Tuesday June 9, 2015

Psalms 64 & 65

What a difference in these two Psalms: the one is a complaint, a desperate cry for help, and the other  a song of praise and thanksgiving.  But that very difference does reflect the range of our emotions and experiences, and shows that everything in our lives can be brought to God. 

Listen and help, O God.  I’m reduced to a whine and a whimper, obsessed with feelings of doomsday. (64:1 The Message) Exactly what it feels like sometimes – no hope.  David cries out that evil people seem to believe they are safe, their crimes hidden and they therefore immune from exposure and justice. No one can catch us, no one can detect our perfect crime.(6) In the face of such arrogance, we can feel totally powerless and defeated.  BUT, David calls God “The Detective” and affirms that he does see and will respond.  So it is that he can end his complaint with a cry of praise. Be glad, good people! Fly to God. Good-hearted people, make praise your habit. (10)

Psalm 65 picks this call up and says that Silence and obedience are both praise and prayer (65:1-2)  His first praise is for God’s loving reception and forgiveness of us: We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt …but you get rid of them once and for all. (2-3) The rest of the Psalm shows God’s lavish love for the whole earth, his power over the elements and gift of natural abundance.  The response of the earth is like that of us people: Far and wide they’ll come to a stop, they’ll stare in awe and wonder.  Dawn and dusk take turns calling, Come and worship. (8)  David goes on to ask God to Visit the earth, ask her to join in the dance! (9) and paints a vivid picture of God bringing springtime and growth, ending with his call to praise: Let them shout, and shout, and shout! Oh, oh, let them sing!(13)

Despair to joy. Prayer and praise. A picture of real life, a model for our response to it.

Blessings

Ann Kelland

Sunday June 7, 2015

MEDITATION ON MATTHEW 15:29-39

My first reaction to this story is to focus on the geography. As Matthew 15 opens Jesus has just had a confrontation with Pharisees regarding what defiles a person, that which goes into him, or that which comes out of his mouth, spoken from his heart. The Pharisees believe that deeds make you holy, so washing before eating is a big deal for them. Jesus challenges their thinking and his theology once again trumps theirs. Just prior to the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus has just left the area of Tyre and Sidon, cities on the Mediterranean coast. Jesus is making inroads in areas he told his disciples to avoid when he sent them out to preach. In this district he confronts a Canaanite woman who challenges him to heal her daughter. She tells him that even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table. While Jesus seems to be hostile and rude to the woman, his challenge to her forces her to express a deep humility and unshakable faith. In that hour, her daughter is healed.

Next we see him …  “along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down”

The areas of the Sea of Galilee that slope gently down to the shore are the fishing districts where Jesus found his first disciples. Most of this seacoast however is hilly, with cliffs. It is in one of these mountains where Jesus sits, likely to rest and even more likely to facilitate the healing and preaching he knows he must accomplish. When people are waiting for three days to present their loved one for healing, it is encouraging to see the healer from a distance, visible on the hillside. And afterwards when people give thanks in this territory, they “praise the God of Israel”. Clearly this clue lets us know Jesus is in Gentile territory. So all the healings and the feeding of four thousand take on a very different tone than a miracle accomplished among the Jews.

People bring “the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others”. As I think about that idea, I am amazed that the feeding of the four thousand so often overshadows this part of the story. For a Gentile person to see their loved one suddenly have full use of his or her limbs or to see again would be truly amazing, as Matthew records. Luke’s record of this event focuses on one blind man (Luke 18:43), but I appreciate that Matthew’s focus is on any and all illnesses presented to Jesus over the three days of healing. Some of the crippled might have had twisted limbs. Some surely had limbs missing. Jesus restores and replaces them all before the eyes of everyone present. I cannot imagine the amazement of seeing a missing limb restored! The mutes were more than likely mute because they were also deaf. So Jesus would have had to, in one moment, restore their hearing and add to their memory all the language of the region where they live so they could speak. He would have had to go farther in one healing second than Helen Keller did in her lifetime. No wonder these Gentiles rose up and praised the God of Israel. Such healings must come only from a supreme being. There was no other explanation.

Many in the Church return to this passage encouraging us to take our troubles and “lay them at His feet” (v.30). I agree, but I know Matthew does not write in isolation. The story of eating without washing and the story the Canaanite woman are linked here. When the Pharisees see the sick touching Jesus, or Jesus touching them, in their thinking, he becomes unclean, unworthy to enter the temple unless he pays a fine and is restored to ‘purity’ with their blessings. Jesus challenges this view of the interaction of humanity. His idea of compassion involves embracing the sick, including lepers.

By the same token the Canaanite woman has her prayers answered while others do not. She understands she is unworthy of God’s mercy. She acknowledges Jesus’ image of her as a dog begging for scraps of bread meant for the children of Israel. She is humbled in her need. We too have no business laying our needs at the feet of God unless we are as humbled as the Canaanite woman to the point where we realize we are also not worthy of mercy. We must beg for it in our lowliness. In the same way, Gentiles (non-believers) in this story stood in line for three days, waiting in hope for healing – and in a barren place where their food must have run out long before they got to the front of the line.

Jesus, in his compassion not only heals them, he feeds them as he did with the five thousand.

“I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days
and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

This time the disciples do not argue with him. But they still ask where bread could be obtained for such a crowd. They still think in earthly, physical terms. They tell him how many loaves and how many fish are available among themselves. This time, when the miracle is enacted seven baskets of scraps are left over. Once again the disciples miss the point. Jesus is the not only the source of abundant bread, he is the bread of life.

I always wondered why only the men were counted. If each man had a wife and a few children, a crowd of four thousand more than doubles – more if an entire family brought an elderly sick person. Perhaps, the food was distributed to the males in each family, and only they were counted. But I’d be guessing at how the disciples organized the distribution process. More important is the fact that the crowd went away satisfied as Matthew said. (v.37) I believe they went away satisfied both in body and in spirit as Jesus intended.

Jesus leaves by boat and travels to Magadan, a village on the west coast of the Sea of Galilee. It is from here he skirts the north shore and arrives at Bethsaida, his next stop. So, his travels are non-stop and exhausting, as the gospels recount. Jesus seems to establish no pattern to his travels, other than to boldly go into Gentile areas, and alternate with Jewish areas. He challenges the Pharisees when they show up and works at healing and preaching when they are absent. Wherever Jesus goes, he gives a full measure of compassion and healing.

If the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but the notion of a world embraced by kindness and love and free of fear and selfishness, then wherever Jesus goes, he embodies the Kingdom within himself, demonstrates it and encourages all within the sound of his voice to walk in its light as well. The disciples are challenged, as are we, to walk in the same light, without having the physical presence of the Lord to motivate our daily actions. Like the Gentiles lined up for days, like the Canaanite woman, we hope for mercy, with no thought that we deserve it in any way. We cling to our faith and hope the Lord has compassion for our needs.

Peter Mansell           

Saturday, June 6 2015

2 Corinthians 9:1-15  Living by Faith & Reconciliation

On this day in 1944 the Allied Forces landed on Normandy Beach and began the invasion that would end Nazi occupation of Europe. This was at great cost, with Canadian Forces incurring a very  sacrifice of lives in the endeavour. When I noticed the scripture reading assigned for today, I couldn't help thinking... how fitting for this to coincide.

Paul was writing to the early Church in Corinth about faith, death and dying: for those early Christians in his time were facing and struggling with persecution as they sought to be faithful to following the Way of Christ. What he had to say to them applies just as much to those who were wounded, and to those who died on D Day, and even to us in the time in which we find ourselves. This passage is often used by me for comfort and reflection when I am leading a burial service.

Basically Paul is saying that even when we die, there is part of us that continues in as much as there is part of us that is of God. The Resurrection & the Ascension  of Jesus are reminders of this in, as much as the spirit of Jesus is also part of each of us. Although this is part of the mystery of God and is expressed in terms of Faith, there are pointers in that we can sense signs of God moving in in our lives today, both within the Church and in Life, and also at times, for us at the individual level. 

For me, there are times when I find my plans for the day suddenly changed: something  drives me to do something different from what I planned to do, and yet in the process, my new direction allows me to meet with another and to be in a time of sharing and caring. It's then that I sense and realize that the Good Shepherd has nudged me so  ministry might be done. I suspect this may also be part of your experience, as I have had many  others also share this reality with me. Christ's love for us, encourages us to move out beyond ourselves and to follow his example in being for others, in life and in dying, sacrificing if need be. 

"Sacrifice" means "making a holy gift", and within this action, is the spiritual reality that God is there for us in this moment, in this time when time and space become One and we again " Remember, do this,” we realize unity and communion in God, and, for me this is sufficient unto itself.

Archdeacon Ken Cardwell

Friday, June 5, 2015

Luke 18:9-14

A few years ago Canon Pratt was on sabbatical and Fr. Don Davidson from St. George's of Forest Hill was looking after our Wednesday morning Eucharists. He asked me to read the Gospel on one particular day, and I read what we have read today, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee. I began very confidently (and a little excited, reading the Gospel and all), but I soon found my voice cracking as I read the tax collector's words. In that moment everything seemed to come together, and the words of the Jesus Prayer became new and particularly penetrating for me: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

I don't think we're called to wallow in guilt and self-pity all the time, but neither are we called to gloat and feel self-satisfied. So often we seem to forget that being Christian means living life forgiven, which is not the same thing as living life perfectly. No matter how hard we might try, we will end up falling short of the mark from time to time, and in need of forgiveness.

We live in an age when even within the Church, Christians are finding it hard to agree on various issues. (A quick look at Church history will remind us that such conflict is pretty much par for the course, but it always seems to catch people by surprise.) How different might our level of discourse be if we each exhibited the humility of the tax collector in today's story? 

- Matthew Kieswetter

Thursday, June 4, 2015 (Pope John XXIII)

Galatians 2:1-10 

              Remember the “Good Old Days” ?

              However we remember those days gone by when, as if we were included in a Norman Rockwell painting, an idyllic world was not a figment stirred up from a vivid imagination, but rather a reality to be lived through and enjoyed.

               Those words are often used in conversations in different congregations, where there are memories of times past, when services were filled and chairs were need for the aisles. Memories of times past, when the church was at the centre of community and personal life.

               Different days… different times…….

               Over the years of my ministry there were times when individuals suggested to me that we would all be better off if the life of the church was in tune with the days of the Apostles, when everyone lived in harmony. The reading from Galatians appointed for today shows another side to those expectations. As Paul meets with the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem the conversations take a strident tone, as he defends and celebrates the ministry which he has offered and continues to offer in the name of Jesus.

               The resolution of the different perspectives on ministry is

clearly identified as being centred around the area of ministry, not the content of the Gospel message.

               I suggest that the experience which Paul is writing about is as real today as it was in the days of the Apostles. The content of the Good News has Jesus at the very core of its message. Yet time and time again, within the Church there are those who engage in ongoing disputes regarding how the Gospel message is best lived out, proclaimed and experienced. Anger and frustration well up within individuals whose personal agendas are not being met. All of this negative energy does little to build up the life of the Church.

               In Jerusalem, Paul spoke of his ministry in the name of Jesus over a fourteen year time frame. He shared his vocational call and the way in which he had lived out his response to that call. He spoke of the way in which he had used his God given talents and abilities and he talked about his faithful witness. At the end of the conversations there was an understanding of mutual respect which was reached.

               Mutual respect, tolerance of differences, fellowship in ministry and personal desire to reach out to others in the name of Our Lord. These are elements of ministry and personal experience which need, at all times, to be given their place and priority in our own lives and in the ministry we share with others in the service of Our Lord.

- Rev'd Canon Christopher Pratt

June 3, 2015

Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all inhabitants of the world,

both low and high, rich and poor together.  Psalm 49

What does the Psalmist wish us to hear with such urgency?  And in the company of people who are starkly different in terms of their resources?

The Psalmist points all - low and high, rich and poor - to pay attention to wisdom, meditation, understanding, proverbs, riddles, meditation, and understanding which are all part of the wisdom traditions.

These wisdom traditions counsel those who are poor and afraid because others grow rich not to be afraid; and they remind those who are rich and pleased with their lot and praised for doing well for themselves that they cannot take their wealth with them when they die.

We live in times when the gap between the rich and the poor is ever growing.  In Canada it is estimated that the top 20% of the population hold 70% of the wealth and the poorest people in our country do not share in the wealth at all.  Those with modest means still have more resources and wealth than most of the people with whom we share this planet.

Why do these economic inequalities matter to Christians?  One way of trying to answer this question is by thinking about human dignity.  In our baptismal covenant we promise to "strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being." Some Christian theologians and ethicists, such as Douglas Hicks,  argue that "inequalities matter to the extent that they obstruct at least some persons from realizing their human dignity within their own communities."  Hicks goes on to say that:

The Christian story is a global one, and Christian theology and ethics can contribute to the stretching of the global imagination. It expands our vision not in terms of seeing every human as a potential consumer in a global market. Rather, Christian ethics views every person as a reflection of God’s image endowed with human dignity.  (Read more here). 

As you go about your day, watch for the ways in which the media and you view others, rich and poor, high and low.  Pray that God will will help us all to expand our vision to see every person as a reflection of God's image.

Marilyn Malton

Tuesday June 2, 2015

Blandina was a Christian slave who had a Christian master. Both of them were among other early Christians who were imprisoned on account of their adherence to their faith.  Legends tell us that Blandina was among a band of martyrs at Lyon who endured many frightful tortures, and ultimately suffered martyrdom in 177 during the Roman reign of Marcus Aurelius.

Blandina and her fellow martyrs’ persecution at Lyon was initiated when a military commander, and a civil magistrate, threw a number of Christians who confessed their faith into prison. Later they were sent to trials. Many of Blandina’s companions were purported to have feared that because of her “bodily frailty,” she might not remain steadfast under torture and be tempted to betray her Christian faith and bare false witness against her fellow Christians. But she remained faithful and repeated to every query "I am a Christian, and we commit no wrongdoing."

Among her many trials she was reported to have been tied to a stake and had wild beasts released in her enclosure.

Yet, according to the legend, these animals refrained from doing any harm to her. After enduring this intimidation for numerous days she was taken into the arena to witness the sufferings of her companions. Finally, as the last of these martyrs, her torture ended with her being beaten and whipped, placed on a red-hot grate, enclosed in a net and thrown before a wild bull. This beast was reported to have finally ended her sufferings by tossing her into the air with his horns and killing her. 

Throughout her trials she is said to have never betrayed either her own Christian identity or her fellow Christians.

PRAYER

Grant, O Lord, we pray, that we who keep the feast of the holy Martyrs Blandina and her companions may be rooted and grounded in love of you, and may endure the sufferings of this life for the glory that shall be revealed in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

-Terry Rothwell