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.

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[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.

The Already But Not Yet: Reflections on Ephesians 4.1-7, 11-16

The Already But Not Yet

Reflections on Ephesians 4.1-7, 11-16

A Celebration of New Ministry for Marion Wong

17 December 2018

The Parish of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the Celebration.

Ephesians 4.1-7, 11-16

                  ^4.1I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

                  ⁷But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.  ¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

            When I was ordained in 1981, I was appointed Deacon to the Bishops of Colorado. My responsibilities included planning the visits of the Diocesan and Suffragan Bishops, communicating with the ordained and lay leadership regarding matters of pastoral concern and doing whatever else the Bishops wanted me to do.  Those of us who are ordained are familiar with that wonderful line in the ordination service --- ‘And other such duties as may be assigned to you from time to time.’

            One morning I received a call from Saint Luke’s Hospital in Denver.  In those days the Hospital was closely connected with the Episcopal Church and had its own chaplain.  It just so happened that the chaplain was away on holiday and a patient had requested communion.  Not knowing who to call, the nurse called the Diocesan Office and I agreed to go.  I admit that I was a bit annoyed.  The chaplain should have called me before leaving so that we could arrange coverage by one of the nearby parishes.  So here I was, in midst of preparing a major budget presentation, winging off to the Hospital to do someone else’s job.

            The patient’s name was Eulalia and, in the years to come, she and I would become friends.  But that day all I saw was an elderly woman who was taking me away from my ‘real work’. I introduced myself, ‘Richard Leggett, Deacon to the Bishops.’  She didn’t seem too impressed, but we chatted for a while before I began the communion service.  

            Everything was going fine until I got to the Lord’s Prayer.  I heard myself say, ‘And now, as our Saviour Christ has taught us, we are bold to say . . . . ‘  Then I could not remember any of the words --- traditional or contemporary.  We stumbled along, Eulalia being unsure of where this confused young deacon was going.  Communion was shared.  I muttered some sort of concluding prayer and sat in silence.  Eulalia looked me up and down a couple of times.  She reached over, patted my hand and said, ‘It’s okay, Father Richard.  You’ll get better at this!’

            A few years later when I officiated at Eulalia’s funeral, I remembered what she had said to me when we had first met.  Hers was a difficult funeral, not just because a wonderful woman had died after many years of battling cancer.  Hers was a difficult funeral because her family, whom she loved fiercely, had split over the ordination of women and sat on opposite sides of the church, glaring at each other.  I remember preaching about how we are already one in Christ through our baptism but not yet as truly one as God wants us to be.  We are, I said, a work in progress.  Eulalia had taught me that baptism and ordination were only beginnings.  I still had much to learn and I would always be in the process of becoming who I am as a Christian and who I am as a priest.  And she was right.

            This ‘already but not yet’ is at the heart of what the writer of the Letter to the Ephesians is trying to say to the Christians at Ephesus and, some two thousand years later, to the Christians who gather here tonight to celebrate the new ministry of Marion Wong as Rector of the Parish of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke. In the first part of tonight’s reading we hear that we are already one because

·     there is one body and one Spirit,

·     there is one hope of our calling,

·     there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and

·     there is one God and Father of all.

            But this unity is not yet fulfilled because of the divisions that continue to exist not only between Christians and non-Christians and between differing Christian communions.  Sometimes divisions exist within congregations and the unity which is already ours in Christ falls under the shadow of rivalries, hurt feelings and unrealized expectations.  Sometimes we fail to know we are one in Christ because we cannot see beyond the boundaries of our congregations and so we cannot see the riches of God’s gifts poured out, not only on each one of us, but on our sisters and brothers who are members of the same body and who share the same hope.

            Tonight we gather to do something more than celebrate the beginning of a new relationship between Marion and this Parish of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke. We gather to reaffirm that we are already one in Christ and that, through the gifts that the Spirit bestows on individuals and communities of faith, we are growing into that unity, so that the whole world may see ‘that things which were cast down are being raised up and that things which had grown old are being made new, by [Christ] through whom all things were made’. [1]  What happens in the days, weeks, months and years ahead here on 49^thAvenue between Oak and Cambie matters, not just to this congregation, but to all of us, who strive as disciples of Christ to proclaim the good news of God in a society whose ears are sometimes deaf to our voices and whose eyes are sometimes clouded to the signs of God’s kingdom already present among us.

            God needs us.  God needs this congregation of disciples as witnesses to the unity of the human family, a present reality and a future hope.  But we will not ‘get better’ as Eulalia once promised me, if we are not committed to each congregation as if it were our own.

·     And so I ask every baptized Christian who is not a member of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke to stand.  Will you offer, as far as lies within you, your gifts to the people of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke so that this congregation may grow in the love and service of Christ? If so, please say, ‘We will.’  ‘We will.’ Please remain standing.

·     Now I ask every member of the Parish of Saint Matthias and Saint Luke to stand.  Look around you.  You are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.  You are not alone nor are you asked to stand alone.  Will you, as far as lies within you, continue to grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ, not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of the community where you have been called to serve?  If so, please say, ‘We will.’  ‘We will.’  Please remain standing.

·     Marion, I ask you to stand.  Look around you.  You are surrounded by disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, both from this Parish and beyond. You are not alone nor are you asked to stand alone.  Will you, as far as lies within you, used your gifts to equip the saints for the work of ministry in this congregation and in this community you have been called to lead?  If so, please say, ‘I will.’  ‘I will.’  Now you all may be seated.

            ‘Well done’, I can hear Eulalia say to us.  But do not forget that tonight is but a beginning.  We are one in Christ.  We are one in the ministry entrusted to us by a loving God, But we are not yet fully who and what we are called to become.  We still have a ways to go in our journey of faith and ministry. But we will get better as we go along together. 

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[1]The Book of Alternative Services1985, 634.