CELEBRATING:
SERMONS
"For All the World"
Jan 5th
Prayer:
May the light of your truth and the power of your love
reveal for us the way home in Christ. AMEN
The story of the three Magi - so wonderfully depicted
in the Chapel next door - is pretty easy to skip over
lightly.
Astronomers must cringe when they hear this story.
After all, who can credit that the star stopped right
over the place where Jesus lay.
At best the details of the story are hard to verify.
At worst, they become a tale beyond belief.
But the Gospel writers had a clear purpose for including
in the Nativity narratives, this story about Magi -
three mysterious figures representing the wisdom of
the east.
It would have been easy to leave this imaginative story
out - esp. for Matthew who writes mainly for a Jewish
readership. It would have made the Gospel stories a
lot simpler to have them focus only on the shepherds
and other locals of Jewish faith.
The message here would have been:
here is our Messiah - the one promised of old for the
Hebrew nation.
But Matthew knew that this was too limited a vision.
So the story of the Magi deftly places this lowly birth
on a world stage.
This child born in utter simplicity and poverty becomes
a message for the whole world.
Even the Eastern world with all its wisdom and knowledge
has reason to pay attention to this child. There is
a light here to transform the entire world.
For Matthew, this child brings healing for all the
nations - the whole inhabited earth. This child is the
incarnation of God's transforming love. For Matthew,
Jesus enfleshes God's passion for a renewed world.
That passion, that eternal love can never be restricted
to one tribe or one nation.
This divine self-giving love is for all the world -
even for our enemies and those who would destroy the
holy child.
The AIDS victim in remotest Africa, the aged woman in
eastern Turkey, the rowdiest cowboy in Argentina, the
fiercest fighter in the middle east, and the most insulated
North American - everyone is the beneficiary of God's
redeeming love.
I didn't always believe that.
There was a time in my adolescence when I really doubted
that anyone who wasn't a Christian of Calvinist Reformed
persuasion could benefit from the love of God.
Something about my background taught me that if others
didn't grow up with OUR shared values, our kind of community,
and our understanding of God - then they probably weren't
among the elect - the chosen - the saved.
In my childish musings, I even wondered whether only
people of Dutch background could therefore get into
heaven.
I got over that! I was helped to grow up.
God became bigger in my growing mind.
But even in our adulthood, isn't that still too typical
for most of us. We so desperately need ourselves to
be included and are so ready to exclude others.
And that excluding is the beginning of violence against
the other. We regard the other as beyond redemption.
Perhaps my ongoing penance for this kind of small-minded
thinking is to work at drawing people of various faith
traditions into monthly conversation.
Perhaps my penance is the reading that our Thursday
morning group is starting this week as we discuss what
the Dalai Lama with his rich Tibetan Buddhist wisdom
says about teachings of Jesus!
The Gospel compels us to think big and wide about God's
love.
Herod was clear about his desire to exclude the Holy
Child.
He could sniff out a threat to his privilege and power.
For Herod, the throne was his god. So anyone who challenged
his power was an enemy to be snuffed out.
This hasn't changed much. Far too much of the politics
of our day is rooted in similar fear and hate.
For the fearful egotists and the hate-mongers and the
power-trippers of Herod's time and ours, resorting to
slander, violence and murder is their stock in trade.
The deceitful Herod goes after the Holy Child - not
to pay homage alongside the Magi - but with his military
might to slaughter the innocents of Bethlehem.
This is a symbol too important to leave out of the
Gospel stories.
The innocents of the world are always vulnerable to
the arrogant and the powerful. Saddam Hussein has slain
thousands of Iraqis, whom he regarded as a threat to
his power. He is a Herod-like criminal destroying the
innocents, the searchers after righteousness.
And now led by George Bush and Tony Blair we are on
the verge of yet another war with Iraq. Through all
the contemporary deceit, we can't quite get clear why
this war has to be fought. Neither the moral nor strategic
grounds have been demonstrated for what is increasingly
looking like a pre-emptive strike.
But what is clear is that once again hundreds of thousands
of innocent Iraqis can count on dying in this war being
prepared. And all that destruction, loss and death for
these unclear goals to be met.
Stories from American church leaders and people of
goodwill visiting Iraq reveal just how much the average
Iraqi fears another war and the widening of the bombing
that has been going on over the past few months.
The slaughter of the innocents continues today and
I stand amazed at how readily we in Canada and other
western nations steeped in the Gospel of Jesus Christ
are once more willing to be led down this bloody slope
against Iraq.
What this demonstrates yet again for me is that the
Gospel story is so very pertinent and filled with timely
truth. This story of the Magi and Herod reveals to us
how difficult it is for the world to welcome God's self-giving
love. God's love does not have an easy time of it in
our world.
In Jesus' time and in our day, snuffing out the light
seems so much easier than strengthening the light.
But God will not let the light go out. The Magi refuse
to communicate further with Herod because God revealed
to them the danger of doing so.
The child and his parents become refugees in Egypt.
And they stay there until
"those who are seeking the child's life are dead."
Interesting phrase that: at the story level, this just
means that when Herod died, Jesus and his parents could
return safely to their homeland.
At the Gospel level, it tells us that all who are committed
to snuffing out the love enfleshed in the innocent and
the Holy are on the road to death. The destroyers are
committed to their way of death - revealed by their
hate, their arrogance, their self-interest, their penchant
for violence and bloodshed, and by their scheming for
security.
But the Magi and the Holy Family - they are not on
the way toward death.
The "went back by another Way!"
Their way is the way of life.
They return home - and home is always that place where
the heart is.
We arrive home by the way of costly love and
at home we abide in God's heart and we radiate God's
love.
For Christians that means we will go to great distances
to turn away from the way of death.
We will expend ourselves and our resources on nurturing
the way of Life and Love.
We will not allow ourselves to be easily enticed or
seduced into war.
We will keep calling for peaceful ways, respectful ways,
life-giving ways, hopeful ways to nurture the flame
of truth and love in our world.
Have you prayed for peace? Have you worked for peace?
Have you read behind the 30-second double-speak clips
broadcast on TV in order to discover what is really
going on?
Have you written to your MP or to the Prime Minister
or to organizations like Project Ploughshare fostering
a de-militarized world, or to Amnesty International
promoting human rights and freedom for prisoners of
conscience?
This week I wrote a letter of appreciation to the leadership
of the National Council of Churches in the USA for their
peaceful mission to discover what is going on in Iraq.
I rejoiced in hearing on CBC radio of a North Shore
nurse who had gone to visit Iraq to find out first hand
how Iraqis are suffering. The economic embargo and the
ongoing bombing by British and American warplanes are
killing people - innocents.
We can't all go to Iraq - but we can inform ourselves
and we can express ourselves and remind others that
we serve the Prince of Peace and the God, who exalts
the lowly and brings the arrogant down from their thrones.
Or will we just let it happen?
In our time it is very easy to get drawn into Herod's
way - it only takes a word, a glance, a fist, a wink
and a nod, perhaps just apathetic silence, and
suddenly our finger is firmly around the trigger of
death.
The Gospel tells us that the Magi went back home by
another way.
When we come home here Sunday by Sunday to be nurtured
in God's Word and to share in Christ's body and life,
we are witnessing for the other way - Christ's way of
self-giving love.
Communion is no empty ritual when we recognize what
we are doing:
We remember that it is an act of resistance against
the way of death. It expresses commitment to God's passion
for life.
Will we in this year of our Lord 2003 have the courage
to abide in the Way of love -
Can we head for "home" - the place where God's
heart is pulsing - the scene illuminated by Holy Love
radiating from God's beloved child?
May the Spirit lead us home in peace and truth - and
above all love - the heart of God. AMEN
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Shaughnessy Heights United Church
congregation is a Christian faith community respecting
each other in our diversity and reaching out to all
who seek God’s love.
1550
West 33rd Avenue,
Vancouver, BC V6M 1A7
Canada SEE
MAP
Tel:
604-261-6377
Email: admin@shuc.ca
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