The old city of Jerusalem is in many ways a magical place, a great crossroads of history, cultures, empires, nations and faiths. it is a city that dates back before King David, a thousand years before the birth of Christ. It has been a Cannanite city, a Jewish city, a Christian city and a Muslim city, and today it is in many ways all three. I had the great fortune of being there in 2005 on a pilgrimage from this diocese and I loved the place. For one thing of course, it is the city where Jesus walked, taught in the temple, healed people, ate the last supper, was arrested, died on the cross and where he rose again from the dead. Just being in that place is amazing. It is also a warren of shops and quarters with people from all over the world in one place. It is a place of unrest and tension as well as being a place of great peace. Jerusalem, more than any other city in the world, is the place where people have encountered the glory of God. And so I am glad that today we are talking about Jerusalem.
The reason I am talking about the Anglican church in Jerusalem is because the Anglican church of Canada has a special relationship with this community and has chosen this day as a day to educated ourselves a little bit about the church in Jerusalem, to pray for them and to support some of their ministries. As you know, the Anglican Church of Canada, of which St. Thomas is a member, is part of a family of churches throughout the world called the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is made up of 39 national churches like the Anglican Church of Canada and there are about 80 million of us Anglicans. But the church in Jerusalem is special because these are the churches that are in the Holy Land, the land we call holy because it is where our Lord lived, taught, healed, died and rose again. And for centuries Christians have returned to this place again and again.
The diocese itself is small by Anglican standards, only about 30 churches, but they are spread over five different countries. While small they do tremendous ministry. The bishop of the diocese says that their main ministries are teaching and healing, the same ministries as our Lord Jesus did. So as part of their ministry the Diocese operates several hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centres throughout the region. They also operate 13 schools in the area which are considered some of the best in the country. Another one of the big ministries that they have is welcoming pilgrims to the land by operating four pilgrim guesthouses throughout the region. The diocese has a number of problems owing to the fact that the Holy Land is a troubled region and that most Christians in the area are Palestinian Christians. But as the Bishop of the Diocese has said, Religion has to be part of the solution and so they do what they can by supporting the peace process in Israel, running their own peace and reconciliation ministries and doing interfaith work in the region. And so for a diocese with fewer parishes than the Diocese of Edmonton, they do a lot of work!
One of the aspects of this day is that the Diocese of Jerusalem has asked us to consider helping to support the work of one of their medical clinics in the northern West Bank called the Penman Clinic with a small one time donation, and if you are interested in doing that there is information in the bulletin. Here is the description they give to describe this ministry:
It is a rural clinic in the north of the West Bank and is associated with St. Matthew's parish. The area has a majority Christian population, but they serve all who comes providing the only medical treatment to the ton of Zebabdeh and more than 12 surrounding villages for very low fews.
As I have prepared this sermon meditating on Jerusalem, it was significant to me because I was also following the story of Pope Francis' trip to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. I am one who has loved the ministry of the pope because through so many of his words and gestures I think we see the vision and compassion of Jesus. In so many ways big and small Francis has invited us to see glimpses of a bigger reality called the Kingdom of God. He has pointed us to a new possible way of simplicity and compassion, where people of all ages, backgrounds, and classes have seen the love of God through this humble man. Through his actions I think he has given us tremendous insight into the ministry and vision of Jesus. And this last week he went into Jerusalem, a holy city, but a terribly divided city because of religious and racial tensions and politics. His trip in some ways faced an impossible dilemma: he can't change things. The tensions are too old, too deep, too complicated. On the other hand, he couldn't just ignore it, doing nothing. He did the only think he could do, point to the Kingdom of God, and in so doing showed us a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
What did he do? For one, he met with the Patriarch of the Orthodox churches and embraced him. These churches have been divided for centuries, and his meeting was a big step forward to bridging the two churches. Two, he traveled with a Jewish rabbi and a muslim leader to holy places for each of the religions and they all prayed together, and at the end of the trip in Jerusalem they all embraced. A powerful sign of the need and possibility of the three Abrahamic religions to live in peace. Three, when meeting with Muslim leaders, he called them not friends, but brothers. Fourth, he prayed both at the wall separating Jews and Palestinians and at the wall commemorating victims of terroism. Fifth, he invited the president of Israel and the president of the Palestinian authority to come to Rome to pray with him for peace, and they agreed. Gestures only perhaps. But gestures mean something. They point to something; and what Francis was pointing to was the spirit of the Kingdom of God. And in my mind it was beautiful to see.
The reason it is beautiful is because in these gestures I think we are seeing a glimpse of the character of God. And this glimpse is what we call glory. The glory of God. You are probably most familiar with this term from the hymn that we sing/ say at the liturgy every week. 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory." One of the most beautiful lines in our liturgy, the idea being that in creation we see something of God. And that is ultimately what Glory is about.
I have to confess that I used to be a little leary of the idea of Glory. The scriptures tell us that God does all things for his glory, and I have to confess that I thought that sort of made God seem like a great egoist! That he was so full of himself, that he had to create people just to tell him how wonderful he was. I have learned since then that this is not quite correct. That something else is going on can be seen in the Gospel this morning. In the reading from John, Jesus' students hear him pray: "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you." The line doesn't seem particularly odd until you realize that Jesus is praying this right before he is arrested and executed on the cross. The glory that Jesus is talking about is the humiliating death that he knows he is about to undergo. As he says in a few chapters earlier, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but it if dies, it bears much fruit." This is crazy talk; a humiliating and ignominious death is the exact opposite of glory. Until you realize that this is God we are talking about. And the God that shows himself to us in Jesus turns everything upside down.
And in God's world, glory is not a beacon that shows how awesome God is; glory is the reflection of God's character into our world. And his character is marked most profoundly by sacrificial love. That is why Christian point to the cross. We say if you want to know the most important thing that there is to know about God, behold the cross, behold the place where God, out of sheer love for us, reconciled all things to himself at great cost to himself. The most important thing about God is his love, because God is love.
Why talk about glory? Because this is the whole reason for existence, and it is where we find the deepest answers to our questions. Our purpose it is glorify God. Again, this is not that we are created to massage God's ego, rather we glorify God when we show forth his character in our lives. This is the ultimate meaning of ministry. Because what is his character but love, mercy and justice? And we are at our best when we are living that in our lives as best we can, because when we do, what we are doing is reflecting God's glory into the world. It may only make a small difference now, but it points to a time when God's glory will be all and all. This is why I find the gestures of Francis so compelling. He did not change the situation in the middle east. But what he did do was point to a much different possiblility. By the beauty of his actions it was as if he cried out, stretch your imaginations; stretch your hearts. God's love is greater than all of this. Don't just give lip service, but live it in your life. You don't have to be dramatic; we don't have to be the pope. Just in a hundred and one different ways in our lives, comforting a child, helping a grieving friend, rejoicing with a fellow worker, forgiving when slighted. All of these God uses to call us to imagine something bigger; imagine the Kingdom of God.
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