Sermon on Ft McMurray

This is another one of those sermons where you start to write one sermon and events in the world invite you to write another one. You may recall that I was going to finish a two part sermon on peace, but instead I am going to say a few words about the terrible events in Ft. McMurray. I could say a lot of different things, but as I prayed about what to say I found that what has really struck me are the scenes of amazing fortitude, scenes of generosity and scenes of courage. Today I just want to point to those and say that what we are seeing in those actions are glimpses of the Kingdom of God.

But first a prayer from the Iona community:

My those without shelter

be under your guarding 

this day O Christ.

May the wandering 

find places of welcome.

O son of the tears, of the wounds, of the piercings,

May your cross this day

be shielding them. Amen.

I am speaking as one who has no street cred here. I have never lived in Ft. McMurray; I don't have any family there; I have never even been there. All of my experience of this event has just been the horror of watching it all unfold and praying and praying for the people getting out and for the first responders fighting the fires and keeping order. Like everyone here I am guessing watched all of this unfold. Terrible scenes of cars sitting bumper to bumper in unmoving traffic with blazing fire on both sides of the road; family homes burning. Stories of getting out with little to nothing. People banging on neighbours doors to get them out. Scenes of burning embers coming down like snow. On the CBC on Friday night, one resident saying that if it looked like hell on TV, it was much, much worse driving through it. News stories of whole neighbourhoods burned down, gas stations exploded, hotels burned down. People just not knowing if they have a house or not. And now worried about the future. Jobs, income, place to stay, what is left to go back to. No electricity, is the water any good?

And it all happened so quickly. I read that one of the Anglican priests in Ft McMurray was at his church that morning, the sky was blue and it looked like the flames were going the other way, and by that afternoon he was heading north to a camp and not knowing what was going to happen next. All in all, I was sick to my stomach watching it, and I wasn't going through it. I couldn't even imagine of course what that hell would be like. Just offering prayer after prayer for people and waiting to see what we could do. 

But the terrible events were not the only news that was coming out. On the CBC I listened to an interview with the mayor of Wood Buffalo, Melissa Blake. She was answering criticism about the evacuation and I think handled that well. But then it turned to her own experience of running and going north. And she broke down. She said that she felt like a refugee and Ft McMurray had been a community that welcomed refugees and she said that now she knew what it felt like to need someone else to take her into their home, and that she was so grateful for people's kindness and generosity. And that kindness and generosity has been the other side of the story. Please don't miss hear me; I have no interest in playing down tragedy here. I will not ever say it is just stuff, when it is not my stuff that was lost. I recognize that a person's house and belongings are the story of a lifetime. But I have been deeply moved by stories of goodness and generosity.

It started when I heard stories of people filling jerry cans full of gas and packing trucks full of food to rescue people who had run out of gas. A principal who loaded a bus full of kids at the school and went north to get them out of harms way. Neighbours going from door to door making sure people, especially the vulnerable get out. It moved me when Don Iveson opened up Northlands as a place for Ft McMurrayites to come and sleep and get a place to just breathe for a moment. Anzac, Lac la bishe and so many other towns opening places to welcome people running with food, beds, children's toys. People signing up, bringing things. Little kids selling lemonade, teens washing cars, volunteers giving hours.

A friend of mine from Ft Saskatchewan volunteering at the local legion said: "I don't think this old heart has even been so full after witnessing the sharing that I have in the last 24 hours at the Fort Saskatchewan Legion as the community comes together to respond to needs of Ft Mac evacuees...humble padre." And the most articulate about all of this was Rex Murphy. If you didn't see his piece just google Rex Murphy Ft. McMurray. It is worth watching. For three minutes he illustrated the truth that while tragedy grinds the soul, it can also provide inspiration and that is what we have seen. He said, "If you want to know what it is like to be a neighbour in hard times, go to Alberta. It's the prairie code."

I want to suggest that it is more than the prairie code; I want to suggest that these good and generous things that are happening are glimpses of the kingdom of God. Not the kingdom in all of its fullness to be sure, not the whole of the Gospel, but nevertheless I would suggest a part of the Gospel. In seeing all of this neighbourliness, I sincerely thinking we are seeing something of God's vision and desire for the world. Being a good neighbour was always an important concept in the Old Testament. In fact, they expanded the understanding from the nations around them. In the ancient world, it was assumed that you loved your neighbours and wiped out or enslaved your enemies. You also assumed that your tribe or nation was greater than the others. The Old testament opened up the concept of being a neighbour to not just your ethnic or geographical neighbour, but to even the foreigner in your midst had rights and deserved compassion. There were laws about providing for your neighbour's welfare, for having fair courts of law to settle disputes, to refrain from violence and to limit punishments and stop vendettas. In the New Testament, Jesus takes this idea and then takes it even further to point people to God's hope for how neighbours treat each other.

He told three stories to illustrate this point. The one story has a man traveling down a road when he is ambushed by robbers, beaten and left for dead. Ironically the religious leaders are the ones who ignored him, but it was a foreigner who showed him mercy, bandaged him up, and paid for his lodging and doctor's bills. Jesus told the lawyer who was asking who is my neighbour that he should go and do the same. He told another where there was a rich man and a poor man outside his door. The rich man does nothing to hurt him, but he does ignore him and this is the reason that when he dies he goes to hell. Jesus tells another story where he imagines all of the nations of the world coming forward into judgement and the criteria for coming into the kingdom of heaven is if they fed the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, took in the stranger and visited the poor. For Jesus, being a neighbour is a central value to the kingdom. Again, it is not the whole Gospel of course, but if I am asking what does Jesus hope the church will look like in the world, I think it would look a lot like we are seeing around the generosity given to those fleeing Ft. McMurray. Of course, many if not most of the people doing all of this are probably not Christian. They are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or from another religious commitment. We have seen the Muslim and Sikh communities turning out to help in great numbers. It is beautiful to see. But what I hope you see is that this is not just about being nice. This is about being disciples of Jesus, about tapping into God's vision for all of creation. The point of all of this is that we don't have to wait for an emergency. As Christians we are called to pray that we would lead lives of such quiet generosity everyday. This is the good stuff of life; this is where we really find our meaning and joy. We don't have to be perfect; that is not our calling. Our calling is to follow Jesus our master and teacher. Jesus who says love one another as I have loved you.

But this one of course is not over, it is only beginning. What do we do? First we pray, for rain and cool weather. For Ft. McMuraay to rise again and let life get back to normal. Over the next several months as a Diocese we will be working closely with the Diocese of Athabasca, and we here at St Thomas will be invited to be a part of that. Our bishop has been in close communication with Fraser Lawton, the bishop of Athabasca, and I will end by reading a letter sent to all the Anglican churches in our Diocese from our Bishop.