Becoming Free from the Bondage of Privilege: Reflections on Mark 5.21-43 (RCL Proper 13B, 27 June 2021)

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         I wasn’t introduced to artichokes until I was in my 20’s.  They were too expensive and too exotic a food for my family table growing up.  So, the first time I was served one at a social function, I was totally at sea.  Why were these nice people who had invited me to dinner serving me a very large thistle head?  I waited until everyone else was served to see what I supposed to do.  I watched as each person peeled away a piece, dip it in sauce and then nibble the end.  After all the pieces were gone, my dining companions then went to work on the heart.

 

         It seemed to me at the time that someone had had to be very hungry to discover the edible portions of an artichoke.  Even the ancient Romans and Greeks who lived in the region where the artichoke originated debated whether it was a useful food or not.  But, despite the debate, the artichoke continues to grace many tables these days – rarely mine.

 

         Today’s gospel reading is, from my perspective, a bit of an artichoke.  On the surface it’s a tale of Jesus healing two women, one older, one younger.  But as we peel away the layers of the two stories, one embedded in the heart of the other, we find the solid gospel food we need in these days.  Both healing stories point us towards the path of becoming free from the bondage of privilege.

 

         Let’s look at Jairus for a moment.  He is wealthy; he has social prestige; he occupies a public role as a man of substance.  Yet all these privileges that allow him to act freely in the community and to expect defence cannot save his daughter.  Her illness brings Jairus literally to his knees before Jesus, an itinerant Jewish teacher who is not wealthy, whose social prestige is a bit iffy, who occupies a public role as a wonder worker, a religious gadfly and a potential political threat.  Jairus’ daughter’s crisis brings Jairus a moment of liberation from the bondage of privilege.  We can only imagine what his life was like after this encounter with Jesus.

 

         Then there is the older woman who has lost everything due to her condition.  She is destitute.  She has no social prestige due to her constant ritual impurity.  She has does not occupy any public role, whether as a wife, a widow or a woman of substance.  She has nothing to lose by trying literally to reach out to Jesus in her search for healing.  Jairus is brought to his knees, but she is brought to boldness, unseemly to some in the crowd, but honoured by Jesus.  This woman is already liberated by the bondage of what is understood as privilege to her contemporaries.  But she gains a new privilege by her faith in Jesus; she becomes a ‘daughter’, a member of the new family of God begun in the life and ministry of Jesus.

 

         As I pondered these stories of liberation from the bondage of privilege, I found myself thinking about some occasions in my life where the privilege of being a Euro-Canadian male with advanced degrees and social status as a member of the Christian clergy.

 

*      Watching a Melanesian woman and her children being told to disembark from a plane because it was overloaded with the luggage of Taiwanese lumber workers and two white Anglican priests, John Blyth and me.

*      Arriving in the airport in Singapore on a flight from Yangon and being pulled along with Bishop Jim Cowan from the long line of arriving Burmese passengers to an expedited customs and immigration station reserved for diplomats and air crews.

*      Being sent off with a warning rather than a ticket for speeding on the south side of the Patullo Bridge perhaps because I was wearing a clerical collar and was so Canadian-like in my politeness with the police officer.

*      Receiving two doses of the Moderna vaccine while others still wait for their first dose, both here in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

 

         Let me be very clear.  I am not telling these stories to lay blame on or shame anyone.  I am telling these stories so that we can all ponder the reality of the privilege that many of us possess, often a consequence of our birth or other factors beyond our immediate control or the way our society is structured.  But privilege can be a form of bondage.  It is bondage when our reaction to any challenge to our privilege evokes in us any sense of outrage or anger, both of which are simply forms of fear.

 

         When we face the possibility of being liberated from the bondage of privilege, fundamental questions bubble up from the core of our being:  Who will I be without this privilege?  What will I have if I yield this privilege?  What shape will my future take if this privilege is distributed to others?  These questions are ones which Paul speaks of in today’s reading from his second letter to the Christians in Corinth as he pleads with them to contribute to the needs of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

 

. . . I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.

         As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”

 

         Our faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and who continues to guide and empower us by the Holy Spirit gives us the confidence to risk yielding privilege in order that there ‘may be a fair balance’.  While there are voices that plead a scarcity of resources, whether physical, social or spiritual, we, the disciples of Jesus, know that we dwell in the midst of an abundance of resources.  To yield privilege is not to be impoverished or diminished; it is a step on the journey to discover the living heart of the good news of God in Jesus.

 

         In that journey of discipleship we peel away the armour of privilege, just as a hungry person peels away the outer armour of an artichoke, in order to reach the heart that awaits us.  We discover that as we peel away the exterior, the good news does not become less but grows, just as last week’s mustard seed grows into hardy bush that shelters the birds.  In this yielding we learn the truth and the truth shall set us free.

Be of Good Courage: Reflections on John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15 for Pentecost 2021 (23 May 2021)

             In 1995 I went to General Synod for the first time as a clergy representative from the Diocese of New Westminster.  Within fifteen minutes of my arrival at the registration desk, I was whisked away by an anxious volunteer.  The volunteer told me that the priest of the parish who was to host members of the New Westminster delegation on Sunday had come down with a very bad case of laryngitis.  Would I preside and preach at the three points of the parish?

 

            I said ‘yes’ and then realized that I had just agreed to preach three times on Pentecost in congregations I did not know, with little time to prepare and the pressing business of a General Synod that had come together at the beginning of our internal debates about the place of LGBTQ disciples in the life of our church.  But late one night, as I was struggling about what I would say on Monday in a meeting of the whole on the topic of sexuality, I can only say I had a Pentecostal moment.  I realized that the primary gift of the Holy Spirit was courage to act on what I knew, what I had been taught and what I had experienced since I became a disciple and friend of Jesus in 1953.

 

            Just as the first disciples knew who Jesus was and what he had taught them and how he had lived among them, so we, two thousand years later, know who is for us now, what Jesus has taught us and is teaching us now and how he lives with us now.  Through the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, through the writings of Christians over two millennia and through our own experiences of life as members of the Body of Christ, we have come to recognize that Jesus is our foundation; he is our model; he is our mentor.

 

            But what we know, what we have learned and are learning, and what we see is not always enough to enable us to be the disciples and friends of Jesus we seek to be.  Just as the core operating systems of our computers need an upgrade now and then to facing changing technologies, so too does our core spiritual operating system need an upgrade from time to time.  After two thousand years we Christians must share and live the good news of God in Christ in contexts very different from those of first-century Palestine or, for that matter, the late twentieth-century North America at the time of my ordination in 1981.

 

            We need to learn new ‘languages’ so that we can share the good news with those who know little to nothing of the Christian story other than what they read and see in the popular media, especially these days when the Christian voices that have come to dominate the public’s perception of what Christian faith do not speak for all Christian believers.  We have to imagine different ways of ‘being church’ in a society that is wary of committing to any organization or institution which cannot proclaim and live a clear and compelling mission that makes sense in twenty-first century Canada.  We have to apply our core operating system, Jesus of Nazareth, to situations unimagined by our forebears in the faith.

 

            To this end the Holy Spirit has been sent, is being sent and will be sent to us.  Through the Spirit we are ‘en-couraged’ – filled with courage and empowered so that we can act on what we know, what we have learned and what we have experienced as Jesus’ disciples and friends.

 

            Richard of Saint Victor, a Christian theologian who lived and taught in the twelfth century in western Europe, was frequently criticized by his contemporaries for his approach to scriptural and theological interpretation.  Many thought him innovative at best, heretical at worst, and sought to silence him.  In response to their criticism he wrote:

 

            "Do you wish to honour and defend the Fathers?  We cannot honour the lovers of truth more truly than by seeking, finding, teaching, defending and loving the truth.  Do not ask whether what I say is new, but whether it is true."  (McAuliffe et al., With Reverence for the Word 2003, 24)

 

We know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  But discipleship and friendship with Jesus requires us to look at the world around us, its needs and its resources, its hopes and fears, its lack of vision as well as its precious insights.  How do the Scriptures and our lived experience guide us towards making our time and our place ‘a thin place’ where God’s life and our lives touch.

 

            Today small flames appear over the heads of all who claim to be and who seek to grow as disciples and friends of Jesus.  Today our hearts are given the courage to be who we truly are and to share the good news the message that the glory of God is found in human beings truly alive.  The whole world, or at least this small part of the world we inhabit, is waiting eagerly to hear, in whatever language is needed, in whatever form is needed, this message of freedom and abundant life unleashed this day two thousand years ago – and today and every day.

Alike and Yet Unalike: Reflections on John 15.9-17

 

 

RCL Easter 6B

9 May 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         As I draw nearer to my retirement from full-time stipendiary ministry, I find myself, like many others at similar points in their lives, marking endings.  On Wednesday past, for example, Greg Kennelly and I participated in our last meeting as elected members of our Diocesan Council.  By the time the next scheduled election of members takes place, I shall be within a month or two of retirement.

 

         I have also been remembering mentors such as my Grade 8 and 9 English teacher, Mrs Galbraith whose husband had been taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War 2; my Grade 7, 8 and 9 civics teacher, Mr Comer, who was instrumental in organizing teachers into a collective bargaining association and later a state senator; and my seminary liturgy professor, Louis Weil, who was one of the group of scholars, clergy and laity responsible for the American prayer book of 1979 which influenced our own Book of Alternative Services of 1985.

 

         One of the ways that I earned a little extra money while I was doing my doctoral studies in Notre Dame was by serving as a supply priest in the Dioceses of Northern Indiana and Western Michigan.  Once, while presiding at a small parish on the shores of Lake Michigan, a member of the parish came up to me after the service and said, ‘Louis Weil taught you how to preside at the eucharist, didn’t he?’  When I asked how she knew, she said, ‘It’s how you use your hands, rarely if ever fussy, carefully contained, choreographed not mechanical – just like Louis.’

 

         Some years later, after I had come to VST, established my own teaching career and begun working with people serving in aboriginal communities, I attend an international conference of Anglican liturgists.  During one discussion about a particularly thorny topic, Louis voiced his opinion, I voiced a different one.  After the session I went up to Louis to apologize.  ‘Nonsense,’ Louis said, ‘you are not my clone, Richard.  I taught you to think pastorally, historically and theologically.  That means we may, from time to time, see things differently.’

 

         Such is the role of mentors in our lives.  We begin by imitation, the sincerest form of flattery.  Then, one day, consciously or unconsciously, we move beyond the boundaries of our formation and do something different, perhaps even something our mentors might not approve entirely.

 

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. [John 15.16-17]

 

         For me this short section of the Gospel according to John is revolutionary in what it says to us and what it implies about our relationship to Jesus, our Friend and our Mentor.  Through these words of Jesus, John dares to tell us that being a disciple of Jesus may be something more complex from what we may imagine it to be.  We are not servants; we are not clones; we are friends.  Friends are alike and friends are unalike; our distinctiveness does not divide us but rather enriches our friendship.

 

         To be sure our vocation as disciples of Jesus is founded on our imitation of Jesus, a life-long effort to be Christ-like in all we do, in all we way, in how we mould our hearts, minds and souls.  Sometimes we succeed spectacularly in our embodiment of God in Christ.  Sometimes we fail in equally spectacular fashion.  But in imitating Christ, we find abundant life and sow that life all about us.

 

         Our imitation of Jesus is honed by our reading of and reflection upon the Scriptures, especially the Gospels.  We learn from each other how to love and to serve the neighbours among whom we live, work and play.  In our public worship, whether we participate on-line or on-site, we practice what we preach by holding before God the needs and concerns of the whole world, human and non-human, animate and inanimate, Christian and non-Christian, near and far.

 

         But to have Jesus as our Friend and our Mentor also means using our distinctive gifts and experiences to do ‘more than we can ask or imagine’.  To be like Jesus means going where Jesus could not go in his earthly ministry and confronting needs and situations unknown in 1^st-century Palestine.

 

         Just before the portion of John’s Gospel we heard this morning, part of the so-called ‘Farewell Discourse’, Jesus says yet another extraordinary thing.

 

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. [John 14.12]

 

During his earthly ministry, Jesus gathered a small community of friends who, after his death, resurrection and ascension, went out and changed their world.  We who gather for worship today are the visible evidence of that great work of transformation.

 

         As the end of this pandemic approaches, and it will end, we will find ourselves facing our own moment to do great things.  We have learned new ways to share the good news of God in Christ and we will learn how to integrate them into our on-going ministry here in New Westminster and beyond.  We have known the pain of isolation and separation.  How will our experience of such pain transform our community life when we are finally permitted to expand our presence in shared physical space and to increase our community activities?  We cannot return to the ‘old normal’; we must shape a ‘new normal’.

 

         In all of this Jesus will be our Friend and our Mentor.  We will continue our commitment to imitate him in thought, word and deed.  But we will also explore going beyond imitation into faithful imagination.  This imagining may lead us into unexplored territory.  But I am convinced that our Friend and our Mentor will not disapprove.

 

Let us pray.

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  [Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006, 304]

Listening for the Voice of Jesus

  

Listening for the Voice of Jesus

Reflections on John 10.11-18

 

RCL Easter 4B

25 April 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Stop that music!

            When most of us hear someone mention a hymn, we tend to hear the tune first and then perhaps to recollect the words.  Despite the best efforts of musicians and seminary professors over the decades, this tendency to confuse ‘hymn’, the text, with ‘tune’, the music to which the words are sung, persists.

            I have a vivid memory of an ordination I attended in 1980.  When the time came to sing Veni Sancte Spiritus, the ancient hymn invoking the Holy Spirit that has become a fixed element of Anglican ordination rites, the organist began to play the ‘other’ tune for the hymn rather than the tune usually played.  The ordaining bishop whose nickname among us seminarians was ‘Wild Bill’ looked up, glared at the organist and shouted, ‘Stop that music!’

            After a seemingly endless period of silence, ‘Wild Bill’ began the ordination prayer with his hands stretched out over a very shaken ordinand.  For months afterwards we teased this poor fellow by telling him that he really hadn’t been ordained because we never sang the Veni Sancte Spiritus as the rite required.  I do feel a little guilty about this because years later he left the Episcopal Church to become a monk on Mount Athos in Greece!

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say.

            One of my favourite hymn is ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, Hymn #508 in Common Praise, our current Anglican hymn book.  I’m sure that many of you know it as well, but what tune is used to sing these words can evoke different reactions to the text.

            Since 1938 at least, Canadian Anglicans have sung the hymn to ‘Kingsfold’, a lovely English folk tune popularized by Ralph Vaughan Williams and set in the key of G major.

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Come unto me and rest;

lay down, thou weary one,

lay down thy head upon my breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

so weary, worn and sad;

I found in him a resting place,

and he has made me glad.

 

It’s a hopeful tune, set in a bright key, almost spring-like in its effect on the singer.

 

            Since 1940 at least, those of us who grew up in Anglicanism south of the border sang the hymn to a more somber tune by Thomas Tallis, one also beloved of Ralph Vaughan Williams, called ‘The Third Tune’ (Common Praise #191) and set in the key of C major.

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Behold, I freely give

the living water; thirsty one,

stoop down and drink and live.”

I came to Jesus and I drank

of that live-giving stream;

my thirst was quenched,

my soul revived,

and now I live in him.

 

It’s more meditative, almost autumn-like in its character.

            Same words, different tunes.  Same voice, different emotions.  But one common goal:  listening for the voice of Jesus.

 

Listening for Jesus in the Elevator of Our Lives

            We long to hear the voice of the good Shepherd who will lead us into our long-hoped-for united humanity, into those pastures green where all the flock are well-fed and watered.  But listening for the voice of the Shepherd in a world of different, sometimes clashing, tunes feels like being in a vast elevator that never stops at our floor and that we cannot escape as we are besieged with an endless loop of banality and deception.

            Advertisers fill every nook of the media with pitches for their products.  Political parties test clever but meaningless slogans on focus groups.  Demagogues use all the words that trigger our fears and anxieties, while they ridicule our ‘better angels’ as naïve and unachievable.  How do we listen for the voice of the good Shepherd in such a cacophony?

            The apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians suggests the ‘tunes’ we should listening for, if we want to hear the good Shepherd (Galatians 5.16-26).

 

• If we hear a hymn being sung to the tune of self-giving love, joy and peace, then it’s quite likely the Shepherd is singing to us.
• If we hear a hymn being sung to a tune that fills us with a longing for patience, kindness and generosity, it may well be the Shepherd serenading us.
• If we hear a hymn calling us to faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, let’s mark the tune and embrace the Singer, for it’s very likely Jesus who is calling to us.

 

In all times and in all place, the Shepherd is singing such hymns to us, in many and varied tunes, in the hopes of catching us aware and attentive.

 

Training the ear.

            Listening for the voice of Jesus takes practice and a commitment to the life-long training of the ear of the soul and the will of the heart.  That’s why we gather week after week, whether on-site or on-line, to hear the Word and to break the bread of life and to pour the wine of compassion.  We’re learning how to listen for the Voice that brings us home and that sets us free to be fully alive in the one flock of the living God.

Not Seeing Yet Believing: Reflections on John 20.30-31 (The 2nd Sunday of Easter, 11 April 2021)

            Early in the pandemic, as many of us were beginning to learn the new art of working from home and using social technology to connect with others, behavioural experts were advising us to develop and maintain routines.  Without the structure provided by regular activities and rhythms of the day, we easily become prone to be tossed and turned by the seas of pandemic life.

            It has only been in the last few months that I have begun to find a rhythm that works and that seems, to the best of my knowledge, to serve the Parish, my family and myself relatively well.  Our dog and cats are earlier risers, so by 5.00 they’ve been fed and I’ve said morning prayer.  Then back to bed until 7.30 or so.  Then I’m up for the work day to begin.

            I admit to being a news junkie.  On my iPad I have applications for BBC, CBC and the Guardian.  Over a cup of coffee and my breakfast I digest the news that the editors decided I needed to know as the day begins.  Then it’s off to Holy Trinity Cathedral or, if the day is filled with on-line meetings, into my study to connect with my colleagues and others.

            Recently I’ve been drawn in my morning reading to stories, articles and features about the natural sciences, especially astronomy, astrophysics and physics.  Now, before you ask, I have no advanced expertise in any of these fields.  I am a truly curious amateur reader with enough scientific education to understand most of the jargon and to realize how exciting these fields are.  For example, this Wednesday NASA plans to fly the first extra-terrestrial drone on Mars.  I can hardly wait to see what happens!  Often the scientists speak of their work in the same tone as religious leaders speak of ours.  

            This early morning reading has led me in the week leading up to this Sunday’s reading from the Gospel according to John, especially the final two verses.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But 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.  (John 20.30-31)

 

How do we know something?  Why do we believe something?

            Some things we believe in because we can see their direct effect upon us and upon our environment.  For example, we have never ‘seen’ gravity.  Yet we know its effects all too well.  As I preach this morning, I do not need to fear that at some point I will float up to the rafters.  We can measure the force of gravity and anyone who has ridden in a car or flown in a plane has experienced the sensation of being pressed into one’s seat upon acceleration or a sharp turn.

            None of us has ever ‘seen’ the wind, but few doubt its effect on us.  Living as I do near a forested park with many tall conifers, every wind storm creates a debris up and down our street for my neighbours and me to clear up.  Then there is the beauty of wind ruffling the fur of my Sheltie, something I never tire of watching.

            Then there are things we believe in because their existence explain broader theories about how our universe ‘works’.  We have never directly ‘seen’ a black hole, only glimpsed what we believe to be their ‘event horizons’, but their existence helps to explain galactic expansion and contraction.

            Most of us grew up with Pluto as the ninth planet of our solar system.  Then poor Pluto was demoted and joined a class of sub-planetary objects on the edges of the sun’s reach.  But the movement of some of these objects seems to defy current models of astronomical mechanics.  This has led some astronomers to posit a ‘Planet X’, ‘X’ for ten not ‘mysterious’, somewhere on the fringe, to explain the as-yet unexplained movement of Pluto’s neighbours.

            More than once in my life I have been asked to ‘prove’ that the resurrection really happened.  Perhaps you have been asked a similar question at some point in your lives.  My simple answer has been and remains that I cannot ‘prove’ the resurrection to the satisfaction of anyone who seeks a proof similar to an algebraic equation:  ‘X + Y = 4; X = 1; therefore Y =3.  As it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever.  Amen.’  What I can do in ways similar to my certainty about gravity and the wind and to my relative confidence about black holes and to my intrigued imagination about the possibility of a ‘Planet X’ is to point to the undeniable effects of the resurrection of Jesus upon human history.

            In this I am not alone.  Repeatedly in the Gospel of John Jesus is challenged to ‘prove’ that he is who he says he is.  And time and time again, Jesus says, ‘If you don’t believe my words, then look around and see what I am doing.  Believe the works.’  (cf. John 10.25, 37, 38; 14.10, 11)

            Out of a group of the least usual suspects – women and men, literate and illiterate, rich and poor, slave and free – from the least likely region of the Roman Empire came a movement that has spread throughout the world and shaped our shared human history.  This movement is responsible for both acts of transforming love and compassion as well as acts of hate and injustice.  But its proclamation of the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has always let us 

. . . (to persevere) in resisting evil and, whenever (we) fall into sin, (to repent) and return to the Lord (and)

. . . (to strive) for justice and peace among all people (and to respect) the dignity of every human being.  (The Book of Alternative Services 159)

I have seen this happening and I continue to see it happening when a nun kneels before armed police to plead for children and young people and when people work tirelessly for reconciliation between settler, immigrant and Aboriginal communities.  I see this and I know that the Lord is risen.

            When people give sacrificially of their financial resources, their time and their skills to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to reach out to those held in physical, emotional and spiritual bonds, whether these selfless people are Christians or not, I see and know that the Lord is risen.

            In these and so many other ways, we see the effects of the resurrection, the ripples from the dramatic events of that week in Jerusalem two thousand years upon untold numbers of women and men, communities throughout the known world, century upon century of transformation.  Christ has died.  This we know.  Christ is risen.  This we believe.  Christ will come again.  This we hope.

            And so we see and come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we – and all creation – may have life in his name, full and abundant life, eternal life.

 

In Our Right Minds: Reflections on Philippians 2.1-12

 

In Our Right Minds

Reflections on Philippians 2.1-12

 

RCL Palm Sunday B

28 March 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            In April of 2003 I turned fifty.  As many other people have no doubt done before me, I took stock of my life thus far.  Professionally I had done well:  a full professor with tenure, opportunities to travel, significant committee assignments and work that still interested me.

 

            On the personal side of things, however, I felt a little unease.  Paula and I had married later than either set of parents.  By the time my father was fifty, for example, I was in seminary, my sister married with the first grandchild on the way and my father had retired from his first career with the U.S. Air Force and was embarked on the first of two subsequent mini-careers.

 

            Here I was, the father of three children who were twelve, fourteen and sixteen and going through the biochemical changes of adolescence, just as I was beginning the biochemical changes of later middle age.  I remember saying to Paula, ‘It’s no wonder it seems like a madhouse around here.  We’re all under the influence of some chemical or another.  None of us are in our right minds!’

 

            What I said as a joke seventeen years ago is still true.  Being alive these days has a certain almost deranged character to it.  We know, despite all the nay-sayers, that climate change is real and that human activity contributes to its severity.  But we struggle to exercise the communal discipline and political will to make the necessary changes to protect our world for future generations.

 

            We know that we are all made in the image of God and are held precious by that same God.  But, despite our best intentions, we all have moments when we lapse back into ancient, almost genetic. ‘we/they’ attitudes when justice, dignity and full inclusion mean relinquishing our privileges in order to make room for others.

 

            Not being in our ‘right mind’ appears to be a sadly regular experience for all of us.  But it is not a state of mind in which God is willing to let us linger or stagnate.

 

            The third-century theologian, Irenaeus of Lyon, wrote that ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive’.  He might well have added ‘ . . . and a fully alive human being lives in their right mind’.  Irenaeus did go further to point out to his readers that Jesus of Nazareth is just such a fully alive human being, one who is always in his right mind because he taps into that image of God at the core of his being.

 

            The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Philippi, anticipates Irenaeus in describing Jesus as this unique embodiment of what it means to be fully human, fully alive, always in one’s right mind.  Paul won’t let the Philippians off the hook because he loves them so deeply.  They might want to wriggle off the hook by saying something like this:  ‘Well, Paul, Jesus was, after all, the Son of God.  What can we mere mortals be expected to do and to be?’  They might want to do the first-century equivalent of responding to gun violence by offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ by talking about how following Jesus is an aspirational goal rather than one that requires hard work and personal transformation.  But Paul won’t let them squirm away that easily from owning up to who they are as well as who they are called to become.

 

            In a few short verses Paul gives us the means to identify when we’re in our right mind and when we are deluded.

 

• Do we regard the well-being of others as the stimulus for our actions rather than being motivated by selfish ambition or conceit?  Then we’re likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.
• Do we act in the best interests of the whole community rather than pursuing self-interest or partisan advantage?  Then we’re likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.
• Do we strive to follow the model of Christ in each and every dimension of our lives?  Then we are likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.

 

            Being right-minded, being Christ-minded, requires discipline and life-long commitment even as it exposes us to many risks, known and unknown.  But, in the end, it is the only way to be fully alive.

 

            Today we renew our commitment to strive to live in our right mind despite all that distracts us, confounds us and betrays us.  Should we find ourselves drifting from the path, we need only glance at the simple palm crosses that grace our homes and workplaces.  Their humility, leaves folded together in the shape of the symbol of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, will awake in us the example of our Servant Lord, lead us to life in its fullness and restore us to our right minds.

Walking in the Light -- Or Not: Reflections on John 3.14-21 (14 March 2021)

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            In the latter half of 2007 Bishop Jim Cowan, then Bishop of British Columbia, invited me to join him on a trip to Myanmar.  Since his diocese had a ‘companion diocese’ relationship with the Anglican Church in Myanmar, Bishop Cowan had been asked to lead a small delegation for four people to represent the Anglican Church of Canada at the installation of the newly-elected Archbishop of Myanmar in mid-February 2008.  The Archbishop-elect had requested that a seminary professor be included in our delegation.  I lived on the Pacific coast and had a reputation for travelling well in overseas climes, so off I went.

 

            I must say that I went with some apprehension.  The military junta was still in power and there was a growing movement of Buddhist fundamentalists who were hostile to both the tiny Christian and Muslim minorities.  To these Buddhists Christians and Muslims represented religious practices and ideas alien to the majority Buddhist society and culture.  For example, Christians and Muslims were forbidden to use the Burmese-language word for ‘God’ in worship.  But despite my fears I went.  Although it was a relatively short trip, about two weeks or so, I am still processing a life-time’s worth of memories.

 

            My thoughts and prayers have returned to Myanmar over the last weeks.  The military coup is a tragic miscalculation which will hurt all the people of Myanmar, including those who believe that the coup will benefit their entrenched interests and bolster their power.  The violent repression of civil protest can only add more wounds to a country that seemed to be healing, even if that healing was slow and the persecution and expulsion of the Rohingya people in the western part of Myanmar has been a blot on recent democratic government.

 

            What gripped my attention was the photograph of Sister Ann Rose, a Roman Catholic nun in the northern city of Myitkyina (mitchinar).  When police arrived to disperse a crowd of protesters, including a number of children, Sister Ann Rose approached the police.  She knelt before them with her arms outstretched as if she were on the cross.  ‘Shoot me, not the children,’ she is reported to have said.  The police hesitated.  Two officers knelt in front of her, their hands held in a Buddhist prayer gesture.  The other officers stood with their weapons lowered, uncertain of what to do in the face of her courageous witness.

 

            I wish that I could tell you that all went well, but I cannot.  A short time later the police used force against the crowd.  Some protesters were injured by projectiles, whether rubber bullets of live ammunition is not known.  There are reports of deaths.  Faced with a witness to the Light, the police chose the shadows.

 

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 

            “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3.16-21 NRSV)

 

            What God offers us through the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, is eternal life.  Eternal life is not just a future promise; it is a present reality made available to all.  It is a quality of life that renders impotent our fear of death.  Eternal life is what enables us to live with both the sorrows and joys of our mortal lives.  Eternal life is what empowers us to face our challenges, even when they seem insurmountable, with hope and commitment.  Eternal life is what refreshes us when we are tired, discouraged and uncertain.

 

            Eternal life comes from knowing that we are made in the image of God, each and every one of us.  At the heart of that image is the ability to love as God loves, unselfishly, generously, passionately.  Because of that image indelibly imprinted upon us, Paul is able to write that 

 

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.38-39 NRSV).

 

These words, so often read at funerals, are written to living disciples of Christ who are facing the same potential of persecution and oppression that the people of Myanmar face daily.  I cannot help but think that these words empowered Sister Ann Rose to walk so confidently towards the police.  She was walking in the Light and she offered the police officers a choice.

 

            This Light is not only known by Christians.  We believe that the whole kosmos ‘declares the glory of God and the heavens the handiwork of the Lord’ (Psalm 19).  Every human being, made in the image of God, is drawn naturally to this Light, this pattern of behaviour.  What our baptismal liturgy calls ‘ . . . Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God’, ‘ . . . the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God’ and ‘ . . . the sinful desires that draw [us] from the love God’ (BAS 154) can attempt to hide the Light, to block the Light and to cast shadows to confuse us, but they cannot overcome the Light.  All of the so-called ‘great’ religions know this truth and teach it.

 

            But being made in the image of God has an inherent risk.  Just as God is free to choose, so are we.  We can love or we can hate.  We can heal or we can wound.  We can give life or we can take life.  We can build one another up or we can tear one another down.  The choice is ours.  Last week Sister Ann Rose chose life.  Last week the military and police chose death.

 

            The consequences of such choices touch the soul as well as the body.  With each act of violence and oppression, the souls of the perpetrators are diminished.  They become increasingly distorted and reclamation becomes ever more difficult – but never impossible.  Despite the damage done to the image of God embedded in each one of us, the Spirit of God and the Light of God can cleanse and renew our birthright.  God’s condemnation is not eternal; it is the consequence of our choices and it can be remedied.  Why?  Because God’s love is eternal and is more powerful than evil, hate, darkness and death.  Nothing can erase the image of single nun, kneeling with arms outstretched, pleading with her brothers to come to their senses.  That image continues to plead for them and for us.  Why?  Because that image was of Christ himself pleading for all of us to walk in the Light.