SERMON: Another Way

(Isaiah 60:1-6; Mtt 2:1-12) J G White

10:30 am, Epiphany Sunday, Jan 5, 2025, FBC Amherst

Tomorrow is Epiphany, in the Church year, and it begins a season of celebrating Jesus Messiah as Light for the whole world. It starts with the Magi visiting Jesus and family in Bethlehem. Surely, by now, they were not still staying with the animals in someone’s home; they were settled in a proper place, with their toddler.

The final wise move of the Eastern visitors is, famously, that they returned to their homes by another way, and did not check in again with Herod. A couple weeks ago, Faith teacher Diana Butler Bass shared a song about this that caught my attention: the song I just shared with you, by Christopher Grundy: Home By Another Way. I gave you some of the lyrics in fine print here. And, because of its ‘sea shanty’ style, today I approached my little dream of having a Sunday of ‘sea shanty worship.’ Some other time we can rewrite some and sing things like, ‘What Do You Do With a risen Saviour? …early Easter morning?’

Grundy’s song certainly highlights the wisdom that the Biblical story inspires: wisdom to deal with nasty, prejudiced, cruel and greedy leaders in this world. Simply honouring a different King and going around the terrible ones is good. It inspires us: but to do what?

It can be discouraging. We think, we feel, that we are just one person. Or one little group who sees what needs to be done. Or one little congregation full of retirees with a big building. What can we do about homelessness in the County that is not just little bandaids? About the climate crisis whose rising tides will touch us? About rent and housing costs that are making life difficult for so many? About our healthcare crisis, when what’s available is not regularly available. Surely there’s another way to do such things, do something right!

The other day, in email, Father Richard Rohr said: We think “If only we had the power, if only we had the majority, we could create the kingdom of God,” but it’s never been true. I know from my years of traveling that when Christians are a minority in a country, and they have to choose and decide to be the salt of the earth, to be light on a lampstand, they make a real difference.  

We have to find our inner authority through Christ in us; we have to find our purpose in our love of God and neighbor, and actions of mercy and justice. Otherwise, we’re not offering anything that the world doesn’t already have or can’t find in other places.  

Stay in touch with what we have, in Christ, that is not offered elsewhere. Stay in touch with the vision of being salt and light. (That’s from Jesus’ sermon.) Stay in touch with what you and I can do, our own calling at this moment in our lives together. 

The Magi - they weren’t even Jews! - they were wise enough to find this new Anointed One in Judea. Notice all the guidance they used? At least three things: they used their astrology skills, they asked local leaders and experts, they heeded dreams and visions. They also were strong and discerning enough to choose not to obey Herod’s request. They went home by another way.

We likely do not use all the same tools these ancients did; we have our own gifts of body and spirit. Our own technology too. Like the Magi, we observe the times and the people, and learn to take other ways to and from the goal. And the goal, in essence, is Christ, Christ in the world, Christ in all of us, Light for the world. 

A world leader who died recently and was also a faith leader was Jimmy Carter. When he was 73 years old, Carter published his book, Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith. Carter says helpful things in his chapter on ‘The Christian Citizen.’ He acknowledges we all disagree with our governments at times. In a free society there are peaceful ways to elect and to influence for change. Even so, there are times when this is not enough; injustice must be tackled directly. Carter wrote: 

When our sons were in college, movements for civil rights, the end of the Vietnam War, and environmental quality were examples of concerted public effort by millions of people, sometimes including acts that violated the law. It was the willingness of courageous protesters to break such laws and accept the punishment for breaking them that forced the nation to recognize the injustice of the laws and, ultimately, to change them.

He also said, Almost twenty years later, our daughter, Amy, was arrested four times, for demonstrating against apartheid in South Africa and against what she considered illegal activities of the CIA during the Contra war in Nicaragua… 

Carter concludes: What each of us feels called upon to do as a Christian citizen may vary greatly… In some circumstances, more dramatic steps may be needed, including forceful public protests or even civil disobedience. And sometimes the rejection of oppressive authority requires the willingness to accept punishment: prison, as in the case of [the Apostle] Paul, or even death, as the life of Jesus illustrates. (J. Carter, Sources of Strength, pp. 118-120)

We are now a quarter century into this 21st millennium. This year, our building is 130 years old. What is our calling now, Church, to be salt and light around here? It is not just about human souls in the next life. It is not just about people in pews in this life. Are we hearing the call to work for climate justice? Indigenous truth and reconciliation? Gender justice among men and women? The needs and rights of the poor of the world? What else? 

I suggest it is true that the climate of this planet, in creation, is among the top challenges for us. As people of Faith, people of Jesus. Another faith leader, with initials JC, also died less than 2 weeks ago: theologian John Cobb, Jr., at the age of 99. Just last year I started to explore his thinking and teaching, a school of thought called Process Theology; I find it difficult. After his recent death, I heard some tributes to Cobb. I was impressed to learn all he worked for about the environment. He taught things like this, that make sense to me:

The sustainable alternative is one in which smaller and smaller regions produce more and more of the goods they need closer to where they are consumed. These economies will contribute little to the greenhouse effect and will survive the exhaustion of oil.

This is the whole eat local, think global idea, eh? 

I dream of faith communities - local churches - that take on what is ours to do about changing our lifestyles, our economics, our use and abuse of the world. Is there another way? What does it look like? We will only have a home for the future if we find another way.

And then, the issues of poverty and riches, of women and men, of the indigenous people of the land, and so forth. We are a congregation able to hear from the experts, able to hear from scripture, able to hear from all creation and all people, and able to hear from God. I believe there is a Guide greater than the powers and people who are running our world. I name that Guide: Jesus the Christ. Let us find more of His Way for us, an alternative Way, a good Way.

SERMON: Our Lowly Nature

(Isaiah 9:2, 3, 6, 7; Luke 2:1-20) J G White

6:00 pm, Xmas Eve, Dec 24, 2024, FBC Amherst

We have been hearing Christmas and winter songs for weeks now. You probably have a few favourites, like I do. And some you get tired of really quickly! (Last Christmas, I gave you my heart; the very next day...)

Anyway, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is one of my favourites. Like other Christmas carols it is so old event the experts are not sure where the words and the music came from. We know they were together 270 years ago when John Francis Wade published them in France, in the Latin Language.

We get called way back to Bethlehem, in the Middle East, by this song. Did you get there? Tonight? Get there with the shepherds and angels? And Who do we find? Jesus, a newborn. What did we sing about Him? He is...

True God of True God, Light of Light Eternal,

Our lowly nature He hath not abhorred...

For a couple thousand years many people have discovered Jesus is a real person, and completely Divine. The distance that is so natural to feel, between ourselves and whatever is perfect and supreme, that distance is broken down. We find out we can be close, totally close to what we call God. Whatever is true about God, Jesus is that. Whatever is real about human life, Jesus is that. Whatever is bright and good in the world, Jesus is that: Light, shining into darkness.

When all the bright lights of Christmastime shine, it’s wonderful. But all the joy and light and generosity that jumps out does make clearer all the things that are not great. It is to all our pains and problems that this Jesus comes. This connection of holiness and humbleness opens a door for our lives.

You and I are fearfully and wonderfully made, to quote a Psalm in the Bible. And, we are what we are, who we are. Tonight, we remember that our lowly nature is not hated or despised by God. We are loved by God; loved enough for God to join us, as one of us, on what we call Christmas night.

O come, let us adore Him; Christ, the Lord!

SERMON: Iconic Holy Family

(Micah 5:2-5a; Lk 1:39-55) J G White

10:30 am, Advent 4, Dec 22, 2024, FBC Amherst

Do you have a favourite Christmas decoration, ornament, piece of art? How does it work for you? What draws you in and keeps your attention? Perhaps it is very simple. Or it is detailed. There can be much to ponder. That’s how art works.

For centuries in the Christian tradition - especially the Eastern Church - there has been the use of artwork called icons, images of Jesus the Christ, or other saintly persons. An icon is used for prayer, meditation. Stare at and study the picture. Look not just at the painting itself, but at the one who is in the painting. Meditate upon how that person (Jesus, say) sees you at this moment in your life. 

 Even if you or I have never practiced this spiritual discipline, we have our natural ways we have responded to artwork. Certain pictures, sculptures, crafts, Christmas cards, poetry, music, stories, have caught our attention and we get absorbed by them. We go back to certain ones, again and again. Perhaps God has become present to us; the Spirit shone some light through “an icon.”

This is what happened to me a couple weeks ago, when I came upon the illustration I put on the cover of the bulletin today. I was drawn in. I stayed curious about every detail. I felt deeply moved. I kept going back to this illustration, which is by an artist in Portland, Or., who does a lot of work for The Bible Project: Everett Patterson.

So, look with me at this image. In some ways it is very simple, and many of the details are hints and clues about what is happening. Or, should I say, what happened. This picture has many details; Jesus is not visible here, but is very near.

Let’s have a visual sermon, now. What do you see, what do you notice here. What speaks to you? What makes you curious?

I’ll start. I see the man here has a name on his shirt. JOSÉ - we might call him Joseph. Luke 2:4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.

Who is he with? She looks rather worried. 

Her T-shirt says NAZARETH HIGH SCHOOL – Mary of Nazareth. Luke 2:5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.

This illustration is called José y Maria. Joseph and Mary. This modernizes the scene in a completely unhistoric way. Just like most Eastern icons, and most stained-glass windows in churches, and most pictures in Bibles. What people wear, what their complexion is, what is in the background - so often brings ancient people into the place and time of the artist and the viewers. 

So, do you often think of Mary as a youth, a teen? And how difficult this first pregnancy might have been for her. Thankfully she had the great support of her old relative, Elizabeth. The poetry Mary speaks to her, praising God, is a favourite of Christians: the Magnificat gets recited by some quite often, or sung. 

Hold to such Bible passages that can be icons for you: doorways into the holy that you return to, over and over.

Rings on fingers – This young couple is married, it appears. Perhaps we are accustomed to hearing the story translated in ways that say the couple is engaged or betrothed to each other, but not yet wed. The old Jewish practices do not quite fit our modern marriage categories. Back in first century Judaism, there were no double ring wedding ceremonies. What did happen was the man paid a dowry to the bride’s father, while they were not yet living together. As the Luke story tells us, Joseph was willing to take her as his wife, though she was expecting a child not his own. In this ancient betrothal, Mary and Joseph were, in essence, legally married. Perhaps the rings on their fingers here remind us of that. 

Pregnant - Mary expecting a child. The scriptures today, and then this illustration, took us on a little journey. From promises about a special One to arise in little Bethlehem; to a couple women in the hill country who are expecting children at the same time; to the divine actions Mary knows, in her Jewish Faith, about the God who promised a Messiah; and then this scene on the cover, when José and Maria are on the outskirts of Bethlehem with no place to stay.

Mary is ‘great with child,’ to quote a four hundred year old translation of Luke 2. Me, I get tremendously moved, at times when this becomes clear. This God in physical, fragile form - a human infant. Can the Divine One dwell in me, in my flesh, in my life? And in each person I meet up with, or hear about? God with us. There is a hymn that prays: Let my soul, like Mary, be Thine earthly sanctuary. 

BEEF JERKY    SAVE M______ – halos 

One of our local churches is named for this Holy Family: Joseph, Mary and (soon to be born) Jesus. Halos around the heads of ‘holy’ people are often but not always found in artwork of the past 15 centuries (and not just in Christian art). Holiness signifies someone  good and special. Maybe ‘spiritual.’ At least (maybe I should say at most), the Spirit is shining through them to others, to us. 

In the New Year, we could watch more closely for halos. I mean, for the Light of life - who is Christ - shining from those who pass by.

DAVE’S CITY MOTEL – Bethlehem, City of David

Today, we read Micah 5:2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Bethlehem is known, from the First Testament, as the place where the matriarch Rachel died and was buried. Then, Ruth and Naomi landed there, and Ruth married a local named Boaz. One of their grandchildren was David, a shepherd who became King. For Christians, and in our Western culture, Bethlehem is famous for the birth of David’s descendant, Jesus, who then grows up in Nazareth.

Perhaps you have a special place or two - a town, a neighbourhood, a wilderness spot - that is holy to you. You had special moments there, or you know the history of the place. Special places, thin places, become holy, become doorways for your soul. You keep returning, when you can. May you do so again, in 2025.

NO VACANCY – no room in the inn

Luke 2: 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

I grew up next door to my Grandfather’s campground with motel and cottages. I never worked there, except to mow the lawns. Sharon had a couple years working at a motel in the Annapolis Valley: at the front desk and in the dining room. She knows, better than I, of the challenges of making room for guests in busy times. 

 What else does that motel sign say?

NEW MAN_GER – baby laid in a Manger

 In the ancient Near East, hospitality was shown by people in their own homes. Often there was a guest room upstairs with the other spaces. Downstairs was where the cooking went on, and in the front courtyard of the home were some of the animals, right there. When all the guest rooms were full, people would just have to stay downstairs, off the kitchen, among the livestock.

I find this part of the Joseph and Mary story very moving. I look at this modernized couple here, and know that I know nothing about having no place to stay in a time of crisis. I don’t know what it is to seek refuge where there is not much space. I don’t realize the impact, in my heart, of those words Mary has just sung months before, that God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Every day of my life so far, I have been rich. What of José and Maria?

ZEKE 34 15-16 – Ezekiel 34:15-16

I wondered at first what Zeke meant, that scribble on the side of the payphone. Zechariah? No 34 chapters there. Nor in Zephaniah. Then I thought Ezekiel. Yes.

15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

The Good Shepherd is to be born. Who needs a Good Shepherd today? Who needs protection, justice, freedom, peace, hope? When do I need a Shepherd? Ask yourself, at every nativity scene you see, or that you sing.

SHEPHARD WATCHES – Shepherds watched their flocks

Luke 2:8 Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 

We stare into the story, and wonder again at how, at why, such workers out in the countryside were the ones told of this birth. In your life, have you seen humble, country people who responded to Jesus? Or people whose skilled work is very different from yours, who also followed Christ? Perhaps you have pondered their lives. Been inspired. Been challenged. They, as simple witnesses to the goodness they found, can shepherd you in the right direction.  

Good News – also called ‘Gospel’ in the Bible. I barely know what to say here, about this. There is so much to say! Read between the lines of this sermon. ‘Good News’ nearly equals ‘Glad Tidings.’...

GLAD      TIDE   - Glad Tidings of great joy

Luke 2:10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…

It is fairly common for some evangelical churches to be named ‘Glad Tidings,’ such as the Pentecostal one on the edge of Windsor, NS. The focus then is upon what happens becoming news, becoming something that is reported, talked about, shared. 

I have been a rather uncomfortable evangelical Christian, for most of my life. I have always been looking for ways to talk about faith and spirituality without it being a sales pitch, without becoming judgmental, and without taking the scriptures literally all the time. 

When you go over and over that favourite Christmas song, or meditate upon that beloved nativity scene - you are also finding ways to talk about joy, that holy moment, that connection with meaning. May we find even better ways of expressing these personal matters during this season and the year ahead. 

_ORIA! – Gloria!

Luke 2:13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

Praise of God is something that even we protestants can do in Latin. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Praise and worship on our own, alone, is good. Praise and worship of God together is also very good. I highly recommend both to you all, not mostly one or the other.  But this is partly me, the preacher, the minister, the professional pastor speaking, wanting pews full and prayers a plenty. 

Genuine ‘glory to God’ springs from the inner self. So notice it, when you hear it somewhere; when it rises up inside you. And don’t be shy to find your own voice, and join in with others. 

 _ECT _EROD ANTIPAS – Re-elect Herod Antipas?

Matthew 2:1  In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea… This artwork has Maria and José in a fairly modern moment, though we can tell it was a while ago. There are no cell phones; they have to use a payphone. 

I am not sure why the artist here, Everett Patterson, has a campaign logo for Herod Antipas. I can understand the irony, and satire, in a time when no ruler was ever elected by the people. But, from my reading, his father, Herod the Great, was still barely in power when Jesus was born. About that same time, Herod died and this little patch of the Roman Empire was split between the three sons, including Herod Antipas. 

No matter. This is a moment of history. As we meditate upon it, using whatever icons we have, we discover how it touches our moment. What will this New Born King mean to us who have a few fresh coins circulating now with Charles III upon them? With a Prime Minister teetering on the edge of the end? With our neighbour nation having a returning ruler of dubious character and plans? With a new regime taking over in Syria? And on and on.

O Prince of Peace, have mercy upon us!

WEISMAN Cigarettes – the Magi

Matt 2:1 ...magi from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?

This detail looks ahead more, a couple years ahead, we suppose, to that time when toddler Jesus is visited by wise travelers from eastern places.  So many extra details and legends have been added to this part of the Nativity stories. Perhaps more than any other part. Whenever we meditate upon a story or a song, we can remember what the actual Biblical details are, when we look them up. And then we ponder how the additional stuff works. What meaning and truth and power is in the threeness of the Magi, their names, their gifts, their promotion to ‘kings,’ their returning a different way? All that. 

Some Christians like to decorate with the phrase, ‘Wise men still seek Him.’ I still wonder how to be a wiser seeker. Do you?

STARR BEER – star of Bethlehem

Matthew 2:2 For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” In the legends of many great ones in the ancient world, a star, a comet, a signal in the heavens heralds the birth of someone very special. 

 When we look at the stars and all in the sky, we often find a holiness. A connection. A perspective. Awe and wonder. Was yesterday’s solstice an opportunity for you? I think I mentioned that I tried to see a recent comet that went by the sun this fall. Thanks to some friends, I did see it, faintly, one evening, while over by the Visitor Information Centre, at the border. 

Perhaps the border was a good place to look up and see a comet. Perhaps looking up was a good way of finding a boundary, and how to cross it. From despair to hope. From pain to strength. From apathy to faith. From hell to heaven. 

Sprout in concrete – Shoot from the stump of Jesse. I love this Hebrew Testament imagery; and we have a Jesse Tree that sprouted. I can do no better than simply quote from:

Isaiah 11:1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,     and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 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. 3 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, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth…

Our time to meditate upon this artwork, and the scriptures that preceded it, is over. There is more meditating upon such icons to be done. May you see and be seen by all the divine doorways you find.    

SERMON: What Should We Do?

(Zech 3:14-20; Is 12:2-6; Phil 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 3, 2024, FBC Amherst

Gaudete, gaudete Christus est natus ex Maria virgine gaudete

This is Gaudate Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, time to rejoice. I so want that old Latin hymn to be sung: in four part harmony. Anyway, we are rejoicing with other songs and words. And the light of one more candle. 

As on other Christian Sabbaths, we time traveled today with the Bible. Zephaniah the prophet issued promises and hopes a few hundred years before the Messiah, Jesus, was born. Sing aloud... Rejoice and exult with all your heart… Adonai has taken away the judgments against you; he has turned away your enemies. Isaiah’s words - a Psalm - are from even earlier in Hebrew history. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

Then, the Gospel reading was a scene from when Jesus Messiah was all grown up, and His cousin, John, preached heavy and hard to the crowds who gathered to hear him. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? …Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." 

Whew! Does not quite seem like a Christmasy message. But here it is. John seems in contrast with Paul’s words, years later, to the Christians in the town of Philippi: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone.

But there must be something to rejoice in, in the fiery preaching of John the Baptist. He certainly attracted a crowd, out, away from the towns, by the Jordan River. To those who came, he preached and taught. He baptized them. And they all kept asking John the same question. “What should we do?” The crowd of common Jews asked. The ones employed by the Roman Empire to gather taxes asked. The soldiers too, also working for the oppressive government: “And we, what should we do?”

It is a good question. 

And John answered them. As one New Testament scholar put it, John says, ‘Don’t be jerks!’ (Matt Skinner) Share, share your clothing, your food, with those in need. Don’t cheat people when you are at work, collecting money. Don’t threaten people to get the bribes you are used to getting at work. That sort of thing. 

Actually sounds like gentleness. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. It is all very practical. ‘What should we do?’ is all about what we do, not just what we think inside, or believe, in theory. It is the practice of faith in God. We do this; we don’t do that.

We are not meeting up with a John the Baptist today, or even Messiah Jesus, on the street corners. At least, not in the same way they were in the year 27 C.E. We still have our moments of wanting to know what to do next. What can we possibly do? In the face of the wild things going on? Prices going up. Health care going down. Political ideas getting extreme. The environment going to hell in a handbasket. Child-rearing and education getting messier. The richest still getting richer. And you and I not always improving. We still fail at joy and gentleness.

What hopes do we have for joy, real joy? Not just escape from the world for a while to something fun, or nostalgic. But deep joy over something truly wonderful. Theologian Jurgen Moltmann said, “biblical thought always understands hope as the expectation of a good future which rests on God’s promise.” A good future.

This is what our Christian practice of Advent is all about. Turning towards hope and joy. Dwelling upon the scripture promises and finding out what they might mean for our world now. Hearing anew that there are promises from God. Good News! Everybody listen.

There is something a bit humorous about Luke 3 verse 18. After John warns his followers that the powerful Messiah will soon arrive to thresh the wheat, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, Luke the narrator says, So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Good news? What is Good News? What is Gospel? 

Is it not the news that what is rotten and terrible will get destroyed? What is evil and painful will end, somehow, some way? Chains shall Christ break for the slave is our brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Many years in Advent I reread a favourite book. It is a biography of Santa Claus, by Canadian historian Gerry Bowler. At one point, he talks about letters to Santa, and how the Canadian postal service delivers them. He quotes examples of what children request. Some of the letters are downright demanding. But then, Some would break the hardest heart, Bowler says:

You can forget all the toys this year. What I would like most of all is for my brother to get better, recover from his stroke, and speak and act like he used to and not have to take pills all the time.

Dear beloving santa,

I have some wishes that had never comed true and you are my last hope. Here are my wishes: I wish that my mom wont have saesers and have to go to the hospital again. 

I wish that my tored vane would stop bleeding. I don’t want toys I just want that for Christmas.  (Santa Claus: A Biography, 2005, p.108)

In a podcast about our scriptures, Matt Skinner said it well. What Jesus gets rid of - this is in Good News. What chaff do we want burned up, to save the wheat? How about addiction, fetal alcohol syndrome, gun violence? What are the things you’d say, “I can’t wait for that to be gone”? And let’s see what well-being looks like. (Working Preacher, December 15, 2024) 

Along with the good news that ours is a God pointed in this direction, God with a dream of hope and peace and joy and love, is the good news that we help out. We get to help out. Christianity is as Xianity does. Not facts: it’s following.

‘What shall we do?’ Two things - at least two things, today. One, help out - ‘don’t be jerks!’ And two, rejoice!

A few of us here recently heard this story, in a book we read. The great teacher of preaching to preachers, Fred Craddock, was pastor in a tiny rural mission in the Appalachian Mountains. Each Easter Sunday evening, at sundown, would be baptisms, by immersion. After the candidates were dried and cleaned up, everyone was gathered around a campfire to warm up. A large circle around the new people. Then the ritual would begin. One by one, each person in the outer circle would make an offer to those standing by the fire. 

“My name is . . . and if you ever need somebody to do washing or ironing . . .”

My name is . . .  and if you ever need anybody to chop wood ...”

My name is . . . and if you ever need anybody to babysit . . .”

My name is . . . and if you ever need anybody to repair your home...”

My name is ... & if you ever need anybody to sit with the sick...”

My name is . . . and if you ever need a car to go to town . . .”

Once, when Craddock told this story to some well-healed city folk, he had to explain: “I don’t know what you call that where you come from. But where I come from we call it . . . church.”

And what else do we do? We rejoice. Funny how this is commanded, again and again, in the Bible. May you find, with Jesus, and among His own people now, some of the joy that is promised. So it won’t take much at all to prompt you to rejoice!

And you, you be one more candle of joy in our world. 

Gaudete, gaudete Christus est natus ex Maria virgine gaudete

SERMON: Greening of the Church

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 3, 2024, FBC Amherst ~ J G White

Psalm 25:1, 2, 5, 7 Creche

This year, we start the ‘greening of the church’ with our ‘creche’ or ‘nativity.’ So think of this as our destination, this month. We look ahead to this scene; then we take a spiritual journey to get there, once again. 

From Psalm 25 we just said, “you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.” Even though all the festive, Christmas stuff happens from now until December 25th, in the Church there is waiting. We take time to dwell upon the meaning of ‘salvation.’ We certainly face the facts that so much we need and want from God still seems in our future and somewhere in the future of our beloved ones.

We also tend to look back a lot in December. We remember. We get traditional. We get nostalgic. We also miss people who are gone, and we miss the way some things used to be. 

The Psalm prays that the sins of years ago be forgotten, as God kindly loves us deeply. Let us seek that steadfast love in Christ.

Advent Candle Sherrill & Roy Pettigrew

The first candle of this season is called the “Hope Candle” and the “Prophet’s Candle,” symbolizing the anticipation of the coming Messiah and the hope that He brings to the world. 

Malachi (Mal-ah-KI) was an ancient Hebrew prophet, one of the very last. He probably lived about four hundred years before the birth of Jesus. His message we just heard gave the hope of a messenger who will prepare for the Lord to appear, suddenly, in the Temple. 

One of our own hopes, at this season of the year, can be that the Spirit of Jesus will be clear and be here, when we gather, and when we are on our own. 

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Jesse Tree

Family and genealogy was so important to those Jewish people of long ago. ‘There would be a King for you, from the family of King David.’ They kept saying that, over and over. Like Jeremiah today: “I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” 

One of the Church Advent decorations you may have never had here yet is a Jesse Tree. Here, I made one out of white birch. A Jesse Tree is decorated with symbols of the family tree of Jesus, and many stories from the Bible. 

Why is it called a Jesse Tree? Who was Jesse? Jesse was the father of David, King David. Each day of Advent we can have a symbol of someone who went before Jesus. Each Sunday we can put up a few of these decorations, called Chrismons. Let’s start… 

Luke 1:68-71, 78-79 Evergreens

This poetic praise is here, spoken by Zechariah, after his son, John, was born, a few months before Jesus was born. This ‘song’ sometimes gets called for its Latin name, the Benedictus. Thirty years later, John would be known as John the Baptist, not because he was a Baptist Christian - we had not been invented yet - but because John baptized a lot of people, out in the Jordan River. 

But when he was a newborn, his father celebrated Abba God, saying: “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

We say that evergreen branches remind us of everlasting promises and provision from God. Light to brighten our souls, from the inside out. Hope in the face of hardship and even death. Guidance for this challenging life, leading us into deep peace. Peace within us, and peace among us. May our evergreen boughs and their lights lift our spirits to the God of inner light and shared peace. 

Luke 3:1-6 Poinsettias

Here we have John, Jesus’ cousin, all grown up, exercising his ministry of preaching and teaching and baptizing. It gets called a baptism of repentance, for the forgiveness of sins. This ritual of turning away from the wrong things of life was preparation to receive the Saviour. A Saviour who saves by living and dying, and yet going on to live.

Often, when we have our ceremony of bread and the fruit of the vine, we get in touch with the forgiving and healing power of God. We remember that a real human, God as a human, shed His lifesblood. No wonder the deep red star of the Poinsettia plant became a Christmas decoration. For two thousand years, there has been such power in the retelling of this story, of the life of One, poured out for many. 

You likely have noticed that a Poinsettia plant bleeds easily, whenever a leaf or stem is broken or injured. But the blood, the sap, is white. May these plants remind of us a real God, who lived a physical life among us, that was broken and bled. 

SERMON: Where I Praised on My Summer Vacation

(Psalm 132; Revelation 1:4b-8) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 3, 2024, FBC Amherst

I grew up in Wilmot, Annapolis County - officially it was Wilmot Station. But that is not why, when in Fredericton this past Mother’s Day, I attended Wilmot United Church. I went to Wilmot United because it had a reputation. I knew that for years they would have world-class lecturers come and speak there. Decades ago it would be Marcus Borg or John Shelby Spong, or other sensational Biblical scholars on the fringe. 

The ‘Mothers Day’ Sunday I was there, in a few pews, downstairs and up, there were knitters knitting, during the service. They were celebrating a prayer shawl ministry, among other things, as they worshipped together.

There are many spiritual practices that a Baptist Christian might exercise: personal prayer, Christian meditation, tithing income, Bible reading and study, Bible memorization, spiritual direction, spiritual retreats, singing or making other music. 

One of the few I am any good at doing, and sticking with as a discipline, is worship, and by this I mean worshipping God with others: this. And it has fascinated me for decades. How does this work? What is really going on? Why are other people invested in it - or not? 

The Hebrews of old, at least in the Bible, seem always to be worshipping, in their strange and ancient ways. Let us go to His dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool says today’s Psalm. We catch glimpses of Jewish priests in their perfect clothing, shouts of joy from the faithful, and the Ark of the Covenant, that famed furniture of their ancient religion. 

Let me take you on my busman’s holiday, the places I praised with others this year that were not here. Ever been to Plaster Rock, NB? I hadn’t either. But a friend and former colleague lives there, so I visited her. Sunday morning (Aug 4) came ‘round, and I looked for a Church that was having service early. One white building with steeple had the name of the Church on it, St. Andrews United, but not a hint of services or times or anything. I happened to be driving around at 10 am, and saw about seven cars parked there. I went in. Worship had already started. 

A lay preacher was leading the service. She gave an OK sermon that seemed a bit traditional and also lengthy, I thought, for a United Church. Turns out, the preacher, visiting from Perth Andover, was a Baptist. A week later I saw her at Oasis, our Baptist meetings in Moncton, and she had just passed the examining council for ordination. She ‘became Reverend’ this past fall. 

At the end of my vacation I heard a true lay preacher, at St. George and St. Andrew United Church, Annapolis Royal. It was their interim organist who spoke, in plain, down-to-earth ways. Their minister, a friend of mine, was away on vacation that day.

The role of priest, preacher, pastor, minister, carries on for thousands of years… In Psalm 132, God declares, about Jewish Jerusalem, ‘its priests I will clothe with salvation.’ 

Some Anglican once said, ‘A priest should be a kind of living Sunday.’ Even as an ordained minister, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with clergy in the Church. We can be too influential. I value the role, as a profession, a calling, a home for my own career. We are to equip the saints for the work of ministry; ‘the saints’ being all of you. Worship is the work of the people, not a performance or holy lecture by me or Marlene. I believe I am never to say “I pray” when I am praying here - because I am simply guiding all of us. “We pray.” When I am focused in these ways, I am clothed in righteousness. So I do not want people attracted to Sunday morning by me. I need them to be attracted by Christ, and how Jesus shines out from all of us together.

The next week of August I skipped out early from the Baptist AGM called Oasis, to get to St. Martin’s, NB, for the Funday Sea Shanty Festival. I love that seaside village, and the music was delightful. Even when the weather was not. Sunday morning (Aug 11), I went to the St. Martin’s Baptist Church. One brief mention was made of the Sea Shanty Festival, but we did not sing any shanties in church. The guitarists who led the singing started off with this song, a new one to me:   

I'm using my Bible for a road map

The Ten Commandments they tell me what to do

The twelve disciples are my road signs

And Jesus will take me safely through

Psalm 132 says, ‘Let the faithful shout for joy.’ There are many ways people of faith ‘shout for joy.’ Or lament. Or pray in our music. Is it working? I have never been a member of a strong-singing congregation. In the pews, a proportion of people sing, but not most. And certainly not with any volume. My volume could beat all of you put together, I sometimes think. And spread sixty people out in a space for five hundred - it’s a recipe for mediocrity and mumbles. 

I want us to offer the world (our community) the spiritual practice of singing together. This still inspires me. But not everyone. Meanwhile, I daydream about having a ‘sea shanty service’ one day, and sing some rewritten versions of I’se the b’y,  Wellerman, Leave Her, Johnny or Guysborough Train. 

 On August 18th I was camping near Guysborough, NS. I found a handful of church buildings in that village; most seemed closed up. So I attended mass at St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church. The priest’s sermon did not endear me; it was a plug for attending the mass regularly. But the building was nice. Big, tall, clear windows. No stained glass. I could see out to the sky and the trees and the neighbourhood. One could say, Look! Jesus is coming with the clouds; every eye will see Him, if you were so inclined. 

I grew to love that kind of clear view, at worship, in the Manning Memorial Chapel at Acadia University. I try to be aware, in a room like this, of all that is unseen just outside these windows and the stone.  

The ancient Hebrew Temple was on a hill called Zion, in their city, Jerusalem. Celebrated in Psalm 132. Did you hear the part that says, I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread? In the midst of all the promises about their King, their anointed one, is how the surrounding people are cared for. When their final Anointed One arrived, Jesus, He was all about this.

A congregation that worships with the community in view is a congregation that has a place for others who care. Who believe God is in the business of blessing those who need a blessing. Who understand we are brought together to be sent out on our deployment, our mission. Our gathering must join us to be on this team together, out there on our own.

I’m not going to talk about my Sunday morning stop on August 25th; it was Trinity-St. Stephen’s United Church, Amherst, NS. And I have already mentioned Annapolis Royal on September 1st. Let me end with God’s call to gather and worship. The dramatic, dreamy words of the book of Revelation keep rejoicing with God in view. Chapter one is but the start of it. Every eye will see Christ, the Alpha and Omega - the A to Zed. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

One of Marva Dawn’s books about Christian worship is titled: A Royal Waste of Time. And here is what Frederick Buechener said about the worship service:

To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for him that he needs to be done—run errands for him, carry messages for him, fight on his side, feed his lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for him that you need to do—sing songs for him, create beautiful things for him, give things up for him, tell him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in him and make a fool of yourself for him in the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.

A Quaker Meeting, a Pontifical High Mass, the Family Service at First Presbyterian, a Holy Roller Happening—unless there is an element of joy and foolishness in the proceedings, the time would be better spent doing something useful. (Wishful Thinking, 1973, pp. 97-98)

Thank you for joining me for this royal waste of time.

SERMON: Provoke One Another: Ten Strider Lessons

(Hebrews 10:14-25; Mk 13:1-8) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 17, 2024, FBC Amherst

I have been ready for months to offer a talk about the blessings of being a Strider, part of the running and walking ‘club.’ I knew it was time when I read from Hebrews chapter 10 this week. This part of the Bible, called Hebrews, is really like one long sermon, addressed at first to some tired, discouraged people who were trying to follow Jesus in life. Keep going! Remember where your strength comes from! You all belong! Etc. This is the sort of stuff I hear in Hebrews, and among the Amherst Striders. So today, my Top Ten Lessons from the Amherst Striders:

ONE: ‘Everyone’ Is Welcome, Everyone Can Belong

There are exceptions: I believe there is an exception to everything. Including what I just said. ;) I know that not every person can run or walk. But the Striders is a loosely organized group for runners and walkers of various speeds and abilities. It is not tailored for the swift. It is suited to the slower, the beginner, and the shy. And we make you feel welcome.

Congregations for spirituality also know this. At least, we sing “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.” We do have improvements to make about other ways we are actually welcoming. We could say that any person can be confident to enter the sanctuary because of Jesus. “By the blood of Jesus” Hebrews 10 says, not by our own blood, sweat and tears. You are welcomed in.

TWO: Give Encouraging Words

About twenty-three months ago, I bravely came out for a Monday evening and joined these ‘Striders’ for a one hour run. The August before, on my own, I had run a bit, and got up to running ten kilometers – twice. Then, I did not run again, until January. Ya know what I remember from that first run with the Striders, and the next few? The encouraging words of Myrna, and Ken, and the others. ‘Good run! Keep at it! Well done!’

It was lies like that that kept me coming back for more punishment! ;) Seriously, there is important power in encouragement. I knew right away that I was welcome, and how this group was doing things was intended to include a beginner like me. I love this phrase from Hebrews 10 in the Bible: Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. The ‘let us consider’ part is about intention. We make our minds up to work on it, to figure out how to prompt the goodness in other people.

I wonder what a Church, a congregation of people, could learn from the Striders about encouraging words. “So good to worship with you!” “Good singing along today!” “Thanks for praying this week.” “Great work with the Spirit of Jesus at our committee meeting.”

THREE: Loop Back

A vital way a group out for a one hour run includes slower people is by looping back. The bunch up ahead, turns around and goes back to where the last runners are. So we are all together again. When we get spread out again along the road, those in front, and in the middle, loop back again. The speedier ones keep up their pace, and actually get more distance. The slower and slowest get to stay with the group, on the same route, and finish together.

This is a ‘how to’ for runners; a how to provoke good running together, and good running culture. So it is with other categories in our lives, such as how we tend to our spirituality, and bless one another. Once in a while, Baptist Christians might need to loop back to stay with others in their own moment of the soul, be it a time of discouragement, depression, trauma, pain, or confusion. I always rejoice when I see someone loop back to accompany someone else.

FOUR: There Is No Bad Weather, Only Poor Clothing

The Striders know this, but I first learned it from another group, the Fundy Erratics. That’s a hiking group centred in Digby. In the last decade I learned that people can hike in January and February, or in the rain of November. Not to mention run in all weather. There are ways of dressing and being prepared. All things are possible!

Those words we heard from Hebrews in the Bible were rather technical: lots of old Jewish theology and history tied up in that stuff about priests and sacrifices and covenants and all. Hopefully we get the drift with words like since we have confidence... let us enter... let us approach with a true heart... Let us hold fast to... our hope... Our religion has resilience training for us. Sometimes it even speaks of armour we can wear, including: what’s true, what’s right, good news of peace, faith, salvation, scripture. Training to use all this is so helpful.

Speaking of that, FIVE: It’s All In the Training

I stole that phrase from a friend in Parrsboro. And the idea from the Christian thinker, Dallas Willard. And from the example of the Striders. Training, training, training.

I know Yoda said to Luke Skywalker, “Do or do not; there is no try.” And maybe that was good Jedi wisdom. We don’t just try to accomplish a personal goal. We do something. We do things to prepare us, to train us. Sometimes we start small and work our way up. Sometimes we train with one activity that makes us ready to do something rather different.

I think, in Churches today, we need to develop more training programs for our spiritual goals. Prayer – there is so much to explore here, so many little steps we could take together to train. Generosity – what training could we use, making life more simple, frugal, kind, un-attached to stuff? Hope – in a discouraging day and age, what practices (practice makes perfect) can we offer to one another to claim hope?

SIX: Inspire One Another; Learn From One Another

I have only become a runner now, at this stage of life, because of other people. They (you) inspire me. You have taught me everything I know! Like some of the training which is stretching, before and after running. There is a stretch called ‘the pigeon’ that I have not quite taken to yet; maybe later. ;)

So it is in my own spiritual and religious life. I have hung around with so many people who are, as scripture says, like little clay pots that hold a beautiful treasure inside! Let us be committed to hanging out together, and discover the treasures each other holds. Share the inner treasure.

SEVEN: You Can Do More Than You Realized

The human body and the human spirit have limits. I remember so well the exhilarating experience of climbing Gros Morne in Newfoundland, seventeen years ago. I enjoyed the hike up that tallest hill in Newfoundland, on a beautiful day. Near the top, the steepest climb happens: one foot after another, up a rocky, steep slope. I found I could take a coupe more steps up, then take a break for half a minute, then a few more steps, then pant and break. Not being athletic, I truly felt the limits of my capabilities. And it was worth it. Learning what I could do, if I took the time.

And more is possible. Like, running a half marathon. I’d never done anything approaching that until this year. This year of my life. More is possible than I’d ever considered.

So it is with the things I preach. More is possible in our inner lives, and in how we do good for others in this world. How we do good for the whole word. More is possible in you, and you, and every other person.

EIGHT: Run Your Own Way, With Your Own Peeps

So, you join the Amherst Striders. Does this mean you must run or walk with others on Mondays at 6 pm, Wednesdays at 6 pm, and/or Saturdays at 8 am? No! There are lots of other moments that people run or walk together. Little groups that have their own habits, their own schedule, their own locations, their own speed and distances. They are still cheered on as Striders. Not to mention many folks who get out there, striding, on their own, solo.

Once upon a time, Jesus’ twelve closest disciples were travelling the countryside with Him, and discovered some other person setting people free from evil power ‘in the name of Jesus.’ John tried to stop them. But Jesus said, ‘No, don’t stop them. Whoever is not against us is for us.’ (Mark 9:40)

NINE: Everyone Gets a Medal

As you saw, I brought some of my own medals and awards today. How did I get them? How many runs did I place first in? Or second? Or third? Hmmm. None, not one. [Here, this one, the Lily Lake Lollygag, I am quite sure I got last place in the 10k. J Because, at the finish line, they were already talking and giving out the awards! How did I get these medals?] Everyone gets a medal.

We provoke one other to do good deeds, to do well at the race of life. There are many ways we give medals, awards, congratulations, kudos, props, encouragement. And we can give these to every – single – participant in life. The New Testament speaks of encouragement as a spiritual gift. Seek to have this encouragement flow through you to as many others as possible.

TEN: Welcome People Back

Someone used to be a runner. Used to come out and run or walk with others here in town. But they got out of the habit. Maybe they made some bad habits. Or, they had an injury that disrupted their activity. Months go by; maybe years. Then, then they show up. Starting again, they might be slower or shorter in distance. Nevertheless, “Welcome back! It is so good to see you back with us!” That’s the Strider way; that’s the attitude. I hear it in the talk among the folks who have been here longer than I have. They talk about people they know getting back into the swing of things – positively, happily. Striding again.

I guess we could say, ‘once a Strider, always a Strider.’ There is, in the history of Baptists and other Evangelicals, the saying, ‘once saved, always saved.’ I don’t actually plant my feet in the theological tradition that has said that, but the larger principle is good. ‘You were welcomed in? We will welcome you back.’

We have just spent almost an hour inside a grand, stone building, where very little walking and running happens. (But there is line dancing!) Like those disciples who entered their Temple, with Jesus, long ago, we may have wondered how long this will last. What happens next in faith, in society, in our own lives. ‘Keep calm,’ I think Jesus would say. ‘Don’t panic.’ Our role is to provoke one another to be loving, and to accomplish good. May you make great strides to do so.

SERMON: Seek Some Security

(Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Mk 12:38-44) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 8, 2024, FBC Amherst

Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, said to her, “My Daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.”(R 3:1) Your life and mine, today, are quite different from these two women, thousands of years ago. But we also might need some security, some sense of safety and hope. I do.

This past week, within a twenty-four hour period, I saw someone die, right in front of my eyes; I finished reading a serious book about the end of life as we know it, called Life After Doom; and a new president-elect was chosen in the United States of America. As an old friend would say, ‘it was a heavy week!’ I need to seek some security. Perhaps we all do.

Alongside the scripture readings for this day, and it being the eve of Remembrance Day, my own mind and soul have been overcome with these other three matters.

Wednesday morning, I arose early, as usual, and delayed checking on the world, to see what happened south of the border, until about 7:30 am. Later in the day, social media told me how various friends and acquaintances, not to mention educators and podcasters, were responding to the Trump win. Here are a few quotations:

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus.

He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.

Start building a wall, Canada.

Grief

Not all my friends are in the same camp.

Congratulations to all Americans!  You chose the best person to serve your country.  Next year it’s up to Canadians to do the same.

It does seem to be a time of uncertainty, including for us here, resting on the top of the USA. Concerns about so many things arose within me, as I listened just a little bit, to the alarms others were raising, in this return of President Trump.

In a season of speaking our own sense of including people at First Baptist, we get strong hints of some different attitudes among many millions in our world.

History repeats itself. It can also get more severe. I happened to listen to a bit of classic rock from my youth, Land of Confusion by Genesis, released in 1986. Funny how the song seems even more appropriate, in some ways, now.

Now did you read the news today

They say the danger's gone away

But I can see the fire's still alight

There burning into the night

There's too many men, too many people

Making too many problems

And not much love to go around

Can't you see this is a land of confusion?

Well, this is the world we live in (oh-oh-oh)

And these are the hands we're given (oh-oh-oh)

Use them and let's start trying (oh-oh-oh)

To make it a place worth living in

Back to the Bible now... At the time of Naomi and Ruth, it was also a ‘land of confusion. We can read: In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:15)

In the face of that terrible age (Just read the Book of Judges for details!) the amazing story of Naomi, Ruth & Boaz is given. And, as widow Naomi said to her widowed daughter-in-law, “I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.” The story takes us way back in time, amid some different, ancient, Middle-Eastern cultural practices. In harvest time, they find a way to connect with some locals, a relative, there in Bethlehem, and become secure in the community.

It is in togetherness that we get through our challenges, such as world events that are far bigger than us and our little corner of the world. Don’t you see this in the Ruth and Naomi story? Like them, we are here to seek some security for one another, to seek the well being of our neighbours – especially those on the edge, those in need or trouble. Is this not what our nation, at its best, has fought for around the world, and worked for as peacemakers?

Heavy moment two. This week, as I said, I finished Brian McLaren’s book, LIFE AFTER DOOM: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart. It is a book about the climate crisis, emergency. So, I was reading stuff like this:

...we can’t shake this sense that we’re all in trouble—all of us, really serious, tangled up trouble. It’s the feeling that our civilization’s Jenga tower is about to crumble...

If we felt doom about the global climate crisis alone, that would be bad enough. But we have also come to see that global overheating is the toxic cherry on top of a hot, festering mess of other global problems that go untreated because they remain unacknowledged.

I have known this, to some degree, for, oh, thirty-five years. Since I started my biology and chemistry degree at college. What have I done about it? How have I lived differently? When have I teamed up with others to make a difference? It is a bit like my occasional idea to stop eating so much sugar in my diet EVERY DAY. Great idea. I believe in it. Sounds simple – I am the one in charge of every things that goes into my mouth. But my habits stay the same. So too with my use of gasoline, electricity, water, paper, plastic. I stay the same.

This weighs on me a bit more, in past weeks, as I read and pondered how I see the world. As I pondered how Christ would lead me, and us, in better paths. And as this book got me wondering about how things will collapse in the world. How people will behave when things get worse and worse, and really bad. And what is our calling, as those who are clinging to Christ in this day and age? Surely Christianity will not be about survival, or only readiness for an afterlife. The Creator calls us to build a Kingdom, a Kin-dom, here. And to help in crisis time.

I have a nice, easy life, compared with millions. And maybe it will still be so for me when I celebrate my 80th birthday in 2050. What about the refugees on earth, or the local unhoused? The traumatized and the dying? The poor and those cruelly treated? As the Bible put it, the widows and the orphans? Remember Naomi and Ruth, refugees in famine. Or, centuries later in the Bible, the widow Jesus and the disciples observed giving her last coins to the Temple. Generous, sure, but was she being taken advantage of, oppressed by her own Faith? Jesus brought to the fore God’s ‘preferential option for the poor.’ That priority for the needy of the world that Creator has in the Bible, highlighted by the theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, who just died two weeks ago today.

If we are saved, Christ has saved us for good work. Good action is here for us to do, as the New Testament tells us. In crisis time, we belong to the God who walks thru the crisis.

Ready for heavy moment three? Death. We are certainly facing it as we honour our military of the past and present in these days. It is everywhere, of course. As Billy Graham said, in the States, the death rate in America is still very high. 100%!

In Digby, my sixty-first and final funeral service was for a woman I knew who died in her nursing home room, surrounded by family, with the help of MAID. I was nearby that day, though not in the room with everyone at that poignant moment. This past week, I was present for the death of a man I knew, from Annapolis Royal, at the Valley Hospice in Kentville. I went back down for the memorial service on Friday, which was a beautiful musical event, planned by my thoughtful friend.

It is an important, though sometimes unwelcome, privilege to be present when someone dies. It has happened for me just a few times in my life, so far. So blessed when it is peaceful; but many deaths in this world are unpleasant. To witness it is often horrible and traumatizing. Not my experience, yet.

Once more, I take us back to Naomi in the First Testament story. Remember, she had lost her husband, and her two married children. She renamed herself Mara, meaning Bitter.

Jump ahead again to the days of Ruth’s descendent, Jesus the Messiah! He saw a poor widow give her last money to the Temple. Again, she was a widow, which was a place of weakness and vulnerability in that society, not to mention the simple, life-long grief of that loss she carried.

The Spirit has held and kept these sacred stories for us, and the world, in order to bless those who have suffered a loss. In order to bless everyone. This life is short. It is fragile. It is precious. It matters. What good you do, on your own, is important. Seek some security for others. And what we accomplish together can be very good.

Ten days ago I heard retired Pastor, Dr. Barry Morrison, offer this excellent blessing (as good a word to end on as I can find). Dear ones, life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those with whom we walk this way. So let us be swift to love, make haste to be kind, and may the Holy One bless you, and make you a blessing. Amen.

SERMON: My God, Your God

(Ruth 1:1-18; Mk 12:28-34) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Nov 3, 2024, FBC Amherst

 It so happens that I keep seeing, in the Sunday scripture readings, elements of our new Inclusion Statement. October 20th, Job met Creator in a whirlwind and in all the elements of creation; I pondered indigenous Ethnicity and spirituality. Last Sunday, the Apostle Paul spoke of some disability that was his ‘thorn in the flesh.’ Ability (or disability). Next Sunday, Jesus points out a poor widow giving all she had at the Temple, two coins. Economic Status. 

Today, a foreigner follows her Jewish mother-in-law to her home in Judah. So I wonder some more about Colour, Ethnicity, and Creed. The story of Ruth, in just a few pages, stands out in the midst of many other texts in the First Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. Her name, Ruth, means ‘friend,’ and she certainly acts as a friend to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth had lived all her life in her native Moab, on the east side of the Dead Sea, a nation of people similar to the Hebrews but usually an enemy of them. She and her sister, Orpah, had married brothers, the two sons of a Jewish family who had come to Moab in time of famine. 

What does God think of those who are not of the Hebrew faith? Such as the Moabites? Or the Jebusites? The Ammorites? The Egyptians? We might know of many occasions in the Bible when they were to be eradicated, or at least kept at a distance. Somehow, Naomi and Elimelech and family live there, among the people of Moab. Tragically, after a decade, the men in the family have all died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law. Mother decides to go back to Judah, and her hometown, called Bethlehem. 

We can read over and over in the Bible of the challenges of various peoples getting along, or not. Sometimes one ethnic and religious group is very protective of its culture and religion, and treats everyone else as enemies. Have you done any reading in the book of Joshua lately? Or Judges? Many of the stories and the teachings are harsh. And very exclusive. The story of Ruth is set in the days of the Judges when, well, things were pretty wild.

Have you done any reading in the book of Baptists lately? Or Anglicans? Or Catholics, Nazarenes, Brethren? We too can be very exclusive, at times. Insisting on being in the right, and anyone who differs with us is in the wrong. Or, anyone who does not look like us, and do things the way we do, is not quite right. ‘Needs to learn from us!’

The Ruth story is the opposite of the ruthlessness of so much religion, now, and then. In contrast with the behaviours, and the beliefs, seen in the stories in the book of Judges, is the gentle, endearing way that this woman from Moab, Ruth, clings to her Mother-in-law and chooses to join her back in Bethlehem. 

Even Naomi can’t be certain how she will be received, back in her hometown, after a decade away, and with a foreign young woman accompanying her. You may know that the story does end well - more on this next Sunday. 

Suffice it for today to remember the poetic decision of Ruth.   Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people and your God my God.

Have you ever been a minority? Ever spent time among those who were not of your ethnicity, or your religion? Did it feel like home? Did it become home? Did you feel loved at all, by your neighbours? Have you ever felt yourself among people whose understanding of God was different? Your way of praying, or explaining, or singing, or behaving did not fit with the majority? 

Here, we now declare, in our Inclusion Statement, that we do welcome everyone regardless of colour, ethnicity and creed. And regardless of those other named categories, which are meant to catch just about everyone. I believe it has been a journey of First Baptist for many years to get to this point. For years and years we have been singing, “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.” We have been including people in this fellowship of Jesus who are diverse, different, and delightful to God. 

If Jewish Naomi and family could live in Moab for a decade and then go back; if Ruth can join her and enter Hebrew life in Bethlehem; if she can become (spoiler alert!) a great-grandmother of King David - then we can find our way to welcome all sorts of people into the family of God today. 

We have come to believe that the descendent of Ruth, named Jesus of Nazareth, meant all sorts of people, when He spoke of loving our neighbours as ourselves. Our differently-abled neighbour, our gay neighbour, our homeless neighbour, our differently- opinioned neighbour, our non-English-speaking neighbour. Who is my neighbour? Didn’t Jesus get asked that? And didn’t He answer?

Even our different conceptions of God and the Holy come together under one roof, in one fellowship. You have had great freedom in this for a long time, First Baptist, and this has been a gift. How you relate to God has an impact on my relationship with Christ, and vice versa. No wonder we do not feel compelled to re-baptize believers coming from other Christian churches. Diversity in the fellowship is a gift, and can even be a goal.

This past week I was hearing from Rev. John Perkin about life at First Baptist Ottawa, where he serves. In that busy, capital city, First Baptist has seen many new people join the life of the congregation, mainly non-white people. Their new, part-time associate minister is herself from Haiti, and a trilingual person. John mentions that Christians from Nigeria or Haiti or elsewhere have different opinions and theology they bring to the table. One Nigerian newcomer was not so sure about First Ottawa’s sense of including and affirming people of the LGBTQ community; but another African man who had been with them longer explained how he had learned this inclusion, this part of loving these neighbours as himself. The fellowship is learning from one another. May it also and always be so for us here.

We are going to sing a hymn later, words written by a mentor of mine, and First Baptist’s assistant minister of fifty years ago here. Before he died, in 2022, he had composed this:

Christ calls us to a journey Of faith and hope and love;

So we must still be learning Our wisdom from above:

The Spirit leads us onward Through faith that’s in the Word;

We walk the way that’s forward, By trusting all we’ve learned.

(R. H. Prentice)

SERMON: Thorn in the Flesh

(Job 42:1-6, 10-17; 2 Cor 12:6-10; Mk 10:46-52) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Oct 27, 2024, FBC Amherst

Is the Bible realistic, or unrealistic? Is Christianity down-to- earth, or idealistic?

One problem is a bit of a thorn in my side: all the happy endings in Bible stories. Because they don’t jive with all the tragedies of real life. Did all that really happen then? Well, why not now?

When we were finalizing our Identity Statement a month or so ago, one of our wise Deacons suggested we add to our list of diverse peoples who are all welcome in this fellowship of Jesus. That we add ability to colour, ethnicity, creed, economic background and so forth. People of any ability are welcome into the Church and all our work. This in itself may recognize the fact that we don’t expect every hurt, limited, injured or ill person to be healed by some miracle or other. 

But, some days, it seems like all the Bible stories are about miracles of healing and freedom from evil forces and even resurrection from being dead. Do our sacred stories have far too many happy endings?

Such as the finale of the book of Job? Today is Sunday four of four, skimming through this long, ancient book. We saw the profound response of this suffering man, Job, after God comes near. Job repents - makes a turn around - with dust and ashes: a very old, traditional way of expressing grief and humility. 

Then, then the ‘happy ending.’ His long-winded friends are told they were all wrong (and they must make sacrificial offerings to help Job pray for them). And then: Job ends up healed in body, gains a whole new family, and great riches in domestic animals. More than he’d had at first, in chapter one. 

Many people - from Bible scholars to folks like you and me - have wondered about this ending. And even wondered if it was not original: was it added on later? There is such power if it ends with Job humble and still faithful, in a heap before God. Why make it all sunshine and lollipops in the last eight verses?

I like the comments of Bible teacher Matt Skinner, a Presbyterian at Luther Seminary in Minnesota. Skinner made the point that he sees in the last paragraph of Job the message that people who suffer devastation can find happiness again. People who lost spouses or children can find happiness again with others, even new families. Not to discount the grief and trauma that is real and remains, and so on. So Skinner says that Job’s ending does not have to be either/or - an idealistic happy, happy ending, or a poor addition to the story of the book that dulls its impact. It is an ambiguous ending; it does give hope for new beginnings.

For me, there are two details in the finale that catch my attention. First, where we read that ‘the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.’ (J42:10) When all the sermons were over, and Job got to meet Almighty God, Job was blessed as he prayed for his friends who were no help to him at all. This is like what Jesus would teach, many centuries later: pray for those who persecute you.

The second detail is in the next verse. (J42:11) ‘Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring.’ Job’s truest friends appeared, and this was the start of the blessings. Perhaps it is true that many a miracle begins with some friends doing some good things for the person in trouble. That sounds real to me.

The Gospel lesson today is, once more, from Mark 10. Blind Bartimaeus is healed by Jesus. This is but one case among the many in these Jesus stories that sees a hurting person healed or freed from their trouble. Just skim through Mark and you can read of a man with an unclean spirit (1), Simon’s mother-in-in law with a fever (1), a leper in Galilee (1), a paralysed man (2), a man with a withered hand (3), and many others who were all healed. And this is just in the first three chapters of Mark! 

There are occasional exceptions - moments when Jesus does not heal an ill person or help someone with some other trouble. Such as the story of the rich young fellow, looking for the path to eternal life, who went away sad. We just read this a couple weeks ago here. The end of that man’s story is unknown. We have to go to another Gospel writer, John, for the story we see in our scarecrow at the front doors here: the death of John the Baptist. Here is a terrible horror that Jesus did not prevent, and later, Christ did not resurrect John, as He did with a few other people, such as His friend Lazarus.

The power, and the purpose, of all the healing stories must be pondered. The main point might not always be about miraculous healing. In the case of Bartimaeus, in Mark 10, we might see that those who said ‘be quiet!’ to the disabled man were wrong. Jesus called Bartimaeus to Him. When it is all said and done, we discover that Jesus calls others who suffer and are disabled to Him, and to follow, be they healed or not.

Such as the Apostle Paul. I picked out this reading from 2 Cor 12  today, in which Paul famously writes about his thorn in the flesh.  At last! Here is an un-healed, un-erased problem.

Much ink has been spilled by great thinkers about just what was Paul’s problem? Many illnesses have been suggested, not to mention other problems (some enemy who dogged him?) that could have been his thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment him. Sounds quite serious! Paul saw some purpose in his mysterious problem: it kept him humble, amid some profound spiritual experiences he enjoyed. He mentions praying three times for it to be removed, but no. The grace of God had to be enough for Paul.

I dare say most people on earth will endure some pains and limitations that come their way. And which won’t go away. And, amazing things, gracious things, can germinate and grow from a rugged seed planted in the dark, damp earth (and crap) of life. God’s grace is sufficient, in the face of difficulties and even evil forces.

Henri Nouwen was a priest and a brilliant teacher at places like Harvard and Yale. Feeling led by God, he spent the last decade of his life living in a community of people with severe emotional, mental, and physical disabilities. Henri tells a story about Trevor, a man with severe mental and emotional challenges who was sent by Henri's community to a psychiatric facility for evaluation. Henri wanted to see him, so he called the hospital to arrange a visit. When those in authority found out that Henri Nouwen was coming, they asked if they could have a lunch with him in the Golden Room—a special meeting room at the facility. They would also invite doctors and clergy people to the special luncheon. Henri agreed.

When Henri arrived, they took him to the Golden Room, but Trevor was nowhere to be seen. Troubled, Henri asked about Trevor's whereabouts. "Trevor cannot come to lunch," he was told. "Patients and staff are not allowed to have lunch together. Plus, no patient has ever had lunch in the Golden Room."

Henri was not a confrontational person. But, knowing that community is about inclusion, Henri thought, Trevor ought to be here. So Henri turned to the person in authority and said, "But the whole purpose of my coming was to have lunch with Trevor. If Trevor is not allowed to attend the lunch, I will not attend either."

The thought of missing an opportunity for lunch with Henri Nouwen was too much. They soon found a way for Trevor to attend. 

When they all gathered together, something interesting happened. At one point during the lunch, Henri was talking to the person on his right and didn't notice that Trevor had stood up and lifted his glass of Coca-Cola. "A toast. I will now offer a toast," Trevor said to the group.

Everybody in the room got nervous. What was he going to do?

Then Trevor, this deeply challenged man in a room full of PhDs, started to sing, "If you're happy and you know it, raise your glass. If you're happy and you know it, raise your glass…"

Nobody was sure what to do. It was awkward. Here was this man with a level of challenge and brokenness they could not begin to understand, yet he was beaming. He was thrilled to be there. So they started to sing. Softly at first, and then louder and louder until doctors and clergymen and Henri Nouwen were all practically shouting, "If you're happy and you know it, raise your glass."

Henri went on to give a talk at the luncheon, but the moment everybody remembered—the moment God spoke most clearly—was through the person they all would have said was the least likely person to speak for God.

A person ‘with limitations’ is still a person.  A person can thrive with a thorn in their side. Trevor did. Henri Nouwen did. The Apostle Paul did.  This is also some of what shines from our sacred scriptures, and what shines from our own lives today. 

We used a nice, new prayer book earlier today, and the title says it all, I think: ‘The Lives We Actually Have.’ Our conversations with God, and with one another, must be real, actual, down-to-earth. It is here we will survive many things, and thrive through many challenges. Thanks be to God, in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

SERMON: Meeting Creator

(Job 38:1-7, 34-41; Ps 104: ; Mk 10:35-45) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, Oct 20, 2024, FBC Amherst

This week I have been enjoying the full moon. Friday at 8 pm I walked on a beach and a road, and turned out my flashlight so my only light was from the very bright, almost still full moon. I have not yet seen the comet that is up there, and I missed out on the recent northern lights. I’m being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow. 

We started our ceremony here with some of Psalm 81. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day. We don’t count our months by the moons, but the Hebrews did. And so do the many indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. I am no expert at all in indigenous spirituality, and I barely know any first nations people personally. But let me take us on a short journey in respect of those who have been in this land far longer than us.

An attitude we share in common is our sense that we are part of creation. In Genesis 1:24, the sixth day in that story of creation, people get made on the same day as cattle and various creeping things. We do not need to see ourselves as supreme, or separate, or even ‘best of’ what’s in the world. We don’t need to make those value judgments. 

What we also share, I suppose, is how we can know the Creator in creation. 

Can ‘God’ be understood? We sometimes wonder - and for good reason. At the centre of the Christian story is how we meet God as part of creation. As the Messiah. 

We read a bit more of the Jesus story in Mark today. This has been a year for Mark’s Gospel. Here we see how it is tempting to want to be close to Power, closer to God. Like James and John. 

But this competitiveness is not Jesus’ Way. The Gospel scene today, follows right after Jesus said, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” Soon after – the next day perhaps - James and John express their ambition, so they seem to require a repeat of the message. “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

The climb to be greater, better, at the top, is not quite the Way of Jesus. Our recent Inclusion Statement borrowed a good phrase. It’s put this way: we believe that Jesus taught and practiced an inclusive discipleship of equals... Not only is our human fellowship aimed at being gracious and generous and sharing, our fellowship with all the creatures and elements of the world can be humble.

In contrast with that story are the scenes from Job today. 

What would you want, from a meeting with the Creator, if all your business dealings (including your pension plan) got destroyed? Or if a bunch of your family died – and not the older ones, the younger ones, your children? Or if your own health failed, you got some very gross disease, severe pain, and you got shunned by some because of it? This is the ancient story of Job. He wants to know why? Why all this disaster? His visitors all think they know why – they blame Job. He must deserve it, must have done despicable things. But no, he had not.

Finally, chapter 38, in a whirlwind, God is there! And the speeches, they only speak of the marvels of creation – sun, moon and stars, weather upon earth, animals and their life cycles, ending with a couple great aquatic creatures.

Do you know these? Do you understand them? Did you plan the stars, or the times when the wild donkey raises its baby? Or can you tame the Nile crocodile? That’s what God says to suffering Job.

Or maybe, shows to Job. All these marvels of creation are before Job’s eyes, and are bigger than his one life and its problems, apparently. Job does not get answers. He gets questions, visions, mysteries. No reasons are given for his suffering, or explanations of why the speeches of Job’s visitors were wrong. Job gets to meet the Maker. And meet Creator in the creatures of creation.

I ponder the people I know and have known who have big suffering, and wonder why? Is it someone’s fault? How is it going to end? 

I think of a friend Sharon and I had for years, in the Valley, Jennifer. She was about our age, in ministry, slowly working her way thru divinity school part time. I discovered what a beautiful writer she was when she got diagnosed with cancer, and posted occasional reports on social media. After she died, I went back and saved all she wrote - I have this idea to have a special service someday where we read Jennifer’s cancer journey. Here are just three excerpts, in her own words. Listen to her attitude, her spirit!

May 23 This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!

The consensus is that the cancer is so aggressive that it is causing me to bleed internally and be infected, all of the issues are the same problem. It is growing so ridiculously fast. I can feel it.

There is always hope. I am filled with peace. God is good. All the time. And I am humbled that God’s people are praying for me. Thank you! Please pray for my husband and our families too. 

Much love…

June 1 8:09 pm

Odd things and observations from life in the VG. We know we are exactly where we are supposed to be and God is allowing me to convalesce and recover here daily. The staff is wonderful. Everyday is interesting! It is an adventure!

1. The water is contaminated. I can not shower. I cannot wash my hair. I need to wear a mask and close my eyes to wash my hands and flush. If cancer doesn’t kill me.... the water could. Jon cleans me up with bottled water from the kitchen for sponge baths and to try and wash my hair in the sink. Refreshing!

2. It costs $14.50 a day during the week to park our car here.

3. Anytime my friends come to visit me in the daytime on a weekday there is no parking in the lot. Or on any nearby streets. Parking is a real problem here.

4. The internet is slower than our internet on the mountain that comes over satellite. I think Jon said the wifi is .3 to .78 Mbps. 

It also kicks him off every two hours. He can get his work done on it and we are glad for it. Apparently until recently only one floor had it. Thank you to whoever fought for it and paid for it for patients on this floor!

5. There is a nice little cafeteria in the building but it does not feed patients. Patient meals are prepared at the infirmary site and shipped out to the other hospitals and they are later heated somewhere here. you have to order them a few days ahead or they pick what you get. My first meal was burnt spaghetti on a disposable plastic plate. Not sure how that happens... I have had good bad and ugly delivered but I have also had to throw so much food away it sickens me.

6. One day I threw up into a plastic bin. They just tossed it into the garbage and passed me a new one. The garbage can in my room is a big Rubbermaid roughtote kind. It is filled and emptied at least once a day. … The amount of single use plastic garbage here has been overwhelming me. I asked what they do with it. As every cancer hospital should... they burn it.

6. The nurses are amazing. I haven’t had one yet that I haven’t liked or that hasn’t taken wonderful care of me. The lab technicians each morning are great too. The doctors are fantastic!

7. Last night one of my neighbours was rather irate about the mice running around and no one seemingly doing anything about it. Pretty sure I saw one in my room last week. I didn’t announce it. I feel like I’m camping here. There are always rodents when you camp. I do feel bad for Jon because his bed is closer to the floor than mine. We gave our nurse a peace offering for her to give the man and apparently it may have helped sooth him.

8. Last night one of my neighbours died.

9. We have been told here that one in two Nova Scotians will be diagnosed with cancer.

10. My Patient Navigator in the valley told me she gets 30 new cancer patients assigned to her every month for King’s and Annapolis Counties. A new cancer patient a day.... and how many counties does Nova Scotia have???

And this is her last post, from June 13th that year. Not the whole poem - parts of it…

‘‘Twas the night before chemo and all through the house, 

not a creature was stirring, save the hospital’s mouse.

The iv bags were hung on standby with care, 

in the hopes that more healing soon would be there.

The patients were nestled all snug in their beds, 

pushing nurses buttons to make them stand on their heads.

And I in my kerchief, (or should I be wearing a cap?) 

had just settled down for a brief little nap.

Perhaps tomorrow’s cycle of chemical blast 

will be just what we need to send this disease to the past.

A growing pile of blessings make me believe all miracles can be true. 

I’ll leave God in charge, what else can I do?

I don’t believe that he gave this trouble to me, 

but even if he did, I will trust He.

There are bags of support drugs to keep you strong through the initial attack.

Once you have started, there’s no going back.

For 24 hours, or 48, who is sure? That chemical spins to all of your parts, 

you become rather toxic, even your farts.

And then when you’re feeling you’re actually green, 

you start to get rid of it and maybe come clean.

Chemo speaks not a word so pray it goes straight to work, 

And kills all the cancer, and isn’t a jerk.

But let us exclaim as we log off this site

HAPPY CHEMO-EVE TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Jennifer, wonderful delightful Jennifer, died on June 20. Did she get answers? I think she was an answer. A shining light. One who walked with Creator, with Jesus.

Job did not get answers, but got to hear from the Divine Answerer. Job got a similar answer, I think, that poet Mary Oliver did. Here is her poem, ‘I Go Down to the Shore.’

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall –

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

excuse me, I have work to do.

Isn’t this the experience in Job 38-41. The focus of the trees and the seas, the birds and the stars is not you or me. What’s going on out there is much bigger than any one of us. 

We like to give meaning to nature’s things; people do this all the time. A bright red bird, a cardinal, visits your yard: it is a deceased loved one. It rains on a loved one’s wedding: good luck. What about our big issues? Do we meet our God out in the world like Job did? When we see the sunset or the tides, the frost or the white-tailed deer? 

I think I have mentioned my friend, Brian, before. He was born in the 1940s. He is a paraglider, for decades climbing up hills around Parrsboro, waiting for the wind to be right so he can take off with his wing and soar like the hawks. His partner, Ruth, would joke that he is up on a hill somewhere, ‘working out his problems.’

Brian is such a relaxed man, we don’t think of him having many problems to work out. But that’s the experience of some - getting out, getting away from it all, to ponder and process life’s challenges. 

Indigenous spiritually is deeply rooted in all the creatures of the earth. Even a lake or a mountain is thought of in personal ways, not to mention the raven or the squirrel. An upcoming Crash Course video about religion will ask, “can a river be a person?” Can the Maccan River be my brother? When we think of each part of the environment as personal, we may respect each element and living thing more. My brother is worthwhile, my sister is valuable.

God may answer us in our problems not with answers, but with being there, the divine presence. And some holy perspective. This world is not all about me. It has even been said, ‘your life is not about you.’ Even, like Job of old, we may live to prove that evil is wrong. Your life is not about you; your life is your message. ‘Actions speak louder than words,’ don’t we say. Amen to that. 

God knows all the things of creation. Including you. God is here. Meeting Creator in creation is a piece of every single day. And can be profound and powerful in some serious moments of life.

SERMON: Who Can Be Saved?

(Job 23:1-11; Heb 4:12-16; Mk 10:17-31) J G White

10:30 am, Sun, Oct  13, 2024, FBC Amherst

This month’s First Testament readings are from the ancient book of Job. Job being a man who is painfully ill, and the rest of his life was destroyed also: the possessions & the people near & dear to him. 

What can save Job? Today we heard from the middle of the book, the middle of all the speeches between Job and those who visit him. Here, Job cries out, not finding God. If only he could find the Creator, who would defend him as if in a court of law, and prove Job innocent. Because his ‘friends’ all think him guilty. 

In my own experience, this month, I have all these people under my care who are seriously ill. The ones who are undergoing amazing cancer treatments, which are very hard at times, but miraculous in their own way too. The people who have been through many treatments, and perhaps are healed, healed for a long time into the future. The folks who are just starting to find out what the problem in their body is, and what can be done about it. And the people who have been through it all, there is no more healing work to be done, and the number of future days here is unknown.

I wonder about my prayers for them (& guiding your attention to them) & how we find Jesus the Great Physician. Is our Holy Healer as hard to get to as a doctor at the ER of a Nova Scotia hospital? Can our friends be saved from pain and problems? Be saved from dying? 

What words of Job did we read from today?

O that I knew where I might find him,

that I might come even to his dwelling. (23:3)

If I go forward, he is not there; 

or backward, I cannot perceive him; (23:8)

If God’s saving help is sometimes for all the challenges of this life, making that connection is so important. And hard when others around us think we have what we deserve. But deep in the soul is that longing, that knowing of the One who made us, who is Love.

Here is another example I think of when I read Job - I wonder about people who are oppressed, mistreated by ‘friends.’ Who can be saved? Saved from injustice?

A week or two ago I got a book I’d been curious about since it came out in 2016. ‘Secret Path’ by Gord Dwonie and Jeff Lemire: the story of a boy who fled residential school, in October, 1966, and tried to walk home, find home; and did not. The harsh and poignant tale of Chanie Wenjack is told in this graphic novel and poetry. I think there is really nothing for me to say about it: it simply needs to be seen, viewed, read. Perhaps Next Sunday I will pay particular attention in our worship to indigenous peoples and our Gospel. October is Mi’Kmaw history month in Nova Scotia.

Who can be saved? What do we think is meant by the question?

Saved. Saved from what? Saved for what?

Saving people from afterlife problems, and evil now.

Saving people and communities from hurricanes.

Saving people and communities from war and violence. 

Saving them from illness, pain, injury.

Saving more than us - all of creation, which might be crashing. 

Another book I bought this year is Brian McLaren’s “Life After Doom: wisdom and courage for a world falling apart.” I just started reading it. It speaks of how we, as earth destroyers, are needing mercy and grace and hope, in the face of the impossible, perhaps. (I also rewatched, recently, that film, Don’t Look Up, which is funny and thought-provoking.) ‘It’s the end of the world, as we know it’ - and do we feel fine?

We have been so rich in things - probably become too rich, on the backs of the whole creation, and other people - and we have even stolen from the future generations, really. Taken and used up too much of what is here. 

Can we be saved? Or will the only salvation be in the afterlife - this world will end? What’s left of things here will become, more and more, a place of suffering? 

Going to heaven is not the goal of religion, wrote Richard Rohr. Salvation isn’t an evacuation plan or a reward for the next world. Whenever we live in conscious, loving union with God, which is eventually to love everything, we are saved. This can and should happen now in this world. Social justice advocate Dorothy Day (1897-1980) credited Catherine of Siena’s inspiration for her often-shared words: “All the way to Heaven is heaven, because He said, ‘I am the Way.’” (Richard Rohr, Dec 19, 2017)

All the way to heaven is heaven. Jesus is the Way. Day by day, we might get back to God. You may know the story of a newborn baby’s homecoming, which illustrates the implanted memory of union with God or heaven. A newborn’s precocious four-year old sibling tells her parents, “I want to talk to my new little brother alone.” The parents put their ears to the nursery door and hear the little girl saying to her baby brother, “Quick, tell me! Who made you. Tell me where you came from. I’m starting to forget!”

When we have forgotten, we need a path back. 

Friday here, we had a wedding rehearsal, and yesterday afternoon the wedding. What a joyful time it is for me to spend some time with a bunch of twenty-somethings, and several couples have a baby or toddler. Their lives together are beginning, and new people are being born. There is such joy in these young, innocent lives. 

I wonder what hopes and dreams the next generations have. Also what dreads and fears. Who can be saved? I believe the door of hope is open, but not easy. There is good news from God for these generations too. We get to be deployed here to share the path of Jesus, and in the values we spelled out in our Statement of Inclusion, for instance. 

Who can be saved? Back in the days of Jesus, a person who got to be wealthy was thought of as blessed. But it is easier to thread a needle with a camel than get a rich person into God’s Kingdom! If the blessed could barely get into the Kingdom, what hope is there? Jesus told His disciples, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

When we are most needy, blessing is most possible. When we are most in need of healing, of hope, of justice, of belonging, of answers, or of purpose, it is then that we are ready for the impossible to happen.

We look for all things possible, in all the ways we think of ‘salvation.’ So we follow Christ, and we find out!

SERMON: Complain, Complain, Complain Why? - Rev. Marlene Quinn

As we prepare to receive this morning’s message, let us come before the Lord in Prayer. Let’s pray: O Lord let the words of my mouth and the mediations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In Cumberland County we are known to talk about the weather a great deal. A saying we often use; if you do not like the weather wait 5 minutes it will change. So what do we say about the weather? Well, it’s too hot, it’s too cold? We have too much rain? Not enough sunshine. Too windy. We call this talking about the weather but if we wanted too we could call it complaining. Why? Because there is absolutely nothing we can do about the weather it is all controlled by God, our creator, our sustainer. But this is what the Israelites are currently doing in our scripture reading today.  (Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16-24-29).

 The Israelites were God’s chosen People. Back in the Book of Exodus they were enslaved by the Egyptians, they cried out to God to rescue them from their enslavement. God called Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, out of bondage, into a land flowing with milk and honey in other words freedom. 

The Israelites ended up spending 40 years in the wilderness before they reached the Promise Land, meaning two generations. The Bible considers one generation to be 20 years. Some of the older Israelites who started out on this journey would have passed on but their family members would have heard stories about the enslavement, how they were treated, how they were fed, how they were sheltered. By the time this section of Numbers would have been experienced the Israelites had spend a great deal of time in the wilderness. They would be feeling frustrated, discouraged, depressed, after all when would this journey end? When would they be in the promise land? When they run out of food they complain to Moses about their hunger, their lack of food and why is God not providing for them on this journey. Moses takes his concerns to God. Why? Moses was called by God in the burning bush event to lead the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan. God spoke directly to Moses and Moses communicated God’s words directly to the Israelites.

 God provides manna food from heaven bread for their consumption. Manna. What is it? It was a white powdery substance which fell at night on the ground, it had to be gathered early in the morning before it got too hot or it would melt.

The Israelites gathered just enough for their meals each day, except for the Sabbath. The day before the Sabbath they would collect enough for two days as God did not send the manna on the Sabbath. Recall the 10 commandments, God gave Moses: Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. On all the other days if they gathered more than what was needed for one day whatever was left over would spoil. The Israelites would take this substance and make bread out of it to eat.

I want to back track just a bit. Numbers 10 the Israelites are currently camped at Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the ten commandments. They set out from here to continue their journey to the promise land. It has been a long, long time since they had left Egypt. For most of us a coffee and a cinnamon roll smothered with cream cheese icing is a treat. But image if you were to drink and eat this everyday for breakfast, lunch and supper for years. YA I hear you.

Well this is exactly what the Israelites were doing they were grumbling about their steady diet of manna. They were reminiscing about how good they had it in Egypt (We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all to look at and eat but this manna.

It is important to remember the Exodus account; it was not only the people of Israel who came from Egypt but Egyptians as well as people from other nations also came with the people of Israel. It is this group called the rabble that start crying for meat and then the Israelites join in with them. Yet they had forgotten about their enslavement and how they had cried out to God to rescue them.

The Israelites in their reminiscing felt it cost them nothing to eat fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic. Did it cost them nothing? That food cost them their very lives as they were slaves in Egypt. But all they can think about is the variety of food. Even though this manna was made into breads, cakes, and pastries the Israelites could no longer stomach eating it.

The problem here is what people are communicating. They are essentially saying life was better before they knew God. Life was better when they were not on the way to the promise land. Life was better when they were enslaved.  So....they are actually complaining about what they do not have. They are complaining about what God is not giving them.

In the first three verses they were complaining about what God was giving them in life (hardships).

Now they are complaining about what God is not giving them (a better menu of food). The Israelites had wept again and said” If only we had meat to eat! They remember the provisions of Egypt and complain against God’s provisions.

God says he will give the people meat to eat but they will not just eat it for one or two days but for a month until it comes out their noses and they hate it “because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt?’” (11:20). God says he is going to give the people so much meat that they will hate it.

We need to remember back in the Book of Exodus the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians and cried to God to rescue them from their bondage. Yet when they got tired of the manna God was sending to them so they could eat, the Israelites forgot about their enslavement and how they cried out to God to rescue them. We know this when we read the question why did we come out of Egypt? (Numbers 11:20).

Now we see how sensitive Moses has become from dealing with these people day after day.

Moses can’t understand how it will be possible to feed over 600,000 people meat. We can’t even kill all our flocks for us to have meat to eat (11:22). God, what you said is not possible. Now before we go on I want us to catch something. You have heard this story before. You have seen this happen before in the New Testament. When Jesus is going to feed the 5000, Jesus tells the disciples to not send the people away but to give them food to eat (Matthew 14:16). Remember the response of the disciples is the same. I wanted you to see Jesus modeling the events of the exodus and the wilderness so the people will see Jesus as the greater Moses. So back to Numbers 11 we see God’s answer to be simple.

Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Is there something God cannot do? The hand of the Lord speaks to his power. Is it possible for God’s hand to not accomplish what he says? Now you will see whether my word will come true for you or not. God can and will always do what he says. Moses understands something the people do not understand: it is not about Moses. The people think it is about them. Our life is hard. We do not have the food we want to eat. We want what we want when we want it. We deserve certain things from God. We think God should do things for us. But Moses understands it is not about himself but about God. The people think it is about themselves; so that is why they complain.

This leads us to what God is going to do to teach the people.

There are so many problems with the sin of complaining. First, our complaints are received by God as acts of faithlessness. We are not happy with what God is doing for us. We are telling God we know better than he. We are telling God this life he has ordered is not good enough. When we complain we are undervaluing the provisions of God. Is this not what the people say throughout this chapter? They are complaining about their hardships. They are complaining about the food they are eating. God is doing a terrible job. Ultimately, complaining is the rejecting of the Lord who is with us on this journey. We are in the wilderness on the way to the promise land.

 How many times have we complained against the Lord about our circumstances, about our provisions, and about our possessions? How about the words of these Israelites? Our strength is dried up and we can no longer go with the Lord because of what is happening in our lives and what God is doing for us.

What Moses says is the answer to complaining and the answer to walking by faith: it is not about me. I am not important in God’s story. My life is a part of God’s story. God is not a part of my life story. I am part of God’s story. May God use me as an instrument in his service. This is what Moses understands. This must be our outlook on life if we will walk by faith and avoid complaining.

This leaves us with the final piece of the account. What did these people need? They needed an intercessor to go before God. The wrath of God is deserved against us for all our complaining. How often we have been faithless toward God because we have complained about his provisions or about the hardships of life. But God has given us an intercessor who goes before God on our behalf so that we do not have to experience the wrath of God. Jesus is our faithful intercessor whose sacrifice makes atonement possible, covering over our sins.

Put away the heart of complaining and grab hold of Jesus as our faithful advocate and intercessor who saves us from the wrath of God which we most certainly deserve. It is not about me. It is about God. It is about his story, not mine. Our lives are in his hands and he will use us for his purposes. Amen

SERMON: Whence Wisdom?

(Prv 1:20-33, Ps 19, Jm 3:1-12) J G White

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 15, 2024, FBC Amherst

Whence wisdom? Whence cometh wisdom? Where, how, when do we find answers, truth, the best ways to live this life?

I almost named this sermon ‘Wise / Dumb,’ a play on ‘wisdom,’ but at the end of the week, I did not want to home in on the contrast between wisdom and being dumb or foolish. Even though we hear that contrast in the opening scene of the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice… “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?”

Do we ever hear true wisdom offered up on street corners? In our community?  Three Sundays ago, at the corner of Ratchford and Havelock, a street preacher, with amplification, was calling out the local church and minister, giving an incessant warning. I don’t think that was wisdom - at least, not much. No great fount of it. 

Think about where you find wisdom today. Where you go for life coaching, for personal guidance, for help in understanding your world. What teachings attract you? What spiritual guides do you end up paying attention to, these days? There are many, many sources claiming to be an ‘answer.’

In God’s world, much of the wisdom does come to us through people. Some wise Jew of the ancient world was inspired to put these proverbs down on papyrus. We have people we know in our own lives who are wise ones, elders - some of them - whom we go to, to whom we listen, when they speak. 

Last week one person I spent some time with is elderly: in her nineties. She is experienced in life. Though she has suffered vision loss, and is hard of hearing, her mind and heart are still keen. We got talking - she and her daughter and I - about time, and age, previous generations and the younger ones around us now. This woman’s memory is keen. And I think she is still learning things. Learning things about her family. Learning things about how to live life when you can’t see much anymore, and everyone has a new phone number, and you must simply memorise them all, for instance. She keeps up a skill so many of us have lost. 

She might not claim to be a wise elder.  She might even have days when she wonders why she is still here, still alive. We who know her are grateful for her. She remains a touchstone of wisdom, a gift from God among us, as every person is, to tell some truth. I think the biblical Woman, Wisdom, calls out to those who will listen: when I meet up with this elder, here in our town. And many others.

We did not quite read Psalm 19 today: we read a poem inspired by it. Don’t you just love Psalm 19? The heavens are telling the glory of God. The days and the nights speak, but there are no words. It is a communicating Cosmos we live in. The first half of the Psalm is all about the sky, which I enjoy immensely. And does it speak? Is there wisdom? Yes, yes there is. Holiness grows as we are silent before it. 

Having lived so much of my life near the Bay of Fundy and the Minas Basin, I am a tide watcher. The Biblical people did not have tides to view, so none of their stories and poetry are tidal. The closest they come is when the Hebrews crossed the ‘Reed Sea,’ and forty years later, the Jordan River. The stormy sea is so often a threat, a danger in their imagination. 

For me, the steady, somewhat predictable, tidal cycle is so powerful, so sure, so beautiful, so dangerous, so amazing. I can wander for hours at Five Islands, Economy Point, Kingsport or Cape Split and watch the water flow in, relentlessly. This summer I was hiking one morning with friends along the beach from Fox River to Diligent River. It was sunny, and perfectly calm. Barely a ripple on the water. The water was moving, the tide flowing in the channel to fill the Minas Basin. At one point, looking across to Cape Split, about 6 kms away, I could hear a sound: a gentle roar in the distance. No plane, no car to be heard, not a boat in sight. It was the water. It was the water ripping and rushing and foaming over at Cape Split. We could hear it roaring, kilometres away. 

It gets called the Voice of the Moon, that roaring water of the Split. Because the Moon (with the Sun’s help) is sloshing all this water around the earth, and speaking with that roaring salt water. As Regina Coupar’s Psalm 19 says,   we look to the sea

and feel

your strength in the waves

Or as an old hymn says:

All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.

You, you may seek and find wisdom - and the voice of God - in other elements of nature. The birds in your yard. The flowers and fruit growing. The animals of your life. Hand in hand with the words of scripture are the words of the whole world.

And, we look for wisdom in those who teach and train and write and guide.  But we have warnings, in the New Testament, in James. A retired teacher read aloud, Not many of you should become teachers, my siblings, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make mistakes. And a preacher repeats the words. 

There are so many teachers and preachers among us: in books, in lecture halls, in pulpits; in blogs and podcasts, TV and internet; the influencers and activists and authors. They are inside Christianity, and on the fringe, and outside it completely. Could not our loving, powerful Master make use of most of them? So it was in Bible days.

I thought I should listen to some local voices of leadership and life coaching and motivational speaking. More than one resident of Amherst is a guide, with podcasts and books and seminars on offer. Perhaps you know some. Perhaps you have found some wise counsel and encouragement and correction and guidance. I found it quite interesting - and encouraging- this week, to listen to Stephanie Allen on podcasts, and Patrick Manifold. 

Bless God for the gifts of good advice and wonderful thinking. Bless God for the gifts of powerful storytelling and wise counsel. Bless God for the gifts of beautiful artistry and inspiring creativity. These all speak - sometimes beyond words - to the soul and body and society. Bless us when we do long for and hunger for wisdom…

Let me close with wise words from a wise person. Christian author, Frederick Buechner, said this about ‘Wishful Thinking,’ which was also the title of one of his delightful books. 

Christianity is mainly wishful thinking. Even the part about Judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept. 

Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown-up is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking. 

Sometimes wishing is the wings the truth comes true on. 

Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.

[1973, p. 96]

SERMON: Judge Ability

(Prov 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Ps 125; Jm 2:1-10, 14-17; Mk 7:24-37) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, September 8, 2024, FBC Amherst

Three weeks ago today I took the picture you see on the cover of today’s bulletin. I happened to be travelling home along the Eastern Shore of NS, and discovered that the annual sand sculpture contest was that very Sunday, on Clam Harbour Beach. With about eight thousand other people, I viewed the diverse sandcastles and sculptures. Each one in the competition was marked with a number. 

But of course, along part of the beach was this sign. The organizers and judges of the competition did not want artists expecting to enter all along the whole beach. So, from this spot, there were to be no more sculptures to be judged in the contest. NO Judging Past This Point. 

I knew I had to take a picture of that little sign. And I thought about how many uses we could come up with for that sign. ‘No judging past this point.’ A lot of us - if you are like me - need to see that sign every day of our lives. Because we have a tendency to judge lots of things and many people, moment by moment, each day. 

Many things are said in the scriptures of our Faith about judgement and judging. Oft quoted is the phrase, judge not, that ye be not judged. (Jesus, in His sermon on the mount ~ Matt 7:1 KJV). There are many moments when we need to judge something as good or bad or whatever. We need to choose, and choose well. But there are limits to what and how and who we judge. 

These phrases come up in various sacred texts we heard today. The little book of James, filled with wise dos and don’ts, tells of the favouritism that’s shown to the fine people we’d love to associate with. Folks become ‘judges with evil thoughts,’ it says here. 

Looking way back, Proverbs 22 and Psalm 125 both hint at - or illustrate -  judgements we make about the rich and the poor, so called, as well as the upright of heart and those of crooked ways. 

With the great brains and hearts and lives we have been given, we have the ability to judge, to judge for ourselves many things. 

I am just finishing a little novel of historical fiction, called Two Crows Sorrow, by Laura Churchill Duke. It is about a real drama in rural Kings County, and a murder case that is in the historical record. I was interested to discover that the judge of the supreme court who was called upon then, 1904, in Kentville, was Judge Charles Townshend, of Amherst. The novel takes one’s imagination into the life and work of a judge like Townshend, 120 years ago. And the courtroom scenes in the novel are filled with crowds of curious people, all making value judgements about the ones on trial, gossiping, and sometimes calling out for their version of justice!

I am guessing that none of us here has been judge in court of law, but we judge many matters in our lives. To know the limits of our judging job: there’s true wisdom. And loving kindness. So we each learn how and when to put up that sign for ourselves, ‘No Judging Past This Point.” As people of Christian faith, we are disciples of the Master. We learn, step by step and stage by stage, how to make decisions; when to make choices, big and little, that affect others; and when to leave matters in the hands of others, including God. 

Speaking of the Master… we have such striking stories about Jesus, today. The first one, in particular, with the local woman calling upon this spiritual traveler to heal her daughter, free her from a spirit. How the Rabbi responds to her can seem quite strange. Jesus rejects her. He rejects her? ‘Let the children be fed first (meaning the Israelites), not the dogs.’ Bible scholars have pondered this for aeons, and come up with many ‘solutions.’ Such as:

• ‘Dog’ was not actually such a nasty term. (Well, it was!)

• Jesus was urgent about His primary mission to Jews.

• It was actually inappropriate for the woman to make the request.

• This is not an authentic saying of Jesus; not truly historical. 

• The wealthy Gentiles of Tyre, like this woman, were always adversaries of the poorer Jews of that region.

• Jesus simply does change, learn, bend in a new direction. 

When it is all said & done, the woman is persistent in her faith that her daughter will be helped, & Jesus respects her. 

Is Jesus, here, learning to judge differently? Change his decision, broaden His path and widen the people He will see and serve? The story keeps us wondering - and praying with Him about it all. 

We might think about how Jesus, born in Bethlehem, raised in Egypt and Nazareth, had to learn everything as a human child and youth. He learned to eat, learned to talk, learned to walk, learned every skill of a child. How about judging? Was he still learning this at age thirty? How to make decisions; how to respond to others? Perhaps we think it is scandalous that our Christ was not perfect, somehow. But development and discernment need not be finished at the start of His journey, I’d say. We even have God Almighty sometimes ‘repenting’ or changing God’s mind in the First Testament Stories. It is possible for us to have conversations with God that matter, that make a difference: that make things turn out differently. 

So, once again, from our Jesus, we can learn to judge, & also not to judge / be judgmental; when to submit to others, humans & God. We do this by trial and error, with our Teacher close at hand. As we walk through life and can become closer disciples of the Master, we can be trusted by God with more: more responsibility, more decisions, more wisdom to choose.

In the end, it comes down to our actions, our lives. As the book of James famously says, So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead. (J 2:17, TEV)

May we be blessed to know when it is time to stop judging (past this point) a do something good.

SERMON: Blame! Us Vs Some of Us?

10:30 am, Sun, July 28, 2024 - J G White / FBC Amherst

(2 Sam 11:1-15; Ps 14; Eph 3:14-21)

The whole story of our scripture begins, famously, with creation, and the two people, Adam and Eve. By page three of the Bible, they get in trouble. As my Old Testament professor used to say, ‘the blaming begins.’ (Timm Ashley)

Adam: the woman made me eat it.

Eve: the serpent tricked me into eating it.

The blaming begins. This is another story that repeats itself in human life, through all of our history. Which is, in part, why we have the story of Genesis 3. That chapter is a story about all of us, through all of time. 

‘Whose fault is it anyway?’ we ask, over and over. Often, we find people in our midst to blame. Sometimes, we make scapegoats of someone, and put all the blame and punishment and bad feelings upon them. Sometimes, we try to purify ourselves by banishing or destroying those we blame. Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren say that “The purification story names, blames, shames, excludes, and sometimes eradicates minorities.” (Gareth Higgins & Brian McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, & the End of Violence, 2019, p. 123)

Many of us might claim we are not so barbaric and prejudiced as others in history. But, as Higgins and McLaren suggest, we have our own rituals that express blaming and scapegoating. Then there are the dramas we read, and the movies we watch: as viewers, we are bystanders and witnesses to violence that is often nothing short of horrific, and we leave feeling purged… The same could be said of an election cycle… And so on. 

Today’s Hebrew scripture text is the infamous story of king David and his neighbour, Bathsheba. Looking back, we have our own thoughts about the blame upon those involved - mainly David - and what that blame means. He certainly abused his power, and the powerful usually do not take blame. Some disasters do befall him (and others) but David remained at the top, special, privileged, powerful. 

Looking for where to put the blame is but one small bit of the big picture of problems here, in the David story. 

This is my sixth and final week on the stories, the themes, of our lives. The seventh story is the story of Love, the story of reconciliation. In the Seventh Story, humans are participants in something far bigger than being reduced to dominating others for one group’s gain, or the pursuit of happiness through revolutions that replace one dominance with another, or isolation, or purity, or being a victim, or gaining possessions. 

Instead, Love: Some of Us For All of Us.

Today we read a prayer in Ephesians 3. We see three main requests or statements in this prayer, offered to the recipients, the Jesus believers in the ancient town of Ephesus. First, that they be strengthened, on the inside. This is about people of God being ‘rooted and grounded in love.’ To quit playing the ‘blame game’ we must be deeply connected in God’s love. This is something worth praying for! Something that God is involved in, for us. 

This month we have been singing Carolyn McDade’s words, Roots hold me close; wings set me free;

Spirit of life, come to me, come to me. 

This is part of the Ephesians 3 prayer. 

Second, that they be given the power to love. It takes energy to do the work of loving enemies, of not laying blame, of choosing not to purify your world by kicking someone out. There is power available to understand this, in our bones, and be filled with God. Then, then we love. Instead of blame, or compete, or run away, or attack. 

It is when we are most hurt by someone that it is hardest to keep them in our lives and not blame them and shame them and keep them out. I know a man who was quite harsh in raising his three children, and they suffered various abuses by him. He is my father-in-law. Sharon fled home as a teenager to get away. Years later, she struggled through an amazing healing journey for herself, and could finally relate, in a limited and safe way, to her father. The other two children seem to have made no such journey and will have almost nothing to do with their father. 

The prayer needs to be answered, so we can see how Christ, how God, still loves and cares for and includes the ‘problem person.’ 

Third, God is able to do more than imaginable!  This little phrase gets quoted by Christians regularly, for good reason. But as you can see, it is not about hoping for any and everything from God that you want. It is here, in the midst of learning to be loving. Being blessed to be a lover of all others in this world. More good kindness is possible - even among us violent humans! - that we realize. Seems to me that’s what this prays asks, and tells us. The Master’s glory will be shown in the lives and work of the people, the gathered ones, what we call ‘the Church.’

Perhaps we could take our next steps in doing as Higgins and McLaren have suggested, in their Seventh Story Manifesto. Five things:

1. Humans initially desire things not because we actually want them, but because our rivals want them.  Notice your desires, and when possible, name them, and remember your power to say “yes,” “no,” or “not right now” to the demands they make of you. 

2. Jesus’ life and death were not an invitation to more scapegoating, but the end of it. Devote yourself to the example and teachings of our greatest moral leaders and visionaries who summon us to a way of life that promotes the good of people and the earth. [Start with those of your own culture or religion, but don’t stop there. Pay special attention to the wisdom of indigenous traditions.] 

3. Becoming fully human involves defecting from rivalry [wanting what others want], and from the notion that anyone else should ever be my scapegoat. Avoid blaming, scapegoating, insulting, or shaming anyone, remembering that even the people who bother you most are your neighbours. 

4. One way to prevent war is to give preemptive gifts to our enemies. Show kindness rather than vengeance and generosity rather than judgement to your enemies or opponents. 

5. These can be profoundly difficult and complex ideas, but there is simplicity on the other side of complexity, summed up in universal wisdom:

Devote yourself to Love. 

Love your neighbour.

Love yourself.

Love the earth. 

Love the Spirit of Love that fills the universe. 

The first and last step: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and don’t do unto others what you would not want done to you. (pp. 177-179)

SERMON: Accumulate! Us Hoarding Over Them?

(2 Sam 7:1-14; Eph 2:11-22) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, July 21, 2024, FBC Amherst

 Allow be to begin with a hundred-year-old story by Rev. William Barton, one of his tales about Safed the Sage, a very wise, old fashioned preacher. PHILOSOPHY AND MONEY.

There came to me a Rich Man, who spake unto me, saying, What is a Philosopher?

& I said, As is his name, so is he; one that loveth Wisdom.

And he said, Art thou a Philosopher?

And I said, Humblest am I among the most humble of her servants; yet am I a lover of Wisdom.

And he said, I am no Philosopher, but I am a Rich Man. What dost thou consider a Rich Man to be?

And I answered. As one whom God hath blessed so richly with abundance of Soup whereon he filleth himself so that he hath no room nor appetite for the Ice Cream, so is many a Rich Man; but also there are Others. Of which sort art thou?

And he said, If thou art a Philosopher, thou shouldest know. But art not thou thyself a lover of Money? Yea, doth not every Philosopher love Money more than any Rich Man loveth Philosophy?

And I said. That question hath been asked of old. And there was a Rich Man in Olden Time who thus asked a Philosopher wiser than I. And that Philosopher answered. The reason that Philosophers care more for Money than Rich Men care for Wisdom is that Philosophers know what they Lack, and Rich Men know not.

  & he said, The Philosopher who said that was a Wise Old Boy.

And I said, O thou Rich Man, thou art not altogether hopeless. Even like unto the Big Monsters of the Deep that yet are Mammals and not Fish, so hast thou something besides Gills; yea thou hast Lungs that are fitted for More Oxygen than thou canst extract from the Salt Water of Business; and now and then must thou Come Up to Breathe.

And he said, Thou art indeed a Wise Old Boy.

For a long time I have realized that money can have a hold over us, whether we have it or not. It gets people’s attention all the time. When we don’t have it, don’t have enough, we are wanting it, seeking it, looking for ways to get the things we need. Dreaming of the luxuries we don’t ever have. Looking with envy or dislike upon others who have more than we do.

If we do have some wealth, we pay a lot of attention to keeping it, protecting it, growing it, and using it in big ways to please ourselves. No wonder Jesus spoke so often of money.

Or the apostle Paul, who was known for saying of himself: I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. (Phlp 4:12) What a secret to learn!

The grand story of accumulating possessions and lands and wealth and all is a powerful story in human culture. It is one of these six stories that can be so destructive and controlling. The story of God’s love, sometimes called lovingkindness, is greater. There are other loves, of course. Such as the love of money and of things. Scripture tell us these words of Paul: the love of money is the root of much evil. (1 Timothy 6:10) And a wise, old friend of mine used to warn about loving things and using people, instead of using things and loving people. (MRC)

Our New Testament scripture today, from our summer, semi-continuous reading of Ephesians, speaks of how the non-Jews and the Jews were being brought together by Christ. People who felt far off from the promises of God were brought near. A new humanity was created by Jesus – all are welcome. No more us and them. And that metaphor of a building gets used. With Jesus as the cornerstone or capstone, the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

We, First Baptist, and you, Trinity-St. Stephen’s, we each have spectacular, stone buildings. We’ve got what, well, what King David of 3000 years ago wanted: an impressive temple for God and for our worship and our congregations.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having a grand building. We think this is the Church; when we are, you and I the place in which God dwells.

I noticed this month that a gentlemen I knew, of Hants Border, died at age ninety: Reg Harrison. He was a real gentleman, a Christian, an educator and sometime preacher. He was a Springhiller. He once told the story from his youth of a time the congregation of Springhill Baptist gathered all around, shocked and weeping. Their church, their building, was burning. The church was destroyed, wrecked, gone, the people cried! But no. Someone spoke up, he remembers. No, the Church is not gone. It is us – we the people. We are the Springhill Baptist Church, and we will live on! So they have.

When we possess some wonderful things, expensive things, we do get rather attached to them. How does God guide us? Just a few years ago I heard tell of a fairly new Christian organization called ‘Wisdom and Money.’ Their website says:

W&M is a web of people of wealth who seek to align the flow of their financial resources with the Holy Spirit in service of Divine Love and Justice. Our work is rooted in ancient Christian traditions, contemplative and prophetic, and modern social movements for justice.

Perhaps none of us are rich enough to join this, but what an interesting concept. Here’s another quotation about it: What would you do with your wealth if you made financial decisions from the mystical heart? That’s the question asked by Wisdom and Money, a non-profit whose mission helps transform an ego-driven relationship with money into a sacred contract.

The group asks questions like this: How does a person of faith, possessing disproportionate material privilege, live with integrity? This begs the question: So, living right in the world as a wealthy person, with Jesus, is possible? How about a wealthy organization? Even a wealthy congregation, a Church?

It is good for us to ask, once in a while: what riches do we have in this castle of a building, here, First Baptist Church? What spiritual glory could we have, represented here, that is so amazing that is requires such a beautiful structure?

What God established in the days of King David was the promise of his great offspring, who would be the great Messiah, Christ, Jesus. Not that David knew all that. And what the Holy Spirit established in Trinity Church, and St. Stephen’s Church, and First Baptist Church was the sort of fellowship of people who are home to God, and have a great peace for human souls. We are not, first and foremost, about locally quarried sandstone and beautifully crafted woodwork. We are not founded upon investments and endowments in the millions. We are not about accumulating. We are about giving and sharing and blessing.

Now, to end, ‘Listen, children, to a story, that was written long ago.’ It is in this song...  

SERMON: Isolate! Us Away From Them?

(2 Sam 6:1-; Eph 1:3-14) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, July 14, 2024, FBC Amherst

 A pastor friend asked me once if I knew where in the Bible is the first time Baptists are mentioned. I knew it had to be a joke; I did not know the answer. “No, where is the first place in the Bible that Baptists are mentioned?”

“Genesis 13: when Abraham says to his nephew, Lot, ‘You go your way and I’ll go mine.” :)

All stereotypical joking aside, there are a lot of people not getting along in this life, and going their separate ways. “This town isn’t big enough for the two of us.” The story of separating, of isolating from others, of Us Against Them by getting away from Them, is a story we keep repeating. To use traditional language, we can say this is a result of our sin, our fallen nature. When there are lots of us, and we are different, we don’t all get along. 

This week we went back to the stories of David, King David in Israel, three thousand years ago. We entered the scenes wherein he is establishing Jerusalem as his new capital city, and having the Ark of the Covenant brought into town. David famously dances as the parade enters.

One of his wives, Michal, is very displeased. There might be a few reasons for this. One could be that David, the king, is fraternizing with the lowest in society. With sarcasm, Michal said, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!”

It is, in part, the old ‘us vs them’ mentality. Keep away from them, the riff raff!

Indeed, we know how we talk to one another and about one another is a key part of our divisions, and at the heart of how we are healed. We know the old proverb is a lie: ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.’

About a decade ago now, Sharon and I got introduced to Nonviolent Communication, developed by Marshall Rosenberg. Even the name of it makes a point: how we talk can be violent, or nonviolent. We tend to think of violence as actions that are physical. But how we talk can be just as violent. Jesus wants peace and reconciliation among us.

We were introduced to Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication through a series of workshops we had in the Windsor Church, led by a deacon from the Falmouth Church. The very basics of it are these points, these four steps:

1.     Observe what is actually happening in a situation. The trick is to be able to say what we see without adding any judgement or evaluation - simply to say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like.

2.     Secondly, we tell how we feel when we see what’s going on: are we hurt, scared, joyful, amused, irritated? 

3.     Thirdly, we say what our needs are that are connected to our feelings. 

4.     The fourth component is a specific request. This is saying what we are wanting from the other person that would enrich our lives or make life better for us.

Let me give you an example of all this from Marshall Rosenberg’s experience of mediating and of teaching communication skills. Twenty years or more ago, he was presenting to about 170 Palestinian Muslim men in a mosque at a refugee camp in Bethelehm. Attitudes towards Americans at the time were not favourable. As Marshall was speaking, he suddenly noticed a wave of muffled commotion fluttering through the audience. “They’re whispering that you are an American!” his translator told him, just as one gentleman leapt up and hollered at Marshall, “Murderer!” Immediately others joined in: “Assassin!” “Child-killer!” “Murderer!”

Marshall felt fortunate he was able to focus his attention on what the man was feeling and needing. He’d had some clues, such as empty tear gas canisters near the camp, clearly marked ‘Made in the U.S.A.’

Marshall asked the man who had first spoken, “Are you angry because you would like my government to use its resources differently?” He didn’t know whether his guess was correct--what was critical was his sincere effort to connect with the man’s feeling and need.

“Damn right I’m angry! You think we need tear gas? We need sewers, not your tear gas! We need housing! We need to have our own country!”

“So you’re furious and would appreciate some support in improving your living conditions and gaining political independence?” Marshall said.

“Do you know what it’s like to live here for twenty- seven years the way I have with my family--children and all? Have you got the faintest idea what that’s like for us?” the man responded.

“Sounds like you’re feeling very desperate and you’re wondering whether I or anybody else can really understand what it’s like to be living under these conditions. Am I hearing you right?” asked Marshall.

“You want to understand? Tell me, do you have children? Do they go to school? Do they have playgrounds? My son is sick! He plays in open sewage! His classroom has no books! Have you seen a school that has no books?”

“I hear how painful it is for you to raise your children here,” Marshal responded, “you’d like me to know that what you want is what all parents want for their children-- a good education, opportunity to play and grow in a healthy environment…”

“That’s right,” the man said, “the basics! Human rights --isn’t that what you Americans call it? Why don’t more of you come here and see what kind of human rights you’re bringing here!”

“You’d like more Americans to be aware of the enormity of the suffering here and to look more deeply at the consequences of our political actions?” The dialogue continued, with the man expressing his pain for nearly twenty minutes, and Marshall listening for the feeling and the need behind each statement. He didn’t agree or disagree, he simply received his words, not as attacks, but as gifts from a fellow human willing to share his soul and deep vulnerabilities with him.

Once the gentleman felt understood, he was able to hear Marshall explain his purpose for being at the camp. An hour later, that same man who had called him a murderer was inviting him to his home for a Ramadan dinner. (M. B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 2003, pp. 13-14)

There is a lot to learn about the process of Nonviolent Communication, yet it is clear, and simple in a way. The hard part is the personal part - and it is all personal! It is about getting in touch with our own thoughts and feelings, and our real needs. It is about being honest about these things. It is about listening well to others, to discover their thoughts and feelings and needs. Then, be ready to hear what people are asking for, and to make your own requests.

God has blessed each of us with some skills in this during our lifetimes. It comes with living. It comes from the school of hard knocks, and from the school of love and compassion that Jesus teaches us.

We heard this morning from the New Testament letter called Ephesians, named after the recipients of long ago. The words of this first chapter wax eloquent – but long-winded – about the gifts of God to us people. We are destined for adoption by God; all things are being gathered together in Christ; we obtain and inheritance, grace given to us by Christ, spiritual freedom, forgiveness of wrongdoing, and we are shown the mystery of God's plan for us all. And promised the presence of God, the Holy Spirit.

Notice, this is all about togetherness, actually. These spiritual ideas are not just for you, and you, and you, and me - they are for us, together. They are gifts that bring us into a life of getting along, getting into loving one another, getting to include so many people. Our faith journey will seldom take us into isolation, hating others, hiding from those who are different. The Way of Jesus is a path of reconciling, getting to know and understand one another. With all the great promises of God to us, we can find it safe to be honest, and safe to get to know those different from us.

This is hard work, often. Miraculous work! Marvelous, loving work. We are in such a time, in our part of the world, for wanting to stay away from others. Those who we disagree with strongly. Those we think cause us trouble. Those who sap our energy and our time and all. Those who are not benefiting us. So we believe all the voices who tell us to isolate, 'drop those people in my life,' take care of number one - that's me/you!

But I believe in the miracle of caring for those who just might need me a bit. And those who are not going to be like me in my thinking and my living. And those who I don't understand much at all. We are all still part of this one human family. And this one created order (sometimes disorder!) Let us look to our Holy Source to build some new order out of the mess we sometimes feel we are living in today.

Know thyself. And know others. Let us rely upon the promised Holy Spirit when we communicate. So it will not be a matter of us away from them, it will be Us With Them.

SERMON: REVENGE! Us Overcoming Them?

(Ezekiel 2:1-5; Mark 6:1-13) J G White

10:30 am, Sunday, July 7, 2024, FBC Amherst

When I was about twenty years old, and just getting deep into classical church music, one of my cassette tapes was of the Choir of All Saints Cathedral, Halifax. They sang, in typical, traditional, Anglican chant, Psalm 149:

O sing unto the LORD a new song:

let the congregation of saints praise him.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him:

and let the children of Sion be joyful in their King...

Let the saints be joyful with glory:

let them rejoice in their beds.

Let the praises of God be in their mouths,

and a two-edged sword in their hands;

To be avenged of the nations,

and to rebuke the peoples;

To bind their kings in chains, 

and their nobles with links of iron;

To execute judgment upon them as it is written.

Such honour have all his saints. 

To sing harsh words beautifully… what does this do? Sometimes it masks what is truly being said. Perhaps the organ growls a bit and sounds harsher when the choir sings ‘bind their kings in chains, and their nobles with links of iron.’ 

Vengeance - such a common religious reaction. Such a human reaction! Some of you know I am spending six weeks on six stories that we tell in our lives, our culture, our religion. The story of dominating others, of being the victim of others, of taking revenge on others; and so on. Yet a seventh, the story of love, is far better. 

So far, in two sermons, in June, I have not told many stories. So here is one, that touches on revenge: us overcoming others. The Man Who Ran Over a Rattlesnake - a story of Safed the Sage, by Rev. William Eleazer Barton, c 1920.

There was a man who owned an Automobile, and he drove unto places afar. And there was a day when he stepped on the Gas, and went out into the country. And he beheld in the road ahead of him a Rattlesnake. And the Rattle-snake was crossing the road, and asking of him no favors save that he observe the speed limit, and give unto Transverse Traffick a fair share of the Publick Highway. And when the man saw the Rattlesnake, he ran the wheels of his Car over it, so that the back of the Serpent was broken. And the Serpent writhed in pain and died and the man drove on. And he patted himself upon the back and said, I have wrought a good deed, and there is one less enemy of the human race. And that may have been true; neither am I reproving him for what he did; for I am no friend of Rattlesnakes. 

Now it came to pass as he drove on, that one of his Tires went flat, and he stopped and removed it. And he found in the Inner Tube a small Puncture. For something had penetrated the Outer Tire, and cut it through. And he felt of the inside of his Outer Tire with his finger tips to find if peradventure a Tack had gone through his Tire, that he might remove it before he put in a new Inner Tube. And he found something that pricked his finger, and it felt like a Tack. But on the next day that man died. 

Now I once knew the President of a Railway who was unjust to a Brakeman; and the Brake-man rose to be a Conductor, and then a Division Superintendent, and then a General Manager, and then he caused the President to be fired, and he sat in the President's seat and he said, It all was written down in the Book of Fate from the day the Old Man Cursed me from his Private Car. 

And I have known of very humble men who have Resented being run over by Mighty Men, and who have kept it in mind for years until they found their opportunity. Yea, I have known the blind, unreasoning bite of a man whose back was broken to leave a poisoned fang for the finger of him who had run over him. 

Wherefore beware lest thou think too meanly of him whom thou despisest; neither be thou too ready to run over even the humblest of the creatures of God. For in this manner are the haughty brought often to humility. 

The urge to rebel and take vengeance is strong. Be it like the man driving the car who had it out for any rattlesnake. Or like the snake that seemed to leave a poison fang in the tire of the car. Or the Brakeman who worked on the railway, and worked his way up the corporate ladder, only to fire the company President who’d mistreated him. 

The first story we read today, was at the start of the text we call Ezekiel, that Hebrew priest and prophet is getting his calling to preach renewed. Among his own conquered people, now exiled in Babylon, Ezekiel is to speak out to them,  a rebellious people, whether they will listen and receive the message from God, or not. The leaders had been, many times, rebels against their own God. Things had gone badly for them; they were partly at fault themselves.

We have this tendency, when things go wrong, to blame and to want things made right - of course. But we want vengeance; we want revenge. We want to rebel against the ones who hurt us. We want to punish them and we want to win. But there is such a thing as seeking justice without vengeance. (Gareth Higgins) 

Revenge can feel like a good deed. Like the man who ran over the snake. “I have wrought a good deed, and there is one less enemy of the human race.” Yet, as Safed the Sage put it, ‘the Rattlesnake was crossing the road, and asking of him no favors save that he observe the speed limit, and give unto Transverse Traffick a fair share of the Publick Highway.’ 

To do justice without doing harm - that would be… special, peaceful, miraculous? As Jesus preached, it is no longer ‘an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth,’ quoting the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, turn the other cheek, be generous, be peaceable. 

The one lesson I pick out from our Ezekiel scene today is the lesson - once again - of doing the small, good thing that is there for you to do. Prophet Ezekiel was to do some heavy preaching “whether they hear or refuse to hear.” At least they will know there has been a prophet in their midst. In other words, they’ll know they have been warned, they have heard from their God. The leaders of the Hebrew nation might never change their ways, or admit the failures of the past, but at least Ezekiel spoke the truth to them.

There is a place for rebellion, for protest, for refusing to go along with the powers that be. But we can do things kind and good, in the face of wrong and evil. Back when I was in college, the war in Bosnia broke out. The story was told of a cellist, in the midst of Sarajevo being bombed, who got out his cello and played. 

‘Why are you playing the cello,’ someone asked, ‘while they are dropping bombs?’

‘Hold on a minute,’ the musician said. ‘The question should be “why are they dropping bombs on me while I’m playing the cello?”’

There is a defiance that can be gracious and moving, without being harsh or violent. Without being vengeful.

I look to Jesus, in that hometown scene from Mark 6, today. The locals don’t respect Him. He speaks; He blesses a few people. He moves on. When Jesus instructs the disciples being sent out, they are prepared for both a warm welcome and for the cold shoulder. “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” We don’t take violence against them, we don’t make a stink. We simply move on, in peace. 

We come in worship, in a few moments, to the time of remembering Jesus’ death by execution. In that scene, He is known for saying, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing.” As we are ‘at the Table,’ let us remember those words of His. And as we acknowledge that we do not always know what we are doing, we may yet be inspired to speak a different story than taking revenge and violently rebelling. We can live into the story of peaceful love, in the face of all the world of nastiness that hurts. 

What did Safed the Sage say? Wherefore beware lest thou think too meanly of him whom thou despisest; neither be thou too ready to run over even the humblest of the creatures of God. And let me end with words ‘of Safed’ from his Introduction to these stories. 

No apology is here offered for the optimism which underlies the philosophy of these little lessons. The author has lived long enough to know something of the sorrows and perplexities of life, but he still believes that this is a good world, and he is glad he is alive… 

SERMON: Dominate! Us Over Them?

10:30 am, Sun, June 16, 2024

(1 Sam 8:4-10; 11:14-15; Mk 3:20-27) J G White / FBCA

“Oh I just can’t wait to be king!” So sings young Simba in the animated movie ‘The Lion King.’ Thanks to our grandchildren, I’ve gotten reintroduced to such classic, cartoon, family films. Simba sings:

I'm gonna be the main event like no king was before

I'm brushing up on looking down, I'm working on my roar

Oh I just can't wait to be king

No one saying ‘do this’

No one saying ‘be there’

No one saying ‘stop that’

No one saying ‘see here’

Ah, to be in charge, to be the boss, to dominate. Every child has moments of wanting this. Every adult too! It has a certain appeal. It has a certain power. It is in so many of the stories that we tell, and in the story of our own lives.

On the group level, there is also just as much: as much of US OVER THEM, dominating. So much of our entertainment tells this story. And the stories we keep telling ourselves, and our children, influence us. We get trained to want to dominate and be the group in charge. Be the best people, above others. Be in charge of the way things are run. The way our governments and organizations are organized perpetuates the Us Over Them attitude.

Yet it is a violent attitude. And the roots run deep.

The Bible history we read is filled with kings and kingdoms. In the ancient days of the Hebrews, they got to a point of wanting a king, a king like the other nations had around them. To lead them into battle! They asked their leader, Samuel, who conferred with God: he prayed. ‘Sure, go ahead,’ YHWH seemed to say. Then Samuel gives a speech of divine warnings; he outlines all the problems that will go along with having royalty in charge. Yet the people still say: “No! We are determined to have a king over us.” So they get what they ask.

In the quest for truth, I offer six sermons now, on six stories of our culture, outlined by Gareth Higgins and Brian McLaren. We tell these stories of dominating others, of taking revenge on others, of isolating from others, of blaming others, of accumulating more than others, of being victims of others. But Jesus, I am sure, takes us to love of others. In Christ us and them can be one. The Seventh Story is the story of LOVE, and to live this we tell the story of Jesus.

We’ve a story to tell to the nations

That shall turn their hearts to the right,

A story of truth and mercy,

A story of peace and light.

That gospel hymn has a rather militaristic flavour, and an old-fashioned sense of being victorious and triumphant. Yet look at the details of what we just sang.

We sang of truth telling and of showing mercy, of waging peace and shedding light on things. Folks in the Baptist Peace Fellowship always say ‘peace, like war, is waged.’

We sang of conquering evil, and destroying swords and shields. Actual, real wrecking of metal weapons is a thing to do, in Jesus’ Way of love. Based in Philadelphia, Shane Claiborne and others have a shop in which they repurpose firearms; they make tools, jewellery and art out the metal and wood of guns!

We sang of a God who reigns above (like a king) yet who is shown to us – by Jesus – to be Love, with a capital L.

All these things are needed in our world because things are in a mess. Gun violence is huge – that’s what Shane Claiborne is opposing. The Baptist Peace Fellowship is telling new stories of what God is truly up to, among us, making peace where people are at odds. We sing of a Saviour who ‘the path of sorrow has trod.’ All our paths of sorrow today, Jesus walks with us.

We read a Bible story today of Jesus getting no respect by those who wanted to dominate the religions scene. ‘He must be of the devil,’ they accused. Jesus then speaks of kingdoms, noting that a kingdom fighting against itself will not last. Jesus’ realm, kingdom, Way, does not fight like others.

Not that we are all peace and flowers and sunshine and lollipops. If so, are we are missing out on dealing with the terrors of life, and making a real difference. The ways people get dominated over, get oppressed, are real and terrible. We must have good news for them.

At the local level, the personal level, are the harsh relationships where one person lords it over others, dominates, abuses. It has been such a part of our culture, it is enshrined in songs. I think of a classic rock song, a great song. Or is it? To me it has such a great, iconic sound. But the words, the message – it is horrible!  The Rolling Stones:

Under my thumb  The girl who once had me down

Under my thumb The girl who once pushed me around

It's down to me     The difference in the clothes she wears

Down to me, the change has come  She's under my thumb

At best, a classic song like that is a reminder of at attitude, an awareness of how evil dominating happens in relationships. We know the challenge of supporting and helping people who are under someone’s thumb. It takes intense care, & miracles.

Thus, we, of the Church, we, of Christ, has ministry to those in trouble, those dominated by others. Our gathering is not just to escape into happiness or serenity. It changes lives.

A resource I am impressed by, not yet having put it to use, is an eight-week program called Groups of Hope, from CBM. First designed to help women who were hurting, in the wake of abuse, broken relationships, and other disasters, it is a short-term, small group program designed to bless people who have suffered and need to find emotional healing and spiritual hope. We have tools we use to face deep troubles head-on.

A respected minister and orator from Chicago, Otis Moss III, preached some lectures in Wolfville this past week. Using a musical metaphor, he spoke of a blue note gospel. You’ve got to sing the blues to have real good news that means anything. Dr. Moss quoted from Ezra 3:13, in his own paraphrase: No one could distinguish between the gospel shout and the blues moan. The faithful community in the days of Ezra was filled with young people rejoicing, and the older people weeping. The happy and the sad were all mixed and mingled together.

When the ‘worship wars’ we going on in churches in the 1980s and 90s, between new Christian music with guitars and drums, against hymns with choir and pipe organ, a great professor spoke at a big conference. In the Q&A, someone asked the professor if he thought a church should have a ‘praise team?’ After a moment, the wise teacher said, “Yes, I suppose so, as long as the church also has a ‘lament team.’

So our message is not all ‘Victory In Jesus!’ Anything good in our tradition is responding to the terrible and painful. Christianity is not about dominating the world or our town. It is about facing pain head on. Walking with the weary. Suffering for the sake of others who suffer. Struggling for freedom with those who are oppressed.

To dominate, to have our dominion over others, can be so dangerous. Our story of Jesus says so much, in the midst of the rest of Biblical history, and of our Christian story. We preach Christ, crucified. A great Servant Leader.

Early on in the story ‘The Lion King’, young lion Simba gets excited about one day becoming the king. “I just can’t wait to be king!”  His father, Mufasa, tells Simba, “There’s more to being king than getting your own way.”

So there is. There is more to being the people of God than getting our own way. More to being ‘the faithful remnant’ than thinking we are right in a world of wrong. There is more to being saved than getting our way into eternal glory. We are to be the people of blessing: blessing others, sharing powerful grace with the whole world.

This is our message. This is our gospel. This is the Jesus we serve: wanting to share the dominion with one and all. It is not a matter of us over them, it is Us For Them.