Union Church

Advent II
Luke 1: 5-19; 24-38

Stanley Ott in the forward to the book "Becoming a Blessed Church," tells the story of sitting in a hospital waiting room with just one other person, a guy waiting for a doctor to return with a prescription. Someone walking by said hello to the man and he replied, “Have a blessed day.”

A short time later, Stanley said to him, “Now that’s a great phrase, ‘have a blessed day,’ because it says you are trusting God to do the blessing.”
The man turned to him and beamed. “That’s right!” he said and went on to describe the power of his experience of Christ, explaining,
“Blessed means ‘He will make you rise!’”

After the doctor brought his prescription, this gracious man stepping into the elevator, turned around and said to Stanley, “Have a blessed day.”
Stanley waved and said, “He will make you rise!”

And the man was gone.

This is an example of an angelic visitation, of waking up to angels in our midst: Waking up to God.

Angelic visitations are not quite what we expect.

Our gospel lessons tell the strange story of two conceptions, John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. One conception takes away an old woman’s disgrace.
The other initiates a young woman’s disgrace.
One occurs to one too old.
The other occurs to one too young.
One conception requires divine assistance.
The other conception requires divine intervention.
However both births require a wake up call.

November 29, 2009 Advent I
Luke 3: 1-6
I hate line-ups.
I avoid them like the plague but with the flu shot and my sermon about “just get it” I have been dealing with my issue of avoidance.

How is your avoidance index these day?
Who are the people we desperately want to avoid?
Which relatives are on the list? Which neighbour? Which co-worker?
Is there a church member on the list?
What situations have we told to avoid?

As children we were taught to avoid many dangers. Don’t talk to strangers.
John had to be in the house before the street lights came on to avoid the trouble he could get into in the cover of darkness.
I had to ride my bicycle along the gravel shoulder of the country road and stop every time a car or truck went by.

Then as teenagers what were we taught to avoid?
For my generation it was sex and drugs, but it was too late for rock-n-roll.
What was your generation’s taboo?
How about after you got married?

Grandparents know they are supposed to avoid interfering with the younger generations family dynamics.

What are the things we are supposed to avoid these days?
Holidays are the times we eat all sorts of fancy dishes that taste oh so good, but somehow we are supposed to avoid gaining weight.

In our Gospel lesson, John the Baptist certainly isn’t a parent, or a spouse, or a gourmet cook for that matter. But in talking about repentance he is really talking about avoidance. He is saying God is in our midst and we have to wake up and stop avoiding this fact.

November 8, 2009. Mark 12: 41-13:2.

Jesus is in the Temple.
His attention goes to a parade of wealthy patrons dropping their tithes into the Temple Treasury box.
A poor, destitute, out of place, widow arrives at the box and drops in 2 copper coins. A pittance in comparison to the wealthy patrons but all she has to live on.
Jesus draws attention to this situation. He praises the widow for her commitment.

Then there is a chapter break which obscures the rest of the teaching moment. The regular lectionary reading for today ends right there.

But in the very next verse as Jesus goes to leave the Temple, one of the disciples points out the permanence of the huge stone edifice. Jesus then says, “There won’t be one stone left here upon another, all will be thrown down.”

How can Jesus praise this woman who puts every last cent she has to live on into the Temple Treasury and then, in the next breath say this is all a lost cause?

What is going on here?

Is Jesus selling false securities in some kind of a Ponsi scheme or is there something more profound going on here?

In Quebec, we like our stone buildings.
We like the permanence they imply.
The foundational and enduring qualities they suggest.
Humanity has been building stone Temples for thousands of years.

It is easy to understand the widow going all in, supporting the granite grandeur of the Temple but then we hear that it is soon going to be cast down.
By the time Mark’s gospel is written the Temple has indeed been reduced to rubble.

November 1, 2009 Mark 12:28-34

Has anyone NOT heard about the H1N1 vaccination panic?

Authorities have gone from trying to convince Canadians for the past two weeks to get the shot, to trying to control the stampede this week of panicked demand for the shot.
The sound bytes are breathtakingly self-referencing and self-absorbed.

It has gone from “why I or my children won’t be forced to take the shot” to “why I, and my children should now be first in line to get the shot.”

I don’t know about you, but I am embarrassed by some of these publicized responses of my fellow Canadians.

We are a community wise northern climate country.
We know we can’t get through the winter on our own.

When did we lose sight of the common good?

This panic highlights how our society has lost contact with our Christian tradition which is reflected in the Great Love Commandment.

The point of the Great Love Commandment, “to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, to love your neighbour as yourself,” is to get the flu shot regardless of your age and situation so as to reduce the risk of contracting and spreading it to others.

It has little to do with your possibility of serious illness and death.

It has everything to do with limiting these possibilities for others.

Grandparents, you will not die from this flu bug, but get the shot because your grandchildren or any others of the younger generation do face some sort of risk.

It is not about us.

It is about loving our neighbour as our-self.

Job 42:1-6

Scholars tell us that the book of Job is an adaptation of an ancient Egyptian folktale.
Remember, it is a drama not history. It deals with the confusion around the nature of God.

What is God like?
How does God relate and deal with us?

Job’s three friends each reflect different conclusions that Job rejects. However, Job himself is confused. He sees God as too small.
He sees God on a far too human scale.
And so, demands in a self-referencing and self-righteous way that God answer him.

When God does address the situation, God asks,
“Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?
Pull yourself together, Job!
I have some questions for you, and I want some answers.
Where were you when I created the earth?
Tell me, since you know so much!
Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that!”

You know, Job isn’t too far off the mark on how today’s society understands God.
Far too often God gets reduced and put into a human sized box. Then we get mad when God isn’t big enough to fix situations or people.

In our indignation, we say we no longer believe in this God. But we just shut ourselves off from what an amazing God can actually accomplish through our participation in God’s Dream.

The question that the book of Job asks is this:
Is your God intimate enough to engage your human heart and is your God big enough to engage and include all human hearts at all times?

MV 106I am the Dream.
I am the dream and you the dreamer.

Sept. 20, 2009
James 3: 13 – 4:3, 7 – 8a

This week John, my husband, was reading the Fall 2009, L’Arche-Montreal newsletter.
Two things caught his attention.
One was the Saturday, September 26th., Macaroni supper, fund-raiser. Now, he loves macaroni especially the old fashion homemade varieties of his youth. Macaroni and cheese is definitely not on our healthy eating list of foods. So sitting in his office he could already taste this now forbidden fruit. He thought to himself “what a wonderful excuse…correction, what a wonderful opportunity to get macaroni back into my diet, for at least one meal, and all for a good cause.” Fortunately, the date conflicted with our Re-Union Supper and Silent Auction.

The second thing that caught his attention was the editorial.
It started with the question “Are you happy?”
Then referred to Jean Vanier’s book The Taste of Happiness.

From the L’Arche experience happiness begins with belonging. “Belonging to a family, to a group of friends, a community that accepts us and recognizes us for who we are. Inclusion in these relationships inserts us into humanity, giving us access to strong values such as sharing, respect, mutuality, friendship, forgiveness, love…. Intellectually handicapped people show us that happiness is found in relationships not in having things…. To be together is the key to happiness.”

Thinking of our scripture readings for this week I noticed how Wisdom and Happiness belong together, reinforce each other, complete each other.

August 30, 2009.
Mark 6:53-7:8,14, 15,21-23.

Christmas was approaching and discussions were beginning about who would host the family meal and who would bring what.
Now this was a new experience because the next generation was taking over the responsibilities.
All the family members wanted it to be a smooth transition, a perfect transition.

But an argument broke out between two of the sisters.
You see, their mother had always prepared a marvellous Christmas ham. In the preparation, one end of the ham would be cut off and placed in the pan, then a glaze would be put on. The two sisters began arguing about how much had to be cut off the end of the ham to make it taste just right.
One said two inches.
The other said four.
Finally in exasperation, they decided to call their mother.
In bewilderment their mother responded, “Why girls, I didn’t have a roasting pan big enough so I cut off enough to make the ham fit in my pan.”

Has something like this ever happened to you?

You know, when external acts become separated from their internal logic.
When what we do gets separated from why we do it.
When tradition gets separated from the original intent.

Have you got a memory, a picture?

This situation is a basic experience of human life together.

In our gospel story, the Pharisees are presented as those who separate the external from the internal: They separate the external trappings of the tradition from the internal purpose of it.

August 9 2009.
Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Most conflicts occur because we each have our reasons.
If we dislike someone we can usually clearly give a reason why - if not out loud, then certainly to ourselves. Now the older we get, the more opportunity we have to deal with anger and conflict.

So maybe you might not need this message, but I am certain there are family members and friends who do.

Paul is talking about conflict resolution for the Ephesian church family. As I said last week, avoiding conflict doesn’t resolve anything. We have to learn to manage it.
And it begins with the issue of anger.

Not withstanding what I just said, we Christians have a hard time dealing with anger, don’t we?
We don’t want to even admit that we get angry.

We often overlook the fact that, there were problems in the early church that Paul or John felt compelled to address.
One of our difficulties with anger is admitting that we even have it.
Another is admitting it to the appropriate person at the appropriate time, in an appropriate way.

We all experience anger, from the fury of being cut off in traffic, to the annoyance with someone, who shows up at the express lane of the grocery store with 20 items. And there is also the anger at a friend who lets us down. Not to mention the family member who always seems to mess up. Yet, we often do not know how to deal with this emotion in a healthy manner.

As I said before, the Ephesians’s reading this morning talks about conflict resolution in the early Church.

August 2, 2009.
John 6: 24-27, 30-35.

What are we doing when we are looking for proofs and seeking for truths?

Sometimes we are just curious.
Sometimes we are hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
Sometimes we are seeking a way forward in tough times.
Sometimes we need answers for our troubling questions.

Behind every question of proof and truth lies some measure of hope;
hope in a better tomorrow, hope in a loving God,
hope for a peace at the last.

John’s gospel has just told the story of the feeding of the 5,000 with the 5 loaves, 2 fish and 12 baskets of leftover food. The people recognize the sign of the Kingdom and want to take Jesus by force to make him king. But he escapes into the hills.

Today’s scripture reading begins the very next day when they catch up with Jesus in Capernaum and want more proof, more signs that Jesus is the awaited prophet.

Jesus realizes that the people are really looking for more food and tells them so. He tells them to work for the food that endures forever. They get into a discussion about manna in the wilderness and then he tells them that he is the bread of life.
But this outright statement is too much for the people and they reject him.

One person’s proof is another person’s scepticism.
One day’s miracles are the next day’s expectations.
One person’s clarification is another person’s blasphemy.

Now remember “I am” in other words, Yahweh is a God statement.
It could only be used one day of the year by the high priest.

November 16, 2008
Matthew 25:14-30

A master is going on a trip and he entrusts money to his slaves, vast sums of money. One receives 30,000 silver coins, another 12,000 and to the third, 6,000 silver coins.

Now 6,000 silver coins amount to about 20 years’ wages of a common labourer, so imagine how great a sum the other two receive.

For any landowner to have this kind of wealth, he has to have exercised questionable business practices, he has to have reaped where he did not sow and gathered where he did not scatter seed. And in fact, this is spelled out in the story.
So, let’s not make the age-old mistake of turning this into an allegory which has God as the landowner.

This parable has been used time and time again for Stewardship Campaigns. Don’t bury you talents. Don’t squirrel your money away. Rather, risk and it might double.

Well, in the face of this year’s stock market roller coaster ride, we might come to different conclusions.
Interesting how context changes things.

Many of us are affected by the stock market fluctuations.
Today, the one who buried his master’s money in a hole might be praised as one who read the signs of the time.
The ones who risked everything in the stock market probably lost a great deal of money and perhaps even lost their positions in the company.
This is what the early listeners of Jesus’ time would have thought also.
Gaining interest was immoral in Jesus’ time.
Hiding the money to protect it from theft and risk was the safe and correct thing to do.