Posted by stpauls on January 28, 2009 under Webmaster Blog | 
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I establish between myself and you and every living creature with you, to endless generations: My bow I set in the cloud, sign of the covenant between myself and earth. When I cloud the sky over the earth, the bow shall be seen in the cloud.”
Genesis 9:13-14
We are called to lift up our hearts, to see God’s rainbow in the clouds; to know that whoever we are and wherever we find ourselves on the journey of faith, God loves us, God is with us every step we take.
Reading Schedule – October 2008 to May 2009
| Date |
Reading |
Chapter |
| Oct 29 |
The Word Became Flesh |
John 1:1-18 |
| Nov 12 |
Jesus’ First Disciples |
John 1:35-51 |
| Nov 26 |
Jesus Changes Water to Wine |
John 2:1-11 |
| Dec 10 |
Jesus Teaches Nicodemus |
John 3:1-21 |
| Jan 7 |
Jesus Talks with a Samaritan Woman |
John 4: 1-26 |
| Jan 21 |
Healing at the Pool |
John 5:1-15 |
| Feb 4 |
Neither do I condemn you |
John 7:53-8:11 |
| Feb 18 |
Blind Man Healed |
John 9:1-34 |
| Mar 4 |
Lazarus Raised |
John 11:1-44 |
| Apr 1 |
Washing of Feet |
John 13:1-17 |
| Apr 15 |
Vine and Branches |
John 15:1-17 |
| Apr 29 |
The Crucifixion |
John 19:16-27 |
| May 13 |
Appearance to Mary |
John 20:1-18 |
| May 27 |
Thomas Doubts |
John 24-31 |
All are welcome to join us.
Time: 7:45 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. following the Wednesday evening Eucharists
Location: St. Paul’s Anglican Church
For more information, you are welcome to contact Rose by email at rosedes@telus.net.
Posted by stpauls on January 25, 2009 under Staff Blog |
Today – January 25, 2009 – is the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Please take this week to remember our separated sisters and brothers and pray for the unity of the church. The disunity of the Body of Christ remains a scandal and a sin! As we enter this week, we will use liturgical material from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada both at the 9.15 a.m. and the 11:00 a.m. services today. The Eucharistic Prayer was compiled by South Yarra Community Baptist Church, South Yarra, Victoria, Australia, utilizing material from their own tradition and from The Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian fellowship based on the Isle of Iona and in Glasgow Scotland with strong ties not only to the Church of Scotland, but to Christian communities worldwide.
Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you.”
Regard not our sins, but the faith of your Church, and give to us the peace and unity of that heavenly city, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, now and for ever. Amen.
(The Book of Alternative Services, p. 676)
Most high and holy God, pour out upon us your one and unifying Spirit, and awaken in every confession of the whole church a holy hunger and thirst for unity in you; through Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada)
As the bread which we break was scattered over the mountains, and when brought together, became one, so let your church, O God, be brought together from the ends of the earth into your eternal kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power, through Jesus Christ forevermore. Amen.
(Didache, 2nd century)
Posted by Webmaster on under Webmaster Blog |
The flowers on the altar during the week ending December 21, 2008 are given to the glory of God by Adrienne Taylor in loving memory of her husband Ray, on his birthday, December 17. The flowers in the Lady Chapel are given to the glory of God by Zenia Ragimova.
The flowers throughout the church during Christmas week 2008 are given to the glory of God
by parishioners, friends of the parish, and by the Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Thank you!
The flowers on the altar during the week ending December 28, 2008 are given to the glory of God by Joyce Dickson, in loving memory of her father, Stanley Dickson.
The flowers on the altar during the week ending January 11, 2009 are given to the glory of God by Catherine Condon in loving memory of her father, Stanley.
The flowers on the altar during the week ending January 25, 2009, are given to the glory of God and in honour of Myles Coverdale and William Tyndale, early translators of the Bible into English at great cost to themselves.
The flowers on the altar during the week ending February 1, 2009, are given to the glory of God by Shirley Smith in loving memory of her parents, Ted & Doreen Wimberley and brother Guy.
Posted by stpauls on under Staff Blog |
Mark 1:14-20 ~ Gospel reading for January 25, 2009
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
Posted by stpauls on under Sermons |
On Tuesday, I was liberated.
Or, at least it felt like it. It felt as if I – and hundreds of millions of others – had come out of our hiding places. When Barack Obama raised his hand and repeated – or at least tried to repeat – the words of the oath of office of the president of the United States, I felt as if the sun was shining again, and hope had returned. This momentous inauguration revealed how much the Bush administration had weighed down on me. When “W” entered the helicopter to fly back to Texas, I was relieved, felt even liberated. All the memories that had clouded the last eight years were gone – and I breathed a sigh of relief.
But there was not just relief, for that would be rather inappropriate Schadenfreude.* There was more. I was glued to, even mesmerized and transfixed by the scene emanating through the airwaves from Washington, D.C. I was hanging on every word spoken by the 44th president of the United States. Yes, Obamamania had struck me.
But what was it that hooked me? I neither live in the United States, nor am I a U.S. citizen. And if you know me, you will remember that I can be rather critical of our neighbours to the South, despite the nine profound, wonderful, amazing, and life-changing years I spent there.
But on Tuesday, it didn’t matter that I object to the U.S. ideology of manifest destiny and that I struggle with the sense of divine providence among some U.S. Americans. It didn’t matter that I felt as an outsider at times in a country that thinks of itself as the greatest nation on earth, something that I believe no nation can or should claim. But on Tuesday, something was going on, that gripped me, something beyond a sense of relief about the end of the Bush years with all its lies, hidden agendas, and the erosion of human rights: I was watching somebody who had something new to offer, not just to a nation in pain, something different, not just to a people lost in despair, but something fresh to a world that in large part in recent years had moved from disdain and fear to indifference and unconcern with the U.S. For a moment, the world paused and listened. The globe came to a stop: joining together, celebrating, being taken up in the applause, in the cheers, and in the jubilations. The emotions ran high: tears flowing, singing and dancing not just in front of the U.S. Capitol. Something grandiose was indeed happening!
And this is when I took a step back.
My own cultural sensitivities, my own cultural baggage kicked in – and not in a good way. All of I sudden, I found the emotions suspect. I found them suspect, not only because as a German I just don’t do emotions! But I found them suspect, because I was born 24 years after the fall of the Nazis and reared and educated by parents and teachers who had been formed in the 1960s, a time that in Germany was all about confronting the evils of the Third Reich. And I was worried. I was worried that mass hysteria had set in. I was worried that peer pressure had taken over. I was worried that we might have all switched off our critical brains and had become a manipulated crowd, functioning not as a gathered group of individuals, but as a flock of sheep led by a pied piper: It was all about Obama and his ideas. There was no more individual. There was only “we.” The group had usurped the needs, desires and wishes of the individual. Indiscriminately of who we were, or what our needs are all about, we were all being caught in a net like fish.
Red flags everywhere!
This, of course, is not just a phenomenon that happens in politics. Mass movements can seduce us in secular realms as much as in the spiritual world. A leader, or a group of persons, or an ideology, a Weltanschauung** can overpower the will of the individual, forcing him and her to conform for the sake of the larger, for the sake of the greater good.
Our own Christian tradition has been guilty of giving in to this. Far too often, we have looked at God’s self-revelation in the sacred passages of our Bible and have thought to read into the parables of sheep and shepherd a model for how we are to deal with one another. There are the shepherds – the powerful leaders, an elite of rulers. And there are sheep, who have to be told, commanded, and directed what to believe and how to live – at times in oppressive ways. Dissent – such as the one mounted by Myles Coverdale and William Tyndale, in whose memory the flowers are given today – even if it is justified, is squashed. In William Tyndale’s case, it is squashed violently by fire at the stake. And in our times, the ascent of bishops who demand exact adherence to their understanding of the divine revelation comes as a reaction to prophetic dissent in places like our own diocese. We here in the Diocese of New Westminster, so these bishops think, should all just become sheep and follow blindly – closing our ears and eyes and souls to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit among us: Shut up and follow and don’t baa too much!
No wonder then, that today’s gospel reading from Mark makes me nervous. It can easily be used for turning the body of Christ into a homogenous mass: Andrew and Simon are to be fishers of fish. They are to throw out their nets once again and fish for people, they are to catch them and hurl the catch in. And that’s what we are – you and I, right? We are a catch, hurled in from the deep. In this understanding of Mark, there always will be fishers and shepherds, and then there always will be sheep and fish, and note how even the English language erases any sense of individuality by making the plural of “fish” and “sheep” to be exactly the same as the singular. One fish, ten fish. One sheep, a million sheep. We are part of a herd. We are caught in the net.
But what kind of a metaphor is that? This has nothing to do with good news, with the proclamation of God’s abundant and overflowing love for you and me. No, this kind of interpretation sucks the life out of our souls, and it sucks the life – and the love – out of the eternal messages revealed in the pages of the Bible. “Homodoxy,” as our own David Ryniker calls it, i.e. the understanding of faith as an exact, unbendable belief-system that boxes people in and asks for blind “followship”, has nothing to do with the Christian faith, which is a faith that is alive, moving, constantly discovering and rediscovering God’s movement among us. Jesus died to take our sins away, not our brains. We are not dumb fish and stupid sheep. Christianity is not a “followship” within an unshakable hierarchical structure, but it is a fellowship of sisters and brothers, where the only one we can fully trust to guide us is the good Shepherd, Christ Jesus, who was born not to be served, but to serve, not to enslave, but to liberate – and who calls us into this fellowship.
This is what today’s Gospel story is all about. It is a story calling us out of the oppressions inflicted on us, out of the darkness that surrounds us, out of the routines that grind us down, out of the fears that enslave us, out of the powers of this world, which tyrannize us. Jesus calls Andrew and Simon away from the shores of the lake to new shores, to liberate them to a life that is abundant, that is fulfilling, that is unique to them, and that was in all its beauty intended for them even before they were born. Jesus calls them out of a model that proclaims: “we have always done it like this.” Jesus crushes the traditions that limited God’s overflowing love already at hand in the most unlikely of places, in people on the margins, in behavior deemed unworthy before. Jesus liberates God’s love from the confines of the temple in Jerusalem, liberates God’s love and reveals that very love already present in two simple fishermen, who no longer are held hostage to traditions that had ceased to be life-giving and who no longer are enslaved by powers that sought to harm them in body, mind, or soul.
Today’s text is not about fish and sheep, but it is about the unique call that God has for each one of us. It is about a call of liberation to a true, unique, and God-intended identity for Andrew, for Simon, for you, and for me – and for Paul, whose conversion we celebrate today and who found true freedom on his way to Damascus, true freedom in the Redeemer, true freedom from a life that had become marked by oppression, by injustices and by fear.
And this is the difference between the call of demagogues who seek to enslave and the events of last Tuesday. This is the difference between people who spin their nets around us to enslave us and people whose leadership provides tools and idea for the liberation of the oppressed. This is the difference between a vision that is all about the leader and a vision that is marked by hope and freedom, that openly or more subtly joins Jesus in celebrating God’s unique call for us.
Yes, we have every right to be cautious of mass hysteria, and not just because our Anglo-Saxon heritage with its lack of emotional expression gets in the way, or because our cultural sensibilities teach us to be overly critical in response to our history. Indeed, responsible citizenship, Christian citizenship requires of us – in the words of the great prophet and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer – to both bandage the victims under the wheel and to put a spoke in the wheel itself, when the state forgets its responsibilities towards its citizens. For Christians, allegiances to nation or government are always subordinate to our allegiances to God and to our neighbour.
Yet, when Barack Obama took the oath of office, a chapter in the oppression of a people came to a close, and a new chapter filled with visions for the future was opened. No, full liberation has not been achieved. There is still racism, there is still sexism, and there is still homophobia, and there are still injustices of all kinds – and not just among our neighbours to the South. But we, not just the people in the United States, but humanity as a whole have moved forward.
In the end, it was not the words of Barack Obama that captured the moment on Tuesday, as visionary and as they were. But when the seasoned civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, a United Methodist pastor, offered the benediction, the profound depth of the moment was revealed. He started his benediction with words quoted from the hymn “Lift every voice and sing,” which has been coined “The Black National Anthem.” These are words speaking of the struggle of African Americans, but they could easily be used by any people trying to free themselves from the net that has caught them, trying to embrace and celebrate God’s call of liberation, trying to swim free to claim the beauty that God has gifted to them:
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.
Let us sing.
[* Schadenfreude - "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others"
** Weltanschauung - "a view of the world from a specific perspective"
Reverend Markus Duenzkofer delivered this sermon on January 25, 2009.
Enjoy the full transcripts of the Invocation and the Benediction delivered on Tuesday, January 19, 2009, at the Inauguration of President Obama.]
Posted by Priest on January 22, 2009 under Staff Blog |
Our House West Coast Society, incorporated in 2008 under the Societies Act of British Columbia, 1130 Jervis Street, Vancouver B.C. V6E 2C7.
Dear Friends,
“Our House” is organizing a fundraiser. We need your help so we can help others in need: those affected by drug addiction, homelessness, and many other living problems.
“Our House” has been a wonderful blessing for us. Now it is time to celebrate – and give back. Please come to our fundraiser and see what you can do to help those less fortunate. Become part of a community effort.
Dinner · Fun · Testimonials
Join us for an inspiring message from the founder/director of “Our House.” Testimonies from current and past residents of “Our House.” See how St Paul’s has become an important part of “Our House.”
Cost: $10 at the door.
Date: February 14, 2009, (“Our House” foundation anniversary)
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: St. Paul’s Anglican Church, 1130 Jervis Street.
All are welcome. Bring a friend.
Much blessings!
Yours in Christ,
Markus
The Rev. Markus Dünzkofer, Rector
Posted by stpauls on January 19, 2009 under Prayer, Webmaster Blog |
Let us pray.
Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory.
History is your story. The Scripture tells us, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is One.” And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.
Now, today, we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time. We celebrate a hingepoint of history with the inauguration of our first African American president of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.
Give to our new President, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.
Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.
Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all. May all people of goodwill today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you. We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.
I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus, who taught us to pray:
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
[Posted by Ted Olsen at Christianity Today.]
Posted by stpauls on under Prayer, Webmaster Blog |
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand — true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.
We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we’ve shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you’re able and you’re willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won’t get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.
Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around — (laughter) — when yellow will be mellow — (laughter) — when the red man can get ahead, man — (laughter) — and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: Say amen –
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: — and amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause.)
END.
[Transcript courtesy Federal News Service, posted by Lynn Sweet in the Chicago Sun-Times.]
Posted by stpauls on January 18, 2009 under Sermons |
As many of you know, I have a rather, shall we say, “checkered” denominational history. I was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. At age 17, I embraced the Reformation and became a Lutheran. Within a decade, however, I had moved on to yet another denomination. While in seminary, I was received into the Anglican Communion by Bishop John Bayton, retired suffragan in the Diocese of Melbourne.
What had happened?
While studying theology, I had encountered Eastern Orthodoxy. The interaction with this part of the church reintroduced me to sacramental spirituality and, more importantly, to sacramental theology. Joining the Orthodox Church, however, was never an option for me, not just because of my strong support of the full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in the life of the church. When I rediscovered Anglicanism, I knew I was finally home.
Having said this, I do believe that especially the Anglican part of the Western church should study and should seek to learn from Eastern Orthodoxy – our theologies could really benefit from a mutual exchange. Furthermore, the Christian East is blessed with a huge treasure of mystic spiritual insights. Mysticism is something that is much more mainstream in the Orthodox Church than it is in the Christian West. And I wish spiritual seekers who are understandably fed up with our sometimes rather dry and cerebral ways would not wander off to India or other places in the far East, but would travel to Constantinople instead and seek the spiritual insights of such movements as Hesychasm, which understands prayer not as a goal in itself, not as the presentation of a laundry list to God, but as the vehicle for a profound union with God, who is already praying in us and for us constantly with “sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8.26)
Of course, for many, the sole exposure to the Christian East is icons. Yet, unlike in the West, icons are not mere illustrations of something holy or a holy event. For Orthodox Christians, icons are windows into heaven: Icons open up the veil between our reality and God’s reality invisible to our eyes, as much as they bridge our present time with the moment depicted on the icon. Orthodox Christians do not worship icons – that would be idolatry. But by kissing icons, by lighting candles in front of icons, or by bowing down to icons, orthodox Christians partake of what is shown, of what is represented in the icon, ultimately worshiping, venerating, and adoring not wood or paint, but the Creator of all things, from whom all blessings flow.
Furthermore, icons are teaching tools of the faith. They are a different means of proclaiming the Word of God. This is why icons are not “painted,” but “written” – and they usually follow a prescribed outline.
One of the more complex icons in the Eastern tradition is the icon of the Nativity of Christ. Yes, there are the usual suspects that we all know: The Mother of God, aka Mary, Joseph, the angels, shepherds, magi, an ox and an ass, because, according to the prophet Isaiah, “the ox knows its master, and the donkey its master’s crib.” (Isaiah 1. 3) And, of course, in the centre, we find the child: Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes.
There are, however, also some other figures in the icon, which we are not used to in the West. There is a hermit dressed in camel’s fur and women bathing the child. There is Elisabeth hiding in the cleft of a rock with her son John, hiding from a soldier who is in the process of killing the innocents of Bethlehem. Nearby on the icon is a mother hiding under a tree. In her arms, she carries another baby – also desperately trying to escape the slaughter commanded by King Herod. The inscription above this little child reads thus: “Nathanael lying under a fig tree.”
Sounds familiar?
Well, we just heard it in today’s gospel. But is that really what we heard? All Jesus is saying is this: “I saw you, [Nathanael], under the fig tree before Philip called you.” That is it. And indeed, nowhere else do we have any hint that this is a reference to an earlier encounter. Nowhere, not in biblical or extra-biblical literature of the time can we read an account that Nathanael’s mother was able to hide him under a fig tree.
I always thought that Jesus was just referring to the fact that he saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree just before Philip approached him. Well, not so – at least according to John Chrysostom, who was made Archbishop of Constantinople in 398. He writes in his discourse 20, and I quote:
What? Do you think Christ saw Nathanael only just before Philip called him?
End of quote.
Well, I stand corrected, I guess. Ok, hold it! I did not go to university and seminary for so many years to give in so easily – even (or maybe especially because) John Chrysostom happens to be a bishop. Whatever!
Of course, I realize what John Chrysostom is doing: He is making a theological point – even if he stretches the meaning of the words in the Gospel a wee bit. Ok, a wee bit much. And what is his theological point?
Well, I am glad you asked – and even if you didn’t ask – I am still going to answer. Let me repeat and then continue the quote from above:
What? Do you think Christ saw Nathanael only just before Philip called him, and had not seen him before that with an eye that never sleeps?
For John Chrysostom (as for the theologians at the time), today’s text was yet another assertion, another proof, that Jesus was not just some prophet, same sage, but that Jesus is the Christ, the pre-existent logos, God from God, light from light, of one being with the Father. “Jesus,” John Chrysostom writes, “knew the good disposition of Nathanael not as a man who watched him, but as God.” (ibid.)
And what on earth does this all have to do with us? Shouldn’t we relegate John Chrysostom’s rather liberal use of scripture to the annals of the 4th century? Are John’s questions still our questions? And, no, I am not bringing all this up because my email address is “homoousian,” a word central to the theological debates of the 4th century.
But this is the beauty of icons: not only do they tell a story that might have (or might not have) happened some time ago. Icons also and most importantly teach. They teach the fundamentals of the faith, the basics of Christianity. Icons – not unlike our Scriptures – are not concerned with historical truth. But they teach theological truth, they provide direction.
And I think John Chrysostom, in a rather roundabout way, speaks of something that matters to us still today, matters to you and me in a profound and deep way: It is not really about Nathanael, just as much as the title “Mother of God” really isn’t about Mary. But it is about God, it is about the way God interacts with creation, with you and with me.
At the heart of today’s gospel, at the heart of the gospel, at the heart of the whole of the biblical revelation is God who constantly reaches out to us, constantly yearns for us: God creates us and calls us by name. God knows us, even before we are born. God does not let go of us – even when we slide into darkness, destruction and death. God calls prophets through the ages, like Samuel, reminding us of God’s love for us. And God becomes one of us in Jesus Christ.
For John Chrysostom as for us today, this is all about how the infinite becomes finite; how the unexplainable touches and embraces us; how the abstract becomes concrete. It is about how the all-powerful, almighty God takes habitation in a fragile, needy babe, born for us of our sister Mary, so that we may hold, cradle, nurse and be touched deep within by God – even today. God seeks us out even in our day and age, because whenever God looks at creation, looks at us, looks at you and at me, God falls in love over and over and over again, finding us under our own fig tree.
The cosmic movement is from God to us. And nothing is required of us. We are never too puny, never too insignificant, never too abominable, never too dumb or stupid, never too sinful or fallen, never too hurt or too much in pain. God reaches out for us not despite of us, but because of who and what we are, who and what God created us to be in all our beauty.
And all that God asks in return is this: Come and see. Come and see what God’s reaching out to us, what God’s love can do – for you and for the cosmos. Come and see what it means to live into the beauty that God intends for us, whoever we are and wherever we find ourselves on the journey. Come and see how God’s love confronts modern–day Herods who still slaughter innocent children on battlefields, in sweatshops, and through global sex-trade trafficking. Come and see how the love-made-flesh can change our lives and can change the face of the world.
[Reverend Markus Duenzkofer delivered this sermon on January 18, 2009.]
Posted by stpauls on under Webmaster Blog |
John 1:43-51 ~ The Gospel Reading for January 18, 2009
The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”
“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
