Tag Archives: victoria

Names and Faces

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SleepI see your face
I know it
I remember your name
and all the meetings we had across the desk in the back office
or over Tim Hortons
and the walks we took into town to do things like
renew your service card
and the walks back
Back to what?
You’re still here, on the street

I run into you on the sidewalk one day
You have a job!
You once told me that you had only two emotions:
happy
and
angry
But right now you seem joyous
even exuberant
You have your child back and a safe apartment to live in
I’m so glad you stopped me to tell me

I don’t remember your name
But I do remember your face
and I remember your story
How could I forget?
You trusted me with your trauma
and I hope that I was able to hold it for you
even for a little while
You’ve had a rough life
I pray that things have gotten better
but when I see you on the street I fear they haven’t

You popped into my new office
at the church
I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in a church before
and I am really sorry that I wasn’t there that day
I love catching up every time I run into you

I remember your name –
oh do I ever. We spent a lot of time talking –
and I remember your child’s name
I have seen the two of you walking downtown
(he has grown a lot!)
and so I wonder
how things are going now…
Are you back together?
Have you gotten clean like you wanted to?
How is school going?
But your eyes slide across my face without recognition
so I don’t stop you to ask

I see your faces
all of them
I wish I could remember all of your names –
though maybe that is more about me wishing I could do more
than remember
and pray
and hope

 

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A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

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Preached at the Church of St John the Divine, Victoria

Texts: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:10; Matthew 6:1-2,16-21

 

Sometimes I wonder if Lent is the Christian equivalent of New Year’s resolutions…

I mean, think about it for a minute – we talk about giving up things like chocolate or coffee or bread as a way of having a Lenten fast but is it sometimes really just an excuse to stick to that weight loss plan … ?

Or the Lenten Spring Cleaning that is more about making the house look good for visitors than about decluttering our spiritual lives to clear a path to better relationship with God.

Motives matter.

 

Our readings today clearly outline this with some pretty graphic imagery. Joel reminds the people of Israel to rend their hearts and not their clothing, suggesting that it is the internal state that matters more than the outfit we do it in or the way we show it off to the world.

Matthew’s gospel echoes this, encouraging the left hand to keep its actions secret from the right hand – not because there is something to hide or be ashamed of, but because if we are concentrated on everyone around us seeing how great we are for the things we are doing, we miss the true point of doing them for our own spiritual practice and for God.

 

Paul, in 2 Corinthians, reminds us of the importance of the state of our spiritual selves and our relationship to God:

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation … so we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God

You might be thinking, I don’t know that I was ever not reconciled to God? And in part, says Paul, that is true: God through Jesus did all of the hard work of reconciling God to humanity in all of our mess. But Paul still urges us to be reconciled to God so that we might become God’s righteousness.

 

Which, you might also be thinking, is a monumentous task! Where do we even begin??

 

Well, that is the good news. Today, Ash Wednesday, the first day of these great 40 days of Lent, is where we can decide the starting point this journey.

Will it be a starting point of coasting through Lent and doing the same old same old?

Will it be a starting point of putting on piety so that others can obviously see how well we are participating? – A starting point of doing the cleaning for appearances sake only?

Or will it be a starting point of gathering to acknowledge our humanity and committing to reconciliation: with God, with those around us who we love and those we have hurt, and with ourselves?

 

The reading from Joel reminds us of the importance of journeying together. God called for the trumpet to be sounded and everyone – the aged, the children and infants, the newly married – everyone to gather together to be set apart for the work of God.

We are in this Lenten journey together. We may have slightly different paths at times, with different kinds of reconciliations needed, but we are in it together.

The cross of ash on our foreheads reminds us of who we are, of where we have come from, and of where we are going:

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return

But also remember the cross on your forehead at baptism where you were signed with the cross and marked as Christ’s own forever.

And remember the cross that these 40 days of Lent is leading us towards …

 

Yes, we know where we have come from and in one sense we know where we are going this Lenten journey: we know about Good Friday – and we know what happened and what will happen on Easter morning!

In another sense, though, we don’t know where we are going because we don’t know exactly what path this Lenten journey will take. We don’t know where God will ask us to shine a light in our lives. We don’t know what will change, what may shift, and what might emerge – or not – on the other side of Lent.

All we really know is where we are standing and whom we are journeying with. Where we are right now, today, on Ash Wednesday, when we are reminded of our humanity and the solemnity of the Lenten journey we are about to embark on.

And in receiving the cross of ash we commit to travelling the Lenten journey of reconciliation in whatever shape God makes it for us, knowing that we are all walking together with God these 40 days.

Sermon for January 15, 2017

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Preached at The Abbey, Victoria
Texts: John 1:29-42, Isaiah 49:1-7

 

This week we re-entered the ordinary.

I love this season – the season after Epiphany – not because it is a season of Ordinary Time in our church’s calendar – but because it is an ordinary that isn’t ordinary. It is the ordinal-ed time, the numbered season where we count the weeks from Epiphany – that wonderful feast where we see Jesus made manifest as the Saviour for all – to Lent – where we travel with Jesus towards his death and then his glorious resurrection.

We visibly show it through changing our church colours to a life-giving green … but the green might be best thought of as a translucent green mixed with white: ordinary time mixed with holy days. And that is a good summary of what this season is all about: looking for the holy, for Jesus made manifest in the midst of the mundane, in the midst of our daily life. All the while looking for little epiphanies where we might see Jesus and find ourselves found over and over again.

***

Perhaps the most frequently used word in our gospel today is some variation on the word for seeing: see, look, watch, seek …

The first major event commemorated by the church in this season after Epiphany is the Baptism of the Lord: Jesus goes down from Galilee to be baptized by John in the Jordan River. All four of the gospels recount the event  —  Sort of.

While Matthew, Mark, and Luke give a play-by-play, all that is said about Jesus’ baptism in the gospel of John is what we heard read today: John the Baptist’s account of SEEING the Spirit descend on Jesus at his baptism:

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him … I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.

John the Baptist is so convinced of this that he becomes like that guy on the corner with the sign who needs to tell everyone: Look, here is the Lamb of God! As if to say – I saw the Messiah – he is over there! Do you see him walking by? That is him! Go!
And two of John’s followers turn and follow Jesus.

It obviously wasn’t a very covert follow – there is no way that these two would have passed spy school because Jesus saw them right away: Jesus turns, lifts his eyes into their eyes, and SEES them.

What are you looking for?

Jesus’ first words in the gospel of John aren’t a command to silence a demon, a sermon about the Kingdom of God while sitting on a mountainside, or a proclamation of the year of God’s favour, but a simple question: What are you looking for? 
What are you seeking? What do you need?

It is a question that is simple in its complexity. Because as soon as you have an answer, another, deeper level of question will become apparent.

What are you seeking?
What is motivating you?
What is it that you really need?  — Not just on the surface, but deep down into the very core of your being.
Why are you here? – not here on earth, though that is a valid question, but why did you interrupt your Sunday afternoon to be right here now?
What are you looking for?

Those poor disciples of John. Things get awkward. Quickly. Likely what they wanted to say was something like,  “Um. Hi – we were following you because that other guy said you were the Lamb of God so we thought we’d come take a look…”
What they come out with is Where are you staying?

We can poke fun … But maybe there is more to it than that . Maybe what they really wanted to know was, Where are you dwelling?

Where do you abide?
What lets you put down deep roots into this world and be stable? What is it that allows you to endure life?
What makes you different?
How can we get what you have?

Because there is something different about him. John the Baptist has named it: He is the one on whom I saw the Spirit descend and REMAIN. And in a little while, Jesus will mention this word again: Remain in me and I will remain in you…

Jesus, where are you staying?

Jesus’ only response is Come and See.
Come and see.
There is no judgement here. No negative evaluation of a hurried response when being caught following. No criticism.
Only:  Come and see.

We, and likely those two disciples, tend to expect that what results from responding to the invitation to “Come and See” is that we find Jesus – that we learn more about Jesus as we witness him in all of the different moments of daily life – the ordinary and the holy. And it is. But John’s gospel invites us to see more. It invites us to see and to be changed by seeing.

Jesus said to [the two disciples of John] “Come and see” … so they came and saw where he was staying … and REMAINED with him that day.

Jesus, where are you staying? 

Come and see…Remain with me and I will remain with you…

In remaining, these two disciples are found and they are changed.  How do we know this? How do we know that a change took place in their lives?

For those of you who have children, when were they born? I don’t mean the day – but what time was it?
For those of you who have lost a loved one, what time did they die or what time did you receive the phone call telling you of their death?
For those of you who are married, what time was it when you made that decision to spend the rest of your lives together?

Pivotal, life-changing moments have a time attached to them.

They came and saw where Jesus was staying and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon…

About four o’clock. Someone, one of them at least, took note of the time that their lives were changed.

And then they went and told their friends who came and saw and had their lives changed too … and then they went and told their friends who came and saw … and on and on and on for two thousand years.

That, my friends, is evangelism: Come and see.

John the Baptist does it: he sees the Spirit descend as a dove and he tells his followers. They go and see Jesus, have their lives changed and then go and tell their friends… There are no complex steps to take. There is no complicated theological argument to construct in order to carefully counter any potential resistance.

Just:

What are you looking for?

Where are you staying?

Come and see…

Two thousand years of people asking, people pointing, and people coming to see.

I remember one of my instructors in Bible College saying that the one thing he wanted people to say about him after he died, what he wanted to have written on his tombstone, was, “They saw John and followed Jesus…”

Come and see.

Not “you should go check out that church” or “Here go read this book and then we’ll talk about it…”  But Come and see
Come and see Jesus made manifest in my life – the holy mixed in with the ordinary…

If that sounds too much, remember what God says to the nation of Israel through the prophet Isaiah :

“You are my servant in whom I will be glorified.”

But I said, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.”

And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, … for I am honoured in the sight of the Lord and my God has become my strength – He says,
“…I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth…
Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you…”

You are seen. You are chosen.

And we say to all the world –

Come and see

 

 

Sermon for November 13, 2016

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Preached at the Church of St John the Divine, Victoria

Text: Isaiah 65:17-25, Isaiah 12 (Canticle 9), Luke 21:5-19 – Proper C28

For an audio recording: here

 

You will hear of wars and insurrections …

Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom

There will be great earthquakes and, in various places, famines and plagues

 

Our readings have a common apocalyptic rumble this week.

Hearing the gospel this morning, it almost sounds like Luke was anticipating our current reality.

These excerpts from our scriptures, written centuries ago but assigned for today in our lectionary, have the uncanny ability to speak truth in all ages and to us again here this morning.

This portion of Luke and our Hebrew Scripture reading from Isaiah are “apocalyptic” or “protoapocalyptic” texts. Unlike Hollywood’s depiction of “the apocalypse,” they are not foreshadowing alien invasions or meteors striking the earth. Neither are they prophecies or predictions of specific events (though we can see the echoes of specific events). Rather they are an attempt by their writers to reconcile their understanding of the righteousness of God with the destruction of land and the suffering of the righteous that they see on earth.

In Luke, the gospel writer has Jesus speaking a future that is an awful lot like the current reality of both the writer and the first Century Christian readers of the gospel. As Luke is writing, the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple have already happened. The daily life of the Judean people has been decimated and the dwelling place of Yahweh on earth has been destroyed.

Likewise, in our reading from Isaiah, we come upon the Hebrew people re-entering a decimated land. The Babylonians have come and absolutely demolished the temple and taken many of the people away into exile. And only now, as these words are being penned some six or seven decades later, the Hebrew people are finally beginning to return and survey the destruction of their home.

Destruction is a common thread that winds through these readings this morning. Destruction of homes. Destruction of the temple. And, more broadly, destruction of ways of life that have sustained people spiritually and physically for centuries…

 

Which brings us to our present day.

Today we are remembering and giving thanks for those who have served in the many wars and conflicts of this past century, and for those still serving today – these wars and rumours of wars that have wrought devastation on the land, on society, on lives and families around the globe. [This year, like years past, we have heard some incredibly personal stories of how war has touched the lives of people within this community, and acknowledging that it has touched all of us in some way.]

And, with the political shifts of the past week, we must acknowledge that many of us fear that war will come closer to home, that racial and sexual violence, and religious discrimination will only increase – and for some, that fear is personal.

And at the same time we look around our continent at the ongoing destruction of the land and traditional way of life – the tug sinking off of Bella Bella a few weeks ago and the resulting decimation of livelihood being wrecked upon the Heiltsuk First Nation.

– the ongoing violence against the First People’s at Standing Rock as they seek to protect their sacred sites and treaty rights.

If there ever was a time for an apocalyptic word to help us to make sense of the righteousness of God in the face of the suffering of the righteous, this might be it.

 

In many ways, it seems like our readings from Luke and Isaiah portray different parts of the time continuum. Luke’s gospel is much closer in time to the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans than are the words of Isaiah to those surveying the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians.

Perhaps at the time Luke was written, they were still reeling, while Isaiah is more in the rebuilding phase – they’ve begun to return to the land and they are given the freedom and the space to imagine a long life there… Yet even that freedom and imagination is not without its bitterness:

Immediately before the our reading picks up this morning, there is a graphic reminder of how they got there and where the people had come from – in the language of the Hebrew Scriptures – Isaiah is holding out both the blessings and the curses.

This juxtaposition in some ways, gives more hope for us today than simply isolating the promises in the text we heard proclaimed this morning – that God is about to create new heavens and a new earth… Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight – where no more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress…

Because we see that as Isaiah addresses his people, the triumph of God – the Reign of Christ that we will proclaim next weekend – is not yet self-evident. In the “now” of Isaiah, it is not entirely clear when the blessing would come…

Even as they planted the vines for the vineyards, they would not see the fruit of their labours for many years. They were still waiting to experience the joy of the new creation with peace and economic justice proclaimed by Isaiah…

But they were building houses

Planting fields

Labouring in vineyards

Having children

Living with expectation

….all in the hope and anticipation of a Messiah they had not yet seen

 

In other words, it is a situation much like our own.

We live in hope that the world’s moral compass will shift towards love, inclusion, respect, and peace. And while we wait, Isaiah offers a strain of hope in that tension – while the former troubles are neither forgotten nor hidden from God’s sight, and while the future reality has not fully taken hold WE ARE DWELLING – EVEN PARTICIPATING IN – ITS ADVENT.

Because while we wait we are not idle.  We look around us and see that God is in our midst.

Isaiah helps us reorient towards our future: a shining image of what is possible. A call to build enthusiastically and confidently. A vision of reconciliation between the endless warring forces around us.

 

Are we there yet? Probably not.

But, as Herb O’Driscoll writes, “In every society or institution there comes a time when someone must risk singing a song that other people cannot yet sing. Perhaps dark times still threaten, a sense of imprisonment continues to oppress, evidence is not yet sufficient to ignite a general hope. At such times, some voice needs to be raised in a song that no one else dares to sing.”

Our Canticle this morning gives us that song:

You will sing in that day:
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might;
God has become my salvation.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
And you will sing in that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.

Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

 

Or, in the words of another well, known song:

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth’s lamentation,
I hear the real though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation;

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear that music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul;
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roar,
I hear the truth it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close?
Songs in the night he giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

And as those melodies echo around us this morning, let us remain confident that while we do not always see it, we are assured that we WILL see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

So let us keep on singing…

Faces

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Their faces.

I don’t always remember their names but I often recognize their faces as I walk through downtown. Each familiar face reminds me of a story.

She was always really quiet in the shelter. She would get up early each morning to try her hand at getting a temporary day labor job. Some days she was successful, some days not.

The last time I saw him he had just been housed in his own home. Today he looks pretty good and so I have hope that he is still housed.

She used to spend all of her time trying to get her children back from foster care. There has been a child with her lately and I wonder if it is one of them?

Sometimes I am not sure if it is a familiar face or not. Faces weather a lot faster when you live on the street, often rendering them unrecognizable in just a few short years. Sometimes I am relieved to see a familiar face – it means they are not dead – and sometimes I am saddened when they do not look well. Regardless, I pass by with a quiet prayer.

 

Making All Things New

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Classes started up again last week. I think. But I’m all done school [for]now.

Three years ago I was back to school for a new degree. I was meeting new friends for the very first time and getting settled in a new city in a province I hadn’t lived in for nearly 20 years. And now I’ve been seeing pictures from friends gathered around in fellowship together and it feels strange not being there.

Instead, I’m across the country sitting in the office I’ve been sitting in since June. At work.

Three years ago, I was not thrilled to leave Victoria to return to Ontario. Yes, I was anticipating seminary and all that might bring, and I was looking forward to living closer to family members I’d never lived closer to than a 4-6 hour drive. But I didn’t really want to leave the life I’d made on the Island.

And now I’m back in Victoria. It is a completely different life than I left and than I thought I would come home to. I find myself missing London! (I’ll change my tune when winter hits.) I miss the family there. I miss the friends at school. I miss some of the places.

It really hit home a week an a half ago when one of my former coworkers in London suddenly and unexpectedly died. Friends gathered at the home of another coworker to tell stories and I felt pretty isolated on the other coast. Yet amidst that, I had some amazing conversations with former coworkers that I hadn’t spoken with since we moved.

And in the middle of it all, all things are being made new. We have a new home in a new city with new jobs doing new things that we hadn’t imagined three years ago. We’re making new memories together and exploring new places. And that is pretty great.

Sermon for September 4, 2016

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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.

Rockland

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We live in a pretty great neighbourhood. Somehow we ended up with an apartment blocks away from the Lieutenant Governor’s house in Victoria. As a result of all of the trees in the neighbourhood and the lush gardens at Government House, we frequently have deer roaming through the yard. Cricket still isn’t sure what to make of them, but we enjoy it. There is a mother and fawn who have been frequenting our backyard over the last few weeks. We’ve gotten to recognize them and they no longer spook when I walk mere metres away from them to take the compost out.img_3522 As I was biking home yesterday something had definitely spooked them as they came bolting out of a yard on Rockland Avenue and were in the midst of running across the street towards Government House when they saw me and a car and panicked. The mother split off to another yard on one side of the street while the fawn ran up to the closed service gate at Government House and tried to do what it obviously could no longer do: squeeze through the gate.

Unfortunately, its hind-quarters got stuck and the poor thing was struggling a lot. To make things worse, every time a car, bicycle, or pedestrian went by too close to it, it would begin struggling all over again. So I called the Victoria Police non-emergency line, as I suspected that the folks who rescue wild animals were already closed for the day. VicPD were great – they were patient as I interrupted my conversation with them to warn pedestrians with dogs to move to the other side of the road and were supportive when I had to firmly request one individual stop their attempts to free the fawn when they clearly did not know what they were doing and were not helping the situation. They arrived at the scene within about 10 minutes and the wonderful officer was able to free the little guy from the gate with very little drama and only a few plaintive cries on the part of the fawn.

Mother, meanwhile, had circled round through the open gate and was watching the whole thing unfold from the other side of the gate. I am sure that the two of them were very happy to be reunited and I hope we’ll continue seeing them in the yard.

Sermon for August 14, 2016

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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.

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.