January 23rd, 2022

Who has the right to flourish? As Jesus announces his mission in Nazareth, this question is put to us in our second lesson. In modern society, we often play the zero-sum game – someone must lose for another to win. For the rich to get wealthier, the poor must get poorer. For one worker to get promoted, another must be diminished. For one to gain, someone else must give up. Life in the zero-sum game is an exhausting competition. We adopt this stance often in our families, to our great unhappiness, competing for the love of our parents, as if that love were finite; so a sister’s achievements are a threat to our standing, not something to be elevated. We see it in the world, to our detriment: by stockpiling vaccines, we appeared to be winning. Instead we lost: a new variant emerged in Africa, where vaccines are scarce. Our second lesson challenges us to think differently, approaching it in the way we can best understand, referring to the community of faith as one body. Can our eyes say to our hands: I don’t need you? Or our head to our feet? On the contrary, even if we care more about how our heads look, we certainly give equal value to our feet. In fact, our second lesson says, God “has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” God, in fact, has cancelled the zero-sum game. The body cannot function optimally if all its parts don’t have value; the body cannot succeed if all parts don’t see that they benefit from the success of the others. How can the body flourish if all parts do not flourish? Flourishing is very different from living – it is a higher bar. In health care, it means not just curing disease, but considering how well the patient thrives. Flourishing doesn’t mean just feeling well; it means experiencing joy. Yet we often decide who gets to flourish by the systems we create, the judgement we pass, the competitions we join. In the zero-sum game, after all, for someone to flourish, someone else must flounder. But yet again, our lessons this week and last week, challenges this idea for us. Indeed, the gospel releases us from it; we are no longer enslaved, we are set free. Our flourishing depends on ourselves and on God – it is not at the expense of another, because God does not elevate one part of the body above another; rather, God lifts up the weaker parts, so they are on a level with the stronger parts. Anyone who says they never needed that lift is only fooling themselves; the open secret of the gospel is that we are all at one time or another in need of the lift. Only hubris makes us think otherwise. But then, as the psalmist writes, “ Who can detect one’s own defenses?” We often fall into the zero-sum games because we are blind to them. We don’t see when we are being selfish, or petty, or vain. Indeed, these are often the most difficult faults to see, because they make us feel good in the moment. And yet, the psalmist pleads with God: “Cleanse me from my secret faults.” And of the sins of which I am aware,” the psalmist says, “do not let them get dominion over me.” For sometimes, in life and in society, we know exactly when we are treading on another, and we don’t get caught; those sins are terrible indeed. How does God answer the Psalmist? God answers with the gospel, and in that gospel with Jesus. For what is the mission of Jesus, laid out so clearly for us? “To bring good news to the poor; to bring sight to the blind, to free the oppressed.” We may understand that literally: in a calling to help those with less than us, to heal those who are sick, and to fight for justice for those who are wronged. But it also speaks to each of us personally. To each of us Jesus says, when you feel poor – in life, in love, in luck – I am here for you; when you have lost your way and cannot see, I will lead you; when you feel trapped, I will free you to something better. Nothing must be traded in return; no price must be paid, beyond what we choose to give out of gratitude for what we have received. This is how to live not playing the zero-sum game, Jesus says. Here is new set of directions; follow them and flourish. To each one of us, that same set of directions is given. Freed from competing, we are meant to see the truth – the key to a flourishing society. When one member suffers, we all suffer. When one member succeeds, we all rejoice in that success. This is not easy: we are trained to compete, to care about scores, to be obsessed with rank; indeed, modern life primes us to behave that way. If we are not competitive enough, we are weak. But God says strength is standing on the side to let someone else win when a victory matters so much more to them. Strength is being able to rejoice in another’s accomplishment. Strength means making room for someone else to flourish. This is how a community thrives; this is how the whole body achieves true happiness. These lessons in our gospel this month are so important; they challenge not only how we walk in the world as individuals, but also call us to question what we need to change in the world as people. What do we replace with the zero-sum game if we choose not play? We choose to strive for the greater good. Amen

January 16th, 2022

The story of the miracle of Jesus’s changing water into wine is a bit unusual. As miracles go, no one’s life is saved, no healing happens. So what is the point? To make sure the party continues into the third day. Then we also have this strange exchange between Jesus and Mary, his mother. Mary points out to Jesus that they have no wine, and Jesus, like other sons before and after him, gets a little frustrated: Why are you telling me this? Am I supposed to fix this? And Mary responds, like mothers before and after, knowing that of course he will. She has asked him to. Just do as he says, she tells the servants. And Jesus turns the water into wine, and not just any wine, but the finest wine. The metaphor becomes clear: the fine wine of the gospel is free and flowing for everyone, without charge. Wine, at the wedding in Cana, kept the party going and the people together. The gospel serves the same purpose; it is a responsibility, yes, but follow it, and life becomes lighter and more joyful. We know what happens when a bottle of wine is opened at dinner; the conversation usually becomes bouncier, people open up, they become more relaxed. The gospel is that which brings together different people with different opinions. It is a radical form of equality. On the subject of those different people, our second lesson also has some points to make. If we think about our own individual contributions to the gospel story through time, we tend to do one of two things: we overestimate our contribution, or we underestimate it. The second lesson is a reminder to us to equalize our contributions; just as God freely shares the gift of faith, the wine of the gospel is with us. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” we are told in the second lesson. “And there are varieties of services, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activities all of them in everyone.” The second lesson is also an argument for radical equality. If all gifts come from the same Spirit, if all services from the same Lord, if all activities from the same God, then what? Then the ruler is not above the servant, the rich man is not above the poor. The banker is not above the carpenter (surely the Christmas story makes that clear). The largest giver in church is not above the smallest; the chair of council is not above the member who slips out quietly on Sunday mornings. Indeed, there will always be times when the skills of one are needed more than the skills of another. We can’t all be leaders when there is work to be done. When the roof is leaking, who is more essential - a roofer or an accountant? Indeed, the communities that thrive are those for whom value is placed on diversity. A diversity of skills, of gender, of background, and of race. Those are the most innovative spaces, the places where many voices have a chance to be heard. And so we have those blessed with wisdom, others with knowledge, and some with faith, and so on. And from that diversity a common good becomes possible. Many of us will know the old parable of the group of blind people who come across an elephant. The first person, whose hand touches the trunk, says, “This creature is like a snake.” The second person, who touches the side of the elephant, says, “This is a wall.” The person who touches the elephant’s leg thinks it is a tree trunk. These perceptions are different because they have approached the elephant from different places. But the parable works only so far: it is meant to show us how people may have different perceptions, different truths, but it doesn’t value them. After all, the creature is not a snake, a tree trunk, or a wall; it is an elephant. But of course, we know that with different skills, with each of our different stories, come unique perspectives. This is true in our families, in church, even in our own lives, as we age and change. The roofer may admire the elegant architecture of the church that the accountant never notices. The accountant may delight in the balanced budget line that young parents could care less about, and so on. But a diverse community benefits from all those perspectives – all those services. The roof doesn’t leak, the budget is balanced, the Christmas pageant is a success. This is true in workplaces where diverse teams are more innovative and successful. And it is true in our lives when we benefit from diversity among our friends and from exposing ourselves to activities and people outside our comfort zone. There is a version of that old parable in which the blind people get so angry with one another that they come to blows. They lost sight of their common goal – to figure out what the creature was. What if that group sat down and shared their perspectives? Would they see the fullness of the picture? Would they understand truth in a different way? Our readings today are meant to reflect the radical equality of the gospel. This does not mean that all ideas are equal in the gospel; only that there are many ways to achieve them, and many skills required to do so. If the wine flows for everyone, then how is any one above another before God? If all gifts, services, and activities in the name of the gospel come from God, then how is one above another? Indeed, it cannot be. We are meant to rejoice that there are many ways to follow the gospel and see that it is a strength. We are meant to figure out together that what we need to see is not a snake or a tree trunk or a wall; it is an elephant. We are meant, in diversity of service to the gospel, to find the common good.

January 9th, 2022

This morning, here’s another good news story to guide us forward in this uncertain first

month of 2022.

This one is about a young woman named Nadia Popovici, who was sitting in the stands

at a hockey game between the Seattle Kraken and the Vancouver Canucks. But instead

of watching the action on the ice, she couldn’t take her eyes of Brian Hamilton, the

Canucks’ assistant equipment manager. And specifically, she couldn’t take her eyes off

the back of his neck. What had caught her eye was a strange mole. After the game, she

ran down to the boards and pounded on the plexiglass to get Mr. Hamilton’s attention.

She held her phone up with a message: “The mole on the back of your neck is possibly

cancerous. Please go see a doctor.” Just to make sure: she had highlighted : mole,

doctor, and cancer, in red. As The New York Times story would later detail, Mr.

Hamilton went away rubbing the back of his neck and thinking, “That’s weird.” Ms.

Popovici, for her part, went away thinking, “Was I just being a weirdo?”

But the next day, Mr. Hamilton asked the team doctor about the mole, and the doctor

sent him to have it checked. Indeed, it came back as cancerous, and he had it removed

a few weeks later. Unchecked, the oncologist told him, it would have been lifethreatening.

Is this story weird? It sure is. It may also have saved someone’s life.

Here’s another weird story that saves lives: our baptism. Today, we celebrate the

baptism of Jesus, but it is really meant to be a call back to our baptisms. That day we

don’t remember, when a minister poured water over our heads, and wiped oil on our

faces, and adults lit candles and said prayers over us. Baptisms are one of my favourite rituals to perform as a minister: you never know the baby you are going to get, but they are always cute and entertaining, and wide-eyed about everything that happens. In our baby minds, baptism might be a strange day; in our adult lives, it is meant to save us – not only from the world, but also from ourselves. It is our fresh start, limited only by our ability to receive it. How does the good news story of Nadia Popovici and Brian Hamilton inform the good news of our baptism? Well, first let’s consider Nadia. Little pieces of her come out in the story: she worked as a nurse’s assistant at a hospital, which is how she recognized the suspect mole. When Brian Hamilton finally managed to track her down to say thanks, she was answering calls at a distress centre. She wants to be become a doctor. Nadia had already made choices to learn and to train herself, to build the habit of helping others: when she saw something that needed to be said – even if doing so felt weird – she could not stay silent. There are many ways that we also train ourselves to be other-centred, to be gospel-led, to truly receive the gift of our baptism. We read the Bible, we pray, we practice mindfulness. There are ways that we practice being gospel-led: volunteering, reaching out to strangers, biting our tongues when the words we are about to say won’t be helpful, speaking up when kind words are needed most. And what of Brian Hamilton - who saw Nadia’s strange message and listened to it? There are also many ways we can be open to advice and kindness from unusual corners and unexpected people in our lives. But are we always open? Do we watch for them as closely as we should? And so we have a story of someone offering a gift – one of experience, perspective and even risk – and someone receiving it – openly, without judgement and with gratitude. Brian Hamilton not only tracked down Nadia Popovici, he and the Canucks also arranged to give her the generous gifts of thanks and money toward her medical degree scholarship. A gift offered, and opened, with gratitude. The story of our baptism has the same components. The gift of baptism arrives at our metaphorical doorstep no matter what – it is already earmarked for us, most of us before we were walking. The next part is up to us: do we leave it wrapped up, forgotten at the door? Does it get unwrapped, and then stuffed in a corner, dusted off once in a while? Or do we unwrap it and make it a part of our daily lives, a gift that never loses lustre or breaks down or expires? Our baptism tells us: you are loved, you have value, feel safe taking risks in the name of the gospel, because that never changes. This is your permission to be weird, if being a little weird means doing what is right. And it is your reminder to listen for wisdom in the weirdness of others. It is perhaps hard to think of fresh starts when so much of this year is already dragging the refuse of the past months. This week, in all the stories about January 6th and the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol and attempted to stop democracy, we saw clearly how much the division has not healed, and how fragile that democracy still feels. Our kids started again in remote learning, with all the stress and disappointment that means for families. We are bracing, again, for a tough winter. It is true that the world does not start fresh. But people can. People can open their eyes to a new day and decide to be different in this one than they were in the last. It doesn’t happen easily. It takes training and practice. It takes openness and gratitude. But each day, to help us, we have our baptism, to open anew, to revisit yet again. Think of it this way: God is there, pounding on the plexiglass of whatever box we find ourselves in and holding up a sustaining message for us: You are loved. Have faith. Go and serve. Or just to be sure, the words highlighted in red: Love, Faith, Serve.