Tag Archives: anglican

Sermon for October 2, 2016

Posted on by

Preached at St Peter’s, Lakehill – part of the Two Saints Ministry

Text:2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10

 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Lounge at St John’s for Parish Council.

We were at every parish’s favourite part of the meeting: discussing the financial reports. As I was glancing through the balance sheets, I mistakenly read “Ministry of Music” as “Ministry of Magic” …

Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, that spawned a lot of interesting conversations both online and in person.  It also has me wondering if the “Ministry of Magic” is more along the lines of that Jesus’ disciples are asking for in this morning’s gospel.

 

Lets take a look:

We are in Luke chapter 17. In Luke’s narrative, we are nearing the end of Jesus’ travelling ministry. He and the disciples have left the area around Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth for the last time are walking the difficult road into Jerusalem. Jesus knows exactly where they are headed: to Jerusalem and to the cross. The disciples, well, they really only know about the Jerusalem part.

So when I hear this dialogue between the disciples and Jesus in our gospel reading this morning, I have “sarcastic Jesus” in my head:

Jesus, increase our faith!

Increase your faith?! What do you want, a magic wand to wave to instantly give you faith the size of a mustard seed? Would you prefer the size of a peach pit? Or an avocado seed? Those are bigger than a mustard seed…

It seems like another one of those moments where Jesus has to refrain from saying, “I’m right here…! You’re asking to increase your faith and I’m still here…!”

They haven’t even hit the “bad stuff” yet – the disciples are still blissfully ignorant of what is to come. Yes, there have been hints of what will happen in Jerusalem, though fewer in number in Luke’s narrative than in the other gospels, but there is very little indication that the disciples truly understand the road of suffering that they are walking on with Jesus.

But they’ve been told that there will be suffering. They’ve been given indications of the fact that this is a hard road they’re walking on. Asking Jesus to “increase their faith” strikes me as a way of asking to get to the Olympic gold medal without actually having to run the race – getting the result without having to do the work.

 

But that is usually the way we want it, isn’t it? I mean, wouldn’t it be great if we would wave a magic wand and our faith would be topped up to the max? Our churches would be full, our Sunday School teaming with kids, our offering plate overflowing…

If only there was a quick fix where we could bypass all of the hard work and just get to the prize.

If only we could skip the suffering altogether.

That is what we are told we should want by society: Turn on the TV, open a magazine and look at all of the advertising for things that offer the quick fix – whether it is a miracle pill or the new workout regime that YOU SIMPLY WON’T BELIEVE or an amazing new cream you can spread on and defy aging – we live in a society that wants results without having to do the work.

It is easier to just throw money at something than put in hard work and time in to something that may or may not work.

Because the mindset we all-too-frequently buy into says that suffering is something that is not okay, in fact, it is something shameful we must hide – and pain is something we have to pop a pill to avoid.

Or – better yet – we can pass it all off to the leader of our group. Isn’t that what the disciples want? Jesus is Jesus, so he can just increase our faith for us with a snap of his fingers.

The rector is the leader, so they can make our church grow, do all of the hard work and have all of the faith on behalf of all of the rest of us … right?

 

But that is not the faith that we are called to live into.

We are called to live into a faith where Jesus invites us to take up our cross – to embrace suffering – and follow alongside.

In the letter we read this morning, the writer named as Paul says, DO NOT BE ASHAMED, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but JOIN WITH ME in suffering for the gospel …

Paul is clear: Our faith is NOT disgraced by suffering. Despite the fact that he was in prison for proclaiming the gospel, Paul says, I am not in prison because we have any reason to be ashamed of what we are doing. No, says Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith…

And then Paul proceeds to remind Timothy of what the disciples needed to hear, of what we need to hear:

You already have faith.

To Timothy, Paul says, I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to REKINDLE the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands…

To all of us, we can imagine him saying: Rekindle that faith that I know is within you and that was confirmed through the laying on of hands. Remember that hand that was laid on your head when you were washed in the waters of baptism. Maybe you don’t remember the exact moment – but that is why we renew our baptismal vows throughout our lives, so that we will remember that we have faith.

We already have what we need. HOLD ON to that, says Paul.

 

Instead of complaining about the size of faith, what would happen if faith were not thought of as a commodity to gain – a metaphorical carrot on a stick to be chased after – and not as a feeling that we need to have – but as a way of being.

Many have suggested that a more appropriate translation of the word “faith” is actually “faithfulness.”

 

Jesus, increase our faithfulness.

Now, it ceases to be something we need to find or obtain – but a way to live.

What does it mean to live with faithfulness?

It means we continue despite not feeling like it.

It means we struggle through hard conversations.

It means we make hard choices – and even sacrifices – so that the gospel might be proclaimed not only to the people who sit here in these pews with us on Sunday mornings, but so that it might be proclaimed to those who are not here – to our children and grandchildren, to our neighbours, to the people in the community around this building here at St Peter’s and in the Village around St David’s, to our coworkers and friends …

It means we do not get weary of doing what is right, knowing that we will reap the harvest if we do not give up.

 

And, for our encouragement, Paul reminds Timothy – and reminds us – that we are part of a legacy of faithfulness.

Like Timothy, who is reminded of his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois, who from childhood instructed him for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, we have a legacy of over 150 years of Anglicans worshiping in this region.

And the church has been around for 2 thousand years – has faced much more suffering than we could even imagine facing here in our corner of the world – and it has continued to exist and will continue to exist long after all of us are gone.

 

But that isn’t to say that Paul is telling us to look back to what was and seek to recreate it again now. Rather, Paul is encouraging us to remember the amazing heritage we are a part of, and allow it to rekindle the faithfulness that is planted and rooted within us, and use that as a resting foundation to inspire and propel us in our future.

Because if we just wave a magic wand and skip the suffering, we lose the history and the heritage that have made us who we are and that ground us for moving into the new and exciting – though difficult – future.

 

Faithfulness, it turns out, is what enables us to vulnerably have the difficult conversations

To make the hard decisions

To work through the conflict

 

Yes, it is hard. Yes, it is scary. Yes, it is difficult.

But, says Paul, God did not give us a spirit of cowardice – in some translations that reads “fear” – the fear that keeps us from being faithful to our calling – God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

The power and self-discipline needed to remain faithful and engaged in our community  – and the love of God and love for each other that keeps us together in community as we go.

Jesus, rekindle our faithfulness.

Amen

Sermon for September 4, 2016

Posted on by

Preached at the Church of St John the Divine, Victoria BC

Text: Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Psalm 139

Audio here

 

Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words…

But before we go: Put down whatever you are working on – the dishes can wait until later, and that TV show is already on Netflix.  Put down whatever you are thinking about, whatever is distracting you – the shopping list can be put together later, and there will be plenty of time after church to plan the rest of the long-weekend. Because together we have been asked to step out of our home, step out of our office, step out of our comfortable pew, and go for a short walk.

We are going down to the potter’s house – perhaps it is an unfamiliar place, because we’re more likely to pick up a new piece of pottery at the mall or at the market than we are to visit the potter’s home studio… But maybe in this unfamiliar place we might be better able to hear and see and smell the words of God.

The potter’s house is just over there – around that corner. Watch out for the step and mind your head as we duck through the door. It feels a little close inside, but don’t worry, there is plenty of room for us all. God has invited us here to hear her words.

As we listen for the word of God, look around you, see and smell and hear the sights and smells and sounds of the potter at work – the whirr of the wheel, the smell of fresh clay, the cool splashes of water used to work the clay, and the bright colours of already glazed and fired vessels on the shelf on the far side of the room. There is such a difference between the two: this malleable clay being moved around on the wheel by the potter’s firm but gentle hands – compared with the brightly painted, gleaming, hard vessels lining the shelf, waiting to be sold and used.

As we watch, the potter pulls the clay off of the wheel, reshapes it, and begins again. And as we see the new vessel emerge out of the hands of the potter from the lump of clay on the wheel, it occurs to you that this transformation would no longer be possible with those brightly glazed vessels over on the shelf.  This clay held lovingly in the potter’s hands has not yet been fired. And unlike fired clay that has dried and shrunk, hardened into a permanent structure and shape, and become rigid and brittle; this unfired clay is plastic and moldable. It can be shaped and reshaped over and over again. It is flexible and responsive. It is a material of possibility.

Not moldable so that the potter can do whatever they desire with the clay, but left unfired so that it can constantly be worked and reworked – as flaws are found in the clay, they can be removed. As strengths are found, they can be built on. The hands of the potter are so sensitive that they can feel all of these strong points and weak points in the clay with the tenderest of touches…

 

Lord, you have searched me out and known me, you know my sitting down and my rising up, you discern my thoughts from afar.
You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
Where can I go from your spirit? 
For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I will thank you because I am marvellously made; your works are wonderful and I know it well.
My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth…

And then you remember those creation stories: God scooped up clay, scooped up dust from the earth and formed it to become a person. As the Creator leaned over the clay, shaping it, the air and water that makes up breath was breathed into the clay, giving it life.  Not to become dry, rigid, brittle vessels, but flexible, responsive vessels – every pore of the unfired clay still filled with the Living Water that continues to give life day after day after day

And those individually formed, intricately knit, wonderful human bodies come together to create an even bigger living vessel that we see here today: the church. Not a hard or rigid structure – beautiful and shiny, but only good for one or two things and certainly not flexible – though some days our physical plant may feel hard and inflexible – but a living, breathing, flexible, responsive vessel that is continually being shaped and reshaped as strong points and weak points are found: building on the strong and reshaping to shore up the weak. Changing and responsively reshaping over and over as more living water is added to the clay.

Not so that the potter can have their way with the clay, arbitrarily making it into whatever they desire – plucking up, breaking down, building, or planting at will, but a mutual responsiveness : as the clay responds to the potter and the potter to the clay, so we respond to God and God to us.

Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words

Rather the words we hear is this analogy we see in the potter’s house:  God did not shape us – as individuals, as a community – once and for all: we have not been fired in the kiln and set on the shelf waiting our one single, specialized purpose. We are clay that has not yet been fired. God’s plans for our community, this church, as we hear from Jeremiah, are not fixed or hardened in clay.  God says to Jeremiah that God’s plan to build up a people may be thwarted by their choice not to go along with that.  On the other hand, we hear that God’s plan to pull down a kingdom that has become strong by taking advantage of the poor and marginalized may not happen if the people turn from that behaviour. God responds to us responding to God…

God cannot and will not make us do anything. We have gifts here in this place – oh so many gifts and talents – but God will not make us use them if we do not choose to.  The shape of our lives and the shape of our life together in this community is not fixed. Like unfired clay, we remain supple. We become formed into our particular shape through living and worshipping together… Because unfired clay has endless possibilities… Education, common practices, the gifts we have and choose to use and share – they shape us and form us into what we are.

But in it all, God announces her desire for us to return to communion with each other and with God – that we might be formed into the image and likeness of God as we respond to the potter’s tender hand.

Sermon for August 14, 2016

Posted on by

Preached at the Church of St John the Divine, Victoria BC

Text: Luke 12:49-56

Audio here

 

It is one of those weeks when curates and associates across the country have a few words to say to their rectors who have taken today off and left us to preach on this particularly challenging set of readings.

Take our gospel reading this morning, for instance, what do we do when Jesus seems to contradict himself? Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

Was Jesus just having a bad day on the way to Jerusalem? How else can we reconcile what we read in today’s gospel with what we read in the rest of Luke’s gospel and in other places in the Holy Scriptures?

For example, there is Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, where the shepherds are told that Jesus’ birth is to bring peace on earth…

Or there is that passage familiar to many, interpreted by the New Testament writers to be about Jesus, where the prophet Isaiah says that the divine child to be born will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…

And what about in the gospel of John where Jesus is reported to say Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. 

Why on earth would Jesus say that he has not come to bring peace to the earth but division when – everything – else – we know – and – read about Jesus — is that he comes to bring peace?

 

In our sermon circle gathering this week, I posed the question, “Is peace the opposite of division?” That is, are peace and division opposed to each other? Can there be peace where there is division or can division exist amidst peace?

I’m not sure that we ever came to a final decision at sermon circle. Certainly, Jesus’ words seem to suggest that peace and division are opposites, but I am not convinced.

Why would Jesus say that he has not come to bring peace after all of the peace that is proclaimed by and about him throughout the Scriptures?

Let us consider peace.

We might think of peace as being merely the absence of war or conflict.

And that may be so. But I suspect there is more to it than that.

 

By way of example, let us turn our minds back in time to a small, out of the way, unimportant village in a small, out of the way province, in a big big empire.

There, the countryside is simmering with tension that threatens to boil over any day. It did a few months ago, when reports suggest that hundreds, if not thousands of people who had rebelled against the empire were brutally killed by crucifixion, their crosses lining the roads out of Sepphoris, not far chronologically or geographically from when and where Jesus grew up in Nazareth. Yet this time period, the one into which Jesus was born, is one that is often called peaceful because it existed under the Peace of Rome.

The shadow of Rome might be more accurate. Because while there is no longer any open war in the streets or countryside, it is an occupied territory and the citizens who are being occupied are not entirely happy with the situation. And so while on the surface there seems to be peace, Jesus and his disciples know full well that it is not peaceful.

So it makes sense that Jesus would not want to bring that peace, when the rulers of the land say that they have already brought peace. Because the Peace of Rome was a peace sustained through bloodshed and show of power. If Jesus had said that he was also bringing that peace, I can imagine folks around him saying, “more of the “peace” that mighty leaders bring? More deaths? More oppression? No thanks Jesus, take your “peace” elsewhere…”

 

We have peace in Canada, in Victoria, don’t we?

There is no war, no tyrannical leaders who we avoid speaking out against for fear of imprisonment. No major threats to our lives.

Sure, we might not speak up in a meeting when we think we will be the lone dissenting voice on a major commitment of the group, but it is better to keep the peace and have a false sense of unity, right?

Or we might avoid talking about certain issues with family members or friends… we might feel that remaining on “peaceful” terms with everyone is more important than calling out our brother-in-law or neighbour on their racist or sexist comments.

And of course we will never change anything in church, because we can’t if we want peaceful worship – someone might not like the change and therefore keeping the peace means no changes – right?

But in all seriousness – when did “peace” come to mean that we all have to always agree about everything? Or all be / think / act / and worship in exactly the same way for all time? Do we really think that “keeping the peace” means giving in or, the opposite of that, that “making peace” means forcing our will on everyone else so that we can all be in agreement? When did peace come to mean no divisions? Because despite all of our attempts for peace as the end of all divisions, divisions remain.

It is somewhat reassuring to hear Jesus say that there were divisions then too. Even with Jesus present day-in-day-out, the disciples still experienced division. Just a few chapters earlier in Luke, the disciples were arguing over who amongst themselves was greater!  So, division exited between the disciples.  But even while they were arguing over who was the greatest, they were discovering the difference that Jesus’ peace can bring.

And even though they were at odds with the rulers of the empire – and even their own families at times – they were at peace with following Jesus. Enough peace so that they would follow Jesus into persecution and death.

Jesus is letting those gathered around him know that following him and his way will not be easy. The gospel will not always bring harmony. Families may be torn apart. Communities may disagree.

But is the gospel about all of humanity agreeing on everything all of the time? Is the end result that we desire to have everyone holding hands around a campfire and singing kumbaya?

 

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I do not give to you as the world gives. Peace I leave with you; MY peace I give to you…

Jesus did not bring peace as Rome brought peace – the false peace of military might – but brought the peace that passes all understanding to keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Not that divisions might be created, but that by naming that division and discord exist, we might enter into the roots of it and discover what it really is so that we might work for Jesus’ peace rather than the world’s peace.

I wonder if that is the grace in this difficult passage: Jesus’ permission for peace and division to not necessarily be at odds with each other. That it is okay for us to disagree – that it is about how we disagree rather than that we disagree.  Do we seek God’s will as the outcome, not our own interests or the interest of “keeping the peace”?  Do we, in the words of our baptismal covenant, have as our priority seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbour as ourselves and respecting the dignity of every human being?

Because in doing so, we have the opportunity to bring peace. Not the false peace that means suppression of all around us or the promotion of ourselves. And not the peace of military might. But the peace that is, in the words of the Iona liturgy: not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace, not a half-hearted peace, but the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ that is with us now…

Amen.

A Pride Sermon: Sunday, July 10, 2016

Posted on by

Preached at St John the Divine, Victoria on Pride Sunday.

Texts: Psalm 82, Colossians 1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37

Audio here

***

13615338_1766346173644305_4865888968877321791_n

Patrick, Matthew, and I marching in Pride

I was nervous about preaching this sermon on this Sunday. It has been a week of increased violence against black men and police officers in the United States. It has been Pride Week here in Victoria. And, at the same time, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada has been meeting in Richmond Hill ON where, amongst other things, a vote on changing the Marriage Canon to include marriage for gay and lesbian people has been on the table. The vote is happening as I write this note.

There was a lot to cover this week, and I felt woefully under-equipped to do so as I am quite privileged and free of oppression in so many ways: I am white, not black; straight, not gay. And somehow I ended up trying to bring a word of God in spite of me. While I received a lot of wonderful feedback from my amazing parish, I still feel uncertain about it. In part, I am sure, because of the uncertainty we all feel about how the vote will go at General Synod today.

UPDATE: The motion to change the marriage canon did not pass, and then it did due to a vote count error. It was a tumultuous week. The second reading will happen at General Synod 2019.

***

How long O Lord? 
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long O Lord?

Psalm after psalm, including our psalm this morning, sound lament after lament: How long O Lord?

It seems that by the time we come to terms with one shooting in the United States, there have been five more. And no matter how much we decry it from our pulpits and on social media, the racial violence continues with little action from those who have the authority to make change.

And then there is the lament that many of us feel even more keenly in our bones this morning, on Pride Sunday.    — A Pride Sunday that is happening in the midst of a General Synod where a question of inclusion and identity that so many of us hold as self-evident is being contentiously discussed: the debate on changing the Anglican Church of Canada’s marriage canon to allow for the sacrament of marriage to be extended to gay and lesbian couples.

How long O Lord?
How long must your children wait?

And then we hear Paul’s words to the church in Colossae this morning:
May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father...

I’m sorry Paul, come again?

Be prepared to endure everything with patience? It feels like we have been patient for long enough, Paul.

And while we have been patient, lesbian and gay Christians have had to look elsewhere to be married.

And while we have been patient, religion has been used as an excuse to marginalize and exclude, and even kill lesbian, gay, and transgender people around the world.

And while we have been patient, a man opens fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 of our sisters and brothers.

Oh Paul, enduring with patience is painful.

 

Endure.

The word has that feeling of “hold on folks, this will probably hurt.”

And it has hurt. Some of us have left the church once, twice, multiple times. Some of us have stayed but have strained relationships with the church, with God, with each other. Some of us distrust the conversations that are ongoing at places like our General Synod. Because for some of us gathered here this morning, it is your very being – or the being of those whom we love deeply – that feels like it is being dissected and put on trial by the church.

And that is real and it is painful.

 

There is also another kind of endure that I think we can hold onto without denying the pain of the first: the endure that seeks to remain in existence, that lasts through time.

Because without every single person here, each and every person lovingly created by God: lesbian, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, and queer; the Body of Christ is incomplete. Parts are missing. Like a rainbow without all of the colours, so is the Body of Christ without all of its members.

It is incomplete because, as we heard from Alastair a few weeks back, the fullness of the church is no less than the inclusion of all of the Body of Christ. Every single part of that beautiful, multi-gendered Body of Christ.

 

But, with everything we see around us, it is no wonder we may question Paul’s words to endure with patience.

It is no wonder that we may feel daunted by the enormity of the grief in the world.

It is no wonder we have heavy hearts.

 

And so let us zoom back from Paul’s words about enduring with patience.

Because in the same breath he prays that we may be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power

Strength alongside endurance. God’s power alongside God’s patience.

Because, says Paul, you are faithful saints and what you are doing is working!

Because Paul, who is writing from Rome, has heard about the faith of this community of Christians all the way over in Asia Minor – modern day Turkey. In a time before Facebook Live video, Paul has heard about the faith of these Colossian Christians all the way from Rome.

He has heard and taken note of their faith in the gospel and how it has been bearing fruit in them and in their whole world!

And what is that gospel that bears fruit? We need to look no further than the gospel reading this morning.

 

Jesus is approached by a scholar of the law: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus’ response is, “How do you interpret what is written in the law?”

The scholar summarizes the law in the words of the Shema, or words we might recognize from our prayer book as Hear, O Israel:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and the great commandment. The second is like is: Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

 

But Jesus, who is my neighbour? Who do I have to love?

I mean, if we construe it too broadly, you are saying that there are a whole lot of people that I have to love. Like – everyone!

So Jesus does what Jesus does so well: he tells a story.

To understand this story for what it is to us in 2016 Victoria, we need to hear this story in the context of over 700 years of racial violence between Judeans and Samaritans. 700 years of Judeans marginalizing Samaritans because they didn’t worship God “in the right way” or in the right place.

Or have the right understanding of the Bible. Or marry the “right people.”

And so Jesus tells a story where the Judean is beaten and left bloodied on the side of the road and the Samaritan who he has marginalized and oppressed comes and saves him when his own people do not.

In our context, it might be a story of a straight man or woman lying on the side of the road, beaten and unseen by other straight people walking by, and the gay man they have actively hated, sees them and stops to care for them.

When we do nothing or say nothing to bring attention to and challenge injustice, we are also those who do not see, those who walk on by.

Because before it is about doing, Jesus makes it a story about seeing.

In Jesus’ parable, the priest and the Levite do not see the man lying beaten. They see a burden. They see someone not their problem. They see a hassle.

So they act – but they act to cross over to the other side of the road and pretend not to see anything.

But the Samaritan sees a person. A person in need. A person loved by God. A neighbour.

Love God with all that you have, with every part of your being, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

Who is my neighbour, Jesus?

Who warrants my attention? Who counts?

It turns out that everyone counts. That everyone is our neighbour.

But, in particular, our neighbour is the one in need. And in the face of injustice, it means #BlackLivesMatter and #LGBTQLivesMatter.

In Jesus’ story, the Samaritan isn’t the one in the ditch so that we can say a cute, moralistic, “love your enemies.” The Samaritan is the one who sees the person in need and loves them. Because all are vital members of the beautiful multi-gendered Body of Christ and for all to be included, we must see and act upon inclusion of those who are in need.

So we return to Paul: this love of our neighbour in need is the gospel that bears fruit. This is the gospel that we live and endure in faith and patience each day.

We endure because we are not a whole body without each and every member. We need the faithful witness of each part of the body remaining with the Body. In his request for prayers for our delegates to General Synod, Bishop Logan wrote, “It is my belief that the most important question before us is: ‘How can we witness to the greater [Anglican] Communion that we CAN live together while holding diverse opinions?’” Because each member of the Body of Christ counts.

 

But being a faithful witness does not have to mean a quiet witness. Because after we see the person and see the need, we speak up and act out of the belief that each one of us is as important in God’s eyes as any other.

In one way of acting on the need to witness that we see LGBTQ persons as being vital and important members of the Body of Christ, today after the 10am service many of us will march in the Victoria Pride Parade.

We march because we celebrate all members of the Body of Christ, and today we especially celebrate the LGBTQ members.

We march in the spirit of Stonewall and all of the protests that have happened before and since in pursuit of equality for LGBTQ persons in society.

We march in memory of those who have been forced to flee their homes because of hate crimes or those who have died in places like an Orlando nightclub.

We march because we are all neighbours: lesbian, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, queer…  and we ALL belong.

 

Lest you think that action needs to always to be as radical as marching in a parade, it doesn’t. Not all of us can or feel comfortable doing that.

It might mean looking carefully around us to see each person and identify the need.

It might mean doing, as Archbishop Rowan Williams invited the bishops at Lambeth Conference 2008, finding the courage to speak with and pray with someone with whom conversation might be difficult.

It might mean seeing a friend or neighbour in need and asking, “how can I support you? How can I love you as God loves you and love you as I love myself?”

 

It might mean coming to God’s table, as we will in a few minutes,  coming to God’s table where we are all equal, kneeling or standing before God, vulnerably stretching out our hands to receive a piece of what we all are:

a vital and life-giving part of the broken Body of Christ.

Amen.

Collared

Posted on by

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.

Sermon for June 5, 2016

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Sermon for the Reign of Christ, November 22, 2015

Posted on by

Preached at St Mark’s by-the-Lake, Tecumseh Ontario, November 22, 2015.

Text: [Revelation 1:4b-8], John 18:33-37

I was invited to preach at St Mark’s because I was awarded the St Mark’s by-the-Lake award for Christian Leadership last year and they have a tradition of inviting those who receive the award to preach in the church and meet the community. I had a wonderful morning with St Mark’s and was able to speak with many people in the community over coffee (post-8am) and soup (post-10:30). They are a warm and welcoming community just outside of Windsor. Many thanks to Rev. Robert Lemon and his congregation for the invitation.

I would like to invite you to take a walk with me if you will.

It might not be an easy walk. The streets are crowded. Its that Holiday rush – the tight pack of people all headed in the same direction with far too little space to accommodate them all. And yet the crowd is growing – where they are all coming from and how many more will fit is anyone’s guess.

The air is full of voices – but there are so many voices that it is hard to pick out what anyone is saying. From the tone, there are some who are overcome with excitement for the Holiday. And there are others who are muttering about this inconvenience or that annoyance.

The sounds and smells of animals – horses, donkeys, sheep – provide that smellscape that you sometimes get when the petting zoo or live nativity scene sets up in the town centre. But that isn’t too surprising: we are headed towards the Temple. It is Passover. We are in Jerusalem.

You look around, taking in the sights, and start to notice that there are soldiers strategically placed along the roadside and even more around the Roman government building up ahead. An extra show of force – and security? – at Holiday time. They are instructed to keep the peace at all costs.

The crowd begins to shift, bunching in closer together and you start to hear the clinking of armour. Looking back, you can just see through the mass of people a group of fully armed soldiers pushing through the crowd. You can tell they are soldiers because of the sun glinting off of their drawn weapons. No wonder the crowd is surging away to give them space. And the soldiers have with them a group of men wearing the long robes of religious leaders and a man who looks like he is their prisoner.

They are heading towards the headquarters of the Roman Governor in Jerusalem, a brutal man who would have only have come to the city if he anticipated civil unrest and the need for soldiers to squash it.

The Roman Empire. A vast empire won and held by force.

There is no way that anyone can take over most of the known world without some sort of violence: violence of the sword, of executing political prisoners by crucifixion, of brutal suppression of dissent.

Or, perhaps there are other ways of taking over or spreading dis-ease that are more familiar to us sitting here in our pews today: The violence of systems that enslave people and keep them in poverty. The violence that strips culture by stifling the speaking of native languages or religious expression. The violence of having to work long hours in a sweatshop for only pennies a day to produce clothing you can’t afford to wear. The violence when children are removed from loving families. The violence that forces families to flee from their homes and risk everything in small boats on an open sea to get to safety. The violence of intolerance and hate.

If the Reign of Christ, Jesus’ kingdom, if Jesus and his followers – if he and they were of this world, then they and we would use the primary tool of this world for establishing and keeping power: violence.

Pilate turns to Jesus and asks him, Are you the King?

My kingdom is not from this world. Responds Jesus. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to you … But my kingdom is not from here …

Imagine an alternate reality with me, and let us think back to last night, when we were gathered with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying. Suddenly soldiers appeared with lanterns and weapons – maybe even the same soldiers we saw earlier today pushing him through the crowd.

These soldiers want to arrest Jesus and take him away! But Peter, that faithful follower, will have none of that. Before anyone else can even wrap their head around what is going on, Peter has pulled his sword out and cut off someone’s ear. The next thing we know, everyone is pulling out swords and fighting the soldiers off. Then it is a run down the hill into the city to catch them unawares – fighting into the palace and installing Jesus as King.

For the next few decades, people like Paul will sail around the Mediterranean spreading the good news of a kingdom of violence to the world.

While we know this is not what actually happened with Jesus and his followers, it is what eventually happened with the Crusades, with the colonization of North America, Africa, and many other parts of the world, and is what happens today when good people spread of messages of hate and intolerance in places like Facebook…

This is what happens when kingdoms are spread through the ways this world knows.

But My kingdom is not from this world. Said Jesus.

My kingdom is not a kingdom of violence. Put your sword back into its place, Peter. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

We can imagine Jesus saying, Those who live for violence – for hate, intolerance, distrust – will only bring more of the same into their lives.

Jesus is not of this world and so Jesus will not defend himself by violence, nor will he establish his claim by violence. Jesus doesn’t usher in God’s kingdom using violence. And Jesus will not make any followers by violence.

Nevertheless, Pilate asks, So you are a king?

Jesus answers; You say that I am a king. 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.

Instead of coming to establish his reign through violence, Jesus has come to witness to the truth. The truth that God is love and that God so loved the world that God sent God’s only son to the world. The truth of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us so that we might see his glory, his glory full of grace and truth.

But, as the writer of the gospel of John reminds us, the world did not recognize him. Because no one has ever seen God. (John 1)

Because we have not seen God, we have a hard time imagining God. And when we try to imagine things we have not seen or known, our imagination becomes dominated by our experience. Rather than imagining a God of love, often we imagine God to be angry or violent because we live in a world of violence. The headlines we read, the images we see, and the sounds we hear daily on the news and in social media are frequently ones of violence.

Rather than recognizing the cross as a symbol of sacrificial love, we assume that it is the legal ways of punishing Jesus in our place – because we have way too much experience with punitive relationships.

Rather than believing that God’s grace and acceptance and love are entirely unconditional, we assume that God offers love, power, and status only on the condition that we fear, obey, and praise God – and despise those who do not – because so much of our life is about “tit for tat.”

But Jesus is not of this world. And so his followers do not fight to bring about his reign because to use violence is to violate the very principles of his kingdom and will only cause its destruction.

No, the way to bring about the Reign of Christ is through love.

That radical love that, in the words of our baptismal covenant, calls us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbours as ourselves.

Because while the Reign of Christ on one hand reveals Christ in his glory, coming in with the clouds so that every eye might see him, the Reign of Christ is also about the glory of Christ hidden beneath rags so that when we see him, we might love him by giving him clothing,

or find Christ thirsty that we might lovingly hand him something to drink,

or discover Christ the stranger or refugee who we might welcome into our homes or communities.

The Reign of Christ – the reign of the Christ who is calling us to transform the unjust structures of society that cause people to have to flee from their homes,

or that force people to work in dehumanizing conditions for insufficient funds,

or that calls us as a national Anglican church to grapple with a legacy of violence stemming from systematic abuse in Residential Schools –

The Reign of Christ is here on earth so that we might challenge violence of every kind to pursue peace and reconciliation.

Because here is another difference between the kingdom that Pilate was looking for and Jesus’ kingdom that is not from here: Jesus’ kingdom is not limited to a particular place or time like the Roman empire was or like the empires of today are.

Jesus’ kingdom is a state of being. A way of life. A commitment to view the world through Jesus’ eyes of love and to love fiercely even in the face of these violences in the world we see all around us every day.

In a few moments we will gather together around a table. A table where we proclaim the power of the sacrificial love of Christ. And then together we will pray, praying with believers all around the world, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Today we proclaim that the Reign of Christ is here on earth. That Christ is among us, enthroned in glory and leading a kingdom not spread through the means of this world, but spread through love.

Welcome to the Reign of Christ, to the Reign of God’s love.

Amen.

Episcopal Preaching Foundation

Posted on by
PEP 2015 Group Picture

PEP 2015 Group Picture

Last week I attended “Preaching Camp’

PEP Canadians

“The Canadians” – the first from a Canadian seminary to attend PEP!

Matthew and I, along with Todd, our Dean of Theology at Huron, were honoured to be included in the Episcopal Preaching Foundation’s Preaching Excellent Program (PEP) for Seminarians. While Todd was faculty and facilitated both small group workshops and teaching, Matthew and I were grouped into different preaching groups with six or seven other Episcopal seminarians from across the United States. Within our groups we preached sermons we had previously prepared for school or church placement contexts and then workshopped them together. These sessions were interspersed with plenary sessions from the likes of renowned preacher Tom Long and smaller group sessions on practical preaching tools taught by PEP faculty.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only was the retreat centre, the Roslyn Center of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, a beautiful facility with heartfelt hospitality, but our fellow preachers were amazing. Huron University College is a wonderful school and I enjoy studying there, however we rarely have the opportunity to dialogue with other Anglican/Episcopal seminarians. Here, we had dozens with whom we could toss around ideas about preaching and about the future of the church, with whom we could pray and sing, and with whom we could celebrate birthdays (that’s right – I celebrated my birthday in Virginia alongside a new friend from Yale Divinity).

A great big thank you to the Episcopal Preaching Foundation for including us in PEP this year – the first of what will hopefully be many to come for Canadian seminarians!

Thank You

Posted on by

It has been a long school year and a lot has happened. I got engaged. We had some health stuff. We both had a full course load, and then some, each term. I have been working part time. And then there was the church field placement.

Twelve to fifteen hours per week. In a church. Doing stuff.

What that “stuff” was varied each week: preaching, proclaiming the word, leading parts of the liturgy, searching around for my supervisor’s reading glasses (where the heck did he leave them this week?!?), home and hospital visiting, assisting at a funeral, drinking beer at the pub while leading a bible study… the list goes on.

What did not vary each week was the love and support of that church community. St Andrew Memorial Anglican Church: Thank you.

Thank you for being a welcoming community.

Thank you for opening yourselves to me and letting me be myself amongst you.

Thank you for welcoming my partner as warmly as you welcomed me, even though he worships at another church as a part of his field placement.

Thank you for letting me learn without judgement.

Thank you for being a community where it has been okay for me to try and not be perfect.

Thank you for your encouragement, your laughter, your enthusiasm, your chocolate, and your joy.

Thank you for being a community that loves fellowship and food.

Thank you for your heart for worshipping God.

Thank you for loving me.

I have learned a lot from you, with you, and because of you. As Pastor Marty said at my last service with you, a piece of your community will come back to BC with me and will always be a part of my ministry.