Job 42: 1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34: 1-8 (19-22)
Hebrew’s 7: 23-28
Mark 10: 46-52

Seeing AGAIN! For the First Time!

Have you ever travelled on a familiar route, perhaps one on which you were used to being the “driver”, but this time you were a passenger, when all of a sudden you notice a building or some other landmark, that you have never noticed before. You remark to person driving that day, “Was that tree (or building, or other landmark) always there?” Of course the driver answers, “for as long as I can remember”.

Sometimes it takes a change in perspective to enable us to notice something. Theologian and biblical scholar, Marcus Borg, has written a number of books. One is Meeting Jesus Again, For the First Time and another is Reading the Bible Again, for the First Time . Of course it’s an oxymoron to say that you are doing something for the “first time”, if you are actually doing it “again” , but the author’s goal in these books is that the reader’s perspective will be challenged, and changed. Borg hopes that what happened to him will happen to his readers when they encounter these new ways of looking at the things of faith. His goal is that even for those who have known Jesus their whole lives, the encounter will be as fresh and new as a first meeting.

One basic characteristic of Mark’s gospel is that it is short and to the point. He’s not like the high school student trying to stretch the length of an essay with extra words . We need to pay attention to all the details as he tells the stories. While the blind man in our story today has no name of his own, because, as Mark reminds us, the name Bartimaeus literally means “son of Timaeus”, that is more identity than we have for most of those encountered by Jesus!

Mark tells us that Jesus was on his way back from a place called Jericho. They are in-between destinations and yet the Spirit is still very much at work. Jesus had been trying to get the disciples to “see” what it was that he was about, and still they did not get it. The obvious irony of this situation is that this man who has no physical sight has “gotten it”, he knows who this teacher and healer really is. The title “son of David” was, of course, a code for the “messiah”; the one whose coming had been proclaimed and anticipated for generations.

This man is persistent in his calling out for help, indeed, he will shout it out for the world to hear. This son of Timaeus has the faith that this son of David can make this kind of difference in his life and he does not hesitate to ask.

Bartimaeus had no physical sight but apparently he had more spiritual insight than most of Jesus’ closest followers. He took a great risk that day. He risked being wrong. What if this Jesus was just a kook. But what if he was the real thing? What would this change cost him?

The action-words in this passage bear paying attention to; they are not there by accident. Notice that when Jesus spoke, acknowledged his presence, and asked him to come to him, Bartimaeus is said to have “sprang” up and “thrown off” his cloak.

In what may seem to be a surprising response he asks Bartimaeus what it is that he wants. We might ASSUME that he wants to see, but Jesus doesn’t. Maybe Jesus just wants him to say it, to name it, but I think that it’s more than that. I think that this story was teaching his disciples that perceived wants and needs are not necessarily real wants and needs. To regain his sight might not have been what Bartimaeus most wanted. His life would change by being healed, and change, even desired change, is rarely easy. For him to name his wish, this wish, was both to place his trust in the One he believed could do it, but also take the leap of faith to risk such change in his life. This was not just a miracle for a day, it was a change that would last a lifetime.

He did receive his sight but instead of “going” away, a seeing person, he followed Jesus “on the way” (a code word for the Christian movement). As Mark tells the story, the next step on this “way” was the entry into Jerusalem and, within days, the crucifixion.

The other night I picked up a marvellous little book by the retired Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa. In this book, titled God Has a Dream Tutu reflects on his years living under the oppressive system called Apartheid and his country’s transition to greater peace and freedom. He uses these many years of experience to reflect on the power of God which makes use of human beings to transform the world as it is into the world as God intended it to be.

He indicated that one of the insights that came to many South Africans, especially White South Africans, was that they could not be truly free until their sisters and brothers of colour were truly free.

It is no accident that the words we use for the physical senses of touch, taste, hearing and sight can also be used to speak of deeper spiritual realities. The things that are the most real to us are those things which are tangible, touchable, taste-able, see-able, smell-able (if I can coin a few words).

Our spiritual senses can lead us to a reality that is beyond our experience if we are willing to trust in the God of Jesus the Christ to lead us.

Jesus was a man of vision. By an large, his disciples failed to grasp that vision because they were so caught up in the their own ideas of what was supposed to happen. Oh, they eventually caught on, but they were not the first to do so. The people who first caught on were the blind and the lame, the oppressed and the downtrodden; the ones whom society had abandoned.

Bartimaeus, a man of no physical sight was able to grasp not only Jesus true identity as the Messiah but also to follow him on the way that he was actually going: the way to Jerusalem.

Bartimaeus had to be able to at least catch a glimpse of a life that was different than the one he knew; the one that limited him to begging for his daily bread.

In the book I mentioned earlier, Desmond Tutu wrote that the education system for blacks in South Africa was designed to prepare them to be servants of and subservient to white people. There came a day when they would accept this no longer. They had never known anything else, nor had they ever been taught anything else, but somehow they knew they were created by God for something better.

I think that this is one of the characteristics of being human; that we are able to catch a vision outside of our experience and make it our own. Bartimaeus represents such a vision and the willingness to embrace the necessary change.

When we encounter the Christ on our journey of life we are promised a life of ahange; we are called to such a life. We know that even the most desired of change, such as marriage or raising a family, or going back to school in mid-life or coping with the chronic illness of a loved one, to name just a few examples, are all very hard work but we do so trusting that the effo rt is worth it.

As Christians we are meant to be a people who see clearly the vision God has for creation. We are meant, through our encounter with the living God, to be able to throw off the cloaks which keep us rooted to our old ways and our old lives and follow in trust and freedom.

I think that one of the biggest of these “cloaks” is the belief that it can’t happen, that such change is impossible. I’ve often heard people say, “I’m too old to change”.

Hogwash!

The older we get, the more set in our ways and bad habits, the more used to our blindness we become, but as a people of faith we believe in the power of God to bring life giving change to even the most desperate of circumstances, to the darkest of worlds and lives.

Whatever it is that God is calling us to as individuals, as families, as community and as a world will not be achieved without effort or cost, but as we journey we will know that our God does go with us and gives us what we need to be able to stay the course.

Do we truly want to see?

If so let us rise up, throw off our cloak and meet the One who speaks of freedom, truth and justice.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Ruth 1: 1-18
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9: 11-14
Mark 12: 28-34

This is the Sunday before Remembrance Day, the day on which we remember those “who shall grow not old” and a day to honour all those who knew and know personally what those battles were like and lived to tell about it.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Remembrance Day I tend to think of World War 1; the “war to end all wars” , the war which, in many ways, defined our fledgling dominion as a true nation. My grandfather on my father’s side was one of 600,000 Canadians who fought in WW1. My other grandfather had enlisted but was waiting to be shipped out when the war ended.

When you think of Remembrance Day you may think of the Second World War or the Korean Conflict, or your thoughts may be with those who are currently enlisted and in Afghanistan or waiting to go on the next deployment.

I cant think of Remembrance Day without thinking of the many pictures I’ve seen of Canadian War Cemeteries in Europe where Canada’s dead now lie. The poem, “In Flanders Fields” reminds us that there are many such graves and of the importance of remembering.

The ranks of those First War veterans are growing thinner and thinner. On November 27 of last year, Clair Laking, the last veteran to have seen active service in that bloody conflict died. Gone from living memory is the personal knowledge of the mud in the trenches and the call to “go over the top” to try and capture a few more yards of land. This was land that was nothing but water filled shell holes and trenches populated by rats, lice and frightened boys trying to be men. Laking enlisted to silence his father who was opposed to the war. Before he died he came to agree with his father's pacifist views, and was convinced that the world needed to end conflict without war.

Just a few days before Laking’s death, Alfred Anderson, the last known Allied survivor of the famous “Christmas Truce” died in his sleep in his nursing home in Scotland.

This Christmas truce began very tentatively and informally on Christmas Day of 1914 and is said to have lasted for days along some parts of the front line. Basically the German and Allied soldiers had a Christmas party in no-man’s land. We are told that they sang Christmas Carols in both languages and communicated as best they could while sharing brandy, chocolate, photographs and trinkets and even by playing soccer.

Apparently, the Generals were most upset. They believed that such behaviour could make their men reluctant to fight. It could make them reluctant to kill the Germans!

How ironic. Think of it. A celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace would be taken so literally in the heat of such bloody conflict! However, peace did not last as the world settled back to four more years of war.

A number of years ago the back of our United Church Bulletin for this Sunday before Remembrance Day carried a story told by a woman who had been a child growing up in England during the War. She was out playing on a hillside and a plane flew over, very low. She looked up and she saw the pilot smile and wave at her and then as the plane flew away he waved goodbye by ricking from side to side.

She ran home to tell her parents. She was very excited. A pilot waved at her! They however, were very concerned and asked her to describe the plane. When it became obvious to the parents that the plane was German, a deep silence descended on the room.

As she told this story many, many years later she says, “I recall their mood, but I also remember wondering, “Did that man have a little girl just like me?”

Unfortunately, one of the realities of war is the demonization of the enemy. We have been taught since we were small not to hurt others, and definitely not to kill other people. So, you can’t really run a war without somehow placing your enemy as a little less than human or at least of less worth than yourself. Wartime propaganda always has this as one of its goals.

Poets have always been able to speak the words society cannot speak, but also the words that society needs to hear. Thomas Hardy, a 19th Century poet wrote a poignant poem about the men who fight in the battles, men who might otherwise have become friends.

“Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
right many a nipperkin!
“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
and killed him in his place.”
...............
“Yes quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’s treat, if met where any bar is,
or help to half a crown. 

We know that this “Great War”, the “war to end all wars” did not do that, and that many wars have raged since the Peace of Versailles was signed in 1918. As we speak our men and women in uniform are placing themselves in harm’s way in a number of trouble spots. Perhaps the biggest difference this time is that the news of casualties is practically instant. When news of casualties is broadcast, each family member and friend of a soldier overseas asks the unaskable question, “is it him/her?” And, of course, our dead are being returned home this time. To see flag-draped coffins being carried off of aircraft is a sobering sight indeed.

As a people of faith, as a people who follow the “prince of peace” how are we to respond to all of this? As a people who are called to total love of God and complete love of neighbour as self how do we do all of this without seeming to deny the basics of our faith?

Of course this is where we can enter into a veritable quagmire. We are an imperfect people who live in an imperfect world. This is as true now as it was in 1914 and 1939 and at other times of war and the call to “support the war effort”. The politics of war are rarely easy to understand, rarely crystal clear. Wars have little to do with the people who actually fight them and much more to do with the politics and alliances of royalty and big business and the people in positions of power.

Wars do have to do with protecting the innocent from oppression and freeing the world from tyrants, but once begun the goals can be lost as they take on a life of their own.

On Remembrance Day we need to keep several things in mind. First that we do not remember in order to celebrate war itself, but that we remember so that history will not repeat itself. We remember to honour those who gave their lives in the hopes of achieving a greater good: peace and freedom from tyranny.

On Remembrance Day we must also keep in mind that old alliances have long since changed and enemies are now friends. We can honour these long ago victories without dredging up the conflicts themselves.

The more travelling we do back and forth, the more immigration that happens the more we realize that there are very few differences between the people in the farthest parts of the world and ourselves.

The story of Ruth in the Hebrew Scriptures is told to remind the people of Israel that King David had foreign blood. In a time when the people of Israel were very “anti-foreigner”, it was told to remind the people that God also blessed and favoured the “other nations”. “You couldn’t get much better than King David so if his great-grandmother was a foreigner, foreigners should not all be tarred with the same brush.”

Remembrance Day is about the damage war does to families and communities and to international relationships. Remembrance Day is about working in peaceful ways to avoid the wars that cost so much.

While war divides people , the gospel call is a call to unity; a call to look through differences to what unites us in faith or in values, or even to our basic humanity.

When I was growing up one of my favourite television shows was The Waltons. Oh I know, everyone makes fun of their bed time ritual of saying good night to everyone, and the last always being aspiring author and eldest son, “John Boy”, but it was a good show and their lives seemed a lot more exciting than my parents’ stories of growing up poor in the depression.

Sometimes the stories really made you stop and think. One particular episode there was an upsurge of “anti-German” feeling in the area. The community decided, to round up all the German books they could find and burn them in a public book burning. There was something about a burning of books and the obvious disrespect of the ideas which they contained that really disturbed John Boy. Despite the fact that the entire community seemed to be in support of this action, including the minister of their church, John Boy ran to the front of the crowd and tried to dissuade them from their intentions as they were trying to light the books on fire. To help him make his point, he picked up a book as he was speaking and then stopped mid sentence as he realized what he was holding in his hand.

He then called a woman forward from the crowd to read the first page of the book. She swallowed hard and came up, taking the book from him she began to read, in perfect German. The crowd was shocked. Then John Boy asked her to give an English translation of what she had just read. She then recited the words familiar to everyone in the crowd,

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 
	

Our call to love God and to love neighbour is a call to place our difference aside and to work as hard as we can for the welfare of the other. I believe that war is always a last resort; the resolution of conflict through the use of military force is always a last resort but it is sometimes necessary. When it is, we must take it for what it is, seek to end it quickly and to give as much help as possible to those who have been hurt by the conflict. Then we must work at bridge building and friendship building and the creation and strengthening of diplomatic ties.

We remember so that their deaths and their sacrifices will not have been in vain. We remember so that future generations will not have to know war. We remember because peace and the call to love neighbour as self is so important.

Amen!

Ruth 3: 1-5; 4: 13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9: 24-28
Mark 12: 38-44

All She Had !

Yesterday was Remembrance Day. Each and every year, on the 11th Day of the 11th Month at the 11th Hour we are asked to pause and remember those whose sacrifices contributed to our freedom from tyranny. We are asked to remember those whose sacrifices helped free the peoples of other countries from both internal and external forces which might otherwise have destroyed them.

Until recently, in my mind at least, war veterans have always been senior citizens and almost exclusively men. War veterans have never been my age, until now. In 2006 war has come home to my generation as never before; and for me especially when I realize that most of the casualties in the campaign in Afghanistan are younger than I am. They are just out of school, they are newlyweds, they are young parents; many are not much older than my oldest nephew whose life revolves around the things that most 16 year olds are concerned with. Going to war isn’t one of them. If he were coming of age in 1914 and 1939 going to war would certainly have been on his mind.

For those of you in the generations which remember the world wars these realizations were made long ago, and I knew them intellectually of course, but they come home every time I hear of another soldier who has made the supreme sacrifice.

Today’s lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and from the Gospel are about many things, not the least of which centres around the nature of commitment and sacrificial giving.

The story of Ruth was one of the ones I learned as a young child. She left her homeland to go to a foreign country with her mother-in-law and she worked hard to keep food on the table. Her story becomes a love story as she is noticed by Boaz and he makes the arrangements necessary for them to be married. Their son Obed is the grandfather of King David.

Now the story of Ruth was written down at a time when the religious leaders were very much afraid of foreign influences and were ordering that the men of Israel divorce their foreign wives, in order to preserve the purity of their religion. Ruth’s story is a reminder that even the great King David had a “foreigner” in his family tree. It is a warning against tarring all foreigners with the same brush. It is a lesson that shows the people of Israel that they can learn from the sacrifices and dedication of this foreign woman.

Life in Israel was not easy for widows. A woman could not just go out and get a job if her husband died; supporting her was her children’s responsibility. If she had no children the nearest male relative was expected to marry and care for her and produce a heir in the name of the dead husband so as to carry on the family line. Early death was often seen as a sign of God’s punishment and widows were often in poor favour with the community for this reason. They were also seen as a burden on the community and especially on the family. A foreign widow would have been especially resented.

Gleaning in the fields, or picking up the grain dropped by the harvesters, was one way that the community did allow destitute people to gather enough food to feed themselves. I don’t know what they were expected to when it wasn’t harvest season! It seems that Ruth’s exemplary dedication to her mother-in-law won people over, or at least it won Boaz over and he saw to it that she was given a easier time while picking up the dropped wheat in the fields. It seems that a young woman would often be in danger of being harassed by the harvesters as she was gleaning to feed her family. Boaz made sure that this did not happen.

The only long term solution was marriage; and a marriage to someone willing to support an ageing mother-in-law as well.

In the end the story ends happily and Ruth receives a favoured place in the history of Israel.

The story told in the Gospels makes use of two examples which contrast wealthy and powerful people with a poor widow. Jesus had a reputation for turning people’s assumptions around and getting folks to look at common things in new ways.

The scribes of Jesus day were probably among the only people who could read and write; they were the educated ones; they demanded respect and they received it. Their special education and skills often made them wealthy. It is suspected that one of the jobs they did was to manage the estates of men who had died without male heirs because women could not inherit property. Jesus accuses them of what would have been widely feared, that they profited handsomely from this venture. The language Jesus uses is harsh: they devour widows houses. Devour is a strong word!

What seems to be most relevant here is their outward piety which masks a lifestyle that benefits from the misfortune of others. Jesus is always concerned for the downtrodden and he is especially harsh on those who would take advantage of those who could not defend themselves.

The meaning of the next part is open to some debate. Jesus does not praise the wealthy people who put large sums of money into the temple donation boxes, which I gather were trumpet-shaped brass receptacles attached to the walls. Heavy coins would make lots of noise as they were dropped in. The wealthy folks seemed to like that. Then a poor widow comes along and drops in two of the smallest coins in circulation; together worth less than one of our pennies. Jesus draws attention to her gift because it is actually more than the others’ gifts because they gave what they had to spare, and she gave all she had to live on.

Some of us might have a lot of trouble with a system that would demand the woman’s last cent; and these folks would say that Jesus would have been implying that he condemned this kind of system as well.

Be that as it may, it is clear that he was pointing out something about giving that we often forget; that giving is not about the total amount of the gift but about what we have to give from; how much we have to start with, how much we have left over.

A young couple were sitting around on Sunday afternoon watching tv and decided to order pizza instead of cooking. When the pizza delivery man rang the doorbell, the husband answered the door. That’ll be $14.83, said the delivery man. The husband reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He looked in, and then stopped short in surprise. Turning his head, he called to his wife. Honey, can you pay for the pizza? I don’t seem to have enough money. His wife came to the door with her purse, paid the delivery man and took the pizza. As the couple walked out to the kitchen, the man thought out loud. Darn!. I had a 5 and a 20 in my wallet this morning at church. I meant to put the 5 in the offering plate, but I must have grabbed the 20 by mistake and put it in. His wife was quiet for a moment, and then she responded. That’s a shame, dear. I think God will only give you credit for the 5.00! From a sermon by Bronwyn Yocum, posted on the PRCL-L list

I was listening to the CBC the other day and I heard that Rick Mercer and Belinda Stronach, a somewhat unlikely pair, have teamed up to promote the donation of mosquito nets to developing countries to prevent the spread of malaria. They only cost $10, an amount far beyond the reach of the families who need them most. As Rick Mercer says, one thing Canadians know about is mosquitos! However, we don’t associate them with diseases which could kill our children. It’s interesting how we often promote charitable work by saying how little it costs, (we couldn’t save many lives in Canada for $10) If you are interested by the way the UNICEF web site has more information.

What if we promoted projects which took a great deal more of our money, in terms of what we had left over? Would it work?

A well of North American went on a trip around the world. While in Korea they saw a boy pulling a crude plow, while an old man guided the plow by the handles.

Commenting to their guide, he said,"That is an unusual sight. I suppose they are very poor." "Yes," came the answer. "They are poor. When the church was being built they were excited and wanted to give something to help it along. They had no money so they sold their only ox and gave the money to the church. This spring they are taking turns pulling the plow themselves."

The tourist said thoughtfully, "That must have been a real sacrifice "

The guide said, "They did not call it that." They thought it was very fortunate they had an ox to sell.". From sermon by Tim Zingale, on PRCL-L preaching list

The stories of Ruth and the contrast between the wealthy givers and the poor widow are mean to cause us to wrestle with these issues.

The reality is that decisions about stewardship, about how we use all of our resources, are personal ones. No one can make those decisions for us; and we cannot do them by accident. What have we been given? What does the gospel call us to do in this time and place in our lives? It’s not just about our spare time or spare pocket change or our left over Halloween or Christmas candy. It’s not just about giving money to the church or other charities, it’s about assessing what we have and responding in love to the God who has given us what we have and calls us to responsible use of our resources.

The reality is that these decisions, while personal, have corporate and societal implications. I can’t imagine that Jesus didn’t intend at least some criticism of a system that would demand a widow’s last -21- cent and not reach out to help her feed and clothe and house her family. Those of us with the resources have the responsibility to contribute to the overall life of the community through the sharing of our time, or treasures and our other abilities.

The gospel’s call is unavoidable. OF we choose not to respond that is, in and of itself, a response. What will our response to the gospel be?

Our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan, and in times past, have given in their own way, in order to contribute to a greater purpose. We don’t all have to join up! We are all called to contribute, to take part in the great enterprise of helping people experience the blessings of life in all of their fullness.

We have many options. We have many ways to contribute. We are called to give out of what we have to the great enterprise of showing God’s love and wish for an abundant life for all people.

How will we respond?

1 Samuel 1: 4-10
1 Samuel 2: 1-10
Hebrews 10: 11-25
Mark 13: 1-8

In It For The Long Haul

Think about what is available at your average grocery store. We can buy pre-cooked roast beef that is ready for the table in under 10 minutes, instant mashed potatoes and frozen vegetables ready in minutes, and many, many kinds of deserts ready straight out of the freezer. Of course, fast food establishments are very popular as we race from work to leisure activities to meetings.

We are an instant culture: we buy our cookies from Mr Christie and our bread from the Dempster Company. We have high-speed internet, or we can’t wait for it to come to “our road” because dial-up is just too slow now, and snail mail is fast becoming a communication method of last resort. We go to the doctor and expect medication which delivers an instant cure. We want what we want and we want it NOW!

Yet, when I read the scriptures I am confronted with a culture that was accustomed to a much slower pace of life. Not unlike our grandparents’ generation and all those before them, if they ate they made it from scratch, including milling their own flour, and if they went somewhere they walked or took a donkey. (At least most of our grandparents had horses!) They had what we would consider primitive methods of communicating between people who lived or worked at a distance from one another.

This slow pace of life also applied to their religious life. There were few instant answers to prayer or very few instant blessings given by the God of their ancestors.

Abraham was an old man and he and his beloved Sarah had no children when they were promised a land and a line of descendants to outnumber the stars. If I remember correctly it was at about TWENTY-FIVE years before Isaac was born. Five years to a young couple hoping for a baby is a long time; but 25 years to a pair of nonagenarians it must have been an eternity. Yet the child was born and the journey begun was continued.

When the people of Israel were in Egypt and suffering great oppression they called out to the God of their ancestors and God heard and delivered them. However, the delivery was certainly not an instant one. We are told that Moses was approached by the presence of the Living God made manifest in a “burning bush’. Moses was the perfect guy for the job: raised in the palaces of Egypt but of Hebrew ancestry, and nurturing by his biological family until he was weaned, he would have had an intimate understanding of both communities and their weaknesses and strengths. He would have had some knowledge of this great calling God so that when he encountered the burning bush, he would have been encountering not only the God of his ancestors but the god of his own past.

The whole process of “letting the people go” took ten plagues as the biblical account tells us. And then it took an entire generation for the people to arrive in the land of “milk and honey”, the land long ago promised to Abraham and to his descendants. The journey continued.

During the time of the judges there was a man and woman who had the same problem as Abraham and Sarah: they had no children. Because it was a polygamous society the man had a another wife and his future was secure in his sons; but his beloved wide, Hannah wanted to have a son for her husband. It was her role as a woman; the culture expected it; and even though her husband loved her anyway, she was desperate.

They were very religious and went every year to Shiloh to give thanks for the harvest. Hannah goes to the temple to pray and the scriptures tell us that she is praying so fervently that Eli assumed she was drunk. This sounds a little strange to me, especially for a priest, but perhaps it is an indication of just how out of touch Eli had become with the God whose presence the worshippers came to Shiloh for in the first place. We are told that his sons were very fond of strong drink and perhaps he was too quick to judge this woman for that reason.

However she does tell him her woes. She pours out her soul telling Eli of her vow and Eli, in his role as God’s priest, tells her that her prayers will be answered. But notice that this child, Samuel, will be taken to live at Shiloh. He will become an assistance to Eli and, unlike most sons, will not be the one to honour his parents with a grandchild; that task will fall to the next children of Hannah and Elkanah, of which there were eventually 5.

My point in telling all of these stories is to show that the promises of God, in each and every generation, were not fulfilled instantly, as if God were a fairy-godmother with a magic wand. It seems to me that the way in which these stories were told shows us that the God of heaven and earth is not the God of the instant and the easy answer but instead is the God of “the long haul”; the God who calls the faithful into a long term relationship of trust and growth in faith.

I think that this is one of the lessons that Jesus tried to instill in his disciples and in those people in the crowds that followed after him. The passage may sound a little “odd” to our ears, but that is because it is a kind of literature called “apocalyptic”, which means that it uses symbolic language to talk about what might be called the “end times”. It looks toward a future which will be unlike the present in that God will be in charge and the righteous will be vindicated. For a poor and persecuted people, that would certainly be welcome news. It would be nice to have a heads up; a morning weather forecast to tell us when to take our umbrellas or pack our snow shovels, so to speak. Jesus does not really give any tips on what to looks for; although the temple in which they were standing was indeed destroyed less than a century later, and Mark would have known this. Wars and rumours of wars were as common then as they are now and have been many times in the centuries in-between. It seems to me that what Jesus is talking about is being faithful to the Gospel in the interim. This passage applies as much to us as it did to those who first heard these words of Jesus.

The hymn I have chosen for the end of the service speaks of God’s leading in difficult times. When the people of Israel were wandering through the wilderness they were guided by a cloud in the day and a pillar of fire by night. They did not know where the journey would take them, but they had every reason to believe that God was with them every step of the way.

One of the characteristics of this time in the life of many Canadian churches is change and uncertainty. We know from our own community’s experience and from news reports that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are coping with parish amalgamations and closures, which are only partly to do with a shortage of priests and as much to do with shortage of funds and a lack of church attendance. Mainline churches all over North America are trying to cope with the rising costs and decreasing donations, just like we are. We aren’t at all unique in that respect.

We may come before God in prayer, in fervent prayer even, and wish for a miracle, a sign that God is still with us. Yet we may wonder why there are fewer and fewer people in church. We wonder why the young families take their kids to Sunday School but don’t come to church.

First : I think we need to keep a positive outlook. we can look around us, at what we have; at our children, at the faith of those who AREe here and we can know that God is with is.

Second we can reach out with open arms as Jesus did. As many of you are aware, the United Church has just begun an advertising campaign that has received a great deal of press, partly because of the very memorable ads in the media. We need to remember several things before we react negatively to these “Emerging Spirit” ads. FIRST: they are aimed at young adults under 45 and SECOND, they are designed to promote discussion. An intrinsic part of the campaign is the website set up to go along with this. People in this age group spend a lot of time on the web and in chat rooms. This is a way we are trying to open the doors of discussion with people who are largely missing from our pews. I firmly believe that people in this age group are looking for answers to life’s big questions bu they do not want to just “accept” the traditional answers that the churches and their parents have traditionally given, but are looking for safe places to discuss things in wa way which will help them to discover the answers that work for them. As church people we need to open our hearts and arms to those who may come to different answers than we may have and trust the same Spirit is at work in this time and place as was at work when we came to a grown up faith as young adults. (If you would like to have further information or discuss it, call me.

The journey of faith is not about arriving at a destination and putting our feet up and saying that we “aint going nowhere else”. The journey of faith is just that, a journey, where we are open to the leading of the Spirit who is present with us, not just in the good times, not just in the bad times, not just in the miracles of life such as birth and death, but each and every day.

God has already committed to being with us for the long haul. We can do no less. So lets not look for quick fixes to our own personal problems or to the problems of our church but open ourselves to the Spirit who has been with the people of God since the beginning of time. AND when you are talking about a God who has that kind of commitment, what else can we do but say, just as young Samuel would say several years after today’s passage from Samuel takes place, “Here I am, God, your servant is listening” .

Amen!.

2 Samuel 23: 1-7
Psalm 132 1-12 (13-18)
Revelation 4b - 8
John 18: 33-37

A Different Kind of King

In many ways our lives are governed by circles and cycles of time and seasons, repeating themselves over and over again. If we farm our lives are governed by the cycles of planting and harvest and marketing and shipping; of breeding and birthing and finishing marketing and shipping. If we are in construction each project has its own cycle and each project has best season to start. If we teach or go to university or school our lives are governed by September starts and April or June finishes to rest again until the next start in September. Each year starts out with goals and objectives and finished with evaluations which assess whether or not we have reached those objectives. Our lives themselves are marked by birthdays as individuals, anniversaries as couples, and in the wider community by the new year. We may make New Year’s Resolutions or we harbour a hope that, for various reasons, “next year will be better than this one”. Each milestone gives us the opportunity to reflect and to intentionally change, or attempt to change, the future.

The cycles of the church year have the same flow to them. While it may seem new to some of you, the church year has been around as long as the church. I have no doubt that since you could remember the church has celebrated the high points of Christmas and Easter. The church year and the lectionary (which is just a list of biblical readings organized to go along with it) is simply an organized way of speaking to those high points AND then filling in the gaps between them. The Church Year places our lives in the wider context of the Christian story and invites dialogue between our lives and this age old, yet timeless story. It used to be that the lectionary was a Roman Catholic thing but in the last 30 years or so ecumenical talks with our brothers and sisters in many other denominations have influenced our worship life, as it has theirs.

In the fall of 1987, a few weeks after I started working in my first Pastoral Charge, an older man and his daughter came to the manse to talk to me. His wife was dying in the local hospital and the daughter had just come home to be with her family. I had met her for the first time at the church service the day before. We talked about the things I would expect when a loved one is dying and the family live in distant places. When they were getting ready to go back to the hospital the daughter said to me: “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure”, I said.

“How come you and the Pope had the same sermon yesterday?”

Well, you have to think quick at a question like that! I thought of saying something about ‘great minds thinking alike’, but I explained that while I hadn’t heard the Pope’s sermon, I suspected that she recognized a similarity because both churches used the same gospel readings, as outlined in the Lectionary. I didn’t ask her whose was the better sermon!

Friends of mine have just tis past week welcomed their first child and other friends are expecting their second at Easter time. As all parents know there is a cycle to that kind of event. There are things that are done to prepare for the baby and then many things that change or must be done after the child arrives. As the baby grows and goes through various stages and progresses through to independent adulthood there are more and more changes. A baby changes just about everything in his or her parents’ lives, from schedules to values and priorities. Between all of the work necessary to keep a family with a baby or a small child functioning, a parent may pause and look at their child and wonder what kind of person this child will become and what influence this child may have on others.

Likewise when the church begins every Advent to prepare for the birth of the Christ Child it begins by looking to the future by imagining what this child will do and become. On this last Sunday of the Church year we are called to reflect on what it means to call Christ, a King. What does the reign of Christ in the world, or in our own lives, mean? If on last Christmas eve, we welcomed the birth of the Prince of Peace, how has that Peace become more real in our lives, our families and our community and our world? Have we helped?

One of the major issues dealt with throughout the scriptures is what I might call a clash of expectations. The people of Jesus day were oppressed by the might of Rome. They were taxed mercilessly; they were treated brutally when they protested; and they longed for freedom and independence. They longed for the kind of freedom and independence their ancestors had enjoyed under the great Kind David.

Their longing had been nurtured by common interpretations of the messages of generations of prophets and simply by the human desire for freedom and self- determination.

Basically, they wanted a military leader who would come and lead a revolution to overthrow their hated Roman oppressors. Yet the Jesus they eventually came to call, “Messiah” was a man of peace. He was a man who was not interested in power as the people of his day, and the world in general, has interpreted power.

This Jesus wanted to influence the world, to be sure, but he wanted to do it from within. He wanted to influence people at the most basic level of all, at the level of their souls, their hearts and their spirits. The people in power wanted to be rid of this “upstart from the sticks” but what they didn’t realize was that once his message and his power had invaded people’s hearts and lives, his death on the cross would only be the beginning of his reign, not its end. What they did not bargain on was the power of God that was shown in the resurrection.

Today’s passage from the gospel is part of what we have traditionally called “Jesus trial”. Of course, it’s not a trial as we might know it, it was little more than a lynching with a little interrogation thrown in for good measure. There is no defence council and no rules of evidence. The goal of those in power was to get rid of anyone who rocked the boat of the fragile agreements that kept peace in the land of Israel.

Yet, in the end as John’s gospel presents it, the trial is turned on it’s head and it is not Jesus who is being tried but it is the world. It is the world of Pilate and political power. It is the world of those people referred to as “the Jews”; those nameless religious leaders afraid that the people would recognize the very power of God working in this man and follow him. It is the people of these worlds who ended up being on trial and it is the people of these worlds who end up being convicted.

So, almost 2000 years later we are sitting in the makeshift courtroom in Pilate’s headquarters and we are forced to answer the implied question: Do we follow Pilate and the others who would see Jesus die, or do we follow the one who is not of this world.

Those are not easy questions. They take a lifetime to answer and to deal with. That’s why our cycle of the church year is such a wonderful way to help us deal with these questions. As we reflect on the birth, growth and death of Jesus and the struggles of the early church our lives can be allowed to resonate with the scripture message.

We can hear the good news that the good life is not about power and money and “how much you have”. We can hear the good news that God is in charge and not those political or physical forces that are making our lives miserable.

We can also hear the news that this life is meant to be more than struggle and trouble though. This life is a gift and we are meant to embrace it’s gifted-ness and seek abundance of life for all. We can hear the message and the call that part of our task is to speak the word of Life to those forces which would deny fullness of life to others.

You may remember that a few years ago we participated in Presbytery project to help dig a well for a community in the mountains of Guatemala. Life without water is pretty grim. Through our Mission and Service Fund we participate in a common ministry that none of us could do on our own. On the last Sunday of each month we collect food for our local food bank for empty cupboards are not part of the abundant life promised to us by the Lord of Life. Our Sunday School went to the nursing home this morning to spread cheer and kindness and smiles. Each of us, in our own ways, are given opportunities to share abundance with those around us. Last Advent we began to hope for a baby, the Christ Child. The Child came and we rejoiced singing “Joy to the World”.

The question we are asked today, by that same child, now all grown up, are we listening to his voice and do we seek to follow the word of truth and life?

Amen.