Sermons

What good is a resurrected body? Why Easter needs the Ascension.

May 24, 2020 — Leave a comment

In my Father’s house are many rooms… And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:2-3

Today we celebrate one of the most central teachings of our faith; an idea equal with the messages of Christmas and Easter, and one that we confess every time a faithful follower of Jesus says the Creed: Jesus ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father; and from there He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

In the official teachings of the Church – found in those essential beliefs laid out in the Prayer Book for us to read, learn, and share with the world around us – a lot hinges on the Ascension.  Yet, this major celebration and its message became largely ignored; not least because it was one of those celebrations, like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday that traditionally fell in the middle of the week on a Thursday, the 40th day after Easter, and as busy work schedules took over, it was lost in the mix.

The problem, though, is that Jesus’ ascension into heaven is absolutely central to understanding our faith.  No kidding: skipping Ascension is as if we decided that Christmas just didn’t matter anymore, or if we decided to skip preaching about Easter for a couple generations. 

Seriously: Christmas tells us that Jesus, God’s Son, was born and raised to share our humanity; Easter tells us that Jesus experienced death in a human body, and did what we couldn’t do for ourselves – conquering the grave, and making human flesh incorruptible, making it able to last forever.  And the Ascension tells us how that matters for you and me.

Think about it: Every time we gather to worship, we confess Christ’s resurrection.  But how does Jesus coming out of a tomb long ago and far away have any impact on your physical body?  If the resurrection isn’t just about spiritual thoughts and warm, happy feelings about a fuzzy afterlife – and it isn’t! – then how, exactly, does his body, raised to new life, have any impact on what happens to you, so that you and I no longer fear the grave?

These are essential questions that make your faith make sense… and, it’s the Ascension, the return of Jesus to the right hand of the Father, that holds it all together.

The Plan:

We all believe, one way or another, that God the Father created us so that we could share in the overflowing life and love of the Trinity: a relationship so profound that it creates and invites the creation to join in their endless life of joy.

And, we all believe, one way or another, that for love to be real, it has to be freely given and freely chosen; so God invited us to love him and become infused with his eternal life and the fire of eternal love, knowing full well that giving us that option to love him freely includes the possibility that we could reject that offer instead.  As humankind decided to trust itself and seek our own glory, we went the way of all things that trust in themselves: we found darkness and the grave, as the spark of life given at our creation became something that grows cold and flickers out, like a candle left unattended that hollows out the middle until the very flame that gave it purpose causes it to collapse and snuff itself out under the weight of the heavy walls it has built.

But, God, knowing that darkness and the grave was our choice to make, built a solution into the system.  This is the message of Christmas: God’s plan was to build a bridge, a ladder even. If Creator and creation, God and humankind, are separated by a chasm, by the steep walls built as our flame burned inward rather than sharing light with the world, then the solution could only be one who was fully God and fully man: one who could enter the deepest, godless pits of despair built by humanity, and yet, being God, had within himself the very flame and source of life that cannot be extinguished, even when the heavy walls of the grave collapsed in.

And that is the message of Easter: as those heavy, waxy walls of darkness and the grave closed in, they found not a weak, flickering flame as they always had before; they found a mighty, blazing torch, unending life itself, and the more the walls of death closed in, the more they were consumed and melted away.

Jesus rose from the grave, blasting a hole in the gates of death, and emerged from the tomb with our flesh, but now as it was meant to be when that choice was first given: our flesh no longer attempting to be self-sufficient inside the walls we have built; our flesh transformed into forever flesh, connected intimately to the source of life itself, now able to accept the invitation to share in that everlasting relationship of the God who created us for eternal life in an everlasting creation; an eternity without pain or grief, without tears and sadness, without wars or disease, where the lion and the lamb can lie together with satisfied appetites because they’re connected to the source of all that is.

So Jesus rose, but what impact can that have on me?

Well, that’s where the Ascension comes in. 

As we see even in Jesus, there’s not much use for “forever flesh” in a world that is still full of death and decay.  And, truly, in spite of our attempts to put off aging – expensive creams and gallons of hair dye – there comes a point when we must admit: who would want to live forever in a world based on self-isolation behind walls of greed?

Yes, we absolutely believe that God will restore creation; that, in his time – and it’s not for us to concern ourselves with the time or date – the time of God inviting the flickering flames of human life will one day come to an end, and whether it’s the opposite of a big bang as scientists speculate, or some other spectacular mystery as prophets have attempted to put into words, there comes a time when time stops – and then all is made new, but this time, without the possibility of the universal pain and regret: this time of making choices (and the painful consequences of making them) has ended.

Christ the Forerunner

And so, 40 days after Easter, Christ, showing us the first glimpses of what humanity will be like when the deadly walls we’ve built no longer have dominion over us, then takes that glorified, forever flesh out of a decaying world.  He returns to the right hand of the Father, to that original life-giving relationship of the Trinity, but, bringing our flesh, he has a mission:  “do not let your hearts be troubled.  You believe in God, believe also in me”, he says.  “My Father’s house has many dwelling places… and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that where I am, you may be also.”  And, he adds, “you know the way to the place where I am going”.[1]

He, having brought our humanity into the presence of God, is preparing a place for us to be with him until that final day – guest rooms where we may wait in the palace of the King; not our eternal resting place, but where we will rest in peace and be satisfied until that time when all is made new, when our forever flesh finds a home in the kingdom that shall last forever.

And we know the way: when the walls of death close in, there’s the well-trodden path of stubbornly holding out until the weight of our own choices leads to destruction; or, knowing where to look, we see the way, the truth, and the life: Jesus reaching out and leading us through the hole that he blasted; a steep and narrow path, one that requires full reliance on the one who has walked it before, but one that leads to a peaceful rest, to the words “well done” being spoken over us as the door swings open, and the Father sees not the flickering flame of a weary life, but hears the Son saying “this is my brother; this is my sister, who now shares my flesh and blood”, as the Spirit clothes us and ushers us into the feast.

Think about it, every time you say the Creed.  He ascended into heaven: not to leave us, but to blaze a path and prepare a place for us.  And, even now, he’s at the Father’s right hand, waiting; and when I die, when you die, he reaches out, leads us in, presents us as his friends, and leads us to our rest, as we, too, await his coming in glory, that day when finally, clothed in his righteousness alone, our forever flesh meets our forever home, standing faultless before his throne.

To God be the Glory.  Amen.

[1] John 14:1-4

Repressed Questions and an Unknown God.

May 17, 2020 — Leave a comment

Our Father… Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Fort Smith, as it is in heaven.  Amen.

Today we come to the end of our walk through First Peter, a journey that has highlighted how we ought to live if we take seriously what it means to be members of God’s family. 

It’s God’s explicit desire that anyone bold enough to call Him their Father would bring that heavenly lifestyle to bear in the world around us; that he would empower us to make our own town – here and now – a little more like heaven as we, his sons and daughters by adoption, serve him in thought, word, and deed.

And that’s nothing easy: it requires us to be willing to undergo a total change, for those perishable, even rotten parts of our human nature to be transformed into the image and likeness of the Risen Christ.  We have to be willing to live as Jesus; willing to give up our pride, to give up our own best interests, to give up revenge or proving ourselves right: living instead so that all we’re known for are the good works and mercy shown at our hands. 

And, as we heard last week, this is not an individual project.  Living into the new life of Christ, carrying out God’s will here as in heaven, is not something that you or I can do by our own effort.  The Good News is that we don’t have to pretend to be strong and mighty. We can be ourselves: we can be small, we can be vulnerable, we don’t have to worry about leaving a legacy, because our strength and our worth isn’t in our small selves; our strength comes from being cemented together and grounded firmly on the foundation that cannot be moved: Jesus Christ, the Cornerstone.

With all that in mind, today, we see why it is that God wants us to live this way; we come to see the master plan – what it is that God intends to do with us, members of his family willing to live as he intends.

Good Intentions: An Altar in Athens

This plan is nothing new – in fact, it looks a lot like what we read in Acts.[1]

It’s a wonderful scene: St. Paul, having journeyed to the great, ancient city of Athens, notices how enlightened the people are, with everyone concerned with religion, politics, and philosophy. 

But then he notices something that strikes him: these modern, open-minded, educated people have, alongside their traditional religion, their temples, their synagogues, and their university debate halls, something most curious: a temple to unknown gods.

In the name of being progressive, of embracing the best bits of ideas brought from all over, the ancient myths of the heroes and gods of Greece had become a hodge-podge, a cafeteria-style religion where you choose what suits your taste, where you choose to take bits and pieces of whatever teachers happen to resonate with you, but are left knowing that your choices may or not be the “right” ones.  So, just in case, you hedge your bets: you throw in a little offering to the unknown gods just in case it turns out you were wrong.[2]

Paul, arriving in Athens, found a highly developed, modern, peaceful, democratic society with a fatal flaw: in the name of sophistication, in the name of open-mindedness, they had given up any sort of coherent, wholistic, logical system of belief and had instead developed nothing more than a choose-your-own-adventure set of superstitions. 

This modern society, in the name of progress, accidentally went backwards: they had a common language to discuss science, politics, and the economy, but lost the ability to discuss the things that, deep down, matter so much more to each of us: the questions of life and love, the nature of thought and emotions, and the questions of why we’re here, and what shall become of us hereafter.

That was the issue facing the Church 1900 years ago: their world had become a hodge-podge of well-intentioned religious superstitions that, added together, made little sense at all.

And Peter, writing to the Church living in that secular society, tells us simply: “do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.  Always be ready to give anyone who asks the reason for the hope that is in you – but do so with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear…”[3]

Do not fear what they fear. 

Yes, at it’s root, all superstition is grounded in fear.  Now, it might not be heart-pounding terror – and that’s part of the problem.  When we’re terrified, shaken to the core, people – more often than not – are able to identify the cause, and do something about it.  No, superstition comes from that sort of weak, but constant anxiety, the sort of deep unsettledness that causes even the most brilliant minds to retreat and avoid the very things they want most.

You see, altars to an unknown god are no first-century problem.

With the best of intentions, we’ve built a society where each of us has to build our own altars.  In the name of enlightenment, in the name of progress, we’ve unhinged and unanchored religious ideas from any sense of logic and reason, and we’ve created such a hodge-podge of beliefs that those within the same family can no longer even encourage or build each other up, because no two people agree on what they hold to be true.

And, when push comes to shove, we resort to nothing more than superstition.

In terms of science, in terms of medicine, in terms of technology, we live in the most advanced time the world has ever seen.  Literacy is at an all-time high, and all the world’s information is a few clicks away on the phone in your pocket.

But, we’re anxious.  Deep down, our world is searching for answers.  For all our knowledge, we’re less able than ever to answer any of the big questions.  What’s the purpose of family?  Why do we have this desire for love and relationships?  What is the purpose of life?  What is the value in life?  What is the ‘common good’, and why would we seek it?  Why is life worth living if I’m not feeling happy?  What’s the point?

For every simple, scientific, mechanical question we’ve answered about the world around us, we’ve been asked to ignore the deeper questions that allow us to ground our life on a firm foundation.

If love is just a chemical reaction in the brain, then why does it hurt so much when a loved one is lost?

If memory is just electrons in brain tissue, then why can we be moved to tears by a favourite song, or even a familiar smell?

If the purpose of our species is self-preservation, then why would so many doctors, nurses, police officers, soldiers, social workers, and volunteers put their lives at risk every day for the sake of the weakest and least profitable among us?

If the purpose of life is survival of the fittest, then why is true joy found in the service and company of others?

Repressing the Deep Questions

We, like them, in the name of being enlightened, in the name of progress, have given up the very logic and reason that allows us to answer even a child’s most basic questions – let alone our own.

Our friends and neighbours, and sadly even some in the church, have such a mish-mash of beliefs that, when we need stability the most, we find ourselves adrift in a sea of foggy, half-hearted superstition on even the most basic matters.

I think friends with a young family who suddenly lost a pet.  Their little girl wanted to know what happened to their beloved kitty after she died.

Having nothing but a mixed plate of cafeteria religions, and having been trained like most in our society to bury these deep, anxiety-causing questions in the deepest part of our being, the mom did as she’d been taught: she did a quick Google search. 

She found a convenient option: she told her little girl about a rainbow bridge reaching into the sky, where pets are happy forever.

The girl’s father, when the girl went to him separately, went another direction: he went to a cheap, easy mis-interpretation of Buddhism and said that their cat was already re-born as another kitten to make another family happy.

Confusing for the child, but all well and good, and the anxieties and deep questions buried deep under the surface once again… until a few years later when the grandmother dies. 

“Where’s Nan?”

At moments like these those deep, repressed questions rush to the surface, and the anxiety becomes so overwhelming that so many in our society no longer even have the language to voice the reality of their grief.  So little of the language of the deep questions of life has been passed on, that it takes a trained counsellor just to fish the questions out, let alone begin the search for answers.

“Where’s Nan?” the very bright 12-year-old asks.

Obviously she didn’t walk over a rainbow bridge to be with Fluffy.  Is she reborn already into a new baby to make another family happy?

A well-meaning aunt steps in and offers the religion of The Lion King movie: “she’s gone to be among the stars, and every time you look up, she’s there looking down.”

“…but”, says the bright girl, “the stars are balls of hydrogen gas lightyears away… that doesn’t make sense.”

…and she’s right.  It doesn’t.

Neither leg to stand on.

All around us are well-meaning temples to an unknown god.  All around us are people who’ve been led to believe that the most enlightened thing they can do is to simply abandon the deep questions; bury them, and focus instead on the far easier questions of what is found through a telescope and under a microscope.

But we see the effects even now: a society that has no language to discuss the common good; a society that has no language, no venue to discuss the value of human life relative to the security of our economies.  Societies that have no way to discuss that my freedoms – and my retirement portfolio – depend on other people being willing to do work that I’m not willing to do, under conditions that I would no accept.

And the hidden effects are even worse, precisely because we cannot speak of them: people stressed, deeply anxious because they do want to get back to normal, and they are willing to take some calculated risks, but they aren’t willing to endanger anybody else… and we have no shared language to discuss what is right.

The Bold, Gentle Task

This is nothing new – in fact, it’s very old.

And our task is the same as those first Christians: we’re to proclaim the truth.

And it isn’t good enough to offer just a bit of truth.  That’s the problem we’re in. 

God didn’t send Jesus to offer us a smattering of happy thoughts and good advice. 

He has revealed, in his Word and by the Holy Spirit, a coherent system of belief and practice: a life of faith that is at once logical – that is, word-based – and reasonable – engaging our gifts of reason and thought.

He has given us the Spirit of Truth[4], to see and know the way, the truth, and the life laid out before us, as a lamp for our feet and a light to our path. 

And if we’re doing God’s will, here and now, as we will in heaven, then our task, like Paul in Athens, is to come alongside those who have caught glimpses, shadows, and reflections of that light, and gently and respectfully take them from the warmed-over smattering of leftover cafeteria-style ideas and invite them instead to a feast – to a banquet table overflowing with the finest food and the richest wine, and which offers the language to ask those deepest questions, and the opportunity to find rest, as the never-ending meal is digested over a lifetime with patience and faithfulness… and we become what we eat.

With gentleness and respect, your work is to give an answer to those muttering deep questions at the altars of unknown gods.

But for that to happen, you yourself need to be confident in the truth.  For us to do God’s will together, you need to know what we believe.  You and I need to throw out the half-hearted leftovers, and know why it was Jesus came as one of us, why he had to die, why bad things happen to good people; to know that prayer works, and to have experienced that God still heals; to know that all that we have comes from God, that strength comes in humble service, and that true life is only found in admitting defeat, asking for mercy, and allowing yourself to become part of the Body of Christ.

Then, and only then, will we fulfil our pledge that God’s will would be done… in Fort Smith, as it is in Heaven.

[1] Acts 17:22-31

[2] Archeological evidence points to temples and altars to “foreign and unknown gods”, and refences in Greek literature point to sacrifices “to nameless gods” or “to the appropriate god”, essentially prayers addressed to whom it may concern.

[3] 1 Peter 3:14-16

[4] See John 14:17

As useless as a box of rocks…

May 10, 2020 — Leave a comment

A sermon on cement and sticking together.

1 Peter 2:2-10.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in Fort Smith, as it is in Heaven.  Amen.

As we continue through the letter of Peter to the Church on this Mothers’ Day, we’re given a glimpse of the vision that God has for His spiritual family, not just our earthly parents and siblings, but the family, the household of faith, made up of everyone who sincerely calls God “Our Father”.  It’s a family in which all of us are adopted by faith, a family in which each adopted brother and sister is equally dependant on God’s mercy – fully dependent on the goodness and willingness of God to welcome us in, in spite of whatever we’ve done.  A family that, like any other, is called to honour our parents – to bring honour and glory to God our Father as we live together as his people in the world.

So far in our walk through 1st Peter, we’ve heard that our Father’s will is that we would live on earth as we will in Heaven.  We’ve heard that, “thy will be done” isn’t wishful thinking or a desperate prayer, but is an instruction for the Church: God’s will isn’t a mystery; He tells us how we ought to live, and our job is to do it; and in doing so, we bring His will to bear in the world around us, as we strive to be holy, as God is holy.

And then, last week, we heard the clear call of how we ought to live in the sight of the world.  Regardless of our opinions, our preferences, our politics, as members together of God’s family, we’re to live so that, when the world wants to insult us, they have nothing to go on – nothing to say except to name our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

Just imagine what our world would be like, if every time someone drove by this building dedicated and consecrated to the glory of God, if every time someone met a member of this church, if every time someone saw “St. John’s Anglican Church” on Facebook, all they could say was “wow…”, and “see how they love one another”, and then, even if they don’t know it, they’re giving God the glory for the works done through us, His hands, feet, and voice. 

Those have been great instructions these past two weeks for what we should do.

But today, rather than focusing on what we do, St. Peter digs in and casts a vision for what we should be.  He’s laying a foundation for who we are, as we are built together in the household of faith.

Peter writes: Come to Christ, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

A living stone. 

We’re to be living stones.

Now, right off the bat, this is a weird sort of phrase.  I mean, really, if you had to pick a word to describe a rock, I’m guessing “living” is the exact opposite of what you’d say.

I mean, yes, it could be a compliment if you say someone is ‘a rock’.

But, a “living stone”?  It’s a weird phrase.  Honestly, we’re more likely to think of someone as being “stone deaf”, or, if we’re being honest, I’ll admit there have been times – not my proudest moments – when I’ve thought someone was about as useless as a box of rocks. 

What does that mean, living stones?

What if we looked at this phrase this way: living stones are stones that have life.  Living stones are stones that have purpose.  And, like all things that are alive, living stones are connected, even dependant on one another to sustain that life.

We, being built up on Christ, who is the cornerstone, are no longer mere stones scattered across the ground, lifeless, but are joined together into something with purpose, to build a house that can be filled with life, and warmth, and joy.

Yes, God’s vision for us who become members of his family is that those scattered and loose stones, as numerous as the sand of the sea, are gathered together and built into something with purpose.

And, if we stop to think about it, that’s really remarkable news.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel pretty insignificant.  It happens to all of us, but sometimes we get “low minded”, all we can focus on is how small we are.

And, while we’re being honest, I think many of us have times when we feel about as useless as a box of rocks.  One of the effects of this pandemic is that, for a lot of us, people who woke up every morning with a routine, with things to do; people who were involved in their communities, visiting those who can’t get out and about; people who were involved in church and many groups in our communities now have moments when we just feel useless, like we just don’t know what we should be doing. 

And, of course, left to our own devices, one of the great temptations in the world around us is to get weighed down by those feelings, to dwell on our own smallness, and, sadly, many then begin to question their own worth – they feel as insignificant as a piece of crushed stone spread on the ground.

But here’s the good news that Peter is bringing to the Church:

Because we’ve been made part of God’s Family, Our Father wants to build us together into something with purpose, a household full of life.

Yes, sometimes we feel as insignificant as a piece of gravel, and yes, in the grand scheme of human history, each of us alone is pretty small.  But, in the hands of a master builder, building on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ our Lord, even the smallest stone becomes part of something much bigger.

And the glory comes not in what the stones are by themselves, but in what they are made together.

Think about it: if you wanted to build a mighty fortress; if you wanted to build a temple for the presence of God; if you wanted to build a heavenly kingdom, little pieces of crushed stone is hardly what comes to mind as your building material. 

But what happens if, once the foundation is firmly laid, those crushed stones are bound together, and moulded – formed – as they come to follow the pattern laid for them. 

You take those tiny stones, mix them together until they are bound to one another with cement, pour them into the mould to matches the plan of the builder, and suddenly those stones are no longer weak, small, or insignificant.  No, being cemented together, those stones can reach to amazing heights; they become a structure that can withstand waves and storms; a fortress that can withstand any attack; they can even become the grand palace of the King, with dwelling places prepared for all the King’s sons and daughters.

That insignificant piece of gravel, when infused with purpose, and bound together with love, and strengthened from within by the power of the Holy Spirit, is built into a great spiritual house that, because of it’s firm foundation, can withstand whatever comes its way.

Those insignificant stones, strewn along the ground and trampled under foot, become together something much larger – something not trampled down; no, suddenly we’re joined with Christ, the stone that must be noticed, a stumbling block, that will trip up those who are walking down the path of life without a lamp. We become stones infused with life and purpose, bound together in love and built into a dwelling place fit for no less than the very presence of God Himself, as the Church – all of us cemented together – becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, and all for the sake of the world around us.

Built into something great.

This is the message to the Church. 

If we say God is “our Father”, we must mean it; and, as with our earthly parents, we honour our father by doing his will.

And, by grace, God takes each of us – tiny as we are – and gives us life and purpose, not that we should stand alone or in a heap of gravel, but that we should be bound together, the greatest and the least, the first and the last, the strong and the weak all built up together into a spiritual house, a home filled with the light and life of God Himself; a house built high on a hill, shining it’s light out into the darkness, inviting all who would see it to follow the way, the truth, and the life, and being made new with the life of God, we find our purpose, we find our calling, not in who we were, not in what we’ve done, but in who we have become as members, joined together as the Body of Christ, living not for our own glory, but to the glory of God.

But, Peter says, even in this great building project, we have a part to play.

“Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…”  We have to be willing to be built up, to be incorporated into what the Lord is doing in our midst.

To do that we have to be holy, as God our Father is holy. 

…to do that, we must work to do his will… in Fort Smith, as it is in Heaven.  Amen.

In the world for the sake of the world.

May 3, 2020 — Leave a comment

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done – in Fort Smith – as it is in heaven.  Amen.

Last week we looked at those first lines of the Lord’s Prayer, reflecting on what it means to pray that God’s will would be done here and now, not just “on earth”, but in our midst, as we are called to be Christ’s body in the world.

It’s not as though God’s will for how our world should be is a total mystery.  Yes, while there are many things that are beyond what we can ask or even imagine, God’s will for how he would have us live is no mystery at all: St. Peter summarized it all so well as we read last week: “as He who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct, because it is written: be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

The lessons assigned by the Church for the next couple of weeks take us through the rest of Peter’s letter, where he writes to teach Christians what “be holy” means.  It’s one thing to talk about holiness, about living as citizens of the Kingdom of God, doing His will right here in Fort Smith just as it is done in heaven.  But, let’s not pretend that this is an easy, or even a straight-forward task.

Comfortable as we are in our own communities, with friends and neighbours that we have come to know and love over the years, and many of us with vital roles to play as, by God’s grace, we’ve left our mark on the lives of those around us, leaving the world a little bit of a better place, it’s still no accident that scripture refers to us as foreigners, aliens, and even exiles in the world.   It’s not so much that we’re not at home in the world. Rather, as citizens of God’s Kingdom by baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves as dual citizens. 

We’re called to be holy – to live as we will in the Kingdom of Heaven – while we find ourselves in a world that, deep down, is anything but holy.  In a real way, if we’re living as God expects – if we’re striving for holiness, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to hit the target and hear that “well done, my good and faithful servant – then we find ourselves sharing that real tension shared by immigrants who find themselves in a foreign land.

Dual Citizens & Culture Shock

If you ask someone who has done any on-the-ground international travelling – not tourist resorts, but being out-and-about in the streets of a foreign land – they would tell you that it takes a little while to get your bearings.  Yes, the food is different and the language is different, but it goes much deeper than that: the culture, the expectations that people share for how they interact, how they show respect, how they live their lives, are very different too. 

And, it’s one thing to be a visitor, but to move in and live and contribute to the community as a foreigner is, universally, a difficult task.  Beyond learning the language and customs and expectations of your new home, you also have the difficult questions of figuring out how much of your own culture you want to retain. 

On the day you move in, do you stake your home country’s flag in the centre of your lawn?  Do you wear the clothes of your home country, or do you try to blend in?  Do you keep on celebrating the holidays of your homeland, do you give them up for Canada Day and Remembrance Day, or do you combine the holidays of your new and old countries together as best you can? 

And, of course, those are the easy questions. When the time comes to raise a family, do you teach them the expectations of respect and manners as they were in your homeland, or do you teach them to blend in with the expectations here.

These are very real questions.

And, St. Peter teaches us, if we’re serious about what it means to be a Christian, then these are the questions we face as well.  “Beloved”, he writes after declaring that we are a holy nation set apart to proclaim the light of God’s truth in the darkness of the world, “I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims… to conduct yourselves honourably among the non-believers, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may glorify God by your good works which they observe.”  (1 Peter 2:11-12).

Finally – this is where we see this lofty idea of ‘holiness’ put into real, everyday practice.

Your job, my job; as a member of Christ’s Body, and as a member of this church, is to live in such a way that, when somebody wants to throw insults or slander us, they have no words; to live so that, when somebody speaks about us, all they have to go on are the good works that we have done in God’s name. 

Imagine that – imagine if we, each of us as individual members, lived lives like that.  Imagine if, every time someone drove by and noticed the church, every time someone saw “St. John’s Anglican Church” in the Facebook community group, every time a neighbour saw you – a member of the Church, the only words on their lips, all the evidence in our lives, pointed to God’s good works.  No matter how different their beliefs, no matter how different their priorities or the way they live their lives, imagine if we all lived such that they were speechless, except to list off the good works that they observe, and then, without even knowing it, they’re glorifying God for the work He’s done at our hands.

That would be holiness.  Just imagine.

A poor track record…

Unfortunately, though, churches don’t have the best track record.  Yes, sin and pride are part of the problem, but too often, it comes down to how we’ve chosen to live as dual citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven and the world around us, how we’ve chosen to live as foreigners and exiles on pilgrimage in the world.

Some Christians live as those who fly the flag of the foreign Kingdom proudly, as those who stick out as not belonging in the world, having nothing to do with the sinful world around them.  Unfortunately, the same thing happens for Christians who live that way as happens in many immigrant communities – they become cut off from the wider culture, and they only hang out amongst themselves. Not that it’s a bad thing to be proud of your identity, but if Christians are supposed to be on a mission to draw in those around us, and give no evidence except our good works, then Christians who cut themselves off from the world are going to have a hard time carrying out that mission.

And, on the other hand, there are those who have assimilated so well into the world around them, that it’s impossible to tell that they are citizens of the Kingdom of God.  This is the temptation that many churches have faced since the 1700s, especially us Anglicans.  If the Church has no different message than the world, then the mission also fails. There’s no point inviting someone in to something that looks exactly like the world around it, and, in the eyes of those outside, produces none of that fruit of good works that leaves them speechless.

No, we’re to live as those on a mission.  We’re in the world, for the sake of the world.

Now, that’s not always easy. 

Is it Persecution, or are we jerks?

As we read this morning, Peter warns the Church in every age that there will be suffering – something we already know from the lips of Jesus himself. 

But, even in the early Church, it seems people were quick to claim they were suffering for righteousness, when really they were just getting what they deserved; they were quick to say they were being persecuted, when really they were just being jerks.

“It is commendable”, Peter writes, “if you endure suffering for the sake of conscience toward God”. Yes, certainly. If we suffer for doing good, we are to follow Christ’s example. If someone robs from you, if someone slanders you, you don’t seek revenge.  No, you live your life so that the only thing people can say about you is about your good works that glorify your Father in Heaven.  As St. Paul says in Romans, even if your worst enemy is hungry or thirsty, go give him food and drink, so in the end even your enemy can’t say anything bad against you. (Romans 12:20, cf. Proverbs 25:21-22). When the world around us causes us to suffer for the sake of conscience, to suffer for what is right, then we trust fully in our Good Shepherd, and follow boldly, knowing that even the valley of the shadow of death if not a place to fear if we’re following where he guides.

But are we being persecuted when we’ve brought suffering on ourselves?  No, not at all.  “For what credit is it if, when you are punished for your faults, you take it patiently?” 

No, as dual-citizens, we’re to submit to those with authority over us, even when our leaders make decisions that anger and upset us – and certainly, this time in our history highlights that, no matter where you are on issues of the economy and public health and gun control, everyone’s got an opinion on what our leaders are doing.  Of course, it’s our duty to participate in politics – but, we are to do so while submitting to authority.  Why?  So that, no matter what, when people see us Citizens of the Kingdom of God, they are speechless except to give God glory for the good works done through us.

“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).

This is where Christians have so often shot ourselves in the foot.

Turn on the American news today, and what do you see?  People claiming – in the name of  Christ – to be persecuted by public health orders to stay home; Christians making headlines as pastors are ticketed and fined for endangering the lives of the vulnerable, many of whom don’t even have access to proper healthcare. 

Just imagine.

If we were serious – if we were serious about being holy as God is holy, if we were serious about God’s will being done on earth as it is in Heaven – then, if the world wanted to find a story about Christians, there would be nothing to report except God’s good works: churches reaching out to communities; churches delivering necessities; churches partnering with governments and shelters and community organizations to meet people’s needs; churches finding new and creative ways to reach out to seniors and those who are isolated, so that even at a time like this, we bear one another’s burdens and spread God’s light in the world around us.

Thy will be done. 

Just imagine what our church – just imagine what our community – would be like if, every single time someone drove or walked past this building, every time they saw the church posting on Facebook, every time they saw our posters in the stores, if every time they saw you, as a member of the Church, the only words they could find to say would be to praise God for his good works done through us.

That can happen.  God can do it.  And it would change this church forever as God drew people in to the light of his Word.  That’s God’s will.  And, for his will to be done in Fort Smith, as it is in Heaven, we need to be willing… to be holy, as He is holy.

Thy will be done… in Fort Smith, as it is in Heaven.

April 26, 2020 — Leave a comment

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

How often do we stop to think about what those words mean?

For so many of us, the Lord’s Prayer was one of the first things we learned as children (and for good reason, too: they’re the very words that our Lord gave us in his lesson on prayer!).  Those words are a part of every worship gathering of our churches, when we raise our voices as one to claim God as Our Father because we have been adopted as sons and daughters in baptism.  They’re comforting words – words we can turn to, words Jesus gave us, for every situation, and especially those times when we just can’t find the words to say.

But how often do we stop to think about what those words mean?

Over the next few weeks, our Sunday readings bring us through St. Peter’s first epistle, a letter in which he instructs Christians on how we should live in the world around us.  Far from simply calling us to “be good” and “do unto others…”, what we find there is much more profound; a much higher calling.  We’re called not just be ‘good’.  No, we’re to be holy.  Why?  Well, precisely because we are those who call God our Father; every time we say those words we are boldly claiming that we – you and me – have been made members of that royal family, and if God is our Father, than we are claiming to be nothing short of heirs of the eternal kingdom of God.  A kingdom built not on kindness and good manners, but holiness; “holy”, meaning that which is set apart from worldly use.

For St. Peter, and for the Church reading God’s Word in this season of Resurrection, this is where our faith comes down to brass tacks, this is where the rubber meets the road. If we say Christ is risen, if we say we’re sons and daughters of God, if we say Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us until his kingdom is revealed, then we have to put our money where our mouth is and live as those who are holy, as those preparing for that future glory as we learn by imitation to follow in our Lord’s steps.

Living as Citizens of the Kingdom

First and foremost, we must realize that, for all the good things in the world around us: for the beauty of the earth; for family, friends, and neighbours; for all the progress we have made in the past centuries towards a society built on freedom and justice, as proud as we should be for the ways that we help each other out, carry each other’s burdens, and make the world a little bit better by our efforts, we must realize that human effort will never be good enough to make the world as it ought to be; as we said on Easter Day, if there was any other way to restore our relationship with God and one another, then the Death and Resurrection of Jesus is completely unnecessary.  But there is no other way for that which is perishable – for bodies that cripple and wrinkle and seize up, and for minds that store up guilt, shame, and regret – to be re-made for eternal life.  No human effort can do that.

As we said last week, with doubting Thomas reaching into our Lord’s side, as we said at our Bible Class on Tuesday, the Gospel writers go to great lengths to make the point that Jesus rose in his body, that this is no spiritual experience or philosophy, but that Christ is the first fruits of a new crop; a crop that is imperishable.

And that’s important.  No amount of happy thoughts, positivity, or wishful thinking can turn that which is perishable into something non-perishable. 

A Food Bank analogy…

And, to be clear, this isn’t a lofty religious idea.  Here’s an example a bit more down-to-earth:

I can be the most generous person alive, the most giving; I can want with all my mind to make the world around me a better place… but, very practically, no amount of positive thinking makes bananas or fresh, ripe tomatoes good gifts for the food bank.  No amount of good will or generosity or positive thinking can change the perishable into non-perishable. 

No, what it takes is a complete change. 

Take a tomato, for example.

Tomatoes are great.  They’re versatile.  They’re full of great nutrients.  But, they’re perishable.  They bruise, then they rot, then they decay. 

And in spite of how great they are when they’re fresh, not only is a tomato a bad food bank gift… it’s actually harmful.  It rots, it spreads that decay to whatever is around it, and then it spawns mold that spreads.

If only there were a way to make tomatoes imperishable…

What’s required is for the very nature of the thing to change.  And, as a start, for the tomato to last, the first thing that happens is that it is cut down; it dies.  But in that dying, as the tomato is buried in the darkness of a pot and meets the source of heat and energy, the fresh tomato is transformed, and suddenly, put into a can, you have one of the best non-perishable foods you can buy: suddenly, that tomato is made into something that can last, not just a week in your fridge, but it is something that can be stored until, at the right time, it shares health and life with those around it.

And, of course, we don’t want to push our tomato analogy too far, but for us mortal, perishable people to share eternity, it requires us to be changed, to be made imperishable, a process which begins as we share in the death and resurrection of Jesus in baptism.

But that process doesn’t end there.  That process requires us to be set apart, to be holy. 

Now, holiness is an idea that often gets skewed.  It seems every few generations someone starts a new “holiness movement”, which, all too often, turns into a competition to see how good you are at keeping a law: whether it’s being a teetotaler, or in the old days, not dancing or chewing tobacco, or, perhaps in our own day, when it becomes about mindfulness and healthy living – none of which are bad, in and of themselves.

But, when Peter writes of holiness, he has a bigger idea in mind.

For Peter, holiness is about living here and now as those who know will share in the eternal life of God.  Or, as we read today, do not be conformed to the ways of the perishing world, but be set apart.  We’ve been picked up out of the spreading rot and decay of the perishable world, and washed clean, and are now called to live as the sons and daughters we are.

So Peter tells us, “live in reverent fear during this time of exile”.  Not fear as in being afraid, but the reverent fear of respecting the one in authority and knowing that actions have consequences; the reverent fear of longing to hear “well done, my good and faithful servant”.

St. Peter tells the Church to live now as we will live in Heaven.

Big Ideas

…thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Fort Smith as it is in Heaven.

In those familiar words, given to us my Jesus, we’re taught two big, bold ideas right in that one line. 

Thy Kingdom come.  The Kingdom of God isn’t here – yet.  But, with Jesus, we’re to long for that day when our faith will be sight.  Our faith is not in some far-off land of bliss, but as the Bible teaches, our faith is that God will restore that which has been broken, and those who trust in Him will share his imperishable life in a world where rot and rust and decay are done away, where sighing and tears are no more. 

That’s what we pray God will do.

But, bigger yet, we pray that, in the meantime, thy will be done, here, as it is in glory. 

That God’s will would be done here, where we are.

Of course, if God is who we believe him to be, we don’t have to wonder about his will as it is in Heaven: he’s revealed it for us in scripture, in great detail, about what the world will be like when his gracious, loving will, rather than our selfish wills are in charge. 

But, think about it: if he’s our Father, if we’re the heirs to his Kingdom, and our Lord taught us to pray that God’s will – the way of life in the Kingdom – would be found here and now, then what are we asking for? 

Are we asking for God to do something?

Or, are we really asking for God to assist us as we live as sons and daughters, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, even while we’re here, right now.  God’s will is being done in Heaven… for Our Father’s will to be done here, we’re asking for us to have the grace to be willing to live as those being prepared for eternity, and to live that way starting now.

Over the next 4 weeks, our lessons being us to explore this idea: how does St. Peter envision us being holy, as those already on the path to eternal life through baptism and the life of faith.  How do we let God’s will be done on earth, in a world where we’re subject to governments and employers, in a world whose economy and priorities doesn’t share God’s values, and in an age where it can cost us dearly when those Kingdom values don’t line up with whatever ideas are trending in our world this week.

Thy will be done… right here, as it is in heaven.

Well, what’s the first step? 
Be holy, as Our Father is holy.  Amen.

Who needs a Resurrection?

April 19, 2020 — Leave a comment

By God’s great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

As our Easter celebration continues through the 50 days of the Easter Season, today’s lessons give us an opportunity to reflect once more on what it means that our Lord – the Son of God who shared a human body just like ours – would rise from the dead, something, admittedly, very unlike how we have come to expect bodies to act.

After all, even the Lord’s closest companions, those who heard his teachings and saw his mighty works throughout his earthly ministry were shocked on that first Easter day.  Now, they had heard him speak first hand about his death and his promise to rise again; they had heard him speak about the temple – the dwelling place of God on earth – being destroyed and rebuilt in 3 days; they had heard him speak of the deliverance that comes for those who die to self and rise again in the waters of baptism… but even they, conditioned by every other human death ever experienced, walked sorrowing to the tomb to mourn, expecting a lifeless body in a sealed tomb.

And today, of course, we heard that gruesome, even embarrassing account of St. Thomas, that great missionary who took the Gospel East to India, who died for his faith in the Summer of the year 72, who was so shocked at the reports of his 10 closest friends that he demanded to reach out and stick his hand into the gaping wound in Jesus’ side before he would believe that the Son of God had risen from the grave. 

No, even for Jesus’ closest disciples, 1st century Jews who believed that bodies would one day be raised to new life, the empty tomb and the resurrected Lord were far from what their human experience would have led them to expect.

After all, if all the millions of bodies, all the billions who have died in human history stay dead, then what are the chances?  Why should this one body be any different? 

A Resurrected Body: Slim Odds.

Unless, of course, that’s the point.

Researchers tell us that, since about 50,000 BC, there have been 108 billion humans.[1]  If any one of those could have overcome that original sin, that original pride which caused us to miss the mark and land in the dust of the grave rather than in eternity sharing God’s endless life, then none of the events of Holy Week would have been necessary.  If there was any other way that we could overcome the grave, then the willing sacrifice of an innocent son is nothing short of horrific.  Or, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if any other religion offers a solution to death and the grave; if any other philosophy or moral code can actually work, then a loving Father accepting the sacrifice of an innocent Son in order to adopt the guilty as sons and daughters is a horrific thought… that is, unless this 1 was different; unless we believe what we say and sing: that he only could unlock the gate and let us in.

Yes, when we stop to think about it – as we should from time to time – the glory, the Good News that we proclaim in Easter is that something unique happened in that body in which our flesh was joined to God.

Yes, the odds of a body being resurrected are 108 billion to 1. 

But, if we’re true to scripture read through the lenses of faithful tradition and God-given reason, that’s the point: Jesus is the first-fruits of something new; a new creation, the first new shoot springing up from that old stump, onto which we will be grafted if we choose to follow him.  1 in a billion or 1 in a hundred billion is all you need if that one is a new solution, a model, a prototype of what is to come.

And, at the same time, if 108 billion to 1 sound like slim odds for Easter, it’s worth remembering the faith that even modern science asks us to accept.  Secular scientists using the Drake equation tell us that the chances of intelligent life evolving on earth are about 40 trillion to 1, yet none of us doubt that we’re here, in spite of those far slimmer odds.   

No, bodies don’t usually rise from the dead, but it only takes one to chart a new course.  It only takes one tiny spark to ignite a wildfire, and in spite of the destruction a fire brings, it’s new life that springs on the other side.

What does it matter?

Jesus’ resurrection – his body not just resuscitated, but transformed and prepared for eternity – matters precisely because our faith proclaims that he is the firstfruits of a new crop: a branch onto which we have been grafted, joining our flesh to God’s endless life.

It matters, in short, because as we read this morning, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead is our living hope. Our faith is not in good wishes for a better tomorrow, our faith is not that we can make ourselves better people and do some good in the world; our faith is that we have been made heirs to an inheritance, that we will receive life that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading – a life being kept, stored up with God until it is ready to be revealed at the last.[2]

For too long, churches have avoided the topic of resurrection precisely because of the slim odds.  The resurrection of a body isn’t something we see.  And certainly even the Gospels record quite candidly the astonishment of even the most faithful followers.

But if we leave out the resurrection, if we leave out that unique example of Christ as the prototype of God’s future plans, then we’re left without an answer for the hope that is in us, and perhaps even more importantly, we’re left without anything coherent to say about what happens when we die.

For many faithful churchgoers, we’ve come to a point where the most we can say about the death of even the most faithful Christian is, “well, they’re in a better place”.

But the Resurrection tells us that our faith isn’t about disembodied bliss enjoyed in the clouds; in fact, in spite of some of the familiar revival songs of the 1900s and the sentimental poems of sympathy cards, the Bible and even the Creeds are quite clear that Heaven is not our goal.  We don’t follow Jesus so we can “go to Heaven” when we die.

Rather, as Holy Week and Easter remind us, Jesus promises that those who ask for mercy will wait with him in Paradise, will wait in the many lodging places made ready in the Father’s house until that time when death and the grave are finally defeated, and as one generation passes to the next, we receive our inheritance of resurrected life as we, made like Christ, share in his reign over the new Creation, just as we were intended to have dominion over this world before we turned on God and each other.  

We believe in the resurrection of the body – that, as a totally unique event, Jesus returned from the grave with a body unlike any other – a body that bears the marks of suffering, the marks of obedience that make us who we are, but a body that does not tire, does not grow weary, that does not fight against our appetites or our will, and that is made like Him. 

In Easter we proclaim that, though we wear out, though we break down, though accidents and diseases happen, we do not fear the grave because we’ve seen the prototype, we’ve seen the revised plans for what we will be on the other side.

Or, as we read: “though you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see Jesus now, you believe in him and rejoice … for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls”.[3]

Souls created to inhabit bodies; bodies that are re-formed, purified, and strengthened as iron refined in a fire,[4] made ready not to play harps on the clouds, but to live, love, and serve in the perfect City of God, the New Jerusalem that is to come.  Bodies no longer of dust, but clothed with immortality, over which the grave has no power,[5] as the gates that were powerless against the Lord of Life are unable to hold those who share in that risen life by God’s mercy and grace.

Yes, the apostles would agree, resurrection is shocking!  But every great revolution starts somewhere, and every world-changing creation seems downright impossible at the start.

But, in spite of the odds, let’s be clear.  This is our faith: Christ rose, so we will rise;  Christ rose in his body, so we will rise in our bodies; Christ’s flesh, born of a woman, was clothed with immortality, as our feeble bodies will be remade imperishable; and in the meantime, the jaws of death being broken, he has prepared for us a place to wait, longing for that day[6] when we will reign with him as sons and daughters of the King.

This is our faith.

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen.

The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia.

[1] https://www.prb.org/howmanypeoplehaveeverlivedonearth/

[2] 1 Peter 1:3-5

[3] 1 Peter 3:8-9

[4] Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 18:18

[5] 1 Cor 15:50-54

[6] That is, we can at least say that the martyrs await with longing rather than patiently or without a sense of time; there are differences of opinion as to whether martyros here refers to only those who died, or all “witnesses” whose blood was ultimately shed as the result of sin. 

Death is Conquered

April 12, 2020 — Leave a comment

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!!  The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Yes, today is the day that we proclaim that even in a pandemic, even when things are not at all as we would want them to be, the truth remains: God loved the world so much that He sent His Son to die for us; and rising triumphantly from the grave, trampling down death by death, breaking the curse of our disobedience, and conquering the enemy, he opened the path for us to share in his eternal life.

…And this pandemic certainly has a way of putting things in perspective.

Yes, we’re getting tired of being cooped up.  Yes, we miss the pool, and the library, and the rink.  Yes, we miss dropping in on our neighbours.  Yes, we can’t wait for school to open again (and, if you’re trying to work from home with young kids, yes, we have a new appreciation for our teachers!).

Yes, some of us here today are anxious – those with weakened bodies who would suffer greatly if someone not following the rules brought this invisible enemy to your home.

Yes, some of us here today are grieving – and the pain of grief is real – as plans we had made: vacations, parties, dinner with grandparents and grandkids; and bigger plans like weddings, baby showers, and even funerals are cancelled, as we are confronted in a harsh way with the reality that so much, so much, is beyond our control.

Yet, the pandemic has a way of putting things in perspective. 

Sure, Easter is a time for turkey dinners with family.  Sure, it’s a time to buy flowers and send cards and celebrate eating a month’s worth of chocolate in a single morning.  Sure, it’s a time to celebrate the hope of new life and new beginnings.

But, at a time like this, the message of Easter becomes so much more focused: there is light shining in the darkness; and though the darkness is vast, though the light at times is hidden from view, we know that the darkness cannot and will not overcome the light, that light that enlightens all of us, whether or not we’re able to realize it, as times like these remind us all too well that, in spite of our plans, we’re not all powerful; we’re created.  We’re part of God’s grand design, and every day, every breath is a gift: as we’re reminded that we’re powerless even to plan our next vacation, let alone chart our own path for the future.

It’s about Relationship

You see, we were created for relationship.

We believe, our faith handed down from generation to generation tells us that, from before time began, the love – the life – of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was so great, so overflowing, that God called into being everything that is, He Created you and me, so that we could share in the eternal life of their relationship. 

That’s why we’re here.  That’s why we’re all here – because God wants to share his overflowing life with us in relationship with Him.

But, in that relationship, we children were unwilling to acknowledge the wisdom of our Father.  For us, even one simple rule made for our protection was too much for us.  From the beginning, we wanted to pretend that we’re the masters of our own destiny – that we’re the ones in control, that we’re the ones who make the plans and chart our own course.

…and it’s times like these that remind us just how little control we have.

But the Good News is that, while this world continues to ripple with the consequences of that disobedience, and every selfish, greedy, and prideful action since, Easter isn’t about flowers, chocolate, and bunnies.  Easter isn’t about hoping that we can try harder and maybe do better with a fresh start. 

Easter isn’t even about thinking fondly about an empty tomb in a far away place long ago.

Of course God, the source of life, rose from the dead.  That’s the easy part.  How could the source of life not rise?

No, the Good News of Easter is that God’s desire, God’s Will to share his unending life with his creation is so great that He would come as one of us to fix that one, ultimate reminder that we’re not in control: Death.  Death is that final proof that we’re not in charge.

But God wants to share his life with us so much that He was willingly swallowed by the jaws of death.  But as the grave closed around him, as darkness closed in as it would on any man, the source of life was revealed, the unquenchable light of life shone forth and broke the system.  The gates fell down, the chains fell off, and all those who died saw that death isn’t in control either.  As the Light of Life stood in the grave, there was a new option, a new path that we couldn’t forge by themselves: if we wanted, we could let those chains fall and follow God Himself on the path to life.

And, to do so, there was only one condition: we have to acknowledge that we were made to be in relationship with God.  We have to acknowledge, in the face of consequences beyond our control, in the face of consequences because of the actions of others, in the face of death itself, that He’s God, and we’re not; that God’s the Father, and if we share in Christ’s death by baptism, and follow with lives of repentance on that new path, then we will be sons and daughters, living in relationship, realizing that everything we have, all our strength and health, all that we work for, is dependant on his goodness toward us, and seeing that even the darkness of the grave is not a threat, but is the means through which our relationship with our Father is restored.

Even in dark times like this, because of this day we can stare the darkness in the face, and we can boldly proclaim the truth:

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Death took a body, and met God face to face.
Death took earth, and encountered Heaven.

Christ is risen, and Hell is overthrown!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages.[1]

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

[1] Adapted from the Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom

The Glory of the Cross

April 10, 2020 — Leave a comment

Faithful cross, above all other
one and only noble tree.

Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
sweetest weight is hung on thee.

Today, on this most solemn of days, the Cross of Christ confronts us.

All that we, the Church, have done and said in the year past.  All that we will do and say in the days to come, are confronted by this gruesome reality that is set before us.

On this day, all that we say and believe about truth, justice, love, and mercy; all that we teach and tell ourselves about salvation, forgiveness, and our own unworthiness is put to the test, weighed in the balance, as we, in just a few moments, are asked to gaze upon the bruised, bloodied, and beaten frame of the innocent Son of God, hung to die a slow and agonizing death by no fault of his own; a fact only made worse when we come to the harsh realization that it wasn’t the voice of a far-off people in a distant land long ago who shouted “crucify him”, but that those words, that sentence of death, comes from our very lips.

All of our philosophies; all of our theology; all of our opinions about this life and the life to come; all of our understandings about who God is and what the true shape of love, mercy, and justice looks like are confronted today with the Cross.

And, as we are confronted, we hear the message that there is simply no other way that we could be forgiven; that there is simply no other way that we could make ourselves good enough to pay the price for our disobedience and pride.

And so, as we reflect this day on what we believe, on how we live our lives, on how well we have or have not lived out our great commission to bring the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ to our neighbours and the ends of the earth, Christ looks at us from the Cross, Christ pleads with us, that we would accept, that we would embrace what God the Father has already and eternally accepted: that one, perfect offering and oblation of himself, the gruesome image of an innocent man, abandoned, mocked, and left alone to die, not in any way as a display of God’s wrath, but as a earth-shattering display of just how broken, just how dead we had been.

No other way.

For, as we hear in the Garden last night, everything – all that we believe, all that we are – hinges on the events of this day. 

We heard the voice of Christ: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”.

And today, we see the response: “there is no other way”.

Of course, it’s not as though our Lord had any doubts; it’s not as though the voice of God was silent, somehow absent as Christ prayed and was then betrayed to be crucified. 

No, there was no loud voice from heaven; there was no thunder, Jesus needs no voice from heaven to know the will of the Father.  The voice, he said, was only for our sake, that we might know that he is the only and beloved Son.

“if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”

Jesus spoke those words in the Garden not for his sake, but for ours.  That we would know, inescapably, that there was no other way.

And it’s that eternal truth, not just the image of a dying man, which confronts us. 

The Sacrificial Lamb

This death, this sacrifice, is no accident.  This is no afterthought.

This offering of the perfect lamb without blemish; this offering of the warm blood of the perfect man, dripping over wood and iron, sprinkled down onto no less of an altar than the earth itself, was the plan from the foundation of the world, that as God deigned to give us the will and the grace to choose him, so God first loved us so much, that the divine word through whom all things were made would empty himself of all but love, and bleed for Adam’s helpless race.

Even today, when in a few moments we come to venerate the Cross of Christ, we hear the voice of our Lord calling to us from the Cross.

You see, God the Father accepted his perfect offering.

Yet, in spite of God’s acceptance, so often, it is we who deny Christ’s offering.

It is we – not the Father – who, holding on to our shame, turn our face away.

It is we who boast in our righteousness, who boast in our baptism, yet so easily shy away from, or even reject, the very sacrifice that makes our righteousness, that makes our sharing in the resurrection of Christ possible.

There is no other way for man to be reconciled to God but through the cross.

There can be no mercy, no love, no justice, no peace; there can be no human effort that can restore that which is broken, apart from the Cross of Christ.

Follow me.

And, He says, if you would be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me.

And, my friends, it is important that we get that right.

So often, we think of our crosses as the daily struggles that we bear.  But, it’s this day that tells us differently.

Our crosses are not our trials and temptations.

Our cross cannot be – and we cannot allow it to be – sins and griefs to bear.  He, Christ, bore our griefs and sorrows, he, Christ, bore our sins in his body unto death, when, with his perfect offering, death itself became the victim, and the grave lost its victory.


So, then, what does it mean to take up your cross?

The Cross is no mere annoyance. 

The Cross is no self-pitying sorrow.

The Cross of Christ in which we glory, the Cross which we are called to bear if we are to be his disciples, is nothing short of total and unavoidable paradox, total contradiction in the eyes of he world.

It is that life-giving reality that demands that we first give up our very lives.

It is that paradox that demands that we give up what we have come to believe about ourselves, so that, in dying to our own perceptions, we find out who we really are, and what we are meant to be.

The Cross in which we glory is nothing less than rough wood and cold iron, on which was hung the very Word of God – the Word which, when spoken, cause that wood, and that iron, and caused all things to be.

The Cross in which we glory is none other than the place where the Righteous Judge of all Creation is sentenced unjustly by the unjust.

The Cross in which we glory is that horrific and almost incomprehensible place where the Light – the true light which enlightens every person, dies.  And, in dying, opens the door to eternal life.

It’s that cross that Christ tells you to take up if you truly want to be his disciple.

It’s that cross that demands my soul; the cross demands my life, and my all.

All I once held dear; all I’ve built my life upon, all that the world reveres – that is what the cross demands if we wish to truly follow Christ and be sharers in his glorified and resurrected body.

All that I am, all that I have; my very identity, all of my ambitions, hopes, and plans – those are what the cross demands this day.  That is the price of self-sacrificial love that imitates the King who came to serve, who humbled himself; the creator who became subject to the created, setting aside his glory so that death itself could be vanquished and we – though deserving of death – could live.

The scandal of the Cross

The glorious faith which we proclaim is nothing less than Christ crucified: yes, it’s foolishness to those who are perishing; yes, if we are trying to save ourselves, then it appears torturous, unnecessary, horrific, and unjust. 

But… it’s the only truth.

At the end of the day, when all the glories of God’s temple are stripped away, one thing remains: that Christ, from the foundation of the world, was willing to be sacrificed; that the Word of God which spoke the world into being was willing to take our flesh, and be scourged, mocked, and beaten, nailed to a tree, pierced through with a spear, and lifted up, that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, it is in confronting that bloodied, scarred reality of our sinfulness, in gazing upon, in drinking in the gruesome reality of the price which Christ paid, in believing in him, we may have eternal life.

This is love: to lay down your life for your friends, to love the world so much that Identity – even equality with God – is not something to be grasped.

This is mercy: that the servant was guilty, yet the Son was offered as ransom.

This is justice: that not our sin, nor our pride, nor our self-reliance; not the powers of darkness, nor even the grave itself would endure the righteousness of God’s plan of salvation from the foundation of the world.

…And, this is truth:

Lord, I am the guilty.  I brought this upon thee.  It was my treason.  I crucified thee.

And Lord, I believe: but help thou my unbelief.

For, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.  But, speak the word only, and my soul shall be healed.

Save us… from what?

April 5, 2020 — Leave a comment

All the events of Palm Sunday are wrapped up in one little word: “Hosanna”.

For ‘church’ people, it’s a familiar word: every time we celebrate communion we join our voices with angels and archangels to proclaim “holy, holy, holy … blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest!”

But as familiar as it is, what does “Hosanna” mean? 

What, exactly, were those crowds singing and shouting on that morning in Jerusalem so long ago?  And, what exactly do we proclaim when we, together with all Christians across time and space, join our voices with theirs?

One Little Word

On the one hand, the answer is simple, though it might change or even challenge how we’ve come to read and picture the Palm Sunday gospel.

First and foremost, “Hosanna” isn’t a shout of praise, or a shout of triumph for a parade through town.

No, “Hosanna” isn’t a shout of praise… it’s a plea.

The Hebrew word הושענא (hosanna), used throughout the Psalms, means “save us”.  “Please save us, we beseech you to save us; be our saviour; be our rescuer; please, please, be the one who saves us.”

As Jesus enters Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, riding humbly on a donkey in fulfilment of the sign given by the Prophets,[1] the crowd lines the street, coming out of houses and workrooms and marketplaces to shout “Save us, O Son of David”; “Be our saviour – please be the one who comes in the name of the Lord”; “Hosanna in the highest – please be the one to save us from on high”.

Save us.

The Palm Sunday scene in scripture isn’t a triumphant throng singing a victory chant: no, the scene is that of a longing, unfulfilled, anxious crowd trusting – hoping – that this Jesus is the one who will save them.

But as we join our voices in their plea for salvation, we have to ask: save us from what?

Save us from oppression.

The obvious answer for those people gathered to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem is oppression.  Save us from oppression.

As we know, the entire region was under Roman control, with heavy foreign taxes imposed, foreign soldiers in the streets to keep people in line, and constant political unrest as people and families were divided about the solution to their problems.

It’s this freedom from oppression that was front and centre in the minds of the crowd that day.  That crowd really was no different than ourselves – it’s part of our fallen human nature to focus on our own needs, on our own immediate situation rather than seeing the big picture, or how things will end up when the paths we’re on are stretched out across eternity.

They were thinking about the here and now.  They faced high taxes and low income.  Businesses were held hostage by high-interest loans from wealthy Romans, and the livelihood you worked a lifetime to build could be crushed by a single decision by a government hundreds of miles away.  Really, times haven’t changed that much, have they?

The crowd called out from freedom from this oppression: Hosanna, save us, Son of David, our earthly king.

But Jesus was more than they bargained for. 

As the anxious, unsettled, oppressed masses gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover – the annual celebration of God’s deliverance of his people, saving them from slavery through the waters of death – the oppression from which Jesus will deliver them on Good Friday goes much deeper than bank accounts, job security, and food on the table.

Yes, without a doubt, all of those matter, but the oppression that Jesus breaks is so much more.

Jesus enters Jerusalem not to fill their bellies or their pockets, not to break the yokes of an oppressive government, but to break the chains of death and hell: to untie, for those willing to let go, the weight, guilt, and shame of sin that weighs down our heads so that all we can see is the decay and squalor of this fallen world.

Jesus hears their plea, he saves them, not by magically wiping away the consequences of the greed and pride of the world around them, but, in the words of the Psalms, by being the one who lifts up our heads, who takes off the blinders, casts off the heavy yoke around our neck, and allows us to look heavenward, to see the big picture as it unfolds, to recognize the blessings of God at work around us, and to praise God for his salvation, as we, too, have been delivered from slavery to sin as we die to self in the waters of baptism.

Save us from oppression, they cry.  And he will.

Save us from false religion.

And, as we join our voices in that plea to save us, Jesus has even more in store.

As you read through your Bible this week from Matthew 21 onwards, you see the first thing Jesus does is walk into the temple and overturn the tables of the moneychangers: what we call the cleansing of the temple.

Again, Jesus gave them more than they bargained for.  He saves us from false religion.

There’s so much we could say here, but the one point I want to make is this: Jesus saves us from the many ways we find to give ourselves cheap and easy hope by trusting in things that cannot last. 

One of the proofs that we are made in God’s Image is that every person alive finds something to worship.  We worship our bank accounts, we worship science, we worship family, we worship our image, we worship relationships, we worship mindfulness and positive thinking.  But, as Jesus overturns the tables of the money-changers; as the holy curtain of the temple is ripped in two as Jesus dies, he shows us that no real and lasting hope is to be found while our heads and eyes remain weighed downward by shame and grief. 

No false idol on our level, no matter how good it makes us feel, can do for us what Jesus does when he is lifted up on that tree, and just as Moses lifted the snake in the wilderness, we must cast off our weight and look up if we’re to see His salvation.  Finding hope, finding something to hang our trust on in the world around us is like finding the most comfortable armchair on a sinking ship.  Lasting hope is found in the one who overcame death and the grave.  True religion isn’t made in our image; it’s found in the One in whose Image we were made.

Save us from Ourselves.

But the biggest surprise for that crowd on that first Palm Sunday was something they never saw coming.

“Save us, O Son of David”.  “Be the one who saves us from on high”.

Save us… from ourselves.

That’s the drama of this day.

The same crowd that cries for salvation is the crowd that cries “Crucify him”.

The Church, and you, and I, every time we gather, every time we share the Eucharist, every time we sing “Hosanna”, need to realize that we are the same crowd that shouts “Crucify”, that we are the ones who call for his death. We are the fickle crowd that is never satisfied, that is weighed down, chained down by our own sin to only see the decay around us.

“Save us”. 

And that’s the glory of this week. 

The King of Glory emptied himself, and took the form of a slave.
He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

He died to save us from ourselves.

He died that we might take his yoke that is easy and his burden that is light, and lift up our heads and see him on that awful tree, as we cry “Save us”, knowing full well that His love for us held Him there.

Save us from oppression.  Save us from false religion.  Lord Jesus, save us from ourselves.

And seeing him, seeing his love for us as by death he overcame death, as the grave loses its sting, and the gates of hell could not withstand the Lord of Life Himself: then, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of the Father.

Hosanna.  Save us.  Amen.

[1] Zechariah said the Messiah would come from the Mount of Olives near Bethphage (Zech. 14:1-11), and riding on a donkey (Zech. 9:9)

Can these bones live?

March 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

And they said to Jesus, “Lord, by now there is a strong stench”.
John 11:1-45

One of the blessings in worshipping in our tradition of Christianity is that, if preachers are attentive, we have incredible opportunities to let God speak through Scripture.

In some traditions, some denominations, part of the pastor’s task is to decide what passage will be read each week, praying that they’ll find lessons that will be encouraging, and edifying, and timely for their congregation – a challenging task for even the most gifted preachers.

Have you ever wondered where our set of Bible lessons come from?  The Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel we hear each week?  For us, as with most Anglicans and the majority of Christians around the world, the lessons come from the lectionary – the table of readings assigned years, even decades in advance. 

So that means, this Sunday, at a time when all of us need encouragement, when our economy is facing enormous struggles, in a week when CBC is reporting that over a million Canadians applied for EI, a week with reports of overflowing hospitals in the South and widespread anxiety about how long this pandemic will last, while part of me would love to open up my Bible to preach on the first encouraging verse that came to mind, instead – by God’s grace – we’re presented with the readings officially chosen for this day, way back in 1994.

Why bother, you might say… it’s not like whatever committee of men and women sitting in some conference room in the early 90s was choosing lessons for a pandemic 25 years later.  But that, I would say, is actually one of the great mysteries of God working through his Church by the Holy Spirit.  If those, in 1994, choosing the lessons for today in 2020 had prayed and invited God to guide their work, and were seeking to be faithful in providing for the Church; if those two or three or 15 gathered in Jesus’ Name had Christ there in their midst, and it goes without saying that God, in his infinite wisdom, though He didn’t plan this pandemic, was not at all caught by surprise, then maybe, just maybe, we were given today’s lessons for a reason.  And, in that case, preachers have a responsibility to prayerfully see what God may be saying through what He has guided the Church to read today, before simply (and selfishly) turning to the easy words of encouragement that I myself would like to hear.

…And, I must say, God has given us some great material.

Never in a thousand years would my mind have gone to the Valley of Dry Bones for a time like this.  Never in a thousand years would I have turned to that great Biblical affirmation in John 11 of just how awful a situation can be: “My Lord, there is an awful stench”.  In fact, this is one of those occasions where I wish we were reading the old King James Version: “Lord… by now he stinketh”. 

The Valley of Dry Bones

In Ezekiel’s vision, he sees himself in a dried-up valley, a valley where a once-mighty army, an army of God’s chosen people, lie knocked down in their prime.  This vast army is now picked clean, as the prophet sees in a dream this valley with dry, sun-bleached bones scattered everywhere.

The Lord says to Ezekiel: these are the bones of my people.  These are the remains of those who cried out “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost”. 

I don’t know about you, but I know there have been times for me this week, with all the disruption, all the adapting to a new and uncomfortable way of life, with all the uncertainty of not knowing how long this will last, of not knowing when my own relatives and friends who have been laid off will be called back, of not knowing the effects this will have on even the strongest businesses and charities; this week of those who struggle with addiction being tempted to turn back to the bottle or the pill or the ungodly website; this week of those who live with depression and anxiety being tempted to slide back under the covers; this week of realizing just how essential, just how utterly dependent we are on the truckers and the minimum-wage warehouse workers, stock clerks, and cashiers about whom we rarely stop to think; this week of hanging up the phone after hearing of another lay-off, another company struggling, and wondering where these billions of dollars of government money is going to come from when we already have a huge national deficit… this week of sitting in my chair, feeling… dried up; knowing that as much faith as I have in God, as much trust as I have in his never-failing mercy and love, the fact is that I sometimes feel as though my hope is lost.

I know, I really know, that God will sustain us, and everything that we really and truly need to be made like Jesus will be provided, but sometimes, to my limited, fallen mind, all I can see is the bones, not the new life that God has in store.

And the great news provided by God’s grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit for us to read today is that it’s ok to be honest, to feel that we’re in a valley of dry bones.  There’s nothing un-Christian, and there certainly isn’t any sin or shame in naming our anxiety and our confusion. 

There’s a shiny, glossy, half-true version of Christianity that would tell people to just think positively, to put their mind on Christ: the same ancient heresy, the lie that the body and its afflictions don’t matter, the lie that only the spirit matters, when we know, we believe, that God created us as body and soul joined together in one, and our faith is that, at the last day, not my spirit, but this body will be restored as we live not on a cloud, but in a renewed city: the new Jerusalem.

That half-truth to simply think on heavenly things does little to encourage those who have lost their jobs, or who face addiction or mental illness, or who are anxious because of things beyond our control – that half-truth falls flat because it simply isn’t of God: it’s un-Biblical, and it’s un-Christian.

No: God stood with the prophet Ezekiel in his dream, not of a pleasant pasture of happy thoughts, but in the very valley of death itself.  God showed Ezekiel death, and then asked him a simple question: “Tell me, can these bones live?”.

Can these bones live?

Faith doesn’t whisk us away from the anxiety, death, and decay of the world around us.  No, that’s not it’s purpose.  As we heard today in Romans, even though Christ is in us, the body is still subject to death because of the sin of the world.[1]  

But it’s faith that determines how we answer the question.

Can these bones live? 

Well, from my human perspective, looking at a pile of dry bones picked clean by vultures under the baking desert sun… I don’t see how.

But what did Ezekiel say? 

I find this so encouraging: he didn’t say, “oh yes, of course they can!  You’ll bring them back to life and all will be fine and dandy.”

No, the great prophet offered the most faithful answer I can imagine.  “Lord… only you know”.

That’s faith. 

Not pretending that we have easy answers when we don’t. 

Not relying on glossy half-truths that lead us to ignore the suffering of those around us.

“Can these bones live?”

The response is a perfectly confident, a perfectly faithful, yet a perfectly simple: “God knows”.

God will restore his creation; God will restore his people.  The Lord will do it.  How will it look?  When will it happen?  Will we be spared the learning opportunities of wandering in the desert, or austerity, or depending on one-another rather than our own strength?  I don’t know.  You don’t know.  But God knows. 

And his wisdom, his understanding far surpasses all that you or I can ask or imagine.  A wisdom so great, so over-arching, so focused on his offer of eternal life with Him, that it looks like foolishness to those who are perishing, as his power is made perfect not in strength, but in weakness. 

Human weakness that Jesus came not to eliminate in this world, but to share.

The Death of Lazarus

In John 11, Jesus came to the home of his dear friend, Lazarus, who became sick and died.  He got there, and the whole neighbourhood was gathered for mourning.  Mary and Martha were there, with friends and neighbours bringing over food, sharing memories, and weeping together at the death of their brother.

Then Jesus came. 

He didn’t break in singing and dancing.  He didn’t admonish them for their little faith or tell them to look at the big picture, or tell them to think positively about heavenly things.  He came along side those who were weeping, and what did he do?  He wept.  He acknowledged, he understood, he came along-side the very real grief, confusion, and even despair that they were feeling, and entered into it with them: he shared their burden as the tears flowed down his holy cheeks.

But, in the midst of that despair, comes the question of faith.  Can these bones live?

The Lord himself comes to the tomb, and after sharing in their grief, says: open it up.  Open the tomb.

As I read this, I can hear the gasps of those gathered. 

No, we don’t open it.   He’s dead.  Look around, we’re in a cemetery – a valley of dry bones.  “Lord… he’s been in there four days.  Don’t you know, Lord, what happens to a body after four days?  Lord, we don’t re-open tombs.  Lord… this stinks.  Lord, he stinketh.  This is literally a rotten situation.

…Can these bones live?

Well, God knows. 

Jesus said to Martha, “your brother will rise again”.  She said, “oh yes, I know he will rise again at the last day when all the dead are raised for judgment… and, if only you had been here before it was too late, you could have healed him before he died”.

But, the answer of faith is: no matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how dried out the bones, no matter how strong the stench, no matter how bad the rot, no matter how bad things look from our perspective, no matter how unlikely or illogical it may seem, God knows what He will do, God knows how he will reveal his glory so that we and all the world may believe on his holy name and worship him in spirit and in truth.

And then, standing in the midst of the truly unimaginable stench of death and decay, Jesus says, “Lazarus – come out!”. 

And those who had done the right thing, those who were consoling their neighbours, those who had prepared the body, binding it with linen strips, find now that the right answer is always “only God knows”.  For with God, all things are possible.

A Word to the Church

Together with the anxiety and confusion of the past weeks, the real hardship being experienced by so many, I see another set of dry bones.

How much has the Church looked like a pile of bones, picked clean, baked by the scorching sun?  How much has the Church said, “our strength is dried up; our hope is gone”.

Just months ago, our own national office predicted the extinction of the Anglican Church of Canada by the year 2040.  Attendance is down, expenses are up; the volunteers are grey-headed.  In many ways, as a young priest, across much of the Church, it looks as if we’ve already begun to prepare the body for burial.

But… can these bones live?

Maybe, just maybe, after generations of congregations everywhere retreating inside our buildings, in many cases, rolling the stone over the door, knowing this isn’t a place many people would really want to come; after decades of binding ourselves with the burial shroud of “business as usual”, the traditional refrain of “what we’ve always done”, perhaps now, as our buildings are locked and business as usual is forbidden, perhaps we’re the ones in the tomb.

What if, in the midst of all that is happening, Jesus is standing outside, calling, crying out with a loud voice through the stench of staleness and decay, “Church, come out!”

Unbind the burial cloths of business as usual, and breathe in the fresh air, not of the decaying world around us, but the breath of God, the same breath that breathed over creation, the same Spirit who speaks in the unfailing, unchanging words of Scripture, the same Spirit who sends us out of the stale tomb where the body has been bound, and out into a world that needs to hear that peace springs from hope, and hope doesn’t come from having all the answers… hope comes from trust in the One who has the answers, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

Can these bones live?

God knows.  Let’s unbind ourselves and find out.

[1] Romans 8:6-11