How the Light Gets In --- And Out

How the Light Gets In --- And Out

Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4.1-12

The Induction of the Rev’d Timothy Morgan

9 September 2019

Christ Church

Hope BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached on Monday night at Christ Church Hope.

2 Corinthians 4.1-12

            ^4.1Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.  ²We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.  ³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  ⁴In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  ⁵For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.  ⁶For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

            ⁷But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.  ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Do not be deceived by outward appearances.

            I grew up in Colorado Springs where the Great Plains meet the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains at the foot of Pikes Peak.  Millions of years ago my home town lay on the bed of a shallow but vast inland sea.  In the sediment cavities of various sizes formed as organic material or minerals decayed or dissolved in the surrounding waters.  Over millions of years water saturated with various minerals seeped back into these cavities creating layers around the shell.  When the sea retreated, these bubbles solidified and became geodes, unattractive objects, some round, others oblong, some small, some large, that are found in the hills where my friends and I wandered.

            It is only when you break open a geode or cut it open with a rock-cutting saw that its hidden treasure is revealed.  All the colours of the rainbow dazzle your eyes.  A veritable forest of crystals grows out the interior of the shell towards the centre.  I have a pair of bookends at home that my father had made for me out of a geode he had found.  They followed me to university and have been with me for almost fifty years.  Whenever I look at them, I am reminded that one should always avoid being deceived by outward appearances.  What looks like a stone potato may actually be concealing a glorious display of God’s handiwork.

Being broken doesn’t mean something or someone is not beautiful.

            When Tim sent me the readings for tonight’s celebration of this new chapter in the life of Christ Church, I was overjoyed to see the reading from the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians.  For me it is Paul writing at his most open and honest best.  I hope you will forgive me for reading just a few more verses from this chapter where Paul cracks open the gospel geode to reveal the glory of God being made manifest in the lives of Christ’s disciples.

            ⁷But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.  ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you.

            I think that the last twenty-five years have shown all of us the fragility of the vessel we call ‘the church’ as it carries the ‘light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.  All of the cracks and chips caused by our struggles to be faithful to our apostolic ministry of proclaiming the good news of God in Christ revealed and constantly being revealed by the Holy Spirit can be seen in the fabric of every parish of our Diocese.  I dare say many of us here tonight have a few cracks and chips that weren’t there twenty-five years ago.

            We know the costs of being faithful to the apostolic tradition rather than human traditionalism.  We may be tempted to try and hide from ourselves and from others these cracks and chips.  But they are sacraments, outward and visible signs of God’s inward and spiritual grace working in us and through us.  They are the marks of an honourable and faithful ‘Via Dolorosa’, the way of the Cross that leads us not to everlasting defeat but to eternal life, not just in some distant future, but in the here and now.

            There is a Japanese art form called kintsugi.  It is the art of repairing broken ceramics with various metals, often gold and silver. When the artist is finished with the repairs, the cracks and chips are not invisible.  On the contrary, our eyes are immediately drawn to them.  They are no longer signs of decay or misuse or damage; they frame the story of this vessel, so precious that it cannot be thrown away.  Something new emerges from the fragments of the old, perhaps not with the same beauty as graced the original, but with the beauty of its courage to tell its story without fear or concealment.  The potter, the jeweller and the vessel look us straight in the eye and say, ‘Here is a treasure.  Even its imperfections now shine with the light of truth.  Being broken doesn’t mean something or someone isn’t beautiful.’

There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.[1]

            My friends, especially Tim and the people of Christ Church, you have a precious treasure, the good news of God in Christ.  Just as a diamond has many facets, so are there many faces to this good news among you.  Here in Hope I am confident that, working together, you will dare to name how you have experienced that good news and to discern what good news your friends and neighbours here in Hope need to see in you and hear from you.

            But even the most precious of diamonds has its flaws, records of the story of how this diamond came to be under the pressure of millions of years. Do not be afraid to let people see the cracks and chips that tell your story.  They record how this Christian community has not only lived through difficult times, but how you have mended those cracks and chips with the precious metal that is Christ in us, earthen vessels even though we are.

            In 1992 Leonard Cohen released an album entitled The Future.  Among its songs was ‘Anthem’.  When he was interviewed about the album and about this song in particular, Cohen said,

. . . there is a crack in everything that you can put together: Physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind.  But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where the resurrection is and that’s where the return, that’s where the repentance is.  It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things. [2]

            And so, my friends, “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” [3]  And, I dare to add, it’s also how the light gets out and transforms our shadows into the glorious day of the Lord.

---

[1]‘Anthem’ by Leonard Cohen, 1992.

[2]https://qz.com/835076/leonard-cohens-anthem-the-story-of-the-line-there-is-a-crack-in-everything-that’s-how-the-light-gets-in/accessed on 8 September 2019.

[3]‘Anthem’ by Leonard Cohen, 1992.

Trusting in What Cannot Be Seen: Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1 (RCL Proper 10B, 10 June 2018)

Trusting in What Cannot Be Seen

Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4.13 – 5.1

RCL Proper 10B

10 June 2018

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC  

Click here to listen to the Sermon

as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 10th of June.

2 Corinthians 4.13 – 5.1

            ^4.13But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture — “I believed, and so I spoke” — we also believe, and so we speak, ¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence.  ¹⁵Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

            ¹⁶So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  ¹⁷For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

            ^5.1For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

1)    For the past five years I have had a ring-side seat as our Diocese has confronted the challenges of being twenty-first-century disciples of Jesus in a society and culture which treats communities of faith with a combination of distrust, disinterest and dismissal.

a)    In the autumn of 2013 Peter Elliott, then serving as Diocesan Administrator following the retirement of Bishop Ingham, asked me to become Priest-in-charge of Saint Mark’s Anglican Church in Kitsilano with a mandate to manage the integration of the Saint Mark’s community with the community at Saint George’s near Vancouver General Hospital.

b)    That mandate led not only to the integration of the two communities but also to the sale of Saint Mark’s.

c)     As a member of Diocesan Council I’ve been party to conversations regarding the financial sustainability of a number of congregations as well as facilitating the process that has led to a new regulation regarding what is the fair share each congregation is to contribute to the shared expenses of the Diocese.

d)    And now, after seven years as your priest, I leave to offer leadership to the re-development of Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster, a project that has implications for other congregations in the Diocese.

e)     In the eyes of some people, Christians and non-Christians alike, what I and others have been doing may seem signs that our ‘earthly tent’ is not just being destroyed but gradually swept away by the winds and the floods of our ‘spiritual but not religious’ society and a re-energized neo-atheist movement.

f)      But I see things somewhat differently.

2)    Anyone who is ‘in Christ’ has begun to live in the ‘already but not yet’ of God’s reign of justice, peace and dignity. 

a)    The apostle Paul had every reason to be discouraged ---

i)      his Jewish sisters and brothers were not flocking to join the Jesus movement;

ii)    some of the communities he founded, such as Corinth, where divided by conflict, and

iii)  ‘life on the road’ was not always kind to a man who, by the standards of the 1^stcentury ce, was getting to be a bit long in the tooth.

b)    But to the Corinthians, in his second written attempt to bring peace, he writes words that require a little parsing:  ‘So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen in temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.’ 2 Corinthians 4.16-18

c)     ‘What can be seen’ is the world that is evident to every human being.

d)    ‘What cannot be seen’ is the world that is visible to those who are ‘in Christ’, to those who have chosen to follow Jesus and who have begun to look at the world through God’s eyes rather than the eyes of the status quo of the Roman empire.

3)    And what is it that cannot be seen except by those who are ‘in Christ’?

a)    What cannot be seen are the signs that this world is being transformed by God working in and through the disciples of Jesus, in and through those whose lives have been changed by their trust in the resurrection.

b)    What can be seen is the reality of a world which is not yet what God intends it to be --- a world in which the innocent suffer at the hands of the powerful, a world whose resources are controlled by the few, a world where inequality diminishes the human dignity of many.

c)     But we who are ‘in Christ’ see the world differently

d)    We do not ignore the evils, the suffering and the sorrows which all too evident in the daily news.

e)     In the face of such news, our answer is the same as Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John the Baptist who came to ask him whether he was the one who is to come, the one who will begin to makes things right:  ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’  Matthew 11.4b-5

4)    I know that these are challenging times for every Christian community, especially for Anglican parishes such as ours.  But let’s pause for a moment to hear and to see what is already happening here at Saint Faith’s.

a)    Because we care for this building, people young and old have a place to gather to form meaningful communities, whether they are connected to Christian faith and practice or other activities.

b)    Because we support a Community Resource Centre, vulnerable people are finding safe housing, worried seniors gain access to financial support, and people who are overwhelmed by the bewildering labyrinth of social services have a guide, a friend, an advocate.

c)     Because we have opened our doors to Saint Hildegard’s Sanctuary, people are gathering and re-engaging the good news of God in Jesus ---

i)      some had said ‘no way’ to ever entering a church, but they are now here;

ii)    some had said ‘no longer’ after being away, but they are now here;

iii)  some had ‘never’ been involved in a Christian community, but they are now here, and

iv)   some had thought ‘not yet’, but they are now here.

d)    Because we are committed to outreach, organizations far and near benefit from our generosity and the generosity of our neighbourhood.

e)     Listen carefully.  Look around. The signs of the resurrection surround us on every side.  Invisible to many, but visible to those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

5)    During the coming year this wonderful outpost of the resurrection we call Saint Faith’s will discern, under the leadership of the interim priest-in-charge, what shape our on-going ministry will take and who we believe should provide the ordained leadership for that ministry.

a)    Trust that God is on this journey with us and that God has something new in store for us.

b)    Be adventurous and be willing to try something new.

c)     Be generous in caring for one another.

d)    Be here in the midst of the community.

e)     Be vigilant for the signs of the resurrection and be eager to share with others the signs we have seen.

f)      For God is surely at work here and we are God’s partners.

Thank God for Ordinary Time: Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4.5-12 (RCL Proper 9B, 3 June 2018)

Thank God for Ordinary Time

Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4.5-12

RCL Proper 9B

3 June 2018

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the expanded version of my notes 

that became today's Sermon at the 10.00 Eucharist.

2 Corinthians 4.5-12

^4.5For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.  ⁶For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

            ⁷But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.  ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you.

1)  Recently one of my acquaintances on Facebook posted a note criticizing the use of the phrase ‘Ordinary Time’ to describe the Sundays after Pentecost.

a) I’m pretty sure that this is not a debate that frequently occurs at your breakfast table at home or at a coffee house with your friends.

b) Most official Anglican prayer books will describe these Sundays as Sundays ‘after Trinity’ or ‘after Pentecost’ in an attempt to indicate that this time is not a liturgical ‘season’ with a liturgical centre such as Christmas or Easter.

c) But I have come to believe that our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers have captured an important spiritual point in calling these Sundays ‘Ordinary Time’.

d) They have captured our reality:  

i) we live as disciples of Jesus in an ‘ordinary’ world shaped by daily routines, 

ii) by joys and sorrows, 

iii) by meaningful work and perhaps less meaningful work, 

iv) by the demands of life 

a) with our families, 

b) our friends and 

c) with ourselves.

2)  In both his letters to the divided Christian community in Corinth, Paul confronts those members of the community who considered themselves superior to other members because of their special knowledge, their supposed special power and their misuse of the resources of wealth God has entrusted to them.

a) Some of the members of the Corinthian community claim to possess special knowledge of God concealed from less wise or spiritual members of the community.

b) Others are happy to claim that their personal wealth entitles them to ‘lord’ it over the rest of the community, despite the fact that all the members of the community claim that Jesus is ‘Lord’, the one whose life and teachings are the model for genuine Christian living.

c) Still others have become enamoured of Jewish religions practices which are no longer required of non-Jewish disciples of Jesus and are insisting that all ‘real’ members of the Christian community should follow these practices.

d) In the midst of all of these conflicting claims to superiority are the ‘ordinary’ Corinthian Christians --- working people, slaves, women --- who are being shaken in their discipleship by the powerful, by the ‘knowledgeable’, by the ‘spiritual’.

3)  It is to these ‘ordinary’ people and to the others that Paul writes what has become a passage held dear by many lay and ordained leaders of the Christian communities that have come into being since the time of the apostles.

a) Jesus is Lord.

b) God freely gives knowledge of Jesus to all who open their hearts to the message of the good news.

c) This treasure is held in ‘clay vessels’ --- not in gold, not in silver, not in enamel --- in the hearts, minds, souls and strength of ordinary people who choose to become disciples of Jesus and to follow the Way.

d) Those who would claim leadership in the Christian community must anchor their leadership in this treasure:

i) the glory of God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth and freely given to all who desire life in its fullness;

ii) not in personal charisma,

iii) not in powerful presence,

iv) not in rhetorical brilliance,

v) not in working miracles. [1]

b) Real Christian leadership, whether lay or ordained, anchors its ministry in human weakness and frailty, in the actual lived experiences of ordinary people, in the power of God working within us to do more than we can ask or imagine. [2]

4)  Ordinary Time is when we take a rest from the heightened ritual and spiritual intensity of the seasons surrounding Christmas and Easter and focus on how we, as disciples of Jesus, share the treasure within us.

a) We belong to a community with a purpose.

b) We are committed to forgive as we have been forgiven, to bring together what human sin and human hurt has rent asunder.

c) We have good news to share of God’s abundant love made know to us in creation, in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, in the work of the Spirit in the lives of everyday people in everyday situations.

d) We work for justice and human dignity --- wherever God has placed us and with whatever gifts of knowledge, skill, experience and wisdom we possess.

e) We know that we are called to be stewards rather than careless consumers of the resources of this ‘fragile earth, our island home’.

5)  I thank God for ‘ordinary’ time and for the seasonal colour of green, a reminder that this is a time for growth as a disciple, not in the greenhouse of Christmas and Easter, but in the sunshine, rain and unpredictable times of my daily life.

a) As we care for our gardens, let us care for our souls.

b) As we deal with our chores, let us find opportunities to let the face of Jesus shine in our faces.

c) As we navigate our daily lives, let us share the treasure held in these clay jars we call ourselves.

d) Thank God for ordinary time, a time to grow, a time to renew, a time to remember who we are and whose we are --- for the love of God, for the love of our neighbours, for the love of our own selves.

---

[1]Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year:  Year B(1993), 294.

[2]Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year:  Year B(1993), 294.