December 31 2017 sermon: A Few Thoughts About Time

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

(Matthew 6:25-34)

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     As 2018 looms but a few hours away, we take New Year’s Eve to look back and reflect on what was; to look ahead to the possibilities of what might be; and perhaps more than anything to sit back and shake our heads and wonder how in the world we got here so fast! Years seem to fly by. One fades into another and on and on and on, and as each one comes to an end we get a chance to take a deep breath and take stock of our lives, along with our hopes and fears and dreams for the future. On this last day of the year I want to spend a few minutes reflecting on the passage of time, and how we respond as it flies by, because how we deal with the passage of time is important since time’s passage affects us all. We all have to deal with the uncertainty of time, because the future is, of course, a mystery. One year ago we all looked ahead to 2017, and gathered here today we’re probably all aware that this past year didn’t turn out exactly as we had planned. Things happened that we weren’t expecting and that we weren’t prepared for. Some of it was good and some of it wasn’t - and 2018 will be the same, and how we face the new year and the future in general says something about our faith. Do we fear the passage of time or not? Do we lament the past or do we look forward to the future? It’s all an indication of the state of our relationship with Christ. In the movie “Star Trek Generations” there was a valuable line about time. Patrick Stewart – playing the courageous and philosophical Jean-Luc Picard (captain of the Starship Enterprise) said that “time is either a relentless enemy who pursues us all our lives, or it’s a wonderful friend who accompanies us all our lives.” I invite you to reflect on that statement: is time your relentless enemy or your wonderful friend? And, in the interests of hopefulness, I want to offer you a few thoughts on why time should be regarded as a friend.

     From the words of Jesus that we heard earlier, we learn that time and the future are not to be feared. Both are in the hands of God, and if we trust in God then we have no reason to fear either. Many without faith are desperately afraid of time. They fear time because they know that time affects them. We all know that. As we get older – as time passes – we discover that the things we used to be able to do aren’t quite so easy to do. I don’t think of myself as particularly old – I’m 54 – but I do know that I can’t run as fast as I could when I was 18. If necessary I can still catch Hannah, but I’m not as fast as I used to be. That’s life, as they say. Most people learn to accept that the passage of time brings with it certain limitations and they live with that. But not everyone can accept the inevitability of time’s passage. Some people become so caught up with nostalgia for what used to be that they lose interest in what is. The present becomes nothing more than an opportunity to look back at the past. Some people become so obsessed with the past that they go to extremes to try to recapture it. You can see it in how they dress, perhaps, or how they speak or the kind of car they drive. Our society has created entire industries around people who want to deny the marching on of time. If you don’t want people to know how old you are you just get a little lift here or a little tuck there. It’s a way of denying the reality of time’s passage. I hate to inject a somber note into what is essentially a day of partying for many people, but the truth is that the passage of time which we mark tonight with the beginning of a new year is a reminder to us all that eventually so much time will have passed that none of us here today will even exist in this world. Maybe that’s why so many people party tonight – because this night more than any other reminds us that time marches on and that we can’t stop it!

     This is all related to faith, because it has to do with hope. If we’re hopeful about the future, we won’t fear the future. But when we look around, hope can seem elusive and perhaps even naive in the midst of all that we see happening in the world. But it is there. There is hope. There is always hope because there is always God. If we depend only on ourselves, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the problems of the world and saddened by the passage of time. It’s easy because we seem to have more than enough evidence over the centuries that what we’re really good at as humans is making a mess of things! But – yes - there’s always hope because there’s always God, and if we place our trust in God – in the God revealed by the baby born in Bethlehem so long ago – then we have a firm source of hope for the future, and the future then holds no fear, since the future belongs to God.

     Jesus addressed the issue of time when he spoke to the crowds on the Mount of Olives. The passage we heard from Matthew came from the Sermon on the  Mount, and the fact that Jesus had to tell the crowds not to worry about the future shows that even among those who followed him and listened to his teachings many must have been nervous about the passage of time and what the future might bring. And so Jesus offered those who were gathered around him this small piece of advice: don’t worry about the future! Some people get consumed by the end of the passage, when Jesus says not to worry about the future because there are enough troubles in the present. That’s true. The world has its problems, and I’m guessing that pretty much every person here today has some sort of trouble in their lives – ranging from how they’re going to pay for all those Christmas presents and other bills to how they’re going to save their marriage or how they’re going to deal with the diagnosis or how they’re going to find another job or the multitude of little things that might not be life-changing but that can gnaw away at us. Every day seems to bring some trouble, some worry, some fear or some concern, but Jesus really wasn’t talking about the troubles in this passage. His basic message was simple: don’t worry about the future because there’s nothing to worry about! God is in control!

     Jesus was speaking to people who must have had problems and worries and fears in their lives, who were concerned about the future, who desperately needed hope, who saw in Jesus a source of hope – and what did Jesus offer them? Birds and flowers! But for a very good reason. Plants and animals don’t worry about the future. They aren’t aware of what’s coming next. They take care of their immediate needs, and they seem to know instinctively that God will provide. We should know that too – but for all our intelligence we have trouble trusting God. We think about these things – we worry about them; we obsess on them. We wonder where the next dollar is going to come from – and we worry. Somehow we find it so difficult to believe that God will provide for us. I’ll admit that God won’t necessarily provide a lot, but I believe that God will always provide enough. After all, God loves us – and as Martina Boone wrote in the novel Compulsion, “we’ve lost a lot of years, but you can’t lose love. Not real love. It stays locked inside you, ready for whenever you are strong enough to find it again.” But still, we worry and we think we have to solve our problems on our own and we lose sight of God – we forget to pray, we forget to trust, maybe we even start to doubt that God is with us; that God is real. And then the passage of time becomes something that we fear – because in the end, no matter how many other problems we may be able to solve on our own, we will never defeat time. Time will always beat us. There’s no escape from it. As Jesus said, “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

     But God will take care of us! That’s the most wonderful thing that Jesus teaches us about God: that God will take care of us. Yes, there will be challenges and hardships along the way. We can’t escape those. They’re part of the tapestry of life. But even in the midst of them, God will be there – and God’s greatest desire is to reconcile with us – to overcome that which separates us from God. I pray that 2018 will bring many blessings to each and every one of us, but I don’t worry about 2018. I think about today – because today is when we can make the decision to trust God with our tomorrows – a decision that keeps us moving forward in faith, in hope and in love! A decision that I hope you’ve all made!

A Thought For The Week Of December 25, 2017

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:18-19) This is the last of my weekly devotionals for 2017 and I have the pending change in the calendar to 2018 on my mind today. Over the next few days many people will be making so-called "New Year's Resolutions." These are promises either to ourselves or perhaps, for people of faith, to God, in which we commit ourselves to either doing something we haven't been doing but should be doing or to stop doing something that we have been doing but shouldn't be doing. I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions, but there's nothing wrong with making such resolutions - although the tough part is actually keeping them as the excitement of January 1 begins to fade. But rather than making a promise that deals with what we will or won't do in the future, I think that just maybe we need to make some resolutions about the past as well. Is there anyone among us who doesn't live with regrets? Do we not all have something in our past (in the past 12 months or even farther back) that we wish we hadn't one or said, or that we wish we had done or said. Perhaps we hurt someone, or missed an opportunity to share with someone in need, or failed to reconcile with someone before we found out it was too late. We all probably have these experiences or more in our past. I want to encourage you to let them go. Try to make amends where it's possible and productive to do so - but don't allow yourself to be held hostage by a past that you simply can't change. In Isaiah 43:18 God tells his people that they need to let go of the past - and for one very simple reason. God has already moved on. We can burden ourselves with our failures of the past and let them bind us in chains we can't escape from - but to what end? Instead, why not simply let it go and look to God? God is already "doing a new thing." For God, the past is past - for God, even our past is past and the grace of God that appeared in Jesus has given us a new start. So, if we're going to make New Year's Resolutions - maybe one of them should be to look (carefully and constantly) to see what new thing God is doing around us and to be open to what new thing God might want to do through us.

Christmas Eve 2017 (11 pm) sermon - A Down To Earth God

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

(John 6:28-40)

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     At this time of year it’s fairly common to hear Christians lamenting that the meaning of Christmas seems to have been lost. The irony of that lament is that it’s based on the assumption that, as Christians, we “get it” - and yet it seems to me that even a lot of very faithful and dedicated Christians have missed the big picture, and they’ve reduced Christmas to just a few loosely connected snippets of a much larger story. Several years ago there was an episode of the TV show “Thirtysomething” that involved a seasonal religious debate between two of the characters – Hope, a Christian, and her Jewish husband Michael. Hope wanted to know why Jews celebrated Hannukah – which actually ended just a few days ago. She asked, “Do you really believe that a handful of Jews held off a huge army by using a bunch of lamps that miraculously wouldn’t run out of oil?” Michael replied with a question of his own. “Do you really believe that an angel appeared to some teenage girl who got pregnant without a man and traveled to Bethlehem and spent the night in a barn and had a baby that turned out to be the Saviour of the world?” As a Christian, I have little to say about Hannukah, except to wish a “Happy Hannukah” to the Jewish community. But as for Michael’s question about Christmas? That was actually a pretty fair summary of Luke’s story and if you were to ask Christians what Christmas is about you’d probably get a variety of variations on that one basic theme. C.S. Lewis once wrote about Christmas that “the whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear – a Jewish girl at her prayers.” And that’s correct as far as what we would call Luke’s Christmas story goes. If there were only Luke’s Gospel then Christmas would, indeed, be about what Lewis described as that “little point.” And that’s the problem. Christians often become narrower and narrower in their faith and we start settling for little points rather than the big picture. Our faith is usually a lot bigger and grander than we think it is.

     We usually only think of two of the Gospels as having Christmas stories: Luke speaks for Mary and Matthew speaks for Joseph. We don’t often think of the Gospel of John as having a Christmas story, and yet John’s Christmas story might well be the most important of all. John doesn’t mention the birth of Jesus, I suspect because he never fell into the trap of narrowing things down to a single “little point.” John is totally concerned with the big picture – the biggest picture of all, in fact. Luke and Matthew relate a story that happened on a particular night in that little town of Bethlehem; John’s story takes place in the depths of the cosmos and the far recesses of time itself. You could say that if Luke speaks for Mary and Joseph speaks for Matthew, then John speaks for God! John doesn’t worry about explanations – he gets right to the heart of the matter. His first words (which we didn’t read tonight) are clear: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” In John’s Gospel, the big picture is shared: Jesus is the One sent by God; Jesus was a man who came down from the heavens; through Jesus God decided to get down to earth – not just to get a closer look at what had been created, but to enter into our reality of flesh and blood. The Creator became the creature. That was John’s message.

     Think of some of what we read a few moments ago: the work of God is to “believe in him whom he has sent;” “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world;” “I have come down from heaven, ... to do ... the will of him who sent me.” Those are big picture statements, and some people’s view of God won’t allow for this type of understanding. “How could a mere human claim to have come from heaven?” they ask. The author Madeleine L’Engle wrote that “The virgin birth has never been a major stumbling block in my struggle with Christianity; it’s far less mind-boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.” She had no problem with what C.S. Lewis called the narrow point. It was the big picture that gave her pause – probably as it should cause us all to look up in wonder, in awe and even sometimes with doubt. Some of the people of Jesus’ day knew him and they couldn’t believe it. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” they asked. “Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? … And they took offence at him.” The narrow point was easy; the big picture was tough. In the Koran, Muhammad wrote that “those who claim that God has begotten a son preach a monstrous falsehood.” Ironically, Muhammad got the big picture better than most Christians. Yes, indeed – we claim that God has begotten a son. We go even farther and claim that this son is an incarnation of God. But rather than being a “monstrous falsehood,” we claim it as a mind-boggling and wondrous truth. It should be. It’s not easy to believe. It shouldn’t be. But it’s the claim of our faith.

     Soren Kierkegaard once tried to explain the incarnation in a parable. A great and good king fell in love with a lowly peasant girl and contemplated how to win her love. He considered going directly to her or even sending a messenger from his royal court but then he realized that the relationship wouldn’t be real – she would be compelled to respond to such an invitation. He thought about disguising himself as a peasant and coming to her that way, but he realized that would be dishonest and dishonesty violates the very essence of love. Finally, the king realized that there was only one way out of his dilemma. He would have to give up his throne and all the perks, privileges and wealth that accompanied it in order to truly be the equal of his bride and to honestly win her love – and if he did that he still had no guarantee that the peasant girl would return his love. Kierkegaard’s point was that love – if it is to be real – has to be based on equality and has to run the honest risk of being rejected.

     That’s the risk God took in coming down to earth. It was a display of love without parallel. In receiving Communion tonight we remember that this is, indeed, a down to earth God whom we worship; a real flesh and blood deity. Christmas, you see, isn’t just about a baby in a manger. That’s just a “little point.” Christmas is about the big picture: an Almighty God who came to us in weakness and vulnerability and humility; who came as one of us!

December 24 2017 sermon - The Christmas Angel To Joseph: God Has A Purpose For You

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” 

(Matthew 1:18-25)

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     You may think that this is a strange way for me to start a sermon, but I do not much care for Rodney Dangerfield. I suspect that you all know who Rodney Dangerfield was. He was a comedian who was pretty well known in his day. I have to admit that I never much cared for Rodney Dangerfield. I’ve always found his humour to be foul-mouthed rather than funny, and most of his movies that I’ve seen I would describe as “disasters.” And, of course, his famous tagline was “I don’t get no respect.” Which is true. I can’t deny that as much as I didn’t care for him, Rodney Dangerfield made a pretty good career for himself. But he never won any big awards, and – depending on your era – he would never be mistaken for Clark Gable or Gary Cooper or Marlon Brando or Tom Hanks or Brad Pitt. Indeed, in spite of his long and respected career, he got no respect. And believe it or not, whenever Christmas starts to approach I start to think a bit about Rodney Dangerfield, because he reminds me of someone else who got no respect.

     Spare a thought for poor Joseph at this time of the year. He really does fade into the background, doesn’t he. He’s overshadowed by the stars of the show – Mary, and of course, Jesus. And if they’re the stars of the show, then even the supporting players get more attention and are more noticed than Joseph: the angels, the magi, the shepherds. We sing songs about Mary and Jesus and the shepherd and the angels and the magi – but do you know how hard it was for me to find a song that was actually about Joseph? “Saint Joseph Was A Just Man” was the only one I could come up with, so I had us sing it this morning. Joseph generally gets forgotten – and not just at Christmas. He barely rates a mention in the Gospels, except for some cursory references to Jesus as “Joseph’s son” or in one instance (even more anonymously) to Jesus as just “the carpenter’s son.” No one thinks about Joseph. He’s just another part of the nativity scene. Even in the earliest days of the Christian faith, Joseph tended to be overlooked or ignored. He was inconvenient. Jesus was the Son of God, after all – so what are we supposed to do with this man? And so, Joseph largely faded away into oblivion – except for one thing. He shows us how to play our parts in the unfolding drama of God’s redemptive plan for the world.

     As I was reflecting on Joseph this week I thought of a joke by another comedian - George Carlin: “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose.” Sometimes there is value involved in having to figure things out for ourselves rather than being given easy answers. I’m sure that Joseph was confused. I have no doubt that Joseph was a man of big dreams. He was about to be married, after all – which is a time of big dreams and giant expectations. Marriage, family, respect in the community. It was all working out pretty much the way Joseph had expected. He was on the way. Nothing could stop him now! Except perhaps the unexpected pregnancy of his fiance – a pregnancy that he wasn’t responsible for! I’m quite certain that nowhere in the recesses of Joseph’s mind did Joseph ever dream about becoming the father of someone else’s baby. In a way, Joseph’s silence and his relative anonymity are a bit of a surprise. All things considered, you kind of assume that when he found out that Mary was pregnant, he would have had a few words to say about that. And perhaps he did. I suppose it’s altogether possible that when he wrote his Gospel, Matthew just couldn’t come up with the appropriate Greek words to translate whatever it was Joseph had said in Aramaic! That’s possible, but on the other hand if Matthew is to be believed then Joseph actually took this news rather well. Here are a few things to consider about this man who so easily fades into the background.

     Joseph was “a righteous man.” Those words are pretty simple. Joseph was right with God. He had lived a life of faith and he had tried to please his God. The reality is that leading such a life meant that Joseph was probably fairly anonymous even before these events, because living righteously doesn’t usually make you noteworthy. People are usually much more interested in the unrighteous and the scandal-ridden and the controversial. But Joseph was “righteous.” That actually made him the ideal choice for the role he was about to play. Being righteous before God implies among other things being humble. Joseph had no problem with pride. If he had such a problem, he probably wouldn’t have been chosen for this role. Usually we tend to focus on the righteousness of Mary. What made her worthy to be the mother of Jesus? But we can ask a similar question about Joseph as well. What made him worthy to be so highly favoured of God that he would be chosen to play the part of worldly father to this holy child about to be born? It was, quite simply, that he was “righteous” - not in the negative sense of the word (not proud and self-righteous) but in the best sense of the word (humble and obedient to God.)

     Joseph was “unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace,” and so he “planned to dismiss her quietly.” That demonstrates Joseph’s essential compassion. Joseph could have been very angry. He could have made a spectacle of Mary. He could have made sure that everyone knew about her pregnancy by someone other than him. But Joseph was a man of integrity who wanted to do the right thing in the right way. To end this marriage before it had even started would have been a serious thing, and if he had called attention to the circumstances the punishment for Mary could have been stoning to death. At the very least, she would have been shamed and humiliated and cut off from her people. Some wronged husbands to be might have chosen that route. The society would have expected it and the law would have condoned it. No one would have blamed Joseph if he had taken that step. But in his righteousness there was compassion. Because while a self-righteous person might become proud and full of judgment, a truly righteous person is humble and full of compassion. Joseph’s essential compassion made him the perfect choice for the part assigned to him, because humility combined with compassion made him willing to listen to the message of the angel: “...do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

     So Joseph “… did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife ...” In the end, out of his righteousness, out of his compassion and out of his humility, Joseph did what God required of him. What a lesson that is for us! When our lives seem to take a wrong turn, we cry out (as Joseph must have cried out) “God, how could this happen to me!?” And it’s easy for us to drown God’s response out with our cries and refuse to hear. Joseph, though, kept listening, and finally he heard that still, small voice from God that said to him, “Trust me. I have a plan and you have a part.” God’s ways are not always our ways. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God doesn’t always act in the ways we expect. The truth is that we may never fully understand everything that God is doing, but God said “Trust me, and all things will work together for good.” And for Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus – they did. Not without hardship, not without trial, not without suffering and not without tears – but all things did finally work together, and through these three, the world was blessed.

     Joseph isn’t the star of the show. He’s a lot like Rodney  Dangerfield – he gets no respect, he’s always in the background; he’s never quite front and centre, he’s often overlooked – but he’s there, and unless he had played his part perfectly, none of this plan would have worked. It takes a special quality to be a Joseph. I once heard of a Sunday School Christmas Pageant. There were two boys who wanted to play Joseph. Only one could get the part, of course, and the boy who didn’t get the part was jealous. He got cast as the innkeeper instead, and he began to plot his revenge against his rival. On the day of the pageant, everything was going according to plan. Joseph and Mary showed up at the door to the inn, and – well, you know the story. The inn-keeper answered and Joseph asked for a room. “Now,” thought the boy playing the innkeeper, “is my chance for revenge.” He had it planned. He’d leave the boy playing Joseph tongue tied and embarrassed. Rather than turning the couple away by telling them that the inn was full, he looked at his rival and said “Come on in. I’ll give you the best room I have.” But the boy playing Joseph was quick on his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, he looked past the inn-keeper into the inn and then said “You expect us to stay in a dump like this? Your barn would be better!” And the congregation laughed and applauded. Joseph saved the day again, and the play went on to its inevitable conclusion – ending with all the attention once again on Mary and Jesus.

     Joseph is an example for us all. We all have a purpose; we all have a part to play in God’s unfolding plan. It may not be the starring role. No one may notice our efforts. We may not get pats on the back. No one may remember us. It might take us a while to figure it out. And we have to puzzle it out. We have to listen to and for God’s voice. Others can walk the walk with us, but ultimately only God can direct us. But each and every moment – each one of us is a part of God’s plan in some way, and we have a purpose. To God, you’re vitally important. More than that – by God, you’re loved.

A Thought For The Week Of December 18, 2017

"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12) With Christmas fast approaching, I find my attention drawn ever closer to the incarnation - its meaning, its purpose and its implications. A line from C.S. Lewis seemed appropriate: "The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby." That's rather mind-boggling. The Supreme and Almighty God came to us in as vulnerable a way as possible: as "a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Babies are completely dependent on others; and completely vulnerable to those who would harm them. And yet, that is how God came. That picture of incarnation says two things to me. First, that God - having been vulnerable - understands what it is to be vulnerable. Those who are the vulnerable among us (and any of us might be vulnerable at any given moments - and some may always be vulnerable due to their circumstances) are not alone. God who was vulnerable understands the vulnerable and stands with them. Far from being abandoned - they are loved, perhaps in a specially intimate way because God has shared this condition. Second, this reminds me that God calls upon we who are able to look out for the vulnerable: to accept and welcome them; to protect them and their rights; to stand up when systems or society abuses them or tries to cast them aside. Jesus said that "whatever you do for the least of these you do for me." By "the least of these" Jesus was in fact speaking of the extremely vulnerable of our society. When we stand for them we stand for Jesus - because Jesus was one of them. Incarnation - that God took on human flesh - is especially important to my own understanding of the Gospel. Understanding the vulnerability that Jesus experienced through the incarnation reminds me of what my purpose as a Christian is - to be a voice for those whose voices are silenced, and to look out for those who through no fault of their own cannot look out for themselves, or at least who need help to do so.

December 17 2017 sermon: The Christmas Angel To Mary: Answering The Unanswerable

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

(Luke 1:26-38)

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     Like pretty much everybody, I love a good mystery. There’s nothing quite like reading or watching a good mystery – walking through the story with the characters and struggling with them to try to figure it all out. Sometimes I’m successful at solving the mystery and sometimes I’m not, but the fun is in the trying; the fun is in the existence of the mystery itself and the invitation the mystery represents to puzzle it out. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t love a good mystery. Setting aside books and movies and TV shows, there are all kinds of mysteries in the world. What do we make of people who claim to have seen UFOs, or sasquatches, or yetis, or chupacabras? We might dismiss them as crazy, or we might just assume that they’re mistaken, or we might believe them, but the mystery is still intriguing, isn’t it? The fun is in wondering if it’s really true or not – or even if it’s possible! When I was a kid I was really into the whole UFO thing. There are a lot of really great UFO stories out there. I don’t know if many of you saw this in the news, but on June 17 of this year a wildlife photographer was taking photos in the marsh area near the General Motors headquarters in Oshawa, when he noticed this object off in the distance:

     He said 

“I was walking back to my car and I just saw something pop out of nowhere, way up high, far away in the sky. I thought it was a big turkey vulture so I just took a picture of it anyway and then it kind of hovered, sat there for a minute and then it took off. … A balloon wouldn’t go that fast and disappear … and it was too high. Nobody would be flying a kite there because it’s just railroad tracks and the road and there was nobody around there. … and where did it go? … It’s just really odd; I’ve never seen anything like that. … I don’t know what it is”

     I’ve been to Oshawa a few times – and seen a few things there (a few of them kind of strange!) – but I’ve never seen anything quite like that. It’s a mystery – and it’s close to home! You have to love it!

     There’s another – and far more significant – mystery that’s even closer to home for us. The Christian faith deals in mystery. The opening works of “A Song Of faith” - one of the United Church’s statements of doctrine – are “God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description.” And yet, for all that mystery, week after week we seek to know God better, even if we can’t know God perfectly. But rather than simple answers we proclaim mystery; rather than a simplistic view of God we proclaim a God who is Holy Mystery. Advent is a season of mystery, as we reflect on the nature of the God who boggles the human imagination by becoming one of us. During Communion services we often summarize the mystery of our faith with the words “Christ has died – Christ is risen – Christ will come again,” but I want to suggest that there’s a fourth and essential part of the equation that gets left out: Christ was born! That’s just as mysterious! At one time in my life of faith I would have called myself an Easter Christian and argued up and down and sideways that Easter was the central celebration of the Christian faith; that without the resurrection Christianity would be emptied of its power. Now, I haven’t abandoned either Easter or the resurrection. I still don’t believe there would be a Christian faith (at least not one we would recognize) without the resurrection, but I have come to the conclusion that I’m more of a Christmas Christian. Resurrection is central to our faith, but crucifixion and resurrection lost their focus if they themselves aren’t grounded in incarnation – in the birth of Jesus as God in the flesh, as strange and mysterious as that sounds.

     The idea of God in the flesh may sound mysterious to us – but it was just as mysterious two thousand years ago to those who were closest to the event.

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

     There’s the question, folks: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Actually, you can even set aside the last part of that question. It’s not that I don’t believe that Mary was a virgin, but maybe – just maybe – that isn’t really the point. Maybe all that really needs to be said is, “How can this be?” How could God be one of us? Why would God be one of us? Maybe the process by which that happened is less important than simply that it happened! Advent pushes us to consider the mystery of incarnation; to ask the questions and to embrace the uncertainties and in doing so to be touched and transformed by God.

     Of Jesus, A Song of Faith says,

In response to who Jesus was and to all he did and taught, to his life, death and resurrection, and to his continuing presence with us through the Spirit, we celebrate him as the Word made flesh, the one in whom God and humanity are perfectly joined, the transformation of our lives, the Christ.

     It is this union of the divine with the human that is the greatest of mysteries. This is the ultimate display of divine love – that God, who needs nothing, would nevertheless choose to experience the all that accompanies the existence of those whom God has created: joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, friends and enemies, loyalty and betrayal, and even birth and death. “This is love,” John wrote, “not that we loved God but that [God] loved us and sent his Son.” This is divine love freely given to us – the depth of which is perhaps the greatest of mysteries.

     Advent and Christmas are invitations into the mystery of incarnation. When Mary asked, “How can this be?” the angel gave her the only answer possible: “the Holy Spirit will come upon you.” The Holy Spirit guides us ever so gently into the mystery that is God’s love, demonstrated by the coming of Jesus, and then ever so slowly the mystery is unraveled until we too come face to face with God’s presence among us and with God’s presence around us and with God’s presence within us, and, being touched and inspired and even overwhelmed by the experience, we then say as did Mary “let it be with me according to your Word.” The mystery of incarnation reminds us that we are indeed to wait upon God – to wait for God’s call upon our lives and to respond to it humbly, serving God even as God served us through Christ. Let us, then, celebrate the mystery that is the birth of Jesus, and that God appeared in him.

     Incarnation – God in the flesh – raises a lot of questions, but ultimately the Holy Spirit provides the answer – God is love, God came to us out of love, God came to bring us love, and God calls us to love. In response to that call, may we – like Mary – say, “let it be with me according to your will.”

A Thought For The Week Of December 11, 2017

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem ..." (Psalm 122:6a) The city of Jerusalem has been much in the news lately. I have my opinions, but here I'm not really interested in the politics around the status of Jerusalem. I'm interested in Jerusalem as a symbol; Jerusalem as a spiritual hope - an appropriate issue to reflect upon during Advent. The city plays an important role in the biblical story. It's the centre of the home of biblical Israel; the place where the temple was located. It's a troubled city - not just today but for millennia, and the Bible portrays that. We aren't asked to pray for the peace of a city that enjoys peace, after all. It was devastated by Babylon as the exile approached; it was declared to be troubled (or frightened, or disturbed) by the news of the birth of Jesus; Jesus referred to it as the place that killed the prophets; and it was, of course, the place of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and later of the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. Although the temple has never been rebuilt, the city remains the symbolic centre of religious life for the Jewish people, and for the Muslim world it's the home of the Al-Aqsa mosque, considered the third most holiest site in Islam. Many Christians consider it holy - although, to be honest, I consider the city more important historically than spiritually. But as a spiritual symbol, Jerusalem matters. I take the concept of the "New Jerusalem" very seriously. Revelation 21:2 speaks of "... the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God ..." As a symbol, Jerusalem (the former home of the Jewish temple, and the only place, really, where such a temple could be rebuilt) represents the dwelling place of God. The idea of a New Jerusalem to come reminds me that the day will come when all that separates God from humanity will be removed - and there will be peace not only between God and humanity, but among humanity as well. This New Jerusalem will be a place not to be contested among nations, but to be open to all peoples. This New Jerusalem to come won't have walls or boundaries to keep people out. Instead, it will have the presence of God welcoming people in. It will be whatever reality it is that God will call into being at the appointed time, when righteousness will rule and perfect reconciliation will be achieved. When we "pray for the peace of Jerusalem," of course we're praying for the peace and security of all those of any religious faith within the earthly city - but we are also praying for the inbreaking of God's Kingdom; the establishment of God's reign on earth. To "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" is, in a sense, another way of saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, come," with the establishment of peace that Christians believe his return will mean.

December 10 2017 sermon - When God Appears

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

(Isaiah 40:1-11)

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     What’s it like when God appears? What do you think? The approach of Christmas makes me think about that question a lot. I find it hard to imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt as they waited for the birth of their child, or the shepherds as they encountered the angels, or the magi who would start their journey guided by a mysterious star. It’s hard to imagine because it doesn’t happen very often. Not in that way at least. Oh yes. We believe in the presence of God with us. We speak of seeing God in nature or in the faces of those around us or wherever it is that love is shown. And, yes, God is there. But that’s not quite the same as Mary and Joseph or the shepherds or the magi. Still, I believe that God does appear to us today through more every day kinds of experiences that all of us might have. Through those feelings that come to us that simply tell us that there’s something more; something beyond us; something greater than what we see and touch.

     In a way, Isaiah the prophet was discussing this in our reading this morning. As you read verse by verse through this passage, you get a sense of the nature of God, and of how God’s nature impacts our lives – and when God appears to us (even if its only a glimpse through a momentary experience every now and then) we know that we’ve been in God’s presence. We know it because we feel it, and I want to share with you briefly four things that God does in our lives when we have such experiences to tell us that we’re not alone – that God is with us!

     When God appears there’s a sense of comfort -  a sense of deep and abiding comfort that God is with us no matter what our circumstances might be. Isaiah began today’s passage with the word “Comfort.” “Comfort, o comfort my people ...” God is known to us by that sense of comfort we experience at the most unexpected times. There are many people in the world today who need comfort. Just last week I was at the annual Pine Ridge Memorial Service that’s held here, and there was a whole sanctuary full of people looking for comfort at a time of year when comfort is for many people in short supply. We, of course, are called to offer comfort to those in distress or who live with grief. And when we do that, perhaps we are – just a bit – helping God to appear in the lives of those who have such a need. So we need to do more than just offer comfort – we need to point people to their real source of comfort, and that’s God, because that’s what happens when God appears: there’s a sense of real and deep and abiding comfort, - a “peace that passes all understanding” - regardless of circumstances.

     When God appears there’s also a sense of assurance. It does no good to point someone to God unless, in some way, they’re going to be convinced that God will help. And so, in very direct and dramatic ways, God helps those who are in need. That’s not just a possibility. Never point people to God believing that God might help; point them to God believing that God will help. Doubt is fine. We all experience doubt. There are days when our faith is strong, and others when it seems to hang like a thread – but even in the midst of doubt, in those times when God appears in our lives, our doubts vanish and we become convinced – we know! - that God has touched us and will care for us. Life can be a bit of a roller coaster at times – but then, suddenly, God appears. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain,” Isaiah said. With God, the roller coaster flattens – or at least the ups and downs become bearable – because we know that God is with us through it all. “Then,” Isaiah said, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” As Isaiah proclaimed, everything else in the world will fade away, “but the word of our God will stand forever.” God doesn’t fail, and when God appears, we know that. When God appears, there is assurance.

     When God appears there’s also a sense of strength. Once God appears, we never again doubt the strength of God. Many don’t turn to God because they don’t believe in their hearts that God can help. Whatever problem they’re facing seems so overwhelming that even turning to God seems hopeless. Now, it’s true that God won’t solve all our problems for us. We have to take some responsibility for what’s happening in our lives and how to deal with it. But we are not alone. We have comfort and assurance from God – and God gives us strength as well. We can persevere through all things – not because we are strong but because God gives us strength. Isaiah says that “the Lord God comes with might.”There is power when God appears; there is strength when God appears – and we claim that strength as our own when we face those times (which most of us have surely faced) that we know we can’t get through by our own strength – and yet the strength comes to us, and we do get through. That’s God, I believe. Never doubt the power of God; know instead – without a doubt – that when God appears in your life you will find strength.

     And when God appears there’s also a sense of tenderness. God does not come in power to frighten us into submission, but rather with a strength that beckons us and draws us; God comes with a strength tempered by tenderness. God’s desire is that we respond not out of fear but out of love. Tenderness is also in short supply in a lot of people’s lives. Perhaps they’re in abusive relationships; perhaps they’re simply alone in life. There are children all over the world – and I have no doubt in our own communities – who are crying out for tenderness, because they never receive it at home. They need the tenderness of God, but even if we don’t have those same problems – we need the tenderness of God, and divine tenderness is overwhelming! No matter how happy your marriage, no matter how loving your family, no matter how supportive your friends – God’s tenderness is still needed. Isaiah tells us that God “will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them ...” With love, patience, mercy and tenderness, God will care for God’s people.

     God doesn’t appear very often – but Advent is about awaiting the day when God will appear – and when that happens comfort and assurance and strength and tenderness will be an every day part of life. But until then – and we don’t know when that will be – we have to look for those moments when God makes appearances in our midst today – and that may not always be obvious. The author and ordained minister Lee Woofenden once wrote that “it’s good to keep in mind that whatever way we may happen to picture or perceive God in our mind, it is not the only way God can appear.” So we’re not looking for appearances right now as much as we’re looking for the comfort and assurance and strength and tenderness that always accompany God – and if you have truly felt those things in a special and inexplicable way at some point in your life, then God has appeared to you. Rejoice in that, because it’s a blessing, and try to find some way to share that blessing with someone else during this Advent and Christmas season, and beyond!

A Thought For The Week Of December 4, 2017

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is not an easy thing - especially not in a society that often seems to be fixated on needing proof of everything. If something can't be proven empirically, then many people won't believe it - whatever it is. That, of course, isn't something that's restricted to today. We have to remember an apostle like Thomas, who is the role model in some way for those who demand proof. "Unless I see ... unless I touch." That's why he was given the nickname "Doubting Thomas" - because he found it hard to believe on faith. But, ultimately, that's what Christianity rests on. There are all sorts of things that we can't prove" about what we believe. At this time of year the virgin birth leaps to mind. In the Thomas story, the resurrection is the point for doubt. Actually we can't even prove empirically that God is real or that Jesus actually lived. We can cite "evidence" - but most of that is either experiential (in the case of God) or from biased sources (in the case of Jesus.) So in a way being a Christian is being comfortable with uncertainty and doubt. Christian faith is exactly what the author of this verse spoke of - it's being confident in our hope and believing what we can't see. Of course, a big part of that is what we hope for. Do we hope to win the lottery? Well, that's not faith - it's wishful thinking. What we as Christians hope for is the establishment of God's Kingdom here on earth. What we hope for is the reign of Jesus' ministry of love and mercy and compassion and reconciliation. That's our hope. It seems a long way away, and perhaps every now and then we start to doubt that it will ever happen. Sometimes it just seems impossible. But this Season of Advent is about embracing mystery and believing that even what seems to be impossible can sometimes happen. Disciples of Jesus know that it can. We believe! That is our hope!

December 3 2017 sermon: While We Wait

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind - just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

(1 Corinthians 1:3-9)

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     A few days ago I was chatting with Scott McEachnie, from McEachnie Funeral Home. Actually, we were sitting in a car, waiting to make a left turn on to Church Street from the church parking lot to lead a funeral procession up to Pine Ridge Cemetery. We were talking about how times had changed – that there used to be a time when, at the first sight of a funeral procession, all traffic would stop to let it through. Now, it’s not unusual for the lead funeral coach to have to fight its way into the mad rush of drivers having to get wherever they’re going in a hurry because if it took them five minutes longer to get there – well, something awful would surely happen! As we sat there, waiting for a break in the traffic or for some kind soul to let us in, I thought that this was actually a pretty good image to hold on to as the First Sunday in Advent loomed just ahead. People don’t like to wait anymore. We don’t like to wait for anything. Our society has developed instant this and instant that – instant everything! So we have all sorts of instant foods – instant rice and instant noodles and instant pudding and instant oatmeal. Heaven forbid we should ever have to actually cook anything! And for those who do dare to cook, I noticed that one of the hottest selling items on Black Friday was the instant pot – which promises to cook your food up to 10 times faster. If you’re wondering, Chatelaine Magazine reviewed the Instant Pot and said that while the results are good, it’s not as fast as advertised! But it’s called the “Instant Pot” - so it will be a big hit, because it promises less waiting, and waiting is increasingly a lost art. People want to get what they want and when they want it without ever having to wait for it. In an article in the Boston Globe, a 23-year old man was quoted as saying that “my generation is used to getting everything we want without having to wait for it.” He went on to say, “Maybe it’s made us a little impatient.” Well – maybe.

     This desire to have everything now is probably one of the reasons that Advent is a tough sell for a lot of people. We don’t want to have to wait for Christmas – and increasingly we don’t. I have satellite radio in my car. Sirius XM started its all Christmas music station on November 1. Seriously? I mean, you can only listen to “Winter Wonderland” so many times before you want to rip the radio out and toss it out the window, and once you’ve heard “Feliz Navidad” for the 50th time in a week? Well, let’s just say that Jose Feliciano starts to lose his appeal. Some stores had Christmas displays out in August. Christmas lights and Christmas trees were up at some houses long before Remembrance Day. And there’s the never-ending debate in some churches – can we sing Christmas carols in Advent or do we have to wait for December 24? Waiting for Christmas seems so old fashioned – even in the church. We just want to get right to it.

     But it’s not just the current generation or recent generations that face this challenge with impatience. You can trace this desire for instant gratification all the way back to the days of Jesus. That was generally not a day of instant gratification. From what I’ve heard they didn’t even have high-speed internet in Jesus’ day. Imagine – Jesus must have surfed the web on dial-up! And yet – people still had trouble waiting. Even the disciples of Jesus would find themselves getting just a little bit impatient at times. There was a scene in Mark 13 between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus was describing to them the signs that they should be watching for. And rather than listening and then watching, the disciples started making demands: “When’s it going to happen Jesus? Tell us? We want to know.” And Jesus must have shaken his head just a little bit and maybe done a bit of a face palm. They just didn’t get it. “Nobody knows,” he finally said. “Nobody knows. The angels don’t know. I don’t even know. Only the Father knows.” There are some things you just have to wait for.

     “… in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind - just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Those words are from our reading this morning from 1 Corinthians. Did you pick up on three words in the midst of it: “as you wait.” The last part of that sentence wasn’t really necessary. He could have just reminded the Corinthians that they weren’t lacking in any spiritual gift. They had everything they needed to get about their business. Oh, but those Corinthians. They were an impatient and ornery bunch. They wanted things their own way. They fought among themselves. They tried to outdo each other in flashy displays of holiness. They were willing to sacrifice some of the basic morals they had been taught for the sake of instant gratification. They abused the gifts God had given them for the sake of showing off rather than using them to serve God and gospel and others. So Paul reminded them: they had been given everything they needed so that they would not be “lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They couldn’t have it all. Not right away.  Not any more than those disciples of Jesus could get all the answers they wanted from Jesus. Not any more than the disciples of Jesus today can get all the answers we want from Jesus. For all that we’ve been given by God, we still have to wait. But while we wait, we can still be about the business of God; the ministry of Jesus. This is another problem with waiting that Paul knew very well. Some are too impatient to be asked to wait and they give up and move on to something else if they can’t have everything they want as soon as they want it. Others revel in waiting, and use it as an opportunity to do nothing. Paul confronted that problem with the church at Thessalonica – who, convinced that the return of Jesus was imminent, immediately and enthusiastically and without hesitation set about doing nothing. “Why bother,” was their attitude. “Jesus will take care of it when he comes.” And Paul scolded them. “There’s no place for laziness in a Christian life” is basically what he said.

     You see, waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ isn’t a call to idleness or laziness. While it is a call for us to watch for the signs of God’s presence and actions in our world, it is not a call to simply leave everything for God to sort out some day. This morning, once again, we will be strengthened by the gifts of God that we will find at the table of God. They’re simple things – a wafer; a cup of juice. But to us they are indeed gifts. More than that, to us they are life. To us they are reminders of Jesus, who gives us life and who sets us free; who calls us not to simply wait for his return to put all things right – but who rather calls us to begin the working of putting things right today. We cannot right all the wrongs of the world – but we do not have to sit back and simply wait. Where we see injustice, we can fight it. We we see hatred we can work to overcome it. Where we see oppression we can confront it. Where we see deceit we can correct it. Where we see need, we can try to meet it. Where we see grief, we can reach out in the midst of it. We do these things because these things are the ministry of Jesus, who calls us. And we can do all this while we wait. Waiting doesn’t have to be a passive activity. God has gifted us just as God gifted the Corinthians with every gift we need to serve as we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And just be patient – because we won’t be waiting forever. As the American writer and Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner wrote, “… sure enough even waiting will end … if you can just wait long enough.”

A Thought For The Week Of November 27, 2017

"But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." (Hebrews 2:9) It's strange to think of death as something that crowns someone "with glory and honour." After all, a crown is a symbol of a king - it's a sign of someone who possesses power and authority even more than it's a sign of glory and honour. And, yet, here is death being looked upon as something that crowns Jesus with glory and honour? We usually see death as a sign of our weakness; as a defeat. Death takes us, it defeats us and it seems to be victorious over our lives. So this seems strange - at first glance at least. But let's remember a couple of things. First is that with the gospel and with Jesus things are never quite the way they seem. Jesus and his gospel have a tendency to throw the established order into chaos. Just when we think we have life and the world figured out - all of a sudden Jesus comes and things aren't the way they had seemed. So should we be surprised that death (usually a thing of defeat) is described as a crown? Of course not. The unexpected is exactly what we should expect from Jesus. And that, of course, leads to a second point: we already know that Jesus accomplished something totally unexpected - he defeated death! In a very real sense death did become a crown of glory and honour for Jesus because it was his death that allowed his ultimate power and authority to be revealed. After all, without a death there can't be a resurrection. Just as one king has to die before the next king can take the throne, so did Jesus have to die before the full extent of his power and glory could be revealed. Death is a strange crown, and probably not one that most people would choose to seek for themselves. But Jesus accepted it. And as Advent is about to begin, we look ahead to the birth of the one who was born to be king.

A Thought For The Week Of November 20, 2017

"Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You are sinners. So clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure." (James 4:8) As I reflect upon this verse I find that it challenges some of my basic assumptions about the nature of our relationship with God. I build a lot of my theological understanding around my perception that the initiative in he divine-human relationship always belongs to God. In other words, it is always God who acts and we who respond to God's actions. That seems pretty clear to me. Indeed, when you think about it everything has to be a response to God because God acted first in the work of creating. And yet, as obvious as that seems I'm suddenly confronted with James' formula in the opening words of this verse: "Come near to God, and God will come near to you." At least from a literal perspective that seems to imply that in some way we have taken the initiative.We have made the choice to come near to God and God has responded by coming near to us. Very challenging, indeed. Many find James to be too works-oriented, and in some ways he does appear to put faith and works at some level on relatively equal terms. So perhaps this simply represents James' bias. And I'd interpret this verse in any event against the clear teachings of Jesus and really of most of Scripture that God is always present with us. Is it really possible (in any tangible way) for us to "come near to God," since God is already with us. In fact, in some real way, God is present everywhere, and if God is everywhere then God is already as close to us as God can possibly be. So the opening verse of this passage can't really be about literal distance, because there is no distance between ourselves and God. So perhaps the issue isn't one of nearness or proximity; perhaps it's a question of openness. Perhaps what James was saying was that if we open ourselves to God's presence, we will be aware of God's presence. Indeed, if we're truly open to God's presence we can't miss it. That's how close God already is to us.

November 19 2017 sermon - That Time Between Awake And Asleep

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

(1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

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     It’s night-time. You’re blissfully asleep – or at least you think you are. But you’re consciously aware of the fact that there are visions going through your mind. And suddenly – you’re eyes open. You’re awake. It was a dream. It happens to all of us. On many occasions I’ve awakened suddenly and started laughing uncontrollably because something in a dream was funny. On at least one occasion I can remember waking up suddenly and feeling furious because something in the dream had made me angry, and it took me a few minutes to orient myself and to realize that it was a dream. But we all have them. They happen when you’re not quite awake but you’re also not deep in sleep. They’re somewhere between those two states – that time between awake and asleep. Paul wouldn’t have known that there was such a time. For Paul there was just awake and asleep. We know today that it’s more complicated than that. Sleep studies have shown that when you’re deeply asleep there are changes in your body. Your heart rate goes down, your blood pressure goes down, your breathing slows, your muscles relax and even your brain waves are reduced. But there’s a different kind of sleep. It’s called REM sleep (REM standing for Rapid Eye Movement.) This is when we dream. And, again, things happen in our body. In REM sleep, our eyes move rapidly as if we’re watching something, our heart rates go up, our blood pressure goes up, our breathing gets faster, our muscles start to twitch, our brain waves become stronger and sometimes a bit chaotic. Sometimes we even make noises. If you’ve ever watched a dog sleep – you’ll know exactly what I mean, because they experience the exact same thing. And I wonder – if Paul had known about sleep what we know about sleep – would he have worded things a little bit differently?

     All Paul knew was awake and asleep. In the context of the passage we just heard, Paul was telling the church that it had to remain alert. Even though it appears in the Lectionary for today, this is actually a passage of Scripture that would work very well during the Season of Advent that’s still a couple of weeks away. Be alert, Paul was saying – be awake! - because you just don’t know when God is going to come; you just don’t know how God is going to come; you just don’t know exactly what God is going to do – so be alert! Be awake! That was his point. Because as far as he knew the only alternative to that was to be asleep – to be totally oblivious to the goings on around you, to not be watching or watchful, to be oblivious to the signs of God’s presence and to the impact of God’s actions in the world around us and even in our own lives. To be asleep is to live as though God doesn’t matter, as though God isn’t here, as though God isn’t coming. For Paul that was the clear and only choice – awake or asleep? Aware or oblivious? Watchful or Blind? That was it. But if he had lived today and if he had known all that we know, I kind of suspect he might have worded the passage a little bit differently. I suspect that he would have come down on the side of dreaming.

     You see, there are problems with the church being fully awake as much as there are with it being fully asleep. Paul understood the problem of being deeply asleep. Simply put – you might miss something. You might miss something vital. It’s like falling asleep while you’re watching a hockey game. The last thing you remember your team was losing 2-0, and suddenly you wake up and your team is ahead 4-2. Obviously you’ve missed something pretty significant, and as much as you might see replays or be able to check out the scoring summary to see what happened you can never really have the experience. It’s the same with the activity of God. You might be able to discern after the fact that God was present in this or that event, but if you missed the event itself because you just weren’t paying attention somehow it’s not the same thing. It’s like the disciples falling asleep while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. They missed out on the chance to offer Jesus some support and comfort. Thomas wasn’t in the upper room when the resurrected Jesus first appeared and he had a hard time believing that it could have happened. Many in Nazareth watched Jesus grow up, but they hadn’t been present when he was born with signs all around, and they were reduced to saying “isn’t he just a carpenter’s son?” You can miss so much when you fall asleep. We don’t want the church to be that asleep.

     But you can miss a lot when you’re fully awake too. When you’re fully awake maybe you’re just a little bit too alert. Maybe you get just a little bit too fixated on the details around you. Maybe you become obsessed with the problems and the challenges and the limitations that sometimes seem to be all around. Sometimes being too awake can actually blind you to reality or paralyze you from taking action, because whatever it is that you feel the need to take action in response to seems so overwhelming that we don’t think we can make much of a difference. Sometimes I think we can be so awake that we’re actually blinded to the possibilities that are right in front of you. Which is why I think that, if Paul had known about sleep what we know about sleep today, what he might have said is not “stay awake!” but rather “dream some dreams!” I think that Paul might have wanted the church (at least every now and then) to experience some REM sleep – to inhabit that time between awake and asleep. And that’s because the church really needs to dream some dreams.

     It’s believed that dreaming has some very positive effects on people. Many believe that it’s when we dream that we’re actually processing memories, sorting out things that puzzle us, coming to terms with our hopes and fears, dealing with our past, looking into our future. I mentioned the physical changes that happen to us when we dream – the increased heart rate and blood pressure, etc. Sometimes they actually rise above normal. You could say that it’s when we’re dreaming that we’re really the most awake. Is it any wonder that the pages of the Bible are filled with accounts of God speaking to people through dreams. From beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, the pages of the Bible are filled with accounts of people receiving dreams and visions that turn out to be messages from or revelations of God. It’s in that dream state when we’re most open to hearing what God is calling us to. When we’re deeply asleep we’re oblivious to God’s call and when we’re fully awake God’s call can be crowded out among all the other things that are happening. But when we dream – when we’re in that time between awake and asleep – we’re open vessels ready to be filled. Problems give way to solutions; challenges become opportunities; limitations become possibilities. The church needs to dream some dreams.

     Yes – there are times when the church needs to be awake – fully awake, because it’s only when we’re fully awake that we can become aware of the world around us, and as the people of God we are called to respond to what’s happening around us and to reach out to those in need and to extend an open hand of welcome and acceptance to those who may feel cast aside. Yes – there are times when the church needs to be asleep – deeply asleep – because we can’t do everything all the time and sometimes  a step back and a time to regroup is appropriate and necessary. But mostly I think the church needs to be dreaming dreams. I think we need to be open to God’s presence and available for God’s call and willing to do God’s work. That’s what dreaming is all about. That’s what it means to inhabit the time between awake and asleep.

A Thought For The Week Of November 13, 2017

"As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept." (Matthew 25:5) I have to confess that I find the parable of the ten virgins to be perhaps the strangest parable Jesus ever offered. There's a lot I could say about the parable, which leads up to the idea of consequences for not being sufficiently prepared - certainly a worthy subject as Advent, with its focus on preparation, approaches. But I want to focus on verse 5. The parable begins by giving the impression that the five virgins with oil for their lamps were the faithful and prepared ones, while the five without oil for their lamps were unfaithful and unprepared. I can understand where that interpretation comes from - but what's strange is that at least at this point the parable actually makes no real distinction between the two groups. Some had oil and some didn't; some may have had more understanding than others - but what it all came down to was written in verse 5, which tells us that "all of them became drowsy and fell asleep." All of them! I'm fascinated that all of them had this problem. It didn't matter that some were more prepared than others. In the end, none of them could remain fully faithful. That puts me in mind of the tendency of a lot of Christians to want to divide the Christian community into the "good" or "true" Christians (in other words, "us") and the "bad" or "fake" Christians (in other words, "them.") You could divide up the ten virgins in the same way. They were "prepared" or "unprepared" (and those with the oil were probably mighty proud of themselves that they had thought to bring it when the others had forgotten) but in the end that distinction didn't seem to matter too much. Ultimately, none of them were as good as they should have been and all of them fell short. Which is surely a warning to them all. No matter how well prepared we think we are; no matter how faithful and pious we may feel ourselves to be - we're probably not prepared or faithful enough. Any or all of us could get caught by surprise when God finally appears. That's why, in the end, all we really have to fall back on with assurance is the grace of God. Because no matter how faithful or prepared we may think we are, we're probably never faithful or prepared enough.

A Thought For The Week Of November 6, 2017

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ..." (Romans 5:1) We are "justified through faith." That's a pretty classic doctrine and there are times when I find myself wondering what - exactly - it means. In conversations I've been involved in the dispute has become whether this doesn't actually make faith a sort of "work" that we perform in order to attain God's favour. In other words, does it become a part of law? You know something is law if the sentence starts with "if." "If you have faith, then I will save you." In other words, it's a conditional salvation - conditional on us having faith. It's also an exclusionary concept, in that it places outside salvation anyone who doesn't have faith - and, more specifically, faith in Jesus. Since it was Paul who wrote this, perhaps it's only Paul who can truly explain how he saw the relationship between faith and law - and Paul, I think, gets into the issue a bit in another place (1 Corinthians) by explaining that faith is a gift from God. So faith can't be a work, because it's not something we generate within ourselves; it's not something we achieve. It's something that God gives us. It becomes grace. You know something is grace if the sentence starts with "because." So the formula changes from "If you have faith, I will save you," to "because I have given you faith, you are saved." This reinforces that it's God who acts. Always. Not us, but God. The initiative always rests in God's hands. We simply respond to what God is already doing in us and around us. That's important if we believe in a God of grace and if we believe that grace is what's operative. That's why the classic Protestant statement was never simply "salvation through faith," but has always been "salvation by grace through faith alone," which is the biblical formula found in Ephesians. And, in context, "faith alone" was really in opposition to the idea of salvation by works. Paul probably wasn't thinking of people of other religious faiths. He was stating that grace - God's action - always comes first. Indeed, faith is impossible apart from the grace of God. Is Paul saying that anyone who doesn't have faith in Christ is outside of the grace of God? That's hard to say. He's writing to Christians, of course, so the issue of salvation for those outside Christ isn't the heart of the matter for him. Not here at least. And I think it best to take the same approach. After all, as followers of Jesus we proclaim grace and not law. We do not judge or condemn. We are not competent to do so. But neither should we offer false promises or empty security. We are to proclaim assurance - and what Paul did know, and what Paul proclaimed was that there was salvation found in Christ - by grace, through faith alone.

November 5 sermon - The Hope Of Eden Restored

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord - and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent - its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

(Isaiah 65:17-25)

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     “Eden.” The word, I hope, brings to your mind a certain image. A garden. Beautiful and lush and peaceful, where there is neither violence nor hatred, and where all God’s creation exists in a perfectly balanced harmony. A place where everything – including humanity - is exactly as God intended it – and us – to be. I hope that the word “Eden” brings that kind of image into your mind because, you see, I tend to think of the story of creation in the Book of Genesis as an icon. I don’t take it literally. It doesn’t matter to me if there was a literal Adam and Eve, or how humanity came to be, or if everything was created in 6 days. I think that the creation story (and really much of the first 11 chapters of the Bible) is in the nature of a parable – similar to the ones Jesus told. Stories that are intended to be taken seriously but not literally; stories that reveal to us not exactly how things came to be but that rather teach us the nature of what came to be; that tell us something about ourselves and the world and the universe we inhabit, and that – perhaps most importantly – teach us something about God: God’s nature, God’s purpose, maybe even God’s dreams. The creation story is an icon. It helps us to focus our attention on God but it wasn’t, in my opinion at least, ever intended to provoke us to get bogged down in minutiae over the Big Bang Theory or the theory of evolution, or whatever is the latest in the ridiculous battle between science and faith. What does the story of creation reveal to us? What does “Eden” tell us? That’s what’s important?

     It seemed to me that this iconic image of Eden – this image that reminds us that God’s desire and God’s plan is for a peaceful world – is especially relevant to us on Remembrance Sunday. I think of the act of remembrance that we all just participated in as we honoured those who have died in the various military engagements our nation has fought in – the Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, various peacekeeping missions, Afghanistan. And I think of the words of John McCrae’s famous poem: “… if ye break faith with us who die ...” He wrote that poem in 1915, after the Second Battle of Ypres. Although we usually think of the Battle of Vimy Ridge as the event that sealed Canada’s sense of nationhood if you will, the Second Battle of Ypres was also important. It was fought for the Allies largely by the 1st Canadian Division, and it was an Allied victory – and it represented the very first time that soldiers of a former colonial possession had defeated a European army on European soil. But it was also another of the almost unending succession of increasingly meaningless but bloody battles that characterized the First World War. In the midst of the chaos and blood that enveloped those European battlefields of 100 years ago was the great hope – that this war, finally, was “the war to end all wars.” Soldiers fought and died, believing that even if the individual battles at times seemed meaningless, and even if their lives came to an end, the cause for which they fought – to finally end all war – was a noble and worthy one. And when I think about those words of McCrae more than a century later - “… if ye break faith with us who die ...” - I’m forced to the realization that succeeding generations did, in fact, break faith with those who died. Because World War I was not, as we know, the war to end all wars. Wars continue to this present day, and they show no sign of disappearing. The human capacity for greed and hatred seem to make it almost second nature that, among nations at least, if one country has what another country wants, there will be a war over it. Have we broken faith with those who died in the Second Battle of Ypres, and in all the battles that were supposed to be a part of that “war to end all wars?” It’s pretty hard to argue that we haven’t.

     But it isn’t only those soldiers with whom we’ve broken faith. I’d suggest that we’ve also broken faith with God, who created a peaceful world in perfect balance, only to see humanity break both that peace and that balance to lead us to the present day, where, quite frankly, we face either annihilation by the weapons we’ve created or annihilation by the climate we’ve created. So, let me ask - have we broken faith with God? It’s pretty hard to argue that the answer to that question is anything but “yes.” As noble as the goals of many people over the centuries may have been, the reality is that we have not done away with war, soldiers and civilians still die, weapons are still produced and headlines still scream out warnings from one country to another, threatening war and destruction that would (if it ever happened) impact the entire world in a way that no war has ever done before. Human nature seems unable to restrain itself. So, is there hope? Might we some day be able to look out upon a world at peace? An Eden restored? Creation brought back to its original nature – which God declared in Genesis to be “very good.” Here is where we turn to the words of the prophet Isaiah.

     Isaiah offers us hope. Isaiah lived in a troubled time in which – just like our own – not all was as God wanted it to be. But Isaiah understood the concept of hope. He understood the need for people to be able to look at the mess around them and still be able to see a glimmer of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. And he managed to describe this wonderful vision in words that help us to get a sense of what real life – and real eternity! - are like. It’s a place of perfect peace and of perfect intimacy with God. Like the description of Eden in the beginning in Genesis 1 it’s the place where God is with us, almost as if God is walking alongside us and like the description of the new heaven and the new earth in Revelation 22 it’s the place where there is no darkness – not the darkness caused by the lack of light, nor the darkness caused by the clouds of war -  and where there’s no need for any such thing as a temple to point us to God, because God is right there with us - “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” Isaiah offers us a portrait of a reality in which we will enjoy a never-ending life of great abundance, and where there will be perfect peace with all around – even “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent - its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all [God’s] holy mountain ...” This is what God points us to. This is a promise; this is a hope. In fact, this is what hope truly is – the belief in what is going to be, rather than just wishing for what might be or yearning for what was.

     Our great hope is in a restored Eden. Our great hope is that the God who created the universe in a state of perfection will also be able to return it to that state of perfection. Let us understand, though – we may wait for God, but we are not let off the hook for our responsibility to work for a better and more just and peaceful world. In fact, it’s that very knowledge of what God is going to do that motivates us to do as much as we can for now to live with love and in peace with all those around us. We can share Isaiah’s words and vision and speak of God’s love, but we also need to act. As Eleanor Roosevelt said after the Second World War while she was serving as a US delegate to the United Nations and as the Cold War was beginning to set in, “It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” In a way, we await the restoration of Eden. Humanity may have broken faith with those whose lives were lost in the great “war to end all wars,” but God never breaks faith with any of us. But we don’t just wait. We do what we can. We are called to be like Isaiah – to paint a portrait of what the restored Eden is going to be like, and to issue a challenge to both ourselves and to others to create something as close to it as possible in the here and now. May we not break faith with those who died. May we remember their sacrifice and their cause. May we work to make war and violence a thing of the past. May we work for a restored Eden.

A Thought For The Week Of October 30, 2017

"The Lord said to Moses, 'Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.' ... Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.'" (Numbers 13:1 & 30) There's an interesting contrast in these two verses - the words of God to Moses and the words of Caleb to the people - and I think they have something to say to us today. God's command to Moses was that the people should go into the promised land of Canaan and explore it. They should learn about the land and its inhabitants. There's no doubt that they were going as spies and preparing for conquest, but still - that's a risky thing in some ways because by exploring - by seeking to learn - it's possible that they might actually develop some respect for the land and its inhabitants that could get in the way of their plans for conquest. Caleb seemed to understand that danger. He shared none of that stuff about exploring. Once he heard the initial reports, there was no desire on his part to get to know the land or its people any deeper. "It's ours. Let's go and take it. No one can stop us." That was his attitude. Do you see the difference? Which version, tragically, is generally listened to? Unfortunately, we usually choose the way of Caleb when dealing with such things. It has often become our go-to way of dealing with people of other lands and cultures. We don't bother to learn about other people and their land. Or we learn as little as possible - and usually only enough to be able to take advantage of their weaknesses - and then we just go and take exploit it (and them) for our own benefit. That's a pattern of history. We have obvious examples of that here in North America with the history of European colonization, with tragic results for the native peoples. There was little respect; little attempt to learn about native culture. There was simply a belief that this was a land that God had given "us" - no matter that there were people already here whose land it was. This was covetousness (a violation of the Tenth Commandment) at its finest - or worst! And it isn't just in North America. We see it happen all over the world and across cultures. It is, indeed, an interesting contrast we find in these two verses - with an interesting suggestion inherent in it for how we should treat other people: by trying to learn about them rather than fearing them, exploiting them or taking from them. This would be giving glory to God!

October 29 sermon: Becoming ...

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13:9-13)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 

(John 1:1-5)

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     Two hundred years. That’s a long time. Although I guess it’s all relative. I’ve been to places like England and China and seen buildings and castles and walls, etc. that are a lot older than that – but, from our perspective here in North America, two hundred years seems a long time to have been serving God. None of us have been around all that time, of course – although there may be days when it feels like it. I’ve only been here a little over two years. That’s 1% of that history – and that’s the first time (and probably the only time) that I’ll ever be counted as a member of the 1%!

     I’ve done a little bit of historical research over the last little while. In most ways that would normally be considered noteworthy, 1817 was not a particularly eventful year. Except, perhaps, in this part of the world – because, friends, while I consider myself to be largely a Calvinist, I received my doctorate from a Methodist seminary, and I have to say that when the Methodists show up you know great things are going to follow! Considering the last 200 years and looking around today, I think it’s safe to say that, indeed, great things have followed. The last two hundred years for this congregation and its predecessors have not always been easy years. In both church and society there have been many challenges to face and to overcome – and there remain challenges to face and to overcome. The society we try to reach out to today is not the same society that those first Methodists tried to reach out to in 1817, or even that our own United Church predecessors tried to reach out to in 1925 or fifty years ago or even twenty years ago. Society changes; culture changes – and, always, the church is faced with the tension of on the one hand having to change to remain relevant and on the other hand having eternal truths about an eternal and unchanging God that we need to proclaim. That’s not an easy task – and it’s no surprise that there are often bumps along the way. Those who two hundred years ago began the journey that would eventually lead to Pickering Village United Church and to our gathering here today had no idea, of course, what the future would hold. They couldn’t have had any idea of the various twists and turns and developments that would lead to October 29, 2017 – some of which we saw played out just a few minutes ago. But if they didn’t know what the future held, what they would have known was who held the future. As an old gospel hymn says, “Many things about tomorrow I don’t need to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.”

    Our ancestors in the faith trusted that God would guide them to – well – wherever it was that God wanted them to be, and that God would transform them into whatever it was that God wanted them to become – all so that they could be of service to God and to God’s people. And they become our example for today; a people of faith who trusted God with the future. Sometimes we have a tendency to measure either our success or our faithfulness by what’s happening in the present; by the immediate impact of whatever it is that we’re doing. So our “success” is defined by how much money there is in the bank or how many folks there are in the pews or by how many mission projects we’re involved with. I don’t deny that those things are important, but are they really the measure of the success of the church? I think the church that’s successful is not necessarily the church that’s doing a lot of “stuff” or that has a lot of money or whose pews are full, but is rather the church that trusts God with the future. Otherwise we spend our time fearing the present, worrying that we might try something that doesn’t work, wondering if somehow and in some way we might be responsible for the failure of the gospel. And while the example of faithful saints from our past should inspire us, I do find myself wondering if sometimes it holds us back.

     We live, admittedly, in a difficult era for the church. No one would dispute that. And because we face difficulties, rather than faithfully serving and trusting God with the future, we sometimes have a tendency to fearfully serve and fall into nostalgia for the past. I hear it all the time. “I remember when ...” And usually what follows is not a celebration of the past, but a lament for the present. “Things aren’t as good as they used to be”; “If only we could be like that again.” Sometimes the past holds us captive, because we yearn to return to it – a better time; a simpler time – instead of looking ahead. But we will never return to the past, and so we should not allow the past to become a prison; the past should be an example and an an inspiration as we move confidently and faithfully into the future.

     We, as much as the Methodists of 1817, are in the process of becoming. We are becoming what God wants us to be; we are being transformed into whatever will serve God’s purposes best. Paul, I think, has a good perspective on the future in 1 Corinthians. That reading is taken from the famous “wedding” passage about love. It’s read at almost every wedding you’ll ever attend – and the ironic thing is that marriage was the last thing on Paul’s mind when he wrote it. In context, Paul was writing about spiritual gifts and how to use them. The gifts God gives us should be used always in love and for the best interest of the community and not for self-aggrandizement. And then he thought about what the future held; he reflected on what those Christians were becoming - “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully ...” Paul understood what “becoming” was all about. He understood that whatever we may be now, we are only a shadow of what we will be one day as God continues to create and re-create us; to mold us into what we are called to be; to lead us into our destiny.

     The past is a part of that. We build on the foundation of those who came before us in faith, of the apostles and prophets, and of Jesus himself. We build on the foundation of the church’s teaching and witness and mission. We build on the foundation of the Scriptures. And these things – if we hold to them – don’t lock us into the past, they propel us into the future as people who know that we have a God-given calling to fulfil that we are living into each and every day, even if the challenges sometimes seem overwhelming and perhaps at times even insurmountable. And so they are if we deal with our challenges by our own strength and with faith only in our own ability to navigate through them. But we do not depend on ourselves. We depend on the God who has been with this congregation and its people throughout the least two hundred years. And, depending on God, we know that we will one day arrive at where we are destined to be – then we will see face to face; then we will know fully. But for now, we trust, and we go about God’s work not to save ourselves in the present or to safeguard our future – those things we leave in God’s hands – but simply as a grateful response to the faithfulness God has shown to us over the last two centuries.

     Natalie Sleeth’s hymn, which we sang just a few minutes ago, reminds us that “from the past will come the future; what it holds a mystery, unrevealed until its season something God alone can see.” Friends, we do not know what the future holds. What we do know is that – with God’s help – we are becoming the future. And perhaps 200 years from now another group of people will gather somewhere in this area to celebrate their 400th anniversary – and we will be among their past as they continue the process of becoming. I think back to the words of our Gospel reading earlier:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

     We are now that light, bearing faithful witness to the Word, becoming whatever it is that God calls us to be. May we move forward – always in faith, always with love, always becoming, until we see face to face, and know fully; until the partial ends and the complete comes; until God’s Kingdom is established among us and among all God’s children. Amen.