Where Do You Put Your Trust? (Lent 1 Feb 17 2013)

Homily:  Yr C Lent 1, Feb 17 2013, St. Albans

Readings:  Deut 26:1-11; Ps 91:1-2,9-16; Rom10:8b-13; Lk:4:1-13

Where do you place your trust?

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in his shadow for life,

Say to the Lord ‘my refuge, My God in whom I trust.’

Today’s readings are about trust.  In whom, or in what, do you place your trust?

The psalmist urges us to place our trust in God.  In the beautiful words of psalm 91, which we sang in our opening hymn, we are given what is perhaps the greatest promise of our Christian faith:  that if we put our trust in God, if we make God our stronghold and our refuge, we will be made safe.  If we trust in God, we will be rescued from our troubles, raised up on eagle’s wings and protected from evil.  We will, as it were, be held in the hands of the angels, lest we dash our foot against a stone.

It is one of my favourite hymns.  Often when I sing it, I feel a depth of emotion well up within me, a feeling that seems to be a gut response to the beauty of the promise that is on offer, a promise that resonates with our deepest longings for assurance and well-being, for a solid place in which we can put our trust.

That’s what my gut is telling me.  But at the same time, my head tells me that all is not well.  Evil, and pain, and sorrow are a part of our lives, sometimes the largest part.  Those who trust in the Lord do dash their feet against stones.  It is easy to think of examples.  So how do we reconcile the promises of the psalmist with the very present reality of pain and suffering in our midst?

The psalmist knows the tension that exists between the promises of God and our present reality.  In psalm 91 he speaks of the plagues and pestilence that threaten human existence.  He knows that there are times of trouble, times of oppression when we call out for help.  He knows that despite the promise that all will be well, we live our lives in the wilderness.

And yet, he is able to put his trust in God.

Where do you put your trust?  When times are good, it is perhaps easy to say that we place our trust in God.  But what happens when you enter the wilderness?  When life gets rough, when obstacles get in the way.  Where then do you put your trust?

Or let me put it another way.  Suppose there was an alien from another planet who arrived on this planet earth, right here in Ottawa, and as part of her reconnaissance mission, she was given the assignment of reporting back to her superiors on where we as human beings place our trust, based on her observations of our behaviour.  What do you think that report would say?

It might say that some of us humans trust in ourselves, in our own power and abilities.  That we strive to be self-reliant people, people who put their energies into education and self-development, finding ways to increase their power so that they can be in control of their own lives.

It might say that some of us place our trust in our possessions, in our houses and our bank accounts, in our good jobs and our pensions.

It might say that some of us place our trust in our health, in daily exercise and good nutrition, in our access to good medical care.

It might say that some of us place our trust in powerful people or institutions that we can align ourselves with, trusting that in return for that allegiance, they will look after us.

It might say that some of us place our trust in drugs or alcohol, or in pleasure and distractions, allowing these things to comfort us or to numb us as we make our way through the wilderness of human life.

That’s probably what the report would say.  

But there is another way through the wilderness.

Our Gospel today tells us that Jesus was led by God’s Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil.  In that wilderness, Jesus had no possessions.  He had no companions.  He had no power, no fame, no glory, no food.  The promise that he had received at his baptism, that he was God’s son, his beloved must have started to seem a bit ironic.  Was this any way to treat a beloved son?  And so the devil, the personification of the forces of evil and chaos and pain in this life, puts Jesus to the test.  He starts by sowing the seed of doubt.  “If you are the Son of God . . .”  Notice the “if”?  The voice at Jesus baptism had said “you are my Son”.  Jesus had been given an identity.  But the devil puts that identity in doubt.  “If you are the Son of God . . .”  Are you sure? And having sown the seeds of doubt, now he puts Jesus to the test.  Why trust God?  Why don’t you place your trust in your own power?  Change this stone to bread, not only can you satisfy your own needs, but those of others too.  Or align yourself with me, and you can achieve political power and glory.  Or if you still insist on trusting God, then put God to the test, force his hand and make him save you now in a display of power.

The journey into the wilderness is one of the central images of our Christian faith.  In our first reading today from Deuteronomy, we are reminded that the foundational story of the people of Israel is the story of the Exodus.  This is the story that gave them their sense of identity as the people of God.  In the story of the Exodus, God brings the people out of Egypt, ending their oppression as slaves. He makes them pass through the waters of the sea, declares that they are his people and leads them into the wilderness.  The wilderness is meant to be the place where the people come to know God and place their trust in him.  But the temptation to place their trust elsewhere is too strong.  The people complain about the lack of food, they put their trust in idols and false gods, and they put the Lord their God to the test, telling Moses that they’ll head back to oppression in Egypt unless God starts doing things their way.  In the wilderness, there is a great temptation to place one’s trust in the wrong things. Or to put it another way, when we fail to trust in God, when we forget who we are and whose we are, that is when we’re vulnerable to temptation.

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that we read in our gospel is a deliberate re-telling of the Exodus story.  Jesus passes through the waters of baptism and the voice of God declares him to be Son of God.  He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.  In the wilderness he experiences the same hunger and the same temptations that the people of Israel experienced.  But in response to each temptation, Jesus re-affirms his trust in God.  And ironically, he does so by quoting the words of Moses from the book of Deuteronomy, the very words that the people of Israel failed to heed during their time in the desert.

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to show us another way, to show us that there is a way of reconciling the tensions of this world with the promises of God.  It is the way of faith, the way that puts its trust in God.  Our human journey will take us to difficult places.  We pass through the waters of baptism and we enter into the wilderness.  Our journey will take us to desert places where our experience of evil and suffering will cause us to doubt the promises of God.  It will cause us to question our identity as children of God.  There are times when we will wonder whether there is indeed a happy ending to our story.  And at those times we will remember the story of Jesus’ own journey, the story of a man like us who fulfilled his purpose in life not by avoiding pain and evil, but by confronting and overcoming them, bringing compassion and healing to those who suffer, light to those in darkness, and reassurance to those who place their trust in God.

Especially in this season of Lent, we too are called to journey through the wilderness, bringing light into the darkness, experiencing hunger and sorrow and temptation along the way, yet placing our trust in God, knowing that in him we are safe.  Jesus trusted in God and came through his time in the wilderness, and so will we.

“You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in his shadow for life,

Say to the Lord ‘My refuge, my rock in whom I trust’

And he will bear you up on eagles’ wings, and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

Amen.

The Long Night of Empty Nets (Feb 10 2013)

Homily:  Yr C Proper 5, Feb 10 2013, St. Albans

Readings:  Isaiah 6:1-8; Ps 138; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Many years ago I used to be a summer camp counselor.  I used to teach canoeing, and I remember one day I was out in the canoe with three small boys, a four year-old, a six-year old and a seven year old.  We were out on the lake and, as you can imagine with three small boys in the boat, we weren’t going very fast.  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this huge gust of wind came up behind us.  It felt like someone had put a motor on the back of the boat and we were just flying across the water.  The three boys started screaming, and I was suddenly fully alert as I steadied the boat with my paddle, double-checked that the boys had life jackets on and tried to make sure we weren’t going to flip the canoe.

It seemed like that gust of wind lasted a long time, but it was probably only a few seconds.  Our canoe traveled farther in those few seconds than it had by our own paddling over the previous ten minutes!  And during those few seconds, I had a taste of what it is like to encounter and be overwhelmed by a sudden force of great power.

Today in our readings we have the stories of two people who encounter and are overwhelmed by a sudden force of great power.  Last week in our readings we heard the stories of what happened when the prophet Jeremiah and the people in the Nazareth synagogue encountered the word of God.  This week it’s the turn of both Isaiah and Simon Peter.  And as we discussed last Sunday, the encounter with the word of God isn’t just an exchange of information.  Rather, it is a dynamic encounter that is active and charged with power.  The word of God is the power that brought forth creation and it’s a power which seizes the hearer, transforms his or her self-understanding and demands a response.

The story of the encounter between humans and the word of God can be told in many different ways.  In our Old Testament reading, Isaiah tells us of his experience of the encounter with God.  Isaiah has a vision of the power and glory of God on his throne, filling the temple, surrounded by angels singing his praises.  He experiences the word of God as a burning coal that touches his lips and transforms him by taking away his guilt and sin.  When God asks “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah’s response is “Here I am; send me!”

In today’s gospel, Luke tells us the story of Simon Peter’s encounter with the word of God.  In the gospels of Mark and Matthew, we’re told that Jesus saw Simon the fisherman casting a net into the sea, said to him “Follow me”, and that Simon left his net and followed Jesus.  Luke, however, tells the story very differently.  He doesn’t just want to give us the facts about what happened.  He wants to give us a much deeper insight into the transformation that occurs when humans encounter the word of God.

 And so he tells us the story of the fishermen.  Fishing in the Sea of Galilee was normally done with long drag nets which were set out at night in deep water and then hauled into the boats around daybreak.  It was hard, back-breaking work.  There were no electric winches.  Simon and the others had been up all night, setting and pulling in their nets but had nothing to show for their efforts.  It had been a long night of empty nets.  And the work wasn’t finished.  They still had to wash and dry the nets, and put them away so that they would be ready for the next night.  After the nets were put away, the fisherman would return home, hungry and smelling of fish, but with no fish in hand, knowing they would have to face the disappointment of their families.

You can imagine that these fishermen probably weren’t in a very good mood when Jesus showed up early that morning.  And they probably grumbled even more when the crowds arrived, trampling on the nets that were laid out to dry, as people pressed closer to Jesus to hear the word of God.  The crowds were hungry for the word of God – the fishermen were just plain hungry.  Simon must have been surprised and maybe just a little annoyed when Jesus asked him if he could use his boat to address the crowd from the shallow waters!

When Jesus finished teaching, he turned to Simon, told him to put out into the deep water and to let down the nets for a catch.  Now, Simon was tired and hungry; he’d worked hard to wash and put away his nets so that he could go home.  He knew that there were no fish around, especially now in the middle of the day.  Letting down his nets again right now meant more work for nothing.  But there was something about Jesus and the things which he’d been saying that convinced Simon to do it anyways.

And when the nets were in the water, the fishermen must have seen the water ripple and darken as the fish surged into them.  Excitement raced through the boat.  The men laughed and shouted as they started to pull in the biggest catch of their lives.  The nets were heavy, heavier than they had ever been, and they started to burst as they came through the surface.  Fear now seized the fishermen as their small boat started to take on water and the nets began to break.  They called out for help to the other boat, and soon both boats were loaded so full of fish that they began to sink.  It was a chaotic scene, fish flapping, men shouting, boats sinking.  I’m sure that in that moment the fishermen’s hearts were racing, their adrenaline was pumping and that they felt fully alive.  And even after the boats had been brought to shore and the monster catch unloaded, feelings of awe and amazement remained.

Why does Luke tell us this story?  Well this story isn’t about fish, and it’s not just about Simon Peter.  It’s about what happens to you and me when we encounter the transforming power of the word of God, the dynamic presence of the living God in our midst.

All of us have known the night of empty nets.  Times when we’ve worked hard, and gotten nothing for our efforts, nothing but a feeling of emptiness.  Some of us have experienced it in our jobs.  Others may have experienced their empty nets in a difficult family situation, at times of illness or after the loss of a loved one.  We experience it in suffering, and we experience it in everyday life.  But today’s gospel is telling us that even in the midst of these empty net situations, God is inviting us to let down our nets and he will fill them, fill them to bursting with love, and with meaning, and with a sense of purpose that may not remove all our difficulties but can allow us to transform and transcend them.

The story of the empty nets which are filled to bursting is the story of the transformation which happens in our own lives when we encounter the word of God.

What lessons can we draw from Luke’s story about this encounter?

First, the story tells us that the encounter with God can happen anywhere.  God is encountered in the ordinary stuff of human existence, in the daily activities of human life.  Simon Peter didn’t have to go to the temple or the synagogue to encounter the word of God.  He went fishing.

Second, even though clearly the encounter is God’s initiative, we have a role to play.  We have to be willing to let down our nets, even when it may not make any sense from a human perspective to do so.  It didn’t make any sense for Peter to keep fishing, but he was willing to do so in response to Jesus’ words. 

The third insight that we gain from the story, a profound insight, is that the transforming power of the word of God creates community.  The nets of the first boat were filled with so many fish that they had to call the second boat to help them.  If the second boat hadn’t come to help, the first boat may well have sunk.  The love of God is so great that it overwhelms us and obliges us to share it in community and to build relationships with each other.

My hope is that here at St. Albans we are a community that is constantly being transformed by our encounter with the word of God.  That we are a community that is letting down its nets, welcoming new people every week, building the supports needed for our community through our GIFT and financial campaign, starting new initiatives in support of our neighbours.  And in all of this we will have to support each other, because when our nets are filled, if the second boat doesn’t show up, we may not be able to bring in all the fish.

Because the story of the nets tells us that we may get more than we bargained for.  This story tells us that God is not a God of scarce resources.  He’s a God of abundant love, and he wants us to live fully.  Simon Peter is overwhelmed and amazed, and is overcome by a sense of his own unworthiness.  What is Jesus’ response?  He says, “Do not be afraid.” 

  

When we experience the long night of empty nets it is easy to despair.  When we encounter the word of God, it is easy to feel that we aren’t able to do the things that we’re called to do.  But don’t be afraid.  We are an Easter people, and more than anything else, today’s story is a story of the resurrection.  In fact, check out chapter 21 of John’s gospel, and you will see that John uses a very similar incident to describe the transformation of Peter and the disciples when they meet the risen Jesus.

If we as individuals and as a community are ready and willing to let down our nets and be transformed by the encounter with the living, dynamic, word of God, then amazing things will happen.

Just ask Isaiah and Simon Peter.

Amen.

Rocking Our World (Feb 3 2013)

Homily:  Yr C Proper 4, Feb 3 2013, St. Albans

Readings:  Jer 1.4-10;Ps 71.1-6; 1Cor 13.1-13;Lk 4.21-30

Suppose someone asked you to write your autobiography.  Where would you begin?  What’s the first story you would tell?

Isaac Stern, the great concert violinist, begins his autobiography as follows:

Early one October morning in 1937 I boarded a double-decker bus at 72^nd Street in Manhattan and disappeared.  I was 17 years old.

          For the next six hours, no one knew where I was . . . I sat on the top deck, gazing out at the streets but not taking in what my eyes were seeing.  I had to face a critical moment in my life, and I needed to be alone.  My head was filled with the reviews of my debut performance at Town Hall on the evening of October 10.  The reviews, I thought, were disastrous.

Isaac Stern’s autobiography begins not with his birth, but with a transformative, life-changing event.  He had hoped that his first solo concert in New York City would be the launch of his career as a solo violinist, but instead he was handed the hard truth that he wasn’t good enough yet.  It was a moment of decision for him.  Would he give up his dream of being a concert violinist and take a job with a symphony orchestra, or would he go back home and put in many, many hours of practice in the hope of improving his technique?  

The prophet Jeremiah also begins his autobiography with a transformative, life changing event:  He writes

“The word of Lord came to me.”

In the Hebrew scriptures, God’s word, dabar in the Hebrew language, is a dynamic and vital force.  In English we are more accustomed to think of “word” as something static, a collection of letters which conveys information.  But in the Hebrew tradition, dabar is a force to be reckoned with.  It makes things happen.  It is the word that summons the heavens and the earth into being at creation, the word that calls the prophets, the word that became flesh, the word that changes lives.

The encounter with the word of God is meant to be something that rocks your world, a powerful life-changing experience.  In our first reading we hear that the coming of the word of God to Jeremiah will change him from a boy that does not know how to speak, to a prophet who is appointed over nations and kingdoms, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.  The encounter with the word will transform Jeremiah into the man that God created him to be when he first formed him in his mother’s womb.

Today’s gospel reading further illustrates the dynamic power of the word of God.  The encounter with Jesus produces some extreme reactions in that little synagogue in Nazareth.  Recall from last week that Jesus has proclaimed in the reading from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”  Then, in today’s reading he tells them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  The initial reaction of his listeners is praise and amazement.  All spoke well of him!

But then, just a few verses later we’re told that these same people “were filled with rage”, and they take Jesus to the top of a hill, so that they can throw him off the cliff.  What the heck happened that led to such extreme reactions, and such a stunning reversal?

Well, let me ask you, what happens to you when something rocks your world?  When you’re confronted with a hard truth that either you weren’t expecting or didn’t want to hear?  I think that often when this happens, the first thing we try to do is ignore it, or gloss over it so that we don’t have to deal with it.  But what if that truth persists, what if events continue to rock your world in a way that can’t be ignored.  Then I think one of two things tends to happen.  Either it changes us and our lives are transformed as a result, or we resist that transformation and instead put our energy into re-establishing the status quo.

I think we see this same dynamic happening in the synagogue in Nazareth.  At first, people speak well of Jesus.  They ignore the life-changing, world-changing implications of his message, and instead marvel at how well he speaks, and how wonderful it is that one of their own, Joseph’s son, has become so learned and well-respected.  The people speak well of Jesus, but they don’t really get it.  In the presence of God’s word become flesh, they hear the word of God, but they aren’t transformed.  Instead of being changed by God’s word, they try to make it conform to their expectations. 

But God’s word will not be ignored.  It will not be tamed, it will not be domesticated to suit someone else’s agenda.  It is a powerful, dynamic force that seeks to transform all that it encounters.  And so Jesus, the word become flesh, God’s agent of change, Jesus provokes these same people that are speaking well of him, and challenges their core beliefs.  And he does it by hitting them where it hurts, by speaking the truth about their own prejudices towards non-Jews.  Jesus’ mission will not be just to his blood relatives, but to all peoples.  Just as Elijah and Elisha did in Old Testament days, Jesus will bring good news and healing to foreigners, to Syrians and northerners, to the enemies of his blood relatives.  God’s promises are offered to all nations, not just the nation of Israel.

And this throws them into a rage.  It is too great a challenge to their core beliefs and assumptions.  The change demanded by God’s word is too great.  The extension of God’s promises to their enemies enrages them.  And rather than allowing themselves to be transformed by this truth that is rocking their world, instead they reject Jesus in a desperate attempt to re-establish their own comfort and security.  It is after all, sometimes easier to shoot the messenger.  And so they march Jesus up the hill.

But Jesus, the word of God, will not be ignored, nor will he be pushed off a cliff.  And even later, when those who refuse to deal with his truth finally succeed in putting him to death, even then, death cannot contain him.

The encounter with God’s word is meant to be a powerful, life-changing experience.  Some will reject this experience.  Others will allow themselves to be changed, to be transformed into the people that God created them to be.

The reason that we’re here, the reason we come to church each Sunday is to encounter God’s word.  It is meant to be a life-changing experience for us.  It is meant to challenge our core beliefs, to examine and correct our unspoken and unexamined assumptions and habits that hinder us from being the people that we were created to be when God formed us in our mother’s womb.

Our faith is meant to be a dynamic, not static.  It’s meant to be active, not passive.  Jesus thought that is was better to provoke his listeners to rage than to leave them comfortably where they were.  Jesus posed a profound challenge to his community.  The word of God that we encounter in our worship should pose a profound challenge to our community.  Their challenge was to accept foreigners as God’s children.  What is the challenge being posed to us today?

Well let’s go back to that mission statement.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then Jesus says, “This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Or, to translate it a slightly different way, “The fulfillment of this scripture will happen when you hear it.”  You see, you and I are being invited to participate in bringing good news to the poor, in giving sight to the blind, in releasing the captives and in making the year 2013 the year of God’s favour.

Does anyone hear a challenge in these words?

The encounter with God’s word, our worship together week by week is not meant to entertain us or amuse us.  It’s not meant to inform us.  It’s not meant to make us feel good or to elicit praise.  No, it’s meant to change lives.  Week by week, day by day, our encounter with God’s word is meant to transform us into the people that God created us to be.

Is it happening in this place?  Do we allow God’s word to be a dynamic, powerful force in our midst, or do we seek to tame it and to make it conform to our expectations?  Our faith, our relationship with God, should be dynamic.  After all, as Christians, as the Church, we are in the business of changing lives, starting with our own.  

Amen.

Excerpt from My First 79 Years, by Isaac Stern and Chaim Potok, De Capo Press 1999.