Season Of Pentecost - Year A -- 2017
Indexed by Date. Sermons for the Season Of Pentecost Year A
Exodus 32: 1-14
Psalm 106
Philippians 4: 1-9
I am a Harry Potter fan. I first fell in love with the books and then with the movies. After the death of his parents he was taken to the home of his mother’s sister, Aunt Petunia, for his safety. Aunt Petunia agreed to look after Harry but wasn’t really very welcoming. At some point they try to renege on their responsibilities to provide Harry with a home and a fiery, screaming telegram (called a Howler) arrives which LOUDLY reminds Petunia, “YOU PROMISED”.
Today’s passage from the book of Exodus is about broken promises and the God who continues to renew the covenant despite these actions on the part of the people.
As a quick reminder, by the time of the incident outlined in the Exodus passage, that Jo read just a few moments ago, the people have been in the desert for some time after escaping from Egypt under the leadership of Moses.
There was once a couple who decided that it was time that their child was able to stay in his own bed for the entire night. Of course, all children need to be able to do that, eventually! One night the entire family was awakened by a loud thunderstorm. The child called out, “mommy - daddy, I’m afraid. Please come and tuck me in again.” After simply telling him to go back to sleep did not work, they tried out some theology, “Don’t worry sweetie, God will look after you. Go back to sleep. God loves you.”
Just then, another, very loud, clap of thunder shook the house!
The child replied, “I know God loves me but right now I need someone with skin on.”
In today’s passage the people of Israel are waiting once again for Moses to return from a trip up the nearby mountain to talk with God. He has been on the mountain, behind a cloud of smoke and mist for 40 days; in other words for “a long time.”) They are becoming impatient. They want some assurance that they are going to be looked after.
It’s not like they did not have some amazing experiences, but they wanted the man with “skin on,” to come back down from the mountain and tell them what was going on. Their primary question was probably, “How much longer till we’re there”?” They had very short memories!
They began to doubt Moses. Though they don’t really know him very well, they knew that he was the man responsible for persuading Pharaoh to let them go. He was the one with the connection to the God of their ancestors. He was the one who had ensured that they would be fed manna and have water for their needs.
They grew impatient and fearful. They cried out to the one Moses had put in charge for his help and for assurances they had not been abandoned to die out in this harsh wilderness.
In the face of their pleas Aaron caved in. He should have known better, but instead of telling them to trust in the God who had already done so much for them, Aaron took the easy way out.
Even though the the people of Israel had already been told they were not to be “like the others” and that their God was not to be confined or limited by anything in creation and the people were not to try and make an image or likeness of this ONE who was both creator of the whole earth and the ONE who had called them into a special relationship with him through their ancestors and demanded their undivided allegiance - Aaron made an idol for them to worship!
He collected anything that could be melted, took out his propane torch, and soon had a golden calf for the people to look at, pray to, and celebrate around. This was a representation of one of the gods worshipped by the locals! THEN he gave this gaudy gold god represented by this calf the credit for bringing them out of Egypt. He proclaimed a festival!
While this calf was not human like Moses, their leader, (it did not have “skin on”), it had substance. They could see it. It was more real to them than a God who was invisible, could only be communicated with by a select few, and seemed to live behind fire and smoke on mountaintops!
(You may have caught that reference to the propane torch - I have no idea how they would have done this out in the desert; or how slaves got any gold - but that’s what the story says!
Now Moses is still on the mountain when God informs him that his people have abandoned the covenant, SO SOON and God tells Moses that he will destroy them. God wants undivided loyalty. God wants the people to be exclusive.
In response, Moses appeals to God’s mercy. Moses even argues, “What will the Egyptians think if find out that they let the people go only to see them destroyed by their own God.” And God reconsiders! God changes his mind!
It’s quite a story. It wont be the last time the people stray from the covenant God established with the people. And it wont be the last time that God shows mercy and renews the covenant that he established.
So, all these thousands of years later, what does this story have to do with us? We aren’t on the run from an oppressive power? We are not refugees in a desert as a stopping off point on the way to another destination. We regard this as home and most of us have for 300 years or more. We don’t believe God lives on mountains? We don’t worship idols? Do we?
No we don’t believe God lives on mountains, but human understanding of God, God’s nature and where “God lives”, is an almost constantly evolving matter.
We sometimes forget that we live in an evolving society and that change is probably the only constangt.
As to idols, I suspect most of us don’t have an object that we consciously worship as divine. So we’re ok on that one. Right?
Welllllllll, I think that this story of the golden calf is very much our story. Like others have done before us, we have tried to replace our allegiance to the one who has called is into a covenantal relationship, with things we can see and touch and that make us feel safe and good.
Here in 21st century Canada we love fake lives. We follow fake stories. We operate by skewed values. We have displaced that which is holy with things created by humans and may well be in the process of destroying that very creation that God called good.
We all heard on Friday that Sears Canada is closing. However, we will be comforted by knowing that Ikea can provide us with all of our needs. Or Amazon. Or one of those new stores that we have been promised. We can shop our way to happiness!
There is noting wrong with having things, but we must remember that buying stuff will not bring us true happiness; the shine will wear off sooner or later and we will need to replace those things with a newer pile of stuff. We try to fill the loneliness or holes in our lives with stuff - things we can see and touch rather than with meaning and purpose.
What else captures our attention and energy? Reality TV has become so very popular these days. American Idol, Survivor, and the Amazing Race are just a few of the shows which capture our attention and our allegiances! They have a way of sucking us in and changing how we see life. We become more concerned about the lives of these people than we do with the ones who are actually around us or who are on the nightly news and suffering from real disasters or violence. We care more about who wins the Amazing race than the people whose lives have been destroyed by a flood or hurricane.
Teenagers in particular are very susceptible to idol culture. How many posters of their heartthrob can a teen put on their walls or on their ceiling? Then, just as quickly, the allegiance changes. These teens then become adults who are still, in many ways, wrapped up in celebrity culture. Who is dating whom? How much did the ring cost? Who is getting divorced and what did it cost?
How does our society measure success? Success usually revolves around how much money one can make and amass. Sports stars, and movie celebrities seem to be at the top of the “successful people” lists. The rest of us are trying to, as they say, keep up with the Jonses”. Corporate CEO’s are rewarded with millions if they get bigger profits for the shareholders but throw thousands out of work!
Ironically, even while we consume more and more we are in a culture of scarcity. We hold on to what we have, and pile it up, out of a fear that it will all disappear. We remember with fondness the “good old days,” even if they really weren’t all that great, and we forget that we need to find our lives and faithfulness in the present.
A lot of that can be turned around by a perspective of abundance. I’m not talking about wasting the earth’s resources - but about changing our way of looking at life, so that we can trust in God and work for a better world.
God called the people of Israel to be a light to the nations, to show others how to live a life of trust - and not to live in fear. The people of Israel who followed Moses into the desert had to learn to trust God, day by day. The manna fell every day, BUT lasted only one day. They had to trust that more would be there tomorrow.
I’ve talked with members of AA who tell me that the “one day at a time” motto is very important for them. If they come to the point where they feel th ey “have made it” and stop working the steps they are very close to the point of having to begin all over again.
We can learn a great deal from cultures in the developing world who practice hospitality even though they have very little by our standards they simply share what they have and trust in God to provide for their needs.
God has promised us great things and promised that great things would be done through us. Let us live in the light of this covenant.
Amen.
1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10
Psalm 99
Matthew 22: 15-22
What’s In Your Wallet?
I have an important question for you all - you really need to be able to answer this one. You’ve all been to Sunday school, after all. How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark before the flood? Think about it for a minute if you aren’t sure.
I have another, more “general knowledge”, one. You’ve all learned basic grammar in school. Between these two sentences, please choose the correct one; “Penguins flies” or “A penguin flies”?
Anyone want to tell me their answers?
(Pause)
Of course, it was Noah that had the ark, not Moses - and penguins CAN’T fly!
(Pause)
Or this trickier one, “If God can do anything, could God make a rock sooooo big even God couldn’t lift it”?
(Pause)
I used to love watching Matlock. Defense attorney Ben Matlock was an expert at setting traps for the person who was actually guilty while he was defending his own client. Apparently a good courtroom lawyer never asks a witness a question for which he or she does not already know the answer. Matlock, being a TV lawyer, usually forced the guilty parties to reveal their own guilt on the witness stand.
Back to the biblical trap. On the day in question in the gospel story, we told that some Pharisees and the Herodians came to Jesus with a trick question, not a “groaner,” but one designed to get him in trouble with either “the authorities” or “the people”.
If we lived in the first century, our first clue that something was amiss should have been the fact that the Pharisees and the Herodians were together. It’s probably enough to say that they were two groups from different sides of the political spectrum and normally didn’t associate with each other!
What else is wrong with this picture?
Scholars agree that the tax in question was a specific one, the “poll tox,” or the “tributum capitis.” It was levied on all adult Roman subjects, but not on Roman citizens, at the same rate, without regard to ability to pay. In the year 66 AD it would become one of the primary causes of the Zealot revolt, which would result in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
The question asked of Jesus was:“is it lawful to pay the tax?” At first that sounds like a really dumb question; it was illegal NOT to pay the tax but the word “lawful” alludes the their religious tradition.
Here’s the dilemma. If Jesus said it was lawful to pay the tax (according to his interpretation of the Jewish law) then the people would turn against him. They hated the tax, the Romans and all that they represented. Many of them wanted a messiah who would be a military hero who would lead an uprising to overthrow the Romans and restore a Jewish king.
If, on the other hand, he said it was not lawful, then the government might arrest him and put him in jail for sedition.
Either way, these tricksters reasoned, Jesus would be dealt with once and for all! He would be out of their hair and would stop rocking the boat. The people would stop following after him. Things would go back to normal.
Instead of answering directly, Jesus turns the tables and asks them a question: “what’s in your wallet?” He asks them directly for the coin used for the tax.
Canadian coins bear the ueen’s image and the words “Elizabeth II D. G. Regina,” short for the Latin phrase -“Dei Gratia Regina,” which, when translated read “Elizabeth II by the grace of God, Queen”.
In Jesus day there were two types of coins -ones which had no human likeness on them, in accordance with the third commandment. Then there were Roman coins Which had the face of Caesar and an inscription claiming his divinity. It was only these coins, bearing the image of Caesar that could be used for the tax. A religious purist could avoid keeping them around except for tax time. The very fact they had one at the ready painted the Pharisees as hypocrites.
The Pharisees were known to be sticklers on the law but it seems that they had no problem carrying coins which even they claimed broke the third commandment.
We are all familiar with taxes. Along with citizens of most democracies, Canadians pay three primary kinds of taxes: Property tax, sales tax and income tax. The more your house is worth, the more you buy, the more you earn, the more you pay! In theory at least!
As we know the income tax return is a complex document requiring us to list income and claim credits or deductions. What we have to claim as income or what we can take as deductions seems to change with some regularity. We all want taxation to be fair but love to find out we can deduct something to decrease our “taxes owed” or increase our refund.
Instead of falling into what they would have thought was a “clever trap”, Jesus skates around it. In effect, Jesus says - “Give Casear what is his and no more.” You see, Jesus was steeped in the tradition, as outlined in the 24th Psalm, “The earth is God’s and everything in it”. All of his ministry and teaching agrees with that phrase from the Psalms. This passage defies a neat and tidy interpretation. .
Many people would argue that being a good Christian and a good citizen are the same thing but that is certainly not the biblical view.
The truth is that there is no tax return for what belongs to God and what does not; there is no list of exclusions, no place to come up with a lower bottom line, because the biblical view is that everything belongs to God.
As Christians we should always live uneasily in a world which demands different goals and values. Throughout the biblical story the prophets were constantly trying to correct the course of the people. They were frequently going too far to one side or the other. As they became too concerned with racial purity, the prophets reminded them of their call to welcome the alien and the stranger. As the people forgot their call to be people of the covenant, God’s prophets called them back to the straight and narrow and to personal responsibility.
Caesar did not care for the people - only for power; when push came to shove, his goal was to win at all costs. By contrast, the biblical story goes to great lengths to describe a God whose care is like that of a mother, whose presence is as close as breathing itself and whose love was unparalleled.
When we come right down to it, the question for us is not, “who or what bears Caesar’s image” (money), but how we bear God’s.”
How do we respond to a God who has this claim on us?
We are invited to see ourselves as “stamped with God’s image;” like an invisible tattoo we can’t get rid of and can’t hide. We are not only invited to see ourselves this way but to see the other person, ALL other persons in this same way.
It’s easy to see people from our own family this way (except for that difficult cousin!) Or our own community. Or our own province. Or our own denomination. Or our own organization. What about someone who is different from us in every possible way?
What is that image stamped on us and how do we live it out in the day to day? The image of compassion. The image of service. The image if self-giving. The image of love.
So in a world where nothing is truly ours, even we ourselves, how do we live.
Perhaps the place to start is the realization that we are God’s - that everything is God’s. Perhaps we begin with the premise that all humans are made in the image of the creator.
Like a friend’s poster in her residence room, “I’m great. GOD DON’T MAKE JUNK” If we truly believed that we WERE indeed great and were indeed greatly loved we would find it easier to treat everyone else that way and to live without trying to keep that balance sheet of time and resources spent and owed.
Keeping that balance sheet will never bring us happiness or contentment or peace.
Let us live out the high calling we all have received. “I have called you by name; you are mine”.
Amen.
1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8
Psalm 90
Matthew 22: 34-40
When I went to theological school, “Ordination Interviews” were held during the winter terms for third year students. We got to hear the tales of our colleagues who were ahead of us before we oursleves had to go through them. As each third year student would arrive back on the third floor of the residence we would inquire, “how did it go?” One of my friends replied, “you’ll never believe what “Donald MacGuire” asked! We all knew who this person was: a big barrel chested man who had been in the same pastoral charge in Cape Breton for over 20 years at that point, but he had a heavy “Southern” accent! He had said to her, “speak to me of love” (sorry, I can’t do his accent).
Jesus wasn’t in an ordination interview, but maybe he felt a bit like we did when we were interviewed. We faced a room full of people, both lay and ordered, who were tasked with making a decision on our readiness for ordination. If the gospel writers are correct, Jesus often faced groups of people who were out to trip him up. They are portrayed as posing trick questions with ulterior motives.
It’s always dicey to try and determine what law, if any, is more important than another but I suppose almost everyone would agree that littering is certainly less important than murder. ((unless, of course, your litter causes a cyclist to veer into the path of a gas truck who veers into a building with a propane tank to avoid the cyclist and ends up causing an explosion that levels the town!)) Sorry, that’s all I could think of on short notice!
Modern people such as ourselves tend to think of “law” in terms of “stuff you could get arrested for doing” such as break and enter, driving under the influence, or murder or in terms of “stuff you can get arrested for NOT doing”, such as not stopping at the scene of an accident, or not feeding your children or other dependant.
The topic under discussion in today’s passage is “religious law”, though there was little difference in that time (except for the laws added by the Roman occupation.)
I wonder how each of us would have answered the question, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Would we pick one of the “10 Commandments”? Would we start by searching scripture?
Love God. Love your neighbour as you love yourself! Sounds easy enough. When speaking of love though, just what is it? We all probably think we know, but do we? One of my old textbooks notes that few words are more imprecise. I think love involves recognizing that something has value, it seeks a close relationship, and involves care of the one loved. I will add that love is NOT an emotion and sometimes it has to be a conscious decision that may go against our emotions.
The first commandment is to love God with all we have. Our Bible begins with a account of creation and a proclamation that the creation is good. It is a basic biblical principle that God is love itself, that God loves, God loves the whole creation, of which humans are a part. We are told that God loves unconditionally and asks that this love be returned and shown. God seeks to be in relationship with the human creature and desires that they love one another!
Now, lets clarify this: who is our neighbour? That’s simple; absolutely every person on earth- and if they exist, extra terrestrials!
Now I would contend that for many of us the neighbours who live far away are easy to love, when that love is little more than a theory. True love though is never theoretical!
However, the rubber meets the road when we consider the ones next door. They can be hardest to love. They are the ones who don’t pick up after THEIR dog on OUR lawn, or don’t rake up their garbage that was picked over by crows before the garbage truck came by, or the ones who paint their house a hideous colour, or who the ones who don’t tie their dog and that dog kills our chickens, or who those who move out to the country and complain about smell from a farm that’s been there for generations. And then any of these can get all buddy-buddy when they need to borrow a cup of sugar or need a ride for their child.
Paul’s chapter on love in Corinthians, you know the one I mean, “love is patient and kind,” is often read at weddings because love in a long-term committed relationship is often the hardest. In a given time or situation, either partner can be selfish and inconsiderate - as well as kind, romantic and thoughtful.”
I talked last week about the differences between “paying taxes” and living the Christian life - or between our “civic duty” and the Christian life. As an example, I said that most of us go through our tax return looking for as many deductions as possible so our tax bill is reduced.
I contended that the life of “loving God and nighbour” is not about asking, “what is the least I can get away with?” It is about it becoming a way of life; it is about it becoming who we are.
One of the most frequent comments I hear these days is: “this place has changed, we don’t know our neighbours anymore.” It’s not just Hantsport; it’s everywhere I’ve lived! It used to be that everyone knew everyone else but that’s no longer the case. It used to be that everyone was related to everyone else. That’s no longer the case. Farmers sell their land to people who want a house in the country but no one really knows them. The kids all move away so the “old house” is sold to a couple who want a retirement home in the country. Some people don’t really want to be included in the rural or small town way of life but some do. How we extend a welcome to new folks is an important way of showing love. The same can also be said for the welcoming of newcomers in church as well. We need to make sure that the words on our sign that say, “All Welcome” are actually what happens when people come inside and try to take part in something.
If we say we love people we must show it in concrete ways. As Ihave said, love is not just a concept or a “good idea”.
While it’s fairly easy to cite examples of extreme non-neighbourliness - the death of Harley Lawrence in Berwick four years ago being among the most egregious; A homeless man, Harley was sleeping in a bus shelter when he and his belongings were doused with $10 worth of gas and set on fire, by two men in their mid twenties, its harder to cite examples the other way. We might think it’s easy because most of us think we do it all the time: visiting back and forth, taking food when someone is sick or bereaved, mowing the lawn when someone is sick, etc. etc. but sometimes it takes more thought before we act. We are all different. Just because you would find a particular thing a loving action does not mean someone else does!
One tried and true way to show love to neighbour is through hospitality. The main reason it was so important for the people we read about in the Bible is that they were once slaves in Egypt. Their bad experience was to be translated into a good and positive one. !
Forcing others to become just like us is neither welcoming or loving. Right now our country is struggling with people whose clothing is very different than ours. Some examples include the women who wear a hijab, chador, or burka or the Sikh men who wear turbans.
When I lived in Wallace, on the North Shore, I frequently encountered Mennonite women working in retail stores in Tatamagouche. The women’s form of dress was distinctive. The area surrounding the place I used to live in PEI is now welcoming an influx of Amish farmers. As a practical sign of welcome, stores in the nearby town of Montague have installed hitching posts and buggy signs along the roads warn people to slow down. I saw an article on the internet which noted that a town in Minnesota has installed both hitching posts AND electric car charging stations!
Now to what is implied but often glossed over: love of self. Love your neighbour as yourself. Love the other as you LOVE YOURSELF! We sometimes forget that part. We often have difficulty with this concept because we want to guard against self-centeredness. Yet, if we do not have a healthy self image we will not be capable of giving or receiving love.
In my reading for this sermon I came across a shocking statement that some, but I hope not most, young people today believe that you have “to be cruel to rule.” Few, if any of us, would want to repeat high school and it has little to do with trigonometry and the finer points of French grammar. It’s the social aspects of high school that cause the most stress for the average student. The popular kids often exclude others, some are downright cruel. I suppose its really no worse in 2017, EXCEPT for the internet. With a cell phone a bully can do his work 24/7 and EVERYONE, literally, can know all the details of that embarrassing event.
No longer is the bullied child safe once off the bus, or at home, the bullying comes in on the cell phone and the computer used to complete homework assignments. Various bullying incidents that have led to suicide has been in the news of late.
How do adults model better practices? How are we, as a society, raise our teenagers and show what is acceptable? That is part of loving our neighbour too.
How does our culture portray sexual violence and challenge the double that standards allow it continue in high school, in university, in the workplace and at home? Where do we begin to change this? That is part of loving our neighbour too.
Love of self is essential to life. Children need to be told they are loved, loveable and to be loving. I have seen many moms and dads pick up their babies say, “Mom loves you.” “Dad loves you”. I remember well one day visiting the hospital when clergy were still welcome in maternity and the mom was sitting on her bed with her baby in her lap and just admiring her - smiling at her.
In the movie, “The Help, ” Aibileen, an African-American housekeeper understands that her most important role in the household she serves is how she shapes the mind, heart, and soul of any child, white or African-American, she keeps charge over. Aibileen knows that what children are taught to believe about ourselves affects who we become. She holds the children and talks softly but firmly to them. Instead of telling them to “ be nice, be good, be kind” she says, ““You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” What a wonderful habit to get into with a child! taken from an internet article, “Nine Words That Matter” by Ellen Miller.
Some children develop detachment disorders because they did not get the love they needed in those crucial first months of life.
Can love be commanded? Yes. Love is NOT a synonym for “like a lot.” The Christian community should be a place for community and love. Churches and individuals hearing the call to “see other people as God sees them,” might find that neighbour and stranger are not such different categories after all. God first loved us. We are called to be people of love.
Amen.
Joshua 3: 7-17
Psalm 107
Matthew 23: 1-12
The Incredible Journey is a sweet, romantic, 1960's film in which two dogs and a cat journey over 250 miles through the Canadian wilderness in a bid to return home.
As a child I watched many episodes of the Wonderful World of Disney in which pioneer families travelled west in covered wagons to get to their land of promise in what is now the American west. Along the way they encountered many obstacles which tested their resolve. The one thing I remember, from more than one story is that when the difficult terrain and the condition of the horses forced them to lighten their load, the piano and the barrels of china were the first things to go! The farming implements may have been just as heavy but they were considered more necessary. I often wondered what ever happened to all those abandoned barrels of china and pianos sitting in the rain and snow out in the middle of nowhere!
When I was about ten, the CBC aired “The National Dream,” a mini-series, based on a book by Pierre Berton, about the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway - a ribbon of steel that was to stretch from “sea to sea”. The strip through the Saskatchewan prairie would have been a breeze, but the line through the Alberta and BC mountains much more difficult and costly in terms of money and lives. Driving the vision of this unifying link was the Prime Minister, John A Macdonald. The last spike was driven by CPR director Donald Smith at Craigellachie, British Columbia on November 7, 1885. Morris tells me that he was there (at a much later date of course!) The building of this railway is part of our “national story” - even if there are parts, such as our abysmal treatment of Chinese labourers, we would like to forget!
I believe that all of us here today are the descendants of immigrants, or are immigrants ourselves. Each of us could tell stories, or family stories, of how we came to be in this place. Three branches of my family came from the British Isles directly to PEI, while one settled for a generation in Ontario and for part of a generation in Saskatchewan, before finally arriving in PEI. Who is to say where the next generation will end up!
A great deal of the story of God’s people as recounted in what we have often called the “Old Testament” is the story of an extended journey with many stages. Today’s reading tells of their transition from their time in the wilderness under Moses to their time in the “promised land” under Joshua. The passage goes into some detail about this step in the journey which was the crossing of a rain swollen Jordan river.
The crossing is carefully orchestrated with the priests bearing the most important symbol of God’s presence, the “Ark of the Covenant,” into the swollen waters ahead of the people. It was then that the waters parted but the priests carrying the ark stayed in the middle of the river until everyone else had crossed.
Yet, despite what they had hoped, their journey was not finished. By the time of Jesus the journey included the subsequent victory against the Canaanites, and then defeat, exile and, in Jesus day, foreign occupation.
In today’s passage we have Jesus doing what he seemed to do best! Jesus rocked the boat and pointed out the hypocrisy of some of the religious leaders.
Some of these leaders seemed to suffer from excessive pride. They had the time and the money to follow the most minute laws and they required the same standard of people for whom it was impossible. Apparently some of them made a big show of their faithfulness, but it may have only been skin deep. We do need to keep in mind that Jesus did not condemn Judiasm, just this particular group who were self-centred and unconcerned for the “common folks.” Jesus lived and died a Jew!
I was watching an older episode of Murdoch Mysteries the other night and in it the detective is called to a synagogue to investigate a suspicious death; someone in the synagogue did not remember the commandment against murder!
However, the point is that all the men in the synagogue were wearing phylacteries. These items, mentioned in the gospel passage, are small boxes on leather straps which are worn on the forehead and left arm by the men at their services of prayer. They contain specific biblical verses and are supposed to remind the wearer of the importance of the law.
There was an ancient set on display in the library at Atlantic School of Theology when I was a student in the 80s. As far as I know they are still in use by orthodox Jews.
Jesus accuses them of making sure these prayer items were as ostentatious as possible.
As I was reflecting on these two different passages during the past week I saw them both as having a common theme of “faithful journeys.”
We tend to think of past eras as static; as times of little or no change. Whether it was ever really true or not, it is certainly not the case today.
We know technology is changing rapidly. A friend of mine went to buy a new cd player the other day and discovered that the kind she wants is not as easy to find as they used to be.
Jobs are changing rapidly and some jobs are disappearing. In the public service and in industry people are being downsized and job descriptions are being combined almost to the breaking point. Chronic under-staffing in healthcare and large companies seems to be the norm. It is an age of global competition in which we seem to be in a race to the bottom as almost everyone suffers and corporate profit is the only thing companies seem to care about.
It’s not just “society” that is changing; when we look at life in the church we know that we too have changed.
When I went to a meeting of the General Council in Ottawa and the previous one in Kelowna, I really noticed that the United Church in other regions is becoming increasingly inter-cultural and that our First Nations congregations have a much larger role than they have in the past. Since 1988 we have become more and more aware of the validity of the spiritual journey and genuine gifts of gay and lesbian church members.
When we come home from an event such as a General Council we return to communities in the Maritimes that are much more homogeneous and it is easy to forget that our church has much more diversity than we in most Maritime communities usually see on a daily basis and especially on a Sunday morning.
We know that the busyness of modern life means that families have many choices that compete with Sunday morning worship and have less time for weekday activities as well. Yet, we should not ignore them, their needs and what they see as important; as a church we must look for ways we can minister to and with people whose lives are busy, yet yearning for a spiritual centre and an opportunity to live out their faith in some way in the community.
In our church some are pining for the “good old days” of the much more traditional while others are advocating that we throw out any theology that is not scientifically provable and form a faith community around the desire for positive social change.
My hope is that we as a United Church can move forward into the future doing what we have done for the past 92 years, embracing the diversity that has been out strength and working together to proclaim the good news of Jesus in word and deed. We wont always agree with one another, but I believe that both groups, and those in-between, can find a place to belong in the United Church as long as both continue to welcome the other. We need to continue to journey forward; there is no turning back.
We have always been on the liberal end of the theological spectrum. Coming from a union of three very different protestant traditions, the visionaries who led the church union movement resolved to build a church were people could work together for common goals with as much freedom as possible. We have never required that everyone in our church to be the same, think the same and worship in the same way, and that is our strength.
Many of us wear poppies at this time of year as a sign of respect for, and remembrance of, those who lost their lives in battles of long ago, such as those named after the Belgian towns nearby, such as Yrpes or Passchendaele, or Vimy Ridge or Dieppe or much more recently in Afghanistan.
Yet, for many years there has also been a sense in which the “torch” thrown by the doctor and poet, John McCrae, whose poem was read at the beginning of our service, has to become a torch of peace.
We do not honour those who lie in Flanders or any other foreign war cemetery if we do not work tirelessly for the peace for which they died. We do not honour the soldiers who returned home in body but whose minds relived their battles over, and over, and over again for the rest of their lives, if we do not make peace a priority.
As you all know, November 11 was chosen as a “day of remembrance” because that was the day the “Great War” ended in 1918. Yet, we also know that since the end of that “war to end all wars,” 99 years ago this week, the world, or portions of it, have gone to war hundreds of times since.
Should we just give up on peace and see war as inevitable? I certainly don’t think so. But we need to work at overcoming obstacles to peace such as economic injustice, xenophobia and mistrust among nations. We know that old enemies have become allies and current enemies may well become allies one day.
As a people of faith we need to truly believe the good news of Jesus who proclaimed God’s love for all people and begin to find ways to live that out in our personal, social, national and international lives.
Let us go forward in love and faith. What we do should not be just for show but to reflect how we live from day to day. The future of the world depends on it.
Amen.
Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78
Matthew 25: 1-13
In early September, before the start of classes, my first year at Mount A, university officials gathered the first-year class together in Convocation Hall and gave us this message: “Welcome to Mount Allison’s Convocation Hall. Take a good look around; only half of you will be back here to graduate.”
An uncle told me that his university had a similar assembly when he began his engineering program in the 40s. Stated explicitly was the instruction to chose work and study over parties and leisure. I remember the student who received a standing ovation at convocation; he enjoyed being a student so much he spent 6 or 7 working on his degree! Another friend from those university days got this encouraging verse from his grandmother:
“Go to college, get the knowledge, stay there till you’re through. If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can make something out of you.” “Oh, there’s nothing to it all. Just a few meetings, a few nights in the year, it’ll take no time at all really, you’d be perfect.” Have you ever gotten a call like that from someone looking for people to fill volunteer positions on a church or community committee? After you said yes, you discovered that it involved a great deal more responsibility, time, skill, and stress than you had been initially led to believe.I wonder if the Nominating Committee of an organization would be well to say something like this: “Hi, Im calling to ask you to be a board member of the XYZ Foundation. I know that your whole family has been committed to this organization for many years, but I do have to tell you that it’s almost an impossible job. New tasks will come to you by email almost every week. No mater what you do, someone will be unhappy and stop donating, complain about it on Facebook and try to undermine your authority. But you’ll be perfect because its something you will really find meaningful and you can make a difference in this role. ”
I wonder!
Today’s passage from the book of Joshua features the equivalent of “drawing a line in the sand”- “CHOOSE”, along with the warning, “Are you sure you want to do this; it’s not going to be an easy job”.
You all remember that one of the “10 Commandments”, given to the people while they were still in the desert, was, “thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”
One of the things to which the biblical story alludes is that Abraham was not born into what eventually developed into Judaism. There were many “nature religions” and “fertility cults” in that area which were concerned with paying homage to the gods who were seen to be responsible for good crops, good herds and many children. The “golden calf” incident that took place while Moses was on the mountain would have been an example of the people already worshipping another god, a god of fertility.
Abraham’s story was one of journeying in faith and trust. He journeyed away from his extended family in a time when that meant everything, including life and death. His descendants were called to take a long term view instead of relying on immediate success or being discouraged by temporary failure.
When we look at this passage we need to also keep in mind that the people standing before Joshua on this long ago day were probably not all “children of Abraham.” Some may have been the descendants of slaves of other ethnic groups and just “tagged along” on the way out of Egypt or they may have joined up at some point in the wilderness journey - they were there an entire generation, and had to have encountered other groups along the way! Therefore some of them would have had direct experience of other forms of worship and beliefs and the close proximity of other cultures would continue to present a constant temptation to begin to lose their faith in the God of their ancestors Abraham and Sarah, the God who had led them out of Egypt into the land of promise.
This is a clear test of loyalties: follow the God who has given us victory. Rely on this God. BUT, watch out, this God will get jealous if you are not completely loyal.
On this long ago day the people are very certain about their loyalties. As their story continues though, they do not always live up to the promises they made. Prophet after prophet would have to remind them of the call of God and the covenant to which they had agreed.
The gospel passage, a parable told by Jesus, is about ten bridesmaids, five of whom were prepared for the delayed start to the wedding and five who weren’t. It seems that Jesus also felt a need to call people to be prepared for the unexpected in the life of faith.
So what does this story from the life of the people of Israel under the leadership of Joshua have to do with us, where we are in 2017?
We live in a time of many competing loyalties. Children grow up with peer pressure which seeks a uniformity of attitudes, apparel and activities, usually in defiance of their parents’ views and actions. However, the pressure to “keep up with the Jonses,” is little more than “peer pressure - adult style”. “Everyone is going to XYZ vacation destination, or doing this or that on the weekends! ”
Of course we know that making a decision means that we exclude another decision. Despite the advances of technology we can’t be in two places at once and have everything. A great deal of unmanageable credit card debt comes from people trying to have everything they want and have it now, instead of waiting. We are often pressured to consume more and more and sometimes we just have to say STOP.
I like the Chinese food buffets because I don’t have to choose; I can literally have some of everything on the steam table but generally you have to choose one entree, one appetizer and one desert! Sometimes my budget does not allow me to eat what I want.
I have met more than one person over my ministry who changed jobs because their current job was too draining. Their new job paid less than their old one but they were happier and felt more fulfilled and learned to live on less.
I have a cousin who lives in a modest bungalow. It’s all she and her husband want but for years they were badgered by real estate agents who wanted to list their house, with the reasoning that they should upgrade and make room for a young family. Surely they want and need something bigger, newer, fancier. My cousin was happy where they were and still are.
Our culture pressures us to look out for #1. Look our for our own family. Look our for our own community. Look out for our own province and country.
Yet the gospel message calls us to love of neighbour and it’s clear that there are no boundaries to the Christian neighbourhood.
Even in the life of faith itself we can be tempted to choose a self centred, “gospel of prosperity” over an outward looking faith. The message from some pulpits is, “God wants you to be rich and if you are rich is a sign of God’s favour. You are doing things right.” It continues, “Get right with God, trust in Jesus and you’ll go to heaven.”
Our culture has many forces which encourage us to ask the question, “What’s in it for us?” we don’t need our religion to be doing that as well. Faith is meant to draw us to God, AND to others, not inward to a faith that starts and stops at a so-called “personal relationship.” Even a personal relationship must be lived out in the community and rub off on those around us.
Christianity is about more than being “saved FROM” an eternity in hell. I contend that Christians should be “saved FOR something?”. I see a relationship with God, not as a private possession, but as a way to keep things in perspective and help make a difference in the lives of others.
I get almost daily facebook posts which are of a similar theme: keep charity as close to home as possible. One the other day seemed to pit the needs of homeless veterans against those of refugees! I responded to one, “We should be doing both.”
We in North America are tempted to forget our history. Over time, the people of Israel forgot theirs and had to be reminded to, among other things, welcome the alien and the stranger because they had been aliens in Egypt. They had to be reminded that they had not been created in the land in which they were living.
At some point during my years at Mount A, I saw two films which have stayed with me for all these years. The first was an old scratchy film in which Dr Bob McClure, a former moderator, who had spent most of his medical career in mission hospitals associated with the United Church, was relating a conversation he had with someone in a developing nation, “ask your friends, was it your ancestors who put the gold in the rocks of Canada.”
I began to wonder, “Why is it that we think our natural resources are for us and only us”.
The other film that has given me much food for thought was equally old and tattered. It was about the beginnings of the l’Arche communities and featured their founder, Canadian, Jean Vanier who gave up various career opportunities to make his life with two men with developmental disabilities in the small village of Trosly-Breuil, France - the first of what would become many communities. There’s been one in Wolfville for years. One of their “mottos” is “if you are not there you are missed.”
Do we follow a God who calls us to reach out to others, welcome the stranger, and make sure our trust is well placed. How will each of us complete the phrase, “as for me and my house ......”
Amen.
1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Psalm 125
Matthew 25: 14-30
They have television shows about almost everything these days! Today, I’m not talking about the shows where actors play roles and an actor can play a very different role in one show than she plays in another. Sometimes actors are “typecast” and the characters played are similar, sometimes though they are quite different. A good actor can go, convincingly, from villain to angel and is sought out for a variety of roles.
What I’m talking about I’m talking about are the shows where people play themselves! One of these so-called ‘reality shows’ is Undercover Boss. In this show, a “boss” goes to work for his own business to find out what’s really going on. Sometimes it involves a disguise because there is a picture of the boss in every location! On the episodes I have seen, the boss has his “eyes opened,” has made changes his employees feel are needed for comfort, safety, or efficiency, and has even given significant personal gifts to the employees that were struggling or going “above and beyond”.
In today’s parable the boss does not go “undercover,” but announces he’s going on a trip and leaves and leaves his SLAVES in charge, each with responsibility in accordance with perceived abilities.
I need to say that though the words are related in the English language, the word “talent”, in the biblical story, really has nothing to do with gifts and abilities. The English word we know well may indeed have come from this parable, but it it’s original context a “talent” (a talenta ) was “a sum of money.”
A “talent” was not just a few dollars but, according to my sources, was a unit of money worth about 20 years wages. So if you think one measly talent was not much with which to trust the third slave - it was; it was still a huge amount. One was given the equivalent of 100 YEARS wages for a labourer; one 40 YEARS and the last, still 20 YEARS. Thesed slaves were clearly already in positions of some responsibility.
We are told that the first two doubled their money which is absolutely astounding.
I did some research on this and I read that an investor hoping to double her money in the world of guaranteed investments would need to be aware of the “rule of 72". If you are getting 5% (and who gets 5% these days?) divide 72 by that 5% and you get 14.4 years. That’s how long it takes to double your money! The last GIC I bought will take 51 years to double my money! If you don’t have that much time, or have a lower interest rate, you have to accept more risk, or have a crystal ball!
The early church believed that Jesus was going to return in the near future and for a time they lived their lives in anticipation of this expected event. As the months stretched into years, decades and then centuries they had to readjust their time lines. They needed to know how to live with faith in the interim.
The event often called “the second coming” has been front and centre, or at the periphery, of the church since our very beginning. It seems that this hope is what is behind this passage. 2000 years later, the United Church is not one of those churches that tends to pay very much attention to it.
Since I have been in ministry, I can’t remember how many times I have heard predictions of the “end of the world” or the “rapture” or the “return of Jesus”. I think the most recent time had to do with the fact that we had reached the end of the Mayan calendar, but I remember that the first I know of as was a lengthy booklet, that arrived in my mail; in fact, I received two! Titled “88 Reasons Why The Rapture Could Be in 88", it outlined their reasons that “this could be the year”. I flipped through the first copy quickly but threw it into my damp, cold fireplace and ignored it; when the second arrived it landed in the same place. I ignored them until the predictions made the ATV news on the day the “end” was supposed to take place. The next night the program signed off with, “we’re still here, folks.”
Whether we believe in the end of the world, as the biblical people believed or not, we cannot escape the fact that we are finite creatures and do not live forever. We also cannot escape the fact that sometimes “time” runs out and even though there is no “physical death”, there is no more time to do what is right!
In the 1970s Harry Chapin released, “Cat’s in the Cradle”, a melancholy song about thinking there’s be lots of time and kids growing up too soon and learning too late that there is not always going to be “lots of time”.
What is important in life; how do we live? I believe it was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
A number of years ago, I talked with an older couple as part of their marriage preparation; there was a 12 year difference in their ages and she had already been widowed twice. He was concerned about this but she was not. I happily performed their marriage ceremony. When I talked to her at some point after his death she indicated that the pain of losing him did not overshadow the nine happy years they had together. She would not have missed it!
We know that in life we are given few guarantees; life involves taking risks; those who do not accept the risk cannot know the joy.
This story Sue read from Matthew’s Gospel is from the time toward the end of Jesus life. His ministry had been a whirl-wind of preaching, activity and preaching that challenged people to love God, self and neighbour with all their being. In a sense, Jesus whole life was a high risk venture. In the last weeks of his life he decided to leave the safety of Galilee and go to Jerusalem where both the religious and civil authorities would regard him as a threat to the status quo and to their power. Yet, he had to take this risk.
Of course, we know that this journey ended at the cross. The church came to believe that the power of God at Easter reversed the power of death and that Jesus had, in some way been raised from death. After his ascension they came to believe that he would return again and vindicate the faithful.
Yet the question remained, “What to do in the in-between time?”
If you are in New York city and ask a local for “how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” you are likely to be told, “Practice Practice Practice.” In early church the concern was preparing for Jesus’ return. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.
People of a certain age are often familiar with preparing for tests. Such preparation often involves a liquid diet for several days and then consuming vile substances to clean out the digestive tract. But, if you have ever had any kind of surgery involving a general anaesthetic you know that you have to prepare for this surgery by not drinking or eating anything for so many hours. Then you go to the hospital at the appointed time, surrender your clothes for the lovely and flattering hospital attire; they start an IV and wheel you into the operating room and put you out and start the surgery. If you are lucky that is.
Your surgery could be postponed for an hour or two which isn’t so bad but sometimes it’s at the end of a long hungry day that they tell you to go home and you can eat, and on another day you begin the starving regimen again. If you have been unlucky you may get bumped again.
Perhaps we could say that the church has been disappointed so often that some churches, ourselves included, have looked for new ways to interpret these age old passages, so that new meaning can be found in them.
The slaves in this passage who received praise were those who risked. To double their investment would have involved both skill and risk. The one who did nothing, who risked nothing, is the one who received the master’s condemnation.
The greatest risk of all, in this passage is to play it safe, to seek guarantees instead of the hope of abundance. If people wanted guarantees they would adopt 35 year old kids whose student loans were paid off but some crazy people have kids of their own and take them home from the hospital with no instruction manuals or guarantees whatsoever. Amazing. People have been taking this kind of risk for generations. Likewise there are dozens of relationship books out there that will tell you how to prepare for marriage, or how to fix your broken relationship but we know that everyone is different and just about every human endeavour involves risk.
The outreach of the church involves risk. Promoting the fellowship of the church involves risk. We did not know when we started if “Cup and Conversation” would be a success but it has turned out to be all that we wanted it to be. Most of you stay and have conversations and build church community.
Some churches have a list of sins - referred to as the “7 deadly sins”. One of these deadly sins is sloth. However sloth is more than preferring the couch to the treadmill, it is about not caring, not loving. not rejoicing, not living up to the full potential of our humanity
Perhaps one of the things that this passage is saying, in somewhat exaggerated fashion, is that those who do not take the risk of living and loving with faith and authenticity, might as well be banished to the outer darkness - and Matthew loves the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Is God harsh and “out to get us, if we slip up, or does God’s grace surround our lives and make our faithfulness possible.
The life of faith is not just about passive waiting and being prepared, like the bridesmaids, it is also about active waiting and next week we will find out it involves not just individuals but nations, as we look for guidance for appropriate attitudes and activities in this time when we are in so much need of an in-breaking of God’s power.
Let us wait in love and risk for the benefits can be astounding.
Amen!
Ephesians 1: 15-23
Psalm 100
Matthew 15: 31-46
In front of Regis College, a part of Toronto School of Theology, sits a park bench and on that bench lies a sleeping, blanket wrapped, figure, in cast bronze. The sculpture is called: “Jesus the Homeless.”
Interestingly, its creator, a Canadian, had a hard time at first, to find a home for his art. It was rejected by several prominent cathedrals. he irony of this situation was not lost on him, as a sculpture that refers to Jesus as “Homeless” had no home itself! Sounds very biblical! Finally the sculpture found a home in Toronto and some time later a copy was installed at the Vatican. Apparently Pope Francis is quite moved by it. There are now copies of the statue in several other cities in the world.
Bronze sculptures are often commissioned to mark the influence of important people. Many of us might be familiar with the huge statue of Sir Winston Churchill, striding across the lawn of the old library on Spring Garden Rd in Halifax. I’m not sure where it is now! You may also know the one of Robbie Burns, the Scottish poet, which stands in Victoria Park, just across from the Public Gardens. On occasion, the Burns statue is known to wear a Christmas hat, no doubt courtesy of one of Halifax’s many students!
Around Remembrance Day there were a number of new sculptures unveiled in Halifax to honour the contributions of women to the “war effort” of the Second World War. One depicts a woman knitting, another, a woman gathering scrap metal, and a third, a woman serving sandwiches and coffee. Each of these were activities performed by countless numbers of women during the war. The statues have no names because, says the artist, they could be your mother or grandmother, or mine! These statues are said to have finally broken the “bronze ceiling”!
Getting back to “Homeless Jesus,” perhaps any permanent representation of a homeless person makes people as uncomfortable as homeless people themselves often do. Even in smaller cities you can encounter people panhandling in various ways, or pushing shopping carts full of refundables, or their meagre belongings, and in places like Toronto, people sleeping on the street in the early morning hours. A number of years ago, while in Toronto, I saw a man doing a beautiful chalk drawing on the sidewalk in the hopes of raising enough for “first and last month’s rent” so he could find a place to live and re-gain custody of his child.
These folks aren’t dressed very well and I suspect they don’t smell that great if I were to get too close to them. So-called “public” washrooms are often reserved for paying customers.
Occasionally a very special event, such as the Olympics, or “Expo”, comes to a city and people celebrate the money that pours in for new construction and the infrastructure that will be needed. To make way for Expo86 in Vancouver, those housed in sub-standard apartments were evicted and it caused tremendous hardship. A friend of mine worked in a church in Vancouver that summer. Apparently this was the beginning of the tremendous boom Vancouver has been enjoying ever since. In a city where you have to be very well off to oven even a modest home, there are now thousands of homeless people and 45% of them are homeless for the first time.
When we look at what the “world” thinks is important and what the Christian faith proclaims as important, we find almost polar opposites.
The lectionary is a set of readings designed to cover major biblical themes over a three year cycle. For the past 52 weeks, as far as the gospel goes, we have been focussing on Matthew’s version of the life of Jesus. On these last three Sundays of the Christian Year, Matthew’s Jesus has been teaching about the coming of the “kingdom of God”, or as some would call it, “the reign of God”, or the “kin-dom of God” or the “realm of God”. The parable of the bridesmaids taught us about preparation, and the parable of the talents taught us about risk and being active participants. This week we have what has long been called, “the parable of the last judgement.” It depicts a stark and even harsh scenario.
As to this parable we should note two things. One is that the nations are gathered here, it’s not “individuals”; so Christian faith is about more than what we do as individuals. Faith is not just a “private matter”. Faith has a social or corporate side. It’s not just up to individuals to feed the hungry, house the homeless, comfort the distressed, it’s the job of the “nation.”
Secondly we notice that each group call Jesus, “Lord”. These are not Christians and non-Christians! Sticking with the image in the parable, both groups would regard themselves as Christian nations! But both groups are surprised at the outcome of both the sorting and the criteria. The “sheep people” performed these acts of kindness but were oblivious to any direct connection to Jesus. The “goat people”, on the other hand, would have helped Jesus, IF they had seen Jesus, in the guise of those in need.
I guess you could say that this is not about the wrong that was done but about the good that was not!
I don’t know about you but I’d rather be surprised for doing the right thing than for not doing the right thing.
Budgets are a concern for most of us and for most municipalities, provinces and countries. Even in a country with vast wealth, we can’t do everything we want and have everything we would like to have, but throughout the scriptures we are challenged to see what we have as a gift from God and given the responsibility to use these gifts wisely. Part of this wise use involves sharing with those who do not have enough.
We are not to see life as “each one for themselves,” but to adopt a point of view where we are called to look out for one another.
The Christian faith is not a spiritual “Dale Carnegie” course to help you in “winning friends and influencing people”. The Christian faith is about proclaiming the good news of Jesus who said that he came so that “all would have life and have it in all abundance”.
We are not self-made and we are not entirely responsible for our own success or failure. Speaking personally, I had no part in my being born in Canada into a family of European descent which valued education and supported my efforts to excel in school. Similarly, others have no choice about being born to parents who have no use for education, make poor choices and who give their children no support to excel in school or life in general, or to parents in a poor or war-torn nation.
I know folks who will go out of their way to be generous and kind as long as some recognition is received. Look at all the honour walls that appear in various places! But what if we just did what we knew to be right without hope of a reward or even recognition. Every so often when you go to the store you can donate an extra twonie to this or that “good cause” and you can get a paper balloon to put in the window to show everyone who cares to look that YOU have donated.
I’ve long wondered why we have to “raffle” things to raise money instead of just asking people for donations; why not just donate if the cause is worthy?
The sheep and the goats were both surprised to find out that helping the poor and the hungry and the imprisoned was the same as helping Jesus, but the sheep did it anyway! Now that the cat’s out of the bag though, how are we to be? Now that we KNOW, will we just do those “sheep” things because we will receive God’s favour? When I was younger there was a number of expressions about “looking for “Brownie Points” or “stars in your crown”,” but this parable seems to imply that seeking them is not the way to find them.
Perhaps there is more discernment involved. Perhaps there is more risk involved.
Each of us needs to ask and answer the question, “what does the love of God as shown in Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived in Palestine, 2000 years ago, tell us about life in our global village, in the 21st century?
Who is Jesus and how are we to live?
Are there any questions more important?
Amen!