Monday, November 24, 2008

Sermon for Reign of Christ Sunday - Nov 23rd 2008

November 23rd 2008 – Radical Compassion …

In the gospel accounts of his life, Jesus’ ministry is framed with two verses. The first verse comes from the scroll of Isaiah and enters the fray when Jesus stand before the congregation of his home synagogue and proclaims boldly – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to share the good news with the oppressed, to heal the broken hearted and to announce freedom for prisoners and captives.”

Jesus stands in his home synagogue, among the people who watched him grow up – he was the HOME TOWN BOY, and as he read the text, then handed the scroll back to the attendant, he said – “oh by the way, those word you’ve just heard. … They’ve come true in your hearing …” the implication being that the Spirit of the Lord was upon HIM …

And their response??

They grabbed him, dragged him out the door, and across town and wanted to throw him over the nearest cliff. They were NOT impressed. They were no happy. They were ticked off. And they were ready to do him in for proclaiming the good news …

Then near the end of his Jesus life comes the text we shared earlier where he take this concept of living the Good News and makes it incredibly simple. Forming the bracket of his message from that moment in his home synagogue to the last days of his earthly life, we hear his reminder that came with he same boldness and courage as his words in Nazareth: “Truly I tell you, just as you did for one of these my brothers, and sisters, you did it for me …”

The two texts frame all that Jesus said and did …and they are both passages that we have become so familiar with that we fail to fully grasp the radical nature of these words and the profound impact that they had in his day.

Jesus was proclaiming his commitment and understanding of a ministry that was a departure from anything that went before it … no longer focused on the ritual and practices of the temple, Jesus proposed an world view that was based on action.

How you treat the people around – not just friends and familiar folks like family and aquaintences, but how we treat complete strangers and those who are marginalized – how we live our faith in our day to day encounters is what’s important. The whole idea of “just as you do it for one of the least of these my family,” is the motivating principle in our dealings with the down trodden, the oppressed, the broken hearted and those needing to hear and experience the Good News.

Last week I was privileged to be in attendance at an event in Brandon where author, and activist Tim Huff spoke and offered a new take on the whole concept of radical compassion, that he sees at the heart of what we are as a people and a faith community. Tim comes from a background of working with homeless youth on the streets of Toronto, he came to Brandon to offer words of encouragement to the folks in Brandon who work with youth on the streets of Brandon. Youth who, if it was not for groups like Youth For Christ’s U-Turn, would find themselves homeless on the streets of Brandon …

Tim gave example after example of how he has lived his life and ministry encountering the deeply marginalized and offering them something more than just a band-aid. One of his powerful lessons began with him asking us about our houses.

He noted that we would, if asked – “tell me about your house” note things like hard wood floors, age, type of heating, the number of bed rooms, size of the yard and rooms, and so on. Our house is the physical place we live …

He then asked – “tell me about your home” and noted that we will describe home as the place we are loved and cared for, the place of warmth and welcome, the place we feel safe and secure … Tim spoke in Brandon on one of the nights when the horrid details of Phoenix Sinclair’s death was being reported in the media – Phoenix, a young child who had a house – but never a home … a five year old girl who was utterly homeless as she died cold and alone on the concrete basement floor of her mother’s house …

I thought of Phoenix as Tim spoke and shared his description of “home” and his reminder that the street youth he works with have been HOME-less long before they became HOUSE-less.

Homelessness is not just a case of being without a physical shelter. Too often homelessness is about being without a place of warmth, security, care and love – those very values that we hold to be central to what a HOME truly is …

The challenge of living our faith according to the standard set by Jesus himself is simply this – “how do we respond in faith to those who are homeless? How do we share our faith with those who are cast out, oppressed, and broken hearted ??”

That night Tim shared with us the concept of Radical Compassion, not as something new, but as something that is the very heart of Jesus’ own ministry … Using the text of Isaiah, he notes the call to action that Isaiah’s words represent … “to bind up the broken hearted?”

How shall we bind up the broken hearted?

Through radical compassion … What is radical compassion?

Compassion is the spirit that grips us at this time of year when we hear calls for assistance to those struggling economically and we go to our cupboard and donate food from our larder, then we go to our closet and donate our old coats and warm winter clothing – we donate generously from our abundance – that is compassion …

Radical compassion comes when we go to our cupboard and donate not just our surplus food, but we give from our own subsistence – then we go to our closet and instead of donating the coats we don’t really wear any more and that we wouldn’t really miss, we take our favourite coat – the one we feel that we can’t live without, and we give THAT one to the poor and the outcast …

Radical compassion is no longer stepping over or around the homeless person huddled in a doorway or on a street corner – but seeing them – really seeing them as people – people with a story of homelessness that lead them from a house to here … a few weeks ago I was part of a conversation about the “shelterless” homeless in Brandon. We were trying to determine exactly how many there are, and where they were going when the weather turns bitter and cold.

After phone calls to a number of people including the chief of police, I decided that the easiest way to find out who these people are and how many there are, was to go and visit them myself. So on Friday afternoon as most people were heading home for their weekend, I headed down to the bridge where Brandon’s shelterless homeless tend to congregate.

I found them and began our conversation by saying – “hi, my name is Shawn …” and in the process I learned their names, their thoughts, a tiny portion of their story, and I learned some of the fears and frustrations they experience … I Learned about them as people with names and histories, not as just some homeless guys under the bridge …

Radical compassion is about no longer falling into simplistic easy explanations and excuses for inaction – but taking seriously our call to faith that doesn’t ASK us, but DEMANDS us to do something …

Radical compassion is about living our faith … being the sheep that the prophets spoke of … being generous not just a few weeks of the year – but ALWAYS …

The powerful lesson of our reading from Matthew is that we are called to be present through compassionate – radically compassionate action to those who are in need of care and love of mind, body and spirit … the very least of these our sisters and brothers … people with names like Dennis, David, Bruce, Ozzy, and Phoenix … people who are broken hearted and in need of care and deserving and worthy of love.

And as we care for them – as we open OUR hearts and minds and spirit to them, we live our faith and embody the very principles that Jesus shared in the synagogue of his hometown and in the streets of Jerusalem …

Today as we stand poised on the verge of the season of Advent – a season of generosity when everyone seems willing to help - its important that we of the Church – the people of faith – don’t forget nor lose sight of the foundational lessons that give rise to this spirit of giving an generosity …

Just as you do it for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters you do it for me … if we take THAT lesson seriously why would we not give deeply and generously not just once a year, but every day of our faith journey …

The calling is clear … the choice to respond is ours …

May we have the courage and boldness to follow the path to being a sheep rather than a goat …

May it be so – thanks be to God …
Let us pray …