Returning the Call
(Isaiah 40:21-31)

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones
 

For the past three weeks the Scripture texts have taken us
deep into a rich Biblical tradition concerning God’s
profligate propensity for calling anyone and everyone
into participation in Kingdom building, Dream weaving,
responding to the world’s great needs with our deepest joys and passions.
 
We’ve discovered that God’s call comes to all of us,
that we were made to be called into partnership with this world-mending God,
we’ve discovered that God’s Dream is often bigger than ours,
that call sometimes takes us places we would never have chosen by ourselves,
that God’s call into world-mending partnership outlives us
because it’s an eternal call which invites us individually and collectively
into a multi-generational, global community of response to
and partnership with God’s Love for the world.
 
To a large degree we’ve focussed our attention these past weeks on God as the caller.
God has your number and mine,
but the question I want to explore today is “Do we have God’s number?”
Is this calling plan of God’s one way only?
Or is God’s relationship with us
one which enables us to return the call, or even to initiate the call,
and to call forth from God precisely that which God calls forth from us
– namely to call upon God to exercise God’s deep gladness and passion
in response to the world’s great needs?
 
While today’s reading is not a ‘call narrative’ per se,
it serves us well enough as a text through which to explore the question.
In fact it takes us quite deeply into it.
 
Let’s remind ourselves again of the context of this passage from second Isaiah.
The once proud, independent, powerful united Israel of David has fractured in two,
and the northern Kingdom, Israel,
has completely been obliterated by the Assyrian invaders,
and now the remnant Judah,
with its bastion fortress city of Jerusalem
has been pounded to dust by a new power, Babylon.
“By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Jerusalem”
is a song of lament composed by these same people carted off ,
exiled and enslaved by this empire.
 
Now, I know the facts of that history,
but I have no clue what that must feel like, to be in exile.
- to have my home burned to the ground, my babies slaughtered, my daughters raped, my sons chained to carts like oxen until they die in the dust.
I don’t know what happens to the soul when
my language, my religion, my hopes and dreams are forcibly forbidden.
But this text gives us a glimpse, refracted window into the desolate soul of a slave people.
Notions of a mighty, beneficent Deity must now seem cruelly ridiculous.
“If such a God exists, why are we in chains?” they say.
“If such a God exists, why are we suffering relentlessly?
Better to give up on God altogether, to “curse God and die” ( to quote Job’s wife),
because our God, Yahweh, if he ever existed, is left behind miles away.
He cannot hear.
There’s no point in calling.
 
This people of Second Isaiah had given up on God, on hope.
Into this despair and abandoned faith
this poet weaves words of such exuberant eloquence, doxology we call it,
that I have to wonder if they laughed at them.
“Who is this romantic idealist, and what God is he speaking of?
Pretty poetry, young Isaiah, but it doesn’t feed an aching belly,
much less a starving soul.”
 
Not surprising that he repeats himself at least four times in the opening stanza:
“Have you not known, have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning,
have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
(Well, patently not. And for good reason they have indeed forgotten).
We would too.
Surrounded on all sides with evidence to the contrary, then and now,
the message of a God capable of mending the world seems
outrageous, far out, far-fetched, outmoded.
If you want to survive the world, keep quiet, and work hard,
depend on no-one but yourself.
Give up on God, throw away the number.
God has disregarded our plight. There’s no point in calling.
 
But, there’s something God-made about the human heart, the soul, the mind, the spirit,
that is “restless until it finds its home in God” (Augustine).
Even more restless is the soul of one who is looking to find
a way through chaos to some sort of redemption
– the parent or child longing for healing for a sick family member,
- the social activist searching for a path through to justice.
 
This restless soul is what Isaiah is appealing to in his original hearers and in us.
 
That no matter what we deal with in this life,
plenty or poverty,
strength or weakness,
even if we are subject to the tyrannies of our modern-day Babylons,
we are part of something vast, and everlasting.
 
We need someone periodically to smack us up the side of the head and say
Have you not remembered? Look up, look around? Can’t you see?
There is something bigger than Babylon, or Rome, or the British or the American empires,
bigger than capitalism, democracy, fascism, communism,
stronger than pain, more lovely than love, more constant than hate,
defiant to all despair.
Whatever name you call this Divine Creative Being,
this Great Thou, this Infinite Heart,
says our poet, call upon it, him, her, God.
Call.
 
Because, says our poet,
God, more lasting than the oceans,
infinitely more vast than the universe,
“gives power to the faint..
strengthens the powerless.”
There are times when we count ourselves in that number,
but there are also times when we find ourselves calling on God
for the sake of others who are flailing, weak, powerless.
 
If you ever fear that God has forgotten you, or this world,
or that you or we are somehow not worthy,
or that God doesn’t hear, or is powerless to respond,
please remember this poet’s soaring promise:
 
When you call on God,
then God reaches into the muck, the mess,
the pains, the troubles, the exiles of body and soul,
and yes, even into the muscle-bound power broking politics of our world,
to lift up the faint, the weary, the powerless,
and to cast them like soaring eagles onto the breath of dawn.

© Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones Feb 2012.

Call Forwarding or Call Waiting

(Deuteronomy 31:1-3,6-8;  Mark 1:21-28)

By Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

This is the third in our Epiphany series of sermons

which explore the Biblical stories of God’s Call to individuals and to communities.

There’s a two-fold presupposition about God and creation

at work in all these texts

which is worth us pondering for a moment.

Specifically, all these passages take it as self-evident

a) that God  is. There is an identifiable Deity, Divinity, Divine Energy

b) that this God has a relationship with Creation.

On a Sunday morning, we walk through these doors,

into the nave (a wee ship, a little world, afloat on the ocean of life)

in which  this presupposition is accepted;

it’s okay to talk about God here.

In fact, it’s not just okay, but expected.

Half of our conversation for the morning is addressed to God,

assuming that God is here to listen,

and is interested in what we have to sing, say, and pray.

Moreover, the other part of our conversation here on a Sunday morning

has to do with us listening for God, and what God might have to say to us,

individually or collectively.

But this a presupposition that is contested in the great ‘out there.’

It’s far less ‘normal’ to go around talking about, or to, God,

much less listening for God.

Now, I have it relatively easy.

In the circles in which I move I’m supposed to talk with and about God.

Among clergy colleagues, here in the Church,

and even when I visit members  at home, in hospital, or nursing homes,

I turn up with my ‘clergy identity,’  expected and expecting

that this presupposition about God will be okay.

But for you?

How many times in a week do you get to talk freely

about God’s role in your life?

With co-workers, friends at the gym, among family?

In some work places it’s even forbidden,

considered intrusive or awkward,

or counter to the mandate of the workplace.

Now, if you do the work, or the volunteering, that you do

because it’s your ‘vocation’ – something you feel deeply called to,

you may be able to talk your work or talent as ‘a calling’

but saying that it is God who gifts and calls you to it,

well, how easy is that to say in all the corners of your life?

And perhaps more to the point,

how easy is it for –even us – to truly believe

that these talents, passions, joys  and life-giving moments

are God’s call to us?

On the Blog this week,(www.cpuc.edublogs/org)

I lamented the historical legacy of a Christian tradition

that has tended to reserve the language of

‘vocation’ or ‘call’ to the religious professional elite.

(Nowadays that’s not so much an elite, as an odd-ball group of religious leftovers!)

The result is that many, many people assume that God may call

“a minister” or a “missionary”,

but  God isn’t wasting vocational energy on them.

How false that is! How unbiblical!

This Bible is full of stories of young boys,

teenage girls, old women, even older men,

murderers, thieves, agricultural workers, fishermen,

housewives, slaves, kings,

shepherds, servants,

sick people, soldiers,

groups of people, even whole nations,

and….even donkeys (!) hearing God call to them personally often by name,

to do something of value on God’s behalf in the world of creation. [1]

Writer, Preacher, Frederick Buechner speaks of vocation – the call of God -

as  “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[2]

Vocation – the call of God – is not just about making the world a better place,

nor is it just about a sense of personal happiness or fulfilment.

To illustrate: Despots may have the latter in abundance, without any of the former!

When God is involved in vocation – there is always a convergence of the two.

One’s deep gladness, passion, joy  and gift,  and the world’s deepest needs.

Put another way, God’s yet-to-be-fulfilled Dream, or a reconciled and reconciling world,

and God’s Dream that we each have life in abundant fullness.

Which brings me to the two texts for today.

In the passage from Deuteronomy

we the readers are to be found among the rag-tag newborn nation,

huddled on the edge of promise.

They’ve eaten desert dust for a generation,

as their call to inherit the land and become a nation of blessing

was put on hold while they learned who and whose they were.

Now they are looking from the desert plain of Suph

onto the Jordan river valley.

I’ve stood there. It’s a stunning sight even today.

Behind you, everything is harsh pale blue sky,

the wind at your back hot and salty,

the ground a never -ending expanse of cracked yellow sun -bleached rock.

In front you there are trees,

and  sheep -filled green pastures

dissected by the lazy, pleasant river.

No longer on hold, no longer waiting,

the call is now forwarded to a new generation.

For Moses, his vocation, his call from God

to lead his own people

from the slave pens of the Egyptian Delta,

as pilgrims through the barren land to the verge of Jordan

is fulfilled.

It is time to forward the call

to the one whom God has uniquely gifted to lead them

into the land of hope and promise.

To Joshua.

In the interests of honesty, I need  to tell you that the next phase is not bucolic,

but our focus today rests more narrowly upon

this notion that a call to participate in God’s Dream,

often means we become involved in a call that will outlive us.

I am, inheritor of a call to serve this congregation

a call that has been forwarded on from Otto Lilly 120 years ago,

to the likes of Victor Rose, Paul Evans, and so on down to me,

and I’ve no doubt it will pass from me to others for as long as God

wants us to be an open faith community serving this neighbourhood.

We all are inheritors of the call of God to love wholly,

to share generously,

to live justly.

But we are also recipients of calls that are unique to us,

reflections of  the way each of us is gifted.

In this way, God meets us where we are,

where our needs are greatest,

and our talents most in need of fulfilment.

When Jesus walked into the synagogue in Galilee,

and expelled the noisy, ‘unclean spirit,’

the man  was freed from those barriers, those obsessions,

which blocked the capacity to live fully, vocationally,

freely and willingly into the call of God.

(I’ve ‘blogged’ about this text in more detail

for those who are interested, or bothered by it).

But again, the kernel of Gospel for us today

is that we are called by God to participate

in a dream bigger and older than any of us.

All called, we are also equipped, freed, liberated

if necessary by God to respond to that call.

And the truly good news for today

is that the vocation of God to you, uniquely,

is one which calls forth the ability to

meet the world’s deepest needs

with our own skills, passions, convictions,

and deep God-given gladness.

You’ve got to be kidding!
(Mark 1:16-20, Jonah 3:1-5,10)

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

Last week we began our exploration of the Biblical call stories
with the night-time encounter of Samuel with God.
I’m grateful for the comments about last week’s sermon
and how it took you ‘right there’ to into the darkened temple
with its night shift of vacuuming mice!
Tempting though it was to try my hand at
‘taking you right there into the belly of Jonah’s whale’
I have resisted, forborne, it could get a little gooey and smelly!

But we are going to dig deeper into this notion of God calling.
We ended last week’s sermon suggesting that
we should all ‘expect a call’ from God
wherever and whenever we find ourselves in a place
of longing for justice, or healing, or wholeness,
for ourselves, or for loved ones or for our world,
because God has that same longing.

At Cedar Park, for the past number of weeks,
we have been exploring and using the language
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu
uses to describe God’s plan for creation, and for our role within it.
Where Scripture traditionally uses the term “the Kingdom of God”
Tutu talks of “God’s Dream.” ¹

A dream for the universe born in the heart of God’s desire and love
a dream for relationships that are wholesome,
holy, healing and loving.

It’s this dream that provoked prophets to speech and action;
this dream that gave birth to the missional life of Jesus,
preaching, teaching, and living the God Dream
in a tiny corner of the Roman Empire to such effect
that for 2000 years humans the world over
have tried to follow his example.
This dream coming true is what we pray for each week in
the Jesus prayer – “thy kingdom come on earth”.

Most of the time, we say “Amen to that!”
For, being made in God’s image,
we too have a spark of the God Dream within us,
we too long for a healed, just, forgiven and forgiving world.

We too know how badly this world needs God’s Dream.
Wars and sabre rattling on every continent,
religious, ethnic, class, political cat-fighting,
the global inequitable distribution of wealth, health,
education, opportunity, and resources….
….the list could go depressingly on.

As it is now in our world, so it was back in Biblical times.
It was ever thus.
Some would say that the “peoples of this Book,” ²
Jews and Christians, are on a fool’s errand,
a mission impossible,
that God’s Dream is utopian,
unattainable this side of heaven.

Jonah thought so.
Jonah, as far as we can tell, was a faithful man,
who knew the Voice of God,
presumably knew the sorts of things God said –
like “My dream is for healing wholeness, for justice,
for people to turn away – to repent -from behaviours that destroy,
my dream is about starting over, forgiving and being reconciled
with one another.”
And Jonah would have said “Amen to that!”
Except when God’s Dream leaked out of the small container Jonah had it in,
and it overflowed beyond Israel to include the Assyrians.

Now, think McCarthy and the Communists,
or Nazis and the Allies,
Republicans and Democrats in an election year,
sworn enemies,
and you’re on the right track.
Assyria was known in the ancient Near East as a rather brutal,
pugnacious empire,
prone to obliterating those whom they conquered.
When God said to Jonah,
“Take my Dream and share it with the capital city of Assyria”
Jonah said “You’ve got to be kidding!”
(or words to that effect).
“You cannot possibly mean to forgive the unforgivable Assyrians,
to love … them…?
I won’t. Nope. Hang up, God, I’m not going.”

It took a whale of a trip to change his mind…
which he did. Partially.
Today’s portion from Jonah’s book shows us he did what God wanted,
but if we were to read further we’d see that his heart was most certainly
not in it.
He stayed mad at God, right to the end of this fabled tale,
incredulous at the apparent –actually the real- limitlessness of
God’s Dream.

This fable, this once upon a time story
that contains universal truths.
The truth that God loves those we can’t and won’t,
and that God Dreams big.
Big enough to turn the world back to its true course,
every blessed time it goes awry.

Which brings us back to the Gospel reading again,
to see the God Dream taking flesh in the mission of Jesus.
Mark doesn’t waste words.
Reading Mark is like reading the life of Jesus written as a check list.
Baptized by John.
40 days in wilderness.
Start preaching.
Get disciples.
Heal people.
Leave town.
Repeat as necessary.
“Immediately.”

Mark, likes that word. He uses it a lot.
He uses it here, did you notice it?
Jesus calls out to four fishermen busy at their livelihood,
asks them if they want to drop their nets and live the God Dream instead.
And Mark says they did so. “Immediately”.

Now, you’ve got to be kidding!
Would you?
Immediately drop the paycheque, leave the wife and kids,
walk out on the family business
to follow this Dream-weaver rabbi from Nazareth?

At first blush, no we wouldn’t.
Of course we wouldn’t.
But then again….

None of those men by the Sea of Galilee,
none of us need Jesus to tell us that God’s Dream
and this world don’t look too much like each other.
Most of them, and us, were, are, longing for justice,
for healing, wholeness, for forgiveness, for courage.

So when they, we, discover that there might be a way,
a small way perhaps, to make the Dream come a little
closer to the harsh realities of life – the kingdom come –
maybe we, they,
would do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I don’t think Mark’s brevity plays in Jesus’ favour in this story.
I suspect Jesus said a lot more than “y’all come.”
He painted kingdom pictures, Dream pictures with words,
and with the way he lived,
to show the people of Galilee and of Cedar Park,
that they, we, can be part of the God Dream,
can bring the kingdom a little closer.

When I started work on this sermon,
my brain was ‘stuck’ on
“you’ve got to be kidding” foolishness of both these texts.

Then I got to watching, praying, and listening.
Friday and yesterday I heard 70 Voices for Hope
singing to two full houses.
Audience and Choir for a couple of hours
believed enough in the difference made by
an organization that offers dignity, health care,
and bereavement support,
that they left whatever they could have done on a cold weekend,
to sing the kingdom a little closer.

Earlier in the week I watched people cooking food for shut ins,
and I met with people who visit the sick,
drive people to appointments,
take time to listen,
you know, kingdom, God Dream stuff.

I met with yet others who care deeply enough
that this place provide opportunities to get to know God’s Dream better
through Christian development programming for all ages.
I’ve spent time on the phone and praying with others
in this church community who live this Dream through volunteer efforts
for social justice, outreach, and mission support.

This week,
while I was battling the craziness of
‘you’ve got to be kidding’ calls to Jonah and the fishermen,
you, the people of Cedar Park were busy walking the talk,
and sharing the Dream.

Because when you hear, or see the God Dream,
and are given the choice
to sit back in the belly of a whale,
or in your living room with unreality TV numbing the senses,
so many of you have already said, in deed if not in word,
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
And you’ve left that stuff behind
to live God’s crazy, limitless Dream,
and to bring the Kingdom of God a little nearer.

Let it always be so. Amen

¹God Has a Dream. (Doubleday, 2004), and used as the basis for our Advent Study. See also God’s Dream (Candlewick, 2008) a children’s book by Tutu on the same them, illustrated by Le Yuen Pham.

² A common term used to refer to adherents to the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures known as the Bible. Recently used as the title of a novel by Geraldine Brooks (2008).

Eyesight and Insight
(1 Samuel 3: 1-20)

by Elisabeth R. Jones

The preaching text for today is from the Hebrew Bible, from the first book of Samuel.
The books of Samuel tell the story of the transition of Israel, from a confederation of tribes fighting for survival against common enemies, into a unified kingdom under Saul and then David. But as with any book of the Bible this is not just a story of people, but a narrative of God’s involvement with the people.  Today’s text tells the story of the call of Samuel,
who was to become prophet or God’s mouthpiece, to Saul and to David.

This has to be one of my favourite stories  in the Bible.
It’s a shame it’s in the Bible, really,
because its mixture of almost pantomime humour
and dramatic tensions get   squashed down
like errant bangs with a lick of gramma’s tongue!
Read from a lectern it is too easily tamed, flattened.
So let’s not.

Let me tell you the story instead.
Today I’m going to weave the sermon with the text,
to get under its skin, and into its innards,
so that we can find its heartbeat, and our own, within it.

(I’ll need your help part way through, and ask you to take MV and turn to 161 now, so we’re ready when we need it.)

Let’s begin.

Once upon a time, long, long ago,
in the land of Israel, in the town of Shiloh
An old priest, age decaying his eyesight to near blindness,
- probably with lentils in his beard,
and meat juice down his chest,
and the elbows worn through on his linen coat,
lies down for the night in his toasty little room beside the ovens in the Temple of Yahweh, the temple of God.

A young boy,  eight or nine maybe,
exhausted from lighting, and relighting and
filling oil lamps and tallow candles
all day, every day (not just Xmas eve, Bob),
scraping ox fat off the altar,
and shovelling ash and … other stuff from the floor,
crawls onto his mat, tucked in beside
the golden seraphim guarding the ark of God’s covenant,
and curls for sleep.

It’s almost silent;
only the sound of settling stones,
and scurrying of mice working the night  shift,
vacuuming the floor of leftovers,
gathering scraps of straw for their nests in the crevices.

It’s almost dark, just the one single lamp still glows,
the lamp of the Lord, symbolizing the eternal presence of the
Almighty  God.
Not that people really took that much notice,
being an era when the word of God was rare,
and visions almost unheard of.
The temple was still, dark, silent.
pause…. long…. pause…

Then…  (VOICE) “Samuel….. Samuel…..”
Hum part of the tune…. “I have called you”

He bangs his head on one of the seraph’s wings,
as he jumps to his feet.
The old man must have lost something again.
He runs across the gloom to Eli
“Here I am, here I am.. you called me?”

“Huh? Whuua?
I didn’t call you! Go back to sleep!”
Talk about grumpy!
Both of them harrumph a little as they settle back
into the dark silence of the night.
Sleep comes.

pause…
Hmm “I have called you by…”
VOICE:  “Samuel…. Samuel…”

He stubs his toe on the steps this time
as he scurries in to Eli,
“I am here, you called me “ (again).
Eli sits up on his bed and stares blindly towards Samuel’s young voice.
“Son, I didn’t. I truly didn’t call you.
You must be dreaming,  (I wish I was.)
Now, go back to sleep, please.”

Samuel trots back and lays himself down,
eyes clamping shut onto the sleep of the innocent.
Eli lies down, but sleep doesn’t come.
Dreams do,
echoes of a Voice almost forgotten,
tempt the corners of his mind,
and stir visions, memories, unfocussed, nebulous.
Gradually, even the mice fall silent in that deep dark
before the edge of dawn, and Eli sleeps.

Hum “I have called you”
VOICE.  “ Samuel… Samuel!”

This time even Eli heard something.
Bolt upright now, he waits for Samuel to come.
Samuel is wary this time.
He heard the voice, but he has no clue….if not Eli, who?
Even though  he had been a temple boy
for half his short life,
watching the sacrifices, singing the psalms,
polishing the brass on the ark,
catching stray pigeons,
and herding the crowds out at the end of the day,
he ‘did not know the Lord’.
He had no idea that God was actually… you know… present.
Sure that wee light was always lit…. but….

Anyway this tousle headed boy
scrubs the sleep from his eyes,
and tiptoes quietly this time to Eli’s room,
“Here I am…. did you call?”

“No.”  Eli’s voice isn’t gruff, or angry, or even tired.
Eli speaks with the strength of … what?
conviction? hope? insight?….
“It wasn’t me, Samuel.  But I heard it too.
Go back and lie down, and if you hear the Voice again, say
“Here I am, speak, great God, for your servant is listening.”

Samuel’s eyes…. well what do you think?
They would have been as big as saucers.
His heartbeat….
I don’t know whether it would have skipped a beat, or raced like a train.
Hands clammy, knees knocking, in a daze,
he goes back to his corner.
His hand strokes the seraph’s beak, flutters its brass wings.
“Really,….? The Voice is God’s…calling me?”
He crouches down.
Does he sleep?
Or are his eyes peeled back against the dark,
watching for a Voice?
Dreading and hoping, dreading and hoping.

Hum… I have called you.
VOICE  “Samuel….. Samuel…!”

“Yes!!  It’s me!  I mean.  Erm, ohhh!!
Speak… speak… erm. yes.  I’m listening!
Your servant… me that is… I’m listening!  G-god.”

And the Voice started to sing.
An ancient language we don’t know, but the words were these.

Sing v. 1 MV 161. (Everyone)

Well, actually that was just the beginning
of what the Voice said to Samuel that night.
The scriptures say that the words God spoke next
were enough to make one’s ears tingle to hear them.

You see, when God calls,
something is up!
God always calls for a reason, not just to chat.

Lots of people would be quite happy
never to be woken in the night by the strange call of God,
especially if it makes your ears tingle.
But others crave it, long for it.
Not because they want to be some ‘holy prophet’
or to be simply holier than thou.
In fact few people of sound soul and mind would want that call
(and I’m not being facetious)
Those who crave for the call of God in the night,
are those who are longing
for God to tear open the heavens
and come into a benighted world
with salvation,
saving the world from the worst of itself,
from global warming, or too many wars,
or too much poverty, or too much graft, corruption.
Those who crave the call of God in the night,
are those who long for  God to turn a loved one
back from the road to perdition,
to quit drinking, or gambling, or self-harm.
Those who crave the call of God in the night,
are begging for God to bring healing.

But a lot of us, most of the time,
are like Samuel or Eli,
We live in a world, where the word of God is rare,
and visions, unusual to say the least.
A lot of us, like Samuel,
haven’t heard that voice before,
others are like Eli, we heard it once,
or long ago, but barely remember,

Now, those words that make your ears tingle? what were they?
(there’s a whole other sermon to preach with those words,
but in a nutshell, the kernel is this.)
God’s words indicted Eli’s world
for becoming satisfied with going through the motions
of a functionally agnostic religiosity.
For not listening,
and for losing sight of God’s Dream,
and for forgetting their own God-given role to make it happen.

Remember God’s Dream?
You know, of a world of rainbow people,
working together with God
to share the abundance of creation’s gifts with
all God’s people, all God’s creatures.
God’s Dream that we be God’s partners in peace with justice,
God’s workers of mercy, God’s lovers of all.

So, God calls.
Whenever and wherever
the sight is failing, the visions rare,
the words of God’s Dream are almost forgotten,
Whenever, and wherever the longing and craving
for saving, healing, renewing, is acute,
God calls.
Because God is never going to quit on her Dream,
nor is God ever going to quit on us.

That being the case, expect a call.
It goes something like this…..
“I have called you, by your name, you are mine.
I have gifted you, and ask you, now, to shine.”

Let’s sing it together.. verses 1, 3, 4.

MV161 v. 1, 3, 4.  (seated)

Reversal of Fortune
(Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8)

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

We have two themes competing for our attention today.
The first is the theme often attached to the Third Sunday of Advent, the theme of Joy.
We lit a pink candle, one that refuses to wear the sombre shade of royalty,
with all its responsibilities and seriousness, and wears instead the happy colour of childhood, of rosy cheeks and frivolous ice cream.

Joy, the daughter of Zion (!!) sang in our choir anthem,
and is guaranteed to get our feet tapping in our closing hymn.
Almost despite ourselves, and how unready we may feel
with 14 more days to go until Christmas Morning,
the effect of the season, with its lights breaking the winter darkness,
and the gradual crescendo of hope chorused in glorious Messiah concerts,
and in Christmas parties in and outside the church, Joy is invading, even when we’re not ready for her, even if her impact is only for a few moments, and, truth be told, we are glad of her presence!

We even have Scriptural warrant for Joy in Paul’s letter of encouragement to the baby church of Thessalonika, “Be joyful at all times! Be thankful for everything, and despite everything, Let me say it again, Rejoice!”

But, that second theme, competing for attention, comes to us courtesy of that Advent prophet
who’s been with us each week so far, Isaiah Of Jerusalem, along with his two other Isaiahs
who sing covers of his original songs, adding their own riffs and instrumentation, and the syncopations relevant to their own time.

This time it’s Isaiah the Third who comes
dancing on to the stage, toe-tapping to the Songs of Joy,
and at first joining in the refrain “Rejoice,” so we find ourselves,
recognizing his voice, nodding our heads, and settling in to enjoy,
find joy in his upbeat proclamation song.
“Rejoice!” He sings,
Because you’re going to see
prisoners released,
oppression of the poor ended,
the healing of broken hearts,
the rags of the destitute replaced with
the fine linens and silks of royalty,
the ruined homes of returning exiles rebuilt,
and garlanded with evergreen
and tinsel and strings of lights,
as the year of Jubilation is declared!”

Into the dark nights of a northern winter, or into the glaring sun of a Middle Eastern summer,
two and a half millennia ago, Isaiah the songster sings this ballad of reversal of fortune,
and even if we think “He’s a dreamer – he’s not the only one” ¹… and we dare to Imagine….
and hum along with him, and even wish we could sing a Handel-esque “Amen!” to it.

But that’s probably because we’ve heard this Song before,
every third Advent, for starters, plus every time we remember that
Jesus sang the exact same tune in a Nazareth synagogue, at the beginning of his ministry. ²

The tune may be familiar, cosy even, because we’ve been lulled by centuries of ‘spiritualizing’ this Song of Isaiah and Jesus, changing the strident chords of an activist anthem into a lullaby of spiritual comfort.

But these are not pink frilly joy words.
They are proclamations of a God Dream,
a fierce God-Dream, where God is determined,
despite the mess we creatures have made of it,
to recreate a world reconciled to itself and to its maker.
This is not a lullaby,
nor even an Ode to Joy,
but a rousing anthem of hope for the oppressed.
A song promising a reversal of fortune
so radical, that if we listen long enough,
we may find ourselves silenced by its implications.

Songs like this have been banned, by governments, and I’m afraid to say, even by churches,
because the promises they contain threaten to level playing fields, and reverse the fortunes of the ‘haves’ to a degree they dare not countenance nor condone.³

Imagine how incendiary these words were on the lips of an exiled, enslaved, rag-tag remnant,
pawns in an ancient Middle Eastern powerplay between Babylon and Persia, as they caught a glimpse of God’s Dream of reversal and return.

Incendiary too, when five hundred years later, they were sung by the Nazarene rabbi whose Advent we await, into the context of a brutally efficient, cynically named “Pax Romana.” A song for which he paid the ultimate price.

Incendiary, revolutionary because they speak of the work of a “Lord and God” prepared to come into the midst of a status quo to create a covenant community where there is safety for the vulnerable, and where the riches of the planet are shared equitably, and where our kinship as children of God trumps self-interest at every turn.
Subversive, because this Dream implicates us in the age old choice of humanity, do we serve the gods that create systems to protect the wealthy, (or the white, or the straight, or the able bodied, or the solvent) or do we choose to dream-weave with Isaiah’s, Jesus’ God?

If you think Joy may have slipped out quietly by the back door by now, you may be as surprised as I am to see her sitting on the edge of her seat in the choir loft.
It’s taken the juxtaposition of this Advent Sunday of Joy with this Isaiah Song of Reversal of Fortune for me to notice its resilient major key, and its catchy tune, and yes, its irrepressible joy.

I’ve always feared this text,
because as a white, educated, and employed citizen of the First World,
I could only see myself in the ‘haves’ of this text; I thought my only plight would be one of guilt-ridden diminishment.

But today, I see that there is a place for me, and those of you like me,
who are blessed with earth’s bounty,
within this Dream of God.
There is a place for all of us in this community,
this family, this kinship of God.
We too will be recipients of whatever reversals of fortune are necessary to enable our shackled hearts to rejoice, (and some of those reversals may look to the world’s eyes
like failure, or loss). But we have been given this song as an invitation to weave Dreams with the Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth, whenever and wherever we can.

Perhaps our place in this dream is
to have our wounded hearts healed,
or our mourning comforted,
but it’s also our place in God’s Dream
to be proclaimers, and heralds,
agents and enactors of an equitable sharing of God’s blessing.
If that means we pay more for our coffee,
or our Christmas gifts,
or that we choose to eat less meat,
or buy products grown close by,
or volunteer our talents as a lawyer or a businessperson,
or an accountant to serve the needs of those who cannot afford access to that wisdom.
If that means we hear our names uttered by Joy
in the roll call of those God calls to travel near and far in the pursuit of justice,
the healing of the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the comfort of the dying and the grieving,
or if we help our children or grandchildren to experience the joy of giving this Christmas,
discovering it to be a deeper joy than that of “getting,”….
well, there we find ourselves in the lyrics of this Song.

And if we listen, we can hear Joy,
the joy of heaven and earth,
of God and humanity,
as God’s Dream comes closer to us.

As God’s Dream takes on flesh and blood,
in a Bethlehem manger,
and in our own, changed, lives.
 

© Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones. December 2011


¹ Reference to Lennon’s Imagine

² Luke 4

³ The Magnificant (Luke1:55…) was banned by the government of Guatemala in the 1980s, because of its subversive content.

Holy Roadworks
(Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8)

Audio version

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

In 1985, Norman and I had just arrived in western Canada, and found a place to live in the southwest quadrant of Calgary. We were eager to explore this new country, which had fuelled our imaginations as children, so one of our earliest trips was to head out of town, west towards the Kananaskis front ranges – the eastern wall of the Rockies. Our map told us that a highway Hwy 22X headed from our corner of town in the right direction, so off we set.
All was good for the first 30 or so km, until we saw the “road work ahead” sign. We turned the bend, and there was no road, stunned by what we saw!
A road that… just… stopped. The hardtop (tarmac) ended.
I think the sign said “Proceed with caution” – proceed where?
Ahead of us was this wide swath of dirt, four lanes wide, carved right through the landscape, cutting through stands of lodgepole pines, barrelling straight through the rolling foothills, pointed straight west.
We pulled over to the edge of the hard top, got out of the car, camera in hand to take photos to send back home to families that, like us, would not otherwise believe that in Canada “Road Works” meant “Draw a straight line in the ground and carve a new highway, straight and level, through the western wilderness.
A man in a pickup, hardhat and neon vest, waved us on. “It’s okay! That’s the road. Just follow the dirt!”
So, we did, slowly kicking up a roadrunner dust-trail, while singing
“Every valley,shall be exalted.”

Who could conceive of such a thing?
If a surveyor had been involved in this amazing feat,
it was the same one that issued the project orders in Isaiah 40.
“Prepare in the wilderness a highway,
make straight in the desert/wild places a highway for God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, every hill brought low,
the uneven ground shall be made level, and the rough places smooth
What was once an aria from the Messiah has now
become inextricably associated in my mind with Hwy 22X.
It’s never ceased to boggle my mind how
grand the vision,
how ‘mighty’, and ‘rugged’
and landscape-altering this dream is.

Surely that’s what it was.
A dream.
A dream of a seer, a prophet,
one who’d sat with the myopic panorama of
a refugee camp all his life.
His grandmothers had told him
of that far off land, with golden hills,
and olive groves, of the temple on the hill
of Jerusalem, of the sights and sounds of animals
waiting to be sacrificed at the Holy of Holies.

But they were ‘Once upon a time stories’
‘long ago and far away’ stories of a life he’d never known.
No one knew anymore exactly where this land was,
or how to get there.
You don’t think of journeys like that
when you work from dawn to dusk,
and you eat more dust than food.

But Seers, prophets, don’t sleep dreamlessly.
The restless soul of the prophet knits furiously
with the ragged strands of second hand memories,
until a pattern emerges of a future unimaginable,
unless woven and coloured by the hand of God.

The dream went something like this:
To a people cowed for a generation
and more by the harsh hand of oppression,
comes a gift-wrapped word “Comfort.”
to those raised with the whipcrack of forced labour
comes the whisper of God,
the promise of tenderness.
To those whose sight lines have always included barbed wire fences,
come the twin words “liberation” and “freedom.”

It’s not clear now, never has been,
by or to whom the next words in the dream were spoken.
Dreams are like that.
Their logic defies the cold light of scrutiny.
But, the dream goes on:
even as the people, God’s people are cradled in comfort,
swaddled in divine tenderness,

the call goes out,
from someone to others,
“Get out the graders, the shovels,
the earth movers with tires as big as houses,
carve a way home!
Let nothing stand in the way, not a valley,
nor a mountain, nor a stand of trees, nor
a rockslide, nor a swamp, not anything.
Make this highway straight,
from here to home.”

The dream of an exile,
or the dream of God.
It doesn’t really matter which.

This exiled prophet
has looked long enough into the stars,
listened long enough to the half-forgotten stories of
Abraham, of Moses and his parted sea,
and his pillars of cloud and fire in the wilderness,
of David and his armies, and of Solomon and his glory,
for that prophet to know that the God of her
ancestors, would do something like that.

The Seer knew that God would want to bring all the people home,
wherever, whenever, no matter how far,
no matter how lost, no matter
how fickle, how flighty,
or how feeble or faint.
God would call upon the powers of the universe,
to bring God’s people home.

God would move mountains, dry up seas,
and would march down that carved out
highway faster and more terrifying,
than an army on forced march,
just to gather up her lost sheep,
and hold each one of them close to God’s
constant heart.

God’s Dream or the Seer’s it doesn’t matter.
Except the Seer had the dream often enough
to remember its illogical contours,
its outrageous realism,
and to tell the dream often enough that those who
first stopped and laughed incredulously
at the four lane highway carved through the wild mountains
now began to wonder themselves at the sight of it,
that just maybe, roads can be built
between exile and home,
between the impossible and the possible,
between hurt and reconciliation,
between war and peace,
between infidelity and forgiveness.

The Dream of the Seer, or of God, it doesn’t matter which,
lived on in every generation seeking a way home,
until it led one wild-eyed, honeyed-locust eating Seer
John the Baptizer,
out in the wilderness, to find that highway,
and there to stand watch,
and to herald, to be the Gospeller, the one who cries out the glad tidings,
that God the mighty is coming again down that highway
in the guise of an infant,
in the dripping wet guise of one of the baptized,
in the guise of a rabbi called Jesus who healed the blind and lame,
so that they too could dance in the
street, the highway of the Lord!

The Dream of the Seer, or of God, it doesn’t matter which,
lives on still in every generation seeking a way, seeking home,
including this one.
A dream of a highway that God has caused to be built,
between our exile our alienation, our despair,
our longing, our lostness,
and our home in the heart of God.
This dream lives on, of God coming close,
mighty, or tender, known or barely recognizable,
right down that highway into those places of our lives
where God is most needed.

Not in the original text, but as preached on Sunday:
I hope when you go home today, you will each take a nap.
I hope that some of these words will lodge in your subconscious,
in the places where dreams are born,
and that you will dream.
This dream: that wherever you need it in your life,
God is building that highway from your exile back home to God’s care.
I hope you’ll dream of marching down that road towards home,
and that you’ll see coming towards you, God,
striding out to meet you, and to enfold you as a shepherd
enfolds the nursing ewes.

Sweet Dreams, one and all.
May this Dream come true for you this Advent.

What are we waiting for?
(Isaiah 64:1-9)

Audio version

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

What a day!
Did you know the first Sunday of Advent is actually
the first day of the year in the Christian Calendar?
Like any New Year’s day, it’s a great day for new beginnings -
a great day to choose to welcome babies and adults
into the family of faith.
My heart is full at these signs of hope, and newness in our midst!
It’s been a crazy week of preparation, but so hope-filled, it’s been fun.

But I always feel flat-footed this time of year,
never quite ready, despite all the buzzes and reminders,
on lectionary websites, calendars, clergy mailings,
and the flurry of activity in the sanctuary to change the banners,
set up the wreath,
and those Coffee House singers on Friday – who must have been practising to be ready for that wonderful evening!

Perhaps I’m not the only one who rushes breathless into today,
startled that “it’s here, ready or not!”
Perhaps I’m not the only one who trudges through November
resisting the trappings of Christmas that appeared overnight,
even before the candle wax had dried in our hallowe’en pumpkins!
And perhaps I’m not the only one who’s a little confused over
just what “it” is that I’m barely ready for?

What are we waiting for, preparing for?
What is this Advent?
What is the point of all this tinsel,
and red, and evergreen and sleighbells?
What are we waiting for?
And will “it” be all it’s cracked up to be?
Will “it” meet the expectations of marketplace or of heart?

Inside the malls, and inside the church we seem to be
all watching and waiting for something,
but, I’m pretty sure that we’re not all waiting
or hoping for the same thing,
despite the attempts, inside the Malls,
and inside the Churches,
to tell us we are.

The mall says “The most wonderful time of the year”
can be created with just the right purchases,
just the right ring tone on the smart phone,
just the right car that will drive us to that perfect family reunion,
decked out with lights, the scent of turkey and evergreen,
the next best perfume from Gucci,
and the jaw-dropping “perfect gift.”
And we know it isn’t so…..
Dreams of sugarplums rarely come true, despite our best efforts,
but we do it anyway, hoping against hope.
The church says….. well, what does it say these days?
Some churches will decry all the commercialism of Christmas,
will put up banners saying “Jesus is the reason for the season”
and will replace those impossible consumerist expectations
with equally impossible spiritual ones
– advent services, advent studies,
rigorous singing of Advent (not Christmas) hymns,
and perhaps even a few haranguing sermons reminding us
that Jesus was a refugee baby born to an unwed mother
in a cow barn,
and he will change your life,
if you let him into your heart.

And here we all are,
caught in the expectations and hopes of both those worlds,
sifting through the wrapping paper
to find what it is we’re waiting for.
No wonder it’s confusing.
Overwhelming, even,
and for some, dreadworthy.
Because whatever it is we’re waiting for
will have to meet the challenges of our real world,
in here, and out there.

And finally this is where that dark reading from Isaiah comes in.
Unlike Paul who is doing a bang up advertising job
declaring the best of all possible worlds,
that we have it all together,
that God has given us every perfect gift to keep us holy and perfect
while we’re rushing through Advent to Christmas,
or through life towards heaven,
Isaiah’s is the lone honest voice in the room.

He comes into our Advent Sunday,
our newness and hopefulness
with a lamentation for a world
that’s not meeting expectations,
and more to the point, a God who is not meeting expectations either.

In Isaiah’s world, an entire nation has lived for a generation
on Obama-like audacious hopes of a changed world order,
a time when God will lead them home from exile,
back to the golden city on a hilltop – Jerusalem –
there to worship God, and live off milk and honey,
pomegranates and olives, and wine,
and an abundance of meat and wheat.
God the restorer of the fortunes of Zion,
the shepherd folding her sheep once more in safety and plenty.

Only it didn’t pan out quite like that.
The city was a crumbled crater of ash and ruin,
the vineyards were flattened, olive groves burned,
the fields a mess of weeds,
trampled flat by defeated armies,
the economy is in tatters, the houses have no roofs,
and the temple is gone,
God has apparently vacated the premises.

The perfection of promises rarely pans out as we hope.
TV or prophetic visions of the perfect world
bear little resemblance to their or our realities:
the family who instead of anticipating the Christmas gathering
with joy,
is grieving the empty chair of parent, or child.
Likewise, the family with not enough money for a meal,
let alone a tree with presents,
is not hoping for, but dreading the coming season.
Hopes and realities are cruel cousins, making mockery of one another.
Olden day theologies of fairness – reward for the just, and punishment for the wicked,
crumble under the unfair chaos of reality,
and God – our tried and true image of God – is called to account,
as Isaiah does here.
“Come down God, make yourself known!
It’s you we’re waiting for!”

I’m thanking God for the discipline of the lectionary today,
so that despite my wishes that Scripture for today
would have been hope-filled and baptismal-baby proof,
garnished with tinsel and candles,
instead we given Isaiah
and his lamentable word of honesty
for this real first day of Advent.

A day when the turning of the calendar does not erase the
imperfections of our private, and even our public lives.
A day when despite advertising’s best efforts,
we are fearful, worried, exhausted,
with stretched bank accounts, and tapped-out families,
unable, and even unwilling anymore,
to paper over our imperfections,
and yearning for a moment, an hour of honesty
when we can open heart and lung to say,
“O God, I wish that you would tear open the heavens
and come down,
do those amazing things that put the world to rights before.
I wish that you would come into my life
and do those things with me and mine.
I wish that you could show me somehow,
in some corner of my real life,
that you care, that you hold me in your hands
like a potter holds soft clay.”

That’s what we’re waiting for, God.
That’s what this season is about, God.
That’s what our Advent will be about, God.
Watching and waiting for you to come
in all your newness, in all your unheard of strangeness,
into the imperfections of our world.

And thank God, that Isaiah has given us the words to say so.

Amen.

Reign of Christ

Christus Paradox: The Politics of Power in the Kingdom of God

(Matthew 25: 31-46)

Audio version

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

One of my ‘go-to’ websites for preparing for preaching is called ‘workingpreacher.org’ where there is a weekly audio podcast of a conversation between Biblical scholars and Preachers on the Lectionary texts. This week’s ‘episode’ began not with the texts, but with the name of today in the Christian Calendar, “Reign of Christ Sunday.” The conversation began by suggesting a) most folk in the pews would have no clue what that means and b) that they are not really likely to care that much either.

“It might be wiser,” one voice suggested (timidly) that we preachers in non-hierarchical or theologically liberal churches “tiptoe gently past the “Reign of Christ” designation for today, hoping no-one will notice. This is a sermon so I’ll temper my response for public consumption.

First, the Gospel text doesn’t let us tiptoe anywhere, does it? It’s an in your face, scary text which paints the “Son of Man” – aka the bearded prophet Jesus, now dead and risen, rising on a cloud, surrounded by angels, looking every inch the Ruler, with the rod of judgment in his hand, nudging some rather clueless looking sheep to his right, into a cloudy gateway to eternal bliss, while prodding the backsides of others into a pit of sulphurous eternal fire and torment. Try getting past that with no one noticing, or asking questions!

Second, it’s precisely in churches like ours that we need to take on this text, and the implications of a Sunday called “Reign of Christ,” if we are to have any word of hope or grace to speak out against the exclusivist, fundamentalist interpretations of this text that have led to so much xenophobic, closed-minded notions of what God’s kingdom and rule is in and for the world.

Our Identity and Values statement at Cedar Park claims that we are an open faith community seeking to make Jesus’ message, teachings and way of life relevant and real in a complex and often hurting world. We of all people then need to be able to proclaim with compassion and intelligence that the “Reign of Christ” in this world is about healing, feeding, seeking and finding, compassion and reconciling love.
To do that, we can’t shuffle either this text, or this “Reign of Christ” under a carpet. We need to know how both become life-giving for us and for the world.

“Reign” and “Rule” are words treated with world-weary cynicism by many and outright suspicion by many others, so that their use in church and in our culture is understandably risky and problematic. The current proliferation of “Occupy” movements from New York to Brisbane are populist expressions of an attempt to replace ‘rule’ by the few (whether they be bankers or politicians) with ‘direct democracy’ and consensus decision making, no matter how unwieldy that may be. The so-called Arab Spring occurring across Northern Africa and in the Arab Gulf throughout this year is likewise a groundswell of uprisings of popular dissent whose intent was to replace the ‘reign’ of dictatorial rule in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and even Saudi Arabia. The “reign” of one over many, it seems, is being challenged across the globe in unprecedented ways. Closer to our own religious home, Quiet Revolution in this province, and secularizing tendencies across the country all signal the reality that centuries of patriarchal and hierarchical structures of formal Christian religion are being fundamentally challenged.

Not surprising then that the word “reign” and its kindred moniker for God or Jesus as “Lord” have become too hopelessly loaded for them to have any life-giving, hope-filled meaning for so many people. Those who are at Chez Cora this morning have voted with their feet, choosing to have nothing to do with a religion of rules for separating sheep from goats, good from bad, heaven from hell. And those of us still coming don’t come for a guilt trip, nor even a “Lord who reigns,” but come hoping, seeking for meaningful ways to feed our souls, to find compassionate purpose and meaning for our lives, while experiencing the welcome of a community that feels like home. Perhaps the suggestion to leave text and date aside are wise after all?

And yet, I’m reading this text at the end of a Christian year that’s been trying to tell me something important, elusive, confusing at times, but ultimately radically different about this Jesus Christ, and the God whose Dream he came to fulfill. It began last Advent, with Scripture texts that proclaimed our longing for a “Prince of Peace,” and Christmas came along, and we found ourselves as stunned as those travelling Magi who looked for a King and found a homeless refugee baby as God’s harbinger of the ‘new world order.’ We stood stunned by a cross, the Roman Empire’s electric chair, as this child now grown stared death in the face with nothing but hope, and love. And who in so doing, defied the apparent finality of death with the resurrection seeds of compassion and hope sown in the lives of those whom he had shown how to live God’s Dream. Together we have spent the Summer and Fall with Matthew’s Gospel, watching Jesus paint powerful, word pictures pregnant with meaning and possibility, parables of God’s Heaven-on-Earth, to be found in lost coins, tiny seeds, banquets for beggars, and most clearly in the compassion of a wandering Rabbi who lived God’s compassion with bread and healing touch.

The politics of power in the Kingdom of God seems to be working upside down and back to front. The Kingdom of Heaven, the reign of God, something that Desmond Tutu helpfully calls “The Dream of God” is pretty much everything opposite to the human made kingdoms of the earth. In God’s Dream, as we saw three weeks ago, the blessed are not those with the most power, but rather those who suffer for righteousness’ sake, the blessed are those who are grieving, or suffering, or hurting, and therefore held closest to the heart of God.

Which brings us back to the scary text. Despite what centuries of powerbrokers of religion would have us believe, this text is not a description, or a prescription, nor a prediction of the final judgment, but yet another word-picture, yet another parable. It is as full of the ridiculous, of hyperbole, and of the unexpected, as all the parables and word pictures Jesus has told before to help us see God’s Dream for our world as one of eternal compassion, and universal reconciliation.
(We don’t have time to parse each verse here, but I’ve made an attempt on the BWS blog)
And more to the point, Jesus’ point in this parable is to ask us to see ourselves at work in this kingdom, this Dream of God that even now is at work within the world. Every day, we individually and collectively face the choice to indulge in Dream-weaving of living this Reign or Dream of God in the ways we relate to the world and all its – God’s – beloved creatures. We get to choose to be citizens of God’s reign/dream when we choose to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, companion the outcast, clothe those whom the world leaves exposed. If that’s what this text, and this Reign of Christ is all about -
– living Jesus’ upside down, inside out soul-feeding, compassionate purpose-filled life, where we work alongside God to heal, to bring home safely, to share blessing with those who most need God’s blessing, then, count me in. Jesus can be my pilgrim guide, my Shepherd, my Lord. Amen.

All Saints

“Blessed”
(Matthew 5:1-12)

Audio version

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

Today in our Church we’ve created a rather peculiar combination:
we begin our annual stewardship campaign on the day
we’ve also chosen to celebrate as the Festival of “All Saints.”
Stewardship campaigns, with Bill’s brown pouches,
tend to be focussed on programme, activity, and gritty things like time and money,
and the present and future,
whereas “All Saints” has a very different mood,
of reflection, poignancy, and memory.
“Bit of a stretch”, and “strange combination” ?
Yes to both.
But then again, this crazy life is sometimes like this,
the mixture of past with present, earthy with holy,
memory with hope, sadness with anticipation, pain and joy.
And this crazy Christian life we try to lead,
following the Rabbi Jesus is every bit as
full of stretchy combinations.
Jesus was a master at bringing the most unlikely things together,
alliances that somehow resulted in new life-giving possibilities.
As our Gospel reading for today shows.

It’s one of those Top Ten Scripture passages,
one that many people recognize…
“ Blessed are the….. for they shall be….”
If we can’t list off all the blessings, we recognize the rhythm.
We settle in, waiting to be comforted by this Good News.
As we listen, we even hear the connection between the text and
this ancient Christian festival of All Saints – the day when we remember
loved ones who have died.
We need to hear on a day like this that those who mourn will be comforted.

There’s nothing too strange about the connection between Mourning and comfort,
the strangeness comes when we add the word
“Blessed.”
Nine times, mantra like, Jesus says
“Blessed”
“Blessed are those who mourn”
“Blessed are you when others persecute and revile you”
“Blessed are you who suffer”
“Blessed are you who work for peace”
“Blessed are you who are downtrodden”
Blessed? Really?
If, as one group of Biblical scholars has proposed,
the Greek “Makarios”
might be better translated as “Congratulations!”
this preacher feels like she’s landed in a mess of trouble
that no amount of word parsing and commentary reading will solve.

I left the commentaries aside on Friday,
stumped and half-buried by a failed attempt to write a sermon
called “the grammar of blessedness” – be grateful, it was dry!!
Instead I found myself energized by the sheer physicality of
walking among fallen leaves, under a blue sky,
with crisp air nipping my nose,
listening and watching the scurry and scuffle of hoarding squirrels,
so that step by step, my life, life itself
slipped into a perspective of blessedness
that no book could have shown me.

“Blessed” to have lived this particular autumn day,
with its hints of decay
making life all the more precious.
Blessed to have that walking interlude
where my imagination rather than my brain
‘played with’ these strange combinations that Jesus sets before us.

What was it about his experience of the world that made him say
“Blessed” in combination with persecution, or sadness, or hunger?
What happened in his life to think that ‘blessed’ belonged in times of trouble?

Jesus, the child whose parentage was ‘doubtful’
within a religious culture where purity of blood meant everything.
Jesus, just a young boy when his father Joseph was buried.
Jesus, the Galileean in a culture where Jerusalem was “the epicentre.”
Jesus, the prayerful mystic, teacher and healer in a world of rules, and order.
His was not a silver-spoon fed life.
He had experienced more than a fair share of hard times,
yet “blessed” is the word he connects to such hard times in everyone’s life, not just his own.
How? Why?

I wondered, perhaps he’s painting a picture of an idealized world,
in some far off future, when perhaps if we get everything squared away,
mourners might not have to grieve, and maybe no one will have to suffer persecution….

But, even without the books I realized Jesus’ grammar
was ‘indicative’ not conditional.
He was telling it like it is.
These nine “Blesseds” are snapshots,
sound-bites, word pictures of what is,
at least of what it is that he saw, and sees.

let me see if I can show you… (leave pulpit)
Blessed are you… who mourn…. you shall be comforted.
Blessed are you… who hunger and thirst for justice…..
Blessed are you…. when others revile you for the things you do…

Jesus sees blessedness in the midst of the mess.
I saw blessedness in a red-gold maple, and a blue sky,
but Jesus sees blessedness within the pain on your face,
or the ache in your heart.

I think we need to find out what
“Blessed” means to Jesus.

Simply put, it means
“To be touched by God.”

It’s not difficult, after 2000 years of Christian Tradition
which has tried to show us a mighty Saviour,
Son of God, judge of living and dead,
to have forgotten that the human life of
Jesus, Mary’s barely legitimate son from Nazareth
was hard, poor, painful,
filled with misunderstanding, persecution, hunger, sickness,
fractured family, marginalization.
And yet, he saw this life of his,
as ‘Blessed’
touched by God.
Jesus knew the healing touch of God in his most wounded places.

More to the point,
Jesus’ whole life was spent in the attempt to tell us
to convince us, to promise us, to help us experience for ourselves,
that our life is also touched by God.
Touched where God’s touch is most needed.

“Blessed” is not a reward, but a life preserver.
We are “blessed”
Not because we deserve it,
not because our skin colour,
or sexual orientation,
or religion fits some encoded list of acceptability,
nor yet because we’ve suffered, or learned enough and deserve a break.

We are blessed because we are alive.
We are blessed by God so we can live.
To have lived is to have been blessed by God.
All of us. All Saints. (It’s what that means) All . Touched by God.

Today, we will light candles for brothers, aunts, fathers, children,
neighbours, brothers and sisters of this community of faith,
whose lives have been touched by God,
blessed with healing,
blessed with comfort,
blessed with forgiveness,
blessed with belonging,
blessed with love, with fulfilment.
Our lives have been blessed by theirs.
All our lives, lived and yet to be lived, are blessed.

As these candles are lit, they will become our silent
reflection of the image of God and of ourselves that
Jesus has given us in this Gospel:
We are all touched by the loving healing hand of God,
and we are all
“Blessed.”

God Bless.