Don’t Let a Good Catastrophe Go to Waste

Being at our cottage in Prince Edward Island, I now have a larger appreciation for how COVID is being handled in different parts of the country.  In some ways it is almost like it no longer exists – or at least it is no longer a serious problem.  It is just one of those chronic health challengers we have to live – and hopefully not die from, like the flu.

 Both back at home in Ontario and here in cottage country, there is what can only be described as a relaxed view of COVID.  Most restrictions have been lifted or at least loosened.  We have no restrictions for travelling through provinces and no quarantine requirements or testing upon arrival in P.E.I.  which has assuredly made life much easier.  There are recommendations that we wear masks in stores and public places which is observed more in the breach than in the observance.  It is very easy to go with the flow and forget about wearing one.

The application of restrictions can lead to a somewhat illogical result.  The Anglican Church here allows us to meet without masks and to sing all the verses of hymns.  However, wine is not to be received by the congregation as it would normally, and only the priest partakes of the wine.  Go figure.

 I believe that we should not let the experience of the COVID pandemic fade into the mists of our memories and not try to use that experience as we move forward both in our religious life as well as our daily life.  This was addressed recently in one of the Daily offerings from the Society of St. John the Evangelist:  

Renewal

We are in the midst of a re-creation moment. As our world continues to reverberate from this once-in-a-generation pandemic, we are confronted with the opportunity to live differently, to not let a good catastrophe go to waste, but to heed the things that the Spirit has prompted in us: outward forms of love and stewardship, and inward forms of healing and renewal.  -Br. Todd Blackham

Many in Anglican Church and other mainline religions today in the West, despair that the church is dying and there won’t be much of the church left in twenty years, if present trends continue.  The Anglican Church in my home town of Parkhill, St, James, closed at the end of June as the latest of many church closings in our Diocese.  It certainly won’t be the last.  I won’t say it begs the question, but it certainly raises the question, what will replace it?  Canadian and all of the Western world is becoming persistently more secular with the church apparently having a much less significant part in the lives of people - particularly the younger generations. 

I really don’t know the answer to that question.  However, what I do know is that something or somethings will arise to replace organized religion.  In my understanding, this will happen because it will be the work of the Holy Spirit.  That part of the Trinity in Christianity faith and dogma often does not receive as much attention as the other two parts God the Father, and God the Son.  This is, at least in part, because it is unpredictable and not under the direct control of church authorities.  This was address in one of the Daily Meditations of Richard Rohr: 

The work of the Holy Spirit, seismic and subtle, never seems to land us in a place of perfect stasis and equilibrium for long.  Rather, it teaches us to be flexible, malleable to the ongoing creation of God such that when we are confronted with an invitation to adapt, we can respond with freedom rather than resistance.

Is there some new freedom that the Holy Spirit is inviting you into these days?

‘God dwells wherever man lets him in.’  Buber, The Way of Man, 33

So, in light of this, how do we not let a good catastrophe that COVID has given us go to waste?  It is not going to be easy for many of us who have set ideas of how we should be and what we should do.  We need to have open hearts and minds and spirits to what the future holds and where the Holy Spirit (or just ‘spirt’ for the secular folks) is leading us.  We need to use our discernment in determining if something is the work of the Holy Spirit or is the work of other forces.  However, we need to be open to what lies ahead.

 May you be blessed to engage the Holy Spirit on your journey.

 

Driven or Led

Last Sunday, we had the Gospel reading was the account of Jesus going into the wilderness following his baptism.  This was a time of preparation to begin his public ministry.  For those of us who are Christians, it is also is a summation of what we do in the season of Lent which is modeled after Jesus’ forty days and nights in the wilderness.  There is much which we can explore around this including what does it mean to be in a time of wilderness in our lives or what does it mean to do the traditional exercise of giving up something for Lent which, again is modeled on the forty-day fast that Jesus experienced before he had his encounter with that tempter extraordinaire, Satan.

What I invite you to consider today, whether or not you observe Lent, is the concept of following the spirit in your life.  Jesus was led or was driven – depending on which account in the Gospels your read – into the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  Do you have a sense that your life is being influenced or guided by what could be considered a spirit or force in your life?  You may not identify this as the Holy Spirit or God by any other name.  It can be considered as something which has guided you in following a path which seems to have been laid out for you at an early stage in your life.

Whatever that influence is, there may be times when it seems to take you to places that you don’t really wan to go.  This was the case, I believe, for Jesus when he was – according to the Gospel of Mark – “driven” by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness rather being “led” according to Matthew and Luke by that same Spirit into that very unwelcoming environment.

There are times when we are led or driven or encouraged to go places by that influence - be it conscience or guilt or whatever – that we don’t really want to go  to do things or go places that we know we should be that are not going in our mind to be all that welcome or welcoming.  It is helpful to reflect on these experiences and try to understand why we are being encourage to go there and what it is that benefit we might receive by following that encouragement.  If we are honest with ourselves, we will probably know in our hearts that this is what we are intended to do. 

I would encourage you to follow that influence and see what happens.  You may find that you are blessed on your journey.

Inspiration

Last week I wrote on what could be considered the ‘news’ in the News and Views.  This week is more in the category of views – one of my favourite topics – the Holy Spirit as a source of inspiration in the church. 

The power and work of the Holy Spirit is something which seems, at least in the part of the Christian Church that I am most familiar with, not to be given much authority.  The Holy Spirit seems to be the poor relation of the family of the Trinity.  Anglicanism rests on three pillars of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.  The Holy Spirit does not I seem to enter into any of those in a prominent way.  Perhaps it is in the background of each of these pillars.  However, it has not taken the prominent role that I believe it should.  I guess I am drawing on, what can be considered the fourth pillar, faith, in this approach.

The Holy Spirit is, of course a part of scripture being the wind that blew over the waters at the creation up to and beyond the establishment of the church on Pentecost.  It does not, however, have a firm place in the tradition of Anglicanism.  Now, this may show a lack of a firm foundation in Anglican Church history on my part and I would truly like to be educated more on this.

The place of the Holy Spirit in the Christian church is founded on the passage of scripture, John 14:16-17:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” 

The direct implication of this passage is that the world was and is not ready to accept what the Spirit has come to reveal to us.  This, too, seems to be born out in the between time which began when Jesus ascended.  However, if we are to follow what Jesus has told us, we need to pay more attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world. 

I believe that the church has not given the attention to the reality and authority of the Holy Spirit because those in authority do not like the possibility that the Holy Spirit may lead people to places that they do not approve of and do not have authority over.  If regular church goers are inspired by the Holy Spirit to be the church in new ways who knows what might happen.  Therefore, let’s not let get beyond the structure and strictures that are in place.

However, despite the attempts to maintain control over the all that is the church, the Holy Spirit cannot be contained and will break though in ways that are unpredictable and unavoidable.  An example of this was noted by Richard Rohr in the past week:

Jarena Lee (1783–1864) was the first authorized woman preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. If then, to preach the gospel by the gift of heaven, comes by inspiration solely, is God straitened; must he take the man exclusively? May he not, did he not, and can he not inspire a female to preach the simple story of the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord? . . . As for me, I am fully persuaded that the Lord called me to labor according to what I have received, in his vineyard. 

There are many examples of the church moving to align itself with the Holy Spirit from translating the bible into language accessible to ordinary Christians, to the movement to emancipation of slaves, to the ordination of women.

There are, of course, problems with discerning the Holy Spirit.  People can easily believe that they are being led by the Holy Spirit but in truth are being mislead by other forces or just believing what they want is actually the devices and desires of their egos.  I don’t want to minimize this reality.  People have been misled, sometimes with disastrous consequences, into following what is not the work of God.  We have to use our God given ability of discernment to move carefully into new places and in new ways.  As Jesus has told us:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? (Matthew 7: 14-16)

Unfortunately, it is sometimes more difficult to recognize whether it is grapes or thorns until we get to the source of them.  All we can do is to pray that God will give us ears to hear and eyes to see what is truly the will of God.

Blessings on your journey.

Wither the Holy Spirit

Last Sunday was Pentecost.  The scripture reading from Acts is one of the better know passages of the New Testament which describes the impact of the Holy Spirit on those assembled in Jerusalem at what is now considered the birth of the Christian Church.  There was the sound like a mighty wind, tongues of fire on the heads of the assembled, and the speaking in tongues―which should be remembered was by the Galileans in the different languages of the assembled people (unlike the modern speaking in tongues which apparently no one can interpret).

I noted in my sermon that the Holy Spirit seems to be more subtle in its work these day.  At least we don’t seem to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit as easily as happened on that Day of Pentecost two thousand years ago.  As a result, we seem to have trouble being aware when and how the Holy Spirit is actually working in our lives and in the world. 

Coincidentally, at the time I began to write my sermon the Daily Meditation from Richard Rohr, for that day arrived in my mail inbox.  It had a passage which addressed just this point:

In the great basilica in Assisi where Francis is buried, there is a wonderful bronze sculpture of Francis inviting the Holy Spirit. Instead of looking upward as is usual, he gazes reverently and longingly downward—into the earth—where the Spirit is enmeshed. Francis understood that the Holy Spirit had in fact descended; she is forever and first of all here!

There are many different ways―perhaps countless ways―in which the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.  However, we do not have ears to hear and eyes to see many of them.  This coincident of the email from Richard Rohr is one of them.  It is what I consider to be synchronicity.  Synchronicity is a technical term which can simply be defined as a significant coincident.  A more formal definition is:

the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

I have for many years been interested in synchronicity as a concept and have had some experiences of it in my life.  I consider them to be significant and can, as in the case of dreams, reveal things to me about where my life is and where it is heading. 

In the case of the Richard Rohr quote it was a helpful encapsulation of what I had wanted to say about the work of the Holy Spirit today.  Another example in my life was when I had been considering my call to ordained ministry.  I had been taking a few theology courses at Huron College, basically for interest, as I approached retirement for the first time from my civil service job.  I had resisted what seemed to be the nagging of God telling me that I should begin the formal path to ordination.  I decided the only way to move forward was to actually begin the formal part of the journey.   I went for an interview with the Dean of Theology at Huron, John Chapman.  We have a very positive conversation.  At the conclusion I started my drive home and turned on the radio which was tuned to CBC radio one as usual.  What was playing was an interview with three people who had been ordained later in life.  I took this to be confirmation that I was on the right path in my life.  That this was and is the right path seems to have been confirmed since.

Another example which was more a question of confirming the important of synchronicity in my life as a phenomenon happened many years ago when I was taking a course on Jungian psychology at University.  In one class we considered Jung’s concept of synchronicity.  We were discussing an essay on the subject written by Jung.  It was entitled “On Synchronicity” in the collection The Portable Jung.  In it he writes, “On April 1, 1949, I made the note in the morning an inscription containing a figure that was half man and half fish. There was fish for lunch.  Somebody mentioned the custom of making an “April fish” of someone.”  Jung goes on from there to discuss the multiplying of coincidents that occurred.  For Jung the concept of fish was very important as it represented in dreams and waking life material that is drawn from the unconscious of a person.

It so happens that I was born on April 1^, 1949.  It also happened that the class was begin held on April 1^st.  I inquired of the professor if he had chosen to deliberately to discuss the topic on that day because it fell on April first.  He declared that he hadn’t.  It was, in effect, a synchronistic event about synchronicity. 

I have had other experiences of synchronicity which I consider to be important.  It is very easy for someone to dismiss these experiences as mere coincidence without meaning.  However, as with much of the work of the Holy Spirit today we need to be open to the possibility that the Holy Spirit is working in our lives in ways that can be meaningful if we pay attention to them.

I hope that you will be open to however the Holy Spirit is working in your life journey and in the world.

Blessings on your journey.

Kenosis part 2

On December 18^th, I wrote about Kenosis or self-emptying as a way of observing Advent.  I want to continue my thoughts on the subject as a way of observing Lent.  The Gospel reading for yesterday, the First Sunday of Lent, was Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus immediately followed by Jesus spending forty day and nights in the wilderness (Mark 1. 9-15). 

I appreciate Mark’s account of Jesus going into the wilderness as the Gospel states that “the Spirit immediately drove (my emphasis) him out into the wilderness.”  The other two synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Luke, have a different description of this action by the Holy Spirit, they both say that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.  There is a significant difference between being led into the wilderness and being driven into it.  I have long preferred Mark’s version because it emphasizes Jesus’ humanity.  In my theology, if Jesus was fully human he had, to some extent, the human reluctance to fully embrace what he understood as the will of his Heavenly Father.   This is most dramatically demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane before Good Friday.  I’m sure that Jesus had a very good idea of the trials and challenges that he would face in the wilderness and did not embrace those with open arms.  However, he also knew that he would need to have the wilderness experience to prepare him for his earthly ministry.  Therefore, I appreciate the idea of the Spirit, shall we say, strongly encouraging Jesus to undertake that necessary journey.

In my scenario, Jesus was experiencing the dissonance between what we want and what we believe that God knows we need.  That is why Jesus had to be driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit―God in action.  This is an ongoing challenge for most, if not all of us; to do what we know we should be doing and do what we want to do.  St. Paul expressed this very well, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15). This is where the ego comes in.  The ego wants to be in control and wants what it wants.  It is an ongoing challenge to have the ego serve God and not the other way around―but that is a topic for another day. 

The challenge for my Lenten journey is to give up some of priorities set by my ego and to let it be in the service of God.  To do that I need to empty myself of some of the things that I want and allow space for God to enter.  Actually, it is more a case of recognizing God’s presence in myself and my life because God is always there.  However, I often am not aware of God’s presence as I am distracted by all the activities and wants and desires in my day to day life.

One way which I do that is through Centering Prayer.  This practice involves emptying you mind of all thoughts―or at least trying to because our western minds are not welcoming of having no thoughts.  In Centering Prayer, the minds tendency to fill up any empty spaces is referred to as “the monkey brain”.  I have practices Centering Prayer for some years now.  I was introduced to it in the Spiritual Direction training.  I have attempted to do it regularly but have not always been successful.  By regularly I mean one session daily for 20 minutes.  When thoughts come into your head during the prayer session, as they inevitably do, the idea is to not dwell on them, just let them float away. 

Hopefully, this respite from brain activity and thoughts will make me more aware for God’s presence in my life.  I have decided that my Lenten practice will be to engage in Centering Prayer every day in Lent.  I must admit I was not successful yesterday.  I did attend three worship services including a wonderful sung Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The others were at two congregations in my new parish where I preached at both services.  Fortunately, Lent does not officially include Sundays, so I guess I am off the hook.  However, I think that is my ego trying to justify the things I have not done that I should have done. 

I am eternally grateful that God is good and forgiving of all our shortcomings, both large and small.   

May you have a Holy Lent.

Greg

Same Sex Marriage part 3

The last two weeks I have been writing about same-sex marriage.  I want to give my final thoughts, at least for the foreseeable future, this week. 

As I have noted, this issue is not a straightforward one by any means.  People hold positions on both (all?) sides of the issue for many complicated and complex reasons; both heart felt and well thought out.  The reasons for and against can be supported in scripture, history, justice, and the movement of the Holy Spirit.  I believe that most people I have discussed this with, who hold strong views on the issue, do so not because of animosity or hatred against others.  It is because they firmly believe that they are being faithful to a position which is based in their understanding of what is right for themselves, others and society.  Many on each side have their belief grounded in their understanding of scripture as God’s word and God’s created order.

As I noted, I believe in the movement in our culture and in our church which is moving towards the acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriage.  I believe this is a correct understanding of the movement of the Holy Spirit in God’s world to enable people who have been isolated, reviled and cast into outer darkness by society and the church for many years, to live in loving union and relationships as we are intended to by God. 

I also realize that there is no guarantee that I or others can have the absolute assurance that we understand without question where the Holy Spirit is calling us and the church today.  We are called to discern where the Holy Spirit is acting in our lives and in the world through reflection, prayer and thought. 

One of the arguments by those opposing the movement to same-sex marriage within the Anglican Church and other denominations, is that the church is being influenced and led astray, giving into pressures by the culture.  However, it must be acknowledged that there has been, throughout the history of the Christian Church, an interplay between culture and the doctrine of the church.  If this were not so the Christian Church would have remained a religion that required observance of the purity laws of Judaism and required all members to convert and to be circumcised. 

I believe that Jesus showed in many of his interactions with people and his offer of salvation was to give preference to being in relationship with one another in love rather than an adherence to law.  He believed that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.  In a similar way people should be supported in committed, loving relationships which can offer people the opportunity to live out more fully who God intends them to be rather than living as outcasts who are condemned because of, in my belief, a mistaken understanding of the law as an expression of God will.

I know from friends and acquaintances, the pain and deep hurt and damage that is caused by people being unaccepted, reviled and disowned by family, society and church, not because of anything they have done but because of who they have been from birth, if not before. 

I recognize that part of the objection to same-sex marriage is that this will change the fundamental meaning of marriage which is and should remain between one man and one woman.  I respect that position but I do not agree with it.  I believe that the church should move to affirm same-sex marriage just as it has other issues including ordination of women and the abolition of slavery.  These have been supported and affirmed in the past based on scriptural understanding which informed and supported the cultural norm.  Same-sex marriage should be understood in the same way.

I want to end this reflection with the hope and prayer that regardless of future decisions by the Anglican Church, its congregations and its members, we can, in the words of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, that we approach this issue in loving disagreement.

The Great Commandment by our lord and Saviour is that we love one another as he loves us.  Let us do that knowing that it will not be easy or perfect. 

Blessings on your journey.

The Holy Spirit and the Church part 1

I have a line that I use to describe the position of the Holy Spirit in organized religion, “it is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Trinity—it don’t get no respect”. 

Although the Holy Spirit is given its due on Pentecost Sunday and a few other times in the church calendar, it seems to me that not a lot of attention is paid to it in our branch of religion in any case.   Pentecostalism of course gives it its due.  However, speaking in tongues is not a biggie in Anglicanism and generally other branches of mainline Christianity.  Not that I am proposing that speaking in tongues become a part of Anglican liturgy.  I wonder what would happen if some parishioners started in one of our services.  It would be very interesting to say the least. 

I believe that this is due to the fact that if the Holy Spirit is given the attention and reverence it is due, religious leaders would not have the control that they believe is necessary to ensure that Christianity, as they understand it, will survive and thrive.  Richard Rohr addressed this recently in one of his Daily Meditations:

If religious teachers told their parishioners about contemplation, where individuals can experience the mercy of God for themselves, they would not be so dependent upon the clergy. Although this codependency is not engineered maliciously, it does create job security. We all have a hard time doing things that essentially work ourselves out of a job or make ourselves unnecessary. Sin management does hold the flock together, but soon we realize that there is little maturity, or even love, in a flock that is glued together in this way. The passive, passive-dependent, and passive-aggressive nature of the church is rather obvious to many of us who have worked on the inside.

Richard is speaking of contemplation; however, this is just one form that the Holy Spirit can and does work in our lives and in the world.  The problem with the Holy Spirit is that, as John declares in his Gospel, “The wind^* blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).   It is hard to develop church policies and procedures around something that is out of our direct control.  

The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity which is at work in the world.  It brings change and creates as it did when all of this was begun by God, “In the beginning when God created^* the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^* swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1: 1-2).  

As Richard notes, it is normal for church leaders to try and ensure that the church and especially the laity are dependent on them.  It is not just a case of “job security” as Richard suggests, although that is probably at least some of the motivation.  Any organization needs to ensure its existence; indeed it has been proposed that this is the first concern of every organization.  The church, although it is ordained by God and was created on Pentecost by that very Holy Spirit, is run by people who are very human.  

I don’t believe that this is an either-or situation in respect to the Holy Spirit and the church.  Indeed Richard Rohr believes that dualistic thinking is not the goal of our development.  I know that if Christians are to live out their calling in the world we are called to be in community in which we gather in Jesus name; the church is absolutely necessary; it is ordained by God.  So, how can we be the church and be open to the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world in more ways than we can ever grasp or imagine.  Indeed, as a Spiritual Director I attempt to help directees identify and deepen the ways in which the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives.  Richard notes one way, through contemplation.  Another is through dreams.  I consider dreams to be “God’s Forgotten Language” which is a term of John’s Sanford (and the title of his excellent introduction to dream work).  In my training in leading dream groups through the Haden Institute it is stressed that dream groups are best when they are under the umbrella of a church congregation/parish.  This enables the work of the Holy Spirit to have a container which will allow the work to take root and flourish. 

Similarly, the contemplative life needs to be grounded in and through an organization whether it is a church congregation/parish, a monastic community or other religious structure.  

The question that we are faced with in the church today is how do we enable the Holy Spirit to work in us both as individuals and those organizations we are part of?  I will explore that more next week.

I will leave you with the question, “how is the Holy Spirit at work in your life today and how do you best recognize its presence in your life”?

Blessings on your journey.

Greg

The Holy Spirit and the Church part 2

Last week I reflected on the attitude of the organized church to the Holy Spirit.   I believe that the organized church, at least in most established parts, does not revere the third person of the Trinity.  As I noted, if the Holy Spirit is given the attention and reverence it is due, religious leaders would not have the control that some believe is necessary to ensure that Christianity, as they understand it, will survive and thrive.

The question I want to explore further is whether or not the Holy Spirit ever destroys what is there or does it just bring about transformation in the world.  I believe after some consideration I clarified my position regarding the transformative nature of the Holy Spirit. 

The best example of the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came with roaring winds and tongues of fire and speech.  Those present were so transformed that a new church was born, one which spread quickly over the known world.  There was no destruction in that act; rather, something new was born.

However, when viewed from the perspective of those involved it can be very different.  The lives of those who were present in that room were changed radically.  They were no longer the same people.  They were now new people in a new way.  They went out from that place and changed the world.  To them it must have seemed like the old way had died.  Richard Rohr addresses this, “I see transformation and change occurring in three stages: order > disorder > reorder”.   When the old way dies the birth pangs of the new order can seem to be like destruction and perhaps even chaos as the new way takes root.  The wind and fire of Pentecost caused confusion to those who witnessed it. 

This process of transformation is captured wonderfully in the sacrament of baptism.  As I discuss in my sermon this week, in baptism we die to the old life and are born to the new life.  This is done symbolically in the Anglican tradition by pouring water over the head of the baptismal candidate.  Unfortunately, this is not direct enough for people to realize what it represents as it does not truly capture the impact of what happens—the symbol has lost much of its energy.  When we are immersed into the waters our old selves are drowned and die.  We are born anew when we rise out of the water.  This is exactly what is portrayed in the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.  Jesus was fully immersed by John.  When Jesus was raised up out of the water the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.  Immediately after that, what happened?  He was “led” by the Spirit into the wilderness for a forty-day spiritual retreat/vision quest. 

The Gospel of Mark states, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him”.  I prefer this version to the other Synoptic Gospels of Mathew and Luke which has the spirit leading Jesus.  I believe that usually we resist the new life that the Holy Spirit brings because our lives are going to be changed irrevocably in ways we cannot fully conceive or perhaps can conceive and do not want to embrace.   People do not generally embrace change. 

The prophets were often reluctant to take on their missions given to them by God as in the case of Jonah.  Richard Rohr distinguishes the role of the prophet from the role of the priest in the church today:

The role of the prophet is to lead us into sacred space by deconstructing the old space; the role of the priest is to teach us how to live fruitfully inside of sacred space. The prophet disconnects us from the false, and the priest reconnects us to The Real at ever larger and deeper levels. Unfortunately, most ministers might talk of new realms but rarely lead us out of the old realm where we are still largely trapped and addicted. So not much genuinely new happens.

This brings us back to the Holy Spirit and organized religion.  We have a “divinely intended tension” between the old and the new.  How do we as Christians seek to follow where the Holy Spirit is leading us and maintain and renew a community which we are called to as the church, born two thousand years ago on the Day of Pentecost?  We need to let go of what is no longer gives us new life and try and discern where the Holy Spirit is calling us.  That is truly a challenge but one that we are called to. 

Blessings on your journey,

Greg

Sermon The Day of Pentecost

Tongues of fire overhead; a sound like the rush of a violent wind; people speaking in languages not their own; no wonder the people were perplexed; ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”  

Well I don’t see anything like that today.  Perhaps we will be filled with new wine at the wine tasting on the 29^th.  But there aren’t any tongues of fire that I can see and no sounds like the rush of a violent wind that I can hear.  Did any of you start speaking in languages you don’t know before the church service started?  There is often a lot of conversation before the worship service but it is always in English as far as I know.  So, does that mean the Holy Spirit is not at work in this place?

The Holy Spirit was certainly in evidence on that Day of Pentecost.  This is the birth of the church when the first Christians—before they were even first called by that name—came together from all the corners of the known world.  They were amazed to hear the Galileans speaking in the native languages of all those observers.   By my count there were at least twelve different languages recorded that day.  This was, I believe, the first record of speaking in tongues.  

We have the other evidence of that action of the Holy Spirit—the tongues of fire in addition to the tongues of language; the sounds of the rush of the violent wind.  With the Holy Spirit at work in such a direct and forceful way how could those first Christians not respond and go out and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ risen from the tomb, spreading the Gospel?

They certainly did just that.  The Christian church spread like that rush of wind and spread throughout the known world and beyond in what seemed like the blink of an eye.  However, things did not go without a hitch as we can see in Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth and other places.  We had people not behaving as Paul believes Christians should; acting immorally, not sharing with each other, letting some go hungry, people thinking they were better than others and had gifts that were more important than other gifts.  Paul spends a great deal of energy trying to get the Christians in Corinth and elsewhere to behave like Christians. 

Does that sound familiar?  The church today certainly has more in common with those seven churches that Paul kept criticizing than with those gathered on the Day of Pentecost.  We can say, well, if only the Holy Spirit would show itself in the same way as it did on that day all would be well.  Why don’t we have evidence of the Holy Spirit at work as those Christians had?  

Where are the tongues of fire and the speaking in tongues and the noise of violent wind not to mention the other miracles?  What has happened to the Holy Spirit today?

Where is the promise given to us in Scripture, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 

People have been looking for the fulfillment of that prophecy ever since.  They have looked for it in all the natural disasters ever since.  One example is the Great Lisbon earthquake which occurred on All Saints day in 1755 which had far reaching consequences beyond the destruction it caused directly.   The people and even some theologians saw it as divine judgment.  More recently I recall getting into an online debate after Hurricane Katrina with someone who knew with absolute certainty that New Orleans was destroyed because it was a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. 

I would not be surprized if fundamentalist of both religion and ecology claim Fort McMurray was destroyed because of the sinful people there and the sins of the oil sands. We have people misidentifying the Holy Spirit in many different places.  We have so called speaking in tongues that occur in religious settings today. The modern term for this is glossolalia.  It has no relationship to the events recorded in Acts and other places in the bible.  What is called speaking in tongues lacks any comprehension by any of those listening.  In the account in Act we are told that those listening heard the Galileans speaking in their language. 

However, the Holy Spirit is at work today although it does not seem to work as it did in those days of the early church.  One of the great challenges for Christians today is to learn how to discern the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world.  It is very easy to latch onto to some event or circumstance and say that is the Holy Spirit at work.  It can certainly be something that seems to be God at work in the world.  However, we can certainly be wrong.  We can believe that we know absolutely what God is doing in this world.  Often it can be just what we want to happen.  We want God to fit our idea of how God should behave.  We want God to smite our enemies as God appeared to do in the Hebrew Bible. If not actually smite them at least bring them crashing down to earth—as I wish God would do with Donald trump. 

So we ask ourselves how can God let the world go to hell in a hand-basket?  How can God let the Anglican Church wither and die as it seems to be doing in so many places in Canada?  How can God let bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people?  How?  How?  How?  Is God actually dead as was popularly proposed in the 1960s or does God actually not care?

The short answer is that God alive and well and does love and care for us.  God loves us so much that God gave us free will and God continues to give us free will.  That could be considered God’s great curse and God greatest gift.  God allowed Eve to be tempted by the serpent God encouraged humankind to leave our Garden Paradise and be in the world and to be stewards of the world.  Unfortunately we have tried to dominate it ever since rather than be stewards of creation and of each other as God intends.  God loves us so much that God sent God’s only begotten son to show us what it means to live fully the life that we are meant to live as God’s children. 

The Holy Spirit is indeed still active in the world.  Although it doesn’t seem to be acting in the same way as it did in biblical times.  

Or perhaps we have just learned how to ignore it and to misidentify it because it doesn’t act in the way our egos believe it should.  What we need today is to develop our ability to discern how God is acting in the world.  We need to listen and not do all the talking.  We need to be silent and know that God is at work in the world.  That is not easy for us to do.  We need to listen and hear and know that God is God.  We need to hear and respond in our hearts and bodies and minds and souls.  When we act we need to discern if we have heard God correctly.  By the fruit of the acts we will know if God is behind them and in them.  But first we must be still and know that God is God.  Amen.

Sermon February 14, 2016 Lent 1

We are now in the season of Lent.  Last Wednesday should have marked with the imposition of ashes on our foreheads with the words, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.  Unfortunately Mother Nature did not cooperate and we did not observe Ash Wednesday or Ash Thursday.  Therefore today, in addition to being the First Sunday in Lent will be Ash Sunday and we will mark it with the imposition of ashes. 

Lent is a time to put into focus not only our mortality and all that that means, but also our humanity.  We are created in the image of God and are called to live in a way that will explore and fulfill that image.  Lent is especially a time in which we can focus on the renewal of our calling to answer that call from God to become more fully a reflection of God incarnate—the image of God made flesh.  It is a time of spiritual renewal. 

One of the great prophets of Spiritual Renewal is Henri Nouwen.  He had a great connection with the L’Arch Daybreak Community in Newmarket living there in the final years of his life.  In his book entitled Out of Solitude Nouwen writes:

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness. We can learn much in this respect from the old tree in the Tao story about a carpenter and his apprentice:

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice:

"Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?"  The apprentice looked at his master and said: "No . . . why?"

"Well," the carpenter said, "because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax."

Nouwen goes on:

In solitude we can grow old freely without being preoccupied with our usefulness and we can offer a service which we had not planned on. To the degree that we have lost our dependencies on this world, whatever world means--father, mother, children, career, success or rewards--we can form a community of faith in which there is little to defend but much to share. Because as a community of faith, we take the world seriously but never too seriously. In such a community we can adopt a little of the mentality of Pope John, who could laugh at himself. When a highly decorated official asked him, "Holy father, how many people work in the Vatican?" he paused a moment then replied, "Oh, about half of them I suppose."

Spiritual renewal is not just a personal calling; it is a special calling of the church in the world today.  It is a renewal that is not is not based on action and activity in the outer world. 

Our culture is very good at that and the church also sees the need in our society and responds by doing things to meet the needs which are there.  However, there is another kind of renewal which is unique to the church and is something that our society is very much in need of—it is Spiritual Renewal. 

One of my callings is as a Spiritual Director.  In 2014 I completed a Spiritual Direction program offered by the Haden Institute and the Mount Carmel Centre in Niagara Falls.  In the program I learned how to help people discern where God is in their lives and how to be more aware and open to where the Holy Spirit is calling them.  For the past three years I have been working particularly with theology students at Huron University College to accompany them on their journey with God. 

The ministry of Spiritual Direction is actual not the best name for what we do.  The Spiritual Director does not actually direct the directee.  Rather a Spiritual Director is a companion on the person’s spiritual journey.  There are actually three persons in Spiritual Direction—the Director, the Directee and the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit who does the direction and shows both the Director and Directee the way in which God is working in their life.

During the Sunday’s in Lent, I propose being the Spiritual Companion for St. Anne’s and St. John’s.  Each week we will explore a different way in which we can learn to pay closer attention to how God is working in our lives and where The Holy Spirit is calling us to travel in this Lenten journey which lies ahead of us.  It is also my hope that you will find some of these ways to be meaningful for you and that you will chose to incorporate one or two of them into your lives on an ongoing basis.

I will close with the prayer I use to begin a Spiritual Direction meeting. 

Celtic Prayer for Spiritual Direction (Adapted)

Bless this time, in the name of the Three who are over us.

Bless this time, in the name of the One who guides us.

Open our eyes to see how our lives

Can reflect something of You.

Aid us in understanding Your will

With our hearts as well as our minds

Give us the wisdom to discern Your intention for us;

The strength to follow the path You prepare for us;

And Your comfort on the journey You offer to us.

Amen 

Sermon February 21, 2016 Lent 2

In my sermon last Sunday I spoke of the special calling of the church – that is a calling for a kind of renewal that is not based on action and activity in the outer world.  Our culture is very good at that and the church also sees the need in our society and responds by doing things to meet the needs which are there.  However, there is another kind of renewal which is unique to the church and is something that our society is very much in need of – it is Spiritual Renewal. 

I finished a program in Spiritual Direction in 2014 at the Mount Carmel Centre for Spirituality in Niagara Falls.  In that program I studied how to help people discern where God is in their lives and how to be more aware and open to where the Holy Spirit is calling them.  The ministry of Spiritual Direction is actual not the best name for what we are learning to do.  What the Spiritual Director does with the directee does not actually direct them.  Rather a Spiritual Director is a companion on their spiritual journey.  There are actually three persons in Spiritual Direction – the Director, the Directee and the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit who does the direction and shows both the Director and Directee the way in which God is working in their life.

During the Sunday’s in Lent, I will be a Spiritual Companion for St. Anne’s and St. John’s.  Each Sunday in Lent we are exploring a different way in which we can learn to pay closer attention to how God is working in our lives and where The Holy Spirit is calling us to travel in this Lenten journey which lies ahead of us.  It is also my hope that you will find some of these ways to be meaningful for you and that you will chose to incorporate into your lives on an ongoing basis.

As I mentioned Spiritual Direction involves listening and recognizing how God is working in your life.  A significant part of that is developing an active prayer life.  Of course God has made us as unique beings—each one of us is unique and different.  Not every form of pray will be something which resonates with each of us and a way which we will find meaningful.  Often it is a matter of finding one or two that is right for us. There are many ways of prayer and I want to begin our journey by exploring one particular way.  The one I would like to explore with you today is Lectio Divina.  Don’t be put off by the Latin name – it actually means Holy Reading. 

There are four steps in Holy Reading.  The first is to read the passage—the Lectio.  During the reading the intention is to be non-judgmental—just be open to what the passage is speaking to you.  Is there something especially in the passage that catches you attention – a phrase or a word?  Make a mental note of this.  You can use any passage from scripture or an inspirational work that is meaningful for you.  I will be using the scripture passage that we head from Philippians.

The second step is meditation—meditatio.  Here we reflect and ponder on what we have read or heard.  Remember that Mary, at the nativity pondered what she had seen and heard in her heart.  Ponder and see how Jesus is speaking to you in the passage of phrase or word that resonates with you.  Ask yourself what does this mean for my life today?  Direct it to God at work in your life. 

The third step is Responding – Oratatio.  This is a prayer—a prayer which is unique and personal to you and comes from the heart.  This may lead to response in your outer life but it is an inner response initially.  It may be surrendering your will to God – not something we do easily but something which is important if we are to follow where Jesus leads us. 

Finally there is Rest – Contemplatio.  This is resting in the presence of God.  It is a knowing that God is with you and that you are in God’s hand.  As it says in the passage from Philippians:

Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.

Now let us have a few minutes of silence to centre ourselves and I will begin by reading the passage.  You don’t need to remember the steps – I will guide you at the beginning of each step.