Epiphany and the Season After - Year A-- 2022
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Epiphany Year A
January 8, 2023 - Baptism of Jesus -Season of Epiphany
Acts 10: 34-43
Psalm 29
Matthew 3: 13-17
Sometimes, on the anniversary of posting a picture on Facebook, it becomes a “memory” and you are invited to re-post the same pictures you posted one, two, five, seven or more years ago. Wednesday morning I saw one of these re-posts from a member of my last congregation. It was a picture of her oldest daughter and her “bestie” (both about age four or five) talking about their memories of when they were “little!” Think about that one for a minute! It was touching when I first saw it, but now, even more so!. They have grown so much since that time. As the dad of the girl I know said, “the days are long, but the years are short.” Children grow so fast! We know this. We expect it. We count on it. The wise cherish every moment. Unfortunately this kind of wisdom often comes only with grandchildren!
We know that children grow up, fast! But baby Jesus, really! Didn’t we just leave the manger and the angel choirs and the shepherds and the wise men. We might think it would be a neat feat if he were out of diapers already, but according to our scripture readinfs, he’s a grown up! Scholars estimate he’s about 30! Baby Jesus has gone away and came back a grown up and so has his cousin John. That post Christmas nap we all enjoyed must have been longer than we planned!
The missing years have been a cause of great speculation in scholarly circles and the not-so-scholarly. There are a few texts that did not make it into the Bible for various reasons that have stories but they are very fanciful. I have read more than one fanciful novel that pretends to tell of those years, but that’s all they are, “fanciful”. The truth is, “we just don’t know.”
The truth is also, “it does not seem to have been important to the gospel writers. The Gospel of Luke DOES tell a story of Jesus having uncommon wisdom for a 12 year old, but that’s it for childhood stories.
We really don’t have a clue what Jesus has been doing all this time. John became a wilderness preacher but we don’t know how long he had been doing that by the time he encounters Jesus on the day mentioned in the gospel. John probably was not doing anything truly unique - it happened from time to time. Some of the biblical prophets were much like John. Perhaps a local boy would take to heart a passage read at synagogue, have a vision, and get the idea that the end was near and people had to wake up and smell the coffee and be baptized for the remission of their sins. The Jordan river was a great place to do baptisms - it was THE place to go.
When Jesus asks John to baptize him, it is clear that John felt it should have been the other way around. We may assume that he “knew” who Jesus was, not just his own distant relative, but the one anointed by God and called to be the Messiah.
Jesus asserted that this was to “fulfil all righteousness”. I think Jesus wanted to begin his ministry as a normal person, just like anyone else needing to be cleansed of his sin. I don’t think Jesus was one to put on airs or to take on accolades and praise. In due time the faithful began to believe that Jesus WAS without sin, but he began, where so many others had, rising from the cleansing waters, ready to fulfill a call.
Yet the voice from heaven told those with ears to listen, “this is my son, my Beloved, with whom I am pleased.” The gospel writer assumes that this is God’s voice. It sets Jesus on a path with his own unique identity and purpose. It also sets Jesus on God’s mission.
In the passage from the book of Acts, we hear the apostle Peter explaining the whole ministry of Jesus in just a few sentences. It’s quite a summary; I don’t think anyone has done it better!
If we wanted time to settle in and get used to “baby Jesus”; that ship has sailed! We blinked and Jesus turned 30.
This leaves us with the question of what we need to hear and know as we, once again, make our commitment to the way of Jesus.
We need to see and hear how this human being, a person like us in so many ways, took on a mission to show people a God of love and forgiveness. He needed to show people God’s call to love others in a world in which there was not nearly enough love going around. He needed to tell people who told other people that this was God’s mission.
In total, during my ministry I have baptized 132 people (I counted them up). Many were under a year old but one was in her 70s. Those baptized were, most often, children. One of the couples I married, who were regular church goers, told me that they were going to defer their children’s baptisms until they were old enough to make the promises for themselves and could remember the occasion.
By and by the time arrived for this baptism to take place. I had long since moved away but I had the good fortune to have that Sunday off so, by chance, I was able to attend. The service was a confirmation and baptism service. I had baptized at least one of the young people being confirmed and the one teen being baptized and confirmed was his first cousin, the one whose parents had decided to wait. It was a meaningful time for all of them.
Somewhere, I have a copy of the bulletin for the service when I was baptized and (at least a copy of) the certificate.
Of course, I don’t remember it AT ALL, but my parents followed it up with taking me to Sunday school and supporting me when I went to be confirmed and, well, look at me now.
A few years ago I was talking to the dad of a girl I had baptized (at her own request) who was in the process of studying for the ordained ministry. He asked me something like, “did you know what would happen, when you baptized our daughter?” Because I had been able to follow her journey through her involvement in the Youth Forum of the Conference and the climate justice network, I was not all that surprised. I could see her path, perhaps more clearly than she could, but perhaps it was wishful thinking! However, not everyone who walked in her shoes has even contemplated professional ministry and it does not make her choices any better.
In that same congregation one of my predecessors had done a couple of baptisms by immersion; I’m not sure if he borrowed the local Baptist church or of they went to the beach - but I do know one of the candidates was very elderly and great care was taken to get her home before she got a chill and became ill.
The rest of his baptisms, like mine, were by sprinkling - though I try to be as liberal as possible with the water, it’s not nearly the same physical experience as immersion. We do consider it just as valid.
One of the hallmarks of the Protestant churches is that there are only 2 sacraments, and our leaders at the time of the reformation asserted that in order for it to be a sacrament it had to be instituted by Jesus himself. The words often read at our communion services indicate that Jesus said something along the lines of “do this in remembrance of me.”
In Matthew’s gospel he is quoted as having told his followers to “make disciples of all nations” and baptize them. In time, Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit became the point of official entry into Christian community and church membership. There was a time, in the history of the early church that the period of preparation for baptism was a year or more and the baptism took place at Easter. I know in some United Churches Confirmation classes last the whole year, like Sunday School!
Im not sure when reaffirmation of Baptism vows became something that was encouraged but it has become the custom in some churches to do so on the Sunday we observe the baptism of Jesus.
The idea of a “once and for all” promise or commitment sounds like a good idea but even for people baptized when they are old enough to remember, life changes and their understanding changes. It seems that a time to re-affirm those promises is a very good idea. When people are confirmed and when parents have their children baptized, they reaffirm those promises - but for many of us, even those re-affirmations were a while ago.
I recall hearing the story of an older couple who were going to marriage counselling. The wife said to her husband, “do you know what bothers me most is that you never tell me you love me.”
The husband, a man of few words said, “Well dear, I told you that the day we got married. If I change my mind, I will let you know.”
I tell that story at weddings, sometimes, as a way of advising them NOT to be like that couple. It usually results in laughter.
However, as a community of faith we can go some time without an opportunity to say the very basics of what we believe. We often go along on the assumption that this is the basis of faith in olur community. Today we have the opportunity to answer the same questions now asked at baptism and confirmation and to renew them for ourselves. I tried to dig up a book that was likely used agt my own baptism, with Kafren Mitchell as the one most likely to have one, but she tells me it is buried in a box of books at the farm, so I’ll just assume it is similar to what we use now. I also assume that the baptism itself uses the same words - I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is the action that unites us, makes us family, one with a other, and welcomes us into a world-wide communion of people who call upon the name of Jesus, the Christ.
So today we are invited to renew our faith and our commitment to the community which calls on the name of Jesus for our identity and our mission. Amen.
January 15, 2023 - Season of Epiphany
Isaiah 49: 1-7
Psalm 40
John 1: 29-42
It was Christmas day, many years ago and the Johnston family was opening gifts. My brother and his family had joined us. We reinstated the tradition that the youngest member of the family delivered the gift to each of the recipients. My “little” sister had done that for a number of years. It was time to pass on that role. Someone did the “reading” of the label and my nephew, about age 3 delivered it to that person. He had a great time. He was told that he had to put his own aside and wait and it was perhaps the third present that was labelled, “To Shirley from Fred,” and he took it to his mother. The ”fourth present was labelled,” To Mom from Beth,” and the fifth, “To Mom from Fred.” However, instead of giving the gift to his grandmother he gave the gifts to his own mother. He knew his mother’s first name, but did not clue in that the person he called, “Grammie” also went by “Mom” to his aunts. uncle and father! Children really do have a lot to figure out when they try to understand how life works!
Of course we all have different “names” and rolesin our families and in our circle of friends. When it comes to the public sphere we can be “a consumer,” a “customer”, ”a voter,” “a citizen,” “a driver,” “a tax-payer,” “a resident,” “a Canadian,” “a human being” and the list goes on! We can also be classed as “a child”, “an adolescent,” or an “adult!” What about “follower of Jesus” or “part of the (Knox United Church) (Nipawin United Church) ? Names are important and are much more than an alternative to saying, “hey you there!”
In Charlottetown many years ago a child named Linus Brown started school. I believe his father was named Charlie Brown. According to a cousin of mine he showed up the first day of school with a blanket. When asked why he had brought a blanket with him he said, “well I do have to live up to my name.”
Every culture has different ways of naming children and we in Canada, with a western European heritage, often choose names to honour relatives. I’m not sure why my nephew and his wife chose their new son’s first name, but his middle name honours his uncle! His father’s first name honoured his uncle.
Biblical names have meaning and the scriptures sometimes tell us that a name was changed when that person was called by God to a particular ministry. - in another Gospel we are told that Jesus re-named Simon, Peter which also means “rock” because it was to be on him that the church would be built. We all probably know the children’s song about building the wise man who built his house on a rock with the “moral” that you should build your own life on the teachings of Jesus Christ!
On this Sunday, in the season of Epiphany, the texts chosen seem to have been selected to answer the question, “Who is this Jesus guy?” In fact, we will spend the most of Epiphany answering this question!
Today’s passage from the gospel of John gives us several names or titles for Jesus: Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi and Messiah. These titles are all based in the history and spirituality of the Hebrew people.
Jesus as “lamb of God” evokes the Passover. At the original Passover, eaten on the night before the people left Egypt, they all ate a meal of freshly killed lamb and the blood was smeared on the door-casings which was a sign for the angel of death to pass over that house. This lamb was not a sacrificial lamb in the true sense of the word. In Isaiah however there is a passage which refers to a suffering servant whose death pays for the sin of humans.
Jesus as “son of God” refers to the special status announced by God at Jesus’ baptism. John’s gospel begin with the proclamation that not only is Jesus, God’s son, Jesus is God.
Jesus is referred to as a “rabbi” when the disciples indicate that they are looking to find out where Jesus is staying. They are looking for more than an address. They want to get away from the crowds and the noise and hubbub in order to spend time with him and learn from him in the same way students learn from their teachers, their “rabbis”.
When Jesus is proclaimed as the “messiah” the one speaking is saying that he is the anointed one. Anointing with oil is done at baptism in some churches. Kings and Queens are often anointed. When Charles IIIs coronation is held, anointing with oil will likely be part of the ceremony as it was with his mother’s.
For Jesus to be seen as the Messiah, the anointed one, is to proclaim that he is a king just like his ancestor David, the great king of Israel. The common belief was that the Messiah would make their nation great again - just like it was in the good old days.
The invitation, seems fairly simple, “come and see.” We can open a book and read about Jesus and about a faith community but that is not the same as seeing for yourself; it is not the same as participating in one.
We live in a time of great upheaval. Economic disparity seems to be increasing. Wars and rumours of wars abound, as they almost always have. The internet brings almost instant coverage to any breaking news; we see almost live pictures of the shelling in Ukraine or the flooding wherever there is flooding or hurricanes and fires where those are occurring. Over Christmas we saw all those stranded travellers whose plans were ruined or we were there, ourselves and it was OUR plans.
Yet we have a very short news cycle. We go from lone story to the next and all too soon forget what happened last week or last year - even if the people who lived through that event can never forget. There are stories that are not covered in the way they could be. There are stories we need to hear and see (at least on TV) for us to be able to do something about them or to learn from them. There are stories so horrific that they become part of the history that should be taught to every succeeding generation.
We all know about the event called “the Holocaust,” which was the deliberate and systematic attempt by the Nazis before and during WWII to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe. I grew up knowing that there were people who tried to spread the notion that it never happened or that it was not as bad as the history books make it out to be. Interestingly, those who had those views also seemed to be white supremacists! I was amazed to hear the other day that more and more young people claim to have never heard about it. I wondered, wher has our history curriculum gone?
On CBC’s, The Current this past week a Rabbi who is a recent Nobel Prize winner was talking about Holocaust education and the importance of doing what is needed to prevent anything like it happening in the future. Holocaust educators make the assumption that if people know of the horrors we will have the will to ensure it remains history and is not repeated. This Rabbi spoke of the importance of being in those death camps to see, as much as possible, where it happened and what happened so that it will not happen again. His words stick with me, “we need to realize that no human being is more important than any other human being.” I myself have registered for a virtual tour - so I can do the next best thing to being there. I feel it is something I need to do.
In the interview the Rabbi also referred to a meeting he had a number of years ago with Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian who worked to try and prevent the Rwandan Genocide which occurred in 1994.
During his time in Rwanda, Dallaire went to a Tutsi village that had almost been totally annihilated by the rival Hutus and he found a crying and battered child. He looked into the eyes of that child and saw the eyes of his own children, thousands of miles away in Canada and he realized that this child was just as much in need of and deserving of love, protection, dignity, respect and nurturing. Dallaire asked his superiors for the personnel and the mandate to intervene and prevent more bloodshed but his requests were denied. In just 100 days Hutu extremists killed well over 500,000 Tutsis - men, women and children. He returned to Canada with severe PTSD which eventually forced him into early retirement.
As a civilian, his life’s goal is to work to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers. He has seen first hand the damage done to people and communities where child soldiers are recruited and utilized.
He went and saw and now his life is dedicated to doing something to make the world a better place.
With respect to the Holocaust and to the Rwandan genocide the roots lie in division and in resentment. If we live in a world of “us and them” ; a world without feeling a human connection to the other, we may well fall into a situation where a similar horror could happen again. If we cannot look at the other and see our own reflection, something is wrong!
In this season of Epiphany we are called to come and see for ourselves what followers of Jesus are doing in the world. Those first disciples had the privilege of actually seeing and talking with the human being we call Jesus of Nazareth. They had the opportunity to pray with him. They may have enjoyed asking questions and debating differing points of view with him. They were able to see him making a difference in the lives of those who came to see and hear him in great crowds. They had first hand experience of him treating foreigners and strangers like they were the same as he was - like a neighbour. They followed in response to the question and answer, “what are you looking for” and “come and see”.
When we come to Jesus, to church and to Christian community, what are WE looking for. Are we looking for love? Are we looking for meaning? Are we looking for a spiritual experience to make our lives easier? Are we for inspiration and strength so that we can make a difference in the lives of others as we follow the call to discipleship.
After all of his traumatic experiences and encounters General Dallaire says, “A desperate world needs God more than ever.” But is is a God whose call challenges us to radical love and life affirming action. If we meet the God who IS love then we have no choice but to be people of love.
Who are we? What is our name? How do others find out who we are? What do they wee when they travel with us for a while? When we contemplate who we are, and more importantly perhaps WHOSE we are, what words do they hear and what actions do they see?
Amen.
January 22, 2023 - Season of Epiphany
Isaiah 9: 1-4
Psalm 27
Matthew 4: 12-23
There was a small congregation with a big church building and a really, really tall steeple, which needed to be painted and it was decided to call for tenders. They accepted the lowest bid and the winner began working. The fellow decided that the old fogeys at the church would be none the wiser if he watered down the paint so that he would get more done with less cost and increase his profit. He worked all day and was admiring his work when dark clouds rolled in and the thunder and lightning brought with it a tremendous downpour. When it was finished the painter looked up at the steeple in dismay which looked worse than it had before he began. The paint had all been washed off the steeple. A voice from the heavens boomed out, “Repaint and thin no more.”.
I have not seen that many of them here in Saskatchewan but it seemed to me that more than a few people in the Maritimes would feel compelled to erect roadside billboards that read something like, “Prepare to Meet thy God” or “The Wages of Sin is Death.” In almost all cases, the words would be painted on a background image of an open Bible. They all looked like they came from the same “sign factory”. I am not sure if it by accident or design that the signs are on hairpin turns on hills and some of them take longer to read than you have before they are in your rearview mirror. I guess the sign sponsor counts on you being a repeat passerby!
You may remember the big RV parked outside NoFrills a few years ago with all sorts of biblical verses emblazoned on it. I think I saw it somewhere else recently - but it was not in Nipawin.
Have you ever heard of Hawkins, Texas. It has about 1,300 people, a Bible College, is regarded as the Pancake Capital of the State, is near a large recreational lake and has an annual “oil festival.” This event is an opportunity to celebrate their flag, and includes craft fair with multiple vendors, a parade and, of course, a pancake breakfast. Outside of this city is a gigantic billboard reading, “JESUS welcomes you to Hawkins”.
Often such displays of religious devotion cause eye rolls, at best or, at worst, anti-religious outrage. That sign in Texas was opposed by a group with a name along the lines of, “The Group for Freedom from Religion”.
Epiphany is the season for discovering who Jesus is. Matthew’s gospel is one of 4 accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus in what we call the New Testament. Each Gospel writer puts a different spin on the Jesus story, partially because they are written for a different audience and partly because Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were different people.
In today’s text we are told that Jesus picked up where John the baptizer left off. Now John was, to say the least, different! If you set up a contest for the “weirdest of the weird” crackpots, John would likely take first prize - living in the desert and eating bugs and honey - and wearing garments made from camel skins would certainly qualify him for the biggest trophy! He was probably much like some of the old time prophets they would have hears about in their scriptures and their traditions.
One of his actions reminds me of the prophet Nathan who confronted David about his sin with Bathsheba. Nathan survived his encounter with King David; in the end John did not! You see, John did not get arrested for being weird, but, you might say, “for standing his ground.” He was arrested for “speaking truth to power”.
After John is sent to prison, Jesus moves to Capernaum from Nazareth and begins his ministry. It seems that John’s work is complete; it’s Jesus’ turn! Matthew makes sure to tell his readers that this moving around has to do with fulfilling a long ago prophecy. Jesus’ message seems simple, “repent for the Kingdom of heaven has come near”.
This leads me to ask two questions: What is repentance? What exactly is the Kingdom of Heaven?
Now some would define repentance as “feeling bad for something that you have done”. Well, actually that is NOT what it means. The word μετανοιετε, usually translated as “repent” means to turn around and go in a new direction. It is not a feeling word, it is an action word and it is the imperative form of the word. Be assured it is the only Greek word I will use today!!!! To repent is to “get your act together,” to “change your ways,” to “turn over a new leaf,” among many others.
You will remember the misguided Magi from just a few weeks ago, they went home by another route after they were warned that Herod wanted to harm the child. You could say that, “they repented” of their previous short-sightedness!
While there is indeed a certain amount of regret or feeling bad in repentance, it does not stop there. Any regret involves changed action.
When I was in my first year of university, a little over 40 years ago now, our professor told us that “soap-box” preachers in Greece stood in the public parks and shouted out “μετανοιετε.” In fact, Jesus didn’t actually speak Greek - but Aramaic - but it’s interesting that this same word was still in use 40 years ago! I’m not sure if those preachers are more interested in the “feeling bad” part of the repentance or the “going in a new direction” part!
What is this mysterious “Kingdom of Heaven.” It has also been called, the “Kingdom of God.” For the past 30 or more years there are those who want to disassociate this concept with the reality of earthly kings who tend to be self-serving and abuse power. New words and ideas have come into vogue such as “Kindom of God” and “Realm of God” both of which downplay the male language and the language of human political power. Being kin sounds a lot less officious and unequal than being subjects of a king. I think the word “realm” still sounds “royal” but seems less officious than the word “kingdom.” Although the world realms is used in the official string of the titles of King Charles III - it sounds a little better to the modern ear.
Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of God, Kindom of God, Kindom of heaven, or other variations are all talking about the same hope and desire for an ideal created order.
Some people have tended to equate this with “the afterlife” or with “heaven,” but the biblical term is all inclusive - it encompasses both the now and the hereafter; it has about it the sense of “already AND not yet.”
I believe it was Marx who referred to religion as “the opiate of the people” and I think it was the assumption that people who were oppressed and down-trodden would be vindicated in heaven and they should just put up with whatever was handed to them. As far as I am concerned this is not true Christianity and is not what Jesus preached. Lots of his parables speak of seeking to change the circumstances of life, in this life.
We don’t have to look far, for examples for ways in which this world as it is, is not the way things should be. Yet, there are times when certain happenings or actions give us a glimpse of this ideal world.
If we see this life as a “veil of tears;” as having no redeeming features we will miss the opportunities we have for experiencing God’s presence and grace that we are meant to have. We will also miss the opportunities we have to be that grace and love of God to others, such as buying the meal or welcoming the refugee
I saw a post on Facebook this past week about a teen working in a fast food restaurant who bought a full meal for poorly dressed man with just .50c in his pocket. The next customer gave the teen a really big tip - but he did not know that would happen when he bought the meal with his own bank card and the grandmother who posted it was proud of his action.
I have seen several posts in the last week about “slow checkouts.” Some stores have designated them for customers who want human connection and a chat with someone as they buy their groceries or other stuff; people whose priority is not to “just get on their way”.
I saw a post last week on the Living Skies Regional Council Facebook page. Because of the work of a number of congregations and the various Government programs, 171 people have been able to come to Canada to escape persecution. None of them are coming to Canada for economic reasons but because life has become impossible at home - because they are the wrong sexuality, have the wrong ethnic origins or hold political positions that have angered the government or the people with the power and the guns.
Some people refer to this new phrase, as a “new level of consciousness.” . For many years, TV commercials in the Maritimes at least, remind commercial fisherfolk and recreational boaters that garbage tossed into the water does NOT just “go away.” Lots of it ends up on beaches and fouling the habitat of marine life. There are littering laws on the water and well as on the highways.
In fact, there are two garbage islands in the Pacific Ocean, on both sides of Hawaii, which present a serious danger to marine life and for which there is no effective way of removing - they are so large.
But this Realm of God isn’t just about reforming the world; it is about changing ourselves. It’s about seeing possibility in impossible dreams; it’s about love staring hate in the face and making it surrender. It’s like Pete Seger’s banjo, emblazoned with the words, “THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER”. It’s about looking at our own lives and evaluating them in terms of “God’s values” or “our own comforts and wants”.
There is a well known quote from the works of Robert Burns that names a desirable gift as the ability to see ourselves as others do. To him it would rid us of pretensions and “putting on airs.”
“Wouldn’t it be Loverly” is a song from the musical, “My Fair Lady.” Sung in the cockney accent Henry Higgins is trying to work out of Eliza Doolittle’s speech, the song posits a world where some things are gone; things such as being far away from the cold night air, relaxing in a big chair, to have lots of chocolate and lots of coal to warm heart and body, to have a devoted person to care for you and not having to move until the warmth of spring came. Yes, wouldn’t that be lovely for someone who lives on the streets of London in a cold, damp winter - or on North American street in February or in the slums of Argentina.
The prophets of our Older Testament talk about people living in the houses they built and not someone else; people harvesting their own crops, people living to a ripe old age and not dying young, and of justice rolling down like Niagara Falls! Well, that part about Niagara Falls may be a bit of an edit, but what’s a Canadian to do?
When you think of being a follower of Jesus do you think of it in terms of making a difference in the lives of others? If so, what is your heart’s desire for the world?
When you gathered at the manger a few weeks ago, what was your wish for the world, transformed by the Christ child. When he got off to Egypt without being killed by the evil Herod, and you were relieved what was it that you were waiting for him to grow up and do?
If you were re-writing the message of the prophets for a world made new what would it include? How can we be a part of making that happen?
Amen.
January 29, 2023 - Season of Epiphany NO SERMON
February 5, 2023 - Season of Epiphany
Isaiah 58: 1-12
Psalm 112
Matthew 5: 13-20
One of the prominent people in the program at Berwick Camp is the “evangelist,” whose job it is to preach about 6 times during the week and to participate in the life of the week-long camp by engagement of faith issues with individuals and small groups; most often at table in the dining hall. One year our evangelist was from Tennessee with a dialect characteristic of that part of the USA. I recall sitting at table in the dining hall with the evangelist and his wife, who were schooling us on the finer points of the expressions “y’all” and “all y’all.” The same topic actually came up in a discussion this week among my Saskatchewan colleagues over zoom. As I understand it, y’all is more or less the people in the room and all y’all means everyone.
Unfortunately, English does not have separate words for “you” as a singular word and “you” as a plural. When it comes to reading biblical passages written in Greek, this is one of several disadvantages and makes it harder for those of us who don’t read Greek to know if “you” means one person or a group of people. In other words, is today’s passage, is Jesus teaching addressed to individual Christians of to the entire Christian community.
Of course, in Canadian lingo, there is the common idiom, “youze guys,” to which some object on the grounds of gender, (after all, about half the world are not “guys”!) The expression, “You people,” often precedes a criticism of some kind, or sounds that way to me! MADD commercials have the message, “You people, don’t drink and drive.” I might use “you folks” or “everyone” - but today though I think Ill pay homage to my Tennessee friend and use “y’all” and “all y’all”, that is, if y’all don’t mind. Soooo, y’all better listen up; y’all with ears to hear!
Im not 100% sure, but almost; the biblical story is addressed to communities, to congregations worshipping in the temple, and in synagogue. It’s not meant to be a primarily “private” document. The newer testament is written for, or to, communities of faith - who initially gathered in informal groups, by the side of a river perhaps or in hiding in the catacombs. It was only much later that the church worshipped in grand cathedrals and other buildings we call, “churches”. Of course, “the church” is always a reference to people, not to a structure!
All y’all are the salt of the earth; all y’all are the light of the world. Y’all are probably familiar with those two metaphors. I once saw a book with the title, “Out of the saltshaker and into the world”. I gather it was a book on outreach and mission. Obviously, salt that is not used is as useless as salt that has lost its taste. In my garage, the ice melting salt, over the summer, absorbed moisture and became like a hard unbreakable brick, good for nothing! When I went to use it I had to chop and pound and drop it a hundred times.
I recall watching a movie about a ship captain that was named in our history books as a great explorer. The voyage was very difficult and eventually the crew mutinied and abandoned him on an island and sailed for home. I believe the captain was Henty Hudson, but I can’t be sure. One of the things I do remember from the movie was the crew switching an old, almost burned up candle for a brand new one. Candles must be used to be of any good but like salt, used and used up are the same thing. To give light, candles, give of themselves, and expend themselves in order to do what they were made for, in the first place.
One weekend, a house-guest gave me a really fancy candle as a hostess gift. Their explicit instruction was, “burn it; don’t keep it to look at! A candle that has not been lit defeats its purpose; y’all might as well throw it out. I kept it for a few years but eventually did burn it! In her boxes of Christmas decorations my mom had a really pretty seasonal candle that she deemed too pretty to burn. It was taken out and then repacked for many Christmases - eventually it looked quite shabby and the wax was very yellow; its beauty faded and gone.
Another thing we sometimes miss in the scriptures that tell us who we are is that they don’t tell us to be something but they tell is that we are something. The passage, “Y’all are the salt of the earth and the light of the world,” does not tell us to BE those things but that we already ARE those things.
WE ARE salt and we ARE light! Wow. Whether we like it or not; we are; y’all are.
We have all heard the statement, “actions speak louder than words.” We know how true it is and how true it is of those of us who call ourselves Christians.
One of the ways in which communities of faith seek to be light is to welcome people to worship and to church programs. Come and see and discover for yourself who we are (and we trust) whose we are. So we send out invitations to everyone in our various Postal Codes - I am not sure how many people that would reach!
We put the words “all welcome” on our sign.
We have a greeter to say, “hello and welcome to our church. Please sign our guest-book. Have a coffee (stay after church for coffee). Here’s a bulletin. The washrooms are that way (in the basement). We’d love to have your child join in our Sunday school program, and so on.
I think what we most need to do is to look at ourselves with the eyes of those who are in the dark, as it were. What do they see when we are attempting to be light or salt?
Sometimes the all welcome sign is really a lie. What it means is “you are welcome as long as you don’t cause any ripples or ask us to change anything; anything at all.
A long time ago, a parishioner of mind told of the Sunday after he arrived in Canada to enroll in graduate studies in a large city. He picked the church he thought would have the best music. After he and his friend were seated in the almost empty, extremely large sanctuary, he was asked to move because he was in someone’s seat. With hundreds of other seats available, they could not sit anywhere else. I don’t think he ever went back.
I read somewhere in a satirical magazine that a woman had her body bronzed (like we used to do with baby’s first shoes) and placed in her pew at her church. No one was going to sit there, even after her death.
Years ago I was minister of a congregation in a tourist community at the gate of a National Park. A teepee shaped sign welcomed campers to “come as you are” and they did welcome campers. By the time I was serving there the camper attendance was getting very low; but they still saw that outreach as an important part of their identity and wanted their church time to be scheduled for the optimum number of visitors.
The teepee on the lawn was often the little extra salt mentioned by the visitors that brought them in the door. They did not want me to take summer vacation as my presence for the entire summer was important to that outreach.
We had our regulars who came for one or two Sundays every summer and I got to know them to see them, but not usually by name. I could marvel at how much their kids had grown and such things. Some years the “oldest” now had a summer job and family vacations were a thing of the past. I told them I was glad they added us to their list of places to visit.
I remember one young couple, I only saw once, who were on their honeymoon and the very serious looking retired minister whose stern face kind of creeped me out when I was preaching. I also knew that his son was a well-known international journalist. I don’t really think he stayed in a tent but he did not have his own cottage. Occasionally, we had campers whose tradition was very different than that of a rural United Church. I could tell that they found the service a bit bewildering.
One of my concerns was that they tended to sit these newcomers in the front because all of them had their favourite seats in the back and they all arrived early to occupy them. The problem with that was that the only way the guests had of knowing whether to sit or stand were by my hand gestures. When I am in an unfamiliar church I sit behind people who know when to sit or stand or kneel.
My other concern was that the village residents and the long-term cottagers were always dressed in their Sunday best. I could never get THEM to come in casual clothes. Unlike the campers they were trying to attract, they did not have the excuse that they left their good clothes at home! They could not bring themselves to come to worship in less than their Sunday best.
Sadly, 99% of the parishioners died or moved away and that congregation closed and the building now houses the Holy Whale Brewing Company. They attract lots and lots of tourists!
Just before I went to the Annapolis Valley to serve in a newly amalgamated congregation the minister told the congregation who got to keep their building and their pews, “next month (the other church) will close and we hope those members will come here. We have to practice being hospitable by not getting too attached to our pews. So I want you to get up and sit somewhere else for the next few weeks. Who knows you might like the view! We could not want to hear that one of our friends was made uncomfortable by sitting in someone’s pew.
Salt adds flavour to food and the words of Jesus in this passage tell the Christian community that they are salt - they are flavour, they are light.
We know how much easier it is to find something if we turn on a light or get a good flashlight. I recall watching a movie in which one of the staff of a large house was sewing heavy blackout curtains to put over the windows in the White House - and the president came by and quipped it woul take a really big curtain to hide his house from enemy aircraft!
If we are light, what kind of light do we strive to be. Some lights are pretty but really point only top themselves. Those who notice might say, “oh look, what a nice light over there in the distance.” “Gee that light is flickering; it would give me a headache.” When I was younger my mom would try and buy bulbs which gave just enough light but did not waste energy. I was always begging her to put a stronger bulb in some rooms. She bought a really pretty light shade for the sun porch which doubled as her sewing room but with the shade as it was, she always needed an extra lamp to compensate.
For a long time we have been encouraged to buy light bulbs which consume less energy and the technology has improved enough that we can have lights that consume far less energy per watt than they used to for the same amount of light.
As with salt the key is to enhance flavour not to add saltiness itself, light is to enhance life. Light is not to point to the bulb or the lamp or the candle itself but to light up the space.
Quite a while back I subscribed to a magazine that had a cartoon for almost every week. The cartoon specialized in humorous interpretations of the biblical passages that were featured in the lectionary, which most of the readers used as a guide to choose passages on which to preach. I saved all of these magazines until I moved half-way across the country!
But I remember this one cartoon very clearly. The gospel passage was today’s passage which warns against hiding your lamp under a bushel basket. The cartoonist took it quite literally and, in the first frame was a candle and a wicker basket.
In the second, was a wicker basket being placed over the lit candle.
In the final frame the basket was in flames. The cartoon’s moral, “don’t hide your lamp under a basket or else your house will be lit by the light of a burning basket!”
Y’all better listen up; we are light; we are salt. Lets shake it out and light it up. We’ve got stuff we’re called to do.
And all y’all said, “Amen.”
February 12, 2023 - Season of Epiphany
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20
Psalm 119:
Matthew 5: 21-37
Many years ago one of my brothers got a ticket for going through a stop sign. In that area of PEI there are two intersections with similar, informal, names, about 5 minutes apart. The intersections look quite different and locals might say that they are “nowhere near one another”. 5 kms seems longer in PEI than elsewhere! The police officer, instead of indicating the intersection by Rte #s, used the common name, but got it wrong, writing Ross’ Corner instead of Reads Corner or vice versa, on the ticket. It was enough that my brother managed to go to court and “get out of the ticket.” We love it when we get off on a technicality, for a rolling stop, or running a red light, when no one has been hurt in the incident. When someone cannot be tried for a major crime because of a technicality, we might have a different opinion! I watch a lot of “crime shows” on TV, and at least in the USA, a search without a proper warrant can get all sorts of things thrown out of court, apparently, even smoking guns and bloodied knives.
Like the Humboldt tragedy almost 5 years ago, there are some traffic incidents that no one wants dismissed! There are also too many where vehicles are deliberately used as weapons to wreak havoc and kill innocent people.
In the passage from the Gospel for today we have a seemingly unrelated set of crimes or social ills thrown together in one sermon the topics seem to be “all over the place.” Murder and judgement, adultery and divorce and vow making. Who would put them in the same category?
Well, Jesus appears to have done so.
While they seem to have little to do with one another they can be looked at through the lens of creating a community of trust and compassion. They are a way of ensuring that a community which upholds such principles is one which has “chosen life”.
Indeed, if you look at the “10 Commandments,” they would all legitimately be grouped under the heading of “rules for healthy communities.” Not many of us would want to live in the kind of society where these or similar rules did not surround community life.
Some people believe that Jesus teachings replace those of the 10 Commandments but it is clear that Jesus never intended to replace the law. I believe his words were, that he “fulfilled” the law and the prophets. As far as today’s passage goes, one might argue that he strengthens them by rising above the letter of the law to delve into the realm of meaning and purpose.
Jesus knew how to craft a sermon; he would start with something which would raise no alarm and move to the more contentious once he had people thinking he was a good and wise preacher!
He starts with the related issues of anger and murder. Who would want to life in a society where killing others was acceptable, or carried no consequences of any sort. Of course the Canadian Criminal Code differentiates between 1st and 2nd degree Murder and manslaughter. Many people assume that high priced lawyers can get and accused person who is rich a better deal! Someone probably has Canadian statistics on incarceration by economic status but I didn’t take the time to look! In the United States the percentage of people of colour behind bars far exceeds their share of the population in general.
To me though Jesus seems to be putting more emphasis on the anger. It is anger that divides families and communities; it is anger that causes violence, it is anger that destroys human relationships, it is anger that causes health problems and it is anger that leads to murder.
But, how many of us have let anger ruin a relationship or a moment? Certainly this caused more damage than the murders we did not commit!
We might argue that anger is only a feeling and that feelings are only that, not actions.
After one particularly fractious church meeting a colleague called me and said, “I have to talk to someone who understands - right now, I just want to go out and kill the Christians tonight!” I knew how he felt! Or the sympathetic woman who said to me after such a meeting one evening, “It’s enough to make a preacher swear, isn’t it?”
What do we do with our anger? Do we feed it, tend it and make it grow, or do we seek to use that same energy and work toward reconciliation.
One of the things that seems to have changed a great deal in the protestant churches, at least, is the sacrament of communion, and particularly, who it is that is invited. When I was young, children were not welcome because they were not members. Non-members were not welcome. However it was implied that those who were NOT in love and charity with their neighbours were not welcome either. What one had to do first was to go and reconcile with one’s neighbour BEFORE coming to the table.
When I was serving in northern New Brunswick, I looked up the communion liturgy that might well have been used in the 1850s when that church was built and, as I remember it, the communion invitation said something like, “these are God’s holy things, for God’s holy people.”
But instead of seeing communion as a holy table for holy people, what if we saw the communion table as the table around which sinners are fed and forgiven and reconciled. We don’t have to be perfect; indeed, we come because we are not. We come because we are in need of a good dose of grace.
The movie “Places in the Heart,” is a movie released in 1984 but is set in the southern USA in the Great Depression in a community deeply divided by racism, sexism, and the extreme poverty brought about by the weather and the economy. The movie shows us the long struggle of the movie’s main character, to harvest the cotton crop after the death of her husband. The last scene shows the congregation, made up of both the dead and the living, passing the elements to one another along with the“Peace of God.” It is only God’s grace that can enable a murderer and the murdered to sit around the same table - without that soul-destroying anger that led to the murders and lynchings in the first place.
Jesus does not stop there though. He treads into the contentious territory of divorce. In Jesus’ day there were two schools of thought known in the community. One taught that a man whose wife displeased him in any way could ask for a divorce. One of the reasons cited was a “ruined meal”! The other was much stricter and allowed for divorce only in extreme cases. Other gospel stories record Jesus being cornered by individual Pharisees over this very issue.
I think I remember reading that a woman could not divorce her husband; only a man would ask for a divorce. A divorced woman had no means of support and would become destitute unless she remarried which is why, I think, Jesus says that divorce caused her to commit adultery. Instead of getting caught in the “what if’s” that might be proposed he drilled down to the heart of the matter.
I suppose that Jesus’ comments on adultery were leaving people squirming - because he drills down to the level of feelings, to the level where one’s actions are envisioned and then acted upon. A woman I knew well said, “I completely trust my husband - but he says, ‘there isn’t a man alive who has never looked’!” It leads to all sorts of aphorisms such as, “thinking it is as bad as doing it! - So you might as well do it!” Of course that is not what Jesus is saying.
You may or may not remember the Monica Lewinsky debacle; It was before 9-11. Here we had a President of the United States, under oath, swearing that he did not have sexual relations with Ms Lewinsky - but as I understand it, he and his attorneys came up with a definition of that activity that would enable the President to lie through his teeth and yet not be guilty of perjury! Perhaps this is the kind of thing Jesus envisioned when he talked about not searing ( and by the way he was talking about “oath taking” not what we might call profanity or vulgar language!)
What would it be like if people told the truth whether they were under oath or not? One of the problems the widow in the movie I mentioned a few minutes ago faced, was the danger of being cheated when she sold her cotton The dealers thought a woman should not be a cotton farmer, it was a man’s job after all, so there were no scruples against cheating her! What if people could be trusteed to be honest, even in the absence of rules and checks and balances!
A friend of mine once described an upstanding citizen of the community as honest BUT “the sort of person who would skin a louse for a penny.”
As my sermon title indicates, the various parts of Jesus’ sermon could well take their theme from the passage from Deuteronomy about choosing the ways of God - the ways of life. For the writer of Deuteronomy choosing the ways of God would lead to a long and happy life for the people of Israel in the land God was giving them.
As I began to work on the sermon for today I began to look for a graphic for the front of the bulletin. I typed, “choose life,” which I had discerned as a possible theme and, it really should not have surprised me that what came up were mostly in relation to the abortion debate in the United States. First off there were a half dozen or so “hits” for purchasing “CHOOSE LIFE” license plates from various States in the US. Several appear to have the plate numbers written in crayon and feature the face of a smiling baby. You can drive around with what just about anyone would interpret as an anti-abortion message.
A little birdie told me that it was the first thing some choir members thought when they saw the draft bulletin on Wednesday at choir practice. It was not my intention, but I also accepted the ambiguity.
The extra money from these vehicle plates goes to organizations which help people experiencing an unwanted pregnancy place their child for adoption. Any agency that suggests abortion as an acceptable option, need not apply for this funding! Some would argue that such pates are protected under the amendment that protects freedom of speech. Taking up this vein, someone has apparently created a plate that proclaimed your support for the death penalty; it features the words “choose death” on the background of an electric chair! I hope that was in jest, but I did not think much of the other ones either. So no, I am not weighing in on that debate despite what my bulletin cover may imply.
So how do we choose life? By the time of Jesus, those who believed a meticulous following of the law was what was necessary had created hundreds, and hundreds, of rules that, when followed, would ensure the living of a righteous life.
But instead of trying to define what is work on the Sabbath, or what constitutes adultery - and what is not adultery, or what is murder and what is not, we need to take the conversation to a deeper plane. We are all in need of God’s forgiving grace. We need to stop looking for definitions that let us off the hook but mean that others should rot in jail for what they have done. We all have a deep need for a community that supports honest dialogue, forgiveness, justice, the opportunity for healing and practices radical hospitality.
All are welcome in this place. Come and find a community of folk who are, at best, a little further along on the journey of faith, honest about our need for God’s grace and willing to walk together to embrace one another in Christian love.
Let us continue to choose the way of life and trust that we will be blessed in seeking and finding what we need for our journey of faith. .
All are welcome in this place. Come and find a community of folk who are, at best, a little further along on the journey of faith, honest about our need for God’s grace and willing to walk together to embrace one another in Christian love.
Let us continue to choose the way of life and trust that we will be blessed in seeking and finding what we need for our journey of faith.
Amen.
February 19, 2023 - Transfiguration Sunday -Year A
Exodus 24: 12-18
Psalm 99
Matthew 17: 1-9
In 1972, Texan, Johnny Nash wrote “I Can See Clearly Now.” The first time I recall hearing it, it was sung by Holly Cole on a CD compilation “In Between Dances” which was the collaborative effort of a number of Canadian Artists in aid of Breast Cancer Research. The song points to the experience of the clouds lifting, the rain stopping, and the mist dissipating after a time of darkness and difficulty. When this happens it can be as if a new day has dawned or as if the day is brighter than it would have seemed if there had been no rain at all.
My dad used to tell a joke about a Saskatchewan farmer who sold his several thousand acres and moved to BC. He found new friends at Tim Hortons and settled in to life on the coast. After a few months his new friends noticed that he never commented about the beauty of the mountains. Finally, one of them said, “Hank, you’ve never mentioned our mountains. They don’t have anything like this on the prairies, do they? What do you think of them? Impressive, ain’t they?”
Hank thought for a bit and paused and then said, “Well - I suppose they are all right. ................ but ................. they do kinda spoil the view.”
I lived in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia immediately prior to moving here. It is usually referred to simply as “The Valley” in the Maritimes. This “valley” is a trough of fertile land with its own microclimate that lies between the two mountains. Now, if you were to define a mountain as a pointy rock that reached the clouds, had no visible vegetation and was snow covered year round, such as you might find anywhere west of Banff, you would be sorely disappointed! These 2 mountains are not that kind of mountain! Most people admit that they are really, just really long high hills! And you can drive over them! Actually, Cape Breton has far better mountains! Wouldn’t you agree KM and CR. (Cape Bretoners now living in Saskatchewan).
But like many mountains the Valley has a great look-off. On top of the North Mountain is the “Blomidin Lookoff,” from which you can see the lush valley floor laid out below your feet, as it were. You see the stunning patchwork of fields, vineyards, barns, and trees with the Bay of Fundy in the distance. It is a popular tourist attraction.
Mountains, of the rocky variety, have a certain level of danger attached to them. When General Council met in Kelowna, BC about 14 years ago, I went on guided hike and we were warned not to venture closer to the edge than the marked trail. We were told, “if you fall, you will die!” On a nearby railway trestle there was a list off names; of people who had done just that! The view was also stunning. Here in Saskatchewan, we don’t have mountains, but we do have the aurora borealis!
Since I started Grade 1 the same year Sesame Street hit the airwaves I cannot claim that I grew up with the kind and smiling human and muppet characters helping me learn my letters and navigate the problems of childhood, that younger children did, but I spent lots of quality time watching at it when I was babysitting in the summers or with my younger sister. I was fond of Kermit, the Cookie Monster, Grover, and Big Bird. One of my favourite parts of the show was the mystery of Mr Snuffleupagus. Big Bird and eventually the children knew of his existence but the human adults would not believe them! Snuffy would disappear when the ones “in the know” went to find the adults so they could prove his existence. He was always kind of glum and did not have the happy energy of the Cookie Monster or Grover. Gradually the grown ups learned the truth about this half-anteater half-elephant like creature that was so elusive.
After Mr Hooper died, Bob became one of my favourite humans on the show but all the time I watched Sesame Street, I did not know that this American from Illinois called Saskatchewan his second home. Here, he was as well known for hosting Telemiracle as much as he was for his role on Sesame Street.
Someone told me last week that during one of the early years of his hosting of Telemiracle, Bob went into the audience to talk to a little girl in a wheelchair. As he finished he said something like this, “you’re on live TV, would you like to say anything to your friends?” She replied, “I don’t have any friends”. Apparently the phones lit up in response to this lonely child and perhaps year after year it was Bob’s ability to relate to those who were in need of real and practical love that kept people giving to those who needed a “few more friends.”
Sometimes it is shows like these which help us to see so clearly both the need and how easy it is for a lot of people, each caring a little, to make a big difference in the lives of those in need. It is people like that who can say they have seen the view from a different kind of mountain and it is a view of justice, a view where the differently abled and those living with cancer have what they need for greater quality of life.
A senior colleague of mine was supervising a food-bank drop off truck at a Tim Hortons a few years ago. A big, hairy chested and leather clad biker roared up on a Hog with an out of province licence plate - and after some time in the restaurant he came out, noticed the food bank truck and walked over and asked, “What’s going on here”. Well, my friend explained that there were a lot of people who needed to have help with their groceries.
“Really?”
“Yes, it is true”.
“You mean, people on this beautiful place are going hungry?”
“Yes, unfortunately they are.”
“I only brought enough money for coffee, but I’ll be back after I talk to my boys,” replied the biker.
Now my friend, unaccustomed to leather clad bikers, was not sure the guy would be back; he was not sure he even wanted him to come back at all. However, by and by the guy did return, this time he had a takeout bag from another restaurant stuffed with cash. He handed it to him with the words, “I took up a little collection for ya at our campground.” On the bag were written the words, “this world would be a better place if we all cared a lot and shared a little.”
We have reached the end of the season of Epiphany. We began this season of discovering who Jesus is, with the visit of the Magi, those strangers from a far away land who followed a star and brought expensive gifts to the Christ Child.
Now we are on the mountain; now we know exactly who he is. We are told that we need to listen to him. Jesus came out of the Hebrew tradition and seemed to meld the teachings of both the lawgivers and the prophets. This is today’s message. The divine voice tells those there that day to LISTEN TO JESUS!
One of the most well-known references to the “mountain-top” is in the last speech by the American civil rights preacher and leader, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. This is Black History Month and it would not be right to pass it by without making note of one of the most prominent black leader in the past century who was considered, by many, to be a prophet. I have even read some articles which make a case for some of his letters from the jail in Birmingham Alabama to be included in the New Testament! If we blanch at that suggestion, let us remember that the apostle Paul was also in prison and Jesus was executed as a common criminal. However, it is highly unlikely that anything would gain the necessary ecumenical consensus to add anything to the Bible.
On April 3 1968, the day before he was assassinated, King spoke in Memphis, Tennessee, and said that he had been to the mountaintop and had seen the land of promise. This is, of course, an story from the life of Moses who saw the land but did not live long enough to set foot in it!
King also spoke in gratitude of the doctors who had saved his life when he was stabbed ten years earlier and told he was a mere sneeze from death - the knife had come so close to his aorta. In this speech he said that he received many get-well cards but the one that moved him the most was not from a famous or powerful person but from a white child who said “I am glad you did not sneeze”.
In his last speech Dr King referred to the story of the Good Samaritan and he said that the Priest and the Levite, the two men who walked by on the other side of the road, might well have said to themselves, “What will happen to me if I help this wounded stranger?” The Samaritan, on the other hand asked, “What will happen to this wounded stranger if I don’t help him.”
If prophets point out what is wrong in the world it is the people of faith who must hear in that a call to respond. We have a great deal of stuff going on in our world today that calls for a response. We hear these cries for help at the post office or overhear them at Timmys.
We hear and see the need in the newspaper or on the radio or the TV news. We have all heard about the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
On Wednesday afternoon I heard a news report on the radio about the mistreatment of migrant farm workers in Canada.
On Thursday I heard about people from one of the towns greately affected by the recent train derailment and explosion in Ohio who are afraid to go back home, afraid that something dangerous is being covered up.
We have been hearing cries for justice from aboriginal brothers and sisters for years.
The upcoming Telemiracle telethon is a cry for help from those in need in Saskatchewan.
When we are on the mountain we can see so clearly; the problem is that it gets much harder to discern a path once we come “down to the level” as it were. We become ensnarled in the same things we are trying to prevent because we live in the “down here”, not in the “up there”.
The preacher at my ordination service spoke about being on “Citadel Hill”, the closest you get to a mountain in the city of Halifax, and she could figure out how to solve all of that 1988 afternoon’s traffic problems, but up there on the hill (long before the invention of cell phones) she has no way to communicate that vision to the city’s drivers. The task of a minister is to convey what is glimpsed on the mountain to those caught in traffic, to those in the work-a-day world of making a living, raising families, and trying to live out their call to discipleship.
So here we are, for the next year, marinating in the memory of the insight we have received on this mountaintop, charged with the responsibility, of seeking to guide the world in the way of Jesus, based on our memory, or sense, our vision, from that place of clarity.
All too often when I am writing a sermon, there is a moment when I have it all down pat, perfectly written, perfectly perfect and totally compelling, but once I start typing, I lose it. I touch the first keys and it becomes a human and fallible document that does not say what I thought I could so easily say.
Well, I guess I am not alone. The magi made a blunder that almost got baby Jesus killed by spilling the beans to Herod. Judas was so disappointed that he betrayed his teacher and Lord and then immediately regretted it. Each and every one of the disciples ended up dead because they were a follower of Jesus. Yet, slowly and surely the news spread. We are sitting here today as their heirs and successors, as lawyers might put it.
Surly the gospel is proclaimed each and every day by people who do their best to put the law and the prophets into concrete actions- to act in truth and justice with vision. We see through a glass, clearly or dimly, and we put our best food forward to proclaim the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.
Amen.