Sunday, June 30, 2024

Mark 5: 21:43 - 30 June 2024 - Scarboro UC Calgary

An old man had a habit of early morning walks on the beach. One day, after a storm, he saw a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer. As he came closer he saw that it was a young woman and she was not dancing but was reaching down to the sand, picking up a starfish and very gently throwing them into the ocean.

"Young lady", he asked, "Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?"

"The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in they will die."

"But young lady, do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You cannot possibly make a difference."

The young woman listened politely, paused and then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves, saying: "It made a difference for that one."

This story, which began as an essay about 50 years ago by American Anthropologist Loren Eiseley then has been heavily adapted since then, opens today’s sermon as we consider the Missional table setting of the theological banquet. I offer this story with no small amount of affection for yes, at the table of the theological banquet I sit with the missionals. It’s a part of the table located so that we can easily get up as needed, because us missionals are helpers. Those of a spiritual inclination deepened my faith in my 50s,
evangelicals enlivened me in my 40s,
I married an ecumenical in my 20s
and from childhood have loved the church in a way befitting an ecclesial,
but in my actions – which is the decision point in the theological banquet - I am a missional, seeing the starfish, being moved by their plight, and helping them back into the water.

Perhaps no two place settings are more closely related than the missional, described by Dr. Janet Gear (p.118) as those who have “an authentically lived faith which expresses itself in hands-on relationships marked by empathy, healing, and care”, and the ecumenical, the social justice activists who gather with other allies to name and challenge the root causes of society’s ills. A variation of the starfish story has the wise elder encouraging the starfish thrower to stop spending so much time saving individual starfish and, instead, address whatever is causing so many of these beings to be lobbed onto the beach, and rather than setting that up as an either/or I would suggest that those higher-order questions and the timely actions that keep beached starfish from baking in the sun must work in concert with one another. The ecumenical is not unconcerned with the immediate need, and the missional is not unaware of the complexity that creates the need, each is more nuanced than that. Whether one’s primary action is seeking systemic solutions for the entire population of starfish, or helping them get back into the sea one by one, the call of Jesus is heard, to be outwardly focused, deeply and meaningfully engaged with the lives of those in need.

In this morning’s reading from the gospel of Mark, Jesus exhibits both forms of service, making an abrupt improvement in the lives of two desperately ill women, while also forcefully declaring God’s desire to address the forces impacting those in need. Using a form frequently employed by Mark, one healing story is sandwiched in the middle of another healing story: the outer story begins with Jairus, a leader of the synagogue in Capernaum, who urgently calls on Jesus to heal his daughter, who hovers between life and death. A few verses later, amidst the protests of those with the girl who said she had already died, Jesus forges ahead and does two very missional things: he reaches out with healing and gently says to her, “get up, little one” – and after she does so, he turns to the people in the house and directs them to get her something to eat. That’s the outer reading of these verses, and in between the request by Jairus and the healing by Jesus is another story: of the woman experiencing an endless flow of blood, who reaches out in desperation to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment – does so – and is healed. In this case the healing is enacted not by the conscious actions of Jesus, but by the woman’s accurate belief that the healing power of Jesus can put an end to her suffering. Healing for the 12 year old girl comes through the verbally expressed faith of a parent at wits’ end and the healing touch of Jesus, and fullness of healing for a woman tormented for 12 years by a flow of blood comes as the woman reaches out to touch the God who expresses healing and wholeness for all of creation.

Focusing on the story in the middle of today’s lesson, Reformed Church Pastor Alisha Riepma writes, “This unnamed woman… not only suffered from continuous bleeding for many years, but also that dirty, unclean feeling resulting from being stigmatized and isolated…. Jesus meets her in this space—or, rather, is met by her—and does the opposite of what is expected. Instead of being repulsed or disgusted by her, he responds with peace…acceptance and grace…[and] understanding. He calls her daughter. He accepts her [and] heals her”. Jesus, who did not see this woman touch him but felt the healing power move, treated her with dignity, as he engaged the little girl with restorative power and deep gentleness. Reaching past social stigmas attached to illness and women’s monthly cycles, the healing power restores these females both medically and socially to a place of wholeness, and as Alisha writes, the promise of restorative touch is offered to all: “Jesus meets us where we are and reminds us of our belovedness”.

Another angle of approach about this middle story tells us even more about the way that the actions and intentions of Jesus combine a healing of all the things that ail our bodies, minds, and spirits, all the things that create unfair limitations. I share this with a note of thanks to my teammate, Amy Haynes, who, in the Scarboro Friday newsletter flagged a podcast by Dr. Angela N. Parker. Angela identifies points of connection between the suffering experienced by this woman and the sufferings experienced by Christ on the cross. This woman, who had seen many doctors over twelve years who only made things worse for her, also dealt with the humiliating exclusions of those who experience all manner of bleeding, from monthly periods to ongoing wounds. Through faith and determination, the woman reaches for Jesus, touching only the hem of his garment, exercising what little agency she had and while he could not see her he felt her touch. In reaching out to Jesus, this woman of great faith was reaching out one who would in his own life deal with things being made much worse for him by the actions of others, who would experience his own flow of blood from being flogged, who would endure the ultimate Imperial humiliation – that is, crucifixion. And even more than that, both Dr. Angela and my Greek-translating friend, Dr. Mark Davis, point out that the Greek text of Mark 5 technically says that this woman was “in a flow of blood” rather than she “had a flow of blood”, and Angela then interprets that this woman was a Galilean who “had seen much bloodshed as a result of Imperialistic suffering” – and in that, connects yet again with Jesus, the one who to this day is so profoundly connected to all persons who bear the marks of Empire on their body.

Within the missional framework we start with the person, presence and example of Jesus, which repeatedly calls us to listen respectfully to the experience of others, seeking empathy and connection and bearing the healing impulse of Christ. Reaching out to others in love in the name of Jesus can be simple and practical, and it can also be profound and touching, especially when dealing with people who are unaccustomed to being treated with dignity, affection and hope. In reaching out in such ways, we do truly become the “hands and feet of Christ”.

As with all modes of responding to the call of Jesus Christ, there are ways that us missionals can easily slide off the rails. Speaking personally, I enjoy being busy doing Christ’s work and in so doing can easily get so focused on the trees that I miss what’s going on with the forest, and frontline, hands-on aid can easily foster dependency without even knowing it; and the Church bears the shame of the Indian Residential Schools, in which evangelism and missional concern were attached inseparably to the goals of colonialism. As a third-generation United Church cleric, the Residential School fiasco, in particular, creates a personal imperative to make sure that whatever we do as Church from here on is founded in anti-oppressive practice, continuously checking in with those we work with to ensure that we’re not falling into paternalistic do-goodism, or sliding into the goals of empire rather than the liberating, healing, justice-bringing goals of the Kin-dom of God.

And so we turn to the Holy One for renewal, focus and no small amount of forgiving grace, as we seek faithful response to God and neighbour. In all the ways we hear God’s call and respond – Evangelical, Ecclesial, Ecumenical, Spiritual, Missional, and all the combinations therein – may we be motivated by love. In all the ways we hear God’s call and respond, may we be a people who listen with respect, and check our actions against the person and practice of Jesus. In all the ways we hear God’s call and respond, may Christ’s own concern for those oppressed and marginalized by the powers and principalities find expression. By the transformative power of divine grace, may all this be so. Amen.

References cited and consulted:

Davis, D. Mark. https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/

Eiseley, Loren The Star Thrower. NYC: Random House, cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Thrower

Gear, Janet. Undivided Love. Altona, MB: Friesen, 2022.

https://nctr.ca/education/teaching-resources/residential-school-history/

Parker, Angela N. with woman interviewere. https://www.christiancentury.org/blog-post/contemplating-now/episode-10-breathing-mysticism-conversation-angela-n-parker

Resta, Robert. https://thednaexchange.com/2019/01/20/the-benefits-and-blinders-of-do-goodism/

Riepma, Alisha. https://www.faithward.org/the-woman-who-bled-for-12-years/

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Mark 4: 26-34 - 16 June 2024 - Indigenous Day of Prayer - Scarboro UC Calgary

Today’s message begins with four snapshots.

The first is the most recent, and it features mustard. In the parable we heard this morning, the amount of faith/trust that we have in God is likened to a tiny little mustard seed, which when nourished by sun, rain and soil nutrients is sufficient for the seed to flourish. Having walked through mustard fields six years ago around the Sea of Galilee, I can tell you firsthand that mustard easily grows to shoulder height; perhaps not a tree, but BIG. And when we were walking through that field, I can also tell you that the bees of Galilee like mustard, A LOT, so the field of mustard was humming as if to proclaim, “when mustard-seed faith blooms and grows to its full height, it is not silent!”

As I share the other three snapshots, we keep that little mustard seed in mind, and the potential God places within us that is intended to grow and flourish and create life that is both healthy and expressive.

The second snapshot comes from the Rev Dr Chief John Snow Sr., in his book, These Mountains are our Sacred Places. He wrote, “Our philosophy of life sees the Great Sprit’s creation as a whole piece…. It is not enough to say that the Mountains were the Stoney’s’ traditional place of prayer because…reverence for nature, which revealed religious truth was woven throughout all parts of the social structure and observed in conjunction with every activity…..[In our traditional ways], everywhere the spirits of all living things were alive. We talked to the rocks, the streams, the trees, the plants, the herbs, and all nature’s creations. We called the animals our brothers…and at times [these siblings] revealed important events or visited us on our vision quests to the mountain tops. Truly, we were part of and related to the universe, and these animals were a very special part of the Great Spirit’s creation. And in the very rocks themselves, we sense the presence of the ancestors”.

I first read those words in my undergrad days, and John Snow Sr’s description of Stoney spirituality planted seeds of curiosity in me. Little did I know that some thirty-five years later, living in Canmore, I would enter relationship with those same sacred mountains and would get to know and work with many members of John Sr’s family, including his children Rev John Snow Jr, Rev Tony Snow, and student minister Gloria Snow.

The third snapshot comes from 1986, when the United Church of Canada issued its first apology to Indigenous Peoples, spoken by our Moderator at the time, the Very Rev Bob Smith. It said, “Long before my people journeyed to this land your people were here, and you received from your Elders an understanding of creation and of the Mystery that surrounds us all that was deep, and rich, and to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the value of your spirituality. We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be. We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God’s creation healed”.

The words of that first apology were, to me, the most powerful, necessary and faithful words that our denomination has ever spoken. The good news of Jesus Christ is good seed to plant in our lives, but when the good news of Jesus gets tamed and intermingled with the invasive species of colonialism, the end result both misrepresents the liberating love of our Lord and Saviour and disrespects the first inhabitants of the land and their sacred stories.

The fourth snapshot comes from the same time frame as the third one: In the early to mid 1980s, the United Church of Canada worked with local Indigenous leadership to create a series of Indigenous Presbyteries within the new All Native Circle Conference. At that time, Shannon and I had the huge privilege of travelling to the Peepeekisis nation, treaty 4 territory (Saskatchewan), and visiting with Elders who had been involved in this work – Wilf and Walter Dieter, and others who came in and out of the discussion. They spoke openly, with pain and humour and a humbling degree of grace, of their interactions with the Church and the punishment received at Residential School. And while they couldn’t fully understand why or how, there was something so deeply true, so deeply kind and loving and empowering about Jesus, that they remained within the Christian faith, and not just in some nominal way, but as leaders in the Church.

The good news, the divine urge that causes the mustard seed to burst open so that new growth may emerge, found fertile soil in their lives. The Church had a lot to apologize for, from decimating their family structure, forbidding their language, and dismissing the teachings of the elders, and yet… and yet… there was something so totally GOOD in Jesus – his life, teachings, healings, his death and resurrection which defeated all that oppresses us in life and even death itself – that these Indigenous Christian Elders chose to have the risen Christ play a central role in their lives. My mustard seed faith, just starting to germinate, did not look so grand in the presence of their faith which was sturdy and resilient and dignified and defiant. The saving grace of Jesus found a home in them. And yet, even there, where my faith was dwarfed by another’s, Christ tapped me on the shoulder and said: you have what you need. Just stay open, keep listening and engaging, and keep trusting my power to liberate and reconcile and make life new. //

In the Theological Banquet model that is our framework for these June and July Sundays, we look at the various things we DO in response to God. Today, we hear from the EVANGELICAL table setting and its imperative for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ: his preaching, healing, dying and rising, his longing to be in relationship with us, and everything in this world and the next from which we need to be saved. Yes, that sounds at odds with the Indigenous Day of Prayer, but then I recall my visit with Wilfred and Walter Dieter. Today I want to fully honour the sacred vision carried by our Indigenous hosts on this land, articulated in the sacred stories of each first nation, specific to their experience with the Creator. I also want to lift up the good news of Jesus Christ, unfettered by the suppressive power of empire, as a statement of God’s own desire for liberation and life in all abundance.

In her sermon last Sunday, Amy stated it so well: “Jesus’ defeating death means that the powers and principalities that alienate us from God and from one another have been defeated, even though they continue to assail us in the present…. What we have - what the Church has always had that differentiates us [from the type of belonging that we find elsewhere] is the gospel. This saving message of Jesus birth, life, ministry, death and defeat of death by resurrection.” That is the gospel imperative of the Evangelical table setting of the Theological Banquet from here forward: a desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, and God’s endless desire for liberation and everlasting hope. We must become disentangled from colonial vestiges of Christianity, In order to assert that the seed itself is good, and the evangel, the glad tidings of Christ’s change-bringing love, is not only relevant but essential.

It would be naïve and arrogant of me to imagine that it’s easy to peel back centuries of ill-intent, for which the Church remains accountable, to share only a pure version of the good news of Jesus Christ which has been freed from all that other detritus. Our story as Church for at least 1600 years has been one in which the power of empire has so often, too often, travelled with and misinterpreted the gospel of liberative love, and there are habits of comfort that we’ll not easily let go of. Yet I do believe in the enduring and eternal power of Jesus. I do believe that it is God’s intent to set us on a path on which the captive is freed, truth is spoken to power, and transformative love is expressed. And, on this Indigenous Day of Prayer, I also believe that in the act of sharing all that Christ Jesus has meant to our lives, we have a lot of listening to do. At a time when this planet is in such a precarious state, we have so much to learn from our Indigenous hosts on this land about the sacredness of all places, and the family connection forged by the Creator between us and all that surrounds us. Reconciliation, and hope for a new day, begins with listening.

Friends in Christ, may the road ahead indeed be God’s good road, lived with respect, and humility, and resurrection hope. In Christ, Amen.

Ø Hymn from WCC Assembly in Vancouver 1983, VU 588 Many are the lightbeams

References cited:

Snow, Chief John. These Mountains are our Sacred Places. Toronto: Samuel Stevens, 1977.

https://thechildrenremembered.ca/school-histories/file-hill/

United Church of Canada. “All my relations” - http://www.united-church.ca/community-faith/being-community/all-my-relations and “The Apologies” - https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/reconciliation-and-indigenous-justice/apologies

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Luke 1 and 2 -- Christmas Eve All-Ages 2012

I’m going to put you to work tonight: I’m going to ask you to all do some thinking about your life, and then later I’m going to give you a bit of homework to do.

So here’s what I want you to do: I want each of you to think of an activity that is a major gift in your life. What I have in mind is something that you enjoy so much that you’d say it is a big part of what makes you who you are. For example, when I was a kid I really, really enjoyed drawing and colouring, and when I got a little older I discovered road hockey in the winter and football in the summer. Those were big-time gifts in my life – I can’t imagine being a 6 year old without a crayon in my hand, and I can’t imagine being a 12 year old without a group of buddies, and a hockey stick or a football. For you, that special activity might be reading, or playing a musical instrument, or skiing or hiking, or designing or planning things. If you’re an adult, it might even be something you do for a living. So everybody, take a few moments to think of something like that in your life – an activity that really makes you, you. Whatever it is, hold on to that thought – we’re going to come back to it in about one minute.

There’s one verse of O Little Town of Bethlehem that we didn’t sing tonight, and it starts like this:

O Holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast our out sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

At Christmas time, we hear the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. Isn’t that a great story to hear every year? With the angels and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and later on the wise men, it’s been a favourite story of Christians for nearly 2000 years. But perhaps the greatest thing about that story, is that Jesus wasn’t just born that one time and then that was the end of the story. As the Christmas carol says, if we make room, the gift that Jesus brings can be born in us even today.

So now I want you to remember that special gift in your life that you thought of a minute ago. When did that gift really get “born” in you? Was the gift something that a parent enjoyed doing, so you just started doing it as a family & found you really liked it, too? Was the gift something that did not come easy to you at first, and because of your own hard work, it became a permanent part of who you are? Was there a teacher or coach who really got you to believe in yourself, and from that moment on you knew this special gift would be part of your life? Think of the way that this gift was “born” in you.

Now comes the homework. I want you to do two things. First, if it is possible, I want you to thank whoever helped that special gift be born in you. If you’re going to be seeing them at Christmastime, make sure you thank them for this gift, or if they’re far away and you need to phone them, please do. Many times, people who have given these gifts have no idea how important the gift has been to you, and we all like to be thanked for things that have made a difference in someone’s life.

The second thing I want you to do, will be part of a prayer we say together. At Christmastime we think about Jesus, and all that he gives to the world: hope, peace, joy, love, forgiveness, concern, neighbourliness – all those good things. In our closing prayer today I’m going to give a bit of silent time, for you to ask Jesus for one of those gifts that you’d like to be a bigger part of your life. If you tend to hold a grudge and don’t want to do that anymore, ask to be more forgiving. If you’d like to feel more at peace, ask for that. Whatever you need to be “born” in you today, be open to it, and ask God to help you receive it.

I thank you for being here tonight. I thank those who have helped me to enjoy special activities throughout the years. And I thank God, for the gift of Jesus, who brings such fullness and meaning to this day and every day. Amen.

Luke 1 and 2 -- Christmas Eve 2012 - Contemplative Service

Tonight is a night of incarnation – a night when we celebrate the power of the holy being born in our midst.

Our service began with Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55), her song of praise when she learned that her child was to be the long-awaited Holy One. Strongly reminiscent of a well-loved Hebrew scripture song, first sung by Hannah, mother of Samuel, the song on Mary’s lips praises the goodness of a God who is personally involved with this world and all beings who live on it. Embracing her own humble, challenging circumstances, she sings of God’s special relationship with those who have little and yet remain open to God’s surprises in their lives. And in spite of the irrationality of such a girl being chosen as the mother of the promise, she says YES to God. And with that, God is born in her – not only in the special child she carries in her womb, but God’s holiness is born in the depth of Mary’s own being, as she embraces God’s absolute love for her.

On this night of incarnation, I want to take some time to think about the ways that meaningful aspects of life are “born” in us. Consider something deeply meaningful in your life, something special and unique that is part of what makes you who you are. It might be a hobby, it might be something you do for a living, it might be a deeply held belief or life mantra, it might be a skill set that you use frequently in daily living… but whatever it is, think of when that part of your life was really born in you. Was there an important teacher or coach who really got you to believe in yourself, and from that moment on you knew this special gift would be part of your life? Was the gift something you basically inherited from a parent or relative, something they were good at and by osmosis, you became good at it too? Was the gift something that did not come easily at first, and by your own stubborn perseverance you became good at it, and that tenacity in birthing it has embedded it deep in your soul? However they get there, there are for each of us special gifts that are born in us – and once born, they remain part of who we are.

Take that same idea - a gift that becomes integral and permanent to one’s deepest self – and think of its implication on the global scale. Regardless of how we approach the details of Luke’s story of Jesus’ conception and birth (Luke 2), it is a story that speaks of God’s consistent desire to enter human life through the most humble, unexpected means possible. An adolescent girl would seldom be chosen for key tasks in the community, and for that very reason God chooses Mary to nurture the child of promise. Shepherds were the lowest of the low within their social structure, the kind of people who would not be considered credible witnesses in legal circles, and for that very reason God chooses them as the first witnesses to the Christ child. The Jews had been under the thumb of one overlord or another for much of their history as a people, and for that reason God remained faithful to them and entered uniquely into the human realm through one of their own. And in spite of humanity’s limitations and stumbles, the power of the divine continues to reach out to all individuals and nations, urging us to open ourselves to the power of loving-kindness - to truly let God be born in us.

The gift of God’s immense love for the world, is ready for birthing: in our hearts, in our houses of worship, in our communities and nations. It is limited only by our openness to receive it. Friends in Christ, may the Spirit of Christ live within you, and in your households, this night and always. Amen, and Alleluia!!

Luke 1: 39-55 -- 23 December 2012 - Advent 4

The following quote about Elizabeth and Mary comes from a southern professor and top preacher named Fred Craddock. While Fred is not saying anything particularly new, in December of 2012 I hear the words as if I had not heard them before:

He says, “The two women, [Elizabeth and Mary] not only kin but drawn by a common experience, meet in an unnamed village in the Judean hills. The one is old and her son will close an age; the other is young and her son will usher in the new. Even the unborn John knows the difference and leaps in the womb when Mary enters [the house].”

Elizabeth’s baby, who would grow up to be John the Baptist, has the honour and responsibility of closing out the old age. Mary’s baby, who would grow up to be Jesus, the Christ, has the scary and ground-breaking task of inaugurating the new age. It is not a gradual change, to be smoothly transitioned by one person; one ends the old, one begins the new.

Never before have I been so attuned to the idea of a former age closing, and a future age being born. I know that one reason for my receptiveness is the fact that it is two days past December 21, 2012, and we’re all still here!

Though it was mostly picked up in a light-hearted, jesting way, the publicity about the Mayan calendar ending on December 21^st was in the back of many minds last week. Ron Semenoff, whom many of you heard preach here back in mid-October, is running a one day seminar I’ll be attending in January entitled, “We’ve survived the end of the world! Now what?” And this past Thursday, a blogger named Helena Andrews posted an item called “I don’t think the world is ending tomorrow but then I kinda do.” I think she really captured the uneasy intersection that many of us found ourselves at: the crossroads of “isn’t this silly” and “yeah, but what if it’s true?”

In addition to the fact that the Bible DOES anticipate a day when the world will end, though it says that it will come with no advance calculations possible, I found myself struggling with the whole Mayan calendar thing because in the United Church we try our best to be open and respectful in our dealings with other religions and other cultures. Stephanie Pappas, a reporter for Fox News, seems to have had the same uneasiness, and had this to say:

“Rumors of an apocalypse linked to the Mayan calendar emerged only when Westerners got their hands on the numbers. Theories blew up, largely online, making the Mayan apocalypse one of the very few grassroots doomsday predictions in history.

“Apocalypse rumors eventually became so pervasive that they brought the Dec. 21 date back to the attention of the modern Maya, said Robert Sitler, a professor of Latin American studies at Stetson University in Florida. Few Maya had given much thought to the calendar, as it fell out of use more than 1,000 years ago. Now, however, many Maya are giving the day its due… though not as the end of the world. Most groups interpret the end of the b'ak'tun as a time of change and enlightenment.”

A time of change and enlightenment, you say, at the end of an age? That sounds curiously like what Fred Craddock was saying about Elizabeth and Mary and the roles to be played by their yet-to-be-born babies, doesn’t it?

So we have a Latin American calendar from at least 2500 years ago, perhaps much longer than that, alerting us to a present time of change and enlightenment. We have sacred writings from the Middle East from 2000 years ago, asserting their annual 4^th-Sunday-of-Advent reminder to us to be aware of the end of one age and the start of another. We have any number of authors in this past decade proposing that the current turbulence within Church and society is due to an epoch change: for example, Doug Pagitt’s idea that the Agrarian, Industrial and Informational ages have become progressively briefer, and have now given way to an age of Inventiveness.

In our nation at this very moment, I think we have one more source. Between the ongoing hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, and the arising of the Idle No More movement, we may well be seeing the end of one era and the beginning of another in the relationship between First Nations and the Crown. Chief Spence, specifically, has a simple request: a face to face sit down with the Prime Minister, to work on solving the untenable living conditions in her James Bay community. We’re not talking about a broad or theoretical agenda here: she wants a meeting, to solve problems revolving around housing that have been known to government for at least 14 months now.

Perhaps I am over-estimating the power of this movement – time will tell. But I have great hope for it, especially in the context of today’s theme of “change and enlightenment”. Demanding a change in the “we’ll talk to you when and if we decide to” attitude by Ottawa toward first nations, may well be the first step to ending an old way that does not work, and forging a new way of respect from which will emerge a completely different power balance. You can agree or disagree with Chief Spence’s use of a hunger strike to make the point, but clearly, she and her people have had enough and need some way to break through the paternalistic silence of the old paradigm.

So we come back to Elizabeth and Mary, their story illuminated by these other instances of one age coming to an end, and another age emerging in its place. For both Elizabeth and Mary, the news of their epoch-shaking children was delivered in person by an angel visitant, but the responses to those visits were as different as the children they would bear.

The birth of John the Baptist, we are told earlier in the 1^st chapter of Luke, was announced by a visit by an angel to Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband. Zechariah was a priest, and as a trained religious guy he fell into the trap that a lot of us trained religious guys fall into: he figured that his own experience and intellect trumped what God was trying to tell him. So when it was announced that Elizabeth would conceive and bear a child who would “go ahead of the Lord” (1:17) and “bring back many of the people of Israel to their Lord their God” (1:16), Zechariah could barely suppress a scoffing laugh. Elizabeth was far beyond her child-bearing years, and this proposal seemed preposterous. In response, the angel did not waver from the original plan, but did take away Zechariah’s ability to speak until the child was born – if he could not speak words of faith, he would not speak at all.

The birth of Jesus, as we heard in today’s reading from Luke, was announced by the angel Gabriel, directly to Mary. Whether God learned that there was no use talking to the man in these instances and decided to go directly to source, well, I’ll leave that for you to decide. Once she got over the initial shock of an angel visiting an adolescent girl, Mary uttered these unforgettable words (1:38) as recorded in the King James Version: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word”. Or, in a more modern form (TEV) “I am the Lord’s servant, may it happen to me as you have said.” Unlike the response of Zechariah, who put reason before proclamation, young scared Mary was able to literally open herself to God’s possibilities, whatever that would entail.

It’s no accident that the writer of the gospel of Luke reports these events in such a parallel fashion. John the Baptist’s mother is an older kinswoman of Jesus’ young mother. John the Baptist will prepare the way for Jesus, and he will be born before Jesus. John the Baptist’s ministry is lesser than the ministry of Jesus – in John’s own words, he is “not fit to untie the sandals” of the one who will come after him – and the parental response to his birth announcement is much less inspiring than Mary’s response to her news. Pierce Pettis has composed a wonderful song entitled “Miriam”, which honours not only what God has accomplished in the birth of Jesus, but the pivotal role of Mary’s trusting response when told what God has planned:

No banners were unfurled When God stepped into the world
Held in the arms of a little girl Named Miriam

Laws of nature were suspended, Death sentences rescinded
Throughout all the world - all because of a little girl named Miriam

I don't know if you ascended, I don't care what's been amended
There was one sure miracle; The faith of a little girl named Miriam

So we have these two children-of-great-promise with clearly defined missions for their lives. Two weeks ago, our worship service focused on the roaring, aggressive ministry of John the Baptist, and the way that he abundantly fulfilled his mission of calling people to a new standard of ethical behaviour. In his ministry, he kept reminding his listeners that his ministry was one of preparation – his was not the final word. He had to keep reminding them of that, for in his day, as in ours, whoever produced the most volume was likely to find the largest audience, and John’s message of tearing down our sinful ways was more belligerent and aggressive and marketable than Jesus’ message of radical forgiveness. The angel said that this child would “get people ready for the Lord” (1:17b) by calling them to end the old ways, and he definitely did that.

When the angel Gabriel went to young Mary, or Miriam, the message of her child’s mission was this: “He will be called the Son of the Most High God. The Lord God will make him a king, as his ancestor David was, and he will be the king of the descendants of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end!” As Christians, we believe that Jesus fulfilled and continues to fulfill that mission, and is continuing to work even as we await the new heaven and a new earth to be revealed at a time not yet specified. But in relation to how we live our daily lives, I think that the key to the whole thing is not so much what the angel said to Mary, but what Mary sung in response.

I don’t mean to downplay the importance of Jesus as everlasting King and Son of the Most High God – without that foundation for our lives, not much else matters – but in singing the Magnificat (1: 39-45 TEV) Mary expresses the content of what God will accomplish in Jesus. Mary names God’s agenda, and in turn, our hopes as well: God scatters the proud, brings down the mighty, sends the rich away with empty hands. God lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, shows mercy to the family of Abraham and Sarah. And God does all this through a lowly servant – the unlikely vessel of the promise, a young betrothed teen.

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book, “The First Christmas”, call the Magnificat, an "overture" to Luke's Gospel in which he sounds themes that will appear again and again: Luke’s emphasis on women, the marginalized, and the Holy Spirit are all evident in the birth narratives [and] Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives voice to those who are lowly. Or in the words of Fred Craddock, (p.29) “What God has done for Mary anticipates and models what God will do for the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed of the world.” Indeed, what Mary says in the Magnificat states God’s intention and agenda, and the rest of the gospel of Luke tells of how that agenda is fulfilled.

That divine intention is the same each time we come to a time of change of enlightenment: the Magnificat can be voiced, word for word, each time we arrive at these transitions. At each moment of transition, the big transitions of society or the smaller transitions of our lives, we open our eyes and our ears and our lives to what God has planned: lifting the lowly, filling the hungry, showing mercy, scattering the proud, deflating the pride and influence of the rich and powerful. Young Mary gives voice to God’s deepest hopes for this world and its people, and those hopes remain constant each time we perceive renewal in our midst.

I believe there is a thirst for change in our world. Not just little change, but big, end-of-the-age change. The fact that the whole Mayan calendar story got as much traction as it did suggests that at a deep level, we yearn for something very different than we have at present. In the face of that desire for something new, listen to God, even now, as intently and openly as Mary did. Hear the consistent call of our eternal God, for a world of justice, where the humble are lifted to honour and the proud are sent empty away. In our lives and in the lives of our nations, may this be so. Amen.

References:

Andrews, Helena. http://www.xojane.com/fun/i-dont-think-the-world-is-ending-tomorrow-but-then-i-kinda-do

Craddock, Fred B. Luke. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990. pp 28-31 especially p.29

The quote regarding M.Borg and J.D.Crossan is from Huey, Kate: http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=34581&em_id=30741.0

Learn more about Doug Pagitt at http://cathnews.co.nz/2011/05/10/its-a-new-cultural-epoch/ or listen to him at http://dougpagittradio.com/

Pappas, Stephanie. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/12/20/final-countdown-1-day-until-mayan-apocalypse/

Pettis, Pierce. MIRIAM. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mi0xsSAfIE David Noel Edwards has a lovely version of this song as well.

Zephaniah 3: 14-20 and Philippians 4: 4-9 -- 16 December 2012 - Advent 3

A reflection on the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut.

Fifteen years ago, on a Sunday morning in August, news broke that Princess Diana had died in a car crash. I can’t remember what I said in the sermon that day, but I do remember talking with one particularly distraught member of the congregation prior to the service. “I’m really angry with God right now” she said, choking her way through tears of grief and anger. “I have a hard time believing that Heaven could possibly be a ’better place’ for Princess Di – she won’t get to see her sons grow up, and those boys just lost their mother. I’d rather be with my kids, even if it meant giving up heaven.”

My heart was similarly filled with strong emotion on Friday afternoon as information trickled out of Newtown, Connecticut, about the tragic killings at Sandy Hook elementary school. It sure didn’t feel like someone else’s story, it hit really close to home. Maybe it’s because I was in a couple of lockdowns in my years at the school and could picture that horrific, chaotic situation all-too-clearly. Maybe it’s the age of the perpetrator and his brother, who are exactly the same age as my kids. Maybe the killing of children is so tragic that it’s impossible to maintain an emotional distance from it.

And to a much lesser extent, maybe it’s because I was planning to preach about Joy today, on this Third Sunday of Advent, and joy is not a word that was close to my heart on Friday. Pain, Sorrow, Sadness, Grief, Anger, those emotion-words were all close at hand, but not joy. I’m not ready to let those emotions go quite yet, so I think I have some additional Advent candles to light.

Today in my heart, I light a candle of pain: the pain of acknowledging the reality of sin in our world. Sin is anything that alienates us from the love of God; Sin is the little choices that inch us away from God’s will for our lives, or God’s will for the world; Sin is the big actions in which we turn our back on God and intentionally choose something other. It’s the actions lamented by the prophet Zephaniah in his day, as he spoke of God’s ongoing faithfulness in spite of the nation’s ongoing faithlessness. Sin is the gap between us and God, an indicator of our brokenness. When we see human lives ended by another, we see the destructiveness of Sin at its worst. And a candle of pain is lit.

Today in my heart, I light a candle of sorrow: a candle acknowledging that we are all diminished each time a life ends violently. Numerous modern theologians have put forth models about the interconnectedness of God’s creation, but today I turn to Sallie McFague who (in her book Life Abundant) proposes for us an “Ecological Theology” which (p.33) “[gives] glory to God by loving the world; that understands its context to be the well-being of the planet and all its creatures… not a theology just for nature, but one for the entire cosmos with all its creatures, human and otherwise.” I agree with her organic view of this world – each oil spill, each person living in poverty, each time that a life is ended arbitrarily, impacts not just those closest to the event, but the whole created order. Even if CNN didn’t broadcast it into our homes, as earth-dwellers we are still impacted each time violence is enacted – anywhere, in any way. So as lives of schoolchildren and teachers are extinguished, a candle of sorrow is lit.

Today in my heart, I light a candle of sadness. My sadness relates to the number of people whose lives are tragically diminished by untreated or under-treated mental illness. I don’t have it here to quote from it, but there’s an eye-opening book by Terence Real called I Don’t Want to Talk About It that quite correctly posits that a huge proportion of the adult male population in the USA and Canada suffer from Covert Depression. Unlike Overt Depression, which has symptoms we can see and deal with, Covert Depression is the sad, silent undercurrent that we just accept as part of what it is to be “a guy”, incorrectly labelled by society as “being the strong silent type” or “not wearing his heart on his sleeve.” So many men are just dying inside but have no emotional vocabulary to even name what’s going on, and must live within the confines of societal prohibitions against men ever putting feelings into words. Left untreated, this covert depression erodes relationships, it encourages isolation, it can turn into xenophobia or rage or delusions. I don’t pretend to know enough about the gunman’s life to say much, but I can say this: every time a man resorts to violence I feel sad that so many of our boys and young men are trained to be strong, to keep it all in, to get over it and move forward. I know this to be absolutely contrary to the will of God, who has gifted us with a full range of emotions for good reason. And so a candle of sadness is lit.

Today in my heart, I light a candle of grief. In addition to any broader impacts of this event, it is devastating on the personal scale for the parents who have, in an instant, lost children who were only 6 or 7 years old. It is heartbreaking for the spouses and children of the school staff who were killed in their workplace. And in the spirit of Christ, who reminds us that our care is for all God’s children, we bring to mind the family of the gunman, losing a 20-year-old and his mother and having a whole truckload of shame dropped on their family name. Twenty-eight lives end, just like that. And a candle of grief is lit.

Today in my heart, I light a candle of anger. Immediately after this news story broke on Friday, activists and lobbyists and commentators everywhere were railing once again for tighter gun control. While I stand shoulder to shoulder with them and their important plea, that’s not the source of my anger.

My anger is about our society’s unwillingness and inability to deal with strong emotion. Men may be somewhat more prone to this, but I think this one crosses gender boundaries: when we feel something uncomfortable, and feel it strongly, we will often seek an escape route. So frustration is treated by hurting someone else; despair is treated by getting wasted; loneliness is treated by the ingestion of pornography or over-ingestion of fatty foods; fear is treated by ganging up on someone; inadequacy is treated by shopping and shopping and shopping. Our reading from Philippians urges us to trust God with all of our material and emotional needs, but that’s not the way of our world. Far too frequently, we don’t stay in the midst of strong emotion and work it out, because that may involve suffering, and there’s always an easier and more present alternative.

A week ago, my daughter Rita emailed me a YouTube link of Mister Rogers addressing the US Senate in 1969. He was arguing for the merits of Public Television, its ability to make a “meaningful expression of care” to children, and his personal desire to help children learn that their feelings are “mentionable and manageable.” His devotion to the emotional needs of children, and his training as a Presbyterian minister are very evident as he makes his quiet but insistent plea. I’d like to read you his closing poem, which I’ve also posted to the Church blog, entitled, “What do you do with the Mad that you feel?”

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...
And nothing you do seems very right?

What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?

It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:

I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.

Those words were written in 1968, but in the subsequent 44 years not much of its lesson has been learned, and this week some girls and boys were denied the opportunity to become women and men. That makes me “so mad I could bite”. So a candle of anger is lit.

In my own little world, then, I have these alternate candles of emotion, burning brightly: candles of Pain, Sorrow, Sadness, Grief, and Anger. But am I ready to embrace that candle of Joy?

If joy is understood as a super-duper form of happiness, well no, that’s not a candle I’ll be lighting today. But joy is not just an extension of happiness; joy is the abiding sense that God, the creator and life-force of the whole universe, is with you this moment and every moment of your life. Joy is that deep indwelling of God that assures you that there is a purpose and destination to life.

A Roman Catholic blogger named Paul Thigpen writes this about joy: “[in the past thirty years,] joy has rarely been far from me, because Jesus has remained close by. That's not to say that I haven't known considerable grief, sadness, and struggle. Nor could I even say that I've been happy most of that time. But I've known an abiding joy nonetheless. When Christian friends ask about the secret of that joy, I share with them two important lessons that have made all the difference: First, I've learned not to confuse joy with happiness; and second, I've discovered that if we want joy, we must abandon the pursuit of it, and go looking for God instead.”

His wonderful blog post goes on to say much more about Joy, but the thing that stands out for me is his understanding of God’s presence in all of life – to him, joy is an aspect or indicator of a connectedness with God. I tried to keep that in mind when lighting my imaginary candles– for even in the shadow of terrible tragedy, I see the presence of God in each one of these emotions. God’s divine companionship with us in all life’s events and emotions is, to me, a source of great consolation on this day. In the sermon two weeks ago, I shared a Biblical interpretation from Rabbi Harold Kushner, that when God spoke to Moses at the burning bush and said that God’s name was “I am what I am” or “I will be what I will be” it could just as easily have been translated, “my name is – I am with you”. The very heart of God is presence – in all of life’s circumstances, from the most joyous to the most devastating, God is there.

And so, on this day, I embrace Joy in this way: I take those other candles, of pain, sorrow, sadness, grief, and anger – and gather them together in that pink candle over there, into a candle that says, “at this moment, and always, God is with us, and that is good.” May the light of that flame, the light of God’s ever-present, indwelling love, shine into every life that needs light on this day. Amen.

Works cited:
McFague, Sallie. Life Abundant: rethinking theology and economy for a planet in peril. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2001.

Real, Terence. I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression. New York: Fireside, 1997.

Rogers, Fred. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q

Thigpen, Paul. http://www.paulthigpen.com/theology/joy.html

Luke 3: 1-18 -- 9 December 2012 - Advent 2

John the Baptist, “’Wildman John’ leaps into Advent’s second Sunday, taking my breath away with his matted black dreadlocks, that camel skin he wraps around his bony body, gnarled bare feet sticking out below. His eyes seize me the way his rough hands seize the locusts he eats, the honey he snatches from wild bees. He roars warnings: dire times, dereliction of duty, the brink of doom. Advent seems too small a stage to hold him.

“He roars because [the rugged re-ordering he seeks, is with prim and manicured] people in the city he has abandoned. The city, where life is contrived, where truth is artifice; the wilderness, where godly design is discernible still. John is a wilderness man now. And John roars because the crowds that come out to hear him are immense, multi-national, multi-lingual, even multi-faithed…. They come because the Wildman speaks the truth they long to hear.”

These words from Nancy Rockwell, a United Church of Christ minister and spiritual director in New Hampshire, launch us into an examination of John the Baptist, the rough-hewn herald who came to announce the transformative ministry of his kinsman, Jesus of Nazareth. Examining this pivotal figure was for me a trip through territory that is both fearsome and familiar, with a couple of unexpected twists along the way.

I’ve always found it hard to reconcile the story of John the Baptist, with the two Advent Sundays that typically house his story: the Sunday of Peace, and the Sunday of Joy. While ultimate peace and joy may well await those who heed the call of the Baptist, he is not a placid or peaceful man; he is, in Nancy Rockwell’s words, a man who roars. He’s a man who rebukes and demands, not someone who allows us to set the cares of the world aside and bask in the joy of God’s beautiful presence.

Think of John as someone running a spiritual boot camp. As we prepare to host a world cup cross-country ski event later this week, any one of those elite athletes could tell us that the desire to reach the podium doesn’t happen by clicking your toes into the bindings for the first time ever on Sunday, then allowing your natural talent to scoot you along to victory on Friday. In addition to possessing a special level of talent, it takes years of skill development, ongoing grueling physical training, a single-minded approach to success, and an ability to have your best performance at the right time in order to have even marginal success on the tour. Continuing with that analogy, John the Baptist would be the strength and conditioning coach that you both trust and hate, forcing you to be strong and agile and flexible and durable all at the same time. He’s the relentless guy who will not lie to you, who confronts you with the level of cardio-vascular fitness needed to succeed, who spurs you to do ten more reps of that exercise you detest when you are at the edge of fatigue. While you detest his tenaciousness, you know that you need the fitness he demands for your skills to make a difference.

Professor Robert Tannehill (p.48) said this about John the Baptist: “It is important to note that John the Baptist is the preparer of the way and forerunner not only in the sense that he bears witness to Jesus, the stronger one who is coming (3:16), but also in the sense that he prepares a repentant people, a people ready to receive the Lord because they have passed through the drastic leveling and straightening that Isaiah described”. It was this description from Professor Tannehill that got me thinking about John as boot camp instructor. John is the one who literally “straightens out” the crowd so that the message yet to come, the ethical and spiritual demands of Jesus, can be embraced. This makes me wonder: when people say that they find the demands of Christ to be too stringent, is that really the case, or is it just that the basic spiritual training demanded by John hasn’t been done? Is Christ’s mission unrealistic, or is it just that the self-honesty demanded by John has not yet been exercised? Is Jesus’ demand to “go the extra mile” (Matt. 5: 39) mere exaggeration, or has John not been heard when he said (Luke 3:11) “whoever has two shirts must give one to the person who has none, and whoever has food must share it.”?

To return to the physical analogy, if I look at the Jesus mountain and figure it is too steep to climb, is it just that I didn’t let John get me strong or limber enough? If I look at the Jesus distance and determine that it is too far to run, is it just that I haven’t done any of the necessary cardio training with John? I’m not sure that it needs to be in the sequential order suggested by scripture – first the stringent training of John, then the life-long applications of Jesus – but I would definitely agree that both aspects are necessary in our Christian living. An attitude of love and compassion needs to be paired with the courage of self-sacrifice if we are truly to embrace Christ’s call to service. The tough, confrontational words of John help us to develop the spiritual sinews needed to do Christ’s work in the world.

I said at the start of the sermon that some aspects I encountered this week about John the Baptist were familiar, and some were unexpected. Most familiar is the picture of John the Baptist as the unusual, uncompromising “Wildman John” described by Nancy Rockwell. I think of John as “the voice in the wilderness’ because the gospel of Luke basically tells me that’s who he is. But in researching the person of John the Baptist, I found an unexpected twist, from a few authors who point out that the gospel of Luke kind of misquotes Isaiah, and this makes for a most fascinating change in perspective.

This might be more effective if I had a video screen to put the two readings side by side, but in the absence of that, listen as I read two pieces of scripture. First, will be Isaiah 40:3-4; and then will be Isaiah 40: 3-4, as quoted in the 3^rd chapter of Luke.

(ISAIAH) A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;

(LUKE) as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
⁵Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

It’s a subtle difference, I admit, but here it is: in Isaiah it says, “ A voice cries out, ‘in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord” while in Luke it says “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness [says] ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’” Luke, working from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament which funnelled the Hebrew text through Greek, understands that it’s the prophet who is in the wilderness, crying out; but if we go back to the original Hebrew text of Isaiah, it implies that the voice can come from anywhere, it’s the people hearing the voice who are in the wilderness.

Consider this possibility with me: It’s not so much that the messenger, John, is coming from or standing in the wilderness when he shouts out the truth; it’s that we are most able to hear God’s new way for our life when we are in wilderness.

In the fall of 1999, I was in ministry with a young, vibrant congregation bursting at the seams, and I crashed hard. Losing a year to clinical depression – and after that, facing the fact that I could not return to a ministry that I really thought was going to be long-term – was one of the hardest things I have gone through. But it was also one of the greatest gifts, and I knew it even at the time. Thrown off the merry-go-round, I had some bumps and bruises to attend to, but once I came to my senses I knew that if I was planning to survive, let alone thrive, I would have to truly open myself to the healing love of Christ. I would have to virtually reconstruct the way that I interpreted the world around me, I would have to start understanding my emotional needs, and I would need to connect with a truth-telling therapist who would let me know if I was “getting it” at all. On the surface, while my old patterns of being seemed to be somewhat “successful,” that success wasn’t sustainable, because it was built entirely on my capacity rather than on a reliance on the forgiving, renewing power of an eternal God. I was trying to jump ahead to the techniques of congregational growth without having done any of the difficult soul work. And when I crashed, I landed in a place of spiritual emptiness – a wilderness, where all the demands and distractions were gone, but where the fearsome task of soul-work awaited me. Only when I exited the feverish pace of my previous life and entered wilderness could I hear the voice of God, which had in essence been yelling at me all along, trying to get my attention.

In the 3^rd chapter of Luke (TEV, alt.), we hear more yelling. John is yelling at the crowd: “you brood of vipers… turn from your sins! Don’t expect that being children of Abraham will save you from being judged! You’re proud of your roots, but I tell you that an axe will be taken to the roots of those who fail to bear good fruit.” His uncompromising words place him firmly in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, those who refused to sugar-coat the truth when people were turning away from God. Clearly, his words rang true for those who came to see him – while his words stung, he wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. If everything was running just tickety-boo in their lives, they wouldn’t have gone to see John. But they were wandering in spiritual wilderness already. They knew that they needed to let go of their attachments to worldly goods; they knew they were supposed to be sharing with the poor; they knew they were supposed to conduct their affairs ethically and truthfully. They knew these things in their hearts, but it wasn’t until this wilderness Wildman confronted them publicly that they found the motivation to actually change.

Have you had this happen in your life? Have you had times where what you needed most of all was a truth-teller, who would look you square in the eyes and say, “is this really how you want to live? Does this action really express your desire to live as a child of God?” I don’t think I, personally, would seek out John the Baptist for this task – perhaps THAT much honesty is a bit over-the-top – but it is so important, when we are in those wilderness spaces in our lives, to have people who will mirror to us our own deep goodness, and our own stumbles that run contrary to that goodness. I do believe that the Holy Spirit lives deep within me, as the conscience that guides my way and corrects me when I’m ready to choose something out of line, and I also believe that one of the reasons we are called together as a congregation, is to find those truthful companions, here, who can help us to live the Christian life. Each of us has the divine spark within us, and each of us needs companions to gently fan that flame when the embers are burning low.

One of the things a preacher always has to be aware of, is her or his preaching context. For most Biblical commentators, working in urban university settings, “wilderness” is a term that suggests something unknown, even frightening. That is perfectly legitimate, and is, in fact, how the wilderness was seen by people in the days of John the Baptist. In those days, the wilderness was where robbers lay in wait to beat you up on the road, as in the story of the good Samaritan. The wilderness was where evil, tempting spirits dwelled, as in the story of Satan tempting Jesus. It was a place “out there” where only bad things happened.

Preaching in Canmore, however, I realize that many of you love wilderness – it’s one of the things that drew you to live here, rather than someplace else. Multi-day hikes or canoe trips, tramping through unknown wilds on snowshoes, or skiing in the back-country are wilderness experiences where many of you thrive. Being out in the middle of nowhere is one of the places where many people in this community really experience the holy. So when I’ve been speaking of wilderness in the more typical, “a difficult place where it’s hard to get your bearings” some of you may have been hearing, “a place where I get away from the falseness of civilization to restore my soul.” And you know, that works, too. Whether we picture wilderness as a difficult place, or as a place of solitude and spirit, this much remains true: we are most able to hear God’s challenges to our lives when we enter into wilderness. When we drop the polite excuses that keep us frozen in place, and enter into the wild, uncivilized place, we allow ourselves to be confronted and conformed by God.

John the Baptist is clear: he is not the promised one. But he knows the one who is, and loves him, and will do everything in his power to get us ready for him. In the name of Jesus, may it be so. Amen.

Resources cited:

Rockwell, Nancy - http://biteintheapple.com/wildmanjohn/

Tannehill, Robert C. The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Vol I. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.

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