STAND OR STEP

April 27, 2014

Easter 2

John 20:19-29

1^st Peter 1:3-9

(prayer)

Last week, on Easter Sunday, during the sermon, I spent a little time summarizing the various resurrection appearances that are detailed in the four biblical gospels.  At the time, I mentioned that we would be looking at the Doubting Thomas story today. 

First of all, let’s give this guy they called “The Twin” a bit of a break.  He was no different than the other disciples in that upper room:  on the Sunday that followed Jesus’ crucifixion, Mary Magdalene came running back to the others twice that morning.  First she reported that the stone had been rolled away: Peter and John went back with her and indeed confirmed her story, but also took a close look inside the tomb and discovered that Jesus’ body was not in there.  The male disciples went back to the city, leaving their female counterpart in the garden - presumably she wanted to grieve alone for a while.

After some time, Mary came running back again, this time buoyant and joyful - she professed that she “had seen the Lord!”  And she told them how she met a man, whom she assumed was the gardener, but when he spoke her name that she knew instantly that it was Jesus, raised from the dead and that he had told her to tell them that Jesus is “ascending to [his] father and their father; to [his] god and their god.”

Mary told them all this, but they didn’t believe her.  Maybe they wanted to, but they certainly didn’t act like they did.  They remained huddled in that room, behind locked doors.  That is not what we would expect from a group whose mentor and rabbi, whose Messiah, had conquered death.

So, when we are tempted to treat Thomas different than the others and label him as a doubter, remember that they were all as doubtful after Mary’s proclamations until Jesus appeared to them as well later that same day.  Thomas had the misfortune of being absent when Jesus came that first Easter evening.

//

Last week, as I was going over this list of Gospel resurrection appearances, I mentioned a curious part of Matthew’s narrative:  28:⁸So [the women] left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell [the] disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’ … ¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 

Okay, we can understand that the disciples doubted Mary’s story because they hadn’t seen what she said she saw; and we can understand Thomas’ skepticism because he wasn’t there when other disciples said they saw what they saw, but Matthew’s version of events is hard to fathom - picture that scene - the disciples are up on a Galilean mountain with the Risen Christ physically in their midst; they are worshiping him, in person... and there were still some of them who doubted. 

I guess (the way Matthew tells it), even seeing is not necessarily believing.

//

Frankly, I think it is amazing that we are here at all.  It is one of history’s greatest accomplishments... that the story of Jesus survived its first 50 years, given the trouble that Jesus’ closest followers had believing their own colleague's proclamations about Jesus’ resurrection.  I wonder sometimes: how did the church survive to its second and third generations to become 'the church' at all?  Even committed followers of Jesus had trouble believing what their fellow followers experience.  And... even some of the eye witnesses to resurrection, themselves,  didn't believe. 

I mean, if the purpose of the resurrection was to ‘prove Jesus’ power’ or to ‘attest to his divinity’, it was a mild success at best.

//

//

And yet, somehow, once convinced themselves, the believing disciples of Jesus were so convincing in their later proclamations that people who had never met Jesus (in life or death) would come to believe.  That is a miracle, in and of itself.

//

Take a look at the picture in the screen [at the top of this post].  Let me propose a back story: she climbed up on to the stump to get a look around from a slightly higher vantage point.  She liked what she could see.  But that is all she could do from the stump.  If she wants to go and experience what she sees ‘out there’, she has to take a step down – a step away from the safety of her perch. 

//

After Jesus died, his friends huddled in fear behind locked doors – even the proclamations of familiar visitors telling them that the Lord is Risen could not make them move.  They were afraid to take the next step.  Fair enough, it is easy to step off the stump when you can see where you want to go, but what if you seek the unseen promise?  Can you still step off? 

For everyone (but those relatively few who claimed to have had first-hand experience with the Risen Christ), following Jesus meant taking a step or maybe more accurately... a leap of faith.

//

By the time the Gospel of John was written down, Jesus’ resurrection was at least a 60 year old memory - there may have been no one left alive who tell the story from their own experience.  So, we can understand why the author included the phrase: ²⁹... Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  By the late first century, 'without seeing' was the only way people came to believe.

//

//

If it was hard for Jesus' own disciples to not have their doubts, we should not feel too badly about ours.

The truth is that doubt is not necessary the antithesis of faith.  It is our skeptical habits that help us seek a deeper faith.  Now, some people have the gift of faith and have a sixth sense to be able to believe relatively blindly.

In Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle writes about gifts of the Spirit that exist in the church through different people.  He speaks of things like: wisdom, healing, knowledge (notice it is different from wisdom), the working of miracles, prophecy.  And faith is described as a gift.  We all can have faith.  We all can believe, just like we all can have some knowledge and attain some wisdom, but some people are truly gifted. 

Some people have the gift of faith, but faith is not just available to them.  The rest of us just work harder to find it.

//

As western civilizations went through the time of The Enlightenment and the age of The Scientific Revolution, we have gained a healthy respect for exploration and a thirst for knowledge.  We have developed an appreciation for the process of understanding; to that end we accept that there is much mystery - far greater than the sum of our collective knowledge, but we work at converting some of that mystery to knowledge. 

I think that is how many people think about faith: we want to make some inroads into the mystery of our existence.  We want something to hang on to.  We may be prepared not to have 100% assurance, but we want what we believe to make sense given our experiences.  In that way we have some things in common with the original followers of Jesus: we need reasons to believe.

//

A few of you may have participated in some of the video study sessions I offered leading up to Easter, when we watched presentations by a number of people on the topic of the Emerging Church of the 21st century.  With speakers like UCC Moderator, Gary Peterson, theologian Dr Phyllis Tickle, CBC science reporter, Bob McDonald and modern-thinking pastors Michael Dowd and Mike Piazza, we heard that the nature of church is evolving because of our increased scientific knowledge and our openness to even greater mystery.

My experience tells me that the 21st century church must assume that people are skeptical of everything - including our traditions, our dogmas, our institutions, our leaders and even our sacred texts.  But we can also assume that people are longing for authentic, meaningful spiritual experiences.

//

Phyllis Tickle spoke about the unmistakable historical pattern that about every 500 years, the church re-evaluates its primary source of authority for a new time.  For our first 500 years, the church's authority rested with the traditions of the Apostles, those early church leaders whom claimed to have personal experiences of the Risen Christ.  This was a time of great growth and expansion of Christianity, culminating in it becoming (ironically, given how Jesus died) the official religion of the Roman Empire.  However as the [now] Holy Roman Empire began to fall - in favour of emerging European tribalism and feudalism, the church's authority shifted from the apostolic tradition to the great Creeds.  The era of dogma had begun and the church as an institution began to emerge - in different ways in Eastern and Western Europe, by the way: a fact that came to a head at the end of that second 500 year cycle when the great east-west schism occurred between the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  In this third era, the authority moves from the institutional dogma to the institutional hierarchy of the church: in the west, specifically, authority rested with The Papacy. 

Now, it is worth pointing out that the 'old' authorities of the apostolic traditions and the creeds still existed and continued to bear some influence, but it is fair to say that from the 12th to 15th centuries, the.  the institutional leaders held the highest authority.  The next evolution of the church grew out of a protest movement against this centralized bureaucratic authority.  Two significant secular contexts had a major impact on this change:

1. an increased populist literacy due to the invention of the printing press (as people began to be able to read and write, and as bibles began to be published in languages other than Latin or Greek, there was less need for to rely solely on an educated clergy to interpret scripture for everyone; and
2. the rise of the nation state.  European tribes were beginning to unify and national identities were emerging.

This protest movement (or Protestant Reformation) lead to many new denominations of Christianity.  The uniqueness of each was largely based on specific interpretations of parts of Scripture.  The Bible would dominate the next 500 year cycle.  As Martin Luther's rallying cry for his branch of Protestantism said: sola scriptura - scripture alone.

If you've been doing the math, you can see that we are up to the 21st century and if the pattern continues, we should be in the midst of another shift in authority.  Phyllis Tickle believes we are.  And I agree with her.

As I said earlier, modern 21st century churches should assume a wide ranging skepticism from modern spiritual seekers, including a critical view of the bible.  As a minister in this time, believe me, it is no longer authoritative to many people to simply argue, "because the Bible says so".  With our scientific minds, people of this time want to go deeper and try to discover why the church believes what it believes - just having church leaders professing it doesn't cut it.  People want to think for themselves.  And that is not possible if there is an insistence on the inerrancy of scripture - that the words of the Bible "in its original manuscripts are totally free from error of any kind; that scripture does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact."

Dr Tickle pointed out three major problems that 'sola scriptura' and inerrancy has experienced in the past century and a half.

1. Slavery - no matter how we try to brush over it, the fact is that the Bible not only accepts and condones slavery, it encourages it.  When Onesimus, a runaway slave meets Paul in prison, the apostle insists the he return to his owner, whom Paul happens to know.  Now, Paul writes a letter to Philemon encouraging him to appreciate the new value that Onesimus can be to him, but there is never any hint that Paul challenges Onesimus' indentured servant status.  Paul's letter is completely based on the assumption that Onesimus is Philemon's property to do with as he pleases.  In the 19th century, as the institution of slavery ended in North America, so did the ability to justify slavery by scripture alone.
2. Gendre equality - We may be prone to smooth over things over with inclusive language, but there can be no denying the fact that the bible comes to us from a very patriarchal context.  Although women played a prominent role in the earliest church communities, by the mid-late first century, letters were being written to tell women to be quiet in church and keep their heads covered.  In the early 20th century, with the help of Canada's famous five (including the United Church's Nellie McClung), Canadian women persons under the law.  In the past 100 years, all throughout the nations of western Christianity women were given the right to vote and increasingly fuller involvement in society.  As presumptive, systemic genre inequality waned, so did the ability to justify patriarchy by scripture alone.
3. Thirdly, we are seeing a similar process emerging with-respect-to Biblical pronouncements against homosexuality as LGBT people are beginning to see equal opportunities in western societies.  Even within many church communities, it is getting very hard justify ecclesiastical homophobia by simply saying "the Bible tells me so".

It's not that the Bible is losing its relevance in the church, but we are evolving into a time when we take our sacred texts extremely seriously, just not literally.  We continue to learn from our scriptures, but we are interested in the deeper meaning: we want to understand the context of the times and experiences they were written under. 

We are experiencing an evolution that John Wesley hinted at in what has become known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  Wesley concluded that there were essentially four different sources for a person to come to a theological conclusion:

·         Scripture,

·         Tradition,

·         Experience, and

·         Reason.

Now, Wesley held to the primacy of scripture, but it is significant to say that what we come to believe is also influenced by what we have learned from the traditions of the church; what we have learned through our observations and experiences in life in this world; and what our thinking discerns is reasonable.

Within this rubric, we should not be dishearted by our doubts and skepticism: they are part of our path to faith.

//

Doubt has always been an important part of a journey of faith.  When we come to a place where we are not sure, we can do one of two things, we can stand still and stay put in this doubt, or we can step into the mystery and try to go deeper into the Spirit.

As we live and move and have our being in this time, we will seek ways to understand mysterious divine presence and influence of God.  We will be guided by the sacred stories passed on to us, by a serious 21st century relationship with scripture and with our own curious nature. 

If we are open to this, we will step off the stump and wander out into the mystery and see what can happen.  And when we find those thin places, those moments of clarity, we will, in part, have our doubts to thank.

//

Let us pray,

O Spirit, grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand and to be loved as to love with all my soul.  Amen.

#185VU  "You Tell Me That the Lord is Risen"

AFTER THE SABBATH

April 20, 2014 (10:30am)

Easter Sunday

Matthew 28:1-10

(prayer)

Jesus was arrested after
dark on a Thursday evening - technically, since the marking of days within the
Hebrew culture begins with sunset, it was actually early on the sixth day of
the week (Friday) when Judas led the soldiers to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Later that same day (i.e. before the next
sunset), Jesus was tried, found guilty and executed.  That’s very swift justice: the death sentence
carried out less than 24 hours after the arrest.  Jesus died on the sixth day of the week in
the middle of the afternoon (about the 9^th hour of daylight).

We read in some of the
gospel accounts that there was a desperation to bury Jesus’ body before the
sunset on the sixth day.

The seventh day of the week
is the Sabbath day - it is a day of rest. 
This was a particularly special ‘Saturday’ - the Sabbath immediately
following the festival of Passover, which Jesus and his followers had travelled
to Jerusalem to celebrate.

//

We all need a ‘break’ after
a busy couple of days.  Especially, if we
have been experiencing stress, a day with little or nothing to do can be a
blessing.

But being forced into a
break when you’re not ready can be agonizing, even frustrating.  I remember watching the biathlon events in
the winter Olympics a couple of months ago: 
when the athlete missed a shot at the target range, they were forced to
take a penalty lap before they could carry on with the next lap around the
circuit.  It’s kind of like, being sent
to the penalty box and being forced to wait.

//

I imagine that this is what
it was like for Mary and John and James and Chloe and the others that day after
Jesus died.  The Sabbath tradition forced
them to hold off any work they wanted to do to honour Jesus.  At least some of the gospel narratives say
that the task of fully anointing Jesus body for burial was not complete when
they had to stop at sunset on the sixth day.

//

So, after
the Sabbath - at first light, on the next day (the first day of
the new week), women from among Jesus’ closest followers went to the tomb to
finish that sad but important ritual.

After the Sabbath, they did
not find what they expected.

//

At the early service this
morning, we read the gospel of John’s account of discovering the empty
tomb.  It is a similar, but different in
a few details from what we heard in Matthew in this service.

First of all in Matthew,
there were two women who went to the tomb that post Sabbath morning: Mary
Magdalene and “the other Mary”.  Mark
mentions three women: Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James (is
that who Matthew calls the ‘other Mary). 
Luke mentions a whole crowd: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of
James and the other women.  John tells us only about Mary Magdalene going
to the tomb.

All four versions then tell
us that the heavy stone that sealed the entrance to the tomb had been rolled
away.  In Mark, the women wonder as they
journey to the tomb, how they will move it. 
Matthew says that a great earthquake rolled the stone away and seems to
imply that women saw this.

Then in John, Mary
Magdalene runs and gets Peter and ‘the other disciple (John?) who confirm not
only that the stone was rolled away, but that the body was gone and the grave
clothes were curiously neatly set aside. 
Then the men go away and leave Mary alone.  It is then that an unexpected visitor
appears, just to Mary: Jesus himself.

In the other three gospels,
the women don’t run for help, but they do see someone unexpected at the tomb -
an angel (Matthew says) whose
appearance was like lightning; a young man
dressed in a white robe (according to Mark); Luke says there were two men in dazzling apparel.

The word angel is particularly appropriate
because it means ‘messenger’.  This
visitor(s) in white has a message for
these women - Jesus is not here! He is raised!  Luke is the version that quotes the wonderful
rhetorical question: Why do you seek the
living among the dead?

That’s the end of the
message in Luke.  The women go back to
the others and no one believes them: it is just an ‘idle tale’.

Matthew and Mark’s
angel-messenger tells the women to tell the Peter and the other disciples will
see the Risen Christ for themselves after they have returned home to
Galilee.  That’s where it ends in Mark
(even saying that the women didn’t tell anyone what they saw), but (as we heard
this morning) Matthew says that Jesus, himself appeared to the two Marys and
repeated the angel’s promise that the others will see him in Galilee.  The women’s reaction to all this is described
as fearful, astonished, joyful and amazed.

Following this After the Sabbath experience at the
empty tomb, each gospel shares stories of resurrection:

·        
In
Matthew, the disciples see Jesus on a mountain in Galilee.  Amazingly even then, the text says that ‘some
doubted’.

·        
Luke
tells of two disciples who unknowingly met the Risen Christ walking along the
road between Jerusalem and Emmaus.  A
much shorter version of this appearance is also told in Mark.

·        
In
John, as I said Jesus appears to Mary by the tomb.  It goes on to say that Jesus appeared to his
disciples in Jerusalem, showing them his physical crucifixion wounds.  Famously, John tells us that Thomas wasn’t
there (we’ll read about that next week). 
Mark also mentions that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene and Luke
talks about Jesus showing his wounds to the disciples.

·        
Mark
has story of Jesus appearing to the disciples as they were eating.

·        
John
tells a story of Jesus meeting the disciples by a Galilean lakeshore and having
a fish breakfast with them.

·        
All
four gospels have the Risen Christ (in some way or another) telling his
disciples to share the goodnews of what they have learned with Jesus. 

Clearly, the message is
that death is not the final word -
but it’s more than that:  resurrection is not even the
final word.

In Matthew, the disciples are told to go ‘make disciples
of all people; teach them to observe all [Jesus] commanded [them].’

In Mark, Jesus’ followers are said to have gone ‘forth
and preached everywhere.’

Luke says that they were continually in the Temple,
blessing God.

John’s gospel uses Peter as an example of what the
disciples are to do next:  out of love
for Jesus, they are to care for the ones Jesus cares for.  Do you
love me, Simon?  Feed my sheep!

//

Don’t get distracted by the variety of ways the
resurrection of Jesus is described in the Biblical gospels.  Don’t feel you have to resolve down to an
absolute historically accurate account: 
how many women were at the tomb; was Mary the first to see the Risen
Christ or not; did Jesus see the disciples in Jerusalem or did they have to
wait until they went back to Galilee; were they allowed to touch Jesus, like
Thomas or was that forbidden as it was for Mary?

None of these remembered events found themselves written
down in a gospel that would eventually become part of our New Testament until
some forty, forty-five or sixty-plus years after the events they describe.  We owe the authors a bit of poetic license.

What I do want us to notice (in amongst the varied ways
the message is shared) that the message is remarkably similar:  the work of Jesus is not over.  Jesus; followers would continue on in his
name to share the good news of their experiences.  And even, when the life spans of all of those
who had face-to-face experiences with Jesus (in the flesh and physically
resurrected) is over, the work will not be - it is everlasting.

//

//

Sabbath is more than just
rest from work - it is a pause that allows for a fresh start.  We don’t always just pick up on Sunday
morning where we left off on Friday night.

The life path of Jesus’
disciples looked very different After the
Sabbath than it had before.

//  [end]

Over the decades and
centuries that followed, the followers of Jesus and the church they formed
would spend a lot of time discerning and debating what it all meant: the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus.  Even today, there are deep
theological divides on these kinds of questions among different groups of
committed Christians.

But it general, I want to say
that I believe that it is not enough
to know the Easter story: to know ‘of
resurrection’; it is what we do with the knowledge of resurrection that matters
- it matters what we do After the
Sabbath.

Let us pray:

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***Junior Choir***

GOOD FRIDAY

April
18, 2014

Luke 22:^39-48;
Matthew 27:^3-5

Greed

It wasn’t just Judas who was seduced
by greed - in his case, for money for Jesus’ arrest.  The authorities were greedy for power and
control.  They knew that Jesus was
influencing the people, empowering them to claim their dignity and
strength.  Jesus was upsetting the social
order.  The power-focused greed of the
authorities is what led to the betrayal and capturing of Jesus.  As this candle is extinguished, let us pray
silently for God to remove the greed that gets in the way of the Gospel: greed
that stops us from being truly happy and prevents us from acts of generosity
and compassion.

Luke 22:^54-62

Fear

Peter was afraid.  It was his fear that stopped him from doing
the right thing.  He was afraid to take a stand and speak the
truth that Jesus was his teacher and friend.
Sometimes fear gets the better of us.
When an acquaintance makes a racist or homophobic comment, fear keeps us
silent.  When someone different moves into the neighbourhood, it is fear that
thinks about property values over people.
We can be prone to repeat negative patterns in our lives out of fear of
what unknown might be exposed by a different pattern.  As this candle is extinguished, let us pray
in silence for God to remove fear within us and in our world that stops us from
trusting and doing what is right.

John 18:^28-40

Pride

Pilate thought he had all the right
answers.  He trusted not in God’s truth
and God’s love, but in his own knowledge and his political position.  His pride played a role in what he did with
Jesus.  There are times when pride blinds
us from seeing deeper truths and blocks new understanding.  As this candle is extinguished, let us pray
silently for God to remove pride from within us and our world that makes us
feel more important than others and stops us from walking humbly with our God.

John 19:^1-11a

Envy

Luke 23:^13-25

Helplessness

Pilate could have made a different
choice.  He could have chosen to ignore
their voices.  He had the right to do so;
he had the power to do so.  But he made
the easy decision because it was popular in the moment.  The people who listened to Jesus on the
hillside, those who had been healed by him, fed by him, welcomed by him, could
have spoken out.  They probably did, but
they were drowned out by the frenzy for blood.
Imagine Jesus’ followers shouting at the top of their lungs trying to
let Pilate know that not everyone in the crowd wanted Barabbas released and
realizing they were not going to be heard.
There are times when we, too, feel helpless.  This can cause us to lose our voice, to give
up and stop trying to change things for the better.  As this candle is extinguished, let us pray
silently for God to remove (from us) the paralysis of helplessness and so doing
empower us to know that when we work with God, we can change ourselves and the
world God loves.

Luke 23:^32-38

Anger

The soldiers were filled with anger -
as is common for those who constantly are fighting in war.  They had become desensitized to pain and
suffering.  They had been trained not to
see a ‘person’ on the other end of their sword but an enemy who deserves what
they get.  When we are angry, we throw insults
or we callously walk by the suffering of others (“better them than me”).  Scientifically, anger stops us from being
reasonable.  Literally, an angry brain is
a stupid brain.  As this candle is
extinguished, let us pray silently for God to remove anger from within us and
anger in our world that leads to so much hate and violence.

Luke 23:^39-43

Forgiveness

Even at the moment of greatest pain,
having been beaten, rejected, insulted and despised, Jesus speaks a word of
peace and hope.  Like the man hanging
beside Jesus, we have offered our confessions this day.  May we trust that the word of forgiveness
speaks into our hearts as it did on Calvary.
In assurance of that promise, let us join in song: #85MV “Take O Take Me
as I Am”.

Luke 23:<sup>44-46

Based on materials from "Gathering"  Lent/Easter 2014</sup>

THE TWO PARADES

a drama by Nate Lee (adapted by Blaine Gregg)

Two groups (one larger than
the other) enter the front of the church

from opposite side aisles of
the church.

The conversations start as
they are coming toward the centre.

Large Leader (to
his/her group):     Hurry up!  I hear the horns.  We don’t want to be late.

Small Leader (to
her/his group):     Come on guys.  It’s not that much further.

Large:                    I can’t wait to see the
horses.  I love horses.  I wonder how many soldiers there will be this
year.  They look so cool in those
uniforms.

Small:                   I don’t know what it will be
like.  I’ve never heard of anything like
this before.

The two groups meet in the
centre.  The two group leaders bump into
each other.

Small:                   Oh, sorry about that I wasn’t
watching where I was going.

Large:                    Hey, I understand.  I wasn’t paying attention either.  It makes sense – this is going to be
exciting.

Small:                   It is exciting.  So, how did you hear about it?  Matthias told me that he’d be entering
Jerusalem this morning.

Large:                    I don’t know who this Matthias
is, but no one needed to tell me.  I’ve
been going to the parade for years.

Small:                   For years?  But this is brand new.

Large:                    What are you talking
about?  And besides you’re going the
wrong way, if you want to get a good spot to see.  You’re not from around here, are you?

Small:                   No, we’re just here for the
festival.  What are you talking about?

Large:                    This is all about the
festival.  Governor Pilate is coming into
Jerusalem for the Passover week.  He does
it every year.  It’s a big deal – horses,
soliders in full uniform, marching in formation.  It’s quite impressive.

Small:                   Oh... that’s not the parade
that we’re going to.

Large:                    There is no other
parade.  Even members of the Council will
line the streets to view Pilate’s entry. 
What are you talking about?

Small:                   Jesus.

Large:                    Jesus?  Who’s Jesus?

Small:                   Jesus from Nazareth.  He’s a prophet – he can heal sicknesses; and
he is so wise – you haven’t lived until you’ve heard one of his stories.  It’s like God is speaking.

Large:                    Wait a minute.  You’d better watch yourself.  That’s borderline blasphemy.

Small:                   How can it be blasphemy to
talk about the Messiah?

Large:                    The Messiah?  You are
from out of town.  Every few weeks,
someone claims to be the Messiah around here. 
It never turns out to be true. 
Sometimes, they just go away; sometimes the Temple looks into the claims
and discredits them; sometimes they try to cause trouble and the Romans step in
and... well, that’s it. The truth is... the days of a true Hebrew King are gone
– the Empire is in charge, get used to it.

Small:                   This Jesus is different.  You’ll see.

Large:                    Well, if he’s going to be
King, he’s going to need a big army. 
Pilate won’t give in without a fight. 
And even if this Jesus wins the first battles, it won’t last.  Didn’t we learn anything from the Macabees?

Small:                   Army?  Jesus doesn’t have an army.

Large:                    What no warriors?

Small:                   No.

Large:                    No shields?

Small:                   No.

Large:                    No swords?  No shiny helmets?

Small:                   I don’t think so.

Large:                    This Jesus is going to have
to do something to get noticed.  I hope
he has a tall horse.  Pilate always rides
the grandest horse in the parade.

Small:                   I don’t think he’ll be on a
horse.  See, that’s how we heard about
this.  Early this morning, a couple of
Jesus’ disciples came to Matthias’ place and asked to take his donkey.

Large:                    Donkey?

Small:                   Yeah, a donkey.  They just said, “The master needs it.”  They’ve been staying with the other Galileans
on the Mount of Olives.  We assume that
he’ll be coming in the east gate, right by the Temple.

Large (quieter,
thinking):     A donkey?

Small:                   What?

Large:                    Oh, well it’s probably
nothing.

Small:                   What?

Large:                    When you said donkey, it got
me thinking about Zechariah.  “Rejoice greatly, O daughter
Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious...

Small:                   ...humble and riding on a donkey.”

Large:                    A donkey.  That’s interesting.  I haven’t seen that before – even with all of
these other wanna-be-messiahs.   Jesus,
hmm.

Small:                   Yes, Jesus from
Nazareth.  He could be ‘the one’.  This could be our salvation.

Large:                    This could be worth a
look.  Afterall,  I’ve done the ‘Pilate thing’ before.  (to the large group)  Hey, anyone else want to come with us and see
the ‘other’ parade.

About half of the large group
still want to go see Pilate’s entry and walk off.

The Large Leader and some of
her/his group go with the Small group.

Large:                    Hey, we will want Jesus to
notice us.  We should grab some big palm
branches and wave them.  He’ll see that.

Small:                   Yeah... and we should yell
“Hosanna - We’re Saved”.  People need to
know what this all means.  Let’s go, we
don’t want to be late.

The now-larger Small Group
exits waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna”.

One member of the Large
Groups come running back.

Member of Large
Group:     Hey, wait for me!!

A NEW TIME

April 6, 2014

Lent 5

Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:38-45

(prayer)

Welcome to the final Sunday within the season of Lent for 2014.  In one week, we will begin our walk of Holy Week:

W  Sunday’s Palm Waving >>

W  Thursday’s Last Supper >>

W  Friday’s Crucifixion >>

W  Easter Sunday Surprise.

That ‘surprise’ is not really a surprise for us.  We already know that Easter is coming; not only can we look on a calendar and find out what day it will be [you may have noticed that it moves year by year; it is always the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring solstice] – but I mean more than that.  We don’t just know that Easter is coming because of the calendar, but because our faith invites us to know that resurrection follows execution in the story of Jesus.  Even the Sundays don’t count in the ‘forty days’ in Lent – every Sunday is a mini-easter when we can’t pretend that we don’t know how this story turns out.  A post-Easter people cannot ignore their past. 

And so, here we are (two full weeks before Easter) and we are already reading what sound like resurrection passages:

W  Ezekiel bringing life into a valley of dry bones; and

W  Jesus raising Lazarus four days after he dies. 

But ‘resurrection’ is not my intended focus for today.  I want to focus on what happens after the renewed life has entered the world.

//

In Ezekiel, the Bible tells us that the prophet is transported by the Spirit to a valley filled with dry bones.  Reading between the lines of the narrative, we can presume that these dry bones came from the scattered remains of old battle: these are the soldier victims of war.  The prophet follows God’s instructions and invites the bones to come together and re-form all of their organs and flesh.  Then (after dem bones have rattled back together) we have the image of a very orderly collection of soldiers, standing in perfect formation, but they were not alive: ‘they had no breath in them’.  So, Ezekiel (again on God’s instruction) calls on the four winds to blow breath into this mighty host. 

They are raised into a new time; the battle that ended their lives in the valley is long gone.  It would make sense that the remains included soldiers from both sides of the original battle.  I just don’t think that the purpose of this reanimation was to get back to fighting. 

{{breathe in – en garde!!}}

Let’s agree that they are not likely raised to fight a long gone battle.  With new the spirit of life, their future is open.  Most soldiers in the ancient world were not career warriors, they were mostly conscripted farmers and craftsmen.  If it was me, I wouldn’t want to fight a new war when I found out that the old one was over. 

I know that this was just a vision for Ezekiel and it probably ended before the Prophet found out what these new living beings did with their fresh breaths, but we do know that there was no need to re-fight the old battles. 

//

The Spirit enlivens for a new time.

//

//

We know almost nothing about Lazarus’ back story.  The gospel of John begins his tale by telling us that this friend of Jesus had taken ill – presumably gravely ill.  News of his illness reaches Jesus, but he doesn’t rush to Lazarus’ bedside.  Later, Jesus does decide to make a trip to Bethany after he learns that Lazarus has died.  On arriving, John tells us that Jesus is greeted by both of Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, both of whom express disappointment that Jesus hadn’t come earlier.  They knew of Jesus’ abilities as a healer and so desperately wanted Jesus to have had the chance to heal Lazarus before he died.  But Jesus got there too late.

Mary and Martha had no expectation that Jesus could do anything now - other than comfort the other mourners.

That’s where we picked up the story today.

Lazarus come forth! 

Surprise!

//

The bible doesn’t say it explicitly, but the implication is obvious – not only is Lazarus given new breath – the illness that killed him is also gone.  It would make no sense for Jesus to raise Lazarus only so he could re-live his illness and die again in short order. 

Like the old soldiers in the valley, Lazarus is raised into an open future - a new time.  Jesus had said that God’s glory would be known through the experience of Lazarus’ illness and death.  Being re-enlived to an open future is a sign of the Glory of God.

//

//

So, in our scriptures today, we have two metaphoric expressions of the notion that we can be born into a new and open future – where we are not bound by the demises of our past.

//

Here’s an example where I hope this can be true.

//

While there always have been voices who promoted peace and understanding among strangers, ‘peace’ has always been a small, mostly ignored, concept.  In every part of the globe, in every culture, in every era of human history, there has been an accepted, systemic fear of and condoned violence to "the other" – the one ‘different from us’. 

The best we have been able to do is to have pockets of peace and understanding - but there has always a boundary where that fear (particularly fear that comes from selfishness, greed) takes over – a fear that expresses a desire for control in the midst of perceived scarcity. We get worried that we won’t have enough (whatever we define that to be), so we watch how widely we draw our circles.

//

We have been able to create these pockets of peace and understanding and acceptance based on circles of family, tribe, region (people, nation), beliefs (theological, philosophical, sociological), language, economic divides [we don’t build ‘gated communities’ so that we can a wide circle of equality and peace], and we have even been prone to divide ourselves on characteristics that we can’t choose like: skin colour, gendre, orientation. 

The truth of human history is that we have been less peaceful with those outside of our pocket.

//

Even progressive ideas in the Bible like that of Paul in Galations 3:28 where he wrote - "there is no longer male or female, jew or greek, slave or free" was limited.  Paul prefaced those words within the bubble of those ‘baptized in Christ’ – but since Paul’s time, we have limited even further.  Still today (within some sub-pockets of Christianity), men and women are not seen as ‘one in Christ’ as Paul envisioned – in parts of Christianity where women are not allowed to fulfill the same roles in the faith community as men. 

Even those who can claim to be remaining truer to the Apostle’s intent should not be too proud about it - as Jesus said (in Mt 5:46), "If you [only] love those who love you, what reward do you have?"  Jesus goes on to say, "Love your enemies [the stranger, the other, the one outside of ‘your’ circle]."

//

As I have been thinking about this, I am coming to believe that we are, now, living in a new time (just a few decades old, really) where the idea of 'universal respect for all' is beginning to assert itself (regardless of creed, culture, economics, etc.). 

We sometimes have been tragically confronted that our inability to live peaceably with each other is a characteristic of the human experience that many of us no longer want to condone – no longer want to accept as ‘just the way things are’. 

Remember Rodney King (c. 1992) who, during the LA riots (which followed the acquittal of police officers who had repeatedly hit him with batons during an arrest the previous year), tearfully making the public appeal "Can we all get along?"

This sounds good: that we should all be able to get along.  But it is not happening universally, so it can’t be that easy.  Even those who are pacifists sometimes have to admit the possibility that… peace is often a “nice, but impractical” goal – especially in the big picture.

//

I have often quoted Maragret Mead because I believe in the truth of her words:  “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Mead’s thesis is that once an idea takes root, if it has staying power… actions, policies and public opinion will follow, until change is palpable and experienced – until we move into a new normal.

And… I think we are getting ‘there’ when it comes to discrimination.

Discrimination (in any form) is no longer defensible in many circles.  

At the height of European imperialism in the 18^th century, we were so convinced that we had the ideal most civilized culture that we saw other people as savages – as lesser – as ‘the other’ not worthy of our equality, unless they became like us.

//

One of the last attempts to preserve discrimination allows for equal, but separate opportunity.  History shows us that separate but equal solutions are not to be good enough (look at racial segregation in USA; or attempts in Canada to avoid same sex marriage by allowing for the separate, but equal civil unions). 

For more and more people in this new time, claims to having a monopoly in civilization, AND notions of separate, but equal are not acceptable levels of discrimination. 

Discrimination (overt or subtile) has always only been clung to by those afraid of ‘the other’ – the one who is different, the enemy – the one who Jesus commands us to love. 

Discrimination is not yet a thing of the past; we’re not there yet.  Some communities are further ahead than other), but I think I can say that, increasingly, systemic discrimination is fading away; and personal discrimination is increasing finding itself without support. 

Live and let live is the model in this new time.

//

Last Sunday, while I enjoyed a few days of study leave, I went to church at McDougall UC in Edmonton where the UCC Moderator, Gary Paterson, told a story of people looking up at starry night sky and proclaiming "I am small… and I belong". 

Those of you who attended the Friday morning video study group three weeks ago would have heard the CBC’s science reporter, Bob McDonald, tell us that the when the circumference of the earth was first measured it was learned that 90% of the globe was unknown at the time.  Similarly, based on the latest calculations on the overall mass of universe, we know that 95% of it has not yet been seen – the best line in Bob McDonald’s presentation was: "our ignorance is far greater than our knowledge". 

That should make us feel small, but we also can know that we are not outside of this great mystery; we are part of it… we belong.

//

To admit that we have more to learn that we do to teach is a reminder to appreciate the value of humility.

I am coming to believe that humility is the path to the widest possible peace and understanding. 

The prophet Micah got it (What does God require of you? Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8)

Now we need to get it and…make it real.

// 

I am small, and… I belong.

I am smart, and… there is much I do not know.

And I deserve respect.

So do you (friend, family, stranger, similar and different)

I am challenging myself to live with enough humility to know that respect is also due to the earth and all its creatures - to star dust, swirling galaxies, quantum singularities, and that 95% we don't yet understand.

//

Humility leads to Respect.

Respect leads to Understanding.

And Understanding leads to Peace.

//

May it be so. 

Amen.

***offering***

A MINUTE FOR RECONCILIATION

By the Rev Blaine Gregg

Last weekend, I gratefully took some study leave time (including the Sunday) to attend much of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission event in Edmonton.  The TRC was organized as part of a huge legal settlement agreement between the Government of Canada, various Church denominations (including the United Church of Canada) and first nations, metis and inuit people who were affected by the government-organized and church-run Indian Residential School System.

There were (no doubt) honest and noble intentions among many of those who ran and taught at the schools (I heard many, many people say they had no idea of some of harsh effects); even so we can’t ignore the impact on families and communities: having to live without most of their children for some or all of the year because they had been taken away to live at schools in faraway places like St. Albert or Red Deer – where these children were expected to learn in a foreign language [English or French]; where they were expected to dress in European styles, have European haircuts, and learn the history and philosophies of the cultures of those who immigrated to Canada – often at the expense of their own history and language.  The truth is that the IRS system had a dramatic effect on the future direction of the first peoples of this land.

The main purpose of the TRC events (through its many dozen regional events and seven big national events [Edmonton was the final one]) was to allow people affected by residential school experiences to share their stories and to put ‘their truth’ on the record for current and future generations.

Individual experiences (most certainly) did vary.  As stories were told, they were respectfully heard.  I suppose each hearer can make their own judgement of what is believed or questioned on the small scale.  But, the undeniable big picture is that we (as Canadians) can no longer ignore the truth that the collective experience of the IRS over parts of two centuries portrays an unmistakable and immutable pattern of:

W  regular corporal punishment [accepted almost everywhere until recent decades, but particularly bad in these schools],

W  psychological and cultural abuse, and

W  unmistakably intentional acts of cultural assimilation based on an imperialistic belief in European cultural-intellectual-racial-and-religious superiority. 

//

There was good within the Indian Residential School system - that truth was told too. 

And… it is also true that this good came at far too high a cost!