"Prodigal Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

March 31, 2019

Scripture:  Luke 15:11-32

The story we just heard, the parable of the Prodigal Son, is probably one of the best-known passages of scripture.  We could probably lump it together with the parable of the Good Samaritan, the 23^rd Psalm, the 10 Commandments, and maybe the Beatitudes, and package them up as “Bible:  Greatest Hits.”  Many people are familiar with the outline of the story, even if they have never read it.  The story of a son who leaves his family, wastes his inheritance, and is welcomed back by his father with open arms.

Books have been written about this parable, paintings have been painted, poems have been composed.  Many years ago, a bible study group that I was a part of read and discussed Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal Son.  Over the course of a month and a half, we read Nouwen’s reflections about the famous painting by Rembrandt depicting the moment when the younger son returns and is embraced by his father.

Rembrandt van Rijn - "The Return of the Prodigal Son"

(Public Domain)

 

Nouwen dives deeply into the experience of all three characters – the younger son, the father, and the elder son – such a deep dive that at the end of the bible study we jokingly said, “If you ever run into Nouwen at a party, whatever you do, don’t ask him about the painting or you’ll be there all night!”

So it is a well-known story, and I’m guessing that if I were to ask you, most of you would relate with one or the other of the sons.

Maybe you relate more with the younger son who demands his share of his inheritance, then goes off and spends it all on “riotous living” or “extravagant living” or “undisciplined and dissipated ways” depending on the translation that you are using.  And when the money was gone and you had nowhere to live and nothing left to eat and you had hit rock-bottom, you have come back to your father, hoping for a job that would put a roof over your head and food on your plate; and instead you have been welcomed with open arms and a completely unearned, undeserved lavish feast.  Grace at its best.

Or maybe you relate more with the elder brother.  You have seen your younger brother demand his share of the inheritance, basically telling your father that he wished that he were dead.  And after that, you only heard rumours about what might have been happening – rumours of a high-flying lifestyle followed by the inevitable crash.  And then you have watched your younger brother come crawling back, and while you don’t want your father to turn him away, you also don’t understand how your father can welcome him so.  After all, you have been working for all these years for your father.  You have never wished your father dead.  And your father has never offered to throw a party for you and your friends.

I’m guessing that most of you can relate to one brother more than the other, but don’t worry – I’m not going to take a poll to see where everyone stands!

I have two sisters, so believe me when I say that I get sibling relationships.  When we were growing up, the most consistent refrain that you would have heard in our house was, “That’s not fair!”  Nobody gets fairness like an outraged sibling.  To our cries of unfairness, our father would usually reply, “Well, life’s not fair.”  But despite Dad’s matter-of-fact statement, we did our best to ensure fairness.  Treats had to be divided up equally; experiences had to be had equally; playtime, bedtimes, allowances – believe me when I say that we kept track of all of these!  And yet there was always something going on that caused us to complain, “That’s not fair!”

I think that our two brothers in today’s reading would relate with our complaint of unfairness.  The elder brother sees his brother receiving an extra-special treatment after behaving extra badly, and cries foul.  The younger brother comes home expecting to be treated the way that he deserves, and instead receives a welcome greater than he could ever imagine, let alone ask for.  Nothing about this story is fair.

In my mid-week e-mail this week, I asked the question – is there anything new to say about this story that is so well known.  For me, I realized this week as I read this story of the Prodigal Son, that I had no idea what the word “prodigal” meant.  My only association of the word was with this story.  Even when I have encountered the word “prodigal” in conversation or books, it was always related to this parable.  Based on how it was used, I always assumed that the word “prodigal” meant something like “repentant” or “penitent” – coming back, knowing that you had done something wrong.

But this week, I actually looked up the word “prodigal” to see what it means, and turns out that I was way off in my guess.  The word “prodigal” actually means “recklessly extravagant” or “lavish” or “luxurious.”  (Most of you probably knew this already, but it was new to me!)  So when we talk about the “Prodigal Son,” we are talking about the period of time just after he left his family, not about the time when he came home again.

With my newly acquired understanding of the word “prodigal” I started to wonder then if it is really the son who is prodigal in this story, or is it the father?

After all, when his younger son returns in disgrace, the father casts off dignity and runs out to welcome his son and can’t stop hugging and kissing him.  He then gives this wayward son authority over the household, presenting him with the robe, ring, and sandals of the head of the household.  And then he prepares an extravagant feast.

Isn’t it the father who is being recklessly extravagant, lavish, and luxuriant in the story?

And even with respect to his elder son, I see the father as the prodigal here.  His son is being petulant, refusing to join into the welcome-home party, refusing the joyful celebration of the party; and instead of leaving his elder son outside to stew in his own juices, the father goes out to plead with him and beg him to come inside.  A prodigal love, a love that is extravagant doesn’t want anyone to be excluded from the celebration.

And so instead being the story of the prodigal son, I see this parable as the story of the prodigal father – the story of a father who loves with abandon, who loves extravagantly, who loves beyond any reasonable expectations.

One of my favourite theologians, Jürgen Moltmann, writes about “the infinite grief of love.”[1]  A love that is so strong that any separation leads to grief.  A love between parent and child that is ripped apart yet paradoxically reaches its fulfillment when the child was crucified on Good Friday.  A love that carries in it the possibility and force of new life.  After all, the grief that we feel when we lose a loved one is really all of the love that we carry within us that no longer has a place to go.

And I see this “infinite grief of love” in our story today.  A parent’s love results in profound grief when rejected by a child; followed by extravagant, prodigal love when that child returns.  A parent’s love that results in profound grief when a child refuses to come inside; refuses to join in and share the joy.

The thing about this parable of prodigal love, of extravagant love, is that the ending is open-ended.  We know that the younger son has returned home and has been welcomed with open arms, but we don’t know if he stays home.  We don’t know if the restlessness that drove him away the first time is gone.  We don’t know if he will be able to settle down to a quiet life on the family farm.

In the same way, we don’t know how the elder brother responded to his father’s pleading.  We don’t know if he stayed outside, wallowing in resentment, or if he was able to come inside, welcome his brother home, and enter the joy of the celebration that his father is throwing.

We don’t know what happens to either of these brothers.  But what we do know is that their father’s love is constant, extravagant, and limitless.  We can be assured that whether we relate more to the restless younger brother or the resentful elder brother, that we are loved.  You are loved.  God, like a loving parent, is seeking you out, is running out to meet you where you are.  You are loved.  We are all loved.  Thanks be to God!

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[1] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 2015), 251.

"Shifting the Story" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

March 24, 2019

Scripture:  Luke 13:1-9

I don’t know about you, but there have been times in the past couple of weeks when it has seemed like the world has been falling to pieces.  Airplanes falling from the sky with hundreds of people on board.  A person armed with guns entering into a place of worship and killing 50 people who had gathered there.  Cyclones and floodwaters that have left vast swathes of countries under water, killing hundreds and leaving thousands stranded and waiting for rescue.  Climate change that is such an imminent threat that children are walking out of schools to try and get us adults to pay attention.

Closer to home, I know that we have families in our communities who are dealing with serious medical conditions, with the loss of loved ones, with family challenges.

I don’t know about you, but I get upset at the senseless randomness of things.  Why did that gunman walk in and start shooting?  Why was it my loved one who got sick?  Why is it the most vulnerable people on our planet who are the most impacted by climate change?  I get upset; I get angry; I get sad.

Bad theology sometimes tries to give us answers.  Bad theology might tell us that everything happens for a reason.  Bad theology might tell us that what goes around comes around, and everyone gets what they deserve.  Bad theology might tell us that if you are good, then blessings will shower down upon you; and that bad things happen because you didn’t pray hard enough.

But none of this fits with my understanding of a God who is, by God’s very nature, love.  I can’t imagine a God who is love wanting bad things to happen so that we can learn from them.  I can’t imagine a God who is love zapping people on a whim.  I can’t imagine a God who is love doling out violence and cancer and grief as a punishment.

And Jesus says pretty much the same thing in today’s passage, when people came to him with questions two tragedies that had just happened; tragedies that still resonate with us today.  Some people were worshipping at the temple when Pilate had them killed.  A tower in Jerusalem collapsed, crushing 18 people under the debris.

It is our human instinct to try and make sense of the world, and so I can imagine people coming to Jesus trying to make meaning out of these two tragedies.  Why did this happen to them?  Why were they killed?  They must have done something to deserve it!

But Jesus is clear in his response to these questions.  Did the worshippers do something wrong that they deserved to be killed?  Jesus says, “No, I tell you.”  Those people crushed by the tower, were they sinners, and was this God’s retribution?  Jesus says,  “No, I tell you.”

It is our human instinct to try and make sense of tragedies.  We long to find some explanation for these events, so that we can feel safe knowing that it can never happen to us.

In today’s reading, I can hear echoes of the people in John’s gospel who brought a man who was born blind to Jesus and asked, “Who is the sinner in this situation?  Was it this man’s or his parents’ sins that led to him being born blind?”  But to those questioners, Jesus gives the same answer as he gives in our Luke reading from today.  Neither.  You’re asking the wrong question.  Bad things don’t happen as a punishment for sin.

Bad things just happen.  Bad things happen to good people.  Our world doesn’t make sense.  That was true in Jesus’ time, and it’s true today.  2000 years later, people are still being killed when they gather to worship.  This is part of the tragedy of our broken world.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to point out that what matters is how we respond to these tragedies that we face.  We can’t stop bad things from happening to us by being good people.  We can’t control the evil in the world.  But what we can control is how we respond to them.

When tragedy touches our lives – whether it’s tragedy on the other side of the world or tragedy in our family, how do we respond?  Because we have a choice here.

We can choose to respond with retaliation, with fear, with hatred, with violence, with shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world.

Or we can choose to respond by doing what we can to spread God’s love in the world by being peacemakers, by offering our support to the vulnerable, by building relationships with our neighbours, by allowing the peace of God which surpasses all understanding to overwhelm our hearts and our minds.

Jesus uses the word “repent” when he is talking to his listeners, and “repent” is one of the churchiest church words out there.  One of my professors at AST, Dr. Alyda Faber, likes to talk about “theological F-words” – those words that are part of our theological vocabulary, but that make us uncomfortable to hear or that we aren’t comfortable saying.  I think that “repent” might be one of these “theological F-words” for many of us.

But the root of this word doesn’t have to do with condemnation, it doesn’t have to do with a threat, it doesn’t have to do with so many of the ways that we often hear it.  The Greek word that Jesus uses here refers to a "metanoia" – literally a change of heart, a change of path, a change of our ways.

With repentance, with a change of heart, a change of actions, we have an opportunity to change the story line, to change the ending.  Tragedy still happens in our world, but the result of tragedy no longer has to be fear and escalating violence – the result of tragedy can be a shift towards love and goodness in the world.

And so when a shooting in a mosque in New Zealand results in people of different faiths coming together to pray and support each other and learn about each others’ faith, we can shift the story just a little bit towards love.

When a health crisis draws a family together, and friends and neighbours offer practical and emotional support, we can shift the story just a little bit towards love.

When an accident leads to people opening their doors to strangers, we can shift the story just a little bit towards love.

And we can believe this because we are an Easter people.  We know that on Good Friday, death tried to have the final say and violence tried to lead the world towards fear and chaos; but we also know that on Easter, the story shifted again towards love and joy and a confidence that resurrection is possible.

On Friday evening, I heard an interview with a woman who was present at St. Joseph’s Basilica in Montreal when a man came in and stabbed the priest.  Reflecting on this, as well as the shooting in two mosques a week before in New Zealand, she said, “There is so much hate in the world.”

There is hate in the world; but I believe that there is also a lot of love.  We can choose to change the story line, we can shift the story towards love and hope and joy; we can choose to live the Easter message every day.

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

“Unconditional Love – Agape”

© Zerovina, CC BY-SA 4.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unconditional_love_-_Agape.png

The Girl He Used to Know - Tracey Garvis Graves (book review)

This is a book that I won in a give-away.  I think that the publisher is trying to create book buzz ahead of the publication date of April 2 - give away thousands of copies in exchange for a review.  Back in the day when I had a book blog, I would periodically receive books from authors, publishers, or publicists; but it has been a few years since a free book showed up in my mailbox.  (And with this book, I didn't get notification that I had won the give-away, and I had forgotten that I had entered - the book just magically appeared in my mailbox one day when I checked it on my way home from work!)

Anyways, it was a good book, but not a great book.  It is a second-chance love story that moves back and forth across a 10-year gap. Annika and Jonathan met in collage; made plans to move to New York City together after graduation; due to "circumstances," Jonathan goes and Annika stays behind; 10-years later they are both in Chicago and run into each other in a grocery store and re-connect.

I found the book pacing a bit uneven.  It was a fast and easy read that tended to pick up speed as it moved along, but in the first 100 pages or so I was tempted to stop reading because nothing was happening.

In terms of the characters, the book is written in first-person, alternating point-of-view, so normally I would expect to get to know both characters well; but I found that I got to know Annika well, but I hardly know Jonathan at all.  I don't know what he is thinking (beyond Annika is hot), or what he is feeling (beyond I don't want to lose Annika).  I also didn't find that there was strong chemistry drawing them together - we are told that they love each other, but aren't shown this.  Annika is neuro-divergant (yay for diverse characters), and Jonathan (for the most part) stands up for her when the world can be cruel to anything perceived as different; but two weeks after reading this book, the characters are shadowy blurs in my brain rather than living characters - I don't think that they are going to stick with me in the long-term.

The plot, on the other hand, picked up speed as it went along and this is the part of the book that is going to stick with me.  There is a massive plot-twist on p. 250 of a 291 page book that completely caught me off-guard and made the book for me.  It is the sort of plot-twist that had no foreshadowing, but is one that I should have anticipated.  And in order to say more, I'm going to put the next bit as a spoiler - if you want to be surprised as I was when I read it, you will want to skip to the bottom of this review.

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The two "eras" of the book are 1991 and August/September 2001.  The author even gives dates as the end of the book draws closer - Sept. 10, Sept. 11... but when Jonathan was in the Twin Towers when the airplanes hit, it caught me completely unprepared, and unable to put the book down until I finished it.  Like I said, not foreshadowed or hinted at in the plot, but I should have known.

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So... if I were to try and give this book a grade, it would probably be a middle-of-the-road grade like C+ or B-.  I didn't find the characters well defined, but the plot (especially that plot twist) have kept me thinking about this book after finishing.

Thank you, St. Martin's Press for the book; and thank you, Smart Bitches for hosting the give-away!

"Into the Wilderness" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 10, 2019

Scripture:  Luke 4:1-13

 

If you have been following along with the Sunday readings since Christmas, it almost feels like we have been put into a time machine that was then shaken up this week.  After Christmas and the stories about young Jesus, we read about how Jesus came to the Jordan River and was baptized by John.  Then we had all sorts of stories about how Jesus traveled around and was made known by what he did and what he taught.

Then last Sunday, we had the story of the Transfiguration where Jesus and 3 of his disciples went up to the top of a mountain where they encountered God.  That story, the story of the Transfiguration, marks a pivot point in the gospel narrative.  At that point, Jesus’ ministry in his home region of Galilee has ended, and Jesus and his disciples begin their journey to Jerusalem – a journey that will end with our celebration on Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, when Jesus enters the city accompanied by a big parade and loud celebrations.

So… you might think that our reading for today would have Jesus and his disciples coming down from the mountain where they were last Sunday, and beginning their journey to Jerusalem.  But instead, the powers that be who created the 3-year cycle of readings that we use on Sunday mornings have put us into a time machine and sent us back to immediately after Jesus was baptized by John.  He hasn’t done any miracles yet.  He hasn’t preached any sermons yet.  He hasn’t healed anyone yet.  He hasn’t told any of his parables yet.  Jesus has been baptized in the river.  He has heard the voice of God calling him a “Beloved Son.”  But his ministry hasn’t yet started.  Before his ministry can start, he spends 40 days in the wilderness, facing all sorts of temptations.

Now here in Canada, when we hear the word wilderness, we likely think of thick forests.  Maybe hills and rivers.  Far away from any other humans.  A place where bears and moose and mosquitoes live; a place that is striking in its beauty but one that presents challenges to survival.

The wilderness that Jesus went into was very different than our Canadian wilderness – it was a desert wilderness.  Rocky hills, no vegetation or water, blazing hot during the day but frigidly cold at night.  I remember visiting that desert where Jesus spent 40 days.  It was January – the coolest month of the year, but it felt like the middle of the hottest summer day.  There was nowhere to find shade or protection from the sun.  And yet the people who live in that desert say that the cold at night is actually a bigger danger than the heat of the day; and they spread out black tarps and blankets during the day to try and trap as much heat as possible to help them to stay warm at night.

And Jesus goes out into this place of no water, no shelter, no food, no companionship; and there he stays for 40 days.  I can only imagine how he must have felt by the end of that time.  Hungry.  Thirsty.  Tired.  Lonely.

Back at Christmas we read that in Jesus, God’s Word became flesh.  Jesus is fully God, but he is also fully human.  And there in the desert, he must have felt every bit of his vulnerable humanity.

And into the middle of his vulnerability, up pops the devil.  Now before you picture a little creature with a red suit, horns, and a tail popping up to cause mischief or spread evil, the word used in Greek is diaboloV.  It actually means something more like the false accuser, the slanderer, the one who spreads malicious gossip.  The one who tempts us to believe false things about ourselves.  The one who tempts us to doubt ourselves.

And into Jesus’ hunger, thirst, loneliness, and tiredness, he is presented with three specific temptations.

The first temptation says to him, “I know that you must feel hungry and thirsty, after all, your human flesh has been suffering out here for so many days without food and water.  But if you are God, the same God who created the heavens and the earth out of nothingness, why don’t you just turn those stones over there into bread, and then you won’t have to be hungry.”  But Jesus resists.  He knows that being true to where God has called him, and what God has called him to do is more important than his hunger.  His ministry was going to be about feeding others rather than feeding himself.

The second temptation then says to him, “Look at this whole big world that you find yourself in.  Why don’t you worship me, and then I will give you power over all of the world?”  But again Jesus resists.  He knows that God, and trusting in God is more important than personal wealth or power.  His ministry was going to be about pointing people towards God rather than towards himself.

And then finally the third temptation says to him, “OK, we’ve left the desert now, and we’re in Jerusalem standing at the very highest point of the very highest building that anyone has ever imagined.  Why don’t you jump off – after all, God has called you God’s beloved Son, so surely God will catch you.”  But once more Jesus resists the temptation.  Yes God is there, and God could catch him, but what purpose would that serve other than to show off?  His ministry would be about building relationships and trusting God with quiet confidence.

And then after 40 days, Jesus was ready to leave the wilderness and begin his ministry, grown in his confidence about who he was and what he was called to do.

Our season of Lent is another season of 40 days that began last Wednesday.  Between now and Easter, many people are going to imitate Jesus in the desert by embracing their own humanity and vulnerability.  Just as Jesus lived for 40 days without food or water or shelter, many people are going to give something up for the next six weeks – chocolate or potato chips or wine or Facebook tend to be popular options; though in a world that is becoming more environmentally conscious, this year I have also seen people suggesting a fast from meat or a fast from single-use plastic for Lent.  To a smaller degree, people try to imitate Jesus’ experiences in the desert where, in his human flesh, he must have experienced longings and cravings for that which he couldn’t have.

But you’ll notice that Jesus’ desert experience didn’t begin or end with his cravings and temptations.  That isn’t the end of the story.  At the beginning to today’s reading, we heard that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit out into the wilderness.  When he was there in the desert, he wasn’t alone – he was with God.  And so I imagine that Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer – time conversing with God, growing in relationship with God – with the other two thirds of the Trinity.  And at the end of his forty days, Jesus was strengthened in his commitment towards the ministry to which God had called him.

And so rather than thinking of your Lenten commitments as something like “church-y New Year’s Resolutions” that you only have to keep for 6 weeks rather than a full year, or a spiritual self-improvement program, I invite you to go deeper with them.  The various things that we might give up for Lent – whether that be chocolate or single-use plastics – this is a form of fasting, but only if you invite God to move into the space that is left by whatever it is that you give up.  Just as Jesus left the wilderness 40 days later, with a deeper relationship with God and strengthened for the ministry that he was called to; we too should leave the 40 days of our Lenten fasting and practices with a deeper relationship with God and a stronger commitment to the mission and ministry that God calls all of us to.

And so my question to you is, how are you going to spend your 40 wilderness days that lie ahead?

May it be so.  Amen.

Negev Desert - Jesus' Wilderness

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=206046

"Transfiguration: More Than Just a Class at Hogwarts" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday March 3, 2019

Scripture:  Luke 9:28-36

Today is the Sunday on the church calendar that is known as Transfiguration Sunday.  Now I suspect that the word “transfiguration” is probably better recognized and understood today than it was 20 years ago, due to the popularity of the Harry Potter books and movies.

In the Harry Potter world, Transfiguration is one of the required courses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  It is taught by Professor McGonagall (who, in my opinion, is one of the most awesome characters in the Harry Potter books), and is “some of the most complex and dangerous magic” that the students learn.  In Professor McGonagall’s classes, the students learn how to turn one thing in to another – how to turn a matchstick into a needle, a hedgehog into a pincushion, beetles into buttons.  They are learning how to change the shape of things – trans, to change; figure, or shape.

So Transfiguration Sunday.  This is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany; the Sunday before Lent begins.  Every year, on the last Sunday before Lent, we read the story about how Jesus and three of his disciples – Peter, James and John – travel up a mountain, and there at the top Jesus is transfigured.  His face is changed and he is glowing, dazzling.  Moses and Elijah, two of the prominent figures from Jewish history in centuries past appear with Jesus, and then they are enveloped in a cloud and the voice of God says, “This is my son, my Chosen, my Beloved One; listen to him!”  And then maybe a second later, maybe hours later – time can play tricks on us in moments like this – Jesus and the disciples are alone, and Jesus has resumed his normal appearance.

It is a moment of deep and profound holiness.  It is a moment where the veil that separates us from God is lifted, and the disciples catch a glimpse of God, and hear God’s voice.  The disciples don’t quite know what to do with the moment.  Peter seems to feel the need to say something, to say anything to fill the space, and he stumbles over his words offering to put up three tents – one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for the transformed Jesus.  And then when the moment is over, the disciples keep an awed silence, unable to find the words to speak of the holiness that they have encountered.

I always like to ask the question “why?”  Why do the students at Hogwarts have to learn transfiguration?  Why is it important to be able to change a matchstick into a needle?  Why did Jesus only invite 3 of his disciples to come up the mountain with him?  Why were the others left out of this experience?  Why was Jesus transfigured?  Why was the veil lifted; why did those disciples encounter the Holy then and there?

I don’t know if we ever get good answers to these “why” questions – except maybe it is useful to be able to change a matchstick into a needle if you need to mend your clothes – but I don’t know if we ever get a good answer to the God questions, at least while we are on this side of the veil, but we can always speculate.  We can wonder.

A couple of weeks ago at our Wednesday morning bible study, our conversation shifted to those times when we have been able to sense God’s presence more strongly than other times.  Times when we have heard words spoken to us, times when we have felt tactile sensations, times when we have had a compulsion to phone someone, times when we have felt ourselves embraced by God’s love.

And as we shared these stories, we asked the why questions.  Why do some people have these experiences and not others?  Why do they happen when they happen?

And while I can’t know for sure, I wonder if these moments when we have an acute sense of God’s presence are given to us when we need them, at the moment when we need them.  I wonder if God lifts the veil that separates us from the holiness of God when we need it – maybe for reasons known only to God.

I don’t know why it was only three disciples who went with Jesus, and I don’t know why it was those three who were invited; but Peter, James, and John seem to be part of Jesus’ inner circle of disciples.  They were his closest friends, his most trusted disciples, and the disciples that would go on to be leaders in the early church after Jesus’ death.

And so I wonder if these disciples needed this encounter with the overwhelming holiness of God in order to strengthen them and equip them for their ministry in the world.  The road that they are going to travel isn’t going to be easy, and they are going to mess up – remember that in a few short weeks Peter is going to deny knowing Jesus – and yet I still wonder if this encounter on the mountaintop was transformative for them.  I wonder if it allowed them to do the ministry that they would do in the years ahead.

Jesus was transfigured – his physical appearance was changed there on the mountaintop – but I wonder if the disciples were also transformed by the experience.  I don’t think that we can encounter the Holy without being changed.

I don’t have any advice to hand out this morning – no three-step or five-step plan for encountering God face-to-face.  These encounters seem to come when God takes the initiative, not us.

But what I can do is encourage you to be open to the mystery that is God.  Expect that the unexpected is possible.  Be open to the possibility that God really is closer to each one of us than our very breath.  Prepare yourself to experience the overwhelming love and peace and joy that comes from being in the presence of God.

And most of all, prepare yourself to be changed, to be transformed by that encounter; because once you’ve had an experience, you can’t un-experience it.  Prepare yourself to take the gifts of this encounter with you even when you come back off the mountaintop and re-enter every-day life, knowing that life will never be the same again.

Let us pray:

Holy, holy, holy God,

blow through our lives by your Holy Spirit.

Let the veil that separates us from you be lifted,

            if only for a moment,

so that we can hear your voice

            and see your face,

                        and be embraced by your love.

Fill us with the peace that comes

            from being in your presence;

and set our hearts on fire

            with your love.

I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ,

            the transfigured one,

                        and the one in whom transformation is possible.

Amen.

JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved March 3, 2019]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr.

"You Want Me to Do What?!" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

February 24, 2019

Scripture:  Luke 6:27-38

So shall we start with the easy part of today’s reading, or the hard part?

The easy verse is probably one of the best-known verses of scripture – a teaching that features in all major religions, and is the foundation of much interfaith dialogue.  “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”  If you read the United Church Observer, there was a recent article exploring this teaching from different religious perspectives.

And this is a key teaching from Jesus, linked with his teaching that we are to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.  And it is an important teaching for living well together.  If everyone were to treat everyone else in the way that they want to be treated, then the world would be a peaceful place indeed.

But Jesus’ teaching in today’s scripture reading doesn’t end there.  Jesus gives us some much more difficult instructions to wrestle with.  Twice in this passage, he tells us that we are to love our enemies.  He says that it’s easy to love people who love us back, but that isn’t enough.  We are also to love our enemies.

So my question to you today is, who is your enemy?

It’s a nebulous word, “enemy.”  It’s one that we can think about in the abstract, but when we try to put a face to the word, it becomes a bit more challenging.  It might mean someone that we don’t like; it might mean someone who doesn’t like us; it might mean someone who is doing something we don’t agree with, something that is cruel, something that we see as evil.

So who is your enemy?  Can you put a face to your enemy?  Can you love your enemy?

Can you love that person who votes for a different party than you, someone who votes for that party that you think is completely wrong?

Can you love that teenager who bullies their classmates, in-person and on-line?

Can you love the people who think that it’s OK to separate children from their parents and lock them into cages at the border?

Can you love the people who take advantage of those who are vulnerable; who abuse and assault people knowing that “the system” won’t do anything to stop them?

OK Jesus – how can you expect me to love these people?  How can you expect me to love people who do such horrible things?  This is a hard teaching that you are giving to us Jesus – do you really understand what you are asking us to do?

But when I think about it, Jesus does understand what he is asking us to do.  We are now less than 2 months away from Holy Week.  In just under 8 weeks, we are going to gather for our Good Friday service.  We are going to hear about how Jesus was beaten and nailed to a cross and left to die.  And we are going to hear about how Jesus, hanging there on the cross, cries out to God, “Forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.”

Jesus knows what it is like to love his enemies, to bless those who cursed him, to pray for those who abused him.  Jesus knows what it is like to be merciful and to forgive.  In a few short weeks, Jesus is going to live in to everything that he teaches us today.

So where does that leave us?

Because is we truly believe that we are the Body of Christ in our world, that we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we are called to live and act as Jesus did.

But the good news is that we don’t have to do it alone.  The good news is that we have the Holy Spirit living in us, always transforming us more and more into the image of Christ.  And the Holy Spirit, living in us, can help us to do things that would be impossible on our own.

As the start of Lent draws closer, our season of Epiphany is drawing to a close.  This season of Epiphany has been a time when we have looked for how Jesus was and is revealed in the world.  We’ve heard the story about how the Magi visited Jesus and recognized him as a king; the story of how Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River and a voice from heaven proclaimed that he was God’s beloved son, in whom God was well pleased; the story of how Jesus turned water into wine; the story of how Jesus called his disciples and they recognized him for who he was; stories about how he attracted crowds of people to him whenever he taught.

All through these past two months, we’ve had stories about how Christ was revealed to the world through Jesus of Nazareth.

But I believe that Christ continues to be revealed to the world today, through the Body of Christ, which includes all of us here today.  Through what we do, and through how we live, we can reveal Christ to the world around us.  Epiphany continues in the here and now.  When the world sees us forgiving others, the world sees Christ.  When the world sees us doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, the world sees Christ.  When the world sees us turning away from violence rather than reacting or retaliating, the world sees Christ.  When the world sees us loving our enemies, the world sees Christ.

Which brings us back to our original problem.  How can we love our enemies?  How can we love people who do horrible things in the world?

I have to remind myself that we aren’t told that we have to love the things that our enemies do.  In fact, so many places elsewhere we are told that we are to speak out against injustice and oppression.  But in this passage today, along with telling us to love our enemies, Jesus also tells us that we are not to judge.

I find that commandment a huge relief.  I don’t have to judge other people.  I don’t have to decide who is worthy and who is not.  I don’t have to decide who to love and who to withhold love from.  I don’t have to judge, and Jesus tells me to love everyone.

I want to end with a passage from one of my favourite books.  I love the series of books by Madeleine L’Engle that begins with A Wrinkle in Time, and think that they are so full of good theology.  In the second book, A Wind in the Door, the main character Meg is put in a situation where she has to love someone who is very unlikeable.  Mr. Jenkins is the principal at the primary school – he was unfair to Meg when she was a student there, and now he is tormenting her beloved younger brother.  He is abrupt, he doesn’t listen to others, he is apathetic towards the students, he has no confidence in himself, and he doesn’t tolerate anyone who deviates from what he thinks “normal” is.

And yet Meg has to love him.  Her first reaction is to say, “If you mean you think I have to love Mr. Jenkins, you’ve got another think coming.”

Meg then thinks about the other people in the world she loves – her parents, her brothers, her best friend.  And then she remembers seeing a kindness that Mr. Jenkins had done to her best friend.  And in the end, she is able to truly see Mr. Jenkins, beyond anything that he had done or hadn’t done, she is able to see him in his full humanity, mistakes and all, and she says, “‘the only one… who’s human enough to make as many mistakes as he does is you, Mr. Jenkins’ – suddenly she gave a startled laugh.  ‘And I do love you for it.’  Then she burst into tears of nervousness and exhaustion.”[1]

We are called to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who abuse us.  It isn’t easy, but Jesus doesn’t say that it will be.  We are called to see everyone in the world in their full humanity and love everyone.  And the good news is that we don’t do it alone – the Holy Spirit working within us, working to transform us into the likeness of Christ, allows us to show Christ to the world.

Thanks be to God!

 

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[1] Madeleine L’Engle, A Wind in the Door (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1973).

 Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

"Rooted in God" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge (Westfield United Church)

Sunday February 17, 2019

Scripture:  Jeremiah 17:5-10

As we were talking about in our Story for All Ages, plants need water to live.  Houseplants, shrubs, trees, they all need water.  Even cacti, that seem to live in the desert with no water, even they need a bit of water once in a while in order to live.  And we can expand this beyond plants to all living creatures need water in order to live.

Our reading from Jeremiah uses a very striking image of a plant in the desert compared with a plant by the river. Now here in New Brunswick, where we don’t have any deserts and too much water is often a bigger problem than not enough, this imagery might not be as relevant, but I pulled this picture up to demonstrate the importance of water for life. 

Nile River Delta

© NASA – Public Domain

This is a satellite picture of the Nile River running through the Sahara desert.  Wherever the river runs, plants and trees are able to grow; and wherever the river isn’t is seemingly lifeless desert.  Water is life.  Even if no rain falls, the trees growing by the river will still have access to water and will still be able to live.  The river sustains life.

This would be the sort of image that Jeremiah had in mind as he was prophesying.  “Anyone who turns away from God, who puts their full trust in other humans, they will be like a shrub planted in the desert.  But anyone who puts their trust in God will be like a tree planted by a river; you don’t need to be afraid or anxious because even when the times of drought come, the river will sustain your life.”

I think that it’s important to note what Jeremiah isn’t saying.  He isn’t saying that if you trust in God, the drought isn’t going to come, that bad things aren’t going to happen.  No – he’s saying that if you trust in God, when the bad things happen, God will be there, sustaining you through those tough times.

And the people that Jeremiah was talking to, they knew what that was all about.  They were a people living in a small country surrounded by large empires.  The Assyrian army had already invaded and destroyed the northern part of their land, and now the Babylonians were pressing in.  Jeremiah was speaking to people who were on the very verge of being overcome and taken into exile.

And Jeremiah doesn’t come and give them nice, comforting words.  Jeremiah doesn’t tell them that the Babylonian army was going to disappear and everything would be OK.  Jeremiah doesn’t tell them that God is going to zap the Babylonians with a lightning bolt.  Jeremiah doesn’t give the people this kind of false comfort.  In fact, if you were to read through all of Jeremiah, you would find false prophets who did say this sort of thing – that since God was with them, nothing bad could happen to them – but these false prophets generally met a bad ending.

Instead, Jeremiah speaks the truth.  Bad things are going to happen in your life, even when you trust in God.  The Babylonians are going to invade.  People are going to die.  Others are going to be exiled.  The temple is going to be destroyed.

But into all of this truth-speaking, Jeremiah offers a word of hope.  Jeremiah tells the people that if they trust in God, God will sustain them, even when these bad things happen.  God will be with them, even when they are in exile from their country.  God will be with them, even when the city and temple are destroyed.  God will be with them, and they will flourish, even when the situation seems hopeless.

And I think that this message can still resonate with us today, even if the Babylonian army isn’t breathing down our necks.  But we still face the same questions and concerns as Jeremiah’s audience does.  Why do bad things happen?  If we are good people, if we go to church and believe in God, shouldn’t life become all rainbows and unicorns and sunshine?

I will be honest and say that I don’t have a good answer as to why bad things happen.  But I can affirm what Jeremiah says, that if we trust in God, then God will sustain us through these difficult times when they inevitably come.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I don’t know how I would have been able to get through those awful weeks and months after my mother died without God; without being able to dump all of my grief and anger on God.

Droughts will come, but if you are planted by the river, you will be able to get through the droughts.

We don’t need to be afraid; we don’t need to be anxious, because we know that God is always with us.  Sometimes it seems as if our world is designed to inspire fear.  How many commercials on television or radio use fear as their motivator?  And then how many politicians of all parties have a 2-step campaign strategy:  step 1 is to make us afraid of something; and step 2 is to then promise that only they can protect us from that thing.

But Jeremiah reminds us that if we are rooted in God; if we put our trust in God rather than in other humans and other institutions, then we are freed from fear and anxiety.

            “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

                        whose trust is in the Lord.

            They shall be like a tree planted by water,

                        sending out its roots by the stream.

            It shall not fear with heat comes,

                        and its leaves shall stay green;

            in the year of drought it is not anxious,

                        and it does not cease to fruit.”

So how can we ground ourselves in God, like a tree that is planted by a river?  How can we grow our roots into God, so that we can draw on that life when things are tough?

I think that it is through our regular spiritual practices that these roots grow.  By gathering together to worship, by sharing in the sacraments, the bread and the wine, by reading scripture, by prayer, by meditation, by connecting regularly with God in whatever way works for you – these are the practices that strengthen our relationship with God, that grow our roots into the river of life that is God.

And then, even when the world around us seems to be falling to pieces, we will still have our roots firmly grounded in the ever-loving life-giving waters of God.

For God is with us.  We are not alone.  Thanks be to God!