Christmas 2A

I rang the doorbell and a young woman answered.

“Hello, I’m Pastor Kevin,” I said.

She let me in and we sat down on the couch. The baby was asleep in the crib by the window.

After a little chit-chat, I got straight to the point.

“So, why a baptism?” I asked.

“Well, I think it’s important to have God in my child’s life,” she said.

“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked looking over the crib.

She muttered something I didn’t recognize, and don’t remember.

“That’s an interesting name, “ I said. “What’s the story behind that? Is it a family name? I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.”

“No, it’s not a family name,” she answered.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“No, it doesn’t have any meaning. It’s just a word I made up. I like the way it sounds.”

It wasn’t always this way, and she is an extreme case. And while the young mom had every right to make up a word with which to name her child, I wonder if she missed out on an opportunity. 

Names can connect us to a greater story than the one we can make us on our own. Names connect us to our past, so we know where we came from. Names can offer a message about who we want our child to be when they grow up.

Most people know what their names mean, or why they were given their name by their parents.

What does your name mean? Most of us have names that mean something. Perhaps they reflect the hopes and dreams parents have for their children. Or they’re carrying a family tradition. Or they name them after a celebrity or an admired public figure.

My oldest daughter is named “Sophia” because it’s the biblical word for “wisdom.” Her mom and I chose that name to honour Lady Wisdom found in the book of Proverbs. Sophia in proverbs is a feminine expression of God, and her mom and I wanted to recognize aspects of the divine that are often overlooked.

Sophia’s (or “Sophie” – she hates being called “Sophia”) sister is named “Naomi” to remember the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi and the message of faith and commitment that it inspires. It’s a wonderful story of integrity and sacrifice for others. And we wanted our child to embody those virtues.

When my parents named me, I know they struggled for days to find just the word to describe who they saw when they peered into my future. They wanted to place upon me the mantle of my destiny, hoping that I would be a force for good in the world, that I would lead others into a new and better tomorrow. 

And so they reached out to the heavens and grabbed with two hands and pulled down the name “Kevin” which means...”handsome.” Or more accurately, “handsome from birth.”

And every time I look in mirror I’m absolutely shocked by how prophetic my parents were!

Bible names all mean something. In fact, if you don’t know the meaning of the many of the names you could miss the point of the story.

For example,  Matthew and Luke both have Jesus’ genealogy recorded. But they’re slightly different. But neither genealogy are a clinical listing of names. Each genealogy tells a story about Jesus, within a specific jewish tradition. But if you don’t know what the names mean, or who these people were, you’d miss a lot about what they were trying to say about Jesus.

Mary and Joseph did what they were told and named their son, “Jesus” which means “God rescues” or “God saves.” They were glad to give him this name because they had laid all their hope on him, as one who would save God’s people from their sins, and rescue them from the hands of their enemies.

And as we heard on Christmas Eve, Jesus grows up like most Jewish boys. Mary and Joseph, as required by law, bring Jesus to Jerusalem to offer the usual sacrifice as a thanksgiving to God, and to circumcise him on the eighth day.

And they encounter Simeon, the old man who’d been around the temple forever, whose eyes may have given out, but he could see God’s promises being fulfilled in a baby.

And Anna then wants to hold the baby, because she wants to feel in her arms the very power of God. After all she’d been praying for him for years.

Both of them may have had a lot more years behind them than in front of them, but they could see God’s bright future being born among them. They could see that everything old was passing away. And that God was doing something new.

It was like there was a flip of the calendar and a new age had begun. And they were glad that they could see God’s heavenly future before they closed their earthly eyes.

And at this flip of the calendar what are YOU hoping for? What are YOU looking for God to do?

This is the first new years where it actually feels like a NEW year. It could be because I’m in a very different place physically, emotionally, and spiritually than I’ve been in a while. Being in this environment, and carving out a new life, has forced me to think about what I REALLY want from my life. What I REALLY want my time on earth to be about. How I think God REALLY wants me to use my gifts.

The challenges I face personally and professionally are opening doors for growth and creativity. And I look forward to what God will do in 2014, and how I can respond to God’s gracious possibilities

So this flip of the calendar spells opportunity for me.

What about you? How do you meet 2014?

Is it just another year, just like the last one, where you go on your day-to-day activities, not thinking of the future or worrying about the past? Just taking life as it presents itself?

Or do you see 2014 as a time pregnant with possibility, and you feel that anything is possible, and you just can’t wait to get in the game, grab the ball, and run to the end zone?

Or are you anxious about 2014, not knowing what’s around the corner, since 2013 has provided unexpected challenges?

Or are you hopeful that this will finally be the year when you get your life together?

Or are you all of the above? A muddle of mixed motivations? A patchwork of expectations?

What about for us here at St. John’s? What do you hope for our congregation in 2014? What do you want God to do with us? What would you like to see God do with this church?

No doubt, we have challenges ahead. Like most other churches. Challenges that may demand creativity. Challenges that may require difficult decisions. Challenges that may stretch us beyond what we’re comfortable with. Challenges may insist that we re-think what we do as a church and how we do it, in order to meet the opportunities that God is throwing at us.



We may be asked to make tough choices to maintain our effectiveness in mission and witness. God may inflict some holy discomfort on us as we move forward in the direction of God’s vision. 



We don’t grow in wisdom when we are comfortable. We don’t grow in faithfulness when things are running smoothly. We don’t grow in knowledge when we are constantly being told what we already know.

God maybe asking us to look with open eyes at what the world is doing, and to listen with open ears to what the world is tellings us. Not so that the world can dictate to us what we should proclaim, or impose a set of beliefs that are at odds with what we have traditionally confessed. 



But to respond to a world in pain, to immerse ourselves in the struggles of those who need good news,



a world alienated from its past, and struggling to understand itself,
a lonely world hungering for the intimacy of a community

a world searching for God but not knowing where to begin looking,


a world that suspects that there is more to life than prosperity, but can’t put their fingers on it,
a world craving rootedness, but constantly finding itself on the road

a world that is suspicious of institutions such as the church, but who longs to touch the divine.

The world isn’t what it was. And so God is opening our hearts, minds, and labour to new and fresh expressions of an ancient faith.


It’s harder to be Christian than it was even ten years ago. It’s harder to be church than when we were growing up.

But God has put us here at this time, to respond, at this moment, to the cries of a hurting world. But not as people superior to others, but simply as a people chosen to do this work.

As we heard in today’s reading from Ephesians,

“In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.”

No matter where you are in your life. No matter the challenges, expectations, quandaries, or possibilities, you can trust in a God who was born in the middle of all of this messiness, blessed you in our confusion and your hopes, so that you can rise to meet God’s future with open hands.

No matter where WE are as a church, no matter the demands, struggles, or opportunities, we still call God “Immanuel” because we believe that “God-is-with-us,” as promised this Christmas season.

Again, as we are reminded in today’s second reading:

“[For] just as God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

May this be so among us. Amen.

Pentecost 17C

A Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, once had a sign out front of their building that announced, “Sinners Welcome!”

Maybe I’m more naive than others, and maybe I’ve been hanging around the church way too long, and maybe I’ve had some REALLY good Sunday School teachers, but when I saw that sign on a movie about the church, I didn’t think it was any big deal. After all, we’re ALL sinners aren’t we?

Well, not so fast. Apparently some churches, the types of churches that like to stick their noses into the business of other churches, wildly objected to the sign. Angry pastors wrote strongly worded letters to the church council. Others alerted the bishop. Still other Christians filled the church voice mail box with nasty messages denouncing the sign and demanding that it be taken down or changed to something more to their liking. Letters were written to the editor making sure that people were not deceived, because not ALL churches welcomed sinners.

“You’re condoning sin!”

“This is moral relativism!”

“You’re selling cheap grace!”

“You’re preaching Christ without repentance!”

....the Christian chorus would cry.

Apparently, “sinners” in that particular Pittsburgh neighbourhood, were NOT welcome at many of the other churches. I guess you had to get your life together in order for Jesus to welcome you into the family.

And they probably had an idea of what “sinners” they didn’t want in their churches. And these sinners, I’m guessing, didn’t look anything like them. These sinners, probably, weren’t like a mirror held up in front of them to show them their own brokenness and failings. These churches probably shone a light at others, smugly condemning them, while they - and their own sins -stayed safely hidden in the dark.

I say “probably” because I don’t know these people personally. I don’t know their motives or their reasoning. 

But I have encountered a lot of people like them. 

Christians with their sin-detectors jacked up to maximum. Christians who seem to hate sin more than they love grace. 
Christians who seem to think that it’s their job to control other peoples’ behaviour. 

Christians who think they’re offering “tough love” when they condemn others, rather than doing the REAL and HARD gospel work of serving others in Jesus’ name.

It’s no wonder why so many people are turned off by Christianity, when there’s so many negative voices dominating religious discourse. 

When I encounter an atheist, or agnostic, or someone who simply walked away from Christianity, I usually encounter someone who’s been hurt by Christians. And I hear all sorts of stories of Christians behaving badly.

I hear stories about the mean Sunday School teacher who scolded them for asking uncomfortable questions about the creation story, saying questions reveal doubt and that doubt is a sin.

I hear stories about the angry preacher who condemned them for walking away from an abusive marriage, because, they say, divorce is a sin.

I hear stories about the overly pious aunt who said that science was from the pit of Hell when they told her they were studying biology at school.

And when they drive past churches, they don’t see places where God’s people dwell. They don’t see places where they feel they can walk through the door without wearing spiritual body armour. 

They see places where they have to become someone they know they aren’t nor who they want to be, before they can even start looking for a parking spot.

They see places where sinners are UNwelcome. And so they look elsewhere for something that God gives freely.

I’m not saying that is happening here at St. John’s. Personally, I’ve felt VERY welcome here as your pastor and as a divorced man. I have not felt anything but love and care since I walked through the door just over a year ago.

But the temptation for ANY church is to grumble with the pharisees at the “sinners” who come looking for Jesus. Because, whether we like it or not, we often see our own brokenness in others, and recognize our own limitations in the stranger’s failings.

It’s so much easier to point out peoples’ sins than to celebrate their salvation. 



It’s so much easier to be annoyed by peoples’ weaknesses than to recognize their strengths. 



It’s so much easier to dismiss the good that people do because we’d rather focus on the bad that they’ve done.

It’s the way we’ve been conditioned. For some reason we are drawn to the negative than we are pulled towards the positive. When we focus on one thing, that’s where our eyes stay fixed.



When we hear about crimes on the news we demand tougher sentencing laws, even though violent crime has been declining for over 20 years.

We hear about how some of the oil companies are destroying the planet and making record profits while doing so, and miss the stories about massively creative alternative energy start-ups making tremendous strides towards cleaning the earth while making PILES of money in the process.

We hear about the immigrant gangs and complain how these newcomers cause trouble, and ignore the immigrant business owners who are creating jobs and contributing to our community. 



We hear about the smart-mouthed kids, and fail to see the young people generously serving their communities. 



We hear about the smooth, silver-tongued preacher who scammed thousands of people out of their hard-earned paycheques to pay for their private jets and air-conditioned dog houses, and we fail to recognize the millions of faithful Christians living the good news in their daily lives.

But that’s who Jesus sees. That’s why Jesus goes after the one who has been lost. That’s why Jesus leaves the 99 to go after the one. That’s why God keeps searching. That’s why God keeps finding. That’s why Jesus goes after YOU.

When Jesus looks at you, Jesus doesn’t see a “sinner.” When Jesus looks at you Jesus sees a beloved child of God BURSTING with potential. 

When Jesus looks at you he sees someone whose life is contributing to the good of the world. 

When Jesus looks at you he sees someone of divine worth, someone who offers the others your own unique gifts, someone who brings Jesus’ resurrection light to a world stalled in darkness.

You may have failed, but you aren’t a failure.
You may be broken, but your love brings wholeness.
You may have sinned, but because of Jesus you are forgiven, and your sin does not define you.
You may be lost, but Jesus has found you, and you learned what life is like in the wilderness.

Your eyes may be closed, but God is opening them to new possibilities.

Your breathing may be laboured, but you are still running the race.

You may have a dark past, but because of Jesus, your future is as bright as a resurrection morning.

You are, as Lutherans like to say, simultaneously saint and sinner. But too often we forget the first part of that, and we focus only on the “sinner” part.

But God dwells on the “saint” part. The part where God declares us clean and gives us a new identity. An identity in Christ. An identity of love and forgiveness. An identity of joy and peace. An identity of freedom and healing.

So maybe WE should hang a sign out front that says “Sinners Welcome” because God welcomes everyone here, especially sinners. Especially those who know they’ve been hurt and who hurt others. Especially those whose lives have been hobbled by weakness. Especially those who feel they have no where left to turn.

It’s your brokenness, your lostness, your weaknesses, and your sins that God wants. That’s because God wants YOU, the REAL you. Not some plastic version of yourself that you bring out to meet polite company. But the YOU you are when no one’s looking. When the door is closed, and the lights are turned off.

Jesus wants your wounds, your scars, those parts of your lives that you hide from others, so that he can bear that burden with you, seeking you out when you wander off, and finding you when you are lost, so that your life may shine once again with the brilliance of God’s love.

So sinners ARE welcome here. Because it’s here, among God’s people, where the Word is proclaimed and the sacraments administered, that Jesus meets ALL sinners, 
ALL who need God’s love and mercy, ALL who are lost, ALL who are found, so that ALL may go out from here and meet Jesus in crucible of your lives, emerging victorious over the powers that try to keep you down, and the forces that try to misdirect you and keep you lost. The victory is yours in Jesus!

You who have been lost, are found in Jesus!

That’s why, as Jesus declares, the angels in heaven rejoice!

May this be so among us. Amen!

Pentecost 14C

In today’s gospel, Jesus is in worship where he heals a woman on the Sabbath, a day supposed to be devoted to God. And some church leader got his shorts in a bunch over it.

Sabbath means “seventh” – the seventh day of the week, a day of rest set aside from ordinary days, a day to remember their stories and to pray.

For Jewish folks, that day was and is Saturday. Christians switched it to Sunday to honour the day Jesus rose from the dead.

But whether it’s Saturday or Sunday, the command is the same: Keep the Sabbath holy.

So when preacher Jesus should have stuck to his script and preached what they came to hear, Jesus had the temerity to include healing someone.

“Hey there Jesus, that looks a lot like work to me,” the synagogue leader, probably the council president (sorry Claude) said, “You’ve got six days to do that healing the sick and raising the dead stuff. Today is for worship.”

How would you have answered this synagogue leader? What do to devote yourself to God? How do you honour the Sabbath? How do you keep the sabbath holy?

Well, first of all, we go to church. Well....most of us do. We focus on what God has done and is doing in our lives. We fellowship with other believers. It’s something we do on Sundays.

But some folks, like the church leader in today’s gospel forget that the sabbath wasn’t meant to be a burden, but a joy. That’s why Jesus blasted him after being hassled for not obeying the rules:

 “You hypocrite! Don’t you care for the people and all those in your life that you love and who depend on you? Don’t you care for them even on the Sabbath? So what’s the difference between YOU feeding your family and ME healing this woman?”

The odd thing here is: Jesus wasn’t doing or saying anything radical. He was giving a classic Jewish response. This is what any wise Jewish person would say. 

What’s the 3rd Commandment? “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” And you don’t keep something holy by refusing to touch it with a 16 inch stick. You celebrate it! You refrain from working not because work is so awful that you need a day off every now and then, but because it gets in the way of a good party.

On the Sabbath, Jewish folks would go for a picnic rather than cook up a storm. They would go to worship to sing! And even dance!

Hasidic Jews, the ones with beards and side curls, have a tradition of dancing with the Torah – the law, the first five books of the bible, literally taking up the scrolls of the bible and dancing with them in the aisles, celebrating the gift of God’s Word.

(I thought about giving you a demonstration but I thought that such a display might give you more nightmares than insight into this lesson.)

The ancients believed that you also give your workers, as well as yourselves, a day of recovery – snoozing and relaxing. The Sabbath was the great equalizer. Everyone was supposed to get a rest. It didn’t matter if you were the lowliest grunt or the Big Boss Man. You got a day off. That’s keeping the Sabbath holy.

The synagogue leader didn’t get it. If trying to impose rules on celebrating – gotta do it right, according to the book – you end up with an awfully dull party.

And what’s worse, he forgot that there was a human being involved. This woman had been bent over in pain for 18 years. 18 YEARS! Her pain was old enough to vote! What were you doing 15 years ago? And can you imagine being in such pain that you couldn’t stand up straight for all that time?

But that didn’t matter to the synagogue leader. All that mattered to him was that a law had been broken. A rule had been transgressed. Maybe even a sin had been committed. And Jesus couldn’t believe his ears.

For Jesus, refraining from work on the Sabbath wasn’t about NOT angering the Almighty if you stopped in at the office to check your messages on the way home from church.

The Sabbath was about celebrating what God HAD done and IS doing, so people can be restored and refreshed, so the people around you can be restored and refreshed as well.

This all sounds good. But this is a challenge for me. I've only started taking a full day off. And I've had to find other activities to fill the void left by the absence of work. I've never found it easy to relax.

 Maybe it’s because I grew up in Ontario where the Sabbath day laws were considered quaint. A throwback to a puritanical age when those crabby Presbyterians ran the place for the first couple hundred years. Those laws were irrelevant. Or even economically dangerous, I thought.

I was delighted when the sabbath laws changed. I was in high school, and that meant I could work on weekends and save the weekdays for school and band practice. “Who needs a day off? I’ll be mellow when I’m dead!” I thought. “There’s a great big life to be led!”

Call it a cultural condition.

And I brought that thinking to my work. I chafed at taking days off. Vacations were often more a burden than a blessing. I couldn’t sit still long enough to enjoy the stillness of the sabbath. And I paid a price for that inability to relax. I paid the price of a marriage, for my unwillingness to leave work where it should be left.

But a little while ago, I’ve tried to take Fridays off. Most weeks I succeed. Some weeks I fail. I have trouble filling the void left by the absence of work. Especially since I live where I work.

But I don’t think that a Sabbath can be legislated any more than a celebration can be governed by rules. And I think that’s what Jesus was getting at. Taking a step away from weekly obligations can help us see our lives better, when we’re at a distance. Even if we’re surprised by that distance.

Over the past six weeks or so I have had the privilege of walking with a man in the final stages of cancer. In the hospital he called for a Lutheran pastor, and I was the first one to answer the phone.

I visited him a few times a week, gave him and his ever-present family Holy Communion a couple times, we prayed together, chatted about football, and about life. I learned about where he came from, and his work up north. I enjoyed our visits.

A life-long Lutheran, he wanted to re-connect with his faith. Some cynics might say that it was the knowledge of his expiration date that caused him to ask the BIG questions of Life and Death, and ask for God’s help in a difficult time. But I like to think that it was God calling him home.

Because over the past week, he slide downhill quite quickly. Last Thursday he told me that he could feel himself slipping away. 

And then I got a phone call on Wednesday morning that he had slipped into a coma, and the family was gathering. I had meetings in Edmonton that afternoon, but I went to see him before I went into the city.

And, sure enough, when I saw him, his breathing was laboured, and had the sadly recognizable “rattle” in his lungs that said the end was near. I sat with him for a minute or two. Said a prayer. And left.

I was in a meeting in Edmonton when the call came that he had died. And the family asked if I could come and pray with them and for him.

When I arrived he was in the bed, tubes removed, his eyes were closed. I would say he looked peaceful as he lay there, but he had a mischievous grin on his face.

I prayed with the family, and we commended him to Almighty God. After a short visit, I touched his hand to say “Good-bye” and I left.

I was glad that I didn’t have anything else that night. I don’t know how medical professionals do it, but I needed time to myself after saying Good-bye.

I needed to step back and reflect on what just happened. I needed to think about the man and his life, and what he felt it meant. 

And I needed to stop and think about MY life. Where God is calling me. What do I want MY life to look like. When I’m in his place, will I be happy with what I’ve done with this beautiful gift of life that I’ve been given.

I needed to ask myself the BIG questions of Life and Death. I needed to reconnect with the God who called ME. I needed to rest along the road.

I needed a sabbath. And I needed it to be holy.

‘Now the word of the LORD came to the prophet Jeremiah saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you...”’

Familiar words for many of us. That’s where it all starts, isn’t it? From God’s call, no matter where we begin from.

For Jeremiah, it was the call from the womb. For Peyton, it’s the call from the waters of baptism, where she is joined to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and named and claimed as a child of God.

Peyton is just beginning her journey. And God alone knows where her journey will lead. God alone knows the peaks and valleys, the joys and sadness, the births and deaths, that she will encounter in her years.

But in these waters, and in the life of the church, she’s been given a gift. 

The gift of sabbath that she will take with her. 
The gift that asks her to stop and think about where God is in her life, and celebrate all the wonderful things that God has done. 
The gift that asks her to remember the faith that has been given to her. 
The gift that asks her to stop and ponder the BIG questions of Life and Death.

That same gift that’s been given to everyone here this sabbath day. This sabbath day of rest, of remembrance, of reflection. This sabbath of healing.

May the God of the sabbath fill you with peace, as you remember who you belong to, and may you find rest along your journey, as you walk the path that God has put in front of you.

And may you celebrate all the wonderful things that God has done.

May this be so among us. Amen.