Tourists and Pilgrims

I haven't seen the paper yet today but if they weren't pressed for space this should be in it.

Tourists and Pilgrims

I took my family back to our favourite campground in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. This was our fifth summer in a row visiting there. We love it, the kids love it, we make day trips to various locations in the area, and we're always kind of sad to come home. As nice as a vacation is, it's not real life. It's an escape from real life. When we're on vacation we're only tourists.

Trips, journeys, vacations, they're wonderful things. Once the anticipation and excitement of Christmas is over my family starts looking forward to our summer camping trip to the Finger Lakes. But that vacation lasts a week or two. It's an escape, a change of scenery, a break from the everyday. We have a different experience there from the locals who are there year-round.

A book that I read while we were on vacation talked about tourists and pilgrims. It mentioned Trinity Church in New York City, one of the oldest churches in the United States, that sits near the edge of the World Trade Center site. Since September 2001, more than two million visitors a year have passed through its historic doors. Most of these people are spiritual tourists, nomads trying to make sense of the violence, suffering, and war that have engulfed us. Rev. Dr. Jim Cooper, the senior clergyperson at Trinity Church says, "They come. They come in droves. But I don't want them to leave as tourists. I want them to become pilgrims. I want them to connect, to know that there is something more."

We're all on some kind of spiritual journey. One researcher did a search of numerous articles about spirituality to come up with a definition and concluded that spirituality, in whatever form, is about making meaning. We're all on a spiritual journey of self-discovery and meaning but simply being on the journey doesn't mean that people will find meaning. When we "connect," when we discover that journeys can become pilgrimages, then we change from being tourists to being pilgrims.

As pilgrims we're not on a vacation to escape life, instead our journey embraces life more deeply. We find meaning in the destination of our pilgrimage and in the community of fellow pilgrims. Like the year- round residents of a vacation community, the locals, becoming a pilgrim is about being a year-round member of the community. It's about walking together through all the seasons, celebrating in the festivals, living through ordinary times, suffering at dark moments.

In the church we are on this pilgrimage together. We journey together, we change and grow and find meaning for our lives. And it's not just a journey of self-discovery and personal meaning. As pilgrims we find that God is transforming us as a community and together we work to transform the world through God's love and peace.

After our vacation we came home, and it's good to be home. For a while we were tourists but now we're back to being pilgrims, traveling life's journey connected to our community of faith, connected to God.

Family Camping

We're back. We went on our 5th annual summer vacation to Hickory Hill Family Camping Resort in Bath, NY. We had a wonderful two weeks. We didn't do all of the things we normally do, well some of us didn't. For some people it's enough to just hang around the campground, by our trailer of by the pool, and a lot of the time that's what we did. But we always make some day trips. We might just take a drive through the beautiful countryside around the Finger Lakes and the hills of the Alleghany Plateau but we also make some trips to various destinations.

We ended up at the Arnot Mall one day. We thought about seeing a movie there but we couldn't agree on which one to see so we skipped it and just wandered around the mall and did a bit of shopping.

Some of us went to the Windmill Farm and Craft Market.

We went to Watkins Glen State Park as we do every year and this year we made it all the way up the gorge and back.

We went, for the first time, to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. I never realized what a huge part of aviation history this guy and this village are.

Some of the kids went with the in-laws to the Corning Museum of Glass. We've done it a couple of times over the years but skipped it this year.

We always go on a wine tour and tasting and this year we went to the Widmer Winery. They are, for some years now, owners of the Manischewitz brand and produce all of that brand of Kosher wine. We saw the facility and met one of the rabbis who oversees that production.

At the campground the kids usually went to the craft time each morning. They do themes each week and our first week there was "Death by Chocolate" week. The second week was racing week since NASCAR was coming to nearby Watkins Glenn.

During the Chocolate week nearly all of the crafts were edible. On one day they had a chocolate slip- and-slide where they laid a tarp down on the grass, sprayed some water on it, then dumped a bunch of chocolate pudding on it. Two of my kids braved the mess as did my sister-in-law. They had a candy bar bingo night where the price of a card was one candy bar and all of the prizes were candy bars. One of my daughters won twice, totaling 8 candy bars.

As we were leaving we booked our two weeks on the same site for next year. Yesterday after my wife finished cleaning the trailer so that I could close it up she said she could easily camp out in there longer. We have such a great time. The kids love it. We love it. Our 9-year-old boy says he likes sleeping in the trailer because we're all so close together. That's sweet. It's a shame we don't use it more but it's hard to take the time off. We've considered going somewhere close to town for a weekend, close enough that I could be in church on Sunday morning for worship and then head back again afterward but we never get that together. But even if the trailer only gets used for 2 weeks out of the year I think it's worth it. I'm looking forward to next year already.

Summer Newsletter

This is what I wrote for our summer newsletter.


I remember bits and pieces of a song that I learned in music class when I was still in public school. It was a piece from the opera Porgy and Bess, "Summertime" by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry.

You may have read the column I wrote for the InPort News a couple of weeks ago talking about what I like and don’t like about summer. I hope I didn’t give too much weight to the dislikes in that column. There’s a whole lot I like about summer and I can put up with most of the dislikes.

One of the big things I like about summer is mentioned in the first part of that song. Summertime, And the livin’ is easy.... I think that’s so true. Because almost everyone takes some time off during the summer for a vacation, things just seem to slow down a bit. The livin’ is easy. The hustle and bustle of daily life seem to calm down. Maybe because the running and chasing we seem to do so much of would make us too hot in the summer.

It’s good to slow down, even if it’s only once in a while. It’s good to take time to recharge you batteries and it’s probably best you do that before they run completely empty.

Jesus took time off too. In the Gospel according to Matthew, after Jesus spent a day in the midst of a great crowd curing their sick, and then feeding them all, more than 5,000 of them, he sent the disciples across the lake in their boat while he sent the people away to their homes. "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray" (Mt 14:23). God even took some time off after creating the universe. "And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done" (Gen 2:2). Some get the mistaken impression that Jesus did away with Sabbath observance. He didn’t abolish it, he just wouldn’t abide by the nit-picking ways it was being observed that forbade even acts of mercy.

This summer, when "the livin’ is easy," let us all take some time to rest, to recharge our batteries, prevent rather than recover from burnout. And let prayer be a part of the nourishment and refreshment that we receive as we step back from the daily routine. After a long hard day Jesus took some alone time, some down time, and he prayed. And let us remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Who remembers Martin Luther’s explanation to this commandment from the Small Catechism? "We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise God’s Word or preaching, but instead keep that Word holy and gladly hear and learn it."

May our summertime refreshment, in whatever form that may take, restore us in body, mind, soul, and spirit. And please don’t be a stranger from church.

Post-Convention Thoughts

Well, I'm back from the 11th Biennial Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. It was good to see old friends and to make new friends. I spent a lot of time with a seminary classmate, a bit of time with a friend from my teenage years, and got to know some new people from across Canada.

Part of our first full day at the convention was spent worshiping and celebrating with delegates to the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. It was a neat day. We heard Dr. Sallie McFague speak about Global Warming and how it's an issue of faith and the gospel. She was good! We sat at tables with lay and clergy from both the ELCIC and ACC getting to know each other. We shared Holy Communion. We saw the reaffirmation of A New Covenant: Towards the Constitutional Recognition and Protection of Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada, A Pastoral Statement by the Leaders of the Christian Churches on Aboriginal Rights and the Canadian Constitution. It was reaffirmed by representatives of The Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), The Presbyterian Church in Canada, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, and The United Church of Canada.

We elected a new National Bishop. She is Susan Johnson, currently Assistant to the Bishop of the Eastern Synod, ELCIC. I've known Susan for years and I think she will make a good bishop for our church. She will be ordained bishop in September.

We passed the Stewardship of Creation Initiative, what many were referring to as a "Greening the Church" motion. The goals for this initiative are:

• To reduce the negative impact the ELCIC, at all levels, has on the environment.
• To increase the ELCIC's commitment to and understanding of environmental stewardship.
• To involve youth in this initiative and create opportunities for leadership development.

We recommited or reaffirmed the Evangelical Declaration which was adopted by the ELCIC in 1997 as its theology of mission for the decade ending 2007. It has received some minor editing and has been retitled, In Mission For Others, An Evangelical Theology of Mission. It's a good statement.

All of these things were very good but received very little attention compared to The Issue. On Saturday we looked at the motion on mission to homosexuals and same-sex couples. There was a whole lot of debate, many people lining up at the microphones, equal time given to speakers on both sides of The Issue, and then the vote was taken. It was done by secret ballot, which I think was a good thing so that nobody was intimidated or pressured to vote a certain way. The result was 181 votes (48%) for the motion and 200 votes (52%) against the motion. The motion failed.

I was neither disappointed nor relieved at the outcome. As Gamaliel said: "If what they are planning is something of their own doing, it will fail. But if God is behind it, you cannot stop it anyway, unless you want to fight against God" (Acts 5.38-39). People on both sides of The Issue believe in what they are supporting and believe they have it on good scriptural authority that their opinion is the right one. I don't think The Issue is going to go away. We'll see what the future holds. In either case I don't believe that support or opposition of The Issue will put our salvation in jeopardy. I think the main thing it will influence at this time is how our church is perceived by our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in faith.

On Saturday evening we celebrated the ministry of our retiring National Bishop and outgoing National Church Council members, followed by a nice party/reception with a cash bar and a pretty good jazz band. Sunday morning's closing worship was beautiful. Mark Sedio (you'll find his name under a few pieces in Evangelical Lutheran Worship) was a great musician throughout the convention.

Now. It's good to be home.

Convention Time

So, tomorrow I fly to Winnipeg to attend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada's Eleventh Biennial Convention In Mission for Others: A People Called. I am and I am not looking forward to this. I attended the last convention in 2005 and it was a drag. There was so much tension hanging over the entire event so that it wasn't at all enjoyable.

I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends, maybe making some new ones, looking forward to the worship opportunities, I'll even welcome some of the things happening in the business sessions. But the big thing hanging over this convention, yet again, is same-sex blessings.

I'm not opposed to allowing pastors and churches to provide for the blessing of committed relationships between same-sex couples. I've voted in favour of it twice now (at the 2005 National Convention and the 2006 Eastern Synod Convention) and will again. It's just that this issue overshadows everything the church does when it meets in convention. Overshadows and distracts. It distracts and prevents us from getting to many other issues in the church.

The population of our country is growing yet we see membership and attendance in our churches dwindling to the point that congregations all over the place are looking at merging and closing. Shouldn't we be focusing on evangelism to fill our churches and plant new ones? Instead, that doesn't even seem to be on the radar because all we do is talk about sex whenever we meet.

As I see it, there are four major items on the agenda for the convention.

• We will spend most of Thurdsay together with the delegates of the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod which is taking place in Winnipeg at the same time as our convention. We have been in full communion with the Anglican Church for 6 years now and this will be a day of celebration.

• When we get back to the University of Manitoba campus on Thursday evening we will begin the process of electing a new National Bishop for the ELCIC (called a Presiding Bishop in some denominations). Bishop Raymond Schultz has announced that he will retire so we'll be electing a new bishop. Here again, I fear (and I'm pretty certain) that the issue of same-sex blessings will overshadow the election process. It will come down to politics between those for and those against and who each side perceives as "their" candidate. I fear that this won't be a Spirit-led ecclesiastical ballot to elect the chief pastor of our church but an issue-driven one.

• Then there is "the" motion regarding blessing same-sex unions. Two years ago a motion to allow a local option for the blessing of same-sex unions was defeated. Last year at our Eastern Synod Assembly virtually the same motion was passed but the National Church Council ruled that we didn't have the authority to do so as a synod and asked us to refrain from acting on our motion. Now they've proposed this motion.
  That this convention affirms that the diversity within Canada's culture requires responses to a variety of persons in order for this church to be In Mission for Others. We also affirm that the synods have the mandate to devise mission strategies appropriate to their regional settings.
  Accordingly, we encourage synods to develop ways to best minister to people who live in committed same-sex relationships, including the possibility of blessing such unions.

• Finally there will be a Stewardship of Creation Initiative on the agenda that might just be overlooked. The initiative says:
  We commit ourselves as church to answer the call to respect the integrity of God's creation through an environmental stewardship initiative engaging our national, synodical, congregational and individual member expressions.
  There is then an Implementation Strategy that will go along with that.

So, that's what I have to look forward to for the next 4 or 5 days. Pray for me and for our convention.

Summertime

This should appear in the local paper tomorrow.


As I write this the summer solstice is 2½ weeks away. The hot days of summer haven't really arrived but we've had a few days of summer-like heat already. I have a love-hate relationship with summer.

I love the way some things slow down over summer. The kids won't have homework to do in the evenings. In my job I have the luxury of a fairly flexible schedule so in the summer I don't always have to wake up to an alarm clock when I don't have to help get the kids ready for school. In our church most of the regular programming and meetings take a break over the summer. I've written in this column before about how my family enjoys our summer camping trip. We've been looking forward to that for months and we still have a number of weeks of anticipation before we reach that point. I like not needing a coat or jacket when I go out. I like the long hours of daylight. There's a lot I like about summer.

But there are some things I don't like about summer and some of that is an intense dislike. I'm not too good with heat, especially the sweltering, sticky, humid heat we get here. My perfect temperature is warm enough for shorts and sandals but not so hot that the perspiration gets squeezed out of my without doing any kind of physical activity. Air conditioning is nice but there are others in my household who can't stand it, plus it adds to our hydro consumption when we're trying to conserve. I'm not such a big fan of bugs either. Mosquito bites are never fun but now we have to worry about West Nile as well. And I love to sit outside for a barbeque or picnic but later in the summer you have to worry about the yellow-jackets that won't stay away from your food.

It seems that for summer, like so many things in life, we need two "words" to speak the full truth of the season. If you're marketing the season you play up the time to take vacation, play outdoors, wear light clothing, enjoy concerts under the stars, explore the wonders of nature. But that's only the partial truth about the season. Summer also brings the stifling heat, forest fires, hurricane season, water shortages, and increased smog. The poor often can't afford air conditioning or vacations.

Many situations require two "words." We live our lives with a combination of grace and hardships. There is much that calls out for thanksgiving. We give thanks for the greening of nature, the growth in farmers fields and orchards and in our gardens. Often we don't recognize the grace, the gifts of God that are right there in front of us, though we've done nothing to deserve them or earn them. But there are also many things in our lives and in our world that have us pleading for mercy or offering mercy to others who struggle.

In the church we ought to be speaking these two "words." We're realistic about the world we're living in. We're realistic about the struggles in life. We don't ignore them, papering over them to hide them. Nor do we look through rose-coloured glasses, making hardship seem like it's not really there or it's not all that bad. That's the one "word."

But the church has another word. We give it different names like Gospel, Good News, and Grace. God, too, is realistic about the hardship and suffering, in fact God experienced those things in Jesus Christ. But when we live in faith with God then we live with the promise that hardship and struggle are not the end. God's will is for good. Jesus began his ministry by quoting the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18).

May we live with those two "words" this summer. We can plead for mercy and offer mercy where it is needed. We can also give thanks for the gifts we receive daily from our Lord.

He's Gone

Well, he died on Monday morning at around 12:20 a.m. at the age of 54. This funeral has really got me down. When I became a pastor I was terrified of doing funerals. I didn't know if I'd be up to doing this, didn't know if I could hold it together when so many around me are falling apart. Over the last few years I've gotten almost mechanical about it which isn't good but I've had so many funerals (average 9 a year) that I've gotten used to doing them. They don't frighten me any more. I don't know why this one is different. It's not like I knew him really well. Maybe it's because he's so young. He's only 14 years older than me. His funeral is in an hour. Here's the sermon I'll be preaching.

Funeral for EG
May 24, 2007
Psalm 23
Thomas Arth

E died on Monday.
On the one hand you can almost say it was about time
since he had to endure so much suffering
during the last part of his life.
But really, he was too young to die.
He didn't get to be an old man
because cancer showed its ugly head
and cut his life short.
It wasn't easy to watch what he had to go through,
especially these last few days.
The man who lay there helpless,
really just waiting for the end,
was not the man you all had come to know during his life.
For E, his death is a release from a time of declining health,
a release from his suffering.
For you, his family and friends,
his death is a loss of someone you loved,
someone who was important to you,
someone who will be missed.

Early last week when I visited E in the hospital
he wanted to talk about the funeral service.
All he said was "nothing fancy."
I said that the funeral services I lead are fairly simple:
some prayers, some scripture readings, a short sermon.
I asked if there were any readings or hymns
that he'd like us to use.
A asked "Amazing Grace?"
He shook his head.
"Old Rugged Cross?"
He didn't reply.
"Metallica?"
I think he smiled.
I asked, "Enter Sandman?"
Now I'll be honest,
that's the only Metallica song I actually know the title of.
And I had to think that a visit from the sandman
to bring E a peaceful rest
was what he really needed.

But later I got to thinking about some of the words in that song.
A kind of chorus in that song says
"Exit light. Enter night."
That's what we think of when we imagine a quiet and restful sleep.
But that's not what we think of, as Christians,
when we describe death.
A couple of Sundays ago in church we heard a reading from Revelation
that talked about the New Jerusalem,
an image of what it means to live with God.
It said, "the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God is its light,
and its lamp is the Lamb...
there will be no more night;
they need no light of lamp or sun,
for the Lord God will be their light,
and they will reign forever and ever."
You see, death is not an "off to nevernever land"
it's a forever and ever land with God.
The way it all works out is a mystery to us
but we trust in the promises of God
made to us in baptism
that God is always with us.

We can, and should, be thankful for the life that E lived,
for the time we did have with him,
but that won't make his death easy
for those who will now miss him.
You will have memories of E that you will cherish.
Over the days, weeks, months, and years to come
you will remember what you had with Evan.
Some of that remembering will make you sad.
That's normal.
That's right.
We mourn those we lose.
But we can also celebrate
the rest and peace that he now has in the Lord.
You might not feel like celebrating for a while.
Various emotions might be racing through you.
Along with sadness, there might be anger.
It's hard to understand
why you had to watch E suffer the way he did,
why he had to die at a relatively young age.
This is a time of darkness.
Even in the bright sunshine
it can feel like darkness and night in our hearts.
That's what the darkest valley,
the valley of the shadow of death,
a ravine as dark as death is about in Psalm 23.
Those kinds of times are part of every life in one way or another,
at one time or another.
This is a time like that.

It may not look like it now but there is hope.
The Psalm says "I shall fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff they comfort me."
We're not alone.
In the times of darkness God is with us.
God accompanies us through the long night of grief
and, eventually, into the sunshine of a brighter day.
God was with E step by step
through the dark night of his suffering
and is with him now in the light of eternal life.
E's life here on earth is over
but he knows that death is not the end.
Comfort in our dark valley times comes from our faith in Christ.
It's going to be hard for some time.
E's suffering is over.
He is in God's hands.
Like you said in your tribute to E and his cars,
"God's got a great mechanic and body man."
E is in God's hands and so are all of us.
When we remember E's life
it will bring both joy and pain.
But we can live in hope in Jesus Christ,
that we who die in a death like his
will also live in a resurrection like his.
We anticipate that great and holy day
in the sure trust and hope that we have in God.
Amen

Enter Sandman

A parishioner lies dying in the hospital.
I visited with him and his family this morning.
He might die today or tomorrow.
I read Psalm 23, prayed Romans 8.38-39, prayed the Commendation of the Dying.
He said he needed to talk about his funeral service.
I asked what he wanted.
He said "nothing fancy."
I said I don't usually do anything fancy.
I asked if there were any scripture readings or hymns he might want included in the service.
He didn't answer.
His wife asked, "Amazing Grace?"
He shook his head.
"Old Rugged Cross?"
No reply.
"Metallica?"
We all chuckled.

Lord Jesus Christ, deliver your servant from all evil and set him free from every bond, that he may join all your saints in the eternal courts of heaven, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and forever. Amen

Enter Sandman.

What a Couple of Weeks!

You know, I serve a pretty small church. I'm not usually run off my feet. But last week I had a worship committee meeting on Tuesday night. I had a few people in hospital to visit. One couple from our church was in a car accident that wrecked their car. Thankfully they're not seriously hurt but they're bruised and sore. I had a graveside funeral service on Thursday. A wedding rehearsal on Friday (normally my day off) and the wedding on Saturday (also normally my day off).

This week has a local ministerial meeting on Wednesday (I don't always go to those if I'm too squeezed for time). Thursday is Ascension Day and we'll have a pot luck supper at 5:30 and worship with Holy Communion at 7:00. Saturday is Kids' Club with another pot-luck supper. Then Sunday we'll have Confirmation for 3 of our teenagers, one of them being my oldest daughter.

I didn't go visit my mother yesterday, just gave her a phone call. She was here last Sunday for my oldest son's birthday and she'll be here next Sunday for the confirmation.

So this week I have to write 2 sermons plus make sure all of the extra little things get done for confirmation. Go ahead, cry me a river.

What To Post

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. Nearly 2 months. I check a few blogs a few times a week and when I don't see them posting anything I quit looking. But I'm more guilty than those people. I don't know what to post sometimes. I don't post all of my sermons because I'm not always very happy with them. And I'm a busy guy and blogging takes a lot of my time. I get the weekly reports of activity on my blog and it's been declining steadily.

Stay tuned. I'm not promising a lot of posts. I'm not promising very good posts. But I'll try to put a little more up here.

Shalom

Yesterday's Sermon

Here's what I preached yesterday with help from Timothy Hoyer at Crossings and from the here we stand confirmation curriculum.

5th Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2007
Revelation 21:1-6
Thomas Arth

A man lies in a hospital bed.
His life slowly but surely ebbs away.
He has suffered a mild heart attack.
He has just learned that he has a rare,
incurable blood disease.
He knows he is dying.
What thoughts occupy a mind at the end of a life?
The man in the hospital bed begins to evaluate the life he has lived.
That often happens.
But it doesn't have to be on a death bed
that those kinds of thoughts come to mind.
There are many times when we look back and take stock.
We make judgements about how we've lived our lives,
about what we've done.
Then statements pop into our heads that begin with
"If only I had..."
"If only I hadn't..."
"What if..."
"I wish..."
During our lives we come upon many forks in the road,
we come to places of decision,
choices are made, opportunities for second guessing.
"What if I'd stayed in school."
"If only I had taken them up on that job offer."
"I wish I'd told my kids how proud I was of them."
"If only I hadn't wasted that time and that money."
And then we also compare
ourselves, our lives, our situations,
with others.
We so often measure our worth according to what we see in others.
I earn more or less that one person.
I drive a nicer car than this one but not as nice as that one.
We're cramped in our home
but they have so much room in theirs.
Why do we feel our lives must be judged?
Why do we make those comparisons?
To judge our life is to measure its worth.
To judge our life is to measure its meaning
according to what we have done
and how much we have done.
This week I came across a story on the internet that said,
"Vacation homes and a third car may hold you hostage
and deprive you of real wealth."
Some people judge their lives by what they've accumulated
and spend so much effort and energy
trying to accumulate all they can
that they don't really live.
All of that judging is living by the law.
The law leads us to feel that we must judge our lives.
We hear "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not"
and it's automatic that we start to ask ourselves
"Did I?" or "Have I?"

The law leads us to judge ourselves,
but the one sitting on a great white throne judges the world.
In the verses just before today's reading from Revelation we read,
"Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it."
Earth and heaven fled from his presence.
They passed away.
They fled because they were afraid of being judged.
It's one thing to judge ourselves
according to whatever standard we choose.
But it's entirely another thing to be judged by our God.
The fear of that kind of judgement sends us running.
If you watch enough cop shows on TV,
or if you just know something about human nature,
flight is a sure sign of guilt.
If we're honest with ourselves we're guilty of many things.
We're guilty of death, mourning, crying, and pain.
That seems like a strange thing to say.
How can we be guilty of those things?
Perhaps down at the root of it all,
those things are the result of our sinfulness.
And the reading tells us that these things will pass away.
They're against the will of the one seated on the great white throne.
How do we know that?
Because he gets rid of them.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more.
They're signs that things aren't the way God intended them to be.
They're signs that the creation is not being preserved
according to God's will.
Sometimes when I hear well-meaning but misguided people
talking about it being God's will for a child to die
or a parent being cut down in their prime
I want to scream.
As I say, they might mean well but they're wrong. It's not God's will for them to die.
It's not God's will for their family and friends to mourn.
It's not God's will for the crying and the pain
that come with that loss.
As the preacher said after his son died in a car crash.
His consolation is that God's heart was the first to break
when his son died.
"‘Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.'
And the one who was seated on the throne said,
‘See, I am making all things new.'"

The man in the hospital bed who judges his life
according to what he had done
has a lot in common
with the passing-away earth and heaven:
neither trust in God as the giver of worth.
The man looks to himself.
He looks at his own life and what he has done,
what he has accomplished,
perhaps what he has accumulated and will leave behind.
And ultimately he's left wanting because it's not enough.
Along with his accomplishments he sees his failures,
he sees what he has missed,
he sees how he doesn't measure up,
neither to his own standards
nor to the standard of the Joneses
with whom he could never keep up.
Earth and heaven had their own deeds to look to:
mourning and crying and pain.
"I saw the great white throne and the one who sat on it;
the earth and the heaven fled from his presence,
and no place was found for them."
Without faith in God, heaven and earth fled,
Adam and Eve fled,
and we flee because without faith
there is no remaining in the presence of God.
There is no place for those who do not fear God.

But suddenly, a new heaven and a new earth appear.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away."
It's somewhat reminiscent of St. Paul,
writing to the Corinthians,
"everything old has passed away;
see, everything has become new!"
The one who is the Alpha, the Beginning,
who makes everything new,
first put an Omega, an End, to the old
by the death of Jesus.
In this reading from Revelation he says "It is done!"
It wasn't so long ago,
just over 4 weeks ago on Good Friday,
that we heard Jesus say from the cross
"It is finished!"
Revelation talks about the one who sits on the throne,
and we often talk of the cross being Jesus' throne,
so from the cross and the throne in heaven we hear
"It is done!" "It is finished!"
And then "See, I am making all things new."
The first to be made new is Jesus,
whom God raised from the dead.
Death has no more dominion over him.
In him, death will be no more.
Which means that we will no longer have a separate home from God.
The law is no longer our God,
he is our God.
We will be his people
and no longer be stuck in the old way.

The man in the hospital bed, like most other patients, gets thirsty.
A nurse brings a large cup of ice water with a straw
from which he drinks to great satisfaction.
We thirst for worth, for life, for life that lasts.
"To the thirsty I will give water
as a gift from the spring of the water of life.
Those who conquer will inherit these things,"
says the one who sits on the throne.
We are given Jesus,
the Lamb who was slain,
as the water of life.
Remember when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well?
"If you knew the gift of God,
and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,'
you would have asked him,
and he would have given you living water."
And she replied,
"Sir, give me this water,
so that I may never be thirsty."
In him we do not fear,
for he has overcome,
conquered the world, conquered the law.
And this is something worth sitting up to drink in.
It is finished.
It is done.
Everything is new.
The judging is over.
The striving is over.
The comparing
and the keeping up with the Joneses is over.
"I am making everything new.
Write down what I have said.
My words are true and can be trusted.
Everything is finished!
I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end.
I will freely give water from the life-giving fountain
to everyone who is thirsty."
We have real life in the Lord.
We have true worth in the Lord.
We no longer have to judge our lives by the law,
by what we've done or failed to do.
The Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end,
has said "It is done!"
Not by us, because we'd never be able to do enough
or do it well enough
or do it completely.
But the one who gave himself for us,
who stretched out his arms on the cross,
he has done all that needs to be done.
I used these signs a while back in a sermon.
DO? (a sign says DO with a red circle around it and a line through it)
No!
There's nothing we can do or need to do.
DONE? (a sign says DONE with a green circle around it)
Yes!
Everything has been done by Jesus.
God's grace, forgiveness, and salvation
are not based on anything that we can do,
but is totally based on what Christ has done for us.

The man in the hospital bed lightly chuckles with an inner delight
that he is ready for the Lord to take him.
It is not death that will take him,
though it may look that way at first.
But the old is passing away
and God is making all things new.
The man in the hospital bed will be made new,
new because he will dwell with God in the new Jerusalem.
There life is not measured,
for there will be no night,
just the light of the glory of God the Almighty
and the Lamb.
Our worth is given to us free; it's a gift.
The man in the hospital bed ends up not only judging his life,
but he is rejoicing in all the good that he has been given.
We will still have tears and pain,
though not like those who have no place.
The glory of God and the Lamb shine on us now
through the proclaiming of the Promise.
And in that glory we are free
from the old way of judging our life for worth,
and free to use the worth of Christ
to serve those who need comforting.
Let us live in that new life,
because God has made his home with his people.
And let us drink in from the life-giving fountain
so that we need never thirst. Amen

Holy Week

I wrote this for our local paper and it ran on the Wednesday in Holy Week. I know it's kind of late but if anyone cares this is what I wrote:

Why don't you visit a church this weekend. I don't know if you go to church much, or ever, but this is my invitation to visit one of the churches in town. I'm not telling you to go to any specific church. You might have some connection to one church or another. Then go there. If you don't have some sort of connection to a church try one that a friend or neighbour or co-worker attends. Or pick one close to where you live or one you've always driven past and were curious about.

This week, especially Easter Sunday and the days leading up to it, are the anchor of the Christian year. Different churches celebrate some or all of the great Three Days of this Holy Week, spanning from Maundy Thursday sundown through Easter Sunday sundown.

Maundy Thursday gets its name from the Latin mandatum, from which we also get the word "mandate." At this service we remember the last evening Jesus spent with his disciples before his death. On that night Jesus demonstrated love in service as he, their Lord and Master, performed the duty of a servant by washing the disciples' feet. He shared a last meal with them, on which we base our practice of Holy Communion, and he gave them a "new" commandment (mandatum). "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another" (John 13:34).

Good Friday is the day when we remember the death of Jesus. The religious and political authorities of the day considered him a threat to their order so the Roman occupation force put him to death by nailing him to a cross. On this day we focus not only upon the agony of the cross but especially upon God's victory through the crucified. The cross has been transformed for us from a method of execution to a sign of God's triumph over sin, death, and evil.

On Easter "Eve" some churches celebrate the Vigil of Easter. It is an ancient and powerful celebration of the new creation that springs from Jesus' open and empty tomb. The scripture readings on that night relate the history of God saving God's people. A prayer written for the Vigil of Easter says, in part: "Eternal giver of life and light, this holy night shines with the radiance of the risen Christ." This is the beginning of the celebration of the new life we have in our risen Lord.

Finally comes the celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Day. We greet one another with the ancient words of the church: "Alleluia! Christ is risen." "Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!" God gave his only Son to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of death. That first Easter morning had people running in fear. The Lord they loved and followed was not in the tomb where they laid him less than two days before. But out of that fear and confusion, hope emerged. We gather to worship, to hear the good news of God's love for us, and the proclamation that Christ lives.

So check the listing of Holy Week services that was printed in the paper. Or call up the church you'd like to visit and ask them the times of their services. If you haven't been to church in a while, maybe even a long while, don't let that keep you from worshiping this Easter season. If you only worship once in a while don't let that keep you away. Make this Easter one of those occasions. No one ought to scold another person because they haven't been to church in a while. This is a time to celebrate everyone's presence. A gracious welcome is the order of the day. After all, that's what God has already done for us!

Happy Birthday

I just got through a funeral today, followed by a reception back at the church. It's a beautiful day today but with all the snow melt the cemetery was a sloppy mess. I need to wash my alb anyway.

On the way to the cemetery I realized what day it is. My dad and my brother have their birthday today. Mom and dad are in Myrtle Beach for a couple of weeks. I'll have to call him sometime tonight. Dad's 76 today. Brother took yesterday and today off work. I don't know if he's at home or doing something special for the day. It's nice enough to take the bike out I think. Brother is 38 today.

I'm a bachelor for a couple of days. It's March Break so the kids are off school this week. My wife and kids left this morning for Burlington. They'll stay at my parents' place since they're out of town and spend some time with my in-laws. I'll be joining them in a couple of days. The my wife and the girls and I have tickets for "We Will Rock You" in Toronto on Friday. It's a musical using songs by Queen. We'll drop the boys off at my brother's place when we go. They'll probably play video games all evening.

TTFN

Repent

I wrote this sermon when I was in Seminary. I think I even wrote it for one of my homiletics courses but I don't remember which one. I think I preached it in 2001 while I was on my internship and then again in 2004 in my current congregation. I'm not preaching it again, just sharing it with anybody who reads my blog.

3rd Sunday in Lent
Luke 13.1-9
Thomas Arth

No doubt you've asked,
at one time or another,
"Why me?"
"Why me?"
"Why did this have to happen?"
"What did I do to deserve this?"

"Why did those kids have to die in that car accident?"
"Why did my father get cancer?"
"Why can't we get pregnant?"
So many things happen, that don't make sense
or that make us wonder why they have to happen.
"Why were those Galileans killed
just when they were at the altar making their sacrifices?"
"Were they worse sinners than any other Galileans?"
"Why were those eighteen workers killed
when the tower of Siloam fell?"
"Were they the biggest sinners in Jerusalem at the time?"

Let's face it. They're common questions.
You wonder, from time to time, when bad things happen,
whether or not it's punishment for something bad you've done.

Jesus gives the short answer.
Flat out
"No!"

But what's with the qualifier that he adds on?
In both cases he senses what's behind the people's questions.
"Were they worse sinners than all others?"
"Were they worse offenders than all the others?"
And his answer is what appears to be a plain and simple "No!"
But it's not so plain and simple.

His answer to the question about the punishment deserved is
"No, I tell you; but unless you repent,
you will all perish as they did."
How does that fit?

A few summers ago there was a car accident.
Three teenagers were hit
when the jeep they were driving ran a stop sign.
Two were killed, and the one left alive was paralyzed.
He asked the hospital chaplain "Why?"
The chaplain could do little more than look down
and shrug his shoulders.
You turn on the news and see reports of these things all the time.
But for most of us, life goes on.
Maybe we tsk at the waste of it all.
Maybe we say a quick prayer for our loved ones
who are out on the road.
But then life goes on.
They seem like random calamities.
Did they deserve what happened to them?
"No, I tell you;
but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did[?]"
How does that fit?

Then Jesus told a parable.
Maybe the parable would clear things up.
Well a fig tree grows in a vineyard.
In the Bible, to sit under one's vine and fig
was a symbol of peace
and the serenity of a peasant farmers life.
So, the owner of this vineyard comes to find some fruit on his tree.
And what do you know, there is none.
For three years this tree has produced no figs.
It's no better than a weed, wouldn't you say?
Taking up space, hogging sunlight, drinking from the soil
and producing no fruit.

So cut it down!
It doesn't deserve the care, and the water,
and the nourishment that it's getting.
Another plant could just as well be growing here.
Maybe more grapes
at least they're producing.

But the gardener is thinking.
"The owner doesn't work here day after day.
The sun can get hot.
And without the shade of this tree
at least to eat my lunch under,
and maybe to take a noon hour siesta,
this plot of land would be unbearable to work on.
Who knew he wanted figs anyway?
I work like a dog tending these grapes
and I bring him a good harvest.
His wine is renowned.
It's the first to be served at all the local banquets
and today he comes looking for figs."
So the gardener says, "Sir, let it alone for one more year,
until I dig around it and put manure on it.
If it bears fruit next year, well and good;
but if not, you can cut it down."
"I can turn this thing around.
It can change from a waste of space
to a fruitful tree."

Jesus says, "repent, or you will all perish."
The gardener says, "let it alone for one more year,
then if it doesn't bear fruit cut it down."

A tree that doesn't bear fruit, is liable to get cut down.
A life of sin without repentance?
Well there's liable to be consequences for that too.

Jesus was quick to reject the idea
that a person's sin was the cause of their suffering.
The people killed by Pilate
or by the fall of the tower of Siloam
or the kids killed in the car crash
were not such great sinners that they were being punished by death.

That rejection was nothing new.
That's what the book of Job was saying
long before Jesus showed up.
But the view that specific sins bring specific judgment
was alive and well.
We probably don't hold to that view.
We don't imagine God to be a vindictive and angry God
lurking in the shadows
ready to pounce on sinful people
waiting to dole out well deserved punishment?
We believe in the merciful God revealed in the cross.

But there must be some kind of relationship between sin and judgment.
"unless you repent, you will all perish."
But is that a warning of impending judgment
or the wisdom of seeing it like it is.
If you play with fire, you're liable to get burned.
If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword.
If you keep on sinning, nothing good will come of it.

So repent.
Turn yourself around.

No doubt you've heard or read testimony from people
who were on the path to disaster and turned their lives around.
The man, addicted to drugs.
First he made up excuses,
borrowed money from family and friends.
Then his wife's jewelry started disappearing.
After a while his problem had him living on the streets.
His family couldn't put up with the way he was living
and what it was doing to them.
He hadn't been able to do his job properly for months
and he'd missed so much time at work
they'd had it with him too.
So he ended up stealing to support his habit.
He had his share of run-ins with the law.
He got himself beat up a few times too.
Finally he came to himself.
He saw that the way he was living would lead to his destruction.
He had to turn his life around.
Repent.

How bad does it have to get, though,
before you see the error in your ways?
Do you only wake up when you end up in those kinds of dire straits?
Or is it enough that your kids stopped asking you
to help with their homework
because you were too busy the last 10 times they asked.
Is your life producing fruit,
or is it time to repent?

That is what the fig tree parable implies.
Fruits are expected.
And they come from a repentant life.
We're told to get rid of anger, wrath,
malice, slander,
and abusive language.
Instead we should clothe ourselves with
compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness,
and patience.
Bear with one another,
forgive one another,
and love.

Good thing we're not growing these fruits on our own.
Thank God for the gardener.
And for the owner,
who's in no hurry to cut us down.
Amen.

Lament

I was reminded to acknowledge my sources when I borrow from someone in my sermons. If and when I fail to give credit where it is due, it's not intentional. I usually read through a number of commentaries and sermons in preparation for writing my sermons. Sometimes I forget the source of an illustration, sometimes I just forget to give credit. I'm not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. In the sermon below I have borrowed some illustrations and ideas from a couple of sermons by Rev. Charles Hoffacker (lament illustrations) and Rev. David Zersen (fox and hen illustration) and from Fred Craddock's commentary on Luke (regarding Pharisees).

2nd Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2007
Luke 13:31-35
Thomas Arth

No doubt, you’ve heard the latest sensational news about Jesus.
If you haven’t heard, apparently, according to some people
with money to make from their books and movies,
Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
Apparently he did marry Mary Magdalene.
Apparently they had a son.
And apparently they were all buried together
in a family tomb in Jerusalem.

The story that these people are trying to sell is full of holes,
and ought to sink nearly as quickly as the Titanic.
I’m not going to go through a lot of the details
of just how wrong their reasoning is.
If you have internet access
and want to read an intelligent refutation of this Jesus family story
by a renowned New Testament scholar
you can check out Ben Witherington’s weblog.
I can give you the web address after worship.

If Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension were a hoax
then our faith is in vain.
And the deaths of so many martyrs throughout history
were also in vain.
If the apostles who lived with Jesus
and witnessed his resurrection and ascension
were a part of this hoax,
then why did they put their lives on the line?
I’m not big on conspiracy theories.
I read The DaVinci Code and for me it was a fun-to-read mystery,
but a work of fiction.

The tomb that figures so prominently in this weeks news
was found nearly 30 years ago
but nobody made such a big deal about it then.
The writers and film makers who have now been all over the news
might be riding on the coat tales
of the DaVinci Code hype and popularity.
If they wanted to be taken seriously
they ought to have had reputable archeologists, theologians,
historians, and other scholars review and verify their claims.
Instead they make press releases
and get themselves lead stories on TV newscasts.

Now, I’ve been chastised before
for painting all of the news media with the same brush and,
to be honest the hype I was hearing about this story
has been on TV.
The news media is neither inherently good or bad,
it’s how different people use it that can make it good or bad.
The whole Jesus family tomb story
probably wouldn’t receive nearly this much attention
if it wasn’t a very famous movie director
who had made this documentary.
But I also think the hype has something to do
with secular animosity toward Christianity as well.
Our faith is frequently portrayed in a negative light.
And when some TV outlets do ask
for a Christian viewpoint on something,
rarely will they ask a Lutheran, Anglican,
Methodist, or Roman Catholic leader,
they always seem to go to Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson,
or other high profile Christian leaders
who are really on the fringes of mainstream Christianity.
Maybe it’s because they’re easier to ridicule
and perhaps that’s an underlying motive.

As I said, I’m not one to see conspiracies behind everything.
It was just that this week,
with the news about this Jesus family tomb being so prominent,
I had to wonder why this kind of baloney
receives such attention.
Then this week, as I was reading today’s Gospel lesson
in preparation for my sermon,
I saw a connection between the opposition that Jesus faced,
and the opposition that his church faces.

Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said,
"You had better get away from here!
Herod wants to kill you."
Usually when we hear the word Pharisee it comes across negatively.
Most times that Jesus encountered Pharisees
they were engaging him
in some sort of debate or controversy.
They usually differed strongly with Jesus
when it came to interpreting the law.
But some Pharisees also seemed to be open to Jesus.
In Acts it’s a Pharisee that is a moderating voice
when the Jewish council is dealing with the early church.
Acts even says that some Pharisees
were members of the church.
Paul himself, near the close of his ministry, acknowledges,
not "I was a Pharisee" but "I am a Pharisee."
In any case, here some Pharisees warn Jesus away
because Herod wants to kill him.
There’s no reason to think there’s any ulterior motive
behind their warning.

Jesus responds by calling Herod a fox.
"Go tell that fox, ‘I am going to force out demons and heal people...
I must be on my way...
After all, Jerusalem is the place
where prophets are killed.’"
And then Jesus bursts forth into public lamentation,
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Your people have killed the prophets
and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you.
I have often wanted to gather your people,
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
But you wouldn’t let me."

We don’t do lament very much these days.
At least not publicly.
We keep it inside.
It doesn’t seem dignified to let out or show our sadness.
Maybe you’ve had this experience.
You attend a visitation at a funeral home,
and the place is crowded.
People are gathered in small groups,
engaged in animated conversation.
It looks and feels like any other successful social event.
People are usually dressed up a little
so if you had drinks in your hand
it could almost be a cocktail party,
except instead of a bar at the end of the room
there’s a coffin and flowers.
I’m not saying one can’t enjoy a visit with people.
At a visitation or funeral
often you meet people you haven’t seen in a long time
and you spend some time catching up.
That’s fine.
And I’m not saying that every visitation
looks like the one I’ve described,
but some, perhaps many, are.

Have you ever been with a group of friends,
and somebody says that a particular couple,
well known to all of you,
is getting a divorce?
There’s an awkward silence.
Facial expressions turn serious.
Then somebody brings up a different subject,
and the conversation rolls along.

What’s missing from these two scenes is public lamentation.
In one case, somebody has died.
In the other, a marriage has collapsed.
In both cases there’s acknowledgment of what has happened,
but no public lamentation.
By lamentation I don’t mean that everyone has to begin wailing
and beating their chests,
but some kind of public acknowledgment is appropriate.
In the psalms there are songs of lamentation.
There’s a book in the Bible called Lamentations.
I was a seminary student on September 11, 2001
and one of the professors took her class to the chapel that day
and simply read through that book of the Bible.
Our new worship book has all 150 of the psalms.
LBW left a number of them out
and many of the missing ones were psalms of lament.
You may know that the hymns in the worship book
are group in various categories
that are printed at the tops of the pages,
and in the new book there is a small section of 8 hymns
categorized as lament.

It’s not wrong to express our sadness and grief.
That’s one of the recurring themes in my funeral sermons.
We’re sad when someone dies.
It’s okay to be sad.
It’s normal to be sad.
And in passages like today’s gospel reading
we see that even Jesus was sad,
and he expressed that grief out loud.
I myself am one who easily expresses anger,
just ask my kids.
The news reports that I talked about earlier
initially made me angry, and they still do.
But perhaps they should make us sad.
Why must the church and the very things we believe in
always seem to come under attack and even ridicule?
I think that maybe the reason this week’s story
has received so much hype
is that so many people find it fun to pick on the church
and what we believe.

But that shouldn’t surprise us.
And we know what sadness is.
Our chief symbol, the cross,
is the instrument on which our Lord and God
suffered and died.
The image Jesus uses in his lament is striking.
"How often have I desired to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and you were not willing!"
I read something by a pastor who’s a city boy like me.
He didn’t know anything about farm life or chickens,
but he spent some time serving in Africa
and describes how he observed
the hen gathering her chicks.
He writes:
"I spent several months in Tanzania
where each day and night I passed the chicken house
on the way to and from the campus where I taught.
Regularly, mother hens had new broods of downy chicks
that stayed close as they pecked around in the grass.
At night, one by one they climbed under her breast
and you could see nothing but the hen on guard,
her chicks lost somewhere under her feathers.
When a fox attacked by night,
she could not run away.
Not a mother hen!
She bared her breast and the fox took her first.
In the morning,
there was nothing but clusters of feathers here and there,
and little chicks running around on the own.
The mother hen represents a new form of power and leadership,
the one for others,
the servant leader,
the one whose extravagant love
considers the welfare of her own foremost.
Thus the means of survival
over against the attack of the wily foxes of this world
is provided not by retaliation or brute force,
but by gathering the innocent, the victims,
into a community in which the love of the mother hen
lives on even after her death!"

We can lament, we don’t have to hide it.
We can express our sadness over a death,
over the collapse of a marriage.
This week in our Bible Study we were talking about justice issues
and discussion about the food bank came up.
I give thanks for the food bank
and for the faithful service of the volunteers who work there.
But I wish we didn’t need the food bank
or the Out of the Cold suppers.
When I see families with children
making use of these excellent programs
it makes me sad.

It’s okay to lament, to be sad,
even to ask "Why God?"
It’s okay because God suffers with us.
God feels our pain.
But we also receive hope and consolation from God.
Jesus does gather us as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
And he gives himself in sacrifice
so that we can be saved from the assaults of the enemy.
Let us live our lives in that trust and confidence.
Amen

World Day of Prayer

This is my sermon for this afternoon's service.

World Day of Prayer
March 2, 2007
Genesis 18:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-16
Thomas Arth

How would you respond
if someone asked you if you're a gifted person?
Most of us have some sense of modesty
and we'd probably mumble some sort of denial.
"Oh, not me, I'm nothing special."
It might seem rude to go around describing ourselves as gifted
because we usually equate gifted with talented,
and since we usually think of being talented
as being better at something than most other people,
then we'd be bragging.

Abraham and Sarah were blessed by God,
they were given the gift of a new land
and the promise that they would be the parents of a great nation,
and that through them all of the world would be blessed.
The stories told about them in our Bibles
can make them out to be great heroes,
but I think we often use selective memory
Or skip over some points when we read the Bible.
Abraham is sometimes portrayed as a hero of faith,
but when he and Sarah travel through some dangerous territory
Abraham says, "Honey, the king of this land
might get jealous if he sees me
with such a beautiful woman.
If he does, just do what I tell you. Okay?"
When the time comes,
Abraham sends poor Sarah off to serve in the king's harem.
Lucky for her, the king catches on
and sends her back to her husband.

Sarah isn't perfect either.
When the Lord tells her she'll have a baby,
all she can do is laugh.
Besides, she was already convinced
that God wouldn't keep this promise
so she convinced Abraham to have a child with her servant
and then claimed the boy as her own.
The blessings that God promised and delivered to Abraham and Sarah
really were gifts that they didn't earn or deserve.

The reading we heard from Ephesians talks about gifts.
And I think the way St. Paul and the Bible talk about gifts
are not the same thing as being talented.
Abraham and Sarah were given gifts,
but they weren't super talented people
always doing what was right and good.
They seemed to mess up wherever they could.
Oh, we all might have one thing or another that we're kind of good at.
Maybe someone's a good cook or a good singer
but if you were really talented
then you'd be a world famous chef
or an opera star.
Not all of us are talented, but all of us are gifted.
"Each of us was given grace
according to the measure of Christ's gift.
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists,
some pastors and teachers."
These examples are not the entire list of God's gifts.
There are only 5 gifts on that list:
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
But there are many, many ways to be gifted by God.

What are those gifts for?
Paul is clear.
The purpose of the gifts is
"for building up the body of Christ."
They're the raw materials and the tools that God gives
for a certain purpose.
And they're not gifts for our own benefit,
but for the benefit of others.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances,
whether you're multi-talented or un-talented,
you are gifted in some way
"for building up the body of Christ."

Our gifts are the raw material and tools God gives us
for living life and especially for living life in community.
We live in various communities
such as our own churches and denominations,
but we also are in community together today
where we can blur the lines that divide us
and celebrate what we have in common.
Our gifts are meant to build up the whole body of Christ
in the various expressions of the body where we find ourselves.
The gifts we have can be obvious things
like abilities, aptitudes, interests and enthusiasms.
But they can be less obvious as well.
We all come from different backgrounds.
There are different ethnic backgrounds,
there are different faith traditions,
there are different family backgrounds.
The way each one of us was raised is unique
and gives us different gifts for building up the body.
Where you come from, how you were raised,
affluence or poverty, education, addiction,
responsibility, abuse,
so many things affect who we are
and how we are gifted.
Our race, culture, economics, religion,
all of these are part of who we are
and what we have to work with in life.
And they are among our gifts
for building up the body of Christ.

Our personalities are also gifts.
I myself am fairly laid back and easy going.
Others are very high strung.
You may be happy, serious, depressed, concerned, anxious, eager,
funny, emotional, supportive, or confrontational.
These traits aren't necessarily ones we would all want
but they've been given to us for the business of life.
They are gifts God has set before us
and we need to figure out or decide how we're going to use them.
You may still be wondering what your gifts are
and how you can use them to build up the body of Christ.
Well, think about how Jesus would describe you.
Jesus knows you better than anyone else.
How would Jesus describe where you come from?
How would Jesus describe who you are now?
How would Jesus describe your desires?
Think of the way Jesus might describe you
and you'll begin to find out what your gifts are.

Sometimes we lament our meager gifts.
If only I could sing like...
If only I had the compassion of...
If only I were as smart as...
If only I had the confidence of...
If only I could speak like...
If only... If only...
Wishing is a waste of time.
There's a story from Jewish tradition about a man named Simon.
Simon always wanted to be more like Moses.
That was his constant worry.
He kept going to his Rabbi and saying,
"Rabbi I must lead my life
so that I may live more like Moses did."
The Rabbi finally told him, "Simon.
God will not ask you why you were not more like Moses.
God will ask you why you were not more like Simon."

We each have to live our own lives.
But we live them in relationship.
We are United Under God's Tent
and we need each other
and the gifts we have all been given.
I don't know why I have the gifts I have
and you have the gifts you have.
They are the gifts that God has given to each of us.
Because I don't have your gifts
and you don't have my gifts
we need one another.
The opportunities we have,
what is going on in our lives,
the relationships we have with one another
and with the community and world around us,
those are also gifts from God.
We are to use them to the Glory of God,
to the building up of the body of Christ.
We are to use them to make the world God loves
a better place.
Let us do that and we will be doing the business of life
and the business of our faith.
Amen

Jokes

LC did it so I will too. 2 and a half weeks ago we were at a Valentines dinner and dance with some couples from our church and these are a couple of jokes told around our table.

A pastor went to visit an elderly lady from his congregation. She was once the church organist but was now retired. He came to her home and she led him into the parlor then went into the kitchen to make tea.

As he was sitting, looking around the room, he saw what looked like a condom floating in a fishbowl on top of the lady's organ. He walked over to confirm what he thought he saw and sure enough, that's what it was.

When the lady came in with the tea he couldn't help but ask what it was. She said she found it in a package lying on the road when she was out walking. She read the instructions and followed them:
- keep moist
- place on organ
- prevents disease.

She said that since she had it there she hasn't been sick one day.

(badum bum!)


A young pastor was to preach his first sermon in his first church after ordination. He was very nervous and the senior pastor noticed. The senior pastor told him to try to relax and let him in on a secret. The glass of water he keeps in the pulpit is really vodka. Whenever he's feeling a bit nervous he takes a sip to calm his nerves.

The time came and the young pastor went into the pulpit to preach, and was very nervous. He visited that "water" glass many times. After worship he asked the senior pastor how he did.

"Well, you weren't bad. But there were 12 apostles, not 10. There were 10 commandments, not 12. And David slew Goliath, he didn't beat the shit out of him."
(badum bum!)

Jesus' Bones

I don't care if people want to disparage my faith. I don't care if people want to make up wild stories. What pisses me off, though, is that every news outlet makes this whole "Jesus family tomb" story it's headline or lead-off story. I think it's a bunch of crap. Ben Witherington has a couple of postings so far that make really excellent refutations of the whole premise of the latest money making hype and scheme.

Fair Trade

There's been a small debate at our church about using Fair Trade coffee at our coffee hours and other functions. Some of us want to use the coffee but others claim they don't like the taste. I don't drink coffee so I don't know what tastes good and what doesn't. Tonight at our congregational council meeting I'm planning to offer a compromise. I don't want to get into a big debate. I've stated my position, that this is a justice issue. I don't think some people get it. What I'll propose is that we make Fair Trade coffee as well as the usual grocery store stuff they've been using available and let the coffee hour hosts choose what they'll use.

I wrote a column for the local paper on the topic of Fair Trade. Here it is below.


"The field of the poor may yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice" (Proverbs 13:23).

In Africa there are children working as slaves picking cocoa beans. A U.S. State Department study claims that in the Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, about 15,000 children have been sold into slavery on cocoa, cotton, and coffee plantations in recent years. That’s in only one cocoa producing country. These enslaved children spend as many as 12 hours a day working the cocoa fields and thus are not receiving an education that might help them break free of the poverty their families experience.

In Central and South America smaller coffee farmers are falling further and deeper into debt because the price of coffee on the world markets is too low for them to recover their costs. Larger coffee plantations destroy forests to plant coffee and, in order to make a profit with the low coffee prices, they pay their labourers very little.

So what do you do? Are you forced to choose between either giving up chocolate and coffee forever or being an active contributor to child and worker exploitation? Fortunately there is an alternative.

Fair Trade is a concept the origins of which reach back to the early 1970s. Unfortunately it’s a concept that’s not widely known. Fair Trade helps farmers help themselves. It guarantees a fair and stable price to producers of cocoa, coffee, tea, sugar, and other products. Here we have laws, and in some places unions, that protect people from unfair labour practices but in many parts of the world people don’t have that kind of protection. Buying Fair Trade is a way to help poor and vulnerable people, who we’ll never meet or know, to find security and economic self-sufficiency.

You’d have a hard time finding Fair Trade products in most grocery stores. A lot is available to order online and you can find stores here and there that do sell Fair Trade products. Maybe if enough people were to ask for Fair Trade chocolate, coffee, or tea then more would become available. If it’s Fair Trade it will say so on the label

Now I’m a pastor and I began this column with a verse from scripture and what kind of religious man would I be if I didn’t connect the concept of Fair Trade with our faith? "Thou shalt buy Fair Trade" is far from being the 11th Commandment but buying and supporting Fair Trade can certainly be relevant to faith. The Bible talks a lot about justice and help for the poor. In the 21st century there’s no reason why we have to accept the poverty and injustice that are so common in our world. Buying or not buying Fair Trade might not impact our salvation. Supporting Fair Trade is not a law or commandment we have to follow. But it’s a small and simple way to let our lights shine while working to bring about justice in our world.

So start your morning off with a hot cup of coffee. And give in to that chocolate craving. But try making it Fair Trade and spread the word.

Chilly

My sister-in-law works for a PR firm and one of their clients is Microsoft. To publicize the launch of Windows Vista and the new 2007 Office system they built an ice house in downtown Toronto. They were pretty worried back in late December and early January when our temperatures were consistently above freezing. Currently we're in a deep freeze so they had nothing to worry about. Check out some pictures here.