Friday, February 14, 2014

Friday, February 14, 2014

Isaiah 61: 1 - 9

            The words of the Prophet Isaiah have a familiar ring to them.

As readers of Holy Scripture, I offer the gentle reminder that,

the words of Isaiah are offered, first, to a people in physical exile.

The prophetic message is one which offers comfort and hope.

            Within the context of the message there is a

discernable vision of a transitional moment

which will be experienced. God's people will be restored to the

land which God has given them and they will be able to build on

the Covenantal relationship which forms their identity.

            Their transition from exile in Babylon back to the Promised

Land is declared by Isaiah, to be a Divine promise which will be fulfilled.

It is an experience to be anticipated and it is a divine commitment

which will be met.

            The second time we hear these words is in a synagogue in Nazareth.

An individual known to the community has returned home. He has

become known and widely respected, elsewhere, by many, as a person

with a ministry of note. He is a rabbi, a teacher, worth listening to.

            Jesus reads, the prophetic message;

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has

anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor,

to proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind;

to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's

favour.

            After rolling up the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus declares to

those who are listening and watching his every move, that the words they have

heard, the promise which God has made through his prophet Isaiah, has been

fulfilled.

            As we read those words, in each of those settings we are reminded of

how the promise which God makes to God's people is fulfilled through the physical

transitional experience which brings them from exile to home. We are

reminded of how the declaration which Jesus makes, that he is the personification

of God's promise being fulfilled has an impact on our own lives and renews our

souls.

            As a part of your reflection today, read through, not only the Isaiah

passage, but also examine St. Luke 4: 14 - 22. How do you hear those prophetic

words speaking to your own life experience ?

-Rev'd Canon Christopher Pratt

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Romans 12:9-21

The concept of hospitality is arguably one of the most fundamental concepts of Christianity. Verse 13 of this letter from Paul calls us to extend our hospitality to the other. When three strangers appear outside Abraham’s tent in Genesis 18 he has two choices: to welcome them, or to close up his tent and take up his weapons to defend his home. Abraham chooses the former and calls for Sarah to make bread and for his servant to prepare a calf; through his hospitality he discovers that the strangers are God.  

Paul’s letter calls us to be generous to all who come asking. To ask for food when we are hungry, water when we are thirsty, shelter when we are cold is to be vulnerable to another. This is an act of humility and it requires that we respond with generosity. But this is a difficult thing to do, especially when our instinct can be to reject the unknown for fear of danger or betrayal.

In the course of my schooling, the question of hospitality often arose around the Second World War. My mother’s frequent question to us: “If a Jew came knocking at my door in Nazi-occupied Europe and asked for refuge, would I let them in?” This question haunts me; I come up with different answers every time. But it is clear what Paul is calling us to do. He is helping to show us God in the face of the stranger. Everything else must fall away next to that.

-Joshua Zentner-Barrett

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Wednesday February 12, 2014 

Romans 12:1-8

Paul’s Letter, (sometimes termed Epistle) to the Christians in Rome has been described by many as his masterpiece.  It is densely written, covering much of his understanding of the purpose of Jesus the Christ.  In this letter, Paul includes both Jews and Gentiles as receivers of God’s grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  He speaks of slavery and freedom, of law and liberation, and summarizes it all by insisting that God’s mercy and grace is for all people.

Now, in chapter 12 and for the rest of the letter, Paul instructs his readers on how to put all his theory into practice.  Some of his teaching focuses on transformation, some on meekness, and much on the diversity of gifts possessed by the followers of Jesus.  And that teaching is still current for us today.  We, too, as the body of Christ here and now, possess many different and important gifts – important for building up the body, sustaining it, and encouraging its members.  These gifts are given to us to use, not to hoard, or mete out as we see fit.  Indeed, these gifts are not really ours at all, but God’s, who has called us to be stewards of them.

What gifts have you discerned within yourself, or what gifts have others seen in you?  How do you use them?  How do you refine them?  ^“We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

-Rev'd Paul Kett

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

John 7:53-8:11

The famous story of the woman caught in adultery was a later insertion into the Gospel of John as it does not appear in the oldest manuscript evidence for the text (we have no originals of any book of the Bible). It even shows up in some copies of the Gospel of Luke! However, this does not mean that the story itself was not ancient, and it is consistent with other accounts in which some people attempt to trap Jesus. In many ways, the narrative is consistent with the characterization of Jesus throughout the Gospel of John. He is calm, wise and forgiving, and he knows that this woman is being used as a pawn to lay a charge against him. He responds to the challenge of the scribes and Pharisees by making them think about their own sins. One can imagine them walking away stiffly, frustrated that Jesus has yet again outwitted them. He displays compassion for the woman, but also sternly exhorts her to sin no more. The characterization of Jesus here is a reminder that for early Christians, Jesus was no shrinking violet. He resists those who test him with a combination of wisdom, compassion and intelligence. 

-Alicia Batten

Monday, February 10, 2014

Monday, February 10, 2014

John 7:37-52

“As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive[.]  (John 7:38-39, NRSV)

Today in contemporary Anglican calendars we commemorate Hannah Grier Coome, founder of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, which has communities in Toronto and Victoria. Several St. John’s parishioners are Associates of the Sisterhood, and members of the Sisterhood have come to St. John’s on various occasions for speaking engagements and retreats.

In today’s reading people debate about Jesus’ hometown as a way of denying his authority. Their expectations and predisposition to making quick judgements closed their minds to Jesus’ message. When Hannah Grier Coome felt a call to the monastic life she initially figured that she would join an established community in England. Only later, with the guidance of others, would she come to realize the opportunities for ministry in her own country. Sometimes the best decisions take a little thinking outside the box, or are the result of surprises that are beyond what we could have thought up ourselves.

Today let us give thanks for the life and witness of Hannah Grier Coome, and for the Spirit who enlightens and sanctifies all communities that come together in the name of Jesus Christ.

More information on Anglican religious orders in the Americas can be found on the CAROA website.

-Matthew Kieswetter

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Mark 10:13-22

The radio program Snap Judgment recently played a story about the Desserich family and it illustrates so well the truth of today’s Gospel. I’ll summarize here:

Five-year old Elena knew exactly what she wanted to do when she was older.  She also knew that she had only one year to do it.  She was dying of cancer and what she wanted to do was remind her parents, Keith and Brooke, and her younger sister, Grace, just how much she loved them.

Here father shares that Elena was a strong, articulate and intelligent child. She fiercely cared for her younger sister, almost to the point of being a second mother. She had a distinctively confident way of walking and when she began to stumble, they knew something wasn’t right. She was later diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and the only ones who survive, the doctors said, were those who were misdiagnosed.

Keith and Brooke never told their daughter the doctor’s prognosis. But she knew and she began to prepare, not for her own death, but for her family’s loss.  After she was gone, Keith and Brooke began finding notes around the house. At first, when a note fell from a book pulled from the shelf, they thought it was one they had forgotten. Perhaps one written at school that they shoved away in the book they were reading at the time. But when the notes began turning up everywhere: in the furniture, in the dishes, written on the hotel stationary of places they had stayed during her year of treatments, they knew she had planned them all along.

The notes were addressed variously to her mom, to her dad or to her sister, and they all have the same theme: I love you. Both Keith and Brooke carry one note that they haven’t yet opened. He found his in his office desk. She found hers in her briefcase. They carry them as tangible reminders of their daughter’s love.  

I have to admit that this story moves me. I am moved by Elena’s simple, yet radical, openness to life in the face of her own death. I am inspired by her ability to be for others even as she suffered. I am fascinated by her attentive creativity.  

When you listen to the story, you can tell Elena’s father adored his daughter. And it seems to me that Elena had what all treasured children have: an unconscious, immediate sense of being loved. She depended on her family in simple trust. She hadn’t yet “matured” into a life of “independence” and “self-sufficiency.” 

I can’t help but think that when Jesus welcomed the children, he welcomed them for this same radical openness and simple trust. He recognized in them something he recognized in himself: he knew he was Beloved and so did they. Because both he and they were bathed in love, it was easy for them to give it away. 

And I can’t help but notice the stark contrast with the rich young ruler. In his position of status and affluence, he had forgotten how to love. He came to ask Jesus for advice. Maybe he had forgotten how to love because he had forgotten what it’s like to be a child and to find security not in power or wealth but in loving relationships.

I often pray that I could be more like Elena and less like the rich young ruler. I pray that I could re-capture my own spirit of child-like love and trust. And I pray that I would be captured by the vision of what God is up to in the world: a mission of divine sharing with all creation. I pray that we could all be captured by the kind of child-like wonder that Abraham Joshua Heschel describes: “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” And, then, from this place of amazement, continue in a life of simple kindness and social justice. 

I have some notes to write. 

-David Shumaker

+++ You can find Keith’s story of Elena on the website www.snapjudgment.org/found. +++

Saturday February 8, 2014

Psalm 23 is perhaps the best-known and most beloved psalm of all.  I know it has often brought comfort and encouragement to me. 

What images comes to mind when you hear the phrase, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures"?

My images were forever changed when I had the privilege, several years ago, of traveling to the Holy Land and saw Bedouin shepherds herding their sheep and goats in the desert south of Jerusalem.  Green pastures mostly looked like tufts of grass among the rocks.  The landscape recalled to me the Lord's prayer, "give us this day (or perhaps, this moment) our daily bread".  I realised that the times when I have most needed to recite the 23rd Psalm have been times when my life felt like that wild landscape with its scattered tufts of grass.  Please, God, grant me enough nourishment, or strength, or courage, or calm, to negotiate this moment.  And may I trust my shepherd to lead me to the next step along the way.

- Marilyn Malton