Outline for the wedding service of Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger.

OUTLINE FOR WEDDING SERVICE

GATHERING

Prelude/Music

Entrance (procession)

Greeting/Welcome

P:            The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

All:            And also with you.

P:            Friends, we are gathered here today in the presence of God and of one another to share together to bless the public commitment of Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger to a lifelong covenant of fidelity and mutuality. The bond of marriage was given by God who created us to be in covenant and community. We acknowledge the reality of human failure; yet we affirm the joy and freedom of lifelong union.  In the assurance of God’s promise to be with us, let us open our hearts in faithfulness and in hope.

The Declarations (Statement of Intent)

P:            Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger , you have made it known that you wish to be  joined together in marriage.  If either of you, or anyone here present, can show just cause why you may not lawfully be married, now is the time to declare it.

P:            Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger , you have made it known that you wish to have  your marriage blessed and honoured according to the rites and customs of this gathered community.   Before God and before these witnesses, do you freely confirm that you have come here to give yourselves to each other in marriage and will you honour and love each other for the rest of your life?

Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger :  We will, with God’s help.

P:    Will you support one another in love so that you may both grow into maturity and wisdom?

Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger:   We will, with God’s help.

P:            Will you do all in your power to make your life together a witness to love in the world?

Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger :  We will, with God’s help.

P:            You, the friends and family of Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger are witnesses to this marriage.  Will you support Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger in the promises they have made?

All:            We do.

P:            Will you celebrate the goodness of God’s grace evident in their lives?

All:            We will.

P:            Will you stand by them, encourage, guide and pray for them in times of trouble and distress and join with them in times of joy and celebration?

All:            We will.

P:            Do you give them your blessings?

All:            We do.

Prayer

P:            O Lord our God, who didst grant us all things needed for salvation and didst command us to love one another and to  forgive one another our failings, do Thou now, Ruler, Lord, lover of good and of humankind, bless these thy servants  Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger , who love each other with a love of the  spirit and have into thy holy church to blessed by Thee.  Grant them unashamed fidelity, true love, and as Thou gavest to thy holy disciples and apostles thy peace and love, grant to them also these, Christ our Lord, bestowing on them all things needed for salvation and eternal live.

All:            Amen.

SERVICE OF THE WORD

“Gift from The Sea”

In the years together one recognises the truth of Saint-Exupery’s line “Love does not consist in gazing at  each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”.  A good relationship has a pattern like a dance built on some of the same rules.  The partners do not need to  hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but swift and free, like a  country dance of Mozart’s.  To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to  check the endless beauty of its unfolding.  There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging  arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing.  Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to  back – it does not matter which, because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating  a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.

When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to  moment.  It is an impossibility.  And yet this is exactly what most of us demand.  We have so little faith in  the ebb and flow of life, of love, or relationships.  We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.   We are afraid it will never return.  We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only  continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are  free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

Ann Morrow Lindbergh

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BLESSING FOR A MARRIAGE

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.

May you always need one another – not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you.

May you need one another, but not out of weakness.

May you want one another, but not out of lack.

May you entice one another, but not compel one another.

May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another.

May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.

May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!”

and take no notice of small faults.

If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.

May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another’s presence – no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.

May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.

May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.

~ James Dillet Freeman ~

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John 2:1-11 (English-NIV)

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Dear woman, why do you  involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants,  “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water  jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from  twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants,  “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet  tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

This, the first of his miraculous  signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

(Music)

Sermon/Homily

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT WEDDING HOMILY

This is a liminal moment, a time when all things are possible, when the future becomes shaped by the choices and experiences of the moment.  It is a dangerous moment, an awesome moment, a terrifying moment, a hopeful moment, a joyous moment.   We are present when a new life, a new relationship, is birthed.  We are present to celebrate the marriage of Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger.

In the faith community I am a part of the role of clergy in a marriage is that of a formal witness—we confirm that the relationship we communally acknowledge has already had the ontological moment, that intimate and permanent change within the individuals that has moved them from being separate to being somehow both autonomous and one.   We may sign papers and perform certain rites, but these are the publicly shred expressions of what has occurred.   That change may have occurred the first time Karl and NIcholas saw each other; it could have occurred during an argument; it could occur as soon as all the documents are signed.  But at some point Nicholas and Karl felt certain that they had not only found someone to love but were different because of this love.   At that point their marriage began.

The validity of their marriage is not determined by the rites of the church or the regulations of the state.  It is in the hands of God to verify that the sacrament of marriage is valid.  Our role is to celebrate the choice of Karl and Nicholas to share in this sacrament.

Since that moment their relationship has grown.   Part of what has helped it to grow has been the families Nicholas and Karl are a part of.  How they view marriage and love was formed by those who nurtured them and who have been nurtured by them.  Even when they have learned that sometimes marriages are not forever, they also learned that marriages can last and love exists.  You have to have some vision of what is possible through love to take the risks of living in love.

Another part of what has helped it to grow has been those who have come to be a part of their lives—those that they have worked with, have laughed with, have argued with, have dreamed with.  You have to have your rough edges and your vulnerabilities tested by others before you can truly accept the challenge of living in love with someone.

Because of the families and friends and communities that have formed and sustained Nicholas and Karl, they can love and care for one another, can grow as individuals and as a couple, can accept new shared responsibilities and new opportunities for delight.

What begins today for Karl and Nicholas is a quest—a journey that will change them in unforeseen ways.

They know that the future is uncertain, that it contains both wonder and delight as well as struggle and worry.  But it is a journey they undertake willingly and with confidence that however the future unfolds, however they individually

experience the challenges life brings them, that together they will be transformed and renewed in unforeseen ways, in ways that they can not yet comprehend.

There will be ebbs and flows in their relationship—but through the good times and the bad I am confident that Nicholas and Karl will find ways to renew their commitment to each other, will find ways to explore their love for each other in fresh ways,  will weave their individual lives together into a strong and vivid tapestry.

The third reading we heard today, the turning of the water into wine at a marriage feast in Canann, is for me a profound reminder that daily life is inherently sacred.  Christ’s first miracle wasn’t healing the sick or raising the dead—it was ensuring that the celebrations of a community could continue.   In the changing of water into wine we are urged to consider that the most simple things in life can be transformed from mundane to wonderful.

There is also a lesson in the reading we tend to overlook.  Christ changed his mind.  He chose to listen to someone else, to meet their needs and that of those around him, rather than hold stubbornly to a pre-set plan.

This spirit of compromise, of being willing to listen to the needs of others, to change direction while being true to one’s self is key to any successful relationship.

I am honoured to have been asked to share today in this celebration.  In their desire for marriage they remind all of us that we are never alone, of the possibilities of love in an often uncertain world.  Karl and Nicholas, may you live from this day forth in love and hope.

The  Marriage

Prayer

P:            Almighty God, you send your Holy Spirit to fill the life of all your people.  Open the hearts of these your children to the riches of your grace, that yhey may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All:            Amen.

The Vows

(With right hands joined, reciting after the presider)

In the presence of God and before these witnesses, ____________________, I give myself to you from this day forward, in joy and in sorrow, in good times and in bad, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.  This is my solemn vow.

The Giving of Rings/Blessing of Symbols

P:            Bless, O God, the giving of these rings, that those who wear them may live in faithfulness and love all their days, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All:            Amen.

Exchange:

I give you this right as a sign of the covenant we have made with God and with one another.  Amen

THE KISS

The Proclamation

P:            Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger have made a covenant of marriage before God and in the presence of all of us.  They have confirmed their marriage by the  joining of hands, by the exchange of rings and by the giving of a kiss.  Therefore,

I declare them to be joined together, their essences woven together and made one.

The Blessing of the  Marriage

P:            May God bless, preserve and sustain you; may God look upon you with favour;

May God fill you with all blessings and give you grace that you may in the life live together in joy, and in the world to come have life everlasting.

All:            Amen.

Signing of Documents/Registrar

P:            Greet Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger  who are joined in marriage.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

P:            Let us pray.

Abundant God, Lover of all creation, pour out your blessing upon us and upon the marriage we celebrate..

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In solitude and companionship,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In tenderness and intimacy,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In knowing and in being known,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In self-sacrifice and self-offering,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In comfort and consolation,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In doing justice and making peace,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            In generosity and hospitality,

All:            Be with us, Spirit of God.

P:            O God, ruler of all, you made us in your image and likeness and bestow upon us life and blessing.  You command your followers to be united by the new commandment of love.  Receive the prayers of your people and grant to Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burger grace to love each other all the days of their lives; for you are a compassionate God and a lover of all within your creation, and we glorify you now and forever.  Amen

Exchanging of the peace

P:            The peace of the Lord be with you.

All:            And also with you.

P:            Let us extend to one another signs of love and reconciliation.

Lord’s Prayer

P:            As Jesus taught us, let us pray:

All:            Our Father in heaven

hallowed be your Name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those

who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial,

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours,

now and for ever.

Amen.

Blessing/Commissioning

P:            Spirit of God, in whom we live and move and have our being, you have given us life and the grace of human love that draws us to each other.  Today we pray for Karl Clemens and Nicholas Burge in their life together. We are thankful for the joy they find in each other and for the hope they declare in this act of marriage.  May they always be strengthened to keep the vows they have made, to cherish the life they share, and to honour each other in love.

All:            Amen.

Sending Forth

P:            Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and one another.

All:          Thanks be to God.

RECESSIONAL/MUSIC

Elements for this service were taken from Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (John Boswell); Same-Sex Unions Stories and Rites (Paul Marshall);  and The Celebration of Marriage: for optional use in The United Church of Canada.

Investing for Justice – Canadian Alternative Investment Co-operative

For 25 years the Canadian Alternative Investment Co-operative (CAIC) has pooled investment resources of Canadian charities, currently all faith based, to work towards a transforming, more just and equitable society. Worker co-ops, women’s shelters, community loan funds and resource centres have found in CAIC a source of funds to help achieve a shared vision of a world where the gifts of creation are more readily available for all.

CAIC has worked with fair trade initiatives such as La Siembra.  CAIC has worked with housing co-operatives such as Margaret Lawrence Co-op. From co-operative radio stations to a community bakery, and from Vancouver Island to Yellowknife to St. John’s, CAIC has played, and continued to play, a unique role in
Canada.

CAIC is an investor co-operative. Its members need to make a return on their investments to help ensure their own viability. But CAIC’s members attempt to do something more with their resources—-they share what they have to support co-operatives and community initiatives. Investments must result in a social good.

CAIC was born in the shadow of Vatican II and liberation theology.  25 years ago representatives of religious orders came together to give a practical expressing to a desire to be a positive transforming presence in the broader society.  While definitely faith based and Catholic in orientation, CAIC was formed not
to advance the Christian faith but to ensure that the preferential option for the poor, and particularly as it was expressed in the spirit of the beatitudes, Matthew 25: 31 – 46 and Acts 2: 42 – 47, was given concrete expression while ensuring the stewardship and oversight requirements of those entrusted with a charities’ resources was maintained.

Over the past 25 years the membership of CAIC has grown beyond the Catholic roots, bringing in such bodies as The Canadian Friends Service Committee, Trinity St. Paul’s United Church and the Student Christian Movement of Canada. Each new member brings additional financial resources and a renewal of the vision of the founders, a renewal that ensures that as the priorities and needs of Canadian communities change, CAIC can find a way to share in meeting these needs.

Recently the Ontario Region of the Canadian Co-operative Association honoured CAIC for its creative and unique work.

It would be great if CAIC grew, both by bringing in more members from among the Christian community and by growth in the broader charitable world.   CAIC’s by-laws require members to be Canadian charities; there is no requirment for members to be connected to a faith community. What is required is a desire to share the financial resources of the charity through a revolving loan fund. The loan fund works in the world to support initiatives that may not be able to find funds elsewhere, projects that house the poor, build fair trade enterprises, encourage individuals and communities to pool their own resources in co-operative and community economic initiatives and in many other ways promote a more just and sustainable world.

CAIC is not a charity but an investment organisation of charities that find within CAIC a way to fulfil their mandates, gain a return on their investments and help others create transforming alternatives across Canada and, indirectly through fair trade efforts, around the world. The larger the membership of CAIC, the greater the investment pool, the greater the impact CAIC can have in the world.

I have a personal stake in CAIC—I represent the endowment committee of the Student Christian Movement to CAIC and sit on CAIC’s board. I am unique among the directors in that I also sit on the board of a project—-St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing Society—that has used the resources of CAIC. Without CAIC St. Clare’s would have far fewer units of affordable housing to offer. Without CAIC the investment options available to the SCM would be fewer, and investment options that help promote social justice would be almost impossible to find.

I encourage anyone involved in a Canadian charity that has resources to invest and a vision of a better world for others to promote membership in CAIC. Information on CAIC can be found on its website: www.caic.ca.

Thoughts on Strike Breaking

It’s been a long time since the Honourable David Croll resigned from the Ontario cabinet stating “I would rather walk with the workers than ride with General Motors.” It recent times it has almost become a badge of honour for politicians to oppose organised labour, up to and including organising strike breaking efforts. This became very apparent in the recent strike by employees of the City of Toronto.

 

City Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, a former NDP MPP, who served as a union local president and the first declared candidate for next year’s election for mayor of Toronto organised residents to do the job of striking municipal employees. Two other possible candidates for the mayor of Toronto—provincial liberal cabinet member George Smitherman and former Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader John Tory also organised strike breaking initiatives. And not only local politicians—one prominent charity War Child Canada also organised efforts to do the work of striking employees. Its past president, Eric Hoskins , won a recent provincial by-election for the Ontario liberals.

 

With these examples before them it is not surprising that Vale Inco promotes the using of scab labour during the strike in Sudbury or that Cadillac Fairview has locked out and then fired all their unionized staff and replaced them with non-union labour. If successful politicians gain votes from strike breaking, it gives legitimacy to anti-union activities in the broader world.

 

Strikebreaking has a long and dishonourable history. Sometimes it involves the direct hiring of replacement workers. At times it involves other forces doing the work of those on strike. It pressures unions to back down and creates permanent tensions in the workplace, giving even more power to management than it already has in the always uneven struggle between employers that own the jobs and those that are leasing their labour power.

 

While private sector and government employers have brought in strike breakers in the past, it has rarely been done with so much direct involvement by politicians and so little outrage.

 

This bodes poorly for the future well-being of society. The stronger the union movement the stronger all aspects of civil society are. Unions create a work in which there is more justice in the work place, greater community accountability and an ongoing pressure for a more egalitarian society. It is not surprising that a strong independent union movement is opposed by totalitarian and authoritarian states. It is far more surprising when attacks on the union movement becomes wide spread even amoung those that have benefited, and continue to benefit, from the union movement. And it does become frightening when political leaders feel that setting an example by strikebreaking is something helpful in a politicial career in a liberal democratic society.

THOUGHTS ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF ST. CLARE’S

I wish to thank all of you for coming together in this celebration
of 10 years of work in developing affordable housing, joining together
to share with the staff and board of St. Clare’s as well look forward to
two new projects—150 Sudbury and 200 Madison—being brought to life.

This has been a very long and very short ten years. St. Clare’s
came together because there was, and is, a real need for decent, secure affordable housing. When we first came together we would have been
delighted to have created a few units of affordable housing. 177 units
later, we have achieved more than we thought possible and there are more
than 250 new units just over the horizon.

It hasn’t been easy. Funding isn’t easy to obtain. There have
been outbursts of opposition that leapt past NIMBYism to “Not in
their back yard”. Finding ways of ensuring that there are supports in
place for more vulnerable people to be able to successfully live in our
communities is an ongoing and essential, but not simple, work.

But this work is truly worthwhile, truly essential. Living
in communities that St. Clare’s has worked to develop are people who
have moved from homelessness to a place of their own. Some have gone
back to school; many have gone onto employment. We’ve even had someone
move out because they were able to buy a condo. The range of skills and
talents and dreams of those that have found a home with St. Clare’s
is inspiring and a humbling reminder of why our work is so important.
It is hard to not see the need around us. People sleeping on the
streets; overcrowded shelters; affordable housing waiting lists that
are 10s of thousands long. Those that are a part of the work of
St. Clare’s, and other efforts to respond to homelessness, see those
in need and take it to heart. You pray for us and those we work for.
You reach into your pockets, give of your time, devote your lives to
make a meaningful contribution to addressing the problem of
homelessness and the personal challenges so many marginalized
individuals face. Your practical compassion changes the world
around us and gives hope for the future.

10 years ago, when we started out, St. Clare’s was a small group
of people committed to sharing our resources as best we could to meet
a real human need. We knew that we couldn’t do much on our own
so we found dedicated people to work for us and on behalf of those
who we offered a home to. We found a core of support in the faith
community that enabled us to go beyond reflection to achieving
something in the here and now. We were surprised by the
willingness of all levels of government to share in our vision.
Lenders were found that were confident that we’d be successful in
building our projects. Social agencies dealing with the homeless
have formed partnerships with St. Clare’s that have permitted truly
life transforming work to be done. And individuals, foundations and
corporations have come forward to ensure that gaps in resources
wouldn’t become a barrier to our effort to make a real difference in
the lives of the vulnerable among us. St. Clare’s Multifaith Housing
would have achieved nothing without you.

Again, thank you for sharing in our work and in this celebration.
Let us go into the future together, sharing what we have to ensure
others will have something to share.

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON – JUST LIKE STARTING OVER

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON:
11:00 a.m.., October 18, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave.
Toronto, Ontario

1st Lesson: Ephesians 4: 17 – 32
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.  But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.  Be ye angry, and yet sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.  Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Gospel: Matthew 9: 1 – 8

And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy;  “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”

And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, “This man blasphemeth.”

And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee’; or to say, ‘Arise, and walk?’ But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”

Then saith he to the sick of the palsy,  “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.”

And he arose, and departed to his house.  But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS
(Just like starting over)

Over the years I have the opportunity to work for a more peaceful and compassionate world alongside many dedicated people. My focus may have shifted over the years, from opposition to war to addressing hunger and homeless that in the reality for so many even in a place of plenty. But my motivation has always been to express in the public realm my understanding of how God wanted all those with creation to treat one another. The most challenging times were those spent with those, such as Ruth Morris and Fred Franklin, who worked with those seeking a healing, transforming approach to crime in the world—sometimes expressed as victim/offender reconciliation; at other times as healing the wounds of all those affected by a criminal act.

Perhaps the best description of this can be found on Margo Arrowsmith’s website Squidoo where I found the following description of what such an approach is based upon:

Restorative Justice posits a paradigm shift
that is best understood by asking the oft-
quoted “three questions.” The more
common three questions for a system of
justice to ask are “1. What laws have been
broken?, 2. Who did it?, 3. What do they
deserve?” Restorative justice asks, “1. Who
has been hurt?, 2. What are their needs?, 3.
Whose obligations are these?” Zehr,
Howard. The Little Book of Restorative
Justice Intercourse, PA: Good Books. 2002.

There have been occasional miracles—for the me the first one being the Kingston store owner who, after being the victim of vandalism, agreed to have the offenders to repair the damage. In the time they spent together, both the victim and the offenders learned to see common humanity in someone they had previously pushed aside. The store owner ended up hiring people he at one point wanted to punish. There are stories of healing and reconciliation involving far more serious crimes that more experienced practitioners of healing justice
have been involved with—victims of rape; victims of torture; the families of murder victims.

Such overturning of expectations is at the core of our faith. If it works in the big, overwhelming experiences of life, it surely can be made real in the daily ebbs and flows of our lives.

We do not need to be trapped by habits and decisions that lead us to actions that harm ourselves and others. We see this in big ways such as when a decorated soldier speaks out against war. We see it when we work to make amends with those we have harmed—perhaps through a meaningful apology to our spouse or by paying for the replacement of someone’s tools we’ve lost or inviting an estranged relative to a holiday meal. If we change the way we usually behave, we will change the way others treat us and eventually the way they treat others.  We build the new Jerusalem by feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and by healing our relationships.

We need to start this process very close to home. Paul also tells us, in Romans 13:9 to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” You can’t care for others if you don’t care for yourself. Just as one can’t be guaranteed food unless everyone is guaranteed food, love can’t be truly free in the world if anyone is excluded. Putting off one’s old self includes putting aside self-defeating attitudes and learning that one is worthy in the sight of God, deserving of love and compassion and healing. You can’t put aside bitterness and anger if you hate yourself. You can’t be tender hearted towards others if, in your innermost thoughts, you are harsh and hurtful towards yourself.

Ghandi urged us to “Be the change you want to see in the world”. To see a world without hatred, we need to not hate others; to see a world without war, we need to live in peace with those around us. To see a world where the shalom kingdom is being made real we need to accept that we have a home in it and show the world what this can mean. We need to forgive others and ourselves, we need to put aside gossiping and speaking harshly of others and ourselves, we must accept help when we need it and offer it to others in turn. We are to seek to
show in our private lives what we want for others.

And we can do these things because we are a free people, not trapped in old ways of doing things. We are offered rebirth, a renewal of ourselves. We are offered a chance to both return to Eden and live in the Shalom kingdom—to be in harmony with creation and the creator and therefore in harmony with ourselves. What brings us together are not rules and laws but love and hope. Whether expressed through the social gospel and liberation theology or the 12 Steps or through caring for ourselves and those we share a home with, we weave together a free society of people equally embraced by the divine spirit.

Paul’s epistle is an inspiring passage—we are told that whatever our past we can become a new person. We aren’t chained to what we have done but, thanks to God’s grace, are forever liberated.

God does not want us to be worn down by our personal demons or the ills in the world around us. God does not want us trapped into bitterness or being pushed to the margins. God wants us to experience joy, to know we are loved, to share in the abundance that lies around us.

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon—Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON:
11:00 a.m.., October 4, 2009 – Feast of St. Francis
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave.
Toronto, Ontario

1st Lesson: Galatians 6: 14 – 18

But God forbid that I should glory, save in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom the world is crucified unto me, and I
unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth any thing, nor
uncircumcision, but a new creature.
And as many as walk according to this rule,
peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the
Israel of God. From henceforth let no man
trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks
of the Lord Jesus.

Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 11: 25 – 30

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father:
for so it seemed good in thy sight. All
things are delivered unto me of my Father:
and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the
Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am
meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

Today we commemorate St. Francis of
Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the
environment. He grew up in privilege and
yet embraced poverty; he wanted to be a
soldier and ended up being a voice for
peace; worldly in his youth, he came to
embrace a mystical relationship with the
divine. He lived the contradictions we all
do, and yet never compromised in his desire
to express the love of God in everything he
did.
St. Francis of Assisi has long been the
focus of reflection and a source of
inspiration. His call for a live of voluntary
poverty in a community of service has
inspired many who’ve joined L’arche and
Catholic Worker communities. His view
that priests should be self-supporting
participants in the life of the world inspired
the worker priest movement. His insistence
that no Franciscan speak poorly of Muslims
or the Qu’ran, arising from his experiences
in the Muslim Middle East, was an early
expression of interfaith respect and
dialogue.
His example of prayer and mediation
inspired people to join cloistered orders to
seek through active contemplation a closer
relationship with God.
In my lifetime St. Francis inspired
generations to reconsider the relationship of
humanity to the physical world, finding in
the life of St. Francis an example of respect
for all of creation.
One can even find an echo of the ideals
of St. Francis is current models of palliative
care and the hospice movement. St. Francis
did not fear death and did not fear those
that suffered. He approached everyone as
being equal in the sight of God and worthy
of respect, love and dignity.
St. Francis did not want people to see a
faithful life as a burden but as a joy. For
him, as for Matthew, there is not a harsh
set of expectations for those called to a
faithful life. It is our approach to life rather
than the rules of life that is most important.
God gave us a physical existence to
embrace; a community to embrace; a world
to embrace—if we cut ourselves off from
what we are offered we remove ourselves
from the presence of God. God wants us
to feel that our relationship with the divine
is a comfortable one, not one of fear.
If we are live openly in the presence of
God, delighting in what we are offered
within creation, we will life differently and
with fewer burdens. If we don’t worry
about status or power but do what we can
do to the best of our ability with pleasure
we will be happier and will also create a
space in which there is a little more light
and a little less misery in the world. If we
don’t cut ourselves off from the natural
world, if we act as if we are truly a part of
creation, we will inevitably move towards a
more sustainable relationship with the
world. And we will do so, not by extensive
effort, but through the very normal path of
wanting to show respect and care for a gift
that we ourselves are a part of.
While firmly rooted in the current
moment, St. Francis consistently reached
out to God in prayer, poetry and song—
giving praise for everything that came his
way and thanks for opportunities to care for
God’s creation. He preached to birds and
mediated between humans and a wolf;
comforted lepers and engaged in debate
with leaders of the Muslim world. He saw
all of his actions as a form of prayer and
thus took on the most menial of tasks and
the most exciting of tasks with equal
delight.
St. Francis offers us a reminder that
there is always good in the world that we
can help bring into the light. If we do
simple things like sharing what we have
with others, sharing the burdens and joys of
life, sharing in fulfilling the expectations of
a faithful life outlined in Micah that we are
called “To act justly and to love mercy and
to walk humbly with your God.”, then we
will accomplish more than we can possibly
imagine in bringing to birth the shalom
kingdom.

“The Divine Praises”
Francis of Assisi

You are holy, Lord, the only God,
and Your deeds are wonderful.
You are strong.
You are great.
You are the Most High.
You are Almighty.
You, Holy Father are King of heaven and earth.
You are Three and One, Lord God, all Good.
You are Good, all Good, supreme Good,
Lord God, living and true.
You are love. You are wisdom.
You are humility. You are endurance.
You are rest. You are peace.
You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and moderation.
You are all our riches, and You suffice for us.
You are beauty.
You are gentleness.
You are our protector.
You are our guardian and defender.
You are our courage. You are our haven and our hope.
You are our faith, our great consolation.
You are our eternal life, Great and Wonderful Lord,
God Almighty, Merciful Savior.

SABOTAGING MEETINGS

      It was both surprising and enlightening to find in a recent update to the offerings on Project Gutenberg the Simple Sabotage Field Manual of the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA).    While much of the information provided dealt with physical sabotage and workplace resistance, what I found most interesting was advice on how to interfere with organisations and conferences:

 (11) General Interference with Organisations and Production

 (a) Organizations and Conferences: 

(1) Insist on doing everything through

“channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken

in order to expedite decisions.

(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as

possible and at great length. Illustrate your

“points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­

sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few

appropriate “patriotic” comments.

 (3) When possible, refer all matters to

committees, for “further study and considera­

tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large

as possible — never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently

as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of com­

munications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at

the last meeting and attempt to re-open the

question of the advisability of that decision.

(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable”

and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­

able” and avoid haste which might result in

embarrassments or difficulties later on.

(8) Be worried about the propriety of any

decision — raise the question of whether such

action as is contemplated lies within the juris­

diction of the group or whether it might conflict

with the policy of some higher echelon.

+++++++++++++++++++

Being a meeting addicted person, who has attended thousands of co-op, church, union and community meetings over the years, finding out that what I have consistently found frustrating was recommended as sabotage techniques for those wanting to ensure that organizations couldn’t function well.

Thoughts on the Groundbreaking at 150 Sudbury (aka 48 Abell)

It has been a long time since St. Clare’s began the process to build affordable housing at 48 Abell/150 Sudbury. We had to weave together funding from various sources, primarily from all three levels of government, getting approvals from the City of Toronto, work our way through appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board and to divisional court and maintain confidence that no matter how bleak it appeared the effort to develop new affordable housing was worth the struggle—ground was broken today for 190 units of new affordable housing.

St. Clare’s came together about 10 years ago, arising from Toronto Action for Social Change. We came together to do something practical to address the housing crisis and the ongoing tragedy of homelessness. Over the years we’ve been able to weave together government financing and the financial and moral support of foundations, faith communities, corporations, unions and individual donors to help St. Clare’s, in some small way, address the problems that brought St. Clare’s together.  We continue the spirit of TASC in our approach to development—in essence we are a direct action collective that builds affordable housing.

My family has had a long history of involvement in addressing the needs of the broader world. When my mother passed away we were encouraged to follow he example of working to ensure everyone was welcomed, everyone had a home. She tried to bring to life in the current moment the spirit inherent in the passage (John 14:2): “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.” What St. Clare’s does, indeed what everyone involved in new hosing development does, is to share in the sacred tradition of ensuring that all people have a place they can call their home.

Today’s ground breaking of the 150 Sudbury/48 Abell affordable housing project in the penultimate step in providing new affordable housing in a mixed income community for hundreds of people from a diversity of backgrounds an experiences. It hasn’t been an easy process but the results will certainly be worthwhile. In about 18 months there will be close to 200 new units of housing in Toronto, affordable rental housing in the mixed of a major urban renewal initiative.

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon-Nagasaki Day

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON:
11:00 a.m., August 9, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears
Toronto, Ontario

*FIRST LESSON*

1st Lesson: 2: 1 – 4

This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Gospel: Matthew 5: 1 – 12

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

In ceremonies held on August 6th, to remember the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and today, August 9th, to remember the victims of the bombing of Nagasaki, paper cranes are often shared and on ponds and rivers released. It is a small sign of hope that there will be a time when there will be no more victims of war. Like many ceremonies, there is a concrete beginning to symbols. According to Wikipedia, the use of paper cranes as a symbol of the hope for peace began with a young girl who died of leukaemia a few years after living through the bombing of Hiroshima:

Sadako Sasaki January 7, 1943 – October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who lived near Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Sadako was only two years old on August 6, 1945 when she became a victim of the atomic bomb.
At the time of the explosion Sadako was at home, about 1 mile from ground zero. By November 1954, chicken pox had developed on her neck and behind her ears. Then in January 1955, purple spots had started to form on her legs. Subsequently, she was diagnosed with leukemia, which her mother referred to as “an atom bomb disease.” She was hospitalized on February 21, 1955 and given, at the most, a year to live.
On August 3, 1955, Chizuko Hamamoto – Sadako’s best friend – came to the hospital to visit and cut a golden piece of paper into a square and folded it into a Paper Crane. At first Sadako didn’t understand why Chizuko was doing this but then Chizuko retold… the Japanese saying that one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish. A popular version of the story is that she fell short of her goal of folding 1,000 cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them all with her. This comes from the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. An exhibit which appeared in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum stated that by the end of August, 1955, Sadako had achieved her goal and continued to fold more cranes.
Though she had plenty of free time during her days in the hospital to fold the cranes, she lacked paper. She would use medicine wrappings and whatever else she could scrounge up. This included going to other patients’ rooms to ask to use the paper from their get-well presents. Chizuko would bring paper from school for Sadako to use.
During her time in hospital her condition progressively worsened. Around mid-October her left leg became swollen and turned purple. After her family urged her to eat something, Sadako requested tea on rice and remarked “It’s good.” Those were her last words. With her family around her, Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955.
After her death, Sadako’s friends and schoolmates published a collection of letters in order to raise funds to build a memorial to her and all of the children who had died from the effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also called the Genbaku Dome. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads, This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world.

+++++++++++++

Long before Christ walked the earth a time when war would cease was envisioned. In Isaiah we hear of a time when war would cease and the weapons of war would be converted to peaceful usages. People in a time and place of conflict looked forward to a different world, one where violence towards others would cease to exist. Their experiences didn’t lead them to despair for the future of humanity but rather lead them to see that something different was possible, indeed inevitable. Isaiah tells us of a time when peace would reign—those who first heard these words didn’t know when it would occur, but had faith that if they kept alive the possibility of peace it would inevitably occur. And to keep alive the vision of what God intended for us they described a time of peace in language we can still understand—swords into ploughshares; spears into pruning hooks. From peace groups such as Project Ploughshares to a statue in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York, what inspired those thousands of years ago in Israel still has universal meaning today. If we envision something we can make it happen. The paper cranes floating in the pool at the Peace Garden or the statue of a sword being beaten into a ploughshare keeps alive the possibility that dreams will be made real.

Perhaps we keep a dream of peace alive because we are foolish people. We take as a the basic core of our faith a calling to simple acts in what is an all-too-complex world. We are to love our neighbour, we are to feed the stranger, we are to be meek, we are to be strong in the faith, we are to be peacemakers.

Around us are wars and rumours of wars, often justified on religious grounds. And yet around always are those who speak of peace:

Abdul Ghaffar Khan: “The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: ‘That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God’s creatures. Belief in God is to love one’s fellow men.’”

Abdu’l-Baha: “I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness.”

Fr. Oscar Romero: “Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is dynamism. peace is generosity. It is a right and it is a duty.”

If there is violence in the world the violence exists in opposition to divine will. On August 9, 1945 one bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. According to Wikipedia “the death toll from the atomic bombing totalled 73,884, as well as another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.” This was one act in a war that saw some 60 million die. And in every country, from downtown Berlin to Mennonite settlements in Western Canada, voices were raised that violence was wrong. They may have been drowned out by the wars around them, but they kept alive the spirit and vision of a peaceful world.

We here are fortunate. War is something for memories or history books or the news or letters from someone in the midst of armed conflict. We see the harm of war with limited experience of it. The picture of a girl running down the road with napalm etching into her skin; the cloud over Nagasaki; the destruction of the World Trade Centre; the news story of the wedding party accidentally bombed…the world provides us with knowledge and images that brings home what war can do. The paper crane, the sword made into a plough and the Sermon on the Mount provide us with knowledge and images of what peace is and can be.

On this day when people reflect on war and peace, let us go forth from here taking the Sermon on the Mount into every corner of our lives, trusting that the voice of the prophet heard 3,000 years ago and the voice of the peacemaker heard 2,000 years ago and the voice of the child heard just over 50 years ago are still voiced in our actions and our dreams.

Notes for A More Coherent Sermon – In the Shadow of Hiroshima

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON:
1:30 p.m., August 2, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Social Room, Northview Meadows Co-op
Oshawa, Ontario

*FIRST LESSON*
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
“This is what the LORD says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ “
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.

*RESPONSORAL PSALM*
Psalm 51:1-12
R. Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
C. Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
R. For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me
C. Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
R. Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
C. Surely you desire truth
in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
R. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
C. Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
R. Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
C. Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
R. Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
All: Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

*EPISTLE* Ephesians 4:1-16

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to one hope when you were called- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men.”

(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

*GOSPEL* John 6:24-35

Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

Our world is filled with imperfect people. This has always been the case. From jumping to conclusions to exploiting others to violence in our homes to war—we live within creation as fragile, dangerous, frightened, violent individuals. But our world is also filled with people of compassion and vision, who create havens for victims of domestic violence, who seek to solve disputes between neighbours, who bear witness of the power of non-violence in places of violent conflict, who live within creation as calm, confident, gentle people. Part of our imperfection is that we may be both—at times the peace maker and at times violently driving our opponents from our presence.

Something that gives hope is the fact that we usually know what is right, even if we don’t always achieve it. The Old Testament passage we heard today had King David challenged by the prophet Nathan. When told of an injustice, King David immediately wanted to help the victim and seek to hold the oppressor to account. Nathan brought the message home to David that the oppressor was David, a revelation that lead to a transformation in the life of David and the promise of forgiveness and transformation if David truly repented.

The crime of David was causing harm to an individual—he arranged for Uriah the Hittite to be in the front lines of a battle in the hopes that he would die so David could pursue Uriah’s widow. He used violence for personal ends and, although he couldn’t escape the consequences, he could still find a way to be forgiven for his actions and find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of God.

On August the 6th in places around the world people will gather in silence to reflect on what can happen if we turn to violence for collective ends. We all know that violence is wrong; we may understand it and justify it in certain circumstances, but deep inside we always want something different to occur.

We look back at August 6, 1945 and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima with understandable horror. Approximately 140,000 people died by the end of 1945 as a direct result of the use of one small bomb. Some justify the use of the bomb as a way of shortening the 2nd World War. But even they would have preferred that another option had available that would have had the same result without so much killing, so much destruction, so much unleashing of fear about what we could do to all of creation.

Whether translated as “Thou Shalt Not Kill” or “Do not murder” the 6th commandment tells us very clearly not to take the life of another. Whether for personal reasons or to pursue national interests, killing another is wrong.
On September 11, 2001 it seemed that the world was about to let itself embrace the God of War and turn away from any understanding of the God of Love. As I often do, not completely unlike David, I responded in words:

BUT IN WHOSE NAME?

My memory of war is all second hand
—I was not at Mai Lai. I was not running down the road
with napalm etching into my flesh.

I did not watch my feet rot in trenches
or wake up with my neighbour’s blood dying my shirt
or believed, somehow, that my battles lead to freedom and to peace.

I was not on a bridge in Belgrade or
at an airport in Grenada or
in a schoolroom in Baghdad or
in a factory in Dresden or
at a church in Nagasaki or
in a hospital in Stalingrad or
in an office in New York.

Nor is my memory of serving peace first hand.
I have not sat in the Gulf Peace Camp or
prayed in Chiapas or planted trees outside Hebron or
disrupted the School of the Americas or
handed out leaflets in Burma or
sat with the families in East Timor or
fasted with the wives outside Gestapo headquarters.

But I have held the children of war.
I have talked with the veterans of war.
I have added my prayers to the voices for peace.

It has to start somewhere.
In the here and now war is being waged
and in the here and now the seeds of peace are being looked for.

The war is waged in someone else’s name. Not in mine.
The work for peace is in the hands of us all, including mine.

++++++++++++++++++

We, as individuals and as a society, aren’t perfect. But we can reach out towards perfection. We can seek ways to bring into the present the eternal Shalom Kingdom, a world in which violence and hatred and suffering does not abound. We can sow the seeds of a new world by turning away from what we know harms others and seeking to ensure that what we do does not add to the suffering of the world. And we don’t have to wait until we achieve perfection before we accept this responsibility. Imperfect people can still stock the shelves of a food bank, drive a neighbour to the doctor, donate to a homeless shelter, bite their tongue to avoid speaking in anger, refuse to kill. Imperfect people doing good things is at the heart of the shalom kingdom—we all have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we all can also be a reminder of the loving presence of God within creation, showing what is possible if we open ourselves up what God offers to all. We can be an instrument of God’s peace for all of creation.

WHY IS A STRONG LEADER DESIRABLE?

I’ve not understood opinion polls and comments claiming that the current Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, is more popular than Stéphane Dion because Harper is a strong leader. Jack Layton’s campaign stresses that he is a strong leader. For me, a person that can facilitate a meeting, bring different views together to come to a common understanding, who puts collective wisdom and experience ahead of individual ego and ambition, who listens and considers other views seriously—in short, someone who doesn’t act as a strong leader but rather is an encourager of the skills and ideals of others, who sees grassroots and community based initiatives as at least as valid as what comes from those at the top, is far more preferable than a strong leader.

Over the years I have grown fearful of strong leaders. They may be able        to get focused action for a time but in the long term organisations that are built around a strong leader aren’t sustainable in the long term, ultimately aren’t as a creative and certainly are less accountable.

I find expressions of a desire for strong leadership crossing the mainstream political spectrum. From those that claim that deregulation is great and the government needs to get off the backs of people to those that see government as a resource for positive socialchange, it doesn’t seem that ideology determines ones view on strong individually focused leadership.   Indeed, while I can understand those that want to solve a social problem to consider strong, central authority something positive I am constantly surprised by those that oppose the state apparatus doing something positive for people, distrusting big brother and wanting government off   their backs, calling for law and order to get the state on the back of those they are ideologically opposed to.

Just like I don’t understand academic plagiarism (why do people have so little confidence in their own ideas and arguments?), I don’t understand the desire for strong leaders. What occurs in our society, in our personal social development, that leads people to want to be told what to do and how to do it and to distrust their own abilities and insights? In times of uncertainty especially, when the ability to bring people together to use their individual ideas and skills to meet common goals should be of more importance than coercing people to achieve a single vision, the call for a strong leader seems to be raised even louder. This desire for a centralising of power and authority is frightening.

Perhaps the desire for a strong leader is a search for an ultimate sacrificial lamb. If something goes wrong it is the fault of the leader, not of us. Having someone to blame may be easier than sharing in the responsibility to solve a problem. It doesn’t result in a better solution, but we can individually feel left off the hook if we give the power over to a strong central authority. And, when the strong leader proves to be as human and frail as we are, a strong leader can be attacked for imperfections we forgive in ourselves. We get to be a hypocritical judge as well as avoiding a shared responsibility to work together towards solving common problems.

Perhaps I do understand what strong leaders are popular after all. I still don’t like the concept, though. Too much harm can be caused by such a centralising of power.

THOUGHTS ON REMEMBRANCE DAY

I couldn’t help thinking today of those that made the possibilities of peace and justice a little more real, closer to being achievable:

Fedelina Costa

Medger Evers

Ginger Goodwin

Franz Jägerstätter

Sophie Scholl

Tom Fox

Archbishop Romero

And thousands upon thousands who did what seemed impossible—lived their lives as people committed to peace and justice in times of violence and oppression. It is due to their keeping alive a tradition of hope in periods that may seem hopeless that has truly made it possible for anyone to live in places of relative peace and security.

They did not serve in disciplined armies. They did not take up arms against the forces arrayed against them. But they did speak out. They leafleted, fasted, fed the hungry, sheltered the refugee, walked the picket lines, refused to kill, prayed, sang, petitioned, refused to turn away from those in need. They were mocked, assaulted, arrested, imprisoned, killed.

They did not become those they opposed. They continued to love their enemies, feed the hungry, honoured the creator, write satirical folk songs, pray, celebrate with the wrong people, remember, dream.

We don’t easily recall their names or faces. We saw them on the bridge at Selma; We saw them at Tiananmen Square; We saw them putting flowers in the barrels of guns at the Pentagon and draping garlands on tanks in Prague. We read about them in May Square or Rosenstrasse.

We recall them in various church litanies and old labour songs. Occasionally made saints, most often they were part of the unmarked chain of ordinary people who just did ordinary things in times when too many others didn’t.

If I am free today it is due to the ongoing work of those who live out a call to a peacemaker in times of war; who feed their neighbours in hard times; who find their world includes those pushed to the margins.

Working for peace and justice is dangerous work. People loose their freedom. They are wounded and left shattered. People die doing it.

We need to remember them. More importantly, we need to emulate them. In times of economic crisis and in a world with interwoven wars and violence, we need to join in the work of the unremembered. It is time for peacemaking and co-op building and reweaving all the many webs of life.

Thoughts on the Loss of Democracy in Canada

It is surprising to me, given my libertarian socialist bent, to find myself nearly in tears upon hearing the news that the Governor General of Canada chose to ignore the wishes of the majority of the members of the House of Common and prorogued Parliament.   It surprised me more than the grey days of the Mike Harris government of Ontario, with its Omnibus Bill and other attacks on on civil society.  It even hit harder that the declaration of the War Measures Act by  Pierre Trudeau, a political leader who had a strong history of supporting civil rights and civil liberties.

It was unusual to see representatives of three political party work hard to find common ground in order to address the problems of the day.   While not moving towards a radical agenda, the coalition of the Bloc Quebecois, the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party symbolized a new way of working together, indicating that perhaps community and mutual aid were concepts creeping back into the public agenda.  And, as Canada is a parliamentary democracy, the majority of House of Commons should naturally form the government.

Yet, using language worthy of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Hugo Chavez of Venezula, the now officially minority voice in the House of Commons, has attacked the majority as traitors, socialists and dangerous to democacy.  Instead of accepting the will of the House of Commons, Harper and his supporters have chosen to undermind the democratic institutions of Canada.  Aided by the Governor General, the Conservative Party have shown contempt for the House of Commons that they have chosen to serve in.  Refusing to give up authority to the majority, they have circled their wagons and are waging a war of vicious accusations against those who have found a way to put aside partisan interest for the public good.

This is truely frightening.  If elected officials are willing to show such contempt for the political process they have chosen to be a part of, what are their views about those who have different ideas, lifestyles or visions of how social should function. If members of the House of Commons are being denounced as traitors, who will be next?  If even parliamentary traditions are not respected by M.P.s, what will be the next target?

We already know that pay equity and the right to strike are in danger, non-profit health care threatened and the idea of Canada as a haven for those opposed to war and injustice a concept pushed to the margins.The Harper agenda is not a hidden, right wing one but a public right wing one.  Such an agenda combined with a blatant anti-parliamentary, anti-democratic approach to governing makes me quite frightened for the future of Canada.

It is not a coup when the majority of a legislature agrees to work together to do their job.   It might be a coup when a small group refuses to cede power to larger, particularly when the larger group clearly represents the will of the people by having won approximately 62% of the popular vote.

Is Canada close to becoming a kinder, gentler Burma?

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon—Remembering the Light in times of Darkness

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON
10:00 AM., Sunday, January 4, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave. (Toronto)

1st Lesson: Isaiah 9: 2 – 7

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Gospel: Luke 2: 15 – 21

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

I don’t think that the world is seeing much light these days. The media is full of darkness—missiles aimed at Sderot and massive air raids on Gaza; civil wars in many countries in Africa; drought and floods; even a new anti-biotic resistant strain of leprosy resulting—darkness is all around us, most of which is the result of the conscious decisions of humanity.
This is not a unique time in human history—there have been more bleak moments in history. But for those in the midst of human initiated and sustained tragedy, knowing that the past has been hard doesn’t really provide motivation to get through the evils of the moment.
At the time when the words of Isaiah were put down, the people of Israel were facing deep despair. A long period of foreign occupation, exile, civil strife and corrupt and unjust government beat down upon the people of Israel. There was hunger and sickness in parts of the land.
What they had to keep them going was a promise, the hope that the ultimate arc of the covenant was not a physical object but the ongoing movement towards a kingdom in which peace and justice permeated every aspect of society. What existed in the moment was hard to bear, but what could come into existence and was already permeating through the people was the knowledge that this would pass. Evil would not last forever. It would not be sustained.
By righteous living in their private relations the covenant with God would be made real. There would be peace in the land, there would be milk and honey for everyone, justice would roll down like water. Those that ruled were called to justice, but everyone else was also called. It wasn’t just the rulers that had to not cheat their subjects. Individuals had to not cheat their neighbours. It wasn’t just the rulers that had to not go to war. Individuals had to not harm one another. The covenant was for everyone and the more it was lived out by individuals, the more the divine will would be established within creation.
We know that there is darkness around us in current times because we know what is in the light—peace and reconciliation; compassion and comfort; sharing of resources with those in need. If we did not have the light in front of us, darkness would overwhelm us.
Accepting the temptation of being overwhelmed by the potential of darkness—war and hatred and oppression and hunger and fear—is all too easy. It is only human; it is nothing new.
And yet, from Amos to Archbishop Romero, it has proven to be just as human to speak truth to power, to care for others, to refuse to use violence against others, to seek in both private and public for a just social order.
Just as we can nurture an infant and show an example of loving and caring for one another to the child as it develops, we can nurture a society in which love does get passed on from one to another, sustaining and nurturing a society in which the temptations of violence and oppressive behaviour cease to be dominate themes in the world around us.
In this season of winter and time with wars raging in many parts of the earth, perhaps Pablo Neruda’s “Prayers for the Earth”, speaks loudly for hope in moments of hopelessness, the possibility for a transforming experience within everyone:

For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language
Let’s stop for one second
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines.
We would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
Victory with no survivors
Would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused with total inactivity,
Life is what it is about.
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving,
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves
with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

++++++++++++++++++++++

God demands little of us but to seek to live as if we were always in the light. We know that war is not inevitable—there are times of peace that show us that war is not inevitable; We know that oppression is not forever lasting; there are moments of celebrations throughout the secular calendar of the end of repressive regimes. We know that no matter how powerful the temptation to despair—it is only a shadow that is being offered, not the true substance of creation.
About 2,000 years ago something wonderful happened in the middle east—a fragile god reached out to us in vulnerability, trusting that we would find a way to let the divine will find a home among us. That divine infant felt love and betrayal, community and loneliness, pleasure and torture, life and death. And, having gone through all that humanity could offer, the divine presence promised to be with us always. The divine will offers us something concrete—a call to work hard to build the shalom kingdom of peace and justice in the current moment in our homes, our neighbourhoods and in the world.
Micah tells us about the end time (4:3,4):

He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes
for strong nations far and wide.

They will beat their swords
into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up
sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

Every man will sit under his own vine
and under his own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

In this ongoing apocalyptic time, a moment stretching back for centuries, we have a vision of God’s plan for us to share and make real. There may be darkness, but there is always light; there may currently be war but there is always peace.
As we prepare to share in our communal meal, we are also preparing to share in our communal call to love one another in all its difficult and challenging forms. When we are dismissed to love and serve the Lord, we are dismissed to live in ways that show that in the divine kingdom, in our world that we are to ensure that justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24) and peace is real for those who are near and for those that are far away (Ephesians 2:17 ).

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon—A Universal Call for Justice

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON
10:00 AM., Sunday, January 25, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave. (Toronto)

1st Lesson: Romans 12: 16 – 21

Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Gospel: Matthew 8: 1 – 13

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”

And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying,” I will; be thou clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

And Jesus saith unto him, “See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.”
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. “

And Jesus saith unto him, “I will come and heal him.”

The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. “

When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And Jesus said unto the centurion, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”

And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

Scripture assumes that those that read it have many motivations. Those concerned with their ultimate judgement and place in God’s kingdom are likely to find that the call to practical compassion in Matthew 25:31 – 46 speaks loudest, and particularly the promise made to those who do care for one another:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

Alternatively, one may be motivated to the same acts of practical compassion, of economic justice based on a more pragmatic, materialistic assumption that living out the faith is part of building the kingdom of god in the current moment. One would then likely find Acts 2: 42 -47 a passage that is more readily heeded:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Those who see justice, not as proper individual actions or communal responsibility but as an expression of one’s right relationship with the divine, a form of proper worship, will find the message strongest in Isaiah 58:6 – 11:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”

The call for justice, for practical compassion, to care for one another, is woven throughout our scriptures. It seems to be so important than we are given the message in different ways at different times to different groups of people.
It is a universal message but sometimes different ways must be used to get this essential teaching across to everyone.

So it is not surprising to hear in today’s epistle reading Paul telling the
community of believers in Rome to care for the needs of everyone—even their enemies. God’s love is universal so the expression of love by those called to the Christian community also is to be universal. Everyone is to be treated honesty and with respect. All those who are hungry deserve to be fed; all those who mourn to be comforted. God is to be trusted with the long view—our role is to be present for one another in the current moment. Indeed, we are the agents of God. There is evil in the world, but also good. We are told to not add to the evil—not to let people go hungry, to be a peaceful presence in times of conflict. Paul did encourage people to behave in a loving matter towards all by an appeal to God’s will. But he also added a new twist, an appeal to a different possible motivation to do right—that it might cause distress to your enemies if you treat them with respect, an appeal to a rather dark side of human nature. This is combined with the statement that evil can only truly be overcome by good. If one behaves in the same way as one’s oppressors injustice is not overcome, there is only a substitution of who is the oppressor. But if one does what is right, it is a challenge by example to everyone that love is possible, that dignity is possible, that hope is possible—not the pie in the sky version but the heaven on earth version of living in harmony with one another and all of creation. It is a way of retaining power in times when one feels most powerless; sharing when one feels most like hoarding or not replying with angry words when taunted is something that is not necessarily easy, but we are called to to these things.

And whether we are motivated by fear of judgement, by communal interests, by seeking a right form of worship or by wanting to annoy our opponents we are called to same mission—to make the world a better place for all.

The gospel today has Jesus doing just this—healing a member of his own community and a household member of a Roman official. One was healed, and told to follow the traditions of the Jewish community; the second was healed according to the faith of the official. But both were healed—a fellow community member and one of the occupying forces. In very practical ways Jesus showed all those around him that need trumps ideology, class, religious, nationality or other social barriers.

In difficult times we need to remember this—we can easily be lead to make distinctions between deserving and undeserving poor, between those who we claim are alien and those we claim as our neighbours. Scripture points us towards a universal compassion; Christ’s example shows us that
a universal approach is the proper path to follow.

This may lead us to uncomfortable choices, but it will lead us towards being a part of bringing to birth a better world.

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon: Feeding the Multitude

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON
10:00 a.m.., Sunday, March 22, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave.
Toronto

1st Lesson: Galatians 4: 26 – 31

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.”

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

Nevertheless what saith the scripture? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.”
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Gospel: John 6: 5 – 14

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.

Philip answered him, “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.”

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, “There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?”

And Jesus said, “Make the men sit down.”

Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”

Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.”

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

There is not a living person who does not hunger for something. It can
be a desire for safety, for love, for security, for inspiration, for a closer relationship with God. But none of these hungers, these desires can possibly be fulfilled if we do not have air, water and food. The essentials of life are primary and once they are secured dreams can have a chance of becoming real.
About 2,000 years ago a group of people followed someone that they saw as a religious teacher, a miracle worker, a political leader or possibly just an interesting celebrity. They obviously had not planned to spend a long time with him—they hadn’t packed a lunch, they walked by markets without purchasing food—but they did hope to gain something by following him.
Unfortunately for them it wasn’t a spiritual journey that Jesus took them on that day. It was a long walk in a hot, dry climate. They travelled
along an unpaved path into an area that had a lot of grass with little shade, no nearby lunch counters or grocery stories, no place where they could beg a meal.
As much as they may have admired Jesus, they were tired and hungry and perhaps a bit worried and scared. When they woke up that morning they hadn’t planned to be sitting on a hillside in the late afternoon sun, a part of a crowd of people who also hadn’t thought of bringing something to eat. And it wasn’t just the crowd of followers that we caught unprepared. Jesus and his followers didn’t seem to have a great deal at hand to feed themselves, let alone those that followed them. When Jesus turned to Philip, one of his disciples, testing him to solve the problem, there wasn’t a ready answer to meet the needs of everyone around. A second disciple, Andrew found one person with foresight—a young boy with some bread and fish. Five barley loaves and 2 small fishes doesn’t seem enough to Jesus and his immediate followers, let alone everyone gathered on the hillside. But it was the basis of a meal; it was a gift from the one person who was prepared when no one else was.
Jesus took this gift, blessed it and distributed the bread and fish to all who were there. There was enough that everyone was fed and there were substantial leftovers. Jesus didn’t offer prayer as a way of filling the moment and distracting from hunger. Jesus didn’t denounce physical weakness and hunger. Jesus took what was given and met the needs of his disciples and those that followed him. He didn’t ask for I.D.; he didn’t separate the Jews from the Samaritans or the rich from the poor. He shared a miracle with all who were there—he made sure that none were hungry before they were sent on their way. Food was offered to Jesus and he shared it with everyone.
Jesus was a very practical messiah. He didn’t judge people. He didn’t pull down a government and put himself in its place. He didn’t put off until after the revolution addressing the needs of those around him for love and hope, for food and community. And he expects us to do the same.
We are in a society where food banks and community meal programmes are essential to ensure that people have their daily bread.
During Lent we are especially reminded of the need to take what we have and share it with others. We are asked to take food and give it to others, to take our money and donate it so that charities can pool the money and buy fresh foods and staples.
On a global scale, efforts from famine relief to dealing with plant diseases that are destroying food crops to the need to preserve and enhance farm land are ongoing demands on the stewardship resources of all who share in the fruits of creation.
Jesus instituted the eucharist with real food, not symbols, blessing common elements of people’s meals in the society he lived in and then sharing it with them. Whether feeding us with bread and fish or sustaining us with bread and wine that has become the actual presence of Christ among us, Jesus did not and does not take food lightly. If people are to follow Jesus, if they are to be able to choose to take part in the Lenten journey, then they need to be sustained in this effort. Everyone needs food in order to live out their lives; those sharing in the Lenten journey need food to sustain us in the walk and in the building up of the shalom kingdom, the gates of which lay ahead at Golgotha. Those not on our journey need food to continue to be a living part of the family of creation. When we share in the Eucharist, when we donate to a food bank, when we pressure the government to ensure that those on social assistance don’t loose their food allowance, when we help preserve farmland from urban sprawl, when we support heritage seed preservation, when we work to end the violence that prevents food from reaching those that need it in places of conflict, we are doing our part to share our few loaves of bread and small fish. We ensure that the miracle of the loaves and fishes continues to feed those that are in the presence of the divine, all those that share in God’s creation, when we seek to put food on the tables of all.

Notes for a More Coherent Sermon—Radical Love

NOTES FOR A MORE COHERENT SERMON:
10:00 a.m.., July 12, 2009
St. Andrew’s Old Catholic Church
Small Meeting Room, 138 Pears Ave.
Toronto

1st Lesson: Romans 6:3 – 11
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Gospel: Luke 6: 27 – 36
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.  And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

SERMON PROPER BEGINS

Rain has two natures—the gentle nurturing life giving force and the transforming storm. Both natures are essential within creation, but we often only welcome the former and seek to avoid the latter. Rain is never weak and however
it is experienced, something new can always come to life through its presence.

Love is similar. We think of love as something mystical and transcendent. But we also know that love can be overwhelming and rooted in the most radical expressions of humanity. It comes into our lives and something happens that we don’t always expect or that we can easily control.

No matter how love comes into our lives, we know that love is not weak. It is not without risks. Love isn’t an excuse for turning away from life but rather impels one towards the chance for transformation. We know from what happens in our personal lives that love motivates us to do things for others that encourages transformations. We finding ourselves expressing love in the hope that change will occur—we take friends to A.A. meetings; we coerce our children to go to school; we take risks because of love, we hope for miracles in the lives of those we care for because of love. Some of these risks are very personal; some of these risks are taken for those that seem to be denied their share of the gifts of the creation.

We can find it hard enough to love those we feel an obligation to love. We leave ourselves vulnerable every time we open ourselves up to someone. Today’s gospel tells us that to be faithful to our calling we need to go beyond our immediate circle to express our compassion. The reading from Luke’s gospel we hear today tells us to love our enemies, to do good just because it is the right thing to do. And this calling isn’t made in isolation—it was first heard by people living under foreign occupation, struggling for survival in difficult times. People were seeking guidance from any source on how to live a good life in difficult times and how to change the social and political world they inhabited.

There were people calling for a return to Puritanism; some called for a violent response directed at those too closely aligned with the occupiers. Others called for withdrawal from daily lives into cloistered, inward looking gated communities. And there was a voice calling for something difference—love and respect in the home and towards everyone within creation. There was a voice stating that love for your neighbour started with love for one’s self and that your neighbour included those close to you and those distant—either in space or in power. There was a voice calling for something truly radical—love expressed in all aspects of life from the most private to the most communal. It was not a call for meekness, weakness or passivity but a call for strength, creativity and hope.

I found the passage from Luke had a different meaning for me after reading Walter Wink’s response to the passage:

Something seems terribly wrong here. Turn the other cheek sounds like supine cowardice, the refusal to confront someone who is doing evil. It’s being a doormat for Jesus. It strikes many as suicidal, as an invitation to let someone wipe up the floor with us. Battered women have all too often been told by their pastors that the Bible requires them to turn the other cheek when they are being pulverized by their husbands or lovers.

I think I realized that there was something else going on in the passage about “Turn the other cheek” when I did an imaginative “blocking” of the text (blocking is something actors do to a scene — it’s a diagram where they would stand and move). The full text reads “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” For most people to strike you on the right cheek, they must use the back of their hand — the way a master would hit a slave or an oppressed person. To turn the other cheek is to invite that person to strike you as an equal. This passage is not about becoming more passive — but a challenge to the system.”

Loving your enemy doesn’t mean accepting their behaviour or changing yours. It can mean standing firm in one’s
dignity and seeking to change your opponents understanding of themselves and their actions. Wink reminds us of the possibility for transformation even in the midst of conflict. We are responsible for our behaviour which changes the dynamics of the relationship. We show our love by responding creatively and thoughtfully to the needs of the moment—in proposing marriage, in feeding the hungry, in sitting in a hospital emergency ward in persistently acting as if both you and your opponent are equal in the sight and love of God.
Living out a radical understanding of God is not always easy, not always safe and certainly not always certain. We never know how the seeds we plant will grow. We can only be confident that living a life deeply rooted in love will change ourselves and those in the world around us.
We see most clearly see love in our world in two interwoven spheres—the communal effort to care for one another, the justice seeking movements; and in the living out of love in the day to day realities of marriage.
Archbishop Romero talked most eloquently about the first sphere:

“Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us”.

Dorothy Day helps us to weave together the larger world of practical love and daily expressions of love:

“Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: what else is the world interested in? What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved. And not just in the family, but to look upon all as our mothers, sisters, brothers, children. It is when we love the most intensely and most humanly that we can recognize how tepid is our love for others. The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy, too, because it is a foretaste of heaven. When you love people, you see all the good in them. There can never be enough thinking about it. St. John of the Cross said that where there was no love, put love out and you would draw love out. “

Bill Moyers helps to bring the ideal of radical, faith based love into our homes:

“…In marriage, everyday you love,
and everyday you forgive.
It is an ongoing sacrament, love and forgiveness.”

We are called to this active love and seek to live it out not because of the hope for any immediate reward but because it is the right thing to do. In all times and in all places we are given an opportunity to live in harmony with the divine will by reflecting divine love in what we do. We may be called to do this in grand ways or quiet ways, in the public sphere or in our homes. But we are all called to show love. Just as radically, as Luke tells us, we are to expect love.

We evangelise most effectively by living with the expectation that everyone we come into contact with is capable of transforming, of become open to all the possibilities within creation. We nurture or children with this understanding and hope; Jesus asks us to go forth into the world and nurture even our opponents with hope and love, setting forth the seeds of a just and peaceable society. It may at times seem overwhelming—our friends may have heavy demons; our nation may be glorifying violence—but love ultimately will find a way of growing providing we plant the seed.