Harvest Festival 2010

Sermon for 3 October 2010

Deuteronomy 8: 7-18

By Sharyn Hall

Harvest Thanksgiving in our part of our world is a festival of apples and pumpkins and roasted turkey. That is the tradition of our region of North America. For generations, Canadians and Americans were dependent of the land for food. The outcome of the harvest determined survival. The bounty of the harvest was celebrated by bringing samples of the fall crops to decorate the local churches. This is what we do every year. It is a tradition of thanks and of celebration. It is also a Biblical ritual.

The ancient Hebrew people were required to bring an offering of the Harvest to the Temple in thanksgiving to God. They believed that the land was a gift from God, and whatever the land yielded as food and foliage was a blessing from God.

In our reading from the book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people:

“The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing…”

At the time of the harvest, there was a great festival called the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasted for seven days. Families travelled long distances to Jerusalem to pray in the Holy Temple and to offer a symbol of their harvest to God. Outside the city, they built huts made of bulrushes or tree branches and covered them with palm leaves or twigs of myrtle. These fragile huts or booths were reminders of the dwellings the Hebrew people made in the desert when they wandered for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. The roofs of these dwellings always were sufficiently open so that God’s heaven could be seen.

The Feast of Tabernacles also was called the Feast of Ingathering and the booths were decorated with samples of the fall crops to acknowledge God’s faithfulness in providing food for the people. During the seven days of the festival, the family ate their meals in the booth. Everyday they read passages from the Torah, the five books of Moses, and they recited prayers of thanksgiving for God’s many blessings.

At the end of the festival, a pitcher of water was poured over the altar of the Temple to remember God’s blessing of life-giving water, and to pray that the rains would come to water the seeds for the next planting season. The Feast of Tabernacles became one of the most important religious festivals of the Hebrew people. It was a time of family gathering and always a time of thanks to God for the wonders of creation. Centuries later, the Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated by Jewish people around the world. Some families build temporary booths of various materials in the backyard, and always there are symbols of the harvest. Families living in apartments or condominiums celebrate with decorations and feasts. Whatever traditions are chosen to celebrate the festival, the central purpose is thanksgiving to God for blessings, for food, for families, for friends and for faith in God’s care of the future.

As Christians we have adapted the Feast of Tabernacles to our own customs and cultures. We gather our grain, vegetables, fruits and foliage according to our regional seasons and offer our thanks to God for the bounty of the land. For many of us, our connection to the land is our small gardens, or our memories of the farms of our parents or grandparents. Much farmland now is paved over as city streets and suburban developments, but there is something in our human psyches, which reminds us that we are tied to the land. So we drive out of the city to see the autumn colours. We stop at a roadside booth to buy fruit and vegetables from a farming family. We make preserves of pickles and chili sauce and grape jelly. We do all of those things because something in our souls tells us that this is the good life. The good life is connected to God’s creation.

In recent years, we have been encouraged, even urged, to be in harmony with the natural world. We have become increasingly aware of the need to care for the natural resources of the earth. The fragility of the environment is revealed at every harvest time. It has always been that way, for the ancient people of the Bible, and for people today in our technological world. We still need the right amount of rain, the right amount of sunshine and the right amount of rich earth to make a harvest.

Our ancient Hebrew ancestors understood the natural environment as God’s blessing more readily than we do, but even they needed a cautionary warning sometimes. We read in our scripture passage a warning from Moses to the people:

“When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them…and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God…”

The words of Moses are as true today as they were thousands of years ago. In our land, we may not grow pomegranates or olive trees, but we are a land of flowing streams, a land that produces abundant crops, which Moses could never have imagined, but we often forget the Lord our God. We forget to give thanks for the miracles of God’s creation, for tiny seeds which grow into corn stalks and pumpkins, for carrots and potatoes which grow in the silent earth, for trees which blossom in the spring and drop apples in the fall.

If we remember the gratitude we owe the Lord our

god, then we will remember God’s commandment to care for our neighbours. In our parish, we try to honour God’s generosity by sharing food with others through St. Matthew’s House, Partnership West and through our Food for Life program, and there are more opportunities to provide food in our community.

Today we do not forget the Lord our God. We give thanks and we invite God to rejoice with us in this harvest festival.

Come, Lord of the Harvest, Lord of Rejoicing,

Come and join us in our festive celebration. Thanks be to God.

Back to Church Sunday

Proper 2A

St. Luke’s, Burlington

26 September 2010

In Jesus’ time there seemed to be a great yearning in people to return to God. What was it that was causing it? Something just wasn’t doing it for them in their temple and their synagogues. Perhaps they just felt left out of a religion which was just about rules and regulations.

In Jesus’ time your religion dictated how you behaved almost every moment of the day: what you could wear, where you could go, to whom you could speak. And with all those rules, many of them didn’t feel really spiritually connected to anything at all. And so these people were marching across the wilderness to find John the Baptist who was teaching them to change their lives around and to return to God.

We might think, aren’t we glad that we don’t live in a society when religious rules dictate our every move. And yet, there are many people whose memory of religion is very much about rules and regulations. Perhaps some of our earliest memories of Church would be about rules:

Sit up straight!

Stand up and sing!

Sit down and be quiet!

Stop kicking the pew in front of you!

Get rid of the gum!

Don’t crawl under the pew!

Don’t pull your sister’s hair!

Don’t hit your brother!

Don’t look at the rector with your eyes crossed feigning death!

Not that I did any of those things!

Even after we’ve matured to adulthood and have been mostly conditioned as to how to behave in Church, then there comes another list about etiquette in the parish. How to dress. Whom to speak to. Connections which one should make. Things to say and not to say.

While consequences for infractions might not be as severe as they were in Jesus’ day on earth, for many people, the idea of religion can seem just as restrictive.

Perhaps it was the need to find some kind of freedom that drove those people out to find the Baptist. He was promising more. It wasn’t about following rules, it was about changing your heart and your life.

The people were amazed and awed by John. He had many disciples, including a man called Andrew. They asked him if he was the messiah and he told then, no, but that there was someone coming after him, the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to untie. Then one day, Jesus passes by and this is where our Gospel story starts. John points out Jesus and says; “Look, here is the lamb of God.”

We don’t know all that John had taught his disciples about Jesus, but we do know that these words were enough for Andrew and the other disciple to follow Jesus and Jesus, seeing them asks them this crucial question

“What are you looking for?”

Sounds simple enough, and yet it’s an important question. “What are you looking for?” They know he means it in the deepest sense. What were all those people looking for who went off into the wilderness in search of the Baptist? What are people really looking for today?

The people in Jesus’ time aren’t looking for a religion of rules and regulations and people today aren’t looking for that either. I think what we all most want is a relationship with God which will touch our souls and give us meaning.

St. Augustine expresses it so clearly when he writes: “God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

So people walk around searching for something which is missing in their lives. It’s the God-shaped hole inside of us. The emptiness which we might try to fill up with all kinds of things. We need something “more.”

In our materialistic society there are all kinds of ways to search for the “more” which we lack. The right perfume, the right car, the right job, the right address, the right vacation. Just get these and you’ll fill that hole.

Many, perhaps most people go off chasing the right things in order to find satisfaction, but sooner or later we realize that no matter how many things we have in our lives, there is still the “more” which we lack.

Andrew and the other disciple don’t know how to answer Jesus. They answer the question, “What are you looking for?” with “Where are you staying?”

Jesus doesn’t say “Well that’s a dopey answer.” I imagine he just smiles gently as he says, “Come and see.” And they go and spend the day with him.

I wish we could hear all that they saw and spoke about that day, but perhaps, ultimately this doesn’t really matter. We’re not really supposed to know. We know that they spent the day in his presence and whatever they experienced was enough for Andrew to go home and get his brother, Simon and say to him, “We have found the Messiah.” And to bring him to Jesus. Andrew is the first missionary ever by going and getting his brother.

This is the ultimate show and tell. Andrew has found the answer to all that he has been searching for, and the first thing which he does is to go and share this wonderful truth with someone close to him.

In the end it isn’t Andrew who becomes the most famous disciple. It’s Andrew’s brother, Simon who will be the famous one. Jesus took one look at him and called him by another name, Cephas, or Peter which means the rock, and it is upon this rock that Jesus will build his Church. And what of Andrew? We don’t know much about him, except that in the few stories we have of him, he is often introducing others to Jesus – like the boy who had some bread and fish to share, or the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus.

Andrew must have known that not everyone can be a Peter, but that everyone can do their part, and perhaps the most important part is simply bringing others to “come and see.”

There are those in the congregation today who played the part of Andrew recently and invited others to come back to Church to come and see. And there are others who have come to check us out once again.

I believe that you will see that the essence of our religion is not rules and regulations, but is about being invited to spend some time with Jesus. And how do we do that? We Jesus gives us the biggest clue about that. He says to his disciples, what you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.

What are you looking for in your life? Come and see that here at St. Luke’s, we’re about forming a community of people that is reaching out to make a difference, and when we’re doing that, we’re spending our time in the presence of Jesus. Amen.

Proper 25 C

Sermon for 19 September 2010

Luke 16: 1-13

By Sharyn Hall

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the foremost theologians of the 20^th century, wrote in his book, ‘A Testament to Freedom’, “One simply cannot read the Bible like other books. We must be prepared to question it. Only in this way is it revealed to us.” Some people would find those words startling, but I find them reassuring. Sometimes the Bible presents us with such puzzling ideas that we cannot help but question the meaning. Today’s gospel passage with the parable of the dishonest manager is a good example. What is Jesus teaching his disciples?

Most often we concentrate on the words at the very end of the passage. “You cannot serve God and wealth.” Is this as straightforward as it sounds? If you serve God, you cannot be wealthy. If you serve the god of wealth, you do not serve God. Therefore, the wealthy are godless and only the poor are God’s people. We all know that is far too great a generalization. Unfortunately, scandals of fraud and greed in the business and investment world confirm that some people serve the god of wealth regardless of the harm caused to others, but we know that dishonesty, greed and miserliness can be found at any level of society.

The criticism of wealth in this gospel is consistent with the attitude toward wealth in the writings of St. Luke. In Luke’s time, people believed that wealth could only be obtained by making other people poor. Since few people were wealthy and many people were poor, wealth was synonymous with cold-hearted greed. Luke writes about wealthy people as godless because they seem aloof to the suffering of others.

We may say to ourselves, ‘I’m not wealthy, so this parable does not apply to me’, but is this parable of Jesus really about money and material possessions? Jesus says, “whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you true riches?” What are these true riches? What does Jesus mean? From the way Jesus lived his life, we might guess that true riches for him can be summed up in love for God and love for our neighbours. True riches are justice, love and compassion. With this parable, it may be that Jesus is teaching his disciples about the true riches of life as opposed to the superficial success of material wealth.

At first, the parable is puzzling. Why does the dishonest manager receive praise from his master? Jesus often turned conventional wisdom upside down. His disciples would expect him to criticize the dishonesty of the manager who falsified financial record and cheated his employer. In our society, we would expect such a person to be charged in court and punished. The dishonest manager seems to succeed in avoiding punishment and in providing a comfortable future for himself.

However, he might be welcomed into the homes of grateful debtors, but would he ever be trusted? Jesus says, “if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” In other words, who will be generous to this dishonest manager? Who will show him respect and compassion knowing that he is shrewd and self-serving? The dishonest manager may believe that he has a secure future, but the cost may be his integrity.

I wonder if Jesus is being ironic in this parable. He says, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” ‘The children of light’ is a Hebrew phrase describing those who live according to God’s commandments. Perhaps Jesus is saying that if you desire wealth and success in the world, learn the ways of the world, but if you want to walk in God’s way, you may find yourself outside worldly society. God asks for honesty, compassion and generosity, which worldly people often consider naïve. It depends on what you believe is valuable in life.

There is great wisdom in this parable, but we need to dig deeply to uncover the layers of meaning. The parable is not only about the temptations of wealth to turn us away from God, the parable is about the mistaken belief that we can shut God out of our lives and shrewdly take care of ourselves, justifying whatever means we use by pointing to our own success. Jesus is guiding his disciples toward the true riches in life – the riches of integrity, justice, compassion and love.

In our baptismal covenant, we renounce all that draws us away from God and we turn toward God through the guidance of Jesus. We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbours as ourselves. We promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. We make those promises, but always we remember that we need God’s help.

We all want to be successful in life, to enjoy accomplishments and to have respect and love for others. Those are good goals, but often we need to ask ourselves if we have invited God to be with us and whether we are willing to be guided by the wisdom of Jesus. Amen.

Proper 24 C - The Lost Sheep

Proper 24 C - The lost sheep

Sunday, 12 September 2010

Hello, are you lost? It's remarkable how difficult it is for adults to admit that they are lost. We're taught in our society that you're supposed to be self-reliant, confidant, not needing help.

I should say, though that I might be only representing my own gender. I cannot count the number of times that my wife and I have been driving in the car and my wife will say something like, "I think we're lost." I will immediately respond with - "Oh no, it's just a little further down the road." We'll wait a while (maybe 10 minutes) and Katherine will say, "why don't we stop and ask for directions." For some reason, such action is almost considered unthinkable at the first suggestion. "No need", I'll say, "It must be just around the next curve."

Katherine seems to go along with popular woman's theory that it's a male thing. You know, it's an X -Y chromosome thing. Everyone knows that the male Y chromosome is shorter than the X chromosome. We'll the bit that's missing is the little common-sense gene which lets you know when it is time to stop and ask for directions!

We hate admitting we are lost. Men, anyway, and I really think women too, want to be stronger than the image of the lost. Jesus tells the story of the lost, and of how God responds to the lost. Remember that he is speaking to the Pharisees who question Jesus association with outcasts and sinners. Jesus hung around with the undesireables of society. We don't get the shock value that the people of Jesus' time did. Imagine Jesus hanging out with the crack dealers and the prostitutes and dope heads in any big city. The Pharisees were affronted by that. What a poor example. We would be too. I would.

So Jesus asks: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until you find it (Luke 15: 4)?"

Of course the quick answer, if you think of it is none of us. Using common sense, it would be a stupid thing to do. The shepherd's livelihood would be much more at risk by leaving the 99 than by losing one. The point of the story is that no right‑minded shepherd would leave the flock for the sake of one sheep. "One can recoup the loss of one sheep, but the loss of 99 sheep, left to fend for themselves in the wilderness would bespeak economic disaster for the shepherd."

Or what woman would turn her house upside down for a coin, and then throw a party for all her friends just because she has found it? Surely the cost of the party would outstrip the value of the coin? Where is the logic in this?

Not one of these parables make sense according to our standards of logic. In the parables, relationships are inverted and worlds are unmade. The lost one is valued even more highly than the many who never strayed. The sinner is welcomed and the righteous are admonished.

Theologian William Capon notes that it would be very likely that the 99 sheep who were left without a shepherd would get lost themselves. "All to the good", he says, "Because Jesus can't do anything for anyone, except the lost." Maybe the point that Jesus is trying to make is not only that God seeks after the lost and not the self-righteous, but also that we need to realize our own lostness. Maybe being lost is the state in we find ourselves when we know that we're not self-reliant and strong, but we are in need of God for our guidance, indeed our very life. Getting lost is not

undesireable, but it is a necessary step in approaching God.

Now before you all go home and tell everyone that your new priest told you to get lost. Let us realize that getting lost isn't the end in itself. Realizing our lostness is so that we can come to be found, and set on the right path. I think this can and does happen many times in our Christian journey, so that we must always be ready to admit our lostness. But there is a reason for being lost and being found.

In The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor says that "The parables are full of problems, not the least of which is they don't seem to mean what Jesus says they mean. According to his explanations, they're about heaven's joy over one repentant sinner, but the lost sheep does not repent as far as I can tell and the lost coin certainly doesn't. They are both simply found ‑ not because either of them does anything right, but because someone is determined to find them and does. They are restored thanks to God's action, not their own, so where does repentance come in at all?"

Some scholars say that the two parables are meant to lead us to the next parable in the Gospel (the prodigal son) where the son does repent and return home to his father. Others say that Jesus was making the parables up as he went and didn't worry about whether all the logical connections were made. And still others that Jesus left them open‑ended for us to figure them out for ourselves and the explanations were added later by editors to make sure that we wouldn't misunderstand them. But another possibility exists. The possibility that they aren't about lost sheep and lost coins are parables about good shepherds and diligent sweepers.

Taylor says that, "If you are willing to be a shepherd ‑ then the story begins to sound different. The accent in what Jesus says falls on a different syllable. Repentance is not the issue, but rejoicing; the plot is not about amending our evil ways but about seeking, sweeping, finding, rejoicing. The invitation is not about being rescued by Jesus over and over again, but about joining him in rounding up God's herd and recovering God's treasure. It is about questioning the idea that there are certain conditions the lost must meet before they are eligible to be found, or that there are certain qualities they must exhibit before we will seek them out. It is about trading in our high standards on a strong flashlight and swapping our 'good examples' for a good broom. It is about discovering the joy of finding."

I think we need to be both the lost and the seeker. Being lost and found and seeking the lost is the life-cycle of the individuals in a Christian community. The community - our Parish - our Diocese - our Communion - our faith is what holds we individuals together in these tasks of faith. The first step for each of us is, as my wife always suggests, to stop and ask directions. Amen.

Proper 22 C

Aug. 29, 2010

Proper 22

St. Luke 14: 1, 7-14

By Sheila Plant

May the word of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight, O, Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

Last week while waiting in the doctor’s office, I picked up a rece3nt edition of the Hello magazine. I was curious to read about the 3 million dollar extravaganza of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. I didn’t get to read the whole thing, but it certainly got me thinking.

What would it have been like to eavesdrop on the planning of the reception and the seating plan. We all know that the Clintons move in some pretty lofty circles, so the actual seating plan of such an event must have been quite a challenge. Where did they seat members of the Secret Service? Is it appropriate to put Aunt Mary with the Secretary of State? What about the groom’s family?
Can they be seated with the Attorney General? Tony Blair is coming. We don’t dare put hgi8m at the back of the room. But finally name cards are all in place and everyone has a seat.

There might be the occasional wedding where there are no place cards for seating. You get to the reception and wonder where you should sit.
Obviously the wedding party sits right up there at the head table and the parents and grandparents are right at the front as well. What about everyone else? Suddenly you are faced with a dilemma. Should I sit up at the front or should sit and the back? Should I take one of the special seats of honour or leave it for someone else?

In today’s gospel, Jesus helps us decide which seat to take. Only he isn’t talking about a two hour wedding reception. He’s advising us on how to conduct ourselves every day of our lives. It’s his way of teaching us about humility and hospitality. He is at a wedding feast of a prominent Pharisee and everyone is watching him closely.
But he is doing some watching his own. The Pharisees had the reputation for always fighting over the seats of honour. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus warned: “Watch out for the teachers of the law....they have the most important seats in the synagogues and the place of honour at banquets.” It is this observance that prompts him to give advice on how we are to behave when we are on the receiving end of an invitation. Emily Post h3e is not, but he takes a piece of advice that could be taken from an etiquette column of his day and applies it to how we are to behave in the presence of God. He is countering that “me first” attitude. So when we answer the invitation to the banquet of the kingdom of
Gode, then we had better enter by humbling ourselves.

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host....will come and say to you, Give this man your seat. Then, humiliated you will have to take a least important place.”

This is much more than just a lesson in table manners. Jesus is dealing with a much deeper issue—a matter of the heart. He refers to the way the Pharisees went about grabbing the most prominent spots at the dinner table and something about how they viewed themselves. They regarded themselves as better than everyone else. They considered themselves worthy or deserving of high and distinguished honour. To quote a bumper sticker seen in California, “It’s all About Me!”

Are we guilty of this same attitude? And do we find ourselves thinking, “Why am I stuck in this line? Why don’t they open a new register?

I have important things to do. Why do I have to stay here when everyone else is out having fun?”

It seems human nature to think these thoughts and think with that “me first” attitude. But to push our way into the limelight to grab what we consider to be our just rewards opens up that door for worldly influences to flood our hearts and minds. Before long we start believing that we really are better that everyone else and we

Truly do deserve to be praised or recognized for every little thing we do. How many people out there do things, not just because they want to or because it makes them feel good, but because they want recognition for their acts. But on the other hand, we have to learn some lessons about our own selfish instincts. People of all ages act in their own self interest. We do it all the time without even noticing it. We are told to secure our own oxygen masks on a flight before seeing to the needs of others. We take responsibility for our own health and self care every day. We can boast about be3ing self reliant but we really aren’t. It’s not “All About Me”.
We depend on one another and like it or not, we depend on God. The energy of his love goes on forever.

Jesus tells us that “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. In other words, those who believe that they deserve a Heaven based on what they have done or given will be thoroughly humbled before the Lord on the Last Day. When all the Pharisees of the world stand before God, full of their own importance, they will be in for quite a surprise. Expecting the best seats in the house or all sorts of praises from
God, they will get a shock. And in spite of our “me first” attitude earning us the worst spot, God has moved us up to the top spot. He has reserved a place for us at his heavenly banquet because the best possible spot is waiting for us in Heaven. It was earned for us by Jesus. We have no need to scramble about for the best spots on earth. Instead, we will be content with the lower, less glamorous, more humble spots. So Jesus has taught us about humility and has given us a bit of an attitude adjustment. He adjusts our attitude and practising gentle humility.

So who do we invite to our banquet? According to this upside down topsy -turvy world in the gospel, everything is reversed. Te humble become the exalted ones, the poor are rich, the crippled and lame are well and the blind are the ones who see. These are the guests of honour that we invite. These are the ones that the Pharisees shunned. These are the ones to whom Jesus will say, “Friend, move up higher.” We have invited guests who cannot repay us but we will be blessed. Even though they cannot repay us, that’s not why we did it. Jesus tells us we will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. And that is all we ask. Remember our guest of honour is always in our midst. He is the one who says, “I am among you as one who serves.”

As we search the shelves of the book store looking for books on etiquette we are bombarded with all sorts of them de4aling with social behaviour and manners. There is definitely something for everyone. Yet, the “Bible is a book that also has a little something about etiquette. It addresses etiquette of the heart. It helps adjust our attitude. It is the only book that guides us into making real life changes that conform to God’s will true humility and unselfish tendencies. The Holy Spirit comes to us empowering to both practise gentle humility and unselfish hospitality.

Thanks be to God.