Pondering the Profundities: Reflections on Romans 8.26-39

RCL Proper 17A

30 July 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            Preparing a sermon feels sometimes like a dream.  In dreams we experience the coming together of what seem to be unconnected images and feelings.  We have a sense that there is meaning in this coming together, but we’re not always sure.  We have to ponder the profundities, to gaze into the depths of these images and feelings in the hopes of discovering what our dreams may be telling us.

 

            For a preacher the unconnected images and feelings may come not just from dreams but from various experiences in our daily lives.  For whatever reason things that are not obviously connected find their connection as we look closely at the scriptural text that has drawn our attention.  Let me give you two examples.

 

·      I was on Facebook looking at some videos when I was directed to an interview with Stephen Fry, the British actor, writer and commentator.  He’s well known for his strong views about religion.  The interviewer asked him what he would do if, after death, he came face to face with God.  Fry responded, ‘I would ask him, what’s all this about childhood cancers?  What kind of world is this?’  As the parent of a child born with a cleft lip and palate, I can relate to the question.

·      I was putting out the trash and re-cycling on late Wednesday afternoon.  When I looked down, there was a colony of tiny ants clearing moving from one place to another.  There was a long line of ants linking the two places, less than a metre apart.  I could see the beginning and the end of their journey.  I could watch individuals and the group.  I watched a wasp hover over the swarm perhaps hunting for food.  I could intervene to block their journey or to re-direct it.  I could chase the wasp away.  But I just watched.

 

I hope you’ll bear with me before I connect what seem to be unconnected things.

 

            Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome is one of the most important explorations of the meaning of the good news of God in Jesus Christ ever written.  It was the letter to the Romans that inspired Martin Luther’s challenge to the prevailing teachings of Rome in the sixteenth century.  It was hearing a reading from the letter to the Romans that caused a disheartened Anglican priest by the name of John Wesley to begin a renewal movement within the Church of England that eventually gave rise to the Methodist movement when the leadership of the Church of England made clear their displeasure with its enthusiastic worship and commitment to the education of the working classes.

 

            In the section whose conclusion we heard this morning, Paul reminds the Romans that “ . . . the consequence of (their faith in Christ) is life of peace and confidence”. [1] He assures them that “(although) sin does not cease to exist and even to dishearten those redeemed by Christ, its authority is broken, and believers are exhorted . . . to allow the fruit of righteousness to manifest itself in earthly life through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit”. [2]

 

            How does he reassure the Romans?  First, he reminds them of God’s sovereignty.  Just as I watched the ants on my driveway, God, who is beyond time and space, watches the evolution of the universe with the potential to intervene, influence or interdict.  We have probably all heard the familiar verse:  “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”  (Romans 8.28)  Some Christians have interpreted this verse and those that follow to mean that God has predetermined all that happens to us.  They will go so far as to say that some people are predestined for salvation while others will not be so fortunate.

 

            But I believe this interpretation betrays the fundamental conviction of Paul and of the Gospel itself.  God has made us in God’s image.  That image is love, the choice we make each and every day, in each and every occasion of our day, to seek the good of the other, whether human or non-human, even if it means at our cost.  This is the love made known to us in creation, the love made known to us in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the love made known to us in God’s Spirit who works in us, through us and for us.  Love is possible even when the world we live in is not perfect, when sin seems to have gained the upper hand, when we do not understand why bad things happen to good people.

 

            Even though we are made in God’s image, growing into God’s likeness, living as images of Christ in the day-to-day of this universe that is still evolving into its final form over the millennia of celestial time, this requires that we are free to choose.  Loving is always a choice we make and loving as God loves is not something we can be forced to do.  

 

We love our friends, but friendships do not always last.  We love our families, but we all know that families are complex and our bonds can wax and wane.  We love our romantic partners, but passion can overwhelm our better nature and sometimes burns away.

 

But loving as God loves, what in the New Testament is called agape, is the constant and unfailing commitment to live in such a way as to build up one another so that we can all attain the full stature of Christ, to become fully the persons God has created us to become.  Loving like God means taking the risk that, by respecting the freedom of others, things may not turn out as we wish them to be.

 

We live in a world where the bad choices of others create ripples and waves and occasional tsunamis that can rock and even swamp our life boats.  In such a world we continue to be troubled by the reality of sin and the unfairness  we witness every day.  But, as we grow into loving as God loves, we realize that the real question is not ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ but ‘What do good people do when bad things happen?’  We are not pawns moved on a celestial chessboard by an uncaring hand.  We are co-workers with God in the work of repairing and renewing God’s creation.  We are not powerless.

 

Yet we take courage.  We have been created to love.  We have been given the gift of free will so that we may choose to love.  We know that some of the imperfections and evils we endure are the product of the bad choices we and others have made.  Stephen Fry’s anger at the suffering of the innocent and the evil at work in our world is both understandable and justifiable.  Paul wanted to know why God created a world in which such things happen and permits such things to continue.  We want to know as well.  Like many saints over the ages, we may wish to raise our fist to heaven and say, ‘If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so many enemies!’  

 

Yet we endure the imperfections and evils that cannot be explained because we dare to hope that there is a Lover who can see both the beginning and ending of our journeys and who, through Christ and in the Spirit, shows us the path of life abundant, even in a world such as ours.  From such a Lover nothing can ever separate us, leaving us free to demand answers, leaving us free to love even when the answers are just beyond our grasp.

 

 

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[1] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible (2003), 2008.

 

[2] NISB (2003), 2008.

 

A Work in Progress: Reflections on Genesis 28.10-19a & Romans 8.12-25

 

RCL Proper 16A

23 July 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral 

New Westminster BC

 

            In December of 1963 my family moved into the first and only home my parents ever owned.  The house was built in 1959 to accommodate the northward expansion of Colorado Springs, the town where I spend most of my life between 1954 and 1976.

 

            Although our house was relatively new in 1963, my father spent most of the next fifty years doing either renovating the house or repairing it.  During those fifty years he redesigned thee main floor, added an extension to the rear of the house, redesigned the basement and put in what I later learned was an unauthorized second bathroom.  The front and back yards were extensively landscaped, largely with volunteer labour from my friends and not-so-voluntary labour on my part.  These and other smaller projects formed the renovation dimension of my father’s ‘do it yourself’ spirit.

 

            Then there were the inevitable repairs to roofs, fences and sidewalks.  There was the major water-main repair – on our side of the property line not the City’s.  There was the major kitchen repair after I blew up the kitchen sink during an unauthorized experiment with an explosive device my Uncle Roy had sent when I was about twelve or thirteen.

 

            My father loved his house, his home, and despite some grumbling about the cost of repairs, loved planning renovations and then participating in the work as much as possible.  He accepted repairs as the price of home ownership and enjoyed the renovations as part of making better what was already good.  He knew, as I’m sure all homeowners know, that one’s home is always a work in progress.  Sometimes we renew our homes; sometimes we mend them.

 

            Behind the story of Jacob’s vision at Bethel is a story of a man who is not heroic.  Jacob has cheated his brother twice.  He has deceived his father.  Now he’s on the run from his truly wronged older brother.  But, despite all this, he is the bearer of God’s promise to Abraham and to Isaac, a promise Jacob has obtained by less than honourable means to be sure, but the bearer of the promise nevertheless.  Jacob is very must a work in progress with need both of repair and renovation.

 

            Behind the story of the man writing to the Christians in Rome is a man with a controversial history.  Saul of Tarsus, now known as Paul, was once an active persecutor of Jesus’ disciples, even tending the flung-off outer garments of those who stoned Stephen, the first martyr for Jesus, to death outside the walls of Jerusalem.  Paul defied cultural barriers and evangelized non-Jews and used the homes of prominent non-Jewish women as bases of operation in various places in the eastern Mediterranean region of the Roman Empire.

 

            Nevertheless, Paul is, as one author says, an apostle of ‘the heart set free’ (F. F. Bruce).  Along with Peter, another flawed and controversial figure in the early Christian movement, Paul is one of a community of faith that will, for better and for worse, transform history to this very day.  But Paul, just like Jacob, is a work in progress with need of both repair and renovation.

 

            In Jacob and Paul we meet ourselves.  All of us are works in progress living in a world which is itself a work in progress.  Yet despite being works in progress in need of repair and renovation, God invites in Christ and empowers through the Spirit to participate in the work of repairing and renovating this home we call ‘earth’.

 

            We cannot ignore nor deny the reality of suffering and imperfection in this world of ours.  We cannot deny that bad things happen to good people.  Over the millennia since our species gained sentience and self-awareness we have chosen various ways of understanding and living in such a world.  Building upon the heritage of our Jewish forerunners, Christians have accepted that, in a world which is ‘already but not yet’ what God intends it to be, that repair and renovation are necessary.

 

            In Christ we have chosen to repair our relationship with God, with each other and with the created order itself.  Guided by the Spirit we have crafted codes of behaviour that Jesus summarized as being grounded in love of God and love of neighbour.  We have delved into the mystery of divine love and found it embodied in the life and teaching of Jesus.  In our times we are working to reconcile, to repair, our broken relationships with Aboriginal peoples throughout the world, with people of other faiths and none, and with our environment.

 

            But it not enough to repair the damage.  We also have to renovate, to renew, how our communities live in a world that is still becoming what God dreams it to be.  Renovation often trips us up as familiar structures are replaced by new one or spaces are re-arranged.

 

            When I was baptized seventy years ago in July 1953 in Saint Mary’s Church in Molesey, England, the Anglican Communion looked and conducted itself very differently than it does today.  I will not list all the renovation work accomplished over these past seven decades, but I will say that I believe we have done good work in renewing the home we call the Anglican Church of Canada.  We still have our differences just as Esau and Jacob and Peter and Paul.  We are not without our flaws, our weaknesses, our moments of selfishness and short-sightedness.  But God continues to give us visions of a heaven and an earth linked in a timeless dance with divine messengers ascending and descending to guide us and to carry our intercessions, thanksgivings and petitions into the presence of God.

 

            Paul writes that “(we) know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labour, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  For in hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8.22-25 NRSVue).

 

            Those who hope do not escape the suffering the present time.  But the one who hopes may be the only one with the courage to endure the suffering the present.  Patience is not acceptance of what is but lives in expectation of the future promised by God.  Those who hope are inspired to work to repair and to renovate the present to build a foundation for the future.  [Paraphrased from Feasting on the Word for Proper 16A]

 

            Just as surely as God knew the flaws of Jacob and Paul, God knew their strengths.  Just as surely as God knows our fears and doubts, God knows our courage and our hopes.  For this place is surely holy ground, a place where God, working in us, through us and around us, is revealing the glory of a world set free to be fully alive.

Midweek Eucharist for Wednesday, 19 July 2023

Henri Nouwen once complained about being unable to undertake his ministry because of so many interruptions. A wise colleague suggested that Henri consider whether his 'interruptions' were in fact his ministry. Moses was interrupted in tending the flocks of his father-in-law by the vision of the burning bush. He chose to attend to the interruption and thus embarked on his mission to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt into their future. Interruptions to our expected routine may be messages from God, invitations to consider new directions for our lives and ministries. They merit attention not dismissal.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 18 July 2023

The story of Jacob's vision of the angels of God ascending and descending on a heavenly staircase is a familiar one. What is less familiar is that this vision comes to a man with a dodgy character fleeing from the righteous anger of his older brother whom he has cheated on multiple occasions. Despite this, God intends for Jacob, as imperfect as Jacob is, to be the progenitor of the next generation of God's people. Our world is imperfect, incomplete. But God is at work, using flawed collaborators, to accomplish God's purposes. It is a mystery, but one that, in a strange way, gives hope, hope in a world becoming what God intends.

A View from the Vicar for 11 July 2023

Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the Benedictine tradition of Christian monasticism, continues to influence Christians whatever their own expression of Christian discipleship may be. Benedict teaches us to listen to and for God, to balance work and prayer and to seek to see Christ in all whom we meet.

The Easy Yoke and Light Burden of Joy

RCL Proper 14A

9 July 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         This morning I want to share with you a reflection on today’s reading from the Gospel according to Matthew.  I call it ‘a reflection’ because I am still working out what today’s reading is saying to us, both as a community and as individual disciples.

 

         In April of 2010 I returned to my office at Vancouver School of Theology after a long and intense Faculty Council meeting.  As I sat at my desk, looking at the essays to be read and evaluated, the reports to review and all the other tasks associated with being what we call ‘a teaching administrator’, I said out loud, ‘This isn’t fun anymore.’  In the silence of my office I heard no response.

         

         As I drove home, I pondered what to do when something to which I had devoted twenty-three years of my life, whatever talents I had for teaching and a significant amount of money in terms of training and continuing education ceased to be ‘fun’.  When I arrived home, I found Paula and all the children in the living room.  Without any preamble I said, ‘I’ve decided to leave VST.’  ‘Well,’ said one of our children, ‘you haven’t been happy for the last three or four years.  So it's good that you’ve come to realize it.’

 

         So here I am, some thirteen years and two parishes later, doing what the late Jim Cruickshank of blessed memory once said to me.  ‘Richard,’ Jim observed, ‘you are a parish priest who happens to teach in a theological college.’  Jim, as usual, was quite right.  Despite all the ups and downs of parish ministry, especially here where we have been wrestling with how to re-develop our Hall and Cathedral to take better care of our neighbourhood, a neighbourhood that has changed many times over the last one hundred and sixty-four years, I can honestly tell you that in parish ministry I’ve found joy.  I’ve found my fundamental vocation.

 

         One of my favourite authors is Frederick Buechner, the American novelist, essayist and theologian.  In his book, Wishful Thinking, published in 1973, he wrote this about vocation.

         

It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God.

 

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

 

By and large a good rule for finding out is this.  The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.  If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b).  On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

 

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do.  The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

 

         Buechner opens up to us one of the more familiar yet still enigmatic sayings of Jesus:   “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11.28-30 NSRVue)  How can exchanging one burden for another give one rest?  What is, after all, the yoke and burden that Jesus is carrying?  But what Buechner tells us is that the yoke and the burden that Jesus is bearing is “ . . . the place where (his) deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”.

 

         This place, this vocation, is not without its moments of uncertainty and disappointment, but those moments are bearable because of the deep joy that comes from knowing that we are doing what we are truly called to do and that we are being who we truly are as disciples of Jesus.  There is a sense in which pursuing our vocation enables in troubled times to live in the spirit that Paul encourages the Christians in Thessalonika when he reminds them that we grieve not as others do but as people who have hope (1 Thessalonians 14.13).  Hope and its ever close-bound friend, joy, fuel our vocation and are almost inexhaustible.

 

         Our life-long task is two-fold.  We have to discover where we find our deep gladness.  We then have to bring that deep gladness to where the world, as we see it, as we understand it, deeply hungers.  The greatest service we may render to one another is helping us discover where we find joy and then directing us towards that place where it is most needed.  It may take us our entire lives to discover that joy and that place of need.  While some may find that discouraging, I think that it means that our lives are filled with the possibility of surprise, especially if we are able to nurture that quality of wonder that children bring to every moment of their early years.

 

         It would be wonderful to have a precise guidebook to lead us to where our joy lies and where that joy needs to venture.  We see glimpses of this in the Scriptures.  Even in long readings from Genesis about the search for a wife for Isaac, readings that we may wonder why they matter, we may catch a glimpse of a family seeking to discover God’s purpose for them in world vaster than their small corner of it.  Even when we hear Paul’s struggles with what he feels called to do and with the reality of his shortcomings, we may catch a glimpse of a man who, despite those shortcomings, lives in the hope that God is working in him, through him and around him.

 

         Where do you find joy?  This is the venture upon which Jesus in today’s gospel reading invites us to embark, shedding the ‘heavy burden’ of joylessness and taking upon ourselves the easy yoke and light burden of discovering where our deep gladness is found.  Where does our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet?  Buechner suggests that we look at our feet:  “ . . . when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet.  Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.” [1]  I think that our feet often take us to where the world’s hunger is found.  And when we arrive there, we may be grace-filled enough to have brought our joy with us.

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[1] https://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2019/4/1/where-your-feet-take-you.

 

Midweek Eucharist for the Week of Pentecost 5 -- 5 July 2023

Matthew's telling of the story of the demoniacs and the herd of swine reminds us that God is not tame. The demons, fearing the nothingness of having no one to possess, plead to be sent into the swine. The local population, fearing the power of God that they've just seen unleashed, beg Jesus to go somewhere else. Each of us in our own way know that God is not tame, that God will accomplish what God wishes and that we must be prepared for God's surprises. God is not malicious, but God is sovereign. God's purposes for us are motivated by love, a fierce love that purges like flame.

A View from the Vicar -- 4 July 2023

One of the risks of aging is losing our ability to be surprised by life and by the wonder of God at work in the world. In Matthew 11.25-30 Jesus encourages his disciples to retain the childlike quality of wonder in creation.