5 May 19
Psalm 107: 1-2,
23-31
This psalm is the first psalm of the fifth and last section of the Book
of Psalms. This section has been used
for centuries as the psalm for sea going people. Although less and less in our secular
culture, the RCN would use this section regularly in its naval commemorations
like today.
The poetic structure has two focal
points, like an ellipse. There is human
cry/divine deliverance and then human response of thanksgiving for the love of
God.
There are four cases reported and in each one
there is the same pattern:
Cry/deliverance and thanksgiving.
This poet seems to know perhaps too well what it is to be 1. a poor lost
soul in the desert, or 2. a prisoner living in horrific conditions of jail, or
3, seriously ill, feeling like death was the only way out, or 4. terrified by
the threat of drowning at sea. Our
section was obviously written by a sailor who, like most experienced sailors,
would be revolted by any notion about the romance of the sea. In our reading the thanksgiving of the author
comes with the advice the whole community in solidarity with this poor sailor
home safe from the sea might want to give thanks to God, a community
thank-offering as we are doing today.
The sailor’s psalm.
Acts 9: 1-6
The book of acts, acts of the earliest followers of Jesus of Nazareth
tell us about the work right after Jesus is murdered and resurrected. Here we learn a bit more about Peter, and
John and those Jews who wanted more of the way of Jesus. They were known, not so much as Christains,
but as people of the way, mostly but not exclusively jewish. These included Stephen and Philip. It is here we meet the chief prosecutor: Saul
of Tarsus.
This reading has had
as much an impact on the church, maybe more than even the resurrection. It’s key question is this: “Oh Saul why do you hate me so much?”
It sets into motion
Paul’s incredible influence on Christianity.
There was no other figure as unique as was Paul. His experience as we will read was not normal
nor something you or me or any other person will ever experience.
Before this reading, Paul, known as Saul, was a hard-nosed rigid high
energy conservative who had no patience or tolerance of anyone thinking like an
adult. He was obsessed with purity of
race and religion. His focused zeal fed
by hatred led to death and suffering of followers of Jesus. His uncompromising persecution exceeded that
of most of his Jewish colleagues, and indeed even that of his teacher
Gamaliel. His rigidity we see today
reflected in those shooting the faithful of those who are not like them.
And here we read of
Paul’s turning point, a radical and very rare change in direction.
Acts 9
John 21: 7-10, 12-14
Chapter 21 of John is like an
epilogue to John. It seems to end at the
end of chapter 20, after reporting three post resurrection encounters with
Jesus. The first three happened in
Jerusalem, but this one is different, it happened in Galilee by the sea shore.
Chapter 21 consists of 25
verses. There are three scenes and a
conclusion. Peter and six other
disciples decide to go fishing. It was a
futile effort until some guy on share, probably too far away to be seen well
yells at them to try fishing on the other side.
The scene ends with the astounding news that this guy is actually Jesus
back from the dead.
The second scene places Jesus doing
one of the things he loved to do, cook, recline at the table and eat together
with friends and students.
The third scene is usually the scene
most emphasized in bible studies because it is here Peter’s three denials are
reversed by his three affirmations of love.
Peter is restored to favour.
We will read the end of the first
scene and then most of the second scene.
What is theologically critical in this scene is seeing that Jesus is
indeed so alive that he cooks, cares for and feeds his students breakfast.
This breakfast
symbolized the reversal of the cross. The emptiness of chaos will never stamp
out what the human race can do with God’s creation: the spirit that his closest followers knew in
him before he died is not dead at all.
Jesus lives.
Watch for these tell-tale lines I’ve
underlined: “It is the Lord,” have
breakfast, gave them bread and fish.
John 21 scenes 1 and 2.
5 May 19 BoA
Psalm 107: 1-2, 23-31
Acts 9: 1-6, John 21: 7-10, 12-14
Turning Points
We meet you, O
Christ, in the ebb and flow of our lives. We hear you in sound of the sea. We hear you in one another’s words. You are with us in times of life’s turning.
May your Spirit help us to hear your voice, trust your call, and companion others
in your way. Amen.
For the next few weeks I plan to
look at our stages of maturation particularly as adult members of a faith
community. Most religious and
psychological literature written has focused on children and their stages of development. And that is fine for parents and teachers,
but it doesn’t help us adults understand how we mature through all the great
stages of adult life, and it certainly doesn’t help us people of faith to
understand how we mature as faithful adults.
So I thought a series of sermons on our adult faith development might be
meaningful.
Let’s start with the most unusual
sudden most unexpected change called the Damascus Road Experience. Most of us will thankfully never have to deal
with the extreme trauma that Saul had to face, and nor do we need to.
Saul’s personality problems put him
in an extreme level of destructive cruelty.
Saul was self-centered, socially destructive, narrow minded, smart,
focused, ambitious, callous, and dangerous.
He was not like us. He was not like
the thousands of volunteers who crewed the ships facing the extreme threat of
torpedo violence on the moist inhospitable seas on the planet during the Battle
of the Atlantic. In fact, Saul was the
deadly torpedo of unlimited sea warfare.
After Damascus, Paul emerged with
the same determination, the same singlemindedness, the same intellectual and
leadership abilities. So what had
transformed? It is as if we went to the
train station to go to Montreal and decided to get on the train for Toronto!
For Paul, there was a quantum change to adopting the compassion of God
and a passion for reformation of religion according to the teachings of the
resurrected Christ. In Paul, suddenly,
Jesus was living again.
Paul shifted
apparently after a single sudden traumatic event.
Sadly, our culture tries to lock us into compliance and dogmatic
obedience, as once was Saul, albeit in a much more moderate form.
For example when I told a wonderful long standing dear friend of mine
about my intention to join the colour to conquer cancer campaign they were
shocked saying that I must not because of the gravitas of my calling. I nearly called it off as being non-compliant
and disobedient. The cultural norm
nearly dominated.
Uncritical compliance and obedience in service to the status quo leads
to the deadness of the cross. It leads
us eventually to treat all creation, our family, our friends, our colleagues,
our employees, our natural resources, our boss, and our knowledge as objects
for us to exploit. And that in turn we
know sows the seeds of destruction that progressively will plunge ourselves
into emptiness and alienation.
The alternative is our steady adult maturation, which is alive and
dynamic like Easter joy. Changing as
adults in faith keeps us supple, fluid and respectful of the creative newness
of God. From that spot we sow the seeds
of purpose and meaningful lives.
Our faith must change as it takes into account the accumulation of
experiences which floods our brains in a world filled with so much cruel pain
and suffering. Our brains today are
coping with the horror of unlimited sea warfare in the North Atlantic. Our brains are coping today with perversity
of gun violence in faith centres and schools of the United States and
Canada. Our brains are coping today with
children in locked cages in the most democratic experiment of world
history. Our brains are coping with
increasing evidence of the destruction power by human hands of
industrialization. Our brains are
coping with the high suicide rates at Canadian universities.
Sometimes we might wonder if the world would be better off without the
human species.
That wondering, halleluiah, is God’s intervention and our opportunity
for maturing our faith. If we wonder if
the world would be better off without us we may as well admit we have heard
Jesus’ say: “Saul why do you hate me so much?”
Our homework is to keep wondering out loud as if we hear our Jesus
asking: Why do you hate me so much?
Our homework is to
wonder how we too, like the disciples of John’s breakfast story, get past the
dead cross and know that Jesus lives.
Our homework is to watch out for Jesus telling us to fish on the other
side. Our homework is to look for life
after the cross in the other stories that so often fail to register in our
brains or printed in our newspapers.
Are we eating
breakfast with Jesus when we help our neighbors protect their homes from
floods?
Are we eating
breakfast with Jesus when we practice recycling?
Are we eating
breakfast with Jesus when we open our doors to immigration from across the
globe?
Are we eating
breakfast with Jesus when we protest the physical punishment of children?
Are we eating
breakfast with Jesus when we support those standing up to corruption and
obstructions?
What are we doing
right and how can we do more?
Go out in peace to follow
Jesus, our Shepherd. Receive His
hospitality in the BBQ on the sea shore.
Model the hospitality of God in our world so that others will pause long
enough to remember how we got to be the people of God in this miracle of our
Canada. Amen.
21 Apr 19 Easter
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9
Our first reading comes from one of the long forgotten books held in
the secret archives of Christian temples for centuries. It was written about 150 years before Christ
and would have been in the scriptures of our Jesus and his generation. It is part of those books that were to be
read: the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Job.
In its amazing poetry lies the theology about justice from God in the
Messiah. Now, two models about justice
existed in the Jesus Bible. The first
model teaches that justice would come before death, like it did for Daniel in
the lion’s den. Secondly, justice would come after death for those like John
the Baptist. We know well the first, but
know little about the second. The reform
church has largely ignored any God talk about God’s justice includes those
wrongly killed, coming after their death.
This is the god talk of this reading.
The author actually sharply criticizes the exclusive claim that
salvation is only for the living. Watch
for the clear correction with the words underlined. Jesus and his disciples would have understood
justice of God is for all creation and that justice had to have already started
before resurrection. Hence Jesus taught:
the Kingdom of God is here. Halleluiah!
Halleluiah!
The Wisdom of Solomon
Matthew 27: 50-54,
Matthew tries to write in his
book the theology that justice is inclusive: it is here for those before death,
and justice is here for those already dead.
Matthew is the only one who tries to teach this inclusive justice. His attempt is clumsy, because this God talk
is messy. Mark, Luke and John jump over
this difficulty. They say nothing about
Holy Saturday, the time between the grave Friday evening and sunrise Sunday
morning.
The early church accepted this
awkwardness and gave it a name.
Translated from Greek it is called in English: The Harrowing of Hell. The Harrowing of Hell means literally “robbing
the underworld.” What else could be
stolen from the underworld but the dead?
The Harrowing of Hell is depicted in this amazing fresco from the fourth century AD in the
Chora Church in Istanbul. In the centre
we see Jesus. He is reaching out on his
left to the first Martyr: Abel, murdered unjustly by his brother. On his right, he is reaching out to John the
Baptist, the first martyr of Jesus, murdered unjustly by the King. Look deeper and we see Jesus reaching out to
Adam and Eve, and hoards of others.
Examine his feet and you will see him standing on the two broken gates
of hell, in between which you will see amongst the broken bones, Satan
defeated, bound and gagged.
Ignoring the existence of time
and place; Matthew places the harrowing of hell at the moment of the death of
Christ. If we ignore a concrete
time-line and we see that between the death and resurrection of Christ the dead
shall be raised and we shall be changed.
Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
The Harrowing of Hell of Matthew
Luke 24:1-12
This second
gospel reading starts with the day of resurrection. Luke, like both Mark and John, puts in nothing
but a dead Jesus-in-his-grave between death and resurrection.
With 53
verses, Luke devotes the second largest narrative of Easter, second only to
John. There are a number of details we
find only in Luke’s account of the resurrection. Later in Luke, unlike Matthew and Mark, the
resurrected Jesus appears in and around Jerusalem only, and never in Galilee. I’ve underlined in the reading how Luke
brings us back to the lessons in Galilee.
Luke includes Galilee by noting that Jesus in the beginning taught in
Galilee, and what do we find at the beginning?
We find there that the kingdom of God is happening and the Nazarene’s
mission comprises four things only: liberating the prisoner, lifting up the
oppressed, healing the sick, and enlightening the ignorant. Halleluiah,
halleluiah!
Secondly, there
is a great line found only in Luke, a line that gives us the heart of Luke’s resurrection
account. “Why look for the living among the dead?”
The
enduring eternally life of justice comes from those truly alive, not from the
dead. This compels us to see that those justice
seekers killed by injustice are not really dead at all. Once again we feel that the underworld is
robbed of its dead: the harrowing of hell.
Halleluiah, halleluiah!
The
Resurrection in Luke:
21 Apr 19 Easter
Wisdom 3:1-9, Matt 27: 50-54, Lk
24:1-12
Fulfilling all Creation
Holy One, renew our wonder and open our
hearts.
Amen.
What
happened between the burial at
sunset on Friday and dawn
on Sunday? What happened on Saturday?
Lost for centuries in the secret
books of the Vatican is the story that doubles the already overwhelming joy of
Easter Resurrection. We are already
overjoyed with the news that He is risen, Halleluiah, Halleluiah. This God-talk doubles
that joy.
About 200 years ago, several
ancient texts of the forbidden books were seriously re-examined. Most of these texts were kept hidden because
it was believed only the most educated priests had the intellect needed to
understand them. It was a left over from
the days before the printing press. Included
in this collection is the book called Wisdom of Solomon
While the Wisdom book is not part
of our bible, it was a sacred text for our Jesus and we would be remise to
ignore its god talk.
So back to
the question how is our joy
doubled? The reason is directly
related to the missing day of Holy Week: the day we could call Holy Saturday. Along with Paul, Matthew, and the Peter’s
letter, the Book of Wisdom helps us with this question.
So we are joyful
at Easter because death itself
could not contain Jesus. We are joyful that His resurrection eternalized
His teaching about the most excellent way of God. Halleluiah halleluiah! We rejoice
because that means the compassion of God is so large we know that we too be
free of our weaknesses and thus we can always try again to be the just creation envision by God for
earth just as it is found in heaven. Halleluiah halleluiah! Jesus lives.
Halleluiah halleluiah! Regardless of our mistakes we are freed by
Jesus to live in His vision! Halleluiah halleluiah!
Our joy is completed by this astounding
God talk: All the adherents of God’s
vision dead before Jesus are not dead, they are raised.
The trumpet shall sound and the incorruptible
dead shall be raised to teach again the way of God. Halleluiah! Halleluiah! And we shall be changed, we all shall be
transformed, and even the gates of chaotic hell cannot stop the change. Halleluiah!
Halleluiah! The
evolving creation of God has been persisting since the beginning over the incomplete
and unjust society.
Including all for the healing of
the creation is the ultimate inclusion of Jesus. In the mystery of God’s Holy Spirit, there
has been, there is and there will be a holy partnership that advances God’s
creation as only God intends. That means
that despite the oftentimes overwhelming destructive chaos around us, a wondrous
future for our children and grandchildren and on through the generations is
assured. Halleluiah halleluiah!
Thus Resurrection is not only the new life for Jesus. Resurrection is not only new life for those
following Jesus, but Resurrection is so complete it must also embraces the
already dead who had followed Jesus onto their own cross. Halleluiah halleluiah!
Hence the reason we say we
believe that Jesus descended into hell between internment and
resurrection. He descends into the realm
of chaos to steal the dead back to the living. Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
So homework, how do we celebrate
this added joy of resurrection?
We celebrate it as suggested by
Handel’s Messiah: from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality
We celebrate it as suggested by
Matthew: The tombs broke open and the
bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to new life.
We pass by the tombs of our holy cemeteries
all the time. We pay tribute at the
gravesites of those whom we have loved.
So for homework, as we pass by or
we walk among the tombstones, maybe we can recall the harrowing of hell. Maybe we can be filled with the knowledge
that resurrection is totally inclusive: Resurrection includes our Jesus. Resurrection, coming before death includes
those of us alive today. Resurrection coming
after death includes all the pre-Easter holy people found in the underworld.
Resurrection is for all
creation: he is risen: halleluiah, halleluiah!
The trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on
in-corruption and this mortal must put on immortality. Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
14 April 2019
Ps 118:1-2, 19-29
Found in the last of five books, it
is a hymn of thanksgiving used to process in a festival, a feast, just like we
did this morning. This song is the last
of the six halleluiah psalms; that is “the praise to God” psalms.
One must never think
the psalmist wrote this for the Palm Sunday parade coming 500 years later, as
if the writer had a crystal ball about the parades into Jerusalem. This song was sung all over Israel for
centuries. Jesus, the crowd and all four
gospel writers found themselves singing this song with the Psalm Sunday parade
because it was loved and had been so well passed down generation after
generation. This piece was inspired by a Jewish people coming home from
refugeeism in Babylon with the expressed hope to redevelop their beloved land
and rebuild their beloved temple.
The main reason for
the joy is found in italics…. watch for it.
The rest of the psalm is the frame around the this stated reason and
thee frame is a choir singing thanksgiving to God.
The reason is voiced by one who
knows what it feels like to be rescued by political actions based in
justice. He has been pulled out of the
jaws of death, so to speak.
Furthermore, despite
the troubles of his continuing life, his hope comes from a community praying
for God’s steadfast love.
Psalm 118
Luke 19:28-40
This next reading is but one of the
four accounts of this great event: Jesus rides into Jerusalem at the beginning
of his last week alive on earth.
This is one of those cornerstone
readings upon which we see and the crowds saw that Jesus was not merely an
event, but was in fact a world changing political event. This story puts the political significance in
our face so that we should not ever forget it.
We know it was a monumental political event because we know to whom the
crowds came to see.
We will read about a very well
planned demonstration. The donkey is
pre-arranged, the disciples are deployed to fetch it. The crowds come prepared with extra cloaks
and palm leaves. Their Jesus had a
reputation for equality and compassion, which for three years he had played out
in miracles, exorcisms, short memorable statements, and the metaphorical
stories we call parables,
The enthusiastic support expressed
very lopudly so frightened the leaders to tell Jesus to shut down this
crowd. But it was too late, the fuse had
been lit, the crowds knew hope was at hand and that hope was bigger than Caesar
and his puppet: King Herod. No wonder
Jesus laughs at the leaders by saying: “if you silence this crowd, these very
stones will cry out.”
14 Apr 19 Palm Sunday
Ps 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40
Triumph at the East Gate
Stay near to us, O God, as we
journey through this week. May
remembrances of innocent suffering summon our words and deeds for justice
today! May recollections of steadfast
trust transform reluctance to walk by faith when sight is clouded! This we pray in the name of the Christ we met
at the East Gate. Amen.
There were two parades entering Jerusalem on that day in history. From the West where one finds the opulent
city of Caesarea on the sea came a military parade escorting the puppet king of
Israel and Pontius Pilate with great costs, great armed guards of Rome, with
huge steeds and war chariots. Like the
parades as might see in North Korea today, or in the USSR of 50 years ago or
the Nazi parades in Nuremburg, this parade through the Western Gate was a show
of intimidating power. It was a way of
death, torture, imprisonment, intimidation, control and oppression.
Jesus, who would
have known about this annual event on the Sunday before Passover, offered an
alternative way, the way of his teachings about the Creator. His was a way of non-violent justice, the way
of creative relationships, the way of fairness, and the way of the expectation
of unselfish positive governance. He
arrives from the Eastern arid lands dressed in street clothes, riding
deliberately on the most humble of steed and with an understanding love that
knows no bounds.
The crowds loved Him. The crowds
loved His political message of hope for all creation, even if they did not
comprehend the enormous scope of that message.
This is the triumph of the Eastern Gate: the miracle of the Eastern
Gate.
The crowds so loved him that they chanted defiance against the King
they loathed: Caesar of Rome, Pontius Pilate and his puppet Herod. They proclaimed Jesus as king: “Blessed is
the King who comes in the name of God.”
This was a public defiance with social destabilization guaranteed to
provoke Rome and its puppets. It was
indeed a defiance that is beyond human logic because the consequences of such
public disloyalty included imprisonment, torture, and execution. And such opposition to injustice and a
rejection of discrimination could be considered a miracle on the same scale as
the miracles that the crowds saw in Jesus.
The Eastern Gate feels like the mystical work of a creative Holy Spirit
working alongside these courageous people chanting about the alternative
humility offered by Jesus. I get the
same feeling of the mystical divine hand in play when I see this lawyer sentenced
by Iran to a brutal flogging of 148 lashes and imprisonment for nearly 40 years
for tirelessly defending women and children from the sort of arbitrary
injustice that has now been used to silence her. But that silence will not happen. Canada’s own Margaret Atwood calls for this
lawyer’s immediate release, noting that for the second time this lawyer had won
PEN Canada’s One Humanity award. Other
crowds are crying out with awards to Nasrin Sotoudeh such as the European’s
2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and the 2018 Ludovic Trarieux Human
Rights Prize. Try to silence the crowd
and these very stones will cry out.
While we know that Nasrin Sotoudeh is not the messiah, we also know
that she is part of the timeless miracle of the Eastern Gate. The Eastern Gate miracle did not stop at the
first Palm Sunday; it has re-emerged by followers of the righteousness taught
by Jesus generation after generation. It
will continue to challenge oppressive regimes as long as the uncreated chaos
oozes into God’s beloved world.
When Jesus rode triumphantly through the East Gate, people knew there
would be trouble. Jesus knew he would be
arrested for tirelessly defending women and children. Jesus knew he would likely be tried for
opposing prejudice in any form. Jesus
knew he would likely be executed for demanding leaders exercise power for the
common good. Jesus of course knew also
that the week may end badly for Him, but three days later His new start would
set into motion the wheels that in the fullness of time will disempowering the
cruel.
We know so far, like other disciples of creative righteousness, that
the ending for Nasrin Sotoudeh is not good.
But we know also that in the fullness of time, the triumph of the Easter
Gate will defeat the cruel. In the
fullness of God’s time it will not end well for leaders who do not govern for
the common good. We pray that God does
not wait too long.
For homework, we might list those we know who have stood up at great
personal costs to powers not governing for the common-good. It might surprise you how many there are.
They are the disciples of Jesus who have not been silenced: Tasima Nasrin,
exiled for writing against misogyny in religions, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
kidnapped and tortured for seeking their children who had disappeared in
Argentina’s dictatorship of 1976, Malala Yousafzair, wounded for calling on
education for girls in Pakistan, and Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years
for opposing apartheid. Let us go out
and look for the stones that will cry out when oppression tries to silence its
opponents.
Go into the world, empowered and encouraged by the presence of the Holy
Spirit to shout, “Hosanna in the highest!”
May God protect you in your days and guide you in your ways! Go in
peace.