Is anger bad? The Bible says: “Be angry, but do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
Anger alerts us to danger and dishonesty and unfairness. A speeding car whizzes by, weaving in and out of lanes, narrowly missing your car and others nearby, and you get angry. Danger lurks.
But anger is also a powerful force. Left unattended it can quickly become poisonous, destructive and self-destructive. And so far as possible, the Bible teaches, settle the fight as soon as possible. Put the rottweiler back in the cage. “Do no let the sun go down on your anger.”
Bishop Tom Wright says that something like this is at work in our Gospel today (John 10.1-10). The desire for life in abundance, abundant life, is a force meant for our good. But it is likewise a powerful force and not to be trifled with. In John’s Gospel, people are in search of a King who will give them abundant life. The gospel describes how powerful this force can be for good, how dangerous it can be if misdirected and disappointed. Our desire for life must aimed in the right direction and at the right One, otherwise, like anger, it too can become a corrupting and destructive force.
Notice a little contrast in our lesson today.
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. (John 10:1)
The word which is translated ‘sheepfold’ or ‘sheepyard’, as well as the words for ‘gate’ and ‘gatekeeper’ direct our attention to the only other ‘yard’ mentioned in the gospel. It is in chapter 18 where the word is translated as ‘courtyard’ and where enemies have taken Jesus and plot against him. ‘Sheepfold’ and ‘courtyard’ are the translation of the same word.
So the . . . police arrested Jesus and [took him] . . . into the courtyard of the high priest [and] . . . the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. (John 18:12-16)
In John’s gospel, we have two yards to consider and to good effect. Start with the second. It is the court yard where Jesus was taken after his arrest. And what do we know about it?
Well, we know it was a place of darkness and destruction. It was the place where authorities gathered at night in order to secretly plot the death of an innocent man. It is the place where the advice of the chief priest was taken up that it was better that one man die than a nation, even if that one man is innocent.
The ‘courtyard’ was a place of destruction.
But secondly, it was a place of injustice.
Repeatedly, it says, Pilate appealed to the crowd to free Jesus against whom he could find no charges. Repeatedly Pilate was shouted down by the crowd who preferred Barabbas the bandit. Repeatedly Pilate betrayed the fundamental principles of justice to which he, above all others, was obliged. And when his appeals to public opinion failed, Pilate betrayed the law and “he handed [Jesus] over to them to be crucified.” (Jn 19:16)
The court ‘yard’ was a place of destruction. It was also a place of injustice. And thirdly, it was a place of betrayal.
“Aren’t you one of his disciples?” the gatekeeper asked Peter.
“No,” he said, “I am not”, and repeated his denial again . . . and again.
This dark and wicked yard of malevolence is also a place of corruption, turning the bravery of Peter to pudding, the loyalty of Peter to treachery.
The courtyard stands as a warning to those who seek ‘abundant life’ apart from the sheepyard of Jesus.
And so, consider by contrast, the sheepyard of Jesus.
First, the sheepyard of Jesus, Jesus says, is a yard of grace.
Our lesson today is closely linked to the passage we read on the fourth Sunday of Lent about the blind man healed by Jesus who is subsequently interrogated, persecuted and driven from the temple by the false shepherds about whom Jesus warned. And it says, Jesus came and found him. The word ‘find’ is rarely used, but it includes the search of Jesus for his disciples, the earlier search of Jesus for the lame man he had healed, and here the search of Jesus for the blind man, healed of blindness, and persecuted for it.
I told you that the word ‘yard’ only appears here and in the passage about the courtyard of Jesus’ arrest. The same is true for the word ‘gate’ and ‘gatekeeper’. But the word ‘gate’ or ‘door’ appears one other time in John’s gospel.
Can you think of another famous door in this Gospel.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19)
Our Lord has come into the world to give life and the determination of the Good Shepherd to bring life is greater even than the doors that the fearful may swing shut behind them.
First, the sheepyard of Jesus is a yard of grace.
Secondly, and by sharp contrast, the sheepyard of Jesus is a place of truthfulness.
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that in our study of Romans that following Jesus Christ does not lead to a life of secrecy and cover-up. Rather, the consequence is peacefulness within society, a clear conscience before God. This transparency and truthfulness begins with Jesus. The sheep respond to the voice of the Good Shepherd because he speaks the truth - a truthfulness that leads Jesus to the judge’s bench of Pilate, where fearlessly he would present himself openly and guilelessly before a magistrate of Caesar himself.:
“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (Jn 18:37)
Secondly, and by sharp contrast, the sheepyard of Jesus is a place of truthfulness.
Thirdly, the sheepyard of Jesus is a yard of mercy. It is a yard where the sinful and the crooked get a second chance.
In the courtyard, one of Jesus’ apprentices, Peter, did everything wrong that he could do wrong. He betrayed Jesus, he abandoned his responsibilities, he fled.
But what does Jesus do with sinners? What does Jesus do with those everyone else has given up on, with those who have given up on themselves?
It says,
“After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias . . . [and when] they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter - [three times] “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” repeating the question in a threefold reversal of Peter’s threefold betrayal. (Jn 21:15) What does Jesus do with sinners? He offers them the mercy of God. He offers them a second chance.
The Gospel of John is sharp with its warnings of judgement and separation. But the judgement is a judgement of inevitability. Separate ourselves from God, the Gospel says, and we cannot live. Separate ourselves from God, we separate ourselves from life, truthfulness, and mercy. And I can’t help but think that the courtyard of Pilate challenges us even more seriously to discover what exists in the sheepfold of Jesus.
Life! And life to abundance. And life to be shared with the lame, the blind and the outcast.
Truthfulness. A life lived happily before God and humbly and transparently with others. A life that shares freely what we’ve received and delights in what God has given to others.
And finally, in the sheepfold of Jesus the mercy of God and a second chance.
And with the courtyard of Pilate in the background - this solemn question stands: is there anyone else, anywhere else, who will keep us better tethered to the grace, justice and mercy of God?
Late Thursday afternoon, Stanley Emerson passed away in his 86th year. Stanley is the husband of Leela, and a longtime member of the Centre and Parish. We’ll be hearing more about him over the course of the coming week, but Fr. Isaac mentioned to me that during a time of sharp distress during the Sri Lankan civil war, one of the Anglican orphanages lost its directors. And so Stanley and Leela were the ones to come and manage and direct the orphanage and to love the children. And so, possibly a little surprising to the eye, this unassuming couple have children around the world, abandoned little sheep they sought out, loved and protected.
The desire for life - abundant life - is a powerful force. And misdirected, aimed at the wrong one, it has the power to corrupt and destroy. But in the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd, it is a desire that will unite our lives with the grace, truth, and mercy of God. It is life and life in abundance.
Sermons & Notes
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Black History Sunday - The Rev'd Fr. Theadore Hunt
Preached at St. Paul’s L’Amoreaux, Toronto, February 20th, 2011 (Epiphany 7, Year A)
Dr. Rosemarie Sadlier, president of the Ontario Black History Society, contextualized Black history perfectly when she wrote: “Black history refers to the stories, experiences, and accomplishments of people of African origin. Black history did not begin in recent times in Canada, but in ancient times in Africa. People connected by their common African history and ancestry have created Black history here. [Therefore] the African-Canadian population is made up of individuals from a range of places across the globe including the United States, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Canada.”
Black history is the history of a people who were uprooted from their native land, and made to journey to foreign lands primarily for their utilitarian value; millions of whom never survived the often perilous journey. In Canada we may have come to learn of the stories of: Mathieu Da Costa – believed to be the first black person in Canada. He was brought over in 1605 as a translator for the French colonizers of what is now Quebec. Or perhaps we may know of the 6 year old boy Olivier Le Jeune – also brought to Quebec in 1628 as the first African slave in Canada. To be sure, following the defeat of the Loyalists in the American war of Independence, many other African slaves would be brought to Canada by their British owners at that time who were looking to settle in Canada. On account of the popular biographies written about them, some may be more familiar with the stories of The Rev’d Josiah Henson who fled to Canada in 1830 from the South in search of his freedom. When he arrived, he joined forces with those working for the abolition of slavery while also helping to improve the quality of life for fugitive slaves in Canada. Or, some may be more familiar with the stories Harriet Tubman who similarly fled north toward the northern states and eventually to Canada in search of her freedom. She did this utilizing the informal network of escape routes and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Yet, not content with her own freedom, she again made the journey south between 13 to 19 times as a ‘conductor’ of the Railroad, risking her own life and possibility of recapture, in order to lead hundreds of other slaves to freedom. For this reason she was given the nickname Moses.
But judging from the experiences of those who were either brought here, or those who fled here in search of their freedom, even after they arrived, life was by no means easy. Slaves were promised that they would receive land, freedom, and rights in Canada, in return for their service at war only to be disappointed. They faced increasing hardship and hostilities at the hands of many Whites who in tough times were often in competition with them for the same jobs. Blacks were often prevented from establishing Black communities, or even socializing with each other. Widespread discrimination under the laws at that time meant that it was not only difficult to defend oneself but also to support oneself. Just ask the 1200 Blacks who left Halifax in 1790 and relocated to Sierra Leone in Africa. Nevertheless, those who remained continued to persevere in the cause of freedom. And with the help of abolitionist sympathizers such as Lieutenant-Governor John Simcoe in the 1790’s, Attorney General John Robinson in 1819, and George Brown in 1844 then the editor if the Toronto Globe – the Anti-Slave Trade Bill was passed, it was declared that Blacks were free by virtue of their residence in Canada, and the causes of the abolitionist forces were given a voice through the press, respectively.
Nearly almost 160 years ago to today, in 1851, the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society was formed. And, as if made stronger and more determined by the genetic knowledge of their ancestors’ struggles, personalities such as Mary Ann Shadd, Anderson Abbott, Robert Sutherland, Delos Davis, and Elijah McCoy began to emerge in Canada. These individuals made pioneering contributions to the shaping and development of Canadian society in the areas of education, medicine, law and the sciences respectively. They would pave the way for the accomplishments of those of future generations such as Nathaniel Dett, Addie Aylestock, Viola Desmond, Leonard Braithwaite and so many others in the areas of the performing arts, religion, business, law and politics. Much of the information I have recounted for you today I credit to the work of the Historica-Dominion Institute; an organization which is dedicated to deepening the knowledge of Canadian history.
But why have I gone to such great lengths to highlight for you so many of the details of Canadian Black history??? There are two main reasons. The first reason is that we are historically conditioned people. As historically conditioned people we are connected or associated to a series of past events. Therefore, having a proper sense of our history is foundational for knowing our identity. One of the ways that you and I come to understand who we are is by looking back at the stories, experiences and accomplishments associated with our life. This is why the nation of Israel came to the self-knowledge that they were a people who were called to live in covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the reason why they continued to recount significant details of their peoples’ life and journey with God to their children and to their children’s children. Likewise, we are historically conditioned people. The second reason is that having a proper sense our history helps us to envision who we should be. What do I mean? Consider the example of your own family. Because you are a member of your particular family, either by birth or marriage at a particular historical date and time that you can point to, whenever you interact with the other members of your family, on account of your historical identity, you know who you should be with them. Your historical identity informs your role among them (i.e. as a parent to your child, or as a child to your parents, or as a sibling to your brothers or sisters, as a spouse to your husband or wife etc.) Similarly, on account of their historic identity as the covenant people of God, the Israelites knew who they should be in relation to Him and others. That is what the passage from Leviticus (19: 1-2, 9-18) for today is signalling for us. The Israelites’ covenant relationship with God meant that they should be a certain way in this world – that is, they should live in moral holiness with God and with their neighbour – not lying, cheating, slandering or harbouring hatred and grudges toward one another – but living justly, loving their neighbour as they loved themselves, and living in ways that brought healing and wholeness to community. This is a vision of human life lived from God’s perspective; a particular way of life made possible because of God’s word spoken to Moses. Hence, the Psalmist is able to speak of a whole hearted desire and willingness to follow in the way of God’s laws and precepts; covenant as a way of life and not as a list of “do’s-and-don’ts”!
The New Testament teaches us that when the Word became flesh and lived among us, the early Jewish Christians came to realize that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had called Israel in covenant to be His people, was the same Lord Jesus Christ. And so, given that their history with God established their identity and also gave them a sense of who they should be, the fact that God had now been made flesh and stood among them meant that their identity – that is, how they understood who they were and who they should be – was clearer and more tangible to them now than ever before…..for Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” The early Jewish Christians also came to realize – through the evidence and the work of the Holy Spirit in and among them – that God’s covenant relationship, and this particular way of living, was no longer restricted to Israel, but was extended to the whole world! (John 3:16-17) In other words, this meant that, in Christ, ALL humanity – indeed, the whole world – was to understand its identity and what it should be.
For this reason, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians for today reminded them never to forget who they are and Whose they are – that they are God’s temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and that Christ is the foundation upon which their lives are built. He is the One to whom their ultimate allegiance ought to be given, and it is in accordance with the wisdom of His life that their own lives ought to be patterned. You see, Paul was now marching to the beat of a different drum. Paul’s whole sense of history and identity had been broadened. In Christ, Paul had recognized the One God who is Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end – the Maker and Redeemer – the source of all creation and the One toward Whom all creation is moving. Paul was able to perceive God’s hand at work in human history – calling Israel to be His people, and sending the Son – uniting all creation to Himself. He saw history now as God’s own salvation history; a history through which God makes Himself known. Therefore, the secular world’s division of humanity by race or class or gender, as a basis for special privilege or status, are no longer valid within the Church. The Church is one body; the new creation which has come into being in Christ through the Spirit. This is why Paul could say that “there is no longer Jew or Greek….slave or free….male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus….Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise…” and those in the Corinthian community who were either boasting about which leader they belonged to, or quarrelling amongst themselves, had completely missed the point – which is that, in Christ, all creation comes together as one, and we are all inextricably interconnected.
My friends, the God we serve is the God of all time – of our past history, our present reality – our future expectations. And so, just like the Israelites saw, and as Paul and the early Christians saw, so too, through the eyes of faith, we need to be able to perceive God’s hand at work in this time and history which belongs to Him. Sometimes we perceive God’s hand at work more clearly in hindsight. But the point is that we need to correctly perceive ALL history – whether it be Black history or any other ethnic history from Christ’s redemptive perspective, that is, knowing that, in Him, all things are being made new. To see history merely as the history of a particular culture or race is to see history partially, in a segmented and fragmentary way. Sadly, when we view history in isolation from its truer and fuller context – i.e. when we focus in too closely on our particular history – or when we sit back and compare our particular history to the history of another race or culture – then we will have a greater tendency, like the Corinthians, to quarrel amongst ourselves and either become vain or bitter. In that regard, I believe the scriptures are challenging us to look at Black history more holistically within the broader context of what God has done, is doing, and will do within the common history of all creation in order to make himself known.
When we view history from this perspective, then we see that each race, culture, or ethnicity is God’s good gift to creation. Israel in its particular calling and vocation is and continues to be a gift to the creation. Indeed, I am certain that we can all think of countless examples throughout human history of the evilness, wickedness and other atrocities which have been perpetrated in the name of race, culture and ethnicity – when these are not seen as God’s gifts. Thankfully, in the Church, God has given us grace to heal from the scars of such evil and wicked atrocities; that is, through confession and acknowledgement of past wrongdoing, forgiveness for past hurts, and repentant hearts endeavouring not to repeat or perpetuate past failings. Nevertheless, the important point is that in Christ, through Whom all things are made, your race – your ethnicity – is a gift to the creation. It is an opportunity that you have – uniquely within the skin you are in – and in spite of whatever else you may have encountered within that skin – to make God known by recognizing your fundamental identity in Him, and therefore understanding how you should be – that is, how you should live – in relationship with Him and with your neighbour.
Today’s gospel passage from Jesus’ sermon on the mount teaches us just how God chooses to make Himself known, even in the midst of present evil. He does so when – on account of our identity in Him – we continue to show the perfect ‘one-sided’ love of God when we are struck on the cheek, sued, forced into labour, when everyone begs from us, or when we are persecuted. The perfect love of God is ‘one-sided’ because it is a love that continues to love one’s neighbour even when that love is not returned. Christ gives us an enduring demonstration of God’s perfect love in the cross!
I am reminded of the example of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and of the fact that his “I Have A Dream” speech was so powerful simply because it helped those who participated in the civil rights movement to perceive God’s hand at work not only within their present circumstances but also in the greater plan of God in Christ in all of human history – past, present and future.
So, while the secular world may observe Black history for any number of social, cultural or political reasons as being a particular history………….within the ‘broader environment’ of God’s present and coming kingdom, we in the Church give thanks to God for the stories, experiences and great accomplishments of our black brothers and sisters to the extent that in some way their lives made God known by reflecting those covenant values – of loving God, and loving neighbour as oneself even when that love is not returned – values which tell us that they too perhaps knew something of the greater history of which their lives were apart – that is, God’s salvation history with humankind. May we be challenged to allow God to make Himself known through our stories, experiences and accomplishments in our own generation. Amen.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Sermon - "Are you the one?" - December 12, 2010
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
I was telling my mother earlier this week that one of the strongest memories I have of Christmas is a street corner in the little prairie town of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, twenty miles from the farm where I grew up.
It’s about 5.00 o’clock in the afternoon, the little town is cloaked in snow, the gray of the clouds is deepening into darkness, the colored lights draped around the shop windows sharpen and glisten, and kitty-corner from where I’m standing is a store of men’s fine suits. In a town of large, boisterous cafeterias full of farmers and their families, a city bordered by cattle lots and machine shops, this one elegant store stands out. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just seemed right for the season. But I remember it clearly, and can still smell the leather and fabric - the beautiful gray flannel three-piece suits, the luxurious leather coats that only a few wore in that little town of coveralls and workboots.
And in my memory it’s late in the month, there aren’t many days left. I walk with my mother back from the suit store to the Co-op, back to the large, boisterous cafeteria where we’d gather before heading home to the farm, where my grandfather would spend most of the day shooting the breeze with other farmers and complaining about the price of 10 cent coffee. And then, with my grandparents and my sisters, eight of us would all crawl into my father’s station wagon. And on nights as cold as 20 or 30 below zero, I’d be jammed into the back seat with my grandfather who, after many hard years, had one of those beautiful leather coats. And I can smell him. I can smell the coat.
And I remember pulling out of the parking lot, rolling along the little, illuminated city streets, rolling along in deep ruts of snow and ice, hard enough to defy the toughest plow. Rolling out onto and along the empty highway toward the farm, where the approaching lights of another car could be followed for miles, the car lights glistening like the star lights above.
Rolling off the highway onto the dirt road toward the farm three miles north, six farms marking the path between the highway and home. Until, in the distance, the sight of the yardlight, and then the gray outline of the barn, the workshop, the equipment sheds, the grain bins, the trees that stand sentinel-like around the buildings, until finally the little flashes of green and red, the Christmas lights that my grandfather pinned to anything that would take a nail - on the house, on the roof, on the power pole, on his wooden reindeers.
You know, I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I think I realized for the first time that I wasn’t just waiting for a colourful parcel. I waited for something more beautiful than the pastel sunsets on prairie fields blanketed with snow, I waited for something richer in smell and warmth than a barn filled with cooing cattle on a bitterly cold winter’s night, I waited for a place lovelier than our living room, with a new red carpet, a fragrant evergreen tree, and my pretty baby sister crawling around on the floor.
I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I longed for a place more beautiful than a place whose beauty I could not imagine surpassed.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Children are created to hope and believe and anticipate deeply. But friends, the years pass. And hopes are disappointed - misplaced hopes because they are misplaced. But even some of the nobler hopes we’re capable of - hopes for our communities, our families, ourselves - some of them fail and are disappointed. Years pass, and the protective shield of childhood slips away. And we begin to hope for what we think we can settle for, for what we think it is realistic to expect.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
What had John expected?
“One more powerful than I,” he said. One who will baptize with fire, he said. One who will separate the wheat and burn the chaff “with unquenchable fire,” he said (Mt 3:11-12).
It was the hope for a conquering King, who would rule the people, and judge their enemies. It was for a King as strong as King David before him. As hard as the cruel world in which tiny Israel sought its place.
These were his hopes. This was the king for whom he had bravely sought to prepare the people. But for all he himself had done to prepare, what had come of it?
Scripture records that John was imprisoned by a mercurial king. A king fascinated by John, but cowed by the court which surrounded him. A king in debt to his own indiscretions. A king for whom the lives of the weak were pawns on the playing board for him to dispose of as he saw fit.
Brave, righteous John, prophet to the people, prophet for the Messiah - brave and righteous John in prison because of an oaf like Herod. The years pass and even the greatest, noblest hopes are hit hard in a tough world.
What does John hope for?
The harder and sadder question is what little left does John expect?
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
And it is against that backdrop of darkness, imprisonment, fear, anger and imminent death - against that background of bitter disappointment - that the remarkable answer of Jesus is offered in return. And I would have you notice one astonishing thing.
Taken together, Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John summarize what the prophet Isaiah foretold.
From Isaiah 35: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”
From Isaiah 61: “He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted.”
And from Isaiah 29: “Out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see . . . and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”
With one difference.
All of these passages from the prophet are, in the book of Isaiah, wrapped in warnings of judgement - the very warnings of John the Baptist. But the report which Jesus sends back leaves out the warnings and looks past the judgement to the new world which follows.
John has battle on his mind. Jesus announces instead the restoration, justice and peace for which the prophets finally longed.
Do you remember what happened when King David captured and entered Jerusalem for the first time? The Scripture says that as he approached, his enemies from within leaned over the city walls and poured scorn down upon him. “Not in a thousand years will you ever get in. So certain are we that even our blind are strong enough to resist you.”
Do you remember what happened? King David captured the city, and returning insult with insult, he cursed the blind and forbade them from entering Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5.6-10). In a bloody fight, King David won. In a hard world, King David replied in kind to the enemies who taunted him.
But do you remember the very last thing that Jesus did before his royal entry into Jerusalem (Mt. 20.29-34)? It says at the side of the road were two blind men, begging for mercy. It says the crowd, receiving their king, told the blind to be quiet. But it says that Jesus heard them, and called them, and restored their sight. It says that Jesus put them back on their feet so that they could enter the city, too.
Jesus sent back an answer to John far beyond what a weary man in a prison cell could ever have expected or imagined to hear. The people are being judged, but judged by the purity of Jesus’ life in a way they never imagined. The people are already in battle, but the final battle being fought by Jesus against sin and death itself, a battle no one expected anyone to wage. But for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the sights of paradise are already in view, the sounds of children’s songs already ring.
Friends, Advent is as important to Christmas as Good Friday is to Easter. And if we do not contemplate Advent, if we fail to make Advent time the time by which we mark our days, we will not understand what has already happened in Jesus Christ. With our senses dulled and distracted, we will lose the taste for the beauty of God. With our hearts weighed down, we will lose confidence for lives of truthfulness, integrity and forgiveness which the grace of God frees us to live.
Because in this world scarred by ugliness, our Lord restores our sight now to glimpse paradise and to anticipate through our lives the final glory still to come. In this world wounded by injustice, our Risen Lord strengthens us now to live justly and to anticipate through our lives the final and perfect peace still to come. For the promise of Christmas is nothing less than the recreation of the world and the redemption of our hearts and lives, beginning now and anticipating the climax - through the humblest flower sneaking up through the concrete, through the humblest life radiating the love of God. And the One who carried the love of God by way of the cross to the furthest depths of sin and death, who was raised on the third day and vindicated by the Lord of heaven and earth, is the One holding us in his embrace and carrying us through each day. And in the tender words of Jesus, concluding this chapter:
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
I was telling my mother earlier this week that one of the strongest memories I have of Christmas is a street corner in the little prairie town of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, twenty miles from the farm where I grew up.
It’s about 5.00 o’clock in the afternoon, the little town is cloaked in snow, the gray of the clouds is deepening into darkness, the colored lights draped around the shop windows sharpen and glisten, and kitty-corner from where I’m standing is a store of men’s fine suits. In a town of large, boisterous cafeterias full of farmers and their families, a city bordered by cattle lots and machine shops, this one elegant store stands out. I’m not sure why. Maybe it just seemed right for the season. But I remember it clearly, and can still smell the leather and fabric - the beautiful gray flannel three-piece suits, the luxurious leather coats that only a few wore in that little town of coveralls and workboots.
And in my memory it’s late in the month, there aren’t many days left. I walk with my mother back from the suit store to the Co-op, back to the large, boisterous cafeteria where we’d gather before heading home to the farm, where my grandfather would spend most of the day shooting the breeze with other farmers and complaining about the price of 10 cent coffee. And then, with my grandparents and my sisters, eight of us would all crawl into my father’s station wagon. And on nights as cold as 20 or 30 below zero, I’d be jammed into the back seat with my grandfather who, after many hard years, had one of those beautiful leather coats. And I can smell him. I can smell the coat.
And I remember pulling out of the parking lot, rolling along the little, illuminated city streets, rolling along in deep ruts of snow and ice, hard enough to defy the toughest plow. Rolling out onto and along the empty highway toward the farm, where the approaching lights of another car could be followed for miles, the car lights glistening like the star lights above.
Rolling off the highway onto the dirt road toward the farm three miles north, six farms marking the path between the highway and home. Until, in the distance, the sight of the yardlight, and then the gray outline of the barn, the workshop, the equipment sheds, the grain bins, the trees that stand sentinel-like around the buildings, until finally the little flashes of green and red, the Christmas lights that my grandfather pinned to anything that would take a nail - on the house, on the roof, on the power pole, on his wooden reindeers.
You know, I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I think I realized for the first time that I wasn’t just waiting for a colourful parcel. I waited for something more beautiful than the pastel sunsets on prairie fields blanketed with snow, I waited for something richer in smell and warmth than a barn filled with cooing cattle on a bitterly cold winter’s night, I waited for a place lovelier than our living room, with a new red carpet, a fragrant evergreen tree, and my pretty baby sister crawling around on the floor.
I think for the first time, this week, I realized why Christmas came to be so difficult to understand. I longed for a place more beautiful than a place whose beauty I could not imagine surpassed.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Children are created to hope and believe and anticipate deeply. But friends, the years pass. And hopes are disappointed - misplaced hopes because they are misplaced. But even some of the nobler hopes we’re capable of - hopes for our communities, our families, ourselves - some of them fail and are disappointed. Years pass, and the protective shield of childhood slips away. And we begin to hope for what we think we can settle for, for what we think it is realistic to expect.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
What had John expected?
“One more powerful than I,” he said. One who will baptize with fire, he said. One who will separate the wheat and burn the chaff “with unquenchable fire,” he said (Mt 3:11-12).
It was the hope for a conquering King, who would rule the people, and judge their enemies. It was for a King as strong as King David before him. As hard as the cruel world in which tiny Israel sought its place.
These were his hopes. This was the king for whom he had bravely sought to prepare the people. But for all he himself had done to prepare, what had come of it?
Scripture records that John was imprisoned by a mercurial king. A king fascinated by John, but cowed by the court which surrounded him. A king in debt to his own indiscretions. A king for whom the lives of the weak were pawns on the playing board for him to dispose of as he saw fit.
Brave, righteous John, prophet to the people, prophet for the Messiah - brave and righteous John in prison because of an oaf like Herod. The years pass and even the greatest, noblest hopes are hit hard in a tough world.
What does John hope for?
The harder and sadder question is what little left does John expect?
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
And it is against that backdrop of darkness, imprisonment, fear, anger and imminent death - against that background of bitter disappointment - that the remarkable answer of Jesus is offered in return. And I would have you notice one astonishing thing.
Taken together, Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John summarize what the prophet Isaiah foretold.
From Isaiah 35: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.”
From Isaiah 61: “He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted.”
And from Isaiah 29: “Out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see . . . and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”
With one difference.
All of these passages from the prophet are, in the book of Isaiah, wrapped in warnings of judgement - the very warnings of John the Baptist. But the report which Jesus sends back leaves out the warnings and looks past the judgement to the new world which follows.
John has battle on his mind. Jesus announces instead the restoration, justice and peace for which the prophets finally longed.
Do you remember what happened when King David captured and entered Jerusalem for the first time? The Scripture says that as he approached, his enemies from within leaned over the city walls and poured scorn down upon him. “Not in a thousand years will you ever get in. So certain are we that even our blind are strong enough to resist you.”
Do you remember what happened? King David captured the city, and returning insult with insult, he cursed the blind and forbade them from entering Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5.6-10). In a bloody fight, King David won. In a hard world, King David replied in kind to the enemies who taunted him.
But do you remember the very last thing that Jesus did before his royal entry into Jerusalem (Mt. 20.29-34)? It says at the side of the road were two blind men, begging for mercy. It says the crowd, receiving their king, told the blind to be quiet. But it says that Jesus heard them, and called them, and restored their sight. It says that Jesus put them back on their feet so that they could enter the city, too.
Jesus sent back an answer to John far beyond what a weary man in a prison cell could ever have expected or imagined to hear. The people are being judged, but judged by the purity of Jesus’ life in a way they never imagined. The people are already in battle, but the final battle being fought by Jesus against sin and death itself, a battle no one expected anyone to wage. But for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the sights of paradise are already in view, the sounds of children’s songs already ring.
Friends, Advent is as important to Christmas as Good Friday is to Easter. And if we do not contemplate Advent, if we fail to make Advent time the time by which we mark our days, we will not understand what has already happened in Jesus Christ. With our senses dulled and distracted, we will lose the taste for the beauty of God. With our hearts weighed down, we will lose confidence for lives of truthfulness, integrity and forgiveness which the grace of God frees us to live.
Because in this world scarred by ugliness, our Lord restores our sight now to glimpse paradise and to anticipate through our lives the final glory still to come. In this world wounded by injustice, our Risen Lord strengthens us now to live justly and to anticipate through our lives the final and perfect peace still to come. For the promise of Christmas is nothing less than the recreation of the world and the redemption of our hearts and lives, beginning now and anticipating the climax - through the humblest flower sneaking up through the concrete, through the humblest life radiating the love of God. And the One who carried the love of God by way of the cross to the furthest depths of sin and death, who was raised on the third day and vindicated by the Lord of heaven and earth, is the One holding us in his embrace and carrying us through each day. And in the tender words of Jesus, concluding this chapter:
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Sermon - "Haiti" - Ephraim Radner - January 31, 2010
The Rev'd Dr. Ephraim Radner is the Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto, and an honorary priest at the Anglican Church of St. Paul, Bloor Street, Toronto.
As we turn our hearts to our calling by Christ towards our brothers and sisters in Haiti, I would invite us to reflect on some verses from the Psalm we sang together earlier: “I look to the right and watch, but there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me, no man cares for me. I cry to thee, O LORD; I say, Thou art my refuge… The righteous will surround me; for thou wilt deal bountifully with me” (Ps. 142: 4,5,7). The righteous will surround; and you will deal bountifully with me.
1. Why are we here, gathered in this church? It may seem obvious; but when Haitians gathered the night of the earthquake – battered, traumatized, broken, and homeless that evening – and when they crowded into streets and sang and prayed in the darkness, reporters on hand were amazed. One NY Times editorialist thought it was senseless – why pray or sing to a God who just let this happened?
Indeed, we do know these things: we know that on Tuesday, January 10th, at about 5 pm, the earth moved and shook in Haiti near the capital city of Port-au-Prince. And in a few minutes, the buildings collapsed leaving over 100,000 dead – we will probably never know the number; 2700,000 or more homeless; thousands injured; 100,000 or more children left without parents or known relatives at this time. And the churches too – sanctuaries, cathedrals, seminaries, schools – all gone. 100 of the 120 church buildings of the Anglican Episcopal Church in Port-au-Prince are destroyed – cathedral, seminary, churches, primary and secondary schools buildings, university, cultural museum, vocational schools, and more.
2. Staggering extent of suffering. Is this why we are here? Probably not, because, however staggering, it is no more than so much daily suffering: 25,000 children alone die each day from hunger and illness; 7 million a year. around 8.000 die each day of AIDS – preventable; 3,500 are dying of malaria each day – preventable; 1,350 suicides each day.
Natural disasters far away: we all know in 2004 of the great Tsunami; but only a year before, in 2003, 40,000 died in an earthquake in Iran; another 40,000 in 2005 in Kashmir; 100,000 in a flooding in Burma in 2008.
And, of course, there is war: perhaps 90 million people were killed in wars, or in ways directly connected with war in 20th c.; in 2002, 175,000 were killed. Over the past decade, up to 3 million have died in the Eastern Congo alone. It’s been happening, in other words, all the time; we didn’t need to wait until January 10th.
I am trying to numb us with statistics, because it is numbing; most of us cannot comprehend them, bear them, engage them.
3. So why are we here? It is not simply the numbers or the extent of suffering.
Perhaps, it is because Haiti is so close by, and there are Haitians even that we know. After all, Haiti and North America have long been linked.
Jean Baptiste Pointe-du-Sable, a black Haitian fur-trader, started a settlement in the 1770’s that marks the founding of Chicago. Yes! Chicago, founded by a Haitian. 800 freed Haitian slaves, fought for the Americans against the British at Savannah, in 1779; there’s a statue in Savannah to prove it! The Catholic Church is canonizing a freed Haitian slave who came to New York in 1987, Pierre Toussaint. He cared for the poor while cutting rich people’s hair. There are now anywhere from 600,000 to a million Haitian immigrants in the US, and another 100,000 in Canada.
But until recently, it mostly went the other way: Americans in the 19th century worried over Haiti’s slave revolution: would it come to the US? They also worried over Haiti’s potential dealings with Britain and France or Spain, and carefully guarded the waters of the Caribbean around it. Concerned with political chaos and wanting to protect their investments, the US occupied Haiti in 1915 for almost 20 years. They left the country rich in infra-structure, but utterly weakened in leadership and economic self-sufficiency. US Marines returned in 1994 and 2004 in the midst of chaos; the UN has had 6.000 military personnel there since then. And now in 2010, thousands more –US and UN soldiers alike – are entering.
4. So we have connections in geography and history. Is this why are we here tonight?
I think there is another reason, a better reason, and stronger and deeper reason: Psalm 142:7 “The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me.”
We are here because we are joined – we in this church, with Haitian Christians and their people -- to body of the Christ, in the Church. Haiti: did you know that they are the people most engaged by Christians in the world, including Anglicans? There are more one-to-one relations between Haitian Christians and North American (or other) Christians than anywhere else.
That was not always the case: The tremendous failures of the Christian Church have weighed on Haiti for centuries. Columbus arrived in 1492, with his missionaries in tow. Within only a few years, the indigenous Taino Indians were enslaved and finally killed by disease. All they left for posterity was the name of this country, “Ayiti”, “land of the high mountains”. The Spaniards, with the Church’s support, began then to important African slaves, and so the terrible story began on that score, that engulfed millions of human beings and souls. When the French took control of the western part of Hispaniola in 1697, they brought their own French priests. And the slave plantations thrived, growing sugar cane, indigo dye plants, and coffee, and killing off a third of the slave population every 5 years. When the slaves finally gained their freedom by revolution, in 1804, the Catholic Church fled, and the Vatican only chose to recognize Haiti in 1860, insisting on a special treaty – one that allowed in the 1960’s, the dictator Papa Doc to choose his own crony archbishops and bishops.
It was in the shadow of Catholic complicity and negligence that Anglicans first arrived. And only because of American Protestant racism. James Theodore Holly, a convert from Catholicism who went from DC to Detroit to Toronto, where he helped the worked with the famous American-Canadian abolitionist Henry Bibb on his paper Voice of the Fugitive. Finally he reached New Haven, CT, where he became an Episcopal priest. Holly became convinced that black people in the US would never find their way unless they could grow strong in their own lands, apart from whites. With the blessing and financing of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Holly left with a party of 110 African-Americans for Haiti, in 1861. Received by the Haitian President, Holly spent the next 50 years of his life as a missionary, building an autonomous Anglican Church, supported here and there by American Episcopalians. He became Anglicanism’s only second non-white bishop in 1874 – consecrated, in fact, in the very church where I worked in Brooklyn. By the time he died, the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Haiti, as it was called, had over several thousand members, 22 churches, 13 priests. He built schools with every church, knowing that literacy was the door to understanding the Bible and gaining skills for some movement out of poverty.
5. Not that it was easy. Holly did his first baptism on his second day in Haiti – it was his week-old son, born on board ship. The Haitian president and wife were his godparents. But within a year, malaria and a typhoid epidemic had killed half of his emigrating party: including Holly’s wife, three daughters, and the young son he had baptized. With little money, Holly was forced to work as a shoesmith, and most of his priests eventually also worked full time at other jobs. Fire and civil war destroyed his churches and home numerous times; a token of what was to come, even three weeks ago. The Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, now in ruins, was already the sixth incarnation of a building that had been arsoned, bombarded, and burnt over and over again.
For all his race-consciousness, though, Holly was a Christian committed to the Christian church. He would work with all people, and sought only to pour his life out for them in the terms of the Gospel. Remarkably, he was present at the Second Lambeth Conference, in 1878. While visiting, he was asked to preach at Westminster Abbey. It was a stirring moment, and one to remember, as the great of the church gathered from around the world to hear him: Psalm 142:7 The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me.
6. With his death, the Anglican Church in Haiti was left wobbling; ten years without a bishop, only the inclusion of the Haitian church as a diocese within the American Episcopal Church’s structures steadied things, at least in terms of finances. From 1924 on, the Episcopal church of Haiti has had American and now Haitian bishops, and has grown to 115 congregations, 200 schools, several hospitals and numerous clinics, over 100,000 baptized members, and 36 active priests.
And in this, Haitian Anglicans are like many other churches now: in a country with no infrastructure, the church does majority of education and health. To be honest, most of the money for this comes from Christians outside of Haiti. With respect to the Episcopal Church, it derives from partnerships with individual congregations and parishes in the US, and a few in Canada. No one knows the number involved! I would put it in the scores of such partnerships. Maybe hundreds!
7. And now we look at this dreadful scene in Port-au-Prince. But we must say, as the psalmist say, (Psalm 142:7): The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me. It has happened for 150 years. It will continue, will it not? The righteous will continue to surround?
Bishop Zaché Duracin of the Haitian Episcopal Church lost his own home and all his possessions (he had earlier lost his car to a carjacker). He was offered the chance to evacuate in order to direct the church’s life again from a safer place. But he has chosen to stay in Haiti, living homeless with the homeless. He sent out a note the other day with this affirmation: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ….I am writing to you from the tent city we have set up behind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous senior secondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gathered approximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese of Haiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than 23,000 people.” And in this, and so much else, “We are partners” with you, he writes.
That is, “we are surrounded by the righteous”. Not that we are “the righteous”, except as we are righteous in Christ and so act righteously through his grace. But that is the claim and calling, as Bishop Yu told us earlier this evening. A claim on us by God Jesus, and a calling to us from Him.
What faces Haitians, and Episcopal Church in Haiti now? : immediate life issues of housing and food and health; sorting out the losses and getting people together; rebuilding; That will require money and resources. St. Paul’s is “surrounding” with God’s bounty, we hope, joining up with St. Basil’s church in Gonaives, already themselves housing hundreds of refugees in their church year; Wycliffe, I hope, will help somehow with the rebuilding of the seminary in the months that come. But today, we can surround with prayer; and self giving as it arises, without stint.
May I end with Bp. Theodore Holly’s closing prayer at Westminster Abbey in 1878? “And here in the presence of God, of angels and of men, on this day sacred to the memory of an apostle whose blessed name was called over me at my baptism, and as I lift up my voice for the first and perhaps the last time in any of England's sainted shrines, I dedicate myself anew to the work of God, of the Gospel of Christ and the salvation of my fellow-men in the far distant isle of the Caribbean Sea that has become the chosen field of my special labors. […] O thou Saviour Christ, Son of the Living God who, when Thou wast spurned by the Jews of the race of Shem, and, who, when delivered up without a cause by the Romans of the race of Japheth, on the day of thy ignominous crucifixion, hadst Thy ponderous cross born to Golgotha's summit on the stalwart shoulders of Simon the Cyrenian of the race of Ham, I pray Thee, O precious Saviour, remember that forlorn, despised and rejected race whose son thus bore Thy cross when Thou shalt come in the power and majesty of thy eternal kingdom to distribute Thy crowns of everlasting glory. And give to me then, not a place at Thy right hand or at Thy left, but only the place of a gate-keeper at the entrance of the Holy City, the new Jersualem that I may behold my redeemed” Amen and Amen, and let us stand and move with him and his people who are our people.
As we turn our hearts to our calling by Christ towards our brothers and sisters in Haiti, I would invite us to reflect on some verses from the Psalm we sang together earlier: “I look to the right and watch, but there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me, no man cares for me. I cry to thee, O LORD; I say, Thou art my refuge… The righteous will surround me; for thou wilt deal bountifully with me” (Ps. 142: 4,5,7). The righteous will surround; and you will deal bountifully with me.
1. Why are we here, gathered in this church? It may seem obvious; but when Haitians gathered the night of the earthquake – battered, traumatized, broken, and homeless that evening – and when they crowded into streets and sang and prayed in the darkness, reporters on hand were amazed. One NY Times editorialist thought it was senseless – why pray or sing to a God who just let this happened?
Indeed, we do know these things: we know that on Tuesday, January 10th, at about 5 pm, the earth moved and shook in Haiti near the capital city of Port-au-Prince. And in a few minutes, the buildings collapsed leaving over 100,000 dead – we will probably never know the number; 2700,000 or more homeless; thousands injured; 100,000 or more children left without parents or known relatives at this time. And the churches too – sanctuaries, cathedrals, seminaries, schools – all gone. 100 of the 120 church buildings of the Anglican Episcopal Church in Port-au-Prince are destroyed – cathedral, seminary, churches, primary and secondary schools buildings, university, cultural museum, vocational schools, and more.
2. Staggering extent of suffering. Is this why we are here? Probably not, because, however staggering, it is no more than so much daily suffering: 25,000 children alone die each day from hunger and illness; 7 million a year. around 8.000 die each day of AIDS – preventable; 3,500 are dying of malaria each day – preventable; 1,350 suicides each day.
Natural disasters far away: we all know in 2004 of the great Tsunami; but only a year before, in 2003, 40,000 died in an earthquake in Iran; another 40,000 in 2005 in Kashmir; 100,000 in a flooding in Burma in 2008.
And, of course, there is war: perhaps 90 million people were killed in wars, or in ways directly connected with war in 20th c.; in 2002, 175,000 were killed. Over the past decade, up to 3 million have died in the Eastern Congo alone. It’s been happening, in other words, all the time; we didn’t need to wait until January 10th.
I am trying to numb us with statistics, because it is numbing; most of us cannot comprehend them, bear them, engage them.
3. So why are we here? It is not simply the numbers or the extent of suffering.
Perhaps, it is because Haiti is so close by, and there are Haitians even that we know. After all, Haiti and North America have long been linked.
Jean Baptiste Pointe-du-Sable, a black Haitian fur-trader, started a settlement in the 1770’s that marks the founding of Chicago. Yes! Chicago, founded by a Haitian. 800 freed Haitian slaves, fought for the Americans against the British at Savannah, in 1779; there’s a statue in Savannah to prove it! The Catholic Church is canonizing a freed Haitian slave who came to New York in 1987, Pierre Toussaint. He cared for the poor while cutting rich people’s hair. There are now anywhere from 600,000 to a million Haitian immigrants in the US, and another 100,000 in Canada.
But until recently, it mostly went the other way: Americans in the 19th century worried over Haiti’s slave revolution: would it come to the US? They also worried over Haiti’s potential dealings with Britain and France or Spain, and carefully guarded the waters of the Caribbean around it. Concerned with political chaos and wanting to protect their investments, the US occupied Haiti in 1915 for almost 20 years. They left the country rich in infra-structure, but utterly weakened in leadership and economic self-sufficiency. US Marines returned in 1994 and 2004 in the midst of chaos; the UN has had 6.000 military personnel there since then. And now in 2010, thousands more –US and UN soldiers alike – are entering.
4. So we have connections in geography and history. Is this why are we here tonight?
I think there is another reason, a better reason, and stronger and deeper reason: Psalm 142:7 “The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me.”
We are here because we are joined – we in this church, with Haitian Christians and their people -- to body of the Christ, in the Church. Haiti: did you know that they are the people most engaged by Christians in the world, including Anglicans? There are more one-to-one relations between Haitian Christians and North American (or other) Christians than anywhere else.
That was not always the case: The tremendous failures of the Christian Church have weighed on Haiti for centuries. Columbus arrived in 1492, with his missionaries in tow. Within only a few years, the indigenous Taino Indians were enslaved and finally killed by disease. All they left for posterity was the name of this country, “Ayiti”, “land of the high mountains”. The Spaniards, with the Church’s support, began then to important African slaves, and so the terrible story began on that score, that engulfed millions of human beings and souls. When the French took control of the western part of Hispaniola in 1697, they brought their own French priests. And the slave plantations thrived, growing sugar cane, indigo dye plants, and coffee, and killing off a third of the slave population every 5 years. When the slaves finally gained their freedom by revolution, in 1804, the Catholic Church fled, and the Vatican only chose to recognize Haiti in 1860, insisting on a special treaty – one that allowed in the 1960’s, the dictator Papa Doc to choose his own crony archbishops and bishops.
It was in the shadow of Catholic complicity and negligence that Anglicans first arrived. And only because of American Protestant racism. James Theodore Holly, a convert from Catholicism who went from DC to Detroit to Toronto, where he helped the worked with the famous American-Canadian abolitionist Henry Bibb on his paper Voice of the Fugitive. Finally he reached New Haven, CT, where he became an Episcopal priest. Holly became convinced that black people in the US would never find their way unless they could grow strong in their own lands, apart from whites. With the blessing and financing of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Holly left with a party of 110 African-Americans for Haiti, in 1861. Received by the Haitian President, Holly spent the next 50 years of his life as a missionary, building an autonomous Anglican Church, supported here and there by American Episcopalians. He became Anglicanism’s only second non-white bishop in 1874 – consecrated, in fact, in the very church where I worked in Brooklyn. By the time he died, the Orthodox Apostolic Church of Haiti, as it was called, had over several thousand members, 22 churches, 13 priests. He built schools with every church, knowing that literacy was the door to understanding the Bible and gaining skills for some movement out of poverty.
5. Not that it was easy. Holly did his first baptism on his second day in Haiti – it was his week-old son, born on board ship. The Haitian president and wife were his godparents. But within a year, malaria and a typhoid epidemic had killed half of his emigrating party: including Holly’s wife, three daughters, and the young son he had baptized. With little money, Holly was forced to work as a shoesmith, and most of his priests eventually also worked full time at other jobs. Fire and civil war destroyed his churches and home numerous times; a token of what was to come, even three weeks ago. The Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, now in ruins, was already the sixth incarnation of a building that had been arsoned, bombarded, and burnt over and over again.
For all his race-consciousness, though, Holly was a Christian committed to the Christian church. He would work with all people, and sought only to pour his life out for them in the terms of the Gospel. Remarkably, he was present at the Second Lambeth Conference, in 1878. While visiting, he was asked to preach at Westminster Abbey. It was a stirring moment, and one to remember, as the great of the church gathered from around the world to hear him: Psalm 142:7 The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me.
6. With his death, the Anglican Church in Haiti was left wobbling; ten years without a bishop, only the inclusion of the Haitian church as a diocese within the American Episcopal Church’s structures steadied things, at least in terms of finances. From 1924 on, the Episcopal church of Haiti has had American and now Haitian bishops, and has grown to 115 congregations, 200 schools, several hospitals and numerous clinics, over 100,000 baptized members, and 36 active priests.
And in this, Haitian Anglicans are like many other churches now: in a country with no infrastructure, the church does majority of education and health. To be honest, most of the money for this comes from Christians outside of Haiti. With respect to the Episcopal Church, it derives from partnerships with individual congregations and parishes in the US, and a few in Canada. No one knows the number involved! I would put it in the scores of such partnerships. Maybe hundreds!
7. And now we look at this dreadful scene in Port-au-Prince. But we must say, as the psalmist say, (Psalm 142:7): The righteous will surround me. For thou wilt deal bountifully with me. It has happened for 150 years. It will continue, will it not? The righteous will continue to surround?
Bishop Zaché Duracin of the Haitian Episcopal Church lost his own home and all his possessions (he had earlier lost his car to a carjacker). He was offered the chance to evacuate in order to direct the church’s life again from a safer place. But he has chosen to stay in Haiti, living homeless with the homeless. He sent out a note the other day with this affirmation: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ….I am writing to you from the tent city we have set up behind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous senior secondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gathered approximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese of Haiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than 23,000 people.” And in this, and so much else, “We are partners” with you, he writes.
That is, “we are surrounded by the righteous”. Not that we are “the righteous”, except as we are righteous in Christ and so act righteously through his grace. But that is the claim and calling, as Bishop Yu told us earlier this evening. A claim on us by God Jesus, and a calling to us from Him.
What faces Haitians, and Episcopal Church in Haiti now? : immediate life issues of housing and food and health; sorting out the losses and getting people together; rebuilding; That will require money and resources. St. Paul’s is “surrounding” with God’s bounty, we hope, joining up with St. Basil’s church in Gonaives, already themselves housing hundreds of refugees in their church year; Wycliffe, I hope, will help somehow with the rebuilding of the seminary in the months that come. But today, we can surround with prayer; and self giving as it arises, without stint.
May I end with Bp. Theodore Holly’s closing prayer at Westminster Abbey in 1878? “And here in the presence of God, of angels and of men, on this day sacred to the memory of an apostle whose blessed name was called over me at my baptism, and as I lift up my voice for the first and perhaps the last time in any of England's sainted shrines, I dedicate myself anew to the work of God, of the Gospel of Christ and the salvation of my fellow-men in the far distant isle of the Caribbean Sea that has become the chosen field of my special labors. […] O thou Saviour Christ, Son of the Living God who, when Thou wast spurned by the Jews of the race of Shem, and, who, when delivered up without a cause by the Romans of the race of Japheth, on the day of thy ignominous crucifixion, hadst Thy ponderous cross born to Golgotha's summit on the stalwart shoulders of Simon the Cyrenian of the race of Ham, I pray Thee, O precious Saviour, remember that forlorn, despised and rejected race whose son thus bore Thy cross when Thou shalt come in the power and majesty of thy eternal kingdom to distribute Thy crowns of everlasting glory. And give to me then, not a place at Thy right hand or at Thy left, but only the place of a gate-keeper at the entrance of the Holy City, the new Jersualem that I may behold my redeemed” Amen and Amen, and let us stand and move with him and his people who are our people.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sermon: "Blink", May 17, 2009, John 15.9-17
Fr. Gordon Byce was telling me about a book he is reading right now, entitled Blink (Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005, Malcolm Gladwell). It is about what we are able to understand from quick impressions, what the author refers to as thin-slices of experience. What we take in, so to speak, in the blink of an eye.
In one experiment, a group of high school students were given lists of unconnected words, and from those lists, they were to pick four words and compose a sentence. This they did. But you know what caught the attention of the researchers. After the experiment, the students left the room together and were all observed as a group, walking slowly and lethargically down the hall.
Because scattered throughout the rows of words were specific words related to old-age: elderly, aged, creaking. Without knowing it, these old-age adjectives had slipped into their thoughts and they waddled down the hall like a geriatric gaggle of decrepit geese.
Fr. Gordon’s observation was - what power there is words and thought, even thoughts that seem merely to skim across our minds.
Along those lines, our passage from John is a remarkable one.
Repeatedly, and at crucial points in John’s Gospel, it comes back to this theme that following Jesus Christ we are entered into a deep and intimate relationship with him and, through him, with God. And that the blood which enlivens this relationship is the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. And without this love, it all falls to the ground. Or, as the passage from last week would put it, like a lifeless vine, we whither and die separated from the love of God.
But it is a point made elsewhere about this commandment that caught my attention.
What makes Jesus’ command to love new?
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Or, as it is put earlier in chapter 13,
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
And so, what makes it new?
It has been said that this love which Jesus commands is new because it is different from the love revealed in the Old Testament. It contrasts with the love described in the Old Testament.
That’s not quite so. The love of our neighbours is strongly emphasized in the law, as is the love of strangers and foreigners (Lev. 9.18, 34).
And John’s Gospel does not seem to have a contrast with the Old Testament in mind. In fact, quite the opposite may be the case.
In Matthew’s Gospel, there are places where a clear contrast is being made. Jesus says, “You have heard it said” - in reference to an instruction from the Old Testament law - and then says “but I say”, in order to emphasize what is new or unique or distinct from the Old Testament.
“You have heard it said, do not murder. But I say, do not even hate your enemy.”
This sharp contrast between Jesus and the Old Testament does not occur in John’s Gospel.
Instead, as the great New Testament scholar Raymond Brown puts it, the command of Jesus to love one another is new because in Jesus Christ the love of God reaches its climax.
In Christ, the love of God shows its full intensity.
In Christ, it demonstrates definitively God’s destiny for his people and the world.
And in Christ it is offered - the great love of God is offered - as an intimate and personal gift from Jesus to his disciples.
The command of Jesus is new because in Christ the intensity of God’s love is revealed. God’s love for the unlovable. The relentless, inexorable reach of God’s love, traveling that road to the cross, fully aware of the anguish and agony ahead. And not to put too fine a point on it, Jesus meant what he said: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13). He gave his life, and across the generations Christians have simply and obediently followed the example he gave.
Secondly, and I think majestically, the love of which Jesus spoke is new because it fills full the hope of the prophet and the destiny for God’s people:
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when. . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
But finally, this love is new because it has been extended to us personally by Jesus Christ - who lived in this world, who breathed this air, who knew our joys and satisfactions, our sorrows, our disappointments and defeats. We are invited by Jesus into an intimate, deep and familiar relationship with him.
Later, St. Paul would say this very thing of the Corinthian Christians:
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)
It is personal. We are invited to know our Lord: through his presence in our hearts; through the sacraments through which we reach for him week by week; and in the fellowship of his body, the church. It is new, because it is personal, and is offered to each one of us. The offer of God’s love coursing through our veins, enlivening our lives.
For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about Haiti and Sri Lanka. For obvious reasons. A terrible and bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. Abject poverty in Haiti, put to us powerfully last weekend by Fr. Max Accime. And last Sunday evening at Evening Prayer, a direct question was put to Fr. Max: Haiti suffers from debilitating poverty, it has endured successive corrupt governments, and it sits in hurricane alley. “Where do you find the strength to get up each day,” Fr. Accime was asked. “Do you have any hope?”
To which Fr. Max answered simply, “One can always hope.”
But I’ve been thinking, what do Christian do when faced with these sorts of circumstances?
What does the church do, in Haiti, in Sri Lanka.
Well, what is the church in Haiti doing: praying, feeding, teaching.
I mentioned to you a while back that I had met Dr. Jebanesan, principal at the Theological College of Lanka in Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka. I asked him how they were responding to the civil war.
“Well,” he said, “we teach our students the Gospel. And to help them with that,” he said, “we send the Tamil students into Sinhalese parishes and Sinhalese students into Tamil parishes.”
What does the church do? What does the body of Christ do in response? With the intensity of the love of Jesus, rising from the confidence of God’s redemptive purpose in the world, and with this great love coursing through our veins as our Lord has invited us to share, the church does what these Christian brothers and sisters are doing: praying, serving and teaching. Praying for peace. Feeding and sheltering those in need. Building schools where the young can be given the chance for better lives, better homes, better nations.
And it’s the serving and teaching that matters most, right? Well, that was when I blinked. Blinked over words that I kept using: impossible, hopeless, intractable.
Impossible problems. Hopeless communities. Intractable hatreds.
But then I ‘blinked’. Impossible, hopeless and intractable are not Christian words.
What does the Archangel Gabriel say to a young maiden, chosen by the Lord to bear the Savior in her unopened womb.
“Nothing,” he says, “is impossible with God.”
What does the apostle Paul say to a frightened and persecuted people living in the belly of the Roman beast in the great city of Rome?
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them . . . No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:12-21)
And what does the Almighty say to a stuttering shepherd, commissioned with the deliverance of a brow-beaten people out of the hands of the great Pharoah of Egypt:
“This,” says the Lord to Moses, “is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth” (Exodus 9:16).
As Christians, we serve and teach wherever we go, but our mission begins with prayer, because we “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the words of our faith, the hope of our lives, and the accomplishment of God in Jesus Christ. Prayer because in Christ the intensity of God’s great love is revealed. Prayer because in Christ we have the hope of this great love lifting God’s people and bathing the world. And prayer because from the loving wounds and outstretched hands of our Savior, we are given this love to course through our own hearts and lives for the sake of the world and the glory of God.
Let this prayer be our prayer today.
In one experiment, a group of high school students were given lists of unconnected words, and from those lists, they were to pick four words and compose a sentence. This they did. But you know what caught the attention of the researchers. After the experiment, the students left the room together and were all observed as a group, walking slowly and lethargically down the hall.
Because scattered throughout the rows of words were specific words related to old-age: elderly, aged, creaking. Without knowing it, these old-age adjectives had slipped into their thoughts and they waddled down the hall like a geriatric gaggle of decrepit geese.
Fr. Gordon’s observation was - what power there is words and thought, even thoughts that seem merely to skim across our minds.
Along those lines, our passage from John is a remarkable one.
Repeatedly, and at crucial points in John’s Gospel, it comes back to this theme that following Jesus Christ we are entered into a deep and intimate relationship with him and, through him, with God. And that the blood which enlivens this relationship is the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. And without this love, it all falls to the ground. Or, as the passage from last week would put it, like a lifeless vine, we whither and die separated from the love of God.
But it is a point made elsewhere about this commandment that caught my attention.
What makes Jesus’ command to love new?
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Or, as it is put earlier in chapter 13,
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
And so, what makes it new?
It has been said that this love which Jesus commands is new because it is different from the love revealed in the Old Testament. It contrasts with the love described in the Old Testament.
That’s not quite so. The love of our neighbours is strongly emphasized in the law, as is the love of strangers and foreigners (Lev. 9.18, 34).
And John’s Gospel does not seem to have a contrast with the Old Testament in mind. In fact, quite the opposite may be the case.
In Matthew’s Gospel, there are places where a clear contrast is being made. Jesus says, “You have heard it said” - in reference to an instruction from the Old Testament law - and then says “but I say”, in order to emphasize what is new or unique or distinct from the Old Testament.
“You have heard it said, do not murder. But I say, do not even hate your enemy.”
This sharp contrast between Jesus and the Old Testament does not occur in John’s Gospel.
Instead, as the great New Testament scholar Raymond Brown puts it, the command of Jesus to love one another is new because in Jesus Christ the love of God reaches its climax.
In Christ, the love of God shows its full intensity.
In Christ, it demonstrates definitively God’s destiny for his people and the world.
And in Christ it is offered - the great love of God is offered - as an intimate and personal gift from Jesus to his disciples.
The command of Jesus is new because in Christ the intensity of God’s love is revealed. God’s love for the unlovable. The relentless, inexorable reach of God’s love, traveling that road to the cross, fully aware of the anguish and agony ahead. And not to put too fine a point on it, Jesus meant what he said: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13). He gave his life, and across the generations Christians have simply and obediently followed the example he gave.
Secondly, and I think majestically, the love of which Jesus spoke is new because it fills full the hope of the prophet and the destiny for God’s people:
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when. . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
But finally, this love is new because it has been extended to us personally by Jesus Christ - who lived in this world, who breathed this air, who knew our joys and satisfactions, our sorrows, our disappointments and defeats. We are invited by Jesus into an intimate, deep and familiar relationship with him.
Later, St. Paul would say this very thing of the Corinthian Christians:
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)
It is personal. We are invited to know our Lord: through his presence in our hearts; through the sacraments through which we reach for him week by week; and in the fellowship of his body, the church. It is new, because it is personal, and is offered to each one of us. The offer of God’s love coursing through our veins, enlivening our lives.
For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about Haiti and Sri Lanka. For obvious reasons. A terrible and bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. Abject poverty in Haiti, put to us powerfully last weekend by Fr. Max Accime. And last Sunday evening at Evening Prayer, a direct question was put to Fr. Max: Haiti suffers from debilitating poverty, it has endured successive corrupt governments, and it sits in hurricane alley. “Where do you find the strength to get up each day,” Fr. Accime was asked. “Do you have any hope?”
To which Fr. Max answered simply, “One can always hope.”
But I’ve been thinking, what do Christian do when faced with these sorts of circumstances?
What does the church do, in Haiti, in Sri Lanka.
Well, what is the church in Haiti doing: praying, feeding, teaching.
I mentioned to you a while back that I had met Dr. Jebanesan, principal at the Theological College of Lanka in Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka. I asked him how they were responding to the civil war.
“Well,” he said, “we teach our students the Gospel. And to help them with that,” he said, “we send the Tamil students into Sinhalese parishes and Sinhalese students into Tamil parishes.”
What does the church do? What does the body of Christ do in response? With the intensity of the love of Jesus, rising from the confidence of God’s redemptive purpose in the world, and with this great love coursing through our veins as our Lord has invited us to share, the church does what these Christian brothers and sisters are doing: praying, serving and teaching. Praying for peace. Feeding and sheltering those in need. Building schools where the young can be given the chance for better lives, better homes, better nations.
And it’s the serving and teaching that matters most, right? Well, that was when I blinked. Blinked over words that I kept using: impossible, hopeless, intractable.
Impossible problems. Hopeless communities. Intractable hatreds.
But then I ‘blinked’. Impossible, hopeless and intractable are not Christian words.
What does the Archangel Gabriel say to a young maiden, chosen by the Lord to bear the Savior in her unopened womb.
“Nothing,” he says, “is impossible with God.”
What does the apostle Paul say to a frightened and persecuted people living in the belly of the Roman beast in the great city of Rome?
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them . . . No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:12-21)
And what does the Almighty say to a stuttering shepherd, commissioned with the deliverance of a brow-beaten people out of the hands of the great Pharoah of Egypt:
“This,” says the Lord to Moses, “is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth” (Exodus 9:16).
As Christians, we serve and teach wherever we go, but our mission begins with prayer, because we “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the words of our faith, the hope of our lives, and the accomplishment of God in Jesus Christ. Prayer because in Christ the intensity of God’s great love is revealed. Prayer because in Christ we have the hope of this great love lifting God’s people and bathing the world. And prayer because from the loving wounds and outstretched hands of our Savior, we are given this love to course through our own hearts and lives for the sake of the world and the glory of God.
Let this prayer be our prayer today.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
"Past the Empty Tomb" - Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009
Last Sunday there were two fine sermons at St. Paul’s - one from our Bishop, Patrick Yu, and the other earlier in the day from Annette Brownlee.
And in them, two kinds of people described who have encountered Jesus who, for our benefit, the Gospel of Mark offers us in stark and plain terms.
The first is the Palm Sunday follower, with a palm branch in their hands, singing hymns at full voice, thrilled at the thought of what Jesus will do for them - and about to be bitterly disappointed.
It is worth a moment’s pause to consider the disappointment which Jesus Christ can bring.
The disappointment of the person who follows him thinking that a moral life, like one we imagine Jesus living, will lead to an orderly life, hopefully one of some success, at least one quiet and contented. But who discovers that following Jesus one is led into the centre of the storm.
It is the disappointment of the person who follows him thinking that a Christian life will always be happy and one of rich personal relationships. Away from the world's hatreds, into the company of Christians who will never betray or disappoint. Who discovers that following Jesus, one will face the darkness of the human heart. The darkness in our own. The darkness in others.
It is the disappointment of the person who says I want Jesus, I just don’t want anything to do with the church. I’m above institutions, and party spirit, bureaucracies, and blimpish traditions. I want nothing to do with superstition or hypocrisy. But who hears, in dismay, that it is in order to raise up a holy people, a nation of priests, that our Lord inhabits the church and gives his body into our shaking hands and offers his blood to our trembling lips.
And it is the disappointment, quite frankly, of the one who follows Jesus Christ thinking that they can get ahead by doing so.
“We want to be on your left and right,” James and John tell Jesus. But this is a King who serves - and expects his followers to do likewise. And who only once in Mark’s Gospel will be honored with company on his left and right - when two criminals are pinned to crosses beside him (15.27). It is not the glory they were hoping for. It is not the glory Jesus offers.
Jesus Christ loves us. He reaches out to us. He comforts us, heals us, protects us. He answers all sorts of simple, personal prayers upon which we can look with gratitude. But it is love given in order to enlarge our hearts. It is love given in order to draw us in and send us out. It is love with a back bone which simply won’t be manipulated by our narrow goals and prejudices. And every short-sighted Palm Sunday follower discovers this on Good Friday when they hear their hollow cheers descend into cries for crucifixion.
And there is another kind of follower who the Bishop described. It is Simon of Cyrene, the man on the road forced by the soldiers to carry the cross of Jesus to Golgotha.
And I liked the Bishop’s joke. Simon is the great ambassador for everyone who is here today at the insistence of their husband or wife. Simon represents all those who know that there’s a price to pay for Easter Dinner: “you gotta go to church.”
For a month in seminary, I was a student volunteer at a skid-row mission in Chicago. I met a man who bounced back and forth off the street. He was clean and sober when I knew him, was serving as a volunteer at the mission, and was simply a great friend to me.
One night we went out onto Madison Avenue for a tour of the neighbourhood. If any of you remember the TV show Hill Street Blues, that police precinct was not far away and was our first stop.
But the tour included a walk past several of the street missions, some with better reputations than others. “Had all my stuff stolen in that one,” he told me.
“And in that one,” he said, “chapel comes before dinner.”
“There I was born again, and again, and again. New converts get better lunch.”
Simon of Cyrene is the great ambassador for all those who say, “I am here because my grandmother told me. I am here because my father dragged me. I am here because I can’t stay home without making a scene. I am here in body, but don’t think for a moment you have my heart, or mind, or my soul.”
He is the ambassador for all those who have had Jesus thrust upon them. They weren’t looking. They aren’t interested. But they can’t get around him. They have a Roman spear in their back, and they discover - they truly discover - they can’t get around him.
I’ve mentioned before a man who I knew as a pastor in my home church and a chaplain to the local police. But as a teenager he was part of a street gang. One night there was some gun play and he made the national news because he was the nephew of the mayor.
In the gun fight he had tried to shoot his enemy but tripped and shot himself. Because of the injury, the police caught him, arrested him and sat outside his hospital room. And inside the room he was stuck with a kind, old man from our church, lying in the bed next to him. Determined to challenge him. Determined to love him. Determined to follow him to court and to prison. Determined that, whether he wanted it or not, this young man would see Jesus.
Mark’s Gospel is a stark one. It is one in which the mission of Jesus Christ is portrayed in dramatic, violent, agonizing terms. It is one in which the most reliable ending we have portrays everyone frightened and confused.
It is the Gospel in which only two people clearly understand who Jesus is. The devils who see the spiritual battle being waged. And a dusty old soldier, experienced in cruelty, who stands at the foot of the cross, and looks upon the dying Jesus in reverence and wonder.
It is a stark Gospel portrait. But echoing just beyond its border is the triumphant news of the resurrection, waiting for those who will make the trip past the empty tomb.
As Bishop Yu noted, the Gospel of Mark has this beautiful little tease. It says that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Rufus and Alexander (15.21), names which appear nowhere else in Mark’s Gospel. But which almost certainly mean that the sons of Simon would later become known to the Christians who read Mark’s Gospel. Simon and his sons were known because Simon who first followed Jesus by force, discovered the truest thing he’d ever known and would come to follow Jesus in love.
Pope Benedict says, what do we need in life?
We need fellowship. We need relationships that matter. We seek harmony and peace.
But before all that, we need the truth (Behold the Pierced One, Joseph Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, 1986, p. 125). And in the life of Jesus Christ, vindicated by his resurrection from the grave, heaven has shone down upon us, and we have seen the truth.
What did Simon discover? What would the frightened women discover? What would the betrayer Peter discover?
They went off to the grave, armed for the stench of death, and discovered life - life vindicating all which Jesus taught and did and the great mercy he displayed.
The mercy of God who chooses the least of all people to become a holy nation, a beacon of light in the world, who reveals himself in the master who will serve. In the king who will give his life for his enemy.
The mercy of God who clings to these humble people, in their rebellion and disobedience, because of an unrelenting pursuit and a promise he will not give up on to redeem the world.
And the mercy of God with power to reach into the core of this world, grabbing death and sin, and pulling it inside out into light and life.
Those unlikely people, with Jesus thrust upon them, discover the new life of the risen Lord vindicating the great mercy he had displayed among them. They discover life, and mercy and know it to be true. The truest thing in heaven and earth.
“Let the same mind be in you,” says St. Paul, “that was in Christ Jesus.”
. . . who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave . . . And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of . . . death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name . . . in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (Phil. 2:5-11)
And because of him, says Paul, I have come to regard everything as loss . . . “because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord . . . I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings. (Philippians 3:7-11)
Pope Benedict concludes the matter perfectly:
[Jesus] Christ summons us to find heaven in him, to discover him in others and thus to be heaven to each other. He calls us to let heaven shine into this world, to build heaven here. Jesus stretches out his hand to us in his Easter message, in the mystery of the sacraments, so that Easter may be now, so that the light of heaven may shine forth in this world and the doors may be opened. Let us take his hand! (p. 128.)
And in them, two kinds of people described who have encountered Jesus who, for our benefit, the Gospel of Mark offers us in stark and plain terms.
The first is the Palm Sunday follower, with a palm branch in their hands, singing hymns at full voice, thrilled at the thought of what Jesus will do for them - and about to be bitterly disappointed.
It is worth a moment’s pause to consider the disappointment which Jesus Christ can bring.
The disappointment of the person who follows him thinking that a moral life, like one we imagine Jesus living, will lead to an orderly life, hopefully one of some success, at least one quiet and contented. But who discovers that following Jesus one is led into the centre of the storm.
It is the disappointment of the person who follows him thinking that a Christian life will always be happy and one of rich personal relationships. Away from the world's hatreds, into the company of Christians who will never betray or disappoint. Who discovers that following Jesus, one will face the darkness of the human heart. The darkness in our own. The darkness in others.
It is the disappointment of the person who says I want Jesus, I just don’t want anything to do with the church. I’m above institutions, and party spirit, bureaucracies, and blimpish traditions. I want nothing to do with superstition or hypocrisy. But who hears, in dismay, that it is in order to raise up a holy people, a nation of priests, that our Lord inhabits the church and gives his body into our shaking hands and offers his blood to our trembling lips.
And it is the disappointment, quite frankly, of the one who follows Jesus Christ thinking that they can get ahead by doing so.
“We want to be on your left and right,” James and John tell Jesus. But this is a King who serves - and expects his followers to do likewise. And who only once in Mark’s Gospel will be honored with company on his left and right - when two criminals are pinned to crosses beside him (15.27). It is not the glory they were hoping for. It is not the glory Jesus offers.
Jesus Christ loves us. He reaches out to us. He comforts us, heals us, protects us. He answers all sorts of simple, personal prayers upon which we can look with gratitude. But it is love given in order to enlarge our hearts. It is love given in order to draw us in and send us out. It is love with a back bone which simply won’t be manipulated by our narrow goals and prejudices. And every short-sighted Palm Sunday follower discovers this on Good Friday when they hear their hollow cheers descend into cries for crucifixion.
And there is another kind of follower who the Bishop described. It is Simon of Cyrene, the man on the road forced by the soldiers to carry the cross of Jesus to Golgotha.
And I liked the Bishop’s joke. Simon is the great ambassador for everyone who is here today at the insistence of their husband or wife. Simon represents all those who know that there’s a price to pay for Easter Dinner: “you gotta go to church.”
For a month in seminary, I was a student volunteer at a skid-row mission in Chicago. I met a man who bounced back and forth off the street. He was clean and sober when I knew him, was serving as a volunteer at the mission, and was simply a great friend to me.
One night we went out onto Madison Avenue for a tour of the neighbourhood. If any of you remember the TV show Hill Street Blues, that police precinct was not far away and was our first stop.
But the tour included a walk past several of the street missions, some with better reputations than others. “Had all my stuff stolen in that one,” he told me.
“And in that one,” he said, “chapel comes before dinner.”
“There I was born again, and again, and again. New converts get better lunch.”
Simon of Cyrene is the great ambassador for all those who say, “I am here because my grandmother told me. I am here because my father dragged me. I am here because I can’t stay home without making a scene. I am here in body, but don’t think for a moment you have my heart, or mind, or my soul.”
He is the ambassador for all those who have had Jesus thrust upon them. They weren’t looking. They aren’t interested. But they can’t get around him. They have a Roman spear in their back, and they discover - they truly discover - they can’t get around him.
I’ve mentioned before a man who I knew as a pastor in my home church and a chaplain to the local police. But as a teenager he was part of a street gang. One night there was some gun play and he made the national news because he was the nephew of the mayor.
In the gun fight he had tried to shoot his enemy but tripped and shot himself. Because of the injury, the police caught him, arrested him and sat outside his hospital room. And inside the room he was stuck with a kind, old man from our church, lying in the bed next to him. Determined to challenge him. Determined to love him. Determined to follow him to court and to prison. Determined that, whether he wanted it or not, this young man would see Jesus.
Mark’s Gospel is a stark one. It is one in which the mission of Jesus Christ is portrayed in dramatic, violent, agonizing terms. It is one in which the most reliable ending we have portrays everyone frightened and confused.
It is the Gospel in which only two people clearly understand who Jesus is. The devils who see the spiritual battle being waged. And a dusty old soldier, experienced in cruelty, who stands at the foot of the cross, and looks upon the dying Jesus in reverence and wonder.
It is a stark Gospel portrait. But echoing just beyond its border is the triumphant news of the resurrection, waiting for those who will make the trip past the empty tomb.
As Bishop Yu noted, the Gospel of Mark has this beautiful little tease. It says that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Rufus and Alexander (15.21), names which appear nowhere else in Mark’s Gospel. But which almost certainly mean that the sons of Simon would later become known to the Christians who read Mark’s Gospel. Simon and his sons were known because Simon who first followed Jesus by force, discovered the truest thing he’d ever known and would come to follow Jesus in love.
Pope Benedict says, what do we need in life?
We need fellowship. We need relationships that matter. We seek harmony and peace.
But before all that, we need the truth (Behold the Pierced One, Joseph Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, 1986, p. 125). And in the life of Jesus Christ, vindicated by his resurrection from the grave, heaven has shone down upon us, and we have seen the truth.
What did Simon discover? What would the frightened women discover? What would the betrayer Peter discover?
They went off to the grave, armed for the stench of death, and discovered life - life vindicating all which Jesus taught and did and the great mercy he displayed.
The mercy of God who chooses the least of all people to become a holy nation, a beacon of light in the world, who reveals himself in the master who will serve. In the king who will give his life for his enemy.
The mercy of God who clings to these humble people, in their rebellion and disobedience, because of an unrelenting pursuit and a promise he will not give up on to redeem the world.
And the mercy of God with power to reach into the core of this world, grabbing death and sin, and pulling it inside out into light and life.
Those unlikely people, with Jesus thrust upon them, discover the new life of the risen Lord vindicating the great mercy he had displayed among them. They discover life, and mercy and know it to be true. The truest thing in heaven and earth.
“Let the same mind be in you,” says St. Paul, “that was in Christ Jesus.”
. . . who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave . . . And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of . . . death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name . . . in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (Phil. 2:5-11)
And because of him, says Paul, I have come to regard everything as loss . . . “because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord . . . I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings. (Philippians 3:7-11)
Pope Benedict concludes the matter perfectly:
[Jesus] Christ summons us to find heaven in him, to discover him in others and thus to be heaven to each other. He calls us to let heaven shine into this world, to build heaven here. Jesus stretches out his hand to us in his Easter message, in the mystery of the sacraments, so that Easter may be now, so that the light of heaven may shine forth in this world and the doors may be opened. Let us take his hand! (p. 128.)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sermon - "The Great Love" - Mark 1.9-15
St. Paul’s L’Amoreaux, Lent 1, March 1, 2009
As we follow Jesus into the Lenten wilderness through these few, brief and dense verses, Annette Brownlee’s words from last week must surely be kept in mind. Week by week we gather as the church to be shaped and formed by the word of God.
But before entering the wilderness, we must begin where it began for Jesus, the voice from heaven declaring: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11)
Bishop Tom Wright asks the right question here: what, for instance, is the effect on those when the fatherly voice they first knew as a child was a voice of rejection, callousness, harshness, or neglect. What is the effect of a father’s voice which is cold, critical and distant?
And what, by contrast, is the effect on Jesus of this voice, heralding the great love of God? What is the effect for us - that God loves us with a love beyond all measure? And where, exactly, can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
Well, as Mark’s Gospel explains, and as Jesus demonstrates, first of all you can go into the wilderness to be tested and to persevere.
Where is the wilderness?
Well, it’s not that hard to understand. Like the wilderness into which the children of Israel were led. That long desert walk where, with only enough food for one day at a time, the people were being taught to take the next step, to do the right thing, and to trust God.
The wilderness we’ve all known. Of all those seasons where it all seems flat, dusty and hard and we’re still expected to do the right thing.
Every season in life has those wilderness walks. When the only thing clearly before us are the responsibilities of the day - at school, or work, or family life. When we are expected to be faithful, and righteous and true, but what we feel, simply, is stuck.
You know what I like about this description in Mark? It’s the verb. It says that Jesus was ‘driven out’ into the wilderness. It’s a strong word. The effect would be even stronger if we could hear all the times the single Greek word used in Mark’s Gospel. Demons are driven out of ravaged lives. Death is driven out of a little girl. Money changers are driven out of the temple.
At the very least, we know that this was no easy matter for Jesus, either. For the Spirit comes upon him with great force, driving him into the wilderness.
But where Israel failed, where the church has failed, where you and I have failed - on those long, dry desert walks, with only the next step in our sight, Jesus took each step and persevered.
Where can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
Well, you can go into the wilderness, face the tests, and persevere.
And secondly, you can go to the Lord and answer His call.
I’ve mentioned before the simple solution C. S. Lewis offers to those who are having trouble hearing God speak. “Be quiet”, he says. You can’t listen if you can’t hear.
It’s a good place to begin in Lent. Listen. Turn off the radio, TV and Ipod.
Listen.
And in the wilderness, Jesus listened and answered the call of the Lord.
Here is where this brief passage is simply packed.
For when Jesus hears the heavenly voice, in the background a deep echo resounds.
An echo of the second psalm of David where the Lord declares his love for the King who will rule his people:
“You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Ps 2.7).
An echo of the suffering servant, who would bear his people’s sorrows, and take onto himself the wounds of their iniquity:
“Here is my servant [in whom I am well pleased],” says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah (42.1). "By his bruises we are healed (53:5).
An echo the people of Israel yearned to hear in their time. But what no one anticipated was that the king and the servant would arrive in one person. That their king would be enthroned on the cross, forgiving his executioners who spit on him from below.
You know, there’s another passage that may echo here, not as well known, coming from the apocryphal book of Wisdom. Ominously, it anticipates how the servant of the Lord would stand out and be recognized.
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,” [the wicked say to themselves], “because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions . . . Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s child, [God] will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20)
The heavenly voice issues a stunning declaration, and with the deep echo of Scripture in the background, Jesus goes into the wilderness to hear the Lord and answer his call.
The call of Israel’s Messiah and King who will lead by a great, suffering love, whose integrity will rise and shine out of insult and crucifixion.
Why is our life so noisy and distracting? Why is the TV always on and the radio always playing. One reason is here. One reason is that we don’t want it quiet. Because if we could hear, we might hear the Lord - calling us to mercy instead of revenge; sacrifice instead of indulgence; service instead of self-promotion.
Where can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
As Jesus has shown us, you can go to the Lord and answer His call.
But finally, you can go into the fray and bring peace.
This is what I noticed first, and I’m sure it’s only a small thing. But all week I kept thinking about the beasts.
I grew up on a farm. We had cattle, chickens, pigs, turkeys, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, mice and rats. From the time we could walk, we walked among the animals. But we were also taught to be careful, especially of wild animals. The foxes mad with rabies. The mother cows, never to be fooled with when protecting newborn calves. Wolves and wild dogs, unpredictable and dangerous.
Usually once a year I try to get home to visit. One of the treats I look forward to is to go out in the cool of the night for a walk. But I don’t like it as I used to. Growing up our home was at the north end of our property and in the midst of the grain land. But for the past 20 years, my parents have lived in a new home they built, placed picturesquely in the pasture land. It is a glorious setting. But alone, outside in the dark, forming a ring around the pasture where the cattle rest, you can hear the coyotes, clearly and close enough to know that they are only a few hundred yards away.
Jesus goes into the wilderness with the devil and the beasts.
We don’t have to think too long, or hard about this, either. He goes into the wilderness and there he faces the danger of the wild animals. There he faces the subtler, but more infinitely more dangerous lures of the devil. And there the angels minister to him. There, in the midst of great danger, the greater love of God upholds him.
And when his time in the wilderness ends, the power that drove him into the wilderness will become the power by which he drives death and devils from the people they ravage. By the end of his time in the wilderness, the wild beasts have done him no harm, and a sign of the future, which God intends, is before us:
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . . and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6-9)
Where can you go when this great love upholds you? You can go into the fray and make peace.
The first pastor under whom I served was approaching retirement when we met. For many years he had been a faithful pastor in Hong Kong and China. In an intense period during the Vietnam War he was the Director for the Christian Children’s Fund in southeast Asia, responsible for the lives of 25,000 children orphaned by the conflict. I remember him telling me about hard experiences, including the rescue of a young girl who had been kidnaped.
And at the height of it all, he and his wife endured the sudden and unexpected death of their daughter, a bright, young Christian college student struck down by a vicious and fatal virus.
He is the one I think of who faced the tests and remained faithful over the long walk. Who answered the call to unselfish Christian ministry. Who entered the fray and made peace. And maybe because of his work with orphans, maybe because of the loss of his daughter, maybe very simply because of the great love upholding him, his favorite verse was from Psalm 27: “If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up” (27.10).
For all those wilderness times in our lives, when the next step and the right thing is hard to do;
For all those summons from the Lord we’ve drowned out, that voice from God telling us that our lives are meant to offer his mercy in the world;
And for all the dangers in the world, all the dangers in our hearts, which paralyze our steps;
For all those times - we have Jesus - who remained faithful, who answered the call, who entered the conflict and made peace, and whose life is offered to us, a light shining in the darkness.
In this Lenten season, let us take the time to listen, pray and reflect. Let us follow Jesus Christ - our Saviour and Lord.
As we follow Jesus into the Lenten wilderness through these few, brief and dense verses, Annette Brownlee’s words from last week must surely be kept in mind. Week by week we gather as the church to be shaped and formed by the word of God.
But before entering the wilderness, we must begin where it began for Jesus, the voice from heaven declaring: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11)
Bishop Tom Wright asks the right question here: what, for instance, is the effect on those when the fatherly voice they first knew as a child was a voice of rejection, callousness, harshness, or neglect. What is the effect of a father’s voice which is cold, critical and distant?
And what, by contrast, is the effect on Jesus of this voice, heralding the great love of God? What is the effect for us - that God loves us with a love beyond all measure? And where, exactly, can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
Well, as Mark’s Gospel explains, and as Jesus demonstrates, first of all you can go into the wilderness to be tested and to persevere.
Where is the wilderness?
Well, it’s not that hard to understand. Like the wilderness into which the children of Israel were led. That long desert walk where, with only enough food for one day at a time, the people were being taught to take the next step, to do the right thing, and to trust God.
The wilderness we’ve all known. Of all those seasons where it all seems flat, dusty and hard and we’re still expected to do the right thing.
Every season in life has those wilderness walks. When the only thing clearly before us are the responsibilities of the day - at school, or work, or family life. When we are expected to be faithful, and righteous and true, but what we feel, simply, is stuck.
You know what I like about this description in Mark? It’s the verb. It says that Jesus was ‘driven out’ into the wilderness. It’s a strong word. The effect would be even stronger if we could hear all the times the single Greek word used in Mark’s Gospel. Demons are driven out of ravaged lives. Death is driven out of a little girl. Money changers are driven out of the temple.
At the very least, we know that this was no easy matter for Jesus, either. For the Spirit comes upon him with great force, driving him into the wilderness.
But where Israel failed, where the church has failed, where you and I have failed - on those long, dry desert walks, with only the next step in our sight, Jesus took each step and persevered.
Where can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
Well, you can go into the wilderness, face the tests, and persevere.
And secondly, you can go to the Lord and answer His call.
I’ve mentioned before the simple solution C. S. Lewis offers to those who are having trouble hearing God speak. “Be quiet”, he says. You can’t listen if you can’t hear.
It’s a good place to begin in Lent. Listen. Turn off the radio, TV and Ipod.
Listen.
And in the wilderness, Jesus listened and answered the call of the Lord.
Here is where this brief passage is simply packed.
For when Jesus hears the heavenly voice, in the background a deep echo resounds.
An echo of the second psalm of David where the Lord declares his love for the King who will rule his people:
“You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Ps 2.7).
An echo of the suffering servant, who would bear his people’s sorrows, and take onto himself the wounds of their iniquity:
“Here is my servant [in whom I am well pleased],” says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah (42.1). "By his bruises we are healed (53:5).
An echo the people of Israel yearned to hear in their time. But what no one anticipated was that the king and the servant would arrive in one person. That their king would be enthroned on the cross, forgiving his executioners who spit on him from below.
You know, there’s another passage that may echo here, not as well known, coming from the apocryphal book of Wisdom. Ominously, it anticipates how the servant of the Lord would stand out and be recognized.
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,” [the wicked say to themselves], “because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions . . . Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s child, [God] will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20)
The heavenly voice issues a stunning declaration, and with the deep echo of Scripture in the background, Jesus goes into the wilderness to hear the Lord and answer his call.
The call of Israel’s Messiah and King who will lead by a great, suffering love, whose integrity will rise and shine out of insult and crucifixion.
Why is our life so noisy and distracting? Why is the TV always on and the radio always playing. One reason is here. One reason is that we don’t want it quiet. Because if we could hear, we might hear the Lord - calling us to mercy instead of revenge; sacrifice instead of indulgence; service instead of self-promotion.
Where can you go when the great love of God upholds you?
As Jesus has shown us, you can go to the Lord and answer His call.
But finally, you can go into the fray and bring peace.
This is what I noticed first, and I’m sure it’s only a small thing. But all week I kept thinking about the beasts.
I grew up on a farm. We had cattle, chickens, pigs, turkeys, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, mice and rats. From the time we could walk, we walked among the animals. But we were also taught to be careful, especially of wild animals. The foxes mad with rabies. The mother cows, never to be fooled with when protecting newborn calves. Wolves and wild dogs, unpredictable and dangerous.
Usually once a year I try to get home to visit. One of the treats I look forward to is to go out in the cool of the night for a walk. But I don’t like it as I used to. Growing up our home was at the north end of our property and in the midst of the grain land. But for the past 20 years, my parents have lived in a new home they built, placed picturesquely in the pasture land. It is a glorious setting. But alone, outside in the dark, forming a ring around the pasture where the cattle rest, you can hear the coyotes, clearly and close enough to know that they are only a few hundred yards away.
Jesus goes into the wilderness with the devil and the beasts.
We don’t have to think too long, or hard about this, either. He goes into the wilderness and there he faces the danger of the wild animals. There he faces the subtler, but more infinitely more dangerous lures of the devil. And there the angels minister to him. There, in the midst of great danger, the greater love of God upholds him.
And when his time in the wilderness ends, the power that drove him into the wilderness will become the power by which he drives death and devils from the people they ravage. By the end of his time in the wilderness, the wild beasts have done him no harm, and a sign of the future, which God intends, is before us:
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . . and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6-9)
Where can you go when this great love upholds you? You can go into the fray and make peace.
The first pastor under whom I served was approaching retirement when we met. For many years he had been a faithful pastor in Hong Kong and China. In an intense period during the Vietnam War he was the Director for the Christian Children’s Fund in southeast Asia, responsible for the lives of 25,000 children orphaned by the conflict. I remember him telling me about hard experiences, including the rescue of a young girl who had been kidnaped.
And at the height of it all, he and his wife endured the sudden and unexpected death of their daughter, a bright, young Christian college student struck down by a vicious and fatal virus.
He is the one I think of who faced the tests and remained faithful over the long walk. Who answered the call to unselfish Christian ministry. Who entered the fray and made peace. And maybe because of his work with orphans, maybe because of the loss of his daughter, maybe very simply because of the great love upholding him, his favorite verse was from Psalm 27: “If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up” (27.10).
For all those wilderness times in our lives, when the next step and the right thing is hard to do;
For all those summons from the Lord we’ve drowned out, that voice from God telling us that our lives are meant to offer his mercy in the world;
And for all the dangers in the world, all the dangers in our hearts, which paralyze our steps;
For all those times - we have Jesus - who remained faithful, who answered the call, who entered the conflict and made peace, and whose life is offered to us, a light shining in the darkness.
In this Lenten season, let us take the time to listen, pray and reflect. Let us follow Jesus Christ - our Saviour and Lord.
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