Sunday 30 December 2018

December 30 sermon: Confronting Christmas Culture 5 - It's Not All Finished

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
(Luke 2:25-38)

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     It’s all fading fast. I’ve already seen Christmas trees put out at the side of the road, so that now they’re just dry and dead pine trees ready to be ground up into wood chips. Decorations are being put away, lights are beginning to disappear. It’s like Christmas was a long, long time ago.  Today is December 30 and we’re all planning for New Year’s Eve by now. We’re looking ahead into 2019. I was trying to explain to someone a few weeks ago that in the church December 30 is Christmas Sunday, and they said that no one could relate to that because December 30 is after Christmas. Except that it isn’t. In the world, I know, Christmas starts at the latest by the end of November and it’s over on December 25. But in the church that’s Advent. In the church Christmas starts on December 25 - it doesn’t end on December 25. So if I’m talking all month about “Confronting Christmas Culture” - I need to reflect on this a bit. The church and the world have an entirely different understanding of Christmas. The world wants to have a giant, month long splurge of excess and then call a screeching halt to it on December 25 with the birth of Jesus being the final act in the Christmas season, if it’s thought of at all. The church says that it’s only with the birth of Jesus that Christmas and what it means – the presence of God; the coming of God to the world to share our lives – can be fully celebrated and understood. And I don’t even think that our appreciation of Christmas has to be restricted to these famous “12 days.” I’d like to think that at least a bit of Christmas and what it represents to us would be on our minds always. So I tend to lean to the Dr. Seuss school of thought – that “Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.”

     I wonder why there’s such a rush to get Christmas over with? Why do so many people seem to think that December 25 is the end of it all and they put Christmas away for the next eleven months? People talk about loving the so-called “Christmas spirit.” They talk about everything seeming brighter and people seeming happier and more friendly at Christmas-time. And yet it seems as soon as we can we pack it all away and move on. We may not be like the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas, but still it seems just a little bit Grinch-like to try to hurry it to an end. Why do we do that? Perhaps there are a couple of reasons I can think of right off the top of my head.

     Maybe – as much as we love the season and the feelings that it brings to our hearts – we’re a little bit uncomfortable with what we in the church like to call the “true meaning” of Christmas. Maybe the very idea of the incarnation of God (the idea that God would become human - “veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail the incarnate deity” we sing in a popular Christmas carol) is just too overwhelming; too unnerving and too unsettling for us to be comfortable with it for very long. So perhaps we hide ourselves behind the secular festivities and we move on as fast as we possible can to avoid having to deal with the theological implications of Christmas – with what Christmas actually tells us about God. Most of us – if we’re being honest about it – like to think that we kind of have God under control. We don’t want anything too strange or unusual to happen. We want to let God in a little bit – but just a little bit. We remember that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was as uncontrollable as the wind – but we sure try. And we like to think we have God figured out. So most often what we end up with is a God created in our image, rather than a God who created us in God’s image. We want God to be like us. We shy away from things that make God different. Jesus is a comfortable companion for us as long as we stick to his ethical and moral teachings. Add in the virgin birth as anything more than a cute little story that works for a Sunday School pageant and we suddenly start to get nervous. Because that doesn’t make sense. That isn’t logical. And we justify rejecting it by playing with Isaiah 7:14. “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive ...” And then we realize that the word we translate as “virgin” is the Hebrew word “alma.” And then we realize that “alma” can also be translated as simply “young woman.” And lo and behold we suddenly say: “well, it has to mean ‘the young woman shall conceive.’” And we go on, having excised the great miracle of the Christmas story with a translation game. Except – it makes no sense because of the first part of the verse: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.” What sort of sign is a young woman having a child? That’s no sign. It literally happens all the time. UNICEF estimates that 353000 babies are born every single day. There were fewer people 2000 years ago and so there would have been fewer births, but still – a lot of babies were born. The only logical translation of Isaiah 7:14 is “virgin.” And that pushes us out of our comfort zone and makes God a bit scary because when God is truly in control things happen that shouldn’t happen. And the letter to Titus tells us that Jesus is the grace of God that came to earth. That’s the Christmas story. “On earth peace and good will to all.” Christmas reminds us of the scandal of divine grace. Christmas reminds us that God comes for everyone and not just the ones we deem worthy of God’s presence. If you get too deeply into it, Christmas is theologically very uncomfortable. It pushes us, it prods us, it tells us to consider the implications of a God who chooses to become flesh and to dwell among us and to live with us and to die for us. Those are big issues. It’s no wonder that even in the church we kind of rush to get it over with. Better not to be reminded perhaps of all those implications of Christmas.

     And yet, the wondrous thing is that as uncomfortable as Christmas might make us with God the more we think about it, Christmas is also a reminder to us that God is so approachable. Christmas reminds us that – as amazing as it may be – God comes to us, we don’t have to come to God. I sometimes hear Christians who speak of finding God or finding Jesus. But we don’t. God finds us; Jesus finds us.  God comes to us in the humble form of a child and remains with us throughout our lives. If the meaning of Christmas is summed up by the word “Emmanuel” - “God-With-Us” - then Christmas isn’t just a day or 12 days or a month. Christmas truly never ends. In the 1951 movie version of “A Christmas Carol” the host of Christmas Present says to Ebenezer Scrooge that “the child born in Bethlehem does not live in men’s hearts just one day of the year but all 365 days of the year.” And so he does. If December 25 represents the end then Christmas itself is pointless. But if December 25 is just the beginning then Christmas takes on a whole new meaning – with a spirit and a message to be lived throughout the year.

     The work of Jesus just got started with his birth. As Simeon said in today’s Gospel reading,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. … This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed ...”

     The world may want to tell you otherwise. The world may be beginning its countdown to a new year, and in the next few days Christmas cards will be replaced by Valentines Day cards and all reminders of Christmas will disappear. But Christians know better. Christmas isn’t all finished just because December 25 has come and gone. The work of Christmas goes on, the presence of God is eternal and the spirit of Christmas needs to be felt all year round.

Sunday 23 December 2018

December 23 sermon: Confronting Christmas Culture 4 - It's Not All About Santa

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
(Luke 1:46-56)

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     My friends – he is everywhere now! It’s true – and it’s so exciting! I don’t know how he gets around so much, but I’ve seen him in Oshawa and I’ve seen him in Pickering and I saw a picture of him in Beaverton weeks ago. He’s everywhere! It’s so exciting! I’m talking, of course, about Santa Claus! Because it’s that time of year! What an awesome dude he is! Everywhere and all over the world and bringing presents to boys and girls. He’s truly awesome! And he knows things. Lots of things. You know what they say:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.

He's making a list
And checking it twice;
He's gonna find out
Who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping;
He knows when you're awake;
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

Oh! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town!

     Think about these words for a second: “He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake; He knows if you've been bad or good ...” He sounds a bit like God, actually. Now, I have nothing against Santa – although when I try to type his name I notice that more often than not I make the inevitable typo and it comes out as “Satan” instead of “Santa.” My bad. But I’m not one of those Christians who rails against Santa. It’s all good, clean fun – although Lynn and I had the experience of raising a child who never ever wanted anything to do with Santa. Go figure. I think he’s a rather jolly old fellow who adds to the enjoyment of the season. But I will say this – Christmas is not all about Santa. You could say that Santa has become a secular icon for the season; almost the false god of Christmas; and far removed from his Christian origins as St. Nicholas. So maybe we do need perspective. As I said when Advent began, I don’t worry too much about the whole “Jesus is the reason for the season” stuff – but I would say that neither is Santa the reason for the season. In some ways Jesus and Santa seem to be in competition at this time of year, so I’m wondering how we could encourage people to choose Jesus, or at least to put him first. I have a few thoughts about the differences between Jesus and Santa that might help us make that choice and could remind us that, indeed, this season is not all about Santa.

     Let’s think first about where Santa lives. Now all of us know that Santa lives at the North Pole. That’s where his workshop is. That’s where his home is. That’s where the toys get made. Santa has a very special relationship with Canada. The North Pole is a little beyond Canadian territory, but the nearest inhabited place is Alert, Nunavut – so if Santa ever needs help with anything he comes to Canada. And, of course, he takes his summer vacations in Bracebridge at his own little village where he kindly invites us all to visit him. All well and good. But do you know where Jesus lives? At one and the same time he’s with God the Father interceding for us, and he’s living right in our hearts. Jesus is way better than Santa. It’s not all about Santa.

     And then – what is it about how Santa travels? In a sleigh? Pulled by reindeer? Isn’t that kind of old-fashioned? I mean – I admit that there’s an impressive quality about the fact that the reindeer can fly and that one of them has a shiny red nose, and that he can circumnavigate the entire world and stop at so many homes all in one 24 hour period. Points for Santa, I guess. But remember what I just said a moment ago – Jesus doesn’t even have to travel. He’s just always with you. Santa’s gonna leave! He’s gonna ride that flying reindeer powered sleigh back to the North Pole and aside from his summer in Bracebridge you’re not going to see him again until next Christmas. And keep in mind – Santa might ride in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer – but so what! Jesus can walk on water! So there’s maybe a couple of points for Santa, but still – Jesus is way better than Santa. It’s not all about Santa.

     And I want you to think about how hard it is to get to see Santa. I was in the Oshawa Centre last week. Just by coincidence Santa was there at the same time. And don’t tell me that it wasn’t the real Santa. I know better than that. It was him. I saw him. And people were lined up just to get a chance to sit on his lap for a few seconds to tell him what they wanted. Seriously – there was a lineup! Can you believe it! You have to line up! What’s with that? You know what you do when you want to talk to Jesus? You pray. You don’t have to go to some silly shopping mall. And how well does Santa really know you anyway? If you don’t get to see him – if the lineup is too long – will he really know what you want? Think about it - he has to have a list and he has to keep checking it. Memory issues or something. Jesus just knows you. And he knows what you need. And he never forgets. Jesus is way better than Santa. It’s not all about Santa.

     And why does Santa say “you better not cry”? I beg your pardon. We’re human. We have emotions. We cry. When sad things happen. Sometimes when happy things happen. We cry. What’s the big deal. Santa needs to get over it. But Santa seems to think there’s something wrong if you cry. “You better not cry.” I mean – I can understand the pouting part and the shouting part – but “you better not cry”? You know who cried? Jesus cried! John 11:35. Shortest verse in the entire Bible - “Jesus wept.” Is Jesus on Santa’s naughty list because of that incident? Crying’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with it. What’s with Santa’s attitude? Jesus is way better than Santa. It’s not all about Santa.

     And I hate to say it – but Santa’s biased. Apparently he prefers the good little girls and boys. Which is pretty arbitrary when you think about it. Seriously – define “good” and “bad.” How does Santa really make that call, anyway? The truly best thing about Jesus is that he doesn’t make that call. He understood perfectly. Remember what he said: “only God is good.” So Jesus gave up on the whole “naughty list” and “nice list” thing a long time ago. He just came for the world. He even said that he didn’t come for the good people – but for the bad people! Remember - “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Compare that to Santa with his lists that he can’t remember and so he has to keep checking them. Seriously. Jesus is way better than Santa. It’s not all about Santa.

     Mary said that “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” God had looked on her with favour by calling her to be the mother of Jesus. And through Mary, God sent Jesus to us. I have nothing against Santa – he’s a cultural icon and I’m sure he’s a great guy to share some milk and cookies with in the middle of the night – although keep a close eye on him because sometimes your wife will start kissing him – somebody saw that once. But Christmas is not all about Santa. Jesus – the Son of God – is far more important!

Sunday 16 December 2018

December 16 sermon - Confronting Christmas Culture 3: It's Not All About Decorations

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
(Luke 1:39-45)

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     “All that glitters is not gold.” It’s a very old saying. Some people say that variations of it go back to the 12th century, although in its current form it comes from the pen of William Shakespeare in the play “The Merchant Of Venice.” The meaning is clear enough I think. Just because something looks good doesn’t mean it’s valuable or useful or productive. Some things just glitter without meaning. Think of pyrite – better known as “fool’s gold.” Over the centuries a lot of people thought they had struck it rich by discovering gold, only to find out that it wasn’t real. There’s a lot in our world that’s glittering right about now. All you have to do is take a drive around the highways and biways or go into any shopping mall and you’ll see it. There are trees and lights and garlands and wreaths and bells and ornaments of various kinds. I have seen Santa inflatables, Grinch inflatables, snowman inflatables, penguin inflatables – inflatables of various kinds. All of them are intended to – in a sense – glitter. There’s a very long tradition of something special being done to places of worship as we approach the celebration of Christmas. We have special banners and trees and candles that make an appearance here at this time of year. Many people put in a lot of hours decorating their houses. I have to admit that I can’t even imagine a Christmas without thinking of Clark Griswold’s gaudy attempt at a Christmas light display in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Some neighbourhoods have contests for the best decorated house – if you remember Snoopy won a contest for decorating his doghouse in A Charlie Brown Christmas – and there are Christmas displays that cause traffic headaches in some areas as people come from long distance to see what some folks have managed to put together. And it’s all beautiful. What, after all, would Christmas be without some decorations for us to admire. And a Christmas tree without decorations really isn’t a Christmas tree – it’s just a pine tree.  As Burl Ives sang in “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer:”

Silver and gold, silver and gold,
Means so much more when I see
Silver and gold decorations
On every Christmas tree.

     Would it really be Christmas without decorations? Norman Vincent Peale said that “Christmas waves a magic wand over the world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” A part of the impact of that magic wand is surely the beauty of the glistening decorations around us: decorations that dazzle us. But remember the caution I began with – all that glitters is not gold. In fact, the things that glitter can simply distract us from what Christmas is supposed to be about.

     There’s actually truth to the saying that “all that glitters is not gold.” The fact is that gold doesn’t glitter. Pyrite glitters – that’s why people mistake it for gold, because people expect gold to glitter. It glitters, so it must be important, it must be valuable. But gold doesn’t glitter. Real gold is actually a rather dull metal with very little shine to it. Sometimes the things of the most importance – the things of real substance – easily get lost in the midst of the shiny things that are all around us. We romanticize the manger, turning it into an almost charming place to give birth rather than accepting it as what it was – a dirty, smelly stable. And, I’d point out, we do the same with the end of Jesus’ life as well, so that the cross – a crude object of torture in Roman times – becomes a beautiful crafted piece of wood, often (as in here) with heavenly lights shining upon it. It’s almost as if we need the glitter to convince ourselves that the story is actually worth telling.

     And yet, Jesus doesn’t glitter like gold, or like a Christmas ornament. In Isaiah 53, and in speaking of the Messiah to come, the prophet said that “he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” But I think we get so dazzled by the concept of Christmas that we can forget the reality of Christmas. Even the way that we deal with certain aspects of the biblical story suggests that we’re often more concerned with sizzle than with steak – so when we talk about Matthew’s Christmas story and the visit of the magi (who were likely astrologers) we inevitably turn them into much more impressive kings – even though there’s nothing in the Bible that suggests that they were kings. But “kings” seems to fit the season so much better – it’s a word and an image that’s far more in keeping with the glitter of the season.

     I thought about this morning’s Scripture reading as I was reflecting on why it seems so important for us to be dazzled  by the Christmas story and the Christmas season. There was nothing particularly dazzling about the scene today’s reading describes. Two mothers to be – cousins to each other – share a visit with one another in “a Judean town in the hill country.” It was an out of the way location – not the centre of anything in particular – for these two to meet: one to be the mother of Jesus, and one the mother of John the Baptist. You would have thought that there might have been more of a fuss, more excitement, more – well – glitter, but there wasn’t. There were no strings of lights, no wreaths and no shiny baubles hanging off trees. Just two women sharing unexpected pregnancies - an experience that must have at one and the same time been both frightening and overwhelming to them.

     Perhaps it’s in reflecting on this story – essentially the first meeting between Jesus and John the Baptist, even though both were in the womb and not yet born – that we start to understand the point of Christmas. What was the purpose of God in coming in flesh to the world? Was it to dazzle us? I think that surely there were more effective ways that God could have dazzled us than by coming as a baby in a manger. The point of Christmas, perhaps, is that God chose to descend not to a world that glitters, but to a world that is hurting and broken; that God chose to become a part of this hurting and broken world, to share in our lives with all of our struggles, to experience our hurts and pains and sufferings and, ultimately, even death. None of that glitters. None of that decorates the Christmas season in the way we’ve come to expect – but maybe that is the meaning of Christmas.

     In 1517, Martin Luther preached a Christmas Day sermon. He invited his congregation to consider the conditions in which Christ was born:

There was no one to take pity on this young wife who was for the first time to give birth to a child; no one to take to heart her condition that she, a stranger, did not have the least thing a mother needs in a birth-night. There she is without any preparation, without wither light or fire, alone in the darkness, without anyone offering her service as is customary for women to do at such times. Everything is in commotion at the inn, there is a swarming of guests from all parts of the country, no one thinks of this poor woman. … Just imagine what kind of swaddling clothes they were in which she wrapped the child. … Is it not strange that the birth of Christ occurs … in such a poor and despicable manner?

     Martin Luther was himself engaging in conjecture. The Bible really doesn’t tell us very much about the conditions surrounding Jesus’ birth – but I do suspect that it was pretty rough. Luther asks, “is it not strange that the birth of Christ occurs … in such a poor and despicable manner?” Not really, I’d say. Considering the world God entered and the work that lay ahead for Jesus – that was probably far more appropriate than entering a world full of glitter and lights.

Sunday 9 December 2018

December 9 sermon - Confronting Christmas Culture 2: It's Not All About Shopping

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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     We spend a lot of time as Christmas approaches wondering what nto buy for the people in our lives. There’s a story told of a woman who gave her husband a burial plot for Christmas. Suffice to say, he wasn’t very impressed. The next year, she didn’t give him anything. He was actually hurt. He said to her, “why didn’t you give me anything for Christmas this year?” She looked at him and said “Why should I? You didn’t use what I gave you last year!”

     I did some research a few days ago on shopping habits in Canada at this time of year. I couldn’t find specifics from 2017, but I did come across some fascinating numbers from December of 2016. I’m not sure how things are going to go this year, of course, but based on what I’ve already seen in various stores and shopping malls over the last little while I’d say this is probably going to be pretty accurate. Not all of these amounts are directly due to Christmas, of course – because these items get purchased all year round – but spending in December according to every source I consulted is always substantially higher than in any other month. From Statistics Canada, here’s how much Canadians spent based on products bought at large suppliers in December 2016:

On food and drinks, Canadians spent – $5.1 billion
On TVs, audio and video equipment, Canadians spent – $459.9 million
On toys, games and hobby supplies, including electronic games, Canadians spent – $417.8 million
On computer hardware and software, Canadians spent – $274.9 million
On small electrical appliances, Canadians spent – $263.4 million
On tableware, kitchenware, cookware and bakeware, Canadians spent – $238.5 million
On cosmetics and fragrances, Canadians spent – $154.8 million
On sporting goods, Canadians spent – $171.6 million
On jewellery and watches, Canadians spent – $118.0 million
On stationery, office supplies, cards, gift wrap and party supplies, Canadians spent – $98.7 million
On cameras and related photographic equipment and supplies, Canadians spent – $73.7 million

     That’s a lot of shopping! Happy holidays and merry Christmas, indeed! It certainly is for large suppliers!

      Shopping – and the gifts we get – tend to be the focus at this time of year. And we instill that idea in our children’s minds from a very young age as we introduce them to Santa and they give him their list of what they want for Christmas. Please understand that I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be giving gifts to others. I suppose that the tradition of giving gifts for Christmas flows from the story in Matthew’s Gospel of the wise men bringing gifts to the child they found in Bethlehem. There’s nothing wrong with showing our love and friendship with giving gifts, but sometimes it does get out of hand, and the focus of the season becomes the gifts themselves, rather than the people. Let’s be honest. Have you ever had someone give you a gift and rather than being thankful for it you’ve been disappointed with it? You’ve thought they should have got you something else? You thought they should have known you well enough that they’d have known that the collection of dish towels wasn’t exactly what you wanted to find under your tree? So, in other words, the gift rather than the giver was what mattered. I may not be a Mormon, but I think Brigham Young gave some pretty good advice: “Love the giver more than the gift.”

     Having said that, let’s also be honest. Most of us like to get gifts, don’t we? And so most of us feel that in order to make those we care about happy at Christmas, we have to buy gifts – sometimes lots of them! So Christmas turns into a gigantic shopping spree, except that unlike the shopping sprees you win, you have to pay for all the things you buy. We buy for our co-workers, we buy for our friends, we buy for our spouses and our children and our parents. And rather than the joy of the Christmas season, after doing that what happens is that many people end up with the post-Christmas hangover when the credit card bills come in to pay for it all. I read in the course of my research that one third of people will take over seven months to pay off their Christmas debts. So in other words, you’re pretty much at the point when stores will be trying to entice you to start your Christmas shopping (because I see Christmas displays appearing in some stores in August) before you’ve even managed to pay for everything you bought the year before. And this never ending cycle of shopping and buying and paying and debt goes on and on and on – and the stores rejoice, and the banks who charge you interest rejoice. But we usually don’t rejoice when the January credit card bill arrives. So maybe – just maybe – we have our focus all wrong at this time of year.

     I’m thinking of today’s Gospel reading. Mary received a wonderful gift – and I’m not even talking about the baby Jesus. The gift Mary received was the knowledge that she was loved and favoured by God; that she was chosen by God for a special purpose. She learned that her value wasn’t to be measured by what kind of gifts she received from others, but from the gift she received from God – to be accepted and chosen and used in God’s plan. That’s something you can’t buy in a store. Usually, when we think of the Christmas story, we think of Mary giving birth, but really in many ways the key to the whole story was what happened before she was even pregnant – and what mattered was really these words; “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” The gift that God gave Mary was not the baby Jesus; the gift God gave Mary was the knowledge that she was loved, accepted and even favoured by God. Those were not expensive gifts; this was simply Mary coming to realize the very nature of God – a God who gives for the sake of his children. The greatest gift Mary received was the gift of being assured of God’s presence. If we think back for  moment to Matthew’s Gospel - what do you think pleased God the most in that story? Was it the gifts the wise men brought to Jesus, or was it the fact that they simply came to him that counted the most? I am not saying there is anything wrong with buying gifts for others at Christmas. I think the desire to give gifts shows a very Christian heart. But, I think that as we do buy things for others, we should try to remember that the most important gift of all that we can give is ourselves.

     I want to go back for just a moment to those words from Brigham Young: “Love the giver more than the gift.” We can give those around us many things this Christmas, but none of them even come close to the love we give them by merely being around them and sharing time with them. Your presence is the best possible gift you could ever get for someone whom you love and treasure, and their presence is the best possible gift they could give to you. In the orgy of commercialism and shopping that marks the Christmas season, we need to learn to value the people around us more than we value the material things that we buy and put under the tree.

Sunday 2 December 2018

December 2 sermon - Confronting Christmas Culture 1: It's Not All About Parties

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
(Luke 1:5-17)

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     According to the old familiar song, “’tis the season to be jolly.” And I have no arguments against being jolly – leading up to Christmas or any other time of the year. But as we’ve moved into December, into the Advent season, and as Christmas starts to appear on the horizon, I note one other thing: “’tis the season of silly internet memes and perhaps a wee bit of paranoia to top it off.” We’re going to start to hear from people that “there’s a war on Christmas.” But no there isn’t. There’s no war on Christmas. No one anywhere in this country is going to try to prevent you from celebrating Christmas in whatever way you choose to celebrate it. We’re going to hear people grumbling about those who say “Happy Holidays.” Well … so what? Say “Merry Christmas” back. I’ve never yet had anyone get offended when I respond to whatever seasonal greeting they choose with “Merry Christmas.” Usually, it elicits a smile in response. You’re going to hear people saying “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Often that’s in response to public schools that organize holiday concerts that don’t include Christian carols about Jesus. But why in the world would we want to force people who aren’t Christians to sing hymns about Jesus? If keeping Christ in Christmas is your concern, then my advice is simple: try being Christ for Christmas. Act like him, speak like him, live like him and love like him. That’s the best way to keep Christ in Christmas. And you’re going to hear people saying “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Well, actually, Saturnalia is the reason for the season. It was a giant pagan festival in the Roman Empire that celebrated the winter solstice and the church decided to take it over to celebrate Jesus’ birth – since there was already a big party going on anyway. Ahhh. A big party. “’tis the season to be jolly,” “’tis the season for silly internet memes,” and ‘tis also the season for parties. They’ve already started. One of our local grocery stores in Beaverton had a sign up at the cash registers a few days ago to say that they were closing early on November 24 for the staff Christmas party. A bit early for a Christmas party, methinks – but no one from Fisher’s Independent Grocer consulted me about it.

     Parties galore. Everyone has a Christmas party. Food and music and all sorts of other things. If you’re involved with enough activities it’s easy to get consumed by all the parties that go on, because literally almost every group has a Christmas party. And, of course, it’s understandable. While we may as Christians sometimes lament the lack of a spiritual focus on Christmas and sometimes even the lack of Christ in Christmas, it’s just a reality we have to contend with that the culture has taken over Christmas, and the culture decides what’s important. For many people today, Christmas isn’t so much about Christ – although many will still show up in church as Christmas approaches. And while I don’t rail against the secular Christmas with all of its distractions, I do think that it’s important for us to be reminded that the distractions are a sideshow and that for all the various parties and celebrations that take place out there in the world, this season of the year is more than just a giant party.

     I sometimes think that parties in the world today have an air of escapism to them. We’re regularly confronted by the problems of the world around us – whether far away things like natural disasters or things that hit closer to home like the closure of the GM plant in Oshawa. And often we feel helpless and overwhelmed. And perhaps to escape those feelings we choose to throw parties. Or we face personal crises involving our health or relationships and we prefer not to face them, instead choosing to  avoid them with fun but largely empty celebrations. In contrast, let’s go back to our Gospel reading this morning: Zechariah and Elizabeth were old. They had lived good and righteous lives, but in a society that often measured a person’s worth by how many children they had, Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless. There may have been a sense of satisfaction in their lives that they had lived in a way that had pleased God, but there was likely little joy; little hope. Perhaps there was even a sense of doubt in their minds that they had actually been able to please God – after all, why hadn’t God given them a child? And yet, in the midst of their doubt and perhaps despair, something wonderful happened: a message from God! “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.” That sounds a little bit like a party - “joy and gladness” - but it’s not the kind of party we usually associate with the Christmas season. This was going to be a celebration of God, who works in wonderful and mysterious ways – not a raucous, music-filled social event, but an awe-filled time of rejoicing in what the divine can accomplish in our lives and in our world.

     In the Bible it’s so often the birth of children who reveal the presence of God in our midst. Abraham and Sarah were both old and childless so how could God’s promise of a great nation arising from Abraham’s descendants possibly come true – and then Isaac was born and became the bearer of God’s promise. Moses was destined to be killed at birth by an evil Pharaoh who wanted the Hebrew babies destroyed – but he was born and he survived and called by God he became the liberator of his people. The great prophet Samuel was born to Hannah after Hannah prayed to God in earnest after being been abused and made to feel worthless because she couldn’t have children. Our story today makes the birth of John the Baptist – who would prepare the way for Jesus - another sign of God’s presence. And, of course, there’s the greatest biblical birth story of all: the birth of Jesus; the incarnation of God. The hymn writer Christina Rosetti once wrote a Christmas carol that says “our God becomes incarnate in every human birth.” I’ll be honest – I don’t agree with that. She’s overstating the point by essentially making all of us “Emmanuel.” But if she worded it poorly, I think I understand what she was trying to say – each of us, in our own way, is a revelation of God; each of us made in the image of God. Each of us have a responsibility to bear witness to God in the world around us. People come to know God through us. Someone once said that it’s a great responsibility to be a Christian because you may come to be the only Christ some people will ever know.

     Parties are great – Christmas parties are lots of fun! I don’t want to give anyone the impression that if you’re a Christian you can’t go to a Christmas party and have fun. But let’s remember that this time of year isn’t all about parties. We’re celebrating God’s appearance in the world, and that divine appearance doesn’t promise us a party. It promises us a blessing; and it promises us great responsibility. So in all the celebrating we do at this time of year, let’s remember that the purpose of this season isn’t to give us an excuse to party – it’s to give us an opportunity to focus, to watch, to prepare for what amazing thing God might do. In the words of Henry Van Dyke, “In praying and praising, in giving and receiving, in eating and drinking, in singing and making merry, in parents’ gladness and in children’s mirth … God bless us every one, with the blessing of Jesus.” This time of the year is about far more than parties – it’s about more than the food and gifts and music you’ll find at them. This time of year (and all year, really) is about the blessing of Jesus – and that gives us reason to celebrate and to look to God with awe and wonder.

Sunday 25 November 2018

November 25 sermon: Christ: Our King

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
(John 18:33-37)

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     Kings and Queens seem almost outdated in today’s world – a thing of the past. Not that they don’t still exist, of course. We live in a constitutional monarchy – but our monarchy (our Queen) has pomp with little real power. Just to be clear, I’m not anti-monarchy. I’m not a republican and I’m not arguing that the monarchy’s symbolic role isn’t important. I’m just pointing out that it is a symbolic role. We just heard a passage from John’s Gospel that speaks about the question of monarchy and kingship. It describes an exchange between Pilate and Jesus. If that seems a bit out of place in late November (because we normally hear about Pilate during Lent) it really isn’t. The last Sunday before Advent is the official end of the church year, and so, in a way, everything else in the church year leads up to this moment. The Gospel proclaims that as history itself comes to its eventual and inevitable conclusion, it will be Jesus who is the culmination of everything God has done. In today’s passage, Pilate asks Jesus if he is the King of the Jews. And by asking that question, Pilate also forces us to confront the question of Jesus’ identity: whose King is he? Is he someone else’s King, or is he our King?

     One of the first things made clear in this passage is that Jesus was not immediately recognizable as a King. Pilate wasn’t really sure who (or what) it is he’s talking to as he confronts Jesus in this passage. The emphasis is everything in the question Pilate asked. When the passage is read, the emphasis is often something like this: “Are you the King of the Jews?” But I think as a starting point to get into this passage the emphasis needs to be different. It should be: “Are you the King of the Jews?” In the first, Pilate is asking a question (“Are  you …?”) In the second, Pilate is expressing surprise and even bewilderment (“Are you …?”) I believe that confronted by Jesus, Pilate was (at first at least) incredulous and was perhaps even being mildly sarcastic. Keep in mind the state Jesus was in as he stood before Pilate: he had been beaten, he was bleeding, he had been spit upon. And looking at that, to paraphrase, what I think Pilate is saying is “You don’t look like a king to me! What a joke this is!” And Pilate’s reaction is completely understandable – because Jesus didn’t look like a King; in fact, he was unlike any King that Pilate had ever heard of.

     Even the people of Jerusalem, who had proclaimed Jesus as their king just a few days before, must have been startled. He didn’t look like a king. He didn’t lead an army into Jerusalem – he led a bunch of ragtag, scruffy disciples. He didn’t ride in a chariot drawn by a horse – he rode on the back of a donkey. So even to the people who proclaimed him to be their king, Jesus must have seemed to have been a strange one. To Pilate he would have been even stranger. Pilate was not unfamiliar with kings, and nothing about Jesus said “king” to him. Pilate would have understood a king as someone who governed a particular territory. But Jesus had no land to rule and he claimed no land to rule. Jesus’ words to Pilate must have left the poor governor scratching his head: “My kingdom in not from this world.” And even to our ears, being a king is tied to having a kingdom. Jesus didn’t actually deny to Pilate that he was a king – but it left a question hanging: how could a person be a king if his kingdom was not from this world?

     So the issue is how to define kingship as Jesus understood the concept. So often what we do is try to redefine Jesus. So we downplay the regal aspect of his identity and think of him instead as merely a friend or a brother. And there’s nothing wrong with thinking of Jesus as a friend or a brother, because he is. There may be no more moving hymn in the entire Christian faith than “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” But Jesus is more than that., and rather than simply discarding the title because we don’t like the political overtones of the word or because it’s so masculine, what we really need to do is try to understand kingship as Jesus understood it.

     When we think of royalty today, what do we think of? Social status; prestige; a throne; yachts and palaces; wealth. Jesus had none of these things. He is a king without land, without a throne, without a palace, without wealth. He’s certainly a different kind of king. He didn’t inflict punishment on people; instead he showed compassion to them and he wept when confronted with suffering and need. He came to get nothing from anyone – he asked for no awards or honours, and he collected no taxes; instead he gave for the sake of those around him. Those who accepted him as king became not his servants but his friends. In the end, this king would be exalted not in comfort on a throne but in agony on a cross. And even as he was dying rather than lashing out at those who were torturing him, he forgave them. Pilate – not sure about anything because nothing seemed to be what it should have been – asked Jesus “Are you the King of the Jews?” And it’s actually a pretty good question. Is Jesus a King? And, if so, whose King is he?

     Well, Jesus is a king. However uncomfortable some people might be with that word and that imagery, Jesus is a king – and that’s vital today. Jesus’ identity as a king is one of the things about him that almost literally turns the world and all its expectations and practices upside down. We live in a world full of brutal dictators and evil kings and violent tyrants and corrupt politicians. The way leadership is exercised in the world is a sign of the fallenness of the world. It’s enough sometimes to lead us into despair. But then we confront – or are confronted by – Jesus. Not brutal, not evil, not violent and not corrupt – rather kind, compassionate, gentle and loving. And in Jesus we see that these are the qualities of a king; the qualities of leadership; and in Jesus we understand just how fallen the world is. But Jesus gives us hope that a better day is dawning; that God will overthrow all the injustice and oppression and hatred of the world; that Jesus will indeed reign. We wait for that; we hope for that; we yearn for that; we believe in that. We believe that, in the words of a hymn, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun shall its successive journeys run.” Which leaves only one last question: if Jesus shall reign, then whose king will he be?

     Pilate asked “Are you the king of the Jews?” Is he merely the king of one particular people? Is he merely a king from antiquity, perhaps of historical interest but of little contemporary relevance? Is he a sort of media star of interest, much like our own royal family? Is he someone else’s king? Every single thing about Jesus – his birth, his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection and his ascension – challenges us to face this question: whose king is he? The church year ends today, and the Christian cycle begins anew next Sunday with the beginning of Advent, and everything in the church year from the start of Advent last year has challenged us to eventually face this question: whose king is he? It all comes down to that. In fact, it comes down to an even simpler question than that. Is Jesus our king? And for each one of us individually – is Jesus my king? With Advent on the horizon, it’s worth remembering how it all started – and as the Brazilian author Paolo Coelho reminds us, “it was the shepherds who were the first to recognize a king that the rest of the world refused to acknowledge.” It’s those who most need hope in their lives that understand Jesus as the great hope; the great King!

Sunday 4 November 2018

November 4 sermon: The Commandments In Short Form

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ - this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
(Mark 12:28-34)

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     There are things that happen that shock us, grab the headlines and dominate the news for months. On June 17, 2015 nine people were killed while attended a prayer meeting at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. On January 29, 2017 six people were killed in an attack on a mosque in Quebec City. On April 23, 2018 ten people were killed in a van attack on Yonge Street in North York. And, of course, just last Saturday nine people were killed while attending Sabbath service at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. They are shocking, horrifying, terrifying events. Attacks that were all based on hatred: hatred of African Americans, hatred of Muslims, hatred of women and hatred of Jews. I remind you of them today not with any desire to bring you down or to make you sombre but just to acknowledge something that’s saddeningly very real: there is a lot of hatred in our world today. We Canadians have generally tried to look at these things and think “well, at least they don’t happen here. At least not very often.” And yet, at the end of 2017 (about one year ago) Statistics Canada reported that the number of hate crimes in Canada had risen for the third year in a row. Churches and synagogues and mosques and even cemeteries were increasingly targeted by hateful graffiti or vandalism, hateful literature attacking various groups and cultures is sometimes being circulated, and those things aside, the hate crimes being committed in this country are becoming increasingly violent. People are being attacked not only verbally but also physically because of their sexual orientation, because of their race, because of where they were born, because of what they believe. Our wonderful country – which we’ve generally believed to be happily multicultural, tolerant and welcoming – has an increasingly unsavoury underbelly that’s starting to creep up and be noticed.  And I wondered: how do you counter feelings of rage and hatred that are so unimaginable that they lead to such unthinkable acts?

     It was The Beatles who many years ago sang “All You Need Is Love.” Is that too simplistic? And what would we mean by “love,” anyway? What kind of love would be required to counter a hatred that is so powerful, so raw and so violent that I can’t think of a word to describe it except, perhaps, for “demonic”? I suppose that to counteract a truly demonic hatred would require a truly divine love. And perhaps that requires that we adopt a way of thinking of love that’s different from the typical worldly definition of love. The world tends to define “love” as a noun. We think of it as a feeling or as an emotion; sometimes it’s a commodity to be offered or withheld. We cheapen it by applying the word to all sorts of things that are less than important to our lives. Really – how many things do we say we love? “I love ice cream.” “I love hockey.” “I love The Big Bang Theory.” What we mean is that we “really, really like” those things – we enjoy them, but we say we “love” them. That kind of overuse of the word “love” diminishes its power. And as I reflected on all that I found myself thinking about the words of Jesus in our Gospel reading for this morning. Jesus speaks of the importance of love in this passage – but Jesus speaks of it not as a noun, but as a verb; not as something passive, but as something active; not as something to be given or withheld, but as a way of life that should overflow from us. And Jesus grounds his understanding of love in God – and, more specifically, in God’s commandments. I’m not sure that most of us would think of doing that. Our society has turned “love” into such a thing of the heart that we forget that Jesus sees it as not so much a thing of the heart but as a thing of the hands and feet – defined not so much by how you feel as by what you do.

     In fairness, it was the scribe who actually seemed to have an understanding of the concept. He was the first to bring up the commandments. It’s not really clear what he was referring to. Was he thinking of the entire Torah – all of Genesis through Deuteronomy – or was he thinking about what we now call the “Ten Commandments”? Either way, the law of God is the revelation of the will and the nature of God.. Think about the Ten Commandments and what they tell us about God’s will. To sum them up: Have no other God, don’t use God’s name improperly, keep the sabbath, honour your parents, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, do not covet – either your neighbour’s spouse or your neighbour’s things. None of that is emotional, but all of that is love – at its most basic, it’s the way you act toward those whom you love. And if these commandments reveal God to us, then what they reveal is that God is love – not merely that God loves, but that God is love; not merely that God feels love, but that God acts lovingly. Love is God’s very nature. And, of course, Jesus, hearing the scribe refer to the commandments, puts the whole thing even more succinctly: to paraphrase, he says “everything God wants of you can be boiled down to two things – love God and love everybody else!” And, in this context, you love not by feeling – you love by doing.

     I have heard it said many times that there is a fine line between love and hate. I heard someone say once that what love and hate have in common is that they can both cause us to do things that a rational person would not do! And perhaps that’s true. And perhaps that means that, indeed, there is no way to counter hatred except with love – love as Jesus defines it; love as God reveals it. In a blog that he calls “The Waking Dreamer,” Dr. Alan Brehm, the pastor of Hickman Presbyterian Church in Hickman, Nebraska, wrote that “God’s original intention for humanity in the first place was to live in relationship with God, loving and serving God by loving and serving others. It is a life of obedience that creates justice, and freedom, and peace for us all.” I want you to think about those words for a moment. Brehm defines love not as some heartfelt, emotional, swooning sort of sensation, and it’s a lot more than just really, really, liking something. “It is a life of obedience that creates justice, and freedom, and peace for us all.” It s living in such a way that our actions have a positive impact on the lives of those around us, and especially on the lives of those who are hurting, so that they can know that there is someone who truly stands with them – but it also must be extended even to the lives of those who hate and who act in unspeakably evil ways, so that they might come to understand the power of the true and only alternative to hate: which is the love first demonstrated by God. In 1 John 4, the whole concept of love is described in this way:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, [but] if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. ... God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because [God] first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

     Friends, hate cannot win, and hate will not win. There may indeed be a fine line between love and hate, but only one can ultimately prevail – and it will not be hate that prevails. This past week, in response to the terrible events in Pittsburgh, the United Church issued a statement that included these words: “We continue to … remind our members that we need to cultivate love, understanding, and acceptance of each other, rather than giving in to fears that provide fertile ground for hate and extremism to flourish.” Hate always comes from fear. Fear of the other; fear of those who seem different; fear of our own loss of status or privilege; fear that something is being taken away from us, and the need to find a scapegoat for those losses. Hate always comes from fear. But the way of God is the way of love, and all of the commandments of God can be summed up so easily: “love God, and love everyone else.” As John wrote, “those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” That's not optional. There's no wiggle room there. The defeat of hate starts with us. Hate can start so easily – with petty grievances, that lead us to become irritated with someone, and then to dislike them, and then to want to get back at them, to make them pay. And it can take over a person’s life. But those who claim to love God must love others in return. And when that love becomes more than an emotion – when it becomes the motivating force in our lives, the thing that drives us incessantly forward, then love overcomes hate. Then hatred is defeated and then love is victorious.

     I want to give the last word today to a man named Ari Mahler. You’ve probably never heard of Ari Mahler. He is an emergency room nurse in Pittsburgh – at the hospital that Robert Bowers was taken to after he killed those 11 people last Saturday at the Pittsburgh synagogue. Ari Mahler was the ER nurse who treated Bowers. Ari Mahler is Jewish. Ari Mahler’s parents belong to the synagogue that Bowers attacked. Ari Mahler wrote this on Facebook just yesterday, and it seems to sum up what Jesus meant perfectly. After relating that Bowers entered the emergency room shouting “DEATH TO JEWS! DEATH TO JEWS!”, Mahler wrote:

I didn't see evil when I looked into Robert Bowers’ eyes. All I saw was a clear lack of depth, intelligence, and palpable amounts of confusion. Robert Bowers probably had no friends, was easily influenced by propaganda, and wanted attention on a sociopathic level. He’s the kind of person that is easily manipulated by people with a microphone, a platform, and use fear for motivation. I can’t go into details of our interactions because of HIPPA, but Robert Bowers thanked me for saving him, for showing him kindness, and for treating him the same way I treat every other patient. This was the same Robert Bowers that just committed mass homicide. The Robert Bowers who instilled panic in my heart worrying my parents were two of his 11 victims less than an hour before his arrival.

I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. Why thank a Jewish nurse, when 15 minutes beforehand, you’d shoot me in the head with no remorse? I didn’t say a word to him about my religion. I chose not to say anything to him the entire time. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong. Besides, if he finds out I’m Jewish, does it really matter? The better question is, what does it mean to you?

Love. That’s why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings. I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything.

Respectfully, 
Ari Mahler, RN

Monday 22 October 2018

October 21 sermon: Servant Leadership

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
(Mark 10:35-45)

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     When I was in Grade 6 at Knob Hill Junior Public School in Scarborough, I won something that was called “The History Award.” I’m not sure really why it was called The History Award because it really had more to do with current events than anything else. To be eligible you had to be in Grade 6, be nominated by your teacher, take a multiple choice quiz and write a short essay about leadership. I remember that I wrote about the different people who were leading Canada at that time: what their backgrounds were, what their goals were and what kind of people they were. I think back to that and I remember that there were a lot of people who seemed really important to write about: Pierre Trudeau, Peter Lougheed, Bill Davis, Allan Blakeney. Rene Levesque came along about a year after I graduated from Grade 6, but I’ll add him to the list today. These were significant people who I still remember today. Different parties, different philosophies, different styles – but I look back at them and I think of leadership. They had it. They had not just charisma, but what we’d call today “gravitas.” I can’t help but wonder what I’d write about today if I had to do it over again. I don’t mean to criticize but somehow Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley and Doug Ford and Scott Moe and Francois Legault just don’t seem to have “it” - whatever “it” is – in the same measure. There are times when I lament the state of leadership in our country and in our world today. I find myself thinking about leadership today. Once again we’re a day away from electing new people (or perhaps some of the same people) to positions of leadership and entrusting them with the responsibility of leading our townships and towns and cities for the next four years. I have not voted yet. It’s a mail-in ballot, but I haven’t filled it in yet and I’m going to hand deliver my ballot to the Brock Township office in Cannington tomorrow. So I have a few decisions to make over the course of the next 24 hours or so. Which forces me to ask myself: what am I looking for in a leader? It was Abraham Lincoln who said “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Whose character will I be testing, and whose character will we all be testing, over the next four years of municipal government in Ontario? And what will be my standard for deciding whose character is deserving of being granted that test? It seems to me that maybe the thoughts of Jesus have something to teach us about the qualities we should be looking for in those we select to lead us.

     “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’” That’s how our passage from Mark’s Gospel opened this morning. James and John were part of what you might call the leadership team; pretty important disciples in the band of followers that had coalesced around Jesus. But what becomes clear just from those few words is that they didn’t as yet understand the concept of leadership as Jesus wanted to see it exercised. Did you notice that they actually seemed so full of themselves that they began by essentially giving an order to Jesus: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” In the overall scheme of things – the church at this point being little more than a tiny band of ragtag disciples following an itinerant preacher – there wasn’t much power to be had here – but apparently even a tiny little bit of power corrupts! “Do this for us,” they said to Jesus. And they wanted the places of glory: one to Jesus’ right and one to Jesus’ left. They’d be sure to be noticed there. Everyone would see them and be impressed at how important they were. They would have the importance and the power of sitting beside Jesus through all eternity. Oh yes. What a gig! But that wasn’t going to happen. James and John instead were going to have to be taught a lesson about the true nature of power and what it was all about.

     I think there are actually several things we learn about power and authority from this passage. The first is that power isn’t taken – it’s given. In some way, power has to be derived to be legitimate. If you seize power – well, you might have the ability to force people to do the things you want them to do or to silence them from speaking against you – but it won’t be real; it won’t be legitimate. Because it will have been taken rather than given freely. You can’t really be in any honourable position of authority over people if you have to force your authority upon them. And so Jesus said to James and John “… to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” You can’t have power just because you want it. You’re not entitled. It’s not your right. That’s lesson one.

     The second thing we learn is that power shouldn’t be about a competition that divides people, but should rather be about co-operation and bringing people together. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be legitimate disagreements among those seeking power or in power, but it does mean that behind it all is a common commitment to a common good; that there has to be a common goal that we’re all working toward, even if we may have different ideas about how to reach the destination. We fail in exercising power of we start to demonize others; if we start to set those who disagree with us up as enemies; if we start to pit this group against that group. Those are all failures of leadership. James and John set themselves up above the rest of the disciples. They felt entitled to these positions of leadership. They thought they were better than Peter and Andrew and Matthew and the rest. Rather than working together for a common cause, they wanted to be the ones directing the cause with everyone else working for them. But Jesus said that wasn’t what it was about. Being a leader doesn’t set you up above everyone else. In fact, that’s the third thing we learn about power.

     Power is the opposite of what we usually think it is. We think of power as the ultimate achievement. We think of power as having the right to make decisions and to set agendas and to direct others. We think of power as something that fills us. We talk of people taking power or assuming power. But then we listen to Jesus and we’re struck with the reality: power doesn’t fill us – power leaves us empty. Power isn’t about getting people to serve us – it’s about us accepting the responsibility of serving others. “… whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

     The concluding verses of the passage force us to abandon the earthly understanding of power and to confront power as it looks in the Kingdom of God – and in that Kingdom what we see is the exact opposite of how power is usually exercised in the world. Jesus becomes for us the ultimate example of how power should be exercised. “… the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus – with the power to command legions of angels to rescue him from his fate as he said in the days leading up to his death – displayed his power in the ultimate sacrifice, on the cross, his life ebbing away, giving everything for the sake of those he came to serve.

     I wonder: what would the world be like if our leaders and politicians understood power this way? I wonder: what would the church be like if our clergy and lay leaders understood power this way? I wonder: what would the world and the church together be like if we all accepted a call to power by committing ourselves to the simple service of all around us rather than grasping at power as a means to push our own agendas? I wonder?

Monday 15 October 2018

October 14 sermon: Did He Really Mean Everything?

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
(Mark 10:17-31)

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     “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Wait a minute here. I mean – hang on for one second. Did he really mean – everything? Seriously? Everything? I mean – surely not. Because – well, everything would mean a lot of things. It would be – I guess – everything! He couldn’t have meant everything. Could he?

     That’s what really makes this a tough passage for a lot of people to deal with. “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Let’s face it – even the most hardened fundamentalist who insists that the Bible has to be taken absolutely literally is going to start looking for some escape clause on this one. Jesus was talking to someone who was apparently a man of wealth. So, maybe that’s our out. I’m not rich. Not me. So, sure, Jesus wants the wealthy to sell all that they have and give the money to the poor. But I’m not wealthy so I don’t have to worry about this one. Right? That’s a relief. Except. When we were in China in 2005, people on the streets constantly asked us for money. We had been warned by our guides never to give money to anyone who asked for it. It’s heart breaking, because they would send little children out of the shadows (3 and 4 year olds) to approach our group to beg for money. You wanted to give – but we were told that if we gave to one child, there were dozens of others watching and we would be immediately swarmed by others demanding money, and by their parents, and things would get out of control, and the police would have to be called to restore order, and – as we were told – “you don’t want to get involved with the police in Beijing.” I said to one of our fellow travelers that people must think that we were rich. My friend (who had been to China before) said “We can travel from Canada to China and back. To them we are rich.” And I thought about the fact that every morning I was going down to the front desk of our hotel and cashing $100 or $200 in travelers cheques without a second thought, being greeted by someone earning about $15 a month. So I have to wonder - who’s rich and who’s poor? The reality is that we here are a tremendously blessed people indeed, by any measure, and Jesus wants us to share our blessings with those who have less. But, still - “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” It seems a bit extreme. It grates on us. At the very least Jesus is reminding us that whatever we have, none of it is ours. Everything comes from God. John Wesley once said that “if I die with ten pounds to my name, I’ll have stolen it.” And he was making the same point – nothing he had was his own. It came from God and God expects us to use our blessings in order to be a blessing to others. Some people talk about “tithing” - the idea that we should give 10% of our income to the church. I don’t talk much about tithing – for two reasons. First because it’s easy for tithing to become a form of legalism, so that I do it grudgingly, only because I have to. Secondly, it gives the impression that actually only 10% of what I have belongs to God and the other 90% is mine to do with as I please. But Jesus seems to say “no.” Whatever we have and everything we have is God’s and our overarching God-given purpose is to use what God has given us to be a blessing to others.

     Part of the problem in this story was the rich man himself. He thought he could earn his way into God’s good book. He thought that if he just did enough things, everything would be fine and dandy and God would be so proud of him. But – maybe deep down inside – he seemed to realize that something was lacking. So he went to Jesus. “I’ve kept all the commandments. But I still don’t feel it. So what more do I have to do?” And Jesus basically said “everything.” So if you’re going to try to earn your way into God’s favour then you better leave no stone unturned. You better be willing to give everything and to do everything. So this rich man had a problem because he was willing to do things, but he had a lot of stuff, and he wasn’t willing to give his stuff away. You see stuff – whether money or any other possession – can easily replace God; it can become an idol; people can live for their stuff rather than for God; they can live to get more and more and more rather than to give abundantly and be a blessing. The rich man had done a lot of things – but most of what he had done hadn’t cost him anything. “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honour your parents.” Those things don’t “cost” us anything. In fact they come with a reward. We’re admired for doing those things. The rich man was admired because of all he had done, but now because he had been pious enough to gain all that admiration from people he expected to be admired by God as well. But he hadn’t really done anything for God. He had all the trappings of religion, but nothing particularly life-changing and he couldn’t figure out why that hadn’t given him any assurance. Gandhi, in a book called “The Seven Dangers To Human Virtue,” identified one of those dangers as “religion without sacrifice.” If our faith calls us to give up nothing (or as little as possible, or only so much that we don’t notice that it’s missing) then there’s a problem in our relationship with God. That, I think, is what Jesus was getting at. When he said to the rich man “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,” I don’t think he was calling so much for a material sacrifice but for a spiritual change of heart that would cause the rich man to understand that what he possessed was really God’s and that he needed to be constantly aware of opportunities to serve God by using what he had for the benefit of God’s people, regardless of the costs involved. That’s the point.

     We shouldn’t be too hard on the rich man of the story. At least he understood that something was wrong; something was missing. That’s why he went to Jesus. “I’ve done it all,” he said. “So what more is there?” In a sense this was a confession – a moment of blinding self-realization as much as anything. He realized that for all the stuff he had, he actually had nothing. He had been blessed, but he had missed out on the fact that God by blessing him wanted him to be a blessing. And there’s the challenge for us all: to live in such a way that not only acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (which is easy) but also to live in such a way that acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (and that’s hard because it calls us to make sacrifices.)

     Put this story into the context of where Mark places it in relation to Jesus’ life. By the next chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus would be making his entry into Jerusalem, being hailed by the crowds as Messiah, and then rejected by them mere days later but then confirmed with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Think about that story for a moment, and then think back to this story. We don’t actually know what happened to the rich man. Did he ever find the secret of eternal life that he was looking for? Jesus explained that secret to him rather well: “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” I think what Jesus was saying was that those who follow him have to be willing to give up everything – to give of themselves and their very being for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of sharing good news with the world and for the sake of being the good news to the world by how we give of ourselves for others. As I said, we don’t know what happened to the rich man, but I’d like to think that perhaps he followed Jesus into Jerusalem and saw – on the cross just a few days later – what Jesus really meant when he told the rich man to “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” It’s not just the material things – Jesus does mean that we have to be prepared to give out of that which God has given us for the sake of others, but there’s more. Jesus, I think, wants a change in our attitudes; a change in our perspectives; a change in our hearts. Jesus wants us to live each day knowing that, if necessary, we can give everything because we really possess nothing – it’s all God’s.

     So, let me ask you one more time: Did he really mean ‘everything’? Yeah. He did. Because ultimately he did it himself.

Sunday 7 October 2018

October 7 sermon - Who Are You Trying To Convince?

Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.
(Psalm 26)

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     Whose opinion do you really care about? If there was one person you could name whose opinion of you really counted, who would it be? That strikes me as a relevant question in the world today. People seem to spend a lot of their time these days trying to convince others of how good they are, how successful they are, how talented they are – maybe, when you boil it all down, of how worthy they are to have the respect of others. Some people’s concern about how other people perceive them can make them seem a little desperate. They go so overboard in their desire to be loved that the end result is that others actually look at them with a sort of contempt. It’s too much. And the truth is that you can’t force someone to respect you. They either will or they won’t. But a lot of people try.

     I have to confess that the very first verses of Psalm 26 caused me to take a bit of a step back and ponder. It sounds as if the author is guilty of some of what I just mentioned. It sounds as if he’s trying just a little too hard to say how great he was. In a way, he reminded me a bit of Judge Kavanaugh – who you’ve probably heard of from Senate confirmation hearings in the United States – who gave an interview to Fox news in which he painted an altogether too virtuous picture of himself. In Psalm 26, it sounds as if the author is boasting about the depth and intimacy of the relationship he’s established with God; even being prideful of how obedient he’s been to God’s will. “I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering,” the author says. Those are bold words. How many of us here today would be able to say that we’ve never (not even for a moment) wavered in our trust in God? I can’t honestly make that claim for myself. But the author of Psalm 26 does.

     In the opening words of the Psalm, the author opens himself to God. He’s almost challenging God with some of his words: vindicate me, prove me, test me. There’s a sense in which he sounds self-righteous, but a self-righteous person is either showing off to themselves – trying to convince themselves of their own goodness, or they’re showing off to others to convince them of their own goodness. And once I get through the first few verses of the Psalm, I start to realize that this is not a self-righteous person who’s showing off; this is a person who’s confident in their faith and who’s convinced of the love of Good. The author of the Psalm isn’t self-righteous; they’re “righteous.” And there’s a big difference between those two things. A truly righteous person opens is willing to open themselves to God’s scrutiny, because they’re certain that they’ll be found acceptable in God’s sight. I thought the Psalm gave us an opportunity to understand righteousness and how righteousness is different from self-righteousness

     The first point I might make is that a truly righteous person understands God’s judgment; they understand what it is that God is looking for from us. So the author of the Psalm invited God to “test my heart and mind.” That’s important. Think for a moment about what the author didn’t say. He didn’t say “look at all my good deeds.” He didn’t say “look at all the money I’ve given to charity.” It’s too easy for our actions to be for show. – the basis of God’s judgement isn’t our actions or appearances - it’s what’s in our heart.

     Second, a righteous person understands God’s love. “Your steadfast love is always before my eyes,” the author said.  That’s a way for the author to say that we are never – even for a moment – separated from God’s love. As Paul would later write in Romans nothing in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sometimes we may feel very distant from God’s love. Sometimes we may feel as if something we’ve said or done has made us either unworthy or unlovable in God’s eyes. The author of this Psalm reminds us that isn’t true. God’s love is always before us. God love is with us now and God’s love is our destiny.– that God is always yearning for us to come closer.

     And third, a righteous person understands God’s welcome – that God is always willing to accept us. “I walk in faithfulness to you.” At least in English there’s a potential double entendre to this verse. “I walk in faithfulness to you” might be a statement of the author’s faith – or it might be a statement that the author knows he is being welcomed by God – I’m walking “to you.” And either way, the emphasis on faith is the author’s way of showing that his trust in God is deep and abiding and will not be shaken.

     All that points out the main difference between righteousness and self-righteousness – it’s the audience. A truly righteous person is focused on God and on what God sees in us and is simply thankful to God for the opportunity to serve as they serve. A self-righteous person is concerned about others – how they’re perceived by others; whether they get credit or thanks for all that they do. So after being jarred a bit by the opening words of the Psalm, I came to the conclusion that the author wasn’t engaging in an orgy of self-righteous arrogance. Instead, this was an expression of humble righteousness. And in a way that’s a key question for us today: Are we most concerned with what God sees in us or with what others think of us? I liked the way that question was framed by Rev. Kevin De Young, whose words I cited in today’s bulletin: “I try to keep in mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good?” That strikes me as a good question on a Communion Sunday.

     Verses 6-7 of Psalm 23 struck me as what I’d call a Communion moment: they tell us that we approach the altar (the Lord’s table) thankfully and remembering the work of God within us and around us. We enter God’s presence not so that others can see how good we are, but because we know how good God is. When I served in Central Newfoundland many years ago I always found a Communion service to be a strange service indeed. There was the same phenomenon in every one of my three congregations: almost all the women would come forward to receive Communion, while all the men (except for one) would remain noticeably in their seats. I finally got so confused that I asked about this and was told by one man “I’m not worthy.” I told him that the table was for all Christians, and didn’t he think he was a Christian? “Yes, boy, but I know I’m too much of a sinner to take Communion.” And yet the looks on at least some of the men’s faces wasn’t a look of shame over some past sin; it was almost a look of pride; as if they were showing off. As they sat steadfastly in their pew while others came forward it was almost as if at least some were saying “Look at me. I’m so good I know how bad I am.” At least that’s how it often came across to me.

     Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Today is also World Communion Sunday. The point of receiving Communion isn’t to show others how good or worthy we are, or even to make a show of letting people know that we know how bad we are. The purpose of receiving Communion is simply to gratefully accept that which God has done for us. “My foot stands on level ground,” the author said as he finished the Psalm. “In the great congregation I will bless the Lord.” In this great congregation, may we all approach the Lord’s table with humble righteousness today, thankful to God for welcoming us, even if it might be in spite of ourselves.

Sunday 30 September 2018

September 30 sermon - Heaven And Earth And Us

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
(James 5:13-20)

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     You've all heard of "thoughts and prayers." It's a phrase that's become kind of commonplace in the world today. When something terrible happens it tends to be the first port of call for politicians - they rush to Twitter and type "thoughts and prayers" on their keyboard, and then - seemingly more often than not - they seem to forget whatever it was that they were thinking and praying about, and they go on as if nothing had actually happened. We see it a lot every time there's a mass shooting. We're not immune to the phenomenon, but American politicians seem particularly stricken by it. "Thoughts and prayers" for the victims, followed by paralysis when it comes to actually trying to do anything about gun violence. It also happens when natural catastrophes strike. Terrible floods, killer heat waves, raging wildfires, massive tornadoes, devastating hurricanes and typhoons - all happening with increasingly alarming frequency. "Thoughts and prayers" for the victims, but not much action really. I don't want to be too hard on our politicians. I think all of us do it from time to time. I sometimes wonder how often "I'll pray for you" gets followed up on, or whether they're just words without much substance.

     James would have understood my doubts, I suspect. He believed in the power of prayer, and one doesn't pray about anyone or anything unless one is thinking about them. So, "thoughts and prayers"? Absolutely? But James would have expected more. Throughout this letter, James makes the point that "thoughts and prayers" with no intention of following them up with some sort of concrete action are relatively meaningless. His basic point about “thoughts and prayers” seems to be – don’t bother thinking and praying about things if you have the ability to do something about them but choose not to. In other words, there’s no point to praying if you’re expecting God to do everything afterward. That’s a pretty common theme in James’ letter. But there’s also another way of looking at things. In this passage, James suddenly segues into a brief discussion about the great prophet Elijah. In 1 Kings 17 and 18 there are stories about a terrible drought in Israel that 1 Kings said was the result of Elijah intervening and calling the drought down upon the land because Israel had turned away from God. The drought lasted years. Finally, Israel repented, and Elijah called down rain, and the rains come.  Why did James include this strange story in the letter? Maybe it was because in addition to wanting to say to people “don’t pray unless you’re going to do something about it,” he’s also saying “don’t pray unless you believe that God can do something about it.” Sometimes we wonder why we don’t get answers to our prayers (and for today at least I’ll avoid pointing out that when we say we don’t get answers what we really mean is that we didn’t get the answers we wanted.) I do wonder, though, if at least in part it’s because we’ve misunderstood the whole point of prayer. Prayer is so much more than just me speaking to God one on one. It includes that, but prayer is about establishing what I’d call spiritual relationships; prayer is about holding in balance ourselves with God and with all that God has created. Prayer is about recognizing that there’s a spiritual connection that’s established through prayer. I’ve sometime shared with people that my personal working definition of spirituality is that it is the sense of one-ness that exists between and among God and everything God has created, including us. I think James would agree with that.

     The Letter of James is about how Christians should live together in community. Someone like Martin Luther actually wanted James tossed out of the New Testament. He called it “the Epistle of Straw” because he thought it was too legalistic. But – with all due respect to Martin Luther – I think he was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I mean – I’m just me, and Martin Luther was … well … Martin Luther. But still, I think he was wrong. James wasn’t laying out rules and regulations for Christians to obey. It’s more that he was laying out the patterns of behaviour people should expect to find in a Christian community. In a way you might call this letter a tourist guide. “If you visit a Christian community here are the things you should be looking for,” is essentially what James was saying. And, mostly, James was telling people that the word “community” is, in fact, what really matters. This passage basically gives us a vision of a caring community whose members truly look out for one another. But as I read the Letter, and especially this passage for today, I started to wonder: a community of whom? It’s not just the people in that particular church. The community is created first and foremost by prayer – and prayer binds together the community praying with God, and with all of the creation. I think the example of Elijah was included by James as a way of demonstrating the powerful impact our prayers can have if they’re offered in faith.

     Truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayer impacts not just us and not even just those around us; it has an impact on all of creation; it even impacts God in some way because we are involved in a relationship that’s in balance. The impact comes from the fact that truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayer changes us: it becomes the engine that helps make us who God wants us to be and that empowers us to do what God wants us to do – and since we’re the stewards of what God has created that has the potential to change all of creation, just as Elijah’s truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayers impacted the whole creation.

     I said a few moments ago that prayer is about a balance of ourselves with God and with creation. I don’t think it takes much imagination to realize that things in our world are horribly out of balance right now in so many ways. Our churches are being reduced to businesses whose motivation is the bottom line rather than the mission of God. Our politics is increasingly dominated by anger and a lust for power rather than humility and a desire to serve people; our cities and towns are increasingly becoming increasingly fearful as we become more and more suspicious of newcomers and those who are different; our environment is on the verge of collapse as we see those terrible floods, killer heat waves, raging wildfires, massive tornadoes, and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in numbers and places we haven’t seen them before. I’m not suggesting that thoughts and prayers alone could solve those problems – heaven forbid I suggest that! - but I am suggesting that as the people of God we perhaps need to take prayer more seriously and more faithfully as a way not of changing the world but of changing ourselves and of making ourselves better stewards of the creation God has given us to care for.

     It was Franklin Roosevelt who said that “a nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” He seemed to understand the balance. It’s equally true that a world that destroys its lands, its waters and its air destroys itself, or that a world filled with fear and anger and hatred and suspicion is no longer the world God created. It’s just as equally true that a church that stands by and watches it happen while offering nothing more than thoughts and prayers in response is destroying itself by making itself irrelevant. I don’t have all the answers to the problems plaguing the world. If I did, I suppose they wouldn’t be plaguing the world anymore. But I do know that we need to challenge one another to always be a part of the solution. Too often our thoughts and prayers are really about ourselves – we pray for others, but even so it often seems like little more than an attempt to display our piety; to show others just how faithful and religious we are – but without much follow up action. Actually, our prayers should be just the opposite: they should an admission that we have a long way to go, but also a commitment that we want to make as much of a difference as we can; that we care not about ourselves but about all that we see around us.

     God will work. And God will work through us. But we have to believe that. We have to make sure that our words are more than just mere words – that they spur us to action; action that becomes a sign of God’s presence and activity in the world around us.