Mark 12: 28-34 - November 24, 2024

 

How many of you are familiar with the term, “elevator speech” or “elevator pitch”?  An elevator pitch is “a brief speech that outlines an idea for a product, service, or project, which could conceivably be delivered in the short time period of an elevator ride”.  In other words, anywhere from 20 seconds to an absolute maximum of one minute.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus more or less gets asked to give his elevator speech, to identify which of the 613 commandments in the Torah he considered to be most important.  Before hearing his answer, let’s marvel for a bit at the way the gospel of Mark puts the story together.  Mark 11 begins with the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, i.e., Palm Sunday, then Jesus upsets the moneychangers’ tables and then he and the disciples retreat from the city for a bit.  By now, Jesus had clearly caught the attention of powerful enemies, so on his return to the city he was met by a delegation of chief priests, scribes and elders who challenged his authority to say and do what he had been saying and doing.  As we ease into the 12^th chapter of Mark, Jesus tells a parable which first of all captivates the chief priests, scribes and elders then upsets them as they realize that the pointed end of the parable is directed at them.  They left, but following them was a lineup of Jesus’ other opponents.  First the Pharisees ask him about taxes, the “render unto Caesar” dialogue… then the Sadducees ask him tricky questions about divorce and inheritance…  and then (Mark 12: 28) one of the scribes came near.   “[He] heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked Jesus ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’” Or, “gimme your elevator pitch, Jesus.  Show me, specifically, how the core of your mission is connected to our most important sacred texts”.

Jesus, when asked this, is three years into his ministry, he’s in Jerusalem where his opponents are literally lining up to get him, and, as we know from two thousand years away, he is less than one week away from his crucifixion.  The question of the great commandment, as recounted by Mark, comes not at the start of Jesus’ travelling ministry, nor on some random Thursday in September amidst idle banter about this and that.   No, this question and answer are in Holy Week, and as such are among the most important words that would be carried by Jesus’ followers to the cross and the empty tomb and then to their house-church meetings as they struggled to find adequate ways to keep his ministry alive.   In our days of judgmentalism and division, they are STILL the key words.

And to the scribe’s question, (Mark 12: 29-31) “²⁹Jesus answered, ‘The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’”  Takes about 20 seconds to say, memorable content, good elevator speech.

The two scriptures linked here played very different roles in Jewish religious life. The first of the two, regarding love of God, comes from the 6^th chapter of Deuteronomy (6:4-5) and was a core part of Jewish devotional practice. “Shema Yisrael (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל) (“Hear, O Israel”) are the first words of the Shema, a section of the Torah that is the centerpiece of the morning and evening prayer services, encapsulating the monotheistic essence of Judaism.” (Chabad.org) The second commandment, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, comes from the 19^th chapter of Leviticus (19:18), a collection of notes about the fair and ethical treatment of others. The first part of Jesus’ answer, then, was central and read daily, while the second part was what we might call “part of the larger collection”; yet Jesus puts them together as if they were one single sentence, one’s love of God naturally flowing over into tangible expressions of love for others.  

Given this opportunity, Jesus could have chosen any commandment he wanted, or, given the fact that he bent the rules a bit to quote two scriptures rather than just one, he really could have chosen anything from the Psalms or Prophets. Imagine if he’d chosen something pointed against other religions or something reeking of nationalism… but he didn’t. With the freedom to choose anything, Jesus chooses love, and then doubles down with even more love. The first commandment spoke of devotional love expressed for the one, holy, foundational God; the second commandment is a call to expand one’s core concern beyond the interests of self and family and relatives.  Jesus describes a love that goes deep into the heart of God, and a love that reaches out to the right-now needs of others. Love, multifaceted love.

By using the words of the Shema to describe the love one is to have for God, Jesus brings his listeners back to a prayer practice which shapes every day.  And the call to love one’s neighbour as an extension of self-love, to place the needs of the common good on par with or even above one’s own desires, colours the decisions we make numerous times each day and the big structural decisions about how power is held and expressed in society.

Jesus’ answer, his elevator speech, begins with a foundational acknowledgement of our connection with God.  We love God, completely, even as we experience God’s absolute love for us over and over again, breath by breath, sunrise by sunrise.  And in the commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves, we are called to stretch our understanding of just how connected we are to one another.  Think of the various Indigenous understandings of “all my relations,” the sacred interconnection of all life, and you will find yourself on the right track here.

And to take it one step further, Contemplative Theologian Cynthia Bourgeault – who has strong connections here in BC - has memorably stated, “One of the most familiar of Jesus’ teachings is ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ But we almost always hear that wrong [as if he had said]: ‘Love your neighbor as much as [you love] yourself….’ If you listen closely to Jesus however, there is no ‘as much as’ in his admonition. It’s just ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—as a continuation of your very own being. It’s a complete seeing, that your neighbor is you”. (this is so contrary to the divisive narrative of 2024, I’m going to say it again: “there is no ‘as much as’ in his admonition. It’s just ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—as a continuation of your very own being.”) That notion from Cynthia, which I first encountered about five years ago, has moved the very core of my beliefs and my approach to life, as I come to understand that every barrier I erect between me and my neighbour is a human construct that is contrary to the heart of God.  That which allows me to label or demean “them”, that which releases me from supporting vulnerable ones under attack because it’s “not my problem”, comes from some source other than God.  I grow to love and be reconciled to my neighbour as I come to believe our essential oneness, and as I express that love, I express my love for God.

On this Reign of Christ Sunday, we think not only of daily living but of God’s big agenda, the new realm spoken of by Christ Jesus governed by justice-embedded love.  To me, the two-fold great commandment carries us from the life we called to live right now, to these new ways Jesus spoke of when he preached about the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God.   Our love of God and love of neighbour give practical grounding for the way we live our lives AND they accustom us to the greater transformative intentions of the Divine.  As I said when introducing myself to you back on September 8^th, when we consider the question, “who is my neighbour?” my experiences over the past forty years of interacting with people from a wide range of occupations, religions, sexual orientations and gender expressions cause me to ask “well, who isn’t?”  If we truly embrace that notion put forward by Cynthia Bourgeault, of myself and my neighbour being continuations of each other, the shaping of life changes completely.

In the work we do together, as Church here in Oliver and Osoyoos and across the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, may Christ’s two-fold commandment to love God with all we have and love neighbour as self, have the presence, wisdom and urgency it had when first uttered in Jerusalem.  Amen. 

References cited:

Bourgeault, Cynthia.  The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 31-32.  Accessed via the 17 January 2019 daily email of  centerforactionandcontemplation.com

Chabad.org https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/705353/jewish/The-Shema.htm

Kenton, Will. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/elevatorpitch.asp#:

© Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2024.

Mark 12: 38-44 - November 17, 2024

Imagine you are sitting with Jesus, opposite the Temple, people-watching as a variety of folks from all walks of life come and drop their donations into a public offering box.  Jesus points out the gift of a destitute widow, surmising that the two tiny coins she just put into the offering were the end of her resources.  Widows in that culture were often in that position, financially and emotionally.  Having given her all, she is now, literally, penniless.

We know this story by its traditional name, the story of the widow’s mite, a “mite” representing the smallest-value coin of the day, and its traditional interpretation is deeply ingrained in my psyche.  In this interpretation, Jesus seemingly presents the widow as a paragon of generosity, the kind of steward we all should aspire to be.  Others gave gifts thousands of times larger to the temple, yet this gift, so tiny as to be meaningless in covering the temple budget, is held up as exemplary. This widow, literally, gave ‘til it hurt and because of that, her story has been the foundation of countless financial campaigns by Churches and Christian charities.  

The thing is, though: if I hear the story of the widow’s mite as a story that encourages us, too, to give ‘til it hurts, I am hearing something that Jesus never said.  This story is found in both the gospel of Mark and the gospel of Luke (21:1-4), and I’ll share Luke’s somewhat simpler version:

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. ³ He said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. ⁴ For they all offered their gifts out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on.”

And Jesus leaves it at that.  He makes an observation here, but with scant comment:  he lifts up the relative value of the widow’s gift, as she basically gave 100% of what she had, but does not proceed to say “go and do likewise” to his audience or to generations of churchgoers since then.  He could have, but he didn’t.  Similarly, Jesus does not make a big show by popping across the street to personally congratulate the women on her generosity.   As told by both Luke and Mark, Jesus notes what the widow has done but the emotional tone of the words is very neutral, we can’t really tell if he’s happy about it or not.  What is clear is that Jesus, while seeing and acknowledging her gift out of scarcity, especially in comparison with gifts far larger given out of surplus, does not use her as an example for other poor folks to follow in their giving.   While not wanting to double-down on the widow, her contribution to make the Temple even grander while the needs of people just like her were ignored was part of a system flawed and broken.  We can imagine Jesus shaking his head, jaw clenched, moved by the plight of the woman while seething at the inaction of the Temple authorities.

A wide range of Biblical scholars have written about this difference between how the Church has tended to hear this and what Jesus actually said.  One of these is Emma Crossen, a Lutheran stewardship resource person, who writes, “The popular reading of the widow’s mite says that Jesus was pleased by the widow’s offering. Yet, when we consider how Jesus felt about serving the poor, especially widows, we can imagine that the sight of the widow giving her last coin was not pleasant at all”.  The temple was supposed to serve the poor and marginalized, not the other way around.  So when he sees the widow donating all that she had, to this institution that is part of her oppression, Jesus scolds “the religious leaders who perpetuate a religious system in which it would be acceptable for a widow to lose everything she has for the sake of the temple”.  We don’t know whether the widow felt pressured into making this donation, or if some other factor is at work here, but we do know that something is seriously wrong with this picture.  

Although recent Bible commentators are quite correct to point out that Jesus does not come out and say, “do ye likewise” to Church givers, calling us to sacrificial giving as demonstrated by the widow, he does state how valuable her gift was, and he does so just days before his own sacrificial gift on the cross.  And unlike the Temple leaders, for whom this woman was basically invisible, Jesus SAW her.  Seeing those who were generally disregarded by others is a recurring theme in the Bible: The Holy One sees potentials that others do not, like entrusting the future of the Israelites to Abram and Sarai, the call stories of nearly all the prophets and disciples, or naming young Mary to be the mother of the Christ Child. Watching as people made their temple donations, Jesus vaguely noticed what others were doing, but specifically sees what this woman did, and in so doing he speaks to the heart of all who have few resources but have continued to give for the good of others, out of the limelight.  Jesus repeatedly sees those regarded as invisible and unimportant by society, and he does so once more in this encounter.  And if I were to imagine Jesus’ saying to those who have given more than they had to give, “you didn’t have to do that – but thank you” I wouldn’t be far wrong – such is the heart of God in Christ.

Though Jesus does not call us to “do likewise” upon seeing this heartbreakingly large gift by the widow, he does respect her dignity, and lifts up the value of her tiny gift.  Having worked my whole adult life in the Church and other non-profit organizations, I hear Jesus do something really important here: he calls us and the Church and all volunteer organizations to never look down on small gifts just because they are small.  (I remember learning this as a kid, going around on Hallowe’en with a UNICEF box & knowing that those little gifts would add up!) Whether it’s the person who has difficulty getting up in the morning volunteering for a community venture for a couple of hours, the person whose work hours just got cut in half choosing to maintain their charitable donations, or the person who finds it difficult to state their opinions publicly signing a petition and not just remaining anonymous, small things matter… and based on everything I know about Jesus, I can confidently say that he would never minimize the heartfelt contributions of those who have little to give.

Before leaving this scripture, I suggest one more thing, and that is to look at the power dynamics of this encounter and how that relates to the Church in this day and age.  

For centuries, the Church in the era of “Christendom” held an undue amount of prestige and influence.  We were very much like the ones on the entitled side of the ledger in today’s reading: the wealthy ones, the temple authorities, even the Temple itself.   But in our current context, in 2024, I don’t think that’s where the Church fits anymore.  While I wouldn’t for a moment equate the situation of the mainline Church in the northern hemisphere with the desperate poverty of the widow, I gotta say, we’re closer to the marginality of the widow than we are to the opulence of the temple-keepers.  And while that might sound negative, there are advantages to be had when one approaches the margins.     

While we lament that the Church of today is much smaller and less influential than it was sixty years ago – and within that, we do lament quite rightly that we are less well-positioned to share the inclusive, engaged, compassionate and courageous story of Jesus Christ with subsequent generations – our smaller, less highfalutin self may now embody a more legitimate and Christ-connected kind of authority.  As we yearn to witness to the life-giving love of Jesus, as we seek ways to live out our new United Church vision of “Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship and Daring Justice,” let us never forget that God does not turn away from us just because we are smaller than we used to be, any more than Jesus would have devalued the contribution of the impoverished widow because her donation didn’t line up with the big donors.  In his preaching and teaching, even in his death at the hands of those who held sacred and secular power, Jesus repeatedly turned toward those with more meagre resources as the ones who more easily understood his path and his promises.

As a smaller player, we, as a denomination in our 100^th year and as the United Church congregations in Oliver and Osoyoos, may have greater nimbleness in responding to community needs, we may have gained a new ability to say “we can’t do everything but we can do this thing.”  So part of the task before Shannon and me, as we relate to these communities, is to remain present when Churches of the south Okanagan and social agencies and people of good will talk about how we take care of one another.  Even in our smaller version, as followers of Jesus it is still our work to do. As we do what we can, I feel the encouragement of the living Christ, who welcomes our best efforts, whether those are big actions with widespread impact, or small actions that make life just a bit easier for someone who needs to know that God loves them and cares what happens to them.

In the story of the widow’s mite, we may hear an echo of guilt because we are so used to hearing that refrain: you could do more, you should do more.   But to me, this is not primarily that kind of story; in addition to its critique of those who loved their power and influence more than they loved serving their neighbour’s needs, it’s a story of a woman who was basically invisible in her society being seen by Jesus, and her contribution honoured, whether it actually solved a problem or contributed to one.  As we find our place in the world, whether that’s a reshaping of the old familiar central place once held by the mainline Church or a newly embraced, more peripheral place, may we experience the robust, encouraging love of Christ: focusing our efforts on that which is doable, embracing what we can do, and helping us to believe that in Christ, there are times when more than we can ask or imagine is very, very possible.   In Christ we pray, Amen.

Resources cited or consulted:

Blair, Patrick. https://faith-finances.com/blog/2022/12/6/whats-the-real-story-the-widows-mite-or-the-temples-might

Crossen, Emma. https://www.gathermagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2015SummerBS_Session2.pdf

Penley, Paul. https://www.reenactingtheway.com/blog/the-widows-mite-good-or-bad-example-of-giving

Rippentrop, Jan. https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-widows-gifts-mark-1238-44/

Weber-Johnson, Erin. https://churchanew.org/blog/posts/erin-weber-johnson-upending-the-parable-of-the-widows-mite

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

1 Kings 17: 8-16 - November 10, 2024

 (today’s sermon by Rev Greg is accompanied by several images from https://www.freebibleimages.org/photos/elijah-widow/ under a Creative Commons Share alike license)

Our United Church Creed begins with the words, “We are not alone, we live in God’s world” and it ends with the words “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God”.  The first words and the last words are about God, present to us.

There are times in every life when we need to feel that sense of divine accompaniment, whether it’s a sense of a personally present God, or the loving presence of others who make hope real for us.  If you’re in the war zones of Gaza or Ukraine, you need to know that.  If you’re still cleaning up from a Florida Hurricane, you need to know that.  If you’re grieving, if personal struggles are about to overwhelm you, if you’re stunned by the US election results, you need to know that.  And our forebears knew this as well, as we recall all the impacts of 66,000 Canadian and Newfoundland soldiers killed in World War I and 45,000 more in World War II, among nearly two hundred million civilians and soldiers killed worldwide in wars since 1914, In those times when anguish and despair seem to have the upper hand, we need to know that God is with us, we are not alone.

The powerful story we just heard from 1^st Kings 17 speaks of such a time: there was the prophet Elijah, a widow and her son, there was a desperate need for food, and there was endless provision by a concerned, personal, miraculous God.   Such stories remind us that anguish is not a new thing.

As always, there are details in the story that suggest something bigger.  The location, Zarephath, is on the Mediterranean in the land of Sidon & Tyre, where the religious rivalries with the Israelites were fierce.  It is a story in which patriarchy plays a large role.  And it’s a story of bread, which connects it to all other Biblical stories of bread.   

Some day, there’s a good sermon to be preached about all of that, but not today. Today I am drawn to stay in the intimate, deeply emotional space that contains the prophet, and the widowed mother and her child, and the invisible yet palpable presence of a loving God.     

Lisa Appelo is a Christian blogger; she is also a widow and single mom to seven children, and as such understands this scripture story firsthand. retells the story like so:

“When Elijah arrived at the Zarephath city gates, he spotted a young widow gathering sticks.

“You can almost hear the despair in this single mom’s words as she told Elijah she had ‘only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it – and die.’ (1 Kings 17:12)

This was a women “at the end of her hope.”

“Elijah answered: ‘Do not be afraid.’ He instructed her to make a small loaf for him first and afterward, some for herself and her son with this promise from God: the flour jar would not become empty nor the oil jug run dry until the day the Lord sent rain again”. And so it was.

In both the request and the response, we hear a sense of grim reality.  The widow had no further resources in sight and had resolved herself to her own death and, heartbreakingly, to the death of her child; and into that space comes this seemingly misplaced request for her to offer hospitality one last time.  As Lisa puts it, this was a single mom at the end of her hope.

Yet amidst this stark picture of hopelessness, there was hospitality – and there was provision.

We note that the hospitality was not, initially at least, based in her faith in Yahweh God.   In fact, at one point she refers to “the Lord your God” (verse 12): i.e., “Your God, Elijah, not my God”.  So even though we have here Elijah, one of the renowned prophets of Israel, it’s the willingness of this woman outside the Faith to enter into the sacred power of hospitality that opens the door to the ongoing provision of flour and oil.

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of hospitality in that part of the world, then or now.  When someone was thirsty, you gave them a drink, when they needed food or shelter, you provided that. There was no “if you had extra to share”, it was simply understood - even when you figured that this nub of flour and splash of oil, was going to be your last meal.  So we have this understanding that to live in this world is integrally connected to the act of sharing – that same sacred space named by Jesus in emphasizing the commandment to “love our neighbour as ourselves.”  I remain troubled that Elijah asked for food when things were so dire and yet, in the quiet, desperate moment these three people share, there is also a sense of Divine beauty.

As we sit with these three, we do well to acknowledge that this same exact type of despair is experienced daily, around the world in 2024 by people who have nothing left, people who, like this widow, had no family or community supports to act as a safety net. Every large news story, about people who have been pushed to the end of their hope, by famine or by food insecurity or by the cruelty of people or governments who have labelled them as “problematic”, contain thousands of these smaller tragic spaces, like the one inhabited by this mom and her son and Elijah.  As we consider their hunger, we hear sobering statistics from the World Health Organization indicating that roughly 1 person in 11 on this planet – some 733 million souls – face hunger on a daily basis; in Africa, the fraction is more like 1 person out of 5.   As we approach Remembrance Day tomorrow, we are confronted by the reality of 110 wars ongoing in our world, right now; at the end of last year, there were 117 million displaced people, refugees and other landless people caught by war or persecution or famine.  If we break those kinds of figures down to tiny little groupings, like the widow of Zarephath making what she thought would be her last meal, we get a sense of how these things work: there are the great big reasons, and the intense, personal, heartbreaking results.

We picture these small spaces in the world today, where a glimmer of hope is needed, and as we do so we lift up the importance of the work done by human rights and humanitarian relief agencies, some directly through Churches and faith-based charities, others through a network of non-governmental agencies and visionary non-profits.  The need is widespread and urgent, and there are pathways to alleviating the immediate need while also addressing the need for far-reaching systemic change.   And in addition to these practical supports, there is also the need for holy hope, and today we reaffirm our belief in a God who does not leave us to our own devices. 

Even in the hardest times of life, there is grace: something small, unexpected and life-affirming, often accompanied by a gift of food, or an offer of help.   In the reading from 1^st Kings, the solution to the widow’s problem is not grand or showy, it’s not a new house and servants and rich foods aplenty.  As the story proceeds, we see that she is not shielded from tragedy, there is simply the pledge that there will be enough flour and oil to get her through this day, and then the next day, and then the next day.  As she prepares and shares one last life-giving meal – a meal she thought would be her final meal, ever - she receives the gift of grace, one day at a time, signified and sealed in the provision of bread.

We share this morning, in a sacred ritual that goes back some 2000 years: breaking the bread, sharing the fruit of the vine.  This act of sharing is a connection between us, and is also an invitation for the Holy Spirit to find a home here, as part of our ongoing commitment to be communities of faith where the grace of our God has the room to act, whether times are good or frighteningly bad.  This act of sharing connects us with all our siblings who are, for whatever reason, feeling unsettled, hopeless, hungry in body or spirit on this day. As we feed on these symbols of grace, as we open ourselves to the God who has accompanied humanity through war and famine, earthquake, fire and flood, may we invite life and hope and provision and peace to be with us and between us and to be mobilized through us, to embody God’s own hospitality and grace and hope reaching into the world around us. Amen, and Amen.

 

 

References cited or consulted:

Apello, Lisa. https://lisaappelo.com/when-you-need-hope-elijah-and-the-widow-of-zarephath/ and https://lisaappelo.com/our-story/

Claasens, Juliana. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-2/commentary-on-1-kings-178-16-3

Gehrz, Chris – quoting Gaudino, Rebecca - https://pietistschoolman.com/2020/03/30/the-with-god-life-the-widow-of-zarephath/

Geneva Academy, https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts

https://www.gotquestions.org/Elijah-widow.html

Government of Canada, Veterans Affairs. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/wars-and-conflicts/second-world-war

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/timeline-of-20th-and-21st-century-wars#:~:text=Conflict%20took%20place%20in%20every,number%20is%20likely%20far%20higher.

Kadari, Tamar. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/widow-of-zarephath-midrash-and-aggadah

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-armed-conflicts-by-country?time=2023

https://www.rescue.org/article/what-happening-children-and-pregnant-mothers-gaza

UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance

Weber, Mike. https://musingsandwonderment.blog/2020/11/02/an-unlikely-saint-the-widow-of-zarephath/

World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stubbornly-high-for-three-consecutive-years-as-global-crises-deepen--un-report

 

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos – Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.  

Jeremiah 32 - October 27, 2024 and November 3, 2024

preached by Rev Shannon Mang at the Heritage-History Workshop Sundays in Oliver on October 27 and Osoyoos on November 3. 

When I worked at Living Spirit United Church (Calgary), the administrator came to work with her little noisy, and very friendly terrier named Rosie. Rosie made friends with everyone who came into the building. Rosie and I were good friends, but I was not a friend who would feed her. Unlike others in that community, I would not share my lunch or bring her treats—but that never stopped Rosie from expecting that she would one day take our relationship to the next level of intimacy—food sharing. It never happened, but in all the months that we both went to work together prior to the pandemic, Rosie was convinced that I would—one day give her food. Rosie became my symbol of how “hope springs eternal”.

 

These are days when hope is hard to find. We had friends from Lacombe AB visiting in October and we did a few wine tastings with lovely, friendly and chatty wine tasting staff. One of the tasting staff went  into some detail about the deep challenges facing the wineries. He commented that if we have favourite wineries- to stock up because many of the estate wineries will not weather this storm of circumstances. These difficulties resulting from unpredictable weather are also being faced by the growers of fruit and vegetables in our valley. The changing weather recently had communities in BC who have suffered repeated flooding, most recently from October’s atmospheric river events. They are asking questions about the sustainability of their community’s infrastructure. And on a personal note, Greg and I now share the communal anxiety in this province about the threat of fire being a clear and present danger every year.

We are living in an age of fear—and we are in good company. Our ancestors in the faith have often lived in ages of fear, and they have given us a legacy of hope in the midst of fear.

The context of today’s text from the prophet Jeremiah was a time when Babylon invaded Jerusalem and left a trail of death and destruction in its path, and had the city of Jerusalem under siege. Jeremiah was a prophet who was called into God’s service at a young age and whose life’s work was : “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant”. At his point in his story he was imprisoned within the walls of the king’s palace. King Zedekiah had been shortsighted and refused to heed Jeremiah’s warnings, to the point of imprisoning him--- then Jeremiah’s warnings came to pass and the king and all of Judah were at war.

From the prison and in the middle of the siege, Jeremiah did something completely unexpected after receiving a message from God. God let the prophet know that it was a good time to buy a plot of land from his cousin even though the enemy was at the gate of the city and was starving the people. It was clear to all that once the siege broke it was very likely that the population would either be killed or taken into slavery and deported to the land of the victors. Since God had told him to expect his cousin to make the offer, when his cousin did show up to offer Jeremiah the plot of land, he saw it as a sign that God would reverse Israel’s fortunes. It was a sign that God had neither forgotten Israel nor left it to its own devices.

Commanding that the deeds be put in clay pots, Jeremiah took steps necessary to assure that the deeds of purchase would outlast war and destruction. Jeremiah followed all the prescribed legal procedures, including having it witnessed publicly. With the transaction in public view, Jeremiah was also conducting a “sermon” for all to see. It was a way of expressing his hope, his desire, his trust in God, that things would indeed get better, even if he did not live to experience better days on his land. His purchase was not just for himself, but for future generations. His purchase signaled to the nation that their God, who had brought warnings of destruction through the prophet, was also a God who still claimed them as God’s people and believed in their restoration.

From Oct 27- [Oliver United Church has a history of doing the hard work of “seeing the signs of the times” and being proactive considering hard realities.  Jeremiah’s call was to publicly purchase a plot of land in the middle of a siege. Oliver United Church’s call was to sell this much-loved building that has held the life of this congregation for most of its century-long life. You celebrated 100+ years of Oliver United Church in Dec 2022, and you are in an “in between time” now in a changed space, but still housed in your former church.]

From Nov 3- [Osoyoos United Church has a history of doing the hard work of “seeing the signs of the times” and being proactive considering hard realities.  Jeremiah’s call was to publicly purchase a plot of land in the middle of a siege. Osoyoos United Church’s call was to serve immediate needs in the community: you created the local Food Bank and successful rummage sales turned into a weekly event, and then into the Thrift Store that continues to have a tremendous impact on Osoyoos.]

Today in our interactive time, my hope is to learn from you what the most significant milestones have been in in the life of this congregation from inside your skin. I have been reading your history and I’ve only started to look at your large collection of photo albums---and that is a gift. Today I want to hear from you as the continuing presence of Osoyoos United Church. I am interested in having you share at your tables memories that have had an impact on you.

Lets continue to do the hard work that the Prophet Jeremiah calls us to, looking at our history of faithful service and planning for a future of continuing faithful service.

May it be so.

 (c) Rev Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2024. 

Revelation 21: 1-6 and Isaiah 25: 6-9 - All Saints, October 27 and November 3, 2024

 preached by Rev Greg Wooley in Osoyoos on October 27 and Oliver on November 3. 

On this morning when we consider the lives of the faithful departed – those whose lives are known by many, and those who are less well known but personally touched our lives – we’ve heard two powerful readings from scripture.  Each of these is both intimately personal, and consequential on a global scale, reminding us that the same God whose glory infuses all of creation is also filled with love for each being, intimately and personally.

Both readings use the beautiful image of God wiping away all tears, Mama God reaching in with tenderness, whether the tears are from sadness, loss, grief, uncertainty, anguish, or even embarrassment or shame.  Both readings also speak of God’s powerful, decisive actions to make things new, pictured in the book of Revelation as a new heaven and a new earth and by the prophet Isaiah as a holy banquet on mountainside where death itself is defeated.   That interweaving of God’s compassionate concern for our personal pain, and God’s redemptive actions for all creation, is well-placed on this day when we think of the devout whose faith has shaped our faith.

Our two readings today, while presented in dreamlike, seemingly futuristic language, were both written to specific communities in tumultuous times, who needed hope right then. Isaiah 25 was most likely written in a time just before the Babylonian exile, when it was clear that Israel would be overrun and the people sent away.  Amidst this pending expulsion Isaiah lifts up God’s desire for wholeness by presenting an image of a lavish banquet where all have come together.  The of the Book of Revelation, meanwhile, was writing directly and specifically to early Christian communities, and for them lifted up God’s desire for wholeness, promising that the hardships they were facing were known to God and were being confronted by God.  And while these readings were addressed to specific communities in a given time and place, my belief is that they speak to our day as well.

That’s a lot to take in all at once!  So I want to unpack things a bit, in these readings which present both God’s intimacy and God’s engagement with the world’s brokenness, by considering the image of God wiping away all tears from the eyes of those who suffer.

Shannon and I are still really new here – this is only our ninth Sunday with you.  With that being the case, you’ve not yet heard much of our backstory, but one part of my story shapes how I hear these readings. In the year 2010, the family of four I grew up in was still intact.  My Dad had been in dementia care for a couple of years, but Mom was still in our family home in Regina and my only brother, eleven years older than me, lived nearby.  But then in September of 2010, Dad died, and four years later, in 2014 Mom died in February and my brother died three months later - and our family of four dwindled to one – just me.   November is a month filled with family birthdays, anniversaries and bittersweet milestones, so the absence of my parents and brother are very present to me at this time of year.   

When I hear the words, then, promising that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” I hear those words personally and can attest to their truth.  I have experienced divine love when sadness and worry and uncertainty and grief pay uninvited and unexpected visits.  Through the direct experience of God’s love, and through the thoughtful support and kindness of family and friends, neighbours and parishioners, I have experienced holy hands and hearts bringing me comfort.  And when I think of others who are carrying the burdens of chronic illness or grief, or if I imagine people in this world today whose general, ongoing life circumstances are truly horrific, it renews my faith to know that God’s love reaches to them, as God has done to me. God moves in with words and actions of love, for all who suffer.

The readings from Isaiah and Revelation recognize that in addition to the hard times we go through in our personal lives, there are massive things afoot at a global, even cosmic scale. Much human suffering is caused by injustice, by the inequitable distribution of wealth and influence, by rivalries and bigotry and nationalism and a lack of concern for the planet on which we live.  The selfish, ego-driven ways with which we humans inhabit this planet are 180 degrees removed from the ways of wholeness and balance intended by God.   And both Isaiah and Revelation draw a picture of a newly constructed world where God’s glorious balance rules the day, where the needs of those who have struggled their whole lives are attentively met, where the stain of human ridiculousness has been scrubbed clean.

Both of these readings may seem so idyllic in their portraits of a new reality that they suggest an escape from earth, distracting us from the present with pie-in-the-sky promises of a heavenly future. But I can tell you from the summer ministry internship that Shannon and I spent in the Philippines back in 1987, that the farmers and factory workers and fisherfolk that we met recognized the transformative power of Christ as tangible, forceful, and daily.  For some, yes, it was mostly the hope of heaven that kept them going, but for others, the struggle against the forces that made life hard for them and their communities that moment was the core of their faith in God.  When we returned to Vancouver after the internship we did about thirty customized presentations in worship services and fellowship halls and Church basements, and we would often end our presentations with an image and quote from Isaiah 65, very similar to today’s reading: “’They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain’, says the Lord.”

When scripture speaks of such a drastic new way, new realm, new world, it’s only natural that it would evoke anxiety amongst even the most casual reader of scripture.  I’d like to present you, though, with a somewhat different way to approach the word “new”. Lutheran Pastor and online Bible commentator Brian Stoffregen writes that the words in Revelation 21 about a new heaven and new earth use the same word for NEW that is used when Jesus talks about a “new” commandment that he is giving, which is in reality an old commandment used with new vitality.  Sometimes new means brand-new but it can also mean “renewed”.  To illustrate, Brian uses this analogy: “we watch a lot of home remodeling shows, when an old house with many problems goes through a make-over. The rotten wood and bad wiring are replaced. Faded rooms are repainted. Old appliances, furnace, and air conditioner are replaced with more efficient ones, etc. The old is transformed into something new, while retaining much of the old structure”.  And then he continues, “Once all of the rotten and evil is removed from earth and heaven, they will become something new and different from what they had been…. The new is not something entirely different from what was old”, not demolished but rather totally renewed, rebuilt according to God’s initial plan.

When dealing with apocalyptic writings like the book of Revelation, in addition to this knowledge that God’s goal may well be complete renewal, not violent destruction, I find it helpful to focus on the who and the why rather than the what and the when.   The details of this new heaven and new earth – the what and when and where and how this new creation will supposedly happen, have no choice but to stress us out; but the who and the why behind this new reality are well known to us: our beloved God is the who, and God’s transformative love is the why.  Things as they are, are broken, as life is horribly challenging for some and laughably easy for others.  That imbalance is not God’s intent for life and the risen Christ calls us to open ourselves to the interior reno work that can help our lives express God’s desire that all God’s beloved children can experience life in all abundance.  

Revelation and Isaiah give us two sets of love-infused promises: promises of a world renewed, creatively crafted by God to harbour justice and peace.  And within that global agenda is the nurturing God, caring, loving, wiping away the tears from the eyes of those who have been crying for any reason at all.   These may seem like very separate agendas, but on this All Saints Sunday I wish to bring forward something that helps us integrate them.  

Over my years of ministry, I have been blessed by the lives of the devout, whose actions for a better world have been coupled with a sturdy faith.  In today’s prayers, we will bring such people to mind, and I’d like to give the final word in today’s sermon to a woman whose scholarship, wisdom and grounded faith have been a blessing to a lot of people for a long time.

Some of you will be familiar with Fr. Richard Rohr and the Centre for Action and Contemplation. One of the leaders there has been Dr. Barbara Holmes.  Barbara died last week, and her obituary notice contained a link to an online sermon she preached four years ago.  In her own words, here is how she combined her connection with the God who wipes away every tear from our eyes,  with her understanding of the earth-shaking cosmic nature of the Holy:

“I, for one – and I think we each have to work this out for ourselves – I trust the promises of the Divine One when he says, ‘Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Well, the end of the age I am speaking of is a personal, as well as geophysical reality, for each of us faces the ending of a world as we complete our earthly journeys, one by one.

“Death, for me, is only frightening when we imagine our lives as a dash between the birth date and the death date.  That’s something to be concerned about, if that’s all it is.  But if we’re one with all of creation – if our bodily systems include stars long gone, the breath of God, tiny interconnecting particles of energy – if we are embodied universes, then all will be well when the journey is complete.”  To me, that speaks of the Saints – and of the God who comforts us when our souls ache – and the vision of a world transformed”. 

With thanks to Barbara Holmes for her faith, with thanks for the saints in your lives and the influence you have made in the lives of others: may God’s big actions of a world enlivened and renewed, God’s personal love for you, and the lives of the faithful departed who went before us, shape our lives with hope and purpose, as individuals and as Church.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

References consulted or cited:

Erickson, Amy. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/all-saints-day/commentary-on-isaiah-256-9-2

Holmes, Barbara. ”Death is not the final word.” A Sermon/Presentation from 2021. https://youtu.be/mW9UkBv7eT0?si=eszHHbS3w1-kI-ej

Peterson, Eugene. Reversed Thunder.  NYC: Harper, 1990.

Stoffregen, Brian. https://mailchi.mp/c23c35b9ed58/gospel-notes-revelation-211-6?e=ac0c055952

Thiessen, Heather Anne. https://hermeneutrix.com/2024/10/15/studying-isaiah-25-1-10/

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge