Third D.Min Project Sermon
Nehemiah 8All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. 2Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. 3He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. 5And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 8So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.9And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 10Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” 11So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” 12And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. By now many of you will have heard the legend of the Quarter Chicken White. According to this unfolding legend, Dr. Bill Kervin, Professor of Public Worship at Emmanuel College journeyed to Birchcliff Bluffs to offer advice on the renovation and in particular the design of the chancel. Our humble building committee had reached the edge of their expertise in the area of chancel design and decided to call in an expert. The legend of the Quarter Chicken White (his consulting fee) was born.
Recently I have been struck by the unusual circumstance of having to introduce you to your church. As one of the planners, I knew that there would be moments, especially early on, when I would have to explain or describe something that was happening behind the “big tarp” that separated us from the ongoing work. I knew that there were a thousand details considered at some point in the last year that would provoke questions. What I wasn't expecting was the odd sensation of being a relative newcomer in your midst, and yet someone called upon to interpret or explain the renewed space. For example:
One of Dr. Kervin's key suggestions, one that we are trying to live out week by week, is a more intentional relationship between the worship space and the worship service. He argued that it was critical to expand the front of the chancel, even a little, in such a way that it entered the space normally occupied by the congregation and thereby “inviting you in” to the chancel space. He suggested the gentle curve.
Furthermore, he said, it is important whenever possible to focus the attention of the congregation on three essential elements of worship: font, table and lectern. As a baptized and baptizing community, as guests at the Lord's table, and a people “of the Word,” these three objects help define who we are and how we imagine ourselves in the context of worship. Clearly they do not have to live in these exact spots, but the good doctor encouraged us to keep them visible during worship, as a tangible reminder of our life together.
It is the last of these three objects that I want to focus on today, the place where scripture is read, where anxious preachers practice their “pulpit grip” and the Word of God is proclaimed. I want to look at a couple of questions today, little questions with big answers, namely “why preach?” and for the congregation, “why listen.” If your neighbour just turned to you with a puzzled look, the last question was “why listen?”
***
They read from the book of the law of God clearly, and made its sense plain and gave instruction in what was read. (v. 8, NEB)What sounds rather commonplace was in fact a revolution. What sounds familiar to our ears was the beginning of a relationship that has continued for twenty-five centuries. It was the beginning of the relationship between the Bible read and the Bible interpreted. It was the beginning of preaching.
The people re-inhabited the holy city. Returned from Babylon, the people set about to reconstruct the city walls and reconstruct the faith of their mothers and fathers in Jerusalem. During the long years of exile they remembered Zion, they codified their religious texts and longed for return. Now, wish fulfilled, they were left with the task of actually living in the place they longed for. It was not as simple as it sounds. The return to Jerusalem meant that the people would need to transition somehow from longing to living. They would need to approach scripture in the context of a new Zion: a city of possibility and a city in search of new meaning.
Ezra and his peers were doing more that day than simply translating the Bible from Hebrew to the language of the people, Aramaic. They were making sense of the reading, they were adding a layer of meaning, they were making “the sense plain.” There was actually a three-step process here: translation, interpretation and instruction. It required all three.
***
One of my faithful co-travelers on this educational journey said “instruction [means] to be open to the Word.” It means to be open to the life-changing possibilities that lie hidden in the text. Walter Brueggemann said “The text heard and interpreted offers the community a particular identity and vocation in the world.”* See the movement from the general to the particular: an interpreted text has a context in the lives of the people. People are given the opportunity to see themselves in the text, to find meaning, and then translate that meaning into something concrete in the world.
O, if it were that easy. Brueggemann, always one for a good quote, has another answer to the question “why preach?” He says it is the task of the preacher to “paint the kingdom of God so beautifully that the congregation can inhabit it all week long." No pressure there, Walter. Perhaps it's time to move on to “why listen?”
***
One of the things I hope to explore a little more during my return to school is the difference between preaching and teaching. When are they synonymous? When does one aid the other? When does one get in the way of the other? Imagine my delight in finding a single volume that seems to answer these questions along with many others. Kieran Egan writes “education...is a process that awakens individuals to a kind of thought that enables them to imagine conditions other than those that exist or than have existed.”** Sounds a bit like entering a painting of the Kingdom that you can inhabit all week long. And it also sounds like trying to live in a rebuilt city with new freedom. And it sounds like our new home. The link that binds them is imagination.
It takes imagination to leave one world and inhabit another. It takes imagination to translate text into treasure. It takes imagination to be released from former ways of living and being and enter a new place. It takes imagination see the world as it ought to be, as God sees it, and to make it so.
Listening generates imagination, and imagination is a dangerous force that can never be contained. Imagine the world as the Bible demands it and it preaches itself. Hear the Word proclaimed and the runaway power of the text cannot be stopped.
Here we are, before font, table and lectern: by our baptism we were raised to new life in Christ, refreshed at his table we find courage to be his disciples, and in the Word enter his Kingdom and make it our own. Imaginations soar and we stand with those returned from exile as it said:
And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions [to the poor] and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.*Reverberations, p. 219
**Imagination in Teaching and Learning, p. 47
Wondercafe Presentation 2
Here is the link. The file is quite large (10 meg). I had to convert it to .pdf in order to reduce it from the original 24 meg. Thanks for attending workshop 2!
mk
wondercafe2.pdf
Second Sunday after Epiphany
John 2On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. If you are like me, you love to search for deeper meaning. Everything is subject to interpretation. Beneath every seemingly ordinary circumstance lurks some alternate way to understand. Maybe it's a quirk of human behaviour. Perhaps it's a recurring habit that points to something else.
Imagine someone that is quite taken with Sudoku. Day by day he wrestles with these complex little puzzles, with their array of blocks, and the disarmingly simple instruction “each three by three box, each row and each column all contain the numbers one to nine.” Imagine folded newspapers and Sudoku books strewn about the house, puzzles complete and incomplete, usually in degrees of difficulty ranging from simple to “diabolical.” Perhaps this same person has noted the fact that diabolical, meaning “of the devil” is the most apt way to describe the grip these little puzzles can have on a person.
Perhaps the deeper meaning is trying to create order in a sea of disorder. Or revealing the order that exists under the impression of disorder. Or the satisfaction of finding the simple amid the seemingly complex. Or avoiding household chores. Or proving to a cheeky 15 year-old that the old man is still mentally agile (and faster at Sudoku).
Or maybe there is no deeper meaning at all, save that fact that it would be wasteful to allow these little puzzles that arrive in the paper each day to pass by. Whatever is truly happening for this hypothetical person, the whole situation points of a quest for meaning, and the ongoing human desire to find meaning in even the most simple activities.
***
Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” [So] Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.”Sometimes we read and the meaning is obvious. Sometimes we read and the meaning can be easily discerned. Sometimes we read and we admit to ourselves that the meaning is largely hidden and it will take skilled interpreters to reveal the meaning. Sometimes the same passage can be all three.
Such is the domain of allegory: literal meaning points to a more complex layer of meaning that may not be readily obvious. George Orwell's book “Animal Farm” is a delightful children's story about a group of animals who take over a farm and try to run the place on their own. “Animal Farm” is also a detailed allegory representing the history of the first 30 years of the Soviet Union. It is a book that any 10 year-old will enjoy, but a book that few 10 year-olds would read and say “this character, 'Old Major,' he must represent Vladimir Lenin.”
***
It is a kind of scholars' rite of passage to write a commentary on John's Gospel. That is why they number in the hundreds. New Testament scholars will inevitably lend their voice to the choir of voices trying to find meaning in the signs presented throughout John. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the variety of interpretations and forget the very intuitive act of reading and trying to understand the story.
Some argue that the water represents the end of Jewish purification rituals, rendered null and void by the first sign of water into wine. Some interpreters highlight Mary in the story, and name her the 'new Eve,' or a representation of the church. The wedding becomes the advent of a new era in Israel's history, with God as the bridegroom and the church as the bride. The water is baptism, the wine is communion, and the meaning-making goes on and on. Even the biblical literalists get in on it, arguing that any passage that portrays Jesus as a wine maker must be symbolic and not literal.
***
“Sometimes,” Freud said, “a cigar is just a cigar.” In other words, we sometimes get so caught up looking for symbolic meaning that we neglect to enjoy the story (or the cigar) in front of us. Imagine Jesus goes to a party and people are having such a good time that the wine runs out. The LCBO is closed (of course) and Mary (well aware of her son's unusual relationship with the physical world) asks him to fix the problem. As with any loving mother-son relationship, he gives her a hard time, and says “my hour has not come.” She ignores him (another feature of their relationship) and tells the servants to follow his directions. Water becomes wine and the party continues. As a clever end to the story the caterer stops by and says “why serve these drunks the good wine now, isn't it wasted on them?” It's easy to imagine wide grins on the faces of mother and son.
At some point we stopped enjoying scripture and became far too serious. Grim-faced interpreters don't laugh when Jonah gets eaten by a whale or wee Zacchaeus climbs a tree to get a better look. We forget to read joy into a joyous occasion such as the wedding at Cana and instead burden the text with all sorts of deep and vexing meaning. Well, no more.
Or at least not as much. John is, after all, the “signs Gospel,” a Gospel that is filled with signs of the new age. And what is the new age? The new age is the beginning of a new relationship with God, a new way of being in God's world. Some will argue that the new age is still to come, that the Kingdom and its promises are yet to appear. But not John. For John the new age is here and we need only see the signs. Listen to part of his famous prologue:
10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him...but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ***
And we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth. And we have seen his glory, described in stories of joyfulness and humanity. And we have seen his glory, revealed in moments of compassion and release. And we have seen his glory, shown in moments of healing and new life. And we have seen his glory, full of grace and laughter, playfulness and love. We are called to read these stories with new eyes, to find the divinity and the humanity, to see the zeal for justice and the desire to laugh. Tears of sadness and tears of joy. We are being invited into a new relationship for a new age. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Baptism of Jesus
Isaiah 43But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; 6I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— 7everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” How are you today?
How are you feeling?
I challenge you to take these two questions into the world and I guarantee that most often you will get the following responses: “fine, thank you” and “good.” I call it the Pavlovian emotional response in polite society: like Dr. Pavlov's dog, trained to drool when the dinner bell rang, we have been trained to give the non-response response. Fine, thanks.
To go further, when someone actually answers the question, telling you about some ache or pain, orgiving you a detailed breakdown of their current malaise, it is as if the social contract has been broken. We feel betrayed: “I didn't ask 'how are you?' but 'how are you?'” Even the advanced emotional question I asked at the top will most often provides the emotion non-response response. They may not get the grammar right, but you will likely discover they are “good” and little more.
Back in ministers' school we were taught to ask open-ended questions such as “how are you feeling today” rather than the closed “so, you're feeling okay, eh?” (Canadian theological college) Even trained to ask those state-of-the-art open-ended questions I still find myself confronted with far too many “fines” and “goods.” I can remember many a hospital visit when the person before me is clearly in a disastrous state, looking like Evel Knieval after a run at the Grand Canyon, and all I get is “I'm fine dear, how are you? You look tired, you must be working hard.”
In an attempt to get the bottom of this very human phenomenon, I turned to mentalhelp.net:
The expression of emotion is, likewise, a complicated affair. For example, the expression of emotion may lead to negative consequences if the recipient of the emotion is uncomfortable with the emotion. In the case of anger, it can lead to the resolution of a conflict or it can substantially increase the anger of both parties. Again, there does not appear to be a simple rule of thumb.* Maybe we are wise to offer and receive such pleasantries. Maybe it's a case of “you can't handle the truth.” (thanks, Jack) Maybe the social contract that feels broken every time someone actually gives an emotional response is there protect us from each other and the uncertainties of a real emotion. Or maybe we're just lazy. Whatever the reason, it would be unreasonable to expect essay-length answers to the “how are you” question any time soon.
***
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5Do not fear, for I am with you.God doesn't have any trouble getting emotional. Second Isaiah is one of those places where God is downright effusive, expressing joy, declaring love, and making promises for the future. Surprisingly, it wasn't always this way. Something changed, and it is the change in God that worth exploring.
Before what is called “Second Isaiah,” from Genesis through to Isaiah 39, God was a fighter, not a lover. According to Jack Miles, Gods emotional range before Second Isaiah included “wrathful, vengeful and remorseful” and little else. He writes:
It was not for love that he made man. It was not for love that he made his covenant with Abraham. It was not for love that he brought the Israelites out of Egypt or drove out the Canaanites before them. The “steadfast love” of the Mosaic covenant was rather a fierce mutual loyalty binding liege and vassal than any gentler emotion.
I guess if I sat down with a wedding couple who pledged “fierce mutual loyalty” I might wonder if there is a problem. The God that Jack Miles is highlighting has a rather limited emotional range, best summed up in his conclusion that “God's character is, page after page, book after book, one of impervious impassivity, frequently interrupted by rage.”
Reading Isaiah 39, and turning the page, we are confronted by something quite new:
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double.[The Lord] will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5Do not fear, for I am with you.Suddenly we meet “the God who loves.” The exiles are returning to a land that offers hope and little else. Destroyed and barren, the bittersweet moment of return is punctuated by this extraordinary shift in the life of God. Gone is the “fierce mutual loyalty” from a more tribal age, gone is impervious impassivity of yesteryear: this is a God of comfort and nurture and love. We are redeemed and held and honoured. “Do not fear” says the God who has inspired little else, “for I am with you and I love you.”
***
It takes time to get used to such a change. We tend to view the world around us as rather static and unlikely to change. We are wary of people to constantly act one way and then suddenly pledge to act in another way. I realize that I am drifting into lightning bolt territory here, but you have to imagine a little skepticism on the part of the Israelites. God sends them into exile at the hand of a Babylonian king and a generation later its all “love this” and “comfort that” and “hurry home.”
Even now, as we call to mind the times we felt punished or ignored by God, or heard condemning words from those who claim to speak for God, it is hard to fathom all the mushy love stuff. For many, this is simply not their experience. For them, the experience may be akin to the parent who claims to act from a place of love with a loud voice and an angry tone.
How do we bridge the credibility gap here, and how do the words find meaning in our experience? Enter the second part of our story:
21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Some say God had stopped speaking. Some claim that his voice had not been heard since the time of Job. God asked Job “if someone who can only argue with the Almighty should speak.” Maybe he was asking it of all of us. These are among his last words that day and down to the moment Jesus is baptized.
***
I believe that it wasn't enough for God to tell us that we are loved. God had to show us. I believe that what happened that day, when God's Spirit fell upon Jesus and met the God already present in him, was the beginning of a willingness to show us the love God professed. God entered human experience precisely to put words into action, to make manifest the love described in Second Isaiah, to teach the world how to love and how to follow in God's way.
We welcome that God who loves. We welcome his son. We struggle to find the words to express our love, and the sense of God's glory we feel. May God help us, and may we never cease to speak the truth of God's love. Amen.
*http://mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?id=1089&type=book&cn=91
First Sunday after Christmas
Colossians 3
12As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I can't help but begin with New Year's resolutions, and so I give you the opportunity to share: what have you resolved for 2007?
More time with family or friendsLess weightMore exerciseLess smoking or drinkingMore organizedLess debtI think you can more or less see the pattern here. Many of the so-called top ten resolutions are quantitative in nature: we pledge to do more of the good things and less of the bad. Few resolve to smoke more in the new year, unless you work for a tobacco company.
I want to look at some Christian resolutions, but before I do that, I want to give you a better picture of the whole enterprise of resolution making. As with all the fun stuff this time of year, the custom begins in ancient Rome. The first day of the new calendar was dedicated to the Roman Janus (hence January) and celebrated in much the same manner as today with parties and resolutions. In art Janus has two faces, one looking forward and one back, allowing him to review what has passed and look forward to the future. He is also the god of doors, a in case you are having one installed.
We reviewed a few quantitative resolutions, suggesting more of this or less of that, but what about qualitative resolutions? For this, we need St. Paul:
12As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience forgiveness, love, harmony, unity and thankfulness. And that's just the first four verses. Paul is all about quality and not quantity: the depth of our commitment to one another and our dedication to Christ.
The difficulty with this shift to a “qualitative” approach is the extent to which we quickly fall back into our comfort zone. We quantify. We hear Paul's encouragement and we could easily merge this into our traditional way of making resolutions: more compassionate, less haughty, more patient, less divisive, and so on. We quantify because it ties to the earliest lessons we learned.
Reduced to its simplest form, the parenting that most of us received can be summed up in two wishes: more good and less bad. The way we received these messages was a little more sophisticated (but not much) but the underlying message was be more good and less bad. Often, this message got carried to church. We were formed hearing much the same message: being Christian is a lifelong attempt at being good and turning away from being bad.
The problem with being good all the time is that it never ends. There are endless ways to be better. Being good is a tyrant that only points to the ongoing ways in which you fail. C.S. Lewis put it this way:
In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, “live for others” but always in the discontented grumbling way—always wondering why the others did not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. (Foster, p. 8) Having met these people, I think we can agree that there must be another way forward. Being good isn't good enough if we are going to try to sum up the Christian life and look forward to a new year. Once more, I turn to C.S. Lewis:
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. In other words, Jesus is saying: “don't be good—be mine.” Think of that the next time someone gives you a little heart-shaped candy. The goal of the Christian life is simply to give yourself to Christ, to be his and his alone. Be mine.
Again, the clue to doing this is found in our little passage. As Paul expands his list of resolutions he provides the metaphor that makes living these resolutions possible: “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” More accurately, he provides an metaphor and a means.
The metaphor can also be found in the third chapter of Galatians, where Paul says: “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.“ (v. 27) We are encouraged to “put on Christ” which is nothing like “be good” or “be less bad,” but a way to give the whole of ourselves to Christ.
If clothing is our metaphor, then the means is love. When we cloth ourselves in love, we have the means to live out the quantitative resolutions set before us. Every word on the list—Compassion, kindness, patience, forgiveness—finds its source in love. God's love for us is the beginning of all of these: we forgive because we are forgiven, we have compassion because we have a compassionate God.
Our response, to “cloth ourselves in love,” allows us to transcend the categories of “good” and “bad” and simply be. We become one with Christ and one with his desire for the world. We become resolutions. We resolve to “put on Christ” and walk in his way throughout the coming year. We resolve to live knowing that we belong to Christ and live everyday with his invitation “be mine.”
I want to give the last word to St. Paul:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
