Once again we will be collecting school supplies for those families in need and members of our Food Bank Family. Essential supplies such as pens, pencils, paper, backpacks, glue, crayons, coloured pencils etc., are all items that can make back to school time a little easier for those in need! If you prefer you can make a donation by cash or cheque, just mark your envelope “Back to school- Family food Bank”. You can drop off donations at the office during the week or bring your donations to church on Sunday mornings throughout the month of August.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010 following the 10 am service!

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Pentecost – June 27, 2010

 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 Then the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?”  He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

Galatians 5:1, 13-25 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Luke 9:51-62  When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

 “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” 

As a priest, I have often found myself in situations with people which were stiff, artificial, awkward.  There is something about this collar that creates a minefield of anxiety for people.As a dog owner, it was always interesting how, in moments of tension, or anxiety, when we had company that was particularly awkward or pompous or overly formal, the dog would enter the room, dragging his bum across the floor, which was a huge relief not just for the dog but also for the stiffs sitting uncomfortably around the room.  You could try to be angry or indignant toward the dog, but really, how do you not laugh at a moment like that?  I would take the dog out for a reprimand, outwardly scolding him, but secretly (and I think, at times, unconsciously) grateful to him for the break.The dog seemed to know, that, every now and then, everyone needs a break from the usual formalities.  The dog, perhaps intuitively, brought everyone down to earth, and into a more authentic human connection with each other.One time the Bishop came to visit in the small town where I was serving.  He was NOT a fan of dogs, or cats for that matter, and he said somewhat derisively, “Do you still have that dog?”  I said “Yes, as far as I know.” The bishop then said “I think I saw him running  outside town trailing about 30 feet of rope!”  The bishop’s sarcasm noted, I checked the back yard, and sure enough, Woody (or Houdini) as we came to call him, had chewed through his rope and was off on an adventure.  I had to admire him – the dog, that is.  I got so furious and frustrated with him so many times, but I think he was in my life to remind me of something important: not to get too tied to work and responsibility and appearances.   He was often right and I was often wrong.  Fortunately, I did listen to his “call of the wild” some of the time, and I would lose my uptight sense of nervous propriety and I would let him lead me on little adventures.

In some people’s view, people, like dogs, are meant to be tied and fenced.  Properly house-trained. Totally domesticated.  But then again, maybe they’re wrong.

 Ironically, almost as a divine act of justice, the Bishop soon found himself obliged to adopt not just one, but two, dogs (and a cat, if I recall) – a legacy from some friend of theirs who died suddenly.  God has an interesting sense of humour – karma, I think it’s called.  

Every one of us gets caught up in formalities and situations which compromise us and sometimes even obscure the kind of person we know we are meant to be.  We sit there playing out some role that we hate, that we feel obligated to, and we may get so stuck there we lose any freedom to respond when something really compelling presents itself.  We may associate more with the roles we play, and start thinking of ourselves more in terms of what we do than in terms of what we are – we no longer even know what we really want and some piece of who we are gets pushed down into our unconscious world where it plays out in dreams and fantasies. 

A spiritual practice in one religion is to repeatedly ask yourself, “Who am I?”  The answer is not always that obvious.We can all acknowledge the reality of the encounter between Jesus and a couple of potential disciples, and the would-be disciples losing the opportunity of a lifetime because of their sense of obligation to some  mundane formalities.  The Gospel is not trying to say Jesus doesn’t care about family situations.  The Gospel is metaphorical, and I believe is meant to say: here is life calling, presenting itself to you, inviting you on an adventure, and what is your response?  Would you choose death instead?  

 It’s as if, in one direction lies a new freedom, new possibilities, new directions, and in the other is all that keeps you tied to the mundane and routine and conventional.  At least some part of you wants to chew through that rope (or dog collar) and explore your freedom at least for a while.

The stress of keeping up appearances must be stifling.  I am sure that at least occasionally, the Queen, or Prince Charles, are tempted to say or do something rude or off-colour  — just to speak their mind instead of being terminally polite — just to relax once in a while from the constant demand to uphold an image of perfection.  Then again, they did have Fergie for a while.  Maybe she was their version of my dog Woody. 

I had a Bible study a few years ago and we were doing some personal sharing and with one very proper, self-controlled, never-a-hair-out-of-place kind of lady, I suddenly had a vision of her dancing in her garden in the pouring rain, with her hair flattened by the rain, carefree as a child, laughing and singing.   She received this politely, but with a certain air of suspicion, as though she suspected you might be trying to break into her house.  Maybe she thought I was crazy; maybe I was just projecting my own stuff.  But maybe something took root, and maybe served to pry a little smile from her when it rained.  

Our fears and anxieties often keep us grounded – they keep us safe, they keep us proper, but they also keep us from encountering the scope of life that is out there and the greatness that is in us.  We settle for safe, but I think, always, some piece of us is yearning for more.  I would call that piece of us our soul and I think it’s important to listen to it and not let it die.  Again, the practice of asking “Who am I?”  might lead us somewhere. 

On holiday, a bee flew into the cottage.  It buzzed about for a bit, then, instead of finding the open door, it flew at one of the skylights in the ceiling.  After bumping against that window for a while, it flew onto a shelf, and we didn’t see it again.  It apparently had exhausted itself in its brief struggle to regain freedom, then just laid down and slept, eventually to die, I assumed.   Now there’s a powerful image of what so often happens to us!

Holidays (whether summer or otherwise) present us with a brief respite from the dog eat dog, nose-to-the-grindstone world of everyday life, and beckon us to explore some aspect of ourselves that is left hibernating most of the time.  As such, they are like a small reminder and incentive toward a deeper freedom and yearning – to be doing what we love; to be what we are instead of what everyone else expects.  These are times when we “let our hair down,” and can be ourselves.  Some people on holiday are often almost unrecognizable from the button-down characters you see most of the time.  Holidays (holy days) are a way of practising our true freedom and being our true self. 

But, like the bee, we get enclosed within certain structures and lose track of the bigger world.  Looking at the television set, or looking out the window, like the bee hitting up against the skylights, is not enough to set us free. 

The call of Jesus to these men represents a call into the mainstream of life – a call to be spontaneous and follow their hearts.  People often think of Jesus, and religion in general, as calling us to obligation – to duty – to responsibility.  Actually, the call of Christ is to freedom. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  In one sense, Jesus was homeless.  In another, he was completely free – at home everywhere.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” Jesus is quoted in another place.  When we are tempted to shut ourselves up in our own little worlds, and get way too serious about our own little agendas and status, it’s like God finds ways to come and say, “Can Ann or Betty or Nick or Derek come out to play?” 

Our religious life and spiritual practices are, therefore, deeply counter-cultural and radical.   They are meant to produce freedom, not just cultural conformity.  The more we expose ourselves to the person of Jesus, the more we are offered an alternative and unconventional view of life.   I think, often as not, people stay away from Jesus not because they’re bad people, but because they’re afraid of where he’ll lead them. 

“Let go and let God.”  Failing that, “Let go and let dog.”  Let your dog have the lead; pay attention to what he/she is trying to tell you.  You’re lucky if you have a pet, because whether it’s a dog or a cat or a fish or a bird, somewhere in it is an instinct for its freedom, for its true life, and now and again that freedom will assert itself, sometimes in embarrassing and inconvenient ways.  But wise are you if you pay attention.

 “For freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”  May it be so! 

rhgr+

Homily for the Ordination of Deacons June 27, 2010

(at Christ Church Cathedral)

 Readings – Isaiah 6: 1—8; Phil 4: 4–9; Mark 10: 35–45

It has been a while since I preached in a cathedral, but this assignment made me think back to the first time I did, which was about 24 years ago.  It was in conjunction with a Lenten study of a book called Rites for a New Age, by a very new author by the name of Michael Ingham, and the Dean had assigned me the final three chapters, called Ministry, Mission and Play.  My unique interpretation of the final chapter on play involved a well-timed fall down the stairs of the pulpit, and a gorilla mask, neither of which I am young enough, or impudent enough, to pull off any more.  

It’s great that we gather here in our Cathedral church, a spiritual centre for the city, a place from which ministry and mission flows to the community. It is the nucleus of our diocese, a place in which ministry and mission are birthed and nurtured on behalf of all of us.  Bishop Michael, Dean Elliot, thank-you for the privilege of preaching here today. 

It’s also a great thing that this diocese recognizes the importance of the ministry of the diaconate. My first bishop, Michael Peers, as we were preparing for my ordination to the diaconate, in May 1981, said that no matter what order of ministry we would eventually end up serving, we should always remain deacons at heart.  I have tried to practice that. 

The Anglican Church has a great heritage of ministry in the threefold order of bishops, priest and deacons. However, as the Gospel indicates, it’s important to put delusions of grandeur aside right from the beginning, because virtually all clergy, whether bishops, priests or deacons of the Anglican Church, after experience, almost always come to the realization that it’s really the ACW running the church anyway!  

That’s not entirely facetious.  The ministry of the ordained is set in a much broader context of the whole people of God, and is not to be seen in isolation.  Each element loses meaning when disconnected from that larger picture of ministry.   There is a relational aspect to this ministry of ours, as there is in the inner nature of God. 

In a book called The Maundy Thursday Revolution, Beatrice Bruteau suggested that in washing the feet of the disciples, Jesus brought down the old temple of religious and social relationships.  When a lord becomes a servant, the old hierarchical system becomes meaningless.   The way of Jesus turned the old world of domination, patriarchy and violence upside down.  Unfortunately, within a few centuries, the Church had pretty much put it back the old way again – as if to say, what did he know?  

Being ordained can so easily become a matter of entitlements, preoccupations with what we wear, where we get to sit, and how we get treated, and justifications for our existence, that something of that dynamic edge of creative compassion can get lost.  The liturgical roles given to deacons are reminders of the way the life of the community extends beyond the doors in compassionate service.  

St. Paul had the kind of personality to be a Grand Inquisitor or something equally sinister.  He had to learn the hard way how to be a servant.  When Jesus said we must lose our life in order to find it he might well have been speaking of our need to escape the tyranny of the ego – in other words, lose your ego and you will find life emerging around you that corresponds with your new freedom.  Paul didn’t entirely lose the obnoxious personality, but even in a prison cell, he was still confident of being centered in the love of God, and radically free in Christ.  “The Lord is near; don’t worry about anything.” 

Perhaps only once in a while or even once in a lifetime, there comes a moment, when you realize beyond doubt that you are not just a functionary working for an institution called the church, but a servant of the living God – and that does pretty much change everything.  This is the kind of moment that the prophet Isaiah had in the Temple.  Suddenly it is no longer an empty building, but a place full of the presence and power of God.  Suddenly the sacred is no longer an abstract concept but a present, inter-active reality. 

Isaiah might have been a priest for years, but from that moment on he was driven by a different motivation and vision.  Christine, Robert and Christopher:  it was a great privilege to share the retreat with you.  I hope you will continue to create time and space in your life when and where the Spirit can remind you that you are not just institutional functionaries, employees, or church officials, but servants of God. 

Isaiah had an experience which took him right out of himself.  In an instant he became deeply aware of the larger context in which he had been so blissfully sleeping – “dead to the world,” as it were –and suddenly became not only willing, but able, to be a faithful servant of God and to go where he was needed.  By being responsive to the call and the presence of God, the ordained serve as motivators, catalysts, for the whole Church. 

In the ordination service it says “your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.”  Your ministry is meant to reveal something, to make something clear that is now obscure.  Jesus urged his followers to pay attention – to look, to notice and listen to the world around them – to the environment, to the poor, to the things you might miss, or dismiss as insignificant, like a little old lady offering her gift at the Temple, or a little child, the way a bird flies or the way a flower smells.   He praised those who were willing and able to see his face in the faces of the poor, the marginalized, and even our enemies.  That is the kind of compassionate, reverential vision and spirituality that can motivate a deacon to make a difference in the world.  Deacons, in their calling to serve in the world beyond the church, remind us that the church is not primarily about buildings, any more than family is primarily about the size and location of house you live in. 

About 90 years ago the French priest and palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin suddenly understood the priesthood in much larger terms.  As he contemplated how he might celebrate Easter out in the middle of a remote area of China, this insight came to him:  

“Since once again, O Lord, in the steppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine, no altar, I will raise myself above those symbols to the pure majesty of reality, and I will offer to you … upon the altar of the entire earth, the labor and the suffering of the world.
. . . O Lord, make us one!” 

It seems to me that a similar revolution has to happen to the diaconate.  As de Chardin saw greater implications in the Eucharist, in his own ministry, and in the theology of the Incarnation, it seems critical that the diaconate seeks an equally cosmic and holistic approach.  The traditional role for deacons was pretty much circumscribed by the parish boundaries. As de Chardin saw a wider and deeper application of sacramental theology, we need a wider and deeper application of compassion, of genuine sympathy – of what it means to be a neighbour in a truly mutual sense. 

Here again the reading from Isaiah the prophet is enlightening. “The posts of the door (or thresholds) shook.”  Why was that so significant for Isaiah? How is it significant for us?  I think any genuine call or movement or manifestation of God rattles the existing doors, the gates, the access points — the customary ways of coming and going – and makes us aware of what we have closed, and what needs to open.  As Isaiah would go on to point out (Ch 49), Israel’s sense of calling was much too small, so the prophet painted an inspired picture of God’s calling going out to all known nations – a growing awareness of the place of the other in the grand scheme of things.  As it says, “The whole earth is full of God’s glory.”  Indeed, in Isaiah’s vision, just the hem of the garment filled up the entire Temple.  The implication is that the rest of it, i.e. most of it, and thus where God is to be found, is outside the Temple.   Isaiah’s vision re-focuses Israel’s ministry outward, to a deeper awareness of the place and importance of other people, in a much larger vision of what the ministry of the people of God was supposed to mean. 

 We need to see points of convergence in a confusing world, and principles of integration amidst the many disintegrating influences of our time.  De Chardin said: “I want to teach people how to see God everywhere, to see God in all that is most hidden, most solid, and most ultimate in the world.” We will say to the ordinands: “You are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.” If our deacons are being asked to say “Here I am, send me into the world,” if we are truly asking them to see God every place they go, it is essential that the Church listen to what the world is telling us through them.  Too many times, the Church has gone to sleep, like Rip Van Winkle, while the world moved on, and we became strangers. 

In its checkered past, the Church has made many mistakes and caused many distortions in how people relate to each other and to God.  One of the most enduring errors is the dualistic, heaven or hell, Us and Them approach to life, and of treating God like a commodity that we own, as though the Church were something like a KFC franchise, and all we need to do is put on a funny white costume and stick to the recipe.  Once upon a time we thought we had to save, to tell, to enlighten. Our task now is to understand, to reconcile and to heal misunderstandings, divisions and wounds which in many cases have been created by the church in the first place.  The church in our time needs a very different apologetic than the church in other eras.  Our ordained leaders are called to show the whole Church how to adopt the mindset of service, which, according to scripture, is the mind of Christ.   

Too many Christians have defined the world in terms of where God is, and where God is not.  The word “Religion” means to bind together, to re-connect, to reconcile and overcome separation.   In our time religion has come to mean virtually the opposite to people.  Deacons, I believe, are called to play a key role in creating connections, or helping the church see connections, in cases where we tend to be blind to them. We’re used to looking at things from the inside out.  Part of your responsibility will be to help the church look at itself from the outside in.  

I saw a movie a few years ago called Saving Grace: Has Anyone Seen the Pope Lately?   The pope (Tom Conti) is reading some official papers in one of the Vatican gardens and a paper blows out of his hand and over the wall.  He opens a door in the wall and suddenly finds himself locked outside the walls, in ordinary clothing, no longer separated from the world.  But while Vatican officials obsess about his absence, he goes on an adventure of connecting with people and rediscovering his own role as Pontifex Maximus — the Great Bridge Builder. 

You have before you people who are willing to build bridges, people who take very seriously this calling to be a servant.  Each deacon will need to explore which kind of bridge and what kind of service will be a focus.  I am certain that deacons have a key role to play in helping us recognize that the Church must be willing not just to give to the world but to receive; not just to preach to the world, but to listen and learn. 

“Always remain a deacon at heart” – is to keep that passion for the poor and the powerless and the voiceless at the very heart of the church’s concern.  To me, a deacon is one who helps the Church remember and at times re-consider its values and priorities:  the least are not meant to be last; the poor are not worthless; the broken are not to be discarded; the lost or marginalized are not loved by God any less than those who believe they are found (saved). 

These past few days, on the pre-ordination retreat, I got to journey with some amazing people, who have wonderful gifts and experiences. I don’t know if they learned anything from me, but I learned a lot from them. That these good and gifted people are prepared to offer themselves in service to the church and community is inspiring and indeed something to be celebrated.  Each of them will be (and already is) a huge blessing to the life of our Church.  I hope you will let them lead you, by service and by example, to a renewed relationship between the Church and the world God loves. 

(The Rev.) Grant Rodgers

Please check the volunteer sign up sheet in the church hall and sign up  to with the coffee hour! Many thanks to those of you who donate their time to make Coffee Time a wonderful time for fellowship here at St. John’s!

Freedom in the Spirit

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Pentecost

June 20, 2010

Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39  

One of the things I most like about the Anglican Church is that, for the most part, it treats people as adults. One of the things we like to say is that, with the Anglican Church, you don’t have to check your brains at the door when you come to church.   From the beginning, when our Church put the Prayer Book into the hands of the people, and then created councils called synods, as opposed to having the clergy decide and do everything, the Anglican Church has made it a policy to respect the intelligence and the integrity of its people, and to include all the people in the worship and decision-making bodies of the Church.  You might call it a process of liberation from an old, patriarchal and controlling style.

Some churches and religious systems continue to operate on a very autocratic and dictatorial model, based on an assumption that people must not only be told what to do, but coerced into doing it, “for their own good.”  For people who don’t think that approach is appropriate even for children, to persist in treating adults that way seems really insulting and demeaning.  As we see people in our own time trapped within oppressive religious regimes which oblige women to hide themselves, require prayers at fixed times every day, force genital mutilation upon girls, and approve of honour killings, in addition to telling its subjects what and how to think, we are grateful for a much more open and broad-minded approach.

Some look with envy at the apparent discipline and commitment created by certain domineering religious and political institutions, but there is a serious consequence to all that.  Maybe some people prefer being told what to do, or simply accept that those who have power have a right to dominate others.  But recent revelations of the extent of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church have reminded all of us of what the old way looked like. In the Anglican Church (though we too have our faults), we believe Jesus pointed to a different way – a way of compassion, healing, and justice. Involving people, respecting people, and welcoming their ideas, expressions, hopes and dreams can be a complicated and sometimes messy process, and it may seem frustrating to some who like decisive, clear-cut action and policy, but to me it is a mature response to the paradoxes, complexities and ambiguities of real life, not life as we might idealize it or impose upon it.  Anglicans have long since recognized that there needs to be a lot of allowance for difference, dissent and disagreement, and we have been humble and wise enough to recognize that the Christian Church, the Anglican Church included, has not always been very Christ-like in its policy and practice.

There are reasons why we have welcomed women into the ordained ministry, why we use inclusive language scriptures and liturgical texts, why we are determined to include homosexual persons in the full life of the Church, why we abhor racism, and why we are concerned about large-scale political and moral and ecological issues.  There are very good reasons for our approach and those reasons are rooted in the New Testament.

The liberal and progressive approach by which we try to operate in the Anglican Church is not a modern invention.  In today’s Epistle, St Paul talks about being imprisoned under an outmoded system of religious belief and practice, and contrasts that with the liberation and grace he experienced in the new movement of the Spirit that would eventually be called Christianity.  

In the Gospel for this Sunday, we see Jesus liberating a man from some kind of evil oppression.  But I think the story is a much bigger one – about liberation on a larger scale.   First, he deals with a man who has been demonized and segregated from his community.  So often, when we don’t know how to deal with someone, we abandon or ostracize them.   Jesus restores this man to his rightful place, which could be a guide and incentive for us in dealing with the homeless and other cast-offs of our own society.

The New Testament writers were very particular about the details they put in or left out of their telling of the stories of Jesus.  I think there is something deeply symbolic about the way the Gospel writer tells this story.  So in this case, the fact that the demonic entity offers up its name and calls itself “Legion” is significant.  It could certainly refer to the immediate situation of a man possessed by many disembodied entities.  But it also happens to be a military term used to describe a unit of the Roman army. 

This “Legion” had robbed the man of his home, and his proper place in the world – it had even robbed him of his clothing, self-respect, and sanity, just as the Roman legions had invaded Palestine, robbed the people there of their way of life, and enslaved them.  So the Gospel, in speaking of Jesus liberating a man from evil and causing a herd of swine to go stampeding, may be saying something about the importance of confronting the much larger evil entities of life, whether military, political, or religious.  Is the story a kind of parable – a larger comment about the evil of Roman occupation and domination?  If so, how might the story apply in our time?

People often wonder: What about the poor pigs?  Since Jewish people did not eat pork, as pigs were spiritually unclean according to scripture, a large herd of swine would be a good place for disembodied spirits, especially if they were being raised to feed the Roman invaders.  But why would the Gospel writer leave such a confusing detail in the story at all?

Could it suggest God will send the Roman legions, like swine, to their ultimate demise?  The legion of swine rushes headlong into the water and drowns, reminiscent of the ancient story of the Egyptian army plunging into the Red Sea and drowning.  The battle belongs to God, not the oppressing tyrants of the world, as people like Pharaoh, Julius Caesar, Nero, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Idi Amin, all found out.  It is a warning to all would-be oppressors, proclaiming God’s bias and blessing for the poor and the oppressed, and an encouragement to good people to stand up to such regimes of tyranny.

Jesus said at one point, in teaching people to overcome their fears, that one person is of more value than many sparrows.  So in this case, Jesus’ actions may suggest something similar. One real person is more valuable than many swine.  Maybe it’s a way of showing that, when people become oppressive and abusive, or downright evil, they become no better than swine.

The story ends with the man being re-clothed, returned to his right mind and rightful place, a message about how we, as followers of Christ, are to deal with those who have been run over, cast aside or banished to the wilderness by any particular circumstance or society.

Jesus is shown by Luke to be a man who stands up to the evils of the world and prevails not by force but simply by integrity of person.  The story also tells us something about how to deal with the evil of being temporarily possessed by any tyrannical force in life.

St Paul said, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2Cor. 3:17)  — freedom from bullying, freedom from religious oppression, freedom from discrimination about gender or racial background, freedom from inequalities and injustices of all kinds.   Paul pointed the way to a new freedom in the Spirit which allowed for slaves to see themselves as equal to the wealthy, women as equal to men, and Gentiles as equal to Jews.  No longer was there to be a hierarchy of persons based on wealth, social status, gender or race.  Old systems of domination and oppression were being called into question – called into the light of a new way of being revealed by the amazing person of Jesus.

For St Paul, human freedom is one of the gifts of the spirit.  It meant that he, as a very orthodox and rigid Pharisee, could let go of all the rules and regulations and practices and religious obligations, and become a new person committed to a way of love as opposed to a way of punitive legalism.

Any church, indeed any institution or country, which does not operate by such principles, risks becoming as oppressive as the Roman legions, or Hitler’s Reich.

So for me, the Good News of this Gospel is that through Jesus’ actions it shows the compassion of God for those suffer and are oppressed; it shows that individuals matter; it shows God’s power to cause larger circumstances to change dramatically; it shows God’s willingness to go to the borders and beyond in order to bring redemption and healing; and it shows the church the way to be in the world but not of it. 

rhgr+

Food Bank dates for July 2010

July 8th,July 22

Please be sure to mark your calendar. The dates for July have changed due to the Canada Day holiday on July 1st.

The next Seniors Tea is June 28th at 2:00 pm in the church hall. Everyone is welcome to join in this lovely event and share a cup of tea, some treats and fellowship. The Seniors tea was designed for those members of the parish and community who are not able  to attend usual Sunday service. The tea is a great chance to share in fellowship with those in the greater community!

The Parish of St. John the Apostle wishes

 to congratulate  the Class of 2010!

DONT FORGET THIS SATURDAY FROM 8AM UNTIL 12 PM THE RUMMAGE/ GARAGE SALE WILL BE HAPPENING HERE AT ST. JOHN’S! THERE WILL BE SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE SO COME OUT AND SUPPORT THE CHURCH AND FIND SOME TREASURES!!!