Advent 4

What is the best news you’ve ever received in your life?

Do you remember how you received it? We all know about some of the ‘classic’ where-were-you-then stories that deal with bad news (the attack on Pearl Harbour, or the fall of Hong Kong for us Canadians, 9.11…) but what about the good news?

For those who’ve had the experience, how did you feel the first time you found you were pregnant? How about guys, the first time you were told you were going to be a father?

Today is a ‘good news’ kind of day for our lectionary lessons…we hear of a promise that God makes to David, some helpful words of promise from Paul’s letter to the Romans, but our psalmody and gospel lesson centre on the good news that was delivered to a young girl named Mary, and how she received it.

Mary is a bit of a…well, really a…controversial person for Protestant Christians. And Mary is at the centre of other controversies, as well: even though we confess in both the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, in my experience that one line is usually the one that people choke on.

Seriously, she was a virgin? What’s so important about that?

It is truly hard for many people to understand why there is an emphasis placed on that, or even why we mention Mary at all. Especially in the 19th - and 20th centuries the distinction came to be that Roman Catholics “worship” Mary, while Protestant Christians, especially Lutherans, claimed that we focussed solely on Jesus Christ. Still, in the 21st century, I find people – protestants across all spectrums and even some atheists – who vilify the Roman Catholic tradition for their veneration of Mary.

In our current context it’s a bit easier, I suppose, to reject what has become the ‘traditional’ understanding of Mary: the one who was dutiful, obedient, and passive, when all these things happened. And I can’t really blame those who do; for years, women who got ‘uppity’ were told to follow the example of Mary, to sit passively, have babies, and be quiet the rest of the time. And I get that: I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Mary had drawn herself up to her full height and barked right back at Gabriel: “blech. No way!”

Yet looking at the story that we have, you realize that Mary - who would have been around 14 or so – dealt with the visitation from Gabriel, the Holy Spirit, her family’s reaction to her pregnancy, her future husband’s reaction, all of the people of her village, and, as well, her local religious authority. In fact, Mary is quite possibly the least dutiful example of a woman in a religion: she didn’t obey her father, nor her husband, nor the expectations of her religious system.

She did what God called her to do. “The Lord is with you!” the angel announced to her. That’s not a command, beloved – that’s a promise.

A teenager, pregnant, with nothing but a fantastic story to tell that nobody is going to believe. Have you ever felt that kind of panic? That kind of despair, the knowledge that a whole host of relationships are going to be broken because of something you felt you had to do? If you have, then maybe you’re beginning to understand why Mary is so important to us.

If the word advent means ‘coming’, then maybe this season should be about us coming to greater awareness of what God With Us really means – that without Mary, without a mother, God would not be with us. Mary was not just a vehicle; an anonymous third-party that God used and then discarded.

It is Mary’s humanity, even Mary’s virginity, that means God could take on frail human flesh, could be carried and borne and nursed, and cuddled, and loved. Mary is venerated, not just because she was the one chosen by God, but because she was the one who could say to God “this is my body, given for you.”

The ancient church gave Mary the title of theotokos, a Greek word that means literally “God-bearer” – a reminder that God took upon frail human flesh for us.

Advent means seeing a new day – life in the midst of death, hope in despair, wholeness in brokenness: seeing the promise of God not in the health or wealth that surrounds us, but in the waters that are poured over our heads at baptism and in the bread and wine that are signs of God’s kingdom, given for you.

That God was born of frail humanity, that God was born of Mary doesn’t mean that you need to emulate any culturally-contrived images of duty or obedience, but that you can recognize in the children that surround you, the children that maybe you carried, and nurture, and support, that in caring for them in a real way you care for God; for they are made in God’s image. We carry the weight and burden of years, they reflect back the best in all of us.

We read of the baby – of the Annunciation – so that we and all people can understand that God truly is with us. The ancient world is full of stories of gods who became men, or who had sexual relations with women who then went on to birth demigods. But unless the women are some evil foil in the story, they are helpless, hapless, women who are long forgotten by history. But we read of Mary, who was perplexed by these things that happened (those things of which she was at the centre) – and who in the midst of that confusion sang a song of love to the God who grew inside of her.

Is it any wonder that we call Mary “the God-bearer”?

In her great life, Mary raised her infant son, lost him in the Temple when the family went to Jerusalem, bullied him into his first miracle at Cana of Galilee, then fed his and his hippy friends when they invaded her house to talk of strange things long into the night. She watched with horror as her boy was falsely accused, beaten, tortured, and finally condemned to die as a criminal.

“Greetings favoured one, for the Lord is with you,” were the first words she heard one clear morning. That promise was lived out through her life, as she alone is the only witness from the first stirring of our Saviour’s life in the womb to his final moments on the cross. What began one bright morning ended in darkness on Friday afternoon, when the fruit of her womb and the light of the world claimed ‘it is finished’ and breathed his last.

And it was finished; the reign of sin and its penalty of death in the world was finished, as the new creation of God With Us that began in Mary’s womb called the world again into being early in the morning, while it was still dark, when Mary heard the news that the tomb was empty and her son appeared to those who came to care for his body and told them the same message told to Mary more than three decades before: fear not – for then, the Lord was with them.

The promise of Advent is that promise; the promise that the Lord is with us, has taken upon God’s own self our humanity. We see the fulfillment of that promise in the same way that Mary did: not as an insulated cover that shelters us from the world and numbs our engagement with it, but as a call to be part of something larger than ourselves, part of a body that is out and active in the world, knowing that suffering and dying is part of our world…but not the dominant part.

“The Lord is with you,” means that the word of God is a word of life, and that word is spoken boldly into a sin-darkened world. That word is spoken into our hearts at baptism, so that what begins in life does not end in death.

“The Lord is with you” is the promise that you will see the dark Friday, but that Sunday’s coming.

“The Lord is with you” is the promise that you, too, will make the long journey, in fear and trembling, to Bethlehem, but there you will see the birth of the Saviour…there you will find the new morning that is heralded by the baby’s cries, by a mother’s tears of joy.

“The Lord is with you”…and the day is just beginning.

Let the people of God say amen.

some changes

So, after four or five years, I decided it was time to revamp the ol' blog a little bit, to reflect my own changing life and occupation. When I first carved out my niche in the world wide web, it was a way that I could connect with family and friends from across the world, and feel like I was at least attempting to keep people updated about my family.

However, since my better half does that remarkably better than I over at Our Macintyre Family, I felt that I could better direct this little corner of the world to a particular focus. So, keep looking for sermons, musings, and reflections. Leave a comment, and I'll respond.

blessings!

Midweek Advent reflection 2

It’s funny what we think we can know about someone.

We know each other well: when you have children, you certainly know them well. Even someone who has never borne children knows a child; maybe even knows more about them than they know about themselves: time, place of birth. Weight. Their first giggle.

After a while, that knowledge becomes power. Reminds us that we were there when that little trial was born. A reminder to them of parental power. “I brought you into this world,” my mother used to remind me, “and I can issue a recall.” Tough words, from a tender heart.

Yet we know little of one baby’s birth. A forced migration. Joseph lived in Nazareth, part of a forced resettlement years earlier. A hard time to travel with a pregnant wife. But when someone reminds you of the power they have over you – you, go! – you are sent.

We know nothing of the journey, save by its completion so was Mary’s time complete. No space at the public inn, but the stable close by: warm, perhaps even cleaner than some beds. Whimpering cries. Did Mary have company? A midwife, maybe? Someone to hold her hand, soothe her in distress, to let her know her baby would be delivered, and would be fine? Maybe not. Maybe only the calloused hands of a carpenter saw the King of kings into the world. Maybe even that’s more fitting: that clumsy hands that had not delivered another living thing brought into this world the incarnate Word that created it. It seems that God trusts earnest devotion more than learned teaching.

But later, later its easy to play games about how much we know. Someone once said to me: why December 25? The bible doesn’t say that’s the day. Why do you think it’s then? My response was short: why not December 25? Luke doesn’t care what day the baby was borne; nor does Matthew, nor Mark, nor John, nor any of the other countless authors. I know the official answer: Pope Julius I, in the middle of the second century, poured over Roman tax records until he worked out an approximate date. It also coincided with several other holidays, so perhaps it worked out easier that the Christians could celebrate and worship without the fear that accompanied his birth – fear of soldiers, fear of being found out…fear.

Wanting desperately to know all the details of the Saviour’s birth is a quest for knowledge borne, I think, out of fear. Fear that if we don’t know everything, then maybe none of it is true.

Luke is the compiler; Luke poured over countless sources to find the information he wanted. They were told to travel. They travelled. There was no space for them at the inn, so Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger.

Yet knowledge is power to us. We sit like Augustus, wanting the world to registered so that we can know all things that are due to us. And in sitting like Augustus, watching the high places, we miss what is happening below, as the baby, God with us, comes into our world with only the barest of stories.

Not the way we may want it, but the way that God wants to meet us: in the barest of bare places, stripped of the things that we desire to give us power, so that all we have is the small glimmer of hope: hope that the advent of Christ, in so humble a place, would hold for us the greatest hope of all.

Advent 3

*note before: with thanks to my friend, mentor, and colleague Rev. Kevin Powell, who lives in Japan now, but still resides on the internet here and here. I would call it an homage, what I do below - but let's face it: it was thievery, and I'm proud of it.

John the Baptist confuses me. I’ll admit that right off the bat.

John confuses me, because he doesn’t do things the way they ought to be done. He stands out in the desert, a howling fanatic dressed in rags, drinking only water; last week we heard that he ate locusts, and wild honey. He stands at the shores of the Jordan river (the wrong shore, I must add) and bellows at those who come: “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”

He demands those who come be baptized as a sign of repentance, and elsewhere threatens people outright with terrible divine punishment if they don’t change and, in the words of Isaiah, “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives,” and right the wrongs that they have done.

And people flock to hear him. They’re willing to travel miles, on foot, out into the desert, to hear John preach. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be done.

A recent article I found at the Globe and Mail’s online site featured a prominent church in Calgary as the prime example of what a growing church should look like. A giant parking lot, free designer coffee, theatre seating and a professional five-piece rock bank got the credit for bringing the people in. The pastor’s messages, with his sound-byte tagline “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me,” – the writer of the article called them ‘kick-in-the-pants-style sermons’ -- focus on finding personal success through your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The church’s $4.7 million dollar budget, I guess, is a testimony to the success of the model.

That’s the way you’re supposed to do it, I guess. But, as I commented on the online article: if that’s where the bus is going, I’m getting off. It’s not that there’s nothing good about this model: obviously, it reaches many people. But I do not like when worship looks like me, or a mirror of what I enjoy in life. Then, I’m not sure who I’m worshiping.

Where John preached, there were no distractions. People came to hear a genuine word from God that help hope, peace, joy, and above, love for them. In our world, the most populated churches are the ones that look like the mall; sound like the radio, and focus on you. And it’s everywhere. I was listening to the radio the other day, and I noticed something about almost all of the commercials that I heard: they were all about you. And I don’t mean about “the joy of giving” or anything like that; they’re about how much other people will like you, love you, respect you, when you find something they want.

The Pharisees, the religious elites in Jerusalem at the Temple, want to know if John has something they want. So they send the temple caretakers to ask him a question: “who are you?” They know that he’s a preacher, but they want to know a few things: who does he represent? Is he a known quantity? Is he toeing a line, or drawing his own? These are important questions. They need to know, because if John is a messiah, then he needs to know who they are, and where the power is.

And, as the writer of the gospel tells us, “…he confessed, he confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the messiah.”

Wow. That’s a major letdown. That’s like me, every day, when my boys look at the presents under the tree and ask if they can open one and I say: “sure….on Christmas day!”

Please, don’t call the authorities.

The Temple authorities are looking for the messiah they know is coming. But they don’t want to get their hands dirty, or mess up their designer duds trudging out to the desert. But they don’t get any answer, at all. Or, they receive an answer that is no answer, at all. “Among you stands one whom you do not know.”

So what does his answer mean?

Have you ever looked at that silhouette of a vase that suddenly seems to disappear and form a background for two people's facing profiles? Artists describe the shapes created by the areas around objects as "negative space." It's not negative in any bad sense. These spaces help define objects but also may take on lives of their own. The not-the-vase space becomes two facing faces.

Today's gospel invites us to explore the surprising richness of what is not. The priests and Levites ask John the baptizer, "Who are you?" They offer him some options, including Messiah, Elijah, and prophet. John repeatedly responds, "I am not." The narrator describes John as "not the light." He describes himself as "not worthy" to untie the sandal of the one who is coming. Being clear about what he is not throws into sharp relief what John the baptizer is: a witness to the light, a voice in the wilderness, someone through whom all might come to believe.

John tells his questioners, "Among you stands one whom you do not know." When it’s paired with "among you," "do not know" becomes a word of promise. Although yet to be revealed, the Messiah is already here. Where? Who? These words invite us on a search for a gift already given: the presence of God in our long Advent nights. We discover the treasures of winter darkness.

The treasure of a Messiah who comes, not bringing pain and rejection and fear, but peace, hope, joy, and love.

Imagine being one of the crowed when John preaches. You think he’s a nutjob, but something catches your attention. Like a car wreck you can’t turn your eyes away from him. You want to know what is about this guy that so many people traveled so far to hear.

It’s not a message of “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” It’s a message of, “it is, because God has promised you.” But it’s easier to think that all of this – all of this Christmas, all of this religion, is about you and only you – and especially how well you can lie to yourself. John tells you that there’s more to it than that.

As a colleague of mine preached:

It’s when you push your way through the crowds that you know why so many have beaten you here: this guy knows you. I mean he REALLY knows you. He hasn’t met you before and doesn’t know your name but he has you all figured out.

He knows what hides in the secret chambers of your heart. He knows what you do when nobody’s looking.

He knows your shame and he knows your pain. He knows all that stuff you’d rather keep quiet and hidden. He can see it in your eyes. He can see in the way you keep staring at the ground while he’s preaching. He can see it in the way you walk. With your phony self-assured strut or with your hunched back, stooped from being beaten down by the world. He knows the secrets you harbour.

He knows your failings. He knows your broken places. He knows those moments of weakness that, if ever came to light, your life would end.

He knows about your cancer. Your failed marriage. The feeling that life is passing you by.

He knows about the grief that tearing your heart into rags.

He knows how your dad smacked you around when he was drunk, and now you’re afraid that you’ll do the same to your kids.

He knows how you just can’t let go of a lifetime of resentment.

He knows that some days you feel so lost and purposeless that you wonder if life is worth living at all.

Yes. He knows ALL of this. That’s why he’s so loved and so feared. But when he looks at you and excavates the buried hurts that lie in deepest alcoves of your soul, his eyes soften and he pleads with you, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight.”

Instead of scolding you for your moral failings, or telling you to stop blaming others for your troubles, or tells you that it’s up to you to drag yourself up, he leads you to the shore of the Jordan River and reminds you that when the people of God were liberated from their slavery in Egypt, they crossed the Jordan which led to the Promised Land.

Then, looking so deeply into your eyes that you’re afraid you’ll melt, he opens his arms and says, “Enter the water of freedom. God is giving you a fresh start. It’s time for you to start over. It’s time for you to begin again.”

The Baptist was giving out second chances. That’s the gift we are given each and every day when we remember the gift of our own baptism. The gift of starting over. The gift of a new beginning. As we prepare the way of the Lord.

God turns the world around; we don’t. As you come to the table of the Lord today, give thanks that it’s not up to you; that God loves you for who you are, and whose you are.

You belong to a baby. You are owned by a King. You, you and all the baggage that you bring, are God’s joy – because God alone waits and wants to take that burden from you, so that you can know what it means to be called “child of God”.

Let the children of God say amen.

Advent 2

*nb: at St. Matthew's, the Sunday on which we officially receive new members to our family is the second sunday in Advent.*

It’s coming up to Christmas! Did you know that Christmas is a season of introductions? It totally is, especially here. Today is our official “new member Sunday”, so this is the day we introduce ourselves “officially” to some people. Remember to be on our best behaviour. It’s an important time.

I know it’s important: Gord sent me an email yesterday, it was short. It said: remember to wear pants.

Apparently, the time I came in my bright green flannel pajamas is still a little close to his heart.

*Note to you who are joining our family today: it’s never boring.*

And of course, Christmas Eve is always a busy time. I get so many introductions at Christmas Eve services I think that I should be wearing one of those vests from Wal-Mart. I meet lots of people. There are people who come for the first time, who come seeking a little bit of this “Christmas” that we talk about with hushed and reverent tones. On that night, we introduce them to a baby – and, perhaps, it will be the beginning of a relationship for them.

Then there’s always the surprising introductions: “Hi, welcome, I’m Pastor Mick. Thanks for visiting!”

And the reply: “actually, we’re members here!”

Really? I stood in a garage for an hour once; it didn’t make me a car…

But I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just hard for me to understand that particular kind of faith commitment: it’s always been for me that developing a relationships with a faith community is a high priority.

And we hear introductions all the time, in our Scripture readings, in our devotional readings, and in our singing – we sing, yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning; we read “the Lord God comes with might,” and we light candles to keep watch for the coming Messiah.

There’s an important part that we play, too: we are also heralds of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

So, let me ask you this: ff you were asked, if you could, how would you possibly introduce Jesus? No, I don’t mean, “how would you share your faith with someone.” We can talk about that later. I mean, if you were at a party, at a nice evening soiree, and someone tapped you on the shoulder and said “you’re good with words…and there’s this guy here I’d like you to meet.” How would you do it?

Would you take a page from Mark’s book, and just jump right in? That’s how he does it: no long introductions, just “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Or would you learn your lesson from John the Baptizer, and be all prophetic: “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal…” ?

Or maybe, you’d be tongue-tied. I know that the few times I’ve had the privilege of introducing someone at a banquet or a fund-raiser, I’ve made certain that the introduction is memorable; something with a little ‘bazinga’ as Sheldon would say, from Big Bang Theory. But also, I’ve known people whose introductions have been along the lines of mumblemumblemumble... Not maybe the most moving introduction, but they’ve been petrified – suddenly scared to speak about someone whom they know, or hold in high esteem; or frozen by the faces of so many people looking expectantly at them.

(Boy, do I know that feeling. If I didn’t have a monumental ego, I don’t know what I’d do on Sunday morning.)

Seriously, though, how would you do it? Soberly, gravely, channelling Walter Kronkite from the glory days of black and white television? Now, folks, with me here today is one of history’s great figures exclusively in our studio today. Or maybe with a lot of the language that we sometimes associate with the old King James Bible: brethren, we gather here today, forewith to beseech the gladsome tidings of this, our most beneficent charge, who doth grace us with his heavenly presence…until you tied your tongue in a knot and sought medical attention.

Sometime it’s easy to miss the way that the gospel writers introduce Jesus – especially so with Mark. Matthew does a good job; the entire first chapter of Matthew is a list of Jesus’ genealogy – who his family was. Luke does a good job, as well, because it’s from Luke that we get the back story of angels visiting, and Virgins singing, and shepherds and kings and all those things that we think of at this time of year.

But other times…other times it’s hard to imagine what to say. Harder still to imagine that you might be the person asked. Or, even as I said earlier – you automatically associated ‘introduce Jesus’ with ‘share your faith’. And you’re right – faith is necessary to the task.

So let’s take a minute and hear how someone would introduce Christ. This is comedian Steve Harvey:

[watch video].

He’s good; I’ll give him that. The first time I saw that video was in one of my homiletics classes at Seminary – homiletics is the craft of preaching, rather than the practice of it. The assignment I gave you was my first assignment in that class: introduce Jesus.

There’s a catch to that though, and it took me a little while to realize what it is: we don’t introduce Jesus. It’s not like Jesus needs someone to block for him like the Lions quarterback on Grey Cup Sunday (but with the Blue Bombers’ terrible offence, did Lulay really need a blocker, either?) Yet often, that’s what we see. It’s one thing to do as Steve Harvey did, and emphasis the great stories of Christ; but is that really what Jesus is about?

How do you introduce Jesus, who spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes, and gentiles, people who at the time were regarded as the lowest of the low by their culture? You can’t, because Jesus doesn’t need to be introduced. But what Christ will do is introduce you.

He will introduce you as one of those who proclaims his coming. He will introduce you as one of those who is loved by God, for whom God’s only Son was born.

He will introduce you as God’s chosen and redeemed child, and bring you into a community of people who, like you, were called to follow: to follow a star to a stable, to follow a king to a cross, to follow a Messiah to life everlasting.

That is one of the greatest things that I am privileged to see as a pastor: I see you (all of you) introducing Jesus to each other, all the time. Not in specific words, but in your caring conversations, your concern for each other, your willingness to be bound up to each other in relationship to this community. You introduce Christ through your actions and your deeds. You proclaim the coming of Christ, as certainly as if you were clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey.

And as Florence, Brian, Lola, Suzanne, Kurt, Jenna, Nick, Jens, Kathryn, Lillyanne, and Patrick become members of our family today, they also will introduce us to Jesus in their own ways.

Even as a child, I loved new member Sundays, but in particular I like that here the day comes with the reading of the beginning of the gospel of Mark. And beloved, realize this: as these new family members come forward today, we could just as honestly cry out ‘prepare the way of the Lord!’ for them – because they will become part of the body of Christ in this place, waiting for the coming King.

Let the people of God say amen.

Advent Reflection 1

*a note before: at St. Matthew's we celebrate advent with a series of midweek suppers followed by advent vespers. This is the first reflection I wrote this year.

The beginning.

Do you remember the beginning? Of course you don’t. Not your own beginning, at least; certainly not the BIG beginning. But some beginnings you may remember.

The first Christmas you remember may not be the first Christmas you experienced. But it’s the beginning you remember. A tall tree, trimmed with decorations and brimming with all the anticipation of family, and friends, and food. So much bigger to a two- or three-year-old; they don’t make trees like they used to.

You remember other beginnings: the first ‘I love you’ you said; then the first time you said it, and realized you knew what it meant. Carrying your first child, knowing that life was inside of you, and sitting down and feeling the first butterfly flutterings in the core of your being.

Placing your hand on the swelling belly, and feeling the little knee, or elbow. The beginning. You’re going to be a father, or a mother, or grandfather or grandmother. The beginning.

Some beginnings are endings, too. The last spadeful of dirt shovelled into a winter tomb; the headstone tilted askew at the head of the grave, as tilted as crazy as your life has become. The words of a doctor, lawyer, judge: ending one life, and just beginning another. The feeling of being born again, into a world that you don’t understand, can’t fathom, and yet is familiar.

The beginning. We prepare for another beginning. Advent, we call it; the word means ‘coming’. We prepare, with no real idea of what the beginning will look like; no real idea of what will end in order for Christ to begin.

It’s a big beginning. A beginning like none other; for this too is a beginning for God. God, whom we call the Alpha and the Omega; both the beginning and the end – this advent is a beginning for God, as well.

God has not before felt the constriction of the womb, nor felt the pain and cold of labour. Has not before nestled next to a beating heart, not before been knit together, cell by cell, surrounded by warmth and water and love. This is beginning for God, as well.

God, the creator of the world, surrenders to the creative power of the life which God created: the Creator, who in the words of Athanasius is uncreated and unlimited, is found to be created and limited, bound to the heart and the hands of a poor woman. God, who stepped down from the highest lofts of the vaulted heavens now finds a home in a bumpy, jostled, busy, terrified world.

The beginning. Something new, for God and for us; something different, for the world and for all time. The beginning comes in surprising ways.

One beginning, in a womb and a world – the mystery of how the one who is Uncreated and Unlimited would choose to be both created and limited. Limited by flesh and bone; limited by hunger and thirst; limited by love and compassion.

In the midst of the beginning, we too share the beginning: the beginning of the good news; the beginning of new life and new creation, the beginning of all those things that celebrate as right and good in our lives;

For like a new mother, God is beginning to show, in the gently rounded belly; in the open heart and mind; in the blessing of peace and goodwill; those things that begin our world anew, each and every day.

First Sunday in Advent

O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…

So, I have good news today: according to the venerable Stephen Hawking, there is a perfect solution to all the worlds’ problems. A perfect solution to pollution, pornography, poverty, and possibly even war: and, best of all, it’s easy!

Get off the planet.

I’m serious! Isn’t that foolproof? Why waste time and money trying to fix our society’s problems, when we can simply get out of Dodge and make everything better? As the Huffington Post article quoted him saying:

"Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million.

"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."

Now, that is the best solution that I’ve heard all day – why bother working together for a solution? Why bother with this obviously misguided talk of “peace on earth”, when our genetic code means it will never happen. And Stephen Hawking should know, right? I mean, this is the physicist who said “religion is bunk” and made national headlines. The last time I said, “theoretical physics is a bunch of hooey”, people just said “he’s a theologian, what does he know?”

All right. So maybe I’ve picked on this subject enough for today – but its frustrating to think that we’re to the point that this is regarded as a viable solution to our problems – of course, it has been since Ray Bradbury wrote his first book in the 1960s. Any fans of science fiction here? What’s worse, is that we seem willing, as a society, to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars on these programs, rather than investing in, say, education, the environment, and healthcare, which could perhaps fix those problems from the bottom up.

We’re not the first people to look at the world around us and think that it’s too broke to fix. You don’t have to look very far to find that people have often, if not always, looked at the world around them and wished that someone – or something – could fix the mess they’re in.

“O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…” is there a more plaintive cry from Isaiah than what we heard today? His people have been in exile. They have lost touch with the God, they have sinned and fallen short of the covenant they made with God. The only solution that Isaiah can see is that God must come, now if not sooner, and set things right.

And Isaiah argues with God! “because you hid yourself we transgressed!” Isaiah shouts. And maybe, just maybe, Isaiah is right. God can be maddeningly silent and remote at times; especially at times when we feel we need God the most.

At times like that, we most often have one of two responses, and neither is particularly helpful: one, is to throw up our hands and say “that’s it, we’re in this for ourselves!”; and the second, is to start feeling like we’re responsible for God’s remoteness – and then the thought of God with us becomes a frightening possibility, fraught with judgement and ruled by terror. God’s perceived aloofness must be someone’s fault; it may even my fault.

Somehow, though, it’s not like that for Isaiah. Isaiah sees hope in God’s presence with God’s people; he sees the presence of the God who created all things as a good thing, a blessed thing, something that should be looked forward to with hope.

But we don’t, do we? At least, not for the most part. There’s a huge amount of baggage that we associate with our cultural conceptions of the day of Christ’s return. If you’re familiar with the Left Behind series of books you know that there’s a lot of fuss made about who’s going to be ‘the elect’ that Mark mentions in his gospel; a lot of speculation; no, a lot of “fact” about the signs that are supposed to accompany the return of Christ.

There are several Christian denominations that focus much of their energy and attention on what is imagined will happen on that day – judgement, hellfire, and damnation. The only way to avoid it, they say, is to make the right decisions for yourself, choose Jesus, and be prepared to watch everyone who hasn’t face the consequences of those decisions.

In that way, then, people are saved through their own actions – which, really, is what Stephen Hawking is saying. A lot of Christians, I think, would agree with Hawking that the world is headed to hell (though not necessarily in a handbasket). And, although they’d disagree with means, their solution remains the same – focus all of our attentions on the few, so that the cream of the crop can rise to the top.

In both scenarios – either Hawking’s colonization of space, or a fundamentalists’ judgement on the last day – only a few, the deserving, are saved. The vast majority of people are condemned, either to hellfire, or life on a planet from which all life has been driven.

Does either of those scenarios give you hope? I don’t find a lot of hope in the return of a Christ of judgement – I am too aware of my sins. And I don’t find hope at all in Hawking’s idea of colonization, because I know that neither myself nor anyone I know or love would ever be on the ‘list’ of people who would be moving off-planet. Both scenarios are for the elite; for the powerful. In one scenario it’s the genetically superior who are saved; in the other, it’s the spiritually perfect.

But this day, this season of Advent, is about hope. It’s about hope that God truly does “so love the world;” hope that Christ will return, not to judge the world to hellfire, but to judge the world in righteousness; because in Christ we share that righteousness – we are given, as Paul writes, the grace of God…in Christ Jesus.

O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…down to a manger, down to a world full of sin and hopelessness, bringing the promise of hope, peace, joy, and love. God tore open the heavens and came down, bringing the promise of light that shines in the darkness; light that the darkness cannot overcome.

We are an Advent people; we wait for the coming of Christ. We wait for the birth of a baby – a baby we know has already been born, has already lived out his mortal life, and reigns forever as Christ the King. But at the same time, there is a very real longing – and maybe you feel it. Maybe you feel in yourself the deep-seated wish that the baby would be real this year – that rather than commemorating an event, we would have a real celebration.

We are an Advent people; we prepare for Christ’s return. We keep awake, we watch with longing for the coming of a Saviour – not a wrathful judge, but the deepest longing of our hearts that grace, and mercy, and love will one day reign in this world, will one day replace the grim grey reality of hatred, hostility, and helplessness that seeps into the core of our being and stiffens and cracks our compassion for each other.

We are an Advent people; we wait for the master of the house to come, we wait for the chance to rejoice at his presence. If you look for a picture of an announcing angel, or in particular see a statue of one as part of a religious structure, you will see that they face east; they look to the rising sun in anticipation of the king who comes with the dawn.

Beloved of God, look east, and wait with hope. Wait with hope that Christ comes to free from suffering, not cause more. Prepare for his return by caring for his body, the Church; and wait with peace because the king returns in power, and in glory, to end all suffering, and to redeem all those who trust in him.

Look east, and watch with hope. For the child is coming; the child is coming for you, for the whole people of God.

Let the people of God say amen.

All Saints' Sunday

I have an announcement to make: I’m going to start a movement.

(And no, I don’t mean that I’m going to eat lots of fibre and lock myself away for the rest of the service with the latest issue of the Examiner.)

I’ve been keeping track, over the news and internet, of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement. You’ve probably heard of it: around the rallying cry of “we are the 99%!” people created a tent city in New York to try to raise awareness of the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The movement spread, to other American cities and recently to Canadian ones, too. If you’ve been through downtown Edmonton lately, you’ve seen the little tents at Churchhill square. I kind of think, though, that a tent city has a slightly great chance of staying up in protest in California or Vancouver through the winter than it does in Edmonton.

That cry of “we are the 99%” is a reference to the economic reality that 1% of the world’s population are billionaires and thus disproportionately influence the lives of the rest of the population. And the protestors blog about it on their iPads and text each other on their iPhones and enjoy the close proximity to Starbucks.

And they call us hypocrites?

As I said, I’m going to start my own movement. I’m going to call it “Occupy Church Street,” and we’ll rally around the cry of “we are the 1%!”

And we are the 1%. Seriously; it’s not that we’re billionaires, but the population of Spruce Grove is around 23000 people; there are probably 250 people today worshipping here and at St. Augustine’s down the road. So, we really are 1% of the population.

So come on, and Occupy Church Street! Come for All Saints’ Sunday!

Flesh out that figure a little bit more to include the other churches in the city, and I think we could say that between 2500 and 3000 people are in churches here this morning – that’s a little better, more like 10% of the population.

And that’s really not all that bad. I read somewhere that on an average Sunday about quarter of any given churches’ membership comes to worship. So, 40% of people in our city would be members of some church in the area. How does that sound?

You’re either an optimist or a pessimist: either you thought hey, that’s not bad, or oh my goodness we need to do more evangelism!

But you know what? I think both are all right. After all, today is All Saints’ Sunday – a day when we remember that we take seriously that line in the creed about believing in the “communion of saints.” Today we are reminded by John’s letter that we should look and, “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.”

Yup. Children of God, because God loves us. That should be enough, right? Then, we shouldn’t be spending too much time thinking about the 99% or the 1%, because we are truly all in this, together. This great work of life that will end when Christ returns again and bring peace and order to this troubled world…why can’t we all just get along?

Except…you all know that I’m not that naïve. And I know that you’re not. The world doesn’t work like that – we have rules, and boundaries, and we know that we have to work for what we have. We know that there are some people – some saints – who will have it better when Jesus comes again. And we may know who those people will be.

Certainly us. We, who are the 10%. And from that point, the list varies depending on who you talk to. But rest assured, there will be a list! There will be a list of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The ‘us’ go to heaven, and the ‘them’ go to hell. That’s something everyone can agree on.

Even the OWS people. Looking through pictures of the movement, I have seen some people bearing signs that say ‘blessed are the poor’, even some that say ‘the rich man went to hell’, referencing the parable Jesus tells about a rich man and a poor beggar.

Then, there are the people who protest the protestors, and they have signs decrying the behaviour and beliefs of those: “repent, or burn”, “Jesus can save you from hell”. You’ve seen some of those signs, yourself. Hell is a useful tool. It can cut through the chit-chat; it can end arguments quickly. It’s also a oddly comforting idea: knowing that hell exists means that those people who harm or oppress others, or believe differently than us are going to get their just desserts.

And today I’m certainly not going to debate the existence of hell. It’s in the creed; Jesus descended into it. I don’t think that Jesus descended into a metaphor; hell is a fact.

You can go to it, burn in it, roast in it, drive like it, preach like it, endure it, walk though it…like hell you will, like hell you won’t; like hell you could, but simply don’t. There’s a lot of hell out there.

In fact, there’s so much hell it’s a bit of a wonder that we can actually set aside a day and call it All Saints. Is there anyone left who may actually enjoy the pleasures of the resurrection? If it were up to us to judge, do you ever get the feeling that the list of saints would be a pretty short list?

But on all Saints’ Sunday, we need to reimagine our conception of hell. Yes, it exists. Yes, it is a frightening place. But our Saviour went there. And let me ask you this: have you ever looked at the creed, and wondered why, in fact, we confess that Jesus descended to the dead, or in the old language that he descended into hell? After all, what did Jesus do in his life that he deserved that?

The problem with thinking like that is that you imagine that Jesus descended to the dead as a victim. Jesus didn’t. Jesus descended to the dead as a conquerer, to drive open the very gates of the law and condemnation and preach to those souls that could never save themselves. Christ went to the dead for you; that death would have no dominion over you. For you, Christ damned death; for all the saints that have lived and will ever live Christ endured the cross and grave so that you may know what it is to be children of God.

To be children of God.

To be, children of God. See what great love the Father has for us, that we should be so-called.

Are you saved? I don’t know. I’ll tell you what a good Lutheran answer probably should be: Not yet. You have no need to fear hell; Christ has been there for you. But you are not in heaven, yet. Today we celebrate and remember the lives that have touched ours, however briefly, and who now rest. We know they rest with their Lord and Saviour, because of his great love for us.

Blessed are we. Blessed are those who mourn, who cry, who are poor in spirit, who are reviled, who are persecuted, who fear. Blessed are you, because now you are free. Free to live as a child of God, free to know that you are one of the multitude at the throne of the lamb, knowing that there is a day when mourning and crying will cease, that hatred and war will end, that persecution and struggle will be no more. Blessed are you.

Live like that’s true. Our Saviour tells us to rejoice, and be glad. There is no fear of death, no sting of hell. Rejoice, and be glad.

There’s a story told about a man who went swimming in the ocean with his two young children. They were laughing and splashing, and it wasn’t until it was too late that he noticed they’d gotten caught in a current that had pulled them far, far away from shore.

And the man began to panic, because he knew that he wasn’t strong enough to save both his children; he couldn’t swim to shore with both on his back, and by the time he made it back to shore with one, the other would be too far out to sea.

But he didn’t let his panic show. He said to his daughter, who was older: “sweetie, do you remember when daddy taught you that starfish float? You do? Good. Now here’s what I want you to do: I want you to float here, while daddy takes little brother back to shore. I’ll come back for you quick, you understand? Now go ahead, and float.” And the little girl said okay, and did just that.

And the man let his son grab onto his back and he struck out for shore, which seemed so very far away. And no matter how hard or fast he swam, it kept getting farther, and he was getting weaker. Finally, he reached the shore, and collapsed on the beach. He couldn’t rest, though, and he began to run down the beach yelling, “someone, help me! My daughter’s back out there on the water!”

And finally he found someone with a boat who was willing to help, but by this time his daughter was so far out to sea he desperately feared that he wouldn’t be able to find her. But they kept looking until, between the swells, he saw his little girl, still floating. And they moved to boat to her, and he swept her up in his arms and cried “my girl! Daddy’s so proud of you!” And she looked at him as said, “well daddy, I was just doing what you asked me to do, and when my arms got tired and I didn’t want to float anymore, I just remembered that you were coming.”

Blessed are you, children of God, for your Father is coming.

Let the people of God say amen.

Reformation Sunday

Grace, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Martin was at a loss. You see, Martin was the kind of person that we’d all like to be: a perfect student since kindergarten, he’d received numerous accolades for his academic work: a Rutherford scholarship and several other highly competitive scholarships funded his undergraduate education. He majored in business, because he understood that he had what it took to succeed in such a competitive field.

And succeed he did. Again, he received rewards and awards for his performance. Promotion followed promotion; he was invited to be guest speaker at his firm’s annual general meeting. He was everything that everybody was told they wanted to be.

More than that, he knew he was. After all, he had the yardstick against which he could measure everybody else. He’d always had one. When he was getting his education, he knew that if he worked hard enough and got good marks, he was better than those around him. When he began working, if he worked hard enough he got the promotions and the glory. It was the way the world worked: you could achieve anything, as long as you worked hard enough for it.

Do you know Martin? Of course, you can’t know the Martin in the story, since he doesn’t really exist. But I’d be willing to be that you know someone like him. Or maybe, you ARE Martin. It’s not a bad thing to be like Martin. The world likes people like Martin: they’re the most successful, in our eyes.

Yet sometimes being like Martin is problematic. You see, Martin had a secret. He had a secret so dark, so deep, that he knew that if it ever got out, it would destroy him and everything he’d worked so hard to achieve.

Martin suffered from depression. A depression sometimes so dark, so debilitating, that some mornings he could not get out of bed. His company offered psychological support and a good benefits package; but Martin chose to pay for a therapist and anti-depressive medication out of his own pocket, because the risk of what he would lose if anyone found out was too great.

He couldn’t understand why he was depressed; he had everything he’d been told was important. But he was also puzzled by the first question his counsellor asked him each day: how do you feel? Martin couldn’t actually answer that. He didn’t have anyone he could compare his feelings to – everyone around him looked just as happy and high-functioning as he was.

In a very real way, our lives are governed by the law that Paul speaks about today, that kept Martin trapped. They are controlled by it; it gauges our actions, lays out our motivations, and judges our worth. It’s a system that we are raised in – we judge ourselves and others by performance, dedication, and adherence to a set of rules. We hold those rules pretty highly; when we know what they are, it seems that we can figure out the secret of life and get on with business.

You know the expression, “wake up and smell the coffee?” it means that we’re supposed to be able to open our sees, and see the reality of how the world works around us. When we ‘wake up,’ life is supposed to be better.

Jesus and those who believe in him stand talking. They know the law; they want to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. Jesus has been talking about love, justice, and God’s idea of fairness, which isn’t the same kind of fairness that the religious leaders of the day want to see. So they’re puzzled, especially when Jesus says, “if you continue in my word…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Because in their minds, they’ve never been slaves to anyone. At least, not where it counts. There’s the slavery of the Egyptian kind that they remember at Passover, but that’s so far ago in the past that it might as well be an empty story. They believe that they are in control of their lives and destinies, what does Jesus mean that they “can be free?”

So Jesus lays it on the line: “anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household, the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

The people to whom Jesus speaks have received the word; they bear the word to others. But in a way the lack the ability to really know the word, in the way Jeremiah talks about. Jeremiah tells the story of a new covenant, when people will no longer say to each other “know the Lord” (in the same tone my mother used to say “wake up and smell the coffee!”), because they will all know God. Because God will place God’s word directly into their hearts; it will stop being a yardstick to measure themselves against others.

Today is Reformation Sunday, the only Sunday of the church year that is set aside to commemorate a historical event, that began with the nailing of 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. The first of those little discussion points should stand out for us: “when our Lord Jesus Christ called us to repent, he called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Those of us today who believe in Jesus Christ and his saving word are often confronted with the same sense of ‘huh?’ as those early believers. That’s because God’s word and work does not work the same as the culture we grow up in.

How many people here today would agree with the statement “I don’t know the bible very well, so I don’t know if I’m a good Christian – but I do my best to live a good life, so I think that God is happy with me”? You live a good life?

Welcome to the law. Because if it’s up to you, you will never live a life good enough to earn your salvation. You are slaves to an idea that is not your own.

But take confidence in this: you are loved by God because of who you are. Not because of what you’ve done. You are loved because of who you are. That was the original idea of Reformation that set fire to the world. That you do not work for your own salvation.

In our culture, ‘repentance’ is too often poorly understood as a one-shot deal. If that were true, then we should abandon all hope right now – or aim for the ‘deathbed confession’ system of belief. But we are called to live lives of repentance: lives that are marked by the word dwelling within us.

The theme of today is “knowing the word” – and you know the word when you are set free. When someone comes to you with the word ‘if’, then the word they bear is the law. “If you just do _____; then _______ will happen.” Have you ever read a self-help book? That’s a refrain in that kind of literature. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and make your own way in the world. Then, look behind you at the unfortunate souls who have fallen behind, and grace them with your knowledge.

But you can know the word of God when it comes to you as a statement that sets you free: “because you are loved by God, therefore you live a life that is testimony to your freedom.” For God, there is no ‘if’. There is God speaking, and God acting, not out of sovereignty but out of mercy.

Do you ever feel like you’re on a journey, and you don’t have a map? Have you ever wondered if you can actually make it to your destination? That’s a very real fear, one that is deeply rooted in our culture, one that makes the gospel of Christ into a competition. Yet you shouldn’t worry.

The freedom that comes from knowing the word of God is the freedom to know that the end of the journey is assured; Christ will see you home.

But it also means knowing that, in fact, you may be on the wrong road. It means knowing that all roads may not, in fact, lead to Christ.

It means that there is no road, no trail, no rut, you will travel in this life that Christ will not walk down, to find you.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

Let the people of God say ‘amen’.

Sunday October 02

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

Every wonder just how closely we listen when God speaks? Or even, if God still speaks at all? It seems like almost every day I find someone who will lament to me the loss of public prayer in schools, or the perception of a ‘liberal’ agenda that wants to – and I use their word – eliminate Christianity from the public sphere. But really, is public prayer and using the government to push a socially conservative agenda really what “listening to God” looks and sounds like?

It should be easy to hear God speaking, right? I mean, most of you have seen the movie The 10 Commandments with Charleton Heston: I always remember this one line: guns don’t kill people; apes with guns kill people!

Sorry, wrong movie.

Yet one thing we can generally agree on as Christians: when God speaks, we should be listening. And I mean, actively listening.

You have to wonder, though…what are all the words that God speaks? How can we know?

Probably, a good rule of thumb is that we know God’s word by anticipating the exact opposite of what we are thinking.

Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…

The 10 Commandments are, without a doubt, an integral part of the religious life of at least three of the world’s great religions. Certainly, they are central to our lives as Christians, and as they form the first part of Luther’s Small Catechism, they are foundational to our Lutheran theological tradition. Sometimes they’re written in stone, - as they were on the tablets that Moses received – and maybe sometimes they’re written on the rock of our hearts.

And even though God reminded the Israelites that God brought them OUT of the land of slavery, we can turn a perceived obedience to the 10 commandments into just another kind of slavery.

Like clockwork someone can be counted on to refer to the 10 Commandments as justifying grounds for their own judgement of an issue: the 10 Commandments say…I remember once struggling to speak with someone who insisted that the 10 commandments included rules that forbade women pastors and said that homosexuals should be put to death.

On their surface, the 10 commandments are negative imperatives: you shall not…but in reality the ‘don’t’ part is only a little piece of what they mean. Taken as a whole, the 10 commandments are good, they’re comforting, and for the Israelites they form an identity, a purpose, and even a sense of security.

For Christians in the Lutheran tradition, our understanding of the 10 commandments is – or should be, rather – irreversibly tied to a juxtaposition: “we are to fear and love God so that we do not…but instead…” Fundamentally, the 10 commandments become about commitment to God and compassion for our neighbour. Rather than tying us down, they free us to be in relationship with each other and affirm God’s relationship to us.

To a people wandering in the wilderness when God speaks, God gives an identity, a rule, and words of comfort, life, and hope.

Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…

God speaks often, even continuously. At the beginning of Genesis, it’s written that God spoke, and the world came into being. God is always speaking, and we try – try – to listen.

But what do we hear?

Most often, we hear the message that our sinful and self-centred hearts want us to hear: that the privilege of being spoken to is our right; rather than the responsibility of listening to the call to form a community.

In the gospel lesson today, Jesus is still answering the Pharisee’s question from last week: “by what authority do you do the things you do?” Having used the example of the two sons, Jesus today turns to a metaphor that his listeners would know: a vineyard. In particular, Jesus relates this vineyard to a song that the prophet Isaiah sings of another vineyard, one that bore bitter fruit.

The Pharisees know the story that Jesus refers to, but in his telling there’s something not-quite-right about it. Both parties in the story seem equally ludicrous – the folly of the owner, who twice sends slaves and once, his son. Having his slaves beaten, killed, and stoned, the owner reasons that the tenants will respect his son. The tenants themselves are right out of a comic opera: having beaten the servants, they believe that if they kill the son they will gain his inheritance. To the tenants, the vineyard has become their privilege rather than their responsibility.

When Jesus asks, “what will the owner do when he returns?” the Pharisees respond in a way that shows they understand themselves to be the owners of the vineyard: “he will put those wretches to a miserable death and put in responsible tenants!” Their response is to cry out for the death of the first tenants, and to give the vineyard to others.

Like us, they hear what they want to: what is going to give us power, or self-righteousness. The power of judgement, they believe, is theirs.

In the 10 commandments, we can’t ever really get past the first one: you shall have no other gods before me. We always know what’s best, or better, for everyone else. They just need to listen to us, right? We like to be the judge in God’s place.

But how does Jesus respond to his own question?

Then God spoke all these words…

Instead of answering his own question, Jesus turns instead to talking about architecture. It’s a bit of a tangent; but at other places Jesus refers to himself as the Temple, and reminds his listeners that the temple will be destroyed; but that it will be rebuilt in three days. To this end, Jesus refers to himself as “the cornerstone” of the temple, but not just any cornerstone: this cornerstone is so hard that any other rock that falls upon it will shatter, and any stone upon which it falls will be crushed.

The cornerstone – the incarnate Word of God – is far harder than the rock of our hearts. The Pharisees response (and ours) to the story of the tenants of the vineyard reveals their own hardness of heart. The Pharisees are aghast at the mercy of the landowner; so are we.

Because, beloved, the tenants are right: they will kill the Son, and collect his inheritance.

God will break our hearts until we see God’s own stubborn insistence on being merciful to us; because if the landowner condemns the tenants and puts them to death – after previously showing mercy – then the landowner becomes no different than the tenants, and their way of interacting with the world wins.

We are the tenants of the vineyard; we have received the inheritance of the son. We believe that we can keep the fruits of our lives and God’s gifts to ourselves. We reject those who may come to us in God’s name and ask us to share a portion of the vineyard’s harvest – to open our hearts. When the Son comes, we reject him, too.

We are dying for forgiveness. We are ready to kill others – to kill with words, with our actions in our communities, and even with weapons of war – we are ready to kill to show God how ready we are for forgiveness, for righteousness. What we miss is that forgiveness and life are offered freely, the whole time we are trying to gain it for ourselves.

And what does God say?

Then God spoke all these words:

“This is my body, given for you. This is my life, poured out for you.”

God’s word reveals God’s own stubborn insistence to show mercy to God’s chosen people. The word is not always good; too often it reveals what we thought to be right and good as wrong, and evil. It cracks and breaks the rock of our hearts, crushes our self-righteousness and self-centredness, stands in the midst of our brokenness as a model of what is whole – and holy.

The 10 commandments are some of the most enduring words given to us by God – but they also are a means of mercy to guide and direct us to a life centred on a radical commitment to God and lived out in compassion for those around us.

In the beginning, God spoke. And God still speaks, and the creative power of God’s word will bring about the new creation in our hearts and all around us. In our midst, God speaks to us, calls us to live lives that are centred around God’s healing and renewing mercy that breaks the rock of our hearts – but gives us life, and salvation.

Let the people of God say amen.

Sunday September 25

nb: with a big shout-out to Kevin over at The Word Proclaimed. I use a story he tells as a example today. I remembered hearing the original sermon when he preached it. If you want to learn from a master, go check him out.

So, over the past year or so, you’ve probably gotten used to me asking the question during my messages each Sunday – what do you think about the gospel lesson that is read?

And today, Jesus asks the same question of the educated Pharisees – what do you think? They’ve been pestering him with questions, trying to trick or trap him into committing blasphemy by equating himself with God, or saying that he’s the messiah – really, they’ll take anything as an admission of guilt. The thing is, they know the right answers to their questions.

One of the problems of the Pharisees is that they took God’s truth and boiled it down to a series of legalistic requirements. Have a religious question? They have an answer to it. Have a question that stretches the boundaries of what they know is their good doctrine? Not happening. The problem isn’t their doctrine, they believe – in that case, the problem is asking a question that doesn’t fit the answers they have.

They want to know by what authority Jesus does the things he does. His way of interacting – or acting – with God is foreign to their way of thinking. So they want to trap him outright in an admission that he is wrong.

So Jesus asks them a question designed to make them think – did John’s baptism come from heaven, or was it of human origin? We’re given a glimpse into their thought process – if we say, ‘from heaven,’ he’ll say, then why don’t you believe him; but if we say ‘of human origin,’ this crowd will tear us apart because they believed he was a prophet”.

So, they’re pretty shrewd thinkers. Politically astute, we might say. But they’re unwilling to open their thinking to something that might change their minds about what they believe. But Jesus comes to shake their nicely laid-out faith to its foundations.

I’ve said before that faith isn’t about getting the right answers, but about learning good questions. Jesus is a master question-asker, and his questions stretch the simple answers that the Pharisees and the crowd have come to believe.

In the end, the crowd turns on him, enraged that his questions expose their faith for what it is – hollow dogma, memorized and regulated. It’s a faith that brings great comfort, and self-satisfaction in no small measure, but it can also leave people feeling empty.

And the empty tomb raises still more questions.

A friend of mine tells a story about his time as a pastor in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The week after the US invaded Iraq, a local TV station sent a reporter to his church, looking for a faith-related sound bite for the six o’clock news. My friends’ church had been holding weekly prayer services in the weeks leading up to the war and some reporters had already done pieces on the church.

But this time was different. The reporter who came was known for his confrontational interview style. And as my friend tells the story, it was clear he had an axe to grind.

As my friend tells it, the reporter

“knew that I and most of the congregation were opposed to the war and he tried to get me to say on camera that any Christian who supported the war was going to hell. Saying that high profile Christians were destined for damnation would have sounded great on TV.

I tried to convince him that reconciliation was at the heart of the Christian faith and that was one of the reasons why I opposed the invasion of Iraq. He kept needling me, pushing me, asking leading questions. Frustrated, he turned the question around on me and snapped,

“Where then, is this ‘reconciling God,’ when children are being maimed, lives destroyed, innocent people killed, all in the name of so-called freedom?”

I fumbled around for words, very aware that any bonehead comment I’d make would be broadcast across the country.

The only response I could think of was, “God is present when people suffer unjustly. When a child is maimed, God is maimed; when innocent people die, God shares their death.”

As my friend admitted, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with his answer. And from the disappointed look on the reporter’s face, neither was he. While my friend had offered as thought-out a response as he could in a short period of time, a quick, hard-and-fast condemnation would have made a much better soundbite.

Usually, we only think as much as is needed to form an opinion about something – and then we stop. As with the Pharisees, though, Jesus challenges us on that. So he goes on to tell the story of two brothers.

A fathers asks his two sons to go to work. The first son says ‘no,’ but then goes to the fields. The second son said, “sure I will!” and then didn’t go. Which one did the will of his father?

Now, before you give the short answer, think a little about it. You have two children: you ask them both to do something. One says ‘no’ outright; the other says ‘absolutely!’. You don’t stick around to see the results. Who is doing your will?

What we think about something influences what we do – regardless of what we say. The first son answered honestly when his father asked him to go and work in the vineyard: he didn’t want to. But he changed his thinking and went to work that day. The second son answered dishonestly – he told his father, “yes, I’ll do it!” but then didn’t. His actions showed what he was thinking all along.

Where does our thinking lead us as Christians? Does it stop at the altar: “I’m righteous, so I’m good. I don’t have to change anything, because I’m better than other people”? Or does it extend out into the good Lord’s vineyard – “all right, I have this tremendous gift of salvation from Jesus. What do I do with it now – how do I live in ways that show other people that they can have the same gift?”

The problem with fundamentalism of any persuasion is that it proclaims thinking to be the enemy – fundamentalism accepts no truth other than a narrowly defined legalism. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are people who label themselves as “free thinkers”, who reject religion outright usually in favour of something of their own devising.

What both groups have in common is that they’re the people who urge you to ‘have an open mind’ when confronted with some of their ideas.

But they don’t really want you to have an open mind – they want you to have an empty one - that they can fill with their own ideas.

So God doesn’t call us to give lip service to a prayer and then go home Sunday afternoon to our comfortable chair. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

So we strive to do the work of God who is with us – sharing the message of the gift of the kingdom of God, showing the world how we live – not as people who are burdened and defined by dogma or doctrine, but as a living, thinking people serving a living, thinking God. The doctrine that we learn in Sunday school, confirmation, and through preaching isn’t intended to be the stuff you have faith in; its purpose is to help you define what you believe, and help you to find clearer ways to live out your faith.

And why is it so important that God calls us to be ‘thinking’ people?

Look around you. It’s a nice contrast to the rest of the world.

Let the people of God say amen.