Sermon for Pentecost Sunday - May 20th 2018

         

So? How many of you watched the Royal Wedding? How many of you have watched the Rev. Michael Curry’s amazing sermon that was part of the wedding?

          I did not watch the wedding, but by lunchtime yesterday I had read enough comments on line that I KNEW I needed to watch the sermon … and I was NOT disappointed … That was one of the finest Pentecost Sermons I have ever heard … it was one of the best sermons I have ever heard.

          It spoke of love, but it also dripped with a powerful social justice message that was delivered in the heart of the rich and powerful from around the world … and it was delivered by an American preacher from the Episcopalian Church, a church that is no longer in full communion with the Mother Church of England because the Episcopalians keep doing things like ordaining women, ordaining gays and lesbians and recognizing same-sex marriages as a sacrament blessed by God … so the homiletic arrow the reverend curry launched yesterday was directed at the heart of our society and said clearly – we can do better.

          That he spoke of love hearkens back to that heart wrenching day when a young Prince Harry watched his mother’s funeral and heard the immortal words of St Paul speaking of Love, eloquently offered by Tony Blair … words that Rev Curry picked up when he said:

Love is not selfish and self-centered. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, becomes redemptive. And that way of unselfish sacrificial redemptive love, changes lives and it can change this world.

If you don't believe me, just stop and think and imagine, think and imagine, well, think and imagine a world where love is the way. Imagine our homes and families when love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce when love is the way. Imagine this tired old world when love is the way.

When love is the way, unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room, plenty good room, for all of god's children because when love is the way, we actually treat each other well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that god is the source of us all and we are brothers and sisters, children of god. My brothers and sisters, that's a new heaven, a new Earth, a new world, a new human family.

          That in an eloquent and beautiful nutshell is the guts of Pentecost!!

          And Curry knew this as he spoke because he went on to speak of the importance of FIRE to humanity … how fire allows us to do all that we do today from live in cold frost places like Canada, to flying across the ocean, to doing things we do every day without even considering them … and he challenged his listeners – those in the chapel and the BILLIONS who have listened around the world to consider that we MUST discover for a second time the gift of fire – but the fire this time is LOVE …

          The redemptive power of love – and when we rediscover it we will, as he says, make of this old world a new world …

          In our readings today we hear of the spirit coming upon the disciples of followers of Christ like tongues of fire … fire … love … the redemptive power of love falling on the disciples – the church – you and I – as tongues of fire. And what does fire do? It either sputters out and is extinguished, or it grows and strengthens and spreads …

          Yesterday, we were challenged to celebrate love by encouraging that fire to spread and to transform the world with its power … it is, as poet Ann Weems observes of Pentecost:

The church is Pentecost.
The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us
and sends us out together
aflame with new life,
inheritors of the wealth of God:
life abundant.
We are liberated from the prisons of pettiness,
jealousy, and greed,
liberated to be the church.
We are freed to free others.
We are affirmed to affirm others.
We are loved to love others.
We are family;
we are community.
We are the church triumphant—
you, me, anyone who would come unto the Lord—
renewed, redirected, empowered
to change things and lives
together in love and wholeness.
We are the Lord’s church,
the church of justice and mercy,
the people sent to open prisons,
to heal the sick
to clothe the naked
to feed the hungry
to reconcile
to be alleluias when there is no music.
The mantle is upon our shoulders.
Joy is apparent in our living.
We have been commissioned to be the church of Jesus Christ

          For me, this weekend I have rediscovered my flame for preaching … in the fall of 1990, I remember going into the Anglican Book room in downtown Kingston – we called it “Maria’s” because the lady running it was named Maria and even though it was an offshoot of the Anglican Diocese in Kingston, it was very much Maria’s bookstore … it was where we theology college students went to get our text books, and where we could go to just browse and make purchases on an account we could carry until we graduated three or four years later … I know my library expanded exponentially in my three years at Queens’ and I’m also sure I’m not the only one … but some purchases stand out more than others … I can still remember the grey rainy September day I discovered the works of Ann Weems … her book “Reaching for rainbows” was like a theological bomb for me … her use of language, her insistence on focusing on pushing the boundaries and celebrating the joy that is within the church touched me deeply and radically altered my view of church and ministry and life … I have all of her collected books of poems and liturgies, and I have used them over and over and over …

          But to be wholly honest … after 28 years, I had grown weary and her words didn’t resonate with me like they once did … I was approaching preaching my 27^th Pentecost wondering what I could possible share or reflect on that was new and that could revive that fire …

          And so yesterday I listened to the preaching of Rev Curry on love and fire, and I felt a stirring … Listening to rev curry, I was reminded of the power that we hold as people of faith when we take the message we hear over and over seriously … I was blown away as he quoted Solomon, Martin Luther King, Pierre De’ Chardin, and pulled it all together with a POWERFUL proclamation of love and its power to transform not only the world, but those who open themselves to it …

          The backstory of this weekend is how Prince Harry’s life is framed by the words LOVE … as a young boy we ALL saw beautiful pictures of he and his brother with their mother Diana, and there was clearly deep love shared between them … at her memorial the words of Paul spoke of the kind of love we all saw reflected in Diana, and our hearts broke for young William and Harry at their loss … and I’m sure many of us prayed that they wouldn’t simply fall into the clutches of the grey men made famous by their mother … then as a teen Harry had a wild reputation, but as a young man joined the British Military and served in combat – a first for a Royal putting himself in harm’s way as part of a larger whole … then with his discharge he truly embodied love by being one of the forces behind the Invictus games that celebrates the accomplishment of men and women damaged by combat, allowing them a place to bring their best and achieve more than perhaps even they thought possible … and now, this weekend as a young man becoming a husband, we celebrate the presence of love and ALL that it has done in his young life and we wish he and Megan well in their life together … it is as we were told – power in love, and where true love is found, God is there.

          The message that falls upon us today – Pentecost – as we leave this place is the message that tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves – and everything hangs on that love of God and our neighbour – EVERYTHING …

          And so, what shall we do with this? How shall we nurture and sustain and grow the Pentecost flame that rests within each of us?

          Shall we allow it to sputter out and die? Or shall we fan it and help it grow and strengthen?

          Today is the birthday of the Church – the day we as a church universal and catholic came into being … the day, like that of the tower of Babel, when we were sent into ALL the world to proclaim and live the Gospel … and what was the message?

          One simple inalterable, accepting, welcoming, and transformative word: Love … our message is love, and now it rest upon us to share it in all that we do and say and think … and it isn’t as hard a task as we may think.

          I would like to end by sharing some of the powerful words by the late Ann Weems that helped propel me into the last 25 years of ministry … she once wrote:

          (This Church

          We don’t pretend to understand

                    the mystery of what goes on in God’s church.

          We just know we feel a pervading spirit of love

                    that reaches into the niches of all of us

                    and pulls us out into the open, free and alive and belonging.

          We believe this spirit of Love exists

                    because God’s spirit lives within this Church,

                    this unity of persons trying to be the Good News.

          We see this Church as a circle of people …

                    … holding hands … and dancing … supporting each other,

                              accepting each other, loving each other …

          Each person in this dancing circle is facing outward …

                    reaching into God’s world,

                              listening for the whimpering,

                                        watching for the hurting,

                    willing to offer a cup of cold water in God’s name …

          Sometimes they need the water …

                    Sometimes you need the water …

                              Sometimes I need the water …

          Being a part of the Church means knowing

                    that the cup is always filled in GOD’S name …

                                                                      (searching for shalom pg 54)

          May it be so … thanks be to God … let us pray … 

Service & Sermon for January 21st 2018 ... When we hear "come and follow me" ...

*Introit:          All The Way my Saviour Leads Me               VU 635

Call to Worship:

One: Come and follow me. I will make you fish for people.  

ALL: That’s a whale of a tale.

One: Go to Nineveh and call on them to repent.

ALL: No Thanks, I’m kind of busy right now.

One: You can flee, but God will find you and bring you back.

ALL: My days are pretty full, can I get back to you later?

One: Across time and space, the call to follow resonates.

ALL: Simon and Andrew left their boats and followed.

One: Come and follow me. I will make you fish for people.

ALL: Thank you God for finding us in the most unlikely of places, 

             and bringing us to where we are meant to be.

Prayer of Approach:

Gracious and loving God, you have called us over the tumult of our lives … your voice resonates within us yet too often we fail to listen … like Jonah, we throw out excuses and run the other way … yet you persist …

            You persist in calling us … you persist in loving us … you persist in being present in our lives and our world.

            O Holy One, call us and welcome us in that we may be like the disciples who left their boats and nets, putting the past behind them as they answered the simple words: “Follow Me”.

            We will follow wherever it is that you lead us,

We will follow the love and grace your forgiveness gives us,

            We will follow, sharing love with the world as we join together in prayer, 

*Hymn:          Seek Ye First The Kingdom                           VU 356

Scripture Readings:

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm 62                      (VU 779)

I Corinthians 7:29-31

Mark 1:14-20

           

*Hymn:          Jesus You Have Come to the Lakeshore        VU 563

Reflection:      

I learned something new this week about the book of Jonah. I’ve always known it has a fair bit of exaggeration in it, but I had not encountered a commentary on it that stated clearly that the book was a satire … the WPOG curriculum states flatly: “Jonah is different from other books about prophets in that it is a satire profiling a prophet who is disobedient rather than faithful.”

          This kind of brought me up short. No one in the academic community sees the book of Jonah as a historic text, but rather a metaphoric text.

          No one can live in the gut of a whale for three days.

          Not too mention that Jonah ran off towards modern Spain before being swallowed by the whale, only to be barfed up on the shore a day’s walk from Ninevah – an action that would require the whale to move at physically impossible speeds from the Mediterranean sea, AROUND Africa up to the Arab peninsula where modern Iraq sits …

          But beyond the exaggerations and the metaphors, scholars follow up the satire observation by noting:

          The book of Jonah is uncharacteristic, when compared to other writing in the prophetic tradition, in its use of humour or irony to make its point. Humourous qualities, such as exaggerated behaviour (running away fronm God) inappropriate actions (sleeping through a violent storm) outlandish situations (offering a prayer of thanksgiving from inside a fish’s belly) ludicrous commands (animals must fast and wear sackcloth) and emotions either contrary to expectation or out of proportion appear throughout the story. But all of these qualities serve to underline the book’s themes.

          The book has a role disproportionate to its size within religious tradition, Judaism picking up on its theme of repentance, reads it liturgically on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

          So, a book written while the Jewish nation was in exile in Babylon, offers a satirical look at the life of a prophet, and from the inside of the Babylonian empire acknowledges that the nation is in need of MAJOR and immediate repentance … but in this story lies a mirror that the ancients would see, and that liturgically is at play when the text is shared on Yom Kippur … repentance is needed on the part of the Ninevites, but it is needed ALSO on the part of the listener.

          Where do we sit in the story?

          Are we the hard headed and stubborn Jonah who needs to be pulled back to God’s plan and desires?

          Are we the people of Nineveh, quietly going about our days oblivious to our misdeeds and our need for repentance?

          Or are we like the king, who on hearing the message seizes the opportunity and returns to God?

          The power of that mirror is that it helps us reflect on the places in our hearts and our lives that need to be addressed … the places where grace can break through and bring transformation. Where we can have an epiphany that calls to more than this moment and where we find ourselves.

          This theme carries on in the reading from Mark where Jesus calls more of his disciples.

          We have four fisherman – they have secure employment, they are comfortable in their lives and social status, they are pretty much set.

          Then along comes this Jesus character inviting them to leave their boats and nets behind and follow him … becoming fishers of men and women instead. An epiphany to go … to go and see where the journey may lead.

          It is quite the jump – leave everything behind – security, certainty, comfort and follow an itinerant preacher as he wanders around the country side talking about God … what would our reaction be if one of our kids did that? If we did that?

          Yet, here it is – central to our story and experience as a Church – as a faith community, we have a radical departure from everything we value and appreciate as a people and a culture …

          And this is the discomfort we are facing as a people today – the landscape around us has been shifting and changing, and things are not as they once were, so we face a call … a call to faith.

          We face a call and we await an epiphany that will show us where we are to go.

          This is where we can begin to understand some of what is unfolding around us that leaves us scratching our heads in bewilderment.

          Economically things are changing, the secure, good paying jobs are simply not here anymore, and precarious employment and uncertainty about retirement is the norm … people are frightened and uncertain and angry, so when a political candidate steps up and starts talking about making things better and offers simple answers to the complex issues, as frightening as it may be, people jump at the chance to reclaim past glory and will support them …

          Socially things are in incredible flux … all around us there are people who are NOT like us – their language, culture and skin tone are different … they want to live in little clusters and hang out with each other and not mesh into our society (they aren’t like the Italians and Germans and scots who settled vast tracts of land together, or lived in neighbourhoods together …) But that difference can make us uncomfortable and uneasy and leads to uncertainty, fear and even anger …

          So, in the face of anger and fear we seek something … anything … that will give us comfort and security.

          Churches are not immune – instead of embracing the uncertainty with the spirit of the disciples heading off to follow Jesus wherever the journey might lead, we instead will entrench ourselves, tighten the rules, clarify the dogmas, strengthen the thou shalt not’s and enforce the us or them paradigms … and we seek simple answers for complex questions …

          We seek comfort in the face of uncertainty

                   We seek certainty in the face of doubt

                             We seek safety in the face of fear

          But God calls us to something that is truly uncertain … our problem has been, as theologian Walter Bruggemann notes – that as Christians we are used to being victors and triumphant. This new context where we are not the victors, and we are not always right is different and truly disconcerting. The epiphany will likely not bring comfort, but will guide us to FACE the discomfort and meet it with faith and grace.

          In the last forty years something has happened that we are struggling to make sense of … when I started in ministry, a mere 25 years ago, full time ministries were the norm. I remember class mates wanting a part-time charge rather than full time, and they were out there, but they were rare.

          Ministry was a secure job – there were lots of churches, and there were lots of opportunities …

          Today, the landscape is different. Part-time ministries are the norm, and fulltime ministries are uncommon. Ministry is not a secure job, and the likelihood of secure employment with a comfortable retirement as a minister is more than just uncertain … and the context within churches is similar.

          Churches are struggling … they are fighting to keep the lights on and the doors open … congregations are dwindling and the average age is climbing … to be honest and blunt, as an institution the Church – across denominations – is dying … and the grief that is in response to that palliative journey is real and tangible and is leading to A LOT of anger … A LOT of fighting.

          When there is a death in a family, we ALL know stories about fighting over stuff … cherished mementos or valued heirlooms … families bicker and fight and real damage can happen over the silliest of things …

          The epiphany moment for us, in community … in faith, is to name the grief … to own the grief … to live the grief … and to begin to heal through it.

          In the Church today, we are in the same scenario as a family standing by the grave of a loved one. Big changes are unfolding around us, and things are changing rapidly … and like any family we are grieving, even if we don’t use the language … so, shall we try to run away like Jonah? Flee in the opposite direction to escape God?

          Or will we get angry and lash out? Will we let our grief turn to resentment and anger and tear down rather than build up?

          Or will we respond like the disciples and the people of Corinth? Will we face our mortality and embrace the epiphany? Will we have the courage to face our grief by letting go of the familiar and the comfortable and facing tomorrow KNOWING that God is with us, and that we are being called and invited AND welcomed to join in the journey that lies ahead?

          The WPOG summarizes it well when it notes:

Sometimes God calls when we least expect it, at an inconvenient time, or from an unexpected source. Are we, like Jonah, trying to avoid God’s summons? Or like the four fishers, ready to drop what we are doing and follow Jesus? Whatever response we make, God does not give up on us. Like the Corinthians that Paul was writing to, we are called to find ways to rearrange our lives, set new priorities, and treat one another as Christ taught us to. What is God’s ‘the time is now’ message to us, and to our faith community at this moment in our lives?

          And what are we prepared to do with that message?

          … may it be so … thanks be to God, let us pray …