Celebration of a New Ministry
BAS Ember Day Propers [1]
18 February 2025
Parish of Saint Thomas
Vancouver BC
In the year before I left to begin theological college, I was summoned for jury duty in El Paso County, the jurisdiction where Colorado Springs, the town in which I grew up, is located. I remember waiting in a large room with at least one hundred other people who had been selected to perform their important but not always welcomed civic duty. It turned out, however, that twice as many people had received summons, but only half had responded. Whatever the reason for their absence, a simple truth remained – ‘we few, we happy few’ to borrow a phrase from Henry V – would now bear the burden of serving on more than one jury.
I won’t bore you with the details of the two juries on which I served. I will say that one was a deeply troubling case that had a profound effect on all the members of the jury. The other case was one of those judicial ‘gong shows’ that can cause folks to doubt how our legal system works. Both cases ended badly for the prosecution: the first with a hung jury, the second with an acquittal. Both cases ended for the same reason: the jury or, in one case, one juror, did not believe the witnesses produced by the prosecution.
My daughter who is a Crown prosecutor in Toronto and I have discussed my experience many times. Juries are not easy beasts to tame. They come into the courtroom filled with existing biases – no matter what they may say when being interviewed by the prosecution and the defence. One of the challenges of the barristers is overcoming those biases in favour of the Crown or the defendant. In the first trial it was the invincible bias of one juror which resulted in the mistrial.
Another challenge is the credibility of the witness or witnesses who come to testify, whether for the Crown or the defence. Can we believe what they say? Does what they say jive with our own common sense and experience? In the second trial it was the lack of credibility the jury placed in the primary witness of the prosecution that resulted in an acquittal of the accused.
In 597 BCE, the kingdom of Judah rebelled against the Babylonian Empire and was defeated. Many of Judah’s leaders were taken into exile. Ten years later a second revolt led to the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, the execution of many political and religious leaders and a further round of forced deportations of Judean leaders. It would be more than forty years later, when the Persians defeated the Babylonians and adopted a new policy to client states, that Judeans began to return to Judah and Jerusalem.
It was to these disheartened Judeans that the words of tonight’s reading from the prophet Isaiah were directed. They lived in a context where the biases of their neighbours and powerful empires were against them. They were struggling to re-build their culture, their language and their religious institutions in a region that no longer thought of Judah as a credible witness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I dare say that the returning exiles themselves no longer had confidence in their identity and may have desired a kind of political and social anonymity, a turning inward so that the attention of the powerful and disdainful would not glance their way.
But the prophet would not allow them to dwell in that state. To them he speaks words that are more than words of comfort. They are a call to action despite the real difficulties the people were facing: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen . . . Do not fear, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants and my blessing on your offspring . . . . Do not fear or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.” (Isaiah 44.1, 2b, 3, 8 NRSVue) The prophet is not naïve – these are difficult times, and the people may no longer have confidence in their ability to witness to God – but their vocation has not changed. They have returned from exile in order to take up the mantle of a servant people, a chosen people, witnesses to the fidelity of the living God.
What was true twenty-five hundred years ago remains true today. Bearing witness to the living God is not an easy vocation. The North American society in which we live is now, quite frankly, biased against us. In many cases, those biases are the result of our own failures to ‘walk the talk’ of the good news of God in Jesus Christ. As someone who has had many encounters with the media over forty years of ordained ministry, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to dissuade reporters from using ‘Christian’ as if it were an adequate description of the spectrum of Christian believers. When I tell them that Tommy Douglas, the patron saint of Canadian health care, was a Baptist minister who was motivated by his religious faith, a dull glaze of disbelief comes over the eyes of my conversation partner.
We are living in the midst of what Lillian Daniels, a contemporary theologian of mission, calls the ‘Nones’ [2]:
· those who no longer participate in religious life;
· those who will in no way be involved in religious life;
· those who never have connected with religious life, and
· those who have not yet connected.
How we speak to the ‘never have’ and the ‘not yet’ folks is crucial.
Over the last decade or so, as municipalities have struggled to increase revenue, we’ve faced the prospect of losing our discretionary exemption from property taxes. It was only when a coalition of religious groups, first in Richmond, then in Langley, presented the city councillors with the actual cost of the social services and public amenities provided by religious groups that minds were changed. It was the credibility of our witness through our actions that persuaded civic authorities of the value of religious communities.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not interested in an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ view of religious faith nor in portraying ourselves as victims. Splitting the world between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is a heresy popular in many religious traditions. Portraying ourselves as victims of an unfriendly media and consumer culture is what fuels some of the more troubling political movements in North America and beyond.
What I am saying is this: Saint Thomas and every other congregation of the Diocese of New Westminster – speaking as an Anglican only – have a renewed responsibility to bear effective witness to the good news of God in Christ to this neighbourhood. While thinking globally has its value, it is in acting locally that the good news becomes real among young and old, Christian and non-Christian, rich and poor, hopeful and doubting. It is tempting – God knows how often I and others I know have succumbed to this temptation – to devote ourselves to categorizing what we do not have or cannot be or envy in others.
What God needs of us in the present moment is a renewed commitment to bear credible witness to a sceptical world. That witness will take the shape of:
· Service that responds to and advocates for the real needs of real people in real neighbourhoods;
· Worship that gives ‘new skins’ for the ‘old wine’ of apostolic witness to the God who has created this good earth, the Christ who empowers us for reconciliation and the Spirit that inspires curiosity and openness;
· Evangelism that seeks out the ‘never haves’ and the ‘not yets’ with an invitation to be part of a community of help, hope and home;
· Education that encourages questions into the mystery of God rather than repetition of dubious certainties, and
· Pastoral Care that empowers good people to act when bad things happen in their lives and the lives of others.
This is the credible witness a sceptical jury needs to experience in word and deed.
Steve, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the ministry I’ve described is a tall order for any person to undertake. There will be expectations of you as the ordained leader of this community and you will not be able to fulfill them all. But the good news is that you are not alone in what we proclaim as our vocation. You and this Parish community have the gifts needed to serve this neighbourhood. You and this Parish have partners, whether Anglican or not, whether people of religious faith or not, who are as committed as you and this Parish are to working to shape a world where we and all God’s children can be free. May your witness, both personally and communally, be so compelling that it will be for ever remembered as a blessing. Amen.
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