Welcome, in the name of God.

The theme of this week’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 10. 37-42) is a) a continuation of last week’s Gospel and the instructions for mission and how the mission is to be carried out, and b) now addressed to those who will receive those who will preach and teach, which will enable the mission of God to be carried out in their communities. It is in essence a word to the Matthean churches in the Holy Land about how to do ministry the way that Jesus wants it done.

One of the first things that I noticed about this lesson, is something simple and as I being to play with it, have discovered that it is something rather profound. Welcome and reception are basically the same thing where the Church is concerned. When you welcome someone, you are receiving that person into fellowship. This has profound implications for how we deal with thing like membership. If there is one thing that I know about Anglicans and the ways in which we practice our hospitality, we often fall short of practicing the ways in which are expected where the Scriptures are concerned.

For example, welcoming someone means that they are welcomed into fellowship not just with one or some, but with all. And there is reward for those who welcome new people into the fellowship of the Church – it is a good and noble ministry. It is why I am more and more convince that there is a need for the Church to return to the practice of the Catechumenate. This means that parents and sponsors for baptism in particular as well as those preparing for Confirmation enter into a group where they are taught the Christian faith so that they can be effective in their life and work as a Christian person, both being a disciple and in making disciples to build up the Church community. We are with God who is building for the day that the kingdom will finally come in all of its fullness.

In it all there are images of both promise and of warning. Jesus gives to the community the abilities to heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. He has commanded that the Church combat evil by cast out demons and spirits, to proclaim forgiveness, the coming near of the kingdom and even the power to raise the dead. We are also warned that not everyone will like us, agree with us. There are people who are going to oppose us, both in word and deed. There are going to be people who would beat us and put us in jail. There people who would see us executed and put away so that we cannot do as Jesus did. While there is the potential to see growth and there are also real hazards for those who will preach and those who will host. Being a follower and a promoter of the Christian faith can be and often is hazardous to one’s person and estate. What is more important? Worrying about what people can do to us because they don’t like us or worrying about failing God and what God has asked of us?

The Church needs to offer refuge to those who are proclaiming the word of God and to those who are seeking a righteousness that is not their own. The Church needs to receive those who are perceived as weak and therefore dependent upon the Almighty for what they need. We are called upon by God to make such people family, going well beyond “one off” events that might speak to people and have a real impact on people’s lives by receiving them and treating them like family. We are to create the conditions and atmosphere within the Church community that draw people to Christ and then assist in their growth to maturity as fully developed disciples.

After all, the joy of salvation and living it out in this world is something to be shared with all who will come and participate and not to be hoarded like treasure. We offer food for the soul and water for the person to drink. And the same is worth sharing for life, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Jason+

Living the Great Commission in the Cruciform Life

We have come now to that part of the Church year that has often been called, “The long green season”. It is the time for growth and for maturing of fruit and the reaping of the harvest. This Sunday’s Gospel plants us firmly back in the Gospel of Matthew and in the “Mission” discourse. Last Sunday we heard of the Great Commission of Jesus to his Church to making disciples, to baptizing and teaching them all that has been commanded of the Church by Christ and recognize that in the going, teaching and baptizing Jesus will be there with us in it all.

The Gospel (Matthew 10.24-39) this week is about being a disciple and where the disciple’s focus needs to be and where it need not be. The disciples are asked to do two things. First, they are to participate in the marvelous signs that Jesus is doing among the people. Namely, they will be healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, causing the lame to walk, curing lepers, exorcising demons, and raising people from death to life. Secondly, the disciples will need to learn what it takes to be followers of Jesus and to be a part of the community he is creating through his teaching, his authority and ministry. The disciples will have to unlearn what they have learned and will have to learn to live a new life: one dependent upon God and each other for the building up of the Church and the kingdom of heaven.

I had a conversation with a friend this week and we were talking about ministry and the things that clergy do. He was amazed at what he saw in me and said that he could ever be like me. I reminded him that I have been a public Christian for a very long time – nearly 25 years now. I pointed out that when I started I was young and foolish, and as bold as brass. I have had to learn how to be the Christian and Christian leader I am now and I did not get there overnight. I have had to learn to let go of some things and learn to trust God to provide when there is need. I have had t learn to move forward to follow and not look back. I have had to learn to deal with opposition from both outside and inside the Church to the Gospel – people who have chosen walk away from the Church and people who have worked to bring me down in a public manner.  I have had to learn to live with a life with safety nets and vices stripped away – things that we hold onto to help and keep us safe.

The lesson I have learn is that the only real safety is in learning to live, to die and to rise like Jesus. He asks that we learn to give ourselves away because in trying to hoard life and shield it thinking that it is ours, what we have we are actually limiting ourselves and moving away from God. As I look to God, he is the source of my life and my strength. He is my portion and my song. He calls us to cross bearing and self denial. He calls his Church to cruciform living. And he demands that we remain in him to remain strong in spite of the conflicts that the cruciform life requires. Intentionally living for God and proclaiming the truth about God is going to be divisive in this world. We are going to find ourselves in conflict with our culture and its ways. There are many in the world that are still listening to the Church, to hear and discern what it is that God is saying and doing. The cruciform life is meant to put Christ on display for the world to see. If we are not willing to swim upstream against our culture, to declare the Good News, the truth of God in Christ, are we really worth knowing? Are we really saying as a community of faith, anything that is worth someone else listening to?

Many in the Church these days are afraid – fearful of loss buildings and structures, of rejection of themselves by the world or by God and sometimes both. Many contemporary Christians are fearful of failing to be the people, the disciples that we are each and all called to be. If you are a person of faith and you are thoroughly committed to seeing the kingdom of heaven here on earth, and you are out there trying to do your level best, isn’t that what God asks of us? We are called to be faithful and fruitful not successful. Success, fame and failure of things belong to God and God alone. The conflict, the problems and protests of this present age rest within God and his relationship with the world. So keep on looking up. He who has called you is faithful and he will do it. Come with me and follow me as I follow Christ. Keep your focus on God, bearing your cross, producing spiritual fruit and walking into the kingdom.

Jason+

Living in the fear of God and full life

He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge. Fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. (Proverbs 14.26-27)

I don’t know if you have noticed, but we live in a culture that is scared to death of death. I have been noticing the fear that we have around death for some time. In fact every time I go to the cemetery, the fear I sense in others in palpable. No one wants to be there but they go because they must. And the funeral services industry tries to cover things up and make them more presentable so that those who are grieving don’t have to see the reality of what is proclaimed in liturgy (that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return) or the reality of what is happening in returning a fellow sojourner to the earth from which they were originally drawn. Our society fears that this life is all there is and that there is nothing more to be had. The idea of facing eternal darkness and emptiness is a terribly frightening thought and most try as hard as they can to avoid it.

Our culture likes to pride itself on the idea that only the villains die. Villians are often popular because they can be as bad as they want, do what they want, so long as at the end of the plot line they die an acceptable, horrific death. A death that is commensurate with the level of evil they brought to the heroes trough out the story. The worse the villain, the greater are the demands for the bigger death scene. So for example, think of the latest season finale of the HBO series, “Game of Thrones”.  One king dies of poison at his own wedding. His grandfather, who has been the architect of all kinds of villainy dies on the most ignoble of thrones: the toilet. The son who has murdered his former lover for being his father’s bed is applauded for revenging and shooting arrows into his treacherous father while he is on “the throne”. I share this with you because we can never see death coming and we always think ourselves as heroes until the moment that we face our mortality and then it is more than likely too late. No amount of bargaining will change things.

What does not seemed to be recognized is that, for the Christian soul, death is the gate to wider, fuller life. If we believe in God and we believe that God is there for us beyond this life then shouldn't we live this life for everything it is worth, knowing that there is life after this life and death? Shouldn't we consider carefully and prayerfully what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and recognize that this life is worth living and to the full because there is more life to come? Even when we face death, our own our someone near to us, do we not know that walking the valley of the shadow of death, we do not do so unprotected, vanquished? We are never alone there because Christ is there already. The valley is now only a reminder of death because Christ as been victorious; the valley is a shadow of its former self.

If there is a way I could explain it, it would go something like it did at the funeral of the Late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The blowing of “Last Post”, a moment of silence, recognition of the death and who the person was in this life and commendation for the next life. Then the call of the trumpets to reveille, to rising up to life again. So in this moment as we are called to rise in the new life, we are called to know the grace that God has given for this life and let us fully live it. And let us call to mind the peace God has granted for not only this day but also for the days to come that we might live on in the full and abundant life of God.

Jason+

And remember, the Father is watching!

A while back, a friend of mine once observed and commented to me that the Church is often like a hockey game: it is 12 guys slugging it out on the ice, in dire need of a rest being watched but 19,000 people in real need of some spiritual exercise. This thought came to me again as we look to another Sunday, to Baptism, and to the Anniversary of my ordination as a deacon on the Feast of the Ascension. And while some may consider these things to be totally diverse, I have noticed that there is a commonality amongst them – then ongoing life of the Church community and the need to witness to the reality of all that God has done in Christ for us.

The Gospel this week (John 17:1-11) is the high priestly prayer for Jesus and his followers before the events of the Arrest at Gethsemane take place. The first thing that I cannot help but notice is that the lectionary does not include the entire prayer. Jesus prays for himself, that he may glorify God and do everything that needs to be done to make salvation possible for us. Jesus also prays and gives thanks for those who have followed him on this earth and who have witnessed all the things that he has done.  And that is where things are left off but it is not where Jesus stops. Jesus goes on to pray for those whom he is leaving behind and will be entrusted with the mission he began. And he prays for those who will come and will participate in the proclaiming of the Gospel through their ministry - he prayed for us: for you and for me that we would be where he is. He prayed that we would be in the presence of the Father and come into the kingdom.

The whole prayer is about the unity of the community. He prayed that all that needed to be done would b done and would glorify the Father and bring the kingdom. These days, it seems like there are so many other things that are demanded but are not a part of the unity of the Church. Unity is not about the doctrine a Church holds, it is about learning to be in whole and healthy relations with those around us. Unity is not so much about what we believe as learning to live and express a real and true love out of obedience to divine will. This is what Jesus did. Jesus lived his life in love and obedience to the Father. He listened and did not take his eyes off of what the Father was asking of him. he lived it to the full and because of that the Father responded by raising him not only from the dead, but also to his right place at the right hand of the throne of God.

For the Church, unity is not a lofty goal on a chart or in a business plan – it is and must be a lived reality. It is the hardest and yet the most powerful thing I have done in my life, having spent five years as a student and as an officer in the Church Army. There were days as a student that I would have to work, pray, and eat with someone that I just argued with in the classroom. We had to find ways to make things work to hold the welfare of the community together both for the sake of our common witness and for the good of those with whom we served. In doing so I learned that faith is not a dreary duty but rather a refined joy. The faith that we hold is not just about memories, it is about where we start with Christ and return to him when we have stopped following. Finding the faith and rediscovering the hope that is always there for us because of the Spirit. He brings us all kinds of gifts, starting with faith, hope and love. In this way, God gives the Church unity in such a manner with such strength, that it can never be achieved through human will or creativity.

Why does the Ascension matter? It is what makes us focus on “What’s next?” It draws us into worship because we recognize that God has affirmed Jesus’ ministry and has given the Holy Spirit to enable, empower and embolden us in ours. We are at work with God because God is here and has called us into his labour. We have been left behind, but not as orphans – he is here and we are with him. And remember, in all of this, the Father is watching.

Jason+

That where He is, we might be also

                                 

If you knew that there was limited time left and there where things that you needed your family and friends to know about life, death and the life after your death, what would you take the time to tell them? In its essence that is what the Farewell Discourse of John’s Gospel is all about. Jesus is both telling those closest to him and demonstrating to them with action what he thinks is the most important things to concern themselves with – both personally and corporately.

To that end there are two important things, two themes that get expressed in the Gospel lesson (John 14:15-21) this week. The first theme is the need for love to be expressed in obedience. The second theme is the coming and work of the Spirit. So if you will allow, I want to examine these themes apart and then see how they come together, in light of what we heard last week (John 14:1-14); that Jesus is the very presence of the Living God and that we have gone from building to person, from geography to relationship again.

So let’s start with the second theme first. In recent weeks, I have been considering how the Resurrection was not the culmination of God’s plan for salvation but rather the beachhead to launch the Church so that the work of building the kingdom up might continue through Christ and the Church working with and in the Holy Spirit. this makes the Resurrection more about Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit and less about the Resurrection being the end game. The Spirit is going to be given to enable, embolden and empower the work of the Church community to active witness to the truth of the Gospel. Over and over again in the preaching of the apostles, people are called to repentance because they participated in the death of Jesus and to live the new life found in him because God raised him from the dead.

The Church is that community which witnesses to all the things which Christ is doing in the world, and continues to do with the presence and work of the Spirit. The Church is being drawn and led to live out the dyings and risings of Jesus on a daily basis in the everyday world. Or as St. Paul would have it, “I die daily”. But there is something that we need as Church acknowledge here: Christ is not absent but real and present to the Church. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we remember his words, “Do this, in remembrance of me.” We do this thing so that we can recall that he is One amongst us. I believe that Jesus is present even now to his community, his Church. And we are being given another Advocate, the Spirit. This second Advocate is here to teach us about God, to help us remember Jesus whom we serve and the things that he taught, and he is with us to lead us into all the truth about Jesus and God. And because Jesus is in the presence of the Father and the Spirit is with us, we are enabled, empowered and emboldened to do things that still amaze and draw attention to the growing kingdom, just as Jesus promised.

What about the other theme? Well it seems to me that this is how we demonstrate the presence of Christ, the Spirit and the kingdom of God amongst us. Being in relationship with God should and must invade our personal space and pervade our corporate relationships. Making this happen is the work of the Spirit – to bring about the unity of the witness of the Body and make it work to make it clear to the rest of the world that there is something more to life than death and taxes.

What is the command that we are given to keep? Is it not that very command that he gives next, to love one another has Christ has loved us? Can we claim to be followers of his and do harm to each other mentally and physically in his name and call that Christianity? Life in the kingdom comes from God and depends on being received – the Spirit is God’s first gift of all the gifts that he desires to give us. There is more to the Christian life than the sight of a lonely cross and an empty grave. It is the knowledge of the presence of the Living God in your life. The incarnation does not end with the Ascension, it goes on in you and me. We are to embody Christ so that others can see and know that we are with him. The world needs to see us acting and reacting as Christ does, loving, caring and having compassion on those who, in the eyes of the world, aren’t worth it.

How do we make this come together? Take the direction of St. Paul: “Be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Take the time to be filled up over and over again so that you can do the things that God calls you to do, to overcome and to build for the kingdom that is coming. We work with God to help heaven and earth to come together; to interlock and be wedded together. Are there questions and struggles? Are there hurts and pains along the way to getting there. Yes there have been, and so long as we are apart from God; as long as we try to do it ourselves, there are going to be struggles, trails and pains. What we look to is the intimacy of the relationship we are building with God and with neighbour, knowing that such a binding leads into that abundant life that overflows into eternity. After all didn't the Saviour promise, “Where I am, you may also be”?

Jason+

What to expect when you are facing death

There are certain things that I expect to hear when I am at a funeral... or even more so when I am doing one. The words are familiar: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you maybe also.” (John 14.1-3) We hear these words in moments of sorrow and fear; in time of pain and loss. It was such a moment when Jesus first spoke them to the 12 and the other disciples gathered in that room that night he was betrayed by one of his own to death. What we don’t often hear or understand is that the trials and Jesus’ death are not the last word. It is not the end of all things but the start of the new thing that God is doing.

We are encouraged by Jesus to keep moving forward into what is going to happen next. Yes, there is going to be an arrest. Yes there are going to be trails and there is going to be false witness. True beatings are going to be administered and most certainly blood is going to be split. It is who were are and it has been displayed in the life and death of Jesus. Yet in spite of all that is going to happen, including the fact that the 12 are going to run away and hide, they and we with them, are called to continue in our faith, trust and participation in Jesus. Faith is more than knowledge of something; it is what we act upon when things are hard and despite. Faith is what we learning when things are good and quiet so that we can continue to live the same when it feels like the world is coming completely apart.

Trust is where we choose to put our personal and corporate faith. It goes to that one person, that one thing that we will trust above all else and above all others. Trust is what propels us through days of calamity and upholds us through nights of worry, sorrow and despair. We tend to worship what we trust. We are often inclined to exalt that which we trust; most often ourselves. We are invited by Christ to look past all that we think is coming and recognize that he is in control. He is the One with the plan and he is the One who will see it through to fruition. Trusting Jesus, means that we are going to be faithful to him and him alone. Putting our faith in him means that we are going to participate in living the life he has and that we are called to in him.

In moments of heartache and disappointment, we can remember this: we are not forgotten. We are expected and God is ready for us. We are not mistakes. We are not accidents. God is ready and waiting for us, having made both room and ready for each and for all of us. Do you want to see heaven? Do you want to know what it is like? Then come and see. Come with us and find Jesus in Galilee. Come and see and live the live that he is offering us. Learn to trust him now, in the small things and in the easy seasons so that when the water is rough and the waves and wind are high we have someone to call out to and depend on. Expect to hear his voice, to know his presence and to live his life because someday we will live it forever.

Jason+

We had hope

As I get ready for the service this coming Sunday, I should note that we are going to have a bunch of Sea Cadets in the congregation. They are coming to help the congregation commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic. It is important for us for a couple of reasons. One is that we need to give thanks for those who worked and fought to bring freedom and life to those who were dying and under the boot of tyranny.  The other is to reconnect with that part of the Christian faith which compels us to go and lay down our lives in service to God and for those we call friends and neighbours. Self sacrifice is a trait we often lack in our modern society. That is why it is important to remember: so that when the needs be, we are prepared to emulate it.

That brings me to a piece of history that happen during the Battle of the Atlantic. It is called the Battle of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. Supplies for the war effort during the Second World War were being shipped from Canada and the United States to the United Kingdom. To prevent the UK from remaining strong and able to resist, Germany sent out submarine patrols called “wolf packs”. During the first couple of years, the wolf packs sank a lot of boats and cargo meant for the English and for the invasion of mainland Europe. U boat 69 had made an attack on a ship near Quebec City in the Fall of 1942 and that had many people in Canada enraged.

What steeled the opinion and strength of the country was what happened next – the sinking of the S.S. Caribou. The Caribou was a passenger ferry that ran back and forth from North Sydney, NS to Port aux Basques, NL.  The Caribou left Nova Scotia about 930pm on the night of October 13^th 1942, belching out lots of thick black smoke as the HMCS  Grandmere – a Canadian Naval Minesweeper sent for protection - trailed in her wake. At 340 am the next morning, U-69’s Captain, Ulrich Graf,  having mistaken the pair ships he had been trailing for a trio of grain ships he was ordered to sink, put a single torpedo through Caribou’s starboard side, sending her to the bottom. There were only 60 kilometres from Port aux Basques at the time of the sinking. Of the 202 people aboard the Caribou that night 136 souls perished, including Captain Benjamin Tavenor and his two sons. Survivors were rescued by the Grandmere and brought to Port aux Basques. It was said in the days after the sinking that entire families were wiped out. Most of the dead were from the Port aux Basques area.

It should also be noted here that by the end of World War two, over 80% of the wolf packs had been sunk by the Allies as they transported supplies, troops, planes and other things needed for the invasion of German occupied Europe. Without the bravery and sacrifice of so many more Newfoundlanders and Canadians, the efforts of D-Day in Normandy and the end of the War would not have been possible.

The families of those died aboard the Caribou that night, as so many of us do when we face and deal with loss would have asked the same questions, wondered the same things and tried to examine it all to a satisfactory end, only to say, “We had hoped...”  It is not unlike the two travelers we encounter in the Gospel Lesson this week (Luke 24.13-35). They had hoped. They had hoped that Jesus was the one to deliver them from the oppression of the Roman government. They had hoped he would become king and would make Israel a strong nation again. They had hoped that things would have been different; that they would have been different. They had hoped. Then those hopes died with Jesus on the cross and those hopes were buried with him in the tomb. They had hopes and then those hopes were gone.

Into this situation, came a stranger who asked a simple question, “What things? What are you talking about?” The travelers stopped their trudging and looked amazed at the stranger and said Jesus of Nazareth of course!” Jesus goes on to teach them that what they heard that morning was the truth and that the things they are describing had to happen because it was God’s doing.

As the travelers approached home the invited the stranger into eat and stay with them over night, so that the conversation of the road could continue. It was at the table, at the breaking of the bread that brought to light that the companion who now breaks the bread is Jesus and then Jesus goes out from them. They knew that they knew he was there and was alive and they could not and did not wait to share this with the apostles because they immediately got up and returned the seven miles to Jerusalem. The followers of Jesus in those moments had to discover for themselves that there was still hope and because there was still hope, there was still life.

Faith hope and life all start with where people are and where they are at, not where they are intended or where we demand that they ought to be. We must walk with them and teach them. We must be reenchanted by the Word, live it and proclaim it. We need to show the world that the things which had grown old have been made new. We need to show the world that the things which had previously fallen down are being raised up. And most of all we need to show everyone that all things are being brought under the rule of Jesus Christ the risen Lord. We still have hope and his name is Jesus.

Jason+