February 13th, 2022

And so, on this third weekend of the protest in our city, with the bonfires still lit on streets and in parking lots, and the trucks clogging up the downtown core, we find ourselves left to contemplate these most eloquent and graceful words from Jesus. The scene is set for us. Jesus is walking among a crowd of needs. People from all walks of life. People needing to be healed. Others looking for purpose. Wanting to touch Jesus, to feel his power; and to hear him, and know him. And Jesus, we are told, looks at the disciples – looks at us – and gifts us with the Beatitudes. And what do they mean for us in these modern days? What should they tell us during this tumultuous time of protest? During this uncertain time of pandemic? In fact, they define the very nature of discipleship. The challenge for the disciples of the gospel is to find a way to keep that path when times are most trying. When we are hurt, when we are angry, when we are fearful of the state the world is becoming, and the best approach seems to fight violence and aggression with an equal response. And yet, on this Sunday, we find ourselves reminded of our core responsibilities: to care for poor, for those who are powerless, and for those who are filled with sorrow. We are not to be trapped by wealth or cruel laughter. Taken another way, the Beatitudes are a very direct message to each and every one of us – of the qualities to which we should aspire. They remind us that God is closest to us when we are most open to hearing from God. When we need God the most, the gospel echoes loudly in our ears. Blessed are those who are humble, for that is the way to see the reign of God. Blessed are those who are hungry – for knowledge, for understanding, for self-awareness – for in that search we will be satisfied. Blessed are those who grieve, for having loved even what is lost leads to laughter again. Blessed are those who defend justice in the name of the gospel; it may not be easy, but the reward will be worth it. And what of the woes? Those are our missteps: wealth for wealth’s gain, selfsatisfaction, and laughter at the expense of others. For those missteps, the warning is dire: a price will be paid, a hunger will come, sorrow will follow. And then this last one, at the very end. Left to leave its mark upon us: Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that, Jesus says, is a person who believes in whatever works for the moment, and not in whatever is needed to make the difference. And so, how might that discipleship fit into the protest that has seized our city and our country, that suggests a grim force of intolerance, misinformation, a destabilizing of civil society. This very week, a woman called St. Peter’s to ask if protestors could use the space to stay overnight while they were in town supporting the protest. “If we were good Christians, she said, we would make room.” That is a challenging notion because we are supposed to make room for everyone. But in this instance, we need to look to the example of Jesus. For people who came, asking him questions, Jesus always answered. But he invested his time with those whose questions were not listened to, those who had no voice at all. With only so much room, he made space for those who had nowhere else to go, for those who were poor or afraid. This week I was asked to sign a “In Solidarity with our Neighbours” letter from clergy of downtown Ottawa Christian churches. I was hesitant to sign because I didn’t want to add to the polarization that is so evident around this protest. A colleague called and asked: “Joel, why haven’t you signed the letter?” I hummed and hawed, and he cut me off and said, “Do you know what it’s like for me to walk downtown as a black man right now? When you don’t sign the letter, you are saying it’s okay for me to have to continue to feel this way.” Our society survives when we unite. And sometimes, we must unite with others against forces we know to be wrong. We must stand allied with people of colour and the Jewish residents who say they are now afraid to walk their own streets. We must call out those whose sense of freedom means trampling the rights of others to live freely. We must risk this, even if it means that some people may call us bad Christians. This is the challenge of discipleship, and it is the most important line in the Beatitudes. For to keep them, we must be agitators for the gospel; we must be controversial; we must speak up. Sometimes, we need to be angry for the sake of others. We must walk, as Jesus did, among the crowd in need, and with our voices, help them find theirs. Amen

February 6th, 2022

If we were gathering for worship today in person at St. Peter’s, I am not sure it would be safe for us to do so. There have been trucks outside the church all week; the other day a fist fight broke out between a group of men in the laneway while we were trying to have a Worship and Music Committee meeting. This is not about the headache of noise from all the honking. We have heard more and more stories: a rock thrown at an ambulance, people desecrating our most famous war memorial, demonstrators building permanent structures on Federal property, people who can’t get to work, others who right now have no jobs to go to, the harassment of shelter staff, women at a local shelter – especially racialized women – who are afraid to go outside. The flying of Swastikas and Confederate flags, symbols of hate and bigotry. Yes, maybe it is a few people: but a few people flying swastikas, a few people harassing regular citizens with masks on, a few people urinating on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the front yard of the church, a few people barging into stores unmasked, a few people smashing windows at a coffee shop with a rainbow banner. Those few people add up to many people. Whose freedom comes first? We might think we have the answer; but it is not always easy to find the solution. When do my rights trump your rights is a classic question of the gospel. If the Ten Commandments tell us not to kill, what of the soldier on the battlefield? If we are to honour our mothers and fathers, what of those parents who are abusive? The world is not a place of simple answers. Luckily for us, the gospel is not designed for a fictional world. It is meant to inform the real world we live in. A place where even when the answers are obvious, the solutions may not be easy. For starters, protests are part of the DNA of our faith as Lutherans. Our church is built on the foundation of protest, with Martin Luther challenging the status quo at great personal risk. The gospel is about a protestor – Jesus – who also called to account the leaders of the day and challenged the assumptions about the way society needed to run. Protest is an important part of a democracy. It is how regular people speak out against injustice and force leaders to pay attention to their voices. As a country that values free expression, we must, as a collective, protect the right to protest. Martin Luther spoke up for what he believed in and hoped that people would listen. He worked hard to get his message across with writing and speeches and conversations in taverns. He protested by trying to educate people, including translating the Bible so they could read it for themselves. And Jesus protested by inviting people to sit with him, by healing strangers and showing kindness to the vulnerable; Jesus protested by setting an example. It’s true: sometimes, we need to shout; but we should use that tool carefully, always mindful to make sure that what we are shouting about merits our raised voices. One test is asking if it is about us and our own personal reward, or if it is about others and a greater good. We might also ask: if we achieved our goal, would the world be better and safer and more just? Does the current protest pass that test? Last week, our gospel set a standard of love that was aspirational, perfect in its acceptance, free of judgement, ever patient. And this week, we hear the story of Jesus’s calling to the disciples to put down their nets and come with him to catch people. And as we know, the people they were called to catch, were diverse, with many different stories. They were not vetted beforehand. Many of them would surely have been called “deplorables” by those around them. The only qualification required was that they came to hear what Jesus had to say and decide for themselves. Jesus set the example of his first commandment: love one another as you are loved. But here is the thing we should not forget: that commandment may be at the top, but it does not erase the other ten, which serve as norms that keep a society together. The protest this week has pointed to the weakness of democracy – when those norms are not followed, an easy remedy is hard to find; a weakness in the wall can crack open. But it has also shown a strength: restraint. While many are angry and frustrated, we have also been patient; we have held to the norms that we hold dear. But I know many of you are angry. Angry at the protesters holding this city hostage and saying it is about freedom. Or angry at how long this pandemic has gone on with no end, and at the rules and restrictions required of us. It is okay to be angry. So long as we know that our anger is a symptom. It represents our frustration, our exhaustion, our disappointment. Spend too much time dwelling in anger, and this is where we remain. I can’t say what will happen; how long this will go on, and what will finally end it. But if I turn to the gospel; if I consider the words of Jesus this morning to the disciples to set aside their own lives and become catchers of people, I know some things very clearly. The story of the disciples is about a group of people who thought they had their priorities all figured out; and then realized that they wanted something more; that the priorities and values they truly believed in required them to be different, to make a different choice. Is our priority at this time anger, and being right? Or might we also invest in a different choice? Ultimately, we have Luther, who protested by education. We can be voices of reason and insight with our friends and families, and try to keep the conversation going, however hard that may be. And we can be like Jesus, the protestor, by example. If we want to change, we must pay attention to what is distracting us, and see what we are missing. In this case, we are distracted by the constant honking and the blocked-up roadways and the trucks. But we can make a difference: we can look to the vulnerable people who have been most affected and try to help. We can be kind and calm with strangers. We can donate to the local shelters who have been disrupted. We can choose, when this is over, to visit the stores forced to close and express our remorse. We don’t have to be people solely distracted by the noisy gong. We can be people who deliberately look in the opposite direction. In this way, we answer Jesus’s call to the disciples: to be catchers of people. The act of catching someone, after all, prevents them from falling. And that is the task that is placed before us, this day and every day, to look where others are not, and reach out to the one who is falling. And to be that Christlike presence for the sake of others, whoever they may be.

January 30th, 2022

Our second lesson this morning will be familiar to many of us. I couldn’t count how many times I have heard it read at weddings. In fact, my mother-in-law read it at my own wedding 25 years ago. We can understand why it captures the idealism and joy of a couple newly-wedded. It is beautifully written, with the cadence of a poem. It is a description of perfect love: a love that is patient and kind, that isn’t selfish or envious. A love that doesn’t anger easily. A love that keeps no record of wrongs. That is a kind of love we all aspire to: both to give and to receive in our lives. And yet, since none of us is perfect; we do not achieve it. At least not all of it, all of the time. And I imagine it might be for you, as it is for me, that the qualities of love that evade in the moment, are the very ones I need most. When we most need patience, we are impatient. When we most need to be selfless, we are selfish. When we most need to be kind, we are neglectful. And it is perhaps no coincidence that the story of the gospel is one where Jesus returns home to preach and finds his most doubtful critics – his own community. For it is among those who know us best and claim to love us most, that this perfection so falters. And yet this does not mean we do not love. It only means that we are not God, who loves us perfectly in this way. We are human, loving as best we can. While these verses in Corinthians are often read at weddings, to describe romantic and family love, they are equally powerful for friendship, and for the love we might show complete strangers. This week, I was sent an essay written by a woman describing how hard it was to maintain her friendships after she lost her baby and was struggling with infertility. It was hard because her friends had what she most wanted and seeing them, she was constantly reminded. It was impossible for her to love them without envy. It was hard because her friends, uncomfortable with her grief, wanting to keep with other happy mothers, also drifted away. It was impossible for them to love with patience. And yet the piece was written gently, without judgement, seeking to understand, and to navigate this difficult space. It was about losing friendships; but it was also about the imperfection of human love. If we were at church today, across the street we would see the truck convoy protest against vaccine mandates. And I imagine many of us would not feel love toward those people; we would easily anger. Their positions, as far as the gospel are concerned, are untenable; some trucks even arrived showcasing the Confederate flag, a symbol of slavery and oppression. They claim to speak for truckers, now mandated to be vaccinated to cross the US-Canada border both ways, and yet at least 85 per cent of truckers are vaccinated. The other 15 per cent refuse to take the vaccine that would protect others and help us to end this pandemic, which is taking such a toll on our mental health. Why do they deserve our love – we might ask? Their love is selfish, angry, judgmental, and unkind. Here is one adjective that the verses in Corinthians do not use to describe love: Love is not a push over. Love may not keep score of wrongs, but it also does not roll over in the face of them; indeed, Love craves justice. Love is a stance, a line in the sand. And so with both these examples, we see a way forward. We do not need to accept the position of the protestors to love them; we can be loving in the way we respond to them. If they are angry, we can be patient. But also, sometimes, we focus our love in the wrong direction; when we are looking at the loudest voices, who are we not seeing? We can turn our loving attention in another direction. If we see actions that are harmful – if we are a witness to bigotry and hate – we may look to those who are feeling that hardest of all and be a loving presence for them. In this way, we may also turn hate into love. Indeed, while Jesus cast the net wide and loved both friend and enemy – he spent more time extending love to the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, than he did to the rich and powerful. To the former, he offered love; to the latter, he often tried to be an example of love and in this way, show them how to love as well. I hope, then, that while the noise and rabble of protest may distract, we will devote more of ourselves to the quiet need for our loving attention. I imagine we all have friends who have drifted away during this pandemic; may we be loving to them when they return. We have people who have been challenging for us during the pandemic; may we be patient with them. And perhaps we have disappointed ourselves and feel guilt and shame; the love described in our second lesson is also for us, perhaps most important for us. When we are kind and patient with ourselves; when we don’t keep score of our own failings – we find it is much easier to share love. Perhaps, it is also no accident that patience is the first descriptor of love in our second lesson. Surely we need it now: patience to let love happen. To be open to opportunities to receive it from others with joy and without guilt. And to look for every chance to share it. The one thing love does not expect is perfection. Jesus sends us out knowing that we will love imperfectly. And yet, this will be more than enough.