Deuteronomy 26:5-10
A wandering Aramean was my father; he went down to Egypt and lived there, he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many. The Egyptians abused and battered us, in a cruel and savage slavery. We cried out to God, who listened to our voice, saw our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight. God took us out of Egypt with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great, with signs and miracle-wonders. God brought us to this place, gave us this land flowing with milk and honey. So here I am. I've brought the first fruits of what was grown on this ground, O God.
2 Corinthians 8:5-13
This was totally spontaneous, entirely their own idea, and caught us completely off guard. What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us. The other giving simply flowed out of the purposes of God working in their lives. That's what prompted us to ask Titus to bring the relief offering to your attention, so that what was so well begun could be finished up. You do so well in so many things - you trust God, you're articulate, you're insightful, you're passionate, you love us - now, do your best in this, too.
I'm not trying to order you around against your will. But by bringing in the Macedonians' enthusiasm as a stimulus to your love, I am hoping to bring the best out of you. You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us - in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.
So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands. This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even. As it is written,
Nothing left over to the one with the most,
Nothing lacking to the one with the least.
*****************************************************************************
This past week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, by a vote of 5 to 4, that the health care package proposed by the Obama Administration is constitutional. The process continues. It isn’t completely a done deal, but it’s just about there. Some interesting notes are the violent racist reaction to “Obamacare”, the accusations that he isn’t really American, that socialism is undermining the country - and in a really very sad commentary, Rush Limbaugh announcing that he will move to Costa Rica - except that they also have socialised medicine. In fact, most of the major modern powers have socialised medicine. It is Interesting to look back at some of the prior steps leading to such a process.
First, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, a series of economic programs implemented between 1933 and 1936. The programs were a liberal response to the Great Depression, and focused on the "3 Rs": Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. These were either presidential orders or laws passed by Congress.
Second, Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 election. As President, Johnson was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty."
Here in Canada: Tommy Douglas, elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1935 as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party; who left federal politics to become the Saskatchewan CCF's leader and then the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961. His government was the first social democratic government in North America, and introduced the first single payer, universal health care program on the North American continent. After setting up Saskatchewan's medicare program, he stepped down as premier and ran to lead the newly formed federal New Democratic Party, the National CCF's successor party. Douglas was elected as its first federal leader in 1961.
...and we had Dr. Orville Hjertaas, a leading figure in the development of the health services in Saskatchewan, and one of the fathers of medicare. As a member of the Health Services Planning Commission, he helped organize the first two experimental health regions in the Swift Current and Weyburn areas in 1945-46. He played an instrumental role in the implementation of Medicare in Saskatchewan in 1961–62. As one of only two physicians willing to accept appointments to the Medical Care Insurance Commission, he served as its vice-chair. In response to the doctors’ strike, which he refused to join, Hjertaas helped establish the first of the province’s Community Clinics; under his directorship, the Prince Albert Community Clinic pioneered group practice arrangements as well as an approach to Health Care delivery which emphasized prevention.
Both our countries have always promoted ourselves as places of refuge and assistance. We both were founded, one way or another, on biblical principles of sharing and compassion. Much of Canada’s social policy was influenced by the churches - particularly the newly-formed United Church of Canada. Much of American social policy can be traced to the same roots.
Yet, along the way, many have forgotten that we were immigrants to this place. Our families came from elsewhere. Our ancestors came here full of hope in a new life. We did not get the things we have through our own hands, but through the hands of many people who saw promise in a new country. My grandparents on one side, made the difficult journey across the ocean, with seven children. They left difficult circumstances in northern England. When they arrived here, they were welcomed and helped to settle, by others who had also come here. My grandparents on the other side emigrated from Ireland and were able to find employment and assistance.
But there has also been a selfishness in our history. Canadians of Japanese descent, some second and third generation, were discriminated against simply because of their racial roots. Japanese, Germans and Ukrainians were at various times interned in camps because of their ethnic origins. In many cases the churches opposed the internment, but in many cases the churches also supported them.
When our earliest ancestors came here from Europe, they made the assumption that the land was here for the taking. Christian ethics and honesty didn’t apply in dealing with our aboriginal brothers and sisters; we cheated them of their heritage, and their lives. We have, through the years, assumed that what is here is ours and we have the power to give or take...and we begin to discriminate against newcomers on the basis of ‘we were here first’, except that we weren’t.
In recent years, in debates around immigration, refugees, health care and social benefits - in both countries - we hear griping about those who come here and live on welfare, when in fact most don’t. We behave as if all those who are poor are out to cheat us somehow. We bemoan the number of refugees who don’t work, forgetting that often they cannot until their refugee claims are approved. We gripe about the drain on our health care system, as if somehow we have more of a “right” to it because we were here longer. More and more refugees are being sent back, some to certain death in their home countries, for no better reason than prejudice. Fear and selfishness are replacing our generosity and open-ness; rudeness and bullying are replacing our compassion and care.
In fact, that is not a biblical nor a Christian attitude or response. The passage from Deuteronomy notes a person whose father was a refugee, an immigrant to another land; from a place of slavery to a place where it was possible to live and grow. They were commanded by God to offer the first fruits each year; but inherent in their faith was that no stranger would be turned away either, but treated as a welcome guest.
Paul writes to the churches in Corinth about radical generosity. Some Corinthian congregations had money, others were struggling. Titus comes up with the radical idea of taking the surplus offering and assisting the churches which had less. Some of these churches were new plants, many of them not Jewish congregations, some of them immigrant congregations. Here is Titus saying “the rule of the Gospel is generosity, so that all can share in all good things.” Listen again to the words:
“The heart regulates the hands. This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even. As it is written,
Nothing left over to the one with the most, nothing lacking to the one with the least.”
Although I didn’t read Mark’s Gospel this week, it also contains a message and a challenge. It’s the story of Jesus going to see Jairus’ daughter, and healing a woman along the road. There’s been the sentiment circulating on the internet that health care is also biblical - Jesus healed people whether they were rich or poor, and didn’t draw lines of distinction. What he had was available for everyone.
All our biblical stories are meant as both comfort and challenge, but we have all too often managed to ignore the challenge part. Oh, we are generous in many ways, but we are not open about our generosity. On this Canada Day weekend, I want to remind us of something: we are a people blessed by God. We are a people who value all of God’s people - whether they are like us or not - no matter how much education they have - or how little - no matter if everyone calls them by their official titles - no matter if they have a big house or no place to call their own - no matter if their ancestors came here in the 1700's - or are one of our first nations - or if they came just last week on a container ship and claimed refugee status!
We are challenged by Jesus, a person who was able to turn a few loaves and fish into enough to feed thousands, with baskets left over. We are challenged by Jesus, who stopped to give medical care to a nameless woman, even while he was rushing to help the daughter of an important man. He showed in the clearest way that abundant life and healing was possible for both! We are challenged by the one who said that he came that all may have abundant life.
--
Sources:
1. “When Need Gets In the Way!” A sermon by Rev. Beth Johnston, Kings United Pastoral Charge, Prince Edward Island
2. Information about Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Tommy Douglas and Orville Hjertaas taken from Wikipedia links. In the case of Dr. Hjertaas, personal recollection as well.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Waking a Sleeping Jesus Mark 4:35-41 June 24, 2012
The legend lives on from the Chippewa down,
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Some of the words of Gordon Lightfoot’s famous song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. In November 1975 the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a gale on Lake Superior, with all 29 crew on board. There were no clues to why the ship sank, and no distress calls recorded. It was the worst loss in Great Lakes shipping history. (1)
Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, at a depth of just 200 feet. It is easily stirred up by west winds to produce violent waves and even the largest boats are put at risk.
“Ships caught on the Great Lakes during such fierce storms can be tossed like toys in the fury of wind and wave. As early as 1835, a November storm "swept the lakes clear of sail." In 1847, a major storm claimed 77 ships on the Great Lakes. Ten years later, 65 vessels went down as a storm crossed the Lakes. A gale on Lake Superior in 1905 wrecked 111 ships and sent 14 steel carriers ashore. In 1958 and 1975, powerful storms also caused shipwrecks and damage over the Great Lakes.” (2)
Back in 2006, Norio and I went on a cruise, - yes, you already know we love cruising.....and while I don’t want to do the cruise imagery to death, it’s really useful for sermons. So we’ll see how many sermons I can wring out of a cruise before you all get fed up.
On this cruise, we were informed that because of a large weather system, we would sail about three hundred nautical miles out of our way, through the Bermuda Triangle (at which many of us looked at each other and went “Woooooo!!!!”). However, we were told, we would get the edges of the storm. That night I heard thunder, and went out on the balcony. Wow, was it amazing! The seas were high, the spray flying around, - I was enthralled with it! It was actually quite exciting. Norio peeled open an eye and requested that the balcony door be shut.
The rest of the cruise was sunny and warm, with small seas. Everyone was up on deck in the wonderful weather. It occurred to me as I looked around at the vast Atlantic, with just our one ship out there, no land or other ships in sight, what it really means to be “at sea”, and to put your trust and faith into someone else’s hands.
(Video) (photo)
I did a little reading on storms on the Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake. The storms are a result of different temperatures between the seacoast and the mountains. The Sea of Galilee lies 680 feet below sea level, bounded by hills, especially on the east side where they reach 2000 feet high. These heights are a source of cool, dry air. In contrast, directly around the sea, the climate is semi-tropical with warm, moist air. The difference in height between surrounding land and the sea causes large temperature and pressure changes. This results in strong winds dropping to the sea, funnelling through the hills. The Sea of Galilee is small, and these winds may descend directly to the center of the lake with violent results. When the contrasting air masses meet, a storm can arise without warning. Small boats on the water are in immediate danger. The Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow, just 200 feet at its greatest depth. A shallow lake is “whipped up” by wind more rapidly than deep water, where energy is more readily absorbed. (3)
So there they are, out on the Sea of Galilee, in a boat, at night. Now, this isn’t strange at all. There are other incidents where we are told they are fishing at night. In Japan, and probably elsewhere, the squid boats go out at night and long after dark there are little lights bobbing up and down on the water. Mark’s narrative also tells us there are other boats with them. Jesus has asked them to go right across the lake to the other side. As they sail, he is snoozing gently in the hold when the storm comes up. He seems to be completely oblivious to the raging wind and waves, and the fear around him. When they finally waken him, he is pretty cranky with them. He asks if they have no faith.
Well, what would be your reaction? Wouldn’t you be flashing around bailing like crazy, trying to get the sails in, if they were up? If a wave is taller than a boat is long, the boat is going to go down. Maybe they were not of such "little faith" as all that. Maybe they were frantically using all their skills and couldn't believe that Jesus didn't wake up, and maybe they thought if he was sleeping through it, he was going to let the storm overtake them and swamp the boat. Maybe they thought he should get off his holy backside, and do a little rowing, or something. Maybe they were no more afraid than they ever were at such moments - maybe it was an “all hands on deck” kind of situation, and they expected Jesus to pitch in, not nap while they were doing everything. As for the other boats, presumably they were also dealing with the storm -- so if they had sunk, there would not be much help for a rescue there.
Gordon Lightfoot’s song says “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” I wonder. In the storm they experienced, the minutes became hours. Jesus had asked them to go all the way to the other side, something they normally didn’t do. There they were in the middle of something bigger than all their previous experience, and Jesus appeared to be asleep.
Is this a story of trusting Jesus in the usual storms of our personal lives, or is Mark here talking about storms particular to those who follow Jesus on a journey to an unknown place -- struggling against injustice, confronting evil, crossing boundaries and borders to seek healing, reaching out to the rejected of society, embarking on new ways of being in a confusing world where nothing is the way it was?
Rev. Jane Baker says “My congregation is in the midst of changes within itself, within the community, and our annual conference. Our responses to these changes we face as a result of the Spirit's leading is how we respond to the chaos and storms change always brings about. Not only that, it is a story about how we trust the Spirit's leading.”
I think this passage has long been used mostly for personal reasons, not that there is anything wrong with this, but the interpretation doesn't get to the idea of the church itself and what may occur as the church struggles to follow Jesus. I do see it about the church and its faith and trust, with Jesus in the boat with us.
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes.....?” In the real seafaring world, even when the ship goes down with all hands, God’s love is there - weeping into the storm. In the parable storms, which are meant to teach us about living in an emergent church - which are meant to teach us about sailing through unknown experiences - the love of God is still there. We as a church have to trust that God is there with us, and that with God’s presence we too have the power to still the waves and the winds.
On that particular cruise, the first daily announcement from the captain went something like this: “You are on a ship in the middle of the ocean with three thousand other people. You cannot get off for the next seven days. We are all in this boat together, so to speak, so let us be courteous and considerate of one another.” A cruise ship with over three thousand people from sixty different countries is a good analogy for the world we live in. We’re all in this boat, despite our cultural and religious differences - the bottom line is that we are all people, and if we believe what we state in our creed, we believe in a God who has created and is creating, who works in us and others by the Spirit. The wind of the Spirit blows on the water, and God continues to create. Regardless of difference, we have an awful lot in common - our lives and our humanity.
And it’s no accident that church architecture is supposed to represent the inside of a ship - and the central part of the church is called the ‘nave’ - from the same root as the word navy and naval. We in the church are in the same boat together.
So I guess I’m trying to work with several images. First, the human race is a people at sea, sailing on a ship called earth. Second, the church is a kind of ship, carrying those who have faith in a God of love and compassion. Third, in both cases we are going to encounter storms along the way, as well as good sunny weather. How we respond is what makes a difference.
I thought about how much faith and trust I put into the hands of a Captain I’d never met before, and a crew of unknown people. I thought about the immense responsibility of commanding a crew of 850, with a passenger list of 2500 - and virtually every one of those people put their faith in one man - the Captain. I trusted that he and the other officers knew their business - in fact, I never questioned it. Someone else did! At the ship talk, realising that we had the Captain, First Officer and Engineer giving us a show, someone hollered out “Hey, who’s driving the ship?”
Someone else at the Ship Talk asked about how to know where other ships are, and if there are warning systems. Of course there’s a radar system, but all ships have to have running lights bright enough to be seen. Otherwise there would be more disasters of ships running into each other.
In my image of the ship, Jesus is the leading light. But no ship can run with only one light. Jesus can be in the ship with us, but if Jesus is the only light, then the ship will go down anyway. Every ship needs running lights, too - both to port and starboard. Every ship needs light to see every other ship, and be seen by every other ship. With a leading light alone, progress is slow. With running lights only, progress is also hampered. In a storm, the lights - both leading and running - are even more critical.
Sometimes it seems that the church and Christians are no longer even in the boat, let alone sailing through a storm. The world in all its diversity has come to our doorstep, yet we’re still pretending it’s not there. We still want to remake the world to our liking, instead of dealing with it as it is. At the same time, when things go wrong we either assume Jesus will look after it all, or blame Jesus for not anticipating the storm and saving us the stress. “We’re foundering!” cry the followers. And Jesus sits up from his desperately needed nap, looks at everyone and says “You need to have some faith. Get with it already!”
The great American preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, was a Baptist minister who went on to the inter-denominational Riverside Cathedral in New York. Here is a quote of his, "Fear and Faith"
Fear imprisons, faith liberates;
Fear paralyzes, faith empowers;
Fear disheartens, faith encourages;
Fear sickens, faith heals;
Fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable;
And, most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of all,
While faith rejoices in its God." (4)
May it be so.
1. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, Gordon Lightfoot, 1975.
2. http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc_1998/98nov01.htm
3. Dr. Donald B. DeYoung of Creation Research Society. Copyright © 1992, 2003, Donald B. DeYoung, in “Weather & the Bible”, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992).
4. http
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Some of the words of Gordon Lightfoot’s famous song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. In November 1975 the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a gale on Lake Superior, with all 29 crew on board. There were no clues to why the ship sank, and no distress calls recorded. It was the worst loss in Great Lakes shipping history. (1)
Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, at a depth of just 200 feet. It is easily stirred up by west winds to produce violent waves and even the largest boats are put at risk.
“Ships caught on the Great Lakes during such fierce storms can be tossed like toys in the fury of wind and wave. As early as 1835, a November storm "swept the lakes clear of sail." In 1847, a major storm claimed 77 ships on the Great Lakes. Ten years later, 65 vessels went down as a storm crossed the Lakes. A gale on Lake Superior in 1905 wrecked 111 ships and sent 14 steel carriers ashore. In 1958 and 1975, powerful storms also caused shipwrecks and damage over the Great Lakes.” (2)
Back in 2006, Norio and I went on a cruise, - yes, you already know we love cruising.....and while I don’t want to do the cruise imagery to death, it’s really useful for sermons. So we’ll see how many sermons I can wring out of a cruise before you all get fed up.
On this cruise, we were informed that because of a large weather system, we would sail about three hundred nautical miles out of our way, through the Bermuda Triangle (at which many of us looked at each other and went “Woooooo!!!!”). However, we were told, we would get the edges of the storm. That night I heard thunder, and went out on the balcony. Wow, was it amazing! The seas were high, the spray flying around, - I was enthralled with it! It was actually quite exciting. Norio peeled open an eye and requested that the balcony door be shut.
The rest of the cruise was sunny and warm, with small seas. Everyone was up on deck in the wonderful weather. It occurred to me as I looked around at the vast Atlantic, with just our one ship out there, no land or other ships in sight, what it really means to be “at sea”, and to put your trust and faith into someone else’s hands.
(Video) (photo)
I did a little reading on storms on the Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake. The storms are a result of different temperatures between the seacoast and the mountains. The Sea of Galilee lies 680 feet below sea level, bounded by hills, especially on the east side where they reach 2000 feet high. These heights are a source of cool, dry air. In contrast, directly around the sea, the climate is semi-tropical with warm, moist air. The difference in height between surrounding land and the sea causes large temperature and pressure changes. This results in strong winds dropping to the sea, funnelling through the hills. The Sea of Galilee is small, and these winds may descend directly to the center of the lake with violent results. When the contrasting air masses meet, a storm can arise without warning. Small boats on the water are in immediate danger. The Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow, just 200 feet at its greatest depth. A shallow lake is “whipped up” by wind more rapidly than deep water, where energy is more readily absorbed. (3)
So there they are, out on the Sea of Galilee, in a boat, at night. Now, this isn’t strange at all. There are other incidents where we are told they are fishing at night. In Japan, and probably elsewhere, the squid boats go out at night and long after dark there are little lights bobbing up and down on the water. Mark’s narrative also tells us there are other boats with them. Jesus has asked them to go right across the lake to the other side. As they sail, he is snoozing gently in the hold when the storm comes up. He seems to be completely oblivious to the raging wind and waves, and the fear around him. When they finally waken him, he is pretty cranky with them. He asks if they have no faith.
Well, what would be your reaction? Wouldn’t you be flashing around bailing like crazy, trying to get the sails in, if they were up? If a wave is taller than a boat is long, the boat is going to go down. Maybe they were not of such "little faith" as all that. Maybe they were frantically using all their skills and couldn't believe that Jesus didn't wake up, and maybe they thought if he was sleeping through it, he was going to let the storm overtake them and swamp the boat. Maybe they thought he should get off his holy backside, and do a little rowing, or something. Maybe they were no more afraid than they ever were at such moments - maybe it was an “all hands on deck” kind of situation, and they expected Jesus to pitch in, not nap while they were doing everything. As for the other boats, presumably they were also dealing with the storm -- so if they had sunk, there would not be much help for a rescue there.
Gordon Lightfoot’s song says “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” I wonder. In the storm they experienced, the minutes became hours. Jesus had asked them to go all the way to the other side, something they normally didn’t do. There they were in the middle of something bigger than all their previous experience, and Jesus appeared to be asleep.
Is this a story of trusting Jesus in the usual storms of our personal lives, or is Mark here talking about storms particular to those who follow Jesus on a journey to an unknown place -- struggling against injustice, confronting evil, crossing boundaries and borders to seek healing, reaching out to the rejected of society, embarking on new ways of being in a confusing world where nothing is the way it was?
Rev. Jane Baker says “My congregation is in the midst of changes within itself, within the community, and our annual conference. Our responses to these changes we face as a result of the Spirit's leading is how we respond to the chaos and storms change always brings about. Not only that, it is a story about how we trust the Spirit's leading.”
I think this passage has long been used mostly for personal reasons, not that there is anything wrong with this, but the interpretation doesn't get to the idea of the church itself and what may occur as the church struggles to follow Jesus. I do see it about the church and its faith and trust, with Jesus in the boat with us.
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes.....?” In the real seafaring world, even when the ship goes down with all hands, God’s love is there - weeping into the storm. In the parable storms, which are meant to teach us about living in an emergent church - which are meant to teach us about sailing through unknown experiences - the love of God is still there. We as a church have to trust that God is there with us, and that with God’s presence we too have the power to still the waves and the winds.
On that particular cruise, the first daily announcement from the captain went something like this: “You are on a ship in the middle of the ocean with three thousand other people. You cannot get off for the next seven days. We are all in this boat together, so to speak, so let us be courteous and considerate of one another.” A cruise ship with over three thousand people from sixty different countries is a good analogy for the world we live in. We’re all in this boat, despite our cultural and religious differences - the bottom line is that we are all people, and if we believe what we state in our creed, we believe in a God who has created and is creating, who works in us and others by the Spirit. The wind of the Spirit blows on the water, and God continues to create. Regardless of difference, we have an awful lot in common - our lives and our humanity.
And it’s no accident that church architecture is supposed to represent the inside of a ship - and the central part of the church is called the ‘nave’ - from the same root as the word navy and naval. We in the church are in the same boat together.
So I guess I’m trying to work with several images. First, the human race is a people at sea, sailing on a ship called earth. Second, the church is a kind of ship, carrying those who have faith in a God of love and compassion. Third, in both cases we are going to encounter storms along the way, as well as good sunny weather. How we respond is what makes a difference.
I thought about how much faith and trust I put into the hands of a Captain I’d never met before, and a crew of unknown people. I thought about the immense responsibility of commanding a crew of 850, with a passenger list of 2500 - and virtually every one of those people put their faith in one man - the Captain. I trusted that he and the other officers knew their business - in fact, I never questioned it. Someone else did! At the ship talk, realising that we had the Captain, First Officer and Engineer giving us a show, someone hollered out “Hey, who’s driving the ship?”
Someone else at the Ship Talk asked about how to know where other ships are, and if there are warning systems. Of course there’s a radar system, but all ships have to have running lights bright enough to be seen. Otherwise there would be more disasters of ships running into each other.
In my image of the ship, Jesus is the leading light. But no ship can run with only one light. Jesus can be in the ship with us, but if Jesus is the only light, then the ship will go down anyway. Every ship needs running lights, too - both to port and starboard. Every ship needs light to see every other ship, and be seen by every other ship. With a leading light alone, progress is slow. With running lights only, progress is also hampered. In a storm, the lights - both leading and running - are even more critical.
Sometimes it seems that the church and Christians are no longer even in the boat, let alone sailing through a storm. The world in all its diversity has come to our doorstep, yet we’re still pretending it’s not there. We still want to remake the world to our liking, instead of dealing with it as it is. At the same time, when things go wrong we either assume Jesus will look after it all, or blame Jesus for not anticipating the storm and saving us the stress. “We’re foundering!” cry the followers. And Jesus sits up from his desperately needed nap, looks at everyone and says “You need to have some faith. Get with it already!”
The great American preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, was a Baptist minister who went on to the inter-denominational Riverside Cathedral in New York. Here is a quote of his, "Fear and Faith"
Fear imprisons, faith liberates;
Fear paralyzes, faith empowers;
Fear disheartens, faith encourages;
Fear sickens, faith heals;
Fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable;
And, most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of all,
While faith rejoices in its God." (4)
May it be so.
1. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, Gordon Lightfoot, 1975.
2. http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc_1998/98nov01.htm
3. Dr. Donald B. DeYoung of Creation Research Society. Copyright © 1992, 2003, Donald B. DeYoung, in “Weather & the Bible”, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992).
4. http
Saturday, June 16, 2012
“Spiritual but Not Religious”, a sermon based on Mark 4:26-34. June 17, 2012 Humber United Church
Then Jesus said, "God's realm is like seed planted in a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows, whether he is awake or asleep, and he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time!
How can we picture God's Realm? What kind of story can we tell? It's like a tiny seed. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge bush with thick branches. Birds nest in it."
With many stories like these, he taught them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. Jesus was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, explaining and illustrating what his stories had been about.
******************************************************************
“What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today..we are moving toward a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as ‘religious’ do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by ‘religious’. What does that mean for Christianity”? If religion is only a garment of Christianity - and even this garment has looked very different at different times - then what is a religionless Christianity?”
These words were written by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his “Letters and Papers from Prison.” Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and founding member of the Confessing Church. He became known for his resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, strongly opposing Hitler's euthanasia programs and genocide against the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 and executed in April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender.
In his role as a theologian and pastor, his view of Christianity's role in the secular world has become very influential. It is significant that even in the 1940's, he was writing about the death of religion. Not the death of faith, but faith without all the church and religious trappings. He predated by twenty years the book “God is Dead”, by Thomas Altizer.
In the past two or three decades, religious pundits of all backgrounds have been bemoaning the decline of so-called mainline churches, and insisting that the more evangelical churches are growing by leaps and bounds. That was true for a brief while following the election of Jimmy Carter, but not any more. Every one is either completely stalled or sliding.
In 2009 Newsweek magazine featured a story about the decline of religion in the United States - and I’d venture to say that could be extrapolated to Canada as well. Author Jon Meacham says “This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but rather that God is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy, and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the population.”
For the last twenty years, historian, theologian and teacher Dr. Diana Butler Bass has followed not only trends in the church, but also the history of what she describes as a complete sea change, regardless of religious faith. People in all religious groups, not just Christian, are becoming more and more disillusioned with what they see as a focus on buildings, people and money - and not the living out of a faith which transcends boundaries.
Dr. Butler Bass talks about ordinary people and stories she hears about their falling away from church. And, she says, it’s not just those who really never came anyway, but people who used to be faithful who have just given up and gone in search of something which feeds them spiritually.
Here’s one story, from a pastor: “People just don’t come to church any more. It doesn’t really matter what we do, how solid our community is. Even those who consider themselves “good” members only come once a month or so now.”
Here’s a story of a funeral - a story which is played out more than we might think:
“At the funeral our pastor said the baby had died because we had not prayed enough. It was our fault, he said, and that our lack of faith killed our son. Well, I walked out of church that day, and I have never returned.”
Dr. Butler Bass says people are tired of “church-as-usual, church-as-club, church-as-entertainment, or church-as-work. Many of my friends, faithful churchgoers for decades, are dropping out because religion is dull, the purview of folks who never want to change, or always want to fight about somebody else’s sex life; they see the traditional denominations as full of Mrs. Grundy’s priggishness.”
Another pastor said “Christianity has become a culture unto itself, and has merely skimmed over what Jesus has said and is saying.”
Here are the words of a person only identified as “Ellen”: “I enjoy reading religious books, blogs and listening to sermon podcasts too. But I feel most churches are way too fixed on self-preservation and preaching the gospel rather than living it. So, for now, my offering goes to Doctors Without Borders and other charities. My work is my ministry as I meet the broken-hearted and lost every day. I quietly encourage the faith of the dispirited, pray for others, and try to walk humbly with my God.”
Several years ago, I had a conversation with Rev. Dr. Peter Wyatt, who was Principal of Emmanuel College, and Theology and Faith staff in the General Council office. He lamented the death of church. I asked him why? Did he not believe in resurrection? His response was “The church will never be the same as it is now, and we need to lament its passing.”. ...and I said “Of course it will never be the way it is now. The church has never, ever, in all its history, been the way it was before. That’s the exciting part! Death is followed by resurrection, in a body that looks nothing like the one before. I believe we are standing on the cusp of a great change, one which can be exciting if we have faith.”
Well, if we let ourselves, we can find this really depressing. Or, we can find it really exciting. I am on the “exciting” end of the scale. I don’t see this as the end of “faith”, but more the end of some things which hold back the possibilities for faith.
I decided to take a look at the Japanese characters which mean faith: there are three things in the word “faith” in Japanese and Chinese: human beings, language, and heart. “Faith” and “religion” are not necessarily the same thing. Faith can exist without religion. Faith is a response of the human heart to the touch of the Spirit, of God. Diana Butler Bass points out, and supports with decades of data, that while more and more people are dropping away from the church, more and more people are also saying they have had a deeply spiritual experience of God.
Jesus was never without a story, and his stories always had a point. The stories today are not even about farming. The farmer in this story doesn't plow, nor have any concern about weather or weeds. This farmer simply sits back and watches.
These two stories are about the seed that becomes something very different than when it was planted. The Realm of God is like a seed planted by God, scattered on the ground wherever, and no one except God knows how it is going to turn out.
Rev. Randy Quinn says that the Realm of God “happens on at least four different levels. It's not a place as much as it is an attitude, an event that happens, an environment. It's what waits for us beyond the grave, it's within our hearts, it's a possibility for the world. And it must be acted out and modelled.”
In John 12:24, Jesus says that the Realm of God is like a seed that must die and be buried for it to have new life. The kicker here is that it not only happens without our help, but it happens despite our best efforts to make it grow the way we want it to.
So while we waste time bemoaning the death of the church or religion, we might be missing the fact that the Spirit is busy scattering seeds, which bloom into faith outside the church, and not necessarily a faith which uses our favourite hymns, or our words, or our structures; not a faith which is focused on buildings and numbers and finances. I think it is becoming a larger kind of faith, a spirituality which says people and their spirituality come first, living out the teaching comes first, trusting in the Spirit comes first. Those people who find no use for church actually find a great use for faith - people, language and heart.
So what does that mean for us? I am not going to say stop what we are doing, but I *am* going to say living out a faith based on unconditional love. The word faith has implicit in it, trust. God’s love for us is unconditional, isn’t it? God asks us to trust, to have faith. The seeds are scattered, only God knows how and where they grow and what they are going to be. Our role is the three words of faith: people, language and heart. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity after Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. (HarperOne, New York. 2012.)
2. “Sowing, Growing, Reaping” a sermon based on Mark 4:26-34 by Rev. Randy Quinn
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. (London: Fontana Books, 1959). P. 91.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
5. Jon Meacham. “The End of Christian America,” April 2009, www.newsweek.com/2009/04/03/the-end-of-christian-america.html“Spiritual but Not Religious”, a sermon based on Mark 4:26-34. June 17, 2012 Humber United Church
How can we picture God's Realm? What kind of story can we tell? It's like a tiny seed. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge bush with thick branches. Birds nest in it."
With many stories like these, he taught them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. Jesus was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, explaining and illustrating what his stories had been about.
******************************************************************
“What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today..we are moving toward a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as ‘religious’ do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by ‘religious’. What does that mean for Christianity”? If religion is only a garment of Christianity - and even this garment has looked very different at different times - then what is a religionless Christianity?”
These words were written by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his “Letters and Papers from Prison.” Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and founding member of the Confessing Church. He became known for his resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, strongly opposing Hitler's euthanasia programs and genocide against the Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 and executed in April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender.
In his role as a theologian and pastor, his view of Christianity's role in the secular world has become very influential. It is significant that even in the 1940's, he was writing about the death of religion. Not the death of faith, but faith without all the church and religious trappings. He predated by twenty years the book “God is Dead”, by Thomas Altizer.
In the past two or three decades, religious pundits of all backgrounds have been bemoaning the decline of so-called mainline churches, and insisting that the more evangelical churches are growing by leaps and bounds. That was true for a brief while following the election of Jimmy Carter, but not any more. Every one is either completely stalled or sliding.
In 2009 Newsweek magazine featured a story about the decline of religion in the United States - and I’d venture to say that could be extrapolated to Canada as well. Author Jon Meacham says “This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but rather that God is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy, and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the population.”
For the last twenty years, historian, theologian and teacher Dr. Diana Butler Bass has followed not only trends in the church, but also the history of what she describes as a complete sea change, regardless of religious faith. People in all religious groups, not just Christian, are becoming more and more disillusioned with what they see as a focus on buildings, people and money - and not the living out of a faith which transcends boundaries.
Dr. Butler Bass talks about ordinary people and stories she hears about their falling away from church. And, she says, it’s not just those who really never came anyway, but people who used to be faithful who have just given up and gone in search of something which feeds them spiritually.
Here’s one story, from a pastor: “People just don’t come to church any more. It doesn’t really matter what we do, how solid our community is. Even those who consider themselves “good” members only come once a month or so now.”
Here’s a story of a funeral - a story which is played out more than we might think:
“At the funeral our pastor said the baby had died because we had not prayed enough. It was our fault, he said, and that our lack of faith killed our son. Well, I walked out of church that day, and I have never returned.”
Dr. Butler Bass says people are tired of “church-as-usual, church-as-club, church-as-entertainment, or church-as-work. Many of my friends, faithful churchgoers for decades, are dropping out because religion is dull, the purview of folks who never want to change, or always want to fight about somebody else’s sex life; they see the traditional denominations as full of Mrs. Grundy’s priggishness.”
Another pastor said “Christianity has become a culture unto itself, and has merely skimmed over what Jesus has said and is saying.”
Here are the words of a person only identified as “Ellen”: “I enjoy reading religious books, blogs and listening to sermon podcasts too. But I feel most churches are way too fixed on self-preservation and preaching the gospel rather than living it. So, for now, my offering goes to Doctors Without Borders and other charities. My work is my ministry as I meet the broken-hearted and lost every day. I quietly encourage the faith of the dispirited, pray for others, and try to walk humbly with my God.”
Several years ago, I had a conversation with Rev. Dr. Peter Wyatt, who was Principal of Emmanuel College, and Theology and Faith staff in the General Council office. He lamented the death of church. I asked him why? Did he not believe in resurrection? His response was “The church will never be the same as it is now, and we need to lament its passing.”. ...and I said “Of course it will never be the way it is now. The church has never, ever, in all its history, been the way it was before. That’s the exciting part! Death is followed by resurrection, in a body that looks nothing like the one before. I believe we are standing on the cusp of a great change, one which can be exciting if we have faith.”
Well, if we let ourselves, we can find this really depressing. Or, we can find it really exciting. I am on the “exciting” end of the scale. I don’t see this as the end of “faith”, but more the end of some things which hold back the possibilities for faith.
I decided to take a look at the Japanese characters which mean faith: there are three things in the word “faith” in Japanese and Chinese: human beings, language, and heart. “Faith” and “religion” are not necessarily the same thing. Faith can exist without religion. Faith is a response of the human heart to the touch of the Spirit, of God. Diana Butler Bass points out, and supports with decades of data, that while more and more people are dropping away from the church, more and more people are also saying they have had a deeply spiritual experience of God.
Jesus was never without a story, and his stories always had a point. The stories today are not even about farming. The farmer in this story doesn't plow, nor have any concern about weather or weeds. This farmer simply sits back and watches.
These two stories are about the seed that becomes something very different than when it was planted. The Realm of God is like a seed planted by God, scattered on the ground wherever, and no one except God knows how it is going to turn out.
Rev. Randy Quinn says that the Realm of God “happens on at least four different levels. It's not a place as much as it is an attitude, an event that happens, an environment. It's what waits for us beyond the grave, it's within our hearts, it's a possibility for the world. And it must be acted out and modelled.”
In John 12:24, Jesus says that the Realm of God is like a seed that must die and be buried for it to have new life. The kicker here is that it not only happens without our help, but it happens despite our best efforts to make it grow the way we want it to.
So while we waste time bemoaning the death of the church or religion, we might be missing the fact that the Spirit is busy scattering seeds, which bloom into faith outside the church, and not necessarily a faith which uses our favourite hymns, or our words, or our structures; not a faith which is focused on buildings and numbers and finances. I think it is becoming a larger kind of faith, a spirituality which says people and their spirituality come first, living out the teaching comes first, trusting in the Spirit comes first. Those people who find no use for church actually find a great use for faith - people, language and heart.
So what does that mean for us? I am not going to say stop what we are doing, but I *am* going to say living out a faith based on unconditional love. The word faith has implicit in it, trust. God’s love for us is unconditional, isn’t it? God asks us to trust, to have faith. The seeds are scattered, only God knows how and where they grow and what they are going to be. Our role is the three words of faith: people, language and heart. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity after Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. (HarperOne, New York. 2012.)
2. “Sowing, Growing, Reaping” a sermon based on Mark 4:26-34 by Rev. Randy Quinn
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. (London: Fontana Books, 1959). P. 91.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
5. Jon Meacham. “The End of Christian America,” April 2009, www.newsweek.com/2009/04/03/the-end-of-christian-america.html“Spiritual but Not Religious”, a sermon based on Mark 4:26-34. June 17, 2012 Humber United Church
Saturday, April 21, 2012
“All God’s Creation” sermon based on 1 John 3:1-7 Humber United Church, April 22 2012 Earth Day
See what great love God has lavished on us, so we are called children of God! That is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known; but we know that when Christ appears again, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness; but you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins, in him is no sin. No one who lives in Jesus keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
**************************************************************************
I want to tell you two experiences which stand out in my memory. One is from my early childhood in southern Saskatchewan. I was about four years old, living in a tiny town called Canora, in the southern part of the province. In the summer, the wheat seemed to grow to about eight feet tall - or so it seemed to a child. The skies were clear deep blue, and the wheat was golden, and when one was able to stand on a small hillock and look over - it looked like the ocean and waves. Those were the days when Monsanto didn’t claim it owned patents on seeds, and didn’t sue farmers when stray seeds popped up fifty miles away in their ditches. The grain was planted and grown as part of creation - not as part of a company’s attempt to patent crops and control farming.
My second outstanding memory is just a few years ago, outside Tampere in Finland, sitting by the shore of Lake Nasijaarvi. In the summer in Finland, the sun doesn’t set. As I watched, the sun gradually descended to the horizon, and there were all the deep red and gold colours of a sunset on the left. As it dipped partway below the horizon, it began to rise, and there were the pale pinks and golds of a sunrise.
Steve Whitney is a professional environmentalist. He tells a story of writing his first sermon on Earth Day - sitting in a pub with a Bible and a couple of books, and asked the waitress if she thought it was improper to write a sermon while sitting in a tavern. She replied by asking where he went to church. When he responded "St. Stephen's Episcopal" she chuckled and said "Oh, don't worry about it, they've all been here." Well, said Steve, that’s OK - because the Anglican tradition openly celebrates God's creation in all of its manifestations. The forests that blanket the landscape, the clear water that flows from the mountains, the bald eagles and killer whales, the flowering shrubs that paint our neighborhoods with flashes of pink and yellow, the diversity of human life, and yes, even the hops for our beer in a pub on an afternoon, writing a sermon. For all that we have, and all that we are, we owe thanks to God.
Christians centuries ago knew this well. They set aside a few days a year during planting time, called Rogation Days, to offer their prayers for blessings. Not only Christians, though, and we err if we think it is only us. The early Israelite peoples celebrated the “Feast of Weeks” - the time from the giving of the Torah, to the time of the first harvest, and the giving of thanks. Native peoples in North America celebrated the “first fruits” in the spring, by picking and sharing strawberries, and giving thanks to the Creator. The Book of Revelation talks about the Tree of Life, and the River of the Water of Life; and this is echoed in the Druid beliefs, the great tree Yggdrasil, whose branches went straight up to heaven, whose roots went down into the earth - and the trunk of the tree connected heaven and earth. Incidentally, I’ve put that on my business card - Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life.
Creation isn’t just about rocks and trees, and lakes and harvests, though. In the story of Noah, God set a rainbow in the skies to demonstrate a covenant with all creation, which included people. "I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth."
What does God think of our modern attitudes toward the diversity of life, where value is measured not in terms of the secrets the creatures may hold, but in dollars and cents. We treat the earth like an ark in reverse. Rather than march the animals two by two up the ramp of survival, we march them faster and faster down the gang-plank of extinction. "They are taking our property rights" we say, "just to save the spotted owl or the wild salmon." But I think we need to start asking ourselves the question, whose property is it, really? On whose authority do we use private land to the detriment of God's creation?"
When our ancestors first left Europe, they discovered lands on this side of the ocean when people had no concept of land ownership. The land belonged to the Creator, and we were allowed to use it. An Ojibway friend told me that in traditional North American aboriginal cultures, it is common to give thanks to the animals for giving up their lives to be food on our tables. Everything needs to be respected.
Are people of faith doing enough to ensure Creation is a blessing for everyone? It’s easy for us to give thanks, to say that we feel close to God when we are out at the lake, or sitting in awe watching icebergs, or walking in the woods in Bowaters Park. What about the children of Somalia, whose creation consists of nothing more than sand; little or no shelter, no food, subject to violence, rape and disease. What would they think, hearing us talking about the beauty of the world?
God made a covenant with “the Earth”, and all that is in it. That means there are certain things which are not negotiable. Every child, every person living, has a right to food, to shelter, to water, to education, to health care. Those are basic human rights which must not be denied. They also have the right not to live in fear, not to suffer from war or violence. To try to patent seeds and claim ownership, to modify foods without knowing the outcome, to perpetrate violence on others for whatever reasons we may use to rationalise being right - the truth is we do not respect God’s creation, nor all the creatures in it. Did you know that the population of North America eats 80% of the world’s food? And that Canadians produce more garbage per capita than any other nation?
Today I want us to pray that as children of God, we may be faithful stewards of your good gifts..." Faithful stewards. . . What does it mean to be a faithful steward of God's creation? Good question. Fortunately the bible provides guidance -- in Genesis 2 God placed the human creature in the garden "to till it and keep it." So we have the responsibility, to till the Earth in order to make its productive powers flourish. This does not mean we are to plant and harvest all of it. We are also called to sustain it, conserve it, perpetuate it -- to "keep" the Earth by protecting its God- created life systems and life forms.
Christians have a calling, and that calling is to a life in Creation. We cannot preach any kind of message if we do not strive, in whatever way possible, to live that message. May we see with new eyes and hear with new ears, as we walk through this world - and may we find ways to be good co-Creators with God’s ongoing creation - the Tree of Life.
Let us pray.
God, we thank you for the opportunity to reflect on your creation, your covenant with all living things, and our calling to be good stewards of the gifts you have provided. Help us to understand that each of us has an important role in Caring for Creation, by the choices we make and by the actions we take. Give us the strength to stand up when we see wrong being done in the name of so-called advancement; to speak when we see others being ill-treated; to make our voices heard in as many ways as we can. Give us the wisdom to choose thoughtfully, and to act with care, in accordance with your will, and your love of this good Earth, our island home.
Sources:
1. Steven Whitney, preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Earth Day Sunday, April 21, 1996.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness; but you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins, in him is no sin. No one who lives in Jesus keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
**************************************************************************
I want to tell you two experiences which stand out in my memory. One is from my early childhood in southern Saskatchewan. I was about four years old, living in a tiny town called Canora, in the southern part of the province. In the summer, the wheat seemed to grow to about eight feet tall - or so it seemed to a child. The skies were clear deep blue, and the wheat was golden, and when one was able to stand on a small hillock and look over - it looked like the ocean and waves. Those were the days when Monsanto didn’t claim it owned patents on seeds, and didn’t sue farmers when stray seeds popped up fifty miles away in their ditches. The grain was planted and grown as part of creation - not as part of a company’s attempt to patent crops and control farming.
My second outstanding memory is just a few years ago, outside Tampere in Finland, sitting by the shore of Lake Nasijaarvi. In the summer in Finland, the sun doesn’t set. As I watched, the sun gradually descended to the horizon, and there were all the deep red and gold colours of a sunset on the left. As it dipped partway below the horizon, it began to rise, and there were the pale pinks and golds of a sunrise.
Steve Whitney is a professional environmentalist. He tells a story of writing his first sermon on Earth Day - sitting in a pub with a Bible and a couple of books, and asked the waitress if she thought it was improper to write a sermon while sitting in a tavern. She replied by asking where he went to church. When he responded "St. Stephen's Episcopal" she chuckled and said "Oh, don't worry about it, they've all been here." Well, said Steve, that’s OK - because the Anglican tradition openly celebrates God's creation in all of its manifestations. The forests that blanket the landscape, the clear water that flows from the mountains, the bald eagles and killer whales, the flowering shrubs that paint our neighborhoods with flashes of pink and yellow, the diversity of human life, and yes, even the hops for our beer in a pub on an afternoon, writing a sermon. For all that we have, and all that we are, we owe thanks to God.
Christians centuries ago knew this well. They set aside a few days a year during planting time, called Rogation Days, to offer their prayers for blessings. Not only Christians, though, and we err if we think it is only us. The early Israelite peoples celebrated the “Feast of Weeks” - the time from the giving of the Torah, to the time of the first harvest, and the giving of thanks. Native peoples in North America celebrated the “first fruits” in the spring, by picking and sharing strawberries, and giving thanks to the Creator. The Book of Revelation talks about the Tree of Life, and the River of the Water of Life; and this is echoed in the Druid beliefs, the great tree Yggdrasil, whose branches went straight up to heaven, whose roots went down into the earth - and the trunk of the tree connected heaven and earth. Incidentally, I’ve put that on my business card - Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life.
Creation isn’t just about rocks and trees, and lakes and harvests, though. In the story of Noah, God set a rainbow in the skies to demonstrate a covenant with all creation, which included people. "I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth."
What does God think of our modern attitudes toward the diversity of life, where value is measured not in terms of the secrets the creatures may hold, but in dollars and cents. We treat the earth like an ark in reverse. Rather than march the animals two by two up the ramp of survival, we march them faster and faster down the gang-plank of extinction. "They are taking our property rights" we say, "just to save the spotted owl or the wild salmon." But I think we need to start asking ourselves the question, whose property is it, really? On whose authority do we use private land to the detriment of God's creation?"
When our ancestors first left Europe, they discovered lands on this side of the ocean when people had no concept of land ownership. The land belonged to the Creator, and we were allowed to use it. An Ojibway friend told me that in traditional North American aboriginal cultures, it is common to give thanks to the animals for giving up their lives to be food on our tables. Everything needs to be respected.
Are people of faith doing enough to ensure Creation is a blessing for everyone? It’s easy for us to give thanks, to say that we feel close to God when we are out at the lake, or sitting in awe watching icebergs, or walking in the woods in Bowaters Park. What about the children of Somalia, whose creation consists of nothing more than sand; little or no shelter, no food, subject to violence, rape and disease. What would they think, hearing us talking about the beauty of the world?
God made a covenant with “the Earth”, and all that is in it. That means there are certain things which are not negotiable. Every child, every person living, has a right to food, to shelter, to water, to education, to health care. Those are basic human rights which must not be denied. They also have the right not to live in fear, not to suffer from war or violence. To try to patent seeds and claim ownership, to modify foods without knowing the outcome, to perpetrate violence on others for whatever reasons we may use to rationalise being right - the truth is we do not respect God’s creation, nor all the creatures in it. Did you know that the population of North America eats 80% of the world’s food? And that Canadians produce more garbage per capita than any other nation?
Today I want us to pray that as children of God, we may be faithful stewards of your good gifts..." Faithful stewards. . . What does it mean to be a faithful steward of God's creation? Good question. Fortunately the bible provides guidance -- in Genesis 2 God placed the human creature in the garden "to till it and keep it." So we have the responsibility, to till the Earth in order to make its productive powers flourish. This does not mean we are to plant and harvest all of it. We are also called to sustain it, conserve it, perpetuate it -- to "keep" the Earth by protecting its God- created life systems and life forms.
Christians have a calling, and that calling is to a life in Creation. We cannot preach any kind of message if we do not strive, in whatever way possible, to live that message. May we see with new eyes and hear with new ears, as we walk through this world - and may we find ways to be good co-Creators with God’s ongoing creation - the Tree of Life.
Let us pray.
God, we thank you for the opportunity to reflect on your creation, your covenant with all living things, and our calling to be good stewards of the gifts you have provided. Help us to understand that each of us has an important role in Caring for Creation, by the choices we make and by the actions we take. Give us the strength to stand up when we see wrong being done in the name of so-called advancement; to speak when we see others being ill-treated; to make our voices heard in as many ways as we can. Give us the wisdom to choose thoughtfully, and to act with care, in accordance with your will, and your love of this good Earth, our island home.
Sources:
1. Steven Whitney, preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Earth Day Sunday, April 21, 1996.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
“Christmas and Easter” Easter Sunday April 8, 2012 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 Mark 16:1-8 (second ending).
Corinthians
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.....
Mark
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”When they looked, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were frightened. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
***************************************************************************
This morning we are singing two pieces of music that we normally associate with Christmas. I knew there were going to be some funny looks, wondering what on earth the minister was doing. Well, yes, the minister does know - once in awhile that happens....
First, we’ve sung the last verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”.....”Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God in the highest! O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.”
We sang it as a response to “The Exultet”. The Exultet is the Easter proclamation, the proclamation of the resurrection. - and in the Exultet are the words “Sing, choirs of angels!”. What better piece of music to go with that???
As the closing hymn, we are singing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.” Interestingly, this was actually written as a hymn proclaiming the Easter message, and only became popular as a Christmas hymn in the 20th century. Isaac Watts, who wrote the words, was thinking specifically in terms of traditional theology, which said that Jesus would come again at the end of time. In traditional theological terms, Jesus was the Eschaton, the one who brought about the end-times. In his birth Jesus broke into the continuum of history, and pointed both forward and back in time. In tradition theology, history itself was suspended with the coming of Jesus. So Watts wrote “Joy to the World” as a hymn for Easter. It was literally the Easter Proclamation, and the proclaiming of the end of this reality and the coming of God’s Realm with the resurrection and expected “second coming” of Jesus..
There is a reality we forget, I think. Without Christmas, we would not have Easter; if Jesus had not been born, then there would have been no resurrection story; and if there had been no resurrection, there would have been no Christmas to celebrate either.
This is a story of birth, death and rebirth - a story of new creation - a parallel to the story of creation in Genesis. Jesus is buried in a cave in a garden, and suddenly he is not there any longer. Echoing in the background are the words of Jesus: A seed, unless it is planted, remains just a seed. But when it is planted and grows, it will bear much fruit.”
This morning we go to a cave in a garden, with three women who still believe traditional Jewish theology - that the dead will be raised when the last trumpet sounds. So they go, grieving, weeping, lost, the whole fabric of their lives ripped in half. They go expecting to have to struggle with a heavy stone. Who will roll away the stone? They don’t even seem aware that the body has already been properly prepared for burial, and they go with spices to dress the body of Jesus appropriately. They arrive in the garden to find that the stone is rolled back, the body is gone, and there is a messenger from God saying “He is risen, he is not here. Go and tell.” The angel provides them with the Exultet, the Easter proclamation.
This morning the words of Jesus are just as potent. Nothing rises to life unless it first dies. A seed remains just a seed, unless it is first planted.
At Christmas, the seed was planted. As it grew, it became the vine, and the followers became the branches. The “seeds” then had to be planted again, in order for new life to grow. So, to me, it makes all kinds of sense to sing the Exultet, to sing the song of new life, the song of the realm of God coming on earth. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her king! Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing!”
...and all heaven and all nature sing. We run away from the empty tomb, not afraid, but full of joy - in his rising into new life, we also rise to new life. Alleluia! Jesus is risen. Jesus is risen indeed.
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.....
Mark
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”When they looked, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were frightened. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
***************************************************************************
This morning we are singing two pieces of music that we normally associate with Christmas. I knew there were going to be some funny looks, wondering what on earth the minister was doing. Well, yes, the minister does know - once in awhile that happens....
First, we’ve sung the last verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”.....”Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God in the highest! O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.”
We sang it as a response to “The Exultet”. The Exultet is the Easter proclamation, the proclamation of the resurrection. - and in the Exultet are the words “Sing, choirs of angels!”. What better piece of music to go with that???
As the closing hymn, we are singing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.” Interestingly, this was actually written as a hymn proclaiming the Easter message, and only became popular as a Christmas hymn in the 20th century. Isaac Watts, who wrote the words, was thinking specifically in terms of traditional theology, which said that Jesus would come again at the end of time. In traditional theological terms, Jesus was the Eschaton, the one who brought about the end-times. In his birth Jesus broke into the continuum of history, and pointed both forward and back in time. In tradition theology, history itself was suspended with the coming of Jesus. So Watts wrote “Joy to the World” as a hymn for Easter. It was literally the Easter Proclamation, and the proclaiming of the end of this reality and the coming of God’s Realm with the resurrection and expected “second coming” of Jesus..
There is a reality we forget, I think. Without Christmas, we would not have Easter; if Jesus had not been born, then there would have been no resurrection story; and if there had been no resurrection, there would have been no Christmas to celebrate either.
This is a story of birth, death and rebirth - a story of new creation - a parallel to the story of creation in Genesis. Jesus is buried in a cave in a garden, and suddenly he is not there any longer. Echoing in the background are the words of Jesus: A seed, unless it is planted, remains just a seed. But when it is planted and grows, it will bear much fruit.”
This morning we go to a cave in a garden, with three women who still believe traditional Jewish theology - that the dead will be raised when the last trumpet sounds. So they go, grieving, weeping, lost, the whole fabric of their lives ripped in half. They go expecting to have to struggle with a heavy stone. Who will roll away the stone? They don’t even seem aware that the body has already been properly prepared for burial, and they go with spices to dress the body of Jesus appropriately. They arrive in the garden to find that the stone is rolled back, the body is gone, and there is a messenger from God saying “He is risen, he is not here. Go and tell.” The angel provides them with the Exultet, the Easter proclamation.
This morning the words of Jesus are just as potent. Nothing rises to life unless it first dies. A seed remains just a seed, unless it is first planted.
At Christmas, the seed was planted. As it grew, it became the vine, and the followers became the branches. The “seeds” then had to be planted again, in order for new life to grow. So, to me, it makes all kinds of sense to sing the Exultet, to sing the song of new life, the song of the realm of God coming on earth. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her king! Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing!”
...and all heaven and all nature sing. We run away from the empty tomb, not afraid, but full of joy - in his rising into new life, we also rise to new life. Alleluia! Jesus is risen. Jesus is risen indeed.
“Women at the Tomb” - Mark 16:1- 10 Easter Morning Sunrise Service, Humber United Church
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were afraid. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’
First ending: Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Second ending: When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene Chapter 5.
When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Saviour had spoken with her.
But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you wish to say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Saviour said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.”
Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things. He questioned the women about the Saviour: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?
Then Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what are you thinking? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour?” Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather, let us be ashamed of ourselves, and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Saviour said. When they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach.
************************************************************************
Jesus was put to death on a Friday, before sundown - because if it were later, the Sabbath would have begun and he would have hung on the cross through the three days. It was important that he be prepared for burial and moved. They knew he had been laid in a new tomb - Joseph of Arimathea had taken spices for burial, and he and Zaccheus made sure the body was prepared in the proper fashion. As was the custom, a huge rock was rolled across the mouth of the tomb, to prevent animals from getting in....
Three women who stood at the foot of the cross waited with incredible anxiety all through the Sabbath. They could not go on the Sabbath, so had to wait until the next day....as soon as the first tiny rays lightened the sky, they were up. They had not had time to say goodbye properly, so they made their way to the garden where the tomb was, to weep and to grieve the loss of someone they loved so dearly.
They arrive, to find the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, and a man dressed in white sitting where Jesus had been laid. And as in all appearances of messengers or angels, the man said “Don’t be afraid.” ....but they were, and in the first ending of the Mark story, they ran away and did not tell anyone, because of their fear.
The earliest manuscripts do not have verses 9-20 of Mark, hence those verses are know as the “second ending”. They were added later, by someone else. The first ending, in the first manuscript, simply states that they went back and told Peter, and then the disciples went out preaching and teaching, as Jesus had sent them
The second piece which I read this morning is from a book called “The Gospel of Mary”. This text is found in the Berlin Gnostic Codex (or Papyrus Berolinensis 8502. This very important and well-preserved codex was discovered in the late-nineteenth century near Akhmim in upper Egypt. It was purchased in Cairo in 1896 by a German scholar, Dr. Carl Reinhardt, and then taken to Berlin.
The book (or "codex") was probably copied and bound in the late fourth or early fifth century. It contains Coptic translations of three very important early Christian texts: the Gospel of Mary, the Apocryphon of John, and the Sophia of Jesus Christ. The texts themselves date to the second century and were originally authored in Greek. Unfortunately the publication of this codex was delayed until 1955 because of two world wars. By then the collection of writings at Nag Hammadi had also been recovered, and that the Apocryphon of John and the Sophia of Jesus Christ had also been preserved in that collection.
I’ve given you this little bit of history, because it adds a dimension to the story from a woman’s point of view. It is a legitimate document, written about the same time as the other Gospels - and it’s interesting that it dovetails with the second ending of Mark.
The story throughout this weekend has made a point that the people who stayed with Jesus to the end, were the women, and one man. Joseph of Arimathea and Zaccheus did take the body off the cross and look after the burial rites, but they were not at the crucifixion. The story tells us Joseph was afraid...
In every one of the stories, consistently, it’s Mary Magdalene who is there. She is there to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet, and wipe them with her hair. It was an incredibly intimate, and pastoral act - anointing for burial. Mary understood. It’s Mary Magdalene who stands near the cross with Jesus’ mother, and it’s Mary who is the one who goes to the tomb. In Matthew’s Gospel there are two women, in Mark’s there are three, in Luke three, and in John there are four. Mary Magdalene is considered to be the first believer and the first disciple.
In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, thinks he is the gardener - and then recognises him, and he speaks to her. And Mary reports that she has had a conversation with Jesus.
In Mary’s story, she and Jesus have a conversation about the nature of life and death, and the life which comes after. He tells her of the journey of the soul, and the good news which accompanies the soul. She returns to the others and tells them the things Jesus said to her. - and what happens? Andrew says Jesus could not possibly have said these things, as they were just too strange to come from Jesus - hence they had to be Mary’s imagination. Peter accuses her of lying, of making up a story. How could Jesus possibly have said those things to her? He would surely have said them to the men first, wouldn’t he? In other words, why would he say anything to Mary when he said nothing to Peter or any of the others.
In one way or another, the Gospel writers have all focussed on the women, on Jesus’ willingness to treat women as people, not property as in Jewish law. So the very first recognition of resurrection is through a woman, the first words of new life are to a woman, Mary Magdalene. Mary was able to turn their minds and hearts to the good, and bring them together as a group once more. And once the disciples get over their little fit of pique that Jesus spoke to Mary first, they agree to divide up into pairs and go out into the world and tell the story.
...and the little group of first believers went into the world full of joy and thanksgiving.
First ending: Then they quickly reported all these instructions to those around Peter. After this, Jesus himself also sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Second ending: When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene Chapter 5.
When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Saviour had spoken with her.
But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you wish to say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Saviour said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.”
Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things. He questioned the women about the Saviour: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?
Then Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what are you thinking? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour?” Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather, let us be ashamed of ourselves, and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Saviour said. When they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach.
************************************************************************
Jesus was put to death on a Friday, before sundown - because if it were later, the Sabbath would have begun and he would have hung on the cross through the three days. It was important that he be prepared for burial and moved. They knew he had been laid in a new tomb - Joseph of Arimathea had taken spices for burial, and he and Zaccheus made sure the body was prepared in the proper fashion. As was the custom, a huge rock was rolled across the mouth of the tomb, to prevent animals from getting in....
Three women who stood at the foot of the cross waited with incredible anxiety all through the Sabbath. They could not go on the Sabbath, so had to wait until the next day....as soon as the first tiny rays lightened the sky, they were up. They had not had time to say goodbye properly, so they made their way to the garden where the tomb was, to weep and to grieve the loss of someone they loved so dearly.
They arrive, to find the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, and a man dressed in white sitting where Jesus had been laid. And as in all appearances of messengers or angels, the man said “Don’t be afraid.” ....but they were, and in the first ending of the Mark story, they ran away and did not tell anyone, because of their fear.
The earliest manuscripts do not have verses 9-20 of Mark, hence those verses are know as the “second ending”. They were added later, by someone else. The first ending, in the first manuscript, simply states that they went back and told Peter, and then the disciples went out preaching and teaching, as Jesus had sent them
The second piece which I read this morning is from a book called “The Gospel of Mary”. This text is found in the Berlin Gnostic Codex (or Papyrus Berolinensis 8502. This very important and well-preserved codex was discovered in the late-nineteenth century near Akhmim in upper Egypt. It was purchased in Cairo in 1896 by a German scholar, Dr. Carl Reinhardt, and then taken to Berlin.
The book (or "codex") was probably copied and bound in the late fourth or early fifth century. It contains Coptic translations of three very important early Christian texts: the Gospel of Mary, the Apocryphon of John, and the Sophia of Jesus Christ. The texts themselves date to the second century and were originally authored in Greek. Unfortunately the publication of this codex was delayed until 1955 because of two world wars. By then the collection of writings at Nag Hammadi had also been recovered, and that the Apocryphon of John and the Sophia of Jesus Christ had also been preserved in that collection.
I’ve given you this little bit of history, because it adds a dimension to the story from a woman’s point of view. It is a legitimate document, written about the same time as the other Gospels - and it’s interesting that it dovetails with the second ending of Mark.
The story throughout this weekend has made a point that the people who stayed with Jesus to the end, were the women, and one man. Joseph of Arimathea and Zaccheus did take the body off the cross and look after the burial rites, but they were not at the crucifixion. The story tells us Joseph was afraid...
In every one of the stories, consistently, it’s Mary Magdalene who is there. She is there to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet, and wipe them with her hair. It was an incredibly intimate, and pastoral act - anointing for burial. Mary understood. It’s Mary Magdalene who stands near the cross with Jesus’ mother, and it’s Mary who is the one who goes to the tomb. In Matthew’s Gospel there are two women, in Mark’s there are three, in Luke three, and in John there are four. Mary Magdalene is considered to be the first believer and the first disciple.
In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, thinks he is the gardener - and then recognises him, and he speaks to her. And Mary reports that she has had a conversation with Jesus.
In Mary’s story, she and Jesus have a conversation about the nature of life and death, and the life which comes after. He tells her of the journey of the soul, and the good news which accompanies the soul. She returns to the others and tells them the things Jesus said to her. - and what happens? Andrew says Jesus could not possibly have said these things, as they were just too strange to come from Jesus - hence they had to be Mary’s imagination. Peter accuses her of lying, of making up a story. How could Jesus possibly have said those things to her? He would surely have said them to the men first, wouldn’t he? In other words, why would he say anything to Mary when he said nothing to Peter or any of the others.
In one way or another, the Gospel writers have all focussed on the women, on Jesus’ willingness to treat women as people, not property as in Jewish law. So the very first recognition of resurrection is through a woman, the first words of new life are to a woman, Mary Magdalene. Mary was able to turn their minds and hearts to the good, and bring them together as a group once more. And once the disciples get over their little fit of pique that Jesus spoke to Mary first, they agree to divide up into pairs and go out into the world and tell the story.
...and the little group of first believers went into the world full of joy and thanksgiving.
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