Pentecost 2 - Holy Jazz

Pentecost 2

14 June 2009

Isaiah 42 5-12

Psalm 85 7:13

John 14: 15-17, 25-26

Evening Jazz Mass

St. Luke’s, Burlington

There are some people who think that the whole concept of a Jazz Mass is an oxy-moron: perhaps especially so in an Anglican Church, and even more so in one that is celebrating it’s 175^th year. What would our ancestors who built this Church think of the sound of jazz within this holy space?

I think it is important for us to consider how jazz came to be in the first place. Jazz and the Blues originate from south of the border out of black gospel roots. Its rhythms are the same as those which brought us the great spirituals. They were an expression of the passion – the joys and the sorrows of a people in slavery. It should come as no surprise that so many black spirituals refer to the great Old Testament figures which are part of the history of God freeing the people of Israel out of slavery.

Jazz developed and continued in the secular arena, but I believe its origin remains the same. It comes out of a creative gift and all creativity has its origins in our creator. It is through exercising our creative gifts that humans become co-creators with God – making something completely new. In their varieties of expression, in their passion, sometimes in their plaintive mournfulness and often in their percussive joy, the writers of rhythm and blues and jazz share so much in common with the writers of the Psalms. All of these writers have “Soul.”

We are in the season of Pentecost and so this evening’s Gospel lesson has Jesus promising his disciples that he will send them the Holy Spirit. Further on in this Gospel of John, after Jesus has been taken and tried and crucified and risen again, and on Easter day, Jesus comes to these same disciples who are terrified and hiding behind locked doors, and he says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then the Gospel says, “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

The Holy Spirit arrived at Pentecost in the rushing wind, just like at the beginning of time: the spirit moved, a wind from God over the face of the deep. Creation came about through this holy wind.

Just as God breathed life into the clay in the creation of humankind, so Jesus breathes new life into these frightened disciples and re-creates them into a courageous and creative Church. And always, with creation, is the breath or the wind.

A man breathes into his saxophone, a woman slides her trombone and another’s fingers trill over the keyboard and hammer strikes string, which reverberates in the air, and sound washes over us all, and we experience creation all over again. How can this gift not be holy?

Music bypasses the cerebral cortex and goes straight to your spirit. That’s why it’s holy. That’s why, if you let yourself, you can get lost in the music and it can take you to a new place. It’s a holy place.

So many of the greats of jazz recognized God’s hand in their music. The year before he died, Duke Ellington published his autobiography and he wrote this:

"There have been times when I thought I had a glimpse of God. Sometimes, even when my eyes were closed, I saw. Then when I tried to set my eyes--closed or open--back to the same focus, I had no success, of course. The unprovable fact is that I believe I have had a glimpse of God many times. I believe because believing is believable, and no one can prove it unbelievable....”

Duke Ellington wasn’t able to fully express his experience of God in words, but I think he expressed it through his music. Later in life, during the last decade of his life he wrote music for and performed his sacred concerts, but even before that, his jazz was filled with holy creativity.

We can share in this creativity as well. It is said that those who sing pray twice, for we pray in the words we sing and also in the music of the notes. And singing, of course, is all about the breath.

A people who sing together breath together, and that breath is holy, for Isaiah writes in tonight’s Old Testament lesson: “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out. Who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: ….. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth!”

What an awesome privilege it is to sing together and to praise God’s name. It is a holy act and can fill us with joy. So if you think you can’t sing, sing anyway – breathe with us all, and be in the music and be holy. For this is how God created you to be.

And if you ever thought twice about jazz in Church – think a third time and enter into the new creation, and be blown by the spirit of God which can even whistle through ancient and hallowed walls and fill them with new life. Hallelujah! Amen.

Trinity Sunday - Mystery

St. Luke’s, Burlington

Sunday, 7 June, 2009

Isaiah 6: 1-8, Psalm 29, Psalm 29 John 3: 1-17

            I have always found it to be a challenge to preach on Trinity Sunday. Although the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of the most central doctrines of the Church, it is also one of the hardest to understand. In my last parish during one of our book study on Thursday afternoons we studied the book, The History of God, by Karen Armstrong, and we followed how, through history, the Church has been struggling to understand the nature of God and the doctrine of the trinity. So far, the conclusion of most of the Church and of most religions in general is that the nature of God is a great mystery. God cannot be fully known. We can only catch glimpses of God’s nature.

            The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, the great philosopher and theologian. He was preoccupied with the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. He wanted so much to understand the doctrine of one God in three persons and to be able to explain it logically. One day he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup with sea water, ran up and emptied the cup into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine drew up to her and said, “Little child, what are you doing?”  She replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.”
“How do you think,” Augustine asked her, “that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?”
She answered back, “And you, how do you suppose that with your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?” With that the child disappeared.

            St. Augustine woke from his reverie a wiser man than before. He knew that no one can understand the immensity of God. The doctrine of the Trinity gives us a way to understand only something of God.

            In the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, we have the story of the experience which changed Isaiah forever and made him a great prophet of God. It was a disturbing time in Israel’s history when the King had died and the people were in fear of foreign rulers ready to take advantage of the power vacuum.

            Isaiah is a man of the temple and that is where his is when he has this earth shattering experience of God. The experience is so great that he cannot describe God, but only says that the hem of God’s robe filled the entire temple. Isaiah effectively uses these few words to give us an inkling of the greatness of God which can never be captured in words. The fantastical scene is filled with visions which we cannot even imagine. The seraphim are flying, the foundations of the Temple shake with the voice of their praise, and the temple is filled with the smoke of incense. Isaiah is filled with awe and with a deep sense of his own unworthiness. And yet, by God’s grace his sense of guilt is healed so that when God asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, Isaiah immediately says, “Here am I; send me!”

            Isaiah’s vision of God gives us a glimpse of he whom we would call the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. He is a God who is loftier than we can imagine and our words are only weak indicators. In his immensity, he is remote, and so completely “other.” This is the God of the 29^th Psalm, the God whose voice breaks the cedar trees and shakes the wilderness. The God whose voice splits the flames of fire. This is the God whom we approach with fear and trembling, and yet we are drawn to seek an experience of this God. We seek and yearn for this God whom we fear.

            In the Gospel lesson we have the story of Nicodemus who is also a seeker. He is drawn to find Jesus because he knows that he is from God. He must go at night because Nicodemus was a religious leader and most of the religious leaders of the time were opposed to Jesus. Nicodemus wants to know more about God. By his initial conversation with Jesus, it appears that he wants to get it all figured out logically: “How can anyone be born after have grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

            Jesus takes him out of his logical frame of mind and speaks of the Spirit. “Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the spirit.”

            Once again we have the spirit compared to the wind, like last week when the spirit came in wind and fire at Pentecost. The Spirit is as moveable and changeable as the wind. It isn’t about understanding it logically, it is about experiencing it. This is the God in whom we live and move and have our being. It is not the God who is lofty and remote, but it is the God who touches us when we are not expecting it and who leads us into the unfamiliar and unknown and who guides us without words.

            The one who mediates this experience of God is Jesus the Christ. God would not be simply “other.” God would be one of us. What a truly amazing thing to realize. This God whose hem would fill the temple would live among us and experience a humble human life and death so that we could find the God whom we seek and fear. And, in the finding, we might, beyond the fear, know a person: a person who loves us and gives his life for us.

            At the waters of baptism we remember the Spirit of God who hovered over the face of the deep. In the giving of flame, we remember the Spirit who came in the flames of Pentecost. As people who are baptized we need to remember that we are baptized into a community of people who, together in the faith remind us that God became human, and lived among us. And we remember that God is a community, a trinity who is three and is more than three. For as it has been said, “When we think about the Trinity we must forget how to count.” And let us remember that the nature of God is as mystery. As theologian, Justo Gonzalez wrote, “Trinity is a mystery, not a puzzle. Love is a mystery, a crossword is a puzzle. You try to solve the puzzle, you stand in awe before a mystery." Amen.

Holy Fire

Pentecost 2009

St. Luke’s Church, Burlington

31 May 2009

Acts 2: 1-21

Several memories have come together for me as I have been preparing to celebrate this wonderful feast of Pentecost. On Tuesday night this past week, the clergy of the diocese gathered together outdoors for their evening prayer at clergy conference. We gathered in a circle around a crackling fire, and as the light started to wane in the sky, we prayed and sang and lit candles to celebrate the presence of holiness among us.

A couple of years ago, on Friday night I helped lead and chaperone our annual Youth Fest Sleep-over. I prefer to call them wake-overs because it seems a bit more descriptive of the actual event. There were about twenty kids and a couple of leaders and we actually slept in the Church at St. George’s in St. Catharines. Not in the parish hall, but in the Church. -- I remember the story of Samuel who would sleep in the temple of the Lord, and one night, heard the Lord calling to him. -- Before we slept in the Church we did have a program of fun and games and candle-making and muffin-making to provide for the breakfast program which feeds anyone who comes to their Church every morning every day of the year.

We gathered in the Church for worship and we lit candles and we read today’s lesson from Acts which tells of the first Pentecost of the Church and we spoke about how the Spirit came in wind and fire at that time.

I recalled the times when I especially felt the presence of the holy - the presence of God when I was about their age. I remember when I was a cub at cub-camp and how, as the light failed in the sky we gathered together - a great ring of boys in a clearing in the middle of the trees and we waited in expectation around a large pile of wood, set just so with an opening in one side. At the right time in the service, an arrow of fire shot out of the trees and straight into the heart of the wood which erupted in flames. Oh the exhilaration of it all! And we listened to stories of the creator. But later, when the fire had burned low and we had sung and listened and seen stories acted out and it was almost time to head for our kit and our sleep, we sang the song which stabbed me through with chills of holiness:

“Day is done, gone the sun

from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky

All is well, safely rest

God is nigh.”

Yes, I thought, God is nigh. God is here. The embers of that fire danced and rippled with waves and rills of light and I saw God dance in them. God, too, was above us in the starry vastness. And God was in a circle of boys who were hushed into silence for a moment, but who could only look at the fire and at each other and see the reflection of that fire glimmering in each others eyes. I was perhaps nine years old, but my heart stretched and smiled with recognition. My creator was here.

Perhaps this was why the Holy Spirit appeared in the dance of wind and fire on that first Pentecost, when the disciples were gathered huddled and scared behind locked doors. Last week we remembered how Jesus left his disciples but promised them that he would send a comforter who would clothe them with power from on high. John the Baptist foretold of the messiah who would come after him who would baptize them, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And, so often the Holy Spirit is associated with fire in Holy Scriptures.

On the Friday night of the wake-over, one of the youth asked me, “What is that red lamp with the flame in it which is at the front of the Church for?” I told him, “That is called a presence lamp and it symbolizes the presence of God in the Church.” A small flickering piece of fire that reminds us that the Church is a holy place and that God is always present.

It wasn’t long after my experience at cub camp that my educational career took a scientific turn. I learned about scientific method and mathematics and logic. The principles of hypothesis, experiment, analysis and proof made good sense to me. This is the way to understand and learn more about the world in which I live, I thought. My classmates and my teachers thought so too. The thrill of discovery replaced the excitement of experience. It wasn’t long before I realized that many people thought that if you couldn’t prove something through scientific method, then it just wasn’t real. The only true thing was a provable thing.

And yet, from time to time I would have a deep experience of holy recognition again. The night I slept out under the stars in the wilderness and heard the wolves howl at the moon. The very first time I heard Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings. Candlelight service. Singing words that George Herbert wrote.

But there were the dry periods too. There were even dry years when my memories of any holy moment seemed like they must have simply been delusion or youthful exuberance. Were they real?

Charles Henderson writes of a great Indian mystic who tells the story of a child who grew up in the squalid streets of Calcutta. He was fifteen years old but had not ventured more than a block or two beyond the bleak neighbourhood where he was born. There in the centre of that great city, tall tenement apartments rose up on all sides so that, looking upwards, the best that child could ever see was a narrow strip of blue sky, and perhaps just a hint of the white, fleecy clouds passing by. The light of the sun shone down into the shadows of that ghetto for only a few moments each day when the weather was clear. Otherwise it was mostly grey and depressing. So that's exactly the impression that young boy had of the world itself.

Occasionally, on an especially bright morning in the springtime, the smell of flowers from some distant field would find its way into that squalid place and the boy would wonder about that strange scent. But the sweet smell of grass and flowers did not seem real to the boy. What seemed real was the stench of that city, and the garbage, and the peeling paint, and the poverty of the people. The noise of the traffic, the rumble of cars and trucks, these the young boy could believe in, but as for that ribbon of blue sky, he soon ceased wondering about that, for clearly nothing that beautiful could be real. And as for the fresh air of springtime and the smell of flowers, they must merely be some illusion, some fantasy from a world of dreams.

Another thing which came together for me recently has been our most recent book study of the book, “A Totally Human Hope” written by our own newish parishioner, Archdeacon Richard Berryman. In this book Richard points out that the language of the artist, whether painter, poet, writer, composer or sculptor is also the language of religion. That language is metaphor and it can only properly point toward holy truth, rather than define it. Perhaps this is why I and so many others have experienced holy moments when in the presence of the metaphor of art or the symbolic acts of liturgy.

What is real to you? What are your proofs? Or do you need them?

On that Friday night, after we finally got the kids settled, I unrolled my sleeping bag right beside the Pascal candle in the chancel and almost under the presence lamp and I remembered about fire and spirit and my own story with each. Amen.

To be Real

Easter 6  - To be Real                                                                                                         

Canon Sharyn Hall

17 May 2009

John 15: 9 – 17                                                                              

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL. It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time.”

This is a brief quote from the children’s book entitled, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit.’ The book was written by Margery Williams in 1922, and has become a classic work enjoyed by many generations of children. The story is about toys becoming real because they are loved, but the underlying wisdom of the story is about people. Margery Williams understood how toys and people become real through the experience of love.

Although I knew of the book, I did not read the whole story until a young couple asked me if they could include a brief excerpt from the book in their wedding. When I read the book, I quickly saw the connection between the message of the book and the gospel story for today. Both ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ and this gospel emphasize the amazing power of love. The transforming power of love is what Jesus is talking about when he says, ‘Abide in my love and your joy will be complete.’

Jesus is talking about love, which encompasses every kind of relationship, including the kind of love between two people who want to join their lives together, also the kind of love, which can grow within members of a family, and the kind of love we might call compassion for anyone in distress, and the kind of love, which calls us to stand up against injustice and oppression of people we do not know. When Jesus says, ‘Abide in my love’, he is describing the love he has for us, and he is calling us to build relationships of love with others.

When Jesus says, ‘IF you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,’ he is not placing a condition on his love, he is offering the means to abide in his love. That little word, ‘IF’ can be interpreted in different ways. It can be seen as a warning – in other words, ‘you only receive the love of Jesus and the love of God IF you keep the commandments.’ Some people believe that they can only earn God’s love and the love of Jesus by striving to follow many rules, particularly the ten commandments of Moses.

The ten commandments are inspired commandments to live by, but Jesus did not call them the greatest commandments. To him, the greatest commandments were to love God and to love people – a few words, but words packed with challenge. These are the two commandments, which open the way to abiding in the love of Christ. They are ancient commandments of the Jewish faith. They are the foundation of the covenant between God and the Hebrew people. The religious leaders of the Hebrew people turned these commandments into so many rules and laws that love was forgotten. Jesus came into the human world to bring back real love into the relationship between God and the people, and to bring the healing power of love among all people, rich and poor, scribe and sinner, priest and beggar.

That little word, ‘IF’, give us the choice and the opportunity to abide in love. IF we keep the commandments to love, the way of love can become a way of life. “Abide in my love,” Jesus says. The word, ‘abide’, seems an old-fashioned word to use in our modern time, but the word, ‘abide’, has in it the qualities of the strength of love. ‘Abide’ means to sustain love, to be grounded in love, and to let love be the guiding principle of life.

To abide in the love which Christ taught us is to see the potential for love in our daily lives. This may sound like seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses, but it is more realistic than that idea. It means to see the possibility of good, when faced with the reality of hatred, cruelty and sorrow. Reality need not be a synonym for the troubles of the world. Reality also may be the potential for compassion, for friendship, loyalty, justice, and for love. To be REAL means to face all the challenges, which love can bring.

In the book, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, the little boy loves the Rabbit so much that the Rabbit is with him wherever he goes, - in the playroom, where the Rabbit is jostled by the mechanical toys, who think they are superior to a silly, stuffed Rabbit, - out in the woods, where the Rabbit gets a little dirty, - and most of all, in the boy’s bed, when the boy holds him close all night long. This is wonderful for the Rabbit even when the boy becomes seriously ill with scarlet fever. The Rabbit loves the boy and stays with him to comfort him. When the boy becomes well again, the doctor orders that all the toys must be burned, so the little Rabbit is gathered up with the bedding and taken to the garden to be burned. Then something happens. The Rabbit realizes that he can run and jump and twitch his nose. The boy’s love has made him real, so he escapes from the bedclothes and runs into the woods to meet other real rabbits.

This is a children’s story, but it is more than a happy ending. We remember the Rabbit’s desire to be real, to be alive, to be loved. We are reminded that it is through love, both given and received, that we become really alive as God’s creatures in God’s world.

                                                            Thanks be to God.    Amen..

Easter 4 B - The Good Shepherd

St. Luke’s, Burlington

2 May 2009

By Stuart Pike 

How often are you identified with a number?

At the bank you have account numbers, PIN numbers to access your accounts, and credit card numbers.

Revenue Canada knows you by your social insurance number. They’ll never forget that!The hospital identifies you with your OHIP number. The electricity and telephone companies give you a costumer number that is displayed on the top of your bills. On Friday, I wanted to talk to a clerk at the ministry of transport drive test centre to find out if they could help me with a question I had. Just to find out if they could help me, I had to take a number and wait until my number was called. They couldn’t help me.

Isn't it wonderful when someone remembers your name, or when you are known by name rather than by a customer account number? Today it’s not only wonderful, it’s also very unusual. We live in an increasingly impersonal society where we often seem to be only a number. People are desperate to find a community where they will be known by their name.

Today's Gospel reading about the Good Shepherd ‑ give us an image of such a community. We are told about the very personal and intimate relationship that God has with us. Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. As the Father knows me and I know the Father, in the same way I know my sheep and they know me" (John 10:14). Jesus earlier gives this description of the relationships between the shepherd and the sheep. The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice.

Talking about shepherds who know each sheep individually, even calling them by name, is quite foreign to us today. Most sheep farmers today are not one bit like the shepherds we read about in the Bible. The modern day sheep farmer has his large mob of sheep in a paddock and he occasionally goes out to check if everything is all right. When he wants to shift them he hops on his motorbike and with the help of his dog he drives them to where he wants them to go. They don’t listen for his voice and follow him. He doesn't have names for them all. He doesn’t distinguish between one and another. This is nothing like the picture that Jesus gives, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me" (John 10:27).

A shepherd in ancient times didn't have thousands of sheep to look after. He had a small flock and he knew each sheep individually. As Barbra Brown Taylor has written, “in the Middle East to this day you can sometimes see three or four Bedouin shepherds and their flocks all arrive at a watering hole at about the same time. The sheep quickly mix and mingle together until the three or four individual flocks have disappeared in favor of forming one big mega-flock. But the shepherds don't fret this mix-up. Because when it's time to go, each shepherd gives his own distinctive whistle or sings his own unique little song, and immediately his sheep leave the others behind, form back into their own flock, and follow the shepherd they've come to trust.” 

The image of the good shepherd and the way he lived among his sheep, sleeping among them, walking out in front leading them, feeding them, guiding them over dangerous places to good pastures, being alert for other animals that might threaten the flock, directing and protecting his sheep with his shepherd's staff, knowing each sheep by name, and each sheep responding to the familiar voice. All this gives us the picture of someone with an intense love for their total well‑being at every turn of their life. This is a description of how Jesus feels about each one of us. Big business thinks of us as a number. Jesus knows us by name.

We as the Church need to be able to think less about numbers too, and more about names - about people.

Describing Jesus as a shepherd fills us with feelings of being cared for and loved. We have a picture in our minds of Jesus who will do anything for us to keep us safe and whole, even to the point of giving up his own life.

The picture of the good shepherd reminds us that even though our grip on him might be weak, his hold on us is still firm and strong, no one can snatch us out of his hand. Or as he says: I know my sheep and my sheep know me ‑ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. The relationship which exists between the Father and Son and Holy Spirit in the mystery we call the Trinity is closer than anything we can imagine. An that is why Jesus call us to be in relationship with others.

The image of the Good Shepherd is one of love, care, protection, intimacy and closeness. This text about the Good Shepherd has implications for us who are followers of Jesus. We are challenged to share his concern for those who are in trouble, for those who suffer injustice, for the sick and for the poor. As his followers, we share the same concerns as he does, and show our love in very practical ways, as Jesus did. It may be inconvenient to offer assistance, it may cost us time, effort and money, but love demands that this be done.

In other words, we need to become shepherds to one another. We are to be shepherds to one another as members of this congregation. We are to be shepherds to one another in our families. Just as Jesus guides and protects his sheep, mothers and fathers guide and protect the lambs he has given to us in our families. Just as Jesus shepherds us with patience and love, we shepherd those whom God has entrusted to us. Just as Jesus, the good shepherd, gives protection and guidance through the ups and downs that life brings so too must we give guidance and help to the lambs God has given.

We don't know what tomorrow will bring, but we do know that we have a loving shepherd who walks with us through thick and thin. And one day when we must walk through the valley of darkness and death he will walk with us and lead us to the glorious new life beyond the grave. Because we have a loving shepherd, goodness and love will follow us all our lives and we will live in the house of the Lord forever.

Let us, as people who follow the good shepherd, celebrate the deep relationship which God  has with each one of us: often at the deepest level of our being, below our own awareness. And let us be a Church which welcomes all people into a community where we are known by name. Amen.