Monthly Archives: July 2013

“Martha, Martha, Martha!” – Preparing to preach on an all too familiar text!

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From an Academic Paper to a Sermon

martha 2I am usually on vacation at this time of the year. So, I have only had one opportunity to opportunity to preach on this coming Sunday’s gospel text (Luke 10:38-42). The story of Jesus’ sojourn at the home of Mary and Martha is such a familiar text, which over the years has been used and abused by preachers to inflict such harm on their listeners. During my seminary years, this text awakened the feminist in me in ways that I am still unpacking. So, in preparation to write only my second sermon on this text, I went back to my seminary years to uncover an academic treatment of this text that I included in my Masters Comprehensive paper in 1998. Reading the paper took me back to a time when I seriously doubted my call to ordained ministry. Back then I was unsure about my ability to tolerate the institutional church or indeed whether or not the institutional church would be able to tolerate me. I am happy to report that there are pockets of the institutional church were feminists can thrive and I have been blessed to be called to serve in one of those pockets. 

The only time I preached on this text was in 2004 and so I post both the academic paper and the sermon based on the paper as a resources for those of you who will take up the text this week. I have not edited the sermon, despite my inclination to do so. Old sermons provide a snapshot of old preachers. Like most snapshots, I’m not altogether happy with the picture of myself. The good news is that this week I have the opportunity to create another snapshot.

You can read the academic paper here   and   the sermon here

Strange Fruit, Blood on the Leaves: Continuing Lament

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o-MARTIN-LUTHER-KING-HOODIE-facebookI have always despised the word closure. While I recognize that there are moments when the quest for closure is appropriate, the word itself has evolved into the kind of jargon that is dismissed as psychobabble as the populace concludes that each and every tragedy  can be cured/dismissed/completed if just as soon as the victims find closure. The demands for closure work well in our 24-hour-news-cycle world, as we seek to tie our reactions into a neat little emotional bow. Rend your garments if you must, just make sure your ready to appear buttoned down and ready to move on at the top of the hour. Gnashing of teeth will be tolerated but for a moment. Smile and tell us all about how you achieved closure so that we can dust ourselves off and be about our business.

We have forgotten the ancient art of lament. We have little time for the practices that express our outrage, give voice to our grief, or enact our horror; practices which move us beyond the mere words of closure; practices that in and of themselves provide a strange balm to sooth our grief. 

Today, I have no words with which to confront the horror of injustice, only my continued lament for the racism that infects the darkness of our existence. So, while the media broadcasts their ongoing quest for closure, my cries of lament are driven deeper into my soul by song. 

Imagining Fred Phelps as the Good Samaritan – Sermon Luke 10:25-37

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love-your-neighbor-as-yourselfPentecost 8C – Sunday July 14 2013

Listen to the sermon here

Tough to Contemplate Being a Good Samaritan in a Stand Your Ground World – A Lament

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travonPutting the finishing touches on tomorrow’s sermon on Jesus’ parable of the good samaritan when my computer interrupted me with a newsflash that heralded a “not guilty” verdict in Florida. It’s tough to contemplate being a good samaritan in a stand your ground world. Feels like a few more nails were driven into the body of Christ. Jesus wept!!! But Sunday will come!!! We who believe in freedom cannot not rest!!! But for now the sounds of lament cry out….

Imagination as the Path of the Spirit: John O’Donohue

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unseen life O'DonohueT’is a glorious summer weekend and so it is a perfect time to get yourself an ice cold glass of your favourite beverage, find some shade and sit back and listen to the wisdom of one of my favourite humanoids John 0″Donohue. I have been eating up his writings for the past few months and delighting in his Irish lilting way with words. From Anam Cara, to Beauty, through Eternal Echos and now lingering over Benedictus I have come to love this kindred spirit! Sláinte!

Thoughts on Messiaen’s End of Time: The Nevertheless of Faith – Richard Holloway

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Olivier+Messiaen+3Music opens us to all that lies within ourselves. I have always been fascinated by the powers of music in ritual. Of late I have been exploring the transformative powers of lament; a worship form that has fallen out of use. Alerted by a colleague to the music of Olivier Messiaen, I was immediately both disturbed and intrigued by his brilliant musical exploration of evil. I was relieved to find this video of Scottish theologian Richard Holloway’s thoughts on Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Haunting, severe, beautiful, unnerving, and sublime the piece echo’s the horror perpetrated in the camps while shouting what Holloway calls the “nevertheless of faith”. 

Canadian Lutheran World Relief and the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund

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Pryse Granke interviewStroumboulopoulos beware: our own Bishop Michael Pryse’s interview skills might put you out of a job. Bishop Pryse explores the work of the relief agencies of the ELCIC and ACC during the Joint Assembly in Ottawa. Bishop Michael also has some stomping and spoon playing skills that might come in handy over at the CBC!

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Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson’s Address to the Joint Assembly

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mark hansonOf all of the guests to the first Joint Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church in Canada, the Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was by far the most challenging. Bishop Hanson spoke eloquently of the crossroads at which both the ELCA and ELCIC find ourselves. Truly the most rousing speech of the Joint Assembly.

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Playing All the Roles on the Road to Jericho

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samaritan

Preaching ideas for this week’s sermon on Luke 10:25-37

I was just 10 years old when the Gideon Society came into my classroom to present us with small pocket editions of The New Testament and Psalms. I was in grade five when this little book was given to me. Its imitation leather has held up well over the years. After I carefully wrote my name on the presentation page, I tucked it into my school bag. Several weeks later, a thunderstorm knocked out the electricity and I was caught without a book to read, so I dug out this little red book from my school bag. By candlelight, I read the Gospel of Matthew. Over the course of the next two weeks, I read Mark, Luke and John. I stopped reading somewhere in the book of Acts.

Over the course of the next few years, in the privacy of my room, I would return to this little red book and escape into the desert towns where Jesus travelled. In those days I didn’t know what a parable was, but I loved the stories that Jesus told. The stories that Jesus told have a timeless quality to them. The parables that Jesus told defy simple explanations. Each of the parables is layered with meaning. The varied meanings of each parable can take a lifetime to uncover as the stories weave in and out of our own lives. The parable about the Good Samaritan is probably one of the most familiar of all of Jesus’ parables.

I believe that the timeless quality of this story comes as a result of the way in which the reader or the hearer can identify with all of the characters in the story. While most of us would like to see ourselves as good Samaritans, I dare say that over the years each of us have managed to play all of the roles in this story.

Over the years I have often played the role of the lawyer, trying to get Jesus to explain the secrets of life as over and over again I have questioned and questioned what I must do to inherit eternal life. Continue reading →

Church Must Critique “self-centredness” – Christopher Duraisingh

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Keynote address to the Joint Assembly of the ELCIC & ACC – Ottawa July 3, 2013

Ottawa South Indian theologian the Rev. Dr. Christopher Duraisingh challenged the delegates at the Joint Assembly to think of our them “Together for the Love of the World” not as an invitation to “grow bigger and better” and not as a project, but as “a major calling to nurture and nourish an alternative consciousness,” one that would involve, like Jesus, “a solidarity plunge into the anguish, hopes and aspirations of his people.” Jesus’ baptism was “not for the forgiveness of sin…not sin management,” but rather “an identification with the world, with the hopes and aspirations of the poor and the oppressed.”

Heading to the Joint Assembly!

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Ottawa Convention Center

Ottawa Convention Center:
site of the Joint Assembly

It has been almost two years since the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada voted on a series of motions designed to end the discrimination against GLBT people in our church. Prior to the passage of these motions, I assumed that once we voted to allow same-gendered marriage and the ordination of openly gay candidates for the ministry of word and sacrament we would be well on the way to equality for GLBT folk in our congregations. I had hoped that our church’s affirmative votes would mean that I could finally set aside studies related to sex in the Bible. As an ordained woman who just happens to be gay, I had grown weary of sexual politics in the church and longed to turn my attentions to theological matters that might lead to a re-articulation of the Christ experience for 21st century thinkers. My naive notions failed to take into account the fact that it has been close to 37 years since the ELCIC voted to ordain women and sadly there are still bastions of prejudices against women that remain in the ELCIC.

Voting doesn’t make it so. As the National Assembly of the ELCIC draws near, I have begun to receive questions about: 1) what it’s like to be an “out lesbian” serving in an ELCIC parish, 2) how many individual congregations have voted to affirm the ELCIC’s policies, are served by openly gay clergy, or are preforming same-gendered weddings, and 3) what needs doing in order that we might have more congregations that actually welcome GLBT folk into full membership?

In response to the various questions that are littering my inbox I can only say, “I don’t know?” You see I live in a bubble. The congregation I serve is a fully inclusive congregation. Shortly after the ELCIC voted to allow openly gay clergy to serve, I was finally able to celebrate by marrying my long-time partner. Our wedding celebration was also a congregational celebration. While I am relieved to be able to speak publicly about who I am, my gayness is not central to my ministry. We at Holy Cross are busy working to be a congregation that dwells in the 21st century. We are constantly exploring what it means to follow the ways of Jesus in a post-Christendom world. We have moved so far beyond the sexuality questions which obsessed the ELCIC for nearly two decades. I rather like the freedom that our particular bubble has afforded us to float away from the endless conversations about sexuality. So, it is with great trepidation that I began to engage the questions that are frequenting my inbox.

This Joint Assembly marks the first time that the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Anglican Church in Canada have gathered together for our national conventions. As full communion partners there is so much that unites us. However, the Anglican Church of Canada, unlike the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, has not yet voted to remove all of the barriers to full inclusion for its LGBTQ members. While our experiences in the ELCIC prove that voting doesn’t make it so, it does make it possible for us to claim our place in the church. So, while I applaud the sentiments that bring us together for this Assembly, I can’t help wondering about the quality of our “full communion”?Joint-Assembly-logo_FINAL_full2

I shall endeavour to blog during this Joint Assembly. I’ve added a page to this website where related blogs will be posted. In the meantime I travel in hope!

Religion As A Work of Art – Richard Holloway

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prodigalIf religion is to move beyond the supernatural, we must begin to see religion as a work of art. Richard Holloway, the former Primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church points to the power of story to explore human discontent as we crawl toward a better humanity.