The "C" word

The “C” word. Nobody likes the “C” word. No, not Cancer. The word “Commitment”. In our society these days, it is a word that has fallen into disrepute if not disuse. People like to be involved in things but do not want to be seen as being committed to something. To be committed, especially when it comes to religion, it makes you seem, weird or even fanatical. Being involved allows for response and for participation but only to a point – so long as it remains good for me (and my family) if one has family. The moment that there is an inconvenience then there is the refusal to participate our even involve one’s self.

This week’s Gospel Lesson is about making commitments to Christ and learning to follow him. it is split into two stories that are joined together. The first is about Jesus choosing to get flinty faced about going to Jerusalem the reaction of the Samaritans (northerners) about Jesus choosing to go South and eventually die. Along the way, as word spread throughout the North of Israel that Jesus was going to Jerusalem, villages and towns rejected him because he was going South and making a big deal about Jerusalem. I can hear it now... what are there no good places to worship here” No crosses to die on and no tombs to be buried in that he has to go up there?  After one such rejection, James and John wanted to call down fire to show the people around them a thing or two. God could put on this great display just like when the prophets of Baal got barbequed and then no one would dare question Jesus or his disciples. James and John wanted to get all “shock and awe” on the Samaritans. What does Jesus do? Well essentially nothing, except that he admonishes and chastened the disciples for wanting retribution on those who had rejected them – they kept walking and moved on to the next village.

The second part of the story is about being on the road with Jesus and having people who wanted to come and follow him. One fellow offered to commit to an opened ended mission saying, “Wherever you go, I go.” Jesus points out to the person that they need to be careful of what they are promising and have counted the costs of the decision they have made. The mission is not going to have fancy hotel rooms to sleep in at night. There will be no five star dining. There will be no of this calling down fire from heaven business. You will have to say good bye to your family, your life as it is now and the security you have built up for yourself? Are you ready to do that? Make sure.

The next person Jesus personally calls. He is willing but wants to wait until his father has died. That may be many years away from happening and the man wants his blessing and his share of the inheritance. This was something major in ancient Middle Eastern culture. But Jesus points out that those who are unaware of the kingdom and of the life that God offers (the spiritually dead) can handle the affairs of a physically dead person. In other words there is no time to waste. Announcing that God is coming to visit and to redeem his people is of first and utmost importance. Nothing, not even the blessing of a dying father was to get in the way of the kingdom being announced to the world.

The third person also offers freely to go with Jesus but first wants to go home and say his goodbyes. In my study bible, there is a note beside this verse that says, “Leave alone, the things you leave be behind.” This man wants to follow Jesus but wants to take leave of his family. What happens when he walks in the door and tells his mother and father that he is off to follow Jesus? Wouldn’t they try to lock him in his room and put bars on the window? Or at least would they not have a strongly worded conversation to make it clear that if he goes out the door he is cut off? The imperative of going to proclaim that God is coming to visit and redeem his people, is so important that we can take the time for a goodbye and a hug. It is that important.

What I gain from this is some simple things. God is looking for people who are going to go and go now to proclaim his message. The going, the proclaiming, and the living of the message of the kingdom are what matter. We need to let go of what was and stretch out for what is to come because in doing so, what you what will go with you. God is not looking for people of tremendous faith or great smarts or fantastic wealth. He is looking for people who will find their flinty faced resolve and join him in the journey through the cross and the grave to the resurrection and ascension.

Or if you wish think of mission and evangelism this way, we are the communion of God for the city we live in. God wants to take us and bless us then to break us up and send us to the city that we might feed and draw someone to God. It is important that we go with God and do what needs to be done. Let’s try that this week and see what happens in Jesus’ name.

Jason+ 

The Feast is ready to begin

The kingdom of God is like a dinner party with a lot of guests and all of them with reputations. Or at least that is how one could look at it. If you think about the various people who are in this story: the Pharisee, Jesus and the “sinner” woman, they all have reputations that go ahead of them. Take the Pharisee in our Gospel story as an example (Luke 7.36-8.3). He had a reputation as being a man of great faith and of observing the Law. He did not want to be seen as someone who would not take a pilgrim in and feed him and so he invited Jesus and the Twelve to come and dine with him.  Hospitality for him and for a great many people in different places and spaces is a great honour and is important in spiritual matters for various reasons.

Enters in a woman who is known in the community to be a “public sinner” but we are not told what her particular sin is and why she is reviled by the Pharisee (and others). But whatever the sin and the circumstances around it, she is known as a public sinner.

Then there is Jesus himself. He has a reputation for being a prophet and a holy man. And as such Jesus, so the Pharisee thinks, should know a “sinner” when he sees one and should have the common sense to avoid such a person because it will muck up his reputation. It will leave him open to the charge that he allows sinners to touch him and that he eats and drinks with them. In reality, Jesus does identify with sinners. He cares about those who have fallen short and fallen away from God and he is here to bring them back. He has come to seek and to save that which is lost – God’s own people. God is visiting and redeeming his people.

The Pharisee thinks he is seeing something awful and believes that if Jesus were really as holy as his reputation says he is, he would know about this woman and not allow himself to be polluted and corrupted by her. This is important because as we noted last week, Jesus is not worried about what other people think. He is doing what needs to be done for the person who needs it. It is acts of grace and of love that set people free. And out of people acting to do for another in love, grows an attitude of gratitude. Because we have been loved with an everlasting love and shown mercy without limits and given forgiveness, our lives are being chained by God through Christ who lives in us. It is not I who live now but Christ in me.

And because in am being changed, how I deal with other people is changing. My attitudes of gratitude (thanksgiving) and fortitude (spiritual strength) grow has I know and receive the love and the grace that God gives me – my daily bread. I need to remind myself that there is not a person that I encounter for whom Christ did not give his life; for whom his blood was not shed. As Christians we need to see with new eyes the people around us. We need to see, really see, who God has given to us and learn to love and to serve them and love them as God does through his Son.

This woman, because of her act of devotion, the change of eyes and of heart leads her to being made whole. The woman’s response to hearing the good news has brought her salvation and she needs to get on with life now because it is different and it matters for an eternity her and ours not just for this minute.

How do you see the people around you? Can you see them, really see them, as God does? Can you see them and how much God loves them and can you serve them in the ways that Jesus is serving them? Can you see them at tale with you? Come and see and then go and tell. After all if not you, then who?  

I wrote a collect (short prayer) for this week too and I’ll finish with this: Have mercy O Lord, upon all those whom you call into your service and to reflect your likeness and glory: that we might faithfully reflect your love and offer your mercy through your Spirit. Through us, fill the places of your banquet table that all the world may come to rejoice and feast with the saints in light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jason+

God is visiting and redeeming his people

When I started reading the commentaries for this week’s Gospel (Luke 7.11-17) I could not help but notice all of the similarities that there are between the text and the contemporary situation we face in this city. Let’s see if you can hear what I was hearing:

The name “Nain” means beauty and pleasantness. Once very prosperous, the town had fallen on hard times because the price of the one commodity people wanted (called simsum) fell through the floor. The local economy was yet to recover for all of that. Plus its geography did not led itself to helping things out. It is 3 miles south and west of Mount Tabor in the Galilee. Nain was also 25 miles south and west of Capernaum and it was a steep climb on the road from one to the other. So it was not the usual route people would take to the larger centers in the south.

So the fact that Jesus deliberately sets out for this place is a bit of a wonder not to mention a shock. And it was as much of a shock to the people of Nain as it was to the people that were following Jesus. As they came to the town and entered from the West they came across the funeral procession of a man who had died very recently – the day before. Purity laws demanded that the body be buried in 24 hours after death and anyone who touched the body was spiritually polluted for a length of time – a week usually.

Why is all of this important? Because there is a theme that we need to pay attention to here that comes up over and over again in Luke’s Gospel: who is lost and how do they get found?  And we need to be aware of the fact that God is coming and visiting his people to redeem them and make them his people. It is building on the theme that we heard in Nazareth when Jesus read from Isaiah at the Synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4.18-21)

God anoints his servants to do the things that are going to build his nation, God’s priesthood in the world. And more to the point of the Gospel we are considering, dead men not only don’t tell tales, they don’t provide for their widowed mothers either. Jesus and those following him, meet this group of people led by a women who is now at the mercy of everything bad that has happened to her in her family and in her community.

I consider this a moment of sudden ministry. It is not a moment where one is invited in, you just know that you know that you need to do something, anything because you have looked at the this pitiable woman and recognized the state of her life and her situation. What does Jesus do? He confronts the situation by telling this grieving widow not to cry but to dry her tears. The he reaches out and touches the beir – causing the procession to grind to a halt. Then Jesus says to the dead man – “Get up!” Not only did he sit up but he began to talk – proof that he was not dead or a spirit but truly alive! Doesn’t that make you wonder what happened next? Does it raise in your mind the question of how the bearers of the body reacted? Did they lower him gentle like or did he get dumped? And how did this man “stick the landing” having fallen from a height if he was dumped?

Then the most remarkable thing happened – Jesus gave him back to his mother. He wasn’t just set free to do whatever. He was raised to life again and that life had a purpose – to care for his widowed mother, that he might be her help and her defense. In turn this means that he was sent back to the community that was prepared to bury him. It would have an impact on the community in terms of joy in having this young man back and give them hope that more help and a turnaround was just around the corner. Most of all, the people praised God for this and claimed Jesus as a prophet because he made them aware of God’s presence and power among them. And the news of this happen spread all over the land, including to John the Baptist. All of this happened during a funeral in the middle of a cemetery and a burial. God visited and redeemed his people.

Where does this leave us? Let me ask you a question: where is God for you when you are suffering, crying or in pain? Where is God for you when you believe that there is nothing life to do but die yourself? I wish I could show you (but cannot for pastoral reason and privacy concerns) where God is at work in the lives of people in this congregation right now. If God is here and he does visit, heal and redeem his people then there is a connection to be made in the words that we hear in the Eucharist, “Do this for the remembrance of me.” God in Christ is here and we are with him. God has come to visit, heal and redeem this congregation. He has come to you, to heal you and to heal you and to celebrate your redemption.

Seeing Isaiah fulfilled is only the first steps in moving into the kingdom. God calls on us to reach out to this city as only we can. If not us, then who? Do you really see the people of this city and know people who need those moments of sudden ministry? Do you love them enough to draw them in and share with them what we have?

Recently at coffee after Church I was a part of a conversation about how to grow the Church. There were thoughts about programs and so on. It has become clearer and clearer to me that we as Christians need to live in the Scriptures and the fulfillment there of. We need to see people get their sight back, the deaf their hearing and enable the lame to walk up right. We need to see the dead rise and talk. It is a good thing to come here, into this place and to worship and pray but it is a better thing, having done that to go and tell this city, one person at a time that God is coming to visit and to redeem this people and share the joy that comes with having a relationship with a God who will interrupt a funeral to make the kingdom known.

Jason+

Moments of Sudden Ministry

Have you ever wondered why we merit God’s attention? It was a question that I was considering carefully this week. And that’s when it dawned on me. In Christ, though the incarnation of the Son of God, God has visited and redeemed his people. It is a common theme that runs through the Gospel of Luke and is part of what happens in the Gospel lesson for Sunday (Luke 7.1-10).

With finishing Easter and moving into the Long green season of learning to be disciples. We pick things up again after Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” which mirrors the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus returns home to Capernaum and is requested to go with some high ranking synagogue officials to heal the servant of a local centurion. The military officer had heard about Jesus and sent people from the community to find him and make the request. When the people get to Jesus, they make the plea for help, and try to sweeten the pot by pointing out to Jesus that he is worthy of this honour because he has done nice, even good things for the community and he cares for the Jewish nation; including building the place of worship.

One of the things that sticks out for me in this story, is that Jesus does not seem to notice or acknowledge the nature of the man that is making the request – that he is a nice guy who has been pleasant and giving towards his neighbours. He considers the life of the person he is being asked to heal and save because a person’s life, physical and spiritual is on the line. As I like to think of it, Jesus is faced with a moment of sudden ministry. There is a request and a demand for salvation. Without batting an eyelash, Jesus agrees to travel with the group that came to fetch him. Remember God is coming to visit and redeem his people. We should keep in mind that the centurion who asks for the healing is a gentile and that the person who needs the healing, is more than likely Jewish.

Ministry has those sudden moments when one is asked to act. It is a simple thing. Either you will or you will not. Its like a wife calling out to you from a hospital room because she is sitting with her dying husband. You know about him because for years he has declared to be an atheist. Facing his own demise and suddenly, maybe for the first time, sensing the presence of the Almighty at the approach of death needed hope and wanted prayer before death came. It is like doing a pastoral visit to an elderly couple who, when you arrive at the door, are invited into a rather loud discussion about the husband giving up his driver’s licence because he is 83 and has had three accidents in the last three weeks. Its like having a 16 year old girl show up at the Office door. She has been thrown out of her home by her stepfather. She moved in with her boyfriend, got into drinking, then into drugs and now finds out that she is three months pregnant and does now where to turn. Or it is like getting a phone call from someone who has a family member who is dealing with grief issues and PTSD. They won’t tell you who they are or where they are but they want your help to make things better all the same.

Where do you go and what name do you call on when you are in trouble? Remember God is coming to you and he wants to redeem, heal and rescue you. Jesus came not just to show us the way but to be the path. And if there is something that this lesson reminds me of it is this simple truth: where prayer is focused, power falls. We can consider the request of all these people to Jesus a prayer. And where prayer is made power falls.

So let me ask you a question then out of all of this, when will you as an individual, when will we as a community of faith put our trust in the living God? When will we take God at his word and begin to live in the hope and the strength that God gives to his people that the world might see Him in us? The world needs to see, to hear and to feel his life in us so that they might to begin to be open to the possibility that they can have this life too. It is time to do more in this Church than just survive. We are made so that we can thrive. The Father loves us and cares for us more than we can ever be aware of. The world needs to see this in us before they will accept that they are being called into the life of the Church. Once they can see that in us, then they can have it for themselves and begin to change the world around them.

And if there is need of encouragement, then remember this, we live our lives, do our ministry and die our deaths and we do it all in the sight of the Lord. As Scripture says “Precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his faithful servants.”  Psalm 116.15

Jason+

The Proclamation of Pentecost

Ever been afraid to take God at this word? Have you struggled to do what you believe he is asking of you? The Apostles were certainly in that kind of spot on the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-42). And yet they go from being behind locked doors and shuttered window because of the fear they had about what their lives were going to be like now that Jesus had returned to the Father.

Remember last week, how when Jesus was being taken up, he was blessing them. It occurred to me that he is still blessing them and us. Jesus lives to make intercession for us and to see that his Church is blessed. Therefore we need to learn to receive that blessing that Jesus offers, recognizing that we often don’t know what it is we are being blessed for until we actually get there. The blessing he offered them is there for us to live in, if we are smart enough to take it up and live in it. And if you need an example of what I mean, then consider this – the Bishop will bless the whole congregation at the end of the service on Sunday. What are you being blessed to do and to be this coming week? Do you know?

What I find most fascinating, is that in learning to worship and in worship to remember and recall all of the great things that God has done especially in Jesus, is that witness is the other side of that coin. When they were together, in prayer and in living in fear of what those who had Jesus put to death would do to them, the Spirit came to them and they suddenly found themselves outside boldly telling the world what they had known on the inside – that Jesus is Lord. People in the City for the Feast of Pentecost got to hear in their own languages (mother tongues) what God had done for the world in Christ. There was no denying what God was doing. No misunderstanding for people: everyone could connect with what the Church was saying because they were hearing in a way that they could easily comprehend. They had a choice. People could believe what was being preached and proclaimed or not.

Hearing that their rejection of Jesus led to his death and that there was a second chance to put their faith and their lives in the hands of Christ caused thousands that day to do just that. And three thousand people became followers of the Lord Jesus. Making Christ known is what Pentecost and the life in the Spirit is all about.

I know Christians who have and continue to make it more about what a person has got in terms of spiritual gifts. As I consider Pentecost, that is not what the Spirit or the Feast are about. It is about proclaiming in a real and living way that the world put Christ to death but God raised him from the dead, vacating our judgment upon him and offering life in the name of the risen Lord.  The Spirit comes to teach us about Jesus and to reveal all the truth about him and his life with us – even yet. As we are prayed over and blessed; Jesus prays for you and for me that we would be united in love with him as he is with the Father that we might be one. He prays for the unity of his Church and for his Church as we live out his incarnation through the Spirit. This means that every Christian can and must produce the fruit of the Spirit. Jesus will make sure that each community has the gifting it needs to do the ministry that needs to be done. The Spirit makes Jesus real and present to us, “That we might know him in the breaking of bread and in the prayers, ‘ so that we might, “Do this, in remembrance of me.”

Jason+

            

Awaiting the "Go" sign!

Just where did Jesus go? And how are we to be his followers no if we cannot see him? Perhaps it is in the words of the angels, who are standing there with the disciples and ask them this simple question, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky?” (Acts 1.11) The Ascension is not a goodbye or even a farewell. It is a hold on a minute, I’ll be back.”

But then you need to go further back in the Gospel of Luke (24.36-53) to the last of Jesus’ appearances in the upper room. The very same room where they celebrated that last meal together and from they went to the Mount of Olives where Jesus was taken, arrested and led away to his crucifixion. Jesus came to them and spoke his peace over them. He had to continue to show himself to them for them to believe that it was truly himself. As a final proof, he asked for something to eat and they gave him a piece of broiled fish. How many ghost or dead men do you know that can eat a piece of fish? And what did they talk about while Jesus ate his piece of fish? Were they quieted by awe and wonder or struck dumb by incredible impossibility

Then he took the extraordinary step of taking the time to sit down with them and open their minds to see and understand what the Scriptures said about him. It was one last attempt to really know Jesus and his true nature. It would vital for the disciples to know these things in the days ahead. They would be going out into the world and acting like crazy people, like Jesus and everyone else would recognize this.

It would be important to know the Scriptures because knowing who God is and what God has promised to his people aids us in what we need to do.  Knowing and studying the word of God allows for us to see and to know God. Having Jesus speak God’s peace over us is the covering we need to have the staying power necessary to do ministry in the places and spaces to where God calls us.  God’s word spoken over us, moves us from fear to faith; from misery to mercy; and from ignorance into mystery with awe and wonder. But it is so much more to the Christian life than that.

I remember preaching one Sunday morning about the necessity of discipleship in the Church. I thought I had done a reasonable job. I made lots of eye contact After the service I had a dear older soul come to me and quietly whisper to me, “Sir, that was a pretty good message, but I don’t need to be a Christian. I am an Anglican.”  Please understand she was thinking I wanted her to become Pentecostal rather than Anglican and that was not going to happen. She was a dyed in the wool Anglican and was not about to become something else.

So think I need to say two important things. The first is that all baptized people are followers of the Lord Jesus. We are all members of his Body. Anglican, Pentecostal, Roman, United, Baptist: We are all God's children. We need to know him in this life so that our lives can be different. That is what worship is for: so that we can see and hear and know Jesus through sacrament and in each other. We worship so that we can witness to the community beyond the sacrament so that we can show them who Jesus is and draw them into his presence. Sometimes it will happen fast whole other times it will be a long, slow process.

What do you do when you have been blessed and are waiting for the “go” sign? It seems clear that Luke thinks it should be about being in the presence of God for prayer and worship – for us as vessels to be filled to the brim with everything that God has for us and for those around us.

How do we continue the mission? We follow the footsteps of Christ in the dirt and we follow the lead of the Spirit in our hearts and minds. They need to be and are one. We pray to be led and then we act as we believe we are led by the Spirit. Do I and can we as communities of ministry make mistakes? Yes. We can. All of us can and do make mistakes. But on the other hand, I have never found myself in a place and space where God could not use me because I have prayed and stepped out in faith to follow my Master. We are blessed at the end of worship but we often don’t know for what until we get there and that is okay. 

Where did Jesus go? He went home but he’ll be right back.

Jason+

Always being in trouble

Are you in trouble? Do you want to be in troubled waters? Then consider this:

 There once was a man who was trapped on the roof of his house in the middle of a flood. The waters swiftly surrounded the house and kept rising and rising. In the hopes of rescuing him, a neighbour drove his pick up to the house of the trapped man and shouted, “Jump in the back! Jump in the back! I’ll get you to safety.” But the man on the roof shouted back, “My God will save me! My God will come and save me.” So the neighbour left and the waters continued to rise.

A short time later, two people in a boat came along and wanted the trapped man to come and get in the boat. They pleaded with him saying “Jump in! Jump in! And we will get you to safety.” But the man refused and so they pair left him there on the roof waiting for God to save him.

Not long after that, as the water was to the roof now and the man who was trapped could feel the house moving in the water, a helicopter came along with a basket on the rope. The pilot called down to the man on the roof trying to urging him to get in the basket. He told him that the house was about to be destroyed and the man had no time left. But still the man on the roof steadfastly refused to get in the basket and go to safety, claiming that God would save him. As the pilot hovered and watched, the man on his roof was swept away in the current with his house and he drowned.

When he appeared before the throne of God he was cheeky and asked the Almighty why he had not come down and rescued him from the flood. God said to the man, I did try to save you. I sent a truck, a boat, and helicopter. What more could I have done for you that I did not do? Next time, jump and get in!

The Gospel this week deals with troubled waters but these waters had a good purpose. If you could get in when the waters were stirred up, you could be healed. But you had to get there first and that meant that there was going to be some of the necessary pushing, shoving and bullying to get there. The man in the story that is confronted by Jesus has been infirm for a long time. 38 years he has been in this situation... had he been in this “House of Mercy” (for this is what Bethesda means) for all of that time trying to get better by getting into the water but not getting any help to get there. So there has been years of futility and possibly one is on the verge of giving up if one has not done so already.

So in my mind, the question Jesus asks, “Do you want to be healed?” is a logical one.

Are you ready to be healed or have you given up. It is a question that all of us need to face from time to time. And the healing that comes may not what we expect. God does not always ask and sometimes people are healed when no faith has been seemingly present. Jesus looks at this man, his faith (or lack thereof), the pain, the sorrow and the mounting frustration and chooses to offer him another way.

One of the things that we need to consider is that in this part of John’s Gospel, the sovereignty of God is being tested. How does and how should God act? Why does he offer mercy to one person in a place of mercy and not to another? Why should someone be healed on the Sabbath? Isn’t that against how God works because there are six days in the week to do work and only one to rest? No rule breaker can be on par with God! Does this Jesus really believe that a man can be on par with God?

And where did Jesus disappear to when the Jewish leaders wanted to know who it was that performed this miraculous work on a Sabbath. Remember something important: it was not yet time for there to be a blatant confrontation between Jesus and the authorities. What John’s Gospel is trying to show us is the differences in the people who do believe and don’t believe in Jesus. He is showing us what happens when one person – a cripple has his whole life true and upside down - by saying yes, not only to being healed but in saying yes to Jesus.

So I would put the question to you gentle reader: who is Jesus and who is he to you? There were many in Israel who claimed to be believers in God but would not accept Christ because they looked at him from a purely human point of view. They were not able to see the “signs” God was doing in Christ and the lives that were being changed as a result. Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ and do you receive his abundant, eternal life as your own?

Let this Church be a Bethesda – a house of God’s mercy for those who are in trouble - so that people can come in and find rest and healing. Let every day in this place that there is between now and when Christ comes again be a Sabbath where people can come in and find the “rest” of God Almighty and in doing so find physical recuperation and spiritual refreshing.   

Jason+