The weather today was sunny and warm ... the Congregation that invited me to lead them in worship had gathered in an outdoor "sanctuary" created by the towering trees of a parishoners backyard backing on to a lake ... The birds were singing, the geese were honking, as we began the children of the congregation were bouncing on a trampoline and kicking an ENORMOUS soccer ball ... I couldn't have envisioned a more perfect setting to step back into a "pulpit" and reclaim the ministry of preaching ... something that has been denied me for almost a year ...
It felt so good to stand before a Congregation and lead them in worship ... it is what I have been called to do, it is something I've been blessed to be able to do well, and today I realized that it is something I miss ...
Perhaps my wanderings in the wilderness are finally drawing to an end ... for now - today's sermon:
The readings for today were:Genesis 21: 8-21
Psalm 86: 1-10, 16-17
Romans 6: 1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
It is safe to say – the church doesn’t like conflict.
We want the church to be a bastion of calm, peace, and serenity in our world. We’ve named where we gather – a sanctuary for a reason. We want the Church to be that to the world – a sanctuary, a place of peace and calm and serenity in the face of everything the world can and does throw at us … given that we are sitting outside with the sun shining upon us, with birds singing, the lake glistening and the geese honking in the distance, we WANT this kind of experience to be what church is about – peace, serenity, and NICE … we want to have one place where we can gather together and have a sense of the Holy present and manifest in our world …
But then we keep having these pesky conflicts over money … sex … politics …
Why do we have to talk about these things?
Why can’t we just say our prayers, sing our hymns and worship God like we always have ?
And in our comfort we then we look around and wonder why the church is in decline, and why our young people by and large simply stay away and find their spirituality and their meaning some where else …
Our Gospel reading is not an easy passage to hear … it is an even more difficult passage to wrestle with … What was Jesus thinking when he started saying things like “I do not come to being peace to the earth, but to bring the sword”?
This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild saying that he has come to set man against his father, daughter against her mother … to divide families and make foes of a single household … what’s up with that THIS is about conflict, and we don’t like conflict ?
How can this wonderful warm and welcoming Jesus come to bring such conflict to us? That’s NOT what faith is about … that’s not like the Jesus we have smiling from the walls of our Sunday School rooms …
Then we step back and hear the cries of anguish uttered into the howling desert wind by Hagar watching her son die … They’ve been cast out and out cast by the great Patriarch Abraham who could no longer abide a usurper who cast a shadow over his chosen favoured son Isaac. Ishmael and Hagar HAD TO GO … so they were driven out for the sake of peace in the community … peace MUST be maintained !!
Sadly, and perhaps not surprisingly, these stories and these ideas are not unique … Maintaining the peace of a community by casting out the troubled one, is a long standing tradition. Sacrificial religious practices were based on the idea that if we appease the gods by offering up an innocent victim, the rest of us would be freed to continue …
In ancient Judaism the concept of the Scape Goat arose and became a regular occurance in the life of the community and nation. The sins of the people would be recorded on scrolls – ALL the sins of the people were written down, then placed PHYSICALLY on the back of a goat and then with great pomp and circumstance the goat is driven out into the wilderness to DIE … and with its death comes the freeing of the people from their sins …
With the Goat goes their sins … in its death comes freedom …and they can continue on the same way because … well, because the sins and misdeeds are all gone …
If only it worked that way … if only freedom from sins and conflict and misdeeds was THAT simple …
Grace isn’t about just letting go of our sins and walking away … Grace isn’t about dumping our conflict on the back of a goat, driving it out of the city gates and pretending that everything is
ALL better now … Life doesn’t work that way …
Grace is about wrestling with life in its fulless …
Grace is about facing change and uncertainty without flinching nor running away …
But in the Church we generally don’t do a very good job at that … we are PROGRAMMED to have a gentle calm and peaceful faith – we don’t want conflict … “why can’t we all just get along?” becomes our mantra … “why can’t we all just agree?” we cry … why does it have to be SO HARD???
We push out our Hagars and our Ishmael’s and restore calm … but in that moment, we’ve lost something …
This past week at a workshop exploring the possibility of non-profits and churches getting involved in addressing the housing crisis in the city of Brandon, one of the participants said – “we live in a time of great abundance, yet we focus on the short comings and the perceived scarcity …” he went on to talk about how we complain about minor details like taxes and wait lists rather than taking stock of how many incredible things we simply take for granted, and how much we really have … Walk into a grocery store and really look around, he noted … you can’t say we live in a place of scarcity when you stand and look at the variety of breakfast cereal alone …
Another voice chimed in and agreed but then spun this perspective of scarcity versus abundance to a different place … as a leader in the Church he noted that we talk about wanting something, but too often in the Church when we get it we realize it isn’t really what we wanted …
We want more kids in our Church, but then on Sunday morning when they show up and do what kids will do we harp about how disruptive they are and even worse – we say things like – WELL, back in my day children NEVER behaved like THAT … and we are left wondering why they never come back …
We want more people in our pews, but then when they offer their time to serve on committees, stewards and the Board, we get uncomfortable because they are trying to change things too fast, and they don’t understand that “we don’t do things THAT WAY around here …”
We need more bodies to help with the work of our declining groups, yet when new folks step forward to help out at the potluck supper they get snapped at for not putting the dishes out properly, or not knowing that “that’s how we always do this …” or worse – we offer only the icy glare of judgement that leaves the newcomer feeling unwelcome and judged …
The list of Hagars and Ishmael’s in our midst is very long … we could spend hours and hours discussing examples of where and how as a Church we’ve picked up the welcome mat and not only rolled it up, but taken swings at visitors as well … I could show you the bruised I’ve experienced at the hands of supposedly warm and welcoming Congregations across Canada that have simply and utterly failed to live their faith and their welcome …
But to what end?
To inventory the shortcomings, we would be rubbing our hands together and lamenting OUR shortcomings and our failures and achieving nothing … it would be an intellectual exercise in scape goating …
What is needed is the NAMING of this process of driving out the unwanted and the unwelcomed – the Hagars and the Ishmael’s and an owning of the wrongness of it all …
THEN – in a place of Grace – as a people of faith – as disciples of the Gospel – the very thing that Jesus speaks to us of in our reading from Matthew – in THAT moment and place we need to commit to a better way of seeing the world around us, and living out our faith …
Our sanctuary is not about creating an oasis free of conflict and strife, but rather creating a place where we can come to resolve and heal ourselves and our conflict and strife … a place where
Grace abounds … a place where conflict is healed!
Poet Ann Weems talks about the Church being a place where people come with the tattered remains of their lives in their arms as they seek the healing that comes from Grace and Faith … they are easy words to speak – harder words to live …
Saying – ALL WELCOME is a radical concept … what happens when they show up?
What happens when the immigrant arrives? Or the full coloured Biker? Or the stinky homeless person? Or the neighbour you’ve been fighting with for years?
But all is NOT hopeless … so long as there are one or two gathered, we still have a Church, and we have the potential and possibility of the Spirit to bring about a resurrection …
We live in a time and place of enormous change and uncertainty … yet, looking back over the history of the Church and even our Scriptures, we can see that in these moments, there is an openness to the transformation that God offers … Our collective history is filled with example after example of life altering change coming in a time of great uncertainty and fear …
Modern thinker and writer Eckhart Tolle, whom some of you may be familiar with thanks to Oprah – says that change is inevitable I life – change is what life is – and that when we are willing and able to not only accept that change, but to live with it and know that uncertainty is just the way things are, we will finally find a true peace …
The funny thing for me is that this is perhaps the oldest teaching we have as a Church … it is part of the very fabric we share and have shared since the beginning …
Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael, and in that moment when ALL seemed hopeless, God stepped in and offered transformation and change and HOPE …
To the disciples feeling the sting of rejection by their families and friends, the words of Jesus broke through and reminded them that walking a path of faith is NOT about acceptance and calm nor serenity … it’s about walking a path of faith for a higher and better ideal … and it WILL mean conflict … but it will mean a deeper peace, knowing that we are living our faith … and we are disciples …
Even to Paul and the other early followers who faced horrid persecution, torture and even death … in the face of the world, God’s presence WILL break through … be alive to God through Christ …
In the moment of hopelessness – God WILL break through!
We have all around us Ishmael’s … the challenge before us, if we see the Church as the heirs of Isaac, is to finally make peace with our brothers and sisters, and rather than continuing to cast the out – to welcome them home, and in the name of the Risen One, to claim our unity by recognizing and celebrating our diversity …
Faith calls us to face life in its fullness … to offer hope in the face of despair – to proclaim the light of grace in a dark world – and to embrace ALL OF GOD’s children, not just some – they are easy words and concepts to speak of – they are harder words to live … but thanks be to God, we have examples of HOW to live those words all around us … if only we dare to listen …
The transformation of Grace begins with us … it begins here … when we mindfully welcome in the outsider and the stranger and accept them as they are … the transformation of Grace begins as we lean into our fears and embrace our uncertainty and allow the winds of change to blow over and thru us … Jesus said – have no fear … and that my friends is where it begins … fear is just being closed to the possibilities around us … faith is about seeing uncertainties as a place of possibilities and potentials …
We are called to Faith … we are called to be disciples … we are called to live the simple concept – ALL WELCOME!!
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …
