The Means of Grace and the Hope of Glory: Pentecost 20 (27 October 2019)

The Means of Grace and the Hope of Glory

Reflections on Luke 18.9-14

RCL Proper 30C

27 October 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Luke 18.9-14

            ^18.9 [Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:  ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  ¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people:  thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  ¹² I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’  ¹³ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Ask the right question.

            In Umberto Eco’s medieval mystery novel, The Name of the Rose, an experienced and somewhat world-wise monk and his novice assistant are sent to investigate a series of mysterious deaths in a forbidding monastery.  The monastery has been chosen as the site for a debate between two warring factions of Franciscan monks.  One faction, known as the ‘Spirituals’, opposed any ownership of land, buildings or possession by the Order, whether individually or corporately.  The other faction, known as the ‘Coventuals’, support the ownership of land and buildings by the Order as a community.  In their view this does not violate the Franciscan commitment to poverty.

            So the delegations arrive in the midst of murder investigation and turmoil in the neighbouring village to debate this question:  ‘Did Jesus own the tunic he wore to his trial?’  To our contemporary eyes the topic may seem unknowable and perhaps even a bit trivial.  Unfortunately it’s also the wrong question.  The right question would be ‘What was Christ’s attitude towards personal possessions?’

Outward and visible expressions of inward and spiritual grace

            It is a common failing of religious people to ask the wrong questions about the relationship between the external details of religious practice and the internal attitudes we bring to these practices.  It is the failing that we see in today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke.

            Let me be clear.  The religious practices the Pharisee speaks of are not the problem.  All of us can benefit from the fasting as a spiritual discipline.  It is a discipline shared among Jews, Christians and Muslims.  All of us may strive towards tithing.  It is also a discipline our three traditions share.  The problem here is that what the Pharisee is doing outwardly and visibly has not resulted in an inward and spiritual metanoia, an inner conversion that leads a believer to see the world as God sees it.  This is the goal of external religious practices.  Unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector, one of the more despised people in Jesus’ time, does understand what religious practice is about, even if he may not be the perfect model in everyday life.

            The outward and visible signs of our religious faith are meant to lead us into an inward and spiritual experience of God’s grace.  This grace is freely given to us in creation, in renewal and in our growth into the fullness of our dignity as human beings.  Such an experience confronts us with a choice.  We can live into the vision of life we have seen or we can turn away from this vision and minimize its importance by talking about how hard it is, how unrealistic it is, how counter-intuitive it is.

Practice makes perfect.

            Sometimes our religious practices seem unfulfilling.  One of my teachers, Bishop Michael Ramsey of blessed memory, once told my seminary classmates that there were days when during the prayers all he could say was ‘I want to pray.’  Some days were so difficult that all he could say was ‘I want to want to pray.’  And then there were those truly dreadful days when all he could say was ‘I want to want to want to pray.’  But he always prayed, whether in the common prayers or in his own personal prayers.  

            It was this commitment to the practice of prayer that made him a man of prayerful integrity whose presence alone was a source of peace and joy.  He sometimes struggled to pray; he always struggled to be faithful in his daily life, but he never gave up the struggle.  Just like Jacob in last week’s reading from Genesis, Michael wrestled with God, was wounded but was also blessed.

            When we worship, we commit our whole selves, our minds, our souls, our bodies and our strength.  We join with God, sometimes we wrestle with God, in the work of making God’s promises visible and active right now, right here, in all the places and relationships entrusted to our stewardship.

            So, let’s be careful what we pray for and how we pray for it.  You and I may catch a glimpse of what God is up to in the world and in us.  And then we’ll find ourselves caught up in the grace of God and nothing will ever be the same again.

The World Right Side Round

A World Right Side Round

Reflections on Luke 15.1-10

RCL Proper 24C

15 September 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 15th.

Luke 15.1-10

            ^15.1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus].  ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

            ³So he told them this parable:  ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’  ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

            ⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’  ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Sometimes the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

            I have been a Star Trekfan ever since the days of the original television program in the turbulent days of the mid-1960’s.  Star Trekdid more than entertain us.  The show’s writers dared to take on race relations, the nuclear arms race and even explore the light and the shadow that lies within each and every human being.

            When the first Star Trekmovies appears a decade or so after the last television episode, many of my contemporaries rejoiced to renew our youth.  At the end of the second film, The Wrath of Khan, Spock sacrifices his life to save the crew of the Enterprise. As he is dying, he tells his friend, Captain Kirk, that ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

            The next two films revolve around the story of how Kirk and his loyal crew sacrifice their futures to find and save Spock when it appears that he has been resurrected from the dead.  When, in the fourth film, Spock asks Kirk why they have done this, Kirk says to him, ‘Sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.’

There must be another way.

            Now I have no reason to believe that the writers of these movies had today’s gospel in mind, although there were and are many people of faith within the science fiction community.  But here we have it, the reversal of the utilitarian concept that has flourished within human society for millennia and within Western culture since the Industrial Revolution.  We tend to think and to act on the principle that the needs of the majority trump the needs of a minority or minorities.

            It’s true that in liberal democracies such as ours we do our best to protect the rights of minorities and individuals.  But if we are honest with ourselves, there are moments when we lose our patience and think to ourselves, ‘Oh, just get over it and get with the program.’

            When a criminal is released because of some procedural error, I know that I groan a bit.  When the rights of a trans-national corporation to make a profit and impose economic hardships on local working people are defended by courts and governments, I cringe and lament.  When communities and families are drawn into conflict over pipelines, indigenous rights and the national interest, my mind shuts down in frustration over what has become a ‘zero sum’ game where there are only winners and losers.  There must be another way.

God’s long-term plan leaves no one behind.

            As I read our first reading from Exodus, I could understand God’s point of view as well as the view of the People of Israel.  God has brought this people of little political significance from out the grasp of the most powerful nation in the region.  God has sent plagues, drowned armies and provided food and water through extraordinary means.  God is about to make an eternal covenant with them and they are busy making for themselves an idol.  No wonder God wants to start over.

            The people have been wandering through the desert for what seems to them to be a long time.  Even miraculous food and water grow a bit tiresome when they’re the only things on the menu.  If the God of Moses can’t do better than this for them, then perhaps one of the old gods will take up the slack.

            Before God can act, Moses steps in.  He reminds God that God is playing the long game and there will surely be a few hiccups along the way.  After all that God has done, perhaps there is some other way to move forward without destroying the whole people.  I hear Moses saying, ‘True, they’ve been foolish, but let’s not lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish.  The needs of the plan can surely outweigh the indiscretions of a tired people.’

            Jesus is also playing the long game.  Common sense would tell us that spending our efforts on trying to recover small losses isn’t a good use of resources.  But in the long game that is the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace, there are no expendable people, no redundant people, no one to be left behind. Even Jesus’ critics are worth some time in the hopes that they will come around to what God is doing in the ministry of Jesus.

            In the long game that God has invited us to play, we regularly face decisions about balancing the needs of the many and the needs of the few --- even the needs of the one.  If we lose sight of the truth that we are in this for the long haul, then we can lose patience, compassion and even hope, and enter into a 50% plus one, winner take all, frame of mind.  I dare say that it’s a soul-destroying, life-draining way to look at the world. There is another way.

The world right side round.

            I believe that the gospel describes the world as God intends it as a community in which the needs of the few --- even the needs of the one --- cannot be sacrificed on an altar of expediency.  As the Apostle Paul writes elsewhere, the body cannot be whole if any part suffers.  We are mutually interdependent upon one another and all of us, regardless of what we believe, where we live, what language we speak, what culture nourishes us, need to remember this strand of DNA embedded in the hearts, minds and souls of all God’s children.

            In the election campaign that is now upon us, we shall hear the leaders of our political parties make promises and propose policies that they believe will speak to the majority of Canadians.  As disciples of Christ we are called to listen closely to how our leaders speak about silent and sometimes invisible minorities --- if they speak of them at all.  And if our leaders are silent, we dare not remain so ourselves.  In the long game we are playing with and for God, no one is expendable.  To many of our neighbours this may seem like a world turned upside down.  But to God and to those who seek to be faithful to the covenants made with our ancestors, both Jew and Christian, it is the world the right side round.

Teach Us to Pray: Reflections on Luke 11.1-13 (RCL Proper 17C, 28 July 2019)

Teach Us to Pray

Reflections on Luke 11.1-13

RCL Proper 17C

28 July 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Luke 11.1-3

                  ^11.1[Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

                  ²He said to them, “When you pray, say:  Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  ³Give us each day our daily bread.  ⁴And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

                  ⁵And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’  ⁷And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’  ⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

                  ⁹“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  ¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?  ¹³If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Teach us to pray.

            When I was twelve years old, I joined the rest of my cadre at Saint Michael’s Parish in confirmation preparation.  Father Palmer, our Rector, was a firm man who had a knack for working with young people.  We all looked up to him and he became on of my mentors on the road to ordination some sixteen years later.

            He had to help us organize our thinking and to look at life and the challenges of faith as a gift of God that is often misunderstood.  I remember one of my friends asking Father Palmer why we fall into sin.  ‘More often than not,’ he said, ‘sin is the misuse of one of God’s gifts when we are motivated by fear of losing it.  Good stewardship of God’s gifts can become greed, enjoyment of the gift of food can become gluttony.’  There was no question we could not ask because he taught us that asking a question was a step towards wisdom.

            One of the little lessons that he gave us that has remained with me all these years is the acronym ‘ACTIP’ as a way of remembering what prayer should include. Prayer, Father Palmer taught us, should begin with adoration of God, then confession of our sins of commission and omission, then thanksgiving for God’s goodness to us and to all of creation, then intercession for others in their needs and troubles, then close with our petitions for our own needs and concerns.  For fifty-four years ACTIP has been embedded in my soul and has served me well in times of uncertainty about how to pray.

            ‘Teach us to pray,’ an unnamed disciple asks Jesus in today’s gospel from Luke.  Beneath those words I hear the desire to have the same rich spiritual life that Jesus has with God, that same sense of connectedness that enables Jesus to radiate God’s life into the hustle and bustle of the disciples’ everyday lives, that ability to meet the reality of human confident in God’s purposes to bring us all into life-giving, life-sustaining relationships.

            What Jesus gives them is the core of the prayer that we’ve been praying for almost two thousand years.  It’s the prayer that an early Christian writer in the second century thought every Christian should pray three times a day, slowly and thoughtfully, in order to find the spiritual grist for the mill of the soul to grind into Christian maturity. It’s a prayer that challenges us to ask ourselves some key questions about our own spiritual lives.

To whom are we praying?

            Father, hallowed be your name.  In the time of Jesus, to call God ‘Father’ was to evoke the image of the most powerful figure in any human family in Palestine and throughout the Greco-Roman world.  Fathers had the power of life and death.  But Jesus reveals God as a father who welcomes home a wayward son, a shepherd who seeks for one lost sheep, a despised Samaritan who cares for a man who falls into the hands of bandits.

            Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are given an opportunity to ponder our own understanding of who is the God whose name we are holding sacred.  The Scriptures as well as our own experiences are full of images of God.  Our ‘desert island’ Scriptures, those portions of the Bible that we find particularly meaningful, tell us a great deal about how we understand God.

For what are we praying?

            Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  We’ve all probably prayed for a parking spot when we’re frantically trying to finish some errands.  If it were possible to set up a prayer indicator near any BC Lottery dealer, the readings would probably go off the dial.

            But our prayers are actually simple.  We are praying that the world becomes what God want it to become, a place where all God’s children can be free, a place where all God’s creatures have what they need for a full life, a place where we are each valued and loved.

            We are praying that our needs and those of others are filled.  Those who are ill in body and soul are made whole. Those who are lonely find companionship. Those who are held captive by addiction and poverty are liberated.  Those who mourn receive comfort.  Those who are hopeless discover hope.

            We are praying that we become more Christ-like in our relationships.  If we are clinging on to old hurts, we pray for release.  If we are holding others emotionally hostage, we pray for release.  If we are seeking power and control at the expense of others, we pray for release.

In what times are we praying?

            And do not bring us to the time of trial. Our times are no less fraught with danger than when Jesus and his disciples travelled throughout ancient Palestine. We face political and social conflicts. We live in the midst of what many of us consider to be a climate emergency.  We witness the growth of political movements that deny the full humanity of millions of people.  We know that wealth and power are not equitably distributed, whether in the so-called ‘developed’ world or the so-called ‘developing’ world.

            Times such as these have the potential to generate considerable fear. Human beings are not at our best when we are faced with the choice of fight or flight.  And so we pray that God will empower our ‘better angels’ in order that we might be beacons of hope rather than torches of anger, that our communities might be open to and embracing of all rather than closed to and suspicious of whomever we might call ‘the other’.

Pray without ceasing.

            Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened . . . . If you . . . know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

            For two thousand years the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, in many forms and many languages, has been a quiet centre around which we can remember to whom we are praying, for what we are praying and in what times we are praying. It is a prayer that is prayed unceasingly throughout the inhabited world.  Just as a single prayer wheel spins its invocations in one location, so this prayer has transformed our whole planet into a prayer wheel, invoking God’s name, praying for the coming of the kingdom and asking for strength to meet the times.

            Let us pray  it, slowly and thoughtfully, when we rise in the morning.  Let us pray  it, slowly and thoughtfully, when we pause in the middle of the day.  Let us pray it, slowly and thoughtfully, when we bring our day to close.  Pray it, slowly and thoughtfully, when we are uncertain about how to pray or what to pray. Pray it and be prepared for the Holy Spirit to move in us and through us to more than we can ask or imagine.

One Pebble at a Time: Reflections on Luke 13.1-9

One Pebble at a Time

Reflections on Luke 13.1-9

RCL Lent 3C

24 March 2019

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 24th.

Luke 13.1-9

            ^13.1At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  ²He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  ³No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.  ⁴Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them — do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?  ⁵No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

            ⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.  ⁷So he said to the gardener, ‘See here!  For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none.  Cut it down!  Why should it be wasting the soil?’  ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

            By mid-April of 1981 spring was making a tentative effort to gain a foothold in southern Wisconsin where my seminary, Nashotah House, is located.  As a final year student the coming of more sunlight and warmer temperatures heralded the changes that were soon to occur for me and many of my classmates.  In six weeks we would graduate.  In eight weeks I would be ordained to the transitional diaconate and begin to exercise the ministry for which I had been preparing for three years.

            To be sure there were still papers to be written and final examinations to take, but it was a good time.  As one of the two senior sacristans of the House I had survived the rigorous and time-consuming preparations for the many liturgical celebrations of Lent, Holy Week and Easter.  This was the time of year that the second-year sacristans took up the reins in preparation for graduation and for their duties in the coming year.  Now that I was freed from many of my duties, I could concentrate on finishing my theological studies well.

            We were in class when the news of the tragedy came to us.  The wife of one of the first-year students had parked her car in the driveway of their home and left it running while she went to open the garage door to unload the groceries.  When she shut the door of her card, the transmission shifted from park into reverse.  The car, with her two-year-old son still in his car seat, rolled into a pond. Despite her desperate and those of her neighbours, the boy drowned.

            The next week was one of the more intense weeks I have ever experienced. But the pain and shock we were all suffering became even more horrible when we learned that the accident need not to have happened at all.  Several years earlier the car manufacturer had learned of the defect that caused the transmission to shift when the driver’s door was shut with any force.  Someone in the company did the math and realized how much it would cost the company to re-call the vehicles and repair the defect. We ever learned that the memorandum had indicated that the cost of any wrongful death settlements would be far less than the cost of a wholesale recall.

            Now I’m sure that the person responsible for this calculation did not wish Michael’s death.  They undertook the cold equations, provided the analysis and then let someone in a higher pay grade make the decision.  But Michael’s death was the result of their actions and the choices they made.

            I will not pretend that today’s gospel reading from Luke is easy to understand. Throughout the history of the Jewish and Christian peoples there has been a desire to understand why things happen the way that they do.  Countless theologians and even more countless believers have tried to understand how God is working in the world and what is the relationship between our actions and God’s will.  We hear people wrestling with this question in today’s gospel.  Why would God allow Herod kill people who are simply following their religious duties and traditions?  They must have done something wrong.  Why would God allow a group of workmen die in an industrial accident? They must have been great sinners.

            To them and to us Jesus simply responds, ‘That’s the wrong question.  The right question is this --- Do I understand that my actions, for good and for ill, affect the lives of others, some of whom I know and many of whom I do not know?’  After all, the Galileans whom Herod is supposed to have killed were more likely the innocent victims of Herod’s paranoia rather than their own imperfections. After all, the Muslim worshippers killed in Christchurch were innocent victims of a young man holding abhorrent views about Islam and immigrants rather than the thin edge of some international conspiracy to undermine pluralist democracies.  After all, the workmen killed in the construction accident in Siloam were more likely the victims of shoddy materials and disregard for any safety protocols than they were for some secret indiscretions. After all, the young people who are killed in industrial accidents in British Columbia are more often victims of peer pressure and fear of standing up to their bosses rather than some deadly sin.

            One of the most powerful tools that evil uses in the world today is the quiet whisper in our ears that what we do does not matter.  We are told that we live in a world so complex that the actions of individuals do not matter.  We look at the evil done in the world and fear takes hold of us, freezing us into inaction.  It’s when I begin to hear this whisper and to see the immensity of wrong that exists in our world that I realize the simple wisdom of a familiar bumper sticker: Think globally.  Act locally.

            We can never underestimate the power of one person to influence the community in which they live and potentially the world in which all of us live.  We can never underestimate the power each one of us has to influence the lives of our families, our friends and our neighbourhoods. When Jesus tells his audience to repent, he is asking them more to take seriously the implications of their own actions and decisions than he is asking them to create a catalogue of ‘things done and things left undone’ for which they are sorry.  When Jesus tells them the parable of the fig tree, he is reminding them of God’s patience towards us and God’s nurture of us so that we can become the persons God knows us to be.

            We here at Holy Trinity know that there are hungry people.  So, once a week, fifty-two weeks a year, we feed them breakfast.  We provide them with clothing and items for their personal needs.  We connect them with resources and with agencies so that their human dignity is respected.  On a busy week we may feed 100 people.  On a slow week 60.  But we act in our own small way to make our small plot of land a place of help, hope and home.

            We know that there is a need for more affordable housing.  So, for more years than some may wish to remember, we’ve been working towards re-developing the land occupied by the Parish Hall and Offices.  It’s not an easy path, but we are drawing closer, I believe, to the realization of our hopes.  Some may ask what difference forty-two affordable housing units will make in the face of widespread need.  My answer is that we are doing our part and hope that our witness will inspire others to do theirs.  In the meantime there will be forty-two individual, couples and families who will find our small plot of land a place of help, hope and home.

            We make our choices, my friends, as disciples of Jesus.  Not out of guilt but out of joy.  Not out of a sense of entitlement but of loving obligation. Not out of a sense of scarcity but out of gratitude for God’s abundance and generosity.  Just as a pebble thrown into a pond creates ripples that rock the leaves on the surface of the pond, so God throws us out into the world, trusting that the choices we make will, in small but significant ways, rock our world and bring God’s reign of justice and peace just a little bit nearer.  As it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever. Amen.

The World, the Flesh & The Devil: Reflections on Luke 4.1-13

The World, the Flesh & the Devil

Reflections on Luke 4.1-13

RCL Lent 1C

10 March 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 10th.

Luke 4.1-13

                  ^4.1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.  He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.  ³The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  ⁴Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”

                  ⁵Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  ⁶And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. ⁷If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”  ⁸Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ”

                  ⁹Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ ¹¹and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

                  ¹²Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”  ¹³When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

            Every year Jim Griffiss, the professor of theology at Nashotah House, the seminary where I studied, would offer an advanced seminar in theology. He limited enrolment in the seminar to ten to twelve graduating students.  It was always held in the afternoons in the seminar room Jim had added to his house and there was always good Wisconsin beer --- local brew not generic national labels.

            I was fortunate enough to gain a seat in Jim’s seminar during my final year at Nashotah.  The seminar was entitled simply ‘Evil’.  We spent the first session discussing why Jim had chosen just the world ‘evil’ to describe the seminar.  That session alone was worth the tuition fee.  What Jim led us to see is that many of the ways we talk about evil assume underlying answers:  Is evil a ‘problem’?  Is evil a ‘question’?  Is evil a ‘mystery’?  Is evil a ‘symbol’?  Why does God ‘allow’ evil?  The list goes on and on

            Evil has been a subject of Christian conversation since the earliest disciples of Jesus tried to explain to potential converts why an all-powerful God would allow humans to arrest, torture and execute Jesus if Jesus is the ‘Son of God’.  Evil has been an experience all people of faith have struggled to understand even as Jesus was tempted to embrace the world, the flesh and the devil in the desert of Judea.  And just like my friends in the ‘evil’ seminar thirty-eight years ago, Christians have come up with various ways of describing how in the story of Jesus of Nazareth evil finds its match.

            Almost every time I’ve prepared a family for the baptism of their child, the first stumbling block in our conversation has been the three-fold renunciations that come early in the liturgy.

• Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
• Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
• Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? [1]

I can honestly say that I have struggled to find ways to respond to the questions and concerns parents and others have above these words spoken publicly and formally on the occasion of the baptism.  I can also say that, in preparing for today’s sermon, I found some of the words that I’ve always wanted to say.

            Evil is ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’.  Embedded in the heart of every human being is the capacity to love and the desire to be loved.  Think of all those cute videos on social media that show ducks that think they’re dogs, cats that adopt rabbits and chimpanzees that recognize their rescuers years later.  We enjoy watching them because these videos speak to something deep within ourselves. They are parables of the world as we would like it to be, a world in which we are loved for who we are not who someone wants us to be, a world where love knows no barrier based on our looks, our possessions, our personal history, a world where we know that there is enough for everyone and we do not need to fear giving.

            Evil eats into us when our desire to love and to be loved is misdirected. Evil gains a foothold in us when fear replaces hope, when self-interest blinds us to the needs and concerns of others, when we turn inward on ourselves rather than outward towards our neighbours. Evil often confuses quantity, however defined, with quality, confuses hoarding with responsible stewardship, confuses prejudice with joy in the diversity of humanity.

            Evil is more about nurture than about nature.  There are Christians who believe that we are inherently flawed creatures and there ‘is no health in us’.  This attitude is present in some of the prayers of the Anglican tradition.  I can understand this point of view.  I have been to Dachau.  I have seen the piles of eyeglasses, the heaps of shoes, the stacks of luggage taken from the inmates as they entered the concentration camp.  I have seen the crematoria.  I have few illusions about our ability to harm others and ourselves.  But I find myself more sympathetic to the view that we have to be taught to hate [2]and that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. [3]

            All of us are exposed to various forms of evil and, if the truth be told, all of us come away from such encounters touched by that evil and it leaves its imprint upon us like pine tar that we simply cannot wipe away.  Our families, our friends, our religious communities can be the remedies that help us regain our right minds and shape us so that we ‘persevere in resisting evil and, whenever [we] fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord’. [4]

            Evil is intentional and purposeful. Many years ago there was a television show character who loved to explain away every mistake, every misstep, every failing by saying, ‘the Devil made me do it.’  Here we face the real conundrum of evil.  Although we wish we were in control of every aspect of our lives, we must acknowledge that we often find ourselves under the sway of powerful forces that limit the gift of free will that God has placed in our very souls. But despair is the ultimate tool of evil and leaves us believing that ‘resistance is futile’ and we are powerless to effect change in ourselves, in our communities, in our world.  

            Lent, however, is a time to remember that the good news of God in Christ proclaims that we can choose to love and to be loved as God has loved us in Christ, that we can grow into the image of God that already implanted within us, that we can choose to resist evil in whatever form it takes and by whatever disguise it chooses.

            As I sometimes do before I preach, I looked up the meaning of ‘renounce’.  Two meanings were ones I already knew:  (i) to give up a claim or right and (ii) to give up some habit or pursuit voluntarily.  But a third meaning grabbed my attention:  (iii) to fail to follow suit because one has no cards that that suit left in one’s hand or to choose not to follow suit even if one has those cards in one’s hand.  That’s something I can understand because I come from a card-playing family.  Just as Jesus refused to play Satan’s game in the wilderness, so too can you and I refuse to play the game that evil tries to play in our times.  We do not have to follow suit. 

            Just because others live in fear must we live in fear.  We renounce fear.  Just because others look for love in all the wrong places must we turn away from the love of God made known to us in Jesus of Nazareth.  We renounce misdirected love.  Just because others choose paths of self-interest and division must we silence our song of God’s generosity and unifying grace.  We renounce everything that seeks to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. Why?  Because “ ^{4. 16b}God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  ¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this:  that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.  ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. “  [5]

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[1]The Book of Alternative Services1985, 154.

[2]‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’ from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.

[3]Irenaeus of Lyons.

[4]The Book of Alternative Services1985, 159.

[5]John 14.16b-18a

Lifting the Veil: Reflections on Luke 9.28-36

Lifting the Veil

Reflections on Luke 9.28-36

RCL Last Sunday after Epiphany C

3 March 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist on Sunday.

Luke 9.28-36

                  ^9.28Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.  ²⁹And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.  ³⁰Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.  ³¹They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  ³²Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.  ³³Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” — not knowing what he said.  ³⁴While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.  ³⁵Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  ³⁶When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.  And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

            The mid- to late-nineteenth century was a time of religious upheaval in the churches of the Anglican Communion.  Social and cultural developments such as changing attitudes towards the role of women in society and the ‘rush towards empire’ that afflicted even smaller European countries such as Belgium contributed to this turmoil. But within the Anglican world, the world that gave rise to this cathedral church building in which we are worshipping today, the most visible conflict was around worship.

            In the 1830’s a group of Oxford academics had rediscovered the theology and worship of the early church and of the English church before the Reformation. Along with some of their colleagues in Cambridge they began a movement that is sometimes called the ‘High Church’ movement or the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ movement.  They dared to resurrect the teachings of some of theologians and bishops of the early seventeenth century who had fallen out of favour in the years following the English Civil War.  These teachers had spoken of the ‘beauty of holiness’ and they dared to bless God ‘for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for [God’s] immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory’. [1]

            This movement inspired many younger clergy whose views were not always welcomed by their bishops.  These new priests were often assigned parishes in the inner city, parishes whose buildings were often in need of repair and whose parishioners were among the poorer residents.  These priests threw themselves into beautifying their churches and enriching the worship of the congregation with vestments and music and even incense. What these priests wanted to do was to show their parishioners who God intended them to be, beloved children of God called to share in the heavenly banquet, and to show them that beauty was not just for the wealthy and the privileged, beauty was God’s gift to every human being. For some of these young priests their motto was ‘See who you are.  Become what you see.’

            This work of showing us who we are and helping us become what we see has continued ever since.  When I was a boy, this Sunday was called ‘Quinquagesima’ because it comes fifty days before Easter and we read the story of the healing of a blind beggar.  Now it is the Last Sunday after Epiphany, a reminder that we have been hearing stories of the revelation of Christ in the lives of ordinary women and men, and we hear the story of the transfiguration, the revelation of who Jesus of Nazareth is, the Beloved of God, the Chosen, who has shared our humanity so that we can share in his divinity.

            Even our attitude towards Lent which begins in three days has changed.  As a boy Lent seemed to me to be a time of self-denial to remedy a year spent falling short of God’s expectations. Somehow my friends and I thought that God could be appeased by our righteousness abstinence from Brussel sprouts, spinach and other such foods as our parents tried to foist upon us.  To learn that Lent from its earliest origins was about walking with those people who were going to be baptized at Easter, that Lent is about examining our priorities and, yes, perhaps giving some harmful and perhaps even some good things up, that Lent is about growing into Christ, our baptismal identity, was and continues to be a revelation.

            Although the story we heard read today seems to focus on the transformation of Jesus, the dramatic change in his appearance, the real story is this.  On the mountaintop Peter, James and John see Jesus as he really is.  The Jesus with whom they have been travelling throughout the towns and villages of Roman Palestine is more than they could ask or imagine.  The Jesus whom they call ‘Teacher’ is the Chosen in whom God reveals God’s very self.  This has been true from the first day and will remain true today and tomorrow. What changes is the relationship that Peter, James and John have with Jesus.  When relationships change, we are compelled to re-think, re-imagine, re-create ourselves in the light of this new relationship.

            Every Sunday as we celebrate the eucharist, we say words that have the potential to change relationships and to transform ourselves.  When the presider says, ‘The peace of the Lord be always with you,’ and we respond, ‘And also with you,’ we are invited to look at one another differently as we exchange a sign of that peace.  If I have exchanged the peace of God with you, then how shall I live and work with you once this assembly is over?  When the presider says, ‘These are the gifts of God for the people of God,’ what are the consequences of acknowledging that we who receive these precious gifts are now called to become the gift we have received? Do we ever ponder the risk we take when we ask God to forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of others?

            Every Sunday, every eucharist, every gathering of the Christian people, is a time of transfiguration when, in one way or another, God speaks to us, saying ‘See who you are.  Become what you see.’  Every Sunday, every eucharist, every gathering of the Christian people, is a time of transfiguration when, in one way or another, we catch a glimpse of the glory of God dwelling in the person sitting next to us, in front of us, behind us, within us, and the possibility of renewed and life-giving relationships lies open before us.

            Here we are invited to behold and to participate in the beauty of holiness in order that we may see ourselves as God sees us and become agents of transfiguration wherever God sends us.  Here we are empowered to go into the world to lift the veil that prevents our neighbours and friends from seeing  ‘. . . all that gracious in the lives of men and women, revealing the image of Christ’. [2]  This is what transfiguration is all about, the revelation in the lives of ordinary women, men and children of our true selves, made in the image of God, called to be agents of God’s love and reconciliation and destined for glory.

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[1]The Book of Alternative Services1985, 129.

[2]The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 128.