The God That Gives a $&#%: sermonic thoughts on Psalm 139

Psalm 139 Sermon

Pursuing our Prophets

When I was in college, I hung around with a Push The Envelope, Seek Justice, Screw The Man kind of crowd. Adults told us that we couldn’t change the world, but we believed differently. We arranged boycotts, “Buy Nothing Day” campaigns, and guerilla gardening. Scores of us taught overseas or worked in orphanages, hung out with the poor on downtown streets, and wrote letters to our MPs. It was not uncommon to wear only used clothing, to live together in large numbers, and to frequent dumpsters for day-old groceries (fondly known as “dumpster diving”). True, we were no draft dodgers, but we considered ourselves pretty radical in our little corner of the Christian College world.

Some would say that at 18 and 21 we were radical for the sake of sheer differentiation, a normal cutting of the purse strings at best. But I still believe that the reason for our social rebellion was a bit simpler than that. The reason for our insistent differentiation could be summed up in just one word: Jesus. We believed that Jesus was a homeless revolutionary, loving his neighbours to the point of death and calling his followers to do the same. If everyone loved the world the way Jesus did, we were convinced, the world would be a different place.

This kind of loving was not just about being kind to individuals, though it was also that. Loving our neighbours as ourselves took on a more corporate feel as we tried to love our neighbours economically and globally. 

How can I love my neighbour by the way I buy groceries? The place I bank? My choices of clothing, transportation, and entertainment? Granted, our response to these questions tended to be unduly simplistic in an increasingly complex global economy. But each one was wrestled with, argued over, and considered of value to how we lived our faith.

Yet as the years after graduation multiplied, increasing numbers my radical Christian friends found that their convictions around loving their neighbours did not line up with the way they’d experienced the Church. The gap between what they understood to be the values of Jesus and the values of the human institution slowly grew, until, eventually, they seemed like two things entirely. With both sadness and understanding, I watched most of these friends leave, first the Church, then the faith, and finally, theism altogether.

Some people assume that my now-atheist friends abandoned their Christian values when they abandoned the Church. But, in most cases, this simply is not true. They left the Church, not because they were leery of commitment or sacrifice, but because that is what they were looking for. Starry-eyed and idealistic, we Christian college students looked to the Church to mentor and grow us into great lovers-of-the-world who would give our very lives to the people Jesus loved. We longed for a faith that transformed economic systems, materialistic values, and individualist careers.

But what these friends of mine found in the Church only mirrored what they despised in the culture. They found there an inward-looking, survival-seeking institution unwilling to take the kind of risks they felt were required to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Of course, it is a decade later and all of us realize that life is just not that simple. Humans are the same everywhere, at once both saint and sinner, both healed and hurting. Walking in the steps of Jesus looks differently in every context and takes the sweat and tears of a lifetime. It is never as simple as choosing to bank with a credit union.

I have chosen to live from within the institution and my friends have chosen to life from without. Yet I often think of their frustration with the institution I now inhabit and wonder what might have been different. Richard Rohr, Roman Catholic teacher and mystic, warns that the Church has long suffered from “too much priesthood and almost no room for prophets.” The result, he explains, is “a very imbalanced religion.”

As I begin my journey into this very priesthood, I am simultaneously aware of the increasing need for the prophetic among us. Our prophets are those who continually hold up a mirror from within our communities, calling us again and again to our true vocation as children of the Holy One. Israel's prophets were the ones who spoke the word of God to the people; the men and women, lay and ordained, who served as guides through the wilderness.

Let us not forget, of course, that Israel also had a history of casting aside, scorning, and even stoning her prophets. Life on the edges of the Church is not an easy place to spend life. But, increasingly, more and more of God's people are being called to dwell in that space, the spot where the Church's gifts and the world's hunger collide.

As we too enter a time of wilderness in the Church, when our future is unclear and the way forward in an ever-changing cultural context is unsure, it seems that now more than ever we need the voices of our prophets. They are singers, poets, and musicians; artists, support-workers and carpenters. Rarely are they theologians, pastors, or teachers (though of course they sometimes are). Our prophets are the ones quietly whispering along the edges of the Church, calling us home to a new way of living in the world.

Rohr continues: “the church, strange as it seems, has always been a bit uncomfortable with saints and mystics; it is content to just have people 'in the pews'”. My hope is that, as the old way of  being God's children in the world passes away and a new way emerges before us, we will hold onto that discomfort like a good dose of medicine. We will no longer be content to "just have people in the pews" but be more concerned with seeing the kingdom born among us. We need our prophets. It's an exciting time to be Church. 

When Mystery Meets Material: and God showed up today.

So today was the day. Five years after beginning my journey toward the priesthood, 16 years after my first visit to an Anglican Church, I found myself in front of an expectant congregation with bread and wine in my hands. I must have seemed a little hesitant, wondering when someone else would come up and take over, when the real priest would step in and do the real part of the consecration. But no one did.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like, as I have, allow me to give you a little snapshot before it becomes normalized like so many other things which were once new and strange. It seemed to me that the miracle of the thing lay in the normalcy of it all. There, in front of me, sat normal wine and crackers, like those I have handled so many times. Behind the altar stood normal, human, me; no better or magical than any of the people I stood to serve. At the front of the church sat a very normal baby in the arms of his mother, just baptised; wandering to my right was a common one-year-old, oblivious to it all.

The mystery of the thing was that in the midst of all that, God showed up. You won’t find here an explanation of how that happened, because I don’t understand how God works anymore than you do. 

But what I DO know is that God chooses to show up and meet us using the common stuff of life. 

Using the normal lives of you and me. These are the things God has called “good,” and these are the places we find God again and again.

As I stretched my hands over the bread and the wine this morning, there was a keen sense of a gathered community there with me, meeting God. I was not alone, and neither was the congregation alone. Together we were meeting God in that place. The rest of the world, all that we were carrying as we came together that morning, seemed to fade away as we came together to encounter the Holy One in those precious moments together.

In my peripheral vision, I could see the faces of all humanity: there were white and black, Asian, Indigenous, old, young, poor, and rich. All these looked forward expectantly as we called upon the Holy One to meet us in that place. To call creation “good” once again as we gathered together in community modeling the communal nature of our Holy Trinity.

The honour in being chosen and allowed to preside at the Eucharist today was the privilege of retelling the story of our people. For many generations, before we could read or write, our story was told and retold by our ancestors. God’s faithfulness was remembered and retold by grandmothers and grandfathers who invited us, not to simply hear the story, but to become actors in its unfolding drama. 

The mystery of the Eucharist is that as we retell the story of old we are swept up into God’s continuing work among us.

And yet, for me the greatest honour was not standing there in front of everyone invoking  our God to join us there. My greatest joy came in the form of a tiny child looking up at me as he awaited a blessing. In the face of this child all the mysteries of our faith come together: God’s taking the form of a little child; Jesus’ pronouncement that the weak are strong and the last are first; the radical welcome of the Church which says all are welcome no matter what they have to offer.

In the eyes of a little child I see the joy and hope proclaimed in the Eucharist. I see there the faith that we so often struggle with as adults. And laying my hand on the little boy’s forehead, I glimpsed what God was talking about when God promised never to leave us. No, I cannot explain to you what happened today; but God met us there.

Celebrating Vocations of Many Kinds

I'm in the middle of ordination season. Four services in six weeks has me thinking a lot about vocation and the places God calls us to as people of faith. Yet I'm ever more aware that not all of my brothers' and sisters' vocations are as celebrated by the Church as mine is, and that makes me sad.

Today I am sitting at a lakeside in Dallas, Texas, watching the animals play along the shore, and I am struck by the unique calling God has given to each one. A bald eagle soars overhead as a young squirrel explores his newfound independence. Two ducks of different breeds wander through shore debris and a a sandpiper tries to distract me from her babies. Each of God's creatures is so good, so perfect at what God has created it to be. The beetle doesn't desire to be a swan, and neither is the mockingbird interested in being a sycamore tree. Each has a unique calling and place in God's Texan creation and it is very good.

 

Humans, I think, are much the same. We have gifts and callings as a species: to care for the rest of creation, to reflect God's image, to love one another and to worship the Holy One. But God has also created us to be remarkably unique, just as each green plant is different from its neighbour. Some plants produce food, some shelter, some beauty; but we need them all, and together they create a magnificent patchwork more beautiful than any quilt.
 
I'm afraid that, as a Church, we haven't been too good at celebrating the diversity of these vocations among us. I am called to be a priest, and that is good; but you may likewise be called to be a biologist or a scholar or a stay-at-home mom and that is also good. It seems to me that some people are called to very specific places in life- such as a juvenile detention centre, say- while others are called to pursue their vocation in the midst of whatever circumstances they find themselves. Perhaps vocation is less about what we do and more about how we do it.

I'm reminded of a family friend who is undoubtedly called by God to his job as a CEO. There was a time when I would have considered such a vocation to be a bit less honourable, a little less Christian, than a career in “ministry.” But I was deeply wrong. As a CEO, a Christian can influence policy and trade practices in a way which honour Christ and his call to love others, to care for the poor, and to tend the earth. A Christian CEO can make money to feed the hungry and to effect positive change throughout the Church and across the globe.

My sister has a vocation to nursing. Nurses are charged with loving and caring for some of God's most precious and vulnerable in a way that not many of us are. Still another kind vocation is experienced by retired people: praying for the Church, visiting the sick, loving and teaching the young, among other things.

Each of our vocations is a deeply valuable part of God's world and deserves to be treated as such. How might we develop a way of discerning and affirming lay vocations as we have done for so long with clerical ones? Perhaps we could begin with celebration. Some of the healthiest and “home”iest communities I've read about or experienced are ones who know how to celebrate. Let's celebrate one another's accomplishments and calls and milestones. Let's learn to encourage one another in the new places God calls us to.

Next, we will need to learn to pray for one another. The discernment of a clerical vocation requires a great deal of prayer and contemplation which should not be restricted to religious professionals! As we learn to invite God into our plans for the future and the unfolding of our careers and ministries, perhaps we will learn to see them more as service we're called to rather than burdens required of us. I would like to learn to see all of life this way: why does God have me in this place at this time? What am I called to here? How can I honour Christ in the midst of this activity?

When I begin to see my life in this way, it helps me think less in terms of the rat race and more in terms of gift. And instead of pursuing wealth, prestige and comfort, I begin to find myself in pursuit of love, of peace, and of holiness. Because just as God has given each small bird and every green plant a purpose and goal for which it is perfectly suited, so too has God called each one of us to a way of life in which we are called to flourish, to bless others, and to bring glory to the Holy One.

The Night Which Changes Everything: Easter Vigil Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10

To Listen Instead of Reading, Click Here


Tonight is the night which changes everything.


Shortly before 6am, before the downtown businesses have opened and the night watchmen have finished their shifts, a couple of blue collar women slip out the back door of their rented row house and catch a bus to the cemetery. They each clutch a small package of grocery-store carnations, trying to protect the blooms a little from the cool spring breeze. Blinded by grief, they stare straight ahead as the events of the last few days swirl through their minds. The whole thing feels so surreal.

Jesus had cared for Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary like few people ever had. He didn’t treat them as lesser for being women and uneducated. No, Jesus had believed in those women and in their struggles. He had walked with them through the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows of their lives. Unlike the other religious leaders, he didn’t shy away from suffering. If anything, he embraced it: Jesus had taught them that God could be found in the suffering of men and women just like them.

They’d never heard anyone talk about God like that before. They’d always believed that God was somewhere out there, you know; up with the fancy folks at the church who had education and titles and pretty outfits. If they were really good, God might throw the normal folks a crumb or two, but beyond that God wasn’t much interested in people like them.

But Jesus made them feel like God was right there with them. Like God wanted to be one of them and move in next store.  Jesus had been on his way to making a big difference in the world. He was going to change things. His disciples were helping him build a movement which was going to bring justice to the streets and hold the corrupt politicians and the drug dealers and the slum landlords responsible for the pain caused to their people.

Where were those men, anyway? The women had hardly seen the disciples since they’d all taken off when Jesus was arrested. After all Jesus had gone through with them, they couldn’t even hang around when he was being sentenced to die. They were terrified, obviously, and it was true that they would have been at greater risk than the women were. No one paid any attention to a couple of crying, blue-collar women. They didn’t matter. But they mattered to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary lived in a world of scarcity, where there was never enough for everyone; where it was every person for him or herself, and where death held power over life. But what they didn’t know on their way to the grave that day was that this was the night which changes everything. This was the death to conquer all death. This is the climax of our story.

Because we too live in a world which claims there is never enough for everyone, where it is every person for him or herself, and where life seems to be at the mercy of death. We spend much of our lives trying to stay just a step or two ahead of illness, of poverty, of loneliness, and ultimately- of death.  But in the last two days, Jesus has descended deep into the heart of death and has bound its power. In rising from the dead, Jesus has declared for all of creation that death no longer has the final say over our lives. In the resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a different story to live by, one which stands in stark contrast to the story of scarcity: it is the story of abundance. “I am the resurrection and the life,” says Jesus, “I am enough.”

To see the difference between the story of scarcity and the story of abundance, we only need to look at our Gospel for today. Here we meet women who are terrified and yet bold enough to stand in the presence of the angel at the tomb, while it is the guards who are so afraid that they become “like dead men.” This is important because in first century Palestine, Jewish women were the very definition of powerlessness. If anyone should be living by the story of scarcity, it is them. These women had very little control over their lives, their finances, their families, or their health. They had every reason to be afraid.

But in first century Palestine, the Roman soldiers were the definition of power. What their position represented was life and health and abundance, because the emperor had made himself lord over all of this. The emperor controlled who lived- and who died. So it’s strange that we find the gate-keepers of life and death paralyzed with fear in the face of the resurrection.

This is our first hint that something has changed. In defeating the power of death, Jesus has exposed the story of scarcity for what it really is: a lie. The resurrection of Jesus has shown that the power of the emperor is really no power at all, and not something to be feared. Jesus makes it possible for the women to live unafraid. He enables them to see that life is the victor- not death- and he invites them to come and join him in the story of abundance.

It is true that the women leave the angel in fear, but this is a different kind of fear than the soldiers had. It is the sort of fear, mixed with overwhelming joy, which comes from realizing that this is the night which changes everything. This is the climax of their story.

But their story does not begin at the resurrection. New Testament scholar Stanley Hauerwas explains that the women are only enabled to see the resurrection because they have walked with Jesus through the crucifixion. That is why the women are the first to see the resurrected Jesus- they were the ones who walked the whole way with him through his suffering, the ones who wiped his face as he struggled toward Golgotha, the ones who stayed by his side as he died.

In my chaplaincy class at the Vic a few years ago, we were told to take this kind of approach with people who are suffering. My teacher explained that most people’s first reaction, when dealing with a person who suffers, is to try and make it better. We want that person to experience the joy of resurrection right away, without having to descend first into the pain of the crucifixion with them. But as anyone who has suffered knows, this just isn’t possible. When someone treats our pain like a thing to be fixed or avoided, they only make the pain deeper.

The job of a chaplain, my teacher explained, is to descend with the hurting one all the way down, being present with them to the very bottom of their pain just as the women were present with Jesus during those long and dark hours of Thursday and Friday. Then, and only then, once they’ve experienced the crucifixion with him, are they enabled to come up out of that darkness to join him in the joy of the resurrection.

The resurrection isn’t good news because it denies our suffering. That would be as much of a lie as the story of scarcity. Until God’s kingdom comes in all its fullness, pain and suffering continue to break in on our lives even though they have lost their final power. The resurrection is good news because it means we have a God who goes deep, down into our suffering and dwells there with us- but that God does not allow our pain and brokenness to have the final say.

Jesus enables us, as he enabled Mary Magdalene, to live unafraid. In a world where suffering appears to be the only truth, we are given new eyes to see life bursting forth everywhere. In a world where there never seems to be enough for everyone, we are given hope that in Christ there is enough. In a world where death appears to have the final say, we are given a narrative which declares that life wins in the end, despite all evidence to the contrary.

In a few minutes, we will be invited to renew again the promises of our baptism, declaring our intention to live by the story of abundance and not by the story of scarcity. Declaring that we too wish to die with Jesus because we know that in his death, death itself has lost its power. Declaring that we too wish to be resurrected with Jesus because we know that in his resurrection, we are given real life.

Living as a people of abundance will make no sense to the world around us, just as it made no sense to the Roman soldiers. As a resurrection people, we are called to live as if the death and destruction and darkness in our world hold no power. Because on this side of the kingdom we continue to be wounded and to die, but that is not the end of the story for us.

Jesus’ resurrection was not the resuscitation of his corpse, like coming back from a coma. No, Jesus’ resurrection was the victory of life over death. Jesus’ resurrection means that he will never die again and in him we can become people of resurrection both in life and in death. When we die with Jesus, the narrative of death no longer reigns over our lives.

Over the coming year we will explore with Mary Magdalene and with the early Church what it actually looks like to die and be raised with Jesus. We will wrestle with the implications of living as a people of abundance in the midst of a culture of scarcity. But for now, only one thing matters: He is Risen!

The women have just met with Jesus in the back alley behind the cemetery and they hurry to catch a bus home to tell his disciples. The sun has risen now, but they aren’t worried about who will see them anymore. Just as they were overwhelmed by grief only an hour or two ago, so now they are so overcome with excitement they can hardly contain themselves. They have a growing sense that nothing is going to be the same after this. Christ is risen. Life has won. Alleluia.

The Ancient Things We Do: Confession

I was a little shocked when one Sunday during Lent my priest stood up and announced that the clergy would be hearing confessions throughout the Lenten season. But my shock gave way to intrigue as the idea rolled around in my mind over the coming weeks. Imagine saying all those things you've being carrying around for years to one other human being, and then being absolved and set free. At the very least, it was worth trying as an ethnographic experiment.

Eight years later, I find myself kneeling before my confessor in a hospital chapel for what has become my bi-annual practice. It occurs to me that I have less time to collect sin between Advent and Lent (three months) than between Lent and Advent (nine months!), so this shouldn’t take very long. I reach into my coat pocket and draw out a crinkled piece of paper with my list.

As I trudged through a snowy field on my way to the chapel this afternoon, I wondered why I keep coming to the confessional long after the intrigue of the thing has faded. Not a common Anglican practice, even my confessor seems to find my diligence a little odd. My mind skips back to another confession not long ago. It had been a long and difficult year, and by the time I arrived at Lent’s doorstep I was holding more than I could carry. My confessor at that time, Andrew, had recently preached about clay. He spoke of our difficulty in allowing ourselves and others to be clay. We try to pretend we’re made of tougher stuff and we expect others to do the same, but God created us to be clay and called it good. Clay, Andrew told the crowd at our early morning worship service, is mouldable. With warm and gentle hands, it can by softened and sculpted and changed. Clay is what we are called to be.

I went to Andrew for confession later that Lent to lay down all those things I was carrying which prevented me from being soft, mouldable clay. Anything causing- or being caused by- guilt, fear, anxiety or shame, I brought and named before Andrew and God that day. I named things I had done, but should not have; and things I had not done, but should have. I brought him my “sins,” those one-time events I was individually responsible for, and my “Sin,” that greater societal brokenness of which I am apart. And when I finished naming those things out loud, Andrew asked if I also forgave those who had hurt me. And then he told me that through Jesus I was absolved of all sins and all Sin and was restored to wholeness.

When those words have been said over me, I can no longer carry those things around with me anymore- like an old backpack slowly collecting stuff as it becomes heavier and heavier- because all that was preventing me from becoming soft clay has been given away. I am not free to take any of it back. One time, the priest took my list and set it on fire, preventing me from even looking at it again. Sometimes, as I walk away, I am tempted to revisit the things I’ve left behind. To turn them over in my hands just one more time, making sure I haven’t missed anything. But I can’t. They are gone.

I’ve often heard Protestants say that confession can be made to God, and that’s enough. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there’s something about bringing those hard parts of our clay-selves and naming them before another one made from clay. Naming all of our fear and brokenness and sin out loud tends to release the power those things hold over us. Accountability has been a Christian discipline for centuries, and this is one way of doing that in a safe and structured environment.

And I do love structure. But the formal practice of confession isn’t for everyone. I know one priest that makes a point of having lay people as confessors, thereby stating his conviction that all baptised people are called to the ministry of reconciliation. Still other people are able to name things before God, in the silence of their hearts, and then walk away.

The word “repentance” means turns turning around and walking in the other direction. The liturgy of reconciliation enables me to focus more on the turning around part than the dropping-off-the-heavy-backpack part. I informed Andrew one time, “But it seems too easy!” and he just smiled and responded gently, “It was never meant to be hard.”

But sometimes it is hard. I have met people in the winter years of their lives who’ve carried around deep secrets for decades, wrought with shame and unable to forgive themselves. Jesus reminds us, “Come to me! All you who are weary and burdened- and I will give you rest.” Jesus takes all of that heaviness with him to the cross tonight and tomorrow so that we need not carry it into our own winter years. Jesus takes those things into the battle with death so that life can reign in our lives. Death and sin and brokenness no longer have the final say.

Being Transformed: New DNA (Romans 12)

Some thoughts on Romans 12 and living into our new identity in Christ, from the April 6th Evensong with All the King's Men at St. John's College: Being Transformed