Second Sunday of Easter (2007): "Revisiting Doubting Thomas"

Second Sunday of Easter (2007): "Revisiting Doubting Thomas"
Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31
preached by Jane Barter Moulaison on April 15th, 2007

The Easter appearance to the disciple Thomas is a much loved and a well-known story. Many times we have probably heard sermons preached on “Doubting Thomas.” In many ways, Thomas becomes the great patron saint of modernity. He is interpreted as doubting the authority of the disciples; of having a great scientific mind, wanting empirical proof of the resurrection which his friends proclaimed.

So, like the good rationalist he is, he declares: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his ands, and pit my finer in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side I will not believe.”

And, of course, it is indeed possible that it was this kind of skepticism that made him a “Doubting Thomas”; but I am intrigued by his request.

• Why the nail marks in his hands?
• Why his pierced side?
• Why did he wish to touch those places of his Lord’s woundedness?
• Why did he not just wish to see him and to cling to him, as Mary Magdalene had?
• Why did he not long to see evidence of his glory rather than the marks of his crucifixion?

Let’s keep this question in the back of our mind for a bit while I tell another Easter story.

It is early morning on Easter Sunday just west of Kandahar. A caravan of Canadian troops are traveling; it has been quiet for some time now. Some no doubt are thinking about the holiday; remembering family traditions; thinking of their kids and hiding Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. Wondering if it is Spring-time yet in New Brunswick. Then a thud and a sudden explosion. Then light, now panic, now terror. Then the silence. Six men killed instantly.

Their names flashed across televisions, were heard on radios, interrupting Easter holiday celebrations.
• Sgt. Donald Lucas, 31, of Burton, N.B.
• Cpl. Aaron E. Williams, 23, of Lincoln, N.B.
• Pte. Kevin Vincent Kennedy, 20, of St. Lawrence, N.L.
• Pte. David Robert Greenslade, 20, of Saint John, N.B.
• Cpl. Christopher Paul Stannix, 24, of Dartmouth, N.S.
• Cpl. Brent Poland, 37, of Camlachie, Ont.
Half a world away, in Gagetown, military officials spent most of Easter day tracking down the families of the soldiers killed in the attack. Three days later, more terrible, most un-Easter-like news. This time it comes to Petawawa Ontario. Master Cpl. Allan Stewart, 30, and Trooper Patrick James Pentland, 23. Also dead.
We can hardly fathom the loss of young life; we cannot make sense of the Easter message in the midst of continued violence.

Perhaps it was like this for the disciple Thomas two thousands years ago in that locked meeting place.

Perhaps it was like this for Thomas who had seen enough devastation, had witnessed enough terror that he could not imagine anything being otherwise.
As we hear the story of the empty tomb, we often forget the terror and the violence that gave birth to it.

We shut out the violence of our own world we become desperate for hope for a happier ending, but Thomas does not forget: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side I will not believe.”

• Unless I know that the one whom you claim has appeared to you is no ghostly spirit, but still bears the marks of his vulnerability--
• Unless this man who has appeared to you still carries his woundedness and our own upon him--
• Unless this one whom you say has come can show me a way out of this endless cycle of violence and suffering, I will not believe.

Thomas’ doubt is not his intellectual curiosity, but his grief; his lament. Why else would he want to see his Lord’s wounds still?

And in the midst of Thomas’ grief, and our own, Jesus enters into the locked up places of our world, into our hearts broken in grief, into our battle zones, and proclaims, “Peace!”

What kind of a peace is it that he proclaims?

Certainly, it is not a peace that would suggest that after his appearance the disciples will live lives free of discord, freed from the threat of violence. Our Acts reading for this morning dispels such illusions. It is not the peace that is the achievement of political machinations; it is not the peace of a final military conquest; it is not the peace that the UN hopes for once the Taliban finally loses its power or resolve to plant one more road-side bomb.

Christ offers, instead, the peace that is himself. The prince of peace. The first fruit of a new creation. He offers Thomas his resurrected body, which Thomas, and we too will one day share. A body that has borne all the iniquities and violence that the world gives; and yet a body that lives. And so he invites Thomas to touch him, to probe his hand into his very wounds, and to know that he is no ghost—that his peace is no illusion. “Thomas, do not doubt but believe.”
• Believe that the kingdom is here in your midst, Thomas.
• Believe that the Spirit that I have sent is the pouring out of a new creation; a creation of peace that is waiting to be born.
• And receive, Thomas, this gift so that you and your friends might be emissaries of this peace. A peace that comes through the very wounds that you have touched. “Do not doubt, but believe.”

I cannot imagine how this very simple message, “Do not doubt, but believe,” is conveyed by the priests and pastors in Gagetown and Petawawa. I do not know how the good news of Easter is proclaimed meaningfully to those who have suffered such a loss, but I suspect that Jesus’ words to Thomas have much to teach us about suffering. There was a news story recently on the so-called collateral damage inflicted upon civilian families back home as children suffer the fear and anxiety of having parents in combat. And, as many of you have probably seen, the government has committed some money to bolster the scant resources for military families, particularly in Petawawa, so that they might learn to cope with their fear and loss. I was raised in a military family, and so I have a great deal of sympathy for the efforts of these counselors and family centres.

But what I would suggest is that what the church has to offer is something quite different from the capacity to manage or cope in a world of violence and in a world of grieving. What the church has to offer is the patient kind of ministry that Jesus has displayed in his care for Thomas.

Jesus does not deny Thomas or rebuke him in his doubt, but like his appearance to Mary, Jesus reveals himself uniquely to him; calling Mary by name, and allowing Thomas the time to touch and probe. In our doubt, in our suffering, in our anguish and loss of faith, Jesus calls us by name, and he says, “Do not doubt, but believe.” This is no rebuke but an invitation. And it is an invitation that is accompanied by various gifts so that the pain and doubt may not be unbearable.

First, the risen Christ offers his presence to the end of time through the power of the Holy Spirit. In a moment reminiscent of the book of Genesis, Christ breathes upon the disciples, just as God breathes life into Adam. In this new creation, the disciples are filled with the Spirit, and with the Spirit’s power to act in God’s name. This is the gift that we have been given as the church--to be agents of reconciliation in a broken world. Not so that we can merely manage our loss, but so that we might become whole, so that all might enjoy Christ’s peace.

***

The second gift is related to this. The Church is given the gift of Christ’s wounded body, just as Thomas was, to see, to touch to partake in. It is this body that we take into our hands as we participate in our eucharistic meal. And it is through this body that we are transformed, as our world awaits transformation. To partake in the eucharist in a world of violence and terror, is to partake in a free gift of life, in which brokenness is made whole, in which the many become one. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from his prison cell in the last days of his life, indeed the last days of the war, wrote these words to his friend:

Not only action, but also suffering is a way to freedom. In suffering, the deliverance consists in our being allowed to put the matter out of our own hands into God’s hands. In this sense death is the crowning of human freedom. Whether the human deed is a matter of faith or not depends on whether we understand our suffering as an extension of our action and a completion of freedom. (LPP)

There is something quite right that the church does when it remembers its war dead, because it acknowledges the courage of those who recognize that suffering for others is a way to freedom. Yet, that freedom is now only partially available to us; there remains in our lives, countless ways in which Christ still bears the marks of humanity on his hands, in his side. What we do when we proclaim the resurrection in the midst of war and strife is that we remember the wounds, of those who have died far too young, and we remember that those wounds are borne for us by God, and that God has given the Church the power to likewise transform that suffering into promise. Just as there is nothing in the lives of the young men that will not be taken up by Christ, their deaths, like ours too will be, represent a release from the terror and fear that is still part of the life in the times in between.

It is difficult to celebrate Easter when sometimes our world looks much the same. Yet we have before us a table, a sanctuary, in which Christ offers his peace, offers himself. Touch and see and taste how the world has changed, and become that peace that Christ grants. Do not doubt, but believe.

From Easter, 1916, by W.B. Yeats

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"

The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"
Acts 10:34-43;
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26;
John 20:1-18
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, on April 8th, 2007

I’ve tried gardening. And I’ll probably try gardening again. I wouldn’t call myself the best gardener, though – there’s something about gardening that assumes you’re going to keep your eyes open, and be diligent. You’ve got to keep watering, and make sure you plant the right thing in the right season.

That part I can do well enough, most of the time. That’s not the part that I have had the most difficulty with. The hardest part for me is keeping my eyes open to what’s around me.

***

When I was about 12, a sapling started growing up in our yard. It was an elm sapling. I loved that little sapling. I was the one who mowed the lawn, and every Saturday, I carefully mowed around this sapling.

The rest of the trees didn’t matter to me at all, just this little sapling, this little elm tree. It took years for that little tree to grow to any height, and it was still there when I went away to university. But when I went away to university, someone else started mowing the lawn. So you know what happened, right? My precious little sapling got mowed over by someone with a little less love for that little elm tree than I did.

***

I lived in California for a few years, and Karen and I had our first back-yard there. So we thought we might do some gardening. One of my favourite herbs is rosemary, so I was particularly excited to grow some rosemary in our new back-yard. I gave that little rosemary so much attention. But it never grew. All I had was a little shrimpy rosemary branch sticking out of the mud, so small that to take enough rosemary off that shrub for any cooking, was to risk the life of the poor little guy. So we cooked without rosemary.

That rosemary never grew, and Karen and I left it to die when we left that house.

***

And so we find Mary Magdalene in another garden, in another time, looking for her Lord, the one who was going to save her, but who died an anonymous, wretched, and torturous death on a cross, just three days before. She went to the tomb to visit a dead man, but what she was looking for wasn’t there; and she discovers that her Lord and saviour is not only dead, but his body has disappeared: “They have taken my Lord out of the tomb,” says Mary to Peter and the beloved disciple, “and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Her saviour is not only dead, he’s dead and gone.

***

You know that little elm sapling that I so lovingly mowed around, only to have it get mowed over by a reckless gardener? If I had taken a minute to look around I would have realized something. Let me say a bit about where I grew up: I grew up near the centre of the city, in a neighbourhood where old old trees grew on the boulevard all the way up and down the street. Think about it for a second – I was worried about a little elm sapling (as beautiful as it was), but if I had only looked up to what was there – I grew up on Elm street, it wasn’t called Elm street because poplar grew on it! Great, hulking, cathedral elms swung over my head every day I mowed that lawn. Seeds had already been planted,
and the fruits of someone else’s labour swung above me, and if only I took a minute to look up, my pet project would sure have been put into perspective.

And in California, while I agonized over that little shrimpy shrub of rosemary, if I had taken a minute to look around, I would have seen that rosemary grows like a weed in that little California town. If I had taken a good look, I would have seen that people grew rosemary for shrubs on their front lawns, and that I passed rosemary bush after rosemary bush every day on my way to the bus stop. If only I had looked, I would have seen that the fruits of the seeds that someone else had already planted were already there, the fruit was available in abundance – and my little pet project would have come into perspective.

And when Mary Magdalene, who is looking for a dead man, when she looks up,
it turns out she is as dense as I am. Mary is looking for her Lord, who she thinks is a dead man. But she finds a gardener. And Mary says to the gardener, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary couldn’t see what was right in front of her, as concerned as she was with her nearly meaningless errand.

But the gardener says to her, “Mary!” And in a moment Mary understands; what she has been looking at, but not seeing, was that this man, the gardener, is the man she thought was dead; her Lord, the gardener, the first fruits of her salvation, this gardener is her Lord. Mary doesn’t finally see her Lord in a fit of ecstasy; she is not in some kind of deep prayer; she only needs someone to tell her who she is: “Mary!”

Jesus the gardener calls out her name, and in this calling of Mary she finally sees the gardener for who he is; Mary was looking for a sapling, but found a cathedral elm;
Mary was looking for a sprig, but found a field full of rosemary; Mary was looking for the dead, but she finds a living God, a living man.

And this living God, this living man, is the gardener of souls, the one we see for who he is when he calls out our name. This gardener of souls is calling out Mary’s name;
he’s calling out my name; this gardener of souls is calling out your name; and when we hear our name from his lips we call out to him “Teacher!”

***

But this gardener of souls offers us far more than the friendship he spoke of at the last supper; he offers far more than being our Teacher, though this gardener is both of these things: he is our friend, and our teacher.

But this gardener of souls, the man who is God, the crucified one, the risen one, says to Mary: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” This gardener of souls offers to us participation in the divine life of the Father, participation in the divine life of God, through the work of our brother, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The world has been pruned and is ready to bear the fruit of everlasting life because this gardener is himself the first-fruits of the salvation that we will know if we believe in him. He has died, yet he is not dead; he is risen and has ascended, yet he is here with us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through death and resurrection the gardener grafts us to himself, saving us and bringing into the fullness of life through participation in the very life of the Holy Trinity.

***

So what have you come here looking for? I don't know exactly why you're here, but if your looking for anything less than the living God, open you eyes! The living God has walked among us as a man; the living God suffered death on the cross in Jesus of Nazareth; the living God in a living human body has risen to the fullness of life in the Father; and the living God leaves us signs of his presence in the fruit of the field and the fruit of the vine made true by the Holy Spirit.

Feed on the fruit of salvation made known to us in the one who offers himself on this table, the salvation made known to us in the crucified one, the risen one.

Easter Vigil (2007): “Why do you look for the dead among the living?”

Easter Vigil (2007): “Why do you look for the dead among the living?”
Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:10-15:1; Isaiah 55:1-11; Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114;
 Luke 24:1-12
Preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, on April 7th, 2007

When Moses arrives at the edge of the Red Sea with the rest of the Israelites, the Egyptians are very close at hand. And the Israelites start complaining. So Moses offers some advice to the Israelites: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.” Which is kind of funny, because the Lord is hardly happy with this advice.

The first thing the Lord does is, well, complain a little too. “Why do you cry out to me?” Stop complaining, says the Lord.

But then the Lord, seemingly unhappy with Moses’ advice to the Israelites that they ought to keep still, the Lord says don’t keep still. “Tell the Israelites to go forward!” says the Lord.

The Israelites are asked to go forward right into the Red Sea, without knowing that Moses was about to be given the power to divide that very same sea. I don’t care about this keeping still business, says the Lord, go forward – and I don’t care if you think you’re going to get a little wet.

***

So we can give some credit to St. Mary Magdalene. While the eleven were elsewhere (we’re not sure where, but perhaps they were heeding Moses’ advice, hoping that the Lord would fight for them, if only they kept still), St. Mary Magdalene, and a few other women, went ahead and did something.

There’s a lot to be said for keeping still. Most of us are like St. Mary Magdalene, at least in some respects. We just want to do something, to keep busy with unimportant things, distractions. There is something important about knowing that the Lord will fight for us, if only we keep still.

But St. Mary Magdalene didn’t go to the tomb because unimportant things distracted her. Her friend, her teacher, and Lord had died, and she did him a great honour: she brought prepared spices in the hopes of paying her deepest respects to a dead body. That is what you expect to find, when someone dies and is put in a tomb, right? A dead body? St. Mary Magdalene was acting in good faith according to what she already knew and expected. This was no busy work, no distracting task- it was an errand of mercy, affection, and adoration of her dead Lord.

Many of us do the best we can in our tasks of mercy and affection, and adoration of our Lord, according to the knowledge we have on hand. And this is good – mercy, affection, and adoration, are good things! But what do we do when something new comes to pass?

Sometimes what we know changes deeply, as it did for St. Mary Magdalene that early dawn. St. Mary Magdalene went looking for a dead man, but what she found was something entirely different: she found an empty tomb with two angels standing there.

Now we can do two things when such an event happens: we can cling to what we once knew, and continue believing that our Lord is a dead man; we can keep up our acts of mercy, affection, and adoration as we had once done according to what we once knew.

But St. Mary Magdalene does the more difficult thing. She changes her mind. She acts differently. She finds no dead man, and discovers that this particular errand of mercy, affection, and adoration actually makes little sense anymore: because only dead men need burial spices.

Living and risen saviours ask something different; they ask for conversion, they ask for a turning of the mind, a changing of what we do and how we do it, because all things are new, all things are changed – “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Good question!

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen.” But by the resurrection, abd by our distance from the grave, we can now ask the question a little differently: “Why do you look for the dead among the living?” Look for dead men somewhere else. They won’t be found here. Here is not the place to go on an errand of mercy, or affection, or even adoration of any dead man. Here – in this church, in this worship, in this liturgy, you will find no dead man. You will find the living God, our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, at once man and God, the one who, through his empty tomb and the resurrection of his body (the one in whom we will partake at this table), this is the living God of wondrous possibility, the one who makes all things new.

Let us let the Lord do this work through us; let us leave old things behind; let us imagine (because it’s true!) that all things are made new through this, our risen and living Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

Good Friday (2007): "When the Stones Cried Out"

Good Friday (2007): "When the Stones Cried Out"
Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42
Preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, April 6th, 2007

When Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, Luke writes that “some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to [Jesus], ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’” Jesus answered them by saying that if his disciples were silent, “the stones would shout out.”

Now imagine, when Jesus said that the stones would should out, that Jesus was pointing to people. The rocks that would shout out if the disciples went silent, the stones that would shout out with praise, were the unbelievers, the politicians, and the scoffers.

***

Now turn a few days ahead, to what is at hand for us, the task of remembering the event that follows Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Today we are called to remember the trial and crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour. And on this day, the disciples that the Pharisees wanted Jesus to stop, the disciples who praised their teacher and their master on another day with great cries of jubilation: on this day, these very disciples, as it turns out, go silent.

***

The disciples were there, in the garden, when they came to take Jesus away. They came for him, over 600 soldiers and policemen, according to John. They came with weapons and clubs, hoping to defend themselves; they came with lanterns, in an attempt to pierce the darkness.

They called out for Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus replies, claiming the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush, Jesus says: "I am." Jesus claims the divine name, the very name of God, the name of the source of all being, the very one who is. In Jesus of Nazareth, our very God is there in the garden.

Jesus has claimed the divine name before, when he was questioned, he said that "when you have lifted me up, then you will realize that I am." Jesus says that the day he is lifted up, the day he is lifted up on the cross, this is the day that the fullness of the glory of God is strangely revealed.

So when Jesus replies to the question, “are you Jesus of Nazareth?”, and Jesus says "I am," over six hundred soldiers and policemen step back and fall to the ground. In the silence of the disciples, the men who come to bind up this man, the man who is God, the stones fall down and reveal the glory of God.

***

It is no small irony that the disciple that does speak is Peter, the rock. But this disciple does far less than praise his master. While Jesus is telling us that one of his natures is the very source of our being, saying "I am," Peter is saying "I am not." Jesus is the one who is; Peter, when he denies Jesus and says "I am not," Peter becomes the one without Jesus, Peter becomes the one without being, the one who is not. Without Jesus Peter fades into nothingness by his own admission of being apart from our Lord. This disciple is more than silent. He is nothing at all.

***

Pilate, the man great only in his indecisiveness, his vacillation and his uncertainty, even Pilate cries out announcing the glory of God. This stone, this Pilate, cries out the glory of God and announces his innocence, making it known that this is the silent lamb sent to the slaughter. Pilate oversees the soldiers, more stones that cry out to the glory of God. They weave for Jesus a crown and dress him in the robes of a King. They cry out the glory of God, a glory strangely revealed in the suffering of an innocent man.

And again Pilate, while the disciples are silent, cries out from the Stone Pavement that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, this man who is God, Pilate tells us, "Here is your King!" The stones cry out and reveal the glory of God.

And the sign on the cross says, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." He is being lifted up, and his glory is being revealed in a hidden way, in a strange and disorienting and unsettling way. God’s glory is being revealed in the death of a man on the cross.

Yet even the disciples at the foot of the cross look up in silence, while others, according to Luke, are looking from afar off. In silence.

And when it is finished, this man, our King and our God, is carried away in silence, and placed in the tomb; we watch in silence and see our cruelty to the innocent, we see our complicity in the suffering of those who don't deserve it.

As we see our cruelty and our complicity, we are unsettled, disoriented, and a strangeness overcomes us. In a world where no one is innocent, this man was; in a world where divinity escapes us, he is God; in a world where suffering is shameful, it was through this
suffering that the glory of God was revealed.

Look here; look upon the cross. It is here where we find ourselves, at the foot of the cross, looking in silence; and the stones shout out, “Here is your King,” here is our King. Here upon the cross salvation is won by our God and our King. Look upon the cross because it is here where the glory of God made man is strangely, and silently, and fully revealed.

Maundy Thursday (2007): "How Peter learned to become Jesus’ friend"

Maundy Thursday (2007): "How Peter learned to become Jesus’ friend"
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
preached by Jane Barter Moulaison

I would like, for this evening, to draw our attention to the gospel story in John, about the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus, but I would like to narrow our focus just a little --to consider this evening from the vantage of the disciple, Peter, because I think it is from here, from the very particular place where Peter sat at the Lord’s table that we might understand what it means to follow the rejected and the reviled Messiah, and what it means to be washed by him.

I mentioned before that the washing of the feet is a sign of great humility as we considered Mary of Bethany’s anointing of Jesus. It was the practice of slaves to wash that which was considered, lowly, base, unclean.

It is for this reason that Peter does not wish to have his master wash his feet. "You will never wash my feet." Jesus, after all, was not Peter’s slave but his hero. It would have been undignified for Jesus to wash so lowly and so base a part of him.

And yet, this is precisely what Christ is pleased to do for Peter and for us. Showing us that there is no place so shameful, so base that he is not able to touch.

***

Feet are not just lowly; they are also vulnerable. They are the very place that the serpent threatens to strike; they are weak to dashing against stones; they are the places where Christ is pierced.

It is also for this reason that Peter does not wish to have his master wash his feet. Peter cannot abide the vulnerability of having his Lord at his feet, washing them. He would far prefer that Jesus’ attention be diffused to the Body’s other members. Yet Jesus insists upon offering his singular attention to Peter, and to Peter’s feet. What weakness will he find there, Peter must be asking.

What vulnerabilities do we wish to keep hidden, even from God?

And yet Christ descends even to our terrifying weakness. And in so doing, he pours out his redeeming grace.

***

While feet are signs of humility and vulnerability, they also travel; they are our chariots to the world beyond our immediate gaze. Peter could at that moment not have known what Jesus knows about how the feet that Jesus cleans are the very feet that will stand in the square in Jerusalem proclaiming Christ’s salvation to all flesh; nor could he have known that his very feet would be led to places where he did not want to go -- the way of suffering and death. Just as Jesus’ feet were led to death, so too would Peter’s be. Just as Jesus was anointed for burial; so too was Peter. To become Jesus’ friend, is to follow him to the cross. Or, as Jesus puts it: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

It is finally for this reason that Peter really does not want to have his master wash his feet.

***

Jesus says to Peter: "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

We cannot know the implications of this radical practice of footwashing together, not immediately anyway. We understand at some level that we must serve others’ needs, even though we live in a world where we are trained to become anything but servants. We sense something of the mystery of the church being caught up in our vulnerability together—of being the one place in our society where bigger, richer, younger and more powerful are not what is to be valued. And, finally, we sense somehow that our feet that we wash tonight will travel from this night to places of great sorrow and great joy and that our very own feet may find themselves, paradoxically, in both spheres at once. And yet, may we, like Peter, allow this anointing to shape us, knowing that the vulnerability that we share is precisely that which Christ cherishes and redeems, and that the washing that he undertakes prepares us for a life set apart for service and for sacrifice. And may we come to participate in this knowledge, even and especially, as we make our own ways, and our way together, to the foot of the cross.

Palm/Passion Sunday (2007): "Forging True Friendship"

Liturgy of the Palms & Passion Sunday (2007): "Forging True Friendship"
Palms: Luke 19:28-40;
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a;
Psalm 31:9-16;
Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49
Preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, April 1st, 2007

This is an odd Sunday in the church year. It feels like we just gave away everything that we should have held onto until Good Friday. The tradition of reading the story of Jesus' crucifixion on the Sunday before Good Friday arose for some good reasons. It arose out of the desire for people to hear the passion when there is no Good Friday service, though it is probably kept in some places by anxious rectors who knew that a lot of people wouldn’t show up for Good Friday even if there was a service. Though I have no such anxiety. I know you will all be here, right?

Without hearing the passion, you go straight from celebrating Jesus' Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, straight to the celebration of the resurrection, without any of the nastier more difficult bits in between, like Jesus' betrayal and his death on the cross.

But I didn't choose to keep Passion Sunday because I don't expect to see you on Friday.

It's partly because the prayer book makes no allowance for anything else, but it's also that if we did substitute some other gospel lesson, the passion according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke would never be heard on Sunday mornings in church. The other passions simply don't come up again in the Sunday lectionary, so all we would ever hear is John's passion.

But in the other passions, Like Luke's, there are details , that preachers might like to take advantage of. And in Luke's passion, this preacher would like to do just this, and lift out something unique to Luke: and today that is Luke's thoughts on friendship. We'll save the crucifixion sermon for Friday. Today, I'll talk about friendship.

***

Imagine for yourself two young men going away from home to study. They're both devout Christians, but they find themselves in a whole new world, a world of drinking and carousing – perhaps a little like going to university now – except that these two young men aren't coming from a small Manitoba town in the 1950's to go to the University of Manitoba. Instead, these two young men are coming from small towns in Turkey, to go to study in Athens, and it's not the 50's, it's the middle of the 4th century. And these young men are in an ancient world where students didn't just drink a lot, by the way - they also fought in the streets with rocks and clubs for the prestige of their teachers.

These two young Christian men who went off to study together in ancient Athens would later become saint's of the church: St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Basil the Great. But for us, in our story, they are just young Christian men, living together and loving God, praying, studying the scriptures, living a common life, both trying to get a good education from a good Christian teacher. (And while they're at it, trying not to get clubbed in the head by rival students.)

They had a very close friendship, Basil and Gregory. And friendship then, in the old old world were not quite like ours. Your friendships were closer than your relationships with your wife or your husband. Gregory would even write that his friendship with Basil was made with eternal bonds, that their friendship was "a full harmony of heart and nature", and even that, though he and Basil had two different bodies, they nevertheless shared the same soul.

***

In Luke we read of two more friendships. The first one we read of is a new friendship between Herod and Pilate. Luke writes in Chapter 22, verse 12, that "that same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies." These two Roman governors came to a new friendship, according to Luke, through Pilate recognizing Herod's authority, and Pilate’s sending of Jesus the Galilean to Herod, because it was Herod who was governed Galilee. This new friendship between Herod and Pilate was born on the day of Herod's mockery, the day of Herod’s disappointment about not seeing Jesus perform a sign. In other words, this was a friendship born out of the recognition of temporal, earthly authority, and in the context of the inability to recognize the meaning of Jesus’ innocence and his heavenly kingship.

"That same day," the day of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, "Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies."

***

And the third friendship is the friendship between Jesus and the confessing criminal on the cross beside Jesus. This was also a friendship born out of a recognition of authority, like the friendship between Herod and Pilate; and this friendship was also born out of a sign, the sign that Herod didn’t care to see.

The confessing criminal on the cross recognizes two things: he recognizes the true sign of Jesus's power, the sign that Herod looked for but could not see, the sign of Jesus' innocence. "This man has done nothing wrong," says the confessing criminal, yet he "stands under the same sentence of condemnation." This confessing criminal Jesus' suffering lets slip the truth, that the friendship of Herod and Pilate is deeply corrupted, because it is built upon the denial of Jesus' true power, built upon their inability to care at all about the sign of Jesus' innocence.

The confessing criminal, crucified with Christ, recognizes Jesus' true authority, his heavenly authority, the authority that Herod could only mock. So the confessing criminal on the cross asks: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." The heavenly Kingdom, the true Kingdom. And Jesus, the one who wouldn't even speak to Herod, says to the condemned and dying man on a nearby cross, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus and the criminal make, through the confession that Jesus is innocent though suffering, and a king though in the form of a slave, through this confession the bond between the criminal and Jesus is made sure and eternal.

***

I began this reflection on friendship with those two young Christian students, Saints Gregory and Basil. I should be honest, though. The friendship between Basil and Gregory, the friendship born through their common confession, their studying the scriptures together, and their common life; the friendship with Basil that led Gregory to say that their hearts were in full harmony, their bond was eternal, and that though they were in two bodies, that they shared the same soul; the truth of the matter is that their friendship fell apart. Basil left Athens and the Christian affection, and deep deep friendship between Basil and Gregory, was in ruins. And Gregory had a very hard time forgiving Basil for this.

Years later, after both of them had become powerful bishops and theologians, Basil died. Even after years of this estrangement from his friend, Gregory gave a speech about Basil, still saying that their friendship was an eternal one, even while speaking truthfully about their friendship falling apart. Despite the very real bitterness, Gregory still said his friendship with Basil was made with an eternal bond.

Even Pilate and Herod, if they were the best of friends to their last days, hanging out at the circus and going to the theater together, the friendship between Pilate and Herod would never have been what Basil and Gregory had.

The friendship between Pilate and Herod was born out of the mockery of Christ's kingship; it was born out of a recognition of earthly power apart from this King Jesus. Their friendship, though revealed through Jesus, was born in lies and untruth.

But Gregory, despite his estrangement from Basil, could look in hope to the maker of eternal bonds, the one who will make all things well in good time. That Christian friendship was marked by an eschatological hope in the Christ that promises reunion in paradise: Gregory with Basil, Christ with the criminal, and all of us who are marked by hope in the King who rules eternally.

Even that confessing thief on the cross can turn with confidence. Even the friendships faltering now, if they be friendships forged in the eternal bond of Christ the King, the friendship will be restored in truth through the promise of paradise. Trust and believe, all things will be made well, thanks be to God.

Fifth Sunday in Lent (2007):" The Anointing at Bethany"

Fifth Sunday in Lent (2007): "The Anointing at Bethany"
Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8
Preached by Jane Barter Moulaison on March 25th, 2007

I am very blessed this morning because I get to preach on one of my favourite texts in the entirety of the Bible--the anointing of Bethany.

I was trying to think of why it one of my favourite texts, and I was struck by three things that I would like to explore in some detail this morning: these are beauty, love and politics. Now these do not always go together all that well. The closest we get in our current climate is the ill-fated love of Belinda Stronach and Peter McKay, but I am speaking of a different kind of beauty; different kind of love, and supremely, a different kind of politics.

One is the role of beauty in the Church.

This passage is about beauty—it is about earthy sensuality. Jesus has come to the home of his friends, and his friends have prepared a great meal. He has come to the house of his sister, Mary, and she washes and anoints his feet, using the most precious and extravagant oils, and dries her feet with her own hair.

It is an act of generosity. It is an act of sensuality. It is an act of deep devotion and love. And if the love seems to be of an erotic kind, then this is no accident. Even Saint Augustine in his Homily on John, a saint who is generally and wrongly remembered as being anti-sex, sees a parallel running through this story with the lovers in the Song of Songs. Augustine links the perfume that fills the entire house with that great image in the Song of the Beloved’s longing declaration: “Thy name is as ointment poured forth.” Christ, to Mary, is also the ointment, the one who offers her healing and completion.

And this is why beauty is so important to the church, although we often forget this to be true. Beauty reminds us that the things of the world are intrinsically good. That God created the world and created us for his pure delight. Not so that we could learn a lesson; not so we could make the world better. But God created us for delight, for Beauty.

Surely Mary’s act of grace and beauty is in keeping with God’s own creative action.

Yet, there is something unsettling for us when we hear Jesus’ and Judas’ exchange over Mary’s gift. The oil, we are told, costs three hundred denarii, which would have been nearly a year’s wages for a labourer in Jesus’ time.

I must admit that when I was younger I used to find Jesus’ quip, “You always have the poor with you,” a bit offensive. Is Jesus commending complacency in fighting poverty? Surely not. There are two things worth noting in this passage. One is that Jesus is speaking to Judas, who cares not a whit about the poor, who keeps the common purse and hoards away money for himself. The second is the most important part of this passage, and that is “you will not always have me.” Everything in this passage must be read in the light of Jesus saying this. As he predicts his imminent death, Jesus reminds his disciples of the special urgency of this time. There is no more time for worrying about the costs of our discipleship and devotion--Christ’s time has come. There is no need for a calculating of costs and a strategizing over effective action—Christ is about to be put to death. This now becomes the centre of our attention and focus.

And I think this passage has something to teach us today about beauty and goodness. If our efforts to do the right thing with our resources do not praise God, if they are not characterized by Beauty, then they fail to be truly Good. It is only when we place Christ, the Beloved, at the Centre that we know what goodness and beauty are. Yet, we in the modern Church, have been afraid of beauty. We have measured the value of a thing only by its utility. And so, we become nervous about art and about adornment, because they do not serve a purpose. We pride ourselves on being practical. But sometimes our practicality can be a sign that we think it our responsibility to save the world. Beauty helps to remind us that the world as God created it is good and worthy of enjoyment for its own sake. Like Mary, our task is not to shape the world to our own will, but it is to respond generously to God’s action and God’s being. Our job, as Christians, is simply to rejoice in God! And such praise, as the musicians in this congregation will surely tell us, is the greatest source of beauty that the world has known.

A second thing to note about this passage has to do with the nature of love in discipleship.

In Jesus’ time, washing of the feet took place upon entering a house. Feet were usually dusty and dirty from desert travel, and the ointment would be a balm to help soothe tired feet. It was the task of the slave to offer hospitality to guests by washing feet. The work itself was considered too intimate, too base, for free people to undertake. Read in this light, Mary’s act is one of great humility, even humiliation.

Contrast this act with the words of Judas. Whereas Judas’ words are full of suspicion and self-protection, Mary’s act is a pure gift of vulnerable love, counting not the cost, either of the bottle of perfume, or of the act that she performs. Not calculating the kind of repercussions it will have, the only thing worth noting is that Jesus was here, and that he would not be for long. We do not know to what extent Mary knows what is about to happen to Jesus as goes to Jerusalem, but she does, in this act of discipleship, display that she knows who he is in a way that the male disciples do not. And, in so this act, which is clearly an act of love is, in fact, a confession of faith, such a confession is made not just by our tongues, but also by our bodies. Like Mary, we are called to display through our bodies a discipleship that is turned entirely to Christ, a discipleship that is placed at the feet of Christ.

How different this example of love is from our contemporary notions about the love between a man and a woman. The love that Mary displays is a love that can only be understood through her confession, through the commitment of her entire being to tangible practices of caring for Christ. It is a pledge that she will not turn away even in his weakness, incapacity and death.

I want to suggest that it is precisely such pledges we make when we share table fellowship. We commit ourselves to a life bent toward Christ, but also to his Church, to his people. We pledge ourselves in the breaking of bread to a kind of care of one another that rejects the calculation of cost and benefit to ourselves. We commit ourselves in our partaking in the Body of Christ to refuse to turn away from those we love in their vulnerability or in their dying. And thus we commit ourselves to a way of being that offers the world a political life, a common life, of a radically different kind:

And so, the third is the nature of the political life that we share in the Body of Christ.

The passage refers throughout to those outside the walls of Mary’s home. Here they are, assembled in a household just outside of Jerusalem, and the crowds are moving in on Jesus. He has recently raised Mary’s brother, Lazarus, from the dead, which has incited the terror and the hostility of the religious authorities; the Chief Priests and Pharisees are conspiring against him. The religious council, the Sanhedrin, has set a warrant for Christ’s arrest, asking that his whereabouts be revealed and that he be handed over. The whole drama of the event is reaching a feverish intensity as preparations for Passover are underway. And even within the sanctuary of the home, there is Judas who has now become a representative of those on the outside—cynical, full of fear, and read to hand Jesus over.

In the midst of this political and religious terror, the disciples are hopeful for a happy ending—a victory and a vindication. It is time for Jesus to step up to the plate as Messiah and turn the religious and political authorities on their heads. Yet Mary knows different. She breaks the bottle of nard to anoint her king, as all kings were anointed, but she anoints his feet, not his head. And Jesus states, against all expectation, that she has anointed him not for battle, not for victory, but for death.

There will be no political victory here; no glorious crusade into Jerusalem. There is, in the politics of Jesus, only renunciation, defeat, poverty, and death. This politics is inaugurated by Mary as she washes Jesus’ feet, a practice that the disciples are later commissioned to do. It is a sign of their humility, their servanthood to one another, and to the peaceful practices that Jesus will train them into.

The Church today.

Understood in this light, the actions of Mary, of beauty of love, and indeed of a kind of politics, are all the more profound.

For we see in her action, for a time, in midst of the ugliness and sinfulness of violent political and religious life, a display of great beauty.

For we see in her action, in spite of the dominant economy of measuring up costs and benefits, an act of abundance.

For we see in her act, in a world that fears vulnerability and denies death, a meeting of these face-on with depth, and servanthood and joy.

For we see in her action, for a time, how the forces of the world which crowded all around Jesus were kept at bay.

And this, I would venture, is the mark of true discipleship. Not just for 2000 years ago; not just for a moment in the disciples’ life where we are at the brink of Christ’s violent death, but here and now, too, when the forces of this world are closing in on us.

Where governments convene in the endless cycle of cause and effect, cost and benefit, we are called to display an extravagant life.

And where utility is prized above all other things, we are to be a place that remembers God’s delight in creation, in joyous praise and thanksgiving.

And where death and violence are met with fear and denial. We are called to be a community of the dying, knowing the limits of our lives together, and finding within these limits the language and the action of a beautiful response of praise and thanksgiving.

As we move toward Jesusalem, may we too incline our bodies toward Christ, not turning away from his suffering, nor counting the cost of his calling us.

Update and a Little Bit of Fun

A quick update on the past few Sundays here at the parish:

On the 3rd Sunday in Lent, the bishop preached and confirmed Jane Barter Moulaison. Bishop Don preached on grace and repentance, and I couldn't have asked for a better follow-up to my previous two Lenten sermons. Then, on the 4th Sunday in Lent, Carey Isaac showed some slides and spoke about the diocesan trip to Central Buganda. Last Sunday the recently confirmed Jane preached. I will post this excellent sermon momentarily.

But, in the meantime, here's a video that a couple of folks have sent my way. I thought you might enjoy it!

Second Sunday in Lent (2007): "Luther Throws a Rope"

Second Sunday in Lent (2007): "Luther Throws a Rope"
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27;
Philippians 3:17-4:1;
Luke 13:31-35
Preached on March 4th, 2007, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

I spoke last week about temptation and sin. We pretty much agreed that we are in captivity to many of our sins, we sin before we even know we've sinned, and that we give in to temptation a lot of the time. I do hope, though, that you remember a couple of other things from last Sunday: that temptation is not the same as sin; that we ought to call on the name of the Lord, not because calling on him saves us, but because Jesus is the one who saves us by his crucifixion and his resurrection.

If you weren't here, don't worry. I am going to build a little on what I said last week, but this is an expedition you can join at any time.

I hope to continue focusing on Lent, and continue to bring us face to face with our sin, because it is only by coming face to face with our sin that we will know what to repent of, and repentance is one of the things that the church asks us to do as we prepare for holy week. But let’s think of this as a kind of dangerous adventure, searching deep and dark caves: except that the cave is us, as persons, and as a people. Let’s do some spiritual spelunking.

***

Sin is real, right? We do the wrong thing. We know this. We don’t live into the wholeness that God desires for us. But my question for you all today, is whether we sin, but whether we should be afraid of sin.

***

I actually wish we talked about sin more. As a church we are beginning to talk about it less, to the point where some would take the confession right out of the regular Sunday service.

I'm willing to do that, by the way, but only on the condition that you all regularly line up outside my door for confession. Either that, or you could assure me that you all have spiritual friendships where your wrongdoings were all on the table on a regular basis. We need partners in this expedition below the earth, friends to rely on, someone to hold tight to the rope. Friends who can speak of God’s mercy directly into our particular sins.

Now I’m getting a little anxious, and I wonder if all this talk about sin is feeling somewhat oppressive. Yes? No?

I agree! Sin is fearsome and oppressive, yet at the same time nothing to be feared.

***

In 1519 Martin Luther was coming to terms with Paul's letter to the Romans, and he was struggling with what it meant to call God righteous. Luther had been taught that God's righteousness meant that God judges us harshly, because we are incorrigible sinners, and that God's justice demands satisfaction.

Luther's teachers were right, but only half right: yes, we are incorrigible sinners; and yes, God is just and righteous. As the monks of the desert said it, we are in captivity to our sin.

But Luther, reading Romans and badgering St. Paul, made a discovery that would shake all of Europe, and eventually change Christianity all over the world: Luther discovered that God's justice is about our condemnation. God’s righteousness is something that he gives to us through faith. God, instead of judging us as unrighteous because of our sin, clothes us with his righteousness, and saves us from our sin. Not though retributive justice, not through the justice that condemns, but by a merciful justice we receive as a gift through faith.

Luther, from his tower, throws down a rope; but this rope doesn’t lift us out of the earth. It allows us to go even deeper down into the cave.

This is tremendously important to remember in Lent. We can have a genuine sense of our sinfulness, we can easily answer the question, "The temptation that I give in to is . . . " We can do this while we celebrate the overwhelming joy through God's promise revealed to us in the crucifixion and the resurrection.

We can even be explorers, spiritual spelunkers, exploring deeply into our faults and sins, (as Christians exploring even more deeply than anyone else) because there is no risk in discovering what lies beneath. There is only more opportunity to discover just what God saves us from, because we can repent of it all, knowing that it is God's property always to have mercy.

Attach rope to your belts, and explore your caves; put the helmet on, pass the rope to your friend; embark on a discovery of the deep, dark, and unknown places of your heart, knowing and being sure of God's mercy and forgiveness, knowing that there is nothing you will discover that will not be covered by God’s mercy.

***

Luther wrote that this reading of Romans, helped him understand all of scripture anew. Luther saw salvation by grace through faith all over the New and Old Testament. And I've been thinking about our movie for this Thursday, "Luther," so I’ve got Luther on the brain. What do you think popped out at me when I read Genesis this week?

"And [Abraham] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness."

God has made a terrific promise to Abraham, that he will have offspring, and that Abraham will have as many descendents as there are stars in the sky. A pretty awesome promise to make to an old man married to an old woman!

But nevertheless, "[Abraham] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness."

Abraham was not reckoned as righteous for any other reason than that he believed God's promise.

But did this make Abraham's life of faith all sweet milk and honey?

The psalmist seems to be on some kind of spiritual high. He writes about not being afraid, about being confident in God, and about the goodness of God. Should Abraham feel this way?

Some people do have this response in faith. Some have the confidence to say that if God has made his promise to us, and I believe the promise, what is there to be afraid of? Nothing, right?

This confidence is something to be attentive to, because the Psalmist is right! God keeps his promise; Christ is resurrected; there is nothing to be afraid of, even if my mother and my father forsake me the Lord will take me up; God will protect me from all enemies, because God is good, because God is gracious.

We can hold this to be true, that God is good and will protect us from our enemies, we can, like Abraham, receive the gift of faith, and the LORD will reckon it to us as righteousness.

We can be spiritual spelunkers, trusting that there is nothing we will find in the darkest caves of our soul, nothing we will find out about ourselves that God cannot forgive, because this is God's promise: Abraham, and us as well, are good in the eyes of God by his overwhelming gift, though our faith.

But Genesis captures another part of the Christian life. All is not sweet milk and honey for Abraham, at least not yet. Just after Abraham is declared righteous by his belief, we read that "a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon [Abraham]."

"A deep and terrifying darkness descended upon [Abraham]."

The Psalmist writes: Don't be afraid. But for righteous Abraham, "a deep and terrifying darkness descends.”

When you get to discovering the depths of those caves, and you discover what sins lie deep beneath the surface of your life, I'm not going to promise that you won't be
downright stunned and blinded fight or flight afraid.

A deep and terrifying darkness descends.

Do you need to be afraid? NO! God is good.

Will you be afraid? Absolutely. Sin is terrifying.

Yet- the holy and living God invades this earth in bondage to sin and breaks us free. The good news is, despite what you find in the caves of your soul, the holy and living God invades this earth in bondage to sin and breaks us free, shining a light over all of this.

***

Jesus calls out to you: "How often have I desired to gather you together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." Jesus, facing his fate in Jerusalem, (we’re gonna crucify him, right) in the abundance of his grace and mercy, nevertheless calls out to us, "how often have I desired to gather you together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings."

Find your rest, your shelter at the end of the day; God keeps his promise.

Repent; and you are forgiven! God is good. God sets free this earth in bondage to sin. Find your shelter, he is inviting you and I, find your shelter under the wings of the Holy One.

First Sunday in Lent (2007): "Calling On the Name of the Lord"

First Sunday in Lent (2007): "Calling On the Name of the Lord"
Deuteronomy 26:1-11;
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16;
Romans 10:8b-13;
Luke 4:1-13
Preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, February 25th, 2007

I would like to speak a bit about temptation and sin this morning. Not a bad topic for us in most seasons, but it is Lent, and in this season it is especially appropriate.

And the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert will be an excellent place for us to start.

***

There is one thing I would like for you all to know by the time you leave this morning: temptation is not the same as sin.

Now there is good news and bad news in what I am about to tell you- the good news is this: you know all the times when you are tempted to do something that you know is sinful? All the times, everyday, you are tempted to commit a sin? The times you are tempted to gossip about your enemies, friends, or (perhaps most likely) when you are tempted to gossip about your brothers and sisters in Christ? Or, perhaps the times when you are tempted to steal from the place you work? Perhaps the times when we are tempted to think of the church as a private club?

I could go on, about what your temptations might be, but I won't. I have a feeling you've got a pretty good sense of your own sinfulness, and you can pretty easily fill in the blank in the sentence "my biggest temptation is . . ."

The good news is that those temptations to sin aren't actually sins until you give in.

***

Jesus, in our story, was tempted, though didn't give in: Jesus is tempted, tempted as we are. Yet we know that Jesus is without sin. So we can take some comfort that Jesus was tempted in the desert, because if Jesus was subject to temptation, yet he was also without sin, we know that our own temptations are not the same as sin.

I suppose the bad news, or the hard news, is that we will always be subject to temptation. Even the holiest among us are, and always will be, subject to temptation. So is good to know that we are not alone in our temptation, that Jesus was tempted as well; but it is also hard to know that there is no end to temptation, because resisting temptation is hard work, isn't it. We aren't Jesus, none of us are quite that holy. We all give in, we all sin.

(If you tell me you don't give in to sin, that just makes your spiritual diagnosis that much easier because I already know that you are giving in to the temptation to lie. Either that or you are deluded enough about sin that we need to have a nice long talk.)

***

A long time ago- around the time that Christians were no longer being persecuted by the Romans, in the 4th century AD- around that time, some Christians began to flee to the desert, some to the deserts of Egypt, some to the same desert we read about in Luke. These Christians went to the desert, lived in huts and caves, chanted the psalms, and wove baskets for a little bit of money. They did this to come face-to-face with their own temptations.

None of them overcame their temptations, but many of them, did learn how to deal with their temptations. In the body of literature that owes its debts to these early monks, they wrote the same thing I'm saying today: temptation never ceases. But there is, according to these spiritual athletes of the desert, a dynamic of temptation and sin that we can recognize if we take the time.

You know those sins you commit- the sins that you don't realize you've committed, until you look back and say "how did that happen again!" Most sins are committed this way. Everything happens before we even know it. But the monks of the desert, sitting in their little huts and caves, singing the psalms and weaving their baskets, teach that there are actually a number steps in between temptation and sin.

After temptation, say the temptation to gossip, perhaps, for example, the temptation to tell Heather that Bill said that he thinks Preston smells funny on Sunday mornings-

after temptation comes acceptance of the temptation, and the dwelling on the temptation; you begin to think to yourself "I wonder what it would be like to tell Heather that Bill said that he thinks that Preston smells funny on Sunday mornings . . ."

Often, after dwelling on and thinking about the temptation, we then wrestle with that temptation, and we begin to think "I really shouldn't tell Heather that, should I . .. " Sometimes we successfully defeat that temptation in a spiritual wrestling match, and we don't commit the sin and gossip.

But, if the temptation remains undefeated, the next stage is assent, and we give in, feeling helpless. After assent, we do it, we gossip, and we say something bad about Bill and Preston to Heather.

This is where the monks of the desert teach us that sin happens, not in the temptation to sin, or the wondering about the sin, or in the wrestling with the sin, but in our assent to the sin, and the putting of the temptation into effect.

Further, when we give in to gossip enough, or we give in to any temptation often enough, temptations like the temptation to steal, or to think that the church is only for us - once we give into temptation often enough we become captive to the sin. And the movement from temptation to sin becomes nearly instantaneous.

The movement from temptation to sin becomes so quick that we don't even realize that we've been tempted and that we've given in. This is called captivity, and I'm sorry to report that captivity is where most of us are in our sinfulness.

The monks of the desert have a way to combat temptation before we give in and sin. Following St. Paul, as he writes in our passage from Romans, the monks of the desert teach us to call on the name of the Lord. Sometimes this was to say something as simple as "help," or to say something like "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Why did the monks of the desert do this? Two reasons, and both of them are good news: Firstly, as St. Paul writes in Romans, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved . . ." The monks of the desert knew this to be true because they practiced it, continually calling the name of the one who saves us from sin. By their calling on the name of the Lord, they weren't saved from temptation, but they were often saved from acting on the temptation and committing the sin. This is something that all of us can practice: we can all call upon the Lord in prayer to save us from our sin.

But the monks weren't saved from sin because they called upon Jesus for help, and this brings me to the second reason the monks called on the name of Jesus, and why we also would call on the name of Jesus: we call upon Jesus for help because he is the one who has saved us from the power of sin, and whose power working in us (by the Holy Spirit) sanctifies us. The prior act of Christ’s resurrection saves us from sin.

So I urge you to take the resurrection of Jesus to heart, and I urge you to confess Jesus’s lordship with your mouth.

Jesus saves us not because he was a holy man like the other holy people of the desert, but because he is Lord, as St. Paul writes, the Lord of all, Son of God, like us in all things, yet without sin.

It took this man, the one without sin, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrected one, to save us: believe in the resurrection, and you are justified; confess him as Lord with your mouth, and you will be saved, not from temptation, but from our captivity to sin. And this salvation of the resurrected one, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is good news indeed.

Ash Wednesday (2007): "Jesus Christ the Gravedigger"

Ash Wednesday (2007): "Jesus Christ the Gravedigger"
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17; 2nd Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Preached by the Rev. Preston D. S. Parsons, Feb. 21, 2007

There’s at least one thing that we can say for the hypocrites in this gospel. At least they were worshipping the right God.

According to Matthew, these hypocrites are giving alms. They are praying. They are fasting. These are, in and of themselves, Godly pursuits. It seems that the only mistake these hypocrites make is that they worship God conspicuously.

But they are at least worshipping God.

But when I think of the things that I do conspicuously, I am worse off than even these hypocrites. What I conspicuously worship is not even God. I drive through downtown Winnipeg, and I look out my truck window at people lying on the street, hungry and desperate people. I feel conspicuous when their eyes catch mine.

I conspicuously worship wealth. And the convenience that comes with wealth. I am a conspicuous consumer. I am doing my part, participating in this vast economy where the product is obvious, but the cost is hidden: a conspicuous consumption that might very well make our entire world fall apart.

And I hate it. I just hate it. It makes me angry, because I don’t even know how to stop worshiping these false gods of wealth and consumption. I don’t know how to pull out, how to disconnect from what by all reports has little to do with God’s purpose for the world.

I wish that I could at least be a hypocrite. But I am worse off. I am not even a conspicuous worshipper of the one true God.

***

This passage of Matthew's points outward toward the things that we worship, toward our conspicuous idolatries. But there is another idolatry that precedes our pursuit of wealth and comfort, the idolatry of the self. There is a person that I present to the world. There is a person that I create, the person that I would have myself be. The person that I would like people to think I truly am.

I’m successful, I’ve overcome adversity and I’m entirely independent, I’m on my very own spiritual journey.

The hypocrites have nothing on me.

At least they want people to think that they are holy. I just want people to think that I am successful, and valuable, and spiritual.

Sometimes I don’t even care if I am lovable in the eyes of God. I only want to be deemed valuable in the eyes of the world, a world that values the spirituality of self-infatuation above communal disciplines, a world that congratulates wealth above poverty: a world that values our idolatry.

These burdens, all of our idolatries, they’re like a great load of earth lying on top of a coffin. I might be alive inside. You might be alive inside. But the earth is so heavy that no matter how hard I push the lid remains closed. Trapped in the coffin, buried in the graveyard. For all intents and purposes, I am a dead man.

And what are these things keeping us in the graveyard? Wealth? Convenience? A house full of stuff? A career? The esteem of colleagues? Is that where my heart is? Is that where your heart is? In the earth on top of a coffin?

We need to be dug out, we need to repent. Lent is about exactly this: repentance, and forsaking our idols. The Lenten project is to call out for help, to repent of our idolatries, and the be restored to life in Christ.

We cry out for the help of a man with a shovel.

And thank God he comes. Shovelful by shovelful he sets us free. Jesus Christ the gravedigger, digging us out of the grave. And that gravedigger says – “Friend – I love you always, even when you are burdened. Know this - I love you even when you have nothing. I love you even without wealth. I love you even without your car. I love you even without your job. I love you even without your friends. I love you even in your spiritual pride. I love you even without your love for me. And when you repent and turn to me, I will heal you.”

And so with God’s help the earth itself is moved. And with God’s help we find that torn heart in that pile of earth.

God doesn’t love us for our wealth. Or for what we do at work. Or for who our friends are. Or for who we want the world to think we are. God loves us despite these things. He rejoices when we turn away from our idols and turn to him. God rejoices when we put aside all these things that keep us in the graveyard, and we turn to Him for help.

This is good news! We are free from these burdens – St. Francis runs through the town naked. Bach writes a Cantata. We can turn and worship the living God: the living God that transforms the world, the God that can move the earth, the God that is moving the world from corruption into life, the God that is moving the world from death into life. The one who responds to even our faintest cries for help, and rejoices.

Transfiguration Sunday (2007): "Shining on the World’s Limits"

Transfiguration Sunday (2007): "Shining on the World’s Limits"
Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, (37-43)
Preached by Jane Barter Moulaison, February 18, 2007

Every Saturday afternoon kids and I scramble to find the Magic Eye in the weekend Free Press comics. How many of you look at the Magic Eye? How many of you can figure it out fairly quickly?I like looking at it, because I have just recently learned how to do it. I used to be like Elaine Bennis’ boss on Seinfeld, agonizing for hours too see what everyone else did.“Look through the picture,” Mr. Pitt. For years, the fun of Magic Eye was lost on me. But once I got the hang of it, I was able to find the hidden picture immediately.

This morning, I would like to think of the gospel reading, and in particular Peter’s experience, as a bit like that experience of seeing things clearly, and more than seeing something new, Peter was directed to a dimension of reality that he did not think possible. For, although Peter was able to see Jesus, he was not able until the transfiguration to see the full depth of his significance for himself, for the world, for time, until, Christ was transfigured, until Jesus his glory fully. And once this is done, nothing for Peter, or for us, for that matter, could ever look the same. Nothing could be surveyed as merely two dimensional, as flat, as without a greater, fuller meaning, because Peter, in a way like me, has been trained in the gift of seeing Christ as the centre and focal point for all things.

Now obviously, my analogy breaks down in several places. Knowing Jesus is not a trick we cajole our eyes into performing through simply looking at things the right way. But more than this, my analogy breaks down too when one considers that the focus of the transfiguration story is not chiefly Peter, James or John, the onlookers. Rather it is Christ himself who is the centre of dramatic revelation. The focal point is him and what occurs to him.

The particular significance of Jesus as displayed in this morning’s readings can be understood in light of both “mountaintop” readings. The story from Exodus is an important background to the revelation that occurs in the transfiguration narrative. In this reading, we are drawn into the moment after the Israelites’ first transgression against the law given to Moses. Moses had broken the tablets containing the ten commandments, in anguish over the Israelites idolatry of the golden calf. God was angry that the people had broken the commandment against creating idols, but nevertheless forgives his people, and tells Moses to return to the mountain to receive a replacement set of tablets. When Moses goes back down to his people, his face was glowing, because he had just encountered God’s glory. Moses’ radiance was so great, it was difficult for the Israelites to look at him, and so Moses places a veil upon his face.

Why does Moses veil his face? Why must he shield this residue of radiance from his people? Why can they not look directly at him?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian, speaks of the veil of shame that we all wear as a result of our transgressions. Just after the fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve clothe themselves because they are ashamed, the ancient Israelites find that the holiness of God is so great that it threatens to consume them in their impoverished state. This wound of shame is something that we all have experienced from time to time. It is what keeps us from being fully vulnerable to the other. It’s that part of us that becomes self-protective, suspicious, that erects boundaries and walls that shield us from others.

For the Israelites, as perhaps for us, their transgressions weigh heavily on their conscience, and God’s graciousness, the return of the Law, was more than they could take. So the Israelites could behold God’s glory, but only through a veil. Think about this as we consider the view from the perspective of the disciples, and of Jesus’ followers.

***

In the second mountaintop story, Peter and James and John accompany Jesus to pray. And as the disciples prayed alongside Christ, suddenly, Christ is transfigured. His clothes become dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah, the Law Giver and the Prophet, are at his side. The fullness of time hangs heavy like fruit upon the tree and Jesus appears at the centre, revealed here as the fulfillment of the great traditions of Israel. Whatever the disciples thought they knew about their own faith and about God, was entirely reoriented as Christ appears as the world’s centre.

Rowan Williams, commenting on the transfiguration, puts it this way:

The whole history of God’s dealings with his people is involved in this: Moses and Elijah are also driven toward us by the same energy. But Jesus alone stands in the very heart of it; it flows through him and in him and from him. It is the light that comes from him and that is reflected on the robes of his companions.
They lived hundreds of years before him, but what makes them radiant, what makes them agents of God, is the light coming from Jesus. …

And the disciples are stunned. They do not know what to do—they do not sleep, although they are tired, but they also cannot run away. They behold the glory of God, through Moses, through Elijah, and consummately, through Christ, and they are not consumed, but remain awake. Peter, like Moses, would construct a veil of sorts, by pitching a tent, wants to hold on to this special time; he wants to honour these most incredible guests. Anything, so that he might contain this experience, and anything so that he might flee it; and no sooner does he utter his disoriented speech, then God swallows them in a great cloud, speaks to them, commands them to listen to Christ. When they return to their ordinary view, of one another and of Christ, they find they do not need a veil on their faces, although the have touched God’s glory directly. In Christ, they have heard and they have seen God , yet and they continue to live. The veil between them and God has been lifted, and from through him, their past, present and future are given their proper orientation.

And so what do they do? Jesus and his disciples return to their ministry. The experience of the mountaintop has not changed their pattern of their lives together, but it changes the ways in which they understood the pattern. No longer can they see their past, their present with Jesus, or the future that leads them ever closer to Jerusalem in the same way, as a simple and straightforward progression. The shame, the fear of vulnerability, the need to protect themselves, all those can recede into the background, for Christ’s true nature has leapt out for them, and thus the world can never be the same again.

The gospel of Luke is often called the gospel of the poor or the gospel of women, the latter being some of the poorest and most marginalized of Jesus time, and so it is no surprise that Jesus and his disciples do not linger at the foot of the mountain, but immediately move into service and healing. Jesus’ transfiguration does not carry the disciples away from their work and witness, but it refers them back to the very things that the did before, but the things they did before can never have the same significance for them.

***

So what does this story from long ago mean for us? We are told, in effect that our commonplace assumptions about reality and about time are not quite accurate. We live our lives thinking of time as an uninterrupted sequence of events, some more interesting than others to be sure, but generally as a line of progression, where we grow incrementally toward maturity. The transfiguration teaches us to look at life and our time very differently. The centre of our time, our existence is not what we think it is. The two-dimensionality of our existence, in which we are constrained by our sense of boundary, of convention, of propriety, all of those are reoriented in light of Christ’s coming. We can no longer say that Jesus was a man who lived two thousand years ago, but rather that, according to scripture, Jesus is the one who is the centre of all time, and whose presence with us still continues to redeem our ordinary time. What we do as we participate in the eucharist together, as we hear the scriptures, as we care for those who are in distress, all those things are best understood as shot through with the glory of Christ. It is for this reason we can never say with ultimate certainty that the meanings of our lives are transparent to us. It is for this reason, we can never pretend that we can fully apprehend the mission of our church, for Christ has entered into our midst, and works through the ordinary stuff of our lives to transfigure us. As Williams writes:

We thus begin to understand how our lives, like those of Moses and Elijah, may have meanings we can’t know in this present moment: the real depth and significance of what we say or do know won’t appear until more of the light of Christ has been seen. And so what we may think is crucially important may not be so; what we think insignificant may be what really changes us for good or evil. Christ’s light alone will make the final pattern coherent, for each one of as for all human history. And that light shines on the far side of the world’s limits…

Perhaps one of the difficulties of our present situation in the church is that we have lost the knack of looking at our lives as that which is only understood through the lens of Jesus Christ. We have lost the confidence that Christ’s light still shines forth, illuminating, us even here and even now. And so we place veils over our eyes, or we pitch tents in order to shield ourselves from the great mission that we have been given, or perhaps we are afraid, because we know that to look upon Christ as the centre of our lives will involve great risk, great vulnerability, that it will lead to the cross. Or perhaps we feel ourselves to be unworthy of a God who is willing to show himself to us, because we think that we will dissolve in our sinfulness and in our shame before him. I was once with a woman as she was dying, and she was thinking about her own transgressions. She had been an alcoholic all her life, and could not face the fact that she would have no more time to try to repair the damage she had done to her family. And she kept saying, “I just can’t get clean; I need to feel clean.” I prayed for her and with her, but I do not know if she ever received and accepted the grace and peace that God offered her. I pray she did. Christ’s transfiguration means that there is no place so dark, there is no limit to the light which radiates from him. The ancient Israelites, no sooner than receiving the Law, break it. And yet God radiates upon them through Moses and the Law he restores. The boy with a demon, who once was thrown to the ground in his pain, is granted peace. The once-terrified disciples become healers. And as for us, there is not one of us for whom the possibilities of our lives are closed. Our lives take on new meaning and new possibility because Christ is at work in its very centre. Let us keep in mind this possibility and this promise as we journey in the weeks ahead toward Christ’s cross.

A Few More Sermons Up

I've finally gotten my two Christmas Eve sermons up: the 7pm one is here, and the 9:30 pm one is here. I've also posted Jane's Advent IV sermon here.

Enjoy!

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany (2007): "The Community of the Crucified"

6th Sunday after the Epiphany (2007): "The Community of the Crucified"
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1;
 I Corinthians 15:12-20;
 Luke 6:17-26
Preached on February 11th, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

When Jesus descends from the mountain and gives his sermon on the plain, he looks to his disciples and tells them of a great reversal.

Jesus preaches: "You who are poor will inherit the Kingdom of God; you who are hungry will be filled; you who weep will laugh; those of you who are hated, reviled, and defamed – you will rejoice and leap for joy."

But the reversal that Jesus describes doesn't work only one way.

Jesus also preaches: "You who are rich, you will one day be without consolation; you who are full, one day you will be hungry; those of you who are laughing: you're gonna mourn and weep."

I was in a good mood, and enjoying a good meal, when I read this on Tuesday.

None of us are easily let off the hook of this one. Luke, in his rendering of Jesus' sermon, puts us as hearers of the sermon, into one of three groups of people: we might be in the overhearing crowd, the sons and daughters of the ones who persecuted the true prophets, who spoke well of the false prophets; this is not such a good group to be in, but it could certainly be worse. We could be the disciples who are rich, full, and laughing, but whose luck will be overturned for the worse; the good fortune enjoyed by these disciples is going to run out. Jesus calls down to these, “woe to you, woe to you." Or, we can be the disciples who are poor, hungry, weeping, and persecuted, whose fortunes will be overturned for the better; these disciples are the ones who rely on hope. To the ones who rely on hope, Jesus calls out "blessed, blessed."

For this third group, the poor, hungry, weeping, and persecuted disciples, of these Dietrich Boenhoeffer writes that

there is only one place for them, namely, the place where the poorest, the most tempted, the meekest of all may be found, at the cross on Golgotha. The faith-community of the blessed is the community of the Crucified. With him they lost everything, and with him they found everything. Now the word comes down from the cross: blessed, blessed.

I wish that I could make this one easier, to tell you today how we might be able to reconcile wealth with discipleship, but Jesus doesn't leave me with many options. There are the disciples who share the sufferings of Christ, and these disciples, the community of the crucified, receive the blessing. And if there is such a thing as a disciple that doesn't suffer for their faith and commitment to Christ, these, the rich ones who have no need for the community of the crucified, they have already received their reward.

Sounds a lot like bad news for rich Christians! And maybe it is. It might not be a bad idea for us to come to terms with the fact that our wealth won't last. In fact it's probably a good idea for us to come to terms with the fact that our hope ought not to be placed in the things we buy, or even in the good things people say about us. We should probably come to terms with the fact that even our happiness, so long as it is not grounded in Christ, and him crucified, even our happiness won't last. Weep we will, so long as we base our hope in that which will fade and pass, so long as our hope is found apart from the community of the crucified.

Boenhoeffer, as well as so many others who have suffered for their faith, point out that our hope is with the crucified one. Christian fellowship begins not with what we do apart from the crucified one, or even what we do for the crucified one, but in what the crucified one has done for us. Discipleship begins with what the crucified one has done for us, and continues with the suffering we experience in our belonging to this body of Christ, the body of Christ crucified.

What haunts me as I read these kinds of texts is that it might very well be, that if we are not suffering for our faith, then we do not properly know what faith is.

I wish I could say that suffering with illness, or suffering at the hand of some tyrant for something other than Christ, was the kind of suffering meant here. I know I'd get a few points for struggling through sickness, others might find points for other suffering, if this was true. This kind of suffering, like that of sickness and loneliness, might help us understand, or bring us closer to the suffering Christ. But this is not the kind of suffering meant by Jesus in this sermon. Jesus is talking about the suffering experienced on account of him, and he's pretty straightforward about this.

For many of us, including me, reading this gospel in a good mood over a good meal,
being rich and belly-full, we are confronted with the truth: it will take a powerful turn of events for us to make it through this one alive.

But thank God that he is merciful, even to the selfish and the ungrateful, as Jesus will say later in this same sermon. We can be thankful that it is God's property to always have mercy.

Our confession is not simply of Christ crucified, even though this is integral to understanding discipleship; but as Paul remind us in our passage from Corinthians, Christian proclamation hinges on the resurrection. Paul writes that "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins," and that if we have hoped falsely, "we are of all people most to be pitied." "But," Paul continues, "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead." We are not left in our sin.

By Christ's resurrection, and our belief in him as the one vindicated by God and the one able to lift us out of our addiction to wealth, to prosperity, to good words, all the things that keep us from the radical commitment asked of us, it is this Christ who lifts us out of the dust, the one who lifts us out of our infatuation with ourselves and our wealth.

It takes a J. Alfred Smith, Sr., one of the great black preachers and teachers of this present generation, preaching to his flock in Oakland, to tell us what this means: he says that

God continuously retrofits the foundations of our faith conversion. Conversion is not a once-and-for-all experience in our salvation history. Conversion is the act of sanctification, where God continues to call us from corruption to a clear lifestyle of thinking and living. God continuously retrofits the foundations of resurrected faith with a commission. God commissions cowardly disciples

(all of us)

with a history of denying Jesus

(all of us)

into becoming courageous witnesses of the power of Christ's resurrection and the richness of the fellowship of Christ's suffering.

As we begin to think about Lent, a season of preparation for the great drama of Holy Week, this may very well be a good place for us to begin: by confronting what keeps us from this life,the life of the fellowship of Christ's suffering and the community of the Crucified; and to begin to ask and pray, asking for God's strength, so that we begin to heed God's commission to become courageous witnesses of the power of Christ's resurrection.

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany: Guest Preacher

A special thanks to the Rev. Murray Still who visited this Sunday, and preached for us.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (2007): "Truly Dangerous Christianity"

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (2007): "Truly Dangerous Christianity"
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30
Preached on January 28th, 2007, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

Preaching can be pretty dangerous business!

In our gospel reading from last week, Jesus was preaching in the synagogue, and proclaiming that he was the Messiah.

This passage that I just read to you immediately follows that story, and Jesus is still in the same synagogue, and still with the same congregants. But the mood of that same bunch of congregants that sat with their eyes intently on Jesus, their mood has changed a lot. They aren't listening anymore, their amazement has turned to anger, and by the end of our reading they are trying to throw Jesus over a cliff.

Like I said, preaching is pretty dangerous business!

I think it's tempting for a lot of faithful Christians, to take this story far too seriously. A lot of us, not just preachers, like to think of ourselves as prophets like Jeremiah, or Messiahs like Jesus.

This is far more dangerous: to be self-appointed prophets, or would-be messiahs.

***

I wonder how many of us can relate to those folks from the synagogue that day. This was the synagogue of Jesus's hometown, and the people of Nazareth had been hearing stories about him, their home-town boy. We still hear these kinds of stories, don't we – the "local boy" or "local girl makes good" story? Just pick up the Free Press, or even a diocesan newspaper, and you can find these kinds of stories.

My American friends used to make fun of me for this. Some theologian, actor, or musician would come up in conversation, and I was hasten to add: "He's a Canadian,
you know", and sometimes, "She's a Winnipegger, right?"

My friends would make fun of me because it was like I was somehow better just for being from the same place as some famous person.

They were right, actually, I'm a proud Canadian, a proud Winnipegger, and when someone does something special, and they’re from where I'm from, I feel proud. I imagine that you feel the same way.

This is what happened to Jesus that day. Jesus's fellow Nazarenes were proud that this healer was from the same place as them. The word was out, Joseph's son was doing miracles in other parts of the countryside. Jesus had even done miracles in Capernaum. So the people of Nazareth were saying to him: "Step up! Do your thing! You're our guy! Do something for us! You did miracles out there in Brandon! Do something for us Winnipeggers!"

**

Faithful Christians can be like this, I think. We can cry out to God, we can cry out to Jesus, saying, "I'm a Christian! I believe in you! I even worship you! Jesus, you're one of us! So now I'm going to ask you for something, and you better deliver! I deserve it! Because you're my guy in the sky!"

Sound familiar?

It does to me, I know that I can pray sometimes like Jesus owes me something special.

I'm a Christian, and I can act as though this gives me special standing as far as my requests go.

But we all know that God doesn't work that way, and our prayers aren't always answered the way we expect, any more than Jesus did exactly what the people of Nazareth wanted him to do that day. Don’t get me wrong, here. I want you all to pray, and to pray fervently. But God may not always answer your prayers the way you want Him to.

Jesus's actions actually tell us something quite different about God’s action in the world; Jesus's actions tell us that God acts contrary to our expectations sometimes. Jesus reminds the people of Nazareth that there is more to God's purposes than paying back tribute. Jesus reminds the people of Nazareth, and us as we read the story, that Elijah was sent to do a miracle to a poor widow; and then that Elisha did a miracle for Naaman the Syrian. The miracles that Jesus refers to were works that God was doing outside the inner circle, for poor widows, not pious priests; miracles were done for foreign military commanders, not the local observing Jew. Jesus points out that God's work is often done for the outsiders rather than for the insiders.

The people of Nazareth did not take this news, the news of Jesus's sovereignty and freedom, as good news. It is hard to come to terms with the fact that because of God's freedom and sovereignty He will not always act the way we expect or want Him to.

As it turns out, Jesus's sovereignty and absolute freedom make for pretty dangerous preaching. And it ticked off the people of Nazareth enough that they did everything that they could to throw this particular preacher off the brow of a cliff.

***

Our danger, though, is different than Jesus’s danger that day. Our danger is that we cast ourselves as prophets or as messiahs because to cast ourselves as prophets or messiahs is to misunderstand how authority works.

The self-made prophet or would-be messiah who presses buttons, ticks people off, and fulfills some kind of persecution fantasy misunderstands what it means to stand under the authority of the prophets and under the authority of the Messiah. We aren't God; rather, we stand under the authority of God.

We aren't Christians in order to gain some special favour from God, nor are we Christians in order to tick off the world. We are Christians because of our of fidelity to Jesus.

We are Christians because we are faithful to Christ; we know that this Christ - the one who is nearly thrown off the brow of the cliff - is the one who saves us, and only the one who can truly save us is the one worthy of our faithfulness.

This faith in the one who saves doesn't mean we are suddenly able to tell God how to go about His business.

However, our confession of Christ's lordship just might tick people off, and it may very well mean that we are persecuted.

But this will arise because we have entered under the authority of Christ, not because we have put ourselves in the place of Christ.

***

So the question arises: what might it mean if we were to follow this Jesus? What might it mean if we were faithful to the Messiah, that we read about in this story, the God free to do miracles, and free not to do miracles?

What might it mean to follow the God who is placing his priority with those who are outsiders, with the widows and foreigners, rather than the insiders, the people of Nazareth who feel like they can tell Jesus what to do?

What might this mean for us?

It means that we will be less attentive to what we think we deserve, and less apt to order our community vision according to what we perceive to be our own immediate needs.

If we were to take direction from this story and followed Jesus, we would see that our faithfulness to Jesus would lead us to be far more attentive to those who remain outside of our walls.

It would challenge us to turn away from pious entitlement. It would challenge us to be evangelists, a people working to bring those who are outside our community into the saving power of the crucified one, the one present in a church living out what it means to be followers of God, the God who is absolutely free and acts in ways we sometimes don't understand.

Jesus is already visiting people outside our walls, there are all sorts of people wondering about this Jesus guy, they are waiting just outside our door trying to find their way in, trying to find a way to be a part of a community who worships this unpredictable God, a God who is asking great things of us.

Jesus, in this story, is asking us to be better than the people of Nazareth: we are asked us to recognize that we need more than a wonder worker, we need a saviour; we need more than an idol to do our bidding, we need the unpredictable and living God.

And if we need a saviour free to act in unexpected ways, if we need a God free to be God rather than just a miracle-man doing our bidding, how much more will we recognize that this Jesus, this saving God, is not the possession the people of the pew. This saving God is already the possession of the outsider.

The living God - God in Christ, the Messiah - will walk safely through the crowd of his persecutors, whether they be us or the people of Nazareth.

The living God - the crucified one, the resurrected one - his work is among the outsiders.

It is a work of reconciliation, a reconciliation he does for all of us, a reconciliation offered through the church, and through the invitation of the outsider in.

And we invite people into the church, into a reconciling community, not just for the sake of the outsider, nor simply for the sake of the insider. It is for the sake of the God who is free, the God who is sovereign, the God who will change us and transform us: the one God who is alone worthy of our faithfulness.