"The Ghost in the Laundry Room" (definitely not a sermon!)

There is a newly formed Grand Bay Writer’s Group, and one of the things that we do when we gather is pick a writing prompt, then each of us creates something as we sit there that we then share with each other. This week’s prompt was an interesting one:  "A negative energy has attached itself to your laundry room. It’s so bad that you stop going in there for a while, but you know this can only be temporary. So you come up with a plan to find out more about the presence and try to get rid of it. What happens next?" This is what I wrote in 20 minutes this evening, still rough and un-edited.


Each time I pass the door, my heart seems to skip a beat. My stomach drops. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I haven’t dared to open the door since the day before That Day. The silver handle on the gleaming white door seems to taunt me when I think about it. Her words, “See you this evening!” echo in my brain. I don’t know what lurks in the darkness behind that closed door.

My laundry is starting to pile up though. I’ve thought about looking for a laundromat – those still exist, don’t they? I’ve never had to know where to look for one before now.

Her hamper is there, behind the door. I don’t know what is in it. The clothes she wore for her workout the night before? Her favourite dress that she wore on date night? That night feels like yesterday, but also a million years ago. Does the smell of her perfume haunt the air behind that closed door?

“See you this evening!” she called out as she tossed her hamper in the laundry room on her way out to the garage. “Don’t forget, our reservation is at 7.”

I know that I can’t avoid it forever, but the finality of opening that last closed door feels like beyond what I am able to do. All I can do these days is put one foot in front of the other. Get up. Check which shirt is least smelly. Make coffee. Stare out the window.

Sirens scare me now. They remind me of the car that pulled into the driveway That Day, of the ringing doorbell followed by a loud knock, of the words, “We’re sorry to tell you, but…”

I’ve never been one to be scared. I was always the strong one. But my strength seems to have died when she did. When. She. Died. That feels so final.

I look at the door again. Is today going to be the day? Is today going to be the day I open that last door? Today is going to be the day.

I reach my hand out. A spark of static jumps to my hand as it makes contact with the handle. It feels like ice in my hand. I press down and push the door open.

Her smell envelopes me. A hint of the perfume she wore on date night. The smell of her shampoo from that morning. That unique smell that was her, pungent on her gym clothes.

I close my eyes and pretend, just for a moment, that she is about to walk in the door one more time.

I notice her purse lying on the floor – not the one she always took to work with her, but the special-occasion purse. She must have forgotten it that morning. She was probably going to call me mid-afternoon, in a panic, and ask me to bring it to the restaurant when we met. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Without thinking, I reach over. I pick it up. I reach in to see what might have been forgotten.

I pull out a small square box. I open it. A diamond solitaire lies inside.

"Love Your Enemies?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday February 23, 2025 (7^th Sunday After Epiphany)
Scripture Reading:  Luke 6:27-38


OK – so I have to confess that this is maybe one of my least favourite teachings of Jesus.  I don’t like it, because it’s HARD.  I can get behind most of what Jesus teaches about love – love one another, as I have loved you; love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; love your neighbour as yourself.  This is all good, because, after all, what the world needs now is love sweet love.

But in this passage, Jesus pushes me to expand my understanding of who should be included in that circle of love.  Jesus tells me that I am to love not just my friends and the people I like, but I am to love my enemies too.  Jesus tells me that I am to do good to people who hate me.  Jesus tells me that I am to bless people – not only the people who will bless me in return, but I am to bless the people who will return curses for my blessings.  Jesus tells me that I am to pray for people who mistreat me.

The last time we had this reading assigned to us by the lectionary was 3 years ago, February 2022, right in the middle of the Trucker’s Protest in Ottawa, and I said then that this was a hard reading.  With everything going on in the world, I have to say that it is maybe an even harder reading now than it was then.

The thing is, I don’t really want to love my enemies; I don’t want to love the people who hate me; I don’t want to love the people who curse me; I don’t want to love the people who mistreat me, or who mistreat vulnerable people.  I don’t want to do it.

In fact, if I’m being honest, there are people in the world that I kind of wish would just sort of disappear.  I don’t necessarily want harm to come to them, I just think that the world would be a better place if they weren’t in it.  I think of the people who, just a couple of weeks ago, hung swastika flags from overpass bridges in Cincinnati.  I think of the people who are making decisions to drop bombs on hospitals and on playgrounds.  I think of the people who are removing the right to exist from transgender folx south of the border.  I think of politicians who cut foreign aid funding, meaning that vulnerable people are literally going to die.

Jesus tells me that I am to love my enemies, but I’m finding it very hard to love people who are causing such great harm.

But then I remind myself who is speaking here.  Jesus didn’t live in a time and a place where vulnerable and marginalized people where cherished and protected by the government.  In fact, Jesus lived in a time and place that bears a striking number of resemblances to our time and place.  Jesus lived in a backwater nation under the control of the Roman Empire; and not only that, but he was from the region of Galilee which was the back of beyond even within his own country.  All of the power was concentrated in a small number of wealthy people.  Nations were taken over by force.  Taxes were paid to support the military structure that was the Roman Empire, and if you weren’t able to pay, you would be out on the street or imprisoned.  Those of you who are history buffs might be familiar with the concept of “Pax Romana” or the Roman Peace – this was not what we think of as peace which is a space where everyone can flourish; rather this was a peace that was the absence of war, enforced by the threat of military might.  Put one toe out of line, and you’re likely to end up on a cross as an example to others.

This was the context that Jesus was speaking to.  And he wasn’t speaking to the emperor, or to the tech billionaires of his time and place.  He was speaking to a crowd of farmers and fishermen – people who were trying to produce enough food to feed their families for the year, and to pay the taxes and rent that were demanded of them.  He was speaking to people who were one bad harvest away from destitution.  He was speaking to people who would have turned down a side alley in order to avoid encountering a Roman military officer.

I can imagine that Jesus’s teaching wasn’t received any better by his original audience than it is by us.  “What do you mean, we are to love the tax collector who extorts more than needed?  What do you mean, we are to pray for the health and safety of the emperor in Rome?  What do you mean, we are to bless the Roman soldiers who are dragging someone off to be crucified, for the simple crime of questioning if we might be better off without Rome?”

What do you mean, we are to love a government who is sending refugees back to places where they will be killed?  What do you mean, we are to bless the people in the Department of Government Efficiency who are firing tens of thousands of people without cause?  What do you mean, we are to pray for a tech billionaire who is accumulating obscene wealth by eliminating the social security net?  What do you mean, we are to pray for an Emperor-President who wants to expand the empire by military might?  (I’m trying really hard to avoid naming names.  But I’m sure that you would be able to add to this list, on a global scale, on a local scale, or on a personal scale.)

And yet Jesus says that we are to love our enemies.  Jesus says that we are to do good to people who hate us.  Jesus says that we are to bless people who curse us.  Jesus says that we are to pray for people who mistreat us.

And it. Is. Hard.

But then I remind myself who is speaking.  Jesus himself is going to be executed by Empire – nailed to a cross and left there to suffer until his breath is literally squeezed out of him.  And yet, with his dying breath, he forgives and prays for the people who are executing him.  In just a couple of months from now, on Good Friday, Jesus is going to model this radical and difficult teaching he is giving us today.  “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Jesus never said that it was going to be easy, but he is consistent in his message that we are to love radically.  We are to love expansively.  We are to love generously.  We are to love, even when the love isn’t reciprocated.

And not only do I have to remember who was speaking, the people he was speaking to, and the context he was speaking in; but I also have to remember that there is a very good chance that there is someone out there who considers me to be their enemy.  There is a very good chance that I am the person that someone wishes would just disappear from the earth.

Robb McCoy, one of the hosts of my favourite preaching podcast, Pulpit Fiction, re-worded this passage in a way that really hits home.  His version goes:  “Jesus said, it is easy to love the people you like. It is much harder to love the jerks, but I’m telling you to love the jerks. Because there was a time you were a jerk and someone loved you.”  And I think that this is the heart of the Golden Rule found in this passage from Luke:  “Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.”  When I mess up, I want people to be able to forgive me; therefore I need to be willing to forgive and love and bless and pray for others when they mess up in big or small ways.

It is hard.  Jesus knew that it was hard.  Jesus himself experienced how hard this is.  But part of the good news is that we don’t have to do it on our own.  We all have the Holy Spirit working within us, empowering us to do the hard things we are called to do.  God calls us to walk this difficult way of unconditional love, and it is God working in us who equips and enables us to walk this difficult way of unconditional love.

And above all, we keep on loving.  We love radically.  We love expansively.  We love generously.  We love, even when the love isn’t reciprocated.  We love, and in doing so, we refuse to let ourselves be dragged into cycles of violence and hatred and revenge.

And may the God whose very essence is love, surround you and allow you so to do.  Amen.

“Hands, All Together”
Used with Permission

"Light a Fire, Gather, and Sing" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday February 2, 2025 – Candlemas
Scripture:  Luke 2:22-40


Back on December 21, on the longest night of the year, a group of determined souls braved the darkness of the night, braved the frigid temperatures and howling winds, braved the tail end of the Nor’easter that had blown through that day, and gathered in the parking lot at Long Reach United Church and circled around a bonfire and sang.

Into the shadows of the longest night, we sang about the birth of the Light of the World.  We sang songs about a baby who was born into a time and place of Empire and oppression, yet who would teach a way of unconditional love.  We sang songs about this baby’s mother; who, herself, sang about the powerful being brought down from their thrones, the hungry being filled with good things, and tech billionaires, I mean, the rich being sent away empty handed.  We sang songs about the baby’s father who, fearing for the life of his family, took them and fled for refuge to a foreign land.

Into the shadows of the longest night, we sang about the birth of the Light of the World.  We sang our songs, trusting that the night isn’t going to last for ever and the daylight will return.  We sang our songs, trusting that the cold and snow of winter will eventually give way to the warmth and life of spring.  We sang our songs of hope, trusting that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overwhelm it.

As I mentioned earlier, today, the beginning of February, is a pivot-time in the seasonal calendar.  We are half-way between that Winter Solstice, and the Spring Equinox when the hours of daylight will equal the hours of night.  This is the time of year when the lengthening of days begins to accelerate, and we will start to notice, almost day-by-day, the increasing light.  We have come through the darkest season that began at the beginning of November, and carried through the Solstice, until now, when we on the other side.  Our ancient Celtic ancestors celebrated Imbolc at this time of year – the returning of the light and the promise of spring.

And in the church calendar, we also celebrate at this time.  As well as Groundhog Day and Imbolc, today also holds three different church festivals.  It is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, when we remember that Jesus was presented at the temple, as his parent’s first-born son.  We remember that his arrival was celebrated by the prophet Anna and by the prophet Simeon.  Today is also the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin.  According to the Jewish Law, 40 days after giving birth, Mary had to undergo purification rituals in order to become ritually pure again – and today is 40 days after Christmas.  And finally, the church also celebrates Candlemas on this day – a day when families would bring their candles to the church to be blessed – the Light of the World blessing the light of the home, in a season when the light is returning to the world.

And when you look at the words that Simeon spoke when he held the infant Jesus, one of the names that he gives to Jesus is “a light for revelation.”  Jesus, the Light of the World, has the power to reveal what was previously hidden.  Jesus is the light by which we can see everything clearly.

If you are anything like me, you are probably sick of hearing about and thinking about and talking about politics; yet if you are like me, that is likely the thing that is top-of-mind for most of us in this present moment.  There is the anxiety and uncertainty over yesterday’s tariff announcement and what that will mean not only for the Canadian economy, but also for our personal cost of living.  There is the grief over all of the stories we are hearing.  There is fear that such regressive politics could make their way north of the border.  To me, sometimes it feels as though we are currently living through that winter solstice, that longest night when it feels as though the light will never return.

But if this is a longest-night moment, then our response should be the same as it was back in December when we braved the cold and snow and wind and darkness, and gathered to kindle a fire against the night and sing.  For the light of that fire proclaimed that the darkness can never win – it only takes a single match to shatter the darkness of the night, and just think of the power if every single follower of the Light of the World carried just a single match of hope.

So we light our fire against the night, and we gather together.  As our United Church of Canada Creed says, “We are not alone.”  We know that we are never alone – not only is God with us, but we are together, as a community, building this fire against the night.

So we light our fire against the night, and we gather together, and we sing.  We sing our songs of resistance.  We sing our songs of hope.  We sing our songs of peace.  We sing our songs of justice.  And as we sing our songs, we invite the world to join in.

And as we light our fire, as we gather together, as we sing, we trust that the Light of the World who was born into the time of the longest night will be a light of revelation for the world.  We trust that the light of Christ will help us to see places of goodness and beauty and love in the world, and once we see these places, we celebrate them.  We trust that the light of Christ will expose the places of oppression and corruption so that the world can see them clearly, and in doing so, end them.

And because we trust in the light of Christ, the Light of the World, the light of revelation, we trust that, even in the longest night, the darkness can never win.

And may the Holy Spirit work in all of us, so that we can be people who sing God’s hope with everything that we say and with everything that we do.  May the Holy Spirit work in all of us, so that we can be people who gather together and uphold one another, even on the longest, coldest night.  And may the Holy Spirit work in all of us, so that we can be people who always kindle fires of hope against the night.  Amen.

 

 

Lighting a Fire Against the Night

Photo Credit:  K. Jones