Sermon for February 24th

Sermon:

• I have a tough job in the sermon today. I want to create a direct link from our meeting after this service to a man who lived and died in the bronze age, somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC. Is it possible? Of course it is possible. 

• The man is the man from the Genesis reading this morning, Abraham and there is a very important connection between him and our AGM and I am going to show it to you by considering 5000 years of history, all of Biblical history and then all of church history and in only 10 minutes. 
• Put on your running shoes!
• The problem for God is how do you fix a broken world? You can reboot the system; that is what he did with Noah,but the virus was still there.
• God chose another path like yeast in dough. It is little but will eventually change the whole dough.
• God chose a man, Abraham to be the yeast and made a covenant with him, which means that they enter into an agreement: God will bless Abraham's family over many generations and Abraham will be faithful to God.
• And so it begins: Abraham has a son Isaac, who has a son Jacob, who has twelve sons, the main one being Joseph. Over hundreds of years the families of the twelve sons grow into twelve tribes. The 12 tribes of Israel.
• Unfortunately for them they are enslaved, but are saved by a man named Moses. God renews Abraham's covenant with him by giving him the 10 commandments on Sinai in Egypt.
• They travel for 40 years until they reach a land promised to them by God.
• There they live for several generations until they decide they want a king. The first king doesn't work out, but the next one is King David who really loves God, and God again renews the covenant of Abraham with him by promising him that he will always have a descendant sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.
• Unfortunately after David dies the people of Israel begin a civil war. The country breaks in half with a series of really bad rulers, but eventually they are wiped off the face of the earth, first by the Assyrian Empire and the the Babylonian empire and are sent into exile. 
• Eventually they come back, rebuilt the temple, but there is no descendant of David on the throne. And it seems as if God has broken the covenant. 
• But then a group called the prophets claim that God will still call up a descendant of David who will sit on the throne in the future, and for Israel this person becomes the Messiah that they start waiting for. 
• They wait a long time. Hundreds of years. 2000 years now since Abraham.
• How am I doing for time?
• By this time the Assyrian empire is gone, the Babylonian empire is gone, the Greek empire of Alexander is gone and now it is the time of the Roman Empire, and into this is born just this Messiah. Jesus from Nazareth. And you know that story, but just to reiterate, God again renews the covenant with Jesus and seals it with his blood. At Easter Jesus walked out of the tomb and began a new covenant to be renewed regularly when his followers come together for Eucharist. 
• Now Jesus had a few followers who were convinced that Jesus was good news, no great news for the whole world. In fact, they thought Jesus was the hope for everyone. And they spread the news by telling people AND living a different kind of life.
• Now get this:
• the early followers of Jesus followed the Roman roads and spread the message of Jesus all around the Mediterranean: Israel and the Middle East, Greece, modern day Croatia, Italy, French coast and Spain and Northern Africa. 
• At first they were ignored, then persecuted and then 300 years or so after Jesus the Roman Emperor became Christian and within a hundred years the whole Roman Empire was Christian. But then the Roman empire started to fall apart form internal problems as well as invasions of Germanic tribes from the North. 
• But eventually the Germanic tribes became Christianity spread all over Europe up into Scandinavia, and eventually the Germanic tribes and what was left of the Roman empire coalesced into Christian nations all across Europe.
• Eventually there were disagreements about what it meant to be a Christian and different nations broke up into different churches, instead of one church. One of them, England, developed a state religion which became known as the Anglican church.
• As you know, England spread across the ocean to North America and set up colonies and in the colonies came the church. 
• The Anglican church in North America started on the East Coast but as Europeans pushed West.
• The first Anglican missionary in these regions was Canon Newton who founded the All Saint's congregation in 1875.
• Eventually the churches in Alberta were grouped over time into three Dioceses. Edmonton became a diocese in 1913, and within this diocese a church was started in Campbells town in the 1950's.
• And here we are over 50 years later about to have a meeting deciding what our next chapter looks like.
• But remember this: we are here today making decisions because we are in a church that came from people who came to Campbell town who were educated by people whose ancestors were taught the faith by missionaries who had moved West from colonists from the East who had come over from England whose national church came from the Reformation split from a church which had its roots in both Roman and Germanic tribes which had learned the faith from the Christian Roman Empire which had happened because Constantine converted and was taught the faith by Christians who were persecuted who learned from missionaries who had traveled the Roman roads who knew the faith from the followers of Jesus who were part of a people who had been told by the prophets that a Messiah was coming. This faith was traced back to David who was king who inherited the throne from a people brought forward from slavery by Moses. The people had grown from 12 tribes who had come from the 12 sons of Jacob, who was the son of Issac who was the son of Abraham, who is our father in faith. 
• (Hopefully less than 10 minutes!)

Congregational Worship Questions

Next week we will be meeting in our worshipping communities after the services to look at questions around how we worship. The point of the exercise is to help me understand what the congregations want and how I can serve you better as a priest. The meetings have no agenda for me; I am happy to lead worship in a variety of settings. Also, just to note, there will be no decisions made at the meetings. It is a listening and information gathering exercise for the leadership of the parish to process and determine what the best way forward. My guess is that after the meetings we would come back with a list of observations and invite feedback on the observations and then move forward based on the observations. Hopefully we can have the whole exercise wrapped up just after Easter. Thank you for taking part. (Note: I will also have the questions up on my blog; you can post comments there as well.)

These are questions for the different worshiping congregations to ponder. They are not the only questions possible; they are just to get the conversation started:

8am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Do you want to continue using the traditional language service out of the BAS or do you want to switch to the BCP?

·         Given the limited time would you prefer either the same sermon as the 9 and 11am services with less of the liturgy or the full liturgy with a slightly abbreviated version of the sermon?

·         Other issues?

9am Service:

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you basically happy with what we have now which is a standard BAS service with contemporary music, or would you prefer to explore creative forms, albeit still (mostly) within the general Anglican fold?

·         Are you comfortable changing the seating arrangements or would you prefer them to remain as they are?

·         How much extra liturgical material would you be interested in having on a monthly basis? This includes drama, liturgical dance, etc.

·         What would you add or take away from the service?

·         Other issues?

11am Service

·         Why do you come to this service?

·         Are you happy with the service as it is now or would you change aspects of it?

·         Would you be interested in adding tradtional liturgical elements to the service such as reading the Gospel in the midst of the people, or entrance and exit processions?

·         Would you be interested in a responsive changing of the introduction to the Eucharistic Canon? This is the dialogue: The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord…

·         Other issues?

Notes from the Vestry Meeting on February 19, 2013

Here are some notes from the Vestry meeting. If you have any questions please drop me an email:

• There were lots of people away from the Vestry meeting though we did have quorum. 
• The biggest thing was the approval of the budget as presented last time. Brian will present it at the AGM and Steve will have a few things to say. It is a balanced budget though it is because we rolled the surplus from last year forward to this year. The idea is that it is a one year stabilization budget.
• The Diocese asked if we could have a prayer partnership with the Diocese of Buye in Burundi and the Vestry agreed to this.
• We approved in principle allowing the Alberta Junior Forest Wardens have the use of the basement on some Tuesday evenings. We still have to negotiate the details.
• Financials: We are ahead in January, but there were anomalies to account for this, February will be much more difficult.
• From the Diocese: we will be having a giant Diocesan wide service on the Sunday of Pentecost which is the May long weekend. The Diocese is asking us to not hold services here, but to invite everyone there.
• Engineering: we are entering final negotiations around the fire alarm system and emergency lighting. We can hopefully start implementation soon.
• This was Ted Greenaway's last meeting as the People's Warden. He will be thanked for his service at the AGM.

Pope Benedict and the Second Vatican Council

There is a fascinating article here where Pope Benedict blames the media for misunderstanding the Second Vatican Council. The problem for him is that the media interpreted the event as a power struggle with in the church and that the change in the liturgy took away from the focus of the liturgy as an act of faith. Now of course it is true that Benedict was there and I was not, and it is very possible if not probable that much of the media misunderstood the event. But what strikes me as being disingenuous about Benedict's attack on the media is that it wasn't just the media. It was the interpretation of many within the church and in the council at the time. In fact, the whole reason he is having to make these claims is the obvious fact that many within the church think of it in exactly those terms!

In other words, there is a fifty year old debate within the church as to what the council meant. Benedict is of course right to interpret the event in the way he thinks best, but to blame it on the media to me is odd. In fact,  the bigger issue is that it ignores the entire historical trajectory of which Vatican II was a part. One of the great movements of the modern church in my mind is just this democratization of the church. These are currents that began in the Enlightenment, but really came to a crescendo in the 20th century. In this century, in the protestant churches power shifted from priests and pastors to become more dispersed in councils and synods. Power shifted from men to more and more to women; from white culture to people of colour and so on. The Catholic church was caught in these currents as well. It seems to me that the real issue is that Benedict, like John Paul II before him, wants to backpedal on this understanding and the media is a good scapegoat.

On the Pope's Resignation

Here is the statement from Fred Hiltz, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada on Benedict's resignation:
http://news.anglican.ca/news/stories/2566

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Someone asked for my notes on my sermon. I am posting them here; let me know if they are helpful. I can keep posting in the future if it is.

• One of the great ironies of the modern Christian church is that one of the most influential Christian writers was a man who never held a job, was held up to constant ridicule in the local press, broke off an engagement and broke his fiancé's heart because he didn't think he could overcome his melancholy, who died almost penniless and on his deathbed refused communion from a local pastor.
• He was by all accounts an odd man, and yet he became one of the central influences for some of the greatest Christian thinkers, writers and saints of the 20th century including Barth, Tillich, Balthasar, Bonhoeffer, Merton, Percy, O'Conner; I could go on.
• His name was Soren Kierkegaard, a Dane, and he was convinced that Christianity had lost its way.
• In 1835, when he was 22, he experienced a series of crises. His studies were not going well, partly due to his gregarious nature: he loved good wine and good company, and three of his sisters, two brothers and his mother all died in rapid succession. He felt as his father did, that a curse had been laid upon him. And he started questioning, what was his purpose here on earth. What was he supposed to do.
• He writes, "What I really need, is to get clear what I must do, not what I must know. What matters is to find a purpose; to see what really is God's will. The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me."
• The answer comes to him he writes when he was sitting in the famous Fredericksberg gardens in Copenhagen. He was sitting smoking his cigar, when he went out. He lit again and started thinking about all of the famous people in the world from scientists and businessmen who tried to make things easier for humanity. He reflected that after everything in the world has been made easy, there will be one last want: for things to be difficult. So he decided that it was his task to make difficulties for people, to make difficulties everywhere. 
• And the difficulty that he really focused on was reminding Danish society about what it meant to be Christian.
• Now that might seem odd because in fact everyone in Copenhagen was a Christian, a member of the state Lutheran church, and had been for generations and generations.
• But the problem as Kierkegaard came to see it was that Danish society had made being a Christian far too easy.
• In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of tremendous consequence forcing one to be socially outcast and perhaps killed; in the Danish church one was just born a Christian without any fuss. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being radically transformed in every aspect of your life by the power of the Holy Spirit; in the Danish church it meant attending services on Sunday. In the ancient church being a Christian meant being convicted of your essential sinfulness and being aware of the need for radical forgiveness; in the Danish church it meant being respectable. In the ancient church to be a Christian was a matter of discipleship, of self-sacrifice and giving, being a follower of Jesus; in the Danish church it didn't mean much at all, it was just the state religion. Everyone was a member. 
• In short, the Danish church had forgotten its purpose. And so Kierkegaard went to war with the state religion.
• It did not go well for him, but he continued on until the end, because for Kierkegaard there was a simple truth that just could not be ignored, to be a Christian meant to come face to face with the tremendous awesomeness and majesty of a God whose power and presence shakes mountains and creates worlds, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom our tiny minds can't even begin to comprehend or grasp or get around, and who out of a depth of love that should astound us, gave all of that up to come to us as a man, Jesus from the town of Nazareth.
• He saw that this is not a truth to assent to, but a truth to fall on our knees in front of. This is a truth that changes everything, that is so beautiful and so healing and so unbelievable wonderful that we can only give everything we are and have in gratitude to God. Anything less than this is not Christianity.

____________________________________________________

• Why do I tell this story? Because I think Kierkegaard's insight helps us to understand the true depth and beauty of the Gospel story this morning.
• Tell the story. metamorphasis 
• The story is important for several reasons
• 1. Affirmation of who Jesus is
  2. Church Fathers: preview of what is to come: the transfiguration of all things
  3. Reminder that this is the purpose of all of it: of Jesus, the Bible, the Church, us, our worship; all of it is about what God is doing in the world
  • • and we have the honour and joy to be a part of it.

___________________________________________________

• I can't tell you how important this is to me as a Christian and as a priest. I am convinced of Kierkegaard's essential point that we have to keep the purpose and truth of the Gospel always before us, and when we do everything else will fall into place.
• I see an essential part of my job here at St. Thomas is to help us articulate what our purpose is a crisp concise vision. Our particular purpose here in Sherwood Park at this time, 2013, with these people gathered here today who come from so many stories, backgrounds, struggles, ministries and joys and whom God has gathered together to work for the kingdom. This crisp concise vision is so important.
• From the business world Patrick Lencioni hammers this point again and again: Healthy organization minimizes confusion by clarifying…
  • Why the organization exists
  • Which behavioural values are fundamental
  • What specific business it is in
  • Clarity creates power like nothing else can.

  • And from Rick Warren in his very helpful book on church growth: "I discovered in my research was that growing, healthy churches have a clear-cut identity. They understand their reason for being; they are precise in their purpose. They know exactly what God has called them to do. They know what their business is, and they know what is not of their business. Does your church have a clear-cut identity?"
• What does this look like?
• • AGM vision
  • WONDER-ing about the purpose of the church bible study
  • Mission of the church intro course
• Epilogue
• • In Prayer this week: the parable of the farmer
  • God gives the growth, but we can make the soil good
  • That is our job; God will show us his plan, but while we wait, let us prepare our selves by clearing away things that divide us, praying and studying about what his purpose is, and above all to hope. 
  • As Kierkegaard tells us, " If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!”