The Mystery of the Word

While we are locked down for pandemic safety, Knox has Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

The Mystery of the Word

Scripture: John 1:1-18

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν,

καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

That phrase sticks in my memory: John’s gospel was the book we used in my New Testament Greek class to practice translation and that was the first verse we learned. Our professor explained that many used Mark’s gospel to practice but he felt that since Mark’s Greek was poor quality, he would start us with John.

What this also meant was that he was throwing us in at the deep end when it came to struggling with early Christian theology about some of the foundational principles of our faith.

Today’s lesson is included as a Christmas reading, not because it tells us anything about Jesus being born, but because it gives us a theological framework to understand who Jesus was and why he came.

John’s gospel represents a branch of Christianity that sees Jesus as much more than a human, more than a prophet, more than a visionary and healer, but as someone so closely connected to God and God’s work that the gospel writer basically calls him a part of God.

In this opening section of John’s gospel we have a lot of powerful material that sets out a profound understanding. But to understand that we also have to examine the kind of thinking that was going on in those days.

Jesus was Jewish. Matthew’s gospel reflects this aspect of his life best. Luke was a Gentile gospel writer but he tried to make his readers understand the Jewish context of Jesus’ life and ministry.

In John we find a re-statement of Jesus’ life and work in very Greek terms, for a Greek audience, and in terms that would challenge some popular teachings that were influencing Christianity and other faiths as well.

The Gnostic way of thinking was quite strong in those days. They had decided that the Spiritual realm was pure and good and that the Material realm was inherently bad: sinful and fallen. They encouraged people to seek a higher spiritual life and turn away from the material world.

We still live with some of that understanding today: just ask the Material Girl, living in the Material World. We associate materialism with spiritual shallowness.

Two thousand years ago the split was extreme: many had decided that physical existence itself was sinful, which meant that whoever had created the world had done a great evil deed. They denounced the God we read about in the Hebrew scriptures as an evil being they called the Demiurge.

I have met many people in the United Church who have said that they would like to throw out the Hebrew scriptures because their vision of God looks so harsh. Clearly that Gnostic influence hasn’t disappeared.

The Gnostics saw in Jesus the intervention of God; the true, pure, spiritual God sending Jesus in to save the miserable prisoners of this material plane.

They also believed that Jesus was pure spirit. He had to be, to remain untainted by the sin of material existence, which sounds very reminiscent of the theology of original sin, the idea that we are born sinful. So, any physical appearance Jesus had, the Gnostics believed was illusion. They even had a story about someone, possibly Simon of Cyrene, dying on the cross in Jesus’ place.

John fights this dichotomy right from the beginning of his gospel. He uses the same language as the Gnostics: the logos, the word, is what they called Jesus. And John agrees with that, but then he subverts it by declaring that this Word was the Word of Creation: “Let there be light” and that the creation of the material world was a good thing.

John’s gospel is written as a spiritual document that tries to address the spiritual concerns of his age. Some of those have come down to us over the millennia, but a great many of the concerns of those ancient Greeks have become irrelevant to us in the 21st century.

What would it be like if we were to try do to the same job John did, but today, addressing 21st century concerns?

Today there is less question about whether creation is inherently evil. Most people believe that the world is a good place, at least in its natural form, and that we have to try to save it from the ravages of materialistic greed that have produced rampaging climate change.

Sadly, some of the people who consider the world to be a disposable commodity call themselves Christian, and consider the end of the world to be part of God’s plan. They say that we have a moral duty to extract and consume all the resources God gave us, before Jesus returns.

So a new gospel would have to address that particular blasphemy. We would also have to re-cast the image of creation in terms that dealt with modern scientific ideas about the formation of the universe. The Bible’s creation stories come from a time when everyone knew the earth was a bubble in a vast sea, with land underfoot below a firmament like an inverted bowl, which kept the waters above and below us from crushing us. That image just made sense in those days.

Now we have a new picture: more complex, better informed by physical observations. And again, very loud self-proclaimed Christians

take issue with the new understanding and proclaim a seven-day creation as literal truth. Our new gospel would have to address this conflict too.

At the core of our new gospel would be the question of the nature of Jesus: What does he mean for us today? What role do we understand for Jesus in the 21st century world?

I would hope it would reject the dichotomy of spiritual vs. material,

and say that Jesus demonstrated a healthy balance of both, as an example of what we could do in our lives. John saw in Jesus a connection to the divine that was available to anyone and everyone. I would hope for no less.

I would hope that Jesus’ teachings would be at the core: the words that reveal to us spiritual truths that can make a material difference in everyone’s lives.

We could start with the Beatitudes. If we had taken those power-inverting words seriously, we wouldn’t have to try to reconcile now with our indigenous neighbours. We would have recognized in their teachings something to inspire a new conversation instead of something to be suppressed.

John’s gospel represents the Jewish identity of early Christianity coming to terms with a different and challenging world view: the world of the Greeks. We could have tried to do the same thing with every new culture we met but instead we insisted on the triumph of orthodoxy – not even original orthodoxy, but whatever was the flavour of the empire of the day.

So now we have to try for healing; for a new conversation to see what we missed when we came to this land we stand on. And at the same time, for our own benefit we have to have a conversation with this new culture that is, in fact, our own culture as it has changed over the past sixty years.

These dialogues will not be simple; they will require us to take seriously the question of what is central to our faith, of what really matters, and what is simply baggage from past assumptions.

But this is a New Year, with a chance for new ideas and new perspectives, and since we are stuck inside again for a while, we have the chance for some deep pondering.

So let’s ask ourselves: if we had to write a new gospel for the 21st century, what should it say?

Amen.

Preparing the Way of the LORD

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

As part of this week’s service, we listened to a recording of the “Huron Carol” made by Heather Dale, who gave us permission to use her material. Below is the link, along with some opening comments:

The music you are about to hear is the first two verses of Jesous Ahatonhia known in Voices United as “’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime”, repeated in the Original Wendat, in French and in English. This was written in the Wendat language by a Jesuit Missionary, Fr. Jean de Brébuf. We are grateful to Heather Dale, the artist, who has given us permission to play her recording for our service.

The English version she sings is a translation by another Jesuit, Fr. H. Kierans. While it is closer in meaning to the original than the words we know best, it is still not an accurate translation. I’ll get into that more in the sermon. All of the English and French translations available miss the subtlety and deeper cultural meanings tied up in the original Wendat words.

I wish to acknowledge the irony of our situation: as we look for the origins and original importance of this first North American hymn, written in an indigenous language by a European Scholar using an adapted folk tune from France, we find ourselves listening to a version recorded by a singer with proud Celtic roots, who worked hard with phonetic coaching to get her pronunciation right. We could not find a recording by Wendat singers.

John Steckley’s excellent translation of the original Wendat words can be found at the end of this blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWZ7M2dLlM

Preparing the Way of the LORD

Scriptures: Malachi 3:1-4 Luke 3:1-6

The second Sunday is always about John the Baptist whom we see as the forerunner of Christ; the messenger sent to prepare the way of the Lord.

John is not easy for us to deal with. He is an angry prophet, calling the people to change their ways, to stop being unjust to others, to stop abusing each other, to straighten up and fly right.

This is a call to repentance, directed to the faith community itself; which strikes me as a really good cue for us to consider as a faith community today: modern Canadian Christians who have been shaped by our history. If we listen to John’s message we will recognize that we have some things to make right; understandings we have taken for granted that need to be examined in the light of day.

A powerful example of this is that favourite Christmas carol “’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime”. We celebrate it as the first North American hymn. Its music is haunting and beautiful and its words have become a challenge. Our feelings are mixed as people take pride in its history and wrestle with its condescending imagery.

The words we know best were written in 1926 by Jesse Edgar Middleton and are not so much a translation as a freely written interpretation of the original Wendat. Middleton took the idea of the Nativity from Brébuf’s original and expanded it with romantic notions of the Noble Savage, that very patronizing European approach to indigenous people that treats them like children without a mature culture. As has been pointed out many times before, when he calls God “Gitchi Manitou” he is using a name from a totally different culture and language, as if all things Native are interchangeable.

Even the words we heard earlier change the meaning of the original. There is no word for the Devil in Wendat. Brébuf refers to “the spirit who held us prisoner like domestic cattle” which fits the Catholic theology of that century. But as soon as we say “devil”, centuries of images and ideas flood into our minds which would not have been heard by the Wendat in this carol.

Brébuf also didn’t include all the characters of the Nativity; he only used Matthew’s image of the Magi. He would have done this intentionally since the Magi have always represented outsiders coming to the light of Christ.

Brébuf lived among the Wendat, learned their language until he was fluent and grew to understand their existing spiritual beliefs. He chose the tune of this hymn because there were some rhythmic similarities with Wendat music and he knew what an important place music held for them.

When he wrote about Sky People, which we usually translate as “angels”, he was making a reference to Wendat understandings of the spiritual dimension of life that surrounds us all the time. “Angels” isn’t a good translation because, once again, it carries all our baggage when we hear it. They would have heard something quite different.

What impresses me about this hymn in its original form is the way that Jean de Brébuf was respectful. He immersed himself in the Wendat language and culture; he tried to meet the people on their own terms while at the same time never losing his agenda of converting them to Christianity. And he avoided European images and terms: who among us would have expected a sign of respect to be massaging someone’s scalp with oil?

And yet, hearing it, I cannot help but recognize that this captures a sense that fits well with images from the earliest books of the Bible; like the great joy in the oil running down Aaron’s beard.

If you look at a good translation of the original words you see that at the core of Brébuf’s message is that Jesus wants to consider us part of his family.

This is a powerful and accurate New Testament image that the European church had down-played: the idea of Jesus as the Son of God and indeed, God in the flesh seemed too elevated for us to comfortably claim Jesus as brother; the Biblical idea of Jesus our brother never went away but it was not emphasized.

Brébuf offers this call to family connection, recognizing the strong family ties of the Wendat culture. This isn’t the “repent or you will be damned” message that we so often associate with missionaries. It is a much more respectful and meaningful effort to connect with people in ways that tie into their own spirituality.

Since this was written in 1642, Canada was formed, the Indian Act was created, the Residential Schools were formed and in the 1920s we turned Brébuf’s respectful hymn, with its admitted conversion agenda, into a patronizing song about “children of the forest free” that takes our own inaccurate picture of the nativity, where wise men and the shepherds come together (which they never did in the Bible) and substitutes for them stereotyped European images of First Nations people.

I don’t have a problem with the idea of sharing the teachings of Jesus.

If we believe in them, if we believe that they are good, then they are certainly worth sharing. But the only way we can do this well is if we are respectful; if we try to understand the people we are talking to; if we develop an understanding of where they are coming from and where our spiritual beliefs touch theirs. That’s how a respectful conversation can happen. The carol Jean de Brébuf wrote in 1642

was terribly enlightened by the standards of his age and by the standards of our own age, really.

He went in as a vulnerable person, into the Wendat lands and culture and listened before he shared. In the intervening centuries so much of what we have done has been from a position of power, forcing our religious beliefs on others, even taking children from their parents and putting them into abusive situations.

I would suggest that the call of John the Baptist today to us is for us to wrestle with our past, and our present; to see how many deep valleys need to be raised up and how many mountains brought low; how much injustice needs to be corrected; to prepare the way of the LORD; to build a land where the teachings of Jesus can actually come to life.

It takes an effort for us to examine a beloved Christmas carol and recognize its feet of clay. (Okay: I’m mixing Biblical metaphors atrociously.)

What else do we need to examine? How many other basic assumptions do we need to challenge? We won’t know until we look for them or, more likely, we let the perspectives of others reveal them to us.

I would love it if we could find words that would allow us to sing this carol in a way that reveals its original integrity to us and lets us glimpse the respectful interplay between 17th century theology and Wendat spiritual understandings. But that would be for our benefit – I don’t know whether it would contribute to reconciliation.

The Christianity that has abused so many Indigenous people has done so much damage that we have to prove that we can be respectful. We can’t just go back to a good example from 400 years ago; we have to listen to what our Indigenous neighbours are saying now and listen long and hard before we share what we consider important.

To make straight the way of the Lord in Canada today we’d better start with the paths we have twisted.

Amen.

Huron-Wendat Carol

Translation by John Steckley


Have courage, you who are humans. Jesus, he is born
Behold, the spirit who had us as prisoners, domestic animals, has fled.
Do not listen to it, as it corrupts the spirit of our minds and thoughts.
Jesus, he is born

They are spirits, coming with a message for us, the sky people.
They are coming to say, “Be on top of life, rejoice!”
“Mary has just given birth, come on, rejoice.”
Jesus, he is born

“Three have left for such a place, they are elders.”
A star that has just risen, appeared over the horizon leads them there.
He will seize the path, lead the way, a star that leads them there.
Jesus, he is born

As they arrived there, where he was born, Jesus.
The star was at the point of stopping, he was not far past it
Having found someone for them, he says, “Come here.”
Jesus, he is born

Behold, they have arrived there and have seen Jesus,
They praised a name many times, saying, “Hurray, he is good in nature.”
They greeted him with respect, greasing his scalp many times, saying “Hurray!”
Jesus, he is born

“We will give to him praise, honour for his name.”
“Let us show reverence for him, as he comes to be compassionate with us.”
It is providential that you love us, and think, “I should make them part of my
family.”
Jesus, he is born.

Signs and Portents

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

Signs and Portents

Scriptures:

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Luke 21:25-36

Every Advent we are caught in a dilemma. All around us people are gearing up for Christmas. Decorations are going up and lights are coming on and this year people are working hard to get us to buy gifts and have been since before Hallowe’en.

But the readings assigned to Advent, this time of preparation, have nothing to do with babies in stables, sheep and angels, or magi. We are given readings that are filled with signs and portents.

This is because the lectionary was created without any concern for our modern sensibilities: it had the intention to encourage people to think about what Advent means as an idea.

An advent is an arrival: an entrance into the world. In the Christian tradition we celebrate the Advent of Christ.

From a traditional perspective, this challenges us because Jesus was born 2000 years ago but his work of transforming the world is not finished. And Jesus himself talked about the arrival of the Son of Man which we have called the Second Coming or possibly a Second Advent.

That kind of talk makes a lot of folks squirmy these days. It smacks of fundamentalism, of people standing on street corners shouting: “Repent! The end is near!” and we don’t want to be associated with that. It seems credulous and unsophisticated and we’d rather ignore it all.

We can’t, really: these scriptures are still in the Bible and we have to have a way to think about them and right now, with a pandemic, and Global warming with all of the extreme weather events going on, it feels like we are seeing those signs and portents mentioned in our Luke lesson. It’s no wonder people are getting excited!

It is helpful to understand that the Bible does not try to give us one consistent picture of the End of the World. The passages that get used to draw conclusions come from different visions with different perspectives.

For example, our Jeremiah passage is a hopeful one; it talks about a king arising to bring justice to Israel and peace to Jerusalem; a descendent of David, who was a man after God’s own heart.

The early Christians interpreted Jesus to be this righteous branch. That’s why there are genealogies in Matthew and Luke tracing Jesus’ descent from King David to demonstrate his genetic claim to this image, despite the fact that he wasn’t on the throne of Israel, and to further legitimize his vision of righteousness and authority that didn’t follow the usual patterns of royal oppression and force of arms.

In contrast, we find that portion of Luke talking about the Son of Man, a powerful image from the book of Daniel, in which a human is sent from Heaven to rescue Israel and rule in justice and peace after overcoming the forces of injustice and oppression. It’s a more forceful image than we usually ascribe to Jesus but you could imagine it as a super-powered version of Jeremiah’s promise. Jeremiah himself wouldn’t recognize it at all.

There are other concerning elements to our Luke reading. For example: the promise that “this generation shall not pass away until all these things have happened”.

That has led to all kinds of complicated interpretations to explain how Jesus meant something beyond the obvious. For example: “this generation” isn’t the one he was talking to, but the one that would see the Son of Man appear in the clouds.

Modern scholarship suggests that Jesus did expect some kind of divine intervention to happen and he really did anticipate that his own generation would witness God’s kingdom of righteousness and peace

and the arrival of the Son of Man.

So what happened? Is this an example of a failed prophesy by Jesus?

Many modern scholars would say yes, and that is part of its value: something that gives us insight into the shape of Jesus’ original ministry. But the Church kept this passage in place seeing within it a deeper meaning beyond the surface; and that’s worth exploring.

Consider: the thrust of Jesus’ ministry and teachings were designed to overturn expectations, to put the weak above the strong, the first to become last and the last to become first, while the meek inherit the earth.

Doesn’t this image of the Son of Man coming in clouds and glory, this quote from Daniel undermine all that? Does it not set up the expectation that all this wonderful vision of a righteous realm of God’s justice will still require a battering ram to achieve it; the rather cynical notion that it will take overwhelming force to dislodge the forceful people who hang on to power?

How do we square that with the image of someone who would go to the cross, to a death that emphasized his powerlessness, as a way to challenge the power of the mighty Roman Empire?

One way is to understand that there will be no physical second coming. That the “Son of Man” (whom we Christians identify with Jesus, although it was never a name he claimed for himself) has already arrived in the person of Jesus and that God’s realm of justice and peace began back in that first generation, in Jesus’ own time.

That would mean that to bring it completely into being, we have to finish the work. Not with force, or expecting a divine intervention but with patience and determination, working to change hearts every day,

continuing the work of Jesus using the same tools he used: a powerful vision and ordinary people committed to a transformed world.

The advice about watching for signs is still good but it’s general enough that it could apply to any age or time. There’s always something portentous going on somewhere, but it does speak to an attitude of alertness, a recognition that opportunities can exist all the time and that we don’t benefit anyone if we get so tied up in the daily troubles and pleasures of life that we forget our over-arching purpose:

to change the world;

to make this a better place;

to bring hope to people who are powerless; and

to bring the kind of change that will transform the injustices built into our systems into ways to help everyone

We should not take these prophetic passages and turn them into a vision of the end of the world where God violently deals with the situations we haven’t addressed.

Instead, we should take them as a reminder of what the Advent of Jesus really means to us: the start of a transformed world and the beginning of a ministry to change hearts; a ministry that Jesus has entrusted to us.

Our Advent hope is not in some apocalyptic disaster. Our hope is in what Jesus brought into the world 2000 years ago: a vision powerful enough to change people, to call them to embrace this vision of justice and peace, not because they are forced to but because they have been moved to see how much better the world could be.

Amen.

A Lonely Frog

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. Every Children’s Sunday we have a visit from a little green frog, whose name we cannot use on the internet. His visit takes the place of the sermon. Here is the transcript of the conversation our “Mystery Frog” had with Jennifer.

A Lonely Frog

Jennifer: welcome children, say: Let’s welcome a very familiar frog: Ker . . .(interrupted).

Ker—: Shh! Don’t say my name!

J: Really? Are you still being the “International Frog of Mystery?”

K: Exactly!

J: But why? The border’s open now. You don’t need to sneak across.

K: I don’t want the crows to know who I am.

J: Crows? What crows?

K: The pandemic crows! You know, Corvid 19? Corvids are birds, like crows and ravens.

J: That’s just silly!

K: No it’s not. Alfred Hitchcock warned us! That’s why we have to wear masks, so that the crows don’t recognize us.

J: You silly frog. We don’t need to be afraid of birds.

K: Oh yeah? I could tell you things about those frog-eating herons that would curl your hair.

J: First of all, it’s COVID 19, not Corvid. It’s a corona virus. And we wear masks to stop it from spreading.

K: Really? I don’t have to worry about crows?

J: Really. And you don’t have to wear a mask, either. Frogs can’t get COVID. I checked when I heard you were coming.

K: That’s great!

J: Speaking of masks, how do you keep yours on? You don’t even have ears!

K: I have a special clip. Hey, can you help me take mine off?

J: Sure. (remove Kermit’s mask)

K: Thanks. Can you help my friends with theirs, too?

J: Where are they?

K: On the table there. They’re sharing one big mask.

J: That’s not a mask, that’s just a big piece of cloth. (carefully remove cloth from ceramic frogs)

K: Thanks, now they can all breathe easier.

J: Wow, that’s a lot of frogs. Who are they?

K: They’re my posse! My peeps!

J: Peeps? Really?

K: Spring peepers, actually. But only the little ones. There are some bullfrogs too. They don’t peep. We hired a tour bus and came up together.

J: Um, you do know that they’re all statues, except for the ones that are stuffed, right?

K: Hey, there’s no need to comment on their eating habits!

J: You know what I mean. They’re not alive! These are all faux frogs!

K: (sadly) Yeah, I know. But it’s been such a long pandemic, that I got lonely. So I gathered all these frogs around me for company.

J: That’s so sad. I’m sorry you had to do that.

K: Well, it gave me someone to talk to. They’re all pretty good listeners.

J: Did any of them talk back?

K: Hey, I’ve got a good imagination. Not only can they talk back, but we even sing together as a frog chorus sometimes. Didn’t you ever have an imaginary friend?

J: I still do. We act out scenes together.

K: (laughs) That’s great. Imaginary friends are good. But I’m glad we can get together in person, again.

J: It is better to get together, but some people still can’t. They’re being extra careful until they know it’s safe and they won’t get sick.

K: Wow. I didn’t know that. I just thought they had to avoid the crows.

J: It’s not crows, remember? It’s a virus.

K: Right. So it’s good to be careful. I guess a lot of people have been lonely and apart.

J: That’s right.

K: Do you think God knows how people feel?

J: Oh, I’m sure God knows. Did you listen to our Bible lesson today?

K: Yeah, but it wasn’t about a pandemic.

J: Close enough. It was a time when God’s people had been taken away from their homes, and scattered through a lot of different countries. People were separated from family and friends, and phones hadn’t been invented yet, so they were worried about each other, and sad, and alone.

K: That’s terrible!

J: But in our lesson today, God promises to bring everyone back together, so they don’t have to be so far apart anymore.

K: Yay!

J: What I really like is that God promises to include everyone: not just the ones that can get home easily, but everyone: the old and the young, the ones who need to be helped, who have a hard time getting around.

K: Why is that so important?

J: Not everyone is big and strong. Not everyone can run, or walk easily . . .

K: . . . or hop . . .

J: . . . right, or hop. There are lots of people who need help with basic things. Those people often feel like they are left out, or worse: not welcome.

K: I never thought of that.

J: But God knows all about it. And that’s what’s so important about this reading: God really wants us to hear that everyone matters, and that everyone is included in the promise that we will get back together. No one is left out.

K: Well, that’s good news. I know I’ve been feeling homesick. I’ve had to stay away from where I grew up, and all my friends.

J: Where’s that?

K: Where else? The swamp!

J: That makes sense.

K: It’s a great place, and I really want to go back for a visit. Do you want to hear about it?

J: You want to talk about the swamp?

K: No! I want to sing about it! (sings)

“The Frog Chant” (From the Frog Prince)

Sing out for the swamp and sing out for the ooze

The life of a frog is the life you should choose

Sing out for the mud and sing out for the bog

It’s ever so jolly just being a frog (frog, frog, frog, gloonk, frog, frog, frog)

We love the old mudhole, we sit and we soak

The feeling’s so good that we just gotta croak

The muck and the mire, the slush and the slime

Are the reasons a frog has a wonderful time (time 3x, gloonk, time, time, time…)

O what could compare with a day in the swamp

The snakes and the spiders, the cold and the damp

I’m fond of the pond, be it ebb tide or flood

I love the old swamp, O there’s mud in my blood (mud 3x, gloonk, mud 3x)

Sing out for the swamp and sing out for the ooze

The life of a frog is the life you should choose

Sing out for the mud and sing out for the bog

It’s ever so jolly just being a frog!

J: That sounds great, but when you go back, won’t all these friends of yours sink?

K: Going under water is what being a frog is all about.

J: Yes, but they can’t swim back out. You’ll have to help them.

K: I never thought of that. That sounds like a lot of work.

J: True. Maybe you could get your other friends to help.

K: Or maybe these guys could stay in the bus.

J: Remember our Bible reading today? Wasn’t it about making sure that everyone got to come home? Even the ones who had trouble moving?

K: Yeah. Leaving them in the bus wouldn’t be good. I’ll bring them and our whole frog community can help them move.

J: I’m proud of you, Mystery Frog.

K: Hey, I’ve just thought about something. If everyone is welcome, does that mean that crows are welcome too?

J: Will you stop it with the crows? Crows are not a problem!

K: What about herons?

J: Everyone is welcome. Even herons.

K: That’s going to be a hard sell at the swamp. Those birds can get hungry.

J: Do they eat more than some of the monsters you’ve worked with?

K: Good point! I never thought of that. Okay, you’ve convinced me. Everyone means everyone. They’re all welcome.

J: Good for you.

K: That means you too. When are you coming to the swamp?

J: Um, that’s very kind, but I don’t think so. When I cross the border, I’m going to the New Kids on the Block concert, not the swamp.

K: You don’t know what you’re missing!

J: Yes I do, I heard your song!

K: Oh. Right. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep showing up here, then.

J: We’d all like that, Mystery Frog.

K: See you next time. I gotta go and get the bus warmed up.

J: Bye froggy.

K: Bye! (exits)

Ask Andrew 6, 2021: Why Did Jesus Praise the Dishonest Manager?

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

Ask Andrew 6: Why Did Jesus Praise the Dishonest Manager?

Scriptures:

Luke 16:1-9

Gospel of Thomas 98

The parable of the dishonest manager has bothered Christians for centuries. It seems to contradict what Jesus taught about justice, dealing respectfully with others and basic honesty.

One way they dealt with it was to offer a correction or balance. Normally, the Luke reading continues with a long explanation of not being able to serve two masters, which is a good lesson but probably not connected by Jesus to this parable.

Modern scholarship tends to believe that Jesus felt quite free to say controversial things when he preached. He was trying to shake things up, to challenge the traditional thinking of his day. If Jesus could get the crowd saying “Did he really say that?; What does he mean by that?” he would have accomplished at least part of his mission: to get people thinking seriously about what it is God wants from us.

There are other, similar controversial teachings of Jesus. In Mark’s gospel there is the lesson about having to bind a strong man before you can plunder his house.

Matthew and Luke also tell this story: do we believe that it’s good to do home invasions; to tie up the strong man who can defend the house and then empty the place? Of course not! But there is a lot of symbolism tied up there to give us a way to understand the deeper message. I’ll save that for another sermon, but it sure is memorable.

Today’s lesson from the Gospel of Thomas is similar. Many of you will not have heard it before because Thomas is a Gnostic gospel, considered a heretical book. It was lost for centuries until a copy was found at the Nag Hammadi excavation in 1945. The book was buried to hide it from the church after the Bible we now have was declared official.

The Gnostics believed they had special, secret knowledge and this book is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, most of which really don’t fit Jesus’ message well at all.

But the Jesus Seminar – modern scholars who are in search of the original words of Jesus – voted that the parable of the assassin was probably real; that this was most likely a parable that Jesus had said himself.

None of them believe that Jesus was supporting assassination but it sounded to them like the kind of outrageous thing he would have said to get people thinking.

The dishonest manager you will notice, is commended for his shrewdness, not for his dishonesty. Some have tried to let him off the hook, by declaring that the amounts he gave away to the master’s debtors were actually the equivalent of his commission on the work – I’ve never seen a 50% commission, even 20% is really high – this is just someone trying to take the sting out of Jesus’ words.

But the absurdity of it all is enormous! The Kingdom of God is portrayed by Jesus as a time when justice reigns supreme, when oppression and abuses of power and corruption will be washed away. How could anyone get into God’s perfect kingdom through a back door?

This dishonest manager is counting on his dishonest friends to take care of him. We know they are dishonest because he has them participate in the fraud that relieves then of part of their debt: they re-write the receipts with lower numbers and he signs off on them.

From his perspective, it’s not a bad bit of insurance: it’s in their handwriting so if they refuse to help him out later, he can threaten to expose them. After all, he’s already been fired: what does he have to lose?

In the real world, the master would have been wise to lock the manager’s office, disable his computer access and send in the auditors. But no, the master orders him to make his own accounting. Obviously not a shrewd judge of character, the master isn’t a great image for God in this parable – the opposite of what Jesus usually did in these stories, and adds to the overall surprise and offence that Jesus is causing here.

We know what Jesus isn’t saying: he is not suggesting that there is a dishonest way to achieve God’s kingdom of justice and peace, which is not a bad lesson by itself. There are always people looking for shortcuts, as recent history has made very clear: forcing children to love God by sending them to Residential school was an abusive shortcut that sold out the principles we were taught by Jesus.

What is he saying, then? That shrewdness can be valuable; that we can be righteous without having to be naïve.

This is no different than our call to be innocent as doves and subtle as serpents. This dishonest manager was creative and he was prepared to seize the opportunity he had in the short time he had to render his accounts.

A Biblical example of this might be when Paul preached in Athens and used the Pagan altar to an unknown god as the basis for introducing the God of Israel and Jesus to his philosopher audience.

We don’t have to be stodgy or stuffy; we don’t have to be predictable

as we follow the example of Christ in our lives. After all, Jesus wasn’t!

This parable is a prime example of that: educationally, it was a back door; it was a way to startle people and get their attention; not in a cheap way, like sparkly lights and loud noises, but by challenging their expectations and presumptions, by being shrewd like the dishonest manager, thinking several steps ahead and counting on an understanding of human nature to carry the message once people made an effort to figure it out.

When we learn, the lessons that stick with us are the ones we discover rather than the ones that are dictated to us; the delight of figuring out a puzzle is one that touches every age.

Jesus made a point of handing us puzzles; just about every parable he told fits into that category.

And frankly, nearly every interpretation given in scripture was not stated by Jesus for his inner circle. It represents what they figured out; what they agreed upon as the likely meaning, which leaves free to faithfully consider other interpretations.

I preached my first sermon in 1975 (I was only 16; my minister took a chance on me) and I’m still not tired of it 46 years later because of this very reason: there are always new interpretations possible. The more experiences life throws at us, the more truths can be discovered.

But it helps is we are shrewd; if we remain open to the opportunities that come our way; if we don’t listen to what everyone knows and are prepared to think creatively.

These are challenging times and I would suggest that they call for shrewdness; not dishonesty, or corruption or any of those other bad influences in this lesson; but for creativity, planning, and an eye for the way human nature will respond to us.

Amen.

Under Authority

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

Under Authority

Scripture: Matthew 8:5-13

The story of the Centurion’s servant could fill several sermons. Capernaum was a small fishing village of about 1500 people – so why did a Roman Officer, a Centurion, in charge of a century (100 soldiers) have a home there? Especially since it was not technically Roman territory?

Galilee was still under the rule of the younger king Herod who was a client king of Rome but he had his own army, no Roman soldiers. Was this like the American military bases around the world now? Friendly reminders of where the real power lies?

There’s no clear answer to this but there’s lots of meaning attached to this Centurion. He is an enemy of Israel and his empire has occupied Judea and Jerusalem, the holy city.

Luke’s gospel says he was generous and contributed to the building of the local synagogue, which inclined his neighbours to like him. He might even have qualified for the category of “righteous Gentile” which in those days could be used for non-Jews who attached themselves to Synagogues out of respect for the justice they saw lived out by Jewish people of faith. A lot of these people became early converts to Christianity.

The fact that the Centurion was not Jewish means that if Jesus were to enter his house, Jesus would become ritually unclean for days. Jesus was willing: he volunteered to do this despite the fact that this man represented so much that Jesus opposed.

This man clearly knew Jewish customs and practices well enough that he let Jesus off the hook. He told Jesus that he was under authority himself and was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed, so Jesus didn’t have to come to his home. “Just say the word, and it will be done,” he says.

Jesus goes on to make a lesson out of the Centurion’s faith and to chide his audience for not believing as completely.

I would like to draw some human lessons out of this exchange because the Centurion summarized military reality very well in his brief encounter with Jesus.

This officer is in the middle: he gives orders and he has to obey orders, too. He does not set policy; he does not decide who the enemy is. Rather, he follows the policy set out for him and obeys the rules. He doesn’t turn off his brain or suspend his own judgement. Our modern war crimes courts have made it clear that simply following orders is not a defence for doing unspeakable things.

They didn’t have a definition of war crimes in those days and Rome was renowned for ruling rebellious people with terror – that was the whole point of crucifixion. But they did have boundaries between army life and personal life.

This centurion was making friends in the local community, contributing to their synagogue fund, being a good neighbour. He was not a personal enemy but he also didn’t have complete autonomy: if Rome ordered him to pull out he’d sell his house and move away from his neighbours and friends because it was above his rank to set policy or decide on troop deployment.

This is the same position most military people face as we have been reminded so clearly in recent weeks. Canada’s pull-out from Afghanistan was ages ago, but our failure to protect many Afghans who helped our troops is much more recent.

The return of the Taliban to power reminds us of the limitations we face. First: that Canada can’t solve things alone; we simply don’t have the resources. Second: that military intervention is useful to stop dictators and abusive regimes but it doesn’t solve the underlying problems. Winning battles can be accomplished with a military; winning the hearts of the enemy is much harder and is the aspect of life Jesus tried to teach us.

I cannot image the frustration felt by the veterans who went into Afghanistan to free women and girls from the Taliban’s misogynist rule, as they watch those same people return to power and start their violent oppression again.

For our troops, their mission was more than just following orders. It was a campaign to do something we believed in and it must be terrible for them to wonder if all the sacrifices they made have gone to waste.

I would pray that the seeds sown when we built schools for girls and did other practical, peaceful things to express respect and love for the Afghan people will have taken deep root and that all those sacrifices will have a lasting effect despite the renewed efforts of the Taliban to erase them.

At the core, this terrible conflict of ideals will only be resolved by a change of heart.

We’ve seen this in history. After World War II we left troops in Germany & Japan for decades. It wasn’t just to eliminate fascism: the Cold War had a lot to do with that decision: but they became friends and allies over that long time. Germany has worked very hard to stamp out racism while Japan had to change from a Feudal structure to a democracy for the first time.

And despite all that time, and the continued presence of troops, fascist groups are popping up all around Europe and hearts have to be won again so we don’t face another military crisis.

We simply don’t have the resources or the will to keep people in Afghanistan for over half a century.

So maybe we should follow the example Jesus set: he was prepared to put himself out to help this Centurion, this enemy who was, at base, a decent human being. Jesus found within this enemy an unexpected and delightful connection: a practical understanding of how things can work, but more importantly, a faith that it would work, that Jesus could heal the servant.

We don’t know whose heart can be won over until we try, even reaching out to enemies like Jesus did.

That’s easy to say here in the safety and security of Canada and much harder to do especially when you see those enemies tearing apart the good work that you’ve spent years doing; when you see them involved in bloody oppression against vulnerable people.

But consider: Rome was capable of even worse atrocities than the Taliban and Jesus reached out to this centurion and found an unexpected ally. That’s the example we have been given and that is our calling: to reach out and change hearts. I don’t know all the ways this might be accomplished but I do know we have to try.

Our troops have made their sacrifices and paid a great price to help the people they went to support. Now we have to work through Non Government Organizations, relief groups, and maybe find some new ways to make connections, to keep on changing hearts.

I can’t think of a better way to remember the sacrifices of our service men and women and their families than to find ways to continue their work, to change hearts and turn current enemies into future allies.

Amen.

Ask Andrew 5 (2021): Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

Ask Andrew 5: Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

Scripture:

Mark 11:12-25

Question: Why did Jesus curse the Fig Tree?

I understand this question. The passage makes it look like Jesus is being petulant. He wants figs from a tree out of season and when the tree can’t deliver he curses it, and a day later it has withered away. This feels like an abuse of power: a serious injustice.

It’s like some of those early Christian fictions called Infancy Gospels that supposedly give us a glimpse of Jesus’ childhood years. They contain stories that don’t feel divine at all: like Jesus creating sparrows out of the mud and breathing life into them; or dealing with a childhood bully by killing him with a word and leaving his mother, Mary, to deal with the unhappy parents by explaining that Jesus is perfect and can do no wrong.

I can see that as a very human childhood fantasy, it involves an easy and satisfying way to deal with a bully with your mom backing you up totally, instead of making you apologize.

This fig tree curse feels like that: why did Jesus do it?

Others have had trouble over the years. Mark’s is the oldest gospel and this is the earliest form of this story. Matthew copied it and changed it. Luke either ignored it, or turned it from a story about Jesus into a parable told by Jesus instead, depending on which scholar you consult.

To understand the message here we need to look deeper. In the past I have mentioned something I called the “Marcan Sandwich”. It’s a literary device Mark regularly uses in his gospel where he divides one incident and sticks another in the middle so he can let them dialogue

and we can learn from both of them together.

In this case, the story of the fig tree is divided by the story of the clearing of the temple.

The clear invitation here is to compare the worship at the temple to the fig tree that is cursed. In the clearing of the temple Jesus denounces what he sees, calling it a den of robbers. The temple, which was supposed to be a source of life for Israel was being condemned as a place where thieves could hide in safety.

That could lead to a lot of interpretations, including the idea that temple worship was being cursed or that traditional Jewish faith was no longer “in season”: the suggestion that Judaism had run its course and was going to whither and die so God could replace it.

To understand where this might come from you have to remember when the gospels were being written. Christians and Jews were not yet separated as distinct faiths. The followers of Jesus were Jewish at first, but had expanded to include and welcome many Gentiles in the decades before Mark was writing.

All of this had led to a lot of religious debate and tensions were starting to build between the Christians and others in the synagogues they attended. The Christians were not shy about criticizing traditional Jewish teachings and practices; they were quick to proclaim how Jesus replaced the old ways.

Soon after Mark’s gospel was written the temple was destroyed and a whole branch of Jewish tradition was ended with it. Most of the teachers we call the Sadducees lost their lives to the Roman invaders. At the same time the branch we called the Essenes also died in an apocalyptic battle against Rome.

After that, the remaining Pharisee branch of Judaism gained authority

and gathered to define what Judaism would look like in exile, going forward without Jerusalem or the temple. Many Christian teachings were rejected by them and the two faiths formally began to separate.

This didn’t come out of space. It had been developing for years and the lesson of the cursing of the fig tree is part of that history.

You could compare this to the kind of language used when sports teams compete: a kind of trash talk; or to the rhetoric that is promoted in wartime when prejudices against the enemy are weaponized.

Early Christianity was under threat from Rome but its legitimacy could only be threatened by the faith that gave birth to Jesus: Judaism. Many would have seen this threat as something that could put our whole faith at risk.

One result of this is historically dreadful: Christianity started small and oppressed but became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

We became the oppressor.

So, all those bits of scripture that were written to make early believers feel justified in their faith morphed into a series of scriptural justifications for antisemitism which rulers both religious and secular have trotted out in every century since then to justify oppression of Jewish people.

One lesson to learn here is that it is not uncommon for people who have suffered to pass on that suffering once they get into a position of power. Inter-generational abuse is a terrible example of how this happens, within families and communities. It’s not a justification for what happens but it is a pattern that needs to be recognized and deliberately broken.

To that end, I consider it important to identify these sorts of scriptures

so we can see them for what they are and refuse to let them lead us into more abuse.

Nelson Mandela is a brilliant example of a leader who worked to break this cycle and he was inspired by what he learned in his Methodist Sunday School.

Another lesson to learn is how long misinformation can survive and how many generations can suffer because of prejudiced teaching. Any time we wonder about the inter-generational effects of the residential schools and want to ask when people will “get over it” we should remember this example of anti-Jewish teachings in early Christianity and the legacy of antisemitism that still goes on after almost 2000 years.

Most modern scholars don’t believe that Jesus did curse the fig tree, and I agree: it is out of character, and it doesn’t match his teachings. It better reflects what his followers would say to prop up Jesus’ position in their own faith journey: they wanted to replace traditional Judaism and had a hard time imagining living side by side in peace.

The more we study Jesus’ teachings and the principles he taught, the more we discover that we can live in peace with other faiths: not agreeing with their teachings, necessarily, but finding common ground and developing respectful dialogue instead of resorting to petty name-calling like describing them as withered fig trees.

I also hope we can take from this the understanding that we need to break the cycle of inter-generational abuse in society, in institutions, and in families.

The church has been part of that in many ways over the centuries and as history shows us it can take a long time to learn our lesson, to admit what has happened and start to break the cycle.

It can be hard for powerful people to take the high road: a past atrocity is easy to use as justification for hatred and for new atrocities that happen when vengeance is disguised as justice.

This still happens over and over and serves to underline a particular challenge for those who assume the mantle of authority. It also underlines the value of forgiveness and the hope of reconciliation as ways to break ancient cycles of abuse and oppression.

This is an old problem and it is good that we are doing this work in these new times. We can learn from our past and try to create a future

where we can avoid those same old patterns and mistakes.

Amen.

Reaching Out for Healing from Within

To be as inclusive as possible, Knox has both in-person and Podcast Services. For those who can’t access these we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my sermon notes into text.

Reaching Out for Healing from Within

Scriptures:

Jeremiah 31:7-9

Mark 10:46-52

Our society teaches us that human life is about rugged individualism. Not everybody believes it, of course, but it is amazing how much it has penetrated basic thinking.

Spirituality and religion have been deeply affected so that the idea of a person going on a personal spiritual journey that pulls them away from the tradition they grew up in is not surprising to anyone.

But it would have been unusual to the culture of Jesus. Of course, they were well aware of diverse spiritual options; although the language of “false idols” would be applied to anything from another culture and huge debates would be applied to people who disagreed within the same tradition.

In other words, diversity existed and it was a source of great division.

Part of the reason for that is the understanding that “salvation” wasn’t individual.

Our Jeremiah lesson shows us a wonderful image of God’s salvation with the people being gathered up from around the world and brought back into their community; brought back home with the most vulnerable being supported and cared for; scattered refugees being rescued and allowed to have a safe and secure place to be gathered together in their community again.

The basic idea was that God was dealing with the community. Certainly, individuals had particular roles to play, responsibilities assigned by God. For example: the most vulnerable were to be supported by people with more resources as had been outlined in the law of Moses. But the relationship was between God and the community, not God and the individual.

That’s the thinking that Jesus lived with. It was being challenged by some kinds of teachings that Jesus made a point of disputing.

There are several stories of blind people being healed by Jesus. In one (not the one we read today, but from John’s gospel) the question arose about whether the man’s blindness was a result of his own sin, or his parents’ sin. Jesus’ response was to deny that this disability was the result of any individual’s fault, but was rather an opportunity to reveal God’s healing power and love. He pushed the individualism of faith aside, to make God the focus.

There are some who argue that John’s story comes from a very Christian concern. One thing that had started to happen in the first century CE was this idea of individual relationship to God apart from the community which would eventually result in hermits, Anchorites and all kinds of expressions of spiritual isolationism; spiritual separation from the community.

In today’s Mark lesson, we have a fascinating mix of the community and the individual.

Blind Bartimaeus was a part of the Jewish community at Jericho but he wasn’t being treated particularly well. What he was experiencing didn’t reflect the kind of support we read about in Jeremiah.

When he tries to get help, people tell him to shut up. So, he tries harder, shouts louder and Jesus responds, at which point people become encouraging and urge him forward.

He leaps up and sheds his cloak which makes him vulnerable: he probably sleeps in that cloak; it’s what protects him from the cold nights and bad weather. Will he be able to find it again if he leaves it by the side of the road and Jesus doesn’t heal him?

Look what happens when he meets Jesus: unlike some healings, Jesus doesn’t touch him, in fact Jesus suggests that he hasn’t healed Bartimaeus at all. “Go,” Jesus says, “your faith has made you well” with the implication that the healing came from within.

This kind of thing has created some serious issues in Christianity, particularly in those circles that look for faith healing and miracles. Once again, it becomes a question of individualism: specifically, if you aren’t healed, your individual faith isn’t strong enough, or good enough.

I don’t believe that Jesus was teaching that kind of thing. The spiritual significance of the blind gaining sight means that whenever we find a story like that in the gospels we should look beyond the level of physical healing to the level of a person gaining spiritual insight.

And what did Bartimaeus do with his new-found sight? Jesus told him to go but instead he came along: he joined this new community forming around Jesus. He didn’t get all self-centred about it and run off to do all the things he’d dreamed of. He re-directed his life to be part of something bigger, part of this new community of faith.

It is interesting to me that in this story, despite the fact that it was his own faith that made him well, that didn’t happen until he reached out beyond himself. And then we see the next step: that this man, who had learned the hard way to stick up for himself, who is proof that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”, who had to be an individualist to survive in an uncaring community, embraced what Jesus was doing – creating a caring community, one that lived out the principles shown to us in readings like the one from Jeremiah.

Despite all those early hermits and others who sought enlightenment or spiritual perfection in wilderness places, the main source of early Christian healing and justice came from the gathering together of all kinds of people into communities that could share their individual resources, their personal skills and talents to create better, healthier, more whole lives for all those people who had been forced to the margins.

This is something we need to re-discover today. Such an emphasis has been placed on individual achievement and personal worth that we easily lose sight of the community that embraces and supports us.

There’s nothing new about religion dividing people. That has a lot to do with how we deal with differences; it represents us setting our gang against their gang. We shouldn’t be doing that and we need to develop wisdom that shows us a way based in love and understanding.

What is new, I believe, is the way we have developed both religion and spirituality into forces that can isolate people, perhaps to manipulate them or perhaps as an expression of the way our society encourages us to be self-centred, even about the most meaningful aspects of our lives.

I believe that what Jesus showed us with Bartimaeus is that no matter how much potential we have within us, we can’t use it on our own; we have to reach out beyond ourselves to unlock it.

And more than that, we can also see that the appropriate response to finding that truth within, that healing, that hope, that seed that God has planted within us is to become more connected; to continue to reach out beyond ourselves and share the new things we’ve learned to offer to others, the spiritual insights we’ve gained, the clearer vision we’ve achieved.

If Bartimaeus had gone his own way, he might have had a simpler life. The next stop on Jesus’ itinerary was Jerusalem where he would be crucified. If Bartimaeus had focused on his own needs, he might have gotten a job and had a simple life. By joining the followers of Jesus, he became part of something huge, challenging, and world-changing.

That is our calling too: to take our individual spirituality and make it part of something bigger; to be part of a community of faith like that image we have in Jeremiah, a group that can do so much, for so many when we share God’s gifts together.

Amen.

Our Intermediary

While COVID-19 makes our in-person services challenging, Knox is providing Podcast Services. Not everyone can access these, though, so we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my notes into text for the blog.

Our Intermediary

Scriptures:

Job 38:1-7

Hebrews 5:1-10

We don’t read from the book of Hebrews much in Western Christianity. That’s because when the books of the New Testament were being collected together, there was some horse trading going on between East and West. The Latin West wanted to include the Book of Revelation, while the Greek East wanted to include Hebrews. To this day, neither half reads from the other’s favourite very often.

Hebrews is sometimes called a letter but it is really more of a sermon. It lays out a theology to shape Christian understanding and it is fascinating because it reveals that the early Christian church didn’t all agree to the same doctrines.

Our lesson today is at the core of Hebrews and it talks about Jesus as the Son of God in his role as a high priest of the order of Melchizedek.

The wording is revealing: there is no sense of a virgin birth. Instead, Jesus became the Begotten Son of God when God declared it at Jesus’ baptism. This is very much like the way Mark’s gospel tells it and is close to the Adoptionist Heresy except that in this case God “begets” a grown man as a son instead of adopting him.

There is also a clear sense that the writer sees Jesus as imperfect to begin with, and being made perfect by God. That’s the major advantage of a High Priest, the writer says: to be aware of the flaws of the people because of his own flaws and to seek reconciliation with God for his own failings at the same time as for others.

Over time the western church has re-positioned this to say that Jesus is sympathetic to our weaknesses but that he experienced all the temptations of the flesh without giving in to any of them. This passage of Hebrews would disagree.

There is some ancient thinking going on here that would be good to have explained to a 21st century audience:

The idea that we can approach God directly is one that has challenged people in all cultures over history. The idea of an all-powerful divine being can be terrifying, especially today as we learn more and more about the universe; as those stars that were once dots of light in a dome are now known to be vast nuclear furnaces at impossible distances.

How can someone so vast, who has created all this, comprehend the needs of jumped-up apes on a tiny planet on the edges of a minor galaxy? The gap feels too huge.

That point is made in our Job lesson. I’ve made reference to it in recent weeks: a fair bit of God’s answer to Job’s complaint is that Job, or any other human, simply can’t understand God’s perspective.

Some cultures dealt with this concern by making their gods as human as possible: powerful, certainly, but often no better than actors in a soap-opera or super-heros in comic books.

Others, like Judaism, elevated the understanding of God the Creator to a place so high as to be terrifying: perfect and almost inaccessible.

That’s where priests come in. Priests are called by God to act as intermediaries, people apart from the people but still representing the people to God  and God to the people; with prayers and sacrifices going up and guidance, blessings and judgments coming down.

In that understanding, the High Priest has the most direct line to God and has the most central role of explaining to this infinitely powerful being how we, God’s creatures, are feeling.

This language isn’t very familiar to us in the Reformed Tradition because 500 years ago we did away with priests. We took passages like our Hebrews lesson and concluded that Jesus had stepped into this role permanently so that none of us ever had to make another sacrifice on the altar again. That’s why we don’t have altars: we have communion tables instead.

In Christian traditions that still have priests, part of their understanding is that in the Lord’s Supper the priest is sacrificing Jesus on God’s altar        over and over again, either symbolically or literally depending on the theology.

The Reformed Tradition has rejected all of that and as this Hebrews reading tells us, we can approach God through Jesus because we have a permanent High Priest in place.

All of this may seem a bit out-dated: based in ancient perceptions of God        that don’t fit in today’s world. But consider: the fundamental questions haven’t gone away; people still feel tiny and lost in a vast universe,        afraid that the universe doesn’t care about them, worried that they are screwing up and that their mistakes will haunt them forever. Whether they talk about God or not, the concerns are still there.

People still have trouble connecting the vast universe with an image that feels like home. We scoff at the “beard in the sky” images of God that Christian artists borrowed from Greek mythology, but they are a clear indication of the way that we need to put a human face on a universal power; a way to connect our very human experience with a universe so vast and powerful    it can feel overwhelming.

One of the things I find most comforting about this lesson and the understanding behind it is not the particular role granted to Jesus, is not the High Priest of the order of Melchizedek. Rather, it is the clear understanding that God knows that we need this and did something about it. The feeling that we are terrified about approaching God directly, so someone, Jesus, was given the job to interpret for us,    to be our intermediary.

To me, this says that the need for an intermediary was never God’s. God understood us before we had figured out our own needs and the role Jesus is assigned in this and similar passages, is for our benefit.

The fundamental message is that it’s okay to approach God; that however powerful and mind-blowing our creator is, we are not cut off, we are not insignificant. Rather, we are loved and understood and given another chance.

And as the Reformers have been saying for five centuries, we don’t need someone else to get in-between us and God because God has already taken care of that: we can believe the theology that puts Jesus in the role of intermediary, or we can believe that God’s understanding  that we needed someone to bridge that gap for us is evidence that God already knows us so well and loves us so much, that we can approach with confidence, knowing that God will hear us.

Either way, we are reassured that we are not alone. We do not have to face the challenges of a complex universe without support. God invites us close; God gives us company, in the community of faith and God embraces us as beloved children.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Rediscovering Thanksgiving

While COVID-19 makes our in-person services challenging, Knox is providing Podcast Services. Not everyone can access these, though, so we are also posting my sermons on our Knox Talks blog. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my notes into text for the blog.

Rediscovering Thanksgiving

Scriptures:

Joel 2:21-27

Matthew 6:25-33

If this pandemic were over, giving thanks would be easy. If we could gather without masks, if we could shake hands or hug each other, if we could sing our hymns at the top of our lungs and fill the sanctuary with as many people as the fire marshal would allow, then the excitement would flow, the joy would overwhelm us. Giving thanks would be automatic; we wouldn’t have to think about it.

If we were sure that all the people we know and love were safe and sound, healthy and protected; that they were employed and not worried about paying bills, not worried about basics like housing and food; if we knew that our children could go to school without disruption and that they were getting good grades to boot, making lots of friends and discovering a bright future; if we had all of that, it would be easy to be thankful. Our thanksgiving would be heart-felt, spontaneous, full to overflowing, wouldn’t it?

Well, wouldn’t it? Today it would.

We have been deprived of so much security; we have had basic things in life turned upside-down, so much so that just getting together for dinner is a rare treat; we have to remind ourselves of how it’s done!

Part of our joy would come from our experience of uncertainty; the fact that we’ve faced such a world-wide challenge and are still facing it.

At the same time we have to confess that we know that when these simple blessings are more reliable, when we feel assured of our supply of good food, the company of loved ones and a secure place to live, then we get complacent. We forget to give thanks, or worse, we feel like life owes us these blessings:

“I’ve earned this: I’ve worked hard, put in lots of hours,

I have a right to this!”

Our scripture lessons remind us of a more simple time; a time when people lived at the whims of nature; of storms that could wipe out a harvest, or a plague of locusts, or a drought could leave a nation hungry.

There were no international food programs then, no insurance for injured workers, no social safety net.

Our lesson from Joel is a simple celebration of a good harvest. Even the land itself and the animals are encouraged to thank God for the good harvest, for the rains that allowed for growth.

Most of us don’t think about this much. That’s changing for the people who have discovered gardening here or at home, but for most people in our urban settings, distant from farms and seasonal realities, it’s only in a time like this, when we come up against a reality stronger than we are, that we are reminded to be thankful.

Our experience these past months brings us that wake-up call, that adjustment to our perspective that we so badly needed.

Many of us are here at Knox this Thanksgiving Sunday; we are gathering for the first time in months, cautiously, being careful of our safety because we have been shown how fragile our health can be

and we have been reminded how much we love and miss each other.

We are thankful for this gathering, thankful for the hope that more will follow, thankful that we can re-connect and celebrate together again.

And with ongoing reminders of climate change both from extreme weather events and from the young people who are so concerned for their futures, we are even put back into that space where we are thankful for food.

We are thankful for having enough, and more than enough. We are thankful that harvests are being safely gathered in and that we can share this bounty with people we love.

We have been reminded that the human race is not in control; that despite all the things we can do, we are not God.

Humans have struggled with uncertainty for as long as we have had the imagination to look into the future and wonder where our next meal is coming from.

Our Joel lesson celebrates God’s blessing and bounty, yet even that celebration is based on the knowledge that there have been lean years, that there are times when the crop fails and the winter is hungry.

Our Matthew lesson goes farther. It calls us to stop worrying, to believe that God knows what we need and to trust God for the future.

This isn’t a call to be irresponsible, planning is still something we should do in our lives, but it is a call to that perspective in which we know that, on the one hand we can’t control everything, and on the other hand we know that God loves us and that God will provide for our basic needs; those things like food, clothing, shelter.

The early followers of Jesus lived in a hard time and they made this teaching work by gathering together in communities of love and by looking out for each other so no one ever had to go without.

They were very practical about it. This wasn’t some naïve “God will let me win the lottery” understanding. Rather, it was an understanding that God has already blessed us and that as God’s people, we have it in our power to see that those blessings go where they are needed so that no one need be hungry, cold, or naked; so that all have the chance to be thankful.

God has already blessed us and this pandemic is helping us rediscover how to be thankful for the basic things in life.

In this time may we also rediscover that understanding that Jesus’ first followers knew so well: that God’s blessings are more than enough and are to be shared so that no one may be deprived of the chance to give thanks.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.