Between the Resurrection and the Resurrection: Reflections on 1 John 3.1-7

 

Between the Resurrection and the Resurrection

Reflections on 1 John 3.1-7

 

RCL Easter 3B

14 April 2024

 

Parish of Saint Stephen the Martyr

Burnaby BC

 

         In last week’s sermon I mentioned that this year will mark the forty-third anniversary of my ordinations to the transitional diaconate and to the presbyterate.  Some of you, I know, have been active in the life of the church as long or perhaps longer than I.  We have witnessed so many changes in the church.

·      We have witnessed the church embracing the remarriage of divorced Christians and the marriage of LGBTQ couples.

·      We have witnessed the full inclusion of women in both lay and ordained ministries.

·      We have witnessed a decline in public participation in congregations even as congregations have embraced taking care of their neighbourhoods by doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God.

·      We have witnessed our still on-going effort to build reconciling relationships with Aboriginal communities and to restore right relationships with all our neighbours and with the earth, ‘our fragile island home’.

  

       The church into which I was baptized seventy-one years ago, in which I was confirmed fifty-nine years ago and for whose service I was ordained forty-three years ago is not the church of my grandparents and not, in many ways, the church of my parents.  And I am convinced that the church as it is now is not the church that our children and our grandchildren will know.  And I am at peace with this because I believe that Christians are always living in ‘the already but not yet’ of God’s promised renewal of creation through the resurrection of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.

         This is the same faith that the writer of 1 John is sharing with his audience.  His community was living in as turbulent and challenging a social, political and religious climate as ours.  The cradle of Christian faith, what we now know as Israel and Palestine, was caught between the Roman Empire and the non-Roman imperial powers to the east.  Jerusalem had been besieged and destroyed by the Roman army in 70 ce and would be besieged and destroyed again in 135 ce.  Those who believed in Jesus as the risen Messiah, at this time mostly Jews living in the Middle East, were being thrown out of their synagogues, were being considered as potential threats to Roman political authority and were experiencing internal conflicts over what it means to confess Jesus as Lord.

         To them the writer of 1 John, sometimes called ‘the Elder’, shares wisdom for our times as well.

·      Because God so loved this world, matter, the physical stuff of the kosmos, matters.  Therefore, the choices you and I make, the loves we nurture and the wrongs we strive to right, matter to God.

·      Abiding in sin means knowing what we are called to be and to do but choosing not to turn aside from this calling.  Knowing what we are called to be and to do and striving to be and to do these things but falling short is simply our human reality.  God’s question is whether when we fall we will repent and return to the way of Jesus.

·      We are and we are not yet God’s children.  Our identity as God’s children is actual and also potential, just as we recognize our own children are but are not yet fully who they are to become.

·      This is a message of hope not despair.  Even as we acknowledge that our world is not yet as we would hope it to be, not yet the world as God envisions it, we can affirm and proclaim that God is not yet finished.  Creation, as the saying goes, is a work in progress.

         You and I are witnesses to these affirmations.  But we are more than witnesses; we are also co-workers with God in bringing God’s vision into fruition.  Our wounded God, disabled and yet divine, has given us faith to see that vision pierced and embodied in Christ, who stands among us, feeding us forgiveness and empowering us through the Spirit to be who we are and who we are yet to become, the children of God, the first fruits of a new creation – within our sight even if not yet within our grasp.

Jane Leggett April 3, 2024 Memorial Service & Celebration of Life

Here is the video recording of my mother's funeral.

Choral Eucharist for the 1st Sunday after Christmas on 31 December 2023

Simeon the prophet speaks of 'falling and rising', a reminder that when we fall, God is present to help us rise.

Let Us Sing of Falling and Rising Again: Reflections on Luke 2.22-40

Let Us Sing of Falling and Rising Again

Reflections on Luke 2.22-40

 

RCL Christmas 1B

31 December 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            If you grew up singing in an Anglican church choir or attending celebrations of morning and evening prayer, then you have had heard one if not all of the Evangelist Luke’s great gifts to Christians – the Song of Zechariah, the Song of Mary and the Song of Simeon.  Over nineteen centuries of Christian devotion, these songs have found a permanent place in our services of daily prayer, the eucharist in some traditions and, more recently, the funerals of the faithful.  All three songs celebrate the world being turned upside down by God in the coming into time and history of the Word made flesh, Jesus, son of Mary, son of Joseph, son of God.

 

            In our tradition the Song of Zechariah is the gospel canticle for morning prayer and the Song of Mary the gospel canticle for evening prayer.  Simeon’s song is more often used at Compline, the night prayer that brings our day to an end in faith and trust in God’s care and compassion for us.  It exists in many translations, but let me share with you the translation from today’s reading:

 

Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace,

according to your word,

for my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel. [1]

 

In one continuous Greek sentence are packed some important messages for you and me today as we come to the end of the year and to the end of my time with you as Vicar.

 

            ‘Master, you are dismissing your servant in peace.’  When these words are heard in the context of today’s gospel, we are immediately led to think that Simeon is speaking of his approaching death.  After all, he was promised that he would not die until he saw the Messiah.  But let me offer you a different interpretation.  Simeon is not speaking about his death but about the completion of his mission.  Our word ‘dismiss’ comes from the Latin word meaning to be sent or to be commissioned.  God entrusted Simeon with a mission of waiting for the coming of the Messiah and to be among the first to see that God’s promise was going to be fulfilled.  Now that he has seen Jesus, Simeon has been dismissed honourably from his first mission, waiting for the Messiah, and now begins his next mission, sharing the good news that his waiting has not been in vain.

 

            ‘(For) my eyes have seen your salvation.’  Never forget that salvation means human beings fully alive and able to become who they truly are creatures made in God’s image and called to live in God’s likeness.  Salvation is not about being rescued, unless we think of rescue as being saved from false expectations and delusions about what it means to be stewards of creation and living in harmony with God, with one another and with our own souls, minds and bodies.  Like Simeon, you and I have seen God’s salvation in the lives of our families, our friends, ourselves.  We know that the world as God wishes it to be is not beyond our reach if we ‘think globally and act locally’.  

 

‘(A) light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’  We who follow the way of Jesus are light to our neighbours.  Our light may not always shine as brightly or as clearly as we might wish, but our life and witness wherever the followers of the way of Christ gather can bring the promise of help, of hope and of home to those who are on the edges.  Our commitment to the work God has entrusted to us here brings ‘glory’ to all people of faith, especially in a world where many doubt the value of faith.

 

Just after Simeon proclaims his song, he also speaks words that some have interpreted as being somewhat sinister:  “Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.’” [2]  It is not so much sinister as truthful.  We proclaim a gospel that speaks of the world as it is being turned upside down to become the world as God intends it to be.  There are many in our world who will find this message a threat.  To be fully truthful, the gospel is a message that unsettles me as I begin my retirement with a degree of confidence, comfort and security that many here in Canada do not share.  What cost am I willing to pay so that no one is hungry, no one unsafely housed, no one at risk of violence or medical distress?

 

But I am struck by the phrase ‘the falling and the rising’.  We are used to hearing ‘the rise and fall’.  But here Simeon reverses this expected order.  The message of the gospel does cause many to fall – we fall from our illusions about the world, we fall from our self-pride and self-centredness, we fall from our failure to see the dignity and humanity of others who differ from us.  Our falling takes many forms.  But our falling is the moment when the possibility of rising becomes real.  Our failures, our disappointments, our frustrations are doors that open onto ‘a better homeland’.  As one of our prayers of thanksgiving puts it, “We thank you . . . for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.’ [3]

When I preached my first sermon here on Canada Day 2018, I quoted from a song from the late Canadian folk singer, Stan Rogers, his ballad ‘The Mary Ellen Carter’.  If you don’t know the song, it’s a story of a group of men trying to raise the sunken ship that had been a part of their lives and had been abandoned by its owners.  The final chorus echoes Simeon’s message about falling and rising.

Rise again, rise again – 

though your heart it be broken

And life about to end

No matter what you’ve lost, 

be it a home, a love, a friend.  

Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

 

            Friends, as God dismisses me from my mission among, I go in peace.  I go in peace because I have seen God’s salvation alive and well here among us.  I go in peace, because I know that we have been and will continue to be a light in this neighbourhood and Diocese and that our ministry here does honour to our forebears who begin this congregation almost one hundred and sixty-five years ago.  I go in peace because none of our falls can compare to our risings.  We shall rise because the work God has begun in this congregation is not yet finished.  And we shall grow in wisdom and in favour with God and with our community.

 

---

[1] Luke 22.29-32 (NRSVue).

 

[2] Luke 2.34 (NRSVue).

 

[3] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 129.

 

On the Road to Bethlehem -- Yet Again

 On the Road to Bethlehem – Yet Again

Reflections on Luke 2.1-14

 

Christmas Eve

24 December 2023

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            One of the last photographs I took of our Shetland Sheepdog, Seren, was in April of this year as he and I prepared to take our usual walk in McKittrick Park across from our home in North Delta.  He’s looking at me with an expression he used at the beginning of every walk, an expression which says, ‘Let’s get a move on.  I’ve got places to smell, squirrels to control and a world to organize.’

            Seren belonged to that group of creatures for whom the journey is more important than the destination.  This meant that he and I had totally different ideas about what the purpose of a walk around the park was.  It took years of training to stop Seren from visiting every tree in the park, but it was impossible to prevent him from stopping at certain regular places on the trail.  It did no good for me to say silly human things like, ‘It’s the same tree as yesterday!’  Seren would just look at me with a look that said, ‘It’s sad that you live in such a limited sensory world.’

            Every once and a while I would remember on our walks that I actually do enjoy travelling and I admit to having a certain wanderlust.  I’ve been fortunate to have had a career that has taken me to places I would never have thought I’d visit – the Solomon Islands, Myanmar, Aboriginal communities in Canada and the United States.  So, if Seren wanted to check out a particular spot, who was I to deny him the pleasure?

            I’m not so sure that Mary and Joseph would share Seren’s philosophy of travelling.  They faced dangers and hardships that few if any of us have.  Their journey to Bethlehem was not one of their own choosing but an exercise of imperial power and coercion.  Perhaps they were part of a larger company that included members of their extended family, but the story of their arrival in Bethlehem suggests that is was sauve qui peut – everyone for themselves – to find food and shelter in a small town now swollen with unwanted people from throughout the Jewish territories.

            Each year at this time we retrace their journey.  We mark each stage by singing familiar carols that cast their journey in a somewhat romantic light coloured by our memories of other Christmas Eves in our lives.  But this year we tell the familiar story in the shadow of the atrocities committed by Hamas and the staggering consequences on the civilian population of Gaza by the Israeli military response to those atrocities.  Being on the road to Bethlehem tonight is not about a pleasurable road trip but about the flight of thousands throughout the world to find safety from violence.

            Here we are, disciples of the Holy Child, on the road with the Holy Family.  We, like Mary and Joseph, and millions of others over the centuries are seeking that ‘better country’ God has promised us.  We are ‘strangers and foreigners on the earth’ for we are seeking a homeland, ‘a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one’.

            The heavenly homeland we are seeking is not some dwelling place in the clouds.  Our heavenly homeland is an earth where every human being is free to become the person God means them to become.  Our heavenly homeland is an earth where no one has to flee for safety and where we are free to enjoy every step on the journey of life and to savour every stopping place.

            Over the past five and a half years I have been drawn closer to Pacific Immigrant Resources Society, one of our community partners.  Each week refugee and immigrant women and their children gather in the Parish Hall to study English, to learn about Canadian culture and to heal from the journeys that brought them here.  I’ve made a point to be a visible but discreet Christian presence given that many come from places where Christians are a minority who keep a low profile.  Every time I see these women and their children, I see a Holy Family seeking shelter and I have an opportunity to be the innkeeper who, on the behalf of our Parish, can say, ‘There is plenty of room in this inn for you.  Come in and find help, hope and home.’

            All of us are on the road to our Bethlehem, our better homeland.  Not all of us have the privilege of enjoying every stage and stop on our way.  Our annual commemoration of the Holy Family’s journey to their Bethlehem renews our commitment to helping, in whatever way we can and by whatever resources we have at our disposal, others reach their destinations in safety and well-being.  We’re all on the road – yet again – may we all reach the destination God is leading us towards soon.

            

 

 

Midweek Eucharist for Advent Ember Day I on 20 December 2023

God's mission, begun in creation, renewed in the incarnation and empowered by the Spirit, continues in us. There is no back-up plan.

A View from the Vicar for Tuesday, 19 December 2023

Have you ever wondered whether the Archangel Gabriel had visited any other women before Mary and asked them the same question only to be told 'no'? I'm not trying to upset orthodoxy, but I am hoping that my question will lead us to grasp that God works with us to achieve God's purposes. Our 'yes' to God is always to question that we are capable of answering.