BAPTISM’S MANY WAYS - Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2018; by Bishop Terry Brown

(Sermon preached by Bishop Terry Brown at the Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario on the Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2018. Texts: Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16; Mark 8: 31-38.)

This morning we have both a Baptism and our annual Vestry meeting. Usually, I would not schedule those two together, but it has unavoidably happened. However, the more I think about it, the happier I am that the two have come together this morning. On the simplest level, Zya’s Baptism is a reminder of all our Baptisms and the baptismal ministry of this parish which we address in our annual Vestry.

Baptism is also a covenant, a mutual promise, in which the person to be baptized (or, in this case, her godparents and sponsor) promise faithfulness to God for the person newly baptized into the body of Christ. In our Sunday Lenten readings from Hebrew Scripture, we have been hearing about God’s covenants with Israel: last week we heard of God’s covenant with Noah, the most basic and foundational covenant between God and all of creation. Today we hear of God’s covenant with Abraham, making his heirs the chosen people of God, Israel, through his son Isaac. I am sure we shall go on to hear of God’s covenant with Moses and the gift of the Law.

From Hebrew Scripture we move on to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, of which Baptism is a sign and symbol: God’s gift of his Son, his atoning death on the Cross, and his Resurrection. As St. Paul says so often, we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ; we are “in Christ” (en Xristo, in the Greek) and Christ is in us. Zya will be baptized into the Body of Christ, in recognition that she belongs to Christ, is loved by Christ, and in her own way, will be Christ in and to the world. Christ is both death and resurrection. Life-giving water will be poured over her and she will be anointed with the sign of the Cross. She will be Christ’s own, for ever.

Today’s New Testament lesson from Mark speaks of taking up the Cross: that in losing our lives we win them. That Cross may be difficult responsibilities that we take on; it may be illness or old age, whether of others or ourselves. That Cross may be difficult experiences and memories of the past; it may be poverty or disability. That Cross may be separation from loved ones or living with someone we cannot be separated from. But out of all these human experiences of Jesus’s Cross, we are called to Christ’s Resurrection. Lent, the season of the Cross, is not permanent; it culminates in Easter: Christ’s Resurrection and ours.

The sign of the Cross in Baptism is not a curse, like the mark of Cain. It is a sign of encouragement, like the water of Baptism; it is a sign of God’s protection, a sign of loving self-service. All the signs and symbols of Baptism – water, the sign of the cross, consecrated oil, the gift of a lighted candle, indeed, the Peace (greeting the newly baptized and one another) – speak of encouragement and new life: the affirmation of and strength to live Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection in the world. Some Baptismal services in the early church added milk and honey: perhaps we reserve that for the Baptismal cake that we shall enjoy following this service, a small baptismal agape meal. Today, we launch Zya on her baptismal ministry.

This morning we also come together for our annual Vestry. Reports have been written, distributed and read. We reflect on our baptismal ministry as a parish and our individual roles in it. We reflect on our resources, both human and material. We reflect on our historic building, whose roof always seems to leak and whose forbidding Gothic exterior, caked with decades of soot from Hamilton’s “dark satanic mills” sometimes frightens those who might like to come worship here. We make some important decisions for our next year of baptismal ministry. St. Paul speaks of Baptism as not washing away dirt but giving us confidence; and we pray that that confidence pervades our Vestry and our year ahead. And, still as friends, I hope, we shall all join in a fellowship meal, our community lunch for this month.

However, one concluding part of Zya’s Baptism is incomplete, her first communion. Ecumenical thinking on Christian initiation (including Anglican thinking on the subject) has moved away from what is sometimes called the old “three-step initiation” (Baptism, Confirmation, First Communion) to the early Christian view that Baptism with water, in the name of the Trinity, in and of itself, is full initiation into the Body of Christ, the Church. Thus, if we had a Holy Communion this morning, Zya would make her first communion. I know she is ready for that. More than once, I have noticed that she has not been so satisfied with receiving only a blessing at the time of Communion.

Likewise, next Sunday, or perhaps Wednesday, we shall come again around the altar as a parish for the Holy Communion or Eucharist, the sacramental continuation of Baptism. In the Eucharist, we hear Scripture read and reflected upon; we offer our prayers and intercessions; we confess and receive absolution. We greet one another in the Peace of Christ. Then we solemnly re-present (not repeat, not just remember, either), the central core of the Baptismal Ministry: Christ’s death on the Cross and his Resurrection, in a meal of bread and wine commended to us in Jesus’ own words: “This is my body, this is my blood”. And we are sent out to exercise our baptismal ministry in the world.

Finally, just a reminder that we are not just witnesses to Zya’s Baptism or, indeed, to each others’ Baptisms. We are participants in her Baptism and each others’ Baptisms and baptismal ministry. We will join in the reaffirmation of our Baptismal promises, including one not the Book of Alternative services because it is new, the promise to look after creation, a fitting addition of God’s covenant with Noah into the baptismal promises. We shall all promise to support and care for Zya, and we shall welcome her into the church. We pray that that God’s welcoming and loving Holy Spirit may pervade our Vestry and our parish life. With Zya, let us not just remember our Baptisms, but also live them.

Let us pray.

God of mercy, God of grace,
Show the brightness of your face;
Shine upon us, Saviour shine,
Fill your church with light divine;
And your saving health extend
Unto earth’s remotest end.

Thanks be to God!

First Sunday in Lent - Sunday, February 18, 2018; by The Rev'd Leonel Abaroa Boloña

Please allow me a bit of a personal moment, sooner than later into this homily.

I give thanks to God for standing before you as your friend in Christ, and also a priest in the Church of God.

I am very grateful to those of you who were able and stubborn enough to drag yourselves to our Cathedral on that evening of such awful weather. To those who held me in prayer, who wished me well, who thought of me at the time.

I am very grateful to this congregation. Here I was welcomed and affirmed and embraced in my vocation, gifts, and loyalties. Bishop Terry, you have been a pastor, a teacher, and a friend. Thank you. I am yours, and this ministry of mine cannot be understood apart from whence I have come to it.

And these are not just expressions of my true gratefulness to you and the rest of the Church, but in fact an expression of a sacramental reality of my priestly ministry. It is sustained by a covenant-like relationship, of obedience, communion, and love in Christ, with God, and the bishop, the church, which is all of you, my friends. 

Now, as for the Lectionary for today …

In our gospel reading, Saint Mark presents the events concerning the coming of John the Baptist, his baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, Jesus’ time spent in the desert, the arrest of John the Baptist, and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry -all in one single swoop of narrative. 

As we read or listen to this early bit in the gospel, we can sense that Mark is going at full speed, it would seem, and such a pace of story-telling conveys the dynamism and urgency of Jesus’ ministry and mission, proclaiming and sharing the good news, the evangelion, the gospel, of the reign of God.

The Gospel of Mark is very peculiar in this regard. The rather elaborate narratives we find in the other gospels in our Bibles only make more evident the brevity and directedness of Mark’s style. 

And this might be particularly appropriate in this our first Sunday in the liturgical season of Lent, the forty days in which, to put it one way, we move on as we learn and worship, in prayer and sacrament, as one body, following Jesus to Calvary and the Easter Garden.

Lent is a season for us to be shaped after the words and events concerning the ministry, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as we seek to be the church, in this our own time and place.

And I want to continue reflecting with you about this notion of covenant I was referring to before, of the ordained ministry of the church with each and all church communities, because there is some of that theme running through the readings for this First Sunday in Lent.

In fact, the reading from the book of Genesis we heard earlier contains the first reference to the concept of a covenant in the whole of our Old Testament of the Bible. And here is not just a covenant, the legal term for a curated relationship, and as we most often encounter, but even a covenanted promise, offered by God to all of God’s creatures, and in the case of the covenant with Noah and his family, a covenant in which we, Gods children, are deemed accountable for the well-being of other people, and other forms of life. Indeed, while later notions of biblical covenant will tend toward the ritualistic, filled with symbol and narrative poetry, this first mention of the covenant between God and God’s creation is also spelled out in a much wider ecological sense.


This initial covenant resolutely links the well-being of humans to that of the rest of creation, and vice versa, and symbolically so by means of a rainbow, the token of that covenanted relationship.
Our ability to respond to the love of God is conditioned here to our willingness to care and be responsible for other forms of life.

But our being willful participants of a covenant, also entails the willingness to bear the consequences of such a choice.

In this sense, the author of the Epistle of Peter identifies suffering as one of the potential consequences of sharing in the covenant, the testament, of Jesus the Christ.

For example, in verses fifteen and sixteen, the author of this epistle writes:
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” and “Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.”

But our share in this covenant in Christ is not passive, and is not even limited to defending ourselves, but goes on to move us and empower us to give a daily, coherent witness of our calling, our vocation. To let others know of what hope moves our lives, warts and all, and how that hope has power and grace to change not only our own lives, but that of the whole of Creation.To preach the Gospel at all times, as St Francis teaches us, and to use words, when necessary. And Peter goes on to address the primordial covenant of our faith, our baptism.

A covenant grounded on the promise of the life we have known in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In our celebrating and remembering of our baptismal promises, we recognize the potential consequences of standing on the side of Christ, who cries for justice and life for all.

We recognize that Christ, indeed, died, for the sins of the world, in the fulfillment of a covenant which stands forever. And we cannot but name the sins of the world as injustice, hunger, oppression, and violence. In advancing and embracing these foundations of the reign of God, we look up to Christ as our example and goal to follow.

The Church gathers to enact and celebrate the sacraments, the covenants, of our faith, primarily through baptizing new Christians, and celebrating the Holy Communion, the sacrament and covenant of our redemption.

And we also gather to cultivate and harvest the fruits of such spiritual commitments, as we witness to and serve Christ in the world. We participate, in an active fashion, in the daily translation of our faith into actions which seeks to proclaim the coming of the reign of God, for the here and the now of each one who listens  in.

Our sacramental life and our mission and service are one, however, rather than two or more separate realities. The hands that set up the altar, brew our coffee, clean our floor, take our phone calls and pray over our gifts are equally as beautiful and holy to God, who rejoices in each of us in our gifts and unique ways for service.

In Lent, we are led by Christ to follow as He fulfills the covenant enacted in his ministry, speaking truth, working justice, and practicing love. It is a season of penitence because we are called to discern, as people of faith, that which may prevent us from not only clearly hearing such truths in the Gospel, but from seeking to enact them in the world around us.

From the immediacy of our partner, friend, colleague, and neighbor, to the seemingly anonymity of any person who suffers in this our own time in the world of our own age. Penance is a healthy work of the soul, and it cannot but help us see Jesus more clearly, both in the promise of the sacraments, and the reality of those who lack.

It is only fair to also ask ourselves, how to lead others to such joy, to this mutuality of the covenant of God in Christ? How to be clearer, gentler icons of the joy of that life we confess is to be found in Christ and, even more daringly so, in the fellowship of Christ’s church? This Church?

It is in our service where the words of the gospel are able to become more of themselves, whether that service is worship, witness, assistance to anyone who lacks, presence, or proclamation. We enact the covenant of God in Christ in everything we do which recognizes that covenant, that promised embrace, of our being Christ in the world.

Thanks be to God.

TRANSFIGURATION LIGHT - Last Sunday after Epiphany, February 11, 2018; by Bishop Terry Brown

(Sermon preached by Bishop Terry Brown at the Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, on the Last Sunday after Epiphany, February 11, 2018. Texts: 2 Kings 2: 1-12; 2 Corinthians 4: 3-6; Mark 9: 2-9.

Today’s Gospel, for the last Sunday before Lent, is Jesus’ Transfiguration on the holy mountain, before he goes down to his crucifixion in Jerusalem a few weeks later. The imagery, especially the brilliant light, prefigures the Resurrection.

I am sure this Gospel is placed here in the liturgical year, as an encouragement and reminder of Easter as the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, at the end of the dark tunnel, so to speak, of Lent. Jesus is placed with two figures from Hebrew Scripture who also had mountain-top revelatory experiences, the law-giver Moses and the prophet Elijah. Christ is the new Revelation about to be defined by his death and resurrection. The disciples accompanying Jesus barely understand but they will later come back to this experience, time and time again. The Transfiguration vision is also the culmination of the many small epiphanies of the Epiphany season, with a voice from heaven declaring, “This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him!”

And so, as the disciples eventually listened, we listen: in Scripture, Bible study, prayer, meditation, common discernment and community. We do so with the hope that we are moving towards the truth, towards the justice of Moses’s law, towards the quiet authority of Elijah’s still small voice, but most of all towards the embodied love of God modeled in Jesus, the simple prophet of Nazareth, who taught simple folk how to love and be just, with authority and simplicity, who for that met his death on a cross, and who rose, ascended, and reigns with his Father on high – because God declared on the holy mountain, “This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him!”

That process should be like “light shining out of the darkness”, in the words of today’s epistle. But that epistle also reminds us that that light is not us or our enlightenment or brilliance but Jesus Christ the Lord. By now, Paul, late in his ministry, is very clear that any brilliance is not his but Jesus Christ’s. At best we can only reflect that light. The passage then moves on to the well-known image of having this wonderful treasure in fragile clay pots, bodies and minds that are flawed and failing but which can still contain and shine forth the treasure of divine love.

I hope Deacon Leonel (and his mother) will forgive me if I use him as a simple example. This afternoon he will experience what for anyone with a vocation to ordination, is a wonderful mountaintop Transfiguration experience. The literal mountaintop is perhaps only a few steps up to the bishop but the promises and the prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands, with the music, presence of friends, and the whole sense of celebration, is deeply moving. I still remember one surprising thought during my ordination as a priest: “if the weight of these hands gets any heavier, I am going to have to put my hands on the bishop’s knees to brace myself”. Still, the experience is one of Transfiguration and is meant to be.

But then there is the morning after: yes, the world has taken on a new glow of joy, but I am also still me, with the same temptations, worries, personality characteristics, challenges and disappointments. I have not suddenly become God and know everything and am without sin. But there is a new confidence, a new resolution, a new recognition, a new empowerment to minister and serve, and to overcome whatever obstacles there are in one’s life to that ministry. The Middle Ages spoke of that new state as sacramental character, whether it be of a priest or bishop; or, indeed, of the laity, as we all share in a new sacramental character through our Baptisms and Confirmations. Sacramental character sends us out from Transfiguration to nitty-gritty ministry and all its difficulties and ambiguities.

In the Orthodox tradition, Sunday worship is meant to be an experience of Transfiguration in its rich combination of beautiful art, architecture, music, incense and liturgy. Because of its Protestant tradition, Anglican worship tends to be sparser but even here we should experience Sunday worship as uplifting and not go home angry or annoyed. That is the point of dignified liturgy, clear reading, beautiful music and a friendly congregation. (It is a reason for not doing church business during coffee hour!) Perhaps some of our large funerals better model the Transfiguration experience of worship because of numbers and the services’ deep emotional quality and the personal choice of hymns. Still for others, following the tradition of the “still small voice”, Transfiguration is found in quiet meditation, in silence, in the model of Elijah on the mountain; for example, in the Taizé service or centring prayer.

As Jesus and his disciples were sent from the mountain of Transfiguration back into situations of difficult and dangerous (indeed, fatal) ministry (as Deacon Leonel will be sent back to us, at least for a short time, to minister as a priest), all of us are called to move from Transfiguration events back into ministry. That ministry is exemplified, of course, by the ministry of Jesus: healing, forgiving, welcoming, encouraging, comforting, seeking justice – in short, embodying God’s divine love in the world. As with the post-Transfiguration Jesus and his disciples, that living the Christian Way will entail bearing the cross, an emptying oneself of entitlement and privilege, being present with the outcast and despised with love, protecting and enabling the vulnerable, and seeking to be God’s love in the world.

Churches are sometimes notorious places for conflict. As a bishop, I sometimes presided over synods with debates that ended with fistfights. Not always successfully, I tried to prevent irate Anglicans from burning down the new churches they disagreed with. But along with conflict are provisions for restoration of unity, including within the Eucharist. In the Melanesian and New Zealand liturgies, after the confession and absolution, the words of the Peace (“The Peace of the Lord be always with you”; “and also with you”) are accompanied by other biblical sentences: “We are the Body of Christ; by one Spirit we were baptized into one Body; Try hard to keep the unity of the Spirit; in the body of peace.”) Transfiguration produces the desire for unity, the desire to stay together, despite disagreements. And effective ministry also requires unity. The Transfiguration experience united Jesus and his closest disciples and they never forgot it.

Those are a few thoughts before we begin Lent on Ash Wednesday this week. I invite us all to observe a holy Lent, recognizing that we are all sinners. While as Anglicans we may entertain a high view of human nature (correctly, I believe) there is also the reminder of Jeremiah: “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.” Even in my seventh decade of life, I can still say those words of myself. And if we cannot, then some self-examination is in order. We have forty days. One simple prayer, I think, is in order, it is a prayer I use all the time: “Lord, help me to see my sins as you see them”: not as I see them and not as others see them; but as God sees them. The results will bring us Transfiguration, fruitful ministry, and Resurrection life. Thanks be to God.

ADVENT: HOPEFUL AND HOPE-GIVING - Advent Sunday, December 3, 2017; by Bishop Terry Brown

(Sermon preached by Bishop Terry Brown at Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, on Advent Sunday, December 3, 2017. Text: Mark 13: 23 – 37.)

On Monday night at our Worship Committee, we went around the table trying to remember the sequence of symbolism of the Advent candles. Finally, with the help of a smart phone, we came to the sequence we are observing this year: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. So, this first week we begin with Hope.

Why might Hope be associated with Advent, the beginning of the church year, the time of preparation before our celebration of Christmas and a time to think of Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell?

First, obviously, in Advent we prepare for our celebration of the One who is the Hope of the Nations, the Christ, the Messiah, who will put right the unjust and sinful world with his perfect Just Reign. In a world just as broken and violent as ours, the ancient Hebrews waited with hope for a Messiah who would bring peace, justice and an ingathering of all the nations. As Christians, we believe that Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah; and that in his life and teachings, his death and resurrection (yes, and through the church, the extension of his Body), he left us a path to love and justice that was, and is, still full of Hope.

The apocalyptic scriptures of end times that frequently emerge in the Advent readings, remind us that this Hope is counter-cultural and that we are not to be drowned in despair that nothing can be done. Even in the current world political situation. So often in his ministry, Jesus reached out to those without hope and offered them encouragement, love, healing, forgiveness and new life. Jesus was a Hope-Giver.

On Advent Sunday, we are also starting a new church year. Perhaps the old church year has worn us out a bit and some of our hope has been lost – whether through deaths or illness of family and friends, or our own ill health, or uncertainty about the future, or failed plans, or overwork, or ongoing stresses and tensions with others or even within ourselves.

Advent is a time to re-set ourselves, so to speak, back to the basic Christian virtues of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.  On this Sunday, that means not just a return to again becoming hopeful people where we have felt hopeless, but becoming again (or becoming more intently) hope-giving people. Hope is about encouragement and we are called to encourage one another.

We have various Advent giving programs such as the Giving Tree, the Advent calendar boxes for St. Matthew’s House and our own Christmas giving to both the local and overseas church. Such giving offers encouragement to those who do not share our material resources.

But what about adding a more personal relationship Advent calendar not so tied to material gifts to anonymous people? For example, on one’s daily calendar or in one’s daily date book, might we have a place for the name of one person we have given hope and encouragement to each day of this week. (And do the same for the following weeks, one person to whom we have been an agent of Peace, Joy and Love.) Such an exercise might make us more intentional about our roles as Hope-imparters, Peace-makers, Joy-givers and, indeed, Lovers. And keep the names secret, adding them to our daily prayers.

I make this suggestion because we are surrounded by many people in this world (including sometimes ourselves) who lack Hope. And we who know the Hope-giving Messiah are called to be agents of that Hope in the world. It is very easy to criticize, dismiss others, gossip, revert to the good days of the past; but we are here and now, the Hope-giving Messiah’s mouths, words, gestures, arms and legs, ears and touch. Let us be that Hope-giving presence, both to one another and to the world.

It is Advent, so we also hope with an eye on Christmas, our celebration of the birth of the Hope of the nations. As much as we descry the early celebration of Christmas, it is already all around us and hard to avoid. Christmas is about presence – God’s presence with us in Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, “God with us” – and our hope, if it is to be a Christmas hope – must be a hope that is present to others. It is a temptation to climb into a hole and hide from Christmas, so intense are some of the problematic sides of the season. But Advent gives us a chance to step back a bit from all that and to concentrate on reflecting on (and then acting on) how we, as individuals and a parish, might be more present in hope (and in peace and joy and love) to our neighbours.

For a parish like us, it is a bit complicated when we say “neighbours” and “being present”. We come from all over the city and beyond. Some of us live in the neighbourhood or nearby, some quite far away. So, we have neighbours to be present for, offering hope, both around the church neighbourhood and around our various local neighbourhoods. We also have “neighbours” at our places of employment or recreation. For many (perhaps even most of us), we have friends and family across the country and across the world; and the social media has made them, at least virtually, present to us 24 hours a day. We might well ask, like the rich young man who asks Jesus, “and who is my neighbour?” To that question, we remember, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, a quintessential story of Jesus about giving hope.

The answer to the question, “and who is my neighbour?” is, of course, everyone – everyone we meet, even strangers; everyone who has needs, even if they inconvenience us; everyone who comes through the doors of this church.  Perhaps it might be helpful to think of the parish as one enormous Good Samaritan, providing assistance and support where others have passed by on the other side. Of course, we worry about volunteer fatigue and sometime complain.  And sometimes this approach is not easy on the budget or makes us worry about money. But if we engage in the ministry of hope, money will come.

But let us extend the story of the Good Samaritan a moment. What if, after he had bound up the wounds of the injured man and taken him to the inn, the Good Samaritan continued on his journey; and then, a mile down the road, he found another man wounded and lying on the ground, since this was a very dangerous part of the road? What do we think he would have said? Somehow, I do not believe he would have thought “I have already done my good deed for the day, let some other Good Samaritan look after this guy” and simply moved on. I suspect he would have pitched in again, even without complaint. And so it is (or should be) with our hope-giving enterprises, whether as a parish relating with our complicated and sometimes difficult neighbourhood or as individuals ending up as Good Samaritans – givers of hope – to family and friends at home and around the world.  And in all this, our hope-giving should build up our own hope, for in hope-giving we are doing the work of Christ in the world. Thus, it is also important to support and encourage one another in our works of hope, and not just observe to criticize. When the master of the house returns (from today’s Gospel), let us be found doing hope-giving work.

So, this week, let us think and act for and with Hope. Take a tag from the Christmas Giving Tree and buy a gift that offers hope to a single mother and her children; take an Advent box and begin filling it with food and supplies for St. Matthew’s House; each day make a special effort to encourage and give hope to someone we know is “down”;  invite a friend to our Christmas dinner and pay their way if they cannot afford it (and come, be present); invite a friend to church on Sunday or Wednesday; welcome everyone who comes through these doors with genuine love and hope-giving. But also use this Advent season, not so much frenetically preparing for Christmas, but as a time to reflect how we may be more effective in our Good Samaritan and hope-giving ministries. May we all have a Holy Advent. Amen.

Reign of Christ, November 26, 2017; by The Rev'd Deacon Leonel Abaroa Boloña

Please, pray with me.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable before you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Please be seated.

Good morning my friends. It is so good to be here.

In the Sundays since the Feast of All Saints, on November 1st, the Lectionary of the Church conforms what some have called the Season of the Reign of God.

The Gospel lessons for each Sunday in this month of November have alluded, one way or another, to the promise, the hope, and the imminence, the expectation, that the coming of the Reign of God requires from you and me and the Church.

And this is understandable, since the liturgical season we will commence next Sunday is that of the Advent of Christ, the four weeks of preparation for our yearly commemoration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, our savior and Lord.

Today, as we celebrate the feast of the Reign of Christ, as we praise and sing to Christ the King, the Gospel starkly reminds us what this kingdom, what this reign of Christ is all about.

And the Gospel parable told by Jesus, both by need and appearance, urges us to look for its roots in the Old Testament.

If we look then to our first reading -you may have already noticed the similarities between this text and Matthew’s gospel for today.

Ezekiel, one of the great prophets of Israel, is speaking to Israel from the midst of its Exile in Babylon. The core of the people of Israel has been taken away, for the benefit of the Babylonian Empire, to dwell in a strange land -exactly what Psalm 137 talks about.

And Ezekiel, even from the midst of national disruption and suffering, speaks the voice of God calling Israel to act justly, and specifically so among themselves, oppressed by the same tyrant as they are. Ezekiel prophesied that God will come as shepherd to gather Israel, but also that God will feed justice to these sheep, judging (with some harshness it seems) against those who have abused and diminished others.

In the words of Ezekiel, God promises justice to Israel, yes: she will be restored to her land and green pastures --but justice will also be restored to the children of Israel. Justice, not wrath.

In the Gospel, Jesus is telling a parable with a very similar theme to that of the text from Ezekiel.
There are a few differences -which can likely be accounted for by the time elapsed between the sayings of Ezekiel and the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, under seven hundred years.

Jesus speaks of the Son of Man, with a very visual proclamation of his coming as a sort of great shepherd, to gather all the nations of the earth -to gather all people, from all languages, cultures, religions.

I think it is safe to assume that we all have some idea about what this great gathering of all times would look like. It should look bigger than Woodstock from up in the air, I am sure.

But, again, I think it is safe to assume that we all have given some thought to what this grand reckoning is about, and so the poetry we find in this parable of Jesus connects very well with our own cultural notions about ‘when the son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him’.

In the midst of all this grand language, Jesus turns to the far more amicable figure of the shepherd.

The image of the shepherd separating goat from sheep is very telling.

Sheep tend to be mild and gregarious, while goats can often turn out stubborn, if not aggressive and antisocial. Sheep follow the shepherd, and goats, the heard-goat. So, you really want to keep these apart.

The basis for the judgement of the Son of Man on either sheep or goat, as we are told, is not very religious, or at least not very religious in the most restrictive sense of the expression.

The one plain theological point being made here is that Jesus is to be found in the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner.
But beyond that, the basis for the judgement that Jesus proclaims for this end of times are those of love put into action, works of compassion.

In other words, Jesus equals true discipleship -the true character of those who follow and emulate his holy example- to the care we give. 

This is not to say that doctrine, and good doctrine, is not really important. Doctrine is important, and good doctrine is very important for the well-being of the church and the coherence of our mission.


But doctrine, however good, does not, and in fact is not meant to replace our works of mercy, our service to Jesus who meets us in the sick, the thirsty, the hungry, and the prisoner. If anything, the well-being of our doctrine hangs on the generosity and commitment of our love made service.

This is a sobering message for the church today, for you and me. But let us be clear: the message was just as challenging for the church where this gospel of Matthew was composed because it likely addressed some part of the inner life of that specific community which called for a discernment of what the kingdom of God was really about for them, in their own context.

So -through the lens of this parable, in our commitment to those in need, and in whom we are met by Christ, I want to ask, which things is the reign of God about, for our congregation of this church of the Ascension? Let me mention a few.

. The persistent support to the work of St Matthew’s House - I encourage you to ask from Ruth and Jack Faulks and others involved.

. The ABC program, providing breakfast, every week, to children in school, with a very dedicated team with Jean, Catherine, Will, and others.

. The Pastoral Care initiatives, with Ruth Roberts and Diane and others, keeping tabs of love and prayers on those who we do not see often, and visiting and supporting those who may need it.

. The support this congregation provides to the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, as it seeks to empower people in impoverished areas or countries and in need of material support for their development.

. The work in the Mission to the Seafarers, with Deacon Janice and (now, server!) Sue Hawthorne-Bates, where they are so dedicated to being family and home to sailors touching port in Hamilton.

. The Advent boxes initiative, which has been announced today, as a means for supporting the winter reserves of food and other supplies at St Matthew’s House.

. The Giving Tree initiative, which will be formally launched next Sunday, seeking to bring gifts of Christmas to a family in financial need.

These are all programs and initiatives made possible by the generosity of many and the commitment and passion of specific individuals in our community.

One could say that we as community keep getting involved in these projects supporting people in need with the same persistence with which we celebrate the sacraments of the Church. Because there is just as much of the core of who we are and what the church is about at stake.

Now, the parable of the sheep and goats ends somehow drastically: those who did not act compassionately “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”.

Yes, there is judgement for us who have not cared enough, or chosen not to care for Jesus who meets us in those people who suffer.

But let us also notice that this is a parable about the fullness of times, or the end of times, even though it is spoken to us today. Which means, the gulf between those who choose and those who choose not to care for Jesus in those who suffer is, if nothing else, surmountable. It can be crossed.

In fact, one could say that this separation between the sheep and goats of the parable is actually meant to be overcome. These trenches between those who care and those who do not care for Jesus made sacrament in the suffering, often double as opportunities for transformation, growth, and conversion into service.

A final observation. According to the imagery used in the parable, one could say that no matter what our judgement may come down to, we are never judged in solitude, as individuals.

In the parable, whether we end up on one or the other side of the great shepherd, it seems as if we will end up in a multitude. Or maybe a smaller crowd. Who knows, if sixty something on any given Sunday.

And my point here is that, whichever that crowd may turn out to be, we are called to continual transformation, in community, to growth and conversion after the example and love and compassion of Jesus the Christ, our King and Lord, whom we now await. In community, and here and now, bearing witness to that just as actualized love of Christ, his reign of love and compassion. 

All of this somehow accounts for the collect we prayed earlier for this feast of the Reign of Christ:
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King, grant that the peoples of the earth, now divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his gentle and loving rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

REMEMBERING FOR THE FUTURE - Sunday after Remembrance Day, November 12, 2017; by Bishop Terry Brown

(Sermon preached by Bishop Terry Brown at the Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, on the Sunday after Remembrance Day, November 12, 2017. Texts: Joshua 24: 1 – 3a, 14 – 25; 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 – 18; and Matthew 25: 1 -13.)
   
Today we mark Remembrance Day. It is a state holiday, but we have brought it into the church, because so many veterans were Christians and we (and they) see their sacrifice as part of their Christian vocation. We thank God for countless men and women who have served in the armed forces and made the greatest sacrifice, their lives. We read their names, we build them monuments, we read their stories, we recall their faces, we write poems, novels and music, we lament and grieve, and yet we give thanks, aware that many of our freedoms have been preserved by their sacrifice. We are reminded, also, to treat veterans who are still alive with kindness, and to offer pastoral care and support to the women and men of the armed forces.

Yet there is a bittersweet quality to it all: what might have been, had war and death not intervened; the deep sadness of those who lost spouses, sons and daughters, and parents in war; the wasted resources and desecrated landscapes; and the mistakes, the glorification and sometimes worship of war and militarism; the traumas left in people’s lives that sometimes seem beyond healing.

For me, the matter is also personal since, as most of you know, I spent two years in the US Army in the late sixties, working in an army hospital in Japan treating casualties from the US war in Vietnam. It was a grim business and more than once I thought, “there must be a better way”. A few years later as a young priest teaching theology on Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, I found myself surrounded by war relics and stories of World War 2, where Americans were revered for saving the country from Japan. Yet, standing on the beach of Iron Bottom Sound (named for the large numbers of battleships sunk there) I was aware of how many American contemporaries of mine would have lost fathers there, while my father, also a veteran of that war, survived and I grew up with the love of a father. Bittersweet: our thanksgiving today is tempered with sorrow and regret.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, there is the suggestion that one potential problem is idolatry. Joshua asks the gathered tribes of Israel, who will you serve, the Lord the God of Israel, or other gods of the past or present. The tribes of Israel declare, “we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” Joshua explains that such a commitment is very serious indeed and, if broken, will result in their destruction. The people again declare their faithfulness and Joshua makes a covenant with them, providing them statutes and ordinances so that they might fulfill their commitment.

There is a lot of idolatry that surrounds war. For example, glorification of violence rather than seeing it as the regretful last resort; promoting war for its economic benefits, for example, in weapon sales to unjust regimes or sales far beyond what is necessary; war as a way to gain power for a corrupt elite, sacrificing the poor and powerless in the process. In the US Army, I was surrounded by blacks, Puerto Ricans and poor southern whites with no place else to go; those with money and power often escaped the military all together but benefited economically from the war.

I believe that as Christians, when faced with choices in which war and violence are one option, we do well to declare with Joshua and those who were committed with him, “We will serve the Lord”, moving away from the idolatrous and destructive movements that so often accompany militarism, war and the military life: idolatrous ways such as routinely solving problems though violence (whether physical or verbal), love of guns and other weapons, dividing the world into “friends” and “enemies”, seeking and glorifying conflict rather than peacemaking, viewing the world in strictly hierarchical terms, etc. We cannot forget Jesus’ words, “blessed are the peacemakers”.

For Joshua and the Israelites, “serving the Lord” meant building a community of justice and love, worshipping God with all their hearts, minds and souls. For us as Christians, serving the Lord means seeking and providing the fruitful ground for God’s reign (or rule or kingdom) to flourish among us and move out into the world. The marks of that reign of God are love, justice, peace, kindness, patience, and all the other gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids reminds us to be ready for this work of love and justice at any time and especially unexpected times. Our instincts may repel us or make us frightened but with self-discipline we can learn to accept, listen and encourage those even very different from ourselves. Canada’s military has a distinguished record of peacekeeping; as Christians, we can emulate that record. For the stranger in need, the refugee, the person with many personal conflicts and difficulties, the one who is “the other” in one way or another, we can go out, like one of the wise bridesmaids, with the lamp of comfort, peace, encouragement and reconciliation. In each small encounter, we help turn the world away from war to peace. Military chaplains do this work as well, helping members of the armed forces discern their vocation to love in a context in which violence is often the norm. Our acceptance and encouragement of veterans does the same.

None of these reflections are meant in any way to lessen the sacrifice of those we honour today. They fought for peace and a better live. Surely, they are among those who share in the resurrection from the dead that Paul speaks of in today’s epistle from 1 Thessalonians. My own experience of military life was not just the bad side of being trained to kill people but also of personal kindness, friendship, ministry and service, often across racial and social divides. Only with time have I begun to appreciate some of those experiences. (My mostly black company called me “preacher”, an encouragement of my vocation.) Thus, out of experiences that may seem brutal and unfair at the time, goodness and maturity can emerge; indeed, resurrection. We keep in our prayers all who have died in wars, we thank God for their service and witness. We remember also all innocent victims of war and pray for the power to do all we can do to work for the peace of the world.

In our Wednesday evening Bible study this week, I was very struck by a saying of Jesus at the end of chapter 9 in Luke’s Gospel: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Out of genuine and loving respect for those who gave their lives for our country, we do briefly look back on Remembrance Day. But then we are reminded that we are on an onward journey, forward on the Christian Way, and not stuck in the past. Thus, the fellowship we shall share in the breaking of the bread and pouring of the wine in the Eucharist and our fellowship in our community lunch moves us forward to greater fellowship and connectedness with one another as we move forward in the Way of Love and Justice.

When we realized our monthly Sunday community lunch would come on our Remembrance Day, a parishioner asked whether this was appropriate. It is very appropriate. Even our friends in the Canadian Legion, after the solemnity of the morning’s observance, retire to the legion hall for food, drink and fellowship. They move forward. And let us do the same, welcoming all. Thanks be to God.

'FRANCISCA Y LA MUERTE' - 21st Sunday after Pentecost, October 29, 2017; by The Rev'd Deacon Leonel Abaroa Boloña

Good morning, my friends, It is so good to be here.

We all come from our time away from the gathering of the Church, a whole week. Many of us have faced difficulties, change, new things to learn, work, and joy. We know ourselves as children of God, in pilgrimage throughout our life on earth, until we come to meet our Maker.

The great Cuban storyteller, Onelio Jorge Cardoso, is the author of the tale Francisca y la muerte, -Francis and Death. Briefly, and freely, told, it is the story of Francisca, an elderly lady from a rural town in Cuba.

Francisca had retired as a school teacher, and always led a very busy life, before and since. She sung in the local choir, helped with after-school tutoring, tended to her garden and chickens, visited her ailing sister across town, attended meetings and events with the local community, spent lots of time with her grandchildren, and was learning to paint with watercolors. She went everywhere, and she walked everywhere.

One day, however, as it must happen to us all, Death came to town, looking for Francisca. It was her turn.

So Death went to Francisca’s house, early in the morning, confident to find her there.

But no. Francisca was gone. Not in the house, or the backyard, or the garden. She was just gone.

So Death walked around the block and ran into a neighbor.

--¿‘Francisca, you say?”, said the neighbor. “I saw her leaving her house very, very early, on her way to visit with her sister” --- Which, as we now know, was all the way across town.

So off went Death. The sun was rising, so was the humidity, and Death, with all those robes, and carrying that heavy scythe, was feeling the heat.

Death finally made it to the sister’s house. –

“Oh I am so sorry, ¡Francisca just left!”, said the sister. “She had a meeting with the local garden group, somewhere downtown”.

O brother, Death thought. This was supposed to have been an easy one.

Off he went -and so Death spent all day, chasing Francisca around town, walking from the garden to the school, from the theater to the market, from the clinic back to the school…

By sunset, Death was exhausted from walking, de-hydrated, out of breath. He sat in the town’s square. Suddenly -a tight pain in the chest, blurry vision -and Death dropped dead from a heart attack. -----

Meanwhile, Francisca was reaching her home, back from the clinic --and a neighbor greeted her:

--“Francisca! You are always so busy. ¡You are never going to die!”.

--“Not today”, replied Francisca. “Not today”.

But seriously.     I do not know how many years Francisca went on to live. But it is true that we often associate a long life, with a sense of fulfillment, completion, wisdom, purpose.

May you live to 120 is a common blessing among Jews, based on the life and times of Moses.

Our first reading marks the end of the Exodus, the wandering of Israel in search for freedom and purpose, the end of the search for the Promised Land. This reading from Deuteronomy also marks the ending of the Torah or Law of Israel, the first Five Books of our Bibles.

And, as we know, it also marks the end of Moses’s earthly life:

“Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”

Moses died in Mount Nebo, in the region directly east of the Jordan River and just northeast of the Dead Sea, in what is today the country or kingdom of Jordan. This much we are told.

But what was this view that Moses looked at before he died?

As Deuteronomy says, Moses could see: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.

So I looked on the internet for some photos of Mount Nebo.   (screen presentation)

Moses is so deeply revered by Christians, and one could say, even more so by the Jewish people, because of his place as the greatest prophet in Israel, his leadership of the people before and during the Exodus from Egypt, and his role in the giving of the Law, or Torah. We Christians look back to Moses and one could say to the whole of the life of Israel, as a place of revelation of the roots and overall context for the becoming of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore our own story as well.

The Law of Israel, the Torah of God, in its origins had a very pronounced accent of liberation, coming into life as it did at the pinnacle of the Exodus of Israel, by the hand of Yahweh, out to the Promised Land.

Unfortunately, as we know, the Torah eventually also became an object of legalistic speculation, a tool for exercising power, and a justification for social hierarchies of power in Israel.

In our Gospel for today, the question posed to Jesus by a Pharisee, ‘a lawyer’, is visibly within this shape of legalistic arguing, and I think that it was meant to disqualify the authority of Jesus as teacher of the Law. Or, as the Gospel so eloquently puts it, the lawyer asked Jesus this question ‘to test him’.

“Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”, --by all accounts, a popular topic of discussion among students of the Torah -¿which of the 613 commandments in the Law is the most important one? In our own context, the question could be instead, “¿Which is the best Gospel?”. Or, “¿Who is the best writer, Peter, or Paul?” And so on.

Jesus’ response, at first hearing, does pass the purity standards of the Pharisees -God is above everything, and so should our love for God be above everything. However, it is the bridge that Jesus makes, “and the second is like unto it”, what was likely to set off the ‘blasphemy’ radars in our dear friends the Pharisees. 

We know, however, that seeking a right relationship with and responding to the love of God by means of loving our neighbors is the key human response to the message of the Scriptures -of which, for both Jesus and Pharisees, the Law was a key component. Indeed, for Christians, as John Newman wrote, “the way we define our neighbor -who is my, your neighbor- reveals the kind of God in whom one believes”.

This vital point, made by Jesus in our reading from Matthew, was likely lost to the Pharisees, in their also likely inner struggle in reconciling their zeal for the Law with the Love they are being spoken about.

And I mean, and I believe Jesus meant it first --Love not necessarily a sense, a feeling, a passion, but a purpose of fidelity to the covenant, a thing of our wills and our actions, a way of life or, maybe, a way of seeking to live on earth while hoping for heaven.  To live on earth as if our lives in heaving hung on it.

Speaking of hanging -when Jesus says “on these two commandments hang all the Law, and the Prophets”.

On the one hand, Rabbis or Teachers of the Law say that the whole world hangs on the Torah, “even on the proper balance of every word in it”. Worship of God, works of charity, truth, peace -they all rest and hang on the Law.

On the other hand, in our reading from Matthew, Jesus flips this relationship, and makes the Law depend on those actions which speak to the character of the Law: love. That thing of our wills and our actions, that way of seeking to live on earth while hoping for heaven -indeed, to live on earth as if our lives in heaven hung on it.

After a life of struggle, faith, falling and rising, moving and rising, Moses met his Creator.

So did our ancestors -and so did Francisca, busy life and all. And so will we all.

In both life and death, however, just like Moses and Israel, we know that we are being led, we see the divine hand of Jesus piloting our lives, as we move, by grace, out of the slavery of death and to eternal life, that promised land of the reign of God.

That leading, however, happens here, starts here, and already reveals its grace here, among us. As we gather as church to be fed from the Scriptures, to be nourished in the Eucharist, we are being led.

But even beyond that. We are called to be Jesus to each other, and indeed we often struggle to be Jesus to each other, and we also struggle to discern Jesus in each other. But that is the point: we struggle, we persist in loving God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. And so we should. Nobody said it would be easy. We are told, however, that it is holy. Worth the struggle and the love. And our calling as Christians.

Let us pray. Lord God our redeemer, who heard the cry of your people and sent your servant Moses to lead them out of slavery, free us from the tyranny of sin and death, and by the leading of your Spirit, bring us to our promised land; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.