Jeremiah 31: 27-34
Psalm 119: 97-104
2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5
Luke 18: 1-8

“How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?”

I think the correct answer to that joke/question is: “It depends on whether or not the lightbulb wants to be changed”.

There is an old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Trouble is, that way of thinking is usually trotted out by someone who doesn’t WANT to changed or someone who is trying to change such a person, but to no avail.

How often have you heard it said that “such and such a person will never amount to anything ..... look at the parents”. On the surface the prophetic utterance “the soul that sins shall die” sounds harsh and hardly good news at all; but if you are paying for your great grandfather’s sins, it becomes a sheep of a different colour. “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge” is to Jeremiah, an expression of defeatism, rather than divine will. You see, that’s probably how the people felt; that they were being punished for the sins of those who had gone before them. Having their future ruined, even before they had begun to try to form it themselves, seemed to be the reason for their failure.

Jeremiah was trying to get them to see that they could indeed take charge of their future by allowing God’s grace and power to transform their lives. The time in exile could be over and behind them if they could learn its lessons and integrate them into their hearts and lives rather than just see God and God’s as something found in a book, something impersonal and not intimately connected to their well being.

You all know the ten commandments; however, when we teach them to children as “memory work”, we usually use the short version. For example, take the one about idols, or in the version most of us memorized in the King James version, “Thou shall not make any graven images”, we also find the words in a little more modern version, “ I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” It’s so much easier to hear the shout of condemnation in that passage, or in any other for that matter, than it is to hear the love.

So, we have these two sides of the coin at odds with each other: struggling for supremacy.

We all know that what we do affects our children. Those of us who work in the helping professions know lots of statistics about children raised in homes where abuse is a fact of life and about the effects of conditions such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. We know how damaging it can be for children to grow up without love or affection, as much as it can be to grow up without appropriate discipline or boundaries. Raising children and living together in community are awesome responsibilities and what we do does affect the next generation and does matter beyond our own selves.

YET sometimes the mistakes of our past, or our own mistakes, can prove to be too convenient an excuse for us, either individually or as a community. There comes a point where we have to take personal responsibility for our own lives and for the future, instead of blaming the cards we were dealt. There comes a time when we have to begin to walk that hard road of change and consciously seek to become the people we can envision.

I love watching crime shows; especially the ones where they always catch the criminals. In many of the series they try and figure out what makes the criminal tick so they can apprehend them and prevent further crimes. This past week, on one of the shows, there was an episode in which the perpetrator was a young adult, a product of a combination of abusive parents and at least one very bad foster home. At the end a child currently living in the same bad foster home must decide what is written in his heart. He is faced with the decision: will he use the gun he has acquired to harm his foster mother or will he not.

The people to whom Jeremiah was writing were stuck in a rut and it took Jeremiah to come and offer them a hand-up to help them out of this rut. He did this by speaking to them about the power of God to transform hearts and lives, individually and through these individuals to transform the entire community - not to change the past, but to transform the future.

The old covenant, summarized in the so called “ten commandments” was said to have been written BY GOD”S OWN HAND on two tablets of stone. The tablet for this new covenant was not to be stone, or parchment, but the human heart. In many ways the content was not all that different but it was to be written on a slate of flesh and blood, one of sweat and tears, of hopes and aspirations, of successes and failures, and of triumphs and tragedies. Unlike the stone tablets which could be destroyed, or locked away and ignored, the human heart, though broken, endures and remains part of who we are. We can’t get away from it.

A certain well-known businessman had a heart attack and ended up in the Cardiac Care unit hooked up to all sorts of monitors. His minister went to visit him and said, “ (Henry) I heard you had a heart attack. I was surprised, (pause) - I didn’t know you had a heart!”

Just as our physical heart is an intrinsic part of our physical life, our spiritual heart is what keep us living spiritually. It is what sustains us and draws us out of ourselves and holds us back and pushes us forward. In no way did Jeremiah dismiss the law as they knew it, as unimportant, rather in the new Israel, the law was to be a part of them, like their heart was a part of them. It was not to simply be something written on a scroll or a tablet of stone that was said to be stored in the holiest part of the temple.

There are many of our laws that we just have to learn such as how much notice we must give the driver behind us when we intend to make a turn, and whether we are driving in the country or in the city makes a different for that one (or at least it used to!) or on what date we can have our studded tires installed for the winter, but most of our laws are also heart laws; they simply make sense at the core of our being.

Do not kill.

Do not steal.

Do not lie, and so on.

The passage goes on to say that the ideal relationship of the people to their God is to be like that of a married couple who care for one another and whose first thought us for the other in times of danger or difficulty. It is the kind of closeness that can finish one another’s sentences and the kind of intimacy which knows what the other would want without asking but is always willing to listen to each other and hear the person behind the words.

Some of what we know about God has been in our hearts so long it is hard-wired. I visit nursing homes where the residents don’t know what year it is or to what generation they are speaking; grandchildren become children as the intervening years slip away and they are young once again. Yet just strike up the piano with Jesus Loves Me or start saying the Lord’s Prayer and you have a roomful of ageing voices joining in without missing a beat.

This kind of memory, this kind of closeness rarely happens overnight - not in a marriage, not in a close friendship, and not between God and humans. As a people of faith we are called to open our hearts to allow the will and word of God to be written on our hearts.

This kind of heart relationship with the law and love of God is like a garden; it needs to be cultivated and tended.

We need to focus on our own relationship with God, and with the health and vitality of our faith community. Faith and church community is not just something we do on Sunday, but it should be something which surrounds our lives and makes them more whole and more complete. Through our church family, as well as our human family, we should learn of God’s love for us, our call to be in loving community and our call to love God neighbour and self. It is this community which holds us up when we are discouraged and in which we participate because that’s who we are called to be.

We are not called out on a solitary journey of faith but rather we are called to be in relationship with God and with others who have chosen to undertake the same journey. Just like our 24/7 need for the heart which beats in our chest, our need for God to enliven us should also be the same - 24/7.

We are called on a journey of life, by the God who has promised us life in great abundance. Sometimes that journey will seem hard and not worth the extra effort, but we are called by one who promises to be with us each step of the way. We will be found faithful if we have joined with the community of faith, allowed God’s law to be written not just on paper but in our hearts and seek to follow in all of our living. Let us open our hearts, through prayer, reflection and the interaction of the community, taking God’s hand so that we can walk together in ways of true life.

Amen.

Joel 2: 23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18
Luke 18: 9-14

“Getting It Backwards”

Mac Davis’ song goes on to describe the singer’s life from the point of view of a self-proclaimed “perfect specimen” of the male half of the human race. In the song it seems that other perspectives, including that of the female half of the population are irrelevant. (pause)

We may hear Mac Davis’ song and find it very offensive because of the language and his attitude or we may also shrug and give a wry smile, saying to ourselves that it sounds just like someone we know. Our reaction may be a bit of both. Or we may never have thought that much about it when we heard the song.

I have a good friend whose son went to a jewellery store and was visibly ignored. He was probably a student at the time and may have looked like he didn’t have much money but I do know that the store lost a sale that day AND also a future customer.

Let me tell you the story of Raymond. From a sermon by Pamela Tinnin, posted on the PRCL-L preaching list . Raymond had Down’s Syndrome and lived in a some kind of group home. On Sundays the whole group of them attended a local Episcopalian church in their town in Oregon. After a great deal of hard work Raymond became an altar boy and he was very conscientious and was proud to “work in God’s house”. He and his friends attended that church mostly because of the invitation of the priest.

One Sunday they were to discover that not all churches and priests were as welcoming. They were attending the state’s Special Olympics and instead of sleeping in on Sunday morning they dragged their counsellors to the Episcopalian church across the street from the hotel. It was an enormous building but there were only about 100 people in attendance. The building was in need of a great deal of repair and upkeep but everything was prim and proper as far as the worship service went. When the altar boys appeared Raymond whispered (in a very LOUD whisper) to his counsellor, “that’s me – that’s my job”. I gather that the priest looked up and simply glowered at Raymond and the other disabled men sitting in the second row. It didn’t help that Raymond was bouncing up and down and waving his hand.

Just as the very dry sermon was coming to an end the door opened and a man, looking very much like the other regulars there, wearing a suit and tie and carrying a fedora, the kind of hat most well-dressed men wore in the 60's and 70's. He came in and sat down in the back row. Even from the front it was obvious that he has been crying and he kept crying for the rest of the service.

The Priest looked toward the back, once, but that was all. He proceeded with the liturgy; what else could he do anyway.

When it came time for everyone to go forward to receive communion Raymond stayed in his seat but kept glancing toward the back. The tearful man had not moved. Finally Raymond stood up and bounded to the back of the church and stood beside the tearful man. He took the weeping man’s hand and pulled him up. The man shook his head and tried to push Raymond away, saying something no one else could hear. However, everyone heard what Raymond said to him: ‘ “God loves you, no matter. You come… you come.”

They walked together to the front and knelt to receive the bread and the wine and at that moment nothing else mattered - God was there, feeding the lost lambs and welcoming them home.

When Raymond died in 1986 at age 51, he was buried in his altar boy’s robe, the one his mother had made him, with his Star Wars lunch box beside him. There was standing room only in the church and the priest invited anyone who wished to speak. Many did and each one talked about how Raymond had touched their lives. This was a man who many would have seen as someone with nothing to contribute who ended up giving so much. Clearly, his quiet presence had changed many lives.

It’s hard to really understand Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Our society is simply so different from that in Jesus’ day that we have no equivalent professions. Pharisees were, for the most part, the best educated and most moral people in the community. They could indeed keep all the laws down to all of the fine print. They could actually keep them to a greater extent than was required because it seems that the pharisee in the parable was able to do so. Tax collectors were a different story. They worked for ROME, the much reviled occupying power, whose oppression of the people was cruel and relentless. Tax collectors were local people, ordinary people, BUT they were Jews who worked for the enemy and often profited handsomely because of it - or most people assumed they did!

As soon as Jesus started telling the parable EVERYONE would have known who was the “good guy” and who was the “bad guy”. Imagine their surprise when Jesus completely reversed it. Like all of Jesus’ parables though, it leaves people scratching their heads, wondering what Jesus could have meant.

I haven’t watched Sesame Street lately but they used to help their audience learn how to distinguish between things that were the same and things that were different.

One of these things is not like the others

One of these things just doesn’t belong

Can you tell which one is not like the others

before I finish my song.

It would be fairly easy if you had, say, a baseball, a soccer ball, a basketball and a hockey puck. Three balls and one thing that wasn’t a ball. But what if you were shown pictures of a canary, a parrot, a gerbil and a mosquito. Obviously, three can fly and one cannot. However you COULD also make an equally compelling case for making the distinctions based on three being common pets and one clearly being a “non pet”. (I’m sorry! I just assumed that no one keeps them as pets.)

But what about people? You could play the same game with pictures of four people. Depending on who was in the pictures you could say that one “did not belong” with the others because of

gender;

or age;

or hair colour;

or ethnic background;

or occupation;

or any number of criteria which could come up with completely different groupings using the pictures of the same four people. And each grouping would be completely correct, based on the criteria used.

At the beginning of each school year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the first-years are sorted into “houses” by a magical sorting hat which decides if the new student is a Hufflepuff, a Ravenclaw, a Slytherin or a Gryffindor! As far as many students were concerned the House into which one was sorted made a great deal of difference, based on history, family tradition and what had happened when their friends had put on the hat. A great deal of the story centres on the superior attitude a certain group of Slytherins had toward others in the school, particularly those derisively called “mud-bloods”. Yet, each received the same education and was given the same opportunities.

What do we value? What and whom does God value? Whom would we welcome into our home, or our church? Whom would we welcome as a date for our child or a potential spouse? How do we come to some of our assumptions about people? Does behaviour and personal conduct matter?

What sector of society is responsible for teaching the next generation its values, norms of behaviour and attitudes. If I were to take a survey on the tasks of the church in general and more specifically the Sunday school I might be told that two of the most commonly held notions about the purpose of Church and Sunday School is that they are there to teach us about the Bible and to teach us right from wrong.

However, the danger is that in the process of teachings these things we also teach, directly or indirectly, that some people have more value to God than others. The ones who have more value are, of course, the “good ones”. While many of us were warned against the feeling of being “better than anyone else”; yet I think that it’s something we are all in danger of feeling or believing. Our righteousness drives a wedge between ourselves and others. Jesus told this parable as much for the pharisees as he did for the tax collectors. God’s love for us is not diminished because others receive it as well.

Our task is to be part of God’s plan in welcoming everyone into a place where they can know love and acceptance and life-changing power. If we build up walls to keep out the undesirables, we may just find that we are on the wrong side of the wall.

IN the love of Christ, let us seek to offer the same welcome that we have received.

Amen.

Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 119: 137-144
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19: 1-10

I well remember the evening a group of friends and I went to hear Rita McNeill who had come to Halifax for one performance. In the mid 1980's she was just starting to become famous. The venue had open seating so a couple of us went really early and reserved seats for the rest of our party. We had found the best table in the house. By the time our friends arrived we could actually have sold those seats several times over.

(Except for this summer) for several years now, my sister and I have a “Gold Cup and Saucer Parade Day Ritual”. We leave home early and go to Cora’s for breakfast. Then we go back to the car and pick up our hats, sun screen, water bottles and lawn chairs and go to our favourite spot on Grafton Street, up from the corner a little and just outside Subway and the Bank of Montreal and we set up our chairs, reserving a few spaces for my a couple of my sister’s friends and their families. Its what you have to do to get a good spot. If you have a couple of young kids who don’t want to stand for 2 hours to wait for the parade to start its good to have friends to do it for you.

The newspapers are full of stories of people who camp out for days to get in a line up for concert tickets or “opening day” sales with “rock bottom” prices. The lining up and the scramble to be one of the “first 20 customers” who gets to buy the stuff that’s “Practically free”, is like a game and the savings go to the most hardy. In some places the deals go to those who can push and shove their way to the sale display before anyone else can do the same. Sometimes grabbing the “last one” from someone else’s hands or shopping cart is also normal. In these cases it’s the toughest who win and the faint of heart or body need only stand aside and wait for “second best deals”.

On the day Jesus came to town, Zacchaeus was probably one of those who had been shoved aside by the crowd. He didn’t get a “good seat” or even good standing room. He had to climb a tree to get a good vantage point. Climbing trees is something boys do, not something done by grown men, at least back then!

We don’t know much about Zacchaeus - in fact, his story, is told only in Luke’s gospel. We have always assumed that it was Zacchaeus who was the short one. I’m sure most of us remember the children’s song:

 Zacchaeus was a wee small man
A wee small man was he.
And he climbed up in a Sycamore tree
For Jesus he wanted to see. 

Some biblical scholars think that the passage could be saying that Jesus was the short one and not Zacchaeus at all! Apparently the Greek IS a little fuzzy on that matter. However it really doesn’t matter who was the short one - the passage tells us that it was impossible for Zacchaeus to see Jesus if he didn’t take matters into his own hands. So he hitched up his long robes and grabbed a limb and climbed into that famous sycamore tree.

Even though it does not seem like it initially, the story of Zacchaeus and his encounter with Jesus is really a miracle story! In the 18th chapter Jesus encounters another rich man, a man usually referred to as the “rich young ruler”. Jesus told him that what HE needed to do was to “sell his possessions” and give everything to the poor. Luke tells us that this yong man went away sad - for he was very rich. Jesus then says that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Just picture that, if you would. pause

A camel, an animal so big that you need to get it to get down on all fours so that you can get on its back. pause

A camel, an animal big enough to carry heavy loads over long distances. pause

A camel, a big, nasty and ill tempered animal. pause

and, A needle, small enough to sew a design on a fine garment or large enough to stitch together a couple of dozen goat skins to make a tent, it probably doesn’t really matter pause

Try and park a travel trailer in a single parking space.

Give a grown man a baby’s shoe and ask him to put it on.

Take a rope big enough to tie up a boat and thread it into a sewing needle.

We laugh, because we are supposed to. pause It’s meant to be funny. It’s meant to emphasize the point. It would take nothing short of a miracle to accomplish this.

Make no mistake, he was a good man. The rich young man was not a lawbreaker - he kept the laws; his problem was his riches. Not only was the young ruler rich though, it seems that he loved his money. It was this love of money that kept him from the abundant live proclaimed by Jesus. For him to give up what meant so much to him, would, in effect, take a miracle.

It would take a miracle to pass a camel through the eye of a needle!

What Luke’s gospel is telling the readers is: Zacchaeus is that miracle. In Zacchaeus the impossible has happened. The grace of God has changed and transformed this man and made him into a true disciple.

We are not sure just why Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. We are not sure what he had heard about Jesus and his message. However, the effect of it is quite clear.

Zacchaeus wealth is not the issue; at least not in and of itself. The issue is whether or not he had amassed that wealth by dishonesty or gouging. As I understand it, a tax collector was an independent contractor. A man who wanted the job would bid for it and if his bid was accepted he would pay the Roman government for the privilege of collecting the taxes in a certain area. He was then free to determine whatever rates were necessary to repay the price of the contract, PLUS a return on his investment of course! Rome did not really care how much was charged as long as they got their share, which was substantial, in and of itself. Rome cared very little for the people they had conquered. They only cared about keeping the peace and they dd so brutally and at great cost.

The people saw things a little differently though, especially the people of Israel. Because tax collectors worked for Rome and were believed to be gouging their neighbours, they were seen as traitors.

Jesus message changes all of this.

Now, here’s where the Greek gets a little fuzzy again. We aren’t sure if it his encounter with Jesus and his teachings, on this day, or on some other day, that made Zacchaeus reassess his business plan. We don’t know how much he charged ‘over and above’. We don’t know how much he needed to charge in order to make an honest living? Maybe the miracle of his conversion had happened before, and Zacchaeus was merely reporting it, maybe it happened on this day.

Regardless, Luke’s message is that miracles are more than possible, and, in fact, they do happen. The power of God, at work in human lives, can, and does change people - even the most unlikely people.

(Dundas ending)

December 24, 1914 was bitterly cold. All along the front, the allied troops were hunkered down in their trenches wishing for home. They were within sight of the German lines. If they listened hard enough, they could hear them, they were that close. They had previously thought that the war would be over and they would have been home by Christmas but that has not happened. The mud and the cold had penetrated their inadequate uniforms and footwear and they all wanted to be home, sitting by a warm fire, spending time with their families and not here, not in France, not outside, fearing the next shell or hail of bullets or command to go “over the top”.

Then, one of them shushed his comrades, saying, “Listen!” They did and what they heard almost brought tears to their eyes. It was singing in a language no one knew, but singing just the same. Soon another tune drifted across the sea of mud and barbed wire, and this time the tune was familiar, even if the words were not. They did not have to state the obvious, it was “Silent Night” - Stille Nacht in German. It may have been at this point that the allied soldiers started to sing themselves, this time in English As the last verse was sung an allied soldier began to sing another favourite Christmas song and they all joined in. A sentry, keeping an eye on the enemy shouted that a soldier was coming toward them with a white truce flag held high. As he came closer it was as if a dam had burst and men from each side met as bothers in the middle of the lines of battle. They could not understand one another’s words but the sharing of brandy and chocolates and the showing of pictures of sweethearts and family members is a universal activity. They played soccer there in no-man’s land. They found the human connections that had almost been destroyed by war. Apparently this went on for days. The generals didn’t like it one bit. It was bad for morale; it was no way to run a war. Getting a soldier to kill a nameless enemy is one thing, but to kill a person he may have met and who may have been a friend, is quite another.

Eventually the Christmas truce was over and the killing and the carnage lasted for almost 4 more years - but the famous Christmas truce will never be forgotten. The last Allied soldier to have participated in the famous truce died just after Remembrance Day, 2 years ago, at the age of 106. The last known Canadian Veteran of WW1 now lives in Spokane Washington and is 107. Too young far active duty he was still in training when the war ended.

It would take a miracle to stop most wars, in the middle of a battlefield but that’s what happened on that night, even if it was only for a short time, as each army celebrated the birth of Prince of Peace. Too bad that it could not have happened on a more permanent basis, before 9,000,000 people had been killed and countless others maimed in body and soul.

On November 11 - on the 11th day of the 11th Month at the 11th hour our country will pause - to remember - to reflect on the wars that have cost us so much - as individuals, as families, as communities, as a country.

The names read today are known to us personally, or are part of our collective community memory. In almost every community in this country there exists a similar list - a sons and daughters of Canada who served - and gave their lives for the hope of peace.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them. We remember those who, for the most part, had their whole lives in front of them. They had crops to plant or trees to cut or coal to dig, sweethearts to marry, children to raise and would have grown old and full of years - yet they gave that up for theirs and other people’s children - for generations as yet unborn, so that we might live in peace.

They say that Remembrance Day is making a comeback and that is probably true. But unfortunately its not because of peace, but because of war - our committments in Afghanistan have cost us so many lives - 71 at last count.

It may take a miracle to stop this war, but we are a people who believe in miracles; a people who believe in the power of God to change lives and to change the most impossible of situations . While we must live in the real world, the world of the here and now, we also live in the world of miracles, the world where God’s power changes lives and brings peace, not only in hearts and souls but peace on earth.

May it be so.

Amen.

Souris Ending

But we ARE a people who believe in miracles - not the ones which cannot be explained scientifically - dismissed as the hocus-pocus of a previous generation . But true miracles are those things which are impossible by human power and initiative alone. True miracles involve the working of the Spirit to change lives and hearts. True miracles aren’t accomplished in ther blinking of an eye, but rather take a great deal of hard work and may involve setbacks and reassessments, but are nonetheless, the result of God’s power working in human life.

The other thing that strikes me about the story of Zacchaeus, other than the miraculous nature of it, is the joyfulness with which Zacchaeus embraces his new way of life. We are told that he was happy to welcome Jesus to his home.

This joyfulness would be tested as he faced the opposition of those who still regarded him as a sinner. It would have been tested by those who refused to believe that this leopard could change its spots.

That’s often the way it still is. We form opinions of others, or form them of ourselves and we believe true change to be impossible. So we lie around, bemoan our situation and get used to our misery.

The story of Zacchaeus tells us that change is possible and indeed that miraculous change is the common work of the Spirit, provided that we allow the Spirit to work and we work with the Spirit.

The Spirit is at work, in you, in your neighbour, in me, in the most surprising of people. The Spirit has the power to turn hearts of stone into lives that share the bread of life. Let us be open to this power.

Amen!

Haggai 1: 15b - 2:9
Psalm 145: 1-5, 17-21
2 Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17
Luke 20: 27-38

,center>There’s NO Winning That Argument!

I have a good friend who does not believe in the Easter Bunny. She believes in the Easter Duck. Her reasoning is that Bunnies don’t lay eggs so the ducks that hang around at Easter are the real heroes, responsible for leaving all those delicious eggs around the houses of good children. She feels that it is quite unfortunate that all of the credit goes to the lazy and good for nothing bunnies. I’ve tried to persuade her of the error of her ideas but to no avail!

So, when she comes to me and says, “Tell me, do the bunnies deliver their eggs just after midnight or just before dawn?” I know it is a trick question - because she is sure that bunnies have nothing to do with delivering Easter eggs. No matter what answer I give, she will declare that it is incorrect for one reason or another.

Apparently, there was once a man who got the idea somehow that he was dead. No amount of argument on behalf of his friends could convince him otherwise. Finally, one of his friends said, “Do dead men bleed?”

He replied, “Well, no! Of course not!”

So his friend convinced him to prick his finger as proof that he was not dead.

He did so, and his finger did indeed bleed.

“See!” said his friend triumphantly.

“Well, whadda ya know”, the man said, dead men DO bleed”. <

I> (pause)

Talking to the Sadducees about the resurrection would have been like trying to convince my friend about the habits of the Easter Bunny or that man that he was alive. Jesus knew this, but instead of becoming very annoyed he took the question to a new level. He used it as an opportunity to talk about the God of life not being bound by the human categories.

The situation the Sadducees cook up about all of those husbands is a little far fetched, but not as completely ludicrous as it might sound at first. While their query stretched the limits of credulity, they wanted to know what would happen in the resurrection “if”. The question would be the same for a woman married twice, but not nearly as dramatic.

Let me explain. Their hypothetical situation centres around the very real practice of “Levirate marriage”. In that time and place marriage had very little to do with love, romance and companionship. It was a property issue. It was a way by whihc a man would ensure he had legitimate offspring to inherit his name and his property. It went like this: If a man doed before he had children, her husband’s brother was obliged to marry her and produce a son in his dead brother’s name. This would ensure the property was kept in the family and ensured that women were not left destitute. The Sadducees come up with this scenario where a whole family of brothers fails to produce an heir as a way of picking holes in a belief in the resurrection.

“See” they say to Jesus, probably confident that Jesus can find no way out of the argument. Either Jesus will be stumped or his answer will be as silly as this talk about resurrection. Either way Jesus will have to agree that there is no resurrection.

You see, the Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the what we usually call the Old Testament. Since, in their opinion, there was nothing in the Torah about eternal life, they didn’t accept it.

Jesus does not argue with them and try to beat their ideas up, but instead he divides his answer into two parts. In the first part of his answer Jesus asserts that marriage, and the reproduction that goes with it, necessary in a world where people die, will not be needed in a world where people live forever. The Sadducees are comparing apples to oranges.

A grief counsellor was visiting a school where a classmate had died in an accident. One little boy seemed to have a something else on his mind at the end of their time together so the counsellor asked him to stay behind. She asked him if he had anything on his mind. Finally the little boy said, “My Mom said that he would be lying down in a box and they would bury him in the ground. What I want to know is how he is going to get up to go to the bathroom?”

We may chuckle at the little boy’s honest question, but Jesus answer is the same - there are some things we need to be concerned about in this world but not in the next.

Did you hear the one about the man who managed to make a bargain with God. He agreed to give 100% of his money to the church provided that he could first convert some of his assets to as many gold bars as he could carry in a suitcase. He could “Take this suitcase with him”. By and by the man died and as his will stipulated he was buried with his suitcase full of gold and his assets were liquidated and given to his church.

Now, the story shifts to the afterlife. We find our friend happily walking up the golden path to the pearly gates lugging his suitcase. He had discovered that he was not as strong as he used to be and that the gold was very heavy.

When St Peter met him at the pearly gates he is asked what was in the suitcase. He told St Peter about the deal and St Peter exclaimed, “Great, you brought pavement”.

Clearly some of the things that seem to count in this world are not valued in the same way in the next.

In the second part of his answer he uses a simple example from a story deep in the centre of that Torah they loved to have them look at their own stories in a new way and with open minds.

As I understand it, Jesus interpretation goes something like this. In the story of Moses the voice speaks words like these: I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Since the voice does not say, “I WAS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he reasons that he is still their God and to God they must be alive. So what seems like a lesson in grammar becomes an “aha” moment, or can become such a moment in the life of those who are seeking insight into God’s never ending power and love.

I think that what Jesus ends up saying is that the reality of the resurrection and the reality of physical life on earth are so different they are hard to compare. You can’t use the same rules for both of them., if you do, the result can be very silly.

To use a modern phrase, Jesus is trying to get them to “think outside the box”. Jesus is trying to get them to see things with the eyes of faith rather than the reason that keeps them from seeing the ways in which God’s power

It seems to me that most of Jesus’ ministry was getting people to focus on the life of faith and a large part of that was trust. Become a giving person and trust that your needs will be met. Step out in faith and trust that God will go with you. Live you life in this place as it is a gift of God and trust that God has something equally spectacular planned for the next. Some people have spent a great deal of time trying to come up with descriptions of that “place” will be like. In the ancient world, this place, called heaven was “up there”. But that’s just an image, helpful to come and not to others. The Sadducees of 2007 would come to Jesus and say, “How come the space station hasn’t found heaven yet? How come our telescopes haven’t found it? Tell us. Tell us.”

Then there are those folks that seem to be have nothing on their minds but heaven. It has been said of some people that they are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good. This life is not just some place we are passing through, like an unexpected stop when our plane has to land at another airport. It is a gift that we are meant to enjoy and respond to in faith and love.

Our call is to seek to be fully human and fully alive – and trust in the God who holds all of life and all who have been alive in arms of caring and love.

If we can trust in the One who was brooding over the waters of creation; the One who called prophets and teachers of old, and the One who holds them all in care and love, the One who was also the God of Jesus of Nazareth, then what other assurance do we need. Let us go forth to live in faith and love.

Amen.

Isaiah 65: 17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3: 65-13
Luke 21: 5-19

A New Thing

Approximately twelve years ago, Wesley United Church, Gabarus and Zion United Church, Gabarus Lake amalgamated as one congregation to form Zion/Wesley United with services being held at Zion United, Gabarus Lake. In February of this year a fire completely destroyed the magnificent two-steepled building which was home to the Zion/Wesley church. Within one week the congregation began having services in the church hall, and plans are underway to rebuild on the same site as the old church.

Shortly after the fire a congregational member found some wood that had been a part of one of the steeples of their beloved building and fashioned a cross which sits at the front of their worship space as a sign of hope and of God’s never failing presence.

As a part of their fundraising campaign, letters were sent to all Pastoral Charges in Maritime Conference. As a show of support and Christian unity our Official Board has send a $100 donation. Of course, when it comes to an entirely new building, $100 won’t buy much but we felt it was a sign of caring and Christian community. We asked the question, “What would we want if it was our church and the shoe was on the other foot?”

The loss of a church building is a devastating experience for a community of faith but sometimes the people decide NOT to rebuild. Sometimes they amalgamate with another congregation, and sometimes they decide to worship in another place - a space used for something else the other 6 and a half days a week.

I have a colleague who said the fire which destroyed her church was the best thing that ever happened to that inner-city congregation, because the people were freed from the upkeep of stained glass and deteriorating stonework and increasingly costly repairs and were now able to decide what kind of building was needed to facilitate their ministry.

We all remember the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it visited upon New Orleans, a city rich in culture and history, a city which had the unfortunate characteristics of being below sea level and being home to many poor people of colour. But despite lack of government action, which has delayed the reconstruction for far too long, I believe the city will rise again and will teem with life and the vibrancy it once had.

When any city is destroyed, by natural disaster or by war, it is a devastating thing. You can look at pictures of London or Berlin taken at the end of the Second World War or a host of other cities and wonder where one could possibly start to rebuild. But today the rubble is gone and the community teems with life and there are few scars of the former devastation.

Yet it was not accomplished by the actions of a “fairy godmother who came down and waved her magic want” and everything is as it was before. How had that rebuilding happened? I’m not 100% certain, but I think that it was at least equal parts the hope and belief that these things could happen, AS WELL AS also a great deal of work and determination. It was fuelled by the belief that life was worth living in that place and that their lives could have meaning in the midst of the new things which would replace the destroyed.

The people to whom the prophet Isaiah wrote the words of the 65th chapter would have known first-hand about this. One thing we need to remember about the book of Isaiah, is that there were actually at least three prophets who used the name Isaiah; writing before, during and after a devastating time of war and captivity, known as “the exile”. During the exile many of the people were carried off into captivity in Babylon and then many years later were allowed to return to their homeland. Yet, when they returned they found the city in ruins and their homes and farmland occupied by others. As you can imagine, such a return was not totally the “answer to prayer” they thought it was going to be. They quickly realized that anything they could rebuild was not as grand as what it was replacing. Many of the older folks could say, “Things were just not he same”. Things were often seen as much better in “the good olde days”. The utopia that they had expected had not arrived.

Even with these three different situations found in the book of Isaiah, each of the prophets called Isaiah, are definitely prophets who place their faith and their future firmly in God’s hands, all the while calling the people to a PRESENT and faithful response to God’s presence in their lives.

There is a story told of a farmer who decided to replace his aging barn which was leaking badly and did almost nothing to protect his cattle from the elements. He build a beautiful new barn using the latest technology available and had the old one torn down, leaving just the foundation. However, to his surprise and disappointment, on the first rainy and cold day the cattle did not head for the new structure but instead huddled together within the foundation of the old one.

I guess that human beings are a little like those cattle, in that we are creatures of habit. Even though the old has been torn down, or has burned down, or is no longer any good, it is still more comfortable and familiar than the new and the untried. Even though we have no good answer when Dr Phil asks us, “How’s that working for you? We cling to the familiar.

Today’s passage from Isaiah calls the people to lift their eyes out of the valley of despair and to focus on the mountains of hope. The people of Israel believed so strongly in Jerusalem as the centre of their religious life that they had a hard time believing that they would experience God’s presence elsewhere, or could worship God in any other place than the ‘holy mountain’ of Jerusalem.

Someone once said, “If you live your life out of memory, you live out your history. If you live your life out of your imagination, you live out your potential.” - Quoted in Peter Perry’s sermon posted on the P-RCL email list at least three years ago - God’s people have always been called to be on a journey, to be going forward into the future, not to be confined by their history. The more stories you read in the Bible the more you realize that it is almost like the stereotype of a person lost in the woods and going in circles; the story of the people becoming complacent and forgetting God’s call to them in the present and then losing all that they had and then trying to figure out how to be God’s people in a new and frightening future. And then being shocked out of their new complacency by a new crisis.

There has been a great deal of talk lately about closing churches, particularly in the Roman Catholic Churches on the Island because of the shortage of priests and the lack of funds available for upkeep of all those buildings. We know that we are in the process of making some of those same kinds of decisions in this Pastoral Charge.

We are called to reflect on this situation in the light of our passages for today. When I was a teenager at church camp we are taught a modern song by Avery and marsh which went something like this:

The church is not a building 
the church is not a steeple
the church is not a stopping place 
the church is a people

I am the church
you are the church

we are the church together
All who follow Jesus
All around the world
Yes we are the church together”

We have long been taught that the church is not a building, but is a people, a community of faith. Yet we all say that “on Sunday we GO to church”. I am probably guilty of that as well. We drive by one and say “What a nice church!!.

Yet the question we need to ask ourselves is something like: “Where is our church on Tuesday?” Where is our church when this building is empty? Where is our church when the needy are calling for help? Where is our church when hearts are breaking? Where is our church when we are struggling with the day to day tasks of raising children, managing work and home life, paying the mortgage, trying to keep our marriages together, and caring for ageing relatives.

If we too believe in an era where justice rolls down like a mighty waterfall, how does our practice of church show that we believe in this kind of justice mercy and peace?

We are called to live into the future that God had promised to us. We are called to ask the questions about what kinds of buildings, and what kinds of programs and what kinds of worship we need to be able to respond to that call with integrity and purpose.

Amen.

Jeremiah 23: 1-6
Luke 1: 68-79
Colossians 1: 11-20
Luke 23: 33-43

What Kind of King Is That?

On Tuesday Queen Elizabeth II became the first British sovereign to celebrate her diamond wedding anniversary. She ascended to the British throne in 1952 following the death of her father, George VI. In the British Commonwealth there are periodic debates about the future of the monarchy. The power of the British Monarchy has been curbed by the constitutions of various former colonies to a figurehead position. Yet, every law passed still requires what is called “royal ascent” - when the bill is signed into law by the Queen’s Representative. Cases in criminal courts pit the “Crown” prosecutor against the defence attorney and the accused.

When we think of Kings and Queens these days , we think of pomp and pageantry; of strict protocol, of a huge entourage who accompanies the Royals when they travel. We think of fancy carriages and large palaces and we think of money of the kind most of us will never see.

Those of us who are students of history know that the British Empire once stretched all around the globe and it was boasted that the sun never set on British soil, because it was always daytime somewhere in the Empire, and later the Commonwealth.

Those of us who are students of history also know the this empire was achieved by brute force and power and maintained, in some places, by cruel oppression. That’s the way of Empires.

The way of modern, constitutional monarchy is one of countless appearances, tiring international travel, very little privacy, constant stalking by paparazzi, but also a high sense of duty.

The people whose story is told in the biblical record knew about the power of empire. Their ancestors before them had known the power of their own monarch, the power of Babylon and Assyria and others. They had known it as a power to bring life and a power to take life away. The people to whom the gospels were first addressed would have known well the power of the Roman Empire. It was a power kept by brute force and real fear; it was, after all, the power of Rome which killed Jesus.

Today is sometimes referred to as the “Reign of Christ” Sunday. It is the climax of the Church Year. Beginning on the first Sunday of Advent, 51 weeks ago, the church year moved through hope and expectation to fulfilment.

At Christmas, the angelic choirs heralded the birth of the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace. I could almost hear the choruses of Handel’s Messiah in my head as I wrote this last night.

During the season of Lent we journeyed with Jesus to the cross and then we entered the blackness of Good Friday.

Easter Sunday heralded God’s triumph over death and for the next 50 days or so the risen Christ was seen and felt and experienced by the new group of folks who would eventually call themselves the church. A number of days after the Ascension, the Spiti came upon the believers in an unmistakable way and for the next six months or so the church grew and expanded and struggled with what it meant to follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth and to worship the God of love and life.

On this day, the last Sunday of this cycle of the lectionary (which is just a list of reading designed to touch on the major stories and themes of the Bible over a three year period) we take a look at just what kind of ruler this Jesus is.

One of the major problems that is addressed by the gospels was the differing expectations between what the Messiah was SUPPOSED to come and do and be, and how Jesus ministry called people to live and be. For him power was about something other than imposing his will on all of creation and especially his enemies.

In this cycle of those readings from the lectionary, we read the story of Jesus crucifixion.; not the whole thing but the interaction between Jesus and the two thieves crucified with him.

Crucifixion was a public, humiliating and very painful means of executing troublemakers and those deemed enemies of Rome. To writer of the gospel of Luke, this story says something very powerful about the person of Jesus and his ministry. The sign over his head on the cross was clearly meant to mock him in the same way that those standing on the ground below did.

In the mocking Jesus is invited to save himself, to prove that he was the messiah. If you will remember, Jesus dealt with similar during his time in the wilderness jsut after his baptism and before he began his ministry. But Jesus knew that this would not win any hearts, and would not change any minds - responding to such taunts never does. As the story in the gospel goes, one of the criminals crucified alongside him gets in on the act. He clearly has his own interests in mind and you can understand why. Yet it seems that the other has seen something or understood something about the nature of this stranger between them that the first has not seen. This second criminal knows his own guilt and knows also the innocence and real power of this one who also been crucified.

The Shawshank Redemption is a prison movie about Andy Dufresne, a man sent to prison for a crime he did not commit. He is befriended by a lifer nicknamed “Red”. Every year or so Red is sent to a parole hearing and proclaims that he is truly rehabilitated and every time his parole is denied. After many years in prison the innocent man escapes and Red realizes that he has changed. When he goes before the parole board this time he is singing a different tune. He is sorry for what he has done and he really doesn’t know what rehabilitation means. They grant his parole. His relationship with Andy, a truly innocent man, a man who could be free despite being unjustly imprisoned, has completely transformed him.

The Gospel of Luke is trying to tell us something very important about the ministry of Jesus. It’s not about power, as we traditionally understand that. It’s not about looking out for yourself. It’s not about “getting back” at your enemies. It’s not about competition. Those who walk by see the traditional words and know that the man on the cross does not fill the bill so they mock him.

Others knew differently. The disciples, who by this point, had deserted him, would “get it” and come back. A nuer of women who had been following him, “got it” and stuck around. The one criminal on the other cross “got it” and asked for forgiveness and recognition as a follower.

While those who mock Jesus, speak the truth, they do so only in jest; the one whom you would least expect, a common criminal, recognizes who Jesus is, recognizes the extent of his power, and recognizes his own shortcomings and sin. He dares to speak the truth and dares to ask for forgiveness, not escape (which is what the other criminal meant by being saved).

When we read any biblical passage we are called to reflect on what it means for our own living. On the Reign of Christ Sunday we are also called to reflect on what “Jesus’ Reign” means for our lives as a community and as individuals.

Some of us long for the not so long ago day when the Church had political and social clout and at least tried to exercise this clout. Some of us see God and Jesus as a rule maker and a punisher; if we don’t keep our noses clean, we are going to be punished and we are happy that we have been able to follow the most important of those rules.

But maybe the questions we need to ask ourselves today is “Whom do we see on the cross?” What kind of Reign are we celebrating? Are we celebrating a conquering king who holds power out of fear, or we celebrating the life of one who reigns through the power of self giving love and has taught all of his followers to do the same. Are we celebrating the reign of the shepherd who cares for the sheep. Are we celebrating the love of One who came to share our lives in all of their joys and sorrows so that we could know the full and abundant life promised to us?

Amen.