Saturday, September 3, 2011

Sing to the Lord a new song - Pentecost plus 12


May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.



Sing to the Lord a new song.  Praise him with dancing, with tambourine and lyre.

Do we have God on our side when we seek vengeance?

When we want those who have hurt us to be hurt worse than we ever were?

Our readings today are all about vengeance.  Our reading from exodus is the lead-up to one of the plagues of Egypt.  It is the basis of the Jewish feast of Passover and thus the basis for the last supper, Easter and our celebration of the Eucharist.  But at the heart of it, it is about God taking vengeance against Pharaoh for his treatment of the Israelites.

Our psalm today is also about vengeance.  It is about praising God for being with us when we punish those who have hurt us.

But do we really have God on our side when we hurt someone else?  Even if our cause is really Good?

Sing to the Lord a new song.  Praise him with dancing, with tambourine and lyre.

Our readings from the New Testament are about vengeance too, but they tell us another side of being hurtful.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he tells them that Love is the fulfillment of the Law.  When he tells us to live honourably, not revelling in quarrelling and jealousy; about making no provision for the flesh, he hints at, but doesn’t directly say, that hate is always a sin.

Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew is even more clearly about vengeance.  Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  When we take vengeance, we bind that hate, not only to whoever or whatever we hate, but to ourselves.  That hate will follow us beyond this life.

Sing to the Lord a new song.  Praise him with dancing, with tambourine and lyre.

So what is our path forward?  Where do we find God in our lives and in these readings?  What is our new song?

I’m going to read an letter to you from the Rev. Canon Rod Gillis about Labour Day.  I believe that it leads us in the right direction.







The Holiday That Dares Not Pray Its Name



Monday is Labour Day. One of the legacies of growing up in the church in a large industrial area is an awareness of just how alienated working people, especially those in unionized jobs, became from the church. Coal miners, for example, had their "check-off" to the denomination, but participation in worship en masse was limited and with a heavy dose of scepticism.

Part of the reason for this is that , (with exceptions at the margins like AFSA, Sammy Prince, COADY and the like), the institutional church made choices--choosing monied interests over labour most times.

As September begins, one considers the focus in churches. Labour Day is mostly a demarcation line for programming. It's all about "after the long weekend" in September. There is an emphasis on the fad of "back to church Sunday" but no overt emphasis on Labour and working people. There are bulletins galore about injustices on the other side of the planet (and very important in the interests of human solidarity that there ought to be) but little emphasis on chronic injustices at home. Where are the statements from Church leaders on the recession and unemployment, and chronic youth unemployment, the silence about our participation in foreign wars?

Last week the mill closure in Port Hawkesbury was announced as a  catastrophic hit to the entire economy of Eastern Nova Scotia. Do we have something to say about that?

Some of the traditional themes that preachers might explore on Labour Day are unemployment, work place justice, war and peace (veterans are often lauded as heroes but treated like redundant labour by government), the environment.

[Today] the Hebrew Scripture reading is the story of the Passover from Exodus. It’s an archetypal story. I'm working on a homiletic angle around the "death of the first born, the sparing of the first born". The story is a classic Hebrew presentation of tangible justice being done by a reversal of roles (see also the Song of Mary). The first born child, first born calf, first cereal harvest are primarily signs of hope for the future. The story seems to convey the notion that the hope of the oppressor is ultimately tied to the hope, or denial of the same, to those who are oppressed.

Perhaps if we focus on why historically we have lost entire sectors of the population to the church by siding with vested interests then we may develop some clues about how to realistically get connected to people and the reality in which they live.



                                                                                                The Reverend Canon Rod Gillis

                                                                                                Rector, St. James’ Armdale




Sing to the Lord a new song.  Praise him with dancing, with tambourine and lyre.

In the Anglican Church, we have become very stiff.  Our worship is rigid and we have established a very set “in group.”  Everyone is welcome as long as they behave just like us, or at least don’t disturb my area of comfort.

Well, sorry to say it, but Christianity was never supposed to be comfortable.  It is about pushing boundaries.  It is about welcoming those who no one else will welcome.  It is about putting ourselves in the line of fire, choosing to be the ones to get hurt instead of the ones doing the hurting.

We are very good at being welcoming according to a schedule.  We welcome children on specific Sundays like the Blessing of the Book Bags, and St. Nicholas’ Day.  We welcome fishermen when we bless the fleet.  Where are those we welcome on other days?

Not here!

What do we need to do to be not only welcoming but truly inviting to those in our community who are not here?  Whatever it is, we need to start doing it soon, and at least in the beginning, it is not going to be comfortable.  Even though we are Anglicans, we need to get up and dance.  We need to make some noise around us.  For too long, we have been wearing Harry’s cloak of invisibility.

What is our new song?  How are we going to praise God?  Will it be with a whimper or with a bang?

Sing to the Lord a new song.  Praise him with dancing, with tambourine and lyre.

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