Time: An Advent Stewardship Reflection

One of the greatest mysteries of physics is time.  Pages and pages of learned articles have been written in an effort to explain what it is, why it exists at all and why we experience it as going in a particular ‘direction’.

For Christians time exists in one of two forms.  The most common form is chronos, a Greek word which means ‘measurable time’.  Chronos is what helps us to make sense of what is the past, what is the present and what is the future.  It’s the concept we use to mark the passing of the hours, days, months and years of our lives and the lives of our families and friends.  Chronos is one of the tools historians use to describe the significant events and movements in the story of humanity and before.

In the New Testament, however, another term for time appears – kairos.  Kairos is another Greek word which means ‘the right time’ or ‘the fulness of time’.  It’s a word that describes the quality of time rather than a quantity of time.  Kairos  is not linear and the past, the present and the future exist simultaneously.  It’s the word that Jesus often uses to describe God’s reign of justice and peace.

 

We can experience kairos in the midst of chronos.  Think of an experience where you spent hours in the presence of someone or in the midst of an activity only to realize that ‘time flew by’.  This is kairos.  Think of a decision you made which might not have made sense to anyone with a practical frame of mind, but one which you believed was the right one to make at that moment in your life.  That’s an experience of kairos.

 

         Advent, the season when we are focused on the coming of Christ into the world, God’s kairos breaking into our chronos, is a perfect time to take a moment to consider how we are using the chronos of our lives to further the kairos of God’s purposes.  As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be good stewards of all the resources God has entrusted to us.  One resource that we all have, the most precious non-renewable resource we have, is the chronos of our lives.

 

When David Johnston was Governor General of Canada, he made encouraging Canadians to volunteer one of his top priorities.  He knew what we all know:  How we spend the chronos of our lives can make a difference to others, to our communities and, dare I say, even to our own selves.  

 

This Advent I invite you to consider how you are dedicating the chronos of your life to further God’s kairos.  Perhaps you are already volunteering your time to the church and other community organizations.  Perhaps you are supporting friends and family members who are in need of an extra set of hands, a set of listening ears, a caring heart.

 

But perhaps you have discovered a kairos - shaped hole in the chronos of your daily life.  In Holy Trinity Cathedral’s network of service, worship, evangelism, education and pastoral care, there are many opportunities for your time to be used well.  God calls us all to find ways for our passion to be put to use in God’s mission.  All it takes is time.

 

Richard +

 

Vicar of Holy Trinity Cathedral

vicar@holytrinitycathedral.ca

 

Apathy, Anxiety or Faithful Discipleship: Reflections on Matthew 24.36-44

 Apathy, Anxiety or Faithful Discipleship

Reflections on Matthew 24.36-44

 

RCL Advent 1A

27 November 2022

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Matthew 24.36-44

 

                  Jesus said, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.  Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.  Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But understand this:  if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.  Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

 

            Biblical scholars have been known to refer to particular texts in scriptures as ‘texts of terror’.  These texts are considered terrifying for at least two reasons.  First, some are clearly intended to produce ‘the fear of God’ in the imaginations of the audience to whom the text was first addressed.  Second, others are terrifying because of the use later generations made of them to justify attitudes and actions we find horrifying today.

 

            Some years ago my former colleague Harry Maier chose to preach on a text of terror.  He warned us in advance that we might be surprised to hear this text described this way and then he proceeded to begin his sermon.

 

You better watch out.

You better not cry.

Better not pout,

I’m telling you why.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

 

I have never been able to hear that song again in the way I had before Harry’s sermon.

 

            Think of it for a moment.  Santa Claus’ coming is told in such a way as to produce terror rather than joy.  Parents use Santa Claus as a threat to coerce their children into behaving so that they will receive presents rather than be enrolled on the ‘naughty not nice’ list.  Brrr!

 

            We could, if we wanted to do so, create just such a song based on this morning’s text of terror from the 24^th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew.

 

You better watch out.

You better not cry.

Better not pout,

I’m telling you why,

Jesus Christ is coming to town.

 

But I think there is a more healthy and faithful way to hear this text, a more fruitful and hopeful way.

 

            The late David L. Bartlett, former professor at both Yale Divinity School and Columbia Theological Seminary, wrote that contemporary Christians react in two ways to texts such as this morning’s Gospel. [1]

 

            (i) Some Christians might view Matthew 24 as an archaic text best left unread and unremarked.  It represents a world-view we do not share.  Such an attitude leads to perpetual apathy regarding the notion of the coming of divine judgement.  Who needs heavenly doom and gloom in the face of multiple wars and global climate change?

 

            (ii) Other Christians, often from more conservative, even fundamentalist, traditions see texts such as Matthew 24 as being at the heart of Jesus’ message.  We live in a world of perpetual warfare between good and evil.  Our only hope is to be on the right side of God in the coming day of the Lord.  No one will want to be left behind, so we better do our best to interpret the signs of the times, even construct elaborate timelines, to make sure we know what’s going on.  This attitude, Bartlett wrote, can lead to a state of perpetual anxiety.

 

            But there is, I think, a third way, a ‘middle way’ to use a favourite Anglican self-description of our tradition.  This middle way hears today’s gospel message as both a reminder and a call to renewed responsibility on the part of Jesus’ disciples.

 

            (i) It is a reminder that you and I are co-workers with God in God’s on-going mission to restore and renew our world.

 

            (ii) It is a call to renewed responsibility to do what is good in God’s eyes:  (a) to do justice, (b) to love kindness and (c) to walk humbly with our God.

 

            As this Advent beings, the 70^th Advent of my life, the Evangelist calls us to do justice.  Justice beings with small steps, perhaps as simple as participating in our ‘First Nations 101’ parish book study, but such small steps can lead to the restoration of right relationships.  In such small steps we “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” [2]  No apathy.  No anxiety.  Just faithful discipleship.

 

            This Sunday Matthew calls us to love kindness or, to be more faithful to the prophet Micah’s Hebrew, ‘to love others as faithfully, compassionately and steadfastly as God has loved and continues to love all that is, seen and unseen’.  Such love is also known in small acts such as thirty years of feeding people a simple meal, week after week, regardless of the weather or holiday.  In such small acts we “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving (our) neighbour as (ourselves)”. [3]  No apathy.  No anxiety.  Just faithful discipleship.

 

            Matthew’s words are a summons to walk humbly with our God.  Such humility is found in our careful stewardship of the resources of “this fragile earth, our island home”. [4]  In this stewardship we “strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth”. [5]  No apathy.  No anxiety.  Just faithful discipleship.

 

            In the parish where I grew up and was nurtured in the faith, Advent always brought the singing of a hymn by Arthur Campbell Ainger to the tune ‘Purpose’ by Martin Fallas Shaw.

 

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. [6]

 

Ainger wrote the hymn convinced of two things:  (i) “God is always at work to realize (the divine) will for the world and humanity” and (ii) “God works in humanity to act according to (God’s) purposes”. [7]

 

            My friends, God is working God’s purpose out – with us, for us, sometimes despite us.  But the time is always drawing near – whether in our personal lives, in our world’s life or in our universe’s life.  But not with terror.  Not with apathy.  Not with anxiety.  Just faithful, hopeful and steadfast discipleship.

 

 

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[1] Feasting on the Word.  Year A.  Volume 1.

 

[2] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 159.

 

[3] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 159.

 

[4] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 201.

 

[5] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 159.

 

[6] The Hymnal 1982, #534.

 

^[7] ‘God Is Working His Purpose Out’ from Wikipedia accessed on 25 November 2022.

Surviving the Plague: Prayer, Worship and Service (RCL Proper 30C on 23 October 2022)

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            When I was in university, I read Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague.  If you don’t know the novel, it is set in the city of Oran in Algeria in the late 1940’s.  A plague descends upon the city and, in the novel, Camus explores how a cast of characters react to the discomfort and deprivation brought about by the quarantine, to the threat of death that surrounds them and to the challenge to human community as people choose between selfishness and selflessness.

 

            During the last two and a half years, sales of The Plague have increased significantly.  People throughout the world have been searching for meaning as they have asked the same questions as the characters in Camus’ tale.

·      How do we endure the isolation and losses caused by the lock-downs and quarantines?

·      How do we rebuild relationships that have been stretched and frayed, some to the point of breaking?

·      How do we face the threats of debilitating after-effects and even death from a virus that seems to come at from nowhere and everywhere?

 

            These questions are not new to our times, just as they were not new to Albert Camus.  Throughout human history communities have experienced various ‘plagues’ of one sort or another.  Five hundred years before the coming of Christ, the prophet Joel described his plague as ‘a plague of locusts’.  Whether they were actual locusts or some other unwelcome army – scholars still debate this – does not matter for us now.  What does matter is that Joel’s community experienced destruction and social disintegration at every level and in every dimension of their lives.

 

            Joel does not diminish the scale of what the people have suffered nor its impact upon them, but he does proclaim a message of hope.  The present, as bad as it is, is not the future God envisions for the people.  ‘Wait for the Lord whose day is coming,’ is his message, a day when every member of the community, male and female, young and old, slave and free, will experience God’s indwelling presence.  But how shall we wait for such a day?  What will sustain us as we wait?  For Joel the answer is prayer, worship and service.

 

            If anyone were to search on-line using the key word ‘prayer’, they would get 1,130,000,000 results in 0.53 seconds on Google!  There are any number of suggestions from a vast array of Christian and non-Christian sources.  Today I offer one simple suggestion that Jesus gave to his disciples two thousand years ago, the prayer we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.  In times such as ours it continues to give hope and strength and confidence.

·      Pray it when you rise  in the morning and when you pause at midday and when you go to bed at night.

·      Pray it slowly, letting each phrase become a source of reflection:  How is God not just ‘our’ Father but ‘my’ loving parent?  How do we, do I, hallow God’s name?  What ‘kingdom’ am I waiting for?

·      Allow each phrase to generate petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving  for this moment:  When I ask for daily bread, what am I anxious about?  What I ask for forgiveness, for what do I need forgiveness, whom shall I forgive, who are the ones from whom I need forgiveness?

And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.

 

            Personal prayer is an essential part of our spiritual lives, but worship is no less important.  In worship we hear the Scriptures proclaimed, so that their wisdom can inspire us.  In worship we gather with others to be encouraged, to be fed, to be embraced in loving community.  In worship we sing, an activity that brings our whole bodies into play.  In worship we join others in holding up before God the needs and concerns of the world.  In worship we discover that we are not alone.  And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.

 

            Although prayer and worship are rich resources to strengthen us in our waiting, it is perhaps in the service of others that we find meaning.  Our service may find its expression in caring for friends and neighbours.  Our service may find its expression is undertaking simple tasks for others who are unable to do them themselves.  Our service may be in our attentiveness to the people who serve us in all the aspects of our daily lives.  Our service may be in our advocacy for and care of those who are not heard or seen by those who have power and influence.  And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.

 

            One of the underlying themes in Camus’ novel is that human beings always find themselves assaulted by one plague or another.  The plagues may be physical; they may be political or social.  But they come nonetheless.  I think that we who live in a connected world may feel even more overwhelmed by the plagues of our time – we need only read the on-line news or turn on our televisions or read our newspapers or look at social media.

 

            But Joel would have us put our faith in the God who brought an opposed tribe of nomads out of the clutches of one great imperial power after another, so that they might witness to God’s fidelity.  Luke the evangelist and Paul the apostle would have us put our faith in the God who not only raised an itinerant rabbi from the dead, but who raised up a people who bear living witness to the God who is always raising us from the many little deaths human beings are prone to suffer.

 

            So, while we are waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, let us pray.  While we are working on restoring relationships and renewing the life of our communities, let us worship.  And while we are working so that all God’s children may be free and the earth be filled with the glory of God, let us serve.

Giving Thanks at All Times and in All Places: A Reflection on Deuteronomy 26.1-11

Here in Canada we are approaching our celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving.  In that context the reading from Deuteronomy 26.1-11 is quite appropriate.

We come from many countries and many cultures.  We are working towards reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples who have suffered because of our settler and colonial values.

But even so, we can give thanks that God continues to work in us, through us and for us.

 

Setting Aside Worry and Anxiety -- A Reflection on Luke 10.38-42

Setting Aside Worry and Anxiety

A Reflection on Luke 10.38-42

 

RCL Proper 16C

17 July 2022

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            Many years ago my mentor and friend, the late Louis Weil, returned home to Texas after a stressful time as a faculty member at the Seminario del Caribe in Puerto Rico.  He was both physically and spiritually exhausted and was uncertain about his future, as a priest and as a teacher.

 

            Louis was the child of a mixed marriage.  His father was Jewish, his mother a Baptist.  Among his father’s friends was a rabbi with whom Louis had always had a good relationship.  So Louis decided to talk with his father’s friend, confident that he would get a truly impartial, third-party opinion so to speak.

 

            After Louis had unburdened himself and laid before the rabbi all the worries and anxieties that were plaguing him, the rabbi sat in silence for some time.  Then he said, ‘Louis, if Jesus is who you believe him to be, why are you so burdened with these anxious fears and doubts?’  Now let me be clear.  The rabbi was not questioning Louis’ belief.  He was asking Louis to return to the roots of his belief in Jesus as the Christ and, to use the words of the Christian scholar Marcus Borg, to ‘meet Jesus again for the first time’.  Perhaps Louis like Mary of Bethany might decide to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen for a while.

 

            I am often brought up short when this brief episode from the life of Jesus is read.  It is, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that is quite familiar to all of us.  It has even become the origin of a phrase used from time to time in conversation – being a Martha or a Mary.

 

            There are several ways to interpret this story.  A frequent approach is one that suggests that Martha represents the ‘active’ life and Mary the ‘contemplative’ life.  Jesus seems to be saying that the ‘contemplative’ life is the best form of discipleship because the ‘active’ life tends to be prone to distractions and obstacles to Christian life.  Earlier in the Gospel, Luke gives his own version of the parable of the sower, found also in Matthew and Mark, where seed falls on various soils.

 

The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance. (Luke 8.13-15)

 

            Another way of reading today’s gospel is to do so in the light of the cultural attitudes towards women and discipleship in the time of Jesus.  Martha of Bethany is fulfilling the classic role of the woman of the household – making sure that everyone is fed and that obligation of hospitality is met.  Mary, on the other hand, is boldly assuming the posture of a male disciple – kneeling at the feet of Jesus to listen to his message.  When Martha complains, not to her sister but to Jesus, Jesus praises Mary for her courage and discernment.

 

            But the more I hear this story, the more I am convinced that the key to understanding this tory is in the final two verses:  “But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10.41-42)

 

            My friends, who among us in this waning pandemic, in this time when religious communities such as ours navigate difficult waters, in times of economic and social stress, are not ‘worried and distracted by many things’?  We often avoid facing the depth of our worries and anxieties by plunging into a kind of ‘busy-ness’ that simply aggravates our feelings.  Our health suffers; our mental and emotional health suffers; our relationships suffer.  Even when our ‘busy-ness’ is associated with ‘good’ causes, we may find less and less fulfillment in them; they become burdens rather than joys, obligations grudgingly accomplished rather than ministries freely undertaken.

 

            It’s not that the work we are doing is unimportant.  It’s because it is becoming more distant from its source of energy and purpose – the saving word we encounter in Jesus of Nazareth.  I am very aware that, in my own life right now, the voice of Jesus is fainter than I would wish it to be.  Like Martha I have been doing what is good and proper, fulfilling the ministry that was entrusted to me when I became your Vicar and your Archdeacon.  But I know that I am both worried and distracted.

 

            Worry and distraction are emotions that are signs that we need to pause and to listen to Jesus.  Jesus speaks to us in many ways – through the Scriptures, through prayer, through times of rest and re-creation – to remind us that ‘God is working (the divine) purpose out as year succeeds to year’ (The Hymnal 1982, #534).  Just as we need to ‘keep our eyes on the prize’ and to nurture our peripheral vision of the path before us, we need to be intentional – a frequently used and frequently ignored adverb – in maintaining our connection to the source of our life, our strength, our hope.

 

            We are not being asked to choose between being Martha or Mary.  We are being invited to be disciples whose service is shaped by what we have heard at Jesus’ feet.  We are being invited to be disciples who, upon hearing the living Word, rise to the challenges we face, unburdened by worry, undistracted by anxiety, freed by love, by hope, by faith to do and to be infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Keeping an Eye on the Plough

 

In today's episode of 'A View from the Vicar', I look at the Gospel for this coming Sunday, Luke 9.51-62, and how it relates to our on-going commitment to reconciliation.

Click HERE to listen to my thoughts.

Imagine It. Work for It. (Easter 2022)

 Imagine It.  Work for It.

Reflections on the Resurrection

 

RCL Easter C

17 April 2022

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         For the newly-established United States, first decades of the nineteenth century were significant in the formation of its national character.  With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the country more than doubled in size and settlers quickly moved into the watersheds of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.  The national unity forged by the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 began to be tested by the question of slavery, unresolved in the early days of the Republic and now urgent as new states clamoured to join the Union. 

 

         A religious revival had swept through the western regions of New York and Pennsylvania and many Christian communities were rent asunder by conflict.  Among the affected communities were the Quakers of the region.  Mostly farmers and merchants, the Quakers were quiet folk who were just emerging from the troubles caused by their pacificism and their internal conflicts over how they were to behave as citizens in this new country.

 

         One young Quaker minister, Edward Hicks, became a prominent preacher and travelled throughout the area.  His cousin, Elias, was the leader of a movement within the Quakers that had challenged the established order of the Quakers with views that struck at the root of many Quaker teachings.  In the midst of all this religious and political turmoil, Edward Hicks found himself inspired by the vision of a peaceable kingdom expressed in Isaiah 11 and repeated in today’s reading from Isaiah 65.

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. . . . No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime . . . .   They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. . . . They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well.  Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.  The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent — its food shall be dust!  They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

 

Over a period of more than twenty years, Hicks, who had been trained as a decorative artist, painted at least sixty-two versions of his dream of this new creation God had promised to the faithful.  One version is printed on the cover of today’s worship bulletin.

 

         As Hicks grew older and conflicts continued to rock his religious and political communities, his paintings became expressions of his own emotional state.  In early versions, the Christ Child rests its hand gently on a lion that seems to be smiling.  Later versions have the Child grasping tightly on a more menacing lion, as if the Child is restraining it.  The backgrounds become darker and one has the sense of a faithful man who is doing his utmost to hold on to his imagined future where all people and animals lived in harmony and peace.

 

         Hicks knew his scriptures well.  I’m sure that from time to time, particularly at the worst of times, he recalled the words of the prophet Habakkuk:  

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart;  I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.  Then the Lord answered me and said:  Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.  For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie.  If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” [1]

 

And Hicks waited and painted and hoped and worked for that future.

 

         Two thousand years ago a small community of women and men awoke from the nightmare of their last few days with their teacher and friend.  No one could have imagined what the faithful women would find early on that Sunday morning – an empty tomb, scattered clothing and a vision of angels who were surprised at the women’s reaction.  This experience and the experience of other disciples over the course of the following months fuelled their imagination.  They dared to believe that a new world was indeed possible.  They believed so firmly in this new world that they worked for its realization by sharing their dream with others throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.

 

         To be sure there were and have been moments when this dreamed-for future seemed to be more than just distant.  Powerful forces sought and still seek to thwart the realization of this future.  At times the community of disciples itself have acted in ways that were not faithful to the dream and we have had to undergo conversion and reformation and reconciliation.  But the dream, the vision of a new earth in which all God’s children can be free, a world in which the dignity of every human being is respected, a creation tended and cared for as God’s precious gift, has never lost its power to inspire us and to empower us to work for its fulfillment.

 

         This Easter we gather after an pandemic that has tested and continues to test all of us.  We gather at a time when violence continues to plague millions of people throughout the world.  We gather at a time when the effects of climate change have been felt all over the world and in the Lower Mainland.  These are, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine, times that try our souls.  These times and our own personal needs and concerns may even cause us to shut down our imagination, to forget the dream and to lay down tools.

 

         When I ponder the challenges of Christian witness and ministry in our times, I sometimes hear words from Bishop Gordon Light’s hymn, ‘Draw the Circle Wide’: [2]

God the still-point of the circle, 

‘round whom all creation turns;

nothing lost, but held for ever, 

in God’s gracious arms.

 

Let our hearts reach far horizons, 

so encompass great and small;

let our loving know no borders, 

faithful to God’s call.

 

 

Let the dreams we dream be larger, 

than we’ve ever dreamed before;

let the dream of Christ be in us, 

open every door.

 

When God raised Jesus from the dead, God showed us that our dreams of a world in which ‘life’ not ‘death’ is God’s last word is not a false hope or a unrealizable dream.  Within each one of us and within our community there is a faithful imagination fuelled by the Spirit.  That same Spirit not only fuels our imagination but empowers our hearts, our minds, our souls and our strength to work for what we imagine.  There will be false starts, failures and disappointments.  There will be losses and moments that border on despair.  But there will also be successes and moments when the world we dream is closer than we think.  God is the still-point of the circle, and nothing is lost but held forever in God’s arms. 

 

         Because Christ is risen, our hearts can reach far horizons.  Because Christ is risen, our loving need not know any borders.  Because Christ is risen, our dreams can be larger than we’ve ever dreamed.  Because God, working in us and through us and sometimes despite us, can always do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

 

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[1] Habakkuk 2.1-3.

 

[2] Common Praise #418.