Requiem

We are holding a Requiem service this coming Sunday June 23rd at 6 pm.
I want to take a moment to reflect on why we are doing this.

We are a small community that mainly gather's together on Sunday evening, on the edges of American Christianity.  We seek to create a space that is ecumenical and in being ecumenical allows for exploring Christian faith and growth in Christian faith without needing to identify with a particular denomination or tradition within the Great Tradition of the Church.  One aspect of Christian faith and ritual practice we, as a small and currently young adult and middle aged congregation, have little chance to connect with is the theology and rituals around death and grief.

Also, being a small congregation, when deaths do occur within our extended network, the funerals do not take place in our worshiping community.  People go home, or to another church, or if the deceased wasn't religious, go to the funeral parlour.  In the past year three of our members had parents die, with no way for our community to ritually mark and grieve together.

These two things have come together and lead  to us deciding to have a Requiem Service, or perhaps more accurately an All Soul's service, a commemoration of the dead and celebration of the hope of the Resurrection.  We do this so that we may remember together those who have passed recently or not and sit together with our faith and our hope in the Resurrection as aspects of the Christian Tradition that embraces us.

As we the pastors have prepared this service we each in differing ways have had to sit with our own struggles and grief and face what the Christian Tradition presents us with in the face of death and grief.  we have found challenge, but also healing and comfort and hope.  We hope those who come to worship this Sunday will find all this as well.

All are invited to attend this special service at 6 pm this Sunday June 23rd.  Note that this is not our regular worship time of 5 pm.

Sunday June 23rd Requiem Eucharist 6pm

On Sunday June 23 we will be having a special Requiem Eucharist.

For this Sunday only we will have our service at 6 pm, and not at our usual time of 5 pm.

Trinity Sunday Sermon

The Trinity is a mystery; you don’t have to understand it. Just accept it and let’s move on. I’ve heard countless stories of people who have been told this. Underlying all this is the question, how can there be only one God if there are three?

To tell you the truth, that question never bothered me. In a similar way I instinctively understood the Hindu theology that there are not actually 1000 Gods, but rather they are all manifestations of Brahman, the one God. That God manifests multiply, without being divided, is a concept that never troubled me.

But then, the true challenge of Trinitarian theology has to do with things like substance, nature, the difference between begotten and made. Tricky metaphysical concepts that are fun to read about and were quite important to Church history, but not anything I’m going to go into today.

Lately when I speak of the Trinity to people who have no idea what I mean by Trinity, I find myself using the language that God has different flavors. It was an unconscious choice of words; I could just have easily said that God had different frequencies, different textures, or different smells. I suppose the fact that we taste Christ in the bread and wine was an influence on my word choice. Different experiences was what I was trying to get at.

Along those lines I often turn to an expansive and inclusive take on the Trinity. It’s from Ken Wilber. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think of himself as a Trinitarian, but he has spoken of a three person pronoun model of connection with the divine. I, You, It. I (the divine within: Holy Spirit, soul, Buddha nature, etc.), You (divine in relationship: personal God, Christ, presence), and It (divine as Ground of Being: The Wholly Other, the Great Mystery, the Universe, Emptiness).

If you will permit me a little proof texting, let’s look at today’s readings. The divine within us: God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. We are not God, but we have received the Holy Spirit, something we have inside us.

Divine in relationship: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes… he will take what is mine and declare it to you. We are in a relationship of continual revelation with the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

God, the Wholly Other: Sophia tells us She was begotten by The LORD at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. We are being told of God before there was any being.

I mentioned earlier that the Trinitarian question didn’t trouble me. What does trouble me, challenge me and also engage me in today’s texts is gender.

I do not believe that God has a gender. Neither do I believe our spirits have genders. On numerous occasions it’s been suggested to me that I have a woman’s soul. That’s not how I would speak about it. I don’t equate my soul with my subconscious. Having ministered to people whose consciousness was compromised, they’re essence, they’re spirit, clearly did not reside there. I do not claim my essence is female, my internal knowledge of my sex is.

I bring all this up because it’s so very tempting for me to read today’s passage from Proverbs as giving a female gender to the Word. John’s Gospel opens with an adaptation of a hymn to Sophia: the begotten through whom the world was created. If gender was found in the Spirit, wouldn’t that make Jesus, the Word incarnate, trans or at least genderqueer?

Qualities that Jesus tells us are blessed, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers; are these qualities anyone who aspires to machismo would admit to? Jesus taught forgiveness, love of enemies, non-violence, things I’ve been chastised as a sissy for suggesting.

Compare these to the often used passage in Paul, about suffering building character. How often has this been used as an excuse to justify the “toughening up” a boy child through bullying?

The repetitive male pronouning of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel text this evening reminds me of how many feminist will female pronoun the Spirit, equating Sophia with the Holy Spirit, God’s breath over the waters at creation, rather than the Word. And it’s an understandable impulse. Father and Son being male words, Holy Spirit not intrinsically gendered.

The trouble of course with playing games of this nature – of applying first century Palestinian qualities to modern US ideals of gender – is that these qualities are assigned to a different genders from culture to culture, they’re not consistent.

Essentialism is the monkey wrench in the works here. While I can’t go so far as to suggest there’s nothing essential to our sexual bodies – hormones do have their effect on how we are in the world – Essentialism insists there is no variation in those effects, insists that the effects are oppositional (if female is emotional, male cannot be) and unchangeable. This disallows a loose, poetic, inconsistent use of gender in speaking of God; which is the only appropriate way to gender God.

I think, though, that thinking of God the Father as actually gendering the pre-gendered God, misses the significance of Jesus calling the Wholly Other Father, or more precisely Abba – closer to Daddy than the formal Father. And that IS the point! The lack of formality. Jesus has an intimate, personal relationship with the God before being. Jesus experiences love from that source. It is through Jesus, through God in relationship that we too can have an intimate relationship with our source, with the source of the Universe. Long before we return to that source. Here and now.

I was speaking with someone yesterday afternoon who has been a sincere seeker for many years. Try as they might, no experience of spirit has happened for them. We spoke of various different ways, different approaches all which my friend had tried. There wasn’t time, but I suspected in probing deeper we could find that there was something, they just didn’t recognize it as such.

That is my hope. That the intimacy Jesus offers us is available to all. I know God is present everywhere. I also experience the fall to be our constant amnesia of that presence. I don’t believe I, or anyone else who has had the gift of feeling the presence, is special or elite. I know that hard work, dedication and discipline I prayer has opened me up to that feeling, but is not a way to force that feeling.

The Trinity, in many ways, can help us to focus on one of the flavors of that presence, one that we might be more oriented toward. In my own journey I’ve been more in tune with the Spirit or the Creator or Christ at any given period. That flavor of presence one I am better able to focus on, one I more naturally seek.

But what the today’s texts ultimately increases my awareness of, is how the relationship between the three is in play, even when I think I’m only focused on one.  All that the Father has is mine the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you. Revelation is through this relationship.

A really good sauce is one in which the flavors are not all mingled together, but are revealed in layers, taste after taste catches our senses. As we cycle through our connection to the three persons of God, as we taste each flavor, we are experiencing them all. Don’t swallow too fast claiming there wasn’t much to taste. Pay attention; roll it around your spiritual tongue. You might notice a flavor you didn’t catch before. The relationship between the flavors will gradually say to us what we cannot bear now.

 

Readings for this sermon: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31/Romans 5:1-5/John 16:12-15

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

What strikes me as I read today’s texts is that Jesus doesn’t stop appearing to us. Paul has said that “Last of all he appeared also to me.” And yet what about Ananias? The Lord appeared to Ananias, who responded with the traditional prophet’s response, “Here I am.” The Lord conversed with him and sent him to do something remarkable.

And what a remarkable disciple Ananias was! If someone came to town with a warrant for your arrest and possibly execution –simply because of your faith –  how eager would you be to get within 50 feet of them?  And yet Ananias cared for and healed this persecutor of the church – even called him brother. If that isn’t loving your enemies, I don’t know what is.

Love features prominently in our Gospel text as well. A chapter seemingly added on after the conclusion of John’s Gospel, as if to indicate that Jesus continues to be present to us. A feature of many resurrection stories is that Jesus isn’t always easily recognized. It’s worth remembering that both Jesus and Paul elude to the fact that the resurrected body will not be like the bodies we have now. In this story, it could seem like the reason is that Jesus was at a distance - except that after they were ashore, none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Why would they even think to ask the question if the evidence of their eyes isn’t what told them it was the Lord. I suspect it’s not simply because John and Peter said so. Not unlike the Emmaus story though, there is a connection between recognition and a meal. For it was just after food was offered that the “Who are you?” question is raised.

There are very interesting echoes of previous moments in John’s Gospel’s here. They are at the Sea of Tiberius, where the miracle of the loaves and fishes took place, and in fact that’s what’s for breakfast. John’s gospel is the only Gospel that doesn’t explicitly have the institution of the Eucharist. Instead Jesus talks about how he is the bread of life elsewhere bedsides the Last Supper. Let’s note that – we’ll come back to it later.

For now, let’s talk about love. Three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Another interesting echo is there’s a charcoal fire, the kind of fire Peter was huddled by when he denied Jesus three times. This story is pretty clearly about Peter’s reconciliation. And being confronted with the mistreatment of someone you love can hurt. A lot. Because unfortunately, loving someone doesn’t guarantee you will always treat them well.

And so Jesus lets Peter know how he can treat Jesus like he loves him. He can feed his sheep. One needs to be very careful in John no to take things Jesus says literally. In fact in John’s gospel there are many stories where someone takes Jesus literally and he has to inform them he’s speaking of heavenly things.

It might be easy to simply see this challenge to feed his sheep as a call to charity. Or it might refer to Peter’s Bishopric, tending to the flock as one in authority. But alms and authority can easily become earthbound things. Here is where I will remind you that Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus might just be saying, “If you love me, feed my sheep with me.”

In many ways, that is what the Eucharist is. Feeding Jesus’ sheep with Jesus himself. This is why I cannot treat the Eucharist as a mere symbol. It is a symbol, but it is also much more. It is a way to love Jesus. To reverence, cherish and nourish yourself with him. Whatever your theology, even if you think you haven’t a mystic bone in your body, how might it change you to approach being fed by the Lord as if it was really him? As if it was how he wanted you to love him? Because if Paul’s story tells us anything, it’s that an encounter with the Lord can change you – quite dramatically!

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that all it takes to love Jesus is to eat his body and drink his blood. Think back to what Jesus asked of Ananias. To feed on Jesus is to feed on love beyond what our instincts tell us is safe.

You have no doubt heard that God is love. I feel that instinctively, and yet I also know that God is beyond anything we can understand. If God is more than love, transcends our limited grasp of love, what can we say of love?

It helps to think of Jesus as the incarnation of God’s love. We can know God is love by knowing Jesus. Knowing Jesus better is one reason why reading scripture is an essential part of a Eucharistic service. Especially if we listen with open minds, willing to hear something about him we might not have known before. You never really know everything about someone. In a recent visit with my ex, whom I lived with for 20 years, I discovered things I didn’t know about her before.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is that Jesus’ intimacy with his Abba was blasphemous at the time. God was the wholly other, unapproachable, all but the high priest were barred from the Holy of Holies, and even he was only permitted there once a year.

Jesus dearly loved the wholly other. Is it then any surprise that Jesus loved all the human “others” he came across? Might that not be a way to feed Jesus sheep? To show his love to those we think of as “other?”

Because the Eucharist doesn’t really end after the service. We are sent out at the end to love and serve the lord. Feeding Jesus to others doesn’t have to be an invitation to the Eucharist, doesn’t have to be spreading the Good News, though certainly if it seems appropriate, by all means do so. I would suggest that the more demanding way of feeding Jesus to others is to love beyond your instinct to love.

Readings:

    Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) 

    Revelation 5:11-14 

    John 21:1-19

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

There’s a prayer you may have heard of, it’s called the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. One thing I try to remember when saying that prayer is I cannot change the past. There is no way to go back in time and do things differently.

Today’s scriptures speak of letting go of the past and looking to the future. Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead. Interesting indeed since so much of scripture reminds us again and again of the glorious deeds of God in the past, even in this very passage from Isaiah.

There is a spiritual principle here. Holding on to the past can keep us from moving forward. Regrets, disappointments, resentments, judging others based on past actions even if they’ve shown growth in the meantime, can inhibit the free use of our hearts as we attend to the present. And yet, it’s not just that spiritual principle that’s being spoken of here, there’s something else going on.

Before we get there though, Paul again ups the ante. He doesn’t merely not dwell on the past, he counts it all as rubbish, throws it all away. All in order to gain Christ, admittedly a much higher goal.  The goal mentioned in Isaiah, though, seems at first much simpler. So that they might declare my praise.

I had a moment of clarity at prayer then other day...

I was praying the psalms and it was yet another of those, "you've totally crushed me to bits, but you need to rescue me cause the dead can't sing your praises" type of psalm.

And honestly, I often thought that was a lame reason to ask for help. Not that I think some kind of bargaining promise would be better, save me and I’ll give to the poor for example. A simple appeal to God’s mercy and love would have seemed more appropriate to me. On the other hand, that could also end up sounding like, “If you really loved me, you’d give me what I want.”

But in that particular moment of prayer I remembered a few of the many stories in John’s Gospel where Jesus says, "This happened for the glory of God, that God may be glorified through the Son.” And I had a sense of something, something much like what Paul is talking about. That in letting go of all the things I value for their own sake, the things I might on my own value scale deem worthy to pursue or pray for, I can live a very similar life to the one I’m living, but more fully dedicated to the greater glory of God.

And so the inkling that mercy and love would be more appropriate for prayer, is realized in the very singing of God’s praises themselves. Because to speak of God’s glory is to speak of love. As Jesus says in prayer, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

In contrast to glory – and this really is a minor digression – I find it interesting to note how in each successive gospel Judas is more and more maligned. In Mark, Judas’s motivation isn’t made explicit, but it does happen immediately after the anointing incident (where it is not Judas alone that objects to the use of such expensive ointment) and is offered money after he agrees to betray Jesus. In Matthew, Judas asks for the money up front. By Luke the devil enters into Judas. And by John, Judas is a thief long before the betrayal, and the sole disciple objecting to the anointing. 

Now, earlier I spoke of something else going on in today’s scripture. The Lords says “I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” What might this new thing be? Let’s look at a moment of perception in the Gospel. “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Perfume for the day of Jesus’ burial. This something new God did involved Jesus’ suffering and death. His resurrection too, to be sure, but let’s for the moment look at death.

In a culture so obsessed with success and material wealth, in a culture that demands we are happy all the time, that extolls the “high” of romantic love but rarely mentions the deeper love of relationships that have survived trials of fire, it doesn’t seem to make sense that glory involves suffering, death & loss. Yet Jesus tells Peter that Peter will glorify God through Peter’s death. Paul has suffered the loss of all things.

But loss, grief, suffering doesn’t have to hold us back any more than regrets, disappointments or resentments. We press on because Christ Jesus has made us his own. We can be found in him. The Lord has formed us for herself. Psychologically, it’s been suggested that if a child is raised with a firm foundation of being loved – being delighted in for their own sake – that establishes a security that will give them the coping skills to endure most any tragedy.

 

Let us then, delight in God’s love for us. Let us remember that whatever we have done or failed to do; however much time we may think we’ve wasted in vain pursuits; however much we have to genuinely repent of; however unsure we may be of the choices ahead of us; we are all basking in the glory of God. That God is love and God first loved us. That loving God back, no matter our fate, that loving God back is glorifying God.

 

Readings:

Isaiah 43:16-21 - Philippians 3:4b-14 - John 12:1-8

 

Holy Week and the Three Days

This Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Lent, which means Holy Week is right around the corner.

Find details for our Palm Sunday service here.

For Holy Week we join our host church and St Elias christian Church to celebrate The Three Days
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Great Vigil of Easter.

Check out Immanuel Lutheran Church's website for more details.
Services on Thursday March 28th and Friday March 29th are at 7:30 pm.  Vigil on Holy Saturday begins at 7:15 pm.

We hope we might see you at one of these services.

Palm/Passion Sunday

Sunday March 24th, 2013 5 pm

Eucharist with Palm procession and meditative procession on the Passion Gospel of Luke