Parish Of Opawa St Martins Blog

Be on alert!
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21: 25-36

So we come to the beginning of Advent. This day is the first day in the church year; the church’s New Year’s Day. You will notice a number of changes in the church today: the colour is purple, which is the colour the church uses to signal we are in a period of preparation, of intentionally journeying forward to God. The Advent star has been lifted into place, the star being a symbol of promise, expectation and hope that epitomises Advent. Joseph and Mary can be seen in the back of the church somewhere beginning their journey to Bethlehem. The Advent wreathe is here and we shall light the first candle in due course. The music changes as well. There is a whole repertoire of music written especially for Advent which we will be singing and which will give our liturgy a special Advent tone of expectation.

The word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus which means “coming” or “to come”. Most people associate this “coming” with the annual observance of the birth of Christ. But the Latin word adventus is in turn a translation of the Greek word parousia. In the New Testament, the parousia refers to the second coming of Christ. And that’s where our focus should be for most of Advent. We live in between the first and second coming of Christ, and so we are straining forward toward the final fulfilment of the Kingdom of God. We wait for God’s future to come rushing toward us and for that reality, inaugurated by Christ, to be finally established in this time and place. This is what Advent waiting is all about. We wait with expectation, just as the Hebrew people of old waited for the Messiah, as Abraham and Sarah waited for the promise to be fulfilled that they would be the ancestor of many nations. Advent brings our Christian waiting into focus, our longing and desire for all war to end, for the hungry to be fed, the thirsty given water, the naked clothed, the strangers given a place of welcome, and the prisoners set free. That is why we have such a strong focus on giving to Christian World Service at this time of the year, so that we can make a contribution to the work of co-operating with God to establish the Kingdom.

The readings today put us on high alert. The Lord is coming! Let us be ready! We are exhorted to be awake. We do not know the hour when the Lord will come, and so we are told not to be caught unaware for the kingdom is near. Be prepared, Jesus is coming!

Being on high alert is not easy to sustain. Sometimes it makes us do silly things. Earlier this year, our country went on high alert in case the tsunami that hit Samoa would strike our shores. The concern was that this could have a lethal impact on coastal towns and ports. What did a great number of people do? They went down to the beach to watch. Police and officials were dispatched to down to convince people to leave the water front. The radio stations broadcast warnings. Many of the people simply ignored the warnings. They just shrugged their shoulders and relaxed as if the danger was over. Yet, for all we knew, the danger was real enough and possibly invisible to the eye. The waiting lulled people into a false sense of security. The sense of being on high alert dissipated completely.

The gospels call us to be on high alert for the coming of Christ. But if we can barely sustain it in the face of a potential tsunami, then no wonder it’s difficult to remain on high alert for Christ. Our waiting has gone on for a very long time. There are plenty of apocalyptic groups around, cults and sects and such like, who will say that the end is nigh. Generally we shake our heads in disbelief at the power of their leaders and wonder why the group believes it. As we have seen over and over again, no end has been nigh. But Advent is a time for us to be ready for Christ’s coming. The picture of Christ coming again on clouds from the sky sounds fantastic to our ears, but nevertheless, the second coming of Christ has always been an important part of Christian spirituality; it provides the energy that drives our mission. Being on alert, looking forward expectantly to the future God has in stall for us, working with God to bring that future about is a necessary aspect of Christian living.

The readings today look forward to Christ coming again at some point in the future when the world as we know it will come to an end. Their main point, however, is about the present and how we should behave now. The coming of the Lord is about God’s active presence in our lives here and now as well as in the future. What is required of us is to be actively and intentionally alert to the ways God is working in our lives now, shaping us, moulding us, and loving us into being.

This is the gift of Advent faith, the coming of the Lord into our lives now. The problem is that we are not on any kind of alert for the coming of God to our lives. We may have faith of a sort, we may be attached to the Christian faith, we may be attached to this church and its people. But in calling us to be on high alert, God is inviting us to go deeper. God is calling us to explore the truth that is God. He wants to give up the habits and addictions that distract us from God, so that we can live for our human flourishing. He wants to give us the gift of faith that changes everything and enables us to take risks for God, to go on adventures in faith in places beyond our wildest imagining. This is the kind of faith God longs for us to have, so that we feel what it is like to experience life in abundance. It is a faith we can cultivate and sustain, or it something we can let pass and fade away.

How can we intentionally cultivate this faith? In your daily prayer, take time to review the day with God. Ask God to show you the points in your life that have been graced moments, moments when God has spoken to you, or where God has corrected you, or where you see God at work. Keep a journal of these reflections and conversations with God and ask God to show you what it is that God is calling you to do and be. And as you and God look at your life together, know that God sees in you a reflection of his own image, and the love in your heart that is comes from himself. Walk each day in the light, as we are called to do. This is the light that appeared on earth as a human being born of the Virgin Mary, the light that will be fully manifest when he comes again. Walk with your heart open, open to the being of Christ who comes to us in our fellow human beings, and in word and sacrament. Be open to the communion that he offers us. Be awake and alert for the coming of God this Advent.

The picture of the widow’s mite is often held up as a romantic picture of the way we Christians are supposed to be. Many sermons have been preached in which an elderly woman, hobbling in with a walking stick, dressed simply in op-shop clothes, dropping every last cent of her money into the church collection plate, is held up as the ideal. Some have even used this text in sermons about money and giving to the church. I guess we’ve all heard these sorts of sermons. We may even have prided ourselves on the fact that so often it is the widow’s mite that keeps the church going. Well folks, just to get our creative juices going, here is a cheque for $1million from a generous donor, and here is $20.00 given by one of the widows of this parish! Faced with these two gifts, which of these is of most value?

But if anyone thinks this is a story about giving more money to the church, you’re missing the whole point. Let’s rest for a moment with his image of a poor elderly woman. Mark wants us to see a woman of deep faith and prayer, who has found her vocation in loving God. She is coming to the temple to pray. She may be a strong woman supported by family and community. Or she may be vulnerable and alone, struggling to survive. We don’t know for sure. Whatever her background, all of us are like this woman. We are here because we too, want to express our love, gratitude and praise to God. And that brings us to the nub of the issue, which Jesus raises. This is passage is not about how much money we give to God or to the church. This is a passage about faith, about loving God with our whole being. It is also about God’s justice, in which the piety of the religious leaders stands in stark contrast with the generous heart of the poor woman who wanted to sacrifice everything she had for God.

Nowadays, we are finding out a good deal more about widows in the biblical period. The Greek word for “widow” means literally someone “forsaken” or “left empty.” It meant anyone living without a husband, and in the days of the New Testament, that was a most unfortunate place to be. Some women could own property, but most were excluded from doing so. So if you were a woman and your husband died and your family could not afford to keep you, you could be abandoned or even sold into slavery. Becoming a widow was not difficult either. Widows were women whose men who had fallen out of favour with the empire. They may have been child brides of men much older than themselves. In some cases there were even civil penalties against women who did not remarry, but remarriage meant that their dowries and inheritances would enrich some other gentleman. So, being left without a husband was considered a bitter misfortune. Just being a woman was a high risk occupation.

It is well known that Jesus taught that these kinds of injustices are not to exist in the Kingdom of God. Jesus stepped forward as the true advocate of God for the oppressed and exploited. All through the New Testament, we see that Christians gave widows a special place, often meeting in their homes for worship and meetings. It is not surprising that the first part of Jesus teaching in today’s passage is a warning against those who exhibit ostentation and crave high positions. We are told to beware of those who devour widow’s houses. The point Jesus notes is that the religious leaders used their positions of importance, piety and finally their ostentatious generosity (hold up the cheque) to impress their importance on the community. This made it easier for themselves to be appointed as trustees over the estates of widows, thus gaining a share of the estate to enrich themselves further. Since widows were so vulnerable, Jesus is criticising the religious leaders for using their piety as a cloak for preying on the most vulnerable members of society and making profits out of them.

This week there have been many jokes on the radio: “do you want to get rich? Start a church!” This story is a warning to religious leaders who are in it for the money and who think their wealth is a sign of God’s blessing. This story is about justice, about limits in the use of religious authority, warning us against the excesses of some church leaders who seem to benefit with expensive cars and flash houses at the expense of their parishioners. Religious leaders are not in their roles for the money, which is why the Anglican church operates with a stipend system which provides a living allowance for its clergy as a way of keeping parishioners safe from leaders who would demand too much in return for giving their lives to God. The gospel instead, compels all of us to care the little ones, the most vulnerable. In New Testament times the widows were among the most vulnerable members of society. Care for the vulnerable is an essential part of our calling as Christians, something the gospel impels us to be engaged in. For some time now, Aged Care has had a special unit to deal with the issue of elder abuse. Far too many of the elderly today are pressured by family members or a close friend to hand over large amounts of their estate or property. This is a form of financial abuse; another hidden problem in our society. All through the bible, God is the ultimate defender of widows and orphans. Naturally, Jesus gave a special place to widows. The early church supported them; the gospel calls us to stand up to defend the most vulnerable people in our community.

So, what about the widow’s mite? This story is also about faith. Mark says the widow is an exemplar of the Christian faith. Just a few verses earlier in this part of Mark’s gospel, one of the scribes had asked Jesus about the greatest commandment. Jesus had replied that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Here the widow demonstrates her love of God by giving all she has. She is aware of God’s grace and goodness and by her living she shows her complete dependence on God. By contrast the rich contribute large sums out of their bounty in a show of ostentation. Most people, including these religious leaders and even the disciples, thought that wealth was a sign of God’s favour and blessing. Jesus is saying the opposite. Look to the little ones, those without power and prestige. Look at this lowly widow. Here is your example of a person of faith.

Jesus drew our attention to widows in another place in the New Testament. In his first sermon in Nazareth, he proclaimed God’s special attention to a poor widow whom Elijah visited. He outraged his neighbours by pointing out that although there were many widows in Israel at the time of famine Elijah was sent to none of them, but to an alien woman of a despised race. The crowds tried to shove Jesus over the cliff after that sermon! Elijah made his pilgrimage to the Philistine town during an ideological war with Queen Jezebel. Under the queen’s leadership the people worshipped prosperity: Ba’al was their God and they prayed to Ba’al for rain and therefore for prosperity. But Elijah asked the true God of heaven to turn of the tap and stop the rain and show that God cannot be manipulated into keeping them prosperous. The rain stopped for three and a half years. Even Elijah was hungry and thirsty and so God sent him to an alien widow, the Palestinian woman, to be cared for. The flour she shared never disappeared. The cup of oil she shared kept filling itself up. There was enough food to eat.

Jesus puts the gifts of these widows in perspective. The value of gifts cannot be measured in dollar terms, he teaches us, but by what the gift represents for the person giving it. Elijah asked a poor widow to share her food and God gave them all they needed in plenty and abundance. Jesus praised the widow who was generous.

God is a generous God. The problem is that our hearts are often too closed to God’s generosity to notice the gifts God is giving. God’s generosity sometimes surprises us. As with Elijah, it may come to us from places beyond the boundaries of our expectations. We experience God’s generosity when our hearts are open and when are hearts are filled with a desire for God. St Therese of Lisieux who lived in the 16th century talks a lot about God’s grace in her writings. For her, the heart that is open to God is a heart that overflows with love. Merit does not consist in doing much, or giving much. The heart in communion with God overflows with love and acts only to pass on the love received from God.

The early Christians were aware of God’s goodness and generosity. Generosity, grace, forgiveness, these were the gifts that got the Church going. The book of Acts tells us they were generous to widows, to the poor and to each other. Many of those first Christians were not rich. Many of them were in fact widows themselves; but they were committed to others and sharing what they had, and they stood in solidarity with others. Generous sharing of ourselves with others will bring us at last to the banquet of God, the banquet of endless blessing, of which our worship here is but a foretaste.

All Saints & All Souls (B)

Isaiah 25:6-9; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

Every time we gather to celebrate Eucharist together we are reminded that life is much bigger than what we experience now, and that the church is much bigger than the sum of the countless congregations who are gathering around the world as we speak. We are also reminded that our relationships extend far beyond those we know in this life. Here, around this table, we are united with all God’s people. All of them! Not just those in every corner of the earth, but also with those who have died. Here we are united in Christ with every other Christian around the world; and we are united with the whole company of heaven in a mystical communion that extends beyond this world into the next.

This is the mystery we celebrate today. It is the mystical communion we call “Church”. The Church has been called by St Paul “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit”. We think of this fellowship as a physical reality, made up of Christians who are alive now. Today we affirm that our unity in Christ transcends death; that our relationship with those we love continues beyond death. Being Christian, therefore, is to be part of a fellowship of the Holy Spirit that far bigger than we can ever imagine or conceive. It is like being gently surrounded, held and carried in the immense waters of the sea. These waters that hold and support us and carry us – could be likened to the sea of divine activity; the continuous presence of the God, that is surrounding us, holding us, moving us, carrying us. At the centre of this divine activity stands Jesus himself. What he revealed is the continuous outpouring of divine love and grace. He showed us that our identity is formed in receiving love from God and returning that love to God and sharing it with others. This rhythm of giving and receiving is what Jesus revealed in the being of God; each member of the Trinity giving gifts of love and life, and each responding by passing that gift back to each other in a way that leads to a renewed overflow of giving. Jesus stands in the centre of this rhythm of divine gift giving and receiving. He came to make it possible for you and I to be drawn into this divine life of God, and he is continuing this work of drawing us to God in every time and place, whether on this side of the grave or beyond. So when we become followers of Jesus we are not simply following a distant figure of the past. Jesus is bringing us into this rhythm of divine life that draws us ever more deeply into the divine life of the whole Trinity. As we allow Jesus to do this for us, we find that we are inhabiting a much bigger communion of Christians than we realise at first. It includes the patriarchs and matriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, the saints and martyrs of the entire Christian era, along with those we have known and loved, the whole company of heaven, a number so great that they are as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore.

We often think of the saints as the heroes of the Christian faith; people who have been set aside because of they are exemplars of the faith or because of their extraordinary sacrifice. That is no bad thing. Some of them have bequeathed their writings to us; some of these writings form the sacred texts we find in the bible. When we read the writings of Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or S. Paul or S. Mark or S. Luke, it is as though God is reaching back through time and placing Isaiah, even the human form of Christ himself, back into our midst today so that their voice speaks to us directly about their experiences of God. The saints of old are present around this table and their voices are tongued with fire fanning the flame of our faith.

We must never forget, though, that the New Testament used the word “saint” to refer to every single Christian. St Paul wrote to the saints in Rome, to the saints in Corinth, the saints in Thessalonica, and so on. All of us are numbered with the saints and are called saints by the New Testament writers because we called to a life of holiness together in that great mystical communion we call Church.

The Isaiah reading sets before us one of the earliest visions of heaven that we have. Speaking of heaven can seem almost childish to our generation, so much so that the church has become rather coy about using words like heaven and speaking about life after death. Heaven is not some Christian fantasy for young children in Sunday School classes, neither is it an escape from hell. Heaven is God’s future rushing toward us through the work of the Holy Spirit. Whereas God brings the voices of the saints of old from the past into our present; so also, God reaches into the future, and brings that future into our present (theologians call this prolepsis). This means heaven is a reality that God enfleshes in us today, if only we will let him. Isaiah’s vision of heaven is a great banquet with tables laden with rich food and the finest wines. God is the host and we are the guests. Death has not become the end of everything, but the beginning of something new. The barrier of death has been removed, tears of grieving have been wiped away as God swallows up death forever, and all peoples of the world sit down together in peace to enjoy God’s goodness and plenty.

St Augustine said this about heaven in his book, The City of God. He said that heaven is a place where “we shall rest and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what will be at the end without end. For what other end do we have, if not to reach the kingdom which has no end.” The world of eternity God purposes for us is a world of joy in giving and receiving. It is an awareness of the glory and generosity of God in the context of the giving and receiving and rejoicing that is in the heart of the divine life of the Holy Trinity. Our best preparation for this eternity is getting accustomed to gift and joy, opening ourselves to God’s vision and practising receiving it and embodying it. For the Christian, life today is about becoming acclimatised to the sheer joy and reality of God; it is about living God’s future in the here and now. This is what prayer is all about. It is getting ourselves into a position where God can see us, putting ourselves in the light of his presence, putting aside our defences and disguises, removing the masks and identities we have wrapped ourselves in, so that the naked “me” stands before God so that what is deepest in us, what we most want, what we most care about, is laid bare before God. This is what we face as we go through death; the stripping away of everything so that the real “me” comes face to face with God. The deep work of contemplation is preparing ourselves for this moment. It is removing the old masks and identities we clothe ourselves in, and putting on Christ as we are taken into his prayer and love. As we do this, we become acclimatised to heaven, which is being in a living relationship with God.

The reading from St John’s gospel about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead shows the depth of Jesus’ grief in the face of death. This story points forward to Jesus’ own death and resurrection and the hope of eternal life in God. Whatever resurrection of the body actually looks like, this story is showing that God holds on to us through death. He holds on to every aspect of us. When someone dies, their life is not ended. That person has a future in God. God is totally committed to us. All his action is toward our flourishing and our healing. His commitment to loving and to our healing continues beyond death. In fact, death is not barrier at all to God. He just carries on loving and healing. God never lets us down; God is there to receive and hold us on both sides of the grave. It is as if, in God’s eyes, death no longer exists. It has been swallowed up forever.

On this day we celebrate these aspects of God’s loving commitment to us. We proclaim that in death, life is changed but not ended; that those we have known and loved are not lost. They are held in the being of God. We will pray for them, they will be praying for us. For some here today, our prayer for those who have died will be deeply personal. If there are tears, let it be for our grief is part of the risk of loving and being loved. Their love and their gifts have helped to form who we have become and our lives have been made richer through the gifts they have shared. We are here to do what we always do when we gather to break bread. We gather in Christ in the presence of the whole company of heaven. We await the coming of Christ and the kingdom of heaven, and with all the faithful who rest in Christ we proclaim that death is not the end, for God’s love is stronger than death. From such love, nothing can separate us.