Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday - February 22nd 2009

The transfiguration is an interesting moment in the Scriptures, particularly as we link it to the transition point between Elijah and Elisha. The Transfiguration for all intents and purposes, becomes that moment in time when the Holy breaks through the ordinary and the mundane and we are left wondering what to do … The response from Peter to build shelters for the celestial or heavenly visitors is a typical human response.

We’re confronted with the holy and we haven’t got a clue of what to do … we want to contain things and relate to them in comfortable and familiar ways. The phrase – “thinking outside the box” has always come to mind for me when I read the story of the Transfiguration.

One afternoon Jesus and his disciples went up on to a mountain top and suddenly Jesus clothes are dazzling white, two others - Moses and Elijah join them, they are enveloped in a thick cloud, and then a voice from heaven booms and announces Jesus is the beloved of God ... the heavens seem to open … it is a startling moment …

The HOLY – the very presence of God has broken through … and the moment becomes more than just unpredictable – it is off the scale …

So, what do we do with this story … if some one came to us today, breathless from a visit to Riding Mountain, or Turtle Mountain or even Delta marsh and started telling us a tale like this, we would be wanting to pack them off to Selkirk for professional help … The very thought of heavenly visions and voices and so on makes us extremely uncomfortable. And yet out Scriptures – this very book – is full of such moments and there is a remarkable propensity in the Church to accept this (…) at face value, while dismissing those among us who have similar experiences …

Where are the Holy Moments in our world today?

If not flashing lights, booming voices, and heavenly visitors? Where then do we find and encounter God and the fullness of the Holy?

In the modern church – the scientific, post-modern Church wherein we are members, it’s an interesting challenge to live out. If tomorrow a student stepped up before Presbytery and offered an experience like either the Old Testament Reading or the Gospel reading and said – “I feel called by God into Ministry …” Our very first response would be an exam and evaluation by a professional – or preferably a team of professionals. And yet, if one of our esteemed elders said – “I’ve been praying to God for you …” and told us of a deep and committed ministry of prayer, we wouldn’t bat and eye.

The problem is that we are so far removed from the Holy – we’ve compartmentalized it – we’ve built our little shelter and locked it in … Shelter ?? Sound familiar ??

We ARE Peter. We’ve encountered the Holy and instead of embracing it in its infinite fullness, we’ve built our little shelters and boxed it in … The Holy Belongs here (communion table) when we break bread and share the cup …The Holy Belongs here (Baptismal Font) when we pour out the water and remember our promises of faith … The Holy belongs here (the sanctuary) when we gather for an hour or so every week and pray and sing and be faithful …

The Holy belongs here … (the sanctuary) … but NOT out there … If we take the Holy out there we might lose control … We might lose power … we might not be able to predict what will happen and we’ll be very uncomfortable …

So like Peter, we build our shelters and we try to put the HOLY in them …
AND IT DOESN’T WORK … God breaks through … the Holy will not be contained in a building … or in a time and space of our choosing … The Holy will come when God wants it to come …
Isn’t that the WHOLE point of the Christmas story?

God’s chosen one – the Messiah – the son of God – comes, not in a palace, or a sanctuary or in a place of power – but in a humble tiny stable in a forgotten corner of vast empire … and The World took notice.

The world took notice …

The world took notice when Elijah passed the mantle of leadership to Elisha … The world took notice when Jesus and his disciples, walked to the top of a mountain and something wondrous happened … The world took notice when our God broke through the mundane and allowed something truly extra-ordinary – something truly breath-taking to happen …

The world took notice in those moments … and yet we want to lock the holy in a little box and contain it …

What ever happened to thinking outside the box and being open to whatever God offers ??

Somewhere along the line I read that the Holiest moment in ALL of creation is when a child utters the word – “wow” in response to learning something new and startling … It’s a remarkable moment when a child learns something new for the very very first time … Watching a toddler discover the world and utter “WOW” – something I’ve enjoyed thoroughly with my children – it is hard not to see the Holiness in that moment.

Yet as adults we hem that enthusiasm in … we SHUSH the WOW ...

The other day, I was talking with a friend and I said – “why is it we take such pains to teach our children to play fair, to share, to be a good friend …and then as adults, one of the common complaints we hear, and live and encounter is the simple LACK of such civilities in our society?”

I have been a Beaver leader in the past, and we taught our children the motto – “sharing, sharing, sharing” – we stressed the need for the kids to share scissors when doing a craft – it was in the leaders manual that we were to SHORT the kids on craft items like scissors and crayons so “they would have to learn to cooperate with one another by ASKING politely for the item”.

Could you imagine doing that amongst adults? Even adults in a Church?

The howls of outrage would be thick and fast and deafening …

Yet, we persist in trying to teach our children to share and cooperate when we are sometimes lousy role models in doing the same thing …

So to step back – perhaps wewould do well to learn from our children. Maybe the Holiness of WOW, is a good place to enter into a dialogue with our children wherein they teach us … they teach us to see the world through their eyes rather than through our old and jaded outlook …

Didn’t Jesus say – “to enter the Kingdom of Heaven you must become like a child …” Maybe that’s what he meant … to live present to the Holiness around us and to be open to the WOW moments when not only do we learn something new and expand our experience and our understanding of the cosmos, but when and where we encounter the LIVING GOD – present and real in our world …

Maybe we are to live present to the moment by doing more than just saying the words – “sharing, sharing, sharing,” but by (heaven forbid) LIVING those words …

One of the harshest, and perhaps most accurate complaints about the modern church is its inherent hypocrisy … People look at our history and our actions and say – “is this Christian?”

They once asked Gandhi what he thought of western Christian civilization and culture and he quipped – “it seems like a good idea that is worth trying …”

We’ve so compartmentalized the Holy and what it represents – our faith and what it values – our beliefs and what we should be doing – from the rest of our lives, that they are disconnected …

This past week I attended a food conference in Winnipeg and over and over and over we heard presenters say that we are disconnected from the source of our food – somewhere along the line we got the idea that our food comes from Co-op or Safeway, Even in a place like Manitoba where farming continues to be a way of life – there is a disconnect.

And that disconnect is what is bridged in the moment when, standing on a mountain top we suddenly encounter the holy … we can chose to respond like Peter – the comfortable option, and build out shelters and lock the holy away safely … or we can be open to the Holy in its infinite fullness and have the courage to say the words – WOW … and see where it will lead us …

The process of evangelism – the work that we as a community have before us demands the WOW response … because rather than inviting people to come and have a glimpse of the Holy in the shelters we build, we are to GO OUT INTO THE WORLD and tell the story of where and how we’ve met and encountered the Holy … we need to go into the world and re-connect with the Holy where we find it … and celebrate the awe and wonder that comes when we stand enveloped by the Holy presence of God.

We invite people to join the circle of Awe that SHOULD be the Church and join in the experience … The transfiguration is about stopping and being wholly present to the Holy in our lives as we find it – in the enthusiasm of the child who can see wonder all around them – in a sunrise or sunset – in the beauty of nature – in the subtlety of a flower – in the birth of a child – in the smell of fresh baking – in the visit with a friend over coffee … it is about finding the HOLY in THIS moment.

That’s the heart of evangelism – to share our stories – our experiences – to share ourselves … our real selves … to make God and our faith real and relevant by stepping outside our comfortable little boxes and sharing our WOW moments …

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

Sermon for January 18th 2009

In addition to the story I shared earlier from Jim Wallis, this past week I read another story by social activist and theologian Jim Wallis about asking a young woman out on a date. Jim was raised as a southern Baptist, and lived in a fairly conservative environment. He decided that as a date with this young woman they would go to the local theatre to watch The Sound of Music. Jim had, in his teenage mind, assumed this to be a safe choice …

When he arrived to pick the young woman up, her father was blocking the door and insisting that his daughter could not go to see The Sound of Music because it would “trample on everything we believe, and everything we raise you to be.”

The father went on to insist that if his daughter went to the movies, then started dancing, then drinking and smoking, she would no longer be a Christian, and then there would be nothing to differentiate her and her family from the world – there would be nothing that said “We’re Christian.”

Now, aside from struggling with all of this happening because of The Sound of Music … the issue that Wallis raises is the struggle with what it is that makes us who we are. How do we live our faith? What defines us as Christians? What are being called to be and to do in the world by God?

How do we live our faith in a world of rapid and even breath-taking change?

These are the types of questions that we may not even be aware of facing, but that we need to face all the time … our world is experiencing change at a rate that seems unbelievable and we are called to be people of faith …

But then we look around us and … well, let’s be brutally honest – we aren’t the “in place” to be seen on a Sunday morning. The hockey rink and the Sunday morning brunch buffets have a greater appeal that we do … we have in many respects become a quaint anachronism in our world – a source of life’s ritutals like baptisms, weddings and funerals, and a place where older folks hang out …

I for one, however believe that in owning the perception of the world around us – and accepting that we are not the cool, hip place to be seen, we are opening the door to tremendous possibility and transformative change … as we wrestle with what it means to be people of faith – followers of Christ – members of the Body of Christ in the world – as we struggle to define this experience we are able to live IN the world, rather than isolate ourselves from it and hide from it. Our readings this morning are about being called and commissioned by God not to hide away from the world, but to share God’s message of transformative hope to the world around us.

Samuel, Phillip, and Nathaniel didn’t hide from the world. Instead they responded to their invitation – their call – by stepping into the world with courage and faith, and they shared the message by living it. Something new was unfolding and they shared it …

Let’s look at the call of Samuel for a moment – but rather than the perspective of Samuel and the new order he represents, let’s take a moment to consider the story from Eli’s perspective …

Eli was the good and faithful servant of Yahweh. He had been a priest in the temple for many years – he was part of the establishment (the way things are). He was a member of the dynasty that saw father and son presiding at worship for generations …

Eli was a comfortable and familiar leader in a structured society and culture that prided itself on things being maintained as they are – the proverbial status quo … Then suddenly in the pre-dawn hours one morning he is awaken by his young servant standing by his bedside asking “what do you want?”

Eli, no doubt irritated said – “I didn’t call you boy, go back to sleep …” and sent young Samuel on his way … Repeatedly the young man arrived at Eli’s bedside saying – “what do you want?” And repeatedly Eli sent him back, until in his sleep deprived brain he thought – “Hang on, maybe Yahweh is speaking to him …”

And so this time, Eli said – “Boy, when you hear your name being called say ‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening,’ And listen to what is then said …”

Samuel does as Eli asks, and Eli’s world crashes around him …

The rendering of the prophecy to Eli from the Contemporary English Bible is scathing and blunt … it reads: ... I am going to do something in Israel that will shock everyone who hears about it! I will punish Eli and his family, just as I have promised. He knew that his sons refused to respect me, and he let them get away with it, even though I said I would punish his family for ever. I warned Eli that sacrifices or offerings could never make things right ! HIs family has done too many disgusting things.

It is pretty hard to miss the harsh judgement that is being handed down on Eli and his sons … the dynasty that Eli was part of is about to end – the way things were is not going to be the way things are – tremendous change is about to unfold over not just Eli and his children, but the whole of the nation of Israel. God is about to turn things upside down …

And yet, Eli says simply – “He is the Lord, and he will do what is right …”

With profound and breath-taking grace and acceptance (at least here) Eli hears what God is about to do and offers no resistance … he accepts it …

This story – this moment of tremendous change – is a pivotal story for us in the modern church, but rather than considering it from Eli’s perspective we arrogantly assume the story from Samuel’s perspective. We are called to serve God. We are called to go out into the world in faith and “DO.” We become like the father in Wallis’ story who wants to remain isolate and different from the world around us – we hide away …

If we consider the story from Eli’s perspective we stand in a challenging place where we have to consider that rather than being called to “do something” in the name of God, perhaps we are being TOLD that our ways of doing things, the old order we cherish and value, the dynasty we embody – the status quo is about to change – dramatically and harshly, and God is about to do something new …

For the modern Church this is a bitter pill to swallow … we want to attract new members, and we want to grow and prosper, but we want to have the new while maintaining the old … we want to have the best of both worlds. Maybe trying to hold on to the way things WERE is not what God wants of us, or for us … maybe the whisper we fail to hear is the one that came to Eli and said – “your family has done too many disgusting things …” and the time has come to change …

Do we dare think it? Do we even dare to say it aloud?

Or do we want to close our eyes and our ears and keep things the way they are forever and ever amen ?

The story of Samuel and Eli arriving in our lectionary cycle in this moment is apt and appropriate … in a couple of short days the United States of America will inaugurate a black man as president. This moment is as enormous as the inauguration of Nelson Mandela almost two decades ago.

To return to Jim Wallis, I am mindful of that moment in the story I shared with the Gospel reading, when standing in the bright South African sunshine the day Mandela became president and the world said – “we knew it was inevitable.” Wallis notes that it wasn’t inevitable – that there were many deep dark days in the midst of the battle against Apartheid what seemed inevitable was that the battle would be lost and Apartheid would prevail … yet, Wallis and others clung to the Biblical teaching that says – “hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.”

Faith is about HOPE … today we stand in a Hope filled place where something new is unfolding around us. Politically, spiritually, economically … things are changing, and where there is change there is possibility, and possibility is about transformation - and transformation is about resurrection.

That day in South Africa when the world said – “this was inevitable”, Wallis and others remembered the dark days when voices like Desmond Tutu kept saying – “that which opposes the will of God, cannot stand …” when they dared to confront the South African army and security forces with the open invitation to come and join the winning side …
Samuel, in our Old Testament story was on the winning side, and he carried a message to Eli that things were about to change …

Jesus came to Phillip and Nathaniel with the invitation to join the winning side because things were about to change …

The story of South Africa is about change – dramatic life altering change. Faith is about change – dramatic life altering change.

In our world today we face tremendous and enormous change. We can fight it – or we can have the courage to be like Eli and accept it … and with our acceptance, be part of the process that helps that change come into being …

In our Church today we face a choice … we can cling to the way things are – the status quo and try to maintain the delusion of things being okay … or like Eli, we can respond to the voice calling in the night by embracing that change – a change that comes from God – but letting go of the past and accepting that we’re heading into the unknown …

I offer no illusions that the road ahead will be easy nor comfortable – it will be a difficult path with many challenges … the difference between us and Eli is that we do not stand in God’s judgement the way he and his sons did. We merely stand on the verge of tremendous change and where there is change there is potential for the resurrection to break through and re-create things.

One of my favourite sayings is – “to discover new lands, you must lose sight of the familiar shore for a long time …”

The call of Samuel, Nathanial and Phillip is about losing sight of the shore and trusting God to guide us to new lands … we can cling to the shore desperately maintaining what has been – or we can let go and trust in God to see us through … The choice is ours to make – the call has been offered … the call to something new …

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

Sermon for January 11th 2009

How many of you remember your OWN Baptism?
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How many of you remember the Baptism of your children, of children who were special in your life like a neice or nephew, a god child, a grandchild?
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I remember the Baptisms of all three of my children … Sam’s baptism was on the banks of the Bella Coola River gathered with the Nuxalkmc People and members of the non-native side of the Pastoral Charge. With an eagle soaring overhead and a seal keeping an eye on things from the water, S-- was welcomed in to the Church, and then at loving hands of an elder of the Nuxalk people, was given his Indian Name – Noahkila. … H--’s Baptism was in the historic Augsburg Church that had been built 90 years earlier by the Norwegian Settlers to the Bella Coola Valley … and R---’s baptism was in the tiny sanctuary of Sharron United Church in Langley, with a huge gathering of extended family and friends who came to join in the service that day.
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My own Baptism I do not remember … but two yeas ago, over the Christmas break I was fortunate, or perhaps mis-fortune is the proper term, to be present in my home town of Stratford Ontario when our Congregation – my home Church – Centennial United began packing up its possessions and prepared to hand the building over to a new non-United Church congregation who had bought it from the few remaining folks who called Centennial home … That day, just after Christmas I rolled up my sleeves and helped clean up 130 plus years of history in preparation of closing the doors on a church that generations had lived, loved and laughed within. .
As I stood by a long wooden table in the basement, I found the Baptism registry and looking at it wondered … so I opened it … the first pages I found were from the 80’s … hmmm … flipping closer to the front I found the 70’s … then the 60’s … I soon found the entry for me … I stood for a long quiet moment with my finger resting on the entry … it would be the closest I could come to remembering my Baptism … I had the bare facts of where, when and who …
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It was a bitter sweet moment … I had begun the 2006 with the loss of an important Sanctuary in my life – that of Minnedosa …and as the year drew to a close, I was losing the most important Sanctuary in my life – the Church of my childhood and youth – the place where I always felt welcomed and at home … after reading the entry for my baptism I went up stairs and stood in the quiet of the sanctuary and had one last look around the magnificent space that it was … the 100 plus pipe pipe organ … the stained glass windows … the vaulting ceiling … the rich dark wood EVERYWHERE … I stood and felt the deep connectedness I had to that place, but more importantly, I felt the deep connectedness I had with the SPIRIT of that place … the memories, the moments, the people, and the ghosts that lurk in the building we had celebrated life’s passages and moments.
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In that moment, I felt enveloped by the “values” that Glen spoke of on Thursday night – those things that are held in common by the people who call a Church building HOME … values – those things that bring us here and keep us here – the ideas, feelings, emotions and grounding that we hold, and that in turn hold us together and in turn draw in other people … our values are what call us home, and in turn define what that home is and what it will be and how it will be open and welcoming to those around us …
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In my home congregation, there was an ability to fight like cat and dog, argue passionately and vehemently, and then be there for one another … ON Thursday night I shared the story with those gathered about a Board meeting where an argument began over a motion being considered … the conversation grew heated and tempers flared, and then at the end one of the elders of the congregation, a man who prided himself on simply being “a trucker” said – “so, are we still going out for coffee?”
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And everyone around the table said … “yeah …”
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The values I hold as a person and as a minister are about being in community first … being able to argue and even fight, but then take time to break bread together in community … In the case of my home congregation it was the bread of coffee and donuts, but it was a bread nonetheless …
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Such are the waters of Baptism that flow through me …I began 2006, on the morning of February 13th standing in the basement of what had been Minnedosa United Church and as I looked around me and saw the burned debris and the thick frozen sheets of ice I couldn’t help but think of the ancient refrain – “by the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept as we remembered Zion.”
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That morning, the waters around me were frozen into a solid icy mass … but the emotion of weeping as we remembered what was remained as real and as raw as the cold biting wind that howled that morning …
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Waters run throughout the history of our Church and our religious heritage. Perhaps it is because our faith roots run deep in to a dry and dusty land where water means life … Life in abundance and fullness … without water in the desert you simply die, and water means life, both literally and symbolically.
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And so in our modern Christian Churches, the symbol of water is the symbol of new life and new beginnings …
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Baptism takes the miqvah – the ritual baths and lifts it to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL.
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The miqvah was the ritual baths used in Jesus’ time to clean away the dirt and dust of the country from worshippers as they arrived at the temple. They would descend one set of stairs in to the pool and the waters would clean them, then they would climb out another set of stairs, put on fresh clothes and they would be ready to enter the Temple.
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The custom of the Miqvah persists in Israel today on the Holy Mountain where Muslims worship in the shadow of the Dome of the Rock. As worshippers prepare to enter the Al Asque Mosque on the temple mount, they perform a ritual bath – wudu - in the square in front of the Mosque.
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They clean their hands, feet, arms, legs and face before entering the Mosque to worship.
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In many Christian Churches the Baptism Font is located near the main entrance so that worshippers pass it on their way in and out of Church as a reminder of who they are, and what they are about …
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Our ultimate value as a Community is that of Baptism … in the waters of Baptism we are claimed and marked by God as one of God’s beloved children. Whether we are nine hours, nine days, nine months, nine years or ninety years of age – the promise of being loved by God is confirmed and celebrated in the waters of Baptism, and it is a promise that never dries up, and never runs out …
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Our Baptism vow marks us for ever … even if we have no conscious memory of the moment – in Baptism we are affirmed as a beloved child of God, and we care called and commissioned to be members of the Body of Christ that is the Church … by our Baptism we are challenged to go into the world and share our values and to share the transformative power that is the Good News of Christ.
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But do we do that?
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Or are we more prone to sit by the waters of our Baptism and weep at our recollection and memory of what once was, rather than facing the challenge of what is and what can be …
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I’ve been in that place where it would have been easier to sit and weep and recollect at what was … but like the kids movie “Meet The Robinsons” – we must keep moving forward …
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Our building burns down – we keep moving forward.
We can’t afford our building and have to close – we keep moving forward.
We get fired and rejected – we keep moving forward.
We look around us and see fewer people each year, and realize that we’re not getting any young … we … keep … moving … FORWARD.
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By the waters of Baptism – our Baptism, we affirm that we are beloved by God, and that we ALL have a place at the table … our challenge – our calling of FAITH – is to rise from the waters, and to invite others to join us.
Join us at the table.
Join us at the font.
Join us in fellowship and in community.
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Our values are important. They are what we MUST use to invite other in and make them feel welcome. Our values are the welcome – our values embody who and what we are, and our values are about living the welcome …
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The invitation begins here with out Baptism, and the rest is in the hands of God … we are the hands of God present in the world …
May it be so – thanks be to God, let us pray …