Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Tuesday March 31 2015   

John 12: 19 – 26

We want to see Jesus. (v. 21)

Paul Kett spoke on this verse last Sunday in his sermon, noting that was and is something he thinks about as he plans a sermon.  I began my reflecting there.

As I think about this, I am reminded of two other statements:

This verse reminds me of part of our baptismal covenant: To seek and serve Christ in all persons.  

It also reminds me of the story where Philip asked Jesus to show them God and Jesus said: To see me is to see the Father. (John 14: 9)

These two statements speak of looking at one person and seeing another.  They speak of seeing beyond the immediate, the superficial, the material, and truly SEEING something deeper, more real, spiritual.

The rest of today’s passage also speaks of this two part seeing.  If we only see the grain of wheat for what it is in this moment, and worse yet, try to keep it that way, then it is doomed to never realize its true and full potential – of producing a new plant that will itself produce many more grains than the initial one.  So also with our physical life – if we try to hold on to it in its present and limited form, if we see that as most important, then we will miss out on the full, infinitely larger life that God has made possible for us.

These thoughts bring me back to the beginning of my reflecting, and I then think about what I see when I see Jesus.  I see a suffering Jesus, a healing Jesus, a compassionate Jesus, a humble Jesus, a strong Jesus, an obedient Jesus, a victorious Jesus, a loving Jesus …. The list goes on.  So, when I look at another person, what or who do I see?  Do I look beyond the surface to see the pain, the love, the hunger…?  And then, if Jesus says that when I really see him that I am seeing God, what is it that I see?  God’s love, and all of the potential of the universe that God created.

If we can let go of limiting our vision of others, can we also let go of ourselves?  Then God can work in us more than we can ask or imagine.  In this way, hopefully, when someone else, seeking God, looks at us, it is indeed Jesus whom they will see.

- Ann Kelland

Monday, March 30, 2015

Monday, March 30, 2015 [Monday in Holy Week] 

John 12:9-19

Yesterday in many of our Churches we recalled the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem riding upon a donkey and greeted by bystanders with palms. A lenten Journey begun with ashes, a journey during which we've traced Jesus' time in a wilderness, a time when his footsteps then turned towards Jerusalem and the Temple, the spiritual centre of his people. This became a journey in which  he sought to proclaim that God's Kingship was not one of power and might, but one that stressed servanthood and identification with all his people, even the lowly and meek. A sign of this was his arrival at the Gate, not upon a mighty warhorse but upon a small donkey. For the Temple authorities, this entry of Jesus was in some ways offensive, even though his proclaimed kingship might also have been puzzling to them. Nevertheless, the fact that people were following him meant that they had grounds that he was upsetting the masses, disturbing the peace. 

This Week, see how the events unfold that finally drove the Temple authorites to approach the Roman civil Governor to find a final Solution. I think of the many peoples down through the ages who have been persecuted for their spiritualities as being perceived threats to the established order and who have been killed: even today in parts of the world some are still suffering this fate. God in Jesus this week walked and walks this path, be it with a courage and a dignity and a faith. For this too is something that God understands and endures. May we too grasp that such  darkness is not forever, this too shall pass.

Archdeacon Ken Cardwell

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Jeremiah 31: 27-34

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”

If only our Christian faith were as easy to live as it is to state. Jesus’ famous summary of the Torah is simple, “Love God and love your neighbor,” but we know how difficult it is to practice.  We’re aware how much we need this prayer from the BCP: “Lord, have mercy upon us, and write both these thy laws on our hearts, we beseech thee.”

            Jeremiah was also keenly aware of the disconnect between knowing the terms of the covenant and fulfilling them. Trying to understand the devastating events of 587 B.C., the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the subsequent exile of the nation, Jeremiah indicts the people for continually breaking faith with God.  The covenant is simple, Jeremiah seems to say. Why do you keep breaking it?

            The concepts are simple, but the follow-through is another story. I think of students I’ve worked with over the years. I notice they seldom struggle with the basic concepts of math or science, for example. Instead, they often struggle to apply those concepts to the homework problems the teacher assigns. Take a typical math textbook, and you’ll notice that many of the problems at the end of a chapter are the most creatively difficult exercises a student will ever see. There’s logic to this process, I think. When a teacher introduces the simple concept, she doesn’t have the time to work through every possible way the concept can be applied. Instead, by doing problem after problem (and struggling with the challenging ones), a student notices patterns to follow, pitfalls to avoid, and shortcuts to use. The student, in short, gets a feel for the work by internalizing the basic concepts instead of simply following the rules. The student’s mathematical imagination flourishes.

            I wonder if our moral imagination grows in a similar way. Jeremiah seems to think so. He longs for this sort of creative absorption of God’s law. Jeremiah envisions a day when his people are so full of God’s presence and love that God’s very law is embedded in their hearts. 

     

            Theologian John Shea tells a story of a daily encounter in his Chicago neighborhood. A man without legs would position himself on the sidewalk in front of the local drugstore, and beg for change. Each time that he passed the man, Shea would throw some money into his cup. One day as he passed, he noticed a woman squatting down beside the man, and he heard her say, “So, you haven’t always lived in Chicago…?” Instead of throwing him some money and walking by, the woman was caring for the man in a personal way. Where did the woman get this generous spirit? Shea wondered. He was convinced that she had an inner consciousness of love (“God’s law written on her heart”) that she found a way to express.

            During this season of Lent, what practices help us to “get a feel” for and internalize God’s love and presence, so we can creatively express God’s intentions for the world?  

- David Shumaker

Friday, March 27, 2015

Friday, March 27, 2015

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-13

When the kingdom of Babylon defeated the Assyrians almost 1000 BCE the Jewish leaders resisted their incursions. Hence a series of three waves of exile began. The rich, the priest class and the influential Jews were carried off to Babylon. The poor were scattered to places like Egypt. It is to this first group of exiles that Jeremiah pens this letter.

We know that the experience was devastating for the Jews – any mass uprooting of people creates huge suffering and hardship, as we see in places like Syria and Nigeria today. What makes this letter stand out as a unique message to an exiled people is the strategy for living Jeremiah outlines. You would expect him to advise them to resist the oppressing enemy who had captured them and do everything possible to undermine the stability of their society.

Instead, he opens with advice to build homes, plant gardens, marry and have children. He wants their sons and daughters to marry and have their own sons and daughters. He encourages them to keep their numbers up. Clearly, he foresees a long stay in Babylon.

Next he encourages them to work for the prosperity and peace of the city.

“Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Over the years, various religious leaders have taken this passage to mean that the task of the People of God is to accommodate the politics of the place where they find themselves. The story where Jesus says “Give Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt:22,21) seems to support this idea. Certainly, such thinking has led to a brand of accommodation that separates Church and State to the extent that when anyone from the Church speaks out against anything the State is doing (such as a prophet), they are quickly silenced or discredited. At the same time, some people of faith aggressively demand that prayer and other elements of their personal beliefs be built into legislation. This passage is quoted back and forth all the time.

For my part, I keep hearing the words of simple gospel songs: “Bloom Where You’re Planted” and “They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love.” For me, this passage does not speak at all to the fight over national policy. For me it says: Lead a spirit-led life so that whomever you touch can see the love of God in you. Like the religion of Jesus, it speaks to one-on-one encounters with those around us.

Another stand-out passage here is the caution against false prophets – those who would have the people ‘wait it out’ as if the exile was going to be brief. Their message of hope was easy to follow.

“Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you.
Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have.
They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,”

This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon,
I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.’”

This message clearly told the people not to prepare to return to Jerusalem, but to prepare their grandchildren for that return. It was an alarming, but sensible message, tied to the advice to plant and make homes, to marry and prosper.

Jeremiah ends in a powerful and consistent message to his people:

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me,
and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

This strategy was sound, but it was a new approach to people in exile. Some say the Church in Western Culture is a people in exile. If this is so, then we have to rethink our ideas of accommodation towards the dominant culture and our own personal behaviour first towards those inside our own homes and then towards those inside the circles of our acquaintance. The catch, as Jeremiah says is that we must seek God with all our hearts.

Peter Mansell the week of Palm Sunday, 2015

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Psalm 131

Here we have a short but moving Psalm, again from the collection of Psalms of Ascents, ones that were probably recited or sung while traveling to Jerusalem. The humility expressed in the Psalm is striking. While people were making their way to Jerusalem to join with others to observe a great festival, the message of the Psalm challenges that tendency toward uncritical group-motivated excitement. The reader/pilgrim is reminded that even in sacred spaces it is God who takes the initiative in revelation, not us. 

In our Christian liturgy we speak about lifting up our hearts, at the outset of the Eucharistic prayer. The message of that prayer and this Psalm is different in one sense: in the Eucharistic prayer we lift up our hearts, while the Psalmist dares not be so brazen. In another sense the two are on the same wavelength, though. Christ who comes to us in the Eucharist doesn’t do so because of our magic words or secret handshakes (or other manual actions). The lifting up of our hearts is our humble and obedient response of thanksgiving for a God who came to live with and as one of us. 

- Matthew Kieswetter

  

Wednesday March 25, 2015

The Annunciation of the Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Luke 1.26–38

Annunciation by He Qi

The Gospel of Luke tells us the story of angel Gabriel visiting Mary and greeting her as a woman favoured by God who will birth Jesus.   

Many words and images have been used over the centuries to describe Mary's "yes" to Gabriel. Sometimes she is described and pictured as submissively - and even passively - going along with the angel's announcement.  But listen to the interchange - for this is not a one-way communication - between the angel and the woman.

Gabriel greets and announces; Mary questions.  She is "perplexed" and "pondered what sort of greeting this might be", and she asks, "How can this be?".

Gabriel responds to Mary's question - sort of; Mary responds with a "yes".

Jan Richarson, artist, author, and minister offers this reflection on Mary's yes:  

Mary’s yes to Gabriel, her assent to God, her willingness to make a home for the divine within her own self: these all give the lie to a history that has too often depicted her as meek and mild. Her response to God, and the work that she takes up, are the actions of a prophet, in the ancient Hebrew sense of it: one who recognizes the presence of God in the world, who points it out to others, who does not give up hope that the people will come to know God. Meekness and mildness are not enough to sustain Mary in the prophetic work God has called her to do.  From adventdoor.com/2008/12/19/home-for-the-holidays/

You might want to ponder the painting of the annunciation by He Qi and consider some of the following questions.  
How does the painting speak to you of the encounter between Gabriel and Mary in the moments between Gabriel's announcement and Mary's yes? What might Mary be pondering?  What might Gabriel?
Is God inviting you to say "yes" to something today?  
What sustains you in the work God calls you to do?

Marilyn Malton

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Psalm 122

Psalm 122 is considered one of the “Songs of Ascent” in the Psalter.  Scholars speculate that pilgrims would sing these songs as they make their way to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice and prayer.  In 2013 when I visited the Holy Land, along with about twenty or so others from Trinity College and my Diocese, I remember listening to an old praise song about Jerusalem as the bus entered the capital city.  For a moment when I was on that bus, I pondered entering Jerusalem with the countless other pilgrims in history, from the Psalmist to Jesus as he entered the city for his passion and resurrection. 

We can get wrapped up in thinking Jerusalem as other-worldly, as a sacred space made free from all the politics, distress and hardship of ordinary life.  This is of course an illusion; anyone with a basic familiarity with the history of Jerusalem would recognize that the city has always been a site of political and often violent contestation and confrontation.  I remember someone muttering that Jerusalem is the most fought-over piece of real estate in human history.  For some critics of religion, it is the fact that the city is so idealized, so prized as a spiritual space, that makes it so hotly contested.  

There is another view of Jerusalem found in Christian history, which is to ignore the physical Jerusalem altogether.  “Our Jerusalem is in heaven” or “Our Jerusalem is the Church” are phrases which come to mind.  The physical and earthly Jerusalem is too riddled with politics, riddled with the messes of human folly to ever live up to its spiritual ideal.  After I returned from the Holy Land, one of my interlocutors stated that he had little interest in going to there because his faith was not bound to any particular historical location, even if that location was where Jesus walked 2000 years ago.  

I disagree with both approaches, the first of viewing Jerusalem as an idealized and utopian city, free from the reality of human sin, the second views Jerusalem as irrelevant, part of the dustbin of history.  I find my answer by returning to the Psalm, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”  Jerusalem, like all of our cities is never free from the rough and tumble of human sin and folly.  But faith is not about being utopian or seeing the world in a rose-tinted lens.  Rather, our hope is that Jerusalem remains part of the overall redemptive purpose of God.  We pray for peace, understanding that God has not abandoned the city, but remains and journeys with it, through its tumultuous and often chaotic history.  

So, two years after I visited Jerusalem, I continue to pray for it, resting my hope that it will one day, be the city of peace.

- Rev'd Justin Cheng

[Former co-head of the Divinity Class of Trinity College, Rev'd Justin is Deacon and Assistant Curate at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Nanaimo, BC]

Monday, March 23, 2015

Monday, March 23, 2015

John 9:1-17

The people in this story have a lot of questions. Why are things the way they are? And then after the healing, is this really the same guy? And then just beyond our portion the parents are brought in: is that definitely your kid? Jesus’s response to the question about why the man was born blind does give an answer, though it’s an answer that doesn’t fit into the people’s system. It doesn’t confirm them in laying blame. To Jesus, it seems that the circumstances that have brought all of these people together -- the bad things that have happened to a good person -- are quite simply an opportunity to do good, to support one another. Imagine the good that we could do if we could put time, money, and energy into feeding people and developing communities, rather than into perpetuating the cycle of greed and violence that characterizes our world? What if we more consistently modeled a way of love and acceptance, rather than judgement and labeling? 

- Matthew Kieswetter

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Mark 8:31-9:1

In the Book of Common Prayer tradition, today is Passion Sunday and marks a shift away from self-evaluation in Lent to the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, his suffering and death on the cross to save us from sin and redeem us to God.

Today’s scripture reading also marks a shift of emphasis in Mark’s Gospel.  It comes right at the midpoint of what Mark wrote.  In the first half of Mark, Jesus primarily demonstrates the reign of God, in both what he does and what he says. Jesus heals the sick, empowers the poor, feeds the hungry, and demonstrates his authority in miraculous deeds.  This first half culminates in Jesus’ questions immediately before today’s reading, “Who do people say that I am?” and, to his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27, 29).  Peter replies with his great confession, “You are the Messiah.” – And this fact changes everything.

The title Messiah (a Hebrew title, meaning the same as the Greek title Christ) refers to the great king who will rule forever over all nations, destroying all evil and exercising the reign of God over all the earth, an everlasting reign of peace and justice and righteousness. All the Jewish people would have thought immediately of the great prophecy in Psalm 2, which asserts all this, along with Isaiah 9:1-7, 11:1-11.  Thus Peter’s confession carries a great deal of substance.  Peter is saying, “Yes, Jesus, you are the Messiah, God’s all-powerful king, who will establish God’s reign of peace forever over all nations.”

As today’s reading starts, Jesus calls himself Son of Man, as he often does – and this title too refers to the Messiah: In his trial before the high priest, Mark 14:61-62, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man and identifies himself explicitly with Daniel 7:13-14, another key prophecy referring to the Messiah.

As soon as he identifies himself this way, confirming that he is the Messiah, Jesus starts teaching his disciples that he must suffer many things, be rejected by the religious leaders and be killed, and on the third day rise from the dead.  No wonder that was impossible for Peter to take!  Like all good Jews, Peter knew that the Messiah would be God’s triumphant, eternal king; the Messiah could not die and certainly would not suffer torture and rejection.  So Peter said “No! Never!” and started to rebuke Jesus.  

But Jesus knew exactly what he was saying.  He knew how contrary and revolutionary his words were for all conventional Jewish thinking. So Jesus immediately turned the table and rebuked Peter in the strongest terms, “Get behind me, Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Jesus’ teaching of his coming rejection, death, and resurrection dominates the whole second half of Mark’s Gospel, and is of the very greatest importance.  Without Jesus’ death and resurrection, our faith is void; we are still in our sins; we are of all people the most pitiable.  (1 Corinthians 15:17-19)

This very moment sets the Way of Jesus apart from the other great Abrahamic faiths.  Judaism accepts both the prophetic streams of the Messiah and of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and others) but cannot see how both streams could be fulfilled in the same person.  Islam even accepts Jesus as the Messiah who will return to judge all nations, but Muslims cannot accept that Jesus suffered and died on the cross as the Bible teaches.

If Jesus had stopped right here, he would have left his disciples in shock as they learned he would soon face suffering, rejection, and death.  But Jesus didn’t stop; he went right on with even harder teaching, both for his disciples and the crowd:  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (8:34) What!  Take that horrible tool for execution and carry it until you are killed?  Can you imagine how confused the disciples must have been?  How the crowds would turn away in utter shock and horror?  “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  (8:35)  How upside down Jesus seems!

After Jesus talks both about his own suffering and death, unimaginable for the Messiah, and the suffering and death of his disciples too, how does the teaching end?  In 8:38, Jesus says he will come “in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”  He is indeed the Messiah.  And he reassures his disciples (9:1) that some of them, too, “will see the kingdom of God when it has come with power.”

This is the secret of the Gospel, which the unbelieving world can never accept, which most of the crowd could not comprehend, nor could even the disciples understand until the Holy Spirit revealed it to them again after Jesus rose from the dead:  It is only the path through suffering and death, following Jesus as he first walks it, that leads to the joy, the glory, and the power that indeed are revealed in the kingdom of God, in the Messiah, Jesus, who is Lord of all nations and peoples, and for his followers who walk in his steps.

In the Anglican tradition, this truth is expressed concisely at key moments of the liturgy.  In the B.C.P., page 184, the Epistle for a second service on Easter Day includes 2 Timothy 2:11-12:

This is a faithful saying:

For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. 

If we endure, we shall also reign with him. 

In the B.A.S., page 213, this becomes the congregational response to the Breaking of Bread during Lent and Holy Week:

If we have died with him, we shall live with him.

If we hold firm, we shall reign with him.

May we remain faithful always.

– Robert Kruse

Saturday, March 21, 2015 (Thomas Cranmer)

Saturday, March 21, 2015 (Thomas Cranmer)

Psalm 143

     The psalms have an unparalleled power within scripture to speak directly to the reader/hearer as a reflection of one's personal emotional state; indeed the whole of the human condition, the good the bad and the ugly, finds representation within them. This may be encouraging (such as when we read that the Lord is our Shepherd and we therefore shall not want), or even disturbing at times (such as when we read about children's heads being dashed against the rocks), but the psalms are consistent in articulating our tumultuous relationship with ourselves and with God. 

    Psalm 143 is a fine example of this, giving voice to the inner anguish we experience in moments of marginalization, victimization, and persecution at the hands of others. It becomes particularly useful as a catalyst for self-reflection when we place its words, not on our own lips, but on the lips of those whom we would seek to marginalize or victimize or persecute. It offers us insight into the plight of those whom we would make "live in the dark places" (or return to dark places as the case may be), whose hearts we would make desolate, whose spirits we would make faint. Today we celebrate the Commemoration of a man who was both persecuted and a facilitator of marginalization and indeed persecution himself: Thomas Cranmer.

    Psalm 143 has a Cranmerian resonance to it. It is not hard to imagine the martyred Archbishop ‘remembering time past’ as he stretched out his right hand to God (the hand he had used to sign false recantations in self-preservation) and gave it first to the flames that would eventually consume him. He was a man who had spent his life and public career trying to discern God's ‘hidden face’ in an effort to avoid the fate of those whom he (rightly or wrongly) feared would ‘go down to the pit’; a man who ever endeavored to find the ‘road that he (and his people) must walk’ so that they might lift their souls to God. And despite the almost protean nature of his theological positions, or the rivers of blood that stained his hands by association (as the hands of every soul who fought for and against the English Reformation were stained) Cranmer was led by the Good Spirit of God to provide the ideological foundation for a movement which has ever sought to rest itself upon balanced and 'level ground'.

   As one of the principle architects for what would eventually become known as the “middle way” between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cranmer's life and legacy offer us a methodology for 'bringing our foes to naught' as the Psalmist seeks to do in the final verse of Psalm 143. Like Cranmer we may seek to not only understand the positions held by our foes, but to allow those positions to inform our own, and in doing so we may come to understand that the gulf separating us from our enemies is not deep enough to warrant considering them enemies at all; but co-travelers on a level middle ground.

- Kenneth Mcclure

[Kenneth Mcclure is a student in the M. Div. program in the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity College]

Friday March 20, 2015

During Lent I have been reflecting with the Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist.  Their theme this year is "Time" and each week in Lent has a different focus:  

Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687

Mark 6.30–34

It’s time to …  Stop   Pray   Work   Play   Love 

The Brothers are helping many of us to reflect on our often disordered relationship with time; they are showing us that time is given by God as a gift to us yet so often we experience it as a relentless burden.  Listen to some of what the Brothers have to say about "stopping".

One solution to this perceived relentlessness of time is simply to stop: stop rushing, stop achieving, stop doing – at least for a time. A life without pauses is like a paragraph without punctuation; it runs on and on, leaving us breathless and overwhelmed. When we stop, we are able to see more clearly the moment we are in. We are able to notice things about ourselves, about those around us, and about the world in which we live. We are able to respond thoughtfully and sensitively to people and situations.

 This will help immensely: claim times in your day, your week, your year, when you simply stop; when you say to yourself, “That’s enough work for now”; when you intentionally disengage from technology; when you unplug your computer, turn off your phone, and walk away from your “to do” list.

Its what Jesus does in today's reading from the gospel of Mark.  Jesus and the disciples had been working full out and Jesus tells them it is time to stop and rest and rest awhile.  

Its the same with Cuthbert whose life and death we commemorate today.  He worked strenuously as an evangelist and missionary in remote areas but he alternated that work with times of silence and retreat on the island of Lindisfarne.

Watch today for times to stop - to insert some punctuation into your day - and reflect on the moment you are in.  Maybe you will give thanks for a project that you have completed, maybe you will ask for strength to continue, maybe you will remember another who has asked you to pray from them, maybe you'll seek direction because you seem to have too much time on your hands, or maybe you'll savour a cup of tea or listen to a bird singing a spring song . . . 

Marilyn Malton

Thursday, March 19, 2015 (St. Joseph)

Thursday, March 19, 2015 (St. Joseph)
Luke 2:41-52

          Yesterday I attended the funeral of Bishop Bob Townshend, retired Suffragen Bishop of the Diocese of Huron, and the man who laid hands on me at my Confirmation. His daughter remarked during the service that her father’s ministry occurred during a time of great change in the Anglican Church of Canada, and he was often dealing with those whom we might call ‘anxious’ and ‘symptomatic,’ due to the stress coming out of this time of change. When I look back over the past couple of years as I’ve been moving along through the postulancy process, that theme of change within the Church and ordained ministry has come up frequently, though often more as future promise than current reality. 

Today when I reflect on this reading I find myself focussing on the panic, astonishment, and confusion of Jesus’s parents. Maybe this can serve as an allegory for the institutional Church that must face times of anxiety and change, and sometimes struggles with it, and with following the unpredictable movement of the Spirit. Sometimes it seems that as soon as one issue is dealt with, another springs up. This is difficult, but a reality of life, and it highlights the need for mentoring new leaders and boldly facing the unknowns in a way that reflects Jesus's faithfulness to his call.

Can we liken the way in which Mary and Joseph were initially taken aback by Jesus’s maturity and autonomy with the Church’s difficulty in addressing (as Bonhoeffer called it) a ‘world come of age?’ 

Can we as Church learn from Jesus’s actions in the Temple? True, we are told that he impressed the teachers with his answers, but not before we have read that Jesus sat with them, listened to them, and asked questions. Maybe sometimes we are too quick to provide answers. Maybe our presence as Church would be more visible and effective, not to mention welcome, if we take seriously the call to sit with, listen to, and learn from and about those to whom we hope to serve and minister. 

In our age of great change, and in dealing with the anxiety that comes with this change, we would do well to learn from Mary, who "treasured," we are told, “all these things in her heart.” Rather than constantly running around going from meeting to meeting, putting out fires, and trying to drum up ‘business’ in the pews, we need to work, as Mary did, on reflecting on and discerning what we’ve witnessed; on what, through God’s grace, we’ve been privileged to be a part of. And so today we remember and give thanks for Joseph, who played his part in salvation history. And we learn from Mary, who “treasured all these things in her heart.” And we pray for the courage and wisdom (of a twelve year old kid!) to eagerly take part in the coming of the Kingdom of God through authentic engagement with those around us.

- Matthew Kieswetter

[Adapted from my homily this morning delivered at The Chapel of Our Lady and St. Hilda, Trinity College, Toronto).

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Matthew 7:24-27

This particular passage is the last teaching of Jesus within the Sermon on the Mount; a sermon that has likely been fashioned together from a variety of traditions by whoever wrote the Gospel of Matthew. For this gospel’s community, Jesus’ teachings function as the ultimate authority. Jesus is even the interpreter of the Torah, as illustrated in Matthew 5:21-48. The contrast between a house built on a rock versus a house built on sand serves as an illustration of how Jesus’ teachings form a solid foundation. For this community, wherever it was, obedience to Jesus’ teachings is required for entry into the kingdom of God. The Gospel of Matthew is yet another example of how Jesus and his teachings were interpreted in light of the questions and needs of people attempting to follow Jesus 50 or more years after his death (The Gospel of Matthew as likely written around 80-85 CE). It is a reminder that contemporary groups who want to follow Jesus have the complex task of figuring out how best to attempt to understand and live out Jesus’ wisdom in light of the very different context we live in today. Do we agree with Matthew’s interpretation, or are there other ways of understanding Jesus?

- Alicia Batten

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 (St. Patrick)

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 (St. Patrick, Bishop and Missionary of Ireland, 461) 

Matthew 5:43-48

Remember for good all those that love us, and those that hate us, and those that have desired us, unworthy as we are, to pray for them. 

• The Book of Common Prayer, p. 57

I read out these words frequently, most Wednesdays and Sundays, when I lead the intercessions. They always hit me in a powerful way. We live in a world where the narrative of ‘us versus them’ is reflected in many of our news broadcasts. And indeed, it’s true, we all have enemies in one way or another. One particular spin on this narrative is that we are living in a ‘clash of civilizations:’ west vs. east, sophisticated vs. primitive, Christian vs. Muslim (and/or everyone else). Philosopher Rene Girard, though, challenges this assumption. Are the human race’s violent tendencies really attributable to Tribe A being so different from Tribe B? No, Girard says that Tribe A and Tribe B usually want, basically, the same thing. (What might that be most often? Power? Resources? Land? The sense that their party is ‘right?’) The warring parties are in competition with one another. That’s why there’s conflict. He calls this ‘mimetic desire.’ We are stuck in a cycle of imitative violence. A temporary relief can occur when we sacrifice something or someone: a scapegoat. But in Jesus we see the scapegoat not only triumphing over this death-dealing, but also unmasking the hideousness of this system for what it is. In following Jesus we commit to siding with the oppressed, those victimized by those who hold the power. This is the Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. The cynic will say that this is just hippie wishful thinking. But think for a second: if violence really did bring about lasting peace, wouldn’t we have it? But the Gospel is a stumbling block to people. It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t convenient. It’s amazing, but also scary. Jesus calls us to carry our cross. To follow in his Way, which puts us at risk, like sheep among wolves. From time to time we must ask ourselves, when we become wolves ourselves, are we continuing in Christ’s Way? Or have we flung our crosses off of our backs and flattened others with them? 

Today we give thanks for the life and witness of Patrick, who brought the Gospel to the Irish people. As a young person he was enslaved and taken to Ireland. He eventually escaped, became educated, and in response to a vision, returned to Ireland on a mission to preach the Good News. Given his experiences one would not blame him if he had grown resentful of Ireland and wished terrible things on its people. But his experience of faith inspired him to work for good in the place where his enemies had forcefully brought him years earlier. 

- Matthew Kieswetter

Monday, March 16, 2015

Monday, March 16, 2015

Psalm 89:1-18

“I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;

your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.”

As you meditate on our reading for today, notice the many words that evoke permanence, security, certainty and strength:steadfast, forever, faithfulness, firm, covenant, establish, mighty, etc. This portion of the psalm seems written at a time when the author and the Israelites were well-founded and well-grounded. The security of the kingdom was a sure sign of God’s favor.

            Yet, a few verses later (vs. 38-51) all certainty is gone, any reliable foundation demolished, and the security of God’s favor has evaporated. Meditating on the first eighteen verses is difficult for us today because we know the rest of the story. We know the Davidic kingdom collapsed: “You have removed the scepter from his hand, and hurled his throne to the ground.” (v. 44).

            Is there a way we can fruitfully appropriate this opening section of the psalm for our lives today? Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has helpfully identified three main categories of psalms: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation, and psalms of re-orientation. Psalms of orientation are usually songs of praise to God written during times of prosperity and security. Psalms of disorientation, the ones we often avoid in our liturgies, are those psalms written during times of great distress, when it seems the world is collapsing around the Israelites. These are the psalms of lament and the ones filled with vengeful speech. Finally, the psalms of re-orientation, often the psalms of thanksgiving, are written in a period of stability after the disastrous times of disorientation. According to Brueggemann, times of re-orientation often come as a surprise and pure gift from God.

            These three movements describe the journey of faith. Life has a way of interrupting our days of security and comfort with nights of trouble: divorce, doubt, illness, betrayal, loneliness. But grace is not far behind. The paschal mystery holds out hope that resurrection always follows crucifixion.

            We can learn from the Israelites’ example. Maybe their problem was that they too strongly connected God’s love and favor to times of inner peace and outer security, in this case the success of the Davidic kingdom. The destruction of the empire ambushed their faith.  As you meditate on Psalm 89, identify all those areas of your life or of your church you consider most strong, most secure, and most permanent. What if they all disappeared tomorrow? How would their loss affect your faith? What deeper faith might then be possible?

- David Shumaker

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Sunday, March 15, 2015

MARK 8:11-21

The Pharisees were determined to argue with Jesus and demanded that he show them a heavenly sign or miracle to prove that his teachings and leadership were approved of by God. Perhaps these demands for a heavenly demonstration were meant more to tempt and entrap Jesus than to seek any genuine truth about his ministry. Whatever the actual motivations of the Pharisees, we read that Jesus’ heavy hearted response was to refuse to be lured into seeking the acceptance of these critics. Jesus and his disciples simply departed by boat to travel to the other side of a lake. 

After a rather hasty departure, we see the disciples of Jesus become confused over Jesus’ warning to them. He declares: “Watch out - beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” They mistakenly discuss amongst themselves that Jesus warnings are probably focused upon the fact that they have not adequately planned ahead by bringing food to sustain them after their physical journey to the other side of the lake. It is here that the audience may perhaps detect a little humour in the way that the sincere disciples are essentially “bumbling around” trying to decipher the meaning of Jesus’ “veiled” message to them. This might be useful to an audience of the Gospel of Mark which may have been suffering persecution and was “groping along” for some hope and a desire to understand the symbolic meaning of Jesus’ words. Perhaps some relief could be experienced by a conflicted audience in communities that were struggling in their own times to follow Jesus’ complex messages as recorded in Mark. For in the Markan story, the well-meaning disciples are often “stumbling about” and making mistakes in discerning Jesus’ teachings. This helps us to appreciate that choosing what actions faithful discipleship of Christ requires of us in today’s challenging world requires humility; there is a need to accept that mistakes will be made from time to time. A commitment to continuous engaged and open discussions in our communities may over time help us move in a direction that follows the example of Jesus’ life. This kind of commitment equips us with the tools to overcome “missteps” that our communities may take, and to embark on a better path.

-Terry Rothwell

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Psalm 90

Moses begins Psalm 90 with a classic affirmation of the timeless vast age of God. By addressing God in this way, he both praises, worships and characterizes God as a being not at all like the frail humans he has created.

“Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

The contrast continues when Moses speaks of humans going from dust to dust. A thousand years in our world is only a day in the sight of God. Humans pass away like the grass that comes up fresh in the morning and is dry and withered by evening. God’s anger features largely in Psalm 90. Moses reminds us, by speaking to God of the secret sins of humans that stand revealed in the light of God’s presence. The sadness and frailty of human existence is captured in an amazing poetic phrase:

“All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.”

What a sad commentary on life. Moses does not let up. He reminds us of the seventy or eighty years that we might have if our strength holds up, but claims that the best years 

“are but trouble and sorrow, for we quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Then, he pivots into his request of God. He asks God for a heart of wisdom that only comes when humans number their days. How many times in our lives have we heard the idea: Live each day as if it was your last! I often hear that at funerals, when thoughts of mortality fill the funeral home or church. The passing of someone dear to us, or someone who died before they achieved old age gives us pause. So does the brush of death that comes so close to us we can feel the icy breath.

Today, I heard of a dear old friend, in fact a former student who sits in Intensive Care while multiple surgeries and infectious complications have brought her close to death more than once this month. Her son told me the details of how the family has hung on the scant few words of doctors and nurses with huge periods of time in waiting rooms where no word came out one way or the other. I’m waiting for an email from him that folks other than relatives can visit. I’m hoping a visit will cheer her as well as the prayers offered by her family and friends. With the heart of wisdom Moses asks for, and I ask for, we can count our days, not just when death comes close, but every day of the year.

Near the end of the psalm, Moses asks God for his love, so that we may sing in the mornings and be glad all our days. Again, typical of Moses – he asks for as many days of gladness as days where God has afflicted us with sorrow and troubles. He finishes with a prayer that God’s deeds be shown to his servants, his splendor to their children and that the Lord’s favor 

“establish the work of our hands.”

He repeats that last idea as well he should. Our imaginations can steer us into so many ways to use up our time on this earth. But with God to establish the work of our hands, we can rest assured we shall be doing God’s will, not our own.

So, while Psalm 90 has so many familiar contrasting images, the eternal God and the frail human who is like dust in the wind, the dark night swept away by the light of day, the sorrows and troubles of human existence and the joys of knowing a loving God – still, on any given day, the events of our lives bring such psalms to life and make them absolutely personal to any one of us. Connecting the dots, it is not a far stretch to say that a heart of wisdom comes for those who dwell in the Word of God on a daily basis. And for some of us, older than we care to admit, counting our days is a very important thing to do.

Friday the 13^th, March / 2015