Cutting Corners

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.

Cutting Corners

Scriptures: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4:1-13

Wandering in the wilderness is a powerful idea. It is much more than symbolic: the wilderness is the opposite of civilization; you don’t have the infrastructure of society; you don’t even have planted crops; you don’t know where your next meal is coming from and if you are truly alone, like Jesus was, you don’t even have other people to help you.

Being in that place, alone with God and the raw world, forces you to look at what really matters; it compels you to deal with basic needs like hunger, thirst, and shelter. If you’ve learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs you know that these basic needs are so fundamental that other priorities go out the window until they are met.

At least, that’s one interpretation. At the very least, an empty stomach and parched mouth command a person’s attention and other things can take a back seat.

Jesus is described as being really hungry at the end of his long time alone in the wilderness and the first thing he is offered is a temptation

based in his physical hunger: transform stones into bread – “just a little abuse of power – eat and you won’t feel so desperate.”

It doesn’t take the theories of modern psychology to know that physical needs can be powerful, can even overwhelm our better judgement if we become desperate enough.

And that’s how this passage is often seen: it has been used by Christians for centuries to demonstrate Jesus’ perfect self-control; to defend the doctrine that he was sinless. And when you look at it that way, this whole lesson makes Jesus seem super-human. We can admire his iron will but we know we’ve stumbled and we always doubt that we could ever match what we read here.

But consider what was going on in each temptation. Each one was the offer of a short-cut; a corner-cutting way to achieve something: a full stomach; world domination; or the fame and admiration that would come from proving that God is protecting you.

Each of these things is a common human desire: the basic needs of life; power; fame and fortune. But what we see from Jesus’ teachings and his life is that he didn’t want to fit the common mould. He wanted to re-shape our understanding of what is important; to re-define what power really is; to become known for who he really was rather than a flashy false image.

The shortcuts offered Jesus really wouldn’t do the job. Yes, the miraculously transformed stones might briefly satisfy his hunger but you’d always know you had eaten granite and worse, it would cut him off from the community he planned to establish. He would need them to support his ministry, to feed him, and if he started using miracles to feed himself he would undermine the very basis of his work: to build a family of faith.

Getting the armies of the world on his side might look effective but Jesus chose to go to the cross instead; to welcome vulnerability and weakness and demonstrate that what we think of as power ultimately will not win.

Sadly, I believe that over history the church has failed in this temptation, over and over: when we became the official religion of the Roman Empire and when we tied ourselves to other empires over time. If we had not embraced the kind of power Jesus resisted we would not need to apologize for the Residential Schools, would we?

And as for leaping off the temple and being borne up by angels? Well, our modern world has a much better sense of how shallow fame works than past ages could ever have imagined. Social media has allowed all kinds of people a time of fame, and how well do we really know them? How cynical have we become knowing that even regular people only ever put the good pictures up for us to see and hide the failings and flaws. How many people are tempted to believe the pictures everyone else puts up and then consider themselves failures

because their lives aren’t picture perfect?

Jesus was able resist these temptations, I believe, because he knew that such short-cuts never work. The quick and easy solution comes with hidden costs. But more to the point, it skips the parts where we lay the ground-work, where we do the things that matter, where we put in the time to connect with others, establish relationships, earn trust, and allow ourselves to become vulnerable and real.

By the end of his time in the wilderness, Jesus was clear about what really mattered and he knew that these tempting short-cuts would undermine everything he was trying to do.

He decided to go at it the hard way, the real way: talking to people; sharing his understanding; teaching ordinary people to become leaders – not with a horse and a sword, but with a community and with love,

One of the ironies of all this is that Jesus managed to work incredibly quickly. The gospels give different time frames for Jesus’ ministry, but the longest time possible is three years from the wilderness to the cross. Matthew, Mark and Luke seem to agree that Jesus did it all in a year or less – he didn’t need a short-cut!

Of course, the hard way was really hard for Jesus. It involved betrayal, torture and death. But it worked.

If Jesus had chosen another path he might have become as famous as Caesar Augustus who ruled a huge, powerful empire. But we wouldn’t be studying his wisdom right now; we wouldn’t be trying to follow his example. And it is because of what Jesus taught

that when we see someone who wants to become another emperor, like Vladimir Putin, we are filled with horror rather than admiration.

This lesson about the temptations of Jesus isn’t about following rigid rules. It isn’t about being perfect, either. It is about keeping clear in our hearts and minds what matters, what is important. And recognizing that short-cuts don’t work.

Jesus brought his honest, real self to his ministry; he admitted his hunger, and trusted others to feed him; he worked to persuade by love, not by power or flashy tricks and he even let his vulnerability become a message: that his weakness was greater than the power of the Roman Empire.

So, as we live our own lives and as we go forward as a congregation,

with finances and membership concerns hanging on from our meeting last week, let us remind ourselves of what matters. Let’s not be tempted to take short-cuts.

Let’s be ready to do the real work to which we’ve been called: to connect with others; to love, and share and to build a community where God’s love is found, one relationship at a time. It won’t be quick, but it will be authentic.

Amen.

Glowing Faces

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.

Glowing Faces

Scripture: Exodus 34: 29-35

Today is Transfiguration Sunday and our reading is one that gives the example of Moses, his face transfigured by light from speaking with God, as a precursor to what would happen to Jesus.

This passage has led to some problems. The Hebrew word that describes Moses’ face as glowing is also the root word for horns and so in the Vulgate Latin translation of the bible, it says Moses was “horned” by speaking with God. This led to a lot of Medieval artwork to depict Moses with a pair of horns on his head: even Michelangelo included them on his famous statue of Moses – but it was a bad translation; Moses’ face was described as glowing.

This kind of thing gives us trouble if we take it literally. In the modern context, people who hear about “glowing faces” are likely to think about UFO contact or a nuclear accident, or even the healthy glow that comes from exercise, rather than about any kind of divine effect. All of this can lead a lot of people to dismiss this story as embarrassing.

This is too literal, and too bad because it works so very well as a metaphor.

If this time of pandemic has taught us anything it should be how much we have always relied on reading people’s faces when we communicate. Our masks have made it so hard to talk, because the cues we rely on are hidden.

Every face we see tells a story. Every face reflects inner realities, even faces that are locked down. “Poker faces” that seek to hide behind blank expressions are still telling a story and the face we present to the world has an effect on the people that see us. And all of this may happen without any of us being particularly conscious of it.

Considered that way, how could Moses come down from his mountaintop religious experience and NOT have his face tell the story?

The way the story continues, Moses wore a veil after he came down

so people wouldn’t see God’s glory fade between encounters with God. As you will see shortly, I don’t think Moses set a good example when he did that.

So what example should we be following? What are we called to in this lesson?

Glow-in-the-dark faces might be fun at Hallowe’en, but we aren’t called to embody some strange special effect. We ARE called to deal with God; to come close to the divine every day in our thoughts and prayers as we consider our decisions; as we weigh what is right and wrong; as we make choices about how to treat others.

And the more we let God guide us, the more divine influence gets into our choices, the more our faces will reflect that reality: the more people will be able to read in our faces the hope, the justice, the peace, the love, the determination to make this world a better place.

Our faces will be transfigured; they will glow, not literally, but metaphorically through body language, with a story that is there to see for those who can read it.

I would suggest that we need to present our glowing faces for the world to see right now, urgently.

We are all looking with horror at a kind of face that has always existed but that we’ve told ourselves had vanished since the second world war: the face of naked, empire-building greed and aggression as Russia has invaded the Ukraine.

It is tempting to panic, to fear for the future, to let that kind of bullying terrorize not just the Ukrainians but the rest of the world too.

That is why we need to present our transfigured faces for others to see as we go forward with the sense that people can be helped and rescued; that God is greater that Vladimir Putin and that God’s call for us to work together can salvage even this disastrous situation as we find ways to share love, healing and hope and as we work to overcome the injustice that is being played out so obviously before us.

The glowing face of Moses, bringing a message from God from the heights of Mt. Sinai made a profound difference on the people of Israel, a difference that still guides us today.

Let us show our own glowing faces to the world as God transforms us every day and inspires us to change not only our own lives but the world around us.

Until we do, we won’t know how profound a difference we can make.

Amen.

Heavenly Minded and Earthly Good

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.

Heavenly Minded and Earthly Good

Scriptures:

1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26

The Apostle Paul lived in a world of philosophy. He was surrounded by all those Greek philosophies that we learn about as things from the past. He would have understood the need to present a logical argument for anything he claimed, or his culture would not have taken him seriously.

That feels rather different from now, when people seem to be prepared to do things and make claims with fairly flimsy justifications, and not much logic in some cases.

Paul had a profound personal spiritual experience that turned him into a follower of Jesus. He had a vision of the risen Christ as Paul was on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians. In the vision he saw Jesus and Jesus spoke to him. The experience left him temporarily blind and some kind and welcoming Christians in Damascus took him in and taught him while he healed.

That’s the kind of thing you expect from a spiritual revelation: it’s dramatic, and deeply moving. Paul mentions it in one of his letters and his friend Luke tells an expanded version in the book of Acts.

But look at what Paul does in today’s lesson. He is putting forward a logical argument based in his personal experience. He is making connections between the specific and the general and he challenges those who deny a resurrection. With his certainty that Jesus was resurrected – he saw it with his own eyes in a vision, after all – the argument is straightforward: if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus cannot have been raised. So, because Jesus was obviously raised, then the resurrection of the dead must happen.

There are some logical challenges here. You could argue that Jesus was a special case and that becomes an even more powerful argument if you accord Jesus a special status, like John’s gospel does.

But Paul is pretty clear about believing in the humanity of Jesus. He doesn’t elevate him the way John does and he clearly considers that what’s sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. In terms of the resurrection, what works for Jesus works for all of us.

Don’t get hung up on the word resurrection here. Paul wasn’t concerned about a physical, bodily resurrection. He believed in a resurrection into God’s presence, not all that different than what we might call “going to heaven”. The medieval artistic grimness that imagined people coming out of their graves to reassemble their bodies would have been utter nonsense to Paul.

Paul was being driven by something mystical, something spiritual, and it is clear from his argument in this lesson that he considers it so central to Christianity that without it everything falls apart.

Contrast this with our lesson from Luke: it is part of what is sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s equivalent to the Sermon on the Mount, and today’s lesson includes a lot of the Beatitudes and some matching woes to go with the blessings.

The pattern of “Blessed are they” balanced with “Woe unto them” is pretty traditional. You can see it in our Psalm reading and even in the verses surrounding our call to worship from Jeremiah. If you look at those verses you will see an accursed tree that is not planted by the water that represents the people who don’t turn to God.

The point here is that these blessings (and curses) reflect another aspect of our faith. In the United Church there is a strong social justice ministry and it is motivated by passages like these; passages that focus on balancing out an unjust world; that focus our faith on the good we can do here and now.

For many, if you’re concentrating on helping others, if you’re fighting the good fight to change the world, you don’t have a lot of time or energy to worry about what happens after this life because this life has enough challenges to keep us busy.

The two approaches to faith aren’t mutually exclusive, but people do seem to be drawn more to one or the other. It has been like this for centuries. My sermon title even comes from one version of it, where a person might be criticized for being “so heavenly minded he’s of no earthly good.”

For myself, I believe we need to have both in our lives. We need that practical side of our faith to make things better, to do the concrete things that our scriptures have been telling us are improvements for millennia.

And we need the mystical side: that passionate, irrational calling; that sense of vision that lifts us beyond the bounds of this life and spurs us on to bigger thoughts; inspires us to do things that will live beyond us.

Paul felt the need to subject that part of things to a philosophic study; to use the tools of logic that filled his world; to examine the possibilities that his vision opened to him. But you notice that he never questioned that deep, personal experience that he had. He embraced it. It was the foundation of the rest of his life and led him to spread Christianity throughout the Greek-speaking world.

That was the fire that burned within him, but a lot of the people he attracted – the “righteous gentiles” who were attached to local synagogues – were people who found Judaism attractive

because of its emphasis on justice; because of its focus on a righteous lifestyle and the fair treatment of others. In other words, they had been attracted to Judaism because of the practical aspects of the faith.

We would do well to remember that 2000 years later, both of these elements are still with us.

We are called to live our lives in a faithful way, which includes the way we treat others, the way we try to change the institutions of our world, the way we try to lift everyone up and treat everyone as beloved children of God. Being kind, generous, just, loving, hopeful will be attractive to people, especially right now as folks are wondering about the meaning of their lives and looking for a way of living that matters.

But people are also looking for deeper meaning and our faith offers that spiritual dimension. We don’t always agree on exactly how it works and we’ve had lively debates for 2000 years as to what life after this one might look like. And we’re still not agreeing.

The gospels record Jesus arguing with the Scribes about this. Paul was having the same argument a decade or so later and it is still happening today. I’m good with that. It shows we have a healthy faith.

We live in a world where some of the big questions about life and death are avoided because people are afraid of them, but we are not. We can even live with the understanding that some mysteries won’t be solved in this lifetime, but we are willing to discuss them. We are open to the possibilities.

We share a faith that calls us to balance: so let us keep room in our lives for the spiritual and the mundane; the abstract and the concrete; the urgent needs and the meditative questions.

We are called to both, and one should never push out the other. Amen.

Growing Up

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.

Growing Up

Scriptures: Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

In religion, old is good. But our society doesn’t always see things that way. I can remember the “don’t trust anyone over 30” days and while the generation that said that is getting on with retirement now, the marketing wing of our society still tells us to be youthful, to look young (especially if they can sell you skin lotions or fashions that make you look younger); to act young, or in an extreme scenario to find a much younger trophy spouse.

In religious terms, that’s never been the standard. Back in the Bible it was always the elders we wanted to hear; those who had lived a long time were expected to have experience and were clearly blessed by God since they weren’t dead at such a venerable age.

We have many examples of young people called by God who expected that no one would listen to them simply because of their youth. Jeremiah worried about that in our first lesson today. Samuel faced the same problem and Paul had to reassure Timothy that he could teach and lead despite his young age, while acknowledging that some others might have to get used to the idea.

I have remarked in past years that Knox is the first church I’ve served that is actually younger than I am. We don’t have those stories of older churches like my congregation at West Adelaide near London, where the opposition to the new organ was so strong that on Sunday morning the congregation found it lying on its back in the cemetery. They picked it up, brought it in and started using it. It was a little damp, but otherwise fine.

Or the congregation near Bradford, north of Toronto, where the minister and elders disagreed so strongly that the elders padlocked the church doors and the minister went, got an axe, chopped off the chains and preached to an empty church.

Church life could be quite lively over a hundred years ago although that kind of history doesn’t always reassure me of the wisdom of the past.

But in a faith that traces its founding back two millennia and roots centuries further back, a congregation celebrating its 59th anniversary is just a young pup.

Knowing that we are young, that we have more experience to gather, is not a bad thing at all. It’s so much better than thinking we know it all or that we’ve tried everything. Trust me, there’s still lots for us to learn and more for us to try.

Growing up is a difficult process. Gaining experience generally includes experience of loss, disappointments and heartbreak, coming to terms with the idea that we are mortal (which applies equally to individuals and to congregations) having to make difficult choices, and learning that we can’t have it all.

Those are some of the harder parts of growing up. But there are good things too: you stop being the children and begin to enjoy the children that follow; you learn what you are good at and you find ways that you can help others. And if you are wise, you discover within yourself the grace to accept help when you need it.

Maybe grown-ups can’t do everything children think they can, but grown-ups can still do a lot and have the chance to develop a more subtle knowledge of how the world works and what new things are possible.

These past two years of pandemic have pushed Knox to grow up, have challenged us to re-examine our assumptions, have called us to re-imagine what it means to be a faith community in this century.

It has been hard: we’ve been kept apart when a deep understanding has always told us that it is our purpose to come together; we’ve had to get creative and we have given some serious thought to new ways to look into the future and to embrace what is to come.

We needed to do this anyway. Every church has faced challenges in recent years and this pandemic has pushed us so that we can no longer ignore the fact that so many people around us don’t think we are relevant in the modern world.

One surprising thing about the pandemic is that it has re-awakened in many people a sense of the need for a spiritual life.

And here we are, with over 2000 years of practise, of thinking and sharing and living with a spiritual core to our lives, and an understanding of the meaning of daily life that goes beyond the superficial.

The pandemic has challenged us to look beyond ourselves, to go outside of the “same old same old”, to try new ways to reach beyond our walls, just in time to encounter the people who are reaching out for connection, who are thirsting for a taste of the spiritual life that can take them beyond the four walls of their COVID prisons.

After today, Knox enters its 60th year: we’re not kids anymore. We have a lot to contribute to the world including experience, and even wisdom.

And if we ever feel that nagging uncertainty shared by Jeremiah, Samuel and Timothy, we should remember that just as God put the words into Jeremiah’s mouth, so too we have been told the truth to share.

Paul put it so well: we are to be a community of love, sharing, welcoming, patient, kind, wanting what is best for others and displaying in our lives all those good things we read in 1 Corinthians 13.

That message manages to be both simple and profound at the same time and it is the very message that our society needs to hear; the spiritual truth that can make a profound difference in any life it touches.

Let us resolve to go forward as a mature church, a wise community of faith that is willing to share what we have received, freely, and with love as we greet the future with hope and an eagerness to discover what God has in store for us.

Amen.

The Joy of the LORD

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 Joy of the LORD

Scriptures:

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Luke 4:14-21

Our Nehemiah reading ends with these remarkable words: The joy of the LORD is your strength”.

That’s not something that automatically jumps to mind when you consider Christianity. For generations we have been raised with the idea of fearing God. During my lifetime some churches refined that to replace the word “fear” with “respect”, but this emphasis on joy is rare today.

Why? Our call to joy is certainly Biblical. Last week’s lesson about the wedding in Cana declared that Jesus represents a joyful perspective on God, combining the images of a joyous wedding feast and generous supplies of high quality new wine.

Nehemiah’s people didn’t start off joyful. Maybe they had hoped for joy when they came together. This was a big day for them; they had returned from exile in Babylon and this was their first gathering in the newly reclaimed city of Jerusalem.

I’m sure they wanted to hear something hopeful. They were exhausted after their long overland journey; they had faced the discouraging sight of Jerusalem’s broken walls and the destroyed temple. And they had met their neighbours, the Samaritans who were not at all happy to see them arrive.

So they probably wanted a rousing speech from their new governor Nehemiah and their new priest, Ezra, promising that the temple would be rebuilt and that Jerusalem would be safe again behind restored walls.

Instead, they heard a reading of the Law of Moses. According to scholars, it is most likely that what they heard from was the book of Deuteronomy; the oldest book of the Bible.

So instead of glowing political promises, they heard the requirements of the law. And they wept because they knew that they hadn’t managed to keep many of those laws while were captive in Babylon. They were afraid that if God were angry with them, they would fail in this promised land. They imagined a hard life ahead.

But look at the reaction this got from their leaders: “Don’t weep! Don’t feel bad! Don’t feel guilty! This is a holy day, a joyful feast day; the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

The message is clear: don’t be afraid of God but celebrate instead! The celebration was for everyone: notice that those who had plenty were told to share with those who had nothing prepared so that no one would be left out.

Nehemiah makes it clear that God wants no one left out whether they are poor, or merely poorly organized. The community is to share, to pull together so that everyone can rejoice. We know how this feels: every Christmas we re-create this to some degree with food and gift baskets in hopes that everyone may feel the joy of Christmas.

We also know that deeper work is needed to solve the problems of poverty and social injustice. Charity at Christmas helps a few people for a short time but it doesn’t fit the kind of vision that Nehemiah gave to the returned captives: the vision of a community pulling together; not just to survive or to overcome a crisis; but to be able to share in joy into the future.

In our Luke lesson Jesus makes a dramatic announcement that carries strong echoes of this vision.

Luke 4:18-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Some of that looks obvious: good news to the poor; release to captives; sight for the blind; freedom for the oppressed. The Year of the Lord’s favour is less obvious but very significant,

This is often associated with the Year of Jubilee: the event that the law demanded for every 50th year, where all slaves were released, where the land was allowed to lie fallow, where land sold by families was returned to them. This was a year of major disruption. It prevented the rich from accumulating too much wealth; it prevented people from being stuck in poverty or worse, slavery; it was intended to restore the balance of God’s people.

It was like a sabbath day for the whole country, where the people and the land itself could have time to celebrate and enjoy God’s favour, God’s providence. It would be a time of great joy.

Luke shows us Jesus claiming this for himself as the beginning of a ministry designed to lift people up, to restore God’s balance, to bring joy from God to everyone, with no one left out.

Now you can get technical about this passage and raise questions. Many scholars suggest that Jesus couldn’t read, since he didn’t leave any of his own writings, although he did know scripture very well and probably had this Isaiah reading memorized.

But whether or not it happened literally this way, the followers of Jesus understood his ministry this way and we are given this bold announcement as a vision for our own faith.

Joy is supposed to be at the core of our religion; not fear, not legalism

and certainly not rule-bound oppression.

That part of things is so damaging and dangerous. I was reminded of this earlier this week as I watched a Fifth Estate report on Grenville Christian College where the civil courts have recognized a history of abuse – physical, emotional and sexual – and talk of sin and guilt were regularly used to control the children and staff and make them more compliant. It is disturbing and offensive how often this kind of abuse has been wrapped in judgmental church language and it’s distressing to see how with these revelations all of Christianity gets painted with the same brush.

We can’t deny that our past has allowed this kind of thinking to thrive.

We should always have known better!

Right from the beginning we have been called to joyfully share God’s favour and to do the challenging but worthwhile work of transforming an unbalanced and unjust world into a place where people really can share, really can celebrate together, really can work with our differences and diversity and live lives where everyone has a place where all can celebrate.

God doesn’t want anyone left behind or left out. Nehemiah and Ezra made that clear even in the middle of a very challenging time. Jesus proclaimed that his ministry would revive this understanding and be a great cause for joy, even while living under the power of an occupying foreign army where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and people were abused as a matter of course.

In both cases, it’s clear that improvements were needed and not all of the work will be quick or easy: whether it’s rebuilding Jerusalem; challenging the heart of Roman power; or re-structuring 21st century society. It’s going to take time and effort.

But it is clear that we are called to this as to a joyous task. Not a chore to be done reluctantly. Certainly not because we fear judgement but because God loves us and wants us to be joyful together.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Drawers of Water

Drawers of Water

Scripture: Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11

For the second week in a row I feel I need to begin by clarifying my sermon title: “drawers” is to be read as “draw-ers”, those who draw; not “drawers”, a place to store socks.

It’s one half of a very Canadian expression as in: “hewers of wood and drawers of water”, an expression we keep trying to reject because it suggests we’re not sophisticated, that we’re too rural or remote. Expert campers, maybe, but cut off from the benefits of city life.

That’s too bad, really. To hew wood and draw water makes us close to nature, admittedly in a fairly sweaty way, but it means that we have a realistic sense of what life actually demands; what it takes to stay warm and fed in the real world.

The drawers of water are important in the lesson of the wedding in Cana of Galilee. John’s gospel is full of symbolism and this story generally gets interpreted around deep symbolic terms: Jesus’ mother representing the old ways and Jesus representing the new; the deeper challenge of the relationship between Jesus and Mary; the old wine vs. the new wine and how the new is superior to the old. There’s a lot to sort out there since all of this is generally understood to represent the relationship between traditional Judaism and this new-fangled thing called Christianity.

But I would like to focus this time on the drawers of water: those servants who had to do all the heavy lifting so that there could be any kind of miracle at all. Those 6 jars didn’t fill themselves and if each one was between 20 and 30 gallons, that means that someone had to lug between 120 and 180 gallons of water from the well to the jugs.

Oh, my aching back! This was not some “snap of the fingers and twinkly lights” sort of miracle; there was hard work involved here.

The wine steward might have been fooled; the bridegroom might have thought the wine came out of thin air, but John makes it clear that the servants who drew the water knew what was really going on.

That’s no mistake. It’s not a passing comment. It’s a recognition that the people who do the hard work often have a deeper understanding

than those who claim to be in charge.

It might be fair to ask why the jars were all empty. The Jewish Rites of Purification John mentions were many and varied and could include ritual bathing, which explains why so much water was needed.

The usual explanation is the ritual of foot washing for guests who had been on the road. This must have been a really big wedding, to use up all the water. If Jesus had to create well over 100 gallons of wine – I really hope it was a large wedding!

I don’t think John was suggesting that the servants had been derelict in their duties. Rather, the empty jars probably signified that the value of traditional ritual had run dry. There were six jars, a symbolic number one short of seven. Seven was the holy number of completion and perfection – like the seven days of creation – so John is setting us up for the understanding that the purification rituals were imperfect to begin with.

Then there’s the symbolism of the wine replacing the water of cleansing. Drinking wine is symbolic of joy and celebration: ritual washing is a symbol of careful obedience to rules, of working to approach the ideal of purity God requires.

Think about it: would you rather be sipping wine or scrubbing the floors? It’s a clear contrast.

Does this miracle suggest that all the heavy lifting connected to the ritual purity was over; that with the advent of Jesus, the time of celebration had begun; that the drawing of water could be left behind?

Many have claimed that John is saying that Christianity is about celebration, while Judaism is about following the rules. That’s a rather superficial contrast but the early Church did take that kind of position a lot. Even as he is saying that, John isn’t suggesting some kind of naïve magical thinking.

John’s presentation of this story makes it clear: coming to this joy requires work; the wedding celebration may get notched up a level

with the new and superior wine, but there are still servants involved, drawing the water and filling the jars; behind the celebration are workers making the miracle possible.

This is an important thing to remember, especially when we start to bubble over with idealism. John’s gospel is arguably the most idealistic of the four gospels and he makes a point, in this, Jesus’ first miracle, of drawing back the curtain and letting us see what goes on behind the scenes.

This revelation won’t be a surprise to many people. Anyone who has been in a choir or an orchestra or a play knows that for an hour of magnificent performance there have been countless hours of rehearsal; fussing about how to see the director when the person standing in front of you is too tall; being reminded to look up from the music or script; learn your lines; and pay attention!

The same is true for things that are more personal. The person who has saintly levels of patience had to develop that, had to practice and may not even be so patient at home if you were to ask their family.

The person who is able to offer wise advice undoubtedly made a lot of mistakes along the way and can speak from hard experience rather than some abstract theory. And who is to say they aren’t still struggling

behind the scenes to get it right?

Our faith is not a static thing; it is not a performance we have to perfect.

Yes, we want to live our lives in the best way we can so that people learn about God’s love and justice through our sincere actions rather than our preaching. But we need to remember that for all the celebration we are promised, for all the joy of being in a good relationship with God and with each other, our faith isn’t just a wedding feast where we get to sip wine and laugh. A lot of work is needed behind the scenes.

It’s a bit of a stale saying now, to point out that relationships take work, but they do. And our faith, which brings us so much promise, is all about relationships.

None of us get to simply party. Each one of us is called to be a drawer of water. We each contribute through our efforts to making the joy of our shared faith available to all. That water isn’t going to draw itself.

But we shouldn’t only think of this as work; there are rewards. As John points out, when you work behind the scenes you get a deeper appreciation of what is really going on. I’ve always felt that sort of insight is worth the effort.

Amen.

Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc is a mountain on the border between France and Italy. It has an elevation of about 4,800 meters. It’s name means “White Mountain”.

The image above is presented in an Image block with alignment set to Full Width.

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn is a mountain on the border between Switzerland and Italy. It has an elevation of about 4,480 meters. It is a part of the Alps, a mountain range in Europe.

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Apologetics in a Box

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.

Apologetics In a Box

Scriptures: Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12

I should explain something about my sermon title. “Apologetics” has nothing to do with saying “sorry”. It is a theological discipline in which someone argues in a systematic way to defend particular theological beliefs or positions. Lori graduated a year ahead of me and her Knox diploma specifically lists “Apologetics” as one of the areas she has been trained in. For my year, they had replaced that list with a boring and generic statement of “theological competency”.

Probably one reason was that the courses in Apologetics had all been replaced with courses in Systematic Theology some years previously. We were not supposed to defend established doctrine. We were trained to examine it, discuss it in a systematic and meaningful way

and also to challenge it, to consider alternatives as we examined our faith in new and critical ways.

Every year on this Epiphany Sunday we are faced with the story of the Magi and the challenge they presented to established Jewish doctrine 2000 years ago.

Matthew cared about this as a Jewish Christian who was dealing with the fact that a lot of Gentiles were embracing the teachings of Jesus but they were coming in without a Jewish background. Not only did they have no claim as children of Abraham, but they didn’t follow the laws of Moses. In fact, the laws of Moses didn’t apply to them at all.

Matthew knew that the Nations were supposed to come to the light

as Isaiah had said so poetically in our first lesson; but what did that mean?

Would they have to convert? Would they have to be circumcised and embrace Judaism? This had been a hot topic some years before this gospel was written, with Peter and John demanding that Gentiles be circumcised and Paul arguing against. Paul’s view won out but Peter had to have a vision to be persuaded.

All of this represented a new relationship between Jews and Gentiles within Christianity and even by the time of Matthew’s gospel, decades after Paul’s letters were written, things were still being worked out.

That’s why the Magi were so important. They were actually priests of another religion who came to honour Jesus. They didn’t convert but they did demonstrate clearly that God was prepared to grant them visions and work through their Astrological practices which were banned by the laws of Moses.

For anyone who wanted to defend the traditional beliefs of Judaism

this would have been appalling. Their Apologetics would have had limited room for this: obviously God can do anything, and God could choose to speak to these Magi, but it challenged the theology that established a special covenant with Israel.

Christianity handled this by talking about a new covenant; one established through Jesus. So, Christianity established a new Apologetic, a new systematic theology of how God was working with people and it set out to defend this understanding, especially against new teachings from unfamiliar people.

This grew over the centuries and became quite rigid. It didn’t even always leave room for the variations on Christianity that went back to the earliest days as we can see from the many holy wars that litter our history.

This is a point I’ve made recently. This open-minded approach from Biblical days which people always found hard to embrace was replaced with a rigid way of thinking and replaced again during the Reformation and now it is all being challenged again.

As we work through this, there are things to consider:

While specific teachings and many broad attitudes are justly being challenged and need to be re-examined, I don’t believe we should abandon our Christianity. It is good to know who we are and where we come from; it is important to have a sense of what we believe and an even clearer sense of the underlying principles, the foundations of Jesus’ teachings.

As we encounter others we should expect that their own experiences and ways will shape their response to the faith we present. If they are so impressed by the faith we live out that they do decide to follow the teachings of Jesus, they may do so in a way we find hard to recognize. That doesn’t make it wrong; we don’t have the right to simply denounce it or call it heresy.

The traditional word “conversion” may not apply at all or it may look nothing like what we were taught in the past.

At the same time, as we live through this very open time of spirituality, where people have been looking for answers in other traditions since the 1960s, we should not uncritically adopt what others teach. Each faith tradition has its own roots and teachings, sometimes its own version of orthodoxy, and embracing selected spiritual teachings from a variety of backgrounds is disrespectful of those roots or faiths.

Drew Hayden Taylor had an article in Thursday’s Globe & Mail where he takes a funny and serious look at the many non-indigenous people

who suddenly claim to be followers of indigenous ways, not always recognizing the diversity of indigenous beliefs, the different faith structures of different nations. He roundly denounces the idea that there is a pan-indigenous belief system.

He particularly comments on those who falsely claim to be indigenous:

he calls them “Pretendians” and speculates on why anyone would want to do this. This is a hot topic right now. He makes it clear that imitation is NOT the sincerest form of flattery; it is cultural appropriation and being well-intentioned doesn’t make it any less offensive.

Jesus’ family didn’t suddenly adopt the teachings of the Magi. Mary did listen carefully and remembered what they said about their journey, but she continued to follow the Jewish teachings that she had learned growing up.

Back when Lori and I were in Chatham, we had a lot of contact with a pair of traditional spiritual leaders from Walpole Island. One of the things they expressed was their own sense of mission. Their understanding was that what First Nations people had to offer the rest of society was a deep spirituality and connection to Creation.

That may indeed be something we need to learn. We can do so, respectfully, by hearing their teachings and allowing them to inform how we read our own scriptures and interpret our own stories. We cannot simply try to make their stories or beliefs our own.

An indigenous friend told me about a white United Church minister

serving an indigenous congregation. He really wanted to be given an “Indian name”, so they gave him a name that means “Squawking Parrot”. And why not? His wish hadn’t been respectful of that community or their traditions.

Christianity has a long history of rigid teachings that we have imposed on others and we have learned how this is disrespectful to others and to important parts of our own faith.

But as we reach out to others, determined to do things differently now,

we will do well to remember when our faith met the Magi: they had things to share; they taught us unexpected lessons about God’s openness; but they didn’t expect, or want us, to start interpreting star charts with them.

If we can remember to be respectful of the diverse people we meet: the people with whom we hope to reconcile; the people who simply believe something unfamiliar to us; if we remember to treat them all respectfully, then we will have a good way into the future; a way that can shape us into better versions of who we already are and bring new insight and inspiration to the faith we already have.

Amen.