Are you free indeed?

10/29/2012

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John 8:31-36 Reformation Sunday 

In talking to people inside and outside of the Church, I have come to the conclusion that there are two basic spiritual needs people have, and they are sometimes in conflict. We all have a basic need for security, and we all have a basic need for freedom.

Now, there are churches which offer people mostly security. They tend to be rigid in their beliefs, and offer a complete life-and-belief system which you have to buy as a complete package. You are not supposed to try to think things out for yourself, just accept everything they teach, do everything they say, and you will be saved. Many people find this very comforting. They don't have to work it out themselves, just accept it. You know a church is mostly offering security when their main evangelical emphasis appeals to fear: “Where are you going to spend eternity? In heaven or in hell?”And very often these churches are growing and thriving when other churches are in decline. A lot of people crave security and are willing to trade their freedom for it.

However, not everybody has an overriding desire for security. Many people find the rigidity and rule-following nature of these churches is oppressive and confining. That's one of the reasons many people don't go to church, in fact. The church of their childhood was oppressive, and they don't want to go there. Or they hear and read of churches like this – which tend to be more vocal in the media – and are horrified at the thought of getting into their clutches.

These people have a stronger yearning for freedom. They want to work things out for themselves, they don't want an institution telling them what to believe. They want to be able to do whatever they want, without worrying about whether it is against somebody's rules or not.

The trouble is, without God, there is no lasting freedom. Anybody active in AA or NA or any 12 step program will tell you that you have to put your trust in a higher power, or you will never be free of your addiction. And we are all addicted to sin. There is always something that trips you up, no matter what your standards or principles are. There are always instincts that get the best of us, selfishness that destroys relationships, fear and anger that interfere with our enjoyment of life. And so we don't have the freedom that we crave, after all.

I really think that God was puzzled by us humans. God created us for good, to be God's children and friends, and we turned aside and did all sorts of evil and violent things. God called Abraham to make a new kind of humanity, and still people went violently wrong, and his descendants ended up as slaves in Egypt. God freed them and gave them explicit instructions through the Law of Moses – and for the most part it failed to bring them closer to God. God sent prophets to point out where the people were going wrong – and that didn't work either. Finally God had to come down here Godself to tell us – and when God became human, then God understood. We are slaves to sin. We can't help it. No matter how hard we try, we are going to screw it up somehow.

I think it was at that point that God realized that we are the way we are because that's the way God made us. We are deeply flawed because that's the way we were born. So Jesus proclaimed that we were forgiven, but honestly, we found that hard to believe. That's the tragedy of humanity – we know what we should be like, but we cannot attain to it. So Jesus went to the cross, declared forgiveness even as they were killing him, took all the blame for all our sins on himself, so that we could finally really believe that God wasn't mad at us anymore – that God accepted the blame, that it was okay that we were not perfect. And it's at that point, when we become aware that we don't have to live in fear of death and God's judgement, that God loves us and wants us to be God's dear children – that's when we are freed. The Son has made us free, and we are free indeed.

And in finding this freedom, the freedom from guilt and shame, the freedom from fear and anger, the freedom to live life in love and acceptance and joy, we also find true security. Because no one is more secure than the one who knows that they live in God's love, which is stronger than death.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved,

and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea...”

“The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.”

Therefore we will not fear, though our congregation seems to be dissolving and disintegrating. Therefore we will not fear, though we don't have enough money to pay the pastor any more. Therefore we will not fear, though a host of personal troubles assails us. The Lord of hosts is with us! The God of Jacob is our stronghold!

And because God discovered that we really can't help screwing up all the time, God said, “What they need is a piece of me inside them!” So God sent us the Holy Spirit to be inside us, changing us from the inside out. So we don't have to try and try to live up to what God wants – God is making it happen as we live and pray and help one another out. We don't have to go by what someone else says. “No longer shall they teach one another, saying, Know the Lord!” But we all know within ourselves that God is with us, freeing us, leading us, loving us.

Our neighbours need to know this. Many of our neighbours are still living lives of desperation, still slaves to sin, living in fear. We are a part of God's solution. As God became human to rescue us, we can reach out to others with that same rescue. We can say, “Your freedom is here. Your security is here. Yes, you can have it all. It is found in Jesus.” Thanks be to God! Amen.

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Serve warm

10/21/2012

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Mark 10:17-31 

What an idiotic thing for James and John to ask!  Especially after the passage that is just before this one, which reads,
“ They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him,  saying, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again."” 

And then, “James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?"  And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 

They just don't get it, do they?  Or maybe in horror they just glossed over all the mocking, spitting, flogging and killing, and just focused on the rising again.  Maybe they thought they could just stand back and watch all the bad stuff, and get into the good stuff later.  Obviously the glory part is what they wanted.

And are we all that much different?  We want the glory and resurrection, certainly! And yes, they will be ours.  But the way to all that glory is not so pleasant.  We don't get to just sit back and watch.

Following Jesus means following Jesus, including going to the cross.  And although nobody is threatening to execute us, what we are called to do can still be pretty painful. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Now being a servant is often not very much fun. It means putting what you want to do aside, and doing what someone else wants you to do.  People do this all the time, of course.  Nowadays we call it having a job.  And the reason “thank God it's Friday” is such a popular saying is because it is the time when you can stop doing what someone else wants, and do your own thing.  And this is good, we all need a Sabbath, a day off.
Nothing wrong with that.

But Jesus wants James and John, and all of us, to pay more attention to our job as disciples.  It is to be a servant of all.  It is to do things that other people want done for them.  We often like to do things for people, but it is usually the things that we think they should like.  How many times have you had someone do something for you, and it was exactly the wrong thing?  The person didn't really know what you wanted, and took a guess, and guessed wrong. My mother always used to give me money to buy Christmas gifts for my children from her, because she said she had no idea what they would want or like.  Wise woman!

The thing is, being a servant means knowing what the person you are serving wants and needs.  A waiter in a restaurant who gets the customers' orders all mixed up is not going to get very many tips.  So the key to being a good servant is to pay close attention to what the other person really needs.

Jesus knew what we needed.  It was not another King to lord it over us the way kings usually do.  We needed to be shown that power-tripping is not the way to happiness. We needed to be shown that violence does not solve problems. We needed to be shown that peace lies in being forgiven and in forgiving others.  We needed to be shown that God loves us so much that God would even die for us.  

So Jesus went to the cross, willingly, to teach us all that.  He came not to be served but to serve.  And he still serves us, still teaches us, still calls us to be reconciled to God. And he still calls us to carry out his work of serving the world.

And of course the key to doing this successfully, is to pay close attention to what the world needs.  We can't just assume that our neighbours need to come to church on Sundays.  We have to find out from them, what their actual needs are.  That means we have to talk to them.  We have to be curious about their problems and their concerns.  We have to learn to think about what God may have to offer them in the difficult paths of their lives.  And then we have to learn how to offer God's help, in very real terms.  

This may mean offering to pray for them or their loved ones – many people really appreciate this.  Or it may mean offering some more concrete help.  Even bothering to find out what's going on in their lives might in itself be a help, as they discover that someone really cares about them.

And this is the big payoff.  As we get to know our neighbours better, we develop a relationship with them.  And relationships of love enrich our lives in so many ways. What seemed a burden in the beginning can turn into a joy.  

Our congregation has made some efforts in the last while to find out just what it is that the people around us want and need.  We have been asking them just what their spiritual needs are and how we can help.  We are not here to organize the kind of worship service that we like, just because we like it.  We are here to serve our neighbours.  And then God will have the glory.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.
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Holy Trinity Sunday    June 3 2012

6/1/2012

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Trinity Sunday June 3 2012 Our Saviour's

How to explain the Holy Trinity?  The short answer is, you can't.  Take a look at the fans up there on the ceiling.  There are three blades, but they are whirling around so fast it looks like just one blur.  And if you stuck your hand in there to try to stop it so you could see each blade clearly, it would hurt like blazes!  That's the kind of thing that happens when you stick your mind into the dance of the Holy Spirit to try to stop the action so you can examine each person separately – your head hurts! Everything God does is done by the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  You can't separate them.  But you can tell them apart.

Sometimes people try to describe the difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by different things that God does.  They talk about God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer.  Now this would be very tidy if we knew that God the Father was the Creator of the world, and God the Son, Jesus, was the Redeemer of the world, and God the Holy Spirit was the sustainer of our faith and life.  And indeed they are.  

But Creation, for example, involves all 3 persons of the Trinity.  In Genesis 1 God says, “Let US make human beings in OUR image.” Plural right from the start. And in Psalm 104 it says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” And in Colossians 1 it says about Jesus, that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created.” So it seems that just making the Father the Creator won't work.  The Son and the Holy Spirit are Creator, too.

This is also the case with our redemption or salvation.  Yes, it was Jesus who died on the cross, but he was doing it by the Father's will, and it was the Father who raised him from the dead.  And it is the Spirit who warms our hearts and sparks faith in our minds so that we can embrace the cross for our salvation.  So Jesus is our Saviour, and the Father is our Saviour, and the Spirit is also our Saviour.

And it is the same with the sustaining that we receive from God.  Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to us to awaken God's gifts in us and fill us with joy.  But the love we have is poured into our hearts by the Father.  And Jesus promised to be with us always, to the end of the age.  So the Holy Spirit is the Sustainer, and Jesus is the Sustainer, and the Father is the Sustainer.

Are you thoroughly confused yet?  All three persons of the Trinity are present in whatever God does, but we do identify some things more with one and some things with another.  The point is, God comes to us in many different ways; we experience God's presence in many different ways.
In our first story this morning, Isaiah experienced the presence of God in the temple.  And we think, well, of course, that is where people are supposed to experience the presence of God!  But to tell the truth, that does not always happen, does it? We come to church, to the sacred space, hoping that God will make God's self known to us. It is not always as dramatic as Isaiah's experience, not by a long shot. But God is there, and God does become known to us. 

But worship is not the only place that we can experience the presence of God. Many people experience God's presence through Creation.  I must say, that when I walk in the woods,  I often feel very close to God. I think that is why the hymn “How Great Thou Art”  is so popular. Sometimes God the Creator is our first experience of God.

And some people first experience the presence of God in the midst of a crisis. It may be that they need healing, or it may be that they need forgiveness, that something is wrong, drastically wrong with their lives.  In the midst of their brokenness, they cry out, and God is present with them. The work that is so closely associated with Jesus, the work of healing and forgiving and saving, is some people's first and most powerful experience of the presence of God.

And still others first experience God in the love and acceptance of the Christian community.  The Holy Spirit binds us together in love, with all our differences and our quirkiness, and this is a powerful testimony to the presence of God.  When, as the Body of Christ, we are Christ to one another, in reaching out, in hugs, in smiles, in casseroles, in prayers, in water and bread and wine – that too is the presence of God.

What was your first experience of the presence of God?  Was it in creation? Was it in a crisis situation?  Was it among God's people?  No matter how you first experienced the presence of God, your spiritual growth requires some experience of the others as well.  A person who finds God in nature, but who never comes to the realization that life is broken and needs a Saviour, remains a child spiritually.  A person who comes to God on their knees begging forgiveness, and yet who never joins in a Christian community, will have no opportunity for growth.  A person who lives happily in the love of the church, but who never is exposed to the wonders of creation, will never reach their full potential.

God is with us, God is all around us, God is within us, God is within the people around us.  There are so many opportunities to experience the presence of God. 

Isaiah met God in the temple.  The furnishings of the temple, the smoke of the incense, the carvings of the Seraphim, became windows through which God was able to reach out and touch Isaiah, and call him to ministry.

We call sacred, the things through which God makes God's presence known.  The church is a sacred place, because many people encounter God here.  The bread and the wine and the waters of baptism are sacred, because God promises to meet us there.  The whole world is sacred, too, because God reaches out to us through Creation.  And this gathering, this small, but powerful gathering, is also sacred, because God is present to us in each other.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all here, right now.  And just as they cried out to Isaiah, “Who shall I send?”  God is still crying out for people to go for God.  And in the same way, we cry out, “Here am I; send me!”   And as we respond to the moving, urging, impelling work of God, we are caught up in the movement of the Holy Trinity, always moving, like the fan, refreshing, energizing, enabling us to be what God wants us to be.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.
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The Resurrection of Our Lord - Easter 2012

4/8/2012

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Just when you think you know how the world works, God comes and turns everything upside down.

On Maundy Thursday Jesus taught his disciples that bosses are now servants, and servants are bosses, in fact, there are no more bosses and servants in the Kingdom of God, but all are servants of each other, bound together in love.

On Good Friday Jesus taught his disciples that vulnerability is victory, that defeat is glory, that failure is success, that the only way that violence and hatred can be overcome is with love and forgiveness.

And now on Easter Sunday, Jesus is teaching us that death is life, and that humanity is now divine, as the divine is human.

Last Sunday we contemplated God in Jesus, hanging on the cross out of love for God's fallen creation, taking responsibility for all the sin and suffering of the world. God had to become human for God to know the full extent of our fallenness. And so God did the unthinkable thing – God did not hold us to account for our sins. God took those sins upon God's own self, and paid a terrible price of abandonment, suffering and death.

Some would say, “Well, if God takes responsibility for all my sins, then doesn't that allow me to just do whatever I want and keep on sinning?” Well, yes and no. If you are some kind of sociopath, who is not moved by suffering, who doesn't have any compassion, yes, I suppose so. But then you would keep on sinning anyway.

But when we see the suffering of Jesus, we are deeply moved. It is always moving to see the victim of an injustice. And seeing this suffering arouses compassion. Compassion is made of two latin words: con, meaning with, and passion, meaning suffering. We suffer with Christ. That's what it means to be baptized into the death of Christ. This is what it means to eat his body and drink his blood at communion. We are joined to him, we have communion with him in his death. We take his death into our bodies, just as he took our body to his death. We think about his suffering, we have compassion with him, we are grateful to him, and so we participate in his death.

And then we are transformed. Because when Christ participated in every single aspect of human life – including death – human life was taken up into the life of God. And was transformed. Now all human life is caught up in the life of the divine. As Peter said, there is no distinction based on ethnicity or culture. “Everyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.” God and humans are joined together on the most basic level – right down to the DNA.

And this is activated in our baptism. As we participate in the death of Jesus, we also participate in the resurrection of Christ. Christ's life is in us. We are in Christ as Christ is in us. And new life begins.

John is pointing to that new life in the way he writes his account of the resurrection. You notice, that Mary comes to the tomb “while it was still dark”. This may remind us of the darkness and chaos before the creation of the universe, while “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” That is certainly how Mary must have felt in her grief. Life had no shape now, no content – her life was in darkness.

And of course, where does this story take place? In a garden. Just like the first garden, the garden of Eden. In the garden of Eden, God had grieved because the first humans were lost to him; now Mary is grieving because she thinks that God is lost to her. No wonder Mary thinks that Jesus is the gardener; he IS the gardener of the new Eden. And the fruits that this garden produces are love and joy and peace.

This is no longer the first day of the week, the first day of creation. Sunday has now become the eighth day of creation, the day of new creation. Eight has always symbolized the resurrection; when you come up for communion, take a look at the font and see how many sides it has!

Everything is different now – the very rules of the universe have changed. Death no more has dominion over the universe. God is changing things, slowly but surely, and you are a part of that change.

For this God-life that has become a part of you in your baptism will not be denied. It will grow in you, Christ will grow in you, and you will find yourself less and less attracted to sin. You will find yourself more interested in caring for your neighbour. You will become more and more the person God wants you to be.

And in the end, even death itself has lost its sting. The psalm that we read earlier is the one that I read at a burial, standing beside the open grave: “This is the gate of the Lord; here the righteous may enter.” Or, as the choir sang last week: “Here, O Lord, the very death I fear is that which draws me near, Lord, to Thee.”

Death has become life. Sorrow has become joy. Guilt has become forgiveness. God has turned everything upside down. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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