Then were we like those who dream

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

October 13, 2024

Joel 2:21-27

Psalm 126

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Matthew 6:25-33

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

In this morning’s gospel, we hear Jesus telling the disciples to just stop worrying. Don’t worry about your life. Stop worrying about when you will eat. Don’t worry about what you will wear. Just don’t worry.

To which we might all respond: easy for you to say.

This Thanksgiving, as we look around at the world and consider our lists of thankfulness, who isn’t worried? Around the world – and, most closely, in our neighbors to the south – we see upheaval and change, division and vitriol. The institutions and traditions of democracy normally held up as societal ideals are being challenged and eroded. The war in Ukraine wages on. Countries are becoming more wary of the newcomer crossing their border, more suspicious of their neighbors, more angry. We watched this week as Hurricane Milton ripped through Florida, devastating cities, taking lives and ruining many, many others.

If the main point of this morning’s gospel is that life is about more than what we wear and what we eat and what we own, how do we reconcile how this conflict and change are being driven by those very same worries? How do we ourselves respond?

Let’s consider specifically the worries that Jesus is addressing. Like the disciples, we have food and clothing. Our worry is about having fancier food and better clothing. Better food isn’t about nutrition; rather, it’s about pleasure. Better clothing isn’t about keeping warm or protected from the sun; it’s about looking good to others. And so, right away we see how those worries that Jesus is slapping down are not about living a Godly life. They are about striving for earthly goods. And not to share with others, but to keep for ourselves. So, being anxious about these things is not only exhausting, not only makes it hard for us to focus our energies elsewhere, but also leads nowhere – since there is always something better.

An indicator about what matters most in life is to listen to what people give thanks for today. I doubt few people will say, thank you for that designer shirt I got at the X- percent off sale last week. Or that someone will look around their table, or consider their life, and give thanks for the gourmet meal they enjoyed last month at the 5-star restaurant. No, they will say, thank you for my family and friends and neighbors. Thank you for clean air and nature. Thank you for the science that heals and the good work that brings peace. Thank you for the bounty that lies before us, and around us. Thank you for life.

There is both promise and risk in our interpretation of today’s gospel. The promise is that if we stop worrying, God will take care of everything. It’s a promise because it’s true – when we, who have much already, cease to worry about the material items that don’t matter, and put our energy in the qualities championed by the gospel, God does take care of things. When we invest our time and care in people, we are blessed with community. When we love and accept, we receive love and acceptance. When we work for a society that is more equal, we are rewarded with equality. When we refuse to accept injustice, we live in a more just world. That is a bounty, indeed.

But the risk of today’s gospel is also this: that we come to believe that if we stop worrying, God will take care everything. It’s a risk because people who believe this fail to see their own part to play. What is happening in society right now – the feeling that some are getting too much and others getting too little – is a problem we must all try to solve. The gospel, in fact, is all about displacement and replacement – never accepting the status quo, but investing energy in making it better. There are many ways to do this. Helping our refugees who arrive in our city. Running for positions of leadership when we see conversations that need to happen. Giving up our seat on the bus to a stranger that needs it more. Sitting with the person who is forgotten, lost, or dying.

Worry would make us believe: I don’t have an extra set of sheets or a pot to share. Or what if I try to make my voice heard and lose? What if my efforts to help are rejected? Other worries make us protect ourselves at all costs. What if no one gives me a seat when I need it? What if nobody sits with me in my time of need?

But thankfulness flips the narrative completely. We see that we have plenty to share, we have talents to contribute, we have extra space to make for someone else. We stop worrying about what’s empty, and we are truly thankful for all that is abundant, and all that we can make even more plentiful.

Aurora is a perfect example of this truth. Even for her, there will always be others who will have more. And there will always be those who are in greater need. The first call of her baptism – and for those who stand with her - is to begin learning -and teaching - how to worry less about the former and care more about the latter and bring both together.

This Thanksgiving and beyond, may we all worry less, and give thanks more. Not because God will simply take care of everything we want or need. But because when we truly recognize the bounty that lies around and before us – what God and good works have already done - we might then be inspired by the optimism and generosity of the gospel to look next for what we will do with all our blessings and the days that we have been given. Amen.

To remember who we were, before the world changed us.

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

October 6, 2024

Genesis 2:18-24

Psalm 8

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

Mark 10:2-16

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

Once in a while, along comes a gospel that in 2024, gives a pastor a little trouble. This week, I got especially lucky, because the first lesson is also a bit of a minefield. In the first lesson, we hear in the story of creation that God made a companion for man from his rib, and that companion – his helper and his partner - was a woman. And then, to add fuel to the already tricky fire, in our gospel we have Jesus talking about divorce and basically saying that anybody who gets remarried after divorcing is committing the sin of adultery. So two doozies on one Sunday.

In part, these are problematic texts because of how they have been interpreted and used throughout history: as weapons against people who step outside whatever is considered proper, moral behavior by the judgers at the time. More often than not, that was the church. But of course, as we are seeing in our times, the words of God can also be used for political purposes.

In any event, the idea of man’s coming first, and woman’s coming second, and her being a helper, seemed to further the idea that one should be subservient to the other. Of course, that is not what the lesson says at all: it talks about these two people – these companions - becoming one – not one and a second. But a lot of time, the Bible is read a lot more conveniently for whoever is in power at the time and wants things a certain way.

The gospel’s lesson on divorce is also uncomfortable. We all know people who are divorced, and we have probably all been to weddings where some of them remarried. If they are our family and our friends, we likely wish them well both times. Nobody gets married thinking they will divorce. I have counselled many couples through the breakup of their marriage, and it is usually the most painful thing they experience - full of grief, anger and worry – for the kids and for themselves, and even for their former partners. Those of you who are sitting here with long marriages also know that it isn’t easy. What people need when they experience a difficult break-up is compassion and support, not the kind of emotion that Jesus appears to be expressing today. Yet this passage has also been used to shame and judge.

But is there another way to look at what Jesus is really saying. Always, we must consider the context of when and to whom he was speaking.

In Jesus’s day, divorce was especially easy: a man said the words, wrote a document, and poof! – he had cast off his wife. There is some debate about whether woman could truly do the same – Jesus suggests she could – but how much did that matter? Women had less power in society and were more vulnerable. What’s more, not much is said about the children in such a marriage –we can assume that child custody laws did not give mothers equal standing.

So Jesus, in a world where divorce can happen in an instant, is saying divorce is wrong. But why? By calling a halt to frivolous divorce and remarrying, he is speaking to men who would cast their wives off with little to their name. Might he be amending an accepted understanding of the law, to protect the vulnerable? Jesus, we know, was a clever speaker: his inclusion of both husbands and wives in that last sentence about adultery, makes them equal to each other.

Now it is still not ideal – and it still doesn’t speak very well to us today -- except for one significant part in there. Jesus was not one to keep things the way they were because they had always been done that way. He didn’t overlook an injustice in society because it was tradition. He challenged that thinking. He broke those rules. He pushed society ahead. He looked at the world as it was, and he said, this is not gospel-led, and he argued for change.

Jesus was a disrupter, after all. We can’t forget that when we interpret his words. He didn’t want the world to stay as it was, he wanted to it to become better. I truly believe that he would have wanted us to understand that it is more important to be loved and loving and in a healthy relationship than anything else.

How do we know this? Consider the last lines of the gospel. “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the Reign of God as a little child will never enter it.” And what do we see in our children when they are young? Judgement? An obsession with rank or race or gender or sexual orientation? No, we see our children feeling joy and wonder and curiosity. We see them being open to the people they meet.

There are days when we need to read the verses in the Bible many times to figure out what we might be missing, to hear the message that God, in 2024, might want us to receive. And then we come to a passage like the one at the end of the gospel and it is revealed to us what truly matters. Not the law, but the grace. There lies the real challenge: to remember who we were before the human world changed us, to reclaim that openness, and, in doing so receive the Reign of God.  Amen.

Don't Dry Up Your Strength Complaining, Put It To Better Use

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 29, 2024

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Psalm 19:7-14

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

My wife’s grandfather liked to tell this story: in the early 1930s, he worked for Nova Scotia Power, and one day, while driving along a dirt road, he came across a handmade sign. It read: “Pick your rut carefully; you’ll be in it for the next 20 miles.” He would tell this line with a laugh, usually while playing a game of “knock-for-nickels” while he cooked fudge in the kitchen. No doubt a person with a good sense of humour put up that sign, but like all good jokes, it also reflected a truth about human nature: we often get trapped in our own ruts. By definition, a rut is not a place you want to be. On a road with deep ruts, your car gets stuck. In life, a rut, the dictionary says, is a habit or behavior that has become dull and unproductive but hard to change. Ruts can get us stuck in life as well.

The Bible is full of examples of people who choose the wrong rut. In fact, the gospel is a rut-escaping kind of teaching. In this case this morning, we hear a lot about one very common kind of rut – the rut of complaining. Take, for example, the Israelites who followed Moses into the desert. They had been saved from slavery under the brutal reign of Pharoah, then led to freedom by Moses to build a better life. But that life wasn’t getting better fast enough. They complained about their food. The manna in Egypt, they said, was much better than the manna God provided in the wilderness. We know plenty of people like this – if we are honest, we are these people more often than we’d like ourselves to be.

The complaining rut prevents us from seeing the good in life. It gets us so focused on one small thing that we miss the big picture. Think of something you recently complained about – a bad driver, a cranky kid, an ache or pain. Sure, it might have been irritating in the moment, but when you step back and consider the day it happened on, did it merit complaint? In the complaining rut we spend more time grousing than complimenting, more time grumpy than engaging. We are in good company. Even Moses complained that he felt as if he were carrying the whole world on his shoulders when he led God’s people in the wilderness. Responsibility can also feel like a rut, if we lose sight of the meaning and purpose behind it. What God said to Moses applies to all of us. “If life is that bad for you,” God says, “do something about it.”

In our gospel, the disciples are also complaining. Some unnamed person was having more success at casting out demons than they were. They’d found a way not to admire the healing ability of this individual but to question his authority to do so. But, of course, the disciples were only human. They were threatened by this stranger, and jealous. And isn’t that often the heart of the complaining rut? We think our lives could be better; we are jealous of someone else’s success. The rut of complaining must surely begin with the bad habit of comparison, which social media has only made easier. Indeed, one of the main reasons that experts say social media is bad for mental health is that we chronically compare the truth of our lives with the fiction of someone else’s. Jesus quickly tries to nip this in the bud, with a lesson for all of us: it doesn’t matter who is doing the good work, he tells the disciples, but that the good work is being done. We are not in competition to “perform” the gospel better than anyone else; we are meant to live it truthfully as well as we can, for ourselves and for God.

Like so many people in our sacred text, all of us can, at one time or another, get stuck in the rut of complaining. This robs us of the very life we desire. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, it makes us over-glorify the past, rather than appreciate the present and work toward the future. No wonder, after expressing their lament, the Israelites said, “Now our strength is dried up.” Complaining is exhausting because we have to carry around the burden of it.

But more seriously, the rut of complaining puts our relationship with God out of joint. Because ultimately, our lament is really against God: why doesn’t God put order to the affairs of our life so that everything comes up roses? One compliant tends to lead to another, and suddenly, we are grumbling so loud that we cannot hear God at all.

So how do we get out of the rut of complaining? I suppose today, the experts would recommend a gratitude journal to remind ourselves of our blessings. We might call that prayer. Jesus, in our gospel, has another prescription. Instead of casting out our salty words to sting others, Jesus says, “Have salt within yourself.” Jesus was relentless in saying that change and renewal always begin at home. Before we take the sliver out of our neighbour's eye, Jesus says, take the 6X6 out of your own. Have “salt within yourself.” Use it to soften the hard edges, to preserve what is good. Let the salt sting in the wounds caused by our envy and greed, our broken ego and complaining words. Take an honest look inside. Let judgment begin within, Jesus says. And then let the salt do its healing work within you.

What does that look like? Sometimes, it is acceptance: some days it rains, and you bring an umbrella. If, like Moses, the job is too big, seek help and delegate some authority. If, like the disciples, you find yourself envying another’s good works, give thanks for the good work being done. (Even better, welcome it.) If you see wrongdoing, don’t gripe and point fingers; seek a resolution. Do not dry up your strength with complaining. Put it to better work. We will be better and happier people. The world will be a better and happier place. “Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”  Amen.