< Lenten Sermons 2020

Lent - Year A -- 2020

Indexed by Date. Sermons for Lent Year A

  • March 1, 2020-- First in Lent

    Genesis 2: 15-17; 3:1-7
    Psalm 32
    Matthew 4:1-11

    The Slippery Slope

    An infant Harry Potter survives an assassination attempt by the evil wizard Voldemort and is taken to the home of his aunt and uncle for protection and to live in safety and secret as a normal child. The only problem is that Harry is not a normal child and Harry is picked on by his cousin and deeply resented by his aunt and uncle. He does not have his own room but lives in a cupboard under the stairs. On occasion Harry’s anger and frustration erupt in unintended magic. One time he speaks to a huge snake at a zoo and lets it escape by making its glass enclosure disappear. Another time his cousin mysteriously grows a pig’s tail. On another the whole family is inflated - like huge hot air balloons and is left floating near the ceiling of their home on Privet Drive. Part of his education at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is to learn how to control and use his powers and also, perhaps more importantly when NOT to use them.

    “Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” is an often irreverent, and entirely imaginary, tale of what Jesus’ childhood and early adulthood might have been like. In this book the author envisions what he might have been like as a boy and as a teenager. According to this book, as a young adult he went away to learn from eastern mystics. Throughout these years he had to learn how to use or control his “magical” powers, sometimes with hilarious results. It’s an entirely imaginary story, of course, but more than once left this reader with much food for thought.

    As we begin the season of Lent, the lectionary offers us two stories of temptation: the classic one from Genesis with the first humans and the “forbidden fruit” and Matthew’s account of what is usually called “the temptation of Jesus”. It is the later one on which I will spend the most of the sermon. The first story has been often interpreted in terms of original sin and is often called “the fall” but we need to be careful with it. The Christian view comes more from the struggle that St Augustine has with his own less than honourable sexual exploits in his youth than it does from it’s other messages. It would be a good topic for a Bible study some day.

    For just a few minutes lets forget the lectionary and remind ourselves of the look at the “time line” of Jesus’ life so far. Jesus is born and is visited by shepherds and strange eastern visitors and given gifts. At some point in his first week or so he is presented at the temple and is blessed by the elderly Simeon and Anna. Then he escapes to Egypt for a time and his family relocates on their return. At the age of 12 he gets lost in conversation with some religious scholars, amazing them with his wisdom, and he greatly worries his parents who had left for home without him. Then, we hear nothing until the day of his baptism; he goes “off the grid”.

    Until the day he walks out of the wilderness to be baptized by John, and is named as God’s beloved son. So ends the history lesson!

    But now we go back to the lectionary which is not so much concerned with historical order as it is with the discovery of who Jesus is what this means. So the last revelation of Epiphany is Jesus divine sonship!

    Now the lectionary moves on to “next things”. We are given an answer to the question: “now what?” Now that Jesus knows for sure who he is, what will his next steps be? Obviously he will have a ministry and try and get the message out. Well, how will he do that? Persuasion? Throwing money around? Showing off? Feeding a very hungry population? Feats normally considered physically impossible?

    We might think as casual observers. He has it made in the shade; he has won by a landslide - with God on his side, his ministry will be a walk in the park. Everyone will listen to him and will see things his way and the Reign of God will begin. We can hardly wait!

    Yet, if we had really been paying attention to the text, as if we had never heard it before, we should have expected surprises and twists and turns. Next to nothing has been “normal” in Matthew’s story. In the entire biblical narrative God’s intervention and guidance has been crucial since, well since the call of Abraham as noted very briefly in the first chapter of Matthew. As we may recall, this childless couple, well advanced in years, were promised that they would become the parents of a great nation, numbering more than the stars in the sky. Even though they were already really, really old, Abraham and Sarah had to wait for the promises to be fulfilled. Their story has a few twists and turns before the birth of the beloved Isaac, and actually, a few more come along later.

    As we delve into the story of Jesus and find out who he is and what he was born to do, we, like Abraham often was, are impatient and just want to get on with the fulfilment of God’s promises. Save us Jesus, and be quick about it.

    But, as Yoda might say, “WAIT we must”.

    We must wait until Jesus sorts out what this designation as God’s beloved child really means? Jesus is left with the vital question of how he will use his power.

    The story of Jesus’ 40 day fast is superbly told. I can’t imagine going more than a few days without food - let alone 40, AND IN A DESERT. We are told, simply, that he was famished! It’s not at all surprising!

    They tell you not to go grocery shopping when you are hungry; the hungry often make poor choices and are less able to resist junk food!

    There are three temptations and they get et increasingly trickier, and they are not what we normally think of when we think of temptations - such as stealing or lying but they have to do with how he will use his ‘God given power”. Will he use them for his own comfort or to gain a following. Will he allow scripture to be twisted to meet his own needs. You heard the temptations: stones into bread, stunts of great danger to test God’s promise of safety and to, in essence sell his soul to the devil in exchange for popularity and power.

    He turns them all down. We know that there is a story that he did feed thousands beginning not with stones but a boy’s lunch - but it was not for himself. I believe that a large part of what the cross was, was a sign that the integrity of his message and his relationship to God was more important than his own life. He worshipped God to the end, even when it cost him his earthly life.

    The key question for us is: what does this mean for our own lives and our own ministry as a people of faith.

    How will be “bring people in”. I don’t know anyone who would not like more children in Sunday school. . I know one church that enticed children to bring friends to Sunday school by bribing them with chocolate bars - bring a friend and get your pick from a big treasure chest of bars. The newcomer did not get a bar!

    Another gimmick I heard of, “Bring a friend to church and get your name entered in a draw for 25 pounds of fresh lobster.” (Lobster IS easier to get in season in the Maritimes, but most folks see it as a treat and a luxury.)

    Are those kinds of tactics what we really want to be about in the church?

    How do we use our power and make no mistake, we all have some amount of power. Those of us who have resources can dictate how much we give and when and to whom. For example, we need to be sure that we are not abusing our power when we set up and administer programs such as the relief fund and Matthew 25. Do we share in love or is it run as if we resent every morsel someone has not “deserved”? We don’t want our generosity wasted, but what is our spirit when we give. Sometimes it’s a very hard call.

    Of course, some abuses of power go over the line from a discussion about appropriate or inappropriate to just downright wrong and even criminal. The #metoo movement has shown that a great many men of power have chosen to use this power over women for their own sexual pleasure and justify it in various ways. We may have come to expect it in the film industry or in business but when it becomes a part of medical are or of religious communities and institutions it is especially egregious. Such is the case with the revelations about Jean Vanier just last weekend. I commend the international L’Arche organization for their honesty and the care in which they have held their members and volunteers. A few days ago I read that they had been given a “heads up” as to the report’s findings in order to give them time to make a plan to care for their community and those who would be deeply affected when the news broke.

    I think it is important to note that preserving the honour of the institution, and the reputation of those once thought to be saints, should never trump care for vulnerable victims.

    For many years now our church has recommended and required policies that are designed to care for the most vulnerable. We may be tempted to defend ourselves saying, “that is too much work or too much bother, and besides such a thing could not happen here”. Yet, we have a precious calling and treasure and we must do our utmost to be responsible.

    Our lenten journey requires that we sit in the wilderness for a while and to determine, in weakness and vulnerability what is needed and then make the sometimes harder journey to make that happen.

    One thing we do know, is that we do not go alone - God goes with us, all the time.

    Amen.

  • March 8, 2020-- Second in Lent

    Genesis 12: 1-4
    Psalm 121
    John 3: 1-17

    Called From Darkness Into Light

    Welcome to annual meeting Sunday! {{Here in Nipawin our good news is that we will soon be cooking with gas once again! The new commercial kitchen stove has arrived. Like the people of Israel in the wilderness we have made this journey to this place by stages!! After much discussion and numerous inquiries about repairing the old one, it was decided to purchase a new one, it was chosen and ordered. We waited. The Graysons picked it up Tuesday. The next day it was delivered through the front doors of the church using a forklift. The day after that an ever increasing number of men got it unpacked and moved downstairs, a feat which involved some disassembly and no small amount of discussing their options. I think they knew I was just down the hall so they chose their words carefully.}}

    Today we will combine our hearing and reflection on the readings for the second Sunday of Lent with our Annual Meeting - our usual hearing of the reports from our church in 2019 and we will look to the future, by at least passing the budget and ensuring we have a roster of folks nominated for the various offices in the church. While worship with a meeting in this way is something I don’t believe I have ever done before it makes sense to me to see the life and work of our church as a direct response to the call of the biblical text to be God’s people.

    Of course the biblical text was written in hindsight, it’s not the transcription of a diary. At some point the people of Israel looked back to the stories which had been circulating for generations and wrote them down. They knew about the call to Abram and his wife Sari and they knew he picked up stakes (probably literally - he would have lived a nomadic lifestyle and in tents). He believed himself to have been called by God and given a promise that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the heavens. That’s a lot of descendants!

    I am accustomed to conducting funerals for people in their 90s who have grandchildren and great-grandchildren and even-great-great grandchildren and there can be quite a few when they are all counted up. If they all come to the funeral we need quite a few seats, especially if they was a generation or two of ten or twelve. But they also probably started having children in their early twenties! Abram was in his mid-70s and childless when he received this promise. One of the things that this tells me is that it should be clear that God’s grace and power was needed for this promise to come to pass. In the Epistles of what we often call the “New Testament” Abram was referred to as a man who was “as good as dead” when he received the promise! I don’t want to offend those who are over 75, those are words attributed to the apostle Paul.

    God called Abram to journey from a place in Ur called Haran to go to a new place, a land of promise. I am told that the name, “Haran” means “crossroad”. Obviously, there is meaning there! Abram was at a place where he needed to make choices about his direction in life. He chose to trust God and to follow into the unknown and the family of promise was born. Time and again in their history they had to remember that they had ventured into the unknown before and God had gone with them, despite what sometimes felt like abandonment and isolation.

    Of course, Abram had no GPS, no even a map, (they would not be invented for centuries after Abram is supposed to have lived) and there were no tales from returned travellers about the place he was headed for, just the command to “go.” In an age when family and clan were everything, it was an incredibly daring thing. It was unheard of, risky, a “dumb thing to do”. Of course he did not set off totally alone, like the teenager going off to backpack around Europe after high-school or university, but he left his wider clan and family and ventured out without his wider support network that would have been seen as vital to life.

    The people of Israel looked to this call of Abram and his wife Sari as the beginning of their story as “God’s Chosen”.

    I read a story the other day about a young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Swiss Alps who sent a reconnaissance unit into the icy winter wilderness. Shortly afterward it began to snow and it snowed for two days. The lieutenant feared that he had dispatched his own people to certain death. But on the third day the unit came back. Where had they been? How had they made their way?

    It turned out that they did indeed feel they were lost and doomed. Until, that is, one of them found a map in his pocket. They calmed down, pitched their tents and waited out the snowstorm. Using the map they found their way back to base camp.

    The lieutenant asked to see this map and had a good look at it. He discovered that it was not a map of the Alps at all, but a map of the Pyrenees which are on the border between Spain and France, at least 1,000kms to the south-west.

    By using this map the soldiers were able to have faith that they would find their way. I think this is relevant to our situation today.

    Even though the story of Abraham and the story if Nicodemus is about people who lived thousands of years ago, in a far away land, the story can instill and inspire faith in us.

    It is interesting to note that Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Later on in the story he basically demands that Jesus be given a “fair trial,” and at the end, is one of the people who go to claim Jesus’ body. This was when his official disciples had fled and were in hiding. He had stepped out in faith and had decided to make his deeds and loyalties known.

    If we take these stories literally and that’s the only way we see them - as history of great things that happened in the past, we rob them of their power to change our lives in the present.

    We need to decide how the story of Nicodemus dancing around the edges of risky faith, and the call of Abram to venture into the frightening unknown, applies to our lives as individuals and as a community of faith, now well into the year 2020. What is God calling us to do and be in the year to come? Will we be safe and secure or will we walk toward new light and new opportunities and new ways?

    The promise is the same, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

    Do we have the faith to live in trust of this promise?

    Amen.

  • March 15, 2020-- Third in Lent

    Exodus 17: 1-7
    Psalm 95
    John 4: 5-42

    A Conversation That Should Not Have Happened!

    A number of years ago I was getting my car serviced at a dealership in Dieppe, NB which is adjacent to Moncton. The man at the desk asked me where the village in which I lived, was located. I told him that it was in “Albert County”, just to the south-west. I gathered that he had thought it was somewhere else entirely. I asked him if he had ever been there, maybe to visit the National Park. He said, “oh no, I’d never go to Albert County - they shoot French people there!”

    Of course, I had heard lots of “anti-French” sentiment but never a report of a shooting!

    Almost 40 years ago, a friend of mine in university told me that she lived next to a community where the RCMP NEVER EVER went alone, where lawlessness was a way of life and the anti-police sentiment was so strong .

    In another of my Charges, the area in which my churches were located, in effect, surrounded a large First Nation where, on occasion there was some unrest. After consulting with others I would make a conscious decision to take the long way to my destination instead of going through the community. 99.9% of the time I just took the shortest route. Some folks I knew avoided driving through that community - at all costs.

    Since we do not live in first century Palestine, we can easily ignore the little hints that the text gives us about the divisions that people in then stories would have taken for granted. The writer of the gospel tells the readers, who might not be aware of the divisions, just enough so that they will know that this event was an unusual occurrence.

    Aside from not sharing dishes, some Jewish people would even shake the dust of Samaria off of their sandals when they had to travel through the region. I guess they worried about totally IMAGINARY “cooties” in the ways elementary age children in my generation worried - and it had nothing to do with real head-lice or COVID-19. The things they should have worried about -they did not even know existed.

    As we know access to water is critical for just about every of human life - whether it be for drinking, bathing or for agriculture. The book of Genesis records a series of disputes between Isaac and some locals over water rights as he moves around with his ever increasing number of sheep, and out of fear and jealousy, others claim the right to his wells!

    In some places water rights for the urban dwellers often trump the rights of farmers to water livestock and crops and can create a lot of conflict. Most of us though take our household supply of water for granted; we turn on tap and out it comes. We grouse about water bills, which are really about the cost of delivering it to our taps, but we assume it should be there and safe!

    It is indeed a tragedy that in CANADA some First Nations Communities do not have access to safe, drinkable water in their homes. There is no excuse for that and as a nation we need to fix it.

    In Jesus’ day there was no pump and pressure tank in the basement or water tank on a hill at the edge of town to pressurize the system! ((It’s shocking, I suppose, the amount of time you CAN waste on the internet looking at interesting things like unique and unusual water towers. One is in Germantown Maryland, and it’s painted to resemble a huge “globe” - but it is a globe with a 2,00,000 US gallon capacity! ))

    The people of Jesus day had a village well, often centuries old and everyone had to get their household water from this well. I don’t suppose they had little roof over it with a little handle and crank to used to lower and raise the bucket. As a kid I got yelled at more than once for lifting the “lid” on a well that was open, but unused. The adults I knew didn’t want a kid drowning in the well, I guess!

    While hand pumps were in use by this time in Egypt, I don’t think the technology was available in Palestine! And besides, getting it to the surface was only a small part of the task. It had to be carried home.

    At ten pounds a Canadian gallon, or a kilogram per litre, plus the weight of the container, carrying water is heavy, hard work. I read somewhere that, in Jesus’ day, carrying water from a community well, which was considered women’s work, was done in the cooler parts of the day and was an important social activity. Without saying anything, the very fact that the woman was there alone may well tell us that she was ostracized by her peers and had no “friends”. An article I read speculated that she may have been the “victim” of “levriate marriage” where her husband died and his brother was obliged to marry her, and then that brother died, and so on. We don’t know; it did not seem to matter to Jesus.

    Also, grown men did not speak to women to whom they were not related when out in public.

    So we have three factors that make this an unusual conversation. One that she was Samaritan and Jesus, Jewish. Two that she was there alone and therefore “of dubious character” and three, that he was a man and she a female stranger.

    When I first read this passage, many, many, years ago, I was surprised that Jesus did not say “please” - he seems to have demanded the drink. I would not have gotten away with that! But, that does not seem to be an issue!

    The woman was taken aback because he was a Jewish man and she was a Samaritan woman.

    Perhaps she did not want him drinking from her jug! Gross. Jewish germs! Man germs! Cooties! Eeech!

    When I was a kid, in what seemed like the hottest part of the summer, we all worked in the hayfield and my mother, who stayed home to cook big hot and hearty meals for the hungry workers, would send ice water to the field, (the container, as I remember it, was mostly orange and it had a pour spout)- and she sent ONE plastic glass which we all SHARED - and some were so thirsty they drank right from the spout! Well, that was the 1970s and germs had indeed been invented - and my mom and my aunt, who was the mother of most of the others who helped us, were both trained RNs. I can recall no haymaking mishaps caused by shared water containers. Severe sunburns, yes! Cuts from various farming equipment, yes! Lost hats! My mother’s biggest concern was the day someone forgot to put the small cap back on that jug, and it was never found! We just had to take more care not to tip the jug over!

    My sister once took a course, part of which taught about leading hiking tours. The advice they are supposed to give to clients was this: Drink enough water so that you never feel thirsty - thirst is a sign that you are already becoming dehydrated.

    This interaction; this conversation that should never have happened, opens a door to a theological conversation that changed this woman’s life. It probably changed the disciples as well, as they saw him, surmounting barriers, and expanding definitions of faith and spiritual nourishment!

    In the desert wilderness the people of Israel were almost always in literal danger of dying of thirst - and that is quite understandable - yet the story in Exodus is presented as one of a lack of trust. Moses was an ideal leader because he had lived in the wilderness when he was in self-imposed exile after he killed the Egyptian who had been beating a Hebrew slave. He knew what to do to keep the people alive. He did not get water from a stone, like magic, as some might suppose, but he knew how to access water trapped underground. Apparently this water was trapped during the sudden rainstorms that supplied most of the water in the desert. It was no less miraculous for those accustomed to getting it in the city . This incident portrays the people as showing a complete lack of trust in the God who had been leading them. After all, God, through Moses had met all of their needs before - a number of times! They had left Egypt after numerous refusals from the Pharaoh to let them leave. There was even a last ditch attempt to pursue them through the sea and Pharaoh’s troops were thwarted by rapidly returning water in the so-called “Red sea”. After all, manna was available every day for their immediate needs. They should have been a little more trusting says the writer of Exodus.

    Sometimes, of course, we have lots of food but don’t want it. We have a cupboard full of food but we want something else!

    When I was in university and lived in residence, we were certainly fed enough in the cafeteria but sometimes we felt just had to go out! In my undergrad it was Pizza Delight - I would order a Super Donair, extra meat cheese and sauce and a Diet-pop. The guy at PD knew my order as soon as I went into the shop. I did not have to say a word, I just nodded! When I lived in Halifax my restaurant choices expanded somewhat but our desire to eat out was as strong. Some of my more frugal friends stayed in residence but I think we had more fun because the fellowship was part of it. We also craved the change, and being in out 20s, we thought we needed the energy to complete all that boring reading we had to complete by the next morning at 8:45 when class started. Oh, and if we had lamb on the menu my friends Judee and Dee would go down the hallway of the third floor, bleating like little lambs -which was a code for “lets go out tonight”.

    We sometimes think the purchase of a new thing, or going on a trip, or watching every episode of our favourite TV show or sports competition, will satisfy our longing but it does not - and we need something else, something more newer and shinier and more expensove!

    The hymn, “I love to tell the story” tells us that it is only our relationship with Jesus which will quench our spiritual thirst. We are called to look to our faith, not just for our own personal salvation, whatever that means to us, and our personal relationship with God in Christ, but to the community of fellow disciples for our fellowship, our identity and our mission.

    In the coming weeks we may find that life has become very different, and seem much more restricted (even if the stores can now supply toilet paper and hand sanitizer. As communities of faith we will need to find ways to overcome some extra barriers, to care for one another and for the strangers who come to us for a cup of cold water, or whatever it is that they need. We will need to be safe and prudent but also to find ways which will not put people at greater risk.

    We may have no answers yet, but let us commit to the journey - through uncharted territory sure that our God will supply what we need.

    Amen.

  • March 22, 2020-- Fourth in Lent

    Ephesians 5: 8-14
    Psalm 23
    John 9: 1-41

    It’s Now Become REALLY REAL!

    When I was in Girl Guide Camp we would sing, “We’re all together again, we’re here, we’re here.” First, we would sing it in our normal girl voices and then we would mimic how we thought other people would sing it: Scots, Boy Scouts, small kids, and so on. We thought we were being quite funny! Another song we liked has a line that goes like this: “the more we get together, the happier we’ll be.”

    If you are reading, hearing or seeing this, you know we have gathered once again for worship as the Knox-Codette or Nipawin United Churches but we are not “together: in the usual sense. You have all become invisible to me! Some of you may even have chosen to “join” at a different time! We are endeavouring to be the church in a time what is called, “social distancing”.

    Here at Bridging Waters, we are following the best medical advice available and have cancelled in-person worship services. The most informed and experienced medical minds have told us that it is the best way to “flatten the curve,” to reduce the severity of the outbreak and, in the end, to save lives.

    Places with vulnerable populations have been closed to the public except under exceptional circumstances. You can’t visit Mom at Pineview or go out for coffee with friends in most places, unless you get a take-out and eat in a car! And with most cars that limits you to two!

    While our doors have been locked though, we need to remember that the church does not close. I will repeat that, “The church of Jesus Christ, never closes”. As the familiar children’s song goes, “....the church is not a building place, the church is a people. I am the church, you are the church, yes we are the church together”. We continue to be the hands, feet and heart of Jesus - we will just have to find more intentional and creative ways to do it.

    What CAN we do though? We can’t come to worship as a group but we CAN sit by ourselves, or gather as a family, to read the bulletin and sermon, or hear it on the church website and imagine us worshipping together. If you happen to have Facebook, check out my personal page. Some of you are “Facebook Friends”. I will put a few things there by request. The video may be a little awkward as I try and manage two recording devices for the audio I post on the church website! The Music and Worship Committee knows that a lot of you don’t have Facebook so wanted me to focus on something simpler.

    If we are still not meeting together toward the end of Holy Week, the Good Friday service will be recorded with various readers and I may get some live musicians for some real music for the recorded version. It is, and will be, a work in progress!

    Even as we practice what has become a part of our vocabulary, “social distancing,” we can connect with the population we usually call, “sick and shut-in”. We can also connect with those who not at all accustomed to being sick and shut-in. If we are one of those folks, I believe that one way to reduce the feeling of “cabin fever” or to guard against becoming “shack wacky”, is to reach out and make a difference in someone else’s day - by phone or sending a card.

    We have at least one person who has offered to pick up and deliver a grocery order and we will have others - that can probably include prescriptions as all our drugstores are near grocery stores. We can telephone someone and tell them they are not forgotten. Family members may provide for basic needs but we all need our friends and peers as well. Arrange a time to meet for coffee, over the phone. Sit in your own home with your favourite brew and chat about the latest news, like you would if you were doing so in person. I imagine you will solve just as many of the world’s problems!

    We can chat on the phone with someone whose relatives won’t be coming when expected due to travel restrictions or being in quarantine. Thank your neighbour for staying inside after they have returned from Arizona!

    We can send a card to a resident of long term care who is not allowed visitors at this time. We can pray for people and with people. Pray for the virus to run its course quickly, but also pray for the ones who fall through the cracks. Pray for patience. Pray for calm. Pray for the Spirit to be your constant companion.

    Speaking of those who may fall through the cracks, some may be gathering in VERY SMALL groups to make sure we have lunches for hungry children who would normally be fed at school. I am told that our leftovers in the freezer will be well utilized. The relief program will continue to operate as normally as possible. We have groceries on hand and can get more.

    We know that our United Church statement of faith proclaims: “we are not alone, we live in God’s world,” but it is a whole lot easier to know that we have company on this frightening journey, when we have a card to look at, have food in our cupboards or are talking on the phone to a friend.

    If you need something, reach out and ask. Some have even told me they have spare toilet paper. (If there is anything funny about this that we can take into the future is that this will be the “toilet paper hoarding epidemic”!) We can’t always read minds or imagine what you need. So, don’t be afraid to call a friend or the church and ask for what you need.

    A number of years ago I was speaking to an older woman in the congregation I was serving and she recalled the death of a family member during a outbreak of a deadly illness. The family were in quarantine and NOT ALLOWED to leave their house. Luckily, they lived more or less just across the street from the front steps of the church. They stood on their front doorstep and the funeral was held on the church steps so that they could hear it, and at least wave to the people who came to pay their respects.

    On far too many of the older stones in that cemetery was etched a sad tale of a number of members of the same family, of all ages, dying within a short time.

    Having grown up in the era of antibiotics and vaccinations, I guess I have always assumed that such things have long since become “history” or a tale from a bygone era. Yet, we know that, in the last decade or so, new “superbugs” have evolved which threaten that sense of security.

    Funerals may become one of the most difficult aspects of this outbreak as our normal patterns of grieving and supporting the grieving will change. Funerals may be delayed or have to take place with family only. I’m talking about the funerals for people who would have died anyway as well as those who may succumb to this virus. Those details will have to be worked out with families on a case by case basis.

    As a people of faith we are called to turn to the stories of faith - to our scriptures for words to guide, inspire and uphold us. The scriptures, in the varied verses and books, help us to soar in our joy and can lift us up as if we had the wings of an eagle, when we feel like we can hardly get off the ground. If we can see our own doubts and struggles laid bare in the scriptures, surely we can see the way of joy as well. Remember that we can still have faith as we cry tears of grief and we can feel lonely as we say Psalm 23 - but perhaps LESS LONELY than we would without those words and that comfort.

    I might need to remind you that these words of faith are not scripture because the author said, “I have been told by God to write something that will become scripture.” NO. NO. What we call the Bible is scripture because, over time, the church said, “this is God’s word for God’s people because so many have felt the Spirit move in it and it is timeless”.

    Some of my colleagues reported LAST week that services had been cancelled and I talked with one THIS week whose congregational leaders, in a remote town, feel that the closure of that church would still be an over reaction. However, most United Churches are not meeting today! The phrase “abundance of caution” seems to be the most popular way of explaining the “better safe than sorry” attitude the vast majority of us are now taking.

    Here in Nipawin and Codette, we decided to be cautious. I would rather over-react when there is so much at stake, than be foolhardy and realize that people have gotten very sick or even died because we thought there was no danger.

    Today’s Gospel story is long, but it is well told. In this story the religious leaders who objected to the healing of the man born blind, could not imagine a scenario other than “business as usual.” That meant at least two things: no healing on the Sabbath whatsoever ANDS no one that was not approved by them could be an agent of God’s miraculous power. Sabbath breakers were high on their list of sinners that day!

    One caveat of which we must be aware as we look at this passage is to make sure we DO NOT become complacent and say, “the Pharisees are bad and we are good because we believe in Jesus”. NO. NO. NO.

    I believe we are to look at this passage and ask ourselves, “are we standing in the way of the Good News being proclaimed because we are set in our ways, resistant to new insights, or simply can’t fathom the solutions that seem to be working well for some?”

    Jesus had before him a man born blind and healed him. But it was the Sabbath! Would it have killed the to wait another day? Probably not, but waiting was not an option for Jesus - that day was the time to act - that day was the time to show God’s healing power. It wasn’t his fault that he was blind and Jesus only option (as he saw it) was to let the power of God bring healing and light.

    There are surely no better loved words in the scripture than those found in Psalm 23 whether they are sung to the tune. “Crimond” or not. At this time, even if the snow was gone, we would not be looking out at green pastures, metaphorically speaking. We are facing an uncertain few weeks, or months. Who is going to get sick? How will my vulnerable loved ones fare? Will I get sick? Or, how far do I need to go with my kids, what can I let them do? What is not wise and what is okay? Will we all be sane in the end?

    We realize that new information is made available daily, or more than daily. What is allowed today may not be tomorrow and vice versa. We need to act with wisdom and courage. We must avoid stupidity because wisdom is inconvenient. Let us always remember that we are not alone and that as much as possible we as the church are called to be there for one another and for the community of faith and the wider world.

    In this time of crisis may we know and be known by our faith.

    Amen.

  • March 29, 2020-- Fifth in Lent

    Ezekiel 37: 1-14
    Psalm 130
    John 11: 1-45

    “There’s Life in Dem Dry Bones”

    I’ve known the African American Spiritual, “Dem Dry Bones” for many years. Originally, spirituals were an oral tradition that imparted Christian values while also naming the hardships of slavery. Hidden codes gave them hope. Singing, I am told, was brought from Africa by the first slaves and provided an appropriate rhythm for repetitive manual work as well as inspiration and motivation. Hidden codes gave them hope for freedom.

    Like many children I suppose I had my first anatomy lesson by singing this song. Though it is very simplistic, it’s really all a child needs to know about the human skeleton; they don’t have to know much about the 206 bones in the adult human skeleton.

    Taking a page from Robert Fulgmum, who wrote the best-selling book, “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten”, this is the necessary, “kindergarten” understanding of the human skeleton:

    “Well, your toe bone connected to your foot bone-
    Your foot bone connected to your heel bone -
    Your heel bone connected to your ankle bone -
    Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone -
    Your leg bone connected to your knee bone -
    Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone -
    Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone -
    Your hip bone connected to your back bone -
    Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone -
    Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone
    Your neck bone connected to your head bone -
    Hear the word of the Lord!  

    I guess it is the head bone that enables hearing the holy and life-giving word of God. And it is the overlooked chest bones that contain the lungs which hold that vital breath from God which bring mere flesh and bone to true life! While it might not be clear where this “breath” resides within the human body, it is clear that true human life involves more than bone and flesh, it requires that mysterious “breath from God”, that “spirit!”

    I can’t help but think of the various “forensic” shows on TV where experts can put a face on a skull to help determine what the person looked like, in life, and, working with the other forensic experts to help solve that episode’s “whodunit”. I think I also saw McGuyver do that once too!

    The passages I read today are the usual ones for the fifth Sunday of Lent and they witness to hope in the midst of despair. They witness to the power of God to not only create, but to recreate and to resurrect. Even if we were not coping with a life-threatening world-wide and life altering pandemic, the likes of which we have not seen for a century, we would be hearing these texts and they would speak to us in important ways. Part of the reason that these passages are scripture is that they speak to us in any kind of situation where we feel dead, dried out and lifeless. It does not take a pandemic to make us feel that way.

    Ezekiel was a prophet who lived about 2,500 years ago and this passage is a message of hope to a people in exile. His people had been defeated by a powerful and power-hungry enemy and carried off into captivity as prisoners of war. Perhaps there was an actual field of the dead, left where they fell in battle and reduced by time and the elements to dried and scattered bones, perhaps not! While this particular “field” is a vision, the feelings are real. The despair is real! It seems clear to me that the people in enforced exile, felt that the life of their nation was over! We may forget that while each skeleton represented an individual person, it was the nation that was really at stake. Really, can you imagine anything more hopeless than a field of bones, but not just any bones, the bones of your fellow citizens!

    I cannot help but think of the pictures I have seen of the war cemeteries in Europe which are the final resting place for the thousands of Canadians who died in WW1 and WW2. In some cemeteries, each stone bears a maple leaf! Some have no names and are unidentified. YET there is one important difference, and that is ours was the side of victory. In our national narrative these stones represent a sacrifice for freedom - they bear silent witness to our eventual victory. The care put into the upkeep is a sign of honour!

    By contrast we’ve all probably seen pictures from the mid-1970s of the so-called “killing fields” in Cambodia, and have heard of the Rwandan genocide, in 1994, in which SEVENTY PERCENT of the Tutsi population of that country were massacred in a deliberate attempt at eradicating this ethnic group. We all know that Hitler’s “Final Solution” killed approximately 6Million Jewish people in what is now referred to as “the Holocaust”.

    In this passage, Ezekiel is being led, by God’s hand, as it were, just as a child might be led by a grandparent, through a field of meaningless sacrifice and defeat. How doubly tragic. How defeating and depressing and inducing of hopelessness!

    The question seems rhetorical, “Will these bones live?” “Will they come back to life?” Will these people rise up again and become a nation. Will this nation live? Ezekiel, God’s prophet is not stupid or naive; he knows the answer. He’s watched too many people die. He knows that the dead, especially the “reduced to skeletons dead” do not come back to life. Yet, yet, he dares not speak of the hopelessness that is the only logical, sensible answer. He dares not voice his despair, and says, “you tell me God!”

    And then he is told to “do his thing”, he is told to prophesy! He is a prophet, he is the one who is the caretaker of the word of God, he is the shepherd of the life-giving word of life and he is told, “speak”. God gives him the word, the message of the day and it is one of life and restoration. He is given the message that “despair gives way to hope and death gives way to life and doubt gives way to faith. He speaks his word - no he SPEAKS GOD’S WORD and the sound that resulted must have been eerie and deafening. Ezekiel’s eyes must have become like saucers and his breath all but left him, for the vision portrays just that - the bones did come to life! Twenty-six bones assembled themselves to form just one human foot, and so on. Then came the various “fleshy parts” until the bodies looked normal, an entire legion of them, EXCEPT there was no breath in them; they were lifeless.

    Another command and another prophetic utterance led to the breath of life returning and making mere flesh into embodied humanity, a people and a nation truly alive.

    I recall a joke I heard or rather saw many years ago. It was a poster of an office where a number of people were sitting at desks and there was not much, if any, life or movement. The clock on the wall indicated it was almost five o’clock. The caption was something like, “if you don’t believe in life after death, juste wait till quitting time! You could almost see it!

    Ever since the beginning of last year, with our new church structure changing how clergy and lay people in what used to be “Presbyteries,” relate to one another, we have been encouraged to form “clusters” - voluntary groups of people for mutual support and sharing. With various forms of “social media” and video-conferencing, widely available, it seemed that it would be “so easy”. You could go to a meeting with no travelling time or having to stop to eat half-way there. We just had to find a common time and a common topic! Yet, it seems that everyone I have talked to, in a number of regions, has had a similar reaction, “no one has time” or “it’s so hard to find a time when we can all get together! Life seems to get in the way far more frequently than it ever did before.

    But I guess that there is nothing quite like a crisis to draw people together and make them come to life! I missed last week’s Saskatchewan gathering, but the week before, there was a large number of us on the conference call, all seeking and offering support and connection and a desire to know and show that we are not alone. We are traversing uncharted waters as our whole world is being assailed by a virus with the potential to kill tens of thousands. We are having to do church in a new way. We can’t do pastoral care in person, in some cases, that even includes end of life care! All plans for the immediate future are on hold, or should be, for everyone’s safety!

    We know the words; we’ve heard them before, we’ve even spoken them before, but perhaps in fair weather when they had less meaning, when there was less at stake!

    Psalm 23. Any number of other psalms which proclaim God’s powerful presence in the midst of loneliness, or joy.

    The story of Lazarus.

    We could also call to mind the two stories of creation where God created with just a few words, or made a human being out of dirt and another one out of that first one’s rib.

    These passages are still there, still just as powerful as they were last year, and can be now, when we need them. We can be faithful Christian community, even now, we just have to be a little more creative.

    There was once a young boy who had come to the age when he should have been able to sleep in his own bed, in his own room, all night - or so his parents thought. He was told he could not get out of bed, for any reason. One night there was a powerful thunderstorm and he awoke screaming. His parents got up and stood in his bedroom doorway and told him that everything was OK and he should go back to sleep.

    “I’m scared” he pouted.

    “God is with you. You have no need to be scared” his Sunday school teacher mother said.

    “I know that,” blubbered the child, “but right now I need someone with skin-on!”

    Let’s make sure the children in our lives get the hugs they need from the grown-ups who are their direct care-givers and as as close as possible to a real hug from grandparents and the rest of us who don’t live with them. As far as I know, a hug is okay to give anyone you already live with! - Unless you are sick!

    When we can’t actually go and hold the hand of our sick and lonely church family, or have a coffee with them at Timmy’s or in their kitchen, we will need to work harder at remembering to send cards, to phone, to reach out to those who need some human contact - but the best minds have told us that this enforced “social distancing” is truly necessary to “flatten the curve” and ensure the survival of the most possible.

    I hope that a vaccine will be found, and hope it is sooner, rather than later. In 1905 many children in Canada died of measles. One of them was my grandmother’s older brother. Now there are few if any deaths from measles - because almost everyone is vaccinated. The same can be said for many other once dreaded diseases.

    So for now we follow the advice of the health experts, stay away from crowds and remember that our God wishes for all of humanity, life and health. Let us go forward trusting in the God of life.

    Amen

  • April 5, 2020-- Palm Sunday -

    Matthew 21: 1-11
    Psalm 118

    “The Lentiest Lent I Have Ever Lented”

    I viewed another Facebook post on Tuesday morning about one of my favourite places and events - Berwick Camp. A gathering of hundreds of people in a hemlock woods in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, this is a modern version of an old-fashioned Methodist camp meeting, 148 years of evolving tradition, mornings and evenings of worship and study, long and meaningful conversations and friendships that, once formed, last for generations. The youngest camper was, I think, three days old and the oldest, perhaps 99. Some campers in their 90s remember their older relatives talking about the “olden days of Berwick”. The camp Board’s message is: “wait, we are not yet ready to decide. The registration process will be delayed by about a month - but we still don’t know if we will be gathering physically, or not!” Since Berwick Camp is a unique Christian Community experience so closely tied to that time together in that place, it is hard to imagine how it would happen without at least someone being there. We are supporting one another through Facebook posts with pictures and expressions of gratitude for past experiences and continuing relationships all over the Maritimes, across Canada and beyond.

    A few years ago an early winter storm toppled trees unto cabins and power lines and tore up a significant number of the water lines and the opening of the camp that summer was doubtful. When we saw the pictures, many of us were on the verge of tears and some of us even doubted its very survival.

    But Berwick people know how to live the Christian faith! Vision, determination, sheer tenacity, good insurance and excellent “scrounging skills” resulted in there being a full camp that year and every year since. The camp may even be stronger for this misfortune. We came so close to losing it that most of us now have a new appreciation of its importance. As far as I know, this year nothing has happened out of the ordinary with our facility - BUT the wisdom of gathering as well as the legality is now in question. While a large part of our gathering is “outside” social distancing is not part of our life together at all.

    It seems to me that the lessons of Berwick are lessons for life and the lessons learned from this crisis, due to a natural disaster, can provide us with lessons for a global pandemic, the likesw of which the world has never known. I read that the Spanish Flu, in the immediate aftermath of WW1 killed more people than the war itself, but it’s spread would have been far, far worse, if there the kind of international travel, jet planes and cruise ships that we now take for granted.

    We now have the advantage of technology. I have had more meetings over the internet in the last two weeks than I have had in most years, and we’re not done yet! We have discussed everything from church finances, to government grants for charities, to just support one another in this crisis for which no one could have possibly have prepared us.

    Our moderator, the Rt Rev Richard Bott has continued to remind us that the church never closes, even if we cannot worship together as usual. I think that it is vital that we remember this. Even though you are not listening to, or reading this, in the sanctuary of Codette Knox United Church or Nipawin United Church, the church is not closed. We are then church! We are just a little more scattered than usual! I am more scattered than usual!!!!!!

    Welcome to our third worship service in a virtual space. I’ll paraphrase the the moderator again, when he reminds us that there is no such thing as “virtual worship”. It is the space that is virtual , but the worship is real.

    Our praise of God is real.

    Our prayer is real.

    Our reflection on the Good News is real.

    Our response to the word will be real.

    I heard someone say the other day that the current crisis is the worst thing we have faced as a country since World War II. This holy week is different from any we have experienced because of the ways in which our lives have been impacted by the fear of the virus, the restrictions on movement and the disruption to work and normal patterns of community life.

    As you know the people greeted Jesus and his disciples with shouts of Hosanna! It means, “Save Us!” In this week, on this day, here in Saskatchewan, perhaps we are greeting Jesus and shouting “hosanna” and asking to be saved, not from the Roman Occupation, but from the virus, or at least from the restrictions imposed on our lives. Our cry is not “free us and make us great again” but it is “let’s just get back to normal”.

    Oh how we wish things would go back to normal - whatever normal is for us. We want to go out to restaurants and coffee shops. We want to visit friends and family. We want to feel safe in our own community. We want to be able to make plans. I know what I want - to go to the Maritimes this summer, for my nephew’s wedding, to rest and relax, and to go to Berwick Camp.

    Yet if there is one thing a crisis teaches us is resiliency and to take a step back and reassess our lives. How important is the lifestyle we had become accustomed to? What things are we never going to “go back to doing” or “spending so much time and effort on” and what things are we going to keep doing that we never had time for before!

    I think that one of the issues Jesus faced in his mission is that he called people to look outward, to self-giving, to service, instead of always thinking of “what’s in it for me.” He called people to a concern for the poor and the hurting. He opened up the parts of their scriptures that had become buried under centuries of tradition and legalisms that got in the way of a life-giving relationship with the God he knew as “Father”.

    In Holy Week, and maybe especially in Holy Week of 2020, when we realize that the Christ and his mission is not all about what “he can do for us” the question is, “are we going to be like the fickle crowds and turn and shout crucify him or are we going to be able to say, “yes, I want to be a part of that?” Are we able to trust that we will find life in the giving and receiving of love in community (even if this year it is a somewhat scattered version of community) ?

    We know that there are a lot of people making tremendous sacrifices and putting themselves in danger so that the rest of us can have what we need during this crisis but there are others whose hardship comes from not having reliable income or from being separated from vital relationships. The homeless are particularly vulnerable and those who live in crowded conditions, especially many First Nations are also particularly vulnerable. If someone in a household of 12 -15 becomes ill it will be very hard to contin iut to that one person!

    Aside from this “virus crisis,” when we look at justice issues, world wide, many of us have been preaching for years that we need to ensure the survival of the many over the wealth of the few. If you realized your choices and lifestyle were keeping someone poor or suffering would you change. When we really look at the situation of our coffee and bannanna growers, how do we live as a people who actually act in caring ways toward these people who provide us with something we have come to count on!

    As I was preparing this sermon, I thought of an episode of Star Trek. You know, the original one, with the slim Captain Kirk, and all the primitive sets! In one episode they encountered a non-humanoid species that bored through rock and they did not recognize it as intelligent life - until Spock somehow communicated with one of them. when they realized what the settlers were doing was harming the life form that was indigenous to that planet, they all left and made sure no one would arrive seeking to exploit it’s natural resources and harm the creatures living there.

    The walk of faith is about seeking life, and sometimes we are called to realize that, in the end, life for us is not true life, if it comes at the expense of anther. When I was in university, one of my professors, a United Church minister, had this poster on his office wall - the poster was just a few words, “Justice - not just us”.

    That’s also the journey of Holy Week - no matter what the year. One of my friends on Facebook posted something like this: when this is all over and we can go back to doing whatever we want, what will we never return to and what new things will we keep doing?

    In other words, if we see this whole lock-down thing as an opportunity, to faithfully reassess the way we have been living and make conscious choices about the future based on this experience.

    What if we see this forced isolation and change as a gift and opportunity to decide what it really means to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Will we appreciate the presence of our loved ones in our lives, even more, or will we we go back to the attitude: “there is always tomorrow”.

    This pandemic is serious, life and death stuff, but so is the Christian journey through holy week. We are asked by Jesus, by the texts, “are hyou willing to walk with me through the nexgt difficult days?

    There may be a surprise at the end, but for now, be assured that I am with you, even in the darkest darkness.

    Amen.

  • April 10, 2020-- Good Friday