The Peaceable Kingdom

The Peaceful Kingdom

A shoot shall come out from the
stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of
the LORD.
His delight shall be in the fear of the
LORD.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge
the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek
of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of
his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he
shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around
his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his
loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the
kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling
together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the
ox.
The nursing child shall play over the
hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its
hand of the adder's den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the
knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:1-10

If you have been reading any children's literature of late perhaps your imagination will know just what to do with this passage because you are already immersed in a world of talking animals; a world where mice and lions are friends; a world where children play with bears.  We are taking another trip through the Chronicles of Narnia at our house so of course, I couldn't help but think of Aslan after he broke the power of the witch's deep magic on the stone table. CS Lewis paints a picture there that continues to work on my imagination:

"You're not - not a - a?"asked Susan in a shaky voice.  She couldn't bring herself to say ghost.  Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead.  The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.
"Do I look it," he said.
"Oh your real, your real! Oh Aslan!" cried Lucy and the girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses....
"Oh children said the Lion I feel my strength coming back to me," said the Lion, "Oh children, catch me if you can." He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail.  Then he made a leap over their heads and landed himself on the other side of the Table... A mad chase began.  Round and round the hilltop he lead them now hopelessly out of reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautiful velvted paws and catching them again and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy, laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.  And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired, or hungry or thirsty."

What a vision of new creation!  One has to wonder if texts like this morning's, from Isaiah, were a part of forming the imagination for this story in Narnia.  I wonder how the children will respond to these images Sunday morning?  How do you respond to the text today? Does it stir some wonder or create some possibility for you; does it give you hope? The wolf and the lamb, the lion eating straw, the cow and the bear eating together in the field, a child playing with snakes - and not just garden snakes but a cobra! Imagine!  A time of peace is coming that will be so profound - all that is fearful or threatening or dangerous will become tame and peaceful and even playful.

The baby born an outsider in a violent world, it was he whom the angels announced to the listening world; they lit up the hillside singing: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among people." This song sent the shepherds running in search of the child, alive with the hope of God.  Jesus, the Prince of Peace.  He didn't have a political strategy for peace - he was peace. Remember the gospel stories, the way he calmed the seas - he was there when that boat was rocking and the fear was strong and he calmed the waters. He knelt down to the ground, he wrote with his finger in the dirt, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" and after they had all left he said to the woman, "Where are they now, has no one condemned you?" she replied, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you." He is peace. And he said to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts me troubled and do not let them be afraid."
It is this faith in the Prince of Peace that can sustain us in the midst of turmoil and disaster and sickness and grief and injustice.  During Advent we remember, we look for, and we look forward to the coming of Jesus into our world. We remember his faithfulness through all time for He is a God who keeps his promises. He is a God who comes near, who is with us, who is peace.  And when we trust in the Prince of Peace we receive his peace and we become a people of peace in a troubled world.

A shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse...David, the youngest and smallest of Jesse's children, the least obvious choice is the one Samuel annoints with oil, the one who becomes King of Israel. And from the line of this unlikely Shepherd King comes something even more unlikely: God enfleshed as a wee babe - and his name shall be Emmanuel, God with us.  God is with us.

On the way to the west coast of Vancouver Island, you may have stopped in at Cathedral Grove - a magnificent old growth rain forest with perfect moss beds, Ent-like trees and leafy canopies playing with sunlight.  There you will find quite a few nurse logs proclaiming to the world that out of a deadened stump new life can come - a tender shoot, a branch, a sign of hope!  A reminder for us that whatever the stump is in our life, whatever is cut off and as good as dead is not without hope. A tender shoot can come out of the dry ground or the dead stump or cracked concrete.  We are a resurrection people who receive new life in Christ.  We are advent people who wait for, who look for, who hope for Christ.

The Peace of Christ to each of you as you wait in expectation for the coming of our Lord.

The Day Jesus Died - Reign of Christ Sunday

When they came to the place that is called the skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  Then Jesus said, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they are doing.  And they cast lots to divide his clothing.  And the people stood by watching; but the leaders scoffed at him saying, "He saved others, let his save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."  One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!"  But the other rebuked him saying,  "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

Luke 23:33-43

I was recently at a beautiful old church in our city perched right atop the river valley, distinctive with its brick exterior, boasting beautiful windows and woodwork.  After entering and taking a quick look around a friend asked: do you think there is a cross in here?  We began to look around: on walls? widows? in print? the ends of pews?  No cross that we could see.  A thoughtful silence fell as we reflected on the significance of the cross in Christian life and worship.

The cross is perhaps the most recognizable symbol in the world.  Think about all the places you see it in a day: around necks, inked on bodies, on the ambulance, some hospitals, most churches you pass.  The cross a notorious instrument of Roman torture upon which Jesus suffered humiliation, emotional pain, alienation and the worst of physical suffering.  The cross where Jesus died at the hands of fickle people, of people deep in fear; some consumed by their own ambition/power, some aware of the ways in which Jesus threatened their ways and means, others ignorant, mislead and co-opted.  Golgotha the place of skulls - desolate, full of the stench of humanity; the stench of death.  

The cross is offensive, it always has been.  When criminals hung upon it naked, for hours that stretched on, excreting all manner of fluids, writhing in pain, begging for death to come, all of their humanity, all of their dignity was stripped from them - that was the point.  The cross is offensive to people today too which is why it no longer hangs in some places of worship.  It offends our modern sense of decorum; God lets his son die on a cross? That just seems inhumane, why would it happen like that?  We don't like how we come off in the story - it reflects the worst of humanity.  We hear the vitriol in the crowd, the insults called down.  We imagine the purple robe they put on him, the crown of thorns - all to mock, to shame him; their faces made ugly with rage and we want to look away. We want all of the love of the cross with none of the violence.  We want salvation without sacrifice.

Instead we have the arresting image of our King hanging on a cross.  An innocent man tortured.  And his response is forgiveness: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Jesus answers all of the anger, all of the bitter mockery and insults  with a prayer asking God for forgiveness on our behalf.  Perhaps it is from the cross that Jesus sees mostly clearly the force of the powers of evil in our world and the darkness of the human heart.  And it breaks his own. Even at our worst we are not beyond the reach of Jesus and his forgiveness.  Even as he dies he is offering life.  And this is so beautifully illustrated in criminals who are hanging beside him.  The criminal on the left is still looking for someone to pin all his anger, his grief, his sense of injustice, his shame upon as he hangs, dying a scornful death. He chooses to mock Jesus, the saviour saying: "If you are the Messiah save yourself and save us."  The criminal on the right responds to him with a rebuke "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we have been justly condemned, we are getting what we deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong."  And he turns to Jesus saying, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Remember.  This is not just a request to 'bring to mind'; this is a word with deep scriptural resononance: "When I bring clouds over the earth and a bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.  When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."(Gen.9) or from Psalm 25:7: "Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O Lord."  As, Fleming Rutledge points out "when God remembers, he does not just think about us, he acts for us, with power to save."  

This criminal ending his life in misery and shame sees Jesus for who he is, a King with a Kingdom.  Not even all of those who have been closest to Jesus, who have seen him cast out demons and raise the dead can see him this clearly.  Luke is relentless in his determination make us see that the gospel is for all people, including those who have committed despicable acts and been discarded by society. Again, this is the good news and the hard news.  It is the good news because we know the darkness of our own souls, we have sensed at times what we are capable of and we too can be forgiven, "we can live in freedom because the strong love of Christ has reached across all borders and all boundaries."(Andrew Murray Purra) And it is the hard news because if we are to take Jesus seriously, we are to see that we aren't that different than 'those people' and we are to follow Christ to 'those places' and meet him there in the face of the criminal, the leper, the homeless, the addict, the prostitute, the john because "God has assigned infinite value to all elements of society "(Fleming Rutledge).This is our participation in the exodus of Christ initiated through Jesus' death on the cross.  And this exodus is not just for hebrew people but for all people and it is not limited to freedom from physical slavery but it "breaks the chains of slavery from all forms of sin and evil that bind the human spirit; it brings the promise of unending life and love and liberty as well as an unfettered relationship with God." (Andrew Murray Pura)

This Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday and we sit with the jarring image of our crucified King identifying himself with all that is wrong and sad and shameful and broken in the world and yet has been redeemed through his death and made new.  And so the cross which stood as a notorious symbol of death has been subverted - the cross has become the way of life!  May it ever be before us.

********

I read through all of the lessons this week and I like the trajectory that they take.  There is so much in this passage and yet each of these lessons have stayed with one key concept and developed it.  They have allowed children to enter into these stories in tactile and imaginative ways, and opened up places to make connections to their lived experience.

I think when I have taught this text before I have fallen into the trap of trying to explain the significance of what is happening (though barely grasping it myself) and getting bogged down in these explanations or in questions that are too theological and have kids looking at me like a two headed monster.  I re-read a little bit of what Gretchen Wolff Pritchard writes in her book and thought it might be worth sharing, she writes:

"For Christians, the stories of Christ's life, death and resurrection are the most powerful 'fairy tale' or 'myth' in the world.  They also happen to be true.  But it is the enormous power of these stories that exert such pull on our imaginations and drives us to act them out in springtime, and Sunday by Sunday throughout the year.  "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again"; "Take and eat; this is for you." This story which is so captivating to adult and child alike, though we cannot put our finger on why it so moves and nourishes us, is what we share with each other in the life of the church; and the difficult situation it helps us cope with is our own mysterious, inexplicable life: our birth, our alienation, our need for love, our fear of death and our assurance that the Christ who died and rose again has somehow brought us home to the heart of God."
- from Offering the Gospel to Children

May God be with us this Sunday as we celebrate the Reign of Christ

God's Love Lasts Forever

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful and gifts and dedicated to God, he said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"  And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, "I am he!" and, 'the time is near!' Do not go after them.

"When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

But before all of this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  This will give you an opportunity to testify.  So make up your minds not to prepare a defence in advance; for I will give you words and wisdom that none of you opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will even put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Luke 21

The lectionary texts from the gospel are increasingly foreboding as Jesus moves towards Calvary.  There is a heaviness to these stories - even the ones that contain a measure of happiness such as Jesus entrance into Jerusalem cannot escape the pervasive darkness; the clashing of kingdoms and powers remain.  God's entrance and presence in this world in Jesus has never been a classic feel good story, though we do like to tell it this way, don't we? A wee babe born amongst animals visited by angels and shepherds and wise men.  Yes, it is a profoundly beautiful, full of grace enough to makes your heart ache with love but there are valleys traversed that are treacherous and steep; there are points so low, nights so long, that one wonders what will come of it all and just costly it will be.

Judgement and mercy are threads that run all throughout the story of God - and mercy prevails.  After flood waters have rescinded, "there in the clouds - just where the storm meets the sun - was a beautiful bow made of light.  It was a new beginning in God's world.  It wasn't long before everything went wrong again but God wasn't surprised, hew knew this would happen.  That's why, before the beginning of time, he had another plan - a better plan.  A plan not to destroy the world, but to rescue it - a plan to send his own Son, the Rescuer.  God's strong anger against hate and sadness and death would come down once more - but not on his people or his world.  No, God's war bow was not pointing down at his people.  It was pointing up into the heart of heaven." Judgement. Mercy.  Love. The Salvation of God.

This year - nearly two thousand years since Jesus spoke these words, the sense that things have gone terribly wrong in our world remains - insurrections, wars, a typhoon, terrorist attacks, environmental disasters, humanitarian crises.  And even in our relatively comfortable part of the world we know the effects of flooding, of homelessness and poverty, of human suffering.  Lord, have mercy.

And how do we respond to this as followers of Christ?  It seems that neither futility nor hedonism is the answer.  Jesus puts forward another way: endurance.  Think of the long distance runner who must train in all conditions; persist in the face of discouragement and discomfort and pain in order to be physically and mentally disciplined to run the race. Endurance.  Think of Ernest Shackleton and his crew who endured shipwreck, starvation, severe frostbite, harrowing mountain & glacier treks and stormy seas. Or Mylene Paquette who recently crossed the Atlantic on a solo rowing expedition - braving a treacherous storm, boredom, physical and emotional exhaustion and vertigo.  Endurance.  How many people have left their homes under duress, have become refugees - endured homelessness, homesickness, displacement, fear, worry, unemployment, despair, and illness. Endurance.  It is not for the faint of heart; it is was we are called to.

"And before this terrible time followers of Jesus will be arrested, persecuted, betrayed and hated." Did the disciples wonder as they heard Jesus speak if it was their very lives he was talking about? Would they remember those words he spoke to them: "make up your minds not to prepare a defence in my name; for I will give you words of wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict... not a hair of your head will perish, by your endurance you will gain your souls."  I think they did remember these words, the passover feast, the garden, the trial, Golgatha, the upper room, breakfast on the beach. Because they endured; they gave passionate and bold witness for Christ. And they gained their souls; their forever life with Jesus.  And the same is true for us, not a hair on our heads will perish, in our endurance we will gain our souls.

In this text that there is a collapsing of time - the time which Jesus was describing was not unlike the world he entered, the world in which the church would establish itself under the crushing powers of Rome; and the world we now live and struggle in.  So the text works on us in three ways - in the past, present and future.  Just as our salvation has been accomplished, is being worked out and is yet to be fully realized; this is the already - not yet tension we find ourselves in.  We have been given salvation and yet we struggle in our flesh.  However, we do not struggle in futility, "we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."(Romans 5:3-5)

During advent we enter the mystery of the collapsing of time in the incarnation of Christ.  We are reminded that Christ came into a world that was dark and dangerous; he entered into the misery and the beauty, the strength and vulnerability of human life and defeated sin and death forever.  And we are waiting with expectancy, full of hope for the full reign of the kingdom of God on earth - for all things to be made new.

"I am the Beginning," Jesus said, "and the Ending!"
One day, John knew, Heaven would come down and mend God's broken world and make it our true, perfect home once again.
And he knew, in some mysterious way that would be hard to explain, that everything was going to be more wonderful for once having been so sad.
And he knew that the ending of The Story was going to be so great, it would make all the sadness and tears and everything seem like just a shadow that is chased away by the morning sun.
"I'm on my way," said Jesus, "I'll be there soon!"

Heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away... (Matthew 24:35)
God's love lasts forever.
Amen.


*** A New Beginning - Noah's Ark from Genesis 6-9 & A dream of heaven - John sees into the future, from Revelation 1, 5, 21, 22 taken from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones

Thanks to the Rev's William, Don, David, Amber, the always thoughtful Sandy and the Thursday morning Mums' Group for enriching the conversation around the text today.

The Question about the Resurrection

The Question about the Resurrection

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and they asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife with no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up the children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died.  In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?  For the seven had married her.

Jesus said to them, "those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.  And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  Now he is God not of the dead but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."  Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Luke 20:27-40


Remember the riddle about the train crash, or the one about the skydiver?  I spent longer with those puzzles than I would like to admit, looking for the loopholes in language and logic; looking for clues and evidence of the truth only to discover the answer hidden in plain sight.  Taking hours to turn over the problem is only slightly more frustrating then presenting the riddle to your more clever friend and having that person untangle it in a moment!  I wonder how long these Sadducees took to think up this question, how delighted with themselves they must have been?  And I don't blame them, it is a clever question.  And if it stumps Jesus, it will make him and his idea about resurrection seem foolish.  You see, this particular Jewish sect - the Sadducees they don't believe in the resurrection; their gospel is deeply embedded in the here and now, in the socio-political realities they live in.  For them, there is no existence of angels, there is no after life.  They are an elite group of intellectuals whose religious beliefs enforce their power, wealth and status in society and they are determined to hold on to it.

The question they present about the woman reflects their emphasis on patriarchal descent.  The woman in this question is widowed and barren.  To them she has little value.  The Sadducees see her as important or interesting only for who she belongs to.  She is chattel.  But not to God. This is part what makes Jesus response stunning.  Jesus gives her, her full dignity because she is one of his beloved children.  Not because of who she is married to.  In fact, marriage is not for the age to come, it is for this age.  And this is all part of God's radical redefinition of family.  Can you hear Jesus' question from earlier in Luke: Who is my mother? brother? sister? In baptism we are welcomed into Christ's forever life. We are his children and through this gift of God we become a part of a much bigger family - Christians the world over call one another sister, brother.  This is our true family of origin, the place where we are most fully ourselves, this Kingdom of God is our true home.

The Sadducees they want to distract Jesus with this scenario on marriage.  But Jesus sees them coming - he knows what they are getting at and he says to them, "guess what folks, that question on marriage it doesn't really apply because marriage is for now,  it is not for the resurrection life!  So your question is moot.  And you weren't asking me about marriage anyways, you are asking me about resurrection.  So let's talk about that!  This should not be new to you - remember Moses at the burning bush? You know that story well.  Remember what God said to Moses as the bush burned but was not consumed, he said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  He didn't say I WAS the God of Abraham, he says I AM the God of Abraham.  That means they are alive in God - they are children of the resurrection!  And folks resurrection changes everything."

The grade three Sunday School lesson emphasizes that we live with God now and forever! Our life with God - getting to know Him, enjoy him and learning to love him even when we don't understand him, begins now.  There is a brilliant little poem on time in the grade three leaflet that reads:

Sometimes a boring movie feels like it will never end
Sometimes you wish a great movie would go on and on.
Sometimes a trip to the dentist has you hoping you will never get there.
Sometimes when you're on your way to Grandma's house you can't wait to arrive.
Sometimes detention after school has you dreading the bell.
Sometimes a game after school has you jumping for the bell.
Sometimes an hour to play is gone in a second.
Sometimes an hour of homework takes all day.
Some times are fast, while others are slow
Some times you wonder, "Where did the time go?"
But there will be time to remember time and time again
Because we have forever, and time will never end.

I really like the way this poem uses a child's perspective to explore time - I can imagine them relating to certain lines and even adding their own lines, reflecting on how time can fly or crawl by or how a moment can be so lovely you just want to stay in it for a long, long time.  This summer my brother got married - it was an beautiful celebration that captured all of our imaginations and in particular the imaginations of our children - they had never been to a celebration quite like that!  Matt and Kristine were married on the crest of a hill overlooking the sea - we sang Amazing Grace under a beautiful blue sky, we ate in an orchard, we danced in the barn to live music and we sent the newly married couple off under moonlight - our sparklers lighting the way from the barn to the get away car.  The whole day was shot through with beauty, with joy, with transcendence - the celebration pointed beyond itself to something purer and more true and even just a taste of it was intoxicating.  We felt like we could have stayed in that barn dancing until long after our legs could hold us or the rural noise bylaws allowed.  I don't see my whole family too often but sometimes our times are so sweet that I feel I get little glimpses into the life to come and it almost fills my eyes with tears... But there will be time to remember time and again, Because we have forever and time will never end. And love never ends. Praise God.

Jesus and Zacchaeus

He entered Jericho and was passing through it.  A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.  When Jesus came to the place he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.  All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner."  Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much."  Then Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." Luke 19:1-8

The story of Zacchaeus is a story that catches the attention of most children who often struggle to see in crowds, who pull on the legs of their parents to be held or hoisted onto strong shoulders and who eagerly engage their imaginations and their bodies in climbing trees.  This wee man would have been jostled in a crowd, pressing up on his toes only to get knocked over, staring at the backs of other men and women perhaps frustrated by of his diminutive stature. But he is not easily deterred; he is a man who gets what he wants although mostly through use of his power.  Today however, he has success because of some ingenuity and physical prowess - he will run ahead of the crowd and climb a tree to get a birds eye view of Jesus.  Was he trying to be conspicuous and get the attention of Jesus or was he hoping to go unrecognized in this crowd? After all he was a chief tax collector; chief among the corrupt banking elite, getting rich off the backs of the citizenry, colluding with the Romans against them. In this city Zacchaeus would enjoy his own celebrity of sorts.  Truth be told though Zacchaeus is short, he is no victim.  He has been a part of a system that has victimized others and through this he has become rich.  And of all the people in the crowd on this particular day who does Jesus draw attention to, whose name does Jesus say, whose home will Jesus go to - but Zacchaeus'.  Who wouldn't throw up their hands at this! Not Zacchaeus, not his house.  Luke's gospel has contained some difficult stories about wealth - the foolish farmer who builds bigger stores for his grain, the rich man who walked past Lazarus each day, the rich young ruler who walks away from Jesus because the cost of discipleship is too great.  Surely he will rebuke Zacchaeus, not call him!

Zacchaeus is all too eager to welcome Jesus.  People in the crowd suspect this puffs him up - he just got the person of intrigue, the person people are most curious about, to his house.  Of course he did, that scoundrel.  He always gets what he wants.  Will no one deny him? I can feel my own chest tightening at this - think Wall Street corruption.  Mismanaged, dishonest and corrupt companies crumble or are bailed out by government resulting in economic collapse and many of those responsible for engineering the crisis walk away with massive severance pay and protection under the law.   The people in the crowded are justifiably affronted.  Or are they?  This is what Luke is chipping away at in us, in me - who is salvation for: the tax collector, even the chief tax collector, the woman caught in adultery, the one who comes home, the older brother, Lazarus, the Lepers, Nicodemus, the Samaritan - and even me.  This is the good news, that is sometimes hard news.  Because as much as we want people to love, the way the crowds loved Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem, we also want to heap scorn on others - we want to make someone else responsible for all of the injustice in this sad, sorry world.  We want Jesus on our terms just like the crowd on this particular day; just like the people whose cries would move from "Hosanna, Hosanna" to "Crucify Him, Crucify Him"within a week.

So what do we do with the salvation of Zacchaeus? Do you ever feel tempted to stand to the side like the older brother not trusting the refund and restitution cheque he hands you?  So angry that you just might tear it up? And yet all the while in your heart you know the right thing is throw your arms around your brother. But it stings and you grumble about the past and you want to be stingy instead of welcoming the new and generous work that God is doing in Zacchaeus.  Because even the most ethically bankrupt are not beyond his generousity.

If you have been following Jesus for a long you need this story too because it isn't just the story of someone who encounters Christ for the first time and receives salvation.  This is a story about being found, hearing your name and responding to Jesus; this is a story that is instructive for how to live as followers of Christ and sometimes the best people to offer that perspective and instruction are the people who glimpse it and receive it for the first time.  Our relationship with money is slippery isn't it?  We want to hold on, we want to cozy up with the illusion of control and self importance, when the right response to Jesus' grace and generousity to us is to joyfully let go and give back in abundance.  Just like Zacchaeus did.

The last line of this story reads: "for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost." Maybe that line will remind children of our earlier story in Luke - Jesus is the shepherd who will find the one lost sheep, the way he found Zacchaeus in that tree, called him by name and offered him salvation.  Zacchaeus for his part was an eager recipient! I love the physicality of this story - the man running ahead of the crowd, climbing the tree and then scurrying down from it and standing before Jesus to proclaim: "Look Jesus, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I will pay them back four times as much."  May we all respond to Jesus with such vigour and whole-hearted expressions of thanksgiving for the generous gift of salvation.

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.  "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God I thank you that I am not like the other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.'  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.'  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner!'  I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

This is the second of two parables that Luke tells about prayer.  The first parable told in the first 8 verses of chapter 18 is about a judge and a widow.  The judge is described as a man who neither feared God nor respected people.  The women is a widow who seems to be the victim of a grave injustice and is continually pleading her cause before the judge.  These two people are almost as far a part as two people can be in this society - the judge, a man whose position and gender make him respected and powerful; the widow - a woman would have been among the most vulnerable and least powerful in society.  It is hard to imagine how this woman had the courage to approach the judge in the beginning and harder still to understand why she persisted in pleading her cause before this judge who was known for disrespecting humanity.  As I hear this story, I cringe for this woman making a fool of herself.  Who does she think she is to get an audience before this man who shows a blatant and intentional disregard for people? Does she not see how awkward this is? Does she not hear the jokes people are telling about her?  And yet the judge does a surprising thing, he relents saying: "though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually complaining."

And Jesus urges his disciples, he urges us, to be like this widow - persistent and courageous.  After all if the judge, as awful as he is, will grant her justice, how much more will God who is just and good and who loves us come to our rescue.  It is the faith of this woman that enabled her to persist and it is faith like this that Jesus is looking for on earth.  By praying continually and not giving up hope we are living out the belief that God has surely not abandoned this world, he has not abandoned us.  In this story the courage and perseverance of this woman are not abstract qualities - they are connected to her prayerful posture, her petitioning of the judge.  And this not only has a value for here and now but in the story it is an eschatalogical necessity.  As we pray about the deep injustice and suffering in this world, in our lives,  we are bearing witness to the world yet to come, this is part of praying 'thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'  Luke's Jesus shows concern for the disciples who must endure, who must pray always and not lose heart.  I wonder how often these stories Jesus told came to mind for the disciples when he was no longer with them.  May the Holy Spirit also grant us courage and persistence in prayer in the midst of our own brokenness and in the face of the grave injustice we see and experience in our world.

The second story, the story which Sunday School centres around today also features two Jewish men: a pharisee and a tax collector.  The pharisee is the good man, the respected man, the religious man, the teacher.  The tax collector is the wealthy man, the crooked man, the dishonest man, the swindler.  And on this day both of them find themselves at the temple; the pharisee prays: 'thank you that I am not like the others: liars, thieves and adulterers and tax collectors.  And by the way, God, I gave a tenth of my income and I fasted twice this week.'  The pride, self-satisfaction and smugness are suffocating.  The tragedy is that somewhere along the way the pharisee has begun to trust in himself, in his own goodness, in his right-ness instead of trusting in the mercy and love of God.

I would hazard a guess that most of us have prayed a prayer something like this in our Christian life.  Maybe our language was a little more nuanced and maybe we didn't intend to put down addicts and dead-beat dads and gangsters when we prayed it.  Maybe we felt like we really had dodged a bullet in avoiding those sins and calamities and were very grateful - grateful that we had never fallen off the rails like those unfortunate 'other' people.  Grateful that we had followed all the rules because look at us, we are pretty good people.  We can hold our heads up before God and say thank you.

The pharisee by contrast stood at a distance, he could not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' The tax collector caught a glimpse of who he is and who God is and all he could do was beat his chest, praying through tears of contrition.  He sees the truth: he is a sinful man but he is loved by God and he bends toward God in humility, in worship.  In that moment the pharisee understands his salvation as a gift, something he did nothing to deserve.  In this moment he understands that he can trust the mercy and love of God regardless of what he has done.    Can you hear also the contrition of David or Paul crying out: wretched man that I am? Can you remember a time when you have also been overcome with contrition and received the love of God as nothing other than an undeserved gift.  Something you did nothing to earn and nothing you could ever repay.  Something that laid you low before God and at the same time raised your soul to great heights with such freedom.

And then comes the great reversal - remember Lazarus and the Rich Man of a few weeks back, or the one (former) leper who came back to say thank you and was a Samaritan, this book is full of reversals.  And no matter how much we begin to anticipate it - it always leaves us without words: 'The tax collector goes away justified rather than the other.'

At First Baptist Church in Edmonton you can sit in the naeve on a Sunday morning and often you will hear the choir above you singing Kyrie Eleison.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy... In the movement of this song, in the plea of the contrite heart for mercy we join our voices with people throughout history, beginning with the tax collector in Jesus' story who beat his hands to his chest and cried out: God be merciful to me a sinner.  It is an ancient prayer.  It is a prayer of few words that express so much: our utter dependancy on God, our thanksgiving for his mercy, our confessed need for Him.  It is a prayer that helps us to understand that it is not by our own goodness that we can come before God but through the mercy and grace of God through the cross of Christ that we are saved.

Our pride is ever before us - slippery and masquerading in all sorts of attitudes where condescension is barely perceptible but present in thanksgiving for what we are not, in thanksgiving for the right ideas that we have about God and the ways and means of being his people.  It is present in the subtle judgements we pass on our brothers and sisters - at least I am not a fundamentalist like her, at least I am not a wishy washy liberal like him,  if I had money like them I would live differently, if only they worked a little more they wouldn't always be so hard up and needing so much help from everyone....  The truth is we cannot get too far out the door without getting tripped up by pride.  How quickly feelings of self-aggrandisement wash over us until we are nearly drowning in them.

And we come to church and we hear: Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.  It is in our worship that we are reminded who we are and who God is.  It is here that we renounce our sin, claim the righteousness of Christ and place our trust in Him, not in ourselves.

It is important that children understand that how we live before God matters deeply but that isn't what saves us.  In the words of Paul: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God!" (Eph. 2:8)  Let us throw ourselves upon God and trust in his unfailing love and unending mercy. Let us trust in his salvation and continue to pray with all humility and with perseverance and courage.

Jacob Wrestles at Peniel

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids and his eleven children and crossed the ford of Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything he had.  Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.  Then he said: "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said: "I will not let you go unless you bless me."  So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."  Then the man said, "you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,  for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed."  Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name."  But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."  The sun rose up upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.  Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.
Genesis 32:22-32

If there is a climax in the story of Jacob - I wonder if this would be it?  Could it be that the events of this long night at Peniel, all alone with Uncle Laban behind him and his brother Esau in front of him would become a touchstone for the rest of his life?  The way the his father and grandfather would never forget that three day journey up Mt. Moriah only to be dramatically rescued by God - by the ram in the thicket.  This mysterious, awe/fear-inspiring God who comes down to people - it his he who Jacob has been waiting for, it is he who Jacob would face down on this on the way night.

To understand the gravity of this encounter it would be great if we could give the backstory to the children this morning - perhaps in a verbal re-telling. Some of the children might remember that Jacob stole the birthright and the coveted blessing from his older brother Esau.  It is a story that defies a morality gospel - Jacob's shrewdness is rewarded - not unlike the dishonest manager we met a few weeks ago.  As Frederick Beuchner puts it "he is strong on guts and weak on conscience."  Jacob is a striver, he is the person who will win - he knows it and so does most everyone else.  But this doesn't make life is easy for the man - most things involve a struggle with himself, with others and ultimately with God. Upon receiving the blessing Jacob lives in fear of Esau who is plotting his death. So at his mother's behest, Jacob leaves the land of his family to go and find a wife in Paddan Aram, the land of his mother's family.  On the first night of his journey, all alone Jacob is not haunted by his conscience and the awful thing he has done to his brother, instead he lays his weary head on a rock and has a dream filled with beauty and wonder.  In his dream the angels of heaven are ascending and descending a ladder set on earth and stretching to heaven and God himself stands beside Jacob and says: "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring, and your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your offspring.  Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (Gen.28:13-16)

Jacob is received by his mother's brother Laban, a sordid character with few scruples and two daughters. The younger and fairer, Rachel, captures Jacob's heart, he sets his sights on her: he will marry Rachel.  Laban demands seven years of work from Jacob in exchange for his younger daughter - only for Jacob to discover, in the night, he has been given Leah.  Seven more years of work for Laban and Jacob finally he weds the one whom he loves.  Life for Jacob and Leah and Rachel is complicated at best - Leah is unloved, clearly the second sister and yet she brings forth an abundance, sons one after the next. Rachel is adored and yet, barren and grief stricken, until finally she brings forth Joseph.  In his time with Laban Jacob begins to prosper and his wealth becomes a threat to Laban's sons.  Jacob is on the run again, this time away from Laban, back to the land of his father where he must confront his brother Esau.  It has been twenty years since Jacob traded a bowl of stew to get his brother's birthright; twenty years since he put goat skins on his forearms to trick his father into blessing him; twenty years since he has seen his twin brother.  Jacob knows the contempt Esau holds for him, he sends messengers and gifts to appease him.  But it still remains to be seen how the next day will unfold.

And in the night with the past twenty years bearing down on Jacob and the bold faced fear of what the day will bring, Jacob meets God.  This isn't an encounter behind a veil of smoke or a burning bush - this is an all out, winner takes all, wrestling match.  Jacob has it all on the line.  What has this all been for?  All of those years of hard work, exiled with an man who lied to and cheated him; and yet gave him refuge and the women he loves from whose wombs have come all those children sleeping just across the river. Tonight Jacob is a man without a home, who has lost much of his wealth, with a family just as complicated and bitter and weighed down by grief as the one he came from.  The more you think about it - the more you grasp what is at stake for Jacob in this wrestling match.  He still wants that blessing - he wants to lay hold of it.  And with his hands on this stranger he lets it all out - the grief, the anger, the confusion, the desire.  The strength of the attacker is fierce but Jacob is tenacious, his will is strong.  It looks like Jacob might prevail until the attacker merely touches the socket of Jacob's hip and puts it out of joint - surely it is over for Jacob.  Day is breaking and yet "Jacob will not release his grip, only now it is a grip not of violence but of need, like the grip of a drowning man.  The darkness has faded just enough so that for the first time he can dimly see his opponents face.  And what he sees is more terrible than the face of death - the face of love. It is vast and strong, half ruined with suffering and fierce with joy, the face a man flees down all the darkness of his days until at last he cries out, "I will not let you go unless you bless me!"  Not a blessing he can have by the strength of his cunning or by force of his will, but a blessing he can have only as a gift."

Jacob has been a good name for he who supplants, from the time he was in the womb until this terrible night breaks when God gives him the name Israel, "for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed."
A new name, an indication that everything has changed - instead of wrestling with God, he is clinging to him.  But  this battle was costly, though his life is preserved he will always walk with a limp, a reminder of this treacherous and glorious night.

This is a story that is rich for the imagination - who is this God who attacks Jacob in the night and wrestles with him, who strikes his hip and blesses him - who allows man to get so near to him and preserves his life?  It is a story in which we can find ourselves as we struggle with who God is and who we are, with our own strivings and our suffering. A story where we can meet a God who we can wrestle with, who we can cling to. A God who is indeed holding us and who gives us a new identity as his children.

May God inspire you with holy imagination as you bring this story to the children this week.


*** The quotes are taken from one of my favourite sermons by Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat.

A Samaritan Leper Says Thank You

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.  As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him.  Keeping their distance they called out saying, "Jesus, Master have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were made clean.  Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.  He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.  And he was a Samaritan.  Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?  Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Luke 17:11-19

Is it possible that the beauty of a sunset could be the beginning of faith? A theology professor tells the story of a friend who, facing a cancer diagnoses and a long road of treatment, took a journey to the European Alps to fulfill a lifelong dream. In the Alps, surrounded by the beauty of creation, she felt an overwhelming gratitude welling up in her and a desire to say 'thank you.'  This desire puzzled and unsettled her.  Where was this coming from? Who would she say 'thank you' to?  This question remained with her as she returned home and it set her on a path to knowing Christ as the creator and redeemer of the whole world. Her faith began with a simple thank you. Gratitude that brings us to Jesus changes us.

In this story Luke indicates that thanksgiving gives way to faith which in turn becomes sozo: salvation, wholeness.  The Samaritan leper realizing that he has been healed, stops, turns around and praises God in a loud voice, falls down at Jesus' feet and thanks him.  For me it is as lavish as the woman who pours perfume on Jesus' feet and washes them with her hair.  This is an equally evocative expression of love and thanksgiving. The loud voice, the falling down, the thank you's uttered amidst tears and laughter - they belong to a man who sees Jesus and responds with unrestrained passion and thanksgiving. As for the others they are thankful I am sure, but they are racing to the priest, thinking about getting cleared for re-entry back into their families and the community.  And on their way they do not stop to say thank you.

Have you ever wondered what this Samaritan was doing amidst the other Jewish lepers?  Was it the leperasy that broke down the barriers so they could see their common humanity?  So that together with one voice they could say: "Jesus, Master, Have Mercy on Us" Have you ever wondered what happened to this Samaritan after they were are all healed?  Because the truth is this Samaritan is still an outsider. If he were to go to the priest would he even be received?  This Samaritan turns back to the Jewish man who just told him to go to the Priest, and in his turning, in his unrestrained thanksgiving, through his faith in Jesus he receives sozo - salvation: wholeness! It is the thanksgiving that he lays down; that he shouts out that prepares the way for his full restoration. This is Luke's second story about a Samaritan, I think he is being intentional and instructive in this; he is working on the assumptions of the hearers, he is breaking down barriers, he is telling them that the salvation of God is for all people.  And guess what? The outsiders they just might be the ones who see it, turn around and receive it while the insiders pass on by.

Thanksgiving is what this Samaritan outsider expresses that the others do not.  It is the reflexive, intuitive response muttered by the woman in the Alps, it is the broken perfume bottle by Jesus' feet.  It is a discipline that we practice by which we learn to see the mercy and grace of God all around us.  Through thanksgiving we grow in joy, we grow in faith.  It is what enables us to persist in the darkest times.  It is intimately connected with our salvation: "Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honour me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God" (Psalm 50:23).  They are the words of Jesus himself who "on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body that is for you..." He gave thanks ... Eucharisteo.  Communion.  His brokenness - his body and blood - has become our salvation.  The bread and the wine.  The eucharistic life - the life that we partake in and celebrate each week - is a life of thanksgiving.

Hear the beginning of the eucharistic prayer:

The Lord be with you
And also with you

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise

It is indeed our right
It is our duty and our joy
at all times and in all places
to give you thanks and praise....

The children are usually upstairs for the eucharistic prayer and I think it would be wonderful if we could draw their attention this prayer today - to notice the words, the instruction to live lives of thanksgiving because it is our duty and our joy.  Sometimes thankfulness overtakes us, it is as easy as our very breath. And sometimes it is a great challenge to be thankful in the face of the suffering that surrounds us all.  Yet we learn with Christ, with Paul, with our brothers and sisters that turning to God and giving thanks even in the midst of suffering offers us a way through our pain - a way of seeing and experiencing the mercy of God.

This morning at Moms' Group we discussed this text from Luke. In our meandering conversation we discussed the miraculous way in which thanksgiving can give way to faith, we heard how some people practice the discipline of thanksgiving individually and with children.  We sat in silence as we considered how lament and grief co-exist with thanksgiving; some women shared how gratitude sustained them in the darkest times.  At the end of our time we prayed, we gave thanks for simple, beautiful things: for trees alive with colour, for sunlight through lead glass windows, for a hand to hold, the company of a friend, a cup of coffee; for the people we hold dear: those who are with us and those who have passed on.  We gave thanks for the love and faithfulness of God. For salvation. For joy. For the hope that we have in Christ who gives us the strength to endure: to make it through the hard days, the diagnoses, the losses. And as we offered our thanksgiving I felt the tears begin to roll down my face. Is not thanksgiving where we learn humility?  Who am I God to know these graces, these mercies?  May I too say thank you with a loud voice, fall down at your feet and worship you.

Increase of Our Faith!

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea' and it would obey you.
"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on my apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!"

Luke 17:5-10

Have you ever asked the Lord to increase your faith?  What was it that brought you to that point?  Was it a darkness you found yourself groping around in; a growing despair that light might never break?  Was is it a calling beyond what you had strength or confidence for; beyond what you had ever imagined and you asked God for faith and faithfulness that you might do the task before you?  When doubt was assailing you, did you ask God to encourage the spark of faith that remained, lest it become a smouldering pile of ashes?  After experiencing the brokenness of Christian community maybe you asked for faith to believe that God really could reveal his glory and accomplish his purposes through the church.  Likely most of us know this prayer for faith/faithfulness well.

On this particular day the disciples asked the Lord to increase their faith after hearing him say to them: "occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!  It would be better for you if a millstone were flung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for one of you to cause these little ones to stumble.  Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender and if there is repentance, you must forgive.  And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times a day and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive."
It is interesting to me that Jesus' words on forgiveness precede the request of the disciples.  Jesus hasn't just told them they would do amazing things in his name, no, he has given them some instruction on how to live and he has given the imperative to forgive. We can almost hear the disciples response - we recognize it as our own - this is too hard, Jesus - give us faith - make us faithful people.  We can't do it on our own.

Could it be that having faith, even the size of a mustard seed - that forgives - can do the impossible; the beautiful; the miraculous: "you can say to that mulberry tree, be uprooted throw yourself in the sea and it will obey you"; "you can say to that mountain move from here to there, and it will do it"(Matthew 17:20).  Faith that contains the seed of life is potent; we cannot underestimate it. Engage this image with a holy imagination and enter into the enormity of what is possible.  Look back into Hebrews 11, recall what God has done.  Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses...  they had their own complexities and fears and doubts; yet they believed and were faithful and through them God revealed himself and worked his plans and his purposes, "though all of these died in faith without having received their promises, they saw and greeted them.  They confessed that they were foreigners and strangers on the earth. For people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland... a better country, a heavenly one."(Heb. 11: 13-17)  Think about others who"left their home and sought a better country, a heavenly one": Martin Luther King Jr, Dorothy Day, Jackie Pullinger ... Who comes to mind for you?  Faith enacts the kingdom of God - it brings with it freedom and new life even in the midst of all suffering and death.  

I was a university student when the Columbine and Taber tragedies happened in April of 1999; a year later, in the spring of 2000 I sat with thousands of students in Convocation Hall to hear Dale Lang speak on forgiveness. I will never forget the silence that fell in the hall as we sat before this humble and heartbroken man, hanging on his every word and wondering about the way of forgiveness in the world.  Extraordinary forgiveness: what Dale Lang gave the boy who murdered his son, what the father offered to his lost son, forgiveness that offers restoration. Our lives are to be oriented around a merciful and forgiving God who forgives us, restores us and welcomes us to his table.  This is faith.  This is a gift of God, a grace in our lives and a discipline, something we live out.

In Jesus' story of the master and the slave Jesus' followers are reminded to be faithful with the tasks before them.  This is a down to earth, every day spirituality that does the dishes and doesn't ask for props.  The disciples are not to go seeking for rewards and recognition rather they are to be humble in all things lest ambition and status-seeking become their undoing.  They are to be alert, to be an example to younger ones, to remember those in need with justice and compassion, to work for the restoration of the sinner into the community of God's family. With faith that believes and practices this we can only imagine what God can do.

*****

As we come to the gospel this week I think this might be a good opportunity to do a little bit of teaching on faith.  What is faith?  I do think it is important to be clear that faith is not about trusting that things will work out for me the way I would like, I think many children get this idea along the way.  Rather, faith is trusting in the promises of God and bearing witness to them in our lives.  Faith is lived and enacted and it is also a gift of God - what does it mean to practice our faith? How has faith that contains this seed of life impacted our world?  Perhaps you can share the story of someone whose faith has inspired you or maybe you would like to share your own story.

The epistle for this week is from 2 Timothy, it is a beautiful exhortation which was first opened up for me by my High School Sunday School teacher,  I have included it for you here:


2 Timothy 1:1-15

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, ²To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.³I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. ⁴Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. ⁵I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

⁶For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; ⁷for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.⁸Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, ⁹who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, ¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. ¹¹For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, ¹²and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. ¹³Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁴Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

God be with us as we teach and our taught by children; may we all be strengthened in faith to live the life we have been called to in Christ; to enact the Kingdom of God.

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day.  And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.  The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.  The rich man also died and was buried.  In Hades, where he was being tormented he looked up, and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.  He called out, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames. But Abraham said, Child remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here but you are in agony.  Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.  He said, then Father, I beg you to send him to my Father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.  Abraham replied, they have Moses and the prophets, they should listen to them.  He said, no Father Abraham but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.  He said to them, if they have not listened to Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
Luke 16:19-31

We are just underway with the lectionary in Sunday School and we have encountered two difficult texts neither of which are commonly found in Children's Story Bibles. This weeks story of The Rich Man and Lazarus presents us with some vivid images that can be unsettling to children and adults alike.  I think it is the type of story that Charles Dickens or Flannery O'Conner might have appreciated.  The first image in this story is that of a very wealthy man with an extravagent lifestyle - dressing in fine purple linens as royalty would and feasting every day; juxtaposed with Lazarus - a poor, hungry man covered in sores, laying at the man's gate.  This poignant image stirs our own emotions and leaves us with a sense that something has gone terribly amiss.  Why should one human should suffer so miserably while just inside the gate another carries on such an indolent and self indulgent lifestyle?  What do we do about this disparity?  What do we do about our wealth?  What do we do about the needs of our neighbours? These questions all need to be grappled with but the most arresting aspect of this image is the way in which Lazarus is invisible to the rich man.  We are dismayed that a man could have such little regard for fellow humanity. But before we get too judgemental of this man we can feel the question being asked of the hearer: who do I walk by almost every day without ever once looking in the eye? What am I afraid to see in someone else and in myself?

Greg and I lived in a neighbourhood that at one time had a lot of prostitution and I struggled mightily with the women who stood on street corners, waiting.  I had such intense and deeply conflicting emotions - empathy for these women, used on so many levels and embroiled in systemic injustice, frustration with the vehicles slowly creeping around the neighbourhood, with men leaning out their windows to proposition women, with the fear this sometimes created in me, with a sense of just how lucky I was to have healthy relationships with men.  As a result of this torrent of emotion I really struggled to engage these women, my neighbours.  It never got easier - to look them and smile just seemed to emphasize the disparity between us and almost rub it in.  To quietly walk by with my head down was to ignore them - as if they were not a part of the neighbourhood at all.  I often wondered how Jesus would look at these women and how they would see him.  I longed for his presence for them and for me; I longed for freedom from the sex trade for all of us: workers and neighbours.

The second image that grabs us is that of the rich man, suffering in flames, begging for water and Lazarus who is brought by the angels to the side of Abraham finally out of pain and receiving the comfort he never knew on earth. The tables have been turned but this is not because of any misfortune that has come upon this rich man - he is being judged and Jesus is not holding back with us. We don't hear Lazarus begging in this parable but, we do hear the rich man begging for water, from Lazarus.  Did you notice that - even from his new vantage point in Hades, he wants Abraham to ask Lazarus to get him water!  Does he still see himself as somehow better than Lazarus or as someone who should be served?  Stories such as this were not uncommon in Jesus day however, in most stories a message was sent back to serve as a warning.  Not so in this story.  Just as the gate to the rich man's house was like a chasm that could not be crossed - that kept Lazarus firmly on the outside - so it was that the chasm between Abraham and the rich man could not be crossed.  Not even a message could be sent back: "if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."  Maybe the whole story hinges on this line; maybe Jesus is hinting at his own death and the refusal of the Pharisees to receive him - even though he will rise from the dead.  The pharisees never wanted Jesus; "they were satisfied with linen suits and sumptuous feasts when God wanted to give them the kingdom.  They were content to live in a world with beggars and "boys" when God wanted to give them brothers and sisters.  They were happy to live with parts of the Bible that backed up their way of life when God wanted to give them a new life altogether."(Barbara Brown Taylor, A Fixed Chasm).  It's a sorry choice with a dreadful result. And while some have used this parable to focus on the after-life I think that is to miss the bigger picture. This is a story about life, which for us, is not over; we have Moses and the Prophets and Jesus risen from the dead to convince us it is true.  But how will we live?

Luke takes great effort to show us that the new exodus ushered in through Jesus Christ is for all people of all races; in his stories about Jesus he helps us to see the love of Christ for the most marginalized.  Think of how Dickens can tell a story about characters derided by society and go on to uncover their humanity and ours and illuminate wrongful deeds and corruption as the tale unfolds.  Luke tells stories, some of them shocking and difficult, all of them waking us up to the Kingdom of God and inviting our participation in it.

You don't have to be as down and out as Lazarus to feel invisible, to have your humanity taken from you bit by bit each day.  Some of our children know that feeling all too well and they deal with feelings of worthlessness and shame as a result. As we tell this story this week I trust we all will encounter a God who notices us, just like he noticed that one missing sheep and went looking for it - a God who knows, loves and values us - his children; made in his image. I hope that this story will also remind us to notice the face of God in those among us who are overlooked. Perhaps students will think of kids in their classes, in the hallways or in the neighbourhood who are often alone or shut out of the gates like Lazarus and maybe this mindfulness will be the beginning of crossing chasms and reaching out to people.  Though these stories are challenging to the hearer may they shape a right understanding of God and ignite a holy imagination for how to live as God's people here and now.

May God be with us as we share the gospel with children this week.

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

Jesus told his disciples:  There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and he asked him:' what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer.'  The manager said to himself what shall I do now?  My master is taking away my job, I'm not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg - I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here people will welcome me into their houses.  So he called in each one of his master's debtors.  He asked the first, 'how much do you owe my master?' Nine hundred gallons of olive oil, he replied. The manager told him, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it four hundred and fifty.  Then he asked the second, and how much do you owe? A thousand bushels of wheat he replied, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it eight hundred.'  The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.  For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light.  I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?  No one can serve two masters.  Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money.
(TNIV Luke 16:1-13)

Well, if this parable prevents us from anything it is reductionist thinking and the temptation to moralize the story as we are so often eager to do - especially when we are telling stories to children.  We have here an anti- hero - a manager who is about to get fired from his job for wasting the master's possessions and he must make his final accounting before the end of his last shift.  He is obviously somewhat self aware - he knows he is not strong enough for manual labour and he is too proud to beg; from now on he will only get by on the relationships he has in the community.  Recognizing this the manager calls in the debtors and in an attempt to build some good will, he reduces their debts.  We are left to wonder who is absorbing the loss here - is it the manager or is it the master?  Whose money is this to give away? Is this and has this always been at the discretion of the manager?  Does it matter?  The view that he is forgoing any commission is certainly a more generous view of the manager's character but the truth is - we don't know.  The clock is ticking the books need to be reconciled - the suspense is building.  What will happen when the master finds out he has done this?  Will he destroy his reputation and his chances for future work?  Will the master require that he pay back any losses?  No!  What happens is a rather surprising plot twist: the master commends the manager for being shrewd.  At last he is using his wits to do business, it is commendable.  This is a generous response by the master - he sends this man on his way with some encouraging words - 'well done!' There are some clear connections between this parable and the lost son which preceeds this: both have a master/father and a subservient manager/son; in both parables there is a squandering of resources and in both cases there is a generous response by the master/father at the end of the story. What feels a little sticky about this parable is that clearly the manager is acting out of his own self interest.  He does not appear repentant for any mismanagement and is now acting only to save his reputation and to buy his way into people's homes, perhaps even implicating them in the process.  And Jesus commends this - he says the people of this world are more shrewd with their own than the children of light.  In the message Peterson picks up and expands on it saying: "streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law abiding citizens.  They are smarter, on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be the same way - but for what is right - using adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you will live, really live and not complacently get by on good behaviour."

Perhaps the parable is illuminating a way for us to be in the world: smart, be generous and subversive for what we will receive is beyond any human accounting and outside any economy of exchange?  Perhaps there is a slightly ironic and sarcastic tone to these words that Jesus is speaking in verse 9: "And I tell you make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they make welcome you into eternal homes."(NRSV) Perhaps Jesus wants to disposses the disciples of any illusion that dissipating wealth in the hope of securing connections will give them any security or stability.  Getting at a central paradox in the scripture that letting go is the way to have and keeping is the way to lose.  That we must have faith in God to take care of us and thus echoing the exhortation to his disciples in chapter 12 saying: "do not worry about your life, about what you will eat; or about your body what you will wear.  Life is more than food and the body more than clothes... do not be afraid little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail... for where your treasure is there your heart will be also."

The truth is that mammon -  is our undoing - it always has been.  In verses 10 -13 Jesus is coming back to the first commandment - you shall have no other gods before you.  How many times has Israel had to re-learn this? And how much do we need to hear this today? It is a demanding teaching; it exposes us over and over again.  Mammon can own us in scarcity or abundance.  In its abundance it can inflate our sense of self; it can give us a false sense of security and confidence. In scarcity it can also leave us overcome by fear and feelings of inadequacy.  In both cases it can be the cause of great amounts of anxiety.  And yet when our lives are ordered, when God is our master we can find a way to live that is free and generous whether we have a lot or a little.

This is an interesting text to bring to children - how quickly they too acquire the love of things and how complicit we are in fostering this.  From very early on children are acculturated into excessive and expensive habits and it can be very difficult to disentangle ourselves from this cultural ill that threatens to distort the value of things and relationships.  As teachers and parents how can we find our way and then lead the way for our children?  How can we live in such a way that children don't just know that God's economy operates in a different paradigm but that they get to experience kingdom economics here and now?  How can we be good stewards of what we have been given; generous, smart and even subversive undermining the powers of this age and living into a lasting inheritance?

Or maybe children can teach us - have you ever seen how satisfied young children are with simple things?  We lived in an old house with lead glass at the top of the windows and when the sun would pass through rainbows would dance along the walls.  I cannot tell you how beautiful it was to see children delight in watching and counting rainbows on the wall.  Or maybe you remember how a child is utterly satisfied in being with one who loves them and having the attention of that person.  And maybe deep down we aren't that different.  And maybe it is for this reason that the kingdom of God belongs to children.

I am under increasing conviction that I cannot love God well; love God first; love God best unless I am practicing sabbath.  Unless I am carving out time and space to remember/discover who I belong to, who I am, then I am all too likely to be swept up in the scurry of the week, entangled in disordered priorities and as a result becoming a sloppy manager of what I have been given.  If I am learning to love God and ordering my life out of this I can't expect everything to fall into place or become easy.  In fact some things will become a lot more difficult.  The life of a follower of Christ is demanding - there is no way around this in the gospel. But how we live now matters deeply to God.  So as we live with wealth: the wealth of the kingdom and worldly wealth may God renew our vision for the kingdom of God beyond us and among us.

Luke 15:1-10, September 18: Lost and Found

My Mom is a pretty resourceful lady with a great talent for recovering things that other people have passed over or thrown out.  Very little was wasted in our home growing up and few things give my mom more satisfaction than finding practical uses for scrap fabric, or sanding down and refinishing a discarded piece of furniture. Her latest project was recovering two very dated reclining chairs; I was openly skeptical of the value of this endeavor but was once again proven wrong when we arrived this summer to see those chairs looking new and inviting in the living room.  And so it comes as little surprise that my mom is also a good thrifter.  This summer when we arrived in Comox she had a stack of books she had gathered on her travels.  At the top of the stack was a copy of Because of Winn Dixie; a touching and poignant story about a young girl named India Opal who was abandoned by her mother at three years of age, her itinerant preacher father, an orphaned dog and a the group of misfits who find one another and themselves along the way.  It is a brilliant little story because it touches so beautifully and truthfully on loss - India's mother does not come home, but India finds a home and a people and a way to live hopefully, even with her sadness.  At the end of the story this rag tag group of people: pinch faced Amanda, the rumoured witch Gloria Dump, Otis who is just out of jail, the orphaned Dog Winn Dixie, the town bullies, India Opal and her Dad are gathered up in old Gloria Dump's house eating egg salad sandwiches and enjoying music.  And sometimes I wonder if that isn't just the type of party that Jesus would show up at.

This theme of lost and found is the theme of our text for this week: the lost sheep and the lost coin.  This is a theme that runs all through scripture.  Think of Adam and Eve hiding from God and yet found by him, remember Cain murdering his brother in a jealous rage and wandering around trying to hide from God, or Jonah running from God and yet being found by Him in the belly of the whale. The story of God carries with it a God who pursues, who finds us, who reaches out to us where we are - hiding in deceit like Adam and Eve, wandering and deep in jealousy and anger like Cain, inside a whale in disobedience like Jonah.  Sometimes being lost is really dramatic and sometimes its a little more subtle, it's a disorientation; we have lost our way even when we seem so close. It is that experience of circling around a neighbourhood looking for the house you were meant to be at ten minutes ago, one you've been to before, knowing you are in the vicinity might help but the truth is - you are still lost.

Jesus tells these stories to two groups of people gathering around to hear him: those who are sinners and those who are teachers of the law and pharisees.  The pharisees are murmuring, muttering in the background - they are scandalized by Jesus, he is eating with sinners, with unclean people.  And cleanliness matters! Meals matter - they are an expression of worship - clean food, clean hands, clean plates, pure hearts - to eat with sinners is blasphemy.  

And to this crowd of people Jesus tells three parables. The first is about a shepherd who leaves ninety nine sheep to go looking for one who is lost and then upon finding the one missing sheep, he throws it on his shoulders and hosts a party for friends and neighbours.  The grade three worship bulletin has a little section called "interesting facts" and there it states: a shepherd would not actually leave ninety nine sheep to go and look for one that is missing.  It certainly would be risky business to leave a flock to go and look for just one sheep who didn't have the sense to come home with the others.  Wouldn't it be better to cut your losses and return home with ninety nine?  Even if you left your flock in the care of other shepherds dangers were in the moors: wild animals, rocky crags and cliffs.  But it is a risk this Shepherd must take; he searches for the sheep - you can imagine him calling to the sheep, making noises to try and attract the sheep to him; looking and listening for any clues as to where the sheep might be.  And when the sheep is found he is full of JOY.  The kind of joy that God has when a sinner repents, comes home, is found.

Or what about the woman who turns her house over to find one coin, it clearly states she had nine others.  One coin - one denarius - one days wage and this woman could not afford to lose it. But finding this coin in a poorly lit house with dirt floors is a tall order.  You can imagine her sweeping or running her hand along the floor with one hand and holding the lamp in the other, her heart beating rapidly and her mind racing: where could it have gone, what did she do with it?  Have you ever lost something and felt that surge of adrenalin as you turned your house over, near tears, or called your Mom and asked her to pray that you find your wedding ring or something else of great importance? The woman persists until she finds that coin and when she does she gathers her neighbours and friends to celebrate with her and this little celebration is a glimpse of the celebration God will have at one sinner who is found, who turns to God.  There is a tenderness and an intimacy, something about being known, in these stories. We are all unique, we all have value and matter deeply to God: "O God you search me and you know me, you know when I sit and when I rise, you knit me together in my mothers womb, your eyes beheld my unformed substance." (Psalm 139)

And so back to that sticky matter of eating with sinners - Jesus is also talking about sharing the table with sinners.  Just like the Father in the story of the lost son (which follows the lost sheep and the lost coin).  The younger son doesn't feel worthy to come to the feast his father has prepared for him - he wants to eat with the servants, surely he does not deserve to be the guest of honour at such a lavish celebration. The older son doesn't want to share the table with his brother - after all why should the father throw a party for that scoundrel?  What did he ever do to deserve that?  All his brother did was come home after squandering his fortune.  And yet the Father welcomes both of them to the table, to the feast.  It is a wide and generous invitation for all of us sinners and saints.

It is a pretty incredible story that has become our own story of lost and found.

Let us return home, receive the embrace of the God of love & rejoice together!

Beginnings...

Teachers & Friends!

This Sunday marks the beginning of Kids' Word for the 2013/2014 school year.  As I have reflected on the task ahead of us this year I was reminded of this word from 1 John:

"We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--- 3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."

This is our work as teachers - to know the story to which we belong - that which was from the beginning, which was revealed in Jesus Christ and the future hope to which we belong.  This is the story we have internalized - it has become our own, and it is our privilege to share this story, and our lives with others.  As you interact with scripture, with curriculum, with children, my prayer is that your own faith would be enlivened and strengthened.  As you open yourselves to this work I know the Holy Spirit will inspire you with creativity and will bring these students to mind throughout the week in your prayers.  This is not just a Sunday work, it is a greater participation in the spiritual formation of these children - it is a sacred work done in participation with parents and family and with the broader faith community.

This Sunday we will gather together, for some children it will be their first time in Kids' Word; they will not know other children and the space will feel foreign.  Other students will feel fully at home in their classrooms and will be familiar with students and teachers.  We will work to create a welcoming and safe space for all children.  In our dismissal from the service we will have the Grades 1,2 and 3 leave with their teachers followed by the 4,5 &6 children.  I will be working to ensure each child gets to their correct space; you also have class lists so you may know who to keep an eye out for.  We will invite those parents who would like to drop their children off to come downstairs with us.  In your classrooms you will find name tags for each child and an attendance register.  You do not need to formally do attendance - you can fill this out after the class - it is just for our records.

In your classrooms you will see a table covered with a green cloth with an electric candle on it.

The green cloth reminds us that we are in the season of Pentecost - it is a season of growth and new life.  The symbol for the season of pentecost is a tree.

The candle reminds us of Christ's presence with us; it reminds us as we gather that we are all children of the Light.  The flame of the candle reminds us of the fire of the Holy Spirit.  You might ask students if they have noticed candles in the service before?  Some children will remember that they have received them at baptism - to signify that they have passed from darkness into light.  Other children will remember seeing candles or lighting candles during Advent.  Encourage them to notice those in the main worship space.

As you move into a time of sharing - you may choose to simply have students share the memento they brought with them or you may ask them to share about their summer in the context of desolation and consolation - a time when they felt the presence of God and a time when God felt hidden to them or things seemed uncertain.  It might be simple to ask what was one thing that brought them joy in the Summer and what was one thing that was difficult in the Summer. In this practice we affirm that Christ is with us in all of life - in the things that are joyful and in the things that are hard or don't make sense to us.  We can trust God even when he seems hidden from us.

You may close your time together with sentence prayers (an opportunity for each student to speak a prayer if they like), with a repeat prayer that you lead, you may choose to end with students repeating the Lord's Prayer, or you may like to end with a blessing over the children such as Aaron's blessing from Numbers 6:24-26: The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord life up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

If you would like to do an additional activity with your class - a game or a craft, please feel free! If you would like some ideas, I have years of experience with mixers and group games (as I am sure many of you do). Feel free to post any game or art activity ideas in the comments below.  If you require any paper or supplies or ideas, please let me know.  I am happy to prepare them for you. Just remember we will be transitioning back upstairs at 10:15!  I will try and notify each class when we are at 10:10.  Children will go upstairs with you and return to their families.

I am grateful for each of you and looking forward to our first gathering on Sunday - I trust there will be a certain fullness and joy in our time together.

Peace be with you this week!