy is always promising return and restoration and renewal.

I apologize – I’m getting away from my story of how I came to the manger!

A year ago, my parents told me that they had arranged a marriage for me – I was to marry Mary – it sounds funny when I say it that way!  But they had made arrangements with Mary’s parents, and the two of us were to get married within the next year.  I was pleased with this news.  I didn’t know Mary well – only to recognize her when I saw her in the village streets – but I knew that eventually my parents would choose a bride for me, and they could have chosen much worse for sure!  Mary also had a reputation as a dreamer – she was always wandering the hillside, and singing little songs to herself. It would be good to have someone to share my dreams with.  And her parents’ home, like my parents’ home, was known to be a harmonious one.  The neighbours never heard the sound of shouting coming from it, and I had good hopes for a harmonious marriage that would grow into genuine affection with time.

We weren’t allowed to spend any time alone together before the marriage though.  We had a couple of meetings, but our parents did all of the speaking for us.

But then one day, a couple of months into our engagement, her parents came to our house without Mary.  They spoke with my parents for a while, and then they called me into the room.  My parents told me the most unbelievable news – Mary was now carrying a child within her womb.  I had no words.  I knew that there was no way that this child could be mine.

My parents were insisting that our engagement be ended, and that Mary be called before the leaders in the synagogue.  The punishment, according to the law, for a woman caught in adultery was stoning.  And Mary, by her actions, had brought disgrace not only to her family but to ours too.  With our broken engagement, Mary’s disgrace was going to make it very difficult to find another bride for me.  Even though I knew that her child wasn’t mine, it would be difficult to quell the rumours, and parents would be reluctant to entrust their daughters to me.

But I didn’t want to bring this punishment on Mary. I thought that it would be better to end our engagement quietly.  Our village knew that we were engaged, but they didn’t need to know why the engagement had ended.  Surely Mary’s parents had family in a far-off village where they could send her to stay until well after the child was born.  Even better if those far-off family members were childless, and might be willing to raise her child as their own.  My parents said that they would consider my request.

But I told you that I’m a dreamer, didn’t I, just like my ancestor, the other Joseph.  And the night after Mary’s parents visited us, I had one of my dreams.  These dreams aren’t like the muddled, confusing dreams of ordinary nights.  When I have my special dreams, they are more real than when I am awake.  And in these dreams, I often hear the voice of God-whose-name-is-holy.

That night, the Holy Voice told me that I was to take Mary as my wife.  The Holy Voice told me that her child was the child of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Voice told me that she would bear a son.  The Holy Voice told me that I was to raise this child as my own, giving him the name of Jesus.  The Holy Voice told me that this son would be the saviour of the world.

I wanted to ask God-whose-name-is-holy how I was to share this news with my parents, but who is able to argue with the Creator of the Universe?

When I woke up, I told my parents what my dream had said, and surprisingly they agreed to allow the marriage to proceed.  Sometimes I wonder if they are dreamers too; I wonder if they too received a message that night from the Holy Voice of God-whose-name-is-holy.

It was unusual but not unheard of for a couple to begin their family before formally marrying – many circumstances can delay a wedding ceremony.  But when the village saw that we were getting married, the assumption seems to have been that this was my child that Mary was carrying.

And many months later, here I am, standing by the manger of my son.  I am here, because I trusted in the voice of God-whose-name-is-holy.  I am here because hope tells us that the future is always in those Divine Hands.

What about you?  Why are you journeying to the manger this year?

 

The Holy Family

Image Used With Permission

"Christ the 'No-Kings' Sunday" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 23, 2025 – Christ the King / Reign of Christ Sunday
Scripture Readings:  Colossians 1:15-20 and Luke 23:33-43



Has anyone been following the protest movements that have been happening down in the US this year?  The biggest and most organized of these protest movements is called “No Kings” and uses the logo of a large gold crown with a bold red X over it.  I commented to a colleague earlier this fall that this year’s sermon for Christ the King Sunday was essentially writing itself – all you had to do was follow the news!

It's an interesting – and relevant – fact that celebrating the last Sunday before Advent as Christ the King Sunday is a relatively new addition to the church calendar.  This minor holy-day was added by the Roman Catholic Church 100 years ago in 1925, under a global political situation that has some resonances with what is going on in the world in 2025.  The 1920s saw a distinct rise in fascism in Europe, with the rise of both Mussolini and Hitler’s authoritarian regimes.  And the church saw this happening and said, “No. Our ultimate authority isn’t any political leader, even when that leader tries to claim ultimate authority.  For us, our ultimate allegiance is due to Christ, and to Christ alone.  Christ is the only king that we are loyal to.”  Christ the King Sunday, Reign of Christ Sunday, is, at its heart, a lower-case-p political statement by the church.

And I think that the lectionary readings assigned to today force us to ask ourselves, what sort of a king is this, that we follow.  We heard two very different pictures of a king in the two different readings today.

First was the picture painted by Colossians, a letter written to the very early church.  This is a hymn to the Cosmic Christ who rules over all of creation and over all of our hearts.  To the author of this letter, the Reign of Christ wasn’t only located in the future.  Because Jesus died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, the reign of Christ has already begun, and is in the process of unfolding over the whole world.

This is maybe the more traditional picture of a king – ultimate power, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (to borrow a phrase from either the book of Revelation or the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah!).  A king in whom all things were created, and who has dominion over all of creation.

But can we hold this picture of a king up next to the picture painted by the gospel of Luke?  This is maybe an… unexpected… reading to hear at this time of year, as it is one that we would normally hear on Good Friday.  It is also an unexpected type of king that it pictures.  Here we see a king enthroned on a cross rather than a golden throne, and crowned with thorns instead of jewels.  A king who rode a lowly donkey into Jerusalem rather than a war horse.  A king who has been stripped of all of his robes, regal or otherwise.  A king who refuses to call on weapons and armies to defeat the ones crucifying him, but instead extends forgiveness for what they are doing.

Back in the summer, I read a book called Jesus and John Wayne, written by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.  In this book, she points out how the world – especially the American evangelical world, and the various spheres that it influences – the world has created a Christ in the image of John Wayne, the cowboy hero who depended on might making right, who had an arrogant confidence that his way was the right way, who imposed his will on everyone around him, whether they wanted to or not.  This Christ-in-the-image-of-John-Wayne would sit on a golden throne, would be robed in ermine and velvet, would mete out judgement and punishment without mercy, would hold all power and glory and dominion.

A John Wayne Jesus would not have suffered on the cross.  He might have appeared to suffer at first, but then would have zapped the wooden cross into splinters, leapt down, and launched an attack against Rome.  He would not have extended forgiveness to the ones crucifying them, but would have rounded them up, arrested them, and ensured that they were suitably punished.

But when we worship a crucified Christ, the image of a John Wayne Jesus feels a bit ridiculous.

But then, in some ways, the idea of a church holy-day dedicated to kings also feels a bit ridiculous.  Because in the stories of the bible, kings never come across in a very positive light.  God definitely seems to be part of the “No Kings” movement!

If you go back in the Old Testament to when the people first entered the Promised Land, they said to God, “All of our neighbours have a king – we want a king too!”  God said to the people, “You don’t want a king. Under a king, you will be at constant war, you will be taxed into poverty, your women won’t be safe, and your children will be slaves.”  The people said, “We don’t care, we want a king anyways,” and eventually God relented and gave them a king.

If you move through the Old Testament from that point onward, the people had kings, but just as God had predicted, most of the kings of Ancient Israel and Ancient Judah did not do good, but instead drew the people away from God.  If you do the math, it’s probably something along the lines of 85% of the kings did evil, while only 15% of them did good.  (And bible study folks – last year when we were reading about these kings, we saw that even the so-called “good” kings tended to be flawed.)

And then in the New Testament, in the time of Jesus and the very early church, the king was the Roman Emperor – again, not a person or a concept that is usually celebrated in the bible.  This is someone ruling from afar, and usually most concerned about acquiring power and conquering new lands, to the suffering of the people he ruled over.

Like I said, a king is a funny thing for the church to be celebrating.

But what today’s celebration does, is that it flips the image of a king upside down.  Jesus is a king, with the absolute authority that a king has, and demanding our ultimate allegiance the way a king does, but he is unlike any earthly king, past present or future.  This is a topsy-turvy king who reigns over a topsy-turvy kingdom where the lowest and the least are the first at the feast, where outsiders are insiders, and where abundance means that there is more than enough for everyone.

Today asks us to consider what sort of king do we want?  Do we want a king who can command an army where tomorrow we or our children or our grandchildren may be conscripted to serve in a war we didn’t choose?  Do we want a king who decides who is in and who is out of the kingdom, and with a wave of his hand makes it so?  Do we want a king who tariffs us into poverty and then uses that money to build new ballrooms and buy gold toilets?

Or do we want a king who chooses service and humility up to the point of death, and then through his death and resurrection, overturns all earthly kings?  In some ways, today is Christ the No-King Sunday, because when Christ reigns over our hearts and lives, no earthly person or thing can do so.

But if the Crucified Christ is the sort of king that we want, if this is the kingdom that we want to be a part of, then we too have to choose to embrace the way of service and humility.  We too have to choose forgiveness over retaliation.  We too have to choose relationship and community over a need to win.  We too have to choose the way of love and peace and joy.

And once the whole world has chosen this path, then the kingdom of God will be here, and the reign of Christ will be complete.  And may it be so.  And may it be so soon.  Amen.

"Hope Beyond the Horrors of This World" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 16, 2025
Scripture:  Luke 21:5-19


OK – so reading this passage from the gospel of Luke that _____ just read for us, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus was watching the news from 2025 when he was speaking.  “Many will come in my name and claim to be acting on my behalf, but they are only there to lead you astray.”  “Nation will rise against nation; and kingdom will rise against kingdom.”  “There will be famines in some places, and plagues in others.”  “They will arrest my followers, and bring you before kings and governors.”

Seriously Jesus – could you see our planet in this moment when you were speaking 2000 years ago?!

In our world today, Jesus’s message of love is being twisted and manipulated for political gain.  Wars are dragging on, ceasefires are crumbling, the world is becoming more and more divided.  Famines – oh, the pictures of starving children in Gaza are heartbreaking.  And plagues – even though the pandemic is over, Covid continues to circulate; as of this week, Canada has lost our status as a measles-free country; and mis-trust of health authorities means that diseases are likely to continue to spread more easily.  Followers of Jesus, including clergy, are being tear gassed, arrested, ziptied, for daring to speak out against unjust government practices.

Seriously Jesus – were you watching a 2025 news channel just before you spoke to your disciples???

I’m joking, but it brings up a very good point.  These sorts of things have happened throughout all of history.  In Jesus’s time, and in the time when the author of Luke was writing, the oppressive government persecuting and arresting his followers was the Roman Empire.  Plagues and famines have happened everywhere and every-when – often linked to social inequality and lack of access to basic needs.  And I don’t think that there has ever been a time without war, a time when nation didn’t rise up against nation – in Jesus’s time, the Roman Empire might have been known for the Roman Peace, the Pax Romana, but it was a peace that was enforced through violence, or the threat of violence.

These apocalyptic readings in the bible can be scary, especially if you try to interpret them as predicting the future.  I’m sure that many of you have heard this passage and passages like this interpreted in a way that says that these wars and earthquakes are part of God’s plan for the unfolding of the end of the world and the return of Jesus; thank you Left Behind series!  (And if you haven’t encountered the Left Behind novels and movies, consider yourself lucky!)

But if you read this passage carefully, Jesus actually says the opposite.  He is actually saying that these scary things have no connection to God’s unfolding plan for the world.  For example, “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.”

These sorts of things just happen.  They aren’t part of God’s plan – in fact, I think that these things run contrary to God’s plan for the world.

So if a preacher’s job is to proclaim good news to the congregation, where is the good news in what Jesus is saying about wars and earthquakes and the collapse of the temple?  There really isn’t much good news in here.

I could latch on to that final verse – “by your endurance you will gain your souls” – and I could go on about making meaning out of suffering; but to someone who is in the midst of suffering, reminding them that some day they may be able to see the gifts that the suffering gave them isn’t much comfort.

So where is there good news for 2025 in the reading that we just heard?

If I’m being honest, I don’t know if there is much good news in this passage; unless there is some comfort in knowing that all of these things aren’t part of God’s plan.

 

Image Credit: AgnusDay

 

Where I might turn for good news this morning is in one of the passages assigned to today that we didn’t hear read this morning, and I hope that you don’t think that I’m cheating by bringing it in now.

The Old Testament reading assigned to this week comes from Isaiah Chapter 65, verses 17-25; and here, the prophet is painting a picture of the new heavens and the new earth that God is going to create.  Let me read just a part of this passage

“For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice in what I am creating… no more shall the sound of weeping be heard, nor the cry of distress. No more shall there be an infant who lives only a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime…  The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox… They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

This is certainly a much more beautiful picture than the one that Jesus paints for us, but I think that it’s interesting to hold the two pictures up beside each other.  Because if Jesus is painting a picture of the world the way that it is, God is showing us through Isaiah the world as God dreams it to be, and the world as it will one day be.

And I think that this is where hope lies.  You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again – hope, true hope isn’t just wishful thinking.  Hope means trusting that the world won’t always be this broken; it means trusting that God’s plan for the world, this vision of Isaiah, will one day unfold and become reality.

And it is holding fast to this vision that can give us the strength and the endurance to get through the horrors of the world as it is right now.  And even more than that, I think that maybe this vision of the way the world will be some day can give us the motivation and the courage to stand up to the forces of evil in the world – to look at them and say, “You will not prevail.”  When we hold fast to the vision of the world the way it will be some day, we can start living as if some day is now.  We can do what is in our power to make sure that hungry people are well fed, to make sure that everyone has equal access to health care and social supports, to advocate for a world without violence and war.

All because we trust that some day, this will be the reality throughout all of God’s creation.  All because we hold fast to this hope.  And may God strengthen this hope within each one of us, and keep the vision of God’s world in front of our eyes.  Amen.

"Three Short Sermons About Zacchaeus"

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 2, 2025
Scripture:  Luke 19:1-10


Has anyone here ever heard the term “rage-baiting”?  This is a concept in social media, a place where the number of views that a post gets, the number of comments, the number of reactions, is directly related to success.  The more views, the more reactions, the more comments, positive or negative, that a post gets, the more likely the Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or TikTok algorithm is to show it to other people.

And as a result, some people will post a rage-bait video or picture, whose sole purpose it to get people upset and clicking the thumbs-down reaction, or posting a comment to point out what is wrong.  An example of this might be a map with an obvious error that might be a typo but is more likely there to get people to correct it in the comments.  It might be as innocuous as watching a short cooking video and the chef says to add a teaspoon of baking powder but you can clearly see them holding a box of baking soda.  Or it might be as dangerous as posting a controversial conspiracy theory about vaccines that is guaranteed to get people on both sides riled up and arguing in the comments.

So why do creators do this?  Views. Engagement = promotion by the social media algorithm = more views on the post with spillover to more views on their other posts. And for someone trying to make a living out of social media, views and followers = money.

And why do social media companies promote posts and videos with ragebait content?  For the same reason – money.  It doesn’t matter if the reactions and comments are positive or negative to the companies – the more you engage in the content, the more minutes (or hours) you are going to spend on the platform, and the more advertising revenue Facebook or TikTok makes.

So I’ll get you to tuck this ragebait definition in your back pocket – we’re going to come back to it later, I promise!

Let’s turn from social media to the bible, and the story of Zacchaeus that we heard this morning.  Zacchaeus was a tax collector in the city of Jericho, and Jesus was passing through town, along with his disciples, on his way towards Jerusalem.  He wanted to see Jesus, and because he was short, he climbs a tree so that he can get a better look.  Jesus sees him up there, calls out to him by name, and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house for dinner. And after the meal ends, Zacchaeus promises to give half of his possessions to the poor, and promises that if he cheats anyone out of money, he will repay four times as much as he stole.

At some point in your life, there is a very good chance that at least some of you have heard a preacher stand here and talk to you about tax collectors in Jesus’s world.  Heck, there’s a good chance that I’m the preacher who has stood here and talked to you about tax collectors in Jesus’s world.  The tax collectors tended to be the most despised people of that time and place.  They weren’t Roman; they were local people who were colluding with the Roman empire.  They were given the task of extracting tax money from the local people on behalf of the Roman Empire, and they were especially despised because they weren’t paid very well, and so they had a nasty habit of extracting more money than was owed to Rome and pocketing the difference.

And here we have Zacchaeus, the tax collector.  Not only is he a tax collector but he is the chief tax collector, the ruler of the tax collectors, a prince among tax collectors.  And not just that, but he is rich in a world where most of the population is barely able to keep a roof overhead and food on their plate.  He was someone that would be very easy to despise; and he likely faced a lot of cruelty on top of it all for his physical deformity – he was so short that he had to climb a tree in order to see over the heads of the crowd.

It would be a very easy sermon to preach to say that Zacchaeus had a literal come-to-Jesus moment in this story.  It would be a very easy sermon to preach to say that this grasping, conniving man met Jesus, and just like the Grinch, his shrunken heart grew three sizes that day, and he became a person who was all about generosity, giving away half of his possessions, and repaying four-fold all of the money he had stolen from his neighbours.  Go, and be like Zacchaeus!  End of sermon.

That would be an easy sermon to preach, and whether or not you have heard that sermon before, I know that I have preached that sermon before!

But what if I were to suggest that this sermon might be doing a disservice to Zacchaeus?  What if I were to tell you that if you were to turn back to the original Greek, you would discover that many translations make a mistake?  That the verb tenses aren’t quite what most translations say?  That Zacchaeus didn’t say, “I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and I will pay back four times as much”; but instead he said “I give half of my possessions to the poor, and I repay them four times as much.”  The original Greek isn’t in the future tense, but it is in the present continual tense.

What if Zacchaeus has been doing these things all along?  This isn’t a Come-to-Jesus moment after all, a dramatic conversion on the Road to Jericho.  What, then, is Jesus trying to teach with this encounter?

Which brings me back to my definition of ragebait.  What if Jesus is ragebaiting the crowd?  Nothing will grab the attention of the crowd, get them riled up more than seeing Jesus hanging out with the person that they feel is least deserving of his attention.  A rich man.  The leader of the despised tax collectors.  A short man who is easy to mock.

Luke puts it quite mildly when he says that the crowd began to grumble when they saw Jesus hanging out with the one they hated.  I rather suspect that the grumbling was more than just a low rumble.  I can imagine the odd shout coming from the crowd – “Hey Jesus, you don’t want to have anything to do with that short little Tax Collector!” or “Of course Zacchaeus who gets everything he wants gets time with Jesus too.”  Maybe someone had an especially ripe tomato on hand that gets tossed in their direction, hitting Zacchaeus squarely in the back and splattering some juice on Jesus’s robe.

Jesus has caught their attention for sure, but why?  Unlike 21^st Century ragebaiters, there isn’t any financial gain for Jesus to do so, but like on Social Media, he now has the crowd’s attention.  And his decision to dine with Zacchaeus is very much in keeping with his overall message – that God has special concern and special love for anyone who is marginalized.  It doesn’t matter if you are marginalized because you have leprosy or because you are possessed by demons or because you are a tax collector – God loves you.

So this might be a sermon, not on conversion and Come-to-Jesus moments, but rather on God’s radical inclusivity of the very people that society casts out.  Love your neighbour, especially your marginalized neighbour. Be like Jesus.  End of sermon.

But I want to pivot one more time, and suggest that there might still be a sermon in here with that original message, Go, be like Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was trapped in a broken and corrupt system – a system of Empire, where the land he was born into was the property of Rome, and where a foreign emperor controlled every aspect of life.  He was born into a family that had profited from historical inequality and they had wealth, likely acquired on the backs of other people.  He was employed by a system where corruption was the norm – we aren’t told how he ended up in this job, but possibly his family made their wealth because his father and grandfather were tax collectors before him.

And yet despite all of this, as he was trying to live and exist in a world full of unjust and broken systems, Zacchaeus does his best to live his life in a way that honours God and loves his neighbours.  The law said that he was to tithe 1/10 of what he had, and Zacchaeus gives 5 times as much, giving away half of his possessions to the poor.  The law said that if one person cheated another person out of money or property, they were to give back twice as much as they stole, and Zacchaeus doubles the requirement, repaying 4 times as much.

Could it be that Zacchaeus is actually an honourable man, doing his best to do good while living in a corrupt world; and Jesus is challenging us to see past our prejudices in order to see him in this light?

If the message is to “Go and be like Zacchaeus,” it is very easy to name the unfair and broken systems that we are trapped by.  We are trapped living in an economic system that allows a small number of people to get obscenely rich while the gap between the rich and the poor is always growing.  We are trapped living in a system that is dependent on fossil fuels, as our planet is literally on fire as a result.  We are trapped living in a world where historical injustices mean that those of us with white skin receive benefits we didn’t earn while our black and Indigenous neighbours live with disadvantages that they don’t deserve.

We are living, like Zacchaeus, trapped in systems that we, individually, don’t have the power to change.  So the question is, how can we, like Zacchaeus, live our lives in this broken world in a way that honours God and loves our neighbours?

Go and be like Zacchaeus.  End of sermon.  (For real, this time!)

 

 

“Zacchaeus” by Cara B. Hochhalter

Image Used with Permission

"I Didn't Believe in Ghosts Until"

I didn’t believe in ghosts until

            my cat sat on the arm of the sofa,

            gaze fixed on empty space,

            ears pointed forward like satellite dishes,

            whiskers twitching,

            but nothing to see

                        at least not to my eyes;

            but nothing to hear

                        at least not to my ears.

 

I didn’t believe in ghosts until

            I was alone in the office

            and a sound reached my ears

            like voices in the distance

            laughing and talking.

I went down to the basement,

            calling out to see who was there,

            but there was no one to be found,

                        at least not to my eyes

 

I didn’t believe in ghosts until

            I was walking home in the dark

            and heard footsteps crunching

                        in the dry leaves beside me.

            I stopped,

                        and the footsteps stopped,

            and the scent of a familiar perfume

                        from decades ago

                                    reached my nose,

            and waves of love radiated out

                        from the empty air.

 

I didn’t believe in ghosts until

            I met the memory of my past self

                        in a box of keepsakes long unopened.

            I met myself who was

                        in forgotten journals

                        in forgotten photos

                        in a forgotten mix tape.

            I reached out to myself

                        and gave myself a hug,

                        and promised myself:

                        It Gets Better.

 

"How Do You Receive a Blessing?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 19, 2025
Scripture:  Genesis 32:22-31


To me, this story about Jacob that we read this morning has almost a cinematic feel to it.  There probably isn’t enough story there to turn it into a feature length movie… unless you are Peter Jackson who managed to turn a single novel, The Hobbit, into three movies.  But I can see this story about Jacob working well as a short film.

So let’s start with our casting.  Our main character here is Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, grandson of Sarah and Abraham.  Jacob, who was the husband of the sisters Leah and Rachel (yes, both at the same time), and consort of his wife’s slaves Bilhah and Zilpah.  Jacob who was the father of twelve sons and one daughter.

I think that we would probably have to cast a conventionally handsome actor in the role of Jacob, but we wouldn’t want a muscley action hero type actor.  Jacob tended to get by on his wits rather than on his physical strength.

Jacob was more than just a bit of a trickster.  You might remember that when he was younger and his father was dying, he tricked his older brother Esau out of their father’s blessing.  In fact, this complicated relationship between the brothers goes right back to their birth – they were twins, and when they were born, Jacob, the second-born, came out of the womb holding on to Esau’s heel, almost like he was trying to pull his elder brother back, and pulling himself into the first-born position.

So Jacob is a trickster, but when you carry on with his story, the trickster gets tricked by his father-in-law.  When Jacob fell in love with Rachel and asked to marry her, the condition was that he would give seven years’ labour to her father in exchange for his bride. But then seven years later, at the wedding, her father tricked the groom by covering Rachel’s elder sister Leah’s head with the veil and presenting her as Rachel. And so Jacob was tricked into giving his father-in-law seven more years of labour in order to be allowed to marry Rachel.

But don’t worry too much about him – you can’t keep a trickster down for long, and shortly before today’s story, Jacob turned the tables on his father-in-law.  He was in charge of his father-in-law’s livestock, and used his trickery to make sure that his flock ended up with the largest and strongest sheep, while his father-in-law ended up with the weak and sickly lambs.  And then when his wives’ brothers clued in that their father was being tricked, Jacob made plans to move his whole family, all of those wives and children, back to his homeland.  But Jacob didn’t wait for his father-in-law to catch him, but snuck them all away without saying goodbye.

And now Jacob, our hero – or maybe anti-hero – is on his way back to his homeland, back to encounter his brother Esau, with whom he didn’t part on the friendliest of terms, after he had robbed Esau of his birthright.

So back to casting.  For Jacob, like I said, we probably want someone who is conventionally handsome, but not a big buff action-hero type.  I’m thinking someone like Benedict Cumberbatch or Ryan Reynolds.

His family – his wives and children – they all have minor roles in our film. At the beginning of the story, Jacob helps them all across the river to go on ahead of him, but he remains behind for the night.  So I don’t think that we need to spend a lot of time casting them.

But our other main character in our story is this shadowy figure that Jacob meets that night on the shores of the River Jabbok.  Did you notice that we are given very few clues as to the identity of this figure?  Jacob had been praying to God in the scene just before our story, praying to be saved from his brother’s justifiable anger; and at the end of our story, he names this place by the river Peniel, meaning “face of God.”  So we might assume that the figure that Jacob encounters by the river is God.  But in the flow of the story itself, this figure is only named as a man.  Not God, not an angel, but a man.  No name, no description, other than the fact that this being is strong enough to dislocate Jacob’s hip, something that usually takes the force of a car accident to achieve.

In making our film, I think that I would want to keep this figure shrouded in as much mystery as possible.  I would want to keep their face in the shadows so that we can never see their face clearly.  And maybe dress them in a long dark robe so that their precise movements are hard to make out.  It would have to be a tall actor with a commanding physical presence, or maybe we could use camera trickery to make the actor look significantly taller than our actor playing Jacob.  Interestingly, Tilda Swinton was the first actor who popped into my brain as I was mentally casting my film, but if she isn’t available, maybe we could ask Johnny Depp or Denzel Washington.

The main action sequence in our film is a wrestling match between the two characters – Jacob and our mysterious being. We aren’t told why they began to wrestle, but they wrestle through the night, and then, just as the dawn is beginning to break on the horizon, with the two of them locked in each other’s arms, we have our main dialogue.

The mysterious stranger demands, “Let me go!” but Jacob replies, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”  Our stranger asks, “What is your name?” and Jacob replies, “Jacob.”  Our stranger, in that moment, re-names Jacob Israel, which means “One Who Struggles With God,” but when Jacob-Israel demands to know the stranger’s name, our stranger refuses to answer, asking why Jacob wants to know.  Finally, our stranger blesses Jacob, and then… disappears?  The stranger is there in the story, and then they aren’t. We can probably have some fun with the visual effects at this point in our movie.

And then our big cinematic moment comes at the end of the film, with the sun rising in the background, and Jacob limping towards the river to go and rejoin his family, limping not only because of his hip injury, but limping as an outward, visible signal of his inner change – changed by the blessing that he received, changed by his wrestling with God, changed by the new name he has received.  Roll the credits.

To me, the most interesting question to ask of this story is the one that I hinted at a while ago.  Why did Jacob wrestle this stranger, there on the riverbank?  Why did Jacob think that he needed to wrestle a blessing out of God?  When I think of God, I think of love radiating out in abundance, for God is love – the very substance of God is love.  And yet Jacob feels the need to wrestle a blessing out of God.  Jacob, who has spent his life tricking others and being tricked by others, thinks that he needs to trick a blessing out of God, rather than realizing that God’s blessing is there for the taking.

To me, a blessing isn’t about material good fortune – it isn’t about fancy vacations or a fat bank account or even about good health.  To me, when something is blessed, it is set apart to be the thing that God made it for. A blessing dedicates a person or a thing to God.  I suspect that when this building was first built, it was blessed, set apart to be a place of worship and service.  We end each worship with a blessing, setting us on a path to be God’s people in the world in the days ahead.  Jacob is blessed to be Israel, the father of many nations of people who will love and serve God.

I wonder if one of Jacob’s character flaws might have been that he wasn’t able to see God any differently than he saw other people.  He went through his life thinking that he needed to fight others for what he wanted; and then when he met God, he could only see God in the same light.

I’m thinking of our movie that we are making, and how we might portray that moment when Jacob first encountered God, I mean, a “shadowy stranger,” on the banks of the river as the sun was setting.  I imagine Jacob looking at the stranger with longing in his eyes, knowing that this stranger had something that he wanted, but unsure of how to ask for it.  I imagine Jacob yearning to know God better, just as his parents and grandparents had, but unsure of how to approach God, and then falling back on his usual patterns of how to handle life’s challenges with violence and trickery.  But all the while, God’s love and God’s blessing were there for the taking – no trickery required; no violence required.

Now what about you?  How do you approach God for your blessing?  Do you relate to Jacob, scrambling for everything in life, and wrestling this blessing from a seemingly-reluctant God?  Or do you feel like you want to turn around and run the other direction, fleeing from the path that this blessing might put you on?  Or do you shrink back, not certain whether you deserve this blessing that God is about to give you?  Or do you stride forward confidently, knowing that this blessing is there waiting for you?

But no matter your approach, you, my friend, you are blessed.  You are blessed by a loving God, blessed to be the person God created you to be, beautiful and beloved.  You are blessed for a journey that may not always be easy, but it will be a journey with God always at your side.  You are blessed, so that your life might be a blessing to the world.  Amen.

 

 

Now picture Jacob-Israel, silhouetted by the rising sun,

limping,

preparing to cross the river to re-join his family

Image Credit:  “Grand River Sunrise” by Rachel Cramer on flickr

Used with permission.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 12 - Thanksgiving Weekend

God of overwhelming grace,

         this Thanksgiving, we pause,

                  and we choose gratitude.

With each breath we take, we thank you for the air we breathe.

With each meal, we thank you for making the plants grow.

With each hug, each smile, each handshake,

         we thank you for the people that you put into our lives.

With each morning that we wake up,

         we thank you for giving us the breath of life,

                  for filling us with your Holy Spirit.

 

As we gather around Thanksgiving tables,

         celebrating the abundance of the fall harvest,

we thank you and pray for all of the people who make it possible.

We pray for the farmers and for the farm workers.

We pray for the drivers who transport the food.

We pray for the manufacturers and processors.

We pray for the people who work in grocery stores

         and farmer’s markets

         and gas stations

         and farm stands.

We pray for the people who prepare the food,

         who set the table,

         who issue invitations,

         who serve the food,

         who wash dishes.

Thank you, God, for the gifts of all of these people,

         and we ask you to bless them and bless their labour.

 

And yet even on this Thanksgiving weekend,

         Loving God,

                  we know that all is not perfect in the world.

And so we pray for everyone who is sick or injured,

we pray for everyone who is lonely,

we pray for everyone who is mourning,

we pray for all caregivers,

we pray for everyone who lives in fear,

we pray for everyone living in war zones and places of violence.

We pray that your love might reach to every corner of the world,

and we ask that you transform us, by your Holy Spirit,

         into people who reflect your love into places in the world

                  that still rest in the shadows.

 

God of all people and all places,

         our prayers today stretch around the world.

In the WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle,

         this week we especially pray for the people and churches

                  of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama.

We pray for the people of Gaza,

and we pray that the tentative ceasefire

         might grow into a just and lasting peace.

We pray for peace in Ukraine,

         and also for peace in places that don’t reach the news cycle.

We pray for an end to this drought –

         for rains to fall that will fill wells and fill rivers

                  and quench the thirst of the dry land.

As the world feels ever more divided into isolated silos,

         we pray for your Holy Spirit to break down walls that divide

                  so that we might truly hear one another.

We pray for safety for all who are marginalized –

         for immigrants and refugees,

         for all members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community,

         for racialized people;

and we pray for your kingdom to unfold soon

         as a place where all people are equally valued.

 

And we pray too, for the people and situations

that are closest to our hearts,

as we name them now, aloud or in the silence of our hearts.

(pause)

 

Merciful God,

         finally we pray for ourselves.

You see us as we truly are.

You know the needs and desires of our hearts.

You know our secret joys and our secret sorrows.

Embrace all of us in your warm, enveloping love.

Fill our hearts with the peace of Christ.

Nudge us forwards, by your Holy Spirit, when we feel stuck,

         comfort us when we need comforting,

and most of all, draw us into your eternal dance of love.

 

All of our prayers, spoken and unspoken,

         we gather together and hold up to the light of Christ,

                  entrusting them to your care.

 

We pray all of this in and through Jesus Christ,

         in whose name we are called.

Amen.