Is This Not the Feast I Choose: Reflections for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany

 

Christ by George Gavriel 

RCL Proper 5A [i]

8 February 2026

 

The Anglican Parish of Saint Helen’s

Vancouver BC

 

            In the spring semester of my first year of teaching at Vancouver School of Theology, I was contacted by a producer of a province-wide CBC Radio afternoon program.  It was the week before Ash Wednesday and they thought it would be good to have someone talk about Lent and the practice of fasting.  When the producer asked me what I was going to give up for Lent, I told her that Lent was more about looking carefully at the priorities in our lives and that we might actually decide to take something on rather than give something up.  “Interesting,” she said. 

            The day of my interview arrived and, as I waited to go on air, I heard the host say, “Next we’re going to hear from Professor Richard Leggett about what he’s going to give up for Lent.”  Within the opening minutes of the interview, I attempted several times to get away from the cliché of giving up broccoli or chocolate or whatnot and to focus on the importance of taking Lent as a time to re-order our priorities.  “Interesting,” the host kept saying, “interesting.”  And then, at the very end, he asked me again, “So what are you giving up for Lent?”  I was tempted to say, “I’m giving up interviews with CBC Radio hosts who do not listen to their guests.”

            Just as I was somewhat frustrated by the lack of attention I received from the CBC producer and host, so too are the people of Israel.  They have returned from exile in Babylon and presented with the opportunity to re-build the society that had been destroyed some eighty years earlier.  The prophet repeats their complaint to God:  “Why do we fast, but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” [ii]  

Haven’t you noticed, God?  We’ve rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and re-established the Temple, the heart of Jewish religious life.  Haven’t you noticed, God?  We’ve restarted the traditional religious practices:  sacrifices, the keeping of the Sabbath, the prayers and fasting.  All the foreign nations around us can see that we’re reclaiming our public life as a people.  But we’ve not seen the results that we were told would accompany our return to following the requirements of the Torah, results you promised us.  

To their complaint comes the bitter voice of the prophet bringing to the people God’s judgement:  “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers.  You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.  Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.” [iii]  There’s a simple word for what the prophet sees:  hypocrisy.  What the people are doing is classic:  They say one thing, either by word or ritual, but they make a mockery of the intent behind the words and the actions.  Alms-giving, prayer and fasting are outward and visible signs of piety, but they are to be accompanied by the application of that piety to every aspect of public life and to become the means by which God transforms our inner selves.

We give alms because there are people who need them, and then we work to transform the structures that perpetuate their poverty.  We pray by offering to God our intercessions for others, our thanksgivings for God’s generosity and our petitions for ourselves, and then we work for healing, for disciplined stewardship of God’s good earth and for stronger life-giving communities of help, hope and home.

 "Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?  Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?  Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?  Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, 'Here I am.'" [iv]

             Wherever we look in the world today, we see people mis-appropriating the symbols and practices of religious faith in order to champion their own self-interests and to dismantle societies that are striving for justice, for kindness and for humility.  We have the spectre of the leader of a nation standing before a gathering of clergy and politicians who has stated that he cannot understand how a Christian could be a member of the party that opposes this leader’s policies – even as he accumulates wealth and disrupts the administration of justice through violence and secretive means.  We have the spectre of members of our own religious community who believe that being a Christian is what defines true citizenship – and, let’s be very clear, their definition of ‘being a Christian’ does not include you and me.

             As we draw ever closer to the season of Lent, I remind you of something that we will be asked to do:  “ . . . to observe a holy Len by self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on the word of God.” [v]  In the spirit of today’s prophetic text, let us commit ourselves to the kind of fasting that reflects our baptismal identity as the salt for the earth and the light to the world.

·      Let us fast as an act of protest to the social evils that threaten the common good of all God’s beloved children and the creation itself.

·      Let us fast as a sign of our commitment to transform ourselves, our souls, minds and bodies to be more visibly the community of Christ’s disciples.

·      Let us fast as a reminder that God has always had a preferential option for the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the dispossessed and that God’s kingdom is coming, especially when ordinary people refuse to bend the knee or feast at the table of privilege. [vi]

         This is the fast that our God expects.  To each of us is left the choice to determine who we accomplish this.  If we can manage this, then we’ll find the way to a holy Lent that may last well beyond the Easter feast.  And our corner of the world will be filled with just a glimpse of the glory of God, the promised world that God is even now bringing into being.

---

[i] Isaiah 58.1-9a; Psalm 112.1-9; 1 Corinthians 2.1-12; Matthew 5.13-20.

[ii] Isaiah 58.3a (NRSVue).

[iii] Isaiah 58.3b-4 (NRSVue).

[iv] Isaiah 58.6-9a (NRSVue).

[v] The Book of Alternative Services (1985), 282. 

[vi] The three points above are adapted from Samuel Torvend, ‘Fasting in the midst of political turmoil,’ a discussion paper distributed to members of the Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission on 26 January 2026.

A View from the Vicar: The Feast of the Presentation

 

It is my privilege to offer you some thoughts on the Feast of the Presentation and its implication for those of us who are still waiting like Simeon and Anna for the fulfillment of God's promises.

Click HERE to watch my video.

Seeing with New Eyes: Reflections on the Conversation of Paul

Conversion of Paul [i]

25 January 2026

 

Parish of Saint Helen’s West Point Grey

Vancouver BC

Click HERE to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist.

 

            In November of 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in an election that was fought, in part, over the question of slavery.  Lincoln was seen as a moderate who thought that slavery would eventually cease to exist if its expansion into the new western territories of the United States were prohibited.  Within a month of his inauguration the American Civil War began when South Carolina militia fired upon Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbour.

            By 1862 the Civil War was not going well for the Federal forces, and many voices were raised in demands of an end to the war.  But Lincoln’s perspective on the question of slavery had changed.  He now favoured the emancipation of all enslaved people and in September of 1862 set forward a proposed proclamation.  In his address to the U.S. Congress in December of 1862, Lincoln wrote these words in defence of his plan:  “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”  On 1 January 1863 the emancipation proclamation was made.

            What Lincoln did was revolutionary.  It marked his own conversion to a more radical position than the one he had held when campaigning.  But it was also evolutionary.  With the emancipation proclamation Lincoln articulated the natural consequences of his belief that slavery was harmful both to the one who was enslaved and to the one who enslaves.  Lincoln’s experiences of two years of bloody war gave him a new perspective on both the causes and the remedies necessary to bring the conflict to an end.

            What Lincoln had experience was what the Scriptures call metanoia.  Metanoia means “a profound transformation in one’s outlook, often involving repentance, conversion or a radical reorientation of life, moving from a previous understanding or state to a new one, sometimes prompted by crisis or a significant (insight).” [ii]  On the one hand, metanoia can be revolutionary.  But it can also be evolutionary, building upon one’s experience prior to the moment of enlightenment.  I think of metanoia as part of the process of becoming more fully the person God created me to be.

            Remember last week’s question from Jesus – “Who do you say that I am?”  That is the question that Paul faced almost two thousand years ago.  My late colleague, Lloyd Gaston, Professor of New Testament at Vancouver School of Theology, immersed himself deeply in the study of Paul.  Because of that study, Lloyd was not a fan of the official name for today’s holy day, the Conversion of Paul.  Lloyd argued that Paul was not converted; he did not cease to be a Jew.  Paul experienced an epiphany which transformed how he answered Jesus’s question.  Jesus and those who proclaimed him Messiah were no longer heretics; they were faithful interpreters of the tradition of the Law and the Prophets so central to Paul’s heritage.

            Anglicans base our theology in the Scriptures as interpreted by reason and tradition.  We do this because we understand that what the Scriptures say is not necessarily what the Scriptures mean.  So, we interpret the Scriptures using the resources of human experience.  Sometimes we realize that we have tended to listen to the experience of only a select group of people and that we need to listen to more voices.  And at other times, we have maintained traditions without questioning their origins and whether there are cultural forces that have limited our understanding of why we have or have not done things in a certain way for generations.

            This dynamic and living way of engaging God’s Word as voiced in the words of the Scriptures has led us to make decisions that seem revolutionary to some, evolutionary to others.  But whether revolutionary or evolutionary, the result is a change in our perspective on what God is doing for us, in us and through us to bring about the promised reign of justice and peace.

            In my almost seventy-three years of life as an Anglican Christian, I have witnessed our tradition change its discipline on marriage to recognize that some marriages die and that those who have experienced such a death can find new life in a new relationship.  I have witnessed our tradition realize that the very first apostle was Mary Magdalene and that women played a significant part in the spread of the good news of God in Jesus Christ.  This realization has brought me to where I am, a priest married to a priest who was married once before.  Some probably think this a revolution and not necessarily a good one, but others see this as a natural evolution from our understanding of the gospel liberty brought to us through Jesus of Nazareth.

            This past week in Davos our Prime Minister voiced what many leaders and peoples throughout the world have quietly thought in their hearts.  The dogmas on which we built our quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The truth is that the storms have been on the horizons for some time, but now we dare to step into an unknown future by disenthralling ourselves from any illusions about the present.  I loved the Prime Minister’s phrase:  “The old order is not coming back.  We should not mourn it.  Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

            Friends, I know that this congregation has experienced some difficult times in the recent past.  We are right to acknowledge our grief and our uncertainty.  We are right to ponder what the future shape of our mission and ministries in this place will be.  But we are here because God has called us here.  We are here because God has a vision for who we can become and what we can achieve.  We are here because West Point Grey needs us to be here.

What is happening right now is an invitation to metanoia.  We could, as the Prime Minister said, make the mistake of turning to nostalgia as a strategy.  Or we can look at our life as a congregation, at God’s mission in this time and place, and our ministries that embody that mission with new eyes.  With this new perspective we’re likely to catch a glimpse of who we’re meant to be and to become, and I dare say we’ll like what we see.

 

---

[i] Acts 26.9-23; Psalm 67; Galatians 1.11-24; Matthew 10.16-22.

 

[ii] This wording was generated by Google’s AI engine in response regarding the meaning of ‘metanoia’ on 19 January 2026.

A View from the Vicar: Reflections on the Conversion of Paul

 

I invite you to listen to my reflections on the Conversion of Paul

by clicking HERE to watch my video.

Thank you and blessings,

Richard +

Who Do You Say That I Am? Reflections on the Confession of Peter

Confession of Peter [i]

18 January 2026

 

Parish of Saint Helen’s West Point Grey

Vancouver BC

Click HERE to listen to the Sermon.

 

            As a preschooler our daughter Anna attended Berwick Preschool on the campus of the University of British Columbia.  I remember some sort of parent gathering and the staff had prepared lovely name tags for all the parents – but not the kind of name tag you might expect.  On each name tag the staff had written the child’s name and the adult’s relationship to that child.  Mine read ‘Anna’s Dad’.  Some parents were a bit bemused, but I loved it and for many years it adorned my office door at Vancouver School of Theology.  I have a suspicion that it’s still tucked away in one of my archive boxes.

            “Who do you say that I am?”  Well, I’m Anna’s dad as well as David and Owen’s dad.  I’m Paula’s husband and Tegan and Brayden’s uncle.  Our Anglican ordination rite will tell you that I am a pastor, priest and teacher.  I could go on and on, as could each one of us.  The answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”, depends a great deal upon the relationship between the person asking the question and the person answering it.

            Peter and his companions within the inner circle of Jesus have been travelling around with Jesus for some time.  They’ve seen him teach; they’ve seen him heal.  They’ve seen him engage in conversations and relations with people outside the boundaries of socially acceptable Jewish behaviour of the times.  So, when Jesus asks them this fateful question, “Who do you say that I am?”, it’s no wonder that there are different answers – “John the Baptist back from the dead!”  “Moses the lawgiver!”  “One of the prophets!”  “The Messiah, the son of the living God!”

            In all these answers the evangelist Matthew is giving us a glimpse into the religious debates that surrounded Jesus’ mission, ministry and identity.  These debates fuelled controversies within the earliest Christian communities as well as their opponents and curious outsiders.  To this very day there are still controversies about who Jesus is.

            But all these controversies and debates, whether in the past, the present and the future, must wrestle with something I shared with in my sermon last week.  As my late professor of Christian theology said on the very first day of my very first class in seminary, “When you meet Jesus of Nazareth, you meet God.”  I dare say that everything that flows from this statement which I believe to be true and central to our identity depends upon how we understand our relationship with this Jewish rabbi from first-century Palestine who was simultaneously radical and traditional.

            From the very beginning there have been Christian teachers who have emphasized the divinity of Christ.  Even though Christ comes among us in human form, it is his difference from us that enables him to reconcile us to the living God.  In the Gospel according to John, for example, Jesus is the incarnation of the Word, a Greek philosophical term that describes the fundamental pattern of the universe.  Jesus knows what his opponents are thinking and carries on his mission with a degree of assuredness.  This so-called ‘high’ understanding of Jesus finds its expression in the Nicene Creed with its lengthy philosophical treatment of Jesus in its second paragraph.

            But also from the very beginning, there have been Christian teachers who have emphasized the humanity of Jesus.  He suffers; he hungers; he sits down with people to eat with them and to talk with them.  In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus can even express his doubts and fears at the path that lies before him.  This so-called ‘low’ understanding of Jesus influences, in my opinion, the Apostles’ Creed which tells the story of Jesus in its second paragraph.

            But the path of Christian discipleship is more than the recitation the Creeds or any other theological explanation of the mission, ministry and identity of Jesus of Nazareth.  Christian discipleship is a life-long journey punctuated by moments where the question, “Who do you say that I am?” is turned around and compels each one of us to ask, “Who do I say you are?”

            If I say that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, what does the ‘lordship’ of Jesus mean in my life?  Sometimes when I hear the phrase, ‘Jesus is Lord’, I hear the strains of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s Messiah – majestic sounds that herald a cosmic monarch descending from the heavens to establish a divine and powerful kingdom.  I admit that there are times when I would like that very much, but then I see how that image has been usurped by Christian nationalists.  It’s in those moments that I remember Jesus our Lord washed the feet of his disciples and, on more than one occasion, spoke of servanthood as the truest expression of discipleship.

            If I say that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, what then does Jesus save me from?  Or, as one of my teachers was fond of saying, what does Jesus save us for?  Jesus saves us from the sin of the world in order that we can become more fully Christ-like.  What is the sin of the world?  It’s our desire to be God and sovereign rather than to be who we are, creatures who participate in a web of inter-connected relationships with the human and non-human dimensions of creation.  What does it mean to more fully Christ-like?  It is to choose to participate in God’s on-going work of reconciliation and renewal, to serve God’s mission rather than our self-interests, to restore right relationships rather than create new rifts in the fabric of human communities.

            On Wednesday evening we welcomed somewhere between 75 to 100 of our neighbours who came to hear what may or may not be the future of West Point Grey, Kitsilano and Dunbar.  Some were members of our congregation; many were not.  But we welcome them because we believe that Jesus is present whenever two or three are gathered in his name.  And on this occasion his name is ‘lover of neighbours’. 

            Every day of the week there are childcare programs that meet in this building.  True, they pay rent.  We also have scouting groups that meet here.  Some were members of our congregation; many were not.  But we welcome them because we believe that Jesus is present whenever two or three are gathered in his name.  And in those places his name is ‘embracer of the little ones’.

            Every week there are people who gather for healing.  Some were members of our congregation; many were not.  But we welcome them because we believe that Jesus is present whenever two or three are gathered in his name.  And in those places his name is ‘healer of our souls and bodies”.

            Now when Jesus comes into the neighbourhood of West Point Grey, he asks us, “Who do you say that I am?”  Some say, ‘welcomer of neighbours’.  Some say, ‘embracer of the little ones’.  And others say, ‘healer of our souls and bodies’.  And then he asks us again, ‘But who else do you say I am?’

            

---

[i] Acts 4.8-13; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 5.1-4; Matthew 16.13-19.

 

A View from the Vicar: Thoughts on Matthew 16.13-19

After a couple years of silence, I've decided to return to preparing a weekly video series newly entitled, "A View from the Vicar".

Here is my first instalment:  Reflections on Matthew 16.13-19.

I hope that you enjoy these reflections.

Richard +

Being a Covenant to the Peoples: Reflections on the Baptism of Christ

Being a Covenant to the Peoples

Reflections on the Baptism of Christ

 

RCL Baptism of Christ A[i]

11 January 2026

 

Saint Helen’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click HERE to watch the video recording of the Sermon.

 

Focus Text

 

I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, so that I, the  Lord, may open the eyes that are blind, so that I, the  Lord, may bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.[ii]

 

            Some years ago I was one of three theme speakers for the annual gathering of the BC and Yukon Anglican Youth Movement along with the late Bishop Jim Cruickshank and the Very Rev’d Beth Bretzlaff, now Dean of Ottawa, but then a young priest in the Diocese of Kootenay.  I had chosen the baptismal covenant from The Book of Alternative Services as the structure for my interactive session with the young people from across BC and Yukon.

            As I’ve done many times with the covenant, I recited a section and then asked the young people what they thought that it meant for them in their lives, for example, “What does it mean to call God ‘Father’?” or “What does it mean to call Jesus ‘Lord’?”  Things were going well, I thought, until I reach the commitment we make to resist evil and repent and return to the Lord.  I asked the young people, “Where do you experience evil in your lives?”

            At this point one of the adult group leaders said, “Father Leggett, I think that this is a bit too heavy for young people.”  Before I could respond, more than one young person said, “No, we want to talk about this.  There are bad things in our lives, and we want to know how we resist that evil.”  I am happy to say that the young people won the debate, and we continued with a really good discussion about the evil that young people experience in their lives.

            Last week in my sermon for Epiphany, I spoke to you about the difference between the question, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ and ‘What do good people do when bad things happen?’  It’s appropriate on a day when the Christian community throughout the world remembers the baptism of Christ and its meaning for all those who have gone through the waters of baptism and now bear the name of Christ and have chosen to be one of his disciples.

            We heard in our first reading these words:  “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, so that I, the  Lord, may openthe eyes that are blind, so that I, the  Lord, may bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.“[iii]  These words were spoken to a people who were still in exile but hoping to return to their homeland, a people who were wondering why the ‘bad thing’ of the exile had happened to them.  To them the prophet responded by turning the question around and directing them to be a ‘good people’, a covenant people, in whose life God would do ‘infinitely more than (they) could ask or imagine’.

            In many and various ways, we are a people living in a time of exile, what some might even want to call ‘bad’ times.  When we look around the world, we are besieged by images of war, civil unrest, natural disasters and human needs that tax our compassion.  As a nation, we are aware that our old assumptions about our relationships with other nations, especially with our neighbours to the south, no longer serve us well.  We know that many of our neighbours here in the Lower Mainland face what is now termed the ‘affordability crisis’.  And, adding to our burden, are the upheavals in the life of this congregation over the past decade and over the past two weeks.

            But we are a ‘covenant to the nations’; we are a community whom God has called to be witnesses to the blind gaining their sight and to those who are held in any kind of bondage are being set free.  Let me share with six things that good people do when bad things have happened and are happening.

            When bad things happen, good people gather for strength, comfort and renewal.  It is tempting to shut the door, climb into bed and pull the comforter over our heads.  We might even remove all social media from our digital devices and cancel our subscriptions to news services.  But that won’t serve us well.  We continue to gather here, Sunday after Sunday, to hear the Word of God proclaimed, to offer our prayers for the world and ourselves, to be strengthened by the bread broken and the wine poured, and to go forth to do what needs to be done.

            When bad things happen, good people resist the evils that distort and deny the purposes of God.  We need to be willing to speak openly about all that works against the good news of God in Christ, to acknowledge our own failures and shortcomings, and to re-commit ourselves to lives of reconciliation.  We do not forget the past, but rather than be held hostage to that past, we choose to re-vision the future.

            When bad things happen, good people tell the story of how, even in such times, God is at work among us.  Friends, the good news of God in Jesus Christ is simply the story of human lives that have been transformed by our encounter with God’s love incarnate.  The good news speaks whenever you and I share what God has done and is doing to help grow into greater likeness with Christ.

            When bad things happen, good people serve their communities, loving their neighbours as themselves.  It’s tempting to put a hold on everything until we get our own house in order, but I don’t think that actually works.  Do we need to get our house in order?  Certainly.  But in the meantime, as we doing what we need to do within our walls, we still have obligations to take care of our neighbours and our neighbourhoods.

            When bad things happen, good people strive for justice and peace, so that the dignity of every person is respected and treasured.  It is easy in bad times to create categories of ‘us versus them’ or ‘insiders and outsiders’ or ‘friends and foes’.  But that is not God’s way; we choose a different path.  Every human being has been made in the image of God, that is, the power to be life-giving rather than life-denying.  Our vocation as a community is to empower each other to become more life-giving in all of our relationships.

            When bad things happen, good people care for ‘this fragile earth, our island home’.  I remember hearing someone being interviewed and asked, ‘What if you knew you were going to die in an hour, what would you do?’  ‘Plant a tree,’ was the answer.  Whether actual or metaphorical, let’s plant trees that will grow to give shade and life.  This and so much more is what good people do when bad things happen.

 

Let us pray.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favourably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery.  By the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation.  Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raise up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            

 

---

[i] Isaiah 42.1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 3.13-17.

 

[ii] Isaiah 42.6-7 with emendations suggested in The HarperCollins Study Bible (1993) and The New Interpreter’s Study Bible (2003).