Happy Pride

This week, I am dipping my toe into waters that can be troubled at times.  This is something that I do not do easily as it is against my nature to be controversial.  However, sometimes that is where I am called to journey. 

Last Saturday, Lorna and I marched in what was the first Gay Pride Parade that we have participated in.  This one marked the twenty-fifth Gay Pride Parade in Charlottetown, PEI, so, it was an occasion we both wanted to participate in.  We both found it to be a lot of fun and very positive. 

We joined the contingent of parishioners from St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Charlottetown which has been represented in the parade for quite a few years.  Our participation was welcomed by them and I felt quite at home as part of that group which was led by Archdeacon John Clarke.  I inquired about the history of the parade and found out that the first one was more of a protest rather than a parade, protesting unjust laws in Canada and PEI.  I wasn’t able to find out much about the first 

parade/protest, however, I’m sure this year’s event was in sharp contrast.  There were approximately one thousand people who marched in the parade with participants which seemed to cover many aspects of life on PEI including community groups, businesses, political parties including the newly elected Progressive Conservative Premier Dennis King, and of course churches.

Police were included in the event, with the RCMP, who do much of the policing on the Island, ensured things went smoothly for participants, and traffic control on the streets was handled by the Charlottetown Police – a division of duties that seemed to work well.  I asked Archdeacon John about the relationship between the Parade organizers and the police and he informed me that it was a positive one.  This is, unfortunately, different from the relationship between the Pride Parade in Toronto and the police who have had a less than positive relationship with the parade over the years. 

The general atmosphere was one of joy and celebration with a very positive feeling between those in the parade and the bystanders who lined the route.  There was no one along the route who seemed to be in active opposition to the event.  I’m sure this would have been a sharp contrast to the parade twenty-five years ago.

I was very glad to have been part of the contingent from St. Paul’s Church and equally glad that the participants of churches were welcomed by the Parade organizers.  The relationship between organized religion and the Gay and Lesbian Community (as I first knew it) or 2SLGBTQIA as they inclusively self-identify – has been and continues to be a troubled one.  The Anglican Church of Canada continues to struggle with the issue of same-sex marriage/blessing.  The national meeting, General Synod, recently did not pass an amendment to the Marriage Canon (law) which would have included same-sex couples.  This failed by the slimmest of margins passing with strong majorities in two of three houses of Laity and Clergy but barely failing to reach the required two-thirds majority in the House of Bishops.  However, General Synod also passed a motion which allowed for a “local option” for Dioceses to permit same-sex marriage with the agreement of the Bishop.  Perhaps this was the latest example of Anglican middle way.

This continues to be trouble waters and perhaps it is a case of a fool rushing in whether or not angels fear to tread.  To make my position clear, I have strongly supported enabling same-sex couples to marry both civilly and in the church based on many years of knowing gay and lesbian people and their struggles to live full and fulfilled and God-filled lives in our culture.  Same sex marriage has been allowed civilly in Canada since 2005 and the results of this has been, in my view, very positive for those involved and for the country.  It is indeed still an issue which generates strong feelings on all sides of the issue.  My hope and prayer is that we in the Anglican Church and beyond can strive to “disagree in love” as our just retired Primate (head of the Canadian Church), Archbishop Fred Hiltz called for us to do.  Perhaps if we take this approach, we can find that bridge over those troubled waters that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang about so beautifully. 

Blessings on your journey

Sermon July 10, 2016 Seventh Sunday after Trinity

These are the days of miracle and wonder 

This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah

In his song The Boy in the Bubble, Paul Simon tells us that we are in a time of miracles.  That is true today even more than when the song was written in 1986.  It was a long distance call but today we have smart phones and the internet and all that comes with it; we have social media; and apparently we are going to have self-driving cars before we know it—actually they being tested on our roads today.  I heard on the radio this week that the first fatal accident involving a self-driving car has happened.  There will be more to come and they tell us they are inevitable; they are the future of driving.  So hang on to your hats and your steering wheels.

We do have things at our finger tips that would seem like miracles even when Paul Simon wrote that song.  I looked up the date it was composed on the internet and had an answer in less than a minute.  And yet with all these miracles around us we are in an age that no longer believes in what can’t be explained by science and technology.  Likely none of us here today can explain how the internet or most of what we use works. 

However, that doesn’t stop us from using them and considering them just a normal part of our lives.  Indeed if we didn’t have access to everything that involves computers and the internet our society would grind to a halt. 

Despite all these miracles many people dismiss religion as superstition.  They cannot believe what is portrayed in the biblical miracles such as the one described in today’s Gospel passage—the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  This modern movement to demythologize the events in the bible that could not be understood in our modern day perspective was proposed most notably by Rudolph Bultmann who attempted to demythologize the biblical accounts such as the story of the loaves and the fishes.  Indeed much liberal theology today continues with this approach.  The accounts of the miracles of Jesus and other such accounts are explained away psychologically or sociologically or even literary contexts. 

My father, who was a United Church minister, was very much in this approach to theology.  He did not accept that miraculous things such as this account of the feeding of the four thousand could have been a miraculous event as it was described.  I even recall discussing this account with him many years ago.  His explanation was that the miracle was the reaction by the crowd that was gathered. In his understanding the people gathered had food hidden under their cloaks and were moved by Jesus to share what they had with their neighbours.  As a result there was more than enough for everyone—there was even food left over.

In preparing to write this sermon I found out—another example of the modern miracle of the internet—that this was a common interpretation of the Gospel passage amongst theologians and clergy of a liberal bent. The desire or need by some people to have everything in life explained is, to my mind, a critical mistake.  The attempt to consider everything from the perspective of the intellect is a fatal mistake. As Hamlet says to Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  Mystery which is the purview of the divine does not deal only with the intellect.  That is a part, albeit an important part of God’s creation but there is much more to creation than intellect.  I believe it is a mistake to make the belief in miracles and other mysteries of our relationship with God to be the litmus test for orthodoxy on either the traditional or liberal understanding of God.

My understanding of God’s relationship with God’s greatest creation—humankind—does not depend on the details or facts of a particular part of scripture.  We should not get into arguments or worst over the details of a particular event portrayed in the bible or other accounts of God’s relationship with humankind.  We need to understand these accounts as myth rather than demythologizing them.  By that I mean we need to understand the meaning—the capital T truth of these events.  Why did they become part of the account of the story of God’s people?    Except for the Resurrection, the multiplication of loaves is the only miracle told in all four Gospels.  What is the truth in these accounts that made it essential for those Gospel writers to include the event?  Why did it resonate with people through the ages up to today?  What is the truth of this story regardless of the details of the story?  There are in total six different versions of this event; Jesus fed the people on at least two occasions—once 5,000 men and another time 4,000 men; once with five loaves and two fish and again with seven loaves and a few fish; once with twelve baskets of remaining bread and in another five baskets.  The details may vary but the truth of Jesus is eternal.

What then is the truth of the account of the feeding of the multitude—be it four thousand or five thousand or each and every one of us today. 

The truth is that we are fed by the person of Jesus Christ each time we partake in the Eucharist.  We are fed with the food that does not perish just as Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well the water that is eternal and once you drink of it will never be thirsty again.  Once you partake of the food that Jesus offers you, you will never be hungry or thirsty again.  That food that is offered is there in abundance.  There is food for everyone and there is more than we can ever consume.  It is offered freely to all.  Come and taste and see that the Lord is good.  Happy are they that trust in him.  Amen.

Get My Mind in Gear for God

We recently had a friend from North Carolina — Clare Sahling — visiting here in Prince Edward Island.  As we were going to church in Montague a week ago she said she ‘needed to get her head in gear for God’.  I found this to be a good metaphor for how we live the Christian life.  I actually changed it to ‘get my mind in gear for God’ as I like that better but the main point is the same — how do we live so that we are open to God’s presence in our lives and in the world.

I presided at the little church in Souris yesterday.  I was asked to take the service at the last minute — Saturday night — so I did something I rarely do — I adapted a previous sermon.  We follow the Book of Common Praise lectionary and it was the seventh Sunday after Trinity.  The Gospel reading was the account of the loaves and fishes in Mark where Jesus feeds a crowd of four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fish.  I preached on ‘miracles and wonder’ using the Paul Simon song from his Graceland album.  If I had had more time to prepare I would have used that catch phrase ‘getting my mind in gear for God.”

The Paul Simon song ‘Boy in the Bubble’ speaks of miracles and wonder:

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

Our world is filled with things brought to us by science and technology which would have been miracles to us when that song was written in 1986.  However, we are in a world that no longer believes in the miracles that are brought to us in the bible or any other miracle that is brought to us by God.  Science must explain it all or dismiss it as nonsense or lies or myth (in the wrong sense). 

Science can explain the ‘hows’ of things are but it cannot explain ‘whys’ of things.  Why is there life?  Why are we here?  Sometimes it cannot explain the ‘whats’ of some things either — what is the meaning of life?  If we are to consider these things — the things in life that science cannot explain — we have to get our mind in gear for God and realize that sometimes there are no answers.  That is because despite what science may tell us not everything is explainable.  As wonderful as the human brain and mind is there are things that we cannot explain fully or definitively.  That is because we are finite creature and God is infinite.  Some things will always be beyond us — at least until we are finally united with God. Until that happens we can get our minds in gear for God and appreciate what God has done and in doing in this world and in our lives.  We can see and respond to the miracles and wonder that happen right before our eyes — miracles such as the hummingbirds who fight possessively when there is more than enough in the feeder; the miracle of growth in the garden that is taking so long to flower this year; the incredibly beauty of the sunrise over Howe Point; the wonder that I am alive in this place and at this time which is so wonderful.  We can put our mind in gear for God and give thanks to God for all God had blessed us with.