Monthly Archives: June 2016

Collared

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Before I was ordained, I didn’t think I would wear a clergy collar very much – probably just for services on Sunday and maybe a few “official” things in between. As it turns out, I have been wearing my collar nearly every day that is “work” day. The days I have not worn it, something has happened that has made me wish that I had.

It isn’t that I feel like I need to wear it in order to do “church work” or to feel like I have the right or authority to do that work, but I see it as a way of visibly bringing the church into places where people might not expect it. I enjoy exploding people’s expectations.

There is another side to wearing the collar, however. That is people’s reactions to it and to me wearing it. I will admit, I had my own set of expectations to how people would react. I expected that it would make me almost gender-less, that people would look right past me to the collar and see me as a representative of the church – for good or for bad. Which is why I’ve stopped jaywalking while walking around downtown while wearing it…

There have been a few really lovely interactions with people as a result of walking around downtown in my collar. One woman stopped dead in her tracks while walking towards me on the sidewalk: “Whoa! Are you a priest??!” I am a transitional deacon, but I said yes, deciding that now was not the time or place to try and explain the intricacies of Anglican holy orders.

Another man stopped me and very loudly introduced himself as “KEVIN WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA,” asking if I was an Anglican priest, telling me about the Catholic parish he attends, his favourite prayers to pray, and what time his service was this coming Sunday.

Them there was the couple sitting outside of one of the coffee shops I frequent who asked if I was the minister at one of the United Churches in town. Apparently she has taken to wearing a collar on a more regular basis. And obviously there can only be one female walking around town in a collar… (Hah!)

There are the less fantastic interactions that happen, however. I was catcalled last week while wearing my collar and riding my bicycle the six blocks in between the Cathedral and St John’s. Catcalled.

This week, in the space of about a half hour walking around town, I felt visibly undressed by two men as I waited at a stoplight and another gave me a lascivious wink as I walked by.

So much for being gender-less in a clergy collar.

It isn’t a surprise to the Internet that women feel objectified for what they wear. We often spend far too much energy analyzing our clothing so that it gives the “right” impression. Never did I think that I would spend more time analyzing clothing when the top is a given, the clergy shirt and collar, than when I am just dressing to go out the door for an ordinary day.

Not that I regret putting this piece of plastic (for now plastic – I’d like to get some softer cloth collars!) around my neck each morning. It is the visible symbol of what I have committed to in my life. It is often a visible sign of the presence of the church, and therefore (gulp) God, in the world. My life might end up being on display to people but it also opens the door for conversation and for challenged expectations of what and who is the church. After all, that is kind of what I signed up for in my ordination vows: You are to make Christ and his redemptive love known by your word and example, to those among whom you live and work and worship. You are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world … At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.

The Story Behind the Essay

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I shared, last year, my excitement at having an essay published in a book. You can find out more about that here: Publication!

I wrote a little more about the experience here: RevGals: A Book and Belonging

Here is the initial post that inspired the thoughts that became the essay: I get to go home. For those of you who have bought the book and read it, or found it in a library and read it, thank you!

First – a Person

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Sunday was my very first Sunday as curate at St John the Divine. After the service ended, I stood by the pulpit and shook hands with what seemed like thousands of people. Though in reality, it was maybe only a hundred and twenty or so…

In the midst of all of the “thank you” and “great sermon” comments, one person stopped and made a point of thanking my very specifically for something in the sermon that had caught their notice. They thanked me for how I referred to people.

I hadn’t thought much of it when writing – it has become second nature for me to talk about a person who has or is dealing with something in their lives, rather than make the identity of the person entirely wrapped up in that one “feature.” For example, I will talk about a person experiencing homelessness rather than a homeless person. It is a small shift in language, but for this person, it made a difference.

This afternoon I was doing clean up and updating work on this site and I came across a post that I wrote a number of years ago while working at the shelter. It reminded me of that after-church conversation and thought it worthwhile to bring it to the front again.

So, here it is: There is Always a Story.

Sermon for June 5, 2016

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Preached at the Church of St John the Divine, Victoria.
Main text: Luke 7:11-17
Referenced: 1 Kings 17:8-24

For the audio recording, please see here.

Jesus is on the move. I mean – every time we hear a story about Jesus, he is somewhere else, talking to someone new, doing something different. He seems to be on the road a lot in this part of Luke’s gospel and its amazing that anyone could keep track of him, let alone follow what he was up to or know who he was in a time before texting, Facebook, or twitter.

The best bet seems to be to keep close, to follow Jesus wherever he goes to see what he might do next. And in our gospel reading this morning, they’re following him pretty closely – Jesus walked 35 kilometres down the road into the town of Nain with his disciples, we read, and a really committed “large crowd went with him”

The large crowd jostling around, pushing each other to try and get closer to Jesus…, kicking up dust from the road…, kids running in and out of legs…

Who is this man? We aren’t quite sure, but he is doing some neat things, so lets follow him… Maybe we’ll be able to find out!

But as we approach the town of Nain, Jesus comes to a stop – and all of us in the crowd have to do so as well… bumping into each other as we all try to look and see why Jesus has stopped.

Our crowd walking into town has met another procession head on, just outside the gates of the city…

Instead of the cheerful chatter and sounds of laughter that have been resonating out of our group, the large crowd we have encountered from town is wailing and crying.

It’s a funeral procession. Death is marching through the town gates and leaving a path of hardship behind.

Someone in our group recognizes the woman at the head of the procession … she is a widow, they say. A single mother with only one son. And this body being carried into the cemetery is that son.

Death. Not only has it robbed the life of a young man but also robbed the life of those who he leaves behind. As many of us know, the social structures at place here meant that with the death of her only son, this widow, this single mother, is now shuffled off to the margins of society where she is like nothing and has nothing.

 

Not something that we do today, now is it? Or is it?

With the loss of a family member, those left behind struggle to find their place in a world that has undeniably shifted.

With the loss of a job, there is struggle for rediscovery of identity and reformation of relationships – let alone struggle for survival.

With the loss of a home comes shame and blame and guilt and all of the struggles of finding a new place in a hot housing market.

We don’t have to look any further than our parking lot or the once-empty grassy space six blocks down Quadra Street [reference: see this or this, amongst other things] to see what happens to those our society shuffles to the side when they cannot fit within the artificially created social structures that govern things.

It is too easy to think that we have nothing in common with each other: with those who live in tents or with the widow in Nain who has just lost her only son.

 

Loss. Change. It is all around and can bring us to tears. We wonder where God is in the midst of it all. We might even wonder if we are forgotten.

And then we encounter Jesus on the road out of town to the cemetery. I am not sure that those in the funeral procession knew it was Jesus. Or if they did know him, if they knew who he really was.

But that did not matter – Because Jesus sees them.

He SAW the widow – knew her situation – and was moved with compassion.

I’m not talking the kind of compassion that is tinged with pity or with some sort of patronizing “poor you” sentiment.

I’m talking about the kind of compassion that reaches down into your gut and stirs things up so that it is uncomfortable. The kind of compassion that compels you to do something.

Jesus is stirred so deeply by the brokenness of this widow and her unjust banishment to the sidelines of society that he moves towards her to act on his compassion.

 

As he moves towards the funeral procession and stretches his hand out towards the bier that the body lay on, I wonder if those in either of the crowds recollected a story they’d heard before about the prophet of God who’d lived generations earlier. The prophet of God we heard about this morning who brought a boy, the only son of a widow, back to life by laying on him three times and breathing the life-giving breath of God back into the boy’s lungs.

I wonder if they remembered that story and looked with hope at Jesus.

If they were expecting to see something similar where Jesus stopped the procession and laid himself out overtop of the dead boy, then I’m sure that they were disappointed.

All Jesus did was reach out and touch the funeral bier and spoke to the young man.

 

A simple action: reaching out and acknowledging him and the situation of those around him.

And with Jesus’ simple action, the young man’s breath, his life, came back into him and he sat up.

No, if the crowds were looking for fireworks and the supernatural like they had seen with Elijah, then I am sure they were disappointed. However if they were looking for resurrection, they experienced it.

Yes there was the resurrection of the boy, the only son of the widow, that that was in and of itself a spectacular event.

But there was also another, perhaps more subtle resurrection.

If resurrection is revitalization, bringing life back into something, or causing something that had been sidelined and forgotten to exist again, then surely the widow was resurrected as well.

With Jesus’ action and acknowledgement, she was restored into community – brought back from the margins and given new life. And perhaps the community was resurrected as well as they saw the injustice of their structures challenged and they found a model for how they ought to react: seeing, being moved by compassion, and acting.

 

Perhaps that is the biggest miracle here: that God is alive and active in and through us. God has compassion for each and every one of us and is the one who is moving in the world around us. God is living and God is active.

Because resurrection is not some one-time event that happened on Easter Sunday some two thousand years ago for us to commemorate each year. It is not a means of escape whereby we can leave this world behind and go some place where it is all sorted out.

Resurrection is ongoing in our lives as God is abiding in and through us. We are invited to practice and bring resurrection into each corner of our lives through following the model of Jesus: seeing, being moved by compassion, and acting.

And it is an ongoing practice because, in reality, it is a lot easier to deny the resurrection than it is to affirm it.

Every time I participate in systems of injustice, I am denying the resurrection.

Every time I walk by a person on the street who is experiencing homelessness and ignore their humanity, I am denying the resurrection.

Every time I let my white privilege get me one step ahead of everyone else, I am denying the resurrection.

Once and awhile I actually affirm the resurrection by living it.

By actually seeing the people that God brings across my path.

By allowing myself to see and feel and be moved with compassion.

By loving those around me and acting out of my compassion.

 

And so I’m not asking you to believe or not believe in people rising from the dead – I am asking you to believe and live the greater miracle: the life-giving resurrection power of God. I am asking you to consider whether wholeness is being restored around and through us, whether resurrection is affirmed, and whether Jesus is proclaimed.

Wholeness is restored, resurrection is affirmed, and Jesus is proclaimed.

Let it be, amen.

Ordination

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I have no words to describe last weekend. Instead, I will direct you to my Dad and his photos of our ordination.

This week we each had our first full days of work at the church. I have an office and keys and have begun to find my way around the parish. I am preaching this Sunday, my first Sunday in the parish, and I don’t know whether to tell people to come or to stay away!

God has called us on a marvellous adventure and day-by-day we seek to discover how we serve God and God’s people