About a dozen years ago, I traveled to Vancouver to attend an educational conference for Lutheran Mission Pastors. Most of the conference was spent inside a stuffy meeting room. But one afternoon about forty of us were loaded onto a school bus and we traveled down to the east-side of Vancouver to spend some time with Pastor Brian Heinrich, who ran the Lutheran Urban Ministry Society. I doubt that many of you have ever or will ever visit the downtown east side of Vancouver. Lutheran Urban Ministry was located near the corner of Main and Hastings in one of the poorest areas in all of Canada. It was the sort of place where forty Lutheran pastors stuck out like a sore thumb. At the time the downtown east-side was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Canada. This was before Olympic developers gentrified the neighbourhood.
As we arrived, I noticed the discomfort that was written all over the faces of my fellow clergy. Although I’d travelled to the eastside many times and even lived for a few months in a cheap apartment on the edge of the eastside, my journeys in the eastside were usually quick, with as few stops as I could manage, so that I could avoid the unpleasant sights and sounds that you encounter in places were poverty literally fills the air. Knowing that we were scheduled to spend the day in the eastside made me long for the mountaintops that I could see stretching up to the sky across the river. I could feel the same discomfort that was written on the faces of my colleagues take hold of my own face.
On the steps of the church, a young man was shooting up. In the alley next to the church, very young men and women were offering their bodies for sale. Inside the church we were greeted by several of Pastor Brian’s parishioners. Before we could get inside the sanctuary, a very smelly man extended a filthy hand in friendship. When I took his hand he grinned at me with his two remaining teeth and told me his name was David and that I should make myself at home. Eventually, Pastor Brian introduced us to about a half a dozen of his parishioners. All of them wore their poverty with a welcoming smile. Because the sight of forty Lutheran Pastors being guided around the neighborhood on a tour might have shaken up the local inhabitants, we were divided up into small groups and assigned guides. That’s how I met a woman, for the purposes of this sermon I’ll call, Gracie. Continue reading →
On this the fourth Sunday of the Season of Creation, we are encouraged to celebrate rivers. Today, when hundreds of thousands of Porto Ricans living along the Guajataca River are being evacuated because the force of the river may cause a dam to burst, it is difficult to contemplate gentle pastoral images of rivers gently flowing past. It is difficult to imagine the peaceful waters and let’s face it most of us come to church on a Sunday morning hoping for some sanctuary from the realities that bombard us in the media. I don’t know about you, but between the rantings of the cyber-bully who currently occupies the most powerful office in the world, and the news of the suffering caused by hurricanes and earthquakes, I would really like to be able to luxuriate for a while in the gentle images of a peaceful river. I would love to take you all on a walk down by the river-side so that we could contemplate together the image of God as a river, gently caressing us, supporting us through life. If only Jesus would refrain from teaching in parables designed to disturb us.
Jesus parable about the workers in the vineyard bursts the dam of our complacency and sends us scrambling towards the shore in the vain hope that we can escape the knowledge, that while we bask aboard our luxurious pleasure-crafts, while all around us our neighbours are drowning. Sure, we could just allegorize Jesus parable and interpret it as a nice little story in which the Landowner becomes God, the workers at dawn are good Christians like you and I, while the workers who show up much later are those who convert on their deathbeds, and even though it may seem unfair, God the Landowner treats everyone the same and everyone is rewarded in some far and distant here-after because God is full of Grace. I’ve heard countless sermons that interpret Jesus’ parable as a nice little story. But the words of my preaching professor ring loudly in this preacher’s mind: “Beware of parables that become nice little stories. Parables are verbal hand-grenades and should be handled with care.” So, I hope you will forgive me if the raging waters of a river flowing violently were rivers are not supposed to be, rushes over my interpretation of Jesus parable about the kind of justice that demands so much from landowners like you and me because today as so many of our neighbours and friends are drowning, I cannot and will not allegorize this parable.
You see, when Jesus’ audience heard him tell this parable, they would have immediately understood who the landowners and who the workers were. Jesus audience lived under the occupation of the Romans. Jewish Landowners in occupied Palestine would have had very few choices. Landowners could oppose the Romans and lose their land and then have to resort to becoming day labourers themselves, or they could collaborate with their Roman oppressors and participate in the abuse of their neighbours. As an occupied people, the Jews were waiting for someone to come along and save them from Caesar’s oppressive rule. They longed for a Messiah who would change their world and end their oppression. The crowds that flocked to listen to Jesus’ are looking for some sort of revelation about when and how the oppressive Roman occupations that set neighbour against neighbour was going to end. Rather than point to some far off distant salvation at the hands of an intervening God, Jesus points directly at the very crowds longing for salvation and insists that only when land-owners stop oppressing their neighbours will the long dreamed of kindom of God become a reality.
Imagine for a moment that you are in the crowd. You have worked hard all your life. You have saved and invested wisely. You have a home on land you either rent or own. You and I, we are the land-owners. And each one of us, we want to pay the labourers, in whatever vineyard we are involved in, we want to pay less. Sure, an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work is all well and good when it applies to us. But who among us is willing to pay more for our meals so that day labourers can receive salary that will feed and house their families?
Let’s face it we are more than willing to shop at Walmart without caring too much about how Walmart treats its employees provided Walmart offers us a bargain. We want to pay less and we know that if we pay less, Walmart will pay less. We are all too willing to shop in dollar stores even though we know that the bargains we scoop up were in all likelihood manufactured by people working as slaves. We want to pay less for our groceries and are smart enough to know that those Mexicans working on the Marsh will be the ones to pay the price for our cheap vegetables. You know that I love my devices, my iPad is precious to me, even though I know the price paid by the labourers in China so that I could we could have our fun. We want to pay less and we also want to get more. We want our investments, and our retirement savings funds, to earn us bigger and bigger dividends. We want our property values to increase, even tough we know that those increases will make it impossible for the vast majority of our young neighbours to ever be able to become landowners. We want our governments to do more with less because we want to pay less taxes.Continue reading →
Join us at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket as we begin our exploration of Islam. Using the Living the Questions video series: “The Jesus Fatwah” we will delve into a study of Islam on Sunday mornings beginning Sept. 24th at 9:15am
This week, as I was thinking about Homecoming Sunday, I couldn’t help remembering all the various places I that I have called home. To say that we moved around a lot when I was a kid would be a massive understatement. Sometimes, it felt like every time I got comfortable enough to think of a place as home we were on the move. I was always the new kid in school. Being the new kid is not a pleasant experience. The stress of a new school, the confusion of unfamiliar ways, and strange kids to get to know could be unbearable at times. To this day, the pain of homesickness that all that moving around created in me can still move me to tears. Moving from house to house, country to country, school to school, classroom to classroom, was traumatizing. I suppose the stress of trying to find my way in new places together with the fear of meeting new people is what inspired a recurring nightmare that can still invade my dreams.
The nightmare was always the same. I was always breathless from running away from some frightening experience. I would arrive at what I believed to be the front door of my home. The door was the only thing that ever changed in the dream. Sometimes, it was a blue door, sometimes a red door, sometimes a green door, sometimes a brown door, but somehow, I always knew that beyond this door I would find relief from the pressures of the newness in which I found myself. Beyond the door, no matter what the colour, beyond the door, I would be safe. All I needed to do was open the door and I would be home.
We were latch-key kids. For those of you too young or too privileged to remember, latch-key kinds were kids whose mothers worked. So, we fended for ourselves when we got home from school. So that we wouldn’t lose them, we carried the keys to our home on chains around our necks. In my stress induced nightmares, I would arrive breathless at my new front door, take the key from around my neck, so that I could let myself into the safety of my home, only to discover that the key never fit into the lock because the key that I carried was always the key to the last house that I had lived in. Upon discovering that I was locked out of my home, I would wake-up in a cold sweat terrified of what the next day might bring me.
This recurring nightmare fed my longing for the home of my dreams. Looking back on my younger self, I can almost feel the ache of that longing that I can only describe to you as a kind of homesickness – homesickness for the kind of home that I never really had. The kind of home I longed for was a place where I was safe and secure from all my deepest fears, a place I could count on to always be there, full of people who would love me and keep me safe.
So, this week as I was working on this Homecoming sermon I felt something of that old homesickness that haunted my childhood nightmares. The longing that I felt for the safety of the home of my dreams was accentuated by the fact that in addition to this being Homecoming Sunday it is also the Third Sunday of the Season of Creation that focusses up the Wilderness. The task of combining Homecoming Sunday with Wilderness Sunday is daunting to say the least. Try as I might, every idea I had about celebrating the beauty of the wilderness, was spoiled by the reality of what is happening in wildernesses all over the planet. Creation is groaning under the weight of generations of abuse. Wildernesses around the world are on fire.
This summer my beloved British Columbia is on track to set an all-time record for wild fires as more than one million-one-hundred-and-ninety-three-thousand hectares have burned across the province. Records are also being broken in the Northwest Territories and vast portions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Northern Ontario are on fire even as I speak. In the United States 5.8 million acres of land has been scorched by infernos. Enormous fires are also burning in Italy, Romania, Portugal, and Serbia. Spurred on by temperatures that have caused the media to name the current heat-wave in Europe: “Lucifer.”
In Ireland, my old homeland, this they have experienced 75 percent less rainfall than normal and for the first time in generations the Irish are also battling forest fires. Wildfires are burning in large swaths across Brazil. Earlier this year the fires in South Africa, New Zealand, and Chile caused some commentators to speculate that Hell may have sprung a leak. Scientists are warning us that the infernos of 2017 are just the beginning and we should expect more and more as the effects of climate change continue to disrupt the planet we call home.
If only the fires were all we have to worry about. While record droughts spark fires, record breaking storms are dumping epic amounts of water and millions of acres have been flooded in Texas and Florida, the Caribbean, Mumbai, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China. This very morning floods are only beginning to recede in Vietnam, the Philippines, Croatia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leon. The earth is groaning and humanity’s anxieties are rising almost as high as the floodwaters. I can feel the stress as we gather for Homecoming looking for safety in the presence of one another, longing for relief from the fear that is inspired by all we know about the disasters that are wreaking havoc on our planet. It’s almost as if we have arrived breathless at our own front door desperate to get in so that we can feel at home, so that we can relax and take refuge from the storms in this sanctuary. The groaning of the Earth, the turmoil of our planet is almost more than we can bear. We are so tempted to hunker down in the familiar patterns of old so that we can fortify ourselves in the safety we find within the walls we have built. But, look closely and I think I you will see that we have the wrong keys hanging around our necks. Can our old keys save us from all that haunts us or are they the keys to houses we must move beyond?
A long time ago, when the stress in my life was almost more than I could bear, I told a friend of mine that I wasn’t sleeping very well because every time I drifted off to sleep my old recurring nightmare was there to meet me. I couldn’t bear standing in front of that door not being able to get in because I had the wrong key. The friend I told, was someone I’ve told you about before. Henry Myair is a Jewish Rabbi that I met years ago when we were both working in the travel business. Henry is a wise man whose many kindnesses have touched me in ways that continue to bless me to this day. After asking me a few questions about my recurring nightmare Henry suggested that I try summoning up my nightmare as a “daymare.” I’d never heard of a “daymare” before, so it took a while for Henry to convince me that I should try to walk around inside my nightmare in the middle of the day to see what I might discover. I agreed to venture into my fears, on the condition that Henry would come with me into my “daymare.”
We began by talking a little about the various anxieties that were creating my stress. It didn’t take long for us to arrive at a very large, imposing, black, door. I reached for the key that hung around my neck and just like always that key didn’t fit. Henry invited me to toss the key away. After all, that key belonged to my old home and so, it wasn’t the key I needed. I protested that I was so homesick that maybe I should just try to find the door that the key fitted into. Maybe if I found the right door, I’d finally be able to go home.
Then Henry asked me a question that tipped me over the edge, “Where are you when you have your nightmares?”
At first I didn’t understand, “I’m running away.” I almost pleaded to Henry.
“No, That’s not the question. The question is not what is happening in your nightmare.
The question is: When you are actually dreaming your nightmare, where are you?”
I still didn’t get it. So, Henry offered me an answer. “You are at home in your own bed. You are already home. You are already safe. Now, look around, see if you can find a window. Resist the temptation to hide away. Go to the window and look outside. What can you see? Now look at the door. You don’t need that old key to get into your home, you are already there, you are already safe. Open the door, open the door and go outside.
As I peered through the window I saw a hallway full of people. The people were carrying back-packs and books. I imagined that the hallway was a school. Henry encouraged me to dream may way out through the door so that I could look around. I dreamed I was walking onto the campus of a university. My nightmare became my daymare and my daymare became my dream.
Sometimes, when fear rises in me, I long for a home that never really existed and the old nightmare returns. But now I know that the door in my nightmare opens both ways and I don’t need the key around my neck because I’m already home, I’m already safe. I can take comfort from the familiarity of my home and the LOVE that dwells in and around my home, comfort that gives me the strength to go outside.
Dear friends, look around, we are home, we are safe. We don’t need to escape our anxieties about what is happening in the world. We are home, we are safe. We can share our fears trusting that the LOVE that dwells among us is strong enough to hold us. Look around and take comfort from the LOVE that dwells among us and draw strength from the familiar surroundings. Know that you are home. Know that you are safe. Safe even if we do have some old keys hanging around our necks; keys that no longer work their magic. Take strength from one another, give one another the courage to set those keys aside and look out through the windows. What can we see out there? Remember you are already home. You are already safe.
The LOVE that dwells among us also dwells beyond us, beyond the doors and walls that we have built. The LOVE that soothes us here at home, that same LOVE also calls us out into the world.
What can we see out there? What dreams are waiting to be dreamt? The nightmares exist and they are frightening. But in the bright light of day, we can see that we are already home, we already safe. The Love that dwells among us also dwells beyond us.
Together, let us have the courage to experience the realities of our daymares, so that we can dream dreams that will carry us out into the world out there. Let us dream beyond our fears. Let us dream into the LOVE that is God.
This interactive sermon is the third in a series of sermons responding to the question “Who Do You Say I AM?” Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 here
The sermon is divided into two sections and the audio includes the readings as well as the songs. you can listen to the sermon here
“Jesus IS?” Section ONE: Questioning
We cannot un-know what we have learned. In the past one-hundred years biblical scholarship has exploded. In the halls of academia, in the seminaries of mainline denominations the quest for knowledge about Jesus has born so very much fruit. Now thanks to the explosions of the information age, information that was once reserved to the carefully initiated, is available to everyone. Wander into your local bookstore, or turn on your computer and you will discover more information than any one person could ever digest on the subject of Jesus. And yet, despite more than 2000 years of scholarship, theologizing, speculating, preaching, and teaching, the question, put on the lips of Jesus by the anonymous gospel-storyteller that we call Matthew, remains a daunting question to answer.
“Who do you say that I AM?” This is a question designed by the storyteller to evoke a response from the listener. “Who do you say that I AM?” Our individual responses to this question are tinged by all that we have been taught, by our families, by the church, by the culture in which we live, by the communities to which we belong, by the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the documentaries we have watched, the lectures we have listened to. Those of us who have stayed behind in the church, long after the vast majority of the population have left, we have been trying to answer questions about Jesus have learned so much about Jesus. But rather than help us answer the question, what we think we know about Jesus, has left us tong tied.
“Who do you say that I AM?” The way in which we answer questions about the identity of Jesus matters in a world where so many of the answers that have already been offered continue to misrepresent the man who lies at the heart of Christianity. These days, what passes for Christianity often stands in direct opposition to the teachings of the man Christians profess to follow. The idol worshipped by millions depicts Jesus as a super-hero God, sent to die as a blood sacrifice for sin. This idol has co-opted the story of Jesus the man who steadfastly refused to take up violence against his enemies. Worshippers of this idol seek the companionship of a personal saviour, sacrificed violently for their personal sin, while they turn their backs upon Jesus’ the man’s personal quest for peace through justice for all. Worshippers of this idol follow a saviour who encourages them in their personal quest for happiness in this world and the next. All too often, this personal quest for happiness, results in the oppression and suffering of others, requiring the followers of this idol to embrace violence.
“Who do you say that I AM?” The way in which we answer this question has implications for the way in which we live in the world. “Who do you say that I AM?” – a human, a seeker of justice committed to non-violent resistance to oppressive systems, willing to give everything to achieve peace, peace for all. A teacher offering insights into a way of being in the world that embodies LOVE. Or a super-human, blood-sacrifice, who demands obedience and conviction to a carefully crafted story designed to ensure that your tribe wins the battle to create a new world order, where your tribe wins not only in this life but in the next. “Who do you say that I AM?”
Section Two: Imagining
“Who do you say that I AM?” Before we can say who Jesus is, we must imagine who Jesus was. David Steindl-Rast reminds us that, “religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion.” Steindl-Rast compares this mystical experience “to a volcano that gushes forth…and then…the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it’s just rocks. You’d never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through the crust and go to the fire that’s within it.”
The fire that sparked Christianity is Jesus. The red-hot experience of the living breathing Jesus, bubbled up out of out of the mountain that Judaism had become. Like red hot lava Jesus flowed through the towns and villages of first century Palestine sparking a revolution that has long since cooled. We are the inheritors of the dead rock formations that lie scattered about us. If we are ever to push through the crust to experience the fire that lies within, we will need to have the courage to shatter the idol of Jesus that Christianity has fashioned out of the rock. That means imagining who Jesus was when the fire ignited so that we can determine who Jesus is, here and now, in this place and in this time.
“Who do you say that I AM?” Let’s begin where it always begins in ancient literature, let’s begin with the name. The name given to the experience of whatever it is that lies at the very source of reality. YAHWEH – I AM WHO I AM. The ancient name given by the Hebrew people to their experience of the Divine. I AM – from the verb to be… God – IS
The question put on the lips of Jesus by the anonymous gospel storyteller we call Matthew “Who do you say that I AM?” echo’s the very I AM that this same Jesus depicts in a whole new way. It is all in the name. Sadly, we’ve missed the fullness meaning of Jesus’ name. Jesus was known by two names in the ancient world. Can anybody tell me what those names were? ……Yeshua ben Yosef …. Yeshua bar abba … Joshua = God is Gracious or God Saves
Yeshua ben Yosef = Joshua son of Joseph
Yeshua bar abba = Joshua son of abba the name Jesus used for God
Joshua – salvation a man or a god
There in lies the question – Jesus divine or human?
“Who do you say that I AM?”
Last Sunday I talked about how the Creeds have shaped us. The Apostle’s and the Nicene Creeds were created in the 4th century after the life of Yeshua ben Yosef, or Yeshua bar Abba by the powers of the Roman Empire to ensure that there would be a consistent view of Yeshua throughout the emerging church. That consistent view served the Empire well and went a long way to solidify the idol of Jesus Christ that continues to pervade our culture. So, let’s set aside the creeds for a moment and respond to the questions of Jesus’ identity in ways that give us a glimmer of the fire that gave birth to a way of being in the world.
On Monday the world will mark the sixteenth anniversary of 911. Much has happened since that day that changed our world. Sadly, much has stayed the same. This Sunday the Gospel reading for those congregations following the Revised Standard Lectionary comes from Matthew 18:21-35 and is all about forgiveness. Looking back on the sermons that I have preached on this particular text, I discovered that on the first anniversary of 911 the same reading came around to challenge preachers and their listeners. Reading that old sermon, I was struck by how very little we have learned over the years. My theology has changed considerably over the years and so the way in which I speak about the work of the Divine in the world has also change. But, replace some the names like Sadam Husain, Taliban, and El Queada with ISIS or ISEL, or Hamas, or Assad, or Kim Jong Un, and the world’s willingness to use violence seems almost inevitable. What has not changed for those of us who seek to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth is the challenge to change our ways and seek peace. So, I post this old sermon here, in the hope that some of the echoes of our past might enlighten our present with a desire to work for peace.
I seriously considered quitting my job this week. It’s been a tough week and I’ve gotta tell you, that by the time Friday rolled around, I felt like handing in my notice. I was sick and tired of my boss’s holy than thou attitude and I didn’t want to work for Jesus any more. You see all week long I’ve had this gospel lesson rolling around in my head. This is a lousy week to try and write a sermon on mercy and forgiveness. Images of towers crumbling, family members weeping and American politicians calling for an escalation of the war against terrorism, aren’t exactly conducive to thoughts about mercy and forgiveness. On any other week, I could write a sermon proclaiming the goodness of God’s grace and reminding you how much we owe God. On any other week, I could come up with a story about the colossal debt we owe our God and how dramatically God has wiped the slate clean. On any other week, I could write a sermon urging you to look with compassion and mercy on those who are in your debt. On any other week, I could proclaim the good news of God’s mercy and point to the many ways that we have sinned and count up the many times God has forgiven us and urge you to be just as forgiving to those who have sinned against you. On any other week, I could do my job. But this week Jesus’ words about forgiving not once, not twice, not three times, not even seven times but forgiving those who have sinned against us seventy-seven times is more than I can bare.Continue reading →
Labour Day weekend marks a milestone in my life. You see 23 years ago, after a driving about 4,000 kilometres, all the way from Vancouver, I arrived in Waterloo, Ontario, just in time for the long Labour Day weekend. I didn’t know anyone in Waterloo. I didn’t have a place to live. But on the Tuesday after Labour Day, I was scheduled to report to Waterloo Lutheran Seminary to begin orientation for what would be a four year masters of Divinity program. In the course of that long ago Labour Day weekend, I found a place to live, unpacked all the belongings that I’d been able to stuff in to my old 84 Oldsmobile, and discovered that in Ontario, milk comes out of in plastic bags. You have no idea how mystified I was wondering just how those plastic bags functioned as an appropriate container for milk. I actually remember standing in the grocery store wondering what people here in Ontario did once they’d opened the plastic bag. Visions of milk spilling everywhere caused me to well up with such a feeling of homesickness. Since then, Labour Day Weekends have been strange combination of nostalgia for what once was and excitement for what is yet to be. I came to Ontario in the midst of a transition. I’d just completed a 4 year undergraduate degree in Religious Studies and I was about to begin Seminary. Both my undergraduate and my masters degree would qualify me to be a pastor. After a years in the travel industry working as both a tour wholesaler and an accountant, I wanted something more out of my work; I wanted something more than just a job I wanted a profession. Religion, Christianity, the Church, the inner workings of reality, books, studying, teaching, deep conversations, these things were and are expressions of my passion. Travel Brochures, numbers, spread-sheets, office politics, sales-figures, the day to day commute into the city, these things represented a means of making money to pay the bills. Don’t get me wrong, my work in the travel industry was usually interesting, sometimes challenging and often quite satisfying. But it had nothing what so ever to do with passion.I viewed my work as a job. What I wanted was a profession. I was caught up in a way of seeing that divided work into categories of meaningful and meaningless. I was incapable of seeing the sacred in my work. Despite the fact that I worked with interesting, beautiful, people and was privileged enough to enjoy the world in ways that some people can only dream of, I couldn’t see meaning in my work. I was for all intents and purposes an arrogant snob.I was raised in a culture and in a time when education, and fancy letters after one’s name, meant that your work was more important and therefore more meaningful than the work of folks who didn’t have a professional calling. Not surprisingly, I am a product of my experience. I was raised by British working-class parents who struggled to ensure that I had access to the kind of educational opportunities that would result in more than just a job. Their dreams and visions were of having their children become “someone”. A job was something anyone could get. A career was something special. A career meant that you were someone who was involved in something more; a career meant that you were a professional. Even the word job is designed to put the worker in their place. Job comes from the word “jobbe” which describes piece work. A person who does a job is like a cog in a wheel of a much larger machine, who preforms a task that is often disconnected from the end product. A profession is defined as a vocation, a calling that requires specialized educational training. I was tired of functioning in a job and I felt called to a profession in which I could put my own particular passions to work. It took me a long time to understand that a profession could also be just a job and that a job could indeed be the expression of one’s passion. While I was busy judging the quality of particular occupations, I failed to see the inherent dignity of work itself. The legacy of the class system that divided us into tribes based on the money our work could generate leaves many of us with the miss-guided notion that work is simply a means to an end. All too often we direct our attention to the end and judge the work by how much the worker is able to accumulate. How big is your pile of money? That becomes the point of our work. We express the value of our work in the size of our homes, our cars, the vacations we take, the clothes we wear, the toys we play with. The object of our work becomes the pile. How high can we build our towers? What mark can we leave upon the earth?
Seabright Farmhouse
Years ago, when I was working as a volunteer at a retreat centre, I remember the You see the main building of the retreat centre was an old farmhouse. The kitchen had an old and ugly linoleum floor. That floor had seen so much traffic that the the pattern was worn off in places. I remember getting up before sunrise, or wandering in late in the evening, to get down on my hands and knees and scrub that floor because it was a job best done when no one was around. First, I’d scrub it with a scrub brush and Comet; you know that old fashioned abrasive powder. Then I’d have to rinse it with hot water and a cloth. Then after it dried, I’d wax it. It wasn’t a very big kitchen, but it took a couple of hours to do it right. Yet, even when it was finished, that old linoleum wasn’t really up to much. But it was clean. You could have eaten off that floor. I knew full well that it would only take a few moments for the retreat centres’ inhabitants and visitors to destroy the floors lustre, and I sometimes wondered why I even bothered. But then one night and old theologian who regularly visited the retreat centre, was up and about late at night and he found me on my hands and knees scrubbing. I don’t remember much about the long conversation we had that evening, but I do remember the words on the thank-you card that Fritz left for me before he left the retreat centre. Written on the card were the words of the Persian poet Gibran: “Work is love made visible.” “Work is love made visible.” For just a moment the words penetrated my carefully held notions about the meaning of work and I understood why I felt so satisfied every time I scrubbed the floor. The work was my way of giving expression to the love I had for the people and the place. Years later I came across those words again. “Work is love made visible.” Joan Chittiser quoted Gibran in an essay I read and tucked away, back when I was trying to figure out what it means to be human. Chittister writes: “A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God. When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. When we sweep the street in front of a house, we bring new order to the universe. When we repair what has been broken or paint what is old or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again. When we compost garbage and recycle cans, when we clean a room and put coasters under glasses, when we care for everything we touch and touch it reverently, we become the creators of a new universe. Then we sanctify our work and our work sanctifies us. A spirituality of work puts us in touch with our own creativity. Making a salad for supper becomes a work of art. Planting another evergreen tree becomes our contribution to the health of the world. Organizing a good meeting with important questions for the sake of preserving the best in human values enhances humanity. Work enables us to put our personal stamp of approval, our own watermark, the autograph of our souls on the development of the world. In fact, to do less is to do nothing at all. A spirituality of work draws us out of ourselves and, at the same time, makes us more of what we are meant to be. Good work — work done with good intentions and good effects, work that up builds the human race rather than reduces it to the monstrous or risks its destruction — develops qualities of compassion and character in me. My work also develops everything around it. There is nothing I do that does not affect the world in which I live. In developing a spirituality of work, I learn to trust beyond reason that good work will gain good things for the world, even when I don’t expect them and I can’t see them. In that way, I gain myself. Literally. I come into possession of a me that is worthwhile, whose life has not been in vain, who has been a valuable member of the human race. Finally, a spirituality of work immerses me in the search for human community. I begin to see that everything I do, everything, has some effect on someone somewhere. I begin to see my life tied up in theirs. I begin to see that the starving starve because someone is not working hard enough to feed them. And so I do. It becomes obvious, then, that the poor are poor because someone is not intent on the just distribution of goods of the earth. And so I am. I begin to realize that work is the lifelong process of personal sanctification that is satisfied only for the globe. I finally come to know that my work is God’s work, unfinished by God because God meant it to be finished by me.” Chittister’s view of work as an expression of our love, reminds me that the LOVE that we call God, finds expression in the work that we do. Indeed, the LOVE that IS God works in, with, through, and beyond us. On this Labour day weekend, may we all remember and honour the sacred work that has nourished, grounded, and sustained us in the blessed lives that we lead. May we honour the sacred workers who have provided a means for LOVE to find expression in the world. May we all find work that gives expression to our love for the world, our love for one another, and our love for our neighbours. Work is indeed LOVE made visible. LOVE is the source, and ground of our being. May our work, together, and beyond make the LOVE that is God visible. Now and always,Continue reading →
This sermon is the second in a series of three sermons responding to questions about Jesus’ identity. You can explore the part one here
Part Two of this exploration of Jesus’ identity includes three reflections interspersed throughout the liturgy. The audio picks up the liturgy as the congregation is remembering our old friend Jesus by singing an old hymn that evokes our personal histories with the character Jesus. You can listen to the songs as well as the reflections here
Reflection 1: Remembering.
Can any of you remember the first hymn you ever learned? (responses)
“Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.”
What about the first prayer you ever learned?
(responses)
“Now I lay me down to sleep.”
“Come, Lord Jesus.” graces
“The Lord’s Prayer”
“Psalm 23”
For those of you who were raised in the Lutheran Church, think back to your confirmation classes, do you remember learning the Creeds? I never went to church until I was 15. I was considered too old for confirmation class. So, I received private instruction from my pastor. I remember weeks and weeks spent learning both the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds. Remembering those creeds still influences the way I respond to the question that the anonymous gospel-storyteller that we call “Matthew” puts on the lips of Jesus: “Who do you say that I AM.”
I remember, a few years back, when Emily Eastwood was helping us in our struggle to move the wider church to be more inclusive. Emily, insisted that the only way to reach out to those on the other side of the argument was to tell our story. Stories have the power to move us. Stories well-told can move us beyond the boundaries we have set for ourselves. So, Emily encouraged each of us to learn how to tell our own stories. Emily taught us to be able to tell our stories about being gay, or knowing someone who is gay, or about changing our minds about homosexuality. Emily, insisted that we needed to be able to tell our stories in about 3 minutes. We were encouraged to seek out folks who we suspected might be among those who were working to limit the roles that LGBTQ folks in the church. In just 3 minutes, our personal stories were told. These stories humanized the issues that divided us and indeed divided the church. Putting a face on the pain made the issues that we were debating, more than just theological, they made them real, immediate, and personal. By moving out beyond the boundaries established by doctrine we could touch the pain caused by doctrine.
Remembering all those weeks of learning the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, which were designed by their 3rd and 4th century authors to answer, once and for all, all the questions surrounding the identity of the man we call Jesus, I can’t help but see the young woman that I was, reciting week after week, year after year, the doctrinal response to this pivotal question. For years, no for decades, my answer to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say I AM?” was bound up in my belief that the Creeds had answered the question: “Who do you say I AM?” All you need to do is remember and believe.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Or the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit
and the virgin Mary
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate’
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
I remember trusting and believing the answer to all my questions was Jesus. I remember trusting and believing that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God who came down from heaven, suffered, died and was buried. I remember believing that Jesus died for my sins. I remember believing that because God was gracious HE sent Jesus to die so that I might live. I remember believing that this grace of God was all I needed to understand who Jesus was and is. I remember believing that Jesus’ death upon the cross was necessary so that I could live forever. I remember believing that I knew exactly who Jesus was. I remember knowing without the shadow of a doubt that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
I remember eagerly eating the Body of Christ and drinking the Blood of Christ trusting that: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
I remember knowing who I knew Jesus was. I also remember my doubts. I remember worrying about the character of a God that I knew, because I am Lutheran after all, I knew God’s grace. But I could not, no matter how hard I tried, reconcile the notion of a loving and gracious God, with a God who could devise a plan to save me, that included the crucifixion of God’s beloved Son. I remember my doubts. Doubts squashed by doctrine.
I remember the very day that my dear pastor, the same pastor who had taught me the Creeds, dear Pastor Ernst invited me to join a Bible Study. Some of you may remember the old, Word and Witness program. Three years of intensive study of the Bible. A study based on the materials that seminaries were teaching prospective pastors. Pastor Ernst said I was too young for the program, but he thought I might just like to give it a try. Once again, I was the only one in the class. I remember well the day I learned the Jesus may not have said all the words that were clearly printed in red in my bible.
I remember the day I learned that the writers of the gospels were not actually Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; not actually eye-witnesses to the life of Jesus. I remember the questions that began to flow freely from my lips. I remember the freedom of asking questions that were beyond the carefully set boundaries of the Creeds. I remember the freedom.Continue reading →
About a dozen years ago, I traveled to Vancouver to attend an educational conference for Lutheran Mission Pastors. Most of the conference was spent inside a stuffy meeting room. But one afternoon about forty of us were loaded onto a school bus and we traveled down to the east-side of Vancouver to spend some time with Pastor Brian Heinrich, who ran the Lutheran Urban Ministry Society. I doubt that many of you have ever or will ever visit the downtown east side of Vancouver. Lutheran Urban Ministry was located near the corner of Main and Hastings in one of the poorest areas in all of Canada. It was the sort of place where forty Lutheran pastors stuck out like a sore thumb. At the time the downtown east-side was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Canada. This was before Olympic developers gentrified the neighbourhood.
