The Kingdom of Heaven is like Saffron

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.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

Do any of you cook with saffron?  What is saffron?  By weight, saffron is the most expensive spice in the world.  But what is it?

How about a crocus?  We have at least a couple varieties of crocus that grow here.  Saffron comes from a special variety of crocus.  It is the bits of the flower that hold the pollen, the stigmas.

I have a small box of saffron here.  Before it was opened, it held one gram of saffron.  Any guesses about how many flowers it took to fill this box?

There are three stigmas per flower.  One ounce is about 450 stigmas, or around 150 flowers.  To produce 1 kilogram of saffron takes around 150,000 flowers: a farm the size of two football fields.

Can anyone tell me what a gram of saffron is worth?  Any guesses?

One gram in Canada is currently worth about $18.  That’s a little more than $550 per ounce.  Right now, the price of gold is very high, but through most of recorded history, the price per ounce of saffron has been fairly close to the price of gold.

By weight, saffron is the most expensive spice in the world.  But saffron is not very expensive to use.  When this box was fresh one stigma would flavour two cups of rice.  It would change the rice to a bright golden colour, give it a rich flavour and a spicy aroma.  So if you could use this whole box, 450 uses, while it was still fresh, about 3 years, each use would cost about 4 cents.  Suddenly saffron is not so expensive.

He told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like saffron.

Have you understood all this?  They answered …?

How do these parables of Jesus’ tell us anything about the kingdom of heaven?  How does mine about saffron?

The kingdom of heaven is very much like saffron.  It is incredibly valuable.  It is worth more than anything else you can compare it to.  At the same time, a tiny piece of the kingdom of heaven can completely change your life and the lives of those around you.  It spreads and brings flavour to the world.

So what does all of this mean for our lives?

I think that Jesus is trying to tell us to stop looking for the big things.  It is not there that we will make a difference.

What we need to do is to look for small things we can change, small places where we can make the world a better place, little glimpses of the kingdom of heaven that we can bring to light.  When we do this, when we make some small thing just a little bit better, we help to create a place for the kingdom of heaven to take root.  We plant a mustard seed that can grow into a small tree.  We add one tiny stigma of saffron to a dish and it spreads to flavour the entire meal.

Saffron is like the kingdom of heaven.

From Synod to Mission

But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, "It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses." The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. Acts 15:5-7


Just over a week ago, representatives of every parish in our diocese came together in Halifax to meet in synod. The theme of this year’s synod was “Called Into Community.” Over three days, we alternated between the business of synod (the motions that synod had to debate) and presentations around our theme.

The business of synod could be, mostly, divided into two or three categories. First, we passed several motions that change the structure of the administration of the diocese. The largest portion of these changes was to deal with a change of focus in the diocese. The new structure will allow the administration to respond to needs within the parishes of the diocese as they come up between synods, rather than waiting until the next synod.

The second category is justice. There was a motion on anti-racism. There were several anti-poverty motions. There were also several motions which could fit here or be moved into their own category that dealt with issues around human sexuality. All of these motions, any amendments, and the vote results can be found at:
http://www.nspeidiocese.ca/synod/143rdDiocesanSynod.htm. If anyone wants to read these and cannot see them online, let me know and I will print them for you. Many of the presentations to synod can be found here too.

The presentations around our theme were, in my opinion, much more important than the debates around the motions. Being “called into community” is fundamental to our identity as church, as Anglicans, even as Christians. Being called into community is all about mission. The reason that we meet every Sunday is not just to worship. We meet to learn about our mission within our community. We meet so that we can take action. In our councils and in our services we will be talking about mission for a long time. We will be focusing on it until we figure out what our mission work needs to be in our community and around the world.

We will continue with discussion on the nature of mission.

Mother's Day - 2011

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.

Since today is Mother's Day, I thought I would begin with a list someone has made which they have called "Murphy's Laws of Parenting." See if you can identify with any of these:
1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.
2. The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.
3. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.
4. A sure way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.
5. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.
6. Toys multiply to fill any space available.
7. Yours is always the only child who doesn't behave.
8. If the shoe fits . . . it's expensive.
9. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.
10. Do any of these strike home?
It isn't easy being a Mom. I chuckled when I read about a story by a Mom named Mary Jane Kurtz. Mary Jane says that when she was a young, single mom with four children, it was difficult to get them all ready for church on Sunday. One particular Sunday morning as the children started to complain and squabble, Mary Jane stomped from one room to the other, saying out loud why it was important they go to church as a family and have a good attitude. Suddenly, she noticed all four children huddled together and laughing.
"What's so funny?" Mary Jane asked. "Mom," they said, "every time you slam down your foot, smoke comes out. It must be the wrath of God!"

In reality, it was the powder Mary Jane had sprinkled in her shoes. But it worked. She says they made it to church on time that morning and practically every Sunday thereafter.

What we don't want to do on this Mother's Day, 2011 is take our Moms for granted. The best example I know of that is the Mother's Day card that reads like this: "Forget the housework, Mom. It's your day. Besides, you can always do double duty and catch up on Monday!"
All too often this is exactly what we do. We take for granted the huge amount of work that the women in our lives do every day. At least I know I do. As I’m sure you all know, Victoria has been away at work for more than a month now. Can you guess how often the clothes get washed? How often the floors get swept, let alone mopped? Whatever came to mind, it’s probably close. And I’m used to helping with the housework. When she’s here, we both do our part. Without her here? For my own sake, I’d better get it done before she gets home.
We’ve done exactly the same thing in the church. The Bible is full of examples of women leading God’s people. There are women who are prophets. There are women who contribute their own resources to the early house churches. There is a huge amount of evidence that most of the leaders of the early church were women. And Christianity was made the religion of the state and men took it over. Everything the women had done was swept under the rug (otherwise known as man-cleaning). The women of Christ were forgotten.
Only recently have we been rediscovering the role of women in the early church. Only recently have we been finding out that without women leading us in the church we cannot truly be God’s people. Without women, we are incomplete, or in Biblical terms, imperfect.

Of the women in the Bible, several are very important mothers. Can anyone think of a woman in the Bible who is a mother?
1. Eve (mother of humanity)
2. Mary (mother of Jesus)
3. Bathsheba (mother of ?)
4. Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist)
5. Others?
Well, today we honour these women. Today we honour all mothers, especially our own. Today we try to remember that we should do this every day, not just today.

Let us pray,
Loving God,
we thank you for the love of the mothers you have given us,
whose love is so precious that it can never be measured,
whose patience seems to have no end.
May we see your loving hand behind them and guiding them.
We pray for those mothers who fear they will run out of love
or time, or patience.
We ask you to bless them with your own special love.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, our brother.
Amen.

Rumours, Doubt, and Facebook

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.

What is our Gospel really about today? On the surface it is about belief. It is about believing the Good News that Jesus preached during his life. It is about believing that Jesus was the Son of God. It is about believing that Jesus rose from the grave and walked among the disciples. It is about believing that Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is still among us today.

All of that is true. Our Gospel is about these things, but that is only the surface. Like so many passages in the Bible, the surface meaning is very powerful, but there is much more to learn. The words that contain God’s Word are not so shallow. Words seldom are.

Let’s look at our reading more closely. Jesus and his disciples were Jews. They were an upstart sect of Judaism which did not fit with the most powerful group or groups of Jews. By the time this story was written, they had been thrown out of the Temple. If anyone found out that you were one of Jesus’ followers, it could be very bad for you. They were afraid and they were hiding what they were doing. So our story is about fear.

Jesus came and talked to them. He proved who he was and told them what they were to do. He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and gave them the power to forgive and retain sins. This is the first ordination in Christ’s church. Our story is about priesthood.

Thomas, who had by now spent years with this small group of friends, wasn’t there when Jesus came. Thomas did not believe them. He had to see for himself. (I can’t imagine that made them feel very good). So our story is about doubt and mistrust and pain.

Then Jesus comes again when Thomas is there. Thomas sees and believes. So our story is about belief again.
Finally, Jesus did many other signs that are not recorded. So our story tells us that we should trust the message of Jesus without knowing the whole story.

So let’s see. Our story is about fear, priesthood, doubt, mistrust, pain, belief, and trust even when we don’t have all of the information.

Words have great power.

Have any of you ever played the rumour game? The game where a group of people sit in a circle – one person whispers something in the ear of the next person – that person whispers in the ear of the next – and so on around the circle?

What happens by the time it gets back to the first person?

How about this? Have any of you heard of facebook?

What happens when something gets posted on facebook?

Does facebook know if it is true?

Things posted on facebook are just like the rumour game. They can take on lives of their own. If the item posted grabs on to peoples’ emotions, such as fear, it spreads faster and quickly becomes exactly what is feared.

A rumour about something that we fear can make us just like Thomas. It can make us doubt a person that we have known for years. A person who has consistently done good things for us. A person that we have no real reason to distrust.

Now to bring it back to today’s Gospel. Jesus died and rose again. After his death, people were spreading rumours about Jesus. They were saying that Jesus was just an ordinary man. They were saying that those who said that they saw Jesus were either having delusions or that they were lying. Those rumours led to Thomas doubting his friends.

Jesus sends us out to spread the Good News. And what is the Good News in our Gospel today? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Not one of us here today has seen Jesus, the man, in person. None of us have felt the wounds on his hands and feet or in his side. At least I haven’t. Maybe one of you has. But despite this, we believe. We are here because we believe the incomplete, good story rather than the rumours. We are here because we believe that our sins are forgiven and that we have the power to forgive others.
We believe.

I pray that if I fall victim to rumours, and I’m sure I will because words have power – I pray that when I fall victim to rumours, others will forgive me. I also pray that when others hurt me because of rumours, I will be able to forgive them.

This is my prayer for myself. What is yours?

Music for Thought

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.



As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. (John 9:1-3)


Music has always been an important part of my life. I love all kinds of music, but the music that feeds my soul is the music that we sing about God.

Does anyone know what this is? (Hold up hymnal)


I love hymns. I love to sing them. I love to read them. I suck at writing them. It’s a gift I’ve always wanted and never had. One of my personal sins … envy.


You might be wondering why I’m saying all this about hymns this morning. Don’t worry. I’ll eventually get there. But first I’m going to sing you the first verse of a hymn. If you want to follow along, it is number 371.

(Sing verse 1 of “To God Be the Glory”).

What a great hymn of praise to God. Here is another that has always been a favourite of mine. It’s not in our hymnal, but I have it in another one. I know it from my childhood in the Presbyterian Church: "All the Way My Savior Leads Me." (Tab 2) It tells about how Jesus leads us through the difficult times in our life. I have another one here that you might know: "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine." (Tab 3)


Now to get to what you’ve all been waiting for. What do hymns have to do with today’s readings. Well, actually nothing.


But these hymns all have something in common. They were all written by the same person. In fact, that person wrote quite a number of hymns. Only one of them is in our hymnal. Her name was Fanny Crosby.

When Fanny was six weeks old, she had an eye infection. Her regular doctor was out of town, and a man posing as a doctor gave her the wrong treatment. Within a few days, she was blind. If that happened to me, I am afraid I would be very bitter and I would probably spend a lifetime feeling sorry for myself. Fanny was never bitter and she never felt sorry for herself. When she was only eight years old, she wrote this poem:

Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I can not see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!

Instead of being bitter and feeling sorry for herself, Fanny used the gifts that God had given her to write over 8,000 hymns and poems to praise and glorify God.

One day Jesus was walking with his disciples when they passed by a blind man. When they saw him, the disciples asked Jesus who was to blame for the man's blindness. Was it because of his sin or was it because of his parent's sins? Jesus answered them and told them that no one was to blame, he was blind so that God's works could be shown in him. Then Jesus healed the man and the people praised and glorified God for his goodness.

What about Fanny Crosby? God didn't heal her blindness. Perhaps if God had healed her, she might never have written all of those beautiful hymns -- and the world would never have heard of Fanny Crosby. She used the tragedy of her blindness to glorify God. I pray that tragedy will never come into your life, but if it does, remember that everything that happens can be used to praise and glorify God!

Dear Lord, the difficulties in our life seem small when compared to what others may be facing. Help us not to grumble and complain, but to praise and glorify you in every situation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.


based on sermons4kids

Measuring God's Love

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.



How do we measure God’s love?


Well, how do we measure other things?


We could try a measuring cup. What is the volume of God’s love? Believe it or not, there is a psalm which talks about that very thing. It’s a psalm that I’m sure you’ve all heard before and might even be able to recite.

Listen and see if you can catch where it talks about the volume of God’s love. You might recognize psalm 23.

Psalm 23 NRSVNRSV
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

Did you catch it?

My cup overflows!

No matter how large a cup we use to try and measure God’s love, it will run over.


So let’s try something else. Maybe we can use a measuring tape? What do you think? Can we measure how long or how wide or how high God’s love is?

Oddly enough, there’s a psalm about this too. This one is psalm 108.

Psalm 108
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make melody. Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn. I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth. Give victory with your right hand, and answer me, so that those whom you love may be rescued. God has promised in his sanctuary: "With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth. Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter. Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph." Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies. O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless. With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.


Did you get it this time? “For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” We would need quite the tape measure to reach that high, and even then, we wouldn’t have one long enough to measure God’s love.


One more try. Maybe we can measure God’s love using time. We can measure time using a watch or a stopwatch. We can measure how long it takes to drive from here to Sydney. We can measure how long we sit at the table for supper. Someone might even be timing how long I stand up here preaching. So can we use a watch to measure God’s love?

Do you think we have a psalm for this? -- We do! It’s psalm 103. I’m not going to read the whole thing because it is fairly long; just the verse about measuring God’s love.

Psalm 103:17
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children.

You got that one? Good. It’s pretty hard to measure even one everlasting on a watch, let alone two.


So if we can’t measure God’s love in a measuring cup, or with a measuring tape, or even with a watch, how can we measure it?

John 3:16 NRSV
"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.”

Is that a love you can measure?

I don’t think so. But we can experience it. We can feel that love every day. And when we feel God’s love for us, we can share it with others and it will never run out. We will be so full of love that it overflows from us. It reaches far beyond us. It has always been with us and will always be with us.


I’m going to leave you with one more verse about God’s love. This one is from Ephesians.


Ephesians 3:18-19 NRSV

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Amen.

Is God in the earthquake?

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.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, draughts – all of these are called acts of God.

What does this mean?  How are they acts of God?

Where is God in any of these?

1 Kings 19:9-13  (NRSV)

At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."  He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;  and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Is the earthquake the act of God?

We are tempted to look at it this way.  Just as Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, in times of trouble we enter our own wilderness.  We are tempted to look for a reason that God is punishing us or why God is punishing them.  We are tempted to blame and judge, even if it means judging ourselves.

Where is God in the earthquake?   Where is God in the tsunami?

Elijah went into a cave and God asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If Elijah had done what God told him to, he might have seen God.  God is not in the earthquake.  God is in the people who help others after the earthquake.  God is in the survivors, gathering together and working together to find others.  God is with those who are in pain, with those who mourn.  They are never alone.

Where is God in the earthquake?

God is in us as we respond to help.  God is in us as we send financial support through our church and in other ways.  God is in us as we support our government’s efforts to help.  God is in us as we pray for those directly affected.

Let us pray,

O loving Creator, bring healing and hope to those who, at this time, grieve, suffer pain, or who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

We remember those who have died and we pray for those who mourn for them.

We pray for those who have been affected as the tsunami spread across the Pacific.

May we all be aware of Your compassion, O God, which calms our troubled hearts and shelters our anxious souls.

May we pray with humility with our troubled and struggling brothers and sisters on earth.

May we dare to hope that through the generosity of the privileged, the destitute might glimpse hope, warmth and life again.

Through our Saviour Christ who lives with us, comforts us and soothes us.

Amen.