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All three readings today are “call stories”. They are stories are about people being called to speak God’s love to the world. And it’s not just them. We continue to read these stories because they’re also about us. We are being invited to speak God’s love to the world, to tell the story of God’s good news of compassion, love, justice and shalom.

In the gospel, Jesus is talking to a group of fishermen, and so he tells them that from now on, they’re going to be fishing for people. It makes sense to use that image for these fishers.

What about us? I wonder what image Jesus would use today? What would be a good image for us?

The Dans of the world need to know that they are loved. And if we can’t tell them the story of love, who will? The Dans of the world need us to show them. The Dans of the world need us to love them.

We’re being invited to live that out today. God claims us as the church. God invites us to follow Jesus in the way of love. God holds us and whispers, “You are mine. Now go tell the world.”

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

February 10, 2019 (5th Sunday after Epiphany, Proper 5)

Luke 5: 1–11

Isaiah 6: 1–8

1 Corinthians 15: 1–11

I’m sure you’ll remember from last week that Jesus went to the synagogue, where he preached his first sermon. He read the appointed reading from Isaiah: “God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the message of good news to the poor, sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’” (The Message)

Then he began to preach. “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today was part 2 of the story—the people’s response.

It’s always interesting to me how people respond to a sermon. Often, I’ll think that the sermon I just preached is mediocre at best and people will say, “Great sermon!” Other times, when I think I’ve knocked it out of the park, no one says anything. Sometimes people will tell me what they heard when I’m quite sure I said no such thing. Occasionally, two weeks later, or two months later, or two years later, someone will share something they remembered, and for the life of me I can’t recall a single thing about it.

In fact, when I was in Edmonton a couple of years ago, someone told me that a sermon I preached there made a difference in their lives. That was 30 years ago!

So how did the people in Nazareth react? Well … they wanted to throw Jesus off the nearest cliff.

Just to be clear, I’m not recommending this. I don’t want to give you any ideas!

But here’s the thing. Sometimes the gospel is going to offend us. Sometimes it’s going to get under our skin and irritate the heck out of us. Sometimes it’s just going to seem like so much bull…. nonsense.

Because God’s gospel values are different than society’s values. Because God’s gospel priorities are different than society’s priorities.

You see, the gospel means to transform us. The gospel means to change us. The gospel means to help us see life in a whole new way. The gospel means to help us re–evaluate our priorities. The gospel means to shake the foundations of our lives so that we might live according to new values and priorities.

And sometimes we don’t much like that.

And we turn our backs and continue with our normal lives.

And we reject the gospel, just as Jesus was rejected 2000 years ago.

The Eucharistic Prayer we use today puts it this way, “Rejected by a world that could not bear the Gospel of life, Jesus knew death was near.” It’s a telling phrase … a world that could not bear the gospel of life.

It is hard for us, because the gospel is so countercultural.

Our society says, “Get all that we can while we can. The gospel invites us to give as much as we can for the good of all.

Our society says, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” The gospel says take care of each other without thought for yourself.

Our society says, “This is my stuff, my home, my land; I earned it and I deserve it.” The gospel says it is all gift, it doesn’t belong to us, and invites us to give it away.

Our society says, “Christian faith is there to comfort us and make us feel good about our white, middle–class ways.” The gospel says that I have come to proclaim good news for the poor.

Our society says, “Christian faith is useless.” The gospel tells us that our relationship with God is the very stuff of life.

And if that doesn’t scare you a little bit … then you’re just not paying attention.

American essayist Annie Dillard wrote the following about 25 years ago: “Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? … It is madness to wear [Easter bonnets] to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” (Teaching a Stone to Talk).

Rejected by a world that could not bear the gospel of life …

So here’s the question for us.

Do we also continue to reject Jesus because we cannot bear the gospel of life?

Man that’s tough.

Some days I wonder about myself.

Some days I wonder about you, about us together.

Last week, someone said to me after my sermon, “You really do care about the poor and the victims, don’t you?” My response was to say that I don’t see how we can read the gospel any other way. Sometimes I wish we could.

But I can’t.

The heart of the gospel for me is that God’s love and compassion is exactly for those who can’t make it on their own. From Genesis to Revelation, the gospel is that in God’s economy, there are no outsiders, no one is beyond the reach of God’s love, every person has dignity and value, and all creatures reveal the power of God’s love.

God keeps drawing the circle of love wider and larger all the time.

And yes, that can be unsettling.

Because the gospel isn’t ours to control. It’s not up to us to decide who’s in or who’s out. It’s not our job to try and tame the gospel, to domesticate it, to make it somehow more palatable.

Our work is to see all those places where God is already acting in the world and then to join in with all our hearts.

And that will change us. That will transform us.

God invites us to live out as fully as we can the last line of our Mission Statement: “All are Welcome”, to be as inviting as we can possibly be in all that we do.

God invites us to see others … the homeless, the poor, the alcoholic, the drug addicted … to really see them and know that they are precious people in God’s sight.

God invites us to be as generous as we can be, to share all the blessings which fill our lives with those who have so much less.

God invites us to see that members of the LGBTQ community are precious people made in the very image of God, and that we refuse to condemn them to second–class status as the church has so often done.

God invites us to join in the difficult work of reconciliation, to join hands with indigenous people. Part of what that means is to recognize that we are living on land that legally still belongs to them, and we’re going to have to figure out how we can work it out for the welfare and peace of all.

I could go on with examples about the environment, about our tendencies to be consumers, about refugees and immigrants, about government and economic policy, about the life of the people in our small corner of the world. But you get my drift.

God invites us to make God’s gospel priorities the priorities of our lives.

As we live in this gospel way, as we begin to share the dream of God, then we will be changed, we will be transformed.

And the world needs that kind of change. The world needs people like us to proclaim it. The world needs people like us to live it.

To be people of peace.

To be people of compassion.

To be people of reconciliation.

To be people who live out God’s love in everything we do.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

February 3, 2019 (4th Sunday after Epiphany, Proper 4)

Luke 4: 21–30

1 Corinthians 13: 1–13

Jeremiah 1: 4–10

Today, Jesus preaches his first sermon.

And what a sermon it is!

We have to remember that Jesus was a faithful Jew, so he goes to synagogue on the Sabbath. It was his habit.

He reads the appointed reading for the day from the prophet Isaiah— “God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the message of good news to the poor, sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’” (The Message)

He rolls the scroll back up, and begins preaching: “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

No wasted words. No fluff.

Just an announcement to the gathered congregation about why he has come. This is his mission, his life’s work. He will work out God’s redemptive purposes among them. He will be faithful to God’s vision of life. He will live out God’s dream of a life where everyone shares in the wholeness and goodness of life. He will witness to God’s transformative vision of life marked by prosperity, physical wholeness, and release from any kind of domination.

“This is the purpose for which I have been anointed,” he says. This is my life’s purpose. This is who I am.

God has chosen me to bring good news for the poor.

Notice that. It’s the opening line, and it sets the tone for all that follows. This is good news for the poor.

Then notice the others who are named by Isaiah: those who are captives; those who are blind; those who are oppressed.

This “good news” is intended specifically for those who are in need, for those whom society casts aside so easily. To all the poor, to all the captives, to all the oppressed, God says, “You are included. This good news is for you.”

Not to those on the top. Not to those who are able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Not to those who have all the advantages. Not to those who think they can make it on their own. Not to the self–made man and the self–made woman.

God has anointed me to bring good news for the poor. Release for the captives. Sight to those who are blind. Freedom for those who are oppressed.

Now let’s not spiritualize this, as some have done. It’s not good news for the spiritually poor; it’s not release for those who are captive to sin; it’s not sight to those who are blind to God’s presence in life; it’s not release for those who are oppressed by the burden of sin.

This is good news for those who are really poor, for the homeless who wander the streets looking for bottles to turn in so they can buy some food or their next fix. For the panhandler. Peace for those who are bullied. Support and help for those who are abused. Welcome for those who are the victims of racial prejudice.

This is release for those who are the victims of our society’s way of doing things, which only benefits those who already have so much.

This is sight for those who are truly blind.

This is freedom for people who bear the burden of oppression because those on top lord it over those on the bottom.

That’s the first thing to notice.

But the word which really grabbed me as I was reflecting on this sermon was the first word in this sermon: “Today.”

Jesus didn’t say “The Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” or “The Scripture will be fulfilled in your hearing,” or “Some day the Scripture will be fulfilled.”

He says, “Today … the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today.

The angels used the same word when they announced the birth to the shepherds: “Today is born for you a Saviour.” I’ll come back to that in a moment.

But here we are 2000 years later, and there are still poor people. There are still people who are oppressed and held captive. There are still blind folks and lame people and those who are addicted to drugs and booze. So what does it mean?

Fulfilled? Today? I don’t think so.

And I can easily imagine that congregation in Nazareth thinking the same thing, because Isaiah made these promises some 600 years earlier.

Fulfilled? Today?

So how can this be?

Let me suggest this. In his sermon, Jesus is announcing that God’s promises are being fulfilled … in him. In him, God’s word of liberty and grace and healing is available for all, and particularly for those at the edges, on the margins, at the bottom.

This sermon is about himself. He is the living Word of God who comes to dwell with us, as John puts it. He is Emmanuel, God–with–us, as Matthew puts it. Jesus points to himself as the living and breathing fulfillment of God’s promise to rescue and redeem the poor.

Jesus embodies the process of fulfilling God’s promises. Today … marks the beginning of a process.

That’s what the tense of the verb in Greek indicates. If you’re a grammar geek like me, this is a perfect passive indicative verb. It indicates an action that was completed in the past, but the results continue in the present. It was done … and it continues to need doing in the present. Today this Scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing … and it continues to keep on being fulfilled … and it will keep on needing to be fulfilled in your presence.

Today. Not just a single day one sabbath in Nazareth. Every today. Just like the angels’ announcement to the shepherds, it happens every today. Every today a Saviour is born for you. Every today, God’s promises are being fulfilled. Every today, God’s dream is being made real.

This sermon is a declaration, a promise, and an invitation.

It declares that in Jesus, God acts on behalf of those in need.

It promises that God continues to take the side of the vulnerable and the marginalized.

It invites us to do this same work, to embody God’s promises, and fulfill those promises in our own lives. Jesus invites us to be part of God’s fulfillment of God’s promises. Today. Tomorrow. The next day.

Now that can be a little bit daunting, and lead to a set of self–doubting questions: “Who me? Really? The problems seem so big, what difference can little old me make?”

But we can read that invitation another way … in which it empowers us: “Me? Really? You mean we can make a difference? You mean the small things we do matter? You mean that God really is at work in our lives for the sake of the world?”

The answer is always Yes. Today. What you do matters. You can make a difference. You can be partners with God. The light of Christ shines in you. You can feed the hungry, you can clothe the naked, you can welcome the outcast, you can care for those who are abandoned, you can love the unloved.

How cool is that!

It reminds me, finally, of Howard Thurman’s amazing, challenging and empowering poem, The Work of Christmas:

“When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.”

In us, the light of God shines. Today. This Scripture is being fulfilled … today.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

January 27, 2019 (3rd Sunday after Epiphany)

Luke 4: 14–21

1 Corinthians 12: 12–31a

Nehemiah 8: 1–10

 

 

I’ve been reading a wonderful book called Healing the Purpose of Your Life. The main theme of the book is that each of us has a unique purpose for our life, and our whole lives are a process of discerning that purpose and living it out.

They quote Agnes Sanford, the Episcopal teacher, who taught that each of us comes into the world with sealed orders from God. She means, “It is as if before we are born, each of us talks over with God our special purpose in this world.” Our “sealed orders” are not a list of tasks for us to accomplish. It is primarily a way of being for each of us. Who are we called to be?

The book tells a story about a tribe in East Africa which doesn’t count the birth date of a child from the day of birth, or even from the day of its conception as some other village cultures do.

For this tribe, the birth date is the first time a mother thinks of giving birth to a child. When she becomes aware that she intends to conceive a child, she goes off to sit alone under a tree. There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive. Once she has heard the song, she returns to her village. She teaches it to the father so that they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.

After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb. Then she teaches it to the old women and midwives of the village so that throughout labour and at the moment of birth, the child is greeted with its song.

After the birth, all the villagers learn the song of their new member and sing it to the child when she falls or hurts herself.

The song is sung in moments of triumph, or in rituals and initiations. The song becomes part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown. At the end of life, her loved ones gather around the deathbed and sing the song for the last time.

It’s a beautiful story about the same kind of thing Agnes Sanford described as sealed orders. You can understand why I would love this image of our LifeSong.

It’s a way of talking about our essence. This is God within us. This is the light within us. This is what gives our lives meaning and wholeness and grace and love.

The song of our lives says something about who we are. It describes our being, our beautiful, unique personhood. Before we are born, God has a loving conversation with us about who we are and how we can live out our identity.

Notice that it’s not about what we do. Our LifeSong is about who we are. The things we do, the tasks we accomplish in our lives, are only ways of living out our identity. What we do reflects who we are.

As I was reflecting on that, it occurred to me that Jesus’ Lifesong was to empower people to live in a new way marked by unconditional love. When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, he described a way of living together marked by love, equality, sharing. It was a radical thing then. It’s a radical thing now.

And as we read the story of Jesus’ baptism, we read a story about his commitment to living that way. When he was baptized with all the other people, he was praying. A voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my Son. You are my Beloved, chosen and marked by my love.”

He spends the rest of his short life revealing God’s love. He lives it out. He encourages people to live in the way of love. He heals people as a sign of God’s love in action. His death points to the incredible and powerful love of God in the world. That is the light we see in Jesus.

I believe that the same is true of us. In our baptism, God claims us as beloved daughters and sons. God wraps us within the embrace of love and whispers into our souls the identity which God has given us. “You are God’s work of art,” we sing in one of our baptismal hymns. You are God’s Song in the world.

A well–known theologian once confessed that he was plagued by a terrible dream. He was traveling in a distant city and ran into someone with whom he had gone to high school. The person would say, “Henri, Henri, I haven’t seen you in years. What have you done with your life?”

The question always felt like judgment. He’d done some good things, but there had also been some troubles and struggles. And he didn’t know how to answer the question, how to account for his life.

Then one night he had another dream. He dreamed that he died and went to heaven. He was waiting outside the throne room, waiting to stand before almighty God, and he was shivering with fear. He just knew that God would ask with a deep voice saying, “Henri, Henri, what have you done with your life?”

But when the door to God’s throne room opened, the room was filled with light. From the room he could hear God speaking to him in a gentle voice saying, “Henri, it’s good to see you. I hear you had a rough trip, but I’d love to see your slides.”

We begin to discern our LifeSong as we know that God’s love floods our lives. God whispers to us, “It’s so good to see you; I hear your trip has been up and down, but I’d love to see your slides.”

So many of us have grown up thinking of God as judgment. But it’s not so. God is unutterable love. God is pure grace. God is sheer delight. God always waits for us just around the bend, beckoning us on in our journey. At the same time, God walks alongside us, encouraging us to discover our own LifeSong, singing with us in harmony.

As with Jesus, so for us our baptism is the sure sign of God’s love at work in our lives. Before we can do anything other than eat or poop, we are baptized. We know ourselves to be God’s people, delighting as God’s love washes over us. We walk with Jesus, and in our unique way we show the power and delight of being loved as we are.

As we revel in belonging to God, we begin to discern our own LifeSong.

Here are some questions to help us discern our LifeSong:

Questions like this help us discern our own LifeSong. It’s not just something we do once in a while. These are questions for our reflection in the quiet moments of each day. We seek God’s presence each day, and we begin to hear our own LifeSong, that hymn which God sang to our souls before the beginning of time, the song renewed in our baptism, the song which we can hear in our days, if only we listen.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

January 13, 2019 (1st Sunday after Epiphany, Baptism of the Lord)

Luke 3: 15–17, 21–22

Isaiah 43: 1–7

Acts 8: 14–17

 

I’m going to let you in on a secret—there were actually four magi but the fourth was turned away because he brought fruit cake.

We don’t really know how many magi there were. All Matthew tells us is that magi come from the east to worship the child who has been born king of the Jews. They arrive at the house where Jesus is, open their treasure chests, and offer three gifts as they pay him homage.

These were standard gifts for a king in the ancient world: gold is a precious metal; frankincense is an essential oil; and myrrh was used to anoint. Other documents of the time record the same items as gifts for rulers. It’s astounding to think that this peasant boy was given gifts fit for a king.

Let’s notice two things in this story.

The first is to ask “Who are the magi?” We sing about “three kings”, but they’re not royal. Magi were philosophers and astrologers from the east. They’re not from here; they come from away. They’re strangers. This story is Matthew’s way of saying that this birth is good news for all people. Outsiders become insiders.

This is Emmanuel. God is with us—all of us. All the world. Everybody. The whole world is included within God’s embrace. This is a remarkable story of God’s abiding passion to welcome everyone, regardless of age, colour, creed, sexual orientation, or any other thing.

And these magi are outsiders in every sense of the word. Not only are they from away, they’re also astrologers who dabble in the occult. People like this were explicitly condemned in the Old Testament.

But Matthew tells us that all people are now included. Something new is going on here. God is crashing into our world with a whole new way of doing things. There are no more outsiders. None. Zero.

The second thing to notice is the star. Since they’re astrologers, their work is to discern what the stars are telling us. But have you ever tried to follow a star? You can’t.

The star is a symbol. It is Matthew’s way of talking about the light which shines in the darkness. We focus so much on the birth of the Christ Child at Christmas that we miss how much light is part of the story of Christmas.

John’s Gospel mentions it explicitly: “What has come into being in him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

In Luke’s story, the light is found in the wondrous glory of God which shone around that wonderful choir of angels.

In Matthew’s story, the light is found in the star. The magi follow the Light. Some people speculate that it might have been a comet or a supernova. Maybe—but honestly, that’s irrelevant.

The Light shines in the darkness.

I suspect that may be part of the reason we celebrate Christmas at this time of year, when the nights are longest. That’s why we use candles at Advent—the light grows week by week. That’s why we hold candles on Christmas Eve. The Light shines in the darkness.

It’s a story about following the Light.

The Light beckons us. The Light draws us in. The Light chases away the darkness. The Light warms us and melts the coldness that sometimes afflicts us. When we live in the Light, our fears are not so strong. They are less insistent. The Light bathes us in a sense of peace.

Following the Light also changes us. This kind of journey transforms us. As we rest in the Light, it enters our lives, our souls, and gently changes us.

I recently stumbled across a poem by Mary Oliver poem called Six Recognitions of the Lord. She describes lying in a meadow, watching the clouds, and letting the beauty of the scene wash over her. She ends the poem this way:

“Then I go back to town,

to my own house, my own life, which has

now become brighter and simpler, somewhere I have never been before.”

The poem describes an experience of something new in the midst of our ordinary lives. That experience changes us.

The same happened to the magi. They follow the Light, and they go home different people. They are made new, “and they go back … to their own life which has now become brighter and simpler, somewhere they have never been before.”

Matthew puts it this way: “They left for their country by another road.”

Following the Light changes us. We see new things. We engage in new ways of being. We set different priorities. We live in new ways.

On the outside, everything looks the same. Inside, it’s all new.

In another poem entitled The Summer Day, Mary Oliver reflects on the beauty of a summer day. She pays attention to the simple things, the little things, the beautiful things—a grasshopper, the grass. She ends,

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?” Finally, Walter Brueggemann offers this prayer at Epiphany:

“On Epiphany day,

we are still the people walking.

We are still people in the dark,

and the darkness looms large around us,

beset as we are by fear,

anxiety,

brutality,

violence,

loss —

a dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are — we could be — people of your light.

So we pray for the light of your glorious presence

as we wait for your appearing;

we pray for the light of your wondrous grace

as we exhaust our coping capacity;

we pray for your gift of newness that

will override our weariness;

we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust

in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage, and freedom to enact

your rule through the demands of this day.

We submit our day to you and to your rule,

with deep joy and high hope.”

Follow the Light. Where is the light present in your life? How can you follow?What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?We submit our day to you and to your rule with deep joy and high hope.Thanks be to God.

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

January 6, 2019 (Epiphany)

Matthew 2: 1–12

Isaiah 60: 1–6

Ephesians 3: 1–12

 

Dr. Phil tells us that Christmas is all about getting together with families and friends. It’s about togetherness and that special feeling we get from sharing. He’s not alone. Many people in our society think so. And if Dr. Phil says so — well, then, it must be so.

At the best of times, families get together to exchange gifts, eat huge meals, play games or do puzzles, talk and laugh.

But it’s not always the best of times. At the worst of times, families fight and argue and rehash old hurts.

It’s become more confused in the last few decades. With higher rates of divorce and remarriage, children are often part of more than one family. And so they negotiate schedules as carefully as possible — and the result is often frayed tempers, tears, and boundless frustration.

It’s not just Christmas. Some churches and TV preachers seem to think that the whole Christian gospel is about family values. They’re wrong.

Now, I’m not opposed to family. I have one of my own. And some of my best friends have families too. But you can’t reduce Christian faith to family values.

The gospel is about the dream of God. It’s about the healing of the world. It’s about forming community which is larger than just our birth family.

Today’s story from Luke highlights this sense. A family travels to Jerusalem. They do this every year for Passover. This annual pilgrimage is part of their lives … a habit. This is what they do.

At the end of the festival, the family starts their journey home with their friends. They assume their 12–year–old son is with the group, but at the end of the first day, they can’t find him anywhere.

Mom and Dad rush back to Jerusalem, search frantically for three days and finally find him in the Temple, debating with the teachers who are quite taken with him.

Mom rushes up to him. I can see her pinching his ear and pulling him to his feet. “Why have you done this to us? Your father and I are half out of our minds. You’re grounded. For life!”

And the boy, with a real sense of surprise, asks, “Why were you searching for me? This is where I’m supposed to be—I’m about my father’s business.”

This is a transition story in Luke. It begins to separate Jesus from his “parents” and attach him to his “father”. A different set of family values.

Later in the gospel, after he’s grown up, this same boy is teaching. His family comes looking for him, and he asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers? My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8: 19–21)

Christian faith is not just about family values. That’s much too small a concern. Christian faith has to do with how we value all in the human community. Christian people journey with Jesus, doing the work of God in the world.

Now some of that has to do with family. Of course it does. But it goes way beyond that. It embraces the whole world, including those whom our families would normally shun.

Let me suggest something a little more profound than family values.

In these days after Christmas, the church celebrates comites Christi” … the “companions of Christ”. The days after Christmas are littered with saints’ days … people who have lived and died in faith, and live now in the presence of God with Christ their brother:

It seems to me to be a healthier, more inclusive image. We live in the world as companions together with this one who leads us into freedom and wholeness.

No family values for me. I’d rather be marked as a companion of Christ. I’d rather be known as one who is about the business of God in the world. I’d rather be a companion of Christ, one of the comites Christi.

In the words of that wonderful hymn by Herbert O’Driscoll,

“The love of Jesus calls us that we may always be

companions on a journey, where all the world may see

that serving Christ is freedom which time does not destroy,

where Christ’s command is duty, and every duty joy.

 

“The love of Jesus calls us in swiftly changing days,

to be God’s co–creators in new and wondrous ways;

that God with men and women may so transform the earth

that love and peace and justice may give God’s kingdom birth.”

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

December 30, 2018 (1st Sunday after Christmas)

Luke 2: 41–52

1 Samuel 2: 18–20, 26

Colossians 3: 12–17

Sometimes it seems to me like a pipe dream, a wisp of a vision that fades into the wintry air, leaving only a brief hint of a sweet smell that also soon disappears.

The light came in the darkness … and the darkness did not overcome it.

Peace came in the midst of conflict … and the conflict did not win.

Joy came in the midst of unbearable sadness … and the sadness did not diminish the joy.

Healing came in the midst of brokenness … and the broken were made whole.

Sometimes I wonder how we can continue to proclaim this good news in a world that is so broken. The world seems increasingly troubled, so full of hopelessness, so divided between the few who control so much and the many who have so little.

Sometimes the Grinch in my soul whispers in my ear that I must be naïve to believe such foolishness.

And yet …

And yet ,,,

It strikes me that in the story of our faith, it was always thus.

Isaiah speaks words of comfort and hope while the people are still in exile.

Other prophets proclaim a powerful hope based in God. Jeremiah laments the fall of Jerusalem, and is able to imagine a new future with God.

Zephaniah speaks powerful words of hope in the midst of a time when empires were ravaging smaller countries like Israel—just as they do today.

It continues beyond the story of the Bible.

Martin Luther speaks powerful words of hope to a church hierarchy that has lost its way—and gives birth to a new movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr stands at the Washington Monument in the midst of a struggle for civil rights and proclaims, “I have a dream…”

William Wilberforce spends his life, and finally the British Parliament passes an anti–slavery bill.

In the midst of the powerful Roman Empire, a young woman dares to say yes. A young man who has every reason to cast her aside … also believes her—and they give birth to a child.

And that child speaks truth to the empire, and the empire squashes him like a bug, and they thought they were done with him.

But about a century later, John describes that child this way: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

And today, once more, we celebrate God’s audacious promise that God is with us, that God is for us. God’s light shines. God’s hope blazes.

Once again, the babe is born, and in his infant cries we hear once more God’s whisper of peace and hope in the midst of all the dreadful realities.

Some scholars talk about this as the prose of reality and the poetry of faith. The world is governed by prose, by control, by working with harsh realities. Politicians know this when they say that they campaign in poetry and govern in prose.

In the midst of the prose which governs this world, we are poets. We speak the language of poetry, or imagination, of creativity, words of grace and compassion, of a hope which is stronger than the prose which runs the world.

We become poets of the dream of God, and as we do so, we live in the wisdom and joy of God’s dream. And as we dare to dream with God, life becomes unimaginably dear, impossibly wonderful, extravagantly hopeful.

And we can say to that Grinch, “Not so fast, green one. The poetry of faith gives life its abundance.”

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

December 25, 2018 (Christmas Day)

John 1: 1–14

Isaiah 40: 1–11

He was a miserable schmuck.

It’s not that his life was miserable. Oh no. His life was going along just tickety–boo. He was rich. He was well–fed. He was warmly dressed. He had a comfortable place to live.

But he was a miserable schmuck.

His whole life had been devoted to one thing—the pursuit of money. He had learned from a very young age that if you don’t have money … well then, you have nothing.

And so that’s what he did. He made money. Quite a bit of it. And he held on to his money. Tightly. So tightly that his name has become a synonym for a skinflint.

Was he happy? What a silly question. What does happiness have to do with it? He made money. There wasn’t time to think about anything else. This was what life was for. This is what it meant to be human. Get all you can while you can.

And he was a miserable schmuck. Just ask anyone; they’d be happy to tell you. When they saw him coming, they crossed the street, and they crossed themselves.

And so his whole life went … until one fateful night.

 

On the other side of the world lives a young couple. She is very pregnant. He hovers protectively over her. They’re on the move—some stupid government decree.

This peasant couple can barely make life work. They live hand to mouth and are completely at the mercy of the higher–ups—the government, the landowners, the rich. Their future is uncertain, and they feel like pawns in a game where the rules are skewed in favour of those who have power and wealth and don’t hesitate to use it for their own gain.

The best part of their lives is found in community. They live with other peasants, their families and friends, and share the few things they have.

Are they happy? They don’t have the time to even think about that. They’re just busy trying to make it through another day so they can sleep with a full belly. Or at least a belly that isn’t completely empty.

And in just a few months, this young family of 3 will be a refugee family, one of countless families running away from abusive power.

But for now … they’ve travelled from their home up north. They’re staying with relatives who have welcomed them into their bare house, a couple of rooms with everyone crowding in around you.

This young family is well–cared–for, well–loved. The young woman gives birth to a baby boy. She wraps the infant in a linen cloth, not so soft, but the softest she can find. She lays him in the straw meant for the animals.

And this boy grows up and changes the world.

 

Two stories. Two parables. The miserable schmuck is Ebenezer Scrooge. We know his story well. It’s become part of our Christmas folklore.

The other is the story we tell tonight. Once again, we gather in mystery and awe to tell that familiar story. Once again, we sing the carols. Once again, we worship together, we eat and drink together, we hold the light together, and we wait for the light to break open our hearts so that we bear it as we go into the world.

The light of Christ is within us.

The boy who changes the world shows us something about what it means to be human. Charles Dickens knew something about that when he wrote A Christmas Carol. Scrooge learns in that fateful night that he had it all wrong. He learned something about being human.

Jean Vanier reminds us that there’s only one thing that really matters in life. Relationship. Do you love me? Do you love me as I am? And we give each other the gift of ourselves. Vanier tells us that we must always remember the “we”. That’s what it means to be human.

Scrooge was so wrapped up in the “I” that he had forgotten the “we”.

This boy who is born tonight … we dare to believe that he embodies God’s love. We dare to believe that he is an eternal sign of hope for all the world. He is the very definition of the “we”—forming a community of grace which, as it gathers in his name, welcomes and includes all people within the embrace of a loving and life–giving God.

What child is this? This child is the promise that God is with us in this broken world. This child is the promise that God comforts and heals. This child is the promise that God leads us into a new way of being, a new way of being human.

This child is God’s audacious promise that in the midst of brokenness, wholeness is possible.

This child shows us again and again what it means to be human. A human life, a truly human life, is marked by relationship, which involves sacrifice and grace and love. Jesus is the sign of God at work in us, making us fully human.

The shepherds, when they heard the good news, rushed to see it. When they had seen it, they cast off their fear and told everyone what they had heard and seen.

May we also, like those shepherds, cast off our fear and become God’s good news in the world. May we be the hands and feet of God in a world which needs to be loved and mended and comforted. May we be the light in the darkness.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

December 24, 2018 (Christmas Eve)

 

Advent is John’s time. He’s out in the wilderness, preaching and urging us to prepare the way of the Lord.

I suggested last week that Advent is a time of pregnancy. In Advent, we get ready to give birth to God’s good news in the world. Preparing the way of the Lord is a little like preparing for birth.

We prepare the way of the Lord by living in this world as God’s people.

We live as God’s people when we seek to discern the places in our lives where God is present.

We live as God’s people when we seek to reach out in love to all people.

We live as God’s people when we take time to reflect and ponder on all the blessings in our lives, and when we share those blessings with others.

We live as God’s people when we feel God moving within us. God is waiting to be born in us, in our lives, in our world. God simply cannot wait to burst out and be born.

At it’s heart, that’s John’s message.

But John is more of a curmudgeon than I am. He failed the Dale Carnegie course in how to win friends and influence people. Just listen to him:

“Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’ Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”

It doesn’t matter who you think you are. What matters is how you live:

“If you have two coats, give one away,” he said. “Do the same with your food.”

Tax men also came to be baptized and said, “Teacher, what should we do?” He told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.”

Soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He told them, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.”

I want you to notice two things: what John doesn’t say; and then notice what he does say.

John does not say, “Escape from the world. Go on a permanent retreat in the wilderness where you can worship and serve God properly. Go out into the middle of nowhere so you can meditate and chant mantras and offer prayers day and night for the rest of your lives.”

This is not a call for us to become an ascetic. It’s not a call to escape the world. It’s not a call to abstain from life.

Instead, John says that we are to inhabit our lives. Live fully in the world, and live as a child of God.

If you have two coats, give one away. The same with your food. If you have more than you need, give to those who have less than they need.

To the tax collectors, John says, “Be honest and above board in your work. Don’t collect more than is just.”

To the soldiers, John says, “Don’t use your power to beat down the people or threaten the weak or extort from anyone.”

To teachers, John says, “Teach your students well, and don’t abuse your authority in the classroom.”

To doctors and nurses and medical techs, John says, “Remember that your patients are people and not just cases, and treat them as the precious and beloved people they are.”

To politicians, John says, “Don’t use your position for personal gain, but remember that you were elected to serve all people and you have to work together, even with those you disagree with, to make it happen.”

To retired folks, John says, “Use the time you have now to discover ways of helping and serving other people.”

To all of us, John says, “Be who you are. You are God’s people. You have been blessed. Now be a blessing. You have gifts to give. So stop hoarding. Stop procrastinating. Stop making excuses.”

This is who we are. We are God’s people, and John calls us to think about how we are going to live as God’s people.

John dares to suggest that holiness is not some ethereal and mysterious thing. If we’re willing to think that nothing is too ordinary for God, then we’ll understand that the kingdom of God is here, within us, around us. All of life is holy because God is at work in us. We are pregnant and God is just waiting to be born in us.

And when God is born, the whole world becomes more holy. The whole world is made more whole, more loving, more compassionate, more grace–full.

Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta, points to that fact with these words found on the wall of her home for children:

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

“If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

“If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

“What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

“If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

“The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

“Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

“In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

We are God’s people. This Advent, we will live as God’s people.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt

December 16, 2018 (3rd Sunday of Advent)

Luke 3: 7–18

Zephaniah 3: 14–20

Philippians 4: 4–7

 

Advent is John’s time.

This wild man of Advent is out in the wilderness, far from the settled life of the city, and he’s drawing crowds.

He’s out in the wilderness, preaching something new, baptizing and crying out, calling people to change, to remake their lives, to get ready, to prepare, to repent.

Advent is John’s time. It’s not time for Jesus yet. That comes later.

This is John’s time. John bursts on the scene encouraging, inviting, shouting out that we ought to be busy preparing for Jesus.

Advent is a time to get ready.

And we are. We are getting ready. We are busy preparing. We’re buying and wrapping gifts. We’re decorating our houses and the church. We’re baking and cleaning and making plans to entertain. We’re writing cards and mailing them. We are busy preparing, getting ready. And even though we complain about it sometimes, we don’t really want to give it up.

But I don’t think that’s what John means. John has a different kind of preparation in mind.

John calls us back to our identity as God’s people. We are part of the Jesus movement, and we live by a different set of values. We are God’s people, who live by a different set of values, who live by God’s gospel priorities. During Advent we prepare, so that we can discern anew where God is to be found in our world.

We get ready in Advent by thinking … pondering … reflecting … deciding anew about how we are going to participate in the Jesus movement.

Here’s an image for Advent which makes sense for me. Advent is a season of pregnancy. When we are pregnant, we spend time thinking … pondering … making our lives ready for new birth. We make changes in our lives, particularly if it’s a first child. We look at the place we live with new eyes … new hopes … new dreams. We know things won’t be the same as they were in the past … but we’re not quite sure how they will be different either. We’re in that in–between time.

In Advent, we are all pregnant. We carry God within us, and in Advent we wait actively, discerning where and how and when God is being born in our lives and in our world.

And John is here to remind us—because we need to be reminded—that we are pregnant. John reminds us—because we need to be reminded—that we carry God within us. John reminds us—because we need to be reminded—that God is coming to birth through us.

In all the ordinary places of our lives, in all the ordinary moments of our days, in all the ordinary acts of compassion and grace and love, God is being born. In us … very ordinary people … the love of God is being made real.

It’s a different kind of preparation. It’s a different way to get ready.

The world celebrates a season which is really pre–Christmas. It’s a busy time of rushing around and making sure everything gets done, everything gets bought, everything gets wrapped and mailed.

But in the church, for us in the Jesus movement, this season is Advent. It’s a time for us to wait, to reflect, to hope, to get ready to give birth.

We prepare the way of the Lord.

Now I’m not naïve enough to think that we can give up pre–Christmas. It’s part of our lives. But in Advent and throughout the year, we are also the people of God’s dream. And we find ways to prepare the way of the Lord, in the midst of all the busyness of pre–Christmas.

We join John, who quotes Isaiah the prophet: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Prepare the way, because God is coming. Eugene Peterson has a wonderful way of putting it in The Message: “Prepare God’s arrival! Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out, the detours straightened out, all the ruts paved over. Everyone will be there to see the parade of God’s salvation.”

The parade of God’s salvation. The work of Advent is to train our eyes to see it … to notice it … to see signs of God’s wholeness coming to birth.

Now notice this. It all happens in the wilderness.

It can’t happen in our settled life, in our old busy routines, in life as usual. It’s in the wilderness … and the wilderness is an in–between time, an in–between place, and in–between experience. You’ve passed out of the old … you’re not quite in the new yet … and you’re in that in–between place. We have to make some time, some space in our lives.

Scholars call it a “liminal” time. A liminal time or place is an experience out of the ordinary where we face some of the deeper and more important questions about our identity, our loyalty, our priorities.

Carter Heyward puts it this way: “The wilderness is a metaphor for a time or place where we withdraw from business as usual. It’s a period of reckoning with choices made and unmade. It’s a time to ask questions about direction—where to go now?”

Wilderness is an in–between kind of experience, where you’re no longer in the past you’ve come to know, and you’re not quite there in a new future. You’re in–between.

Pregnancy is also a liminal time. The baby hasn’t quite been born yet, but things are not as they were before. You’re not quite in the new part of your life yet … but you’re getting ready, you’re preparing. The way becomes more clear as you do so.

Advent is a time for us to revel in being pregnant. There are going to be changes in our lives … we just aren’t fully aware of those changes yet.

We are getting ready. We are preparing the way of the Lord. Life is changing, and the story of faith tells us over and over again that that’s exactly the time when God shows up. When we are not settled. When we are pondering something new. When we aren’t quite sure what’s happening.

We’re living in John’s time in Advent.

You won’t find palaces or stock markets or shopping malls or temples in the wilderness. All you’ll find in the wilderness is this wild man John, who eats whatever he can find, who clothes himself with the stuff of the wilderness.

Let me invite you to enter John’s time. Let me invite you to revel in being pregnant.

Thanks be to God.

 

Rev. Dr. Yme Woensdregt (December 9, 2018, 2nd Sunday of Advent)

Luke 3: 1–6

Philippians 1: 3–11

Malachi 3: 1–4