Making Reconciliation the Goal, the mission

The Gospel this week (Matthew 18.15-20) is an important issue for the entire Anglican Church in Canada these days. It is about how to treat people when they have sinned against you. But it made me stop and consider if we really know these days, what a sin is. I have been watching reaction to an article that was written for the September Anglican Journal by the Most Rev. Fred Hiltz. I have been watching and listening to the reaction towards this article because the Primate talks about “good disagreement”.  Personally, I find that when someone uses such language, they consider themselves the victor in a dispute. Everyone got heard and many opinions were expressed and then the right decision was made, favouring the side that declares victory.  The problem I have with this method of handling conflict in the Church, is that despite the declarations of being inclusive and that everyone’s thoughts and opinions are going to be listened to and honoured, it is increasingly clear that this is not true.

As I consider the Gospel, I must ask, do we as a Church know what a sin is anymore? The only real sin I see castigated against is anything that is capable of curtailing choice of the individual. This is utterly against what the Gospel clearly teaches. Sin is not just a personal matter between you and God, because sin affects and infects the community and well as our connections with God.

What is sin? The Greek word most used in the New Testament is hamartano. It means that a person, in living one’s life, misses the mark and thus does not get to share in the victory and its prize. Living in a state of unexpiated (unredeemed) sin (which is hamartia), constantly and consistently leaves a person away from God. There is never a victory, there is never that which is enjoyed after a victory. And it might be important to know that there is no list or worse grading of sin that says that one must be address an is worse than another. We are to confront and help each other on an ongoing basis with living the life that God calls us to. It is not easy to do but we are not alone in it, the community that is the Church is responsible for making sure that we live out the Gospel – together. The unity of our message in the common life of the Church, which helps people to see the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to learn to deal with our conflicts in a more fruitful way that builds up the unity of our community rather than seeking the winner and losers and creating division in the Body of Christ. In saying this, I think of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians on conflict in their Church. He tells them point blank:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. – 1^st Corinthians 12.12-31

The process is not about right and wrong and making winners and losers but about righteousness and holiness between God and us and between each other. It is about building up the Body of Christ and drawing people into the reign of God’s kingdom – that is the work that we are called to. We are to be that presence to help one another to be reconciled to God and in the process become family to one another. What welds the Church together is a common faith in the mission that God has given them and a trust in each other that is like family.

I rejoice that we are in the time we are in this Church and in this country because this is a time where we can, as a community, no longer a weak gospel. The “its no biggy” approach to preaching the reconciling message of God will no longer work in Canada. We need to preach and live so that people will feel the wind and experience the flame. This world is destined to be transformed and to experience holiness – life that is animated by the things of heaven. Our life and ministry need to help people to keep short accounts with God and with neighbours through loving them into the kingdom.

Be ready to preach, pray and die at a moment’s notice. Be prepared to seek out the least, the last and the lost for the sake of the One who would not live without us. Be ready to forgive and to make reconciliation work in your life and in the life of your faith community. Most of all, let us strive to love one another as Christ love us and gave himself up for us that we would be the victorious Church when we get to be the Church at rest.

Jason+

Confessing Christ in the midst of everything

In the Gospel (Matthew 16.13-20)  Jesus is on the move , going to Caesarea Philippi, on the South slopes of Mount Herman. It is important to know this bit of geography because it is on the edge of the old Davidic Kingdom. Caesarea was not unlike many of the cosmopolitan cities of the ancient world. It was full of different kinds of people, languages, faiths and beliefs. The Gospel recounts the first time that the disciples, and specifically Peter, call Jesus, Kyrios or Lord. There are moments when the Gospel has called him such but this is the first time the words come from the mouth of one of the Twelve.

For being willing to confess this insight, Jesus blesses Simon and calls him “Peter” or in modern English parlance, “Rocky”. Jesus gave him a nickname. I don’t know about you but I have carried many different nicknames in my life. Some of them I would only allow certain people to use while others, like my high school nickname “Haggy”, were widely used to the point where people did not know my given name. One of my favourite nicknames was ‘giihii-inzi’. I was given to me by a elderly priest from Old Crow. It means, “kindly one who speaks the Truth”. I was given that nickname because this elderly priest liked the fact that I would take her places in town when she needed to get around during diocesan events. I felt both honoured and blessed by the experience.

Simon Peter or “Rocky” was blessed for being willing to proclaim Jesus as Lord (Christos est kyrios) in the midst of all of the choices and temptations to make some one else, something else more important in your life. Peter chooses to stand out, from the culture, from the city and maybe even amongst those who are closest to Jesus and that is a risky thing. It is easier to keep one’s mouth shut and have people think you a fool than to open one’s mouth and confirm it. 

Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah starts with the question, “Who do others say that I am?”  the answer comes back, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, more say Jeremiah or one of the other Prophets of old.” After a pause, Jesus asks the Twelve, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter in his usual, brassy manner blurts out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus points out that Peter has been listening to the Father and that the Father has revealed that Jesus is the Anointed One – the Messiah. But there is a problem, and that we will cover next week. For now, let us remember that the Twelve have a general understanding of what they think Jesus is all about, in terms of who and what the Messiah is. Jesus is going to have to help them unlearn this thinking. Peter and the other disciples have accepted who Jesus and this has not been thought up by flesh and blood. The Twelve know that Jesus is the Messiah is a revelation from God and the Father himself has made this known. This confession is the beginning of a revolution and a transformation that will make this world a different place.

And more than this, Jesus is declared to be the Son of the living God. Caesarea was home to many monuments, temples and statues devoted to different gods. The God that is declared in this confession is not a god made of stone or wood. This God is a living spirit. Having faith in this God, means that you have considered who he is and completely given yourself over to him; you have completely turned your life over and have entrusted it to God. This is what it means to have Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.

So how do we live this out on a day to day basis? Our Epistle Lesson (Romans 12.1-8) can help with that. Because Jesus has died for us, we are called to live in him. We are to make our lives living sacrifices to God. If our lives are sustained by God, they become more and more like his – sustained by his presence and will. We offer to him, as believers, lives that have been redeemed by Christ. We live in Christ to give praise to God and witness to the world that Christ is Lord. We are to learn to live a faithful, fruitful life not to perfection – that is God’s work in us. We are called to allow God to transform our lives in the midst of the fact that world is going to try to do its best to shove you into its mold. We are encourage to live our lives in such away as to have them become liturgy or acts of worship to God.

True worship is offered when you hold nothing back. You give yourself totally and utterly to God, warts and all. The spiritually dead and the physically dead cannot do what we can – live and worship as living sacrifices.

Who do we say that Jesus is? Through our worship and the witness of our lives who are we saying that Jesus is? We exist as a community, as the People of God in this place, to proclaim Christ crucified and risen from the dead. We exist solely for the purpose, as Archbishop Cosmo de Lang (Archbishop of Canterbury) once put it, to draw in all those who do not yet belong to the fellowship of the Church into our membership. Are we doing that and how are we doing that? How are we proclaiming Jesus as Lord in our worship and in our witness of our everyday life? How does our liturgy leave the building and become worship outside the walls?

God is calling us to move with him in to the world to make Christ known as Lord. Will we confess to this town who he is?

Jason+

Crumbs for Mercy and Grace

The Gospel this week Matthew 15.10-28 is a tale about traditions and what should be kept and not kept. For example, The Pharisees come to Jesus  in the “near North” of Israel from Jerusalem to confront him about the kind of community that he is building and in particular,, to confront him about his allowing his disciples to be ritually impure because they did not wash their hands at meal times.

The Pharisees were for the most part, zealous for the traditions of Moses in ways that others were not. They spent much time studying the Torah (the Law) and provide rules for Levitical purity and holiness and thereby build a truly Jewish nation that was devoted to God and unstained by the world. Much of this was rejected by the ruling class, the Sadducees as an unnecessary innovation. And not every Pharisee followed this either. It is though by scholars that there was a group within Pharisaic Judaism that practiced this but it was not universal.

Jesus confronts his accusers of being hypocritical or of play acting at things because the words of their lips do not match what they believe in their hearts. It reminds us if the fact that as we think in our hearts, so are we. On hearing this, as the Pharisees are walking away, the Twelve question Jesus about his response by asking, “Do you know that you made them mad?” and are not reassured by the response – “Yup”.

Out of this moment Jesus and the Twelve move North and West to the area around Tyre and Sidon – Lebanon. Jesus moves to areas where such people would be loathed to go to have more time with his disciples, to teach, to test and to encourage them in their faith. This is when they are interrupted by a local woman – a Canaanite woman with whom no self respecting Jew would associate with. All this woman had to go with was her faith in what Jesus could do and her persistence for the sake of her daughter at home.

Jesus first ignores the woman and her pesky request for help for her daughter. Seeing that Jesus is ignoring her, the Twelve insist that Jesus chase her off. So Jesus, following that attitude, challenges and draws out the woman’s faith. He is a harsh way confronts the unnamed woman with what people would expect from a self respecting Jew would say: I am looking for God’s people and I am to minister to them, not for people like you.

The woman responds with the fact that even the house dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. The dogs live on what little they can find. She is willing to do the same, with whatever Jesus will offer and will do. Because of her trust and faith in Jesus, she not only receives mercy for herself but at the same time has her daughter rescued from evil and that also happens immediately. There is not only healing and mercy there is also peace and grace for them and the family and for the wider community.

It might be important also to consider the fact that the mother made her request from a position of abasement and worship – on her knees. She humbled herself and persisted in her request. In that moment things changed for her and her community. Real change – transformation – happens as we learn to enter into God’s presence and are shaped by his power and glory for ministry in this world.

Remember that faith, where the Bible is concerned, is about being persuaded that you know the Truth. Faith of all kinds in our modern world has become about whether or not you can have the strength to believe that you believe. Faith becomes a psychological condition rather than a trust in the God of the Scriptures, who has and is acting to bring healing and wholeness to this world in and through Christ. Many are struggling as they watch the structures of the Church crumbling, wondering about what to do. We need to be like the woman in the Gospel and pursue the needs of those around us and the welfare of the cities and towns which we inhabit. We lack confidence in our God and because of that we are afraid to boldly proclaim what God has done.

May God grant us the grace to recover our faith and that in that faith we would boldly proclaim Christ and the coming kingdom of heaven.

Jason+

Send us out in the power of your Spirit, Lord

I was reminded after the most recent Sunday when children were baptised, that some of the earliest words that we learn to say as human beings are “Hello” and “Goodbye” and there variations, like “hi” and “bye-bye”. In the past few days, my family and I have being saying a lot of the latter, after several years in the community, to people we have know and served with over those years.

It has caused me to reflect on some of the things that Bishop Anderson said in his sermon at my induction and installation in October, 2011, as we said hello to each other. In particular, he pointed out that you had spent time praying for a parish priest. Pointing at me, he said, “There he sits. What’s next?” Bishop William went on to talk about the role of a parish priest in the parish and for the necessity of everyone working together for the common good. He also pointed out that having a parish priest is a gift – having been given by God to the community for a time, however long or short.

In recent days, I have heard expressions like, “There he goes, so what about us?” There has been a lot of what I would describe as low level panic as I encounter people from various churches in the city who are genuinely grieving the departure of their clergy, most are leaving because it is time to retire. Others are leaving for family reasons and yet others are leaving because of what God is doing in them and they are needed in another place and space within his dominion. Plus, as a diocese, there is the electoral synod that will take place in October to elect the new bishop. This event will have to dovetail with the path you will walk to draw in a new Rector. I say this to remind you of a promise that was made concerning God’s people as there was transition from Moses to the new leadership under a new leader. The new leader was Joshua. The promise is recorded this way in Numbers 27:

“Moses said to the Lord, “May the Lord, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.” So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit of leadership, and lay your hand on him. Have him stand before Eleazar the priest and the entire assembly and commission him in their presence. Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him. He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the Lord. At his command he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will come in.”Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole assembly. Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, as the Lord instructed through Moses.” (Num.27.16-23)

You are not left alone – you are in the care of God, as you and I have always been.

Something important that needs to be sought is what the Scriptures have to say to us this morning. In this moment and if you are like me, there are lots of feelings running around inside. There is encouragement from the Scriptures to remember that the Spirit is here, in the midst of what we are feeling, ready to help deal with the fear, the sorrow, the pain of going on and ot parting. The Spirit aids believers in suffering. The Spirit helps in prayer and groans to communicate well beyond words inexpressible. It is the kind of thing that you see in Jesus in the Gospels, when Jesus is deeply moved; deeply moved from the guts.  The Spirit shares with us and prays for us within the will of God, that God’s will would be done in each of us and in all of us.

To the question, “what about us?” it is time to pray again for the renewal of the ministry of this parish and this diocese. There is a path to be walked that will draw in a bishop elect and a new rector. I will be with you in that. And I remind you of what the Scriptures say, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37.4) We have been blessed over the past six years, and some of blessings have had strange names. We have come a fair distance in the past several years. We have been enabled to do a number of things by God; one or two of them have been spectacular.

If there is a piece of counsel I would offer in this moment, it would be this: be careful what you pray for, you might just get it. As I have reflected on my coming to you, there were lots of worries about this ministry or that class or that service within the congregation. Congregations often seek ministers who will do their bidding and try to this make this parish great again. They might eventry to take you back to a time when things were better or at least less difficult. I would call on you to consider carefully what kind of person you need to come alongside you to enable ministry. No priest no matter how good that person is or how gifted that person might be is going to be able to “save” you – that job has been taken. So it is important for you to look for a priest who will love you and care for you and show you how to do that for each other. Look for someone who will build you up and raise up the level of community in this place – without which there is no reason for this beautiful building to stand.

As for the Gospel, I like the idea that the kingdom is like a net. A net is like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you are going to get. The net does not worry about what (or who in the case of the kingdom) is being drawn in. It draws in all that it touches. The sorting out (the judgement) will happen when the time is right. God continues to draw you together. You are not the same people that you were six years ago. You are not the same congregation I came to six years ago. God has been calling us and drawing us to himself. He has been teaching us and helping us to grow, building us into the Church that he wants us to be. So I encourage you to be ready to be surprised by God and the things that God is going to continue to do in your midst. 

Part of that grow is to be taken, blessed, broken and sent. When we dismiss this morning we will sing these words:

Send us out in the power of your Spirit, Lord,

May our lives bring Jesus to the world!

May each thought and word, bring glory to your name.

Send us out in your Spirit, Lord, we pray. - Ruth Fazal.

Today, God will take us, bless us, break us and send us on our way. And though we are bound by Christ and though we may be a part for a time, we will be together again,  and next time, forever.

Jason+

And God is responsible for the result

This week’s Gospel is a turning point in the ministry of Jesus and the movement towards the City of Jerusalem and to the cross. This is the third speech of the five speeches that Jesus makes in Matthew showing him to be the new Moses. (Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23). Often called the Parable of the Sower, I would think of it more like the parable of the soil and the seed. The Parable is a part of a “Day of Parables that Jesus speaks to the people as he shifts his focus from teaching everyone who comes to concentrating on those who he has called, namely the Twelve.

Parables are important because they teach us about God, what God is like and what God does and maybe what God does not do. In the case of the Gospel this week, one might think God to be a bit of a careless farmer, not watching where he is putting the seed. Broadcasting seed, like ministry, is an art not a science. The modern world likes its best seed in the best ground for the best yield. And yet, for all the technology that we can devise there are things about farming that still remind us of our dependence upon God for the good crops, the good yields of fruit, vegetables, seeds for the next year’s harvest which leads to the food that is to come from them next year.

It is a reminder that God loves to be there to be the good provider for his children. I can understand that as a husband and a father, as a son and a brother, as an uncle, and as a priest because I take pride in looking after my family and my congregation. Ministry and farming have a lot in common. It is more than hard work, though it is that. It is an art. Farmers practice their art and clergy practice ministry. Doctors and nurses practice medicine. Mechanics diagnose problems and fix cars based on training and experience, not just what the computers can tell them. Carpenters, welders, fishermen all have knowledge and experience that they draw on. People in their various professions look to provide for their family, their community and themselves. It is a good and even godly thing.

The thing about practicing an art is not a like proofing in science, with demonstrative, repetitive and similar outcomes every time. What works in one place may not, or even will not work in another place, thought the conditions are similar. The good news this week is that the word and the kingdom, when they are planted and watered, grow often despite the conditions in which they are planted. The word and the kingdom can grow but the soil, the people in which they grow, need preparation. As the Scriptures say, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. (1^st Corinthians 3.5-9) The message grows where it is planted and it needs cultivation if it is to grow the way it needs to. Thrones need to be removed, rocks need to be picked, fields need irrigation and to be harvested at the right time.

When it comes to preaching the gospel, life is no different. I minister in a society that has become tone deaf to the Gospel and what it means because they have been deafened by the noise of the world and the teaching and preaching of an easy gospel of cheap grace. This has led to the Church in North America to being shallow and its members weak. The Church has been blinded by its own idolatries. The Church has forgotten what the Scriptures say, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. (2^nd Chronicles 7: 12b-15).

There is a need in the life of those who witness and preach, to keep short accounts where both God and neighbour are concerned. This is why I have said to parishioners from time to time, “I am not here to be popular, I’m here to serve. If I am popular, that is helpful but being popular is not essential.” I have also said, “I am the most talked about man in town and not all of it is good.” It is essential that we offer and share with those around us the truth about what God has done and is doing. We need to make sure that we talk about today and about that Day – St. Paul’s two day calendar – it was all he ever needed. We need to be ready to explain ourselves and give reason for the hope that is within us. God will draw people from every walk of life as we are faithful o participate with him in the drawing. Heaven is more than a haven from life’s destruction and disasters great and small. It is more than the absence of evil. The coming of the kingdom is an opportunity to have mercy and show grace to enable people’s lives to transform towards what God is calling them to be.

Evangelism, that is the drawing people into the kingdom and into the Church, is a process and God himself, is responsible for the result. We are God’s field, God’s planting and he will enable us to bear his fruit, his crop to his glory. Now let’s get to work.

Jason+  

Of beginnings and endings

Hi there faithful readers,

I wanted to take a moment and let everyone know that I will not be writing for a bit after July 23rd. This is due to changes in my life and ministry. As soon as I can - by mid August is the plan I will pick up again and continue on with this blog.

I want to also say a thank you to many of you who have communicated that you are reading this blog and want it to continue. For those who are lay ministers/readers whoa re using this as a help in preparing to preach, there is almost 10 years of blogs to draw on now. Just type in key words into the search engine and you should be able to find everything you need.

To my Church families in Seal Cove Parish and here at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Prince Rupert, I want to say thank you for your encouragement to write and to share in sacred ministry.

To my new Church family at St. James' Cathedral, Peace River, AB, God willing I will see you all again soon!

Jason+ 

Being double yoked with Christ

When you look around this city and at its people, what do you see? When you look at this congregation, what do you see? Can you see them as children of God? Can you see how and why God is coming near them?  The Gospel this week (Matthew 11.16-19,25-30) helps to shift the focus from the preachers, John (the Baptist) and Jesus (of Nazareth) to those who are responding and not responding to the message that is being preached concerning the presence and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus uses a parable to point out the differences between the preachers (John and Jesus) and those who active oppose the message and the things that the preachers are teachings. John came to play the “Funeral Game” – he sang a dirge and the religious people refused to mourn their sins and repent of them.  Jesus came to them, eating and drinking with outcasts and public sinners. They labeled Jesus a glutton and a drunk because the Messiah would be about the things that the religious people cared about and achieve the political goals to usher in the neo-Davidic period where Israel is totally free.

The thing that most folks don’t seem to understand about Jesus, is that he ushers in a new life with a new way of living that does necessarily or always conform to the social thinking and norms of the religious and political elite – we just like to think God thinks like us. The things, the miracles and acts of grace and kindness that have been done by Jesus in his Father’s name, point to who he really is: the Messiah, the Christ. We know who he is by what he does, not just about the declared goals and objects of a few people in power. Christ’s presence among the people means that there is a new way of living that is different and is life giving because it is lived in friendship with God.

Most people in this city and maybe even in this congregation want to believe that they are in control and that they are capable of saying to God, “You’re not the boss of me! You cannot tell me what to do”. It might help to remind ourselves that being heralds of the Gospel in this poet enlightened society is not an easy thing. People are more interested in what they can get out of something so long as it cost them as little as possible than in actually committing to something or someone beyond themselves because it is scary and they could get hurt. It has not changed that we, as communicators of the Good News still have to earn the opportunity to be heard before we will be heard by others.

What gets us through this? Notice what Jesus calls God? Father, right? Father and Lord of heaven and Earth. God is always God and Jesus submits himself to the Father. The difference come with the changes in the relationship that there are with and within Christ: Father with the Son and Christ with his Church. Because there are these relationships, there are two things above all else that we possess because of these relationships: Intimacy and authority.

God the “Father” or in Greek, “Abba”, is all that for Jesus and for us. We have the Daddy-Father. He loves us and he sent Jesus we might know him and have life in is kingdom with him. We are the Daddy-Father’s children just as Jesus is the Son of the Father. We are adopted into the family. This gives us the love and intimacy that we need in order to know what genuine love is and then to be able to share that love with others.

We also have authority to do ministry because we have been given it by Christ who receive all power and authority in heaven and on earth from the Father (Mt.28.16-20). We are competent to minister because we have been and are with Christ in his world in the world. We are competent not because of degrees and knowledge, or because people think we are. As we abide in Christ we are competent to minister with him and for him. Through us, Christ is building his Church and drawing people into the new life and the new creation.

That’s why Jesus came to us and played the “Wedding Game”. But the people he called, many would not come and dance and play. The religious could not, would rejoice in everything that was going on – that the poor and the needy were coming into the kingdom. Instead, the religious and the politically minded attack the personal character of the preacher without addressing the message.

Interestingly enough, Jesus has a surprise response to the ‘haters’: in that hour, he rejoices and he gives thanks to God, praising and confessing the greatness of God in making himself known to ‘simple and insignificant’ and ‘unenlightened’ people instead of the rich, the wise and the powerful. This is why even in this day and age, there the Church still struggles in actively proclaiming Christ to contemporary people. The Church has always struggled to reach out and to make Christ known, no matter what the date is. Yet those who have been with Jesus are recognized as such are participating in what Christ is still doing. They are ministering in the presence of Christ to the people who, in whatever estate we find them, the children of God.

I was asked recently who was responsible for reconciliation ministry in this parish. Answer: we all are! We’re all ministers of the Gospel and we are all ministers of the covenant (treaty) that we have with God. We are all ll children of the Father and the Lord of heaven and earth. Each and all of us are responsible for participating in making each other and other people whole again. Therefore we must first be reconciled to God and to each other so that we can go with Christ and work to see others reconciled to the kingdom, even when it is hard and the people are being all negative.  We are called of Christ to come and be refreshed by him, again and again in order that we would go and comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, that they too might come to Christ.

We are double yoked with Christ, so that we can learn and work because the burden is easy and light. So what does the city and the world see when they look at us? Do they see people who care and are reaching out in love for them and out of compassion for what we see? Or do they see people more worried about the future and hoping they can return to the good old days to escape what’s next? It is a challenge that we must face and live thought it. 

Jason+