NOTE: Stormed out! Not preached!

Isaiah 5: 17-25 Psalm 118 Acts 10: 34-43
John 20: 1-18

A dramatic monologue

Comes in carrying a heavy basket.

I hadn’t slept a wink in days; I was so upset. It had been the longest week of my life; the longest week of all of our lives.

Oh my, I am forgetting my manners.

My name is Mary, Mary of Magdala. I was a friend of his: of Jesus’ that is. I know, you all know all about the twelve men who were his disciples, or students. They get all the press. There are plenty of stories about them in the Bible. What many people forget is that those men didn’t work; they didn’t have time and they were supported by a group of folks who believed in their ministry. That was us. Most of US were women; widows mostly, who had managed to keep our dead husbands’ or (fathers’) money away from our greedy male relatives. Actually, SEVEN of us were named Mary. It’s a very popular name. Of course there were others, such as a Joanna and a Susanna; I liked them! They were kind to me. There was something about this Jesus that made him different. He was certainly different than the average teacher or rabbi. First off, he didn’t treat women like they were second class. He treated us like we had something valuable to contribute; like an equal. I actually think we understood more than most of his disciples. (But I wouldn’t want that said too loudly!)

Secondly: This Jesus welcomed people that the religious leaders didn’t have time for. They were always concerned about purity. I know that the Torah says that ritual purity is important, but compassion has to come into it somewhere! I KNOW that one of the most difficult things there is, is the loneliness that comes from being one of “those people”. I think I know how the blind, the lame and the lepers feel. Oh, people see you, but they don’t really see you. They see you enough to steer clear of you and to walk around you, but they don’t really see you as one of them!

Thirdly: He welcomed children. They weren’t just the future of the community and the synagogue. They were important as children. He loved to play games with them and talk to them as if their cares and worried were as important as mine; or as those of the men! That made them feel special, really special!

Well the people who know these things tell me that the name Mary, means “bitter” or “grieved”. Some people put a lot of stock in the meaning of names – I certainly would have agreed with the meaning of my name, until I met Jesus.

I had my problems, I’m not going to go into details - we don’t have the time today. But I wasn’t very happy. I wasn’t a nice person to have around and really, if the truth were know, I didn’t like myself very much either.

But when I saw Jesus that first day I saw something in his eyes and in the way he looked at me that was different. Hed didn’t look at me with disdain as the proper men did. He didn’t look at me with desire as some of the other men did. He looked at me as if I was the most important person in the world.

It seems like only yesterday that we met. Yet, it seems like a lifetime ago. It seems that making sure he had enough to eat, shoes for his feet and robes that weren’t all tattered took all our time and ability. My, do you know how much 13 hungry men can eat! It was a joy to be part of their group though. It was a joy to be near him and to talk to him as if I were his peer.

I just don’t understand how so many people would hate him so much. I just don’t. Oh, I know in my head; but my heart has a hard time getting it. He wasn’t a friend of privilege. With him everyone was special; no one was more special than anyone else. He wanted things to be fair and some people would lose out if things were fair all of a sudden. We lived in difficult times. Our religious leaders had made a pact with the Romans; a pact with the devil if you ask me. They had to sacrifice anything that disturbed the peace or else it would all be blown to bits.

It’s so ironic. The man of peace died in the most cruel, most horrible way imaginable. I talked to a physician one day. He said when a man was crucified it was as if he was slowly smothered to death. You try it – you hold your arms out like that and leave them there and try to breathe. Then to make it worse imagine that your weight is hanging on your arms. Now stay like that for hours. I could see the pain in his eyes. I can still hear his moans. It was a blessed miracle really that it didn’t take days like it sometimes does. They beat him so badly that he was weaker than some men are before crucifixion. Yes, it is a torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I know. I was there, at the foot of the cross, with Mary his mother and Mary, Cleopas’ wife and Mary’s sister. He spoke to one of his disciples and he asked him to take care of his mother. What love! But I knew he would do it! Any of us would have.

So to make a long story short we buried him, Nicodemus brought the stuff we needed, Nicodemus was what you might call a secret disciple. We did it all in a hurry because it was a special Sabbath. We didn’t have much time to prepare the body and we managed to get a tomb close by so that we could give him a decent place to rest. I’ll say that much for the soldiers; most criminals are tossed on top of a common grave. Maybe they saw something in the way he died. How we did it all wasn’t completely right but things were just so chaotic and dangerous too, that we all decided to go home and lay low for awhile. So I waited. We all waited. It was the longest three days of my life! There was no joy in our homes that Passover. And then, as soon afterward as I could, I came back here to the tomb.

I had been crying so much that my eyes were red and swollen, but I know what I saw. I know what I didn’t see. What I saw was that the stone that some of the disciples had heaved over across the entrance was rolled away, to where it had been before we buried him. It would have taken at least 2 men to move it. Then I looked in and there was no body. I know that, I could see that it was GONE.

It’s all there in John’s gospel. That’s pretty much how it happened. I was sure someone had taken the body so I went; I ran as fast as I could, and told Peter and the one whom Jesus asked to look after his mother, and I told them. They had to go and see for themselves. Each of them went right in and they had this look on their face, a look of wonder or disbelief. You could have knocked them over with a feather. Then they went home, without saying anything to me. They left me there, all alone. It was horrible. Jesus’ body was gone. There were no disciples around

Now you might be surprised when I tell you that the next man I saw, I mistook for the gardener. You know how I wold you earlier that the disciples were kinda’ dumb when they didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to teach them? Well I missed the stuff about the temple being rebuilt in three days. It was so plain, how could I have missed it? Yet, I did. So I railed into the gardener guy; tore a strip off of him, I did. I accused him of running off with a dead body – I was pounding on him with my fists and crying, and then I heard my name. Oh, I knew the voice, but at first I assumed I was imagining things. My name was spoken again. With love. With care. It couldn’t be. Yet, it was. It WAS Jesus. I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. I closed them tight; I said a prayer and opened them, and there he was.

Then I remembered. How could I have forgotten. I remembered Lazarus - Mary and Martha’s brother. If God would raise Lazarus for Jesus - surely God would raise Jesus.

Then I remembered what Jesus had said about building a temple in three days. It hit me all of a sudden - THIS was what he meant. He was a carpenter but he wasn’t talking about bricks and timbers he was talking about life itself.

BUT it meant so much more. It meant that sin and evil could not kill his goodness. It meant that death was not something to be feared anymore. It meant that God was more powerful than that!

I wanted to stand there, staring into his face forever. I was just so excited. I was speechless. I wanted to go and tell everyone I knew, especially everyone that knew him.

It’s the kind of story you have to tell. You tell it because you can’t be silent. You tell it because you must. You tell it because each time you tell it, it makes more sense, or becomes more real.

That’s why I am telling it to you.

Don’t stand staring into the face of death.

Don’t stand there in mourning.

He is not here.

Christ is Risen.

NOTE: Stormed out! Not preached!

Acts 10: 34-43
Psalm 118
1 Corinthians 15: 19-26
Luke 24: 1-12

Did someone ever come home and tell you a story that was almost completely unbelievable? A classmate of mine from high school came home one afternoon and told his mother that he had seen a car with a chair strapped to the roof and a kid sitting on the chair as the car drove down the street. His mother didn’t believe him and I don’t think the “Mr Bean” series had been invented either! Then her husband came home with the same story, except that by the time he saw the car, it had been pulled over by the city police and the driver and extra passenger were explaining that he just had to sit on the roof because there were too many people inside! At this point the mother reconsidered her earlier dismissal of her son’s tale.

One Easter Eve, about 12 years ago I received a message on my answering machine, from the local Presbyterian minister. It went something like this, “I saw him. I really did. I saw him this afternoon at Fulton’s Pharmacy. .... He was right there Beth. Believe me – Elvis is alive!” Needless to say, I didn’t rush down to Tatamagouche to see if Elvis was still hanging around the drug store!

2000 years ago, a group of at least eleven friends who had been followers of an itinerant teacher and rabbi went into hiding because their teacher had been executed for suspicion of crimes against the state. they were afraid that they would be next. On the third day some of the women who were also part of their group brought to them a tale so unbelievable, so fantastic, that it simply could not have been true.

The tale was that Jesus their teacher and friend, the one who had died in agony on the cross, was actually alive. It was impossible. It must have been their imagination. It was just wishful thinking on their part, wasn’t it. It was just like many grieving people who claim to have seen recently deceased people. Wasn’t it?

The phrase that is used in the gospel is “idle tale”; I just love that expression! - An idle tale! Something made up by someone with too much time on their hands.

The idle tale was, of course, that the same teacher who had hurriedly buried before the Passover was no longer in the tomb. It was not just that it was too good to be true (even though they had wished it were); it was that it was impossible. So many people had seen him die. The Roman methods of crucifixion were very effective and very final. Some of their friends had placed his battered, beaten and lifeless body in the borrowed tomb.

They knew what they knew - and what they knew was that Jesus was dead. What they knew was that the hopes they had held onto for three years were also shattered. Jesus was no more than another idealist who talked about love and the transforming power of God. What they knew was that they had to face facts. As much as it hurt, they had to forget about this dreamer from Nazareth. What they knew was that they had to get on with their lives, go back to work and be more realistic about their hopes and dreams in the future. They realized that they had been fools to have thrown in their lot with him in the fist place. That’s what they knew.

Yet, so soon after the terrible events of Friday there really was still a part of them that wanted to believe that they had not wasted three years of their lives. There was part of them that wanted this fantastic tale to be true. There was a part of them that knew Jesus was not like anyone else who had ever lived.

So, I suppose Peter went to keep them happy AND to satisfy his curiosity, his lingering wish that it was true. What he found, or rather, what he did not find, was the beginning of an experience that would change his life forever.

Yet, of course, we must remember in all of this that it was not just Jesus absence from the tomb that ultimately changed their lives and convinced them that Jesus had been raised, it was his undeniable presence in their previously empty lives that really changed them for ever. Remember that the Easter proclamation is not just “he is not here”, but “he is risen”. The Easter proclamation is not just “he was raised” but “he IS risen!”

Like the first disciples, we don’t need any reminders of the Kingdom of Death. We don’t need to be reminded of this for we may live it each and every day. Our family may have more than its fair share of sorrow and pain. We may work in one of those professions where we see these things every day. We don’t need to be reminded of tragedies, illness and disappointments. We don’t need to be reminded that life is a depressing struggle for some. If our own lives are otherwise unaffected, we need only to turn on the nightly news or pick up a newspaper to see graphic images of such disappointment, pain and suffering.

What we so need to be told, and often need to be told it OVER AND OVER again, is that there is life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of despair and love in the midst of hate.

We need to gather at the empty tomb on Easter morn and gaze at the place where he lay.

But we need to do MORE than this. As I said, in and of itself, the empty tomb is not enough. We also need to open our lives to the presence of the One whom the tomb could not hold, the one who lives.

We need to tell the story; no, we need to PROCLAIM the story. Despite the sadness that may come to us from time to time; despite the way the world seems, the powers of evil and death have indeed been defeated. He IS risen. That is not a past tense statement. That is present tense. Right here. Right now. Christ is risen.

We need to practice the resurrection. We need to put our money and our time and our lives where our mouths are. We need to perform resurrection actions, if only to show ourselves that the Kingdom of life is stronger than the Kingdom of death. We need to place our trust in the One who was raised and in his way, despite the evidence to the contrary - evidence that often seems to contradict this fundamental proclamation of the gospel.

It’s not about what the world believes, its about what we believe and what we are prepared to live for. Do we believe that Christ is raised?

If we do, then we are called to proclaim it. We are called to proclaim it despite the circumstances in our lives which may suggest otherwise. Others may scoff at us and dismiss our proclamation as an “idle tale”, but that does not matter; it is the story that roots us to the ground and opens us to the very presence of the One who created the heaven and the earth.

He IS RISEN. And with the generations who have gone before we can proclaim

HE IS RISEN INDEED.

Acts 9: 36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7: 9-17
John 10: 22-30

Holy Work!

I recall a cartoon I saw a number of years ago in a magazine for preachers. In it, a middle aged minister was standing at the pulpit, with his hand on his hip, his other elbow on the pulpit and he was saying to the congregation, “this is the fourth week I’ve talked about the transforming power of the gospel. What I want to know is, “How come you look like the same old bunch?” “

The real message of Easter is about how a despondent and discouraged group of people were transformed into faith filled and fearless proclaimers of the good news of God concerning Je sus of Nazareth. The message of Easter is how communities were formed based on the transforming love of God that was evidenced in this Jesus. The message of Easter is how love can overcome hate, how hope can replace despair and how looking inward and selfishness can be replaced by outreach and service and how l life can come from death. The message of Easter is that this is a continuing reality and not something confined to the people about whom we read in the scriptures.

The gospels do not really tell us about what I will term “the Easter moment”; or to be specific, the minute of the resurrection itself. That moment is shrouded in mystery. What the gospels really talk about are the results of this moment; they speak briefly of the “so-called” resurrection appearances but for the most part they focus on how this unmistakable “presence” in their midst transformed and strengthened them. They speak of how this presence strengthened the church.

It’s hard, at first, to see any real theme of connection in today’s passages. The curriculum resources that I use to begin my sermon and worship preparation each week focus on the theme of “Holy Work”.

Many of us are familiar with the work of the “Dorcas like” people in our midst: (and they aren’t all women) they are the many people who take food to a home where there has been illness or death; they are the ones who drive people to Moncton or Saint John for medical appointments;

they are the ones who sit with friends, or even strangers, who have just received bad news and who listen to the heartache and the pain;

they are the ones who come and do repairs, put stuff together, shovel snow and mow lawns for people who can’t do it themselves.

In the biblical text we find a great deal of emphasis placed on the importance of the role of the early church in the lives of widows and orphans – you could say that they were the people who fell through the cracks of the social safety net of the day. Of course the main problem was that there was no “social safety net” - the only security that anyone had was through their relationship to the male breadwinner of the family. A family with no male breadwinner was usually very destitute.

That being said, some of the women named in the bible as disciples were women of some means. It is thought that these unusual women had their own resources and used them to support the work of the church. They may well have been some of the same women who supported Jesus’ ministry while he was alive and those who kept vigil at the cross when the men we usually call the “disciples” had deserted him. The very early church was, as far as we can tell, a group of people who pooled their resources and held them in common so that those without the normal support systems could live with dignity.

In today’s passage from the book of Acts we discover that a woman has died. It is clear that the death of this woman was a devastating blow to this small community. In this passage we read that the power of God enabled this life giving ministry to continue.

Easter is, as I said, a celebration of life and the life giving power of God acting in human lives.

This is camping Sunday; the Sunday in which we promote the work of our church camps. This Presbytery has a camp near Port Elgin, called “Camp Ta-Wa-Si” which is, I think, Miq’ maq for “friendly meeting place” and there are numerous other camps in the Conference and approximately 75 of them affiliated with the United Church.

Most United Church camp programs are designed around groups of children who are approximately the same age coming together for a week to learn about their faith, to have fun in the out of doors and to create community. As a teenager I was a counsellor at the Camp in PEI Presbytery, Camp Abegweit. When I was a young adult I was the director, of a different kind of Camp, a “Day Camp” for the kids from Glace Bay. Each morning we all climbed on a peppermint green bus, and went from the streets of Glace Bay to the wide open spaces of the Mira River and played games and learned how to swim and had Bible Study and helped to build relationships and values in the beauty of nature.

In Berwick Nova Scotia there is a special kind of Church Camp. Situated in a hemlock woods in a small Annapolis Valley town, this camp has welcomed entire families for 135 years – Berwick 136 is this summer. I know of some Berwick Campers who have been there every summer of their lives - and some of these are teens ; some are quite elderly people. We live in tents, or dorms, or small cabins or travel trailers, and some even commute from home. There are at least three opportunities for worship every day and time for Bible Study and reflection every day. We have a musical evening on the last Saturday and our own version of awards known as the “Hemmy’s”. It is the kind of place where, if you lose track of your young children, you can be reasonably sure they will be brought home by one of the thousand or so campers on site. It’s the kind of place where most people have time to talk, and where you can make lifetime friends. It’s the kind of experience that is infectious: once you catch the bug, you have it forever.

It is Church Camping at its best: it creates inergenerational community; it creates friendships; it brings people together from a variety of backgrounds; it gives many opportunities to serve; from pounding nails and picking up garbage to scooping ice cream and selling penny candy to hundreds of kids a day. It may not look like much - many of the buildings are a little tattered around the edges; like many parts of the church, we never have enough money, but it fosters a spirit that is priceless.

Many people who have grown up going to regular church camps speak of those times as some of the best of their childhood. They have integrated their learnings into their lives and it has helped them to become the people they are today.

A couple of colleagues of mine were talking one day about the importance of Church camps in their own spiritual formation. My own experience has borne this out. There is something about gathering together in the open air, by a beach or a lake, and singling songs by the light of a crackling fire. There is something about sitting on a canoe on a clear night staring over a moonlit stretch of water. There is something about the community that his created between children and teens and adults working together in community to live out God’s love. There is something about adults taking time to be with young people and about strangers becoming life long friends and mentors. Church camps at their best are a true work of the Spirit.

My own experience has borne this out. There is something about church camp that gives the Spirit an opportunity to get to you and to transform you. I recall very vividly standing in the basement of the main building at Camp Abegweit, in ankle- deep water, holding a flashlight for the camp director so he could see well enough to fix the sump pump - and sharing my call to ministry with him.

Of course, not every kid who goes to church camp will become a minister, but every child and adult involved in church camping has a unique opportunity to encounter the life giving Spirit who shows us the very heart and mind of Almighty God.

Easter is about encountering the Living God. The message of Easter is: despair and hopelessness do not have the last word. Not only was Christ raised, but Christ IS risen.

Thanks be to God.

Amen!

Acts 11: 1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21: 1-6
John 13: 31-35

As small children. Many of us probably recited the little rhyme: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. We would say it, when someone called us a bad name, not because it was true, but because we had to try and convince ourselves that words could not hurt. The reality is, they can and they do. The reality is that much violence comes as a response to speech that is hurtful and the hurtful speech comes from attitudes of superiority and inferiority, from fear, from insecurity and from plain ignorance.

Not that long ago a “shock jock” Don Imus was fired as a talk show host of a New York based radio show when he made disparaging remarks about the members of the woman’s basketball team from Rutgers University. Proponents of free speech rose to his defence even though they wished to distance himself from their views.

Whatever you may think about free speech, I think it is clear that a great deal of violence comes from “hate speech” that tries to caricature a certain group of people or push them to or beyond the margins.

Many years ago the Ayatollah Khomeini referred to America as the “great Satan” and George Bush has much more recently called North Korea and Iraq the “axis of evil”. Of course there is always the political rhetoric of any election campaign that resorts to smear campaigns as a way of promoting their own platforms by denigrating the character or performance of the opposition. I am indebted to journeyswithjesus.net for the beginning and basis of this sermon.

How do we regard the other? We know that babies and very young children are completely self centred. Part of growing up and maturing is developing a sense of “the other” and the importance of “the other”. Part of growing up is learning that “the other” also experiences sadness and pain and had similar feelings and reactions to life experiences.

Yet, despite all of our maturity, it is still a tendency, in adults, to want to make one’s self more important by degrading the other. We all still want to stand on a high place and chant the adult equivalent of, “I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascals”.

Most of the time it’s only intended to be a playground game and the time on the throne is short-lived but it points to a somewhat insidious need to be the best at the expense of others.

In religious terms Christians have long been accused to chanting, “My God is better than your god, na - na - na - na! Christians have often been guilty of not according value to the religious beliefs and practices of others.

Yet, in the early church the shoe was often on the other foot. It was the church who was defending itself from taunts that it was associating with inferiors. The early church had to struggle with the question, “Who is welcome in our community?”

You see, the hope for a messiah was a Jewish hope. It had little to do with any of the gentile faiths that existed in the places in which the early church began. Yet, the early believers became convinced that Jesus’ message was for all people and that all people, regardless of background were welcome. The passage that was read earlier in the service begins by telling us: “Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. “ The synagogue leadership was aghast that the apostles were associating with uncircumcized believers. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant; the sign of belonging to the people of Israel, at least for the males!

We need to understand that in the first century Judaism was much more than a religion; it involved practice, as much as it did belief. It involved religious precepts, to be sure, but also social customs and civil laws. John Shearman, quoting professor George Caird So as long as the people kept the customs they could believe that Jesus was the Messiah without endangering their membership in the Jewish community. Yet, a Jewish Christian could not abandon the Torah without becoming denationalized for being Jewish was also a national and ethnic identity.

So when the Spirit fell on those who were not Jewish, it created a real dilemma for the church, because its original members were all firmly Jewish and felt that the belief in Christ completed their Jewishness, rather than replacing it.

Yet what they could not deny was that the Holy Spirit of God had come upon Gentiles, people with whom they would not normally have associated. They could not deny that these people had come to believe in the Christian way. They could not deny it, and in the end, they could not exclude them.

The dream to which the passage of Acts refers is about the Jewish dietary laws which were perhaps among the most obvious of the laws. We know a few of them: Jewish people don’t eat pork, and they don’t mix milk and meat. This dream, which is repeated THREE times uses the dietary laws as a metaphor for the acceptance that God called from the church.

In this sheet-full of animals, or hammock, if you will, are animals that would have been regarded as both clean and unclean. The message to Peter is that things are changing. Because of the radical love of Christ, no longer will there be clean and unclean people; all will be the same in Christ. Of course this vision from God and this passage is not really about food; it’s about people.

Its message continues to be a challenge to the Church - to the human tendency to exclude those who are different and to even demonize them. We find it hard to get our heads around the dietary laws that Peter and his contemporaries would have taken fro granted but they WERE firm and fast. To be told that God had made them clean was a radical thought indeed.

To be told that one could associate with those, formerly regarded as unclean, was a radical thought indeed. To be told that they are worthy of receiving the holy spirit would have been a radical thought. Perhaps that’s why God needed to tell him three times!!! Perhaps it was an idea that needed reinforcement.

We don’t have the same context as Peter did but there are often people that we exclude because they are different than we are.

Culturally, as Canadians, even though we are a multicultural country, we tend to be more comfortable thinking of white people as the most suitable neighbours and friends - but this passage presents a challenge to us.

Economically, we tend to associate and value those people from our own economic group more than others, either poorer than we are, or better off than we are, but this passage challenges our assumptions about people’s worth, based on what they do for a living, or what kind of house they live in, or what kind of car they drive or where they vacation, if they go away at all.

The church, for all our talk about being a welcoming place often excludes people who are different in many subtle and not so subtle ways. It seems to me that this passage is talking about the love of God and the grace of Christ being extended to all, and especially to all through us; regardless of the choices that people have made,

regardless of race or language,

regardless of how long we have lived here,

regardless of who our relatives are,

regardless of our social status

regardless of the choices we have made in life

regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in ;

regardless of whether we live in a refugee camp in Afghanistan or Darfur or right next door.

And actually we do have to be careful here: God’s grace isn’t ours to dispense, and we need it as much as the people we might try to exclude.

God has called us all by grace and we are called to show that same grace to all those we meet. Our mission is to know no artificial boundaries; the Good News is that God loves the whole world and we are called to be agents of this love.

God has called us and made us holy. God has called “them” and made them holy. Let us follow God’s call to welcome all people to extend that love to all people.

Amen!

Acts 16: 9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21: 10, 22-22:5
John 14: 23-29

Six or Seven years ago I arrived here (at St James) for worship. I suppose it was a little before 9. A car pulled in behind me and a woman and a bunch of teenagers piled out. I then realized that I knew her. She was someone I hadn’t seen since I had moved here. She said something like this. “Oh hi Beth. Haven’t seen you in a long time. We are camping at the Park and we just came here to see if we could find out when church was. Do YOU happen to know?

Then I told her that this was one of the churches where I was the minister and that services would begin soon, after the people came.

My friend obviously had the habit of seeking out a worshipping community on Sunday morning, no matter where she was. It was her good luck, and ours, that she arrived at Kouchibouguac Park on a Sunday and at church on the very hour we had worship and not to be too late as to miss it altogether.

Paul and his companions were on a journey; not camping and having a relaxing time, but a missionary journey and as was their custom they sought out a worshipping community.

Remember, they are in Europe and things are different. While it is most likely that these women were Jewish, there is apparently no synagogue, or the women would have been worshipping there. The Jewish community in this place is obviously very small as it took only ten men to form the quorum needed for a synagogue. As I wrote this sentence I realized that it will be highly unlikely to have ten men in either of the services in which I will preach this sermon. The larger church is having Sunday School Closing and there will be no sermon.

We are told very little about this woman except that she was a dealer in purple cloth. In a world of male dominated commerce she would have stood out. Additionally, purple was a very expensive dye and purple fabric was expensive so she would have been a person of some wealth and catered to people of wealth.

So, she and some others appear to be in the habit of gathering by the river for worship. Paul and his companions go there and are able to share the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth. Those present become believers and are baptized and thus began the first Christian community on European soil. She immediately she invited the apostles to her home and thus continued the tradition of hospitality and service.

Today is Christian Family Sunday. We remember that God has called those who profess the name of Christ to be sisters and brothers ; to live as one family of God regardless of age, or race, or economic status, country of origin or place of residence.

In St Andrew’s today we (will celebrate) (celebrated) the ministry of the Sunday School and (will have) (had) our “annual closing”. It is a celebration of ministry and learning together.

And we all know that today is also traditionally known as Mothers’ Day. Many mothers have already received hand-made or more elegant purchased cards, gifts of all kinds, breakfast in bed or meal out, or both.

Mother’s Day as an official observance comes to us from the United States. It’s origins go back to the time of the American Civil War. Surprisingly they are associated with no small amount of controversy.

The main question that arises in relation to these origins is: Was this a day for mothers to work for social change, heal wounds deepened by war and to promote peace or was it a day to simply to honour mothers for their roles in family and community.

Arising from the experience of the civil war in the United States Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, wanted a day for mothers to work for reconciliation and peace.

In a statement on the purpose of this day she spoke with eloquence and great passion: “Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace... Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God - In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace.

Anna Jarvis, another American is also in the running for being credited with beginning Mother’s Day - but her version was much more an official day to ‘honour mothers’. She was fulfilling the wish of her own mother, active in charity work during the civil war, that all mother be given the recognition they deserved. The following quotes are from this web page From the time of her childhood, as one of a family of eleven, and active in charity work during the Civil War “ Anna Jarvis often heard her mother say that she hoped that someone would one day establish a memorial for all mothers, living and dead. “ ... One day at the conclusion of a Sunday school lesson “ on "Mothers of the Bible." (Anna’s mother) closed the lesson with the prayer "I hope that someone, sometime will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it." Anna never forgot that wish and at her funeral she vowed that her mothr would have “her day”.

She began an intense letter writing and speaking campaign. On the verge of reaching her goal she wrote that the purpose of Mother’s Day was “...To revive the dormant filial love and gratitude we owe to those who gave us birth. To be a home tie for the absent. To obliterate family estrangement. To create a bond of brotherhood through the wearing of a floral badge. To make us better children by getting us closer to the hearts of our good mothers. To brighten the lives of good mothers. To have them know we appreciate them, though we do not show it as often as we ought... Mothers Day is to remind us of our duty before it is too late. This day is intended that we may make new resolutions for a more active thought to our dear mothers. By words, gifts, acts of affection, and in every way possible, give her pleasure, and make her heart glad every day, and constantly keep in memory Mothers Day; when you made this resolution, lest you forget and neglect your dear mother, if absent from home write her often, tell her of a few of her noble good qualities and how you love her. "A mother's love is new every day."

However, later in her life, Ms Jarvis almost regretted starting the campaign to have mother’s day officially recognized because it very quickly became highly commercialized and an opportunity to make a profit.

Incidentally, I was reading a report the other day that indicated that the average Canadian spends $150 on Mother’s Day.

So on mother’s day we celebrate the work of mothers and honour it. On Christian family Sunday we celebrate the family that we have found in Christ. On this Sunday we celebrate the Christian Community and the ministry of nurture and hospitality, offered not just by mothers but by all who seek to nurture the young, and the young in faith, into wholeness.

The pictures pull at your heartstrings, of orphans in crowded overseas orphanages, given the nutrition they need, sometimes just barely, but in the worst cases very little human contact. We know that human beings crave this contact; babies need to be held, to be cuddled, to know they are loved. While, in our culture this is primarily regarded as the role of a mother, it is not a role that is restricted to mothers.

This kind of human contact is essential to proper human development and without it children run the risk of becoming fragile and damaged people.

On this day we celebrate all the people who come into our lives and take on, or are given, a mothering role. The grandmothers and neighbours who offer a hug, a couple of cookies, a glass of milk and a listening ear, or just a safe place to be.

Every so often I am visiting at the hospital or preparing a funeral and I notice an extra child - usually a grownup by now, but nonetheless someone from another family who adopted someone else’s mother.

Perhaps it was a bad situation at home, perhaps it was just a bad fit but or whatever reason, the child found a welcome and a comfortable place in someone else’s home and it is these relationships we celebrate today.

In a time when the world news is filled with stories of war, dying soldiers and civilians and wanton destruction, we must realize that the world desperately needs mothers; and not just the women who have borne and raised and nurtured their own children, but women and men who nurture peace and wholeness in home, community and humanity.

Queen Noor of Jordan said just this weekend in relation to Mothers’ Day; in words that sound very much like those of Julia ward Howe: : you can find the whole statement on CNN’s website” “ AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- In 1982, ....during a period of dangerous stalemate in the Middle East peace process, I gave a speech ..... about the critical need for a more engaged and balanced role for the United States in the region. The newspapers the next day covered my handbag, my rings, and my dress. When asked about the substance of my message, one U.S. Senator said, "It's a great public relations weapon to have an attractive queen." Twenty-five years later, ........ I firmly believe that peace will only come to the region when mothers find their voice and say of the violence, "Enough is enough!" (Julia Ward) Howe's vision and her call to action could not be more relevant today. As a mother, stepmother and grandmother, nothing is more important to me than the safety of my family. I am not alone. Studies show that women's priority, when given either money or opportunity, is the well-being of their families. They invest their time and devote whatever resources they have to reducing poverty and hunger, improving maternal, child and general health and promoting educational opportunity. That is why the position of women is the best marker of a country's development and stability. Mothers prove every day, all over the world, that peace and security require cooperation and compassion. Having traditionally occupied a paradoxical position at the heart of society but on the fringes of power, women often bring unique strengths, talents, and perspectives to the quest to resolve conflict and establish freedom. They are willing and able to cut across ethnic, religious and tribal barriers, and break through obstacles through peace in order to do what is best for their families. It is no coincidence, then, that so many of today's leading peacemakers are themselves mothers. But the day has come for something more than individual efforts. Millions of mothers from Nablus to New York and from Baghdad to Beersheba must begin to find common cause in peace and work together to give their quiet power a louder voice. We need a movement of mothers which ................would be impossible for our leaders to ignore, and would be more powerful than all the tanks and suicide bombers combined. “

We gather today as community to seek God’s will for our lives and for the world.

May we see God’s call to us in this time and may we be given the strength and the insight to become the people God is calling us to be.

It’s about mothers

It’s about Christian Family

It’s about world community

It’s about the Good News of God in Jesus of Nazareth.

Amen!