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.

September 23 sermon - The Greatest

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

(Mark 9:30-37)

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     I have to confess that when I hear the words “the greatest,” I do not think immediately of these words of Jesus. No, when I hear “the greatest” I inevitably think of Muhammad Ali. He was “the greatest.” As he admits, he said he was the greatest even before he knew he was the greatest! His greatness mostly stems from his boxing career. Many people forget that in 1960 he was the Olympic heavyweight gold medalist representing the United States in the Olympic Games in Rome. And of course most people know that after that as a professional he became the three-time heavyweight champion of the world. That does mean that he lost the title twice – but only once did he lose it in the ring, and he followed that up by winning the title back a few months later! But it wasn’t only what he accomplished in the ring. He was a man of strong beliefs and principles and he was willing to stand up and pay a price for them. After returning home as Olympic gold medalist in 1960, he assumed that he would be respected and even honoured for being an American Olympic champion. Instead he found that the people of his home state of Kentucky (and perhaps most other Americans) still thought of him as just another … well, I won’t use the word. But he threw his Olympic gold medal into a local river in disgust. A few years later his religious convictions changed and he became a Muslim – which earned him the wrath of many and there were people who for many years refused to call him “Muhammad Ali” but insisted on using “Cassius Clay” instead. And a few years after that Ali risked jail time by refusing to be inducted into the United States Army to fight in Vietnam. No Vietnamese had ever hurt him, he said. The only people who had hurt him were other Americans, so why would he go to war for America against Vietnam? He didn’t go to jail, but he was stripped of his title for that. Those things perhaps stand out as a sign of greatness. And perhaps it was just his colourful and larger than life persona. But there were reasons for thinking of Muhammad Ali as “the greatest.” There are others. In hockey there was Wayne Gretzky. And in baseball there was Barry Bonds. And basketball today has LeBron James. World champion – most goals – most home runs – most points. That’s usually how we define greatness. It’s about accomplishments. The great ones are those who are better at something than anyone else and who get noticed for it. That’s why it’s fascinating for us to have had the chance in today’s Scripture passage to see how Jesus defined greatness.

     A lot of things can distract us from the work of God. One of those things is human pride; the desire for greatness. This story today illustrates that. It tells us that as the disciples traveled with Jesus, they got distracted. As they walked with Jesus, the passage tells us, even though they were supposedly devoted to him, “they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” I’m sure it was a fascinating argument. Peter said, “It’s me – because I’m the rock!” and John said, “No way! It’s me, because Jesus loves me the most!” and maybe Matthew, being a tax collector, said “It has to be me because I have the most money.” And maybe Thomas was the tallest, and Andrew was the most handsome. Judas probably even had something he could point to. You get the point. They had argued about which of them was the greatest – using very worldly definitions of greatness, no doubt. Now you would have thought that being in the presence of Jesus they might have conceded that title to him, but human pride can get in the way of what seems to be reasonable and it can get in the way of doing God’s work.

     The disciples seem to have thought that they had carried on their argument very discretely and so it must have been an embarrassing moment when Jesus suddenly turned to them and said, “What were you arguing about on the way?” There were probably red faces and feet scuffing the ground and eyes turned away. Some hemming and hawing. Mark tells us that “they were silent.” It was one of those awkward moments when you get caught doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing and you just really don’t know how to respond – but you do discover how fascinating it is to be counting the number of tiles on the floor, because the last thing you want to do is look the other person in the eye. But the good news for the disciples – and for us, I daresay – is that Jesus didn’t become angry. Instead, he saw a teaching moment emerging from this silly argument.

     If human pride was the problem afflicting the disciples, then a good dose of humility would be the solution. It’s said that Benjamin Franklin once made a list of character qualities that he wanted to develop in his own life. And he would work his way down the list, and as he mastered one virtue he’d move on to the next one. But he could never finish the list, because he finally reached humility. And, he said, then he encountered a problem, because every time he made progress in developing humility be became proud of himself for doing so! Pride is a hard thing to overcome and pride may be the thing, more than anything else, that pulls us away from God. Ultimately, it’s pride that makes us say “i don’t need God. I can figure this out all by myself.” And I’ve known all sorts of people who profess to have deep faith but who, when push comes to shove, demonstrate in all sorts of ways that they really want to handle problems and answer questions by themselves without making any room for God in the process – and sometimes, I confess, I have to fight that temptation myself. And it’s pride – nothing more; nothing less. It’s pride that puts the idea into my head that I can do it all by myself, and the Book of Proverbs tells us that “pride goes before destruction ...” Then, in the very next verse of Proverbs we’re told that “it is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.” This was advice Jesus obviously agreed with.

     “He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’” For the next few weeks, I’m going to be taking a bit of a look at pride and its consequences and the challenges it presents to us, and then in about a month I’m going to be coming back to this idea of the followers of Jesus being servants and asking what that really means. But today I just want to focus on this obsession we have with greatness and with how we define it. I find the Guinness Book of World Records a fascinating thing, and it always amazes me how many silly and even dangerous things people will do to get in on being a part of a world record. Just a few days ago – at a Presbye=tery meeting of all things – I heard about people who tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by being a part of the picture of the most people holding stuffies! I’ve personally never done anything dangerous for that purpose, but I did once try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. It was several years ago in Port Colborne, and the City organized what they hoped would make Guinness as the biggest water gun fight ever. Hannah and I both took part. This is us after the fight:

     It doesn’t show up too well in the picture but we were soaked from head to toe. We had spent about half an hour running around the local park firing water pistols at everyone we saw and having everyone we saw firing water pistols at us. Unfortunately, even though there were about 850 of us in the fight, I think we fell a little bit short of the record – but we tried. I have some other claims to greatness. I am one of the relatively few ordained people in the history of the Christian faith to have preached in two different millennia! And about 15 years ago I may have become the first (and maybe still the only) ordained minister to have baptized baby boys named Jackson on two consecutive Sundays. I mean – it’s not a common name, and it’s a pretty recent name! Whatever it might be, the ways we define greatness from a human perspective are a bit silly – because as Christians the only thing that should really matter to us is how Jesus defined greatness. Right? “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” From a worldly perspective, that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s true: real greatness is defined not by our spectacular accomplishments, but by our humble service. That’s easy to forget.

     Jesus was a model of humility. Humility doesn’t mean never speaking out or being noticed – Jesus did plenty of that – but it means being noticed in such a way that you don’t always make yourself the centre of attention. So in response to the argument of his disciples about who was the greatest “he took a little child and put it among them ...” Even without the words he spoke (I’ll get to those in a second) the simple symbolism of putting a child among them was important. Children were looked on as weak and vulnerable and they didn’t belong in the company of adults. In the context of the time, they were to be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen if possible. But Jesus took the time to find a child, and put the child in their midst. The point was simple – Jesus took the time to focus on the weak and the vulnerable of his society; he invited them into his presence; he put them in the centre. He made them the most important people of all. But Jesus was doing more than just illustrating for his disciples that greatness is defined not by importance but by service to the weak and vulnerable. Jesus actually claimed identity with the child; he made himself one with the child: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” It is in those who are the weakest and most vulnerable and least privileged of our society that we truly find Christ; it is in serving them (not paternalistically as in “we know best” but as true servants who hear them and listen to them) that we truly serve God.

     With all due respect to Muhammad Ali or Wayne Gretzky or anyone else who has either claimed the title of “the greatest” or has had it thrust upon them, greatness isn’t defined by how many people you’ve knocked out or by how many goals you’ve scored. Greatness is defined by humble service, and by a person’s willingness to give of themselves for the sake of the least, and by our willingness to make the most vulnerable the most important of all.

   

September 9 sermon - The Unnamed Woman Who Changed The World

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

(Mark 7:24-30)

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     Labour Day is over, school is back and Sunday School starts today! So it’s time to ask the age old question: how did your summer go? I can remember that was often one of the first assignments I’d be given in school – I had to write some sort of story about what I did over the last couple of months. I don’t have to write those stories anymore but it’s always interesting to look back. Some of us probably had nice vacations; some went to the cottage; some just stayed home; some probably worked the summer away. And for some – for a variety of reasons – the summer probably didn’t turn out the way you expected. That’s life, as they say. I don’t know what time of year it was when the incident recounted in today’s Gospel reading occurred – but it might have been summer, because it seems that Jesus was looking for some time off; a bit of time away. “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there,” we’re told. It might well have been summer – a time when a lot of us are looking forward to taking life at a slower pace and just getting away from it all for a little while. Jesus needed to get away. He had been experiencing a very busy time in his ministry. He had been surrounded by crowds of people in different parts of Galilee, and he had spent time teaching them. In the synagogues and in the countryside, on top of mountains and at the seashore he had been busy teaching. He was in need of a break. And so he found a spot on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (and doesn’t that sound nice!) and he set himself up in a little house to rest and relax; to do away with his weariness and stress. And then – the most irritating thing happened! This woman, who undoubtedly had heard about him from stories that were circulating, found him there and invaded his privacy and interrupted his rest, in order to make a request of him.

     This was a woman who – at least as far as Mark was concerned – had no name. It sounds a bit like today to be honest. How often do we neglect to learn the names of the desperate and the hurting people around us? Instead of learning their names we ignore them, we pity them or we make them statistics – but how often do we learn their names? This was a Greek woman, apparently from the region of Syrophoenicia, which was basically what we would call Syria today. Mark doesn’t tell us why she had traveled to where she encountered Jesus, but while there she had heard stories about this miracle healer who had come to stay in the area, and the stories interested her, because she was in need of healing – not for herself but for her daughter. We don’t know really what was wrong with her daughter. Mark says that she “had an unclean spirit,” but exactly what that meant we don’t know. There are a lot of diseases we understand today that were once thought to be demonic. Perhaps she had a mental illness; perhaps she was an epileptic and suffered seizures. Mark doesn’t explain, but something was definitely wrong with the little girl and her mother was determined to get her help. So if there was a worker of miracles around – a healer who had demonstrated power over even demons – then she was determined to find him and get his help, even if he was tired and in need of rest. And so she found out where Jesus was staying – and she showed up. She explained her story to Jesus and told him that she needed him to work a miracle; to heal her daughter.

     Jesus’ response is very un-Jesus-like. Actually, this passage is one that reminds us that as much as we talk about Jesus as the Son of God, he was also very much the Son of Man – and his humanity sometimes shows forth so clearly that it can make us uncomfortable. We see it in the grief that he sometimes expresses and in the anger he sometimes explodes with. In this passage what we see is an irritated Jesus who not only dismisses this woman – but who insults her in the process. He actually compared this woman to a dog: “… it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” were Jesus’ actual words. In a 1960 book the biblical scholar Floyd Filson wrote in reflecting on this passage that he believed Jesus must have winked at the woman when he said that, suggesting that Jesus was being playful and friendly rather than rude and condescending. But I don’t see any evidence of that. First, it sounds a bit whiny. The words “it’s not fair” always get under my skin to be honest. Who ever said everything was going to be fair? But basically, this was a somewhat rude way of saying what Jesus said at another time as “I only came for the lost sheep of Israel.” His point was that then – at that time – his ministry was directed to a specific group of people. And we should understand the meaning of the word “dog” in this context. He wasn’t using it in the way it would be used today – to refer to a woman’s appearance; basically he was comparing her to an animal that at the time was seen as no better than a detested scavenger; a pest to be eradicated. In that context, Jesus was basically trying to shoo the woman away. It’s not what we expect from Jesus – but it’s perhaps moments like that that make Jesus a little more approachable. Who among us hasn’t at times been irritable and perhaps even a little bit insulting when someone interrupts our down time? So Jesus really isn’t that much different than we are. But while I actually appreciate this very human portrayal of Jesus, I’m even more interested in the woman with no name.

     You have to recognize and admire this woman’s love for her daughter and for her commitment and persistence. She was a very clever woman, and she understood what Jesus’ answer meant; she knew he was trying to shoo her away. But she didn’t give up. Jesus could help her daughter and that was all that mattered, so – no matter what – he was going to help her daughter! No ifs, ands or buts about it! “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” It seems that her words softened Jesus up. Maybe he took a deep breath; maybe he counted to 10. Maybe he just thought regretfully, “I shouldn’t have said that.” What said was, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.” And the woman went home, and found her daughter lying on the bed, and the little girl was healed. The demon was gone. All was well.

     So – it’s a really good story, but does it justify the extravagant title I’ve given to today’s message? Did this unnamed woman really change the world? Did this one little event that takes up seven verses of Mark’s Gospel (and seven more in Matthew’s) really make such a difference? I think so. We need to look at the bigger picture of how this fits into the story. Let’s go backward for a moment. A few weeks ago I preached from a passage in Mark 6 just before this one: the feeding of the five thousand. That’s a mind-boggling story. Then comes this story in Mark 7, and then we get another feeding miracle in Mark 8, as Jesus feeds four thousand with very little food to start. The first feeding story takes place in Galilee – in Jewish territory. The second takes place in an area called the Decapolis – which was Gentile territory. The point is that between the first and second feeding miracles Jesus has shifted from a ministry that was directed only to Jews to a ministry directed to all. And, for Mark at least, the hinge between those two events – where the world turned, you might say – was this encounter Jesus had with an unnamed Gentile woman, whose plea leads him to broaden his horizons, so to speak, and expand his ministry. In a way, you might say that this was Jesus’ “AHA!” moment. Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had to grow in wisdom, and this might have been the point at which he suddenly realized “this is bigger than I ever thought!” That woman’s persistence might, in fact, have changed the world. If she hadn’t interrupted Jesus’ Mediterranean vacation when would Jesus have encountered Gentiles, since most of his life was spent in Galilee? And if he had never encountered Gentiles that it’s quite possible that the whole history of the Christian faith (and, therefore, the whole history of the world) would have been different! It’s at least possible to think that maybe Jesus would have been remembered by a few people simply as a rejected Jewish Messiah rather than being celebrated by billions of people as the Saviour of the world!

     Perhaps not surprisingly, this unnamed woman is not one of the better known women of the Bible. Without a name, she fades away into a bit of obscurity. And yet, you could argue that she’s one of the giants of the Christian faith. This unnamed woman reminds all of us who follow Jesus to display open doors of welcome, open arms of compassion and open hearts of love to all; to set aside our differences and to celebrate that we are all God’s children. She exemplifies love for her daughter, persistence in caring for her daughter and faith through her belief that Jesus could help. And Jesus responded to this woman. Maybe her qualities reminded him just a bit of God – God’s love for all people and God’s persistence in caring for us. Maybe this woman shows us that by acts of sincere and deep love – by God and by God’s people - the world is changed – even just a little bit at a time, person by person. John McAfee wrote that “the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” This unnamed woman is just a bit player in the Bible – probably because she has no name for us to remember her by. But she was crazy enough to believe that she could convince Jesus to help her daughter, and by her faith in Jesus’ healing power and her love for her daughter she really did change the world, and her example – if it’s followed – continues to do so, if those of us who follow her today are crazy enough to believe that each one of us can make a difference.