"Wade in the Water" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 12, 2025 – Baptism of Jesus
Scripture:  Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22


I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling these days as if the world is extra topsy-turvy and chaotic and unpredictable, and even fear-inducing.  Between wildfires ripping through urban Los Angeles, earthquakes in Tibet, Canadian, American, international politics in turmoil, a scary inauguration coming up in just over a week south of the border, fact-checking being removed from Social Media, ongoing wars in Palestine and Ukraine, and the everyday ongoing existential dread around climate change, I don’t think that I’m the only one wondering what the heck is going on in the world these days.

 

And into the chaos of the world, how does it feel to hear these words of God, spoken through the prophet Isaiah?

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

         I will be with you;

and through the rivers,

         they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire,

         you shall not be burned,

         and the flame shall not consume you.

Do not fear, for I am with you.

 

I can imagine that there are a number of different ways that these words might be heard.  On one hand, they might be comforting.  But maybe not.  If you are literally running for your life through your neighbourhood trying to escape the wildfire flames, carrying your dog because you didn’t have time to look for a leash, hearing that you can walk through the fire and not be burned would probably sound like pretty empty words.  If you are hunkered down in a refugee tent in January weather because your house was bombed by an invading army, the words “Do not fear, for I am with you” would probably sound like an empty promise, words with no real meaning behind them.  If you are living on an island in the Pacific ocean, watching the ocean levels rise year after year, shrinking the available land mass for you and your neighbours, fearful that the next tsunami will wipe out your island completely, I don’t know how much comfort could be found in the words, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

 

And with all of the anxiety and dread in the world, how can we truly hear those words that God says again and again and again:  “Do not fear”?

 

But then I go back and read this passage from Isaiah, and I remember that these words of God were not spoken to the Ancient Israelites when everything was sunshine and roses and rainbows and unicorns.  I remember that these words came to the prophet Isaiah in a time of exile – a time when their homes and cities, and even the temple in Jerusalem, the literal home of God, all of these had been destroyed by an invading army, and the people had been carried away to a foreign land, carried away to Babylon, and there they sat on the banks of the river and wept.  These words from Isaiah are being spoken into a time and a place that was maybe even more chaotic and fearful than our own time and place, and being spoken to a people even more traumatized than we and our neighbours are.  Into all of this, God speaks, and God says, “Don’t be afraid.”

 

And to our ancient ancestors, God was faithful to their promises.  It didn’t happen quickly.  The exile lasted for 70 years, so the majority of people who had been carried into exile didn’t live to see the time when their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were able to return from exile in Babylon.  The people who witnessed the destruction of the temple didn’t get to witness the re-building of the temple in a re-built Jerusalem.  But God was faithful to their promises, and the time came when God accompanied their people back through the wilderness in order to return to the land.

 

Even though God’s timeline is rarely the same as our timeline or the timeline that we want, God is always faithful to their promises.  No matter what fears or worries or burdens you are carrying right now – either global concerns, or worries closer to home, you can rest assured that God is with you, that God loves you, and that pain and fear and suffering is never the end of the story.

 

Today is also the day that we remember the time when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, and I want to end this reflection with a guided mediation.  Wherever you are (here in the church or at home and joining us online), I invite you to sit comfortably.  Sometimes when you are doing a meditation, it is helpful to make sure that both of your feet are on the floor, and your hands are resting on your lap, but really, however you are comfortable is fine.  If you want to lie down on the floor, go for it!  If you are comfortable closing your eyes, I invite you to close your eyes now; but if you aren’t comfortable closing your eyes, that is OK too.

 

I invite you to imagine that you are standing beside the river – standing beside your favourite river, a familiar river.  It isn’t a January river though – it is an August river, with water just the right temperature to be both comfortable and refreshing.  It is a warm sunny day, with just a bit of a breeze that you can feel gently brushing your skin.

 

Are you carrying any worries with you?  Feel free to acknowledge these worries or your fears.  The river is going to be washing away these worries, but in order to do that, you need to bring them to the surface of your awareness.  Name your worries to yourself.  Name those things that you are afraid of.  Don’t give them power over you, by pretending that they don’t exist.

 

As you stand there by the river, what do you hear?  Are there waves lapping against the shore?  Do you hear any birdcalls, either nearby or far away?

 

Are there any smells that catch your attention?  Maybe one of the neighbours is grilling something on this beautiful summer day?  Or maybe it is the green smell of the August waters?

 

Someone is already out there in the river, standing waist-deep in the water. It is someone that you know well, someone that you love, someone that you trust.  Who is it, standing out there in the water?

 

They are beckoning to you to come out and join them in the water. Kick off your sandals, and if the river bed is rocky, feel free to put on some water shoes.

 

And now I invite you to start wading out into the river.  At first the water is only lapping around your ankles.  Keep going until it is up to your knees.  How does the water feel against your legs?  Keep wading out a bit deeper until the water comes up to your waist and you are standing next to your person.

 

Make sure that you are facing each other.  You’re going to be going under the water, so hold on to each other’s forearms so that you can support each other.  Take a deep breath, and then slowly go under the surface of the water together.

 

How does it feel to have the water embracing your whole body?  If you feel any moments of panic, plant your feet firmly on the river bottom, and feel the support from your friend as you hold each other’s arms.  And there, under the water of the river, feel the water carrying away those worries, those fears, those anxieties that you named to yourself earlier.  Let them drift away on the current.  The cleansing water is making you new, renewing your heart and refreshing your spirit.

 

Now, make sure that your feet are on the bottom of the river, and you and your companion help each other come up out of the water.  Take a deep breath of re-birth.  Feel the air rushing into your lungs.

 

And now hear a voice in the air around you, a voice filled with love, saying, “You are my child.  You are my beloved one.  In you, I take delight.”

 

Rest in that love.  Rest in that feeling of newness.  Slowly let the sights and smells and sounds of the river come back to you.

 

And when you are ready, I invite you to open your eyes again and return to this time and place.

 

And may this love and this rebirth stay with you, and linger in your heart, and bring continual refreshment to your spirit.  Amen.

 

 

An August River
(The Wolastoq – much beloved in this part of the world)
Photo Credit: K. Jones

"Curious Wisdom-Seekers" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 5, 2025 – Celebration of Epiphany
Scripture – Matthew 2:1-12


Today, we read the familiar story of the magi who traveled afar, following a star, to meet the young child whom they named “King.”  I will say though, that at our “Asking the Big Questions” gathering back in December – the night when we tackled the question of “Why bother with Christmas?” – we discovered that this story maybe isn’t as familiar as people think that it is.  I rather suspect that people are more familiar with the story from either Christmas pageants, or nativity sets, or from the song, “We Three Kings” than they are from Matthew’s account of it.

 

For example, did you notice, as _______ was reading the story, that the number of magi isn’t listed?  All that it says is that wise men, or magi from the East came to Jerusalem.  Tradition has assumed that there were three of them, likely because they present three different gifts, and some traditions have even given the three of them names, but all that Matthew tells us is that they were plural – more than one.  There might have been two of them, or there might have been 200 of them.  We really don’t know.

 

There also aren’t any camels mentioned in the story.  How the magi travelled from their unnamed home in the East we don’t know.

 

And finally, who were these wise ones?  They are not named as kings, despite what the song says, though they acknowledge Jesus as a king.  They did have access to expensive gifts though – gold, frankincense, and myrrh were all precious and valuable items to be giving away.

 

Instead, they are named as magi, which is a direct transliteration from the Greek word used in the original version of Matthew’s gospel.  It’s not a word that we use commonly in English, magi, but it has a couple of close relatives.  Magic.  Magician.  Magical.  Mage (if you are a fan of fantasy games and literature).  But outside of this story, we don’t normally talk about magi in everyday conversation.

 

Were they magicians or sorcerers?  Were they astrologers, studying the movement of the stars to try and determine the effect of the stars on our human lives.  That makes sense, given that they noticed a new star appearing in the sky when nobody else did.

 

I like to think of them as seekers – spiritual seekers – wisdom seekers.  They were curious, they were attuned to the signs, and most importantly, they were willing to put the rubber to the road – well, not literally, because even though we don’t know how they travelled to Jerusalem and on to Bethlehem, it is highly unlikely that it was by motorized vehicle – but they were willing to leave their home, wherever that was, and travel to a foreign land to see more.  They arrived, bearing gifts in expectation of encountering a king, and left, having, perhaps, encountered just a little bit more.

 

I love how Matthew includes their story within the larger story of Jesus, and right here at the very beginning of the story.  Right from the very beginning, Jesus is accessible to everyone, to the whole world.  Everyone who seeks Jesus, finds him.

 

What would the world be like, if everyone could be like those magi, those wise ones, those wisdom-seekers?  What would the world be like if everyone could set aside their certainty and convictions, and be curious instead?  What would the world be like if everyone was both willing and able to follow their curiosity right through to the end?

 

I truly believe that those magi have so much to teach the world, especially the world today as we become more and more entrenched in us-versus-them thinking and ideology, as we become more and more isolated in our silos (in real life and also online) where we only associate with people who think like us.

 

Those wise ones didn’t study the heavens, spot a new star, and say to themselves, “Well, a new star. Let’s record it on our star chart and then return to our watching for the next one to appear.”  Instead, they packed their bags, gathered up their entourage, and set out from their homes to follow where the star led them.

 

When they got to the place where the star stopped, they didn’t say to each other, “Look, another child just like any other child.”  Instead, they somehow recognized that there was something different about this child – something worthy of their worship and their extravagant gifts.

 

And then, when the time came for them to turn around and return home, we’re told that they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and rather than brushing the dream off as the result of a bad bit of mutton the night before, they paid attention to the dream, they allowed their journey to be re-shaped as a result of that dream, and they returned home by a different path.

 

And so, I think that my wish for all of us, as we embark on a new year together, is that we all might be more like these magi.  That we all might be spiritual seekers or wisdom seekers.  That we might be curious about the world, and open to having our path through life changed by what we encounter and by what we experience.

 

And most of all, that we might be open enough that we can recognize Christ even in the most unexpected circumstances.  And then, once we have recognized Christ – whether that be in the face of someone we encounter, in the actions that we witness, in a piece of art of music, in a sunset or a moonrise – once we have recognized that we are in the presence of Christ, that we might open our hearts and our lives and pour out our worship.

 

Because I honestly think that the world would be a better place if we could all be curious wisdom-seekers, recognizing the presence of God wherever we go, and opening ourselves up to be changed by the encounter.  The world would be a better place, and our lives would be more richly lived, and so that is my wish for all of us on this threshold of a new year.

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

“Rising Star, Milky Way”

John Fowler

Used with Permission

2024 in Books

I’m back with my annual summary of my reading from the past 12 months!

Overall, 2024 was a good reading year. Being on Sabbatical for 3 months definitely helped – at one point, I realized that I had 3 books on the go at the same time, something that hasn’t happened in a couple of decades. I’ve always been a reader, but this year my identity as a Reader has felt stronger than it has been in a while.

Starting with the fun stuff – my favourite reads of 2024 (in the order I read them, not in order of preference)!

Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver)

I listened to this book in February when I went to visit Dad in Ontario – airplane and train listening, as well as hanging out at Dad’s house. This is a book that has won a number of awards, so I probably don’t need to say too much about it – it is a David Copperfield re-telling set in Appalachia in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. The narrator made the story come alive for me. It’s a “big” book in several senses of the word, but listening to it made it very accessible. I’ve recommended this book (especially the audio version) to a number of people since!

A Rip Through Time (Kelley Armstrong)

Another audiobook – this one I listened to while driving home from a ski vacation in Québec in March.  It is a “time slip” murder mystery where a 21^st century Canadian detective ends up in the body of a Victorian housemaid in Edinburgh. With all of the details of Victorian Edinburgh, the author has definitely done her research, the characters are all 3-dimensional, and the book is funny (as in laugh-out-loud funny at times when listening) as well as gripping.  (Honourable mention to the subsequent books in the series which I have also listened to. Another one is coming out in May, so I’ll be getting my name on the waiting list at the library as soon as it is available!)


Butter Honey Pig Bread (francesca ekwuyasi)

This was a “gym read” for me (I read e-books from the library on the Elliptical), but with a bit more substance than my usual gym reads. And the characters and story have haunted me since I read it back in July. It is a multi-generational story that moves between a mother and her twin daughters. It moves between Nigeria, the UK, and Canada.  There is an element of “magical realism” but it is the characters and their relationships that I loved most of all.



The Secret Chord (Geraldine Brooks)

We have a weekly bible study at the church and are meandering our way through the Old Testament.  Through the later fall months, we began the King David story cycle, and I remembered that an author I had enjoyed previously had written a fictionalized account of the life of King David, so I borrowed this book from the library.  While some of it is a bit gory (I had started to read this book several years ago, and didn’t get past the first couple of pages which are filled with a very vivid battle scene), this time around I stuck with it, and by skipping over the gory sections, it made the stories of King David come alive.


Hymnal (Julia Bell)

This is one of the books of poetry I read this year – it is a memoir in poetry of growing up, faith, and queerness in southern Wales.  I bought this book in Wales in April, and having spent the past couple of years learning Welsh (I finished the Duolingo Cymraeg course in July!), I loved seeing the Welsh words scattered throughout (and being able to understand them without needing to turn to the glossary. The author’s ability to paint a vivid picture with few words grabbed me and didn’t let me put the book down until I came to the last page.


Now moving on to the geeky-fun part of the post – statistics from my reading spreadsheet! Some “big picture” numbers:

Number of books read:  57
Best reading month:  A 3-way tie between February, March, and August (7 books completed in each of those months)

Moving on to some of the other data that I like to track:

Paper Books:  25
E-Books:  24
Audiobooks:  8

Purchased Books:  18
Library Books:  37
Borrowed Books:  1
Gifted Books:  1

Fiction:  47
Non-Fiction:  5
Poetry:  4
Graphic Novel:  1

Re-Reads:  7
First-Time Reads:  50

Canadian Authors:  25
Non-Canadian Authors:  32

Non-White Authors:  8
White Authors:  49

Books with Racial Diversity:  38
Books in an All-White World:  19

Queer Authors:  8
Non-Queer Authors:  49

Books with Explicitly Queer Characters:  29
Books with no Explicitly Queer Characters:  28

Female Authors:  51
Male Authors:  7
(Yes, I know that the numbers here don’t add up – one book I read was an anthology with both male and female authors! I probably could have also increased the number of female authors to 52, as one book was co-written by two women.)

I said last year that I don’t set reading goals, but I did set some reading aspirations for the year.  They were:
1) Read 52 books (1/week) – achieved!
2) Read more queer authors – achieved, but barely (4/37 or 11% in 2023; 8/57 or 14% in 2024)
3) Get through some of the books I’ve already purchased, and continue to support the library, rather than purchasing new books – achieved! I shifted from 54% of my books from the library in 2023 to 65% of my books from the library in 2024; and the majority of the “purchased” books I read in 2024 were previously purchased rather than purchased this year. (My book-buying habits have shifted enough that I discontinued the “paid” level of Chapters/Indigo Plum Rewards this year as I’m no longer buying enough books to make it worthwhile.)

In terms of reading intentions for 2025:
- Even though I won’t be on Sabbatical this year, I’d love to read 52 books again this year, and to hold on to that identity as a Reader
- Read even more queer authors. (11% to 14% wasn’t enough of an improvement for me!)
- Read more non-white authors. (This number slipped from 19% in 2023 to 14% in 2024.)

Wishing all of you happy reading in 2025! (And also – if you have any book recommendations, please throw them into the comments!)