Are We Like Sheep

Yesterday was Good Shepherd Sunday in our church calendar.  The readings, including the 23^rd psalm – you know the one the begins, the Lord is my shepherd, were all about Jesus as the good shepherd.  That left us – the people who follow him - to be the sheep.  Not that complementary when you think about it.  However, there are lots about that analogy that is true. 

What comes to mind in this vein, is the quote from Isaiah 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.”  Actually, it comes into my head – or my ear – as the line from Handel’s Messiah which states emphatically and in great music, “All we like sheep.”   Here’s a link to a version on You tube if you would like to sing along, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOaSa78_NM0.

In our weekly bible study last week, in preparation for Sunday worship, one of the participants asked a very good question.  He noted that since Jesus used, as he often did in his parables, the  common things in his society – sheep being something that was very important to people in his day, rather than sheep, what would he use if he was speaking and teaching today?  The thought came to me that he would probably use algorithms which will often lead us down rabbit holes to dark places if we follow them.  Most everyone who spends time on social media, has the experience of being fed suggestions which would lead us down – shall we say to interesting, if not dangerous places.

In the Gospel reading from John 10, Jesus tells us that the sheep – that’s us – “will not follow a stranger, but they run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”  That may be true of sheep, but it is not true of us today.  We have, I think, forgotten what the Good Shepherd’s voice sounds like. With all the noise and distractions on social media today, it is very easy to mistake the voices out there as the voice of the Good Shepherd. 

So how do we know that a voice we hear is the voice we should be listening to?  Well, the simple way is to pay attention to what it is saying.  Is it giving us a message of love or is it giving us a message of something else such as envy, or lust, or hate.  As Bob Dylan sang, “Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, But you’re going to have to serve somebody.”

So, I guess it is up to us to decide who’s voice we are going to listen to.  Remember that the next time we are tempted to listen to the myriads of voices on social media or elsewhere.  May we be blessed to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd beneath the tumult.

The Truth in Miracles

 

The Gospel readings for the last two weeks recount two of the signs in the Gospel of John.  John’s Gospel has seven signs or miracles performed by Jesus.  The first is the great one for any wine lover, when Jesus changes the water into wine at a wedding when the host had done the unforgiveable and run out of wine.  The last sign, and last week’s Gospel, was the raising Lazarus from the dead.

The miracles recorded in the bible, can be a test of faith for Christian believers and a reason that many people have in not being able to believe the word of God presented in the bible.  It is, I believe, a key to understanding the relationship between God and humans – between the Divine and the human. 

Catholic biblical scholar Murray Watson gives a continuum of possibilities in how to understand the inspired nature of the relationship between the Divine and the Human.    

 

 

  

 It struck me that this is a good illustration of the challenge that miracles bring to people in our culture today.  The belief in the part which God plays in the world relates directly to how miracles are understood and accepted or not accepted by people.  On the one end of the continuum, the stories of miracles in the Old and New Testaments in the bible are actual, literal accounts of the events.  On the other end they are made up stories which have no validity as factual accounts of actual events.

To illustrate, how do you understand the account of the flood in Genesis in which God told Noah to build an arc to hold a pair of every kind of animal to enable them to survive the flood which God sent upon the face of the earth?  Whether you believe that this actually happened as recorded in the Book of Genesis or was just a “myth” i.e., it didn’t happen, can create an inseparable barrier to people exploring with each other how God is working in their lives today. 

In my view, there is little to be gained by arguing over the details of this account or other accounts of miracles in the bible.  If we can put aside the issue of the historical nature of the event, and whether the details are historical facts, we are much more likely to have a meaningful discussion of how God in working in our lives today.  Rather than argue over the truth of the facts of the case, we can explore the capital ‘T’ Truth of how God was operating in the lives of the people who wrote down the account and explore that Truth in our lives today.

For me, the story of the flood shows that God’s creation is redeemable regardless of how fallen the world seems to be.  God can and does work through individuals who can work to redeem the world against impossible odds.  That is certainly applicable to the world today as we see the challenges that are facing the world from pandemics, to an outbreak of conflict between the Israeli and Palestine, and now the war between United States and Iran - not to mention the chasm that exists between political parties in our neighbour to the south.  To me, it doesn’t matter whether or not a person named Noah existed and whether or not he built an arc that held all those animals.  The Truth is that God has and does work through people to bring about the salvation of the world.  We can have hope in that and not give into despair when we read today’s news.

Blessings on your journey and may you know the Truth of God in your life.

The Most Important Word

Today we are beginning the season of Advent in which we Christians prepare for the birth of the Christ Child.  The question I have for you today is, “what is the most important word in this season of the coming of the Christ Child to be with us?”  Any guesses?  Of course there are lots of possible answers - Love? Mission? God? Sin? Mercy?  Which one is the one that resonates with you?

Well, if you look at the opening verse of the Gospel of John we have the answer, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God”.  The Word was with God.  The most important word in the bible is ‘with’.  This idea doesn’t originate with me.  For this idea I must credit Samuel Wells, a theologian from Duke University and a priest currently working in England. 

I came across the question and answer in an article by Sara Miles on the web site Episcopal Café.  She notes that the idea of the Word being with God is based on the foundation of the Trinity.  ‘The Trinity is, at heart, about ‘with’: about what Christians call “perichoresis.” This is the dance in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being, existing through their mutual relationship. And God is always gathering all humanity into that undivided relationship, bringing us all into life with God.  The Anglican worship service opens with, ‘The Lord be with you’.  The response is,…. ‘and also with you’.  That is the hope and promise that we Christians have.  It was promised to us by Jesus – staying with John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever” (John 14:16). 

What then does it mean to be with another person?  We are all on the journey to be reunited with the source of life when our time on this earth has run its course.  Part of the answer is to not come to someone with expectations about them.  This came home to me for the first time most clearly when I was doing my unit of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) during my seminary training.  I was doing it in a hospital, and my assignment divided my time between a General Medicine Ward and a ward for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.  I had – shall we say – quite a difficult making cold calls in the General Medicine ward.  I knew I was there to help the patient – probably whether they wanted help or not.  I was sure I probably wouldn’t say the right thing or do the right thing. 

The Alzheimer’s ward was an entirely different situation.  I arrived there not knowing who I would be or where I would be.  I might be someone’s father, brother, son or just a friend.  I might be sitting by a riverbank or in someone’s home.  It could be a year ago or five years ago or fifty.  All I had to do was show up and be with that person and be whomever they saw me to be.  I was able to let go and let God – sorry for the cliché - I couldn’t resist.  In any case, with the Alzheimer’s ward, I was able to be with the other person and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Above all we need to learn to truly be with each other and to enable God to be with us more fully in that journey.  The Lord be with you. 

 

The Dark Side of Christmas

We are in Advent and the proper celebration of Advent as preparation for Christmas is one of my hot buttons.  However, I want to talk about Christmas this week and acknowledging there is a dark side to the wonderful light that came into the world in that stable in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.  Perhaps I can resolve this apparent dissonance by proposing that we need to recognize the darkness is an appropriate way of preparing for the light of Christ.

Two events recently prompted me to consider the darkness that is part of the Christmas message.  First, I was invited to be the guest musician (guitarist) for my former congregation, St. James Anglican Church in Parkhill for the community Christmas concert which was held December 1^st.  One of the pieces I chose for our congregational choir was The Coventry Carol.  I chose it in part because it is a beautiful carol that I have long loved to sing.  Also, it was one that I could manage to play on the guitar―an important consideration I have discovered in my not entirely brilliant career playing church music on guitar.

One of the things that I did not consider when choosing it is the nature of the carol.  For those of you who are not familiar with it here are the lyrics:

Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child.   By by, lully, lullay,

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling
For whom we sing
By by, lully lullay?

Herod, the king
In his raging
Charged he hath this day
His men of might
In his own sight,
All young children to slay

That woe is me
Poor child for thee!
And ever morn and day,
For thy parting
Neither say nor sing
By by, lully lullay!

The carol tells the account of the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ ordered by King Herod after he was informed by the Three Wise Men that they were seeking the birth place of the new king of the Jews.  Herod, of course, saw this as a threat to his throne and acted in a completely understandable way for a despot and tried his best to eliminate any possibility of a usurper to his power. 

Of course, we know that he didn’t succeed as Joseph, the Christ child’s step father was warned in a dream of Herod’s intent and the Holy Family fled to Egypt following the biblical precedent of the first Joseph going to that land.  However, that did not prevent the carrying out of King Herod’s proclamation; “he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger.”

This is a very dark act and a very dark time of the families who did not receive the warning from God or, if they did, decided not to pay attention to the warning. 

The other impetus to this exploration of darkness that I received was watching the wonderful version of the Christmas Carol staring Alistair Sim as Scrooge.  It was presented on Turner Classic Movies a few nights ago.  It is, to my mind the quintessential movie version of the Dickens classic.  No one has portrayed Scrooge better before and I doubt ever will.  In the introduction, the host noted that the release was held up because of the dark nature of the film.  As noted in Wikipedia, “the film was originally slated to be shown at New York City's Radio City Music Hall as part of their Christmas attraction it was determined that the film was too grim and somber and did not possess enough family entertainment value to warrant an engagement at the Music Hall.”

There is no doubt that the film version and the original story is rather grim and paints a dark side of human kind, at least in Victorian England which Dickens was a genius at portraying.  The ghost of Christmas future is not warm and friendly by any means. 

It is, I believe, important that we do not sentimentalize Christmas as it is so easy to do.  This is particularly true of what I call the cultural Christmas which is all around us with Christmas songs (I won’t call them carols) being played in the malls and the gifts of the Wise Men being transformed into a frenzy of materialism (I guess I am channeling a bit of Scrooge’s bah humbug here).

However, let me close with a quote from the wonderful Good News of the Gospel of John which is the Gospel of the light that came into the world at Christmas:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

I hope that the light of the Christ will shine for you in the darkness of this world.  Let us remember this Christmas that it is a time to be Merry but also that the forces of darkness are still very much in and of this world.

A blessed and merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Sermon November 22, 2015; The Reign of Christ

Seven Sign of the Kingdom

What do you think of when you hear the word “sign”?  It indicates something which should have a clear meaning.   Some sign are more important than others.  There are all sorts of signs.  If you remember when you took the test for you driving licence there were signs that you had to recognize as they were important.  If you didn’t know what they meant you would probably not get your licence.  When you did begin to drive they were very important to proper driving.  Some road signs are recommendations like suggested speeds and some are cautionary like slow moving vehicle signs.  Others are requirements like speed limits which people more or less observe—rather honoured in the breech—like speed limits which you can usually fudge a bit without getting into trouble.  I usually drive 10 km over the speed limit when road and traffic and weather conditions allow and am pretty sure I won’t get a ticket.  Some are ones you should always obey like traffic lights—red means stop and a stop sign means stop. 

There are some signs which are not as clear in their meaning.  You have some figures of people which represent which is the washroom for men and which are for women.  They are useful and fairly important to recognize.  It has the potential to be embarrassing if you get them wrong.  Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between them and I find myself stopping and comparing the two figures to make sure I get the right one.  So some signs are mandatory and some are optional and some are inconvenient and some can lead to consequences that could be embarrassing but not serious.  However, there are many signs in this world and the world would be a very different place without them.

Today’s Gospel reading is from John.  Now John’s Gospel is very different from the other three.  Matthew, Mark and Luke are sometimes called the Synoptic Gospels as they are very similar and seem to be drawing water from the same well.    Indeed Mark is thought to be the earliest and Matthew and Luke drew extensively from Mark as well as other sources.  However, John’s Gospel is a different kettle of fish.  It is thought to be the latest – probably written about 90 CE.  There, I have just given you the first lesson in the introduction to the New Testament Bible study.  Don’t worry there won’t be a test at the end.

There are many significant differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels.  One of the major differences is that John speaks of signs.  These are in some cases things Jesus does that are usually considered to me miracles.  There are seven important signs that John identifies:

1. Water to wine (2:1-12)
2. Healing of the official’s son (4:43-54)
3. Healing a paralyzed man (5:1-15)
4. Feeding 5000 (6:1-15)
5. Walking on water (6:16-24)
6. Healing a man born blind (9:1-12)
7. Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44)

N.T. Wright describes the meaning of Signs in the gospel of John like this,

The whole point of signs is that they are moments when heaven and earth intersect with each other. (That’s what the Jews believed happened in the Temple.) The point is not that they are stories which couldn’t have happened in real life, but which point away from earth to a heavenly reality. – N.T. Wright John for Everyone, 21.

N. T. Wright is the retired Bishop of Durham England and a world famous theologian. He will be delivering the R. T. Orr lecture at Huron College this Wednesday.  However, I don’t completely agree with him on this. 

I believe that the signs which John records are pointing to a different reality on earth and not just away from earth to a heavenly reality.  A few weeks ago I spoke about biblical miracles and noted that how to understand biblical miracles is a challenge for many modern Christians and it is a challenge that I have struggled with for many years as part of my faith journey.  My approach at this point in my journey is not to be concerned about the literal facts.  What is important for me is the truth that is contained in the event and not the truth of the events.  How are we to understand the truth of the message that is contained in the scripture passage? 

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells Pilate, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’  This world that Jesus speaks of is the way this world understand a kingdom.  This world’s kings and Emperors were absolute and used ther power to control and conquer people by means of force.  Jesus’ kingdom is ruled by love.

The seven signs of John’s Gospel point to that kingdom.  The first sign is a celebration of a marriage which has run out of wine which was central to that celebration.  The marriage is a sign of the union of two people which enables them or at least helps them to live out God’s intended purpose.  It is a beginning of what is possible in the kingdom.  The next two signs are healing; one of a man’s son and the other of a paralytic.  The man’s son was restored to life pointing to the life that is possible even though it may seem like our lives are dead and meaningless.  The paralytic man was brought out of a life in which he was not able to engage with life.  The next sign is the feeding of the five thousand.  Through Jesus we will be fed with the spiritual food that feeds our spirits and our souls.  In the next sign Jesus walks on water.  This is a somewhat different account than in the Synoptic accounts.  Here the disciples are afraid when they see Jesus approaching but when he engaged them they were no longer afraid and were willing to take him into their boat.  We need to be able to put aside all our reservations and welcome Jesus into our lives fully.  The next sign is the healing of the man born blind.  Jesus will enable us to see the truth of the kingdom which is based on love.  Love is more powerful than hate and will enable us to overcome the fear that we have and our need for absolute security.  The final sign is the raising of Lazarus.  As I noted in my sermon on this sign the key for me is the last statement of Jesus, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  This is exactly what Jesus is saying to each of us.  We are to unbind ourselves from the things which bind us hand and foot and prevent us from living the full life that Jesus calls us to. 

John has given us hints of what the kingdom of God can be like.  It can point to a kingdom which is ruled by love and not power.  It point to a kingdom in which we love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength and our neighbours and ourselves.  Thanks be to God.