A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 29 August 2023

Exodus 3.1-15 is perhaps one of the more important texts in all of Scripture. In it we learn (1) that God frequently comes to us in more mundane moments, (2) that our relationship with God is personal and cannot rely merely on tradition, (3) that God is not indifferent to our world and (4) that God relies on human agents to achieve the divine purposes.

Choral Eucharist for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost -- 27 August 2023

In Romans 12.1-8 Paul exhorts Christians to do well at what they do best -- using the gifts of the Spirit to collaborate with God in the on-going work of reconciliation, renewal and recreation of the whole of creation.

Doing Well at What We Do Best: Reflections on Romans 12.1-8

 

RCL Proper 21A

27 August 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            Shortly after Paula became Rector of Saint Faith’s in Vancouver in 1998, our older son, David, then an early teen, expressed an interest in becoming a reader.  So he was trained and began his public duties.

 

            On one of his first Sundays David rose and went to the lectern to read today’s passage from Romans 12.  As is the case with many Anglican parishes in the Diocese, Saint Faith’s uses the New Revised Standard Version of the Scriptures in worship.  In his best and most formal voice, David began to read and then came to the list of gifts of the Spirit that Paul describes.  When he came to verse 8, David misread ‘exhorter’ and declared to the gathered congregation that ‘the extorter’ should excel ‘in extortion’.  

 

            No one flinched or twitched a muscle.  No one was going to do anything to discourage this young person who had chosen to exercise this very public liturgical ministry.  Perhaps David wasn’t the only reader to trip over this word because in the recent updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version, ‘exhorter’ and ‘exhortation’ have been replaced with ‘encourager’ and ‘encouragement’.

 

            During coffee hour no one made mention of David’s slip of the tongue.  In speaking to one of the older members of the congregation, I expressed my gratitude at everyone’s restraint and that no one had laughed.  “Well,” she said, “Paul was, after all, telling us to do well at what we do best!”

 

            Doing well at what we do best is what I think Paul is saying in this portion of his Letter to the Christians in Rome.  He begins this exhortation with words I remember from my younger days that introduced the offertory in the American eucharistic liturgy:  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship." [1]

 

            Is it not reasonable that the God who is the Giver of all good gifts, who is the Source of all that is, seen and unseen, known and unknown, should ask us, the beneficiaries of this abundance, to strive to do well what we do best?  Is it not reasonable that we who proclaim that in Jesus we have found the Messiah, the gateway to life in this abundance of God’s generosity, should use our diverse gifts of time, of talent, of treasure to give witness to our vision of world where ‘we and all God’s children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise (God’s) name,” [2] a world that is life-giving rather than death-dealing?

 

            Paul is quite clear in Romans and elsewhere in his writings that we can best achieve this when we acknowledge that Christian discipleship is corporate not individualistic, a way of living that requires each member of the Body to strive to do well what they do best, to respect the gifts of others and to nurture others as they explore their roles in the drama of salvation, God’s on-going act of reconciliation, renewal and re-creation.  Friends, we here at Holy Trinity Cathedral and all our friends in Christian communities throughout the world will only thrive and grow and serve by acknowledging our own gifts, respecting the gifts of others and nurturing those who are growing in their discipleship.  So here is some homework for all of us to do in the week to come, in the months ahead, in the years before us.

 

What do I do well?  I remember my Grade 8 and 9 algebra teacher, Mrs Lucardi.  She reminded us from time to time that we weren’t boasting if what we said we could do was true.  What am I doing when I feel most myself, most capable, most engaged?  Those are indications of what I do well.

 

What do I not do well?  It is very hard to acknowledge that I am out of my depth.  From time to time I remember what my mentor, the late Louis Weil, said in his sermon at my ordination to the presbyterate:  ‘Remember, Richard, that you have many gifts – but not all of them!’  Asking for help, seeking advice, acknowledging a ‘growing edge’ as we used to call it at Vancouver School of Theology are not signs of weakness but of wisdom, of humility, of grace-filled self-awareness.

 

How can I use my gifts to build up others?  There is hardly a week that goes by when I do not remember how my life and work today have come through the generosity of others in giving me their time, their talents and their treasure.  Gratitude is an attitude that leads to generosity in our own giving of our resources, tangible and intangible, to building up others.  Then ask where my greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need in this place and in this time.

 

So, my friends, spend some time this week asking these three questions of yourselves.  How we answer these questions matters in the shaping of the present and future ministry of our congregation.  As Paul says,

 

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. [3]

 

And then, with God’s grace, we will do well what we do best – to God’s glory and to the building up of the Church and all God’s people.

---

[1] Romans 12.1 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).  The NRSV reads ‘spiritual worship’ for ‘reasonable act of worship’. 

[2] The Book of Alternative Services (1985), 215.

[3] Romans 12.2-5 (NRSVue).

 

Celebration of the Feast of Bartholomew (anticipated) -- 23 August 2023

Who is Bartholomew? Is he the same person as Nathaniel in the Gospel according to John? What happened to him after the resurrection? These are questions that we may ask, but they remind us that the Christian movement has been fuelled and shaped by the witness of generation of 'anonymous' Christians whose names and stories are unknown to us. We know that their witness was effective because we exist. This knowledge encourages us to the same faithfulness in the hopes that succeeding generations will build upon the foundations we have laid.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 22 August 2023

In Matthew 16.13-20 Jesus asks a question of his immediate circle of followers which is a question he continues to ask of all his disciples to this very day: "Who do you say that I am?"

The Feast of Mary the Virgin (transferred) -- 16 August 2023

In the story of Mary's 'yes' to God's invitation to participate in the work of redemption we are reminded that creation is held valuable by God. To God matter matters.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 15 August 2023

The story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15.21-28) is a stark reminder that the Christian vocation is to embrace xenophilia (love of the stranger, the outsider, the strange) rather than its life-denying opposite xenophobia (fear of the stranger, the outsider, the strange). This non-Jewish, foreign woman is the first person in Matthew's gospel to call Jesus 'Lord'.

Choral Eucharist & Baptism for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost -- 13 Aug...

The story of Joseph begins with him put into a pit, then sold in slavery in Egypt where he is potted in jail, only to be released and raised to authority and put on a throne second only to Pharaoh's. All of us have a Joseph story in our lives where we are 'pitted' and 'potted'. But our hope rests in a God who in Jesus is committed to 'putting' on a throne of grace where we can live abundant lives.

Midweek Eucharist in the Week of Transfiguration -- 9 August 2023

How we remember the past contributes to how we live in the present.  How we live in the present shapes our future.  So it's always important to take memory seriously.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 8 August 2023

Baptism celebrates the sacrament of belonging -- not just to the community of faith but to the whole human family. Baptism invites us into a life of behaving in a Christ-like manner. Baptism leads us to believing -- falling in love -- with the One who first loved us.

Midweek Eucharist during the Week of Pentecost 9 -- 2 August 2023

In Exodus we learn that when Moses' face shone when he spoke with God. His encounter with God transfigured him and, because this frightened the people, Moses would veil his face. We are all Moses through whom God reveals Godself. These are moments and they can be unsettling to ourselves and to others. Our task, however, is to learn how to unveil our faces so that God's revelation in and through us can be shared with others.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Precision in language is important. It allows us to make necessary distinctions. This is true with the words 'transformation' and 'transfiguration'. Transformation means that something or someone becomes something or someone else, a change that is durable. Transfiguration means that something or someone becomes a revelation, a crack into the depths of God's purposes for us and for all the creation, a revelation or insight that is momentary. Transfigurations are often the beginning point of the process of transformation.