Acts 10: 34-43
Psalm 118
John 20: 1-18

Christ Is Risen!

Last April, my second-to last service in the Hantsport Pastoral Charge was on Easter Sunday. It was a time of celebration, as Easter always has been, but also a time of transition and goodbye. It was a bittersweet time as I looked forward to moving out here but was sad to say goodbye to many folks there, including a refugee family from Myanmar who had found new life and hope in Canada and in our small community. As a congregation, we had just come through a difficult winter with a number of deaths of people once very active in the congregation. We needed to hear the Easter story together and I was glad I had not decided to move earlier.

This would have been my first Easter celebration here in “the West” - and while it is still a celebration - it is certainly somewhat more subdued than I would have ever expected.

In the past 32 or so Easters I have been leading congregations, over 18 of them in total, I believe I have had only one Easter service cancelled because of a spring snow storm but more than one on the Sundays NEAR Easter was cancelled for bad weather. It’s a very ‘iffy’ time of year for travelling in the Maritimes. Around here the weather is just as “iffy” but you don’t have “snow days”. You must be tougher!

Other things sometimes get in the way though! I remember the year the organist did not show up on Easter morning. She told me later that she forgot to “spring ahead” and change her clocks. Luckily for us, it was a combined service and we had 2 spares.

Then there was the year I called “karioke Easter”, when no musicians showed up at all! We had known for some time neither of them would be available so the pianist recorded all of our music on his fancy digital piano, practised it with the choir and we all sang to a CD specially made for us.

Today, it is the whole congregation that is staying home - or you are supposed to be doing so! I wave in hello to you, wherever you are, listening or watching. Christ is Risen! ((Christ is Risen Indeed))

Easter is, by far, the most important day in the church year. I used to have a three volume set of worship resources, titled, “Worship for an Easter People”. As a community of faith, we are called to remember that we are an “Easter People”, 12 months of the year. The proclamation, “Christ is Risen” is at the centre of our faith. It is a proclamation, not of an historical event, but a present reality. Christ IS Risen. We celebrate the presence of the Risen One, here and now, in this community of faith in the year TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY.

In 2020 we have one big reason not to celebrate this year: a potentially fatal corona virus named “COVID 19". We have been told NOT to gather in groups, to stay home as much as possible, not to socialize with people with whom we do not live, and to stay at lease 6 feet from others when we are out in public - oh and to wear a mask - (how about this one? It’s a Canadian made multi- functional garment, suitable for cold down to -30 and warding off corona viruses! Kewl! Buff Canada When you didn’t take the time to sew, you have to improvise!)

You all watch the evening news and have heard the stories of the suffering caused by this previously unknown virus. Your have heard and seen the doctors interviewed. You have probably seen the news reports of the one Long Term Care Home in Ontario which has lost about half of its frail, elderly, residents. We are learning as we go and health officials and scientists are working around the clock to figure things out!

Since few, if any, people have a living memory of an epidemic anywhere near this level of seriousness we are unable to rely on our past experience. I am told that the so-called, “Spanish Flu” in 1919 killed as many people as were killed by combat in the Great War. Since then though we have discovered antibiotics which, at least, kill bacterial infections (unless they have become resistant, but that is another story)

115 years ago my grandmother lost her older brother to measles (which was not uncommon) but at this time, no child, at least in Canada, needs to die from this disease because of vaccinations. Now if we could just defeat childhood cancer!

The people to whom Jesus preached and with whom he shared his life and ministry had come to the belief that this healer, preacher, wise-man was as close to God as a human possibly could be. In the few years following the first Easter they would come to call him the “son of God”. His preaching changed their lives. When they were with him, they felt as if they were somehow in the presence of God.

When he was executed as a common criminal, between two other common criminals, they were utterly devastated. That would be an extreme understatement! Some of them began to fear for their lives (for good reason) and went into hiding.

The stories of that first Easter morning are, literally, all over the map, and could be seen as contradictory and conflicting.

Yet, even if they could not agree on who talked to whom first, it is clear that the first believers had an experience so powerful that it drove them to a new proclamation: Christ is Risen. When some of them, not even of the closest 12, broke bread with a stranger, they recognized the presence of the Risen One had come into their midst. Mary of Magdala encountered a man she supposed to be a grave robbing gardener and realized it was HIM. Thomas doubted until he believed.

I once read in a book - “the real miracle of Easter was not Jesus absence from the tomb, but it was the presence of the risen Christ in their previously empty lives.”

It’s easy to outline the crisis; harder to proclaim the supposedly impossible. Yet, as Christians, we are a people of the supposedly impossible. When we consider whatever is troubling us or our world today we too are given the same promise - the same hope: the power of that first Easter proclaimed: that, in the end, death and fear and disease and violence are no match for the power of God which is the power of Life and Hope and Health. We are called to trust in the Way of the One whose life and ministry and Spirit have been changing lives for 2,000 years.

Let us encourage one another with these words - let us be the Good News of Jesus to all those we meet (and in this time, phone, and text and email and write). God has the last word.

Christ is Risen.

Christ is Risen Indeed.

Amen.

Acts 2: 14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
John 20: 19-31

The Jokes On Us!

Welcome to Holy Humour Sunday

I love the cartoon family depicted in the Family Circus - to be honest, they are too cutesy to be realistic but there are insights and aha’s and moments worth sharing. One day the oldest boy, I think his name is Billy, says to his dad, “you know what God’s name is Dad? His father, of course, does not. The answer is “Andy!” How does Billy know this; from his mom’s favourite hymn! You know the one, “Andy Walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own!”

A secondary punch line indicates that the dad thinks he thought he was the mom’s favourite him (spelled H I M!!!)

I don’t usually preach on the Sunday after Easter. I often took some vacation and went to my family home in PEI. I can’t really go there this year so, here I am! Preaching on the Sunday After Easter! This Sunday is also known as Holy Humour Sunday or Bright Sunday. When I knew I would not be going anywhere the Sunday after Easter I certainly did not know I would be preaching to a congregation of one - , a computer camera and two tape recorders and a host of folks I cannot see! They say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans!” So, here I am, preaching Easter joy, to the internet from an almost empty church during a pandemic lock-down.

When it comes to “holy humour”, you may think that I am doing something “newfangled and imported from the Maritimes” thing this week. I will tell you that Greek Christians began to celebrate Holy Humour Sunday in the third century. To be fair, I had no clue about the other name of this “low Sunday” until a few years ago. When I was in theological school, the semester often finished around Easter and we had so many papers due, we didn’t pay much attention to anything else. A much more recent AST grad introduced me to it in a service with jokes, party hats and noisemakers!

It’s hard to go full-blown - crazy when I don’t have some of you here who are good sports to wear a goofy hat, blow a kazoo, or tell a good joke. It’s hard to go full-blown crazy when, in some areas of the country, people are very worried because of the many cases which have landed people in ICU or proven to be fatal - or business is down and jobs have been lost or people worry about falling through the cracks of the hastily jury-rigged safety net, or people are desperately lonely.

Yet, perhaps this is exactly the time for Holy Humour. This is the time when we need to contemplate the seriousness of this grand divine joke! It’s hard to tell a serious joke, right!

You may be familiar with those trick birthday candles that are really, really hard to blow out. You puff and blow and think you’ve done it, but back on they come. I saw one package of them that noted: “after use put in water to fully extinguish”.

One evening when I was in theological school a friend received a phone call informing her, and a bunch of us, that a classmate of ours from Mount Allison University had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The tears flowed. There were copious amounts of them. It was probably the first time I had lost someone MY AGE. (Under 24) The next day in chapel everyone who had known her was in tears at the singing of one of the hymns picked for the day, from the Catholic Book of Worship, “Be Not Afraid”. In due time the Mt A grads who had known her planned a memorial service and we found our way back to the university chapel. There the tears flowed again. THEN we went to a local restaurant shed a few tears, and then told stories and laughed till our sides ached. We needed the tears but we also really needed the laughter.

Saskatchewan hymn writer and former moderator, the Very Rev Walter Farquharson, has written a hymn we will sing, or think of singing, later, “Give to us Laughter”. One verse goes,

“Even in sorrow and hours of grief, 
laughter can bring most healing relief, 
God give us laughter and God give us peace, 
joys of your presence among us increase.” 

The first disciples had been around the block a few times; they weren’t, as we say, “born yesterday.” They knew the vicious power of the Roman execution machine. They knew they could well be next. They had seen Jeus and too many others die.

I think our emotions are not on a straight line from sadness to joy, but on more of a circular path from sadness to joy. Let me ask you a question: How far apart are 12.01 in the am and midnight? There are two right answers. One is that they are 23 hours and 59 minutes apart and the other is that they are one minute apart. The same has been said of hate and love and of anger and joy.

Easter is a time of strong feelings. The disciples and other followers have been with Jesus for up to three years, in his inner circle or those next to that! It is likely that the inner circle was bigger than the twelve names we all memorized in Sunday School - and included a number of women, some of whom were unusual in that they had money they could use to support this rag-tag group. They had been learning and having their spiritual understandings stretched. More than once there was a “close call” with the authorities and each and every time, Jesus escaped! Finally though, one of their own betrayed him and he was given a speedy trial in a kangaroo court and executed - it happened in the blink of an eye - or “faster than you can say Jack Robinson”! ( I know a real Jack Robinson - he and his wife were members of one of my New Brunswick congregations!) They must have been wondering if it was all real - yet they knew it was - and then they were confused - because then, it wasn’t. If they did not see it with their own eyes, the testimony of their friends was so compelling - it had to be real - the grave could not hold this man’s goodness - this man’s spiritual centeredness - this man’s closeness to God.

Perhaps humour is not really what we are thinking of today, but even in great sorrow and worry there is joy. We are sad when someone we have loved much dies, but there is joy and thanksgiving that they have loved us well and fully. In the case of Jesus, the church claims that God had the last laugh when God raised Jesus from the dead.

I was visiting my friend a number of years ago and her young son (I think he was 4) and I played a joke on his mom. I picked up an orange peel I had managed to remove in one piece. We carefully rolled it back around and put it oh so gently in the fruit bowl. When his mom came back into the kitchen he offered her the last orange - we had saved just for her. She picked it up and of course it collapsed. He had good 4yr old’s laugh.

Death thought it had a full tomb and a bunch of empty lives, and it turned out that the tomb was empty and the lives were mysteriously, but most certainly, full.

Soon you will be receiving a newsletter and part of what I was trying to say in my part of the newsletter is that we can do and be much more than we thought if we focus on what can happen, rather than what cannot.

I asked my pianist one day if he was a “glass half-full person or a glass half-empty person” and he replied, “I get a smaller glass and it’s always full”. There is a church on the way “home” from town - in PEI which has pithy sayings on its sign that is designed to be easily read by drivers. One day it read, “count your blessings, not your problems”. Then a few years later I saw, or thought I saw, “Evening worship at 7 as well as the note ATM inside! I guess you could not have hte excuse of an empty wallet!!!!

Jesus said that it was easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it was for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Just picture that! I think it was meant to get a good laugh. I read a sermon once that picked up on that, and it was titled, “when your hump gets caught in the eye”.

The book of Ecclesiastes observes that there is a time for mourning but also a time for dancing.

In the Monty Python, irreverent movie, Life of Bryan, the crowd is listening to Brian speak and are sure he said, Blessed are the cheesemakers”. As the movie ends the members of that day’s crucifixion crowd begin to sing, “look on the bright side of life”.

The other night the National closed with a story from England. Tom Moore, a 99 year old veteran who uses a walker is raising money for his country’s national health service – by doing laps around his nursing home and has raised 17 M pounds and counting. I believe he had an honour guard of active military personnel saluted him as he completed his 100th lap. He will keep going as long as people give money even though he has done his 100 laps. His words for this time are that there are brighter days ahead and the sun will shine again. Who cant help but smile when you see and hear that.

Death cannot hold us. Life and light have the last word.

Amen!

Acts 2: 14a 36-41
Psalm 116
Luke 24: 13-35

Breaking the Bread When We Can’t Be Together!

A number of years ago I was having a discussion with the Session in my Pastoral Charge about the format of Holy Communion. The worship committee wanted to change from serving communion in the pews to what we often call “intinction”, which is the way we celebrate it here in Codette and Nipawin. As you know, instead of being served in the pews, people come to the front, take a piece of bread, dip it in the juice and receive both elements together, and then return to their seats. One elder objected to this plan by saying that, eating and drinking at the same time (at the moment when the minister held up the element and said “the body of Christ” or “the blood of Christ”) was what communion meant - “receiving the elements together - at the same time.” For him they were synonymous.

For some the action of going forward and using a common loaf and a common cup is an important sign of unity and commitment.

Without going into further details I will say that the United Church probably has fewer rules about communion than some denominations and now, because of the social distancing required by the pandemic lock-down we can celebrate communion even when we aren’t in the same room or even celebrating at the same time. Such are the accommodations possible by social media. Our communal meal can unite us even when we are not together.

Many years ago I saw a cartoon in the Observer (I think) The minister had taped his sermon and it was delivered via a VCR and TV set in the pulpit. Maybe he had gone fishing that day! The next week the minister was back but, in the pews, where the congregation usually sat, were a whole bunch of VCRs! Of course, it was a joke, but now it’s almost true since we are under Covid-19 lockdown and in the internet age. I am here in the Nipawin church with the pianist and our beautiful baby-grand - and I think it’s going very well! Churches have found a variety of ways to help their congregations worship. I will say that I realize more and more how much I value the very presence, reactions and active listening of a congregation which certainly help me in my sermon delivery. Now I just have to imagine those things!

The string of murders last weekend in Nova Scotia has left many Maritime residents and those of us who used to live there, bewildered, angry and in deep grief. I called Nova Scotia home for about 15 years - on three separate occasions and for seven of those years lived relatively close to some of the areas in which deaths occurred. As some of you are aware, I know one of the affected families personally.

There have been a number of vigils where people lit candles, expressed their grief and could be together, even if it is only over the internet, to hold one another up in love as we mourned. There was a vigil last week 1,600 participants while it was “live on the net” and I have no idea how many watched later. I put one such personal observance on my own Facebook page complete with my best Nova Scotia tartan blanket. On Friday the Knox Codette church bell rang - Nipawin has no bell, as far as I know.

Even those who do not know anyone directly impacted by the event have been deeply affected. For some, the sense of safety enjoyed by rural residents, at least, has been shattered - and you can’t get much more rural, in Nova Scotia terms, than those communities.

We have been raised to trust and respect the RCMP. The arrival of the police is usually a sign that things are being handled. When we are pulled over for speeding, we expect to drive away from the encounter. We teach children that RCMP officers are their friends. The shooter’s impersonation of an officer has meant that we may never be that trusting again! I suspect that genuine police officers in difficult situations will find their jobs have become even harder.

We all know at least something about intimate partner violence but we don’t expect an incident of it to result in 22 deaths! We learned on Friday that the shooter’s girlfriend survived and was able to give the police information on what he was driving and his wearing of a police uniform.

Of course, questions are being asked about how such a thing could go on for so long or even happen at all and some are casting blame on everything from access to guns, to how easy it was to impersonate a police officer to a lack of an official warning from the Emergency Alert system. The investigation will go on for months, and perhaps years.

The next time someone goes on a rampage while impersonating a police officer, we will be prepared. I say that a bit tongue in cheek, because we know that in incidents like this, those who do the most damage find novel ways to avoid detection till it’s too late. In reality though, we can only be prepared for things that are foreseeable!

In normal circumstances we would now be in full Easter mode - amazed at the two disciples who did not recognize the risen Christ - when he was walking right beside them but it is implied in the passage that he was not easy to recognize; he looked different.

We know these are not normal circumstances because of the shootings and because of the pandemic. Yet here we are, in the season of Easter 2020 - wondering what to feel, how to praise and worship our God.

I think that part of the message of Easter is that the post Easter life IS different. We have been irrevocably changed by the events of Holy Week. When the sun shines again and the dawn comes things will be different. Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus and thought him to be the gardener or a body snatcher, or both. Yet he spoke to her and her eyes and heart were opened. What a comfort the words, “I come to the Garden” have been to so many in trying times. This song is based on the Easter morning experience of Mary.

I was part of an online seminar on Thursday where the participants were reminded of the words of St Augustine, “those who sing, pray twice”. It is often in our songs that we express emotions that we cannot otherwise articulate. For today I chose two hymns, one that I would likely have wanted for this day, if we were all together “When we Walked Home at Close of Day” (we will eventually use it as a communion hymn) and the other as a response the events in Nova Scotia, “We Shall go Out With Hope of Resurrection”. Sung to Londonderry Aire (the tune of Danny Boy) it seems to express that longing hope that is deep within our hearts at a time when emotions are strong and overwhelming. With so many who died needlessly and “before their time” we have to speak for them, to tell their stories, to carry on their love.

In each of the resurrection appearances there is surprise - and there is joy. In the biblical stories this awareness of the presence of the Risen One enabled and emboldened them to proclaim the Good News - that death could not hold him - the power of God was stronger.

However, with the situation in Nova Scotia and with the continuing Covid-19 situation, we seem to be stuck somewhere between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Of course there is a day for thatSATURDAY - but one that is not usually observed in the United Church.

In our scriptures we also have Psalms of lament - psalms that are not in the lectionary - but nevertheless a part of our faith tradition. These psalms pour out feelings of grief and anger and bang bloodied fists on the gates of heaven and cry. “Why?”

Now some of us have been raised with the idea that we should not get angry with God or be critical of God. When I work with a family in a situation of tragedy I tell them that it is OK to be angry with God - God is tougher than we think and can take it! Of course we are part of a faith tradition which says that God lost a son to senseless violence, for no good reason - on the cross. God understands our grief.

As the disciples and friends moved through their grief, two went to the village of Emmaus and while they waked they began to share with a stranger the good things, the excellent things about Jesus and in the communal meal, shared so often with Jesus they had a realization that he had been with them - they had been in Jesus presence.

With regard to the situation in Nova Scotia funerals are being planned for immediate family because of the pandemic and people are being encouraged to move on from how the victims died to how they lived. Stories are being told and I trust their presence is being felt. People will be assured they are not alone. People will be assured that God weeps with them and holds them up as they move forward.

With any difficulty in life, with tragedy, with this unprecedented lock-down - we have the tendency to want to walk the difficult part of the path of grief at a quick pace, to get it all over with as soon as possible. In the dark night of our soul we wait for morning light and we crave the resolution it is supposed tom bring.

But after such difficulties there will be no return to normal, if, by normal, we mean, “the way things used to be”. Those who have died will still be dead and life, for many, will be forever changed. Those of us who have spend months in social isolation may choose or be forced to choose a new path of “normal”.

Yet, the message I have for today is the message that has been preached to the faithful for thousands of years - God goes with us and will not abandon us. What more could we ask? Even when we can’t be together to celebrate our common faith we can know that we are united in heart and mind through the love and presence of the risen one.

Thanks be to God for this Good News.

Amen!

Acts 2: 42-47
Psalm 23
John 10: 1-10

“The Abundant Life”

The last words of Jesus in the gospel reading for today make a bold mission statement: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”.

Yet that leaves us with questions: What constitutes the abundant life? What does it look like? Of course, human beings have asked these questions for millennia. They are answered in various ways by various religions and various cultural and ethnic groups.

They are also answered in almost every advertisement and promotion you hear and see in print and on the television.

MasterCard used to have a series of commercials that seemed to indicate that the abundant life was beyond price! You may remember the ads: “flight to Paris $2,500.00; hotel for three nights $1500. Theatre Tickets $900. Looking at the Eiffel Tower while on your second honeymoon - priceless”. While the commercials all seemed to be saying that the best things in life were free, what they were actually saying was that they are free only AFTER you have “put the rest on plastic!” MasterCard is, after all, in business to make money!

If you believe what you see on television you may believe that you can have abundant life with buying the right brand of stuff from garbage bags, to soda pop to vehicles to vacation destinations.

And that is only the direct advertisements. TV shows generally project a lifestyle of healthy, able bodied, well-off, well tanned, good looking people who seem to float above the world where the rest of us live.

Some denominations preach a prosperity gospel; the faithful and holy will be rewarded with material success! As the same time, many of them also seem to equate the term “abundant life” with an other-worldly, “pie in the sky” existence - after we die. I’ve been here a year now and it should come as no surprise to you at this point that I don’t think that was what Jesus was taking about here.

When the scriptures speak of abundant or even everlasting life they are speaking of a life that begins and grows as we mature in our relationship through God, in Christ, during this life here on earth, but also that this relationship and fullness of life cannot be extinguished, even by death. This passage contrasts Jesus’ way as the real way and the other ways as being the ways of thieves and bandits. As we know, thieves and bandits steal out stuff when we aren’t looking.

How do we get this abundant life?

Many families these days seem to life their lives like those hamsters and gerbils you buy at a pet store - getting all their exercise running around and around on a little wheel - going and going but getting nowhere.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us all to STOP. We have been forced to stop, not because we want to take a break but because someone or a “bunch of someones” in government said we had to. You can buy a t-shirt with the picture of the Nova Scotia premier and his now infamous advice to all bluenosers, “stay the blazes home”.

The level of acceptance of these regulations is, I think, in direct proportion to the perceived risk. In parts of Ontario where people are “dying like flies” as the expression goes, the regulations are taken more seriously than they are here where we have not had a lot of people get sick.

In the beginning people hoarded toilet paper because, experts who know these things, tell us, it gave them some sense of control. “I can’t control anything else but I can have lots of toilet paper - or at least enough for a year or two or three!!” Hand sanitizer and antiseptic wipes disappeared from the stores and there were reports of people buying all they could find so they could make a killing by selling it at highly inflated prices.

Then people decided that if they were at home all that extra time they would get out their bowls and measuring cups and bake. Supplies of flour and yeast in the stores were quickly depleted.

The government has announced various forms of income replacement which has met with mixed reviews and lots of confusion.

In the midst of this epidemic we are given the opportunity to ask ourselves what we want to resume when we are allowed to resume stuff.

What “normal” will we choose when we can go back to it?

We can’t visit mom or gramma in the nursing home now or even her apartment or house but some people may have to ask, “did we visit as much as we could have before?” Will that prompt us to visit more? Will we pay more attention to our relationships or will we quickly resume our patterns of busyness that we miss! This is a perfect opportunity to re-set our priority list and rewrite it from scratch!

The passage from the book of Acts speaks of the earliest Christian community - they were not in social isolation like we are (but many had been ostracized from family and friends because they had become Christian) but the faith community had become their anchor, their social safety net, their foundation. We probably cant return to that kind of lifestyle, but it can present a challenge to us.

When a community is in crisis - when one hurts all hurt and people band together to help one another out, sharing what they have with those in more need. One does not get ahead at the expense of the other. I wonder why we can’t do that the rest of the time.

One of the lines in a hymn by Walter Farquharson jumped to mind as I was writing this sermon, “When waste and want live side by side, its gospel that we lack.” This says nothing of the fact that Canada on the whole is incredibly wealthy while some countries are plagued by widespread poverty and starvation but in Canada we have wide gulfs between rich and poor.

Company executives are rewarded with huge bonuses - for reducing costs - cutting wages and benefits of vulnerable employees. There’s got to be something wrong with that!

One glaring example has come to light in this pandemic, particularly in Ontario where care staff in Nursing Homes have been forced to work in several locations because a full time job would cost the employer more and we know now it spreads disease. Should health care and senior care ever be for the profit of those whose only task is to invest the money. Those who do the personal care should be paid properly for they are the ones doing the work families can no longer do!

One of the images in several of today’s passages is that of the shepherd. I would be remiss if I did not say something about the image which is very common in the Bible.

Shepherding has changed a lot over the years and is quite different from place to place.

The 23rd Psalm speaks in familiar tones (and tunes) of this divine care but we sometimes forget our call to be shepherds of one another. Just as the early Christian community had a communal existence so we too are called to care for one another.

Perhaps as we sit by the still waters in Covid isolation we are imagining the green pastures of days gone by. The question is: where do we want to lead our sheep, or lives, lour ministry, when we are given the all clear and the keys to a world of possibility.

Amen.

1 Peter 2: 2-10
Psalm 31
John 14: 1-14

Brick by Brick

There’s an old riddle, if you could call it that, and it goes like this: “how do you eat an elephant?” (pause) The answer is, “one bite at a time, of course!” Certain parts of an elephant would be a tougher chew than others, but the one bite at a time method is really the only way to eat anything. I remember my last 2 years of theological school. In January, the student who had the room at top of the stairs put up a large hand drawn calendar and put the days from the start of term in January till the end of classes in April and each day at the end of class she would put a big X through that day’s square. Slowly but surely, day by day, the X squares increased in number and we came to the end of term. Highlighted, to give us something to look forward to, were “reading week” and a few assorted parties. Of course, the clocks did not tick any faster for us than they did others without such a chart, but it seemed to make the long days of classes and papers go a little more quickly.

Many years later, the chaplain of the Springhill Institution would ask the presbytery members to save calendars we had collected from businesses and community organizations o that he could give them to inmates who would use them to mark off the days of their sentence and look forward to their release! It kind of reminded me of the days I felt like a prisoner of the university!

In the community of Wallace, Nova Scotia, there is a stone quarry and from that quarry has come the stone for many well-known buildings, across North America, not just in eastern Canada. I gather some of it was even used for the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and a university building in Winnipeg. When stone buildings are repaired you want to get the stone for the repairs from the same quarry that provided the original stone. So the company in charge of the current legislature repairs in Charlottetown will have put in an order, I am sure. It’s amazing what 100 years worth of footsteps can do to a stone staircase of public lobby!

Now, some of you may be able to picture the Confederation Centre of the Arts which sits next to the Legislature - it is a complex of massive buildings taking up an entire city block, and each of these buildings is faced in Wallace stone. The stone is attached in massive slabs which are obviously of slightly different colours giving the buildings an odd, patchwork, appearance. I was once told that when the stone was quarried it was numbered, by shade, and IF the builders had paid attention to the numbers, each side of each building would have been a uniform colour with no “patchwork”! Obviously, somebody goofed. Since it has looked that way since 1964 they probably should leave it the way it is!

Almost every public building has a cornerstone. These days its usually a thin slab of black granite, set into a brick wall near the front door and is engraved with information telling the reader what government departments contributed to its construction and which bigwigs cut the ribbon opening day. Some cornerstones contain a time capsule but these days, even the ones at an “outside corner” are purely decorative or informational.

I gather that in the olden days the corner stone was the first stone laid in a building and all other stones were laid in reference to that stone.

Foundations are important, in buildings and in lives. When couples come to me to be married I try to help them see the difference between planning a wedding and planing a life together.

Some professional programs, including some theological colleges have what are actually called “foundation courses”, which are essential to the rest of the program. You cannot take a second year course in the book of Isaiah, for example, without your foundation course in scripture. You can’t do geometry or calculus without knowing the basics of mathematics!

Today’s passage from the Epistle of Peter speaks of Jesus, rejected by some, but for the Christian community, a cornerstone. As Peter explains, Jesus is the reference point for the life of the Community known as the church. He is the chief cornerstone!

On this Mother’s Day and Christian Family Sunday we are called to remember that “the Christian Family” is not the one where everyone is related to us by blood or marriage but by our CHOICE to measure our lives from the anchor point of the teachings of Jesus. As to Mother’s Day we are called not to make an impossible ideal for mothers to achieve but to celebrate all the ways in which people, including but not limited to our “official mothers” have nurtured and sustained us in family, community and faith life. Let’s cut all imperfect mothers some slack and let us celebrate the ways that mothering enhances and makes fullness of life possible.

Carpenters and bricklayers use plumb lines and levels and other tools to make sure the lines of their project are “true”. These common objects of construction find their way into various biblical texts as the authors seek to draw spiritual analogies. The prophet Amos talked about God hanging a plumb line in the midst of the community.

When we read this passage we are called to ask ourselves what it means for us that the rejected stone has become, not only the cornerstone, but the chief one? Well, it seems to me that a great deal of what we know about the life of faith is counter-intuitive to the ways taught to us by the world.

We live in a world that measures success by the amount of stuff we have accumulated, by the power and prestige of our occupation, by the labels on our clothing, the number of stamps on our passport and by a number of other factors that, when we think aboiut them seriously, really have little or nothing to do with achieving true happiness, peace or contentment.

In the midst of this once in a century, or less, pandemic we have been forced to act and be in ways that we would not have chosen. We have been forced to stop acting in ways we would normally choose, but perhaps this “pause” has forced us to “take stock” of our lives. We have been given a unique opportunity to choose the stones on which we build our lives.

When I was a child I learned the story of the three little pigs, each one living in a progressively better house and the criteria for better” was simply, “better able to withstand the huffing and pugging of the big bad wolf”.

What do we need?

Writer and social commentator, Leo Tolstoy wrote a story of a man who continued to amass more and more (like the rich fool in the Bible of whom Jesus spoke) but he never had enough - until the day he died and he was buried in a grave so many feet wide, long and deep. That was, in the end, all he needed.

From our perspective in the 21st century, it is sometimes easy to forget that much of the New Testament was written in a context of conflict and danger. The early Christians had been thrown out of the synagogues and were then heavily persecuted by the Romans. This conflict colours the vast majority of the text. The conflict required a supportive and sustaining message that gave the people hope and grounded them in their faith.

The new life of the resurrection was so important to the early Christian community that it was truly foundational - they came to believe that life and love would win over sin and death. They came to believe that hope wins. In the midst of persecution they believed that love wins. As they struggled to make ends meet they learned that generosity and sharing won over hoarding and looking out solely for one’s own.

I was watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager the other day. I separate them in my mind by the name of the Captain - this the one one with Captain Katherine Janeway. It’s also the series with a hologram doctor instead of a real person doctor. In this episode the hologram doctor is kidnapped and taken to a planet where certain people get treatment they don’t really need and many of the others are allowed to die of illnesses that could be cured by the drugs readily available to the rich. Everyone is sorted into a colour in the hospital and that truly seals their fate.

Programmed with standard medical ethics the hologram doctor cannot abide this and eventually figures out a way to get the medicine to the people who truly need it. It seems obvious to me that it is a thinly veiled criticism of the medical system of some countries but when it is put in a totally different context the injustice is much easier to see.

The crisis in Long Term Care that has been brewing for some time and which is worse in some provinces than in ours has been brought to the fore due to the death toll from Covid 19. We are now forced to ask hard questions about this part of our system.

In our future as a society upon what kind of foundation will our care for the frail elderly be built and how will we value those who do this work for families who are unable or unwilling to do so?

As a Christian community is our foundation - our own personal relationship with God, and salvation, and our own community of people or is there something else for which we could and should strive?

The topsy-turvy world of the gospel can be a stumbling block to some - but it is the centre of the faith. Let us resolve to live in the paradox of it being in giving that we receive and that in dying we find true life.

Amen!

Acts 17: 22-31
Psalm 66
1 Peter 3: 13-22

Making the Unknown, Known

In the days of the early church, Athens was a bustling, cosmopolitan city. As far as religion went, there was, as used to be said of many Canadian cities, a church on every corner! In their case though, there were probably temples and shrines to the twelve gods said to live on Mount Olympus as well as to many lesser deities.

In my first year of university I took a course in ancient mythology and I learned about the complicated menageries of gods that were worshipped by the Greeks and Romans. I have forgotten much of what I learned, but the good thing is that it’s all on the internet now. I wish I had some of those web-sites as “cheat sheets” back then! I spent hours trying to keep the Greek and Roman versions separate!

There was an altar in the centre of Athens for the 12 principal gods, the so-called “Olympians”, of their religion and I have read that it was so important that it was seen as the centre of their universe - other geographic locations were identified as being so many miles, (or whatever their system was) from this altar.

These 12 Olympians were “in charge” of just about everything and had divvied up among themselves responsibility for the sky, lightning, thunder, marriage and family, the seas, water, storms, the harvest, fertility, agriculture, wisdom, light, the hunt, war and violence, love and pleasure, travel, commerce, the home and hearth, wine and the theatre. They each had their own birth stories, romantic attachments and each their own symbols. Their lives are like a really steamy, X-Rated soap-opera and would make “good” late night adult television, if you are looking for that kind of thing!

As an aside, if you look at the lists you may notice that some of the “combinations” in their job descriptions make no sense whatsoever to me! For example, Poseidon, god of the sea was responsible for water, earthquakes and hurricanes. This grouping makes sense but he also has added, HORSES!

There was another altar, in more than one city, however to the god they referred to as

“Agnostos Theos

Now Paul was not born yesterday! From today’s passage we find out that he is an astute speaker. He knows how to warm up the audience! He’s catching his flies with honey today.

If you are a guest speaker who has come “from away,” as we say in the Maritimes, you have to find good to say about the place you are visiting - warm up the audience, get them laughing, let them know that you are having a good visit. When the Regis and Kelly show visited PEI ten years ago, Kelly, at least, had this down pat. It was very clear that she was having a good time.

A PEI business popular with tourists, Cows Ice Cream got a really great plug. If you know PEI at all you would have laughed when she made a reference to horseback riding in the wilderness of PEI! I suppose PEI is like wilderness to someone who lives in the Big Apple! I believe I heard that the searches for information about PEI were #2 on Google and PEI ran out of tourist guides! Whether that translated to extra tourism actually visiting PEI, and spending money, I am not certain!

As you were listening to or reading the passage from Acts you may have noticed that he starts by telling them that he thinks they are very religious and implies that they already worship the God he is about to proclaim to them. I notice that he is not telling them that they are wrong, at least, not initially, although by the end his “honey” is a little less sweet - it is clear that he wants some kind of change on the part of his listeners. Although his God has no name (no good Jew would dare to use God’s name), unlike the other gods of the Greeks, his one God is the God of absolutely everything; the God of all creation. This God is the God of the sea, the land, the air and of course, donkeys, mules and HORSES as well!

It’s always easiest to go from the known to the unknown rather than charting completely new territory.

It is impossible to deal with what you don’t know, but it can hurt you. I get a kick out of watching tv shows about the so called “olden days” - especially with regard to their medical knowledge in the days before they knew much if anything about germs and viruses and things you can’t see - which actually be more dangerous than wild animals and invading armies.

As almost everyone in my generation did, I grew up with vaccinations as part of my life and my mind-set! For example, I did not have to worry about polio and measles, or more correctly, my parents did not have to worry. (Small kids really don’t do a lot of worrying about stuff like that!)

I also grew up with medicare and did not have to know the reality of “there was no money for a doctor so I lost 50% of my hearing,” as one of my parishioners once told me. I have indeed been fortunate. If we did not know it before, we have recently discovered just how small our planet is. Back in December we first heard of a deadly virus on the loose in Wuhan province, China. I asked the people at the Sunrise if they had family in that area and they said that no their loved ones were far, very far, away. Now, Wuhan China is very close! We all know of places affected by this virus, in our own province. It has stopped almost all international travel and a great deal of interprovincial travel.

Until this year though we all probably thought that our greatest medical issue were the various super-bugs in hospitals and increasing antibiotic resistence. In the last few years serious drug addiction problems and deaths from accidental overdoses have become disturbingly common and some of my community involvement here in Nipawin is involved with addressing that situation.

BUT THIS is May of 2020 and we are all very aware of Covid-19, a virus that is potentially fatal, easily spread and will may well need a vaccine to eradicate. We have adopted the new vocabulary and practices of “social distancing”, whether we want to or not and have been forced to do many things in new ways and to give up things that we once thought of as essential. Depending on where we live, this may look very different in the coming months.

Yet, Paul’s method of moving from the “familiar to the new” is useful here. I think of the relatively new hymn, “Deep in our hearts”. As a people seeped in the Christian faith, deep in our hearts we know what is important, what is useful, what is part of our Christian commitment.

The Epistle of Peter rounds out this advice for us.

The phrase jumps out at me, “Keep your conscience clear, do what is right!” This is not the time to scowl at people who don’t move as quickly as we want them to in the store or take what we think is our place in line because its so hard to figure out where the lines are supposed to go in some stores.

I was pleased to see that a very generous amount of food was gathered this past week in the food drive. We know that the social programs upon which vulnerable people rely have been curtailed or changed and that some are hurting more than others. I have become more aware lately of the dangers to physical and mental health that come from living in overcrowded conditions as is common in many first nations communities. When confronted with a situation of need or something we find distressing, we need to ask ourselves the question, “What would Jesus have me do?” Sometimes it may not be simple but just because we are in a pandemic does not give us a pass from being Christian but it is very important to focus on what we CAN do.

Always important is the advice: Do not confuse the things human beings have made with what God has made; people are more important than things. Too often in life people get caught up in the daily business of making ends meet, getting by or trying to get ahead. Young families must be taken places, membership fees must be paid, crops must be planted, sprayed, harvested, sold, equipment maintained, essays written, studying done, tests taken, groceries bought, laundry and cleaning done, bills paid, and the list goes on.

Yet we know that there should be more to life than those things. Sometimes it’s the less tangible things that are the most important. The other day someone was noting that she often thinks of visiting friends but never seems to have the time - or no one is ever home. Now they can’t.

The people I talk to miss the groups and gatherings that are part of community and family life but we have also become more creative as we try to work within the rules - despite initial fears when they were first invented a telephone has never been proven to transmit a virus. The internet is the same; internet viruses but cant harm people - even if they may tear their hair out when the computer does become infected!!!! People have celebrated birthdays with drive by horn honking and waves. We can send letters and cards to friends though physical cards are a little trickier as there is some debate about the virus living on paper.

Perhaps we need to be a little more creative and a lot more intentional - but as disciples we can each do something to pass on the blessings we have received by being part of God’s blessing to others.

God is good.

Amen.

NO SERMON THIS WEEK