Saturday, June 30, 2018

Rise Again! Bearing Fruit That Will Last (Canada Day, 1 July 2018)

Here is the text on which my sermon will be based as I preach my first sermon as Vicar of Holy Trinity Cathedral (New Westminster) tomorrow.

Rise Again!
Bearing Fruit That Will Last

Canada Day
1 July 2018

Holy Trinity Cathedral

John 15.12-17

            15.12[Jesus said to his disciples,] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  14You are my friends if you do what I command you.  15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.  16You did not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.  17I am giving you these commands so that you maylove one another.”

            On the 23rdof June 1987 my family and I entered Canada at the Peace Arch crossing to begin our new adventure at Vancouver School of Theology. We thought that we would be here for three years and then return to the United States.  But three years became six, one child became three, my wife began preparation for the priesthood and was ordained, and then we chose to become Canadian citizens in 1995.

            When I began teaching at Vancouver School of Theology, one of the new students, Paul Borthistle, decided that his family would become our guides to Canadian context.  One of the first things he did was to share with us some cassette tapes of a Canadian folk singer by the name of Stan Rogers.  I’m sure that many of you have heard his songs and may even recognize his rich baritone voice.

            I remember listening to ‘Barrett’s Privateers’ and realizing that my ancestors, some of whom were American mariners who raided British shipping during the Revolutionary War, were the villains.  But the song that has always resonated with me is his ballad, ‘The Mary Ellen Carter’.  It’s a song about a love affair between a crew and their ship, a ship wrecked because of the drunkenness of its captain and first mate, a ship abandoned by its owners once the insurance money is paid, a ship worth saving because of the times it saved its crew.  And so the narrator and his friends begin a salvage operation whose success we do not hear, only the hope and the promise of new life.

            It’s the refrain that sticks in my mind and has never faded from my memory. It’s a refrain that a ship-wrecked Canadian sailor, adrift in the Atlantic, told the CBC he kept singing even as he was being winched into the rescue helicopter:

Rise again, rise again!
Though your heart it be broken and life about to end
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend
Then like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!

            In 1859 the Parish of Holy Trinity was established here in what was then a frontier settlement on the Fraser River.  The people built a church in 1860 that then was burnt to the ground in the fire of 1865. Rise again, rise again!  A second church, this time with stone walls, rose from the ashes in 1867, stone quarried from Salt Spring Island.  It became the cathedral of the newly-formed Diocese of New Westminster and witnessed the growth of the Lower Mainland as the railroad inched its way across Canada.  But then the disastrous fire of 1898 destroyed much of the centre of New Westminster, leaving only the stone walls of the Cathedral.  Rise again, rise again!  This church, the one in which we gather today, was built within the walls of the second church, and by 1902 our tower looked out over the city this parish was called to serve.

            This cathedral community of Jesus’ disciples have followed in the path of those first disciples to whom Jesus speaks in today’s gospel.  As they gathered for what would be their last meal with their beloved teacher, his disciples must have known that the possibility of trouble was lurking out in the darkness of the city.  No doubt some of them were hoping that this would be the last night of the old order and that the morning would bring the messianic age that they and many others hoped to see --- Rome banished from their land --- true faithfulness to the covenant made with the Hebrew people at Mount Sinai restored --- self-serving religious hierarchy put in its place --- justice, mercy and humility replacing oppression, hardship and arrogance.  But no one among them could have known what was to happen and how their lives would be changed forever.
                  Jesus tells them, You did not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” [1]  And what fruit they bore!  There is no place on this planet where the faith of the followers of Jesus has not travelled.  There are very few languages and cultures who have not heard the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed.  Sometimes we have failed in spectacular ways to be true disciples of Jesus, but we have, time and time again, repented and returned to the way of Jesus by recommitting ourselves to doing justice, to loving mercy, to walking humbly with our God. Rise again, rise again!

            And now you and I have come to this time in the life of this community.  We are placing before our neighbours a vision of a renewed cathedral landscape where people who live in the heart of this city can gather, whether Christian or not, where people can find a home, whether wealthy or not-so-wealthy, where we can continue to be the physical presence of Jesus, whether in worship or in service.  This is fruitful soil and we have on many occasions faced challenges in order to bear the fruit of the gospel.  

            As I begin a new ministry among you as the Vicar of this venerable congregation, I cannot help but believe that we have a future here.  Our neighbours need us as a place of help, hope and home.  We are a visible symbol of God’s commitment to the fullness of life and dignity of every human being and to the promise of world in which all God’s children will be free.  It’s who we have been; it’s who we are; it’s who we will be.

Rise again, rise again!
Though your heart it be broken and life about to end
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend
Then like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!



[1]John 15.16

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