The World Turned Upside Down: The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday -- 30 May 2023

Choral Eucharist for the Feast of Pentecost -- 28 May 2023

Be of Good Courage: Reflections on Pentecost

 

RCL Pentecost A

28 May 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         In the summer of 1995 I found myself being asked at the last minute to preach on Pentecost in a three-point parish in the Ottawa region.  I was part of a group being hosted by the rector of the parish who, three days before our visit, had been stricken with what her physician said was the worst case of laryngitis he had ever encountered.  Because of its severity she had been directed to remain pretty much silent for ten days.

 

         Even though I had preached on Pentecost on more than one occasion, I found myself a bit anxious.  Major feasts such as Pentecost require some preparation, perhaps re-visiting biblical commentaries on the readings.  But I was far from home and did not have access to resources that I would usually consult.

 

         In part my anxiety stemmed from the fact that I had grown up in the 1960’s and 1970’s when the Episcopal Church in the United States was embroiled in a controversy over the Holy Spirit, a controversy associated with the charismatic renewal.  The same controversy stirred up the waters of the Anglican Church of Canada.

 

         Without going into too much detail, the controversy centred on a simple question:  How do we know when the Holy Spirit is working in the church?  What are the signs of the Spirit’s presence?  There were those Anglicans, influenced by the Pentecostal movement that began in the early 1900’s, who believed that the Spirit was surely present when people spoke in tongues, when healing ministries were active, when people spoke prophetic messages.  Growing up in the Diocese of Colorado where the charismatic renewal had a significant presence meant navigating these controversies wherever one went.

 

         But as I prepared for that Pentecost in 1995, I realized what I believed was the most certain sign of the Spirit’s presence.  It was not tongues, miracles and prophecy, though these are signs.  It was not worship that engaged the heart more than the mind, though this is a false dichotomy.  The surest sign of the Spirit’s presence is when Christians face the challenges of the present with courage.

 

Jesus said to his disciples, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone.  Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.  I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace.  In the world you face persecution, but take courage:  I have conquered the world!” (John 16.32-33 NRSVue)

 

         Let’s look a bit closer at the story of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles.  When the leaders of the apostolic community are gathered, they are not ignorant of the mission and ministry of Jesus.  They have been with him for three years.  They have heard his teaching in many times and places.  They are witnesses to the resurrection.  They have spent forty days in his risen presence.  But they are still huddled for safety in that same upper room where he broke the bread and poured the wine.  

 

It’s not for want of knowledge that they hide.  It’s not for want of experience that they hide.  They are afraid and their fear renders them silent.  I’m sure that they had hoped that Jesus would stay and continue to be physically present among them.  But he had ascended and he had entrusted his mission and ministry to them.  He had promised that he would send them the Paraclete, the Advocate, to enable them to do what he had asked them, his friends, to do.

 

The Spirit descends upon them and the apostles can no longer remain silent.  Their fears are real.  There are those in the Jewish community who think that the apostolic community is delusional at best, heretical at worst.  The religious leadership has managed to smear Jesus as a political and religious revolutionary whose followers constituted a threat to the Roman imperial government.  But despite these ‘real and present dangers’, Peter and his colleagues step out and speak out.  And from that moment everything changes and a movement begins that has led to this day, to this congregation, to you and me as friends of Jesus.

 

Courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is the choice to face our fears, our doubts, our hesitations, because we have hope in God’s purpose for us and a vision for the future God has set before us.  Courage empowers both individuals and communities.  Courage enables us to do what needs to be done, even if we cannot yet see the outcome.

 

In every generation Christians have needed to call upon the Spirit to give us courage.  We have need of that gift now.  Last week Conwest, our development partner, informed us that it is withdrawing from the residential construction business.  They will finish two projects currently in construction but not continue their involvement with our project.  Although this decision is not an unusual one in the development world, it comes as a blow to us.  Conwest is committed to working with us to identify a construction partner who will take over the project.  The Property Development Committee is meeting this week and we will consider how best to proceed.  I recognize how Conwest’s decision generates anxiety and apprehension, but there are also reasons for hope.

 

·      Conwest and our consultant, Terra Housing, are identifying potential partners.

·      We are through the costly and difficult municipal approval process.  We have a project that will be shovel-ready once the necessary permits are issued.

·      We have a supportive Bishop and Diocesan Council who are committed to seeing this project reach fruition.

·      We have had setbacks before but have the perseverance and vision to continue.

 

So that we can take counsel together, I am calling a Parish Town Hall for Sunday, 11 June 2023, to discuss our property development, to answer questions and to do some work to assist our Search Committee.  Together, with the Spirit’s help, we will map a way forward.

 

         In 1930, at a time when the United States and the industrial world, was in the midst of the Great Depression, Henry Emerson Fosdick wrote a hymn that has resonated for more than ninety years.  Even though Fosdick was the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, a church built with a multi-million-dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller Jr., he was a champion of what’s known as the ‘social gospel’, a commitment to the needs of urban poor and racial justice.  He was widely praised and just as widely condemned.  But he knew what his congregation needed; he knew what we needed. [1]

 

God of grace and God of glory,

on your people pour your power;

now fulfil your church’s story;

bring its bud to glorious flower.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

for the facing of this hour,

for the facing of this hour. [2]

 

Fosdick lived to see the end of the Depression, achieved only after great sacrifices and a world war.  But the pulpit of Riverside Church continues to this day to be a place from which a message of justice and inclusion is preached.

 

         We have served New Westminster since 1859.  We’ve burnt down twice and built thrice.  We’ve endured the moving of the provincial capital to Victoria and the re-location of the Bishop’s chair to Christ Church.  We had to re-start our property redevelopment when our first development partner was not up to the task.  We had to re-tool our hoped-for affordable housing plans when BC Housing chose not to fund our project.  We rode the rough water of COVID and municipal legislative process and achieved what had eluded us for years.

 

We’re a bit floppy at the joints.  But we are still here.  We’re a touch worried and uncertain.  But we are still here.  We may be ‘ . . . wearied by the changes and chances of this life . . . ‘.  But we are still here.  On this Pentecost we pray for wisdom and for courage, confident in our faith that we will find a way to continue to gather, to be transformed and to be sent forth to proclaim the good news of God in Christ.  Because God knows – and we know – there is work to be done in this place and in these times.  God of grace and God of glory, grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour.

 

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[1] Drawn from https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-god-of-grace-and-god-of-glory.

 

[2] ‘God of Grace and God of Glory’, Common Praise 577.

  

Now What Do We Do? Reflections on the Ascension

RCL Easter 7A

21 May 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

 

            In the summer between Grade 9 and Grade 10, two of my teachers, Mr Knox and Mr Kordula, asked if I wanted to work in their 4^th of July fireworks business.  These were the days when teachers were only paid nine months of the year and many supplemented their income by side businesses.  I was thrilled for two reasons:  In my school being asked by Mr Knox and Mr Kordula to work for them was considered a really special deal and, perhaps more importantly, I love fireworks.  One of the perks of working for the two Mr K’s was being able to take home $15 of free fireworks a week – US $15 in 1968 dollars!

             After two weeks of ramping up inventory, preparing assortment bags and putting the firework stands together, we were ready for business.  There were some older boys who had worked in previous summers, so each one took one of the younger boys – sorry, only boys in those days – under their wings.  My ‘mentor’ took me to our assigned stand and business began.  After a couple of days I learned that I would left on my own.  My ‘mentor’ would be driving a circuit to other stands to make sure all was going well.  I would be responsible for an eight-hour shift.

            The day of my solo debut arrived – a hot Colorado summer day, $50 in my cash box and several thousand dollars’ worth of fireworks on the side of a busy street.  My ‘mentor’ drove away – I had no car and was too young to drive – and I was on my own.  Within two hours I learned that the procedures manual did not cover all the situations I faced:

·      What do I do and where do I go if I need to use the washroom?  Answer – Thanks be to God for the friendly and sympathetic manager of the gas station next to my stand!

·      What do I do if I run out of change or end up with too many ten’s and twenty’s?  Answer – Make friends with the manager of the convenience store on the other side of my stand!

·      What do I do if some kid who has been saving up his allowance for weeks to buy an assortment pack comes up 10¢ short?  Answer – Be generous the first time and less generous on repeat occasions.

By the end of the summer I had learned a great deal and earned my employers a good return on their investment.

            I’m pretty sure that all of us have had a similar experience.  We begin a new job and undertake a new responsibility only to discover that there are many things not covered by our training or by the procedures manual.  Waiting around for our supervisors to return or for a revised procedures manual is not an option.  We have to use our natural talents and skills and trust whatever learned experience we have to do the best we can.

            Forty-three days ago, in a place far from here and two millennia distant, a small group of Jewish women and men had an experience that would eventually transform them into a potent movement of renewal and reconciliation that continues to this day.  Their beloved rabbi had been raised from the dead and had spent forty days with them.  During those days he had shared his heart with them.  He had told them that they were to be witnesses to his mission and to continue his ministry.  He had assured them that they would have the resources they needed to do what God wanted them to do.

            I am sure that the disciples expected that Jesus would remain with them forever.  But three days ago he was taken up into heaven and they were left gaping up into the sky.  I have always loved the two angels who come along and tell the disciples to move on.  The angels know what we know now – we are not called to stand around hoping that our supervisors will show up or a new procedures manual will be put into our hands. But I can’t help but think that the disciples asked themselves a question that generations of Christians have asked time and time again as we ‘are wearied by the changes and chances of this life’ – What do we do now?

            What do we do now?  First and foremost, we gather.  In his lengthy poem, ‘The Church Porch’ the Anglican poet and priest George Herbert writes:

 

Though private prayer be a brave designe,
Yet publick hath more promises, more love:
And love’s a weight to hearts, to eies a signe.
We all are but cold suitours; let us move

Where it is warmest. Leave thy six and seven;

Pray with the most: for where most pray, is heaven.

 

In a society where individualism and privacy have been asked to bear weight that they were never intended to bear, the Christian community acts in a counter-cultural fashion by holding up the coming together of people as a fundamental quality of being human.  It is gathering together as God’s people, whether within the walls of this cathedral or within the virtual confines of Zoom or Facebook, that we strengthen one another, encourage one another, enlighten one another, sustain one another.

            What do we do now?  When we gather, we transform ourselves and others.  The breaking open of the Word of God, the lifting up our intercessions, thanksgivings and petitions and our sharing in the bread broken and the wine poured have the power to take people who are weary, uncertain and discouraged and reinvigorate them, enlighten them and rekindle the hope that fuels the human heart and the Christian movement.  As we have been saying during this Easter season and will say again in a few moments, “Dear friends in Christ, God bids you welcome to this table.  Here we are strengthened for the journey.  Here strangers become friends and the seeker finds God’s wisdom speaking to them.  See who you are and become what you see.”

            What do we do now?  We gather.  We transform.  And we send.  As Jesus ascends, he does so in the confidence that his friends already have within the knowledge, authority and power to continue the work begun by God in creation, furthered by the covenant with the people of Israel and renewed in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  No one can deny that our lives can be roller coasters of success and failure, hope and despair, clarity and doubt.  But what can be affirmed is that we are not alone and God’s commission is to a people, living in real places, in real times and in real circumstances.  At the end of the eucharist, the deacon takes on the role of the angels at the ascension and says, in so many words, ‘Don’t hang around here.  There is work to be done and we have the knowledge, skills, resources and power to do what needs to be done.  Move on!’

            Friends, there is work to be done.  We need to build up our resiliency as a community serving this downtown neighbourhood.  We need to build up our confidence in our future as witnesses to the risen life of Christ.  But most of all, we need to build up our hope and trust in one another, our joy in gathering, our joy in being transformed, our joy in being sent.  So let’s move on!