Eternal Not Everlasting Remembrance: Reflections on Remembrance Sunday (10 November 2019)

Eternal Not Everlasting Remembrance

Reflections on Remembrance Sunday

10 November 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

         I have a great deal of sympathy for people who learn English as a second language.  They have to navigate the deep currents of our Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Norman French heritage which can give us two or three different words for the same person, place, thing or action.

         This is hard enough, but we then have to deal with our colonial history and its shameless habit of kidnapping words from other languages and making them at home in English.  Just think of tepees, igloos and pow-wows to mention a few of the thousands of ‘borrowed’ words to be found in our dictionaries.

         Because of this complex history of the contemporary English language, even native English-speaking people can be excused for sometimes using the wrong word when talking or writing about important ideas.  On this Remembrance Sunday two words come to mind that have quite different meanings but are often used as if they describe the same idea.

         The two words are ‘eternal’ and ‘everlasting’.  ‘Everlasting’ means an unending duration of time.  It is a word that describes a ‘quantity’ of time.

         ‘Eternal’ is not about duration.  It is a way of describing a quality of time rather than its quantity. ‘Eternal’ is the adjective we often use to express our experience of timelessness.  Past, present and future co-exist in the same moment and time seems to stand still.

         ‘Everlasting’ describes a painful dental procedure which seems to go on without end and without the numbing benefits of anesthesia.  ‘Eternal’, on the other hand, describes the experience of being with a loved one or some other experience that leaves us feeling free from the relentless passage of time.

         We who are disciples of Jesus of Nazareth believe that our faith in the God to whom Jesus leads us opens the door to eternal rather than everlasting life.  Eternal life is more than our hope in life beyond death, more than our hope in the world to come.  Eternal life is our present experience of a living hope in the present, a hope that inspires us to work with God towards the promised future reign of justice and peace --- despite the painful or troubling or disappointing realities of our past.

         When we remember those whose lives have been given for the sake of others, we bring them into ‘eternal’ remembrance.  Their deeds and choices shaped our present.  Their past and our present are the building blocks for the future.  The mortar that binds past, present and future together is the eternal life Jesus speaks of in today’s reading from the Gospel according to John.

         We sometimes speak and act as if those who came before us are a different species, but they are not.  We share more than the biological DNA that unites us as humans.  We share a spiritual and an ethical DNA that stirs us to make difficult choices that have the potential to bring us and all creation closer to the future God lays before us.

         Today we do not simply ‘remember’ the past and the sacrifices of our forebears as if we are simply reassembling various memories such as the stories told us by members of our families or our own explorations of history, a nostalgic jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing but the picture still recognizable.  Today we remember that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who are alive in us and through us and who continue to build God’s future. [1]  Today we give thanks that all that has been good in the lives of our forebears is of benefit to the world. [2]  Today we pledge that through the gift of eternal life God has given to us through our faith in Jesus of Nazareth our forebears go on living with us and in us, in our hearts and minds, in our courage and our consciences. [3]

         Christians know how to remember in this way.  Each time we break the bread and share the cup of eternal life we make the power and meaning of the past present in us and through us to bring God’s future one step closer to its fulfillment.  After the poppies are no longer worn, after the wreathes have been removed from the cenotaphs and after leaves cover the graves of our veterans and the fallen, Canada will return to its merry pace towards ‘the holiday season’ and it will be easy to forget.  But we will not forget, because we have been called by God and sealed by the cross in baptism for eternal life, a life breathed into us by the life and death of Jesus.  We’ve known for two thousand years that the past, with all its power to inspire us towards God’s future, is not behind us.  It is present, right here and right now.  

God is working his purpose out

as year succeeds to year;

God is working his purpose out,

and the time is drawing near;

Nearer and nearer draws the time,

the time that shall surely be,

when the earth shall be filled

with the glory of God

as the waters cover the sea. [4]

---

[1] cf. Hebrews 12.

[2] cf. The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 602.

[3] cf. The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 603.

[4] The Hymnal  1940, #538.

Faithfulness Not Clinginess: Reflections on General Synod Sunday (14 July 2019)

Faithfulness Not Clinginess

Reflections on General Synod Sunday

John 20.1-18

14 July 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

            For the past few years Holy Trinity has had a small paid staff of a full-time priest in charge, a part-time administrator, a very part-time verger and a paid musician.  Finding office space was relatively easy, an office for the administrator, an office for the priest in charge and music space.  But this past Monday our comfortable arrangements were disrupted by the arrival of our new Assistant Curate, Tasha Carrothers.  Where were we going to put Tasha?

            We finally settled on the Archives and began to carve out space where Tasha can work and meet with folks.  But carving out space was not and is not easy.  We’ve found a number of things, some of them remarkable --- for various reasons --- and a fair number of things that we’ve been clinging to for years with no clear idea why.  I’ve gone through some of the old books in the hopes that they are harbouring $100 bills or stocks or other negotiable securities.  No luck.  I’ve looked through the books thinking that there might some spectacular historic letter or other document that might solve a mystery, but most of the books are simply old books to which one or more people were attached.

            It is a natural human emotion to want to cling to things that remind us of people and events in our lives.  In some cases these objects have a story to tell to other people.  In most cases, however, the stories these objects may played a role in telling is no longer known to those of us who follow.  Because these things have meant something to people we have known and love, we put them on bookshelves or in cabinets as an act of respect.  We know, even as we do this, that they will never play a role in our lives nor in the lives of those who come after us.

            So we need to de-clutter.  We sort through things and make the hard but necessary choice to send them on to their final resting-place --- so long as it is not here.

            Part of the problem is that we confuse clinginess with faithfulness. Clinginess is an attitude that is oriented to an imaginary past and is often accompanied by fear.  Clinginess is not about building on the values and strengths of our past in order to have a firm foundation to move forward into God’s future. It’s more about holding tightly to institutions, ideas and ways of behaving because we are uncertain about the future.  Clinginess can generate feelings of enmity, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissension and partisanship, because we feel threatened.

            Faithfulness to genuine tradition is an entirely different attitude.  When we are faithful to people, to institutions and to values and ideas, we have confidence to ask ourselves hard questions.  How does this relationship challenge me to grow into the full stature of Christ?  How does this institution provide a structure for the proclamation of the good news of God in Christ rather than simply serve itself?  How do the values and ideas that our forerunners in the faith have passed on to me become the energy that fuels my commitment to God’s mission and the ministries God has entrusted me to exercise?  Where clinginess generates fear, faithfulness generates hope

            John captures this tension in today’s gospel.  Mary came to the garden in despair and fear.  Her hope had been nailed to the cross with Jesus.  Now she sees him, not entirely the man she knew before, transfigured, radiant with new life.  Is it any surprise that her initial reaction is to reach out to hold on to him, hoping that this new life so evident in him will somehow fill her own body and soul, strength and mind?

            But Jesus stops her.  I’ve always wondered why and I think that I’m close to understanding.  Jesus recognizes that she is reaching out for the past and for the restoration of the relationship they had before the events of that last week in Jerusalem.  She doesn’t yet understand that God in and through Jesus has brought a beloved community into being and is transforming it in and through the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ work is finished.  The Spirit’s work has begun.  God has revealed and is revealing that eternal life, genuine life, heart-racing, mind-bracing, hope-restoring life has come into the world.  What God began in creation; what God renewed in the life and ministry of Jesus; what God is shaping through the Spirit calls for faithful de-cluttering rather than clinging to the past.

            More than a hundred and fifty years ago, when the American Episcopal Church was contemplating what was necessary to re-unite Christians, they courageously chose values and beliefs that could be put in our carry-on luggage rather than a checked bag in which you could stuff three people.  They looked at the rich heritage of the Anglican way of discipleship and decided what embodied faithfulness rather than clinginess.

            (1) Christians are a community that gathers around the sacred stories, poetry, letters and mystical writings of the Jewish people and the earliest generations of Jesus’ disciples.  In these writings we discern God’s voice and call to us.  In these writings we learn what it means to be fully alive and we need little to nothing more.

            (2) Christians know that there is a great difference between what these writings say and what they mean.  What we need to know is that God created all that is, seen and unseen, out of love, that God seeks life-giving and life-enriching relationships with and between human beings and with the whole creation itself, that God freely gives wisdom to all who seek it.  

            (3) Christians are a people who gather around the font to ‘draw the circle wide’ not to ‘build walls that divide’. Christians gather around the table to share in the bread and the wine of new life, not as the meal of a closed society but as a foretaste of the banquet to which God invites all human beings by going out into the highways and the byways, the alleys and boulevards, the concrete jungles and the wooded suburbs.

            (4) Christians require leaders who are committed to apostolic mission rather than institutional preservation, who gather us into life-giving and life-sustaining communities rather than like-minded gatherings of well-intentioned people, who animate our self-sacrificial service of our neighbours and our courageous advocacy for the needs and wants of the many rather than warm feelings of charity and benevolence.

            We are called to be faithful to the God who comes to us in Jesus and who breathes the Spirit into us.  And faithfulness frightens me.  Faithfulness means letting go of unquestioned assumptions about who is and who is not held within the circle of faith.  Faithfulness means a lifetime commitment to de-cluttering my heart, mind and soul of the trappings of the status quoand imagining what new thing God is doing in and through us as a community of disciples and in and through me as one washed in water and anointed by the Spirit in baptism.

            Sometimes when I’m out and about, I see children holding the hands of adults. I remember what it felt like to hold the hands of my children as we bravely walked out into the unknown, perhaps to school, perhaps shopping, perhaps simply on a walk around the neighbourhood.  It was a magical feeling.  And I also remember the times of clinging when it felt as if my child were trying to fuse herself or himself into my body.  Not so magical.

            Friends, de-cluttering the household of faith is not easy work and we all hesitate sometimes and cling to practices and traditions which no longer serve, if they ever did.  We hesitate and we take two steps forward and one step backwards.  But this General Synod meeting in Vancouver has many faithful people holding each other’s hands and walking bravely into ‘ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown’ because we recognize the Hand that is holding all of ours, coaxing us along. [1]  So let us keep calm.  Let us remember what we really need for our journey.  And let’s not be afraid, when our faithfulness seems overshadowed by clinginess, to de-clutter like mad.

            

---

[1]Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006, 317.

Gathered into Beloved Community: A Reflection on the Ascension (Sunday, the 2nd of June 2019)

Gathered into Beloved Community

A Reflection on the Ascension

RCL Easter 7C

2 June 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 2nd of June.

John 17.20-26

                  ^17.20  [Jesus continued to pray,] “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  ²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

                  ²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.  ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

            In the summer of 1976 I accompanied a group of high school students on their trip to what was then East and West Germany.  Because the organizer of the trip, my former supervising teacher when I was a student teacher, had connections in southern Germany, much of our time was spent in Bavaria with two brief excursions, one to Berlin, the other to Austria.

            One of our jaunts took us to a monastery on the Danube near the city of Regensburg.  As we toured the grounds, we entered into the chapel which as an ornate example of Baroque church architecture.  On the ceiling was a painting of the Ascension of Christ, although all that was visible of Christ were his feet disappearing into the cloud.  Wide-eyed apostles looked up with mixed expressions of awe and not a little trepidation.

            Around the base of the dome was a walkway with an ornate bannister. Obscured by the magnificent decoration all around him was a life-sized figure of the chapel’s architect dressed in late seventeenth-century clothes.  He looked down on us as we looked up at him, our necks aching, his face wearing a cheeky grin.  He seemed to know something that we did not know about what the Ascension meant for us lowly mortals, craning with our necks to catch a last glimpse of our Lord, our Saviour, the Son of God.

            There are many dimensions to God’s mission as embodied in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe that one of the more important dimensions was --- and is and will be --- is to gather people of every race and nation, people of all genders and ages, people of every social status and experience, into a beloved community, a community at one which each other just as Jesus is at one with the Holy One our God. This beloved community transcends time and place.  This beloved community is gathered not into a closely-guarded, self-interested club but into a human society with open hearts, open hands and open minds.  In this beloved community diversity is not something to be feared but to be embraced.  In this beloved community questions are encouraged rather than discouraged.  In this beloved community love means being always prepared to say, ‘I’m sorry’, and to work towards restored life-giving relationships.

            This is what Jesus came to do.  And once this community was gathered by his teaching, tested by his arrest, trial and death, then re-energized and empowered by his resurrection, Jesus’ earthly work was done.  His time had come to hand over his work to us, his continuing presence in the world.

            I remember a joke that was circulating among my classmates when I was in seminary.  After his ascension Jesus arrives in heaven and is greeted by the archangels.  They ask him for an ‘executive summary’ of what he had accomplished during his time on earth.  So Jesus tells him about his teaching and miracles, his joys and sorrows, and something about the people whom he had gathered around him.

            ‘So,’ one of the archangels asks Jesus, ‘what’s the next step in your plan?’ ‘Well,’ Jesus says, ‘I’ve asked my apostles and disciples to share what I’ve taught them with everyone they meet.’ One of the other archangels says, ‘That’s the plan?  What’s the back-up if they don’t follow your instructions?’  ‘There is no back-up plan,’ Jesus says.

            Friends, there is no back-up plan to God’s mission in Jesus other than the work of the church, this beloved community of old and young, wise and foolish, eager and weary, rich and poor, who have been called by God from everyday life to share in God’s mission restore right relationships.

            The heart of that mission is the gathering of all of humanity into beloved community, one small cell at a time.  It’s hard work and we often feel inadequate to the task and discouraged by the results of our efforts.  Sometimes we want to find a ‘saviour’, whether in the person of a charismatic leader or some inspiring program from our diocesan or national church.

            But charismatic leaders come and go.  Inspiring programs are useful but only for a time.  But we, God’s beloved community, remain.  Our stories shared with our friends, neighbours and family about the help, hope and home we have found here are more convincing that we imagine. Our care of the vulnerable and needy speaks eloquently about what we believe and value.

            So, instead of looking up at Christ’s feet disappearing into the clouds above, let’s look down at our feet.  Where we stand is sacred ground, whether in the church at worship or in the kitchen feeding the hungry.  Let’s look at our hands.  Whether they are stretched out in prayer and praise or they are holding someone in need or distress, our hands are Christ’s hands.

            Jesus came to gather us here as a cell of the beloved community coming into being throughout time and space.  But there’s more to God’s mission and next week we’ll learn just a bit more.

How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song? (RCL Easter 5C, 19 May 2019)

How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song?

Reflections on Acts 11.1-18 and John 13.31-35

RCL Easter 5C

19 May 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Notes for an Unfinished Sermon

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 19th.

(1)  Every once and a while I come upon a Sunday where I can only prepare what I might describe as being ‘from text to sermon --- almost’. This is just such a Sunday.  My goal is to leave you with a question that will lead you to live your own sermon in the week ahead.

(2)  “Why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land?”  Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar by Webber and Rice.

(a) John’s Gospel stresses the love the disciples of Jesus are to have for one another.

(b) It’s a small circle because it’s a community feeling under attack from their own Jewish families, friends and neighbours.

(c) In such a situation it becomes very much an environment of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ where solidarity within the community of disciples is more important than generosity towards those who are ‘outside’.

(3)  “Draw the circle wide.  Draw it wider still.”  Draw the Circle Wide by Gordon Light.

(a) Peter has returned to the Jerusalem community with a remarkable story:  Non-Jews are being called by God to become disciples of Jesus.

(b) It is a development that is beyond their imagination and presents them with the challenge of expanding their vision of God’s mission.

(c) They thought God’s mission of reconciliation and renewal revealed in Jesus of Nazareth was limited to the Jewish people.  Now they know God’s dream is bigger and will involve new ways of being disciples of Jesus. It will bring that most dreaded of human experiences:  CHANGE.

(4)  “Since Love is lord of heaven and dearth, how can I keep from singing?”  My Life Flows on in Endless Song by Robert Lowry.

(a) In every generation the disciples of Jesus are faced with the challenge of knowing how and whom to love.

(b) Even though it’s not as easy path, we do know how to love:  We are to love in the same way that God has loved us in Jesus. Although the principle is clear, the details of working this out in daily life take a lifetime to come even close to learning or, if we are particularly gifted, to mastering.

(c) It is even more difficult to know whom we are to love.

(i) Family and friends are, for the most part, a given.

(ii) People who are like-minded, who belong to ‘our group’ and who share our tastes are not always easy to love, but we can love them most of the time without too much effort.

(iii) But what about ‘those other folk’?  You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones whose stories are so very different from our own, who don’t share our understanding of how things ought to be done, who challenge the status quoand ask questions we’d prefer were left unasked.

(iv) This is the difficult question because the love God offers to us in Jesus is a love that washes feet, touches the ‘unclean’ and reaches out to those some consider to be ‘beyond the pale’. It is a love that expects action and that opens us to risk CHANGE.

(5)  “My song is love unknown, my Saviour’s love to me; love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.”  My Song Is Love Unknown by Samuel Crossman.

(a) The song that God sang to Peter led him away from the smaller circle envisioned by the evangelist John to a wider circle.

(b) The song that God sang to those who came before us in this congregation led them to a world embraced by a Love that is lord of heaven and earth.

(c) The song that God sings to us leads us to seek those who feel ‘loveless’, whether sitting next to us in the pew or beyond our walls or perhaps within our very selves, so that we might ‘lovely be’.

(d) Where do you think God’s song is beckoning you this week?

God's Story, Our Story, Isn't Finished Yet: Reflections on John 21-1-19

God’s Story, Our Story, Isn’t Finished Yet:

Reflections on John 21.1-19

RCL Easter 3C

5 May 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 5th.

John 21.1-19

                  ^21.1After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.  ²Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.  ³Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.”  They said to him, “We will go with you.”  They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

                  ⁴Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  ⁵Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?”  They answered him, “No.”  ⁶He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”  So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.  ⁷That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”  When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.  ⁸But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

                  ⁹When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.  ¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”  ¹¹So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.  ¹²Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”  Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.  ¹³Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.  ¹⁴This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

                  ¹⁵When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”  He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”  And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished.  But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

            As long as Paula and I have been married, we’ve stayed after every movie to watch the credits.  We each look for different things.  Paula tends to look for the music credits and I tend, if the movie has some great cinematography, to look for where the film was shot.  Our perseverance in waiting until the film is truly over has been rewarded in recent years by film makers who include either deleted scenes or teaser scenes during the credits.

            More often than not these scenes tend to point to the next film if the one we’re watching is part of a series.  Sometimes the scenes contain so-called ‘blooper reel’ moments when one or more of the actors makes a spectacular mistake or flubs their lines. In many ways these scenes are a reminder that the story isn’t really over.  It’s as if the story has a life of its own and continues to unwind even when we’re not around to watch it.

            Many scholars think that today’s reading from the Gospel according to John is, from a biblical point of view, just such an added scene.  Last week we heard the story of Thomas and his encounter with the risen Jesus, a passage that ends with these words:  “^20.30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  It wouldn’t be that difficult to read these words as the credits.  But either John the Evangelist or a later editor can’t let go of the story.  ‘Just one more episode’, I can almost hear the author say, ‘because you’ve got to hear this great resurrection story.’

            It is a great story because it begins with an implicit admission of failure. Simon Peter and his colleagues are back home in Galilee.  They’ve left Jerusalem behind and there is no sense of an excited crowd of Jesus’ disciples filling the highways and byways with the proclamation that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  There’s no need to hide because the revolution hasn’t caught on.  So Simon Peter and the others go back to what they know best --- fishing.  Even then they’re not having much luck.

            A stranger who isn’t really a stranger appears on the shore.  He gives them advice as to where to cast their nets. They all know who it is and they’re afraid to admit it.  If they admit to themselves that it is Jesus, then they also have to acknowledge that their failure isn’t the end of the story.  What God has done in Jesus of Nazareth is a never-ending story, a story that keeps adding chapters even when we may think that there is nothing more to be said or done. Failure isn’t an option because God’s love made known to us and to the world in Jesus will not let us go.  ‘Come on,’ Jesus says, ‘I know that fishing on the left hasn’t worked.  Try the right.  You’ll be surprised by the results.’

            However we first came into contact with Jesus of Nazareth, whenever we met God in this mysterious figure, whomever God used as the agent of our encounter, you and I have been well and truly caught.  Just like fish caught in a net will struggle to free themselves and some will even succeed, so we’ve been caught in a net woven by God’s love, cast into the sea of this world by the guidance of the Spirit and brought on board to share in God’s mission begun in creation, continued in Jesus and directed to the future.

            Our ministry is to bring others into a life-giving, life-affirming, life-renewing relationship with God.  We bring others into such a relationship not by threats or intimidation but by our obedient imitation of Christ’s love and care for others.  It is a persuasive ministry where our actions do speak far more effectively than our words.  It is a life-long ministry that often leads us in directions we never thought we would go. It is a risky ministry that brings us face to face with answering the same question that Jesus asked Simon Peter three times:  “Do you love me?”

            My friends, this is not an easy time to be a disciple of Jesus, especially if we belong to a tradition such as ours, rich in history, rich in spiritual treasures, rich in commitment to the needs and concerns of the world but feeling that our nets keep coming up empty.  It is tempting to give in to discouragement from time to time.  Some of us may even feel like we’re watching the credits at the end of a film.  And then along comes Jesus, surprising us as we’re getting our coats ready to leave and trying to find a trash can for our popcorn container.  ‘Come,’ he says, ‘come and follow me.  Let’s try something new and fish on the other side of the boat.’ 

            Let’s dare to share our faith with someone else and not worry about what they might think of us.  Let’s dare to imagine where we as a Parish are going to be in one year’s time, two years’ time, three years’ time and be hopeful.  Let’s remember that God has called us ‘ . . . to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths yet untrodden, through perils unknown . . . [and to go out in faith and good courage] not knowing where we go, but only that [God’s] hand is leading us and [Christ’s] love [is supporting us].’ [1]  After all, the story isn’t over and there are many more sequels to come.

---

[1]Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 317.

Come to the Feast: Reflections on John 2.1-11 (The 2nd Sunday after Epiphany Year C, 20 January 2019)

Come to the Feast

Reflections on John 2.1-11

The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year C)

20 January 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on the 20th.

John 2.1-11

                  ^2.1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there^. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”  ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?  My hour has not yet come.”  ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  ⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.  ⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.”  And they filled them up to the brim^.  8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.”  So they took it.  ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk.  But you have kept the good wine until now.”  ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

            To the northwest of Denver lies the small town of Berthoud.  Forty years ago the town was surrounded by agricultural land and small ranches.  As the cities of the Front Range grew and transportation routes improved, more and more folks moved to the smaller towns of the Front Range to enjoy the sense of community and the lower cost of living.  The older two-lane roads gave way to four-lane highways making it easier to drive to the larger urban centres to the north, to the east and to the south.

            In the summer of 1977, however, Berthoud was definitely not a place where one would expect to find a first-class restaurant.  But there was one, located in a building that someone driving past might suspect was what my dad called ‘a greasy spoon café’, on the west side of the two-lane highway used mainly by truck drivers and farm vehicles.

            To enter the front door was to cross the Atlantic and to walk into a proper French eating establishment.  Every evening there were two sittings for dinner with a fixed menu of two entrées accompanied by three or four additional courses.  There was no possibility of just dropping in for dinner; reservations were required.  People drove from considerable distances along the Front Range to enjoy the cuisine. For a few hours and for less cost than flying from Denver to Paris one could be somewhere other than a dusty small town in northern Colorado.  The food and the wine were what one read about in the fancier metropolitan culinary magazines.  I only ate one meal there forty years ago and I have never forgotten the experience. It was more than magical.  It was a revelation of what a meal could be.

            Let’s travel back in time two thousand years to the village of Cana in Galilee.  It was not a major centre, just another backwater collection of houses in a fertile agricultural area to the west of the Sea of Galilee.  Its value lie primarily in the food produced around it. Any one who was going somewhere else probably would not have registered any significant memory of passing through the place.  There was no distinguished synagogue, no learned line of rabbis, no political importance.

            But it was in Cana that Jesus performed what the Evangelist John calls ‘the first of his signs . . . and revealed his glory’.  Not in a larger town with a more diverse audience.  Not in Jerusalem or some other centre of power. Just plain old Cana.  Even the crisis that leads to this sign is a familiar one:  the wedding guests have drunk their hosts out of house and home.  Now that they are a bit ‘jolly’, let us say, the possibility of rowdiness is lurking on the horizon and Mary recognizes an approaching social disaster.  So large quantities of ordinary water are transformed into the best vintage of wine available and this small town wedding will soon become the source of legend. For a brief moment in human history the messianic feast where poor and rich, men and women, Jew and Gentile will share in God’s promises makes itself present.  In a dusty small town of no particular importance God’s extraordinary future makes an appearance.

            Come back with me to the present.  Every day somewhere on our planet that first sign accomplished at Cana in Galilee makes another appearance when the disciples of Jesus gather around the table.  When we proclaim the Word, when we offer our intercessions, petitions and thanksgivings, when we bless and share the bread and wine, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. We become signs of that promised new world that all humanity longs not only to see but to inhabit.  The water of our daily lives is transformed by the Spirit into the wine of the future --- even if only for a moment.  Some of us are like the servants who know from whence this wine of the future has come.  Others are as surprised at the steward to discover that something great has happened here.

            What a moment this can be.  Strangers can become friends.  People coming from various paths of life discover a community that provides depth and meaning to a life that can often seem shallow and purposeless.  God’s future, the goal towards which all of creation is straining, becomes visible and we realize that we are not pawns moved by an unseen hand but rather co-workers with the Holy One in making this future a gradually dawning reality.  

            Here we are in a wonderful cathedral surrounded by tall buildings.  Each day many of our neighbours walk by with no idea of what is happening here.  They bustle by on their way to the Columbia Station or on their way home after a long day of work.  Occasionally they hear the bell and it may evoke some thought of what we are doing and who we are.  Some may come through our doors for some public meeting or a concert.  An even braver few will come to worship at Christmas and Easter.  And like the folks driving on the highway by that restaurant in Berthoud or those passing by the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, they do not know the extraordinary things going on within these walls.

·     Here we hold the life of the world in our hands and offer it to God.

·     Here we look at evil squarely with clear eyes and dare to become agents of God’s goodness.

·     Here we tell the story of God’s love made known in Jesus of Nazareth and made known daily in the life of his disciples.

·     Here we serve all persons because we see in the face of every human being the face of Christ.

·     Here we strive for justice and peace so that all God’s children can be free.

·     Here we remember that we are stewards of the precious gift of creation not its possessors.

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            Whether we are in a small town in Galilee or in northern Colorado, whether we worship in a venerable cathedral or a room in someone’s home, God’s promises for us and for all of creation are fulfilled.  No matter where we find ourselves, we can catch a glimpse of God’s future and taste the banquet of new life.  The good news is that no one needs a reservation, just a yearning and a thirst for the new wine that fills the soul with more than just a passing warmth but abundant life in the here and now.  Come and drink for the best wine awaits us.