November 30th ~ 35th anniversary of the ordination of women
in the Anglican Church of Canada
[texts: 2 Chron 34:22-28; Cant 11 ;Acts 16: 11-19; Lk 1:39-56]
When Mary Lyseki asked if I would preach at this celebration of 35 years of the ordination of women within the Anglican Church in Canada, I only hesitated for a moment. I heard her invitation as a chance to reflect on my experience of ordained ministry. So I'm afraid that these reflections are more autobiographical than usual, but I hope that they are still meaningful. I'd like to start with thanksgiving, then speak about the privilege of being a priest and conclude with the challenges I see for ordained women in this beloved but rugged institution – the Anglican Church of Canada.
First: gratitude – a word of thanks to all the women and their allies who opened the way for the ordination of women. It's not easy to be a pioneer. Many faced open, sustained, and sometimes quite ugly opposition. That has not been my experience thanks to them. I would also like to thank all those who worked and continue to work uncovering, understanding and dismantling sexism – whether in families, educational systems, institutions or scriptural and liturgical studies. Even our core language for God, for prayer, for song, for canons and committees needed redemption. And that was and still is spirit filled, but for many, very painful work. Our experience of gender touches such deep parts of ourselves and the stories of our families. I give thanks for all who have dared and continue to be aware of the ways gender divides us; those who, then and now, continue to find ways to heal those divisions; and all those who have and still act as cheerleaders and supporters in the struggle. Hasn't it been great to recover and celebrate the rich diverse female presence within our tradition: judges, prophets, warriors, evangelists, saints, hosts supporters, mothers, sisters, apostles and yes, wisdom herself. And it's really nice to hear pieces of that beautiful tapestry tonight – thank you to the organizers.
Secondily, I want to express the awesome privilege I feel I have been given to be a priest in the church today. I have in my memory a moment when my husband and I were exploring Ireland and had turned into a Benedictine women's monastary. It was a gorgeous site - I wish I could remember the place name. What does stick in my mind is resting in the stone chapel the sisters had newly refurbished beside a small lake. Everything in the chapel was perfect – the proportions, the colours, the furnishings. And I realized that none of the sisters had or would be able to stand behind the altar and celebrate the great goodness and love of God poured out for us and all of creation. I felt a wave of sadness and then the great privilege of my calling. Every Sunday, behind the altar, I hold up the elements and say: through Christ, with Christ and in Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit... And every Sunday, I see the beloved gathered congregation, the body of Christ, through those elements - the body and blood of Christ for the people of God, and I experience a wholeness a sacredness a mystery unfolding in that moment full of potential and goodness. That is moment of awesome blessing and privilege. I love being a priest...it is hugely important to me and to expressing, to doing,what I've been given to say and do. Is it hard and at times painful work – absolutely. But it is also total blessing and I give thanks to all those who made it possible for me personally and for others in this circle tonight to fulfil our calling. I also think that it is a gift for the church as a whole to see both women and men serving in this way. It matters.
Now, when I was leaving Ithaca New York and my position at Cornell, a circle of women that I had prayed with for several years had a sending off, a kind of commissioning event. They gave me this little bag with a quartz stone inside it. They each held the stone and offered a prayer or blessing for me and said that I was to use my voice, to speak up and speak clearly as a woman for women and for justice and peace in God's world. It sits on my desk and continues to remind, challenge and sometimes reproach me. For it is easy to forget or turn a blind eye to all that diminishes the wholeness of creation and human community. It is easy to say: “that the struggle for gender equality has been won. It is an issue of another day. Let's move on.” But it's not true. The work, the struggle remains. And so I would like to finish with some reflections on the challenges before us.
First patriarchy is still alive and well in our church. Men, male voices and experience are privileged over women's voices, experience and wisdom. We hear it every day in the language we use for God, in our public worship, in committee work and in appointments. Let me say that I'm not in favour of language police or political correctness. But I am conscious of the language we use and how it shapes us. I'm aware of where we sit in meetings, of our turn taking in discussions, of who's heard and who's deferred to. There isn't one right way of acting or speaking, but our ways of acting and speaking do reflect what's important to us. Our faith and church structures were shaped in deeply patriarchical times and we are only partly free of that legacy – free both personally in the ways it has shaped us and free institutionally. Our models of leadership and decision making are still marked by that legacy and I believe that the church is less for that. Are there exceptions – mercifully yes, but the exceptions often just prove the rule. When I was in seminary in the early 90's I heard one or two talks a year when leaders of the church bemoaned its great diminishment. I admit that, although I heard the grief that they were experiencing, there was always a piece of me shouting hallelujah – perhaps there will be space for the new, for what needs to be born. Is there?
On Saturday I was at the kick of for a new women's organization: Manitoba Women to Women of South Sudan and many leaders of other women's organizations in Winnipeg were there to offer words of encouragement. The advice of the chairperson of the University Women's Association to this fledgling organization was: “don't let them tame you.” Well, I think a second, bigger more subtle challenge facing ordained women in the church at this time is our domestication. We've been tamed. Our interest in and capacity to explore new ways to speak and celebrate the movement of the Spirit in our lives or to try new models of ministry or more dialogical ways of making decisions and working in teams has failed to materialize as we give our hearts [and more dangerously our souls] to sustaining an institution that is a season of decline. It is strenuous work. We worry about money, job security, leaky roofs and the joy of the gospel is relegated to our memory banks. I believe that our church is healthier and more able to address our culture with a living faith, with ordained women in its fabric. But are we actually exploring and using that gift of the Spirit or have we ordained women simply been co-opted into the agenda of an increasing fragile institution?
I want to mention one final challenge: the question of solidarity. I have in my office a picture of two buddhist nuns laughing in a doorway together. It reminds me to laugh lots, but also to be friends and colleagues with other women on the journey. I'm glad that we heard tonight about the three month sojourn of Mary and Elizabeth – two women, old and young sharing a trimester of their pregnancies together. It is an important image for all called to birthing the Word. It is too, too easy for ordained women to participate in the clericalism, the set apartness and privileging of the ordained. How do we develop and sustain the habits of the heart to stand with others rather than a part from or above others. The invitation of solidarity work is to grow a bigger self. And so I ask: how do we continue to support each other, lay and ordained women together, and continue to work with all those whose voices, bodies, experiences have been marginalized or oppressed.
Indulge me in one last image which means a lot to me. It's an image of Mary, mother of Jesus. But instead of modelling a still receptivity to the Word, she is modelling an engaged, active embodiment of the will of God on earth as heaven. So on the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral – somewhere in England, I've never actually seen it, there is a statue of “the walking Madonna.” She is [I quote] “walking with purposeful compassion as a member of the Community of the Risen Christ to bring love where love is absent.” In her I see an image of my ministry an image I share with so so many – lay and ordained. I delight and give thanks to the Holy One for the great gift of this ministry and for all women and men with whom I share this journey of faith.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Two homilies on forgiveness
Forgiveness 1: September 4
texts: Ex 12:1-14; Ps 149; Rom 13:8-14; Mt 18: 15-20
How many of you have been hurt by another person?
How many of you have hurt another person?
Is there anyone that can't say 'yes' to both those questions. We hurt and we are hurt..all of us. As much as we talk about “love your neighbour as yourself” and about the importance of community, the reality is that we hurt and we are hurt by others. None of us are exempt from this economy of hurt. So what are we to do? How do we deal with it? Many relationships are destroyed by it. Many people's spirits are broken, and many are so burdened by the hurts and/or guilt they carry that their lives are bent and even crushed by it. What are we to do? Can we talk about new beginnings ~ our first lesson is all about the Israelites' preparation for leaving Egypt – their day of freedom from slavery. Can we imagine new beginnings, freedom from the burdens of our hurts and hurting? Can we imagine the healing of our relationships?
This is the work of faith. It is part of the word of hope that we bear individually and as a church – that its possible, that is worth the work. Now anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of church history knows that there has been a lot of conflict, a lot of hurting, and many many torn relationships within the Christian family, let alone between people of faith and those outside of the circle. We are not exempt from the economy of hurt. We too must do the work of healing and reconciliation.
Our gospel reading talks about a process for when
another member of the church sins against you...
And that process rules out silence, or worse gossip. It says to start by talking... one on one; and if that doesn't settle things up, then broadening the circle to include two or three others and if that doesn't heal things up, then including the whole church – the whole community. And at the heart of the process is the verb 'listening, listening, listening.' And Jesus underlines the importance of this work of reconciliation with his comment:
Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
And if that wasn't enough, he says if this dialogue process doesn't work – if Pharaoh's heart [the offender's heart] is hardened, then Jesus adds:
let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Now any conflict mediator will say this is way, way too simplistic. It doesn't account for power imbalances. It will never safe guard the vulnerable or a courageous whistle blower or reformer. And you know even our scriptures have much more to say on this than this little fragment of scripture we heard this morning. In fact this could be a cautionary tale for not taking a fragment of scripture out of context. For on either side of this passage are important caveats to a simplistic reading of this process. Right before this passage is the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for the lost one. And right after this passage is Jesus' response to Peter's
‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ [and]Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
And so next week we will talk about the hard work of forgiveness and its powerful role in healing relationships. That's the scripture immediately before and after this morning's text. But overarching or under-girding these texts is Jesus' crucifixion. When we hear “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector,” we can first think let the offender be excluded, a cast out one, a person outside of the circle. But then we must remember:
Jesus' reputation as friend of just those tax collectors and sinners; and
Jesus earlier in Matthew saying to the righteous ones of his day: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners;’” and
then there is the stark reminder of the cross itself: Jesus' giving his life for sinners surrounded by sinners outside the city gate rejected as a sinner by his own people.
Do not all these powerful texts push anyone gathering in Jesus' name to the hard, forever, work of searching for and including the excluded. For, there is a deeper centre to our text.
For where two or three are gathered in my name than I am there among them
If we centre in Jesus and in his way - “in his name,” then our gospel cannot be about excluding the offender and maintaining the righteousness of the circle. There is no rest for us who gather in his name until every last hurting, hurtful fragment of creation is at peace at the table. Yes, that peace must be real. It must be rooted in justice and truth, but also mercy. And we know that this kind of peace is only even possible to imagine, if it is grounded in the infinite love and grace flowing from the Heart and Wisdom of our Universe.
But... not only are we in the circle addressing one who has sinned against us, we are individually and as the church the sinner, the offender. So much hurt has been caused in Jesus' name over the centuries, and even in our own life times. We too must listen hard and then listen again to those whom we have hurt. We must soften our hearts to hear and repent of the hurt we have caused – either directly ourselves, or indirectly by others gathered in Jesus' name. And so we listen carefully to the work and reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We listen carefully to the hurt caused gays, lesbians and transgendered people in Jesus' name. We listen carefully to the offence given in Jesus' name to Muslims, Jews, and other Christians not like us. And we repent and seek forgiveness and continue the hard, forever work of loving our neighbour as ourselves...for “love is the fulfilling of the law.” From this place with mercy and grace, courage and perseverance we can heal. The past need not be the future. It is through the economy of grace that we move through the economy of hurt to a new beginning – to a place where we can together “sing to the Lord a new song.”
We'll continue these reflections next week ~ 10 years after the first September 11 when we got this all so wrong....... Thanks be to God for God's mercy, for the testimony of the cross always before us, and for the renewal of spirits here at the table week after week.
Forgiveness 2: September 11
texts: Ex 14:19-31; Ps 114; Rom 14:1-12 ; Mt 18: 21-35
We start today where we started last week... with the economy of hurt: we hurt, we are hurt; and with the economy of grace: the healing of hurts. And we talked about the hard, forever work of loving our neighbour as ourselves – the work of the kingdom – the work of community. And I asked the question: Can we even imagine new beginnings, freedom from the burdens of our hurts and hurting, the burdens that crush a spirit and warp a life? Can we imagine the healing of our relationships? And we ask this question
not only as individuals who have hurt and been hurt; but also
as a church, people gathered in Jesus' name who have hurt and been hurt; and also
today in particular, we ask this as N.Americans responding to the hurts and hurting of September 11, ten years ago until today.
And the backdrop for this question is the crossing of the Red Sea – the vanquishing of the army of the great empire of the day. The wind “turned the sea [that great image of the original chaos] into dry land; and the waters were divided.[just as in the original third day of creation] The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground... yes, they dared to go into this unknown, unfolding movement to freedom, away from slavery, towards a new land. Someone took the first step and the people followed. But Pharaoh's army, bent on destruction, on the old ways, were swallowed up in mud and drowned. At first glance this is a classic story of the victim triumphing over their oppressor. But taken as whole account, the victims spend the next 40 years in the wilderness learning God's ways. They don't enter the new land immediately. It takes a long time, more than a generation to lay aside, to forget the ways of the empire and learn a new way.
Today we hear Peter ask Jesus:
"Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"
And Jesus explodes the question, because its not about counting, its not about how many times, it's about the economy you're in: hurt or grace; its about the ways of the empire and the ways of God. Forgiveness comes from a whole different source than hurt. We all know the currency of the economy of hurt: pain, shame, guilt, resentment, retribution, vengeance. And what we buy, what's created with these transactions is increasing separation and alienation, brokenness, fragmentation, and often enmity, escalating suspicion of the other. Our gospel's imagery of slavery, prison and torture are not too strong. What's traded in the economy of grace is love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, truth, understanding, empathy; and what's created in this economy is life, community, neighbourliness, connection.
Now, the theory is good, but oh the practice is hard. In fact without the last sentence of our reading last week we would have real reason to despair. But Jesus says:
where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’
Healing is possible because its rooted in God, in the limitless aquifer of God's love and grace. When we gather as hurting folk in his name longing for the kingdom for the ways shaped by the economy grace, Jesus is present. Thanks be to God.
Years ago I bought a book because of its title: “Don't forgive too soon.” And this is how the book starts:
“This book is about forgiveness. Anyone who has bothered to buy this book probably knows that forgiveness is a critical part of our deep human longing to give and receive love in enduring relationships. Nevertheless, many of us have good reason not to like being told we should forgive.” And that, I think, is because its hard work. We're much more familiar with the economy of hurt than that of grace. Plus it takes time. It's not cheap. And so the authors: Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn, go on to outline the hard work of genuine forgiveness – the kind that opens to freedom. The sub-title of the book “extending the 2 hands that heal” begins their description of the how-to's, the practice of forgiveness. One hand of healing is the one that says 'no' to the oppressor, “no you can't do that anymore. The path of forgiveness is not about passivity in the face of abuse, its about nonviolent engagement. The other hand of healing is the reclaiming of the victim, the hurt one. The 5 stages that the Linns describe parallel those in the dying process:
First there's denial – I wasn't hurt; it's nothing;
then anger – it's all their fault;
then bargaining – I'll forgive if this and that happens;
then depression – it's my fault or I have to carry it all;
and then acceptance – learn and move on; it shrinks, lightens and we can release the hurt.
Now depending the depth or significance of the hurt, this process can be a life time process. It can feel like Jesus' answer to Peter: 77 times or in other translations 70 times 7! But the direction of it all is towards healing and the rebuilding of relationship. Although, as the Linns say:
Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation and the 5 stages do not guarantee that the person who hurt us will respond in a way that makes reconciliation possible. What the stages of forgiveness do guarantee is that we will be different as we forgive... We can get out of the victim/oppressor loop...
We move through the wilderness into the promised land – free.
One of the challenges for N.Americans is that we have imagined that forgiveness is the work of an individual. I don't think that's so. It comes out of and is sustained by loving community. People who listen, support, encourage, challenge. It is not a solitary journey. In fact it requires seeing deep, deep down under all surface turbulence and particulars to our shared humanness to our relatedness our common origin. Is it possible to forgive? Even events as horrendous as happened on the original 9/11? Is there another way than a “war on terror” that seems only to breed terror? In faith I say yes, absolutely! And the fruits of that work, that other way are rich and delicious. And in honesty we must also ask the at least as challenging parallel question, is it possible when we have hurt an other, when we have been the offenders, is it possible to wait in love for the forgiveness which will free us to move towards a restored relationship. In hope I say yes, not only is it possible, but it is worth the wait, the patient loving that knows that forgiveness is always a gift and comes not too soon, but only when the work's done.
So as people gathered in Jesus' name, in community, trusting in Jesus' presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, we do the hard, forever, work of loving our neighbours as ourselves. It is kingdom work for the economy of the kingdom is grace.
texts: Ex 12:1-14; Ps 149; Rom 13:8-14; Mt 18: 15-20
How many of you have been hurt by another person?
How many of you have hurt another person?
Is there anyone that can't say 'yes' to both those questions. We hurt and we are hurt..all of us. As much as we talk about “love your neighbour as yourself” and about the importance of community, the reality is that we hurt and we are hurt by others. None of us are exempt from this economy of hurt. So what are we to do? How do we deal with it? Many relationships are destroyed by it. Many people's spirits are broken, and many are so burdened by the hurts and/or guilt they carry that their lives are bent and even crushed by it. What are we to do? Can we talk about new beginnings ~ our first lesson is all about the Israelites' preparation for leaving Egypt – their day of freedom from slavery. Can we imagine new beginnings, freedom from the burdens of our hurts and hurting? Can we imagine the healing of our relationships?
This is the work of faith. It is part of the word of hope that we bear individually and as a church – that its possible, that is worth the work. Now anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of church history knows that there has been a lot of conflict, a lot of hurting, and many many torn relationships within the Christian family, let alone between people of faith and those outside of the circle. We are not exempt from the economy of hurt. We too must do the work of healing and reconciliation.
Our gospel reading talks about a process for when
another member of the church sins against you...
And that process rules out silence, or worse gossip. It says to start by talking... one on one; and if that doesn't settle things up, then broadening the circle to include two or three others and if that doesn't heal things up, then including the whole church – the whole community. And at the heart of the process is the verb 'listening, listening, listening.' And Jesus underlines the importance of this work of reconciliation with his comment:
Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
And if that wasn't enough, he says if this dialogue process doesn't work – if Pharaoh's heart [the offender's heart] is hardened, then Jesus adds:
let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Now any conflict mediator will say this is way, way too simplistic. It doesn't account for power imbalances. It will never safe guard the vulnerable or a courageous whistle blower or reformer. And you know even our scriptures have much more to say on this than this little fragment of scripture we heard this morning. In fact this could be a cautionary tale for not taking a fragment of scripture out of context. For on either side of this passage are important caveats to a simplistic reading of this process. Right before this passage is the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for the lost one. And right after this passage is Jesus' response to Peter's
‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ [and]Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
And so next week we will talk about the hard work of forgiveness and its powerful role in healing relationships. That's the scripture immediately before and after this morning's text. But overarching or under-girding these texts is Jesus' crucifixion. When we hear “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector,” we can first think let the offender be excluded, a cast out one, a person outside of the circle. But then we must remember:
Jesus' reputation as friend of just those tax collectors and sinners; and
Jesus earlier in Matthew saying to the righteous ones of his day: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners;’” and
then there is the stark reminder of the cross itself: Jesus' giving his life for sinners surrounded by sinners outside the city gate rejected as a sinner by his own people.
Do not all these powerful texts push anyone gathering in Jesus' name to the hard, forever, work of searching for and including the excluded. For, there is a deeper centre to our text.
For where two or three are gathered in my name than I am there among them
If we centre in Jesus and in his way - “in his name,” then our gospel cannot be about excluding the offender and maintaining the righteousness of the circle. There is no rest for us who gather in his name until every last hurting, hurtful fragment of creation is at peace at the table. Yes, that peace must be real. It must be rooted in justice and truth, but also mercy. And we know that this kind of peace is only even possible to imagine, if it is grounded in the infinite love and grace flowing from the Heart and Wisdom of our Universe.
But... not only are we in the circle addressing one who has sinned against us, we are individually and as the church the sinner, the offender. So much hurt has been caused in Jesus' name over the centuries, and even in our own life times. We too must listen hard and then listen again to those whom we have hurt. We must soften our hearts to hear and repent of the hurt we have caused – either directly ourselves, or indirectly by others gathered in Jesus' name. And so we listen carefully to the work and reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We listen carefully to the hurt caused gays, lesbians and transgendered people in Jesus' name. We listen carefully to the offence given in Jesus' name to Muslims, Jews, and other Christians not like us. And we repent and seek forgiveness and continue the hard, forever work of loving our neighbour as ourselves...for “love is the fulfilling of the law.” From this place with mercy and grace, courage and perseverance we can heal. The past need not be the future. It is through the economy of grace that we move through the economy of hurt to a new beginning – to a place where we can together “sing to the Lord a new song.”
We'll continue these reflections next week ~ 10 years after the first September 11 when we got this all so wrong....... Thanks be to God for God's mercy, for the testimony of the cross always before us, and for the renewal of spirits here at the table week after week.
Forgiveness 2: September 11
texts: Ex 14:19-31; Ps 114; Rom 14:1-12 ; Mt 18: 21-35
We start today where we started last week... with the economy of hurt: we hurt, we are hurt; and with the economy of grace: the healing of hurts. And we talked about the hard, forever work of loving our neighbour as ourselves – the work of the kingdom – the work of community. And I asked the question: Can we even imagine new beginnings, freedom from the burdens of our hurts and hurting, the burdens that crush a spirit and warp a life? Can we imagine the healing of our relationships? And we ask this question
not only as individuals who have hurt and been hurt; but also
as a church, people gathered in Jesus' name who have hurt and been hurt; and also
today in particular, we ask this as N.Americans responding to the hurts and hurting of September 11, ten years ago until today.
And the backdrop for this question is the crossing of the Red Sea – the vanquishing of the army of the great empire of the day. The wind “turned the sea [that great image of the original chaos] into dry land; and the waters were divided.[just as in the original third day of creation] The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground... yes, they dared to go into this unknown, unfolding movement to freedom, away from slavery, towards a new land. Someone took the first step and the people followed. But Pharaoh's army, bent on destruction, on the old ways, were swallowed up in mud and drowned. At first glance this is a classic story of the victim triumphing over their oppressor. But taken as whole account, the victims spend the next 40 years in the wilderness learning God's ways. They don't enter the new land immediately. It takes a long time, more than a generation to lay aside, to forget the ways of the empire and learn a new way.
Today we hear Peter ask Jesus:
"Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"
And Jesus explodes the question, because its not about counting, its not about how many times, it's about the economy you're in: hurt or grace; its about the ways of the empire and the ways of God. Forgiveness comes from a whole different source than hurt. We all know the currency of the economy of hurt: pain, shame, guilt, resentment, retribution, vengeance. And what we buy, what's created with these transactions is increasing separation and alienation, brokenness, fragmentation, and often enmity, escalating suspicion of the other. Our gospel's imagery of slavery, prison and torture are not too strong. What's traded in the economy of grace is love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, truth, understanding, empathy; and what's created in this economy is life, community, neighbourliness, connection.
Now, the theory is good, but oh the practice is hard. In fact without the last sentence of our reading last week we would have real reason to despair. But Jesus says:
where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’
Healing is possible because its rooted in God, in the limitless aquifer of God's love and grace. When we gather as hurting folk in his name longing for the kingdom for the ways shaped by the economy grace, Jesus is present. Thanks be to God.
Years ago I bought a book because of its title: “Don't forgive too soon.” And this is how the book starts:
“This book is about forgiveness. Anyone who has bothered to buy this book probably knows that forgiveness is a critical part of our deep human longing to give and receive love in enduring relationships. Nevertheless, many of us have good reason not to like being told we should forgive.” And that, I think, is because its hard work. We're much more familiar with the economy of hurt than that of grace. Plus it takes time. It's not cheap. And so the authors: Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn, go on to outline the hard work of genuine forgiveness – the kind that opens to freedom. The sub-title of the book “extending the 2 hands that heal” begins their description of the how-to's, the practice of forgiveness. One hand of healing is the one that says 'no' to the oppressor, “no you can't do that anymore. The path of forgiveness is not about passivity in the face of abuse, its about nonviolent engagement. The other hand of healing is the reclaiming of the victim, the hurt one. The 5 stages that the Linns describe parallel those in the dying process:
First there's denial – I wasn't hurt; it's nothing;
then anger – it's all their fault;
then bargaining – I'll forgive if this and that happens;
then depression – it's my fault or I have to carry it all;
and then acceptance – learn and move on; it shrinks, lightens and we can release the hurt.
Now depending the depth or significance of the hurt, this process can be a life time process. It can feel like Jesus' answer to Peter: 77 times or in other translations 70 times 7! But the direction of it all is towards healing and the rebuilding of relationship. Although, as the Linns say:
Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation and the 5 stages do not guarantee that the person who hurt us will respond in a way that makes reconciliation possible. What the stages of forgiveness do guarantee is that we will be different as we forgive... We can get out of the victim/oppressor loop...
We move through the wilderness into the promised land – free.
One of the challenges for N.Americans is that we have imagined that forgiveness is the work of an individual. I don't think that's so. It comes out of and is sustained by loving community. People who listen, support, encourage, challenge. It is not a solitary journey. In fact it requires seeing deep, deep down under all surface turbulence and particulars to our shared humanness to our relatedness our common origin. Is it possible to forgive? Even events as horrendous as happened on the original 9/11? Is there another way than a “war on terror” that seems only to breed terror? In faith I say yes, absolutely! And the fruits of that work, that other way are rich and delicious. And in honesty we must also ask the at least as challenging parallel question, is it possible when we have hurt an other, when we have been the offenders, is it possible to wait in love for the forgiveness which will free us to move towards a restored relationship. In hope I say yes, not only is it possible, but it is worth the wait, the patient loving that knows that forgiveness is always a gift and comes not too soon, but only when the work's done.
So as people gathered in Jesus' name, in community, trusting in Jesus' presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, we do the hard, forever, work of loving our neighbours as ourselves. It is kingdom work for the economy of the kingdom is grace.
Friday, May 13, 2011
SERMON NOTES for FEBRUARY 20, 2011
Feb20: Lev 19:1,2,9-18; Ps 119:33-40 ; 1Cor 3: 10-11, 16-23, Mt 5: 38-48
Yesterday morning I was All Saints church. I was there to celebrate the birth of a new nation. Our Sudanese brothers and sisters were celebrating the creation of Southern Sudan. So much blood, suffering and hardship went into this day. Most of the people present were shaped in the long years of war with North Sudan. It was a day of joy many thought they might never see. They know there is a long struggle ahead in forming their new country in a good way, but they took this day to celebrate, to give God thanks for this new day in the life of their people. The biblical text that informed their celebration was the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. In between liberation and the land were 40 years in the wilderness. Those were not easy years. The people were utterly dependent on God – for food for water for guidance. Yet over all those years they forgot the ways of slavery and learned to be free. They became God's people ~ a holy people.
And so our first reading starts:
The LORD spoke Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
And in the verses that follow, the meaning of holiness – what it looks like is laid out. And the rules, the injunctions are good. They are common sense:
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. You shall not defraud your neighbour;and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind... You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people...
And you can hear God's attention to the poor and alien, the labourer, the blind, the deaf – encouraging us to pay attention to the least and last. And of course the passage for today ends with “you shall love your neighbour as yourself...” which Jesus incorporates into his great commandment. These rules and others became “the holiness code” for the people of Israel. The psalmist today sings his love of this code. He piles up words for it:
the way of your statutes, your law, your commandments, your decrees, your ways, your ordinances, your precepts...
There are so many ways to name the pattern of holiness – the way of life shaped by our love of God and God's ways?
But I want to think about Paul's image:
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?... God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
If we had had children's time this morning I would have held up all the plans we have of our new church and The WestEnd Commons”. And we would have talked about what we were building and about all that needs to go into plans to make a good and sturdy building. We might have talked about structural engineering and a strong foundation and structure for the building, and the mechanical systems we need to heat and cool things, and all the plans for lighting and water and walkways and common areas...and what it means to follow the building code. Is our building project not analogous to God building a holy people – shaping their way of life with a holiness code? And then we hear again Paul saying that each of us is “God's temple, that God's Spirit dwells in us and God's temple is holy...” Perhaps St.Matthew's project is not about building a new building, but all about building a new people, about releasing God's Spirit that dwells within us, about relearning the ways of holiness – ways of seeing our neighbour as God's holy temple.
That was part of what Jesus was about in his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The two teachings today are very challenging. He radicalizes the seemingly natural human inclination to retribution. I've been hit. I hit back. I've been hurt. I make the other hurt. He says no. Take back the power of the evil doer, the bully. Redefine your response. Choose your reaction, otherwise the cycle continues and even escalates. But it takes a very strong person to absorb evil and not respond in kind. It takes the kind of energy that suffers the cross. But we have seen it in our time. We have seen the power of Ghandi, of Martin Luther King, of Mandala to redirect the energy of the oppressor. And then we hear Jesus say:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven...
children of God, bearing, sharing, shining with God's Spirit on friend and foe alike. What kind of love is that? How do we build up and nurture that kind of deep loving. There is nothing sentimental about this. It is hard disciplined work. It comes from a deep living connection with the |Holy. Only then can we have the freedom of Spirit, the grace and generosity to love even our enemies...
But from that place comes new life, new relationships, new ways of seeing and caring for the world. It is spirit work that our world desperately needs. We can create new nations but not the peace and justice we long for. We can create ways to go to Mars and back but cannot heal our relationships and live within our limits. It's not about buildings. It's about freeing ourselves to be ourselves ~ the temples of God that we are. It's not about codes and commandments even. Its about nurturing, developing, knowing, trusting, living the Spirit of God that dwells within each of us. That is what Jesus is about in the new creation. That is what all those years in the wilderness were about. That is what we're all about.
Yesterday morning I was All Saints church. I was there to celebrate the birth of a new nation. Our Sudanese brothers and sisters were celebrating the creation of Southern Sudan. So much blood, suffering and hardship went into this day. Most of the people present were shaped in the long years of war with North Sudan. It was a day of joy many thought they might never see. They know there is a long struggle ahead in forming their new country in a good way, but they took this day to celebrate, to give God thanks for this new day in the life of their people. The biblical text that informed their celebration was the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. In between liberation and the land were 40 years in the wilderness. Those were not easy years. The people were utterly dependent on God – for food for water for guidance. Yet over all those years they forgot the ways of slavery and learned to be free. They became God's people ~ a holy people.
And so our first reading starts:
The LORD spoke Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
And in the verses that follow, the meaning of holiness – what it looks like is laid out. And the rules, the injunctions are good. They are common sense:
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. You shall not defraud your neighbour;and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind... You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people...
And you can hear God's attention to the poor and alien, the labourer, the blind, the deaf – encouraging us to pay attention to the least and last. And of course the passage for today ends with “you shall love your neighbour as yourself...” which Jesus incorporates into his great commandment. These rules and others became “the holiness code” for the people of Israel. The psalmist today sings his love of this code. He piles up words for it:
the way of your statutes, your law, your commandments, your decrees, your ways, your ordinances, your precepts...
There are so many ways to name the pattern of holiness – the way of life shaped by our love of God and God's ways?
But I want to think about Paul's image:
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?... God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
If we had had children's time this morning I would have held up all the plans we have of our new church and The WestEnd Commons”. And we would have talked about what we were building and about all that needs to go into plans to make a good and sturdy building. We might have talked about structural engineering and a strong foundation and structure for the building, and the mechanical systems we need to heat and cool things, and all the plans for lighting and water and walkways and common areas...and what it means to follow the building code. Is our building project not analogous to God building a holy people – shaping their way of life with a holiness code? And then we hear again Paul saying that each of us is “God's temple, that God's Spirit dwells in us and God's temple is holy...” Perhaps St.Matthew's project is not about building a new building, but all about building a new people, about releasing God's Spirit that dwells within us, about relearning the ways of holiness – ways of seeing our neighbour as God's holy temple.
That was part of what Jesus was about in his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The two teachings today are very challenging. He radicalizes the seemingly natural human inclination to retribution. I've been hit. I hit back. I've been hurt. I make the other hurt. He says no. Take back the power of the evil doer, the bully. Redefine your response. Choose your reaction, otherwise the cycle continues and even escalates. But it takes a very strong person to absorb evil and not respond in kind. It takes the kind of energy that suffers the cross. But we have seen it in our time. We have seen the power of Ghandi, of Martin Luther King, of Mandala to redirect the energy of the oppressor. And then we hear Jesus say:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven...
children of God, bearing, sharing, shining with God's Spirit on friend and foe alike. What kind of love is that? How do we build up and nurture that kind of deep loving. There is nothing sentimental about this. It is hard disciplined work. It comes from a deep living connection with the |Holy. Only then can we have the freedom of Spirit, the grace and generosity to love even our enemies...
But from that place comes new life, new relationships, new ways of seeing and caring for the world. It is spirit work that our world desperately needs. We can create new nations but not the peace and justice we long for. We can create ways to go to Mars and back but cannot heal our relationships and live within our limits. It's not about buildings. It's about freeing ourselves to be ourselves ~ the temples of God that we are. It's not about codes and commandments even. Its about nurturing, developing, knowing, trusting, living the Spirit of God that dwells within each of us. That is what Jesus is about in the new creation. That is what all those years in the wilderness were about. That is what we're all about.
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