And Did Not Our Hearts Burn Within Us...

The Walk to Emmaus Window in the Lady Chapel of St. George's Cathedral, Kingston Ontario

One of the Gospel stories that I often have had to struggle with, is the Easter story of how Cleopas and his companion are walking along the road to Emmaus, and  encounter our Lord but do not recognize him.  In the church where I grew up,  there was a beautiful window over the font that showed that story with the words "And did not our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the way?" In the Lady Chapel here in the Cathedral another window telling that story stands beside the Altar.  How could these faithful followers not get it?  How could they not recognize Jesus on that Resurrection Day?  These are the sort of questions that often have plagued me each time I have to preach on this passage.

Now for much of my adult life, my sister has told me that I am the most dense individual that she knows. Its one of those things that only a sister can say to you, but she is actually quite right. So often,  subtle is completely lost on me.  I just miss those cues.  I think God would also agree with my sister,  because it usually takes a less than subtle experience for me to truly get it.

A few weeks back,  I was at St. James' Cathedral in Toronto for the funeral of The Most Rev. Terry Finlay.  There was a huge crowd gathered for the funeral,  and I think that word had certainly gotten out to the local poor because there were almost as many panhandlers out as there were people coming to remember and celebrate the life of the Archbishop.  

Since returning from Amazonia with my black ring that reminds me that I must be the sort of person who doesn't simply walk on by,  but rather stops to help,  I hold myself to the discipline of sitting down with the people who ask me for money and talking with them rather than simply dropping the loose change for which they ask.  it is a way of giving them the gift of affirming their human dignity.  

On that late March day,  it was chilly and drizzly in Toronto, and I had to park a fair distance from the Cathedral.  As i walked to the church,  I was met by the first request. I sat and talked with the man for a few moments,  and then gave him what change I had in my pocket and then hurried on to get to the service on time. 

When the service had ended, I was famished, and decided to try to find something int he downtown area that was open and that would have something available that was gluten-free.  I found only one such place. As I entered that place there was a man dressed in ragged clothing warming himself in the cover of the doorway.  As I waited for service,  the owner of the place burst out of the back of the Restaurant and completely blew up at the man telling him he had to go,  he was driving away her customers.  He protested "I'm just trying to get out of the rain long enough to warm up."  She continued to yell until he headed his way.  I thought to myself, "if he's not welcome here,  than neither am I." and so I left.  As I passed him along the way I reached into my pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill, almost the only cash I had left, and gave it to him and took him into Tim Hortons where he could get a coffee and a place to sit and warm up. 

I decided then that I would just walk back to my car and get back to Kingston,  where i could make myself a late lunch. As i was crossing the street toward the place where my car was parked, a homeless man in a wheelchair called out to me.  Mistaking the purple piping on my Decanal vest for the mark of a Bishop, he called out, "Hey, Bishop!  BISHOP!  COME HERE."  I crossed over to sit and talk with this man. I first explained to him that I was not a Bishop, but rather a Dean.  He smiled a smile that seemed to say, "Yeah... so what." I reached in my pocket before the conversation got going too far, and relinquished the last $5 of actual cash that I had to my name.

His name was Gerry,  and he had lived an extremely varied life.  His story had many ups and downs.  But as we talked,  he first began to turn the tables and instead of letting me find out more about him, he began to ask questions and learn about me, then he began to turn things around again to talk about Spiritual things.  Finally, he said, "I guess Religion is just a necessary evil."  I replied, "No. Religion is perhaps the worst thing that humanity has ever brought upon the face of this world,  but faith is God's greatest gift to humanity."  Gerry thought for a moment,  but then said, "What you have said is very true." 

As he said this,  I found myself thinking, "Gerry really looks like a sculpture I once saw called Jesus of the Streets."  I had no more than thought it than Gerry said to me, "It just happened.  I saw it in your eyes." I asked what he meant, and instead of answering my question, he asked me a question instead. He asked, "What does he look like in your eyes."

We talked for quite a while longer with Gerry insisting on continuing to refer to me as Bishop, (perhaps because he could see me visibly flinch every time he said it) but there were two things that happened for me in that moment.  First of all,  Gerry said, "Did you notice that the rain has stopped?"  and second,  me realizing that just like Cleopas and his companion, I had met the Risen Jesus, and I had talked to him on the road. And like Cleopas and his companion, my heart had burned within me as we talked on that road.  And then when I got into my car to return to Camden East,  I did so with an urgency to get there and to call loved ones and declare to them "I have seen the Lord."

I had desperately wanted to preach about this experience on the third Sunday of Easter, only to discover that I would be in Chicago at the North American Conference of Cathedral Deans on that Sunday .  For the time,  this little blog post will have to be my declaration of my Emmaus Road experience.  But nonetheless,  it reminds me that "Alleluia! Christ is Risen!  The lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!"

 Αλλελυια! Χριστός ἀνέστη! 

The Anglican church at Tilbury where over the font in which I was baptized stood the Beautiful Road to Emmaus Window that first challenged me with this amazing story.

On the Week called Holy

It sometimes seems odd to folks that I would always say that Holy Week is my favourite week of the year.  There is almost no other week in the life of a priest where you work harder.  The themes of the week are filled with dark and difficult imagery.  And yet,  the closer I get to Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week,  the more I get excited by the prospects of taking that walk with Christ "From the glory of the palms to the glory of the resurrection" by way of the dark road of suffering and death.

Although it is a mantra that usually drives me a little bit crazy in the church,  I sort of miss the old way,  when Passion Sunday stood on its own as the fifth Sunday of Lent, and allowed us to get our first experience of the story of the Passion, and opened Palm Sunday to simply celebrate the entry into Jerusalem.  But change is an inevitable part of life.  I remember being told in my seminary days that the change was because so many people came to Palm Sunday and to Easter Sunday,  but skipped Good Friday because it was too depressing, and wondering, how can this incredible demonstration of the depth of God's love for us be depressing?

But when Palm Sunday and the Liturgy of the passion are finished,  we move into daily Eucharistic celebrations, each intended to draw us in closer, and to help us to see the love that will be exemplified on the cross.  As you walk that daily walk through the week, you hear a series of love stories, that combined, make the cross on Friday into a shining beacon.

On Monday,  we hear of a woman anointing Jesus feet, washing them with her tears, and wiping them with her hair.  It is a powerful and very physical story that points us forward to the grave that now looms on the horizon. On Tuesday,  with the Chrism Mass,  the sacraments of unction and Baptism are given the focus in the Liturgy,  but still the Gospel invites us to reflect on the incredible love of God. On Wednesday we hear of some Greeks who come seeking to see Jesus.  But as Jesus reveals himself to them,  he tells how he will be lifted up from the earth to draw all people to himself.

And with Thursday,  we begin the Paschal tritium.  That simply means the Great Three Days of Easter.  People often wonder,  how can Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy and Saturday, and Easter Sunday possibly constitute the "Three days of Easter."  We have to remember that this celebration is not driven by our own calendar,  but by the calendar in which it happened, and in the Jewish calendar,  a new day began at sunset.  The activities of Thursday night in our reckoning were actually just early happenings of Friday. At any rate,  we gather when the sun has set,  and we remember the servanthood of Jesus.  We remember it. The clergy act it out, to remind us that it is not some far off concept from an ancient day,  but a here and now imperative that the church is called to today.  We get our English word for this day of Maundy from a mispronunciation of the latin word mandatum, which means commandment.  It is on this night that Jesus says, "A new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you." In this night, we are reminded in very vivid terms that we are called to get out into the world as a force for LOVE.  Many great traditions have grown up around Maundy Thursday, including the tradition of Maundy Money.  The monarch chooses a group of the poor (according to the age of the monarch) and gives to them a monetary gift as a sign of love.  Love is the defining message of this service.

We then celebrate the Eucharist on this night, remembering that it is on this night that Jesus first gave that meal to his followers.  Finally,  the Altar is stripped of all its beautiful things and the lights of the Cathedral are turned out.  We turn and leave in silence, remembering how everyone left Jesus alone and abandoned.  We leave without a blessing but like so many things in the church, that is for a very practical reason.  The services of Thursday, Friday and Saturday were originally one service, and people went home in between times, or stayed in the church for silent prayer time.  We leave without a blessing because the service isn't over yet.

When Friday morning comes,  we gather with the cross at St. paul's and begin the Via Dolorosa or "Way of Sorrows" as we walk from there to St. George's.  This service of prayer and meditation is meant to draw to mind the very real walk that pilgrims take through the city of Jerusalem along the path that Jesus first walked from the Antonia Fortress in Jerusalem to Golgatha.  When we arrive at the Cathedral,  we hold a service of meditation on the Cross.  people who wish are invited to go to the chapel to receive the sacrament from the reserved sacrament as we remember the day on which this sacrifice actually was made. Once again,  we leave in silence without a blessing.

And then comes Saturday.  Again, we gather once the sun has set.  We gather in darkness,  but then a new fire is kindled and blessed, and the Easter or Paschal Candle is lit from that flame.  We re-enter the church remembering how God led the faithful with a pillar of fire, by following the pillar of fire of our Easter Candle.  We take some time to hear again the stories of how God has saved God's people, and particularly those stories that tell how God saved through Water.  Finally,  it is declared to be Easter, and the bells ring and the organ plays a fanfare,  and the lights are brought up.  We sing out the praise that we have muted for all the long days of Lent, as we hear the long-awaited words, "Alleluia! Christ is Risen!" Then, as it has done since its earliest days,  we either baptize new christians, or renew our own Baptismal promises before the celebration of the first Easter Eucharist.  When this great service is completed, I usually got home on such a high note that even though I am dead tired, I cannot manage to close my eyes.  Alleluia! Life Wins!  Love Wins! All the love we have heard about in each of the daily services is shown to be more powerful than death itself.

When Easter morning arrives and the church is filled with joyful worshippers,  it is to celebrate not just the Resurrection, but all that has come before it in this marvellous week.  It is only by way of the Cross that Resurrection is possible. It is a message that still needs to be heard in our time.  We cannot avoid the difficult things that come to us in life and expect to experience new life.  God calls us to walk down a path that leads to life,  but that path will take us through difficulty, just as it did Jesus.   I look forward to seeing you all for Easter,  but do me a favour, please.  Come and try walking the whole walk with me.  I can guarantee you that you will have never experienced the joy of Easter in the same way.

On Growing ... or not.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col 1:10-14)

I found myself in a conversation last week with a man who had not had much connection with the church for quite a number of years.  He had some pretty good questions of me as that conversation went on, but he seemed shocked when he heard me talking about plans for growing the church in my parish.  His attitude was why would you have a plan for future growth in an institution that clearly is statistically heading in the other direction.  I told him that every ministry has to prepare and plan to grow, or it might as well prepare and plan to die.

But foundational to seeing growth in our parish ministries, is that need for the people that populate our parishes to be ready to grow spiritually.  I am not terribly caught up in the numerical heresy, that the numbers sitting in the pews on a Sunday will tell you how successful that church is.  I have been in many small parishes, where the numbers were low, for lots of reasons, but where the people were growing spiritually at every turn.  And I have been in large parishes where the life of that community was stagnant and dying.

Minds must be continually growing.  I love watching my youngest niece and nephew at play.  They are two years old, and every little thing that they encounter is a source of learning.  Simple walks outdoors always bring a Wow! About things that I walk past every day without noticing.  They pick up more and more words every day.  Their minds are growing daily.

And I have been blessed to have spent time with people who inhabit our pews who are – as the old prayer book would say, “Of riper years”, who are also engaged in growing daily.  It is a wonder to behold.  Their minds are incredibly sharp, because they are growing.

On the other hand, I have met people who are much younger, who come with an attitude that they don’t need to learn that.  They even approach their faith as though they have heard every sermon and understand every bit of Theology that they will ever need to understand.  Their done growing.

Well, I am a farmer in my very earliest life,  and I can tell you that the moment that a seed stops  growing,  the plant begins dying.  That is a principle that applies to our spiritual lives as well.  The moment we stop challenging ourselves to learn and grow, we are planning to die. The same is true for our parishes.  Unless we have a plan to learn and to grow, we are in the process of giving up and dying.

Every one of us as individuals, and our parishes as well, have a choice to make.  We can grow until we have accomplished all that God has for us, or we can choose to die until our heart ceases to beat.  I’m never sure why anyone would choose the second option,  but I still meet people who appear to have done so,  perhaps not physically,  but in their spiritual life.

I want to tell you the story of a saint of my ministry named Bisi.  We often referred to her as “the Bishop” because although she was always late to service, we always waited for her to arrive walking very slowly across the parking lot.  The sidespeople would say, “You can’t begin without the bishop.”  Many of us almost thought that Bisi would never die, even though the white hair and the slowing step bore evidence of a very advanced age. But the internal life of that woman had immortality written all over it. She came to Bible Study always having read and considered the texts, and primed with questions, and she held the answers that came from the group up to the scriptures to see if they fit for her.  She was constantly reading, and she would pass books on to me that were more than many lay people would pick up, and she would fully expect that when I was done,  I would sit and discuss the book with her. When I got the call on a bright Thanksgiving Day, that she had sat down in her big chair at home, and peacefully fallen asleep, not to wake again, I was shocked.  The whole parish was shocked.  Her constant commitment to growing her faith had made her so alive that not one of us expected that she could ever die.  I look back at her, and hope that I can do the same.

So before we move into this meeting, I want to ask you a simple yet really hard question.  Are you growing, or dying?   Is your parish growing or dying?  If the answer isn’t the one you want it to be, then get on with the business of growing. You can plan and prepare to grow, or you can plan and prepare to die.  It’s the most important question we can ask ourselves.  My sense after only a few months, is that in this Diocese, there is a very strong desire to grow.  And growing things… they bear fruit.  Growing parishioners tend to attract others.

Draw your church together, O Lord, into one great company of disciples, together following our Lord Jesus Christ into every walk of life, together serving him in his mission to the world, and together witnessing to his love on every continent and island.  We ask this in his name and for his sake. Amen.

On Epiphany

On Thursday, I led Bible Study in the Cathedral Library,  focusing on the lessons that we would hear on Sunday morning.  Bishop George had chosen to preach on the readings for Epiphany, and so I had those excellent readings to work with as I began to work with our Bible Study group.
Rather than jump right in to the arrival of the Magi at Matthew 2: 1-11,  I challenged the group to look back before that reading to the first words of Matthew's Gospel. Lots of us have been known to skip that chapter as we find it difficult to read through that Hebrew telephone Book of difficult names in the genealogy of Jesus.  It doesn't seem like it is very theologically important anyway.  My theory is, that it actually sets the stage for Matthew's most challenging message of all.
You see, as you go through that long list of names,  you will come across 5 women in the list,  and in the patriarchal society in which the Gospels took on their life,  women were seldom thought of as important enough for mention.  When you see women mentioned,  take notice!! Something important is happening.
The five women that are mentioned, are Mary (of course), the wife of Uriah the Hittite, Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar, and every one of them has an important tale to tell.  Mary of course, is the mother of our Lord. She came from Galilee, which in that day was known as Galilee of the Gentiles.  Being from Galilee, the purity of her line as truly Jewish was suspect.  She had a baby (Jesus) before she was married to Joseph, and she was a woman,  which was always a problem for the men of that age.  How could she possibly be the instrument of God with all three of these strikes against her.
The other four women are there to teach the lesson.  The wife of Uriah (we know her as Bathsheba) was a foreigner (she was a Hittite).  She became pregnant from David while her husband Uriah was off fighting David's war.  and like Mary,  she was a woman.  And yet,  God had given her the job of being the mother of the great King Solomon.
Ruth, if you remember the story of she and her mother-in-law Naomi, was a woman of the land of Moab.  In desperation, she had laid with Boaz, so that she and Naomi would not starve.  This woman was the instrument through which God sent her Grandson David, to reign over the people of Israel.
Rahab, shows up only in a short story in the book of Joshua.  The people of Israel have come through their 40 years in the wilderness, and are ready to enter into the Land of Canaan.  Joshua needs to send spies ahead to find out about the land.  It is only through the prostitute Rahab that the spies gain entry into the land,  and the people of Israel ultimately win the promised land. Once again,  a foreign woman, with a questionable sexual story is the hero that brings God's plan into life.
Tamar, is the wife of Er, who is the son of Judah.  Judah, of course, is the patriarch of the house of Judah.  Er dies childless, and so following the Jewish law,  Judah has Er's brother Onan go to raise up children for his brother.  But Onan also dies childless.  Judah tells Tamar to live as a widow in his house,  but the upshot of that is that the line of Judah will die.  And so while Judah is out of town, Tamar throws off her widow's gown and dresses as a prostitute, and Judah comes home, sees her in the gate,  and sleeps with her.  She get's pregnant,  and the line of Judah is saved.  Clearly,  she fits into the list that Matthew is setting up.  She is a foreigner,  she is a woman,  and there is a questionable pregnancy.
Matthew begins his Gospel by telling a community that is very concerned about how God could be working out a plan involving Mary,  that at all the key moments of Israel's past,  God has used foreigners, women, and those that others might be tempted to judge as the instruments of his purpose.   Matthew reminds his audience that God works in and through all things,  and is not limited by our biases.  These were the three biggest biases of Matthew's day,  but God knows that we have plenty of biases in our own day.  Does God work in those people that we would judge to be on the outside of God's grace?
And then Matthew skips over having any sort of birth narrative, but begins with the arrival of the magi.
The child has been born,  and who has God called to be the witnesses of this great news,  but a group of foreigners.  It isn't the folks at the temple or at the palace that know about what God is doing,  but a bunch of foreigners.  Matthew opens his gospel with a message to the church then, and now.  He says,  tear down the walls you keep building,  because this good news is for ALL.
Matthew is not the only one that gives us that message.  Luke tells that wonderful nativity story that we celebrated 13 days ago.  We can still hear the Gospellor reading out, "In that country there were shepherds..."  What we modern folks don't know is that shepherds were seen as such a crooked lot,  that they were forbidden from being witnesses in the courts in the days when Jesus was born.  In Luke's story, God chooses as his witnesses, those whom society had thrown aside as unfit to be witnesses.  God choose those that were unacceptable.  And God continues to do so.
As I write this,  it is late in the evening, on Saturday night (the day after Epiphany).  Upstairs in the Great Hall,  a new ministry is being born as a cooperative mission between St. George's Cathedral and Club Church Ministries.  It is called the Embassy.  It costs $2 to come in,  (although 120 tickets were given out to the folks that come to Lunch by George for free) and the ticket entitles you to an evening of live music,  pizza and coffee.  I've been upstairs to look around a few times, and have met the people that are there. They are a mix of students from Queens, and the folks that usually come to Lunch by George.  The doors of the cathedral are open, and the folks are coming in.  It is a drop in program,  but it has been full all night.
Once again this Epiphany, God is speaking loudly in the voice of Matthew. "Tear down those walls you are so fond of building.  This good news is for EVERYONE!"

On Maintenance and Mission

Twelve years ago,  I had just moved to a new parish,  and so both my former parish and my new one were involved in the Lay side of the Fresh Start program.  The question was asked of the laity, "If something happened and your parish ceased to exist tomorrow morning, would anyone miss it,  and if so, who?"  The parish to which I was moving answered among themselves, "Well, apart from the fact that the people who come to worship wouldn't have a place to go,  likely no one would really notice,  and the worshippers would find someplace else."  The place I had just left answered very differently.  They said, "Oh My God,  of course we would be missed!  Who would run the breakfast program in the Southwood Community centre before school?  Who would do the Christmas dinner for the poor?  Who would send the neighbourhood children to Huron Church Camp and Who would cover the support that we have always give to Primate's World Relief and Council of the North?"  The two parishes were neighbouring. They were both a part of the same Deanery.  The difference was that one had an attitude of Maintenance, and the other had their focus set on Mission. One put their time and energy into "keeping the doors open and the bills paid."  The other one put their time and energy into serving the world that God so loves, and somehow, as they did that, the doors stayed open, and the bills got paid.
This morning, I, like many others across the Diocese of Ontario, got an e-mail from the Bishop outlining the Strategic Plan for the Diocese that we will be fleshing out at Synod next week.  It also spoke of the need for the church here in the Diocese to move our faith from maintenance to mission.  It isn't an easy transition to make,  but it is the key to having a living, exciting and enlivening church. The truth though,  is that it cannot be something that we talk about at Diocesan Synod, and then all nod our heads and say that yes, we believe that it is a good thing, and then sit back and wait for the Diocese to do it.  Moving from maintenance to mission cannot begin from the Diocesan level.  It is a transformation in the attitudes of every baptized individual that makes up our church.  Every one of us must individually adjust our focus to considering first, "how does my ministry in the church help others to believe? How do I help to spread the gospel?"  Only then can the parish begin to adjust its focus,  and only when the parishes of this Diocese have changed focus,  can this move from maintenance to mission be accomplished across the Diocese.
I remember Bishop Morse Robinson speaking at my first parish, and challenging them that everything that we do as a parish should have some aspect of helping others to believe attached to it.  Those faithful people,  already convinced of the need to be a mission focused church began to take that question seriously.  Soon,  things started to change.  At the parish bazaar,  food and baked goods that were for sale, came with a little card attached with the words of a grace at meal time.  Knitting and children's clothing were sold with another little card that held a prayer for the child that would wear it.  Soon every little bit of the parish life had some way of declaring that it was from a Christian church, except one.  The parish council made a significant amount of its budget from outside users who came in and used the excellent parish hall facility.  How could that be made to declare the Good News as well.  Eventually,  the parish council hired a local artist to come and paint one of the walls of the hall with a huge mural of the Resurrection, so that every time an outside group came within the walls,  they were reminded that they had come in to a church, and they were faced with the Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That little parish never had more than it needed,  and in fact,  I often would quip that they were "going broke for all the right reasons,"  but there was always enough.
And as years in that parish went by,  we were constantly having to stop and look at ourselves,  and challenge ourselves with the question, "How is this activity going to help others believe."  We had to be pushing ourselves to look beyond the walls and see the needs of the community outside our lovely comfortable gathering.
Loren Meade, in the book The Once and Future Church,  points out that in the Apostolic Church,  the mission field was a reality that the church met the moment that they left their worship gatherings. The mission field was ambivalent to them, and at times even openly violent to them.  But they were a church focused on spreading the Good news.
And then Constantine won the battle of Milvan bridge,  and the world changed.  The Emperor converted to Christianity, and suddenly everyone in the Empire was a Christian, and the Mission field moved to far off shores. Mission became the work of Missionaries,  and the average Christian and the average Christian parish had no need to really proclaim the Gospel.
Let's face it though,  The world has changed once again,  and we no longer live in an age of Christendom.  The mission field is once again there when we step out of our worship spaces,  and like our ancient predecessors, that mission field is often ambivalent or openly violent to the message that we bear.  If the church is to live and grow in such a world,  we must stop focusing on "how are we going to pay the bills?" We must stop fixating on bricks and mortar.  We must change our focus, and in so doing, change the world.
Twelve years after that meeting of Fresh start where my former parish felt that they would not be missed,  I have to tell you,  if they closed today,  the entire city of Kitchener would be devastated.  They left behind their Maintenance mindset.  They moved out in mission, and they are so involved in their community that they are indispensable. They are alive and they are growing.
One interesting observation I would make about their transformation though, is this.  One year,  it was decided that we would build a house with Habitat for Humanity.  That project was going to add an additional $70,000 to the parish outreach budget.  When we first began to discuss it, many people sat wringing their hands, and asking if we could really raise that much extra money without negatively effecting our operating budget. Well,  not only did we raise the needed money and still meet our budget,  but I will add that we had higher attendance in that church that year than there had been in over ten years,  and at the end of the year we had a surplus in givings to the operating budget.
I hold that when the Church operates out of a sense of mission, rather than out of fear and a focus on maintenance,  the people are energized, the community is inspired,  and the church experiences growth.
So I'm with Bishop Michael!  It's time to step out of Maintenance, and get serious about our Mission to go and change that world that God so dearly loves.

After I first posted this blog this morning,  I came upon this article called, "3 common sentences you hear at dying churches."  It is speaking of the opposite side of the Maintenance and Mission discussion,  and does it very well.  It is well worth a read.

http://ministrytodaymag.com/leadership/adversity/23194-3-common-sentences-you-hear-at-dying-churches

Celebration!

It will come as a surprise to no one, that I am very much involved in preparing for a huge celebration.  This Sunday afternoon, the Installation service will go forward according to weeks and weeks of planning, and will celebrate the beginning of something new in terms of my ministry, the ministry of the Cathedral, and the ministry of the Diocese.  Friends and family from all over will be present to join in this celebration.  Former parishioners will arrive by the bus load on Sunday afternoon.  Others will be staying in local hotels and enjoying a week on the waterfront as part of the celebration.  It is a celebration that I will remember for the rest of my life, I am sure.  (I remember my inductions at St. Thomas the Apostle and St. David's in Cambridge and St. George's of Forest Hill in Kitchener with great joy to this day.)

Glorious hymns will raise the roof on the Cathedral and beautiful anthems of praise will inspire the congregation.  (The numbers of the cathedral choir will be swelled for the celebration, and all my friends and family tend to really love to sing).  A dear friend will challenge me, and the entire congregation with the message of the Gospel. Symbolic gifts of the ministry to which this Cathedral has been called will be given, and we will renew the vows of our baptism.

As the last couple days have ticked down,  I also have stopped to think about several other celebrations.  I remember birthdays, and graduations; Ordinations and family days.  I remember the honour of celebrating my parents' 40th anniversary by renewing their wedding vows, and of performing my sister's wedding. Celebrations are designed to help us to create and sustain memories. They are days that draw us together in community, and remind us of what connects us.

Which has brought me to contemplate a different sort of Celebration.  Each time that we as a community gather at the Altar, it is a celebration.  It is so much so,  that the person that leads it is called the celebrant.  Each time the family of God comes to the table, it is to celebrate.  And the celebration is a celebration of anamnesis (Greek: remembering). The gathering is precisely about creating and sustaining memories.  And it is a Eucharistic (Greek: Thanksgiving) celebration. It is an opportunity to remember with THANKSGIVING.

So what is it that we remember.  Well,  the primary anamnesis, is of the death of our Lord.  We gather and remember through bread and wine, the sacrifice of Jesus' own body and blood; an act of incredible love; an act of self-sacrifice.  It is not a joyful memory on the face,  and yet the love that it so clearly communicates to us is an occasion for great joy.  And so as we gather, it is Eucharistic; it is an act of great Thanksgiving.

But the anamnesis of our liturgy is more than simply a bare memorial.  We gather at the table to do much more than to simply remember.  We believe in the real presence of our Lord in the sacrament.  We believe that as we remember, Jesus comes and is present in our community.  In our remembering,  we make that sacrifice real once again.  We make it real in that we receive Christ and his loving sacrifice for ourselves, but also we make it real because in that meal, and in the cross,  Jesus is modelling for us how we must live if we are to change this world into a place where God can reign,  and each time we gather in that meal, we are called to get out into the world and live the self-sacrifice and love that we have experienced in our interactions with the world we meet at the door.

I look forward to the huge celebration that comes with the beginning of this new ministry.  Ultimately, that celebration will build to its ultimate point when we gather at the table with our bishop in that great meal.  But every bit as much as I look forward to that celebration,  I am also called forward by it.  The memories that will be created that day are the memories that sustain me in a calling to get out there and make it so.

I hope I will see you there. I hope I will see you in the Cathedral this Sunday,  and I hope I will see you out in the community following the call of your baptism renewed in that meal, and challenging and changing this world as our Lord has modelled and continues to model for us.

To view the celebration, click here.

On Giving Thanks

In my former parish,  there was a Thanksgiving Newsletter that was mailed out to the entire parish mailing list.  The parish newsletter was a very slick publication that required first that submissions go to the editor.  Once the editor was finished with it,  the parish Communication Director, a professional graphic artist,  would format it and make an extremely eye-catching presentation.  It then made its way to the printer, and from there went to the DC class at Forest Heights Collegiate,  who would fold it,  place it in envelopes, and attach the mailing labels, and finally Canada Post would deliver the newsletter to every household in the parish.   The number of steps in the process, and the number of hands it needed to pass through, meant that submissions for the Thanksgiving Newsletter needed to be completed by mid-August.

I remember well one August when my mind was rebelling against this idea of getting my mind wrapped around Thanksgiving in the middle of my summer vacation.  There were so many things that seemed more appropriate for me to think about on a warm August day. Why Thanksgiving?

On that particular day,  I had visited the farmers' market at St. Jacobs, and come home with a car loaded with all the necessary ingredients to make the old family recipe for Chili Sauce. It isn't a terribly involved recipe, apart from preparing all the vegetables,  but it is one that needs to simmer and be stirred all day long.  And so I found myself fairly tied to the house.  At the same time, next door at the church,  our regular Summer Day Camp was running in week 5, and I would regularly drop in and talk to the children.   All the while, my rebellious mind kept asking,  "What am I to say about Thanksgiving in the middle of August?  It isn't time for Thanksgiving yet."

And so it was that I left the chili sauce simmering in the kitchen and went next door to the church to enjoy some play time with the children at the camp.  I had no sooner walked through the door,  than a little girl named Stephanie ran up and gave me a big hug.  I was overjoyed to see her,  as she had been registered for camp all summer,  but had missed many days as she went to Chemotherapy.  On this day,  her colour was good,  and her energy was high,  and her smile just radiated joy.  I joined in the planned games of the camp, and then walked home to my house, where the simmering food had filled the entire space with glorious smells.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere,  Thanksgiving dawned on me.  Little Stephanie was at camp today.  She was well enough today to participate in the whole day's activities.  Thank God!  I was blessed with a wonderful parish that worked very hard to operate that Summer Day camp for eight weeks each summer so that 30 children each week could come and learn about faith, and experience the love of God in our space.  Thank God!  I had been to one of the greatest farmers Markets in the country,  and had been able to come home with my car laden with all manner of food.  Thank God!  I was a part of a family filled with traditions like the making of that "secret" chill sauce recipe,  passed on one generation to another, a family that had loved and formed me into the person I am.  Thank God! Once those flood gates had opened,  at every turn, I saw things there in an August Day, that were every bit as important to thank God for as the harvest that, as a farm boy, was usually the focus of our Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a day that we mark on the calendar, although we have a day to draw it into focus.  Thanksgiving is way of looking at all of life; it is an attitude that can change our entire perspective on the day to day experiences of life.  When we approach all of life with Thanksgiving,  we can find incredible joy in the things that are easy to take for granted.

Several years ago, just after my sister and her husband adopted Alice and Owen,  I found myself walking on he trail in the woods on their property with these two small children in tow.  At first, I found myself getting frustrated that the kids were going so incredibly slowly.  They stopped practically at every step.  "Uncle Don,  look at this bug." "Uncle Don, see this rock."  Suddenly, I realized that through Alice and Owen,  I was getting a chance to see the world for the first time, all over again.  Their little eyes were doing precisely that.  They were seeing things for the first time,  that I had seen so many times,  that I had sadly ceased to be filled with wonder about them.  This was a "God moment" for me.  I slowed my usual break-neck pace through life,  and took time with those two small children to explore the path I walked very regularly.  The walk I took so regularly became an adventure. In walking along with two small children,  I got the opportunity to once again experience a walk around Orrs Lake as a magical walk in a world filled with beauty.

My prayer for all of you as we come to the day that we have set aside to focus on giving thanks for all the goodness in our lives,  is that first of all,  we might be given that opportunity to see the world "for the first time all over again."  I pray that we might all see and truly understand some of the blessings that fill our lives, that we so often walk past without a thought.  And I pray that we might come to Thanksgiving,  and to every day with an attitude of Thanksgiving.  I pray that we could all take the time on that day that we set aside to focus on giving thanks, to really take stock of all that we truly have to give thanks for,  and that we might carry that thankfulness into the other 364 days of the year.

I won't close this by saying "May God richly bless you all" because my sense is that if we truly use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take stock,  we will realize that God already has blessed us all.