Annual Lenten Challenge

Let us pray,

Holy and Gracious God, guide us in this season of lent.  Help us to find reflections of you within ourselves and in those around us.  Lead us into the light of your resurrection.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Today we begin anew our own road to Emmaus.  We begin anew our pilgrimage to witness the resurrection.  During this season of lent many people will make special efforts to be self sacrificing; giving up something which is dear to them for the season.  Others will take on new disciplines; make new efforts to live the Christian message.  I encourage you to commit yourselves to an effort to live your lives as Christ’s disciples and make a special effort to do this throughout lent.  Some possibilities are daily prayer, both personal and as a family, saying something kind to each person you meet throughout the day, or even bringing your children to church every Sunday in lent.  If you plan to give something up, choose something that pulls you away from Christ.  Taking on such a discipline can help us to enter into the Easter light.

I ask you in this next moment of quiet to make your personal commitment silently to God.

Meditation on the Transfiguration

May the meditations of our hearts lead us into your presence, O God.  And may the Holy Spirit lead us towards greater understanding of your image reflected in us.  Amen.

Please make sure that the copies of this icon are spread evenly throughout all of you.  Pass them around so that everyone spends some time holding one and looking closely at it.  Feel free to move around during this meditation and come up to look at the original.  The Gospel will be read as part of this meditation.

(Icon of the transfiguration by Elizabeth Huestis, 2009)

As we prepare to start our journey through lent, we are called to examine ourselves.  We are called not to give up something that is part of us, but to discover and bring out that which is truly us.

Let us pray.

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

Jesus often went to mountains or to the wilderness to pray.  Mountains were seen as places where you came closer to God.  The wilderness was a place of self discovery.  Both were places to go to be away from all distractions.

And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Jesus was not changed.  A greater truth about him was revealed to Peter, John, and James.  This is called the Transfiguration of Jesus.  Transfiguration is not a change in fact.  It is a change in perspective.  A change in how we perceive the world.  Transfiguration shows us a deeper truth about now.  This is different from revelation which shows us a truth which may be partly true now but is rooted in the future.  Such as the revelation of the Kingdom of God.

Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.  They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

In Jesus Christ the prophesies of Moses and Elijah are fulfilled.  The prophets deliver those prophesies directly to Jesus.

Now 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.

We resist seeing transfiguration.  We are much more comfortable seeing the world as we know it to be especially when we are confronted with a reality which is different from our understanding.

Just 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.

Even when we keep our eyes open, we are often unable to understand what is shown to us by God.

While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.

We are not capable of understanding the full image of God.  Every time God interacts directly with people in the Bible God is either obscured, partially hidden, or represented by something else such as a pillar of fire.  The face, or image of God, is not within the capabilities of our perception.  Transfiguration allows us to stretch the abilities of our perception and to grow in understanding.

Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

God speaks to us directly.

When 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.

Witnessing a transfiguration is a very personal event.  It is a personal glimpse of God’s message to us.  It is a command to share not the event itself, but the truth which it revealed.

The Loving Doctor - A Symbol of Christ

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.

Today I was given a number of good possibilities to talk about.  Our Old Testament talks about the power of God to speak through his chosen messengers.  How God chose prophets to deliver his message and carry out his plans.

Our Gospel reading continues this theme through the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.  It talks of the works that he had done in Capernaum and about his reception in his home town.  It addresses an all too common issue.  It is extremely hard to believe that the neighbour we have known all our lives could possibly have the answers that we have been looking for.  It is much easier to believe that the stranger coming through town might be able to help us in our times of trouble.  Especially when it comes to carrying out God’s will.

These readings carry a very important message.  Thankfully it is a message that I don’t think you need to hear.  You have been doing very well with the messengers that God has provided for you here in your midst.  You have shown faith in the leaders among you who have given voice to God’s call here in this place.

Our psalm passage today is a prayer about faith and trust.  It is a good prayer, but not much to base a sermon on.

So that leaves our reading from the first letter to the Corinthians.

“If I speak with tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Have any of you ever had a doctor who was very good at medicine but really bad with people?  I have.  Is that the kind of doctor you would want to go to again?  Mine wasn’t my doctor for long.  I would rather go to a doctor who treats me as an individual whom she is interested in than one who is up to date on all of the latest treatments and medicines.  How about you?  Why is it that the people skills of our doctors are so important?  After all, we don’t usually go to them for social visits.  We go to them because we are sick and need their professional advice and medical care.

“If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

There is an easy answer to why we want our doctors to have good people skills.

God created us with souls!

There is no way for us to separate our physical beings, our bodies, from our spiritual beings, our souls.  When we go to someone to get their care, whether we think about it or not, we want them to care for our whole beings.  We want them to care for our bodies and our souls.  We need them to care for both our bodies and our souls.  The body part is easy.  We can see each other’s bodies.  We are used to responding to what they tell us.  It is much harder to care for our souls.  We can’t see them directly.  We can only see them through our bodies, and that view is like looking into a fogged up mirror.  But this is what we are looking for when we want our doctor to be more than a medical robot.

But this reading doesn’t just apply to doctors.  It is for us too.  It teaches us how to care for each other and for everyone we meet.  It teaches us about what it really means to be a Christian.  We could study the Bible from front to back.  Read all the best commentaries.  Follow all the rules laid out in its pages.  Give away everything we have and devote our entire lives to do God’s work.  But if we do all of that because the Bible says we should, that doesn’t make us special.  That doesn’t make us Christian.  That doesn’t even make us good people even if we are responsible for lots of good work.

“If I give away all my possessions, and if I had over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

What the Bible tries to show us over and over again, what Jesus tries to tell us over and over again, is put very well in the Summary of the Law.  Do you remember that?  We don’t say it as often since we started using the Book of Alternative Services.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

The biggest message in the Bible is love.  First and foremost, God loves me!  Once I believe that, it is not a big step to loving myself.  Next, God loves you.  If God loves you, I should love you too.  Finally, if I love myself and I love you, and all of us are created in the image of God, that I love God.  Now I am in the right place.  We are in the right place.  We are in the place of love.  All the rest, the prophecy, the good works, the healing, they all come from that love.  And because they come from that love, they have meaning.  Because they come from that love, they make an impression on those we meet and they endure.  Because they come from that love, they come from God and they help us and those we meet get closer to God.

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

Why is love the greatest?  Because when we have love, when we know that God loves us, we can’t help but have faith.  And with faith there is hope.

Thanks be to God!

Annual Meetings Here We Come!

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.

Over the past week, I have been blessed to be able to share in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  So often we get caught up in the various ways that we are different.  We look at our differences and see them as reasons to stay apart.  We look at our precious resources and we protect them as if by sharing them they will suddenly disappear.

Over the past week, we have been celebrating the ways in which our differences can make us stronger together.  We have been celebrating with each other, bringing our gifts together and sharing in each other’s worship.  We have been enriched by our differences and blessed by a greater recognition of our common goals.  We came together, not as the whole Body of Christ, but certainly a greater part of it than any one group of us can be alone.

It was certainly a hectic time for my first week here in the parish, but I give thanks for being blessed with this experience.

Today’s lesson from the first letter to the church in Corinth is part of Paul’s description of the Body of Christ and of spiritual gifts.  He talks about how members of the church come from all backgrounds. … Some are rich.  Some are poor.  Some are Greek.  Some are Jews.  Some are male.  Some are female. … But we are all members of the one body.  We are all members of Christ’s church through our baptism.

Just as we all come from different backgrounds, we all bring different skills, talents, and resources with us to Christ’s table.  We all contribute to the body of Christ and we all help shape the body of Christ.  With the loss of the gifts of any one of us, the body of Christ is reduced.  Without any one of us, the ability of the church to do God’s work is made smaller.

This is true not only in our greater Christian community, but also here in our parish and in our individual congregations.

Not only did I arrive just in time for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Can anyone tell me what other hectic times are coming up?

Well, there’s Ash Wednesday through Easter coming upon us fast, but even before that we start our annual meetings.  They start next week.  EEK … or is that UGH!

Now is the time to think about what gifts we each we have to offer.  How we can be involved in God’s work through our church.  What resources of time, talent and treasure we have that we can return to God.  How involved we each want to be in the decision making of the church.  As I said earlier, when we share what we have, it doesn’t suddenly disappear.  That is part of the blessing of God’s abundance.  When we give what we have, we end up with more blessings that we can imagine.

Also as we enter into our time of annual meetings and approach the season of lent, it is a good time for us all to think about what we feel we are called to do together in this church and in this parish.  What are the ministries which are going well and just need our continued support?  What are the ministries that are in need of additional help?  What are the ministries that have fallen aside and need either to be grieved and let go with thanks to all who made them possible or given new life and new vision to carry into the future?  What are the ministries needed here in this parish which have been missing?  What is needed that we could provide?

I look forward to working with all of you to discover some of these answers and I’m sure you will bring me new questions that never occurred to me.  This week we started a journey together as a parish: to truly discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses, to help each other overcome that which must be overcome, to support each other in our various ministries, and to share the love of God that we see in Jesus Christ and in each other.

May we always seek the image of God in each other and in everyone that we meet.  And with God’s help, may we be a blessing to God and to each other.  Amen.

The Conversion of St. Paul (and hopefully of us all)

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.

Today we are not only celebrating our fifth and final service in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we are also celebrating the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle.  I think this Holy Day is a fitting end to our week of exploring what it means to us to be united as Christians and with Christians throughout the world.

Usually when we hear the word conversion we think of a change from one type of thing to another type of thing.  We convert power from AC to DC.  We convert measurements from feet into meters or temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius.  And we convert people from one religion to another or one denomination to another.  This type of converting is what I think of when I hear “conversion.”  Is it the same for you?

This is not what happened when Paul had his conversion.  Paul was a Jew who was very concerned about keeping his religion “pure.”  He was a “good guy” doing what he saw as God’s work.  He was going from place to place and rooting out this upstart Jewish sect that was causing schism.  He was a devout man protecting what he saw as holy.  As Glen said yesterday, he was completely sane or rational in his chosen work.

When Jesus came to Paul, Paul was converted.  Did he stop being a Jew?  No.  To the end of his days, Paul never stopped being a Jew.  What changed was not his religion.  It was his understanding of purity.  What Jesus showed Paul was that by keeping his religion pure, by keeping out “undesirable” elements, he was not making it stronger.  In fact, he was making it weaker.  Jesus opened his heart to the understanding that his God was not interested in caring only for the people of Judah.  Jesus brought the message that every single person on this earth is one of God’s chosen.  Every single person on this earth is God’s beloved.  Every single person on this earth is created in God’s image.  Every single person, whether we like them or not, whether we agree with their understanding of God or not, whether they even believe in God or not, shares this in common with us.  They are created in God’s own image.  And just as God loves them, so should we.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

God is calling -- are you listening?

Ramblings from the Rector

With you is wisdom, she who knows your works and was present when you made the world; she understands what is pleasing in your sight and what is right according to your commandments. Send her forth from the holy heavens, and from the throne of your glory send her, that she may labor at my side, and that I may learn what is pleasing to you. For she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me with her glory. (Wisdom 9:9-11 NRSV)

Do you remember when you were a child?  When you prayed for something and expected for it to happen?  I do.  Sometime between then and now, unfortunately, I grew up.  I came to understand that my prayers would not always be answered, or at least that’s how I saw it.  I started to look for my answers in other places.  When I first felt the call to the priesthood, I tried to look for answers in other places.  I searched online and read other accounts of their own calls.  I talked to friends who are priest (including a retired bishop) and asked them what to do.  They all sent me in the same direction – a direction that I had pretty much given up with my childhood.  – Listen to God!  This was something that I didn’t know how to do.  I understood how to pray, to give my thoughts and concerns to God, but I didn’t know how to listen for the response.  I mean, God talked to people in the old days but that time is past.  God works differently now.  God works only through mystery, not direct communication. – Wrong!!! – God still calls us.  Most of us have just forgotten how to pick up the phone!  I had forgotten how to listen.  Of all the things that I had to learn from the moment I felt God’s call to the end of my schooling at Vancouver School of Theology, this was the hardest, and at the same time the most simple.  Hearing God talking to you doesn’t take any special practice.  You don’t have to meditate or pray for long periods of time.  You don’t have to fast or cleanse yourself in any special way.  Although these things and many others help some people.  All you have to do is have faith.  Such a simple thing and yet so difficult.  You have to truly believe that God may be speaking to you at any moment.  You have to be ready to drop everything and listen.  And here’s the hardest part, you have to recognise God’s voice.  There is no easy way to tell you how to recognise God’s voice.  Everyone hears it in their own way.  I often hear it through nature, through the movement of leaves on a tree, the snow blowing across the road, the waves crashing on the shore.  The best advice I can give you about how to recognise god’s voice is to listen to the words of Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God.”  If you think you hear God’s voice, find a quiet place within and listen.  You will know God in your heart.

Goodbye

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.

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you."

Matthew 17:19-20 NRSV

          Last year at this time this parish was faced with the very real possibility that the doors of the church would be closed sometime within the year.  With the increase in the cost of keeping our buildings open and the continued drop in the number of practicing Anglicans in our community, we were very close to being in financial crisis.  I am happy to say that this is no longer true.  This does not mean that the road forward will be easy.  This does not mean that the financial troubles of this parish are over.  But it does mean that the current crisis is past.

          How did this happen?  It happened because the two churches in this parish were able to come together, to work together for their common good.  It happened because you were able to look past the crisis to what you want for the future.  It happened because you had faith in yourselves, faith in each other, and faith in God.  It happened because you looked at this parish which God has placed in your care and you said to yourselves that it would not disappear on your watch.

          As you go forward into this new year you will be deciding your immediate future.  You will be asked what you see as the primary ministries of this parish.  You will be asked about your needs and the needs of this community.  You will be asked about your strengths and your weaknesses.  You will be asked to match those needs and ministries with the gifts that you are looking for in a new rector.

In years to come, you will continue to have financial challenges and you will face new challenges.  In the future, the next time things begin to look grim, I pray that you will be able to look back at 2012, at the challenges that we faced together, and that you will continue to have faith.  There is such strength in this community.  I am sure that when you look to each other and say “I believe” you will find the strength and the ability to face whatever challenges come your way.

          And above all else:  remember, this is the church that God has placed in YOUR CARE.  You have much to be proud of, but it will take the work and dedication of everyone to make it to gift that it could be for this community.

May we all face our challenges with grace and faith in the One who supports all of our efforts.