Stripped of Honour, Ready to Heal

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

July 7, 2024

Ezekiel 2:1-5

Psalm 123

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Mark 6:1-13

(The context of this sermon is 100%

written by a human)

I recently visited the place I know as home -- the small town in Nova Scotia where I was born, baptized, and married. Where my brother, mother and all my family before me back to the 1700s are buried, and where one day I, too, will be laid to rest. This small town of Lunenburg that I hold so dear is where, as the gospel tells me, “I have no honor.” Going home definitely puts me in my place, for better and for worse, as any of you who come from small towns will understand. There memories are long, and gossip endures, and upon those tides one either falls or rises. Being home forces me to review: who am I now? Where have I been? Am I going in the right direction?

Certainly, this was Jesus’s experience – attempting to preach the gospel in his hometown. He was greeted with skepticism among those who knew him “way back when.” Is this not the little boy who ran around the neighborhood? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Who does he think he is, preaching to us?

Jesus felt no different than many of us do when we’re back among families and friends who knew us back when. As he says in the gospel this morning, “a person is not without honour except in his own home.” We might imagine this was a disappointing lesson for Jesus to learn – for who else would he want more to hear the gospel than those people who raised him, who gave him his first earthly roots? But aside from disappointment, what does this moment in the gospel teach us?

First, of all, what does the word “honour” mean? To be thought highly of, to be rewarded, to be respected. Indeed, this is an important ingredient of success, particularly among those who seek to improve the world and spread the gospel. But perhaps we are also being reminded that it is never a bad idea to go back, or to think back, to the places and families we come from. Those people know us one way, and understanding our past can help us have more understanding of our present. If we are lucky, they are constructive reminders not to get a big head, or to remember the lessons our parents taught us. Some of you, I know, may not feel looking back is particularly constructive – looking back is a reminder of unhelpful criticism and judgment, or being put in a box where you no longer see yourself fitting. I suspect that for most of us, it is a combination, and that great line from the second lesson reminds us that there is learning from both – for power is made perfect in weakness.

We are just beginning to understand, for instance, the enduring role that childhood trauma plays in our lives – and the long-term effects it has on our health and social lives. Maybe it was abuse, or a tragic death, or bullying, or a difficult sibling. But the negative experience of childhood that we carry with us does not easily leave us. Trauma in childhood, especially when it is unresolved, has been linked to illness, to addiction, to mental health problems. It is why many doctors believe that working through those histories, when they have been particularly damaging, is so essential to healing. They are the dark places where we may feel most stripped of honour, and most powerless - where we are weakest.

But in every case, there are lessons to be learned from the past, as any therapist will tell you. We learn good and bad lessons early and develop responses to those patterns. Perhaps our parents pressured us, even though well-meaning, and now we strive for unhealthy perfectionism. Or we felt expected to play a certain role in our family – joker, caregiver, rebel – and when we outgrew or rejected that role, we caused conflict in our family system.

The Apostle Paul reminds us in the second lesson that in understanding and accepting weakness – in coming to terms with the less rosy parts of ourselves – we also find power and strength. What happens when we confront those memories, when we put them in their proper places, when we try to understand why they happened, and what they mean? We find truth, the ultimate power. We can take who we are now and who we were then and see them as different but connected along a path. The power is that we choose this path, we put those memories in their proper places – a guide-post, perhaps, a point in time that informs but does not define the future – and we can go on, not burdened by them, not trapped, but seeing them more as a photo album we carry with us and open once in a while for reflection.

If we make a place where we are loved, where people wish the best for us, it does not matter that we are not “honoured” in the same way as outside our own home. We go home to understand, and to see more clearly who we are – not to others, but to ourselves.

Besides, honour is something bestowed, a value given. But self-worth is what we give ourselves. Our sense of self is far more important, and to truly find that, we must often go home, physically and metaphorically.

That is a difficult practice. For we don’t always like what we see. No wonder Jesus felt frustrated. But wasn’t it also true what they said about him? After all, he was that little boy, he was the carpenter’s son, he was raised by a loving mother who stood by him always. He was the Son of God. But he was also the son of these people. And while they could not listen to him as he had hoped, perhaps that was not the point: better that he listen.

Isn’t that the mistake we make, in going home – either at the end of the day, or to our families on vacation, or to the places where we grew up? We return changed, and we tend to be brash about it, to show it off, to try to make others see it. Or we hide our true selves to make things stay the same. Perhaps, we would do better to watch and listen to the lessons we might learn from ourselves, and the ways we might also support those who love us.

Power comes in those moments of weakness, when we humble ourselves enough to hear the wisdom of the past, and the words of those who care for us most deeply. But our personal narrative is the one we alone write.

Jesus had a strong sense of self. He had the inner power to choose the path that God had set before him. His narrative shows the truth of who and what he was for the sake of others. Jesus set forth from his home town and continued to preach the gospel, and people began to listen. Perhaps that is the reminder: in the end, it is not gaining honour that matters at all – if those who know us least well are the quickest to give it. The power comes from searching for the truth, and humbling ourselves for the sake of the gospel, and the path that God has set before us. Amen

PAY ATTENTION

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

June 30, 2024

Lamentations 3:22-33

Psalm 30

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Mark 5:21-43

What is a miracle? The trusty Oxford dictionary offers us this definition: “A miracle is a surprising and welcome event not explained by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency. A miracle is a highly improbable development that brings very welcome consequences. A miracle is an amazing achievement.”

We are arriving at the stage of Jesus’s life when his amazing achievements begin to make headlines. He has gathered the disciples from their fishing boats. His parables are beginning to spread like whispers through the villages. His defiance of the powers that be is filling people with awe. And now he is performing miracles. And not just any miracle. The very top tier of miracles.

A woman who has been ill for years touches the cloak of Jesus, and when he finds her, he declares her healed. A little girl has died. Her parents are weeping for her. They believe her lost. And yet Jesus says to them, “Why are you weeping? She is only sleeping.” And he calls to her: “Wake up, little one.” And she wakes up. To heal someone by a simple touch from a long illness that seemed to have no cure. To bring back a loved one from a place of death. Highly improbable developments. Welcome events. Amazing achievements.

I know there will be some among you who are a questioning audience of science, who might want to investigate a little further, peer behind the curtain, so to speak. How did Jesus really do this, we might ask. Perhaps Jesus, armed with the gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and having gained the trust of the people, was an incredible healer – a man of wisdom ahead of his time. Certainly, he was ahead of his time in many other ways. Why not this one? Perhaps the stories are exaggerated. Maybe the woman wasn’t that sick, and the daughter truly just sleeping. Did it even happen at all?

But I would suggest we not spend our time trying to figure that out. I don’t know, and you don’t know, not with the certainty of science and reason. We were not there.

I have said before that these details do not matter, because the lessons appear when we look with eyes of faith. To be clear, there are stories in the gospel where the details matter very much. But this is one where we can blur around the edges and look for the story of wonder and love that is being told in the centre.

We have a troubled woman, suffering greatly, who makes her way into the crowd just to touch Jesus. “Who touched me?” Jesus asks. The disciples scoff: look at the crowd, how can we know? But Jesus doesn’t continue on; he seeks out the hand reached out to him, and he finds the woman. And he stops to treat her with kindness. Your faith has healed you, he tells her. But it was also his love for another person that did so.

We have a family grieving, and Jesus does not steer away from them, awkward in the presence of their pain. He goes to them, he consoles them. Do not weep, he says. He tends to their daughter and returns her to them.

These are the healing miracles. But they are the same stories of love and other-centeredness that have formed the journey of Jesus from the beginning. His parents who keep him safe against all odds – a miracle. The disciples who leave their boats to follow him – a miracle. A carpenter’s son who becomes the voice of equality and hope – a miracle. The presence of God and the Holy Spirit – a miracle. Awe-inspiring and wondrous.

I wonder: in this age of facts and figures, and fighting about who is right and who is wrong, have we lost our ability to feel awe? To sit and be transformed by wonder? All around us, miraculous things happen every day. The sun sets on the horizon and casts beauty across the sky – how awesome. The birds sing in a city of concrete – how wondrous. A vaccine is found – what an achievement. A hand is held, a hug is offered – how unexpected.

Are these not also miracles?

When do I experience moments of true awe? It happens when I am paying attention, just as Jesus did in the crowd that day. It happens when my mind is open and my heart is full, just like Jesus approaching that grieving family. I don’t know about you, but when I experience awe and wonder, I feel lifted from within. I feel close to God. It is usually a moment that defies full explanation – what is it about this sunset, or this piece of music, or this moment with another person – that feels somehow bigger than others? Does it matter?

The tragedy of humanity is that we grow up and get used to the world. What was awe-inspiring when we were little, becomes just another butterfly, just another sunset, just another Canada Day celebration. The moments that seem so big become routine. And yet, we can feel awe if we pay attention. We can see miracles if we look for them. And when we do, may we feel close to God. Amen

On stormy nights, hold fast

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

June 23, 2024

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

We live in a fearful time, with so much to worry about. We feel fear for the changing ocean that Nova Scotians can clearly see happening before their eyes, or the forests lost to fire, and the long-term effects of all that smoky air. The housing crisis, and what it will mean for our kids. The threat to democracy and international good order. What will happen south of the border in November. The list is long.

So when Jesus asks the disciples, in the middle their storm, “Why are you afraid?” I can think of a hundred ways to answer. I am afraid because we worry more about the location of our smart phones than the care of someone in need. I am afraid because it feels that we see so much violence, that we have become comfortable with it, and I fear that we get truly angry only when it arrives on our doorsteps. I am afraid because mostly we seem to get angry at the wrong time, and not for the reasons that truly matter. Maybe it’s this fear – that this won’t change – that keeps us sitting down.

That is where the disciples sat, huddled in an open fishing boat, tossing helplessly on the sea. They wake Jesus, who is sleeping nonchalantly on a cushion in the stern, and demand to know why he isn’t more worried - doesn’t he care about them? Shouldn’t he be saving them?

We might ask the same of God in moments like these: why is God asleep? Doesn’t God care? Why doesn’t God save them?

On the sea of Galilee, Jesus rises, and we are told that he “rebukes the wind” and commands the sea. “Peace! Be still.” And the wind ceases and the waves calm.

But Jesus does not console the disciples. He lectures them: “Why are you afraid?” he asks. “Have you still no faith?”

That’s harsh, we might think. Are the disciples to be blamed for being afraid? Are we to be blamed for asking for God’s help?

But look behind the words. Jesus is not trying to shame the disciples. Fear is a natural emotion of life - it confronts us all. Fear of change, or death, and yes, even fear of living life. Fear is a driver and paralytic, depending on the circumstance. Humans have always lived with fear and worry, no matter the age and time. Fear is a trait we share with most other animals on earth. By design, fear protects us, warns us of threats, teaches us caution. It urges us to call out to God for guidance.

How does God answer? I suppose we could interpret Jesus’s words to actually mean: “Come on, guys, have a little faith.” Can’t you just trust that everything will work out? Just lie down on the cushions with me in the stern and God will take care of it. Say a prayer and everything will be right as rain.

But I don’t buy that, either. That is not to say that talking to God or prayer to God doesn’t tend to put right our perspective on the world. Prayer brings us closer to God, quiets the other voices. Prayer points us in the right direction. It’s a powerful act alone, or in a group, which is why we gather together.

But the fact is, sitting around praying in a boat caught in a storm may not be the most effective way to handle the situation. That boat needs a captain and crew, a team to keep it balanced as well as possible, to steer it into the wind, to bail the water as fast as it’s coming in. At least some of the disciples were fishermen - they had skills, they knew the sea. Yet, in panic, they shook Jesus awake. They counted on God to rescue them before trying to rescue themselves. They figured God should just take care of it. Think about it: their faith in God wasn’t really the issue - they assumed that Jesus could fix the storm, which is why they woke him.

Consider, then, an alternative: that Jesus was chastising the disciples not specifically for their lack of faith in God - but for not having more faith in themselves - faith in the trust God had placed upon them as followers of Jesus. In that case, he was criticizing their lack of action. He was calling them out for being afraid to take care of the situation as they were able, for not taking charge. For not, after seeing Jesus asleep in the stern, saying to one another, “Okay, we’ve got this.”

“Why are you afraid?” Jesus asks. “Have you still no faith?”

In other words, Jesus was saying to the disciples, Don’t worry; you can handle it.

Storms are inevitable. And in the midst of them, we will be afraid. We get news that we think we cannot handle. We see tragedy we believe we cannot bear. We see problems with no easy solutions. We lose hope and think we will never find it again. And yet, almost always, we do. We handle the news, we carry on from tragedy, we regain hope.

Jesus wanted the disciples to understand that storms were going to happen. But they had the strength to brave them, and the presence of God within them to endure them. True faith does not expect God to solve every problem; God guides and teaches us in a way that leads us to our own solutions. Believing in the gospel does not wrap us up in a bubble through which no wind blows and no rain falls; it teaches us how to brace for the wind and endure the rain. It teaches us to choose what fears are distractions and what fears will get our attention.

Can we handle them? Can we rebuke the wind and command the storm with our faith in God? “Do not be afraid,” Jesus will later tell the disciples, “for I am always with you.” He will tell them this with a dozen different parables. He will speak it plainly to them in the darkest of days. How well they listen will decide the paths of their lives ahead - as it does for us.

On that stormy night, in Galilee, Jesus was reminding the disciples - and us - not to fear their own ability, to hold fast, through their relationship with God, to a robust faith in themselves. Because, asleep on a cushion in the stern, Jesus wasn’t only trusting God; he was also trusting them. Amen