Posted by stpauls on January 30, 2011 under Sermons | 
In her 2007 autobiographical book Take This Bread – A Radical Conversion, Sara Miles tells the story of her story of life and her story of faith. It is an amazing book with deep insights into the life-giving mystery of our Christian faith, the profound mystery and divine beauty of the sacraments, the rewarding mystery of our response to God’s call in mission and ministry, and the messy mystery of our Anglican Communion, and I can only recommend this book.
Sara Miles was raised as an Atheist. The opening lines of her book are “My mother nursed a grudge against Christianity for more than fifty years.”1 However, that doesn’t mean she grew up without faith. Hers was a faith that was grounded in a strong secular orientation that acknowledged and affirmed the goodness of the human race, and that found its expression in the fight for equal rights and social justice around the globe, and it was celebrated by breaking bread at the family dinner table and by sharing a meal with friends and strangers alike.
And it was not something that Sara stumbled upon by herself. One of her grandmothers marched with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the largest civil rights organization in the U.S., while the other grandmother was arrested protesting at a military base. Yes, activism was in Sara’s blood. This was the faith of her ancestors, or at least an aspect of it.
After leaving her home, she quickly became part of progressive causes and she embraced that other family tradition of sharing meals, when she became a chef.
But after a rather serious kitchen accident, Sara set out to become a writer, a journalist, reporting about the rights of oppressed people in Latin America. She did research work in Nicaragua, in El Salvador, and other places and she got involved in her work as much as in the fight. Yes, she had embraced the secular cause, even become a zealot for it. And, not unlike her mother, she scorned Christianity.
Which is what she shares with Saul.
On the surface, Saul, the first century Jewish male, who was firmly embedded into the traditional religious structures, has nothing in common with Sara, this emancipated, contemporary Western woman, who had never even been really in contact with any traditional religion.
Yet, there are similarities. Even striking similarities:
Both were citizens of the dominant power. Saul was a citizen of Rome. Sara is a U.S. citizen. Both were involved in the fight for freedom against the Empire: Saul fought for religious freedom for the Jewish people. And Sara fought for personal freedom for the peoples of Central and South America. And both were zealots. Both were deeply enmeshed and had enthusiastically embraced what they had believed to be their cause.
Yet, both used the intensity of their involvement to cover a nagging pain, a dark emptiness in their souls. When Paul stood before King Agrippa he acknowledged: “I was so furiously enraged”2 and later he realizes that his zeal “hurt him”3 and probably hurt him deeply.
Sara’s zeal equally was not fulfilling. And after getting married and pregnant, her life took an unexpected turn when she flew back to the United States with her husband Bob, fully expecting to return to Latin America after the baby’s birth. Just like Saul, who wanted to return to Jerusalem after his trip to Damascus. And we all just heard how that trip ended.
Let me share you in Sara’s own words, though, in a bit of a longer reading from her book, what happened to her:
We settled in San Francisco … and Katie was born. …
The next few years would unfold in a dizzying blend of joy and anguish, as Katie grew, the Central American wars lurched to their desperate ends, communism itself cracked and dissolved around the world, my relationship with Bob ended, and I stayed in America.
My entire personal and political landscape was breaking apart. … Years of living among continents had left me feeling like a stranger everywhere. … Around the world all revolutionary fervor of the last decade was dissipating. … There was no more communist utopia on the horizon, and certainly no capitalist utopia: just the inevitable wreckage of war and the scrambling for postwar power.
Even as the wars ended, death was coming closer to me. My best friend, Douglas, called to ask if I would come to New York and help him end his life: In the last excruciating stages of AISA, his lungs were filling up with Kaposi’s sarcoma, and he couldn’t breathe. He died in my arms, as I whispered to him. …
Then my father, who had never spent a day of his life in a hospital, was diagnosed with lymphoma and died, out of the blue, four days later. …
It was once the acute grief abated that I could start to see new things. We’d bought a big, cheap wooden house in the Mission District. … Bob, who had come out as a gay man, had moved just blocks away, and Katie – a luminously happy, talkative child – tromped back and forth between us, wearing pink sneakers. There was an apricot tree in my backyard, and lilies, and wisteria and jasmine twining over the deck. … And at a party in the rainy season, I met Martha, an editor, and we fell in love.
Over the next five years, I cooked dinner every night for Martha and Katie at home. And every day, Katie kept talking and laughing and reaching for more. As my life got happier, ease and love began to enter me, side by side with the memories I carried. While the classic conversion story involves desperation, hitting bottom, and a plea for help, I think now that it was gratitude, as well as the suffering I’d seen, that made room for me to open my heart to something new.
Early one winter morning, when Katie was sleeping at her father’s house, I walked into St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. I had no earthly reason to be there. I’d never heard a Gospel reading, never said the Lord’s Prayer. I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian – or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut. But on other long walks, I’d passed the beautiful wooden building, with its shingled steeples and plain windows, and this time I went in, on an impulse, with no more than a reporter’s habitual curiosity. …
I walked in, took a chair, and tried not to catch anyone’s eye. There were windows looking out on the hillside covered in geraniums, and I could hear birds squabbling outside. Then a man and a woman in long tie-dyed robes stood and began chanting in harmony. There was no organ, no choir, no pulpit: just the unadorned voices of the people, and long silences framed by the ringing of Tibetan bowls. I sang, too. It crossed my mind that this was ridiculous.
We sat down and stood up, sang and sat down, waited and listened and stood up and sang, and it was all pretty peaceful and sort of interesting. “Jesus invites everyone to his table,” the woman announced, and we started moving up in a stately dance to the table in the rotunda. It had some dishes on it, and a pottery goblet.
And then we gathered around that table. And there was more singing and standing, and someone was putting a piece of fresh, crumbly bread in my hands, saying “the body of Christ,” and handing me the goblet of sweet wine, saying “the blood of Christ,” and then something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.4
Jesus happened to me.
And Jesus also happened to Saul, who was transformed into Paul. We might have long academic debates if what turned Saul’s heart was a light and a voice from heaven or a realization that in the faces of the ones he persecuted he finally recognized the face of the crucified Jesus. But the fact remains: Jesus happened to Saul. And it changed his life. As darkness clouded his eyes, he discovered the awesomeness of the divine light that restored him to the beauty that God intended for him and that allowed him to claim the love of the Risen One. He was gifted life, life eternal, and life abundant.
And it was beautiful and wonderful and awesome. It is what we celebrate today. And this might be enough for you, enough to digest, and enough to celebrate.
But the story doesn’t end here. It is only the beginning. Jesus says: “[G]et up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify.”3
What Paul encountered on the road to Damascus is not a personal story, not something that seeks to remain hidden. But it wants to be shared. The love that engulfed Paul spurned him on to share it with all those searching for meaning and with all those yearning for healing in body, mind, and soul – around the globe. And in claiming his call to bring the light of Christ into the darkness of the world, Paul pushed open the gates of the church that had been firmly locked to keep out those who did not fit the traditional scheme. The love that engulfed Paul not only brought light to his darkness, but it made him act, it turned him into the one that pushed the church beyond her docility, beyond her comfort zone, and beyond her self-imposed limits. The love of Christ made Paul act.
As fire commands to burn and the wind commands to blow, so God’s love commands to act.
And this is true for Sara too.
When Jesus happened to her, her life was reoriented. The Eternal Love she encountered at the sacred meal of Communion opened her eyes to the suffering Christ she had seen in Latin America and it restored her, like Paul, to the beauty that God intended for her. Yet, again, the story did not end here either. In no time, the meal of the altar had multiplied.
The first food pantry Sara founded provided food for hundreds of poor and needy. From the very table she received the Body and Blood of Jesus the Christ on Sundays, she distributed food for the hungry during the week. And she too pushed the church, her church beyond her limits.
“Jesus happened to me,” she wrote. Yes, indeed, Jesus happened to her.
And because Jesus happened to these two zealots, who scorned or even oppressed Jesus, I am not giving up hope that Jesus might happen to others who scorn and persecute Jesus today. I am not giving up hope for people like fellow Anglican priest Fr. Thomas Musoke, whose zeal made him preach hate at the funeral of David Kato, a gay rights’ activist, who was murdered for his sexuality in Uganda on 26 January of this year.
And Jesus can happen to us. In fact, Jesus has happened to us already. Just look around and consider our ministries, the things we already do.
And I wonder how Jesus will continue to happen to us in the future, here at St. Paul’s Anglican Church.
1. Miles, Sara: Take This Bread – A Radical Conversion, 2007, p. 3
2. Acts 26:11
3. Acts 26:14
4. Miles, Sara, ibid pp.54-58
5. Acts 26:16
[The Reverend Markus Duenzkofer delivered this sermon on January 30, 2011.]
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Acts 26:9-21 ~ Epistle Reading for January 29, 2011
Paul said to King Agrippa, “Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.
“With this in mind, I was travelling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ I asked, Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles– to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance. For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.”
Posted by stpauls on January 23, 2011 under Sermons |
It is going to be the event of the year! Not just for paparazzi. Not just for celebrity groupies. Not just for royal-watchers. And not just for monarchists like myself. Many of us are eagerly awaiting the 29th day of April, when Prince William of Wales, in line to become our head of state, and Ms. Catherine Elizabeth Middleton will tie the knot at Westminster Abbey. It will be a splendid occasion, eagerly awaited by an estimate of more than one billion TV spectators.
And of course, the ceremony is eagerly awaited especially by all those who will receive invitations to attend inside the Abbey: Royals, blue-bloods, and elected officials: superstars and entertainment idols, the global Haute-Volée.
And don’t forget the ecclesiastical aspect: the Church of England will be out in force and we will probably watch the best in liturgy and music the Anglican Communion has to offer. It will be a deeply spiritual event. May God bless Kate and William!
Furthermore, there will be grandiose celebrations not just at Buckingham Palace. I suspect we will find out about the menu in due course. And, of course, we will find out who wears what and, most importantly, “what’s old, what’s new, what’s borrowed, what’s blue” in Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, too.
Yes, there will be pomp and circumstances. And I can’t wait.
But, bear with me for a moment. Picture, if you please, this imaginary scenario: Imagine that a few days from now Kate and William hold a press conference. And they announce this: Prince Harry had called them and told them that Harry’s and William’s outreach work in Lesotho needs their help, and needs their help now. The AIDS-pandemic in this kingdom in Southern Africa is getting out of hand, leaving behind a multitude of orphans and wrecking havoc with unimaginable horror and pain. Action is required immediately. So, Kate and William have decided to follow Harry’s call and they will set off to Lesotho to serve the poorest of the poor, to comfort those in pain, to advocate for those without a voice, and to shine a light to those “who lived in a land of deep darkness.”[1] The wedding will therefore be held in a private ceremony at St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle (which can hold a maximum of 25 people) and an undisclosed parish clergyman or clergywoman will preside over the vows shortly.
Humour me and let your imagination play with this for a few seconds.
You think this is too unbelievable, too fantastic, too much out of the ordinary, too radical?
Well, you have seen nothing yet.
Because this is the level of radical metanoia, of radical “turn around,” that we encounter today in the reading from the Gospel according to Matthew. Jesus enters the lives of Peter, Andrew, James and John and radically changes the direction they are heading. “Repent!” Jesus says, “and follow me!” It is a radical challenge, a radical call. For these fishermen it is as unbelievable, as fantastic, as out of the ordinary as the change of the royal wedding plans would be.
Now granted, fishermen aren’t royalty. But the Galilean fishermen we encounter in today’s reading from the Gospel according to Matthew were not poor outcasts either. They were part of a well-respected guild of professionals. They were hardened and seasoned businessmen, who were able to hire folk and who were part of a well-oiled hierarchical system that secured that the rich got richer and that the poor remained at the bottom of the system. Members of the establishment, like these fishermen, were integrated into the power structure that helped the imperial system of oppression run like Swiss clockwork.
And Jesus challenges Peter, Andrew, James, and John not only to join him in fellowship, but he calls them out of their entanglement with the Empire, out of what they had thought to be their existence from the time they were born. It is an 180-degree turn to leave behind social status, security, and docility: Leave behind what you know, leave behind status and power, leave behind the way you support the powers of this world, leave behind the Empire of the day, leave behind your involvement in darkness, death, and sin. Instead, come and follow the radical call of Jesus, the radical way of servant-ministry, which not only will bring peace and justice to those who are desperately thirsting for it, but it will bring life, life abundant and life eternal to you. “Repent!” Jesus says, “and follow me!” And this is why Jesus’ call is so radical, so fundamental, so cataclysmic. The call of Jesus changes everything. Jesus calls to a radically different, a radically new being: “Repent!” Jesus says, “and follow me!”
At this point I have to make clear that I am not at all comparing our current constitutional reality to the oppressive Roman rule in Israel during the first century A.D. In fact, I am a loyal supporter of Canada’s status as a Commonwealth realm.
But, has the way the world works as a whole really changed this much? The Empire of our day, which really transcends any particular nation-state, is built on the backs of the third and fourth worlds. It still leaves too many behind even in our own neighbourhoods, and it turns a deaf ear to those who are suffering, including our suffering Mother Earth. The Empire furthermore postulates greed, instant gratification, and egocentric self-fulfilment as positive values. This, however, leads to isolation and fragmentation, even inside the church.
The me-first attitude and the disinterest in serving others create deep wounds in ourselves and in others. There are too many here in the West End, in Yaletown , and elsewhere on this fragile planet earth, who are aching in body, mind, or soul, because they have become victims of the fast pace and the idolatrous ways of the Empire. And today’s challenge for us is to discover how we are enmeshed in the Empire, how we oil the machine.
“Repent!” Jesus says, “and follow me!”
This is, however, not the call of a wide-eyed preacher with foam at the mouth, who screams exclusive and offensive rants with no regard or love for God’s beloved children. That kind of preacher really does not preach good news, does not preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have to see Jesus’ words in their context, which proclaims that the reign of God is already near, and doesn’t have to be earned. We all merit being part of it. We all deserve being part of it. It is close at hand, for you, for me, and for all of creation.
The context of Jesus’ words is his ready and indiscriminate willingness to heal the sick, to make whole the broken, to forgive any debt, and to reconcile us to the God and Maker of us all. Jesus believed deeply and enacted powerfully God’s reshaping of the world by breaking “the yoke of [our] burden, the bar across [our] shoulders,? and the rod of [our] oppressors.”[2] And it is done!
Therefore: “Repent!” Jesus says, “and follow me!”
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Jesus continues, “I will make you fish for people.”
Now, this is yet again one of those biblical quotes that is often misunderstood. Far too often, we have limited “fishing for people” to the business of saving souls. It is that. God wants us all to be reconciled to the divine will. And Jesus is in the business of reconciling us to God and leading us to the amazing beauty that God intends for us.
However, there is more, because the term “fishing” in connection with “people” is not something that Matthew invented. It is used already in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Jeremiah (16.16), in Amos (4.2), and in Ezekiel (29.4) to “indicate God’s intention to censure … corrupt practices against the poor, [and]… to indicate what God was prepared to do with those who … crush the needy.”[3] Canadian commentator and pastor Barry J. Robinson writes: “[Fishing for people] is a powerful, prophetic metaphor about challenging oppression. It’s about going for big fish to fry.”[4] And it is at the heart of today’s Gospel story.
“Repent!” Jesus says.
Be whole again. Be reconciled with God. Claim God’s reign, which has dawned around you already. Embrace the beauty that God already sees in you.
“Follow me!” Jesus says.
Leave behind the Empire and its ways. Become part of a radically different way that leads from fragmentation and isolation to interdependence and community.
“I will make you fish for people!” Jesus says.
Join the liberation that opposes the oppressors. Work for peace, justice, and the preservation of Creation. Proclaim good news to the poor. And become agents of healing for those hurting in body, mind, or soul.
Jesus says: “Repent! Follow me and I will make you fish for people!”
[1] Isaiah 9.2 (today’s Hebrew Scripture reading)
[2] Isaiah 9.4
[3] Robinson, Barry J.: “Keeping the Faith in Babylon” A pastoral resource for Christians in Exile, January 23, 2005 3r after Epiphany Year A ‘Bigger Fish To
Fry’, page 2
[4] ibid.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Matthew 4:12-23 ~ Gospel Reading for January 23, 2011
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles–
the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
From that time, Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea– for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
Posted by stpauls on January 16, 2011 under Sermons |
The Reverend Brian Heinrich, street priest of the Lutheran Urban Mission Society, preached and presided at St. Paul’s services on Sunday, January 16, 2011. He spoke about the common theme of “being called” that resonated throughout each of the three bible readings for this Sunday: Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, and John 1:29-42.
He drew our attention to the fact that there are several epiphanies – the birth of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, the first miracles of Jesus. And he also explained that an epiphany is an opportunity for God to give us news that will wake us up – like a news flash! – so that we will never be the same again.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
John 1:29-42 ~ Gospel Reading for January 16, 2011
John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 ~ Bible Reading for January 16, 2011
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind– just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you– so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Isaiah 49:1-7 ~ Bible Reading for January 16, 2011
Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” But I said, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.” And now the LORD says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honoured in the sight of the LORD, and my God has become my strength– he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
Posted by stpauls on January 10, 2011 under Staff Blog, Webmaster Blog |
Two years ago we published a directory of parishioners showing names and faces. This proved to be a great success in helping everyone to know each other, but with the number of new parishioners joining us since then it now needs revising. If you have an entry in the old directory, please check that your information relating to mailing address, telephone number and email address is still up-to-date. If you would you like to have your photograph replaced by an updated one, let me know that too (but remember that you will look two years older!).
If you are not in the old directory we would like to have you in the new one. Please speak to Leslie Buck. Thanks.
Posted by stpauls on January 9, 2011 under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Matthew 3:13-17 ~ Bible Reading for January 9, 2011
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
