A Choral Eucharist for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost -- 29 October 2023

Just as Moses was only able to see the promised land but not enter it, so we, as disciples of Jesus, able to see the reign of God but know that it is not yet fully here. We are people of the 'already but not yet'.

Just Beyond the Horizon

 

Just Beyond the Horizon

Reflections on Deuteronomy 34.1-12

 

RCL Proper 30A

29 October 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         Ever since I began serious biblical studies in seminary, I have found today’s story from Deuteronomy profoundly sad and not a little unjust.  Moses has led the people from their bondage in Egypt, in their escape from the military might of Pharaoh and through the long wilderness journey across the Sinai.  He has faced God and he has faced down God.  He has been praised by the people as their saviour and accused by them for conniving with God in their destruction.  He has lost his family and is not being denied the undeniable fruit of his labours – a triumphant entry into the promised land, the land of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob.

 

         Over the many centuries this story has been told, various explanations have been advanced as to why Moses is denied his prize.  But I think that there is only one way this story makes sense to me.  All who follow the God of Abraham, of Moses and of Jesus are destined to live in ‘the already but not yet’ of God’s unfolding purposes for us and for all creation.  Despite our longing to arrive, we are not destined to do so.  We are destined to see where we are going but not to dwell there.

 

         None of us, none of us, can see the endings of our lives.  By ‘endings’ I do not mean our physical deaths.  By ‘endings’ I mean the ‘purposes’ for which we have lived and worked and perhaps suffered.  Throughout our lives we have striven to achieve one or more goals, but goals are not the same as purposes. Purposes are the legacies that all our striving, all our worrying, all our sacrifices have sought to bestow upon those who are walking with us now and those who will walk in the paths we have forged after we have finished our leg of the journey.

 

         When Moses left his family after the vision of the burning bush, he could not have known where his journey would lead him.  He only knew that he was embarking on this path trusting that the One who had called him was also guiding him towards a future with the people of Israel would have the opportunity to become a people of destiny.  But becoming a people of destiny would be their descendants’ vocation not Moses’ nor any other member of the generation that had entered the Sea ahead of Pharaoh’s army save Joshua.

 

         When the people crossed the desert, they travelled from oasis to oasis, from water-spring to water-spring.  I am sure that they were often tempted to stop and put down roots, claiming a way-station on the journey as the destination.  But this was neither their purpose nor their destiny.  Their future lay in a rich country full of dangers and uncertainties as well as possibilities.

 

         “We are pilgrims on a journey, fellow-travellers on the road,” a familiar hymn reminds us.  Our destination lies somewhere in the future.  Like the Israelites we may be tempted to find an oasis and settle in it as if it were our destination.  After all, most human beings have a built-in preference for stability and a sense of having arrived.

 

         But ours is a journey in stages that has involved many generations before us.  Each generation has had its purpose, its role in bringing the world closer to it consummation, its destiny.  Like Moses, each generation has caught of glimpse of where the journey is leading us, but only from a mountain top and not within its borders.

 

         As I prepare for retirement, I am coming to some peace with hoe God dealt with Moses.  I am grateful for whatever role I have had in the on-going drama of God’s mighty work of bringing the whole of creation to its consummation, its end as that place where all God’s children shall be free.  I wish it were already here, but it is not yet.  But it will come.

 

O God, you have called your servants

to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,

by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,

not knowing where we go,

but only that your hand is leading us

and your love supporting us;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. [1]

---

[1] Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006, 317.

 

Midweek Eucharist for the Feast of Luke the Evangelist -- 18 October 2023

The New Testament Greek word for 'salvation' is sōtēria, a word that means more than being saved from danger. It means 'wholeness', a state of being fully alive even when in the midst of physical, spiritual or emotional crisis. This is the healing ministry made present to us in Jesus of Nazareth and it is the healing ministry entrusted to Christ's disciples.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 17 October 2023

One of my historical heroes, Carl Schürz, a German refugee who became an influential editor of German-language newspapers in the United States and a general in the Civil War, was not always well-respected by his American-born contemporaries. But I treasure his response to the oft-heard phrase, 'My country right or wrong' -- 'My country right or wrong. When right to be kept right. When wrong to be put right.' This wisdom came from his willingness to consider other points of view in attempting to forge a life-giving consensus.

Choral Eucharist for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost -- 15 October 2023

Idolatry is as prevalent in our times as in times past. When human communities face crises of whatever sort, we seek images or ideas or experiences that we believe will allow us to control the uncontrollable realities of our existence. But idols will not save us -- give us abundant life -- they will only offer us counterfeits to the mystery of the living God.

From Idolatry to Faith: Reflections on Exodus 32.1-14

 

RCL Proper 28A

15 October 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         In 1966 I turned thirteen and joined my peers in the journey of adolescence.  For my immediate circle of friends and me that journey was shaped by the original TV series ‘Star Trek’.  Gene Roddenberry’s imagination gave us a vision of a future humanity unity with other species committed to creating a universe of wonder, of peace and of glorious diversity.  For three years we were treated to everything from battles in space to the first inter-racial kiss ever shown on American network television.

 

         While my friends chose to identify with Captain Kirk or Mr Sulu, I was the only one I remember who found Mr Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan first officer, to be my mentor.  Perhaps I found Spock’s commitment to a life guided by logic and a control of passion attractive because I was becoming more conscious of two dimensions of my character that still plague me – a temper that flares from time to time that sometimes leads to an impetuousness which I always regret.

 

         Spock became my model, I might even say my idol.  I am sure that my teachers were not persuaded by my attempts to declare something illogical and therefore not obligatory.  I am more grateful that my wise parish priest was patient of my youthful idolatry of a fictional character and gently led me back to a closer relationship with Jesus.  I learned that when you meet Jesus, you meet God, the Holy One of Israel, the One in whom all things have their being.  And so, even as I continued to admire Spock, I put my idolatry aside and embraced my faith.

 

         It is easy for human beings to fall prey to idolatry.  All idols begin as models or images or ideas or experiences that enable us to understand our lives and to claim some control over the uncontrollable realities of human life.  Idols start out as signs that point us towards truths that are beyond us and that are greater than the signs themselves.  But the problem comes when we confuse the sign with the truth, when we describe the world only in terms of the model or the image or the idea or the experience itself.

 

         When we look around at the world today, we can quickly see the idolatry that is afflicting our species.  Some of those idols have names:

 

·      racial or cultural or ethnic identity

·      orthodoxy versus liberalism

·      partisanship at the expense of the common good

·      success as the measure of all human good 

·      progress as an inevitable trait of human history

·      capitalism as morally neutral.

 

For example, the current horrific conflict between Israel and Hamas has come about from making idols of religion, of ethnic identity and of narratives of past wrongs that are never healed but re-opened again and again and again.  An exclusive and discriminatory view of the ‘other’ has overshadowed any consideration of how differences can be strengths in creating an inclusive society.

 

         The forces that gave rise to contemporary capitalism were intended to liberate the common people from feudalism and other oppressive social systems.  But the idea that the flow of capital is morally neutral, that corporations have the same rights as human persons and that ‘a rising tide raises all ships’ has become an idol that threatens our environment and creates greater and greater disparity between the ‘rich’ and the ‘not-rich’.  A Canadian philosopher and economist described our current economic model as ‘possessive individualism’.

 

         The God whom we worship is a God who resists idolatry.  No model or image or idea or experience can fully contain the mystery of the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus.  When Moses asks for God’s name, God responds with an open-ended verb that defies limitations.  In the law God gives to Moses on Mount Sinai, the making  of any images of the Holy One is prohibited, a prohibition intended for our benefit given our predilection to confuse images with the reality they signify.

 

         In the prophet Daniel a similar story is told of the creation of a golden statue by King Nebuchadnezzar and his order that all people must worship it.  Any who refuse to worship will be thrown into a fiery furnace and be burnt to death.  Three young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Jewish exiles who have to date fared well in Babylon refuse to worship the idol.  The angry king condemns them to death and taunts them by questioning whether their God will save them.  I treasure the response to the taunt.

 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” (Daniel 3.16-18 NRSVue)

 

         The three young men see through the idol and know that worshipping it will not lead to that abundant life God promises to all who seek to live as creatures made in the image of God and called to the life-long process of moulding their lives into living icons of God’s love and care for the world.  The three young men know that refusing to bow down to the idols of the age comes at a price. 

 

But what God offers makes any such price a bargain.  What God offers us is the opportunity to become more fully human just as Jesus is fully human.  What God offers us is the opportunity to share in the divine life made known to us in Jesus.

 

Throughout our lives we have moments when we may grasp at idols rather than endure demands of the truth of God made known to us in Jesus of Nazareth.  We may find excuses to absent ourselves from the wedding feast of Christian discipleship.  But there are always people such as Moses or my parish priest almost sixty years ago who pray us back into faithfulness.  We are never left bereft of voices that call out to the Spirit to restore us to our rightful minds.  God will never let us go and in that steadfast love we trust and see through the idols and discover the glory of God.

A Votive Mass for Peace on Wednesday, 11 October 2023

As violence continues in Israel and Gaza and in so many other parts of our world, this eucharist is a prayer for peace from the people of Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral. May God hear our prayers and may the hearts of people everywhere awake to the image of God within each and every human being and cast aside the hate that divides and destroys the living temples of God.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 10 October 2023

Despite our temptation to see ourselves as 'enlightened' believers, contemporary Christians are as prone as others to worship idols. Some Christians in their desire to defend the centrality of the Bible as a witness to God can treat the words of the Scriptures as if words about God, inspired by the Spirit, are identical to the Word. We forget that what the Bible says is not always what the Bible means. Other Christians, in their desire to stress the importance of worship, may treat their way of worship as an idol rather than a means to guide us toward, to nurture us in and to open us to the mystery of God.

Midweek Eucharist for the Feast of Francis of Assisi -- 4 October 2023

Francis is a holy follower of Jesus who is remembered for many things. Many remember him because of his supposed love of animals, but fewer remember him as one committed to the renewal of the Christian movement and concern for the poor.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 3 October 2023

In Luke 17.11-19, one of the gospels for Thanksgiving, ten lepers are healed by Jesus. But only one, a Samaritan, a foreigner and idolator in the eyes of Judeans, returns to praise God in recognition of how God has acted through Jesus. For this faith, Jesus tells him that he is made well. Wellness means wholeness and integrity.

Choral Eucharist for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost -- 1 October 2023

While those with authority also have power, those with power do not necessarily have authority. What is key is how those with authority wield the power that they hold. Paul, in Philippians 2.1-13, describes an alternative path to one that is most frequently taken, the path of kenosis, 'self-emptying' love that makes room for others. In this alternative path one does not wield power but yields it for the good of others.