Feb 9 ~ We are Defined by Our Choices

There is no recording of the sermon for this week.

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

February 9, 2025

Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]

Psalm 138

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

I am sure we all felt the mood suddenly change in Canada this week. After weeks of threatening 25-per-cent tariffs that would devastate the Canadian economy and harm his own country’s as well, President Trump announced he was going through with them on Saturday. On Monday, following a visit from our Prime Minister, he postponed them for a month.

But in Canada, the shift had already happened. Here, we felt the shock and betrayal of our closest friend attacking us for exaggerated and manufactured reasons about drugs and trade imbalances. This weekend, we learned that Trump talk of using economic aggression to make us the 51st state is no longer being laughed off as a joke by our government, but as a threat – after the President of the United State told our Prime Minister to take a look at a 1908 treaty that drew the lines of our two country’s borders.

We felt understandably insulted – responding with many of us cancelling trips to the United States. We have begun intentionally avoiding American products and prioritizing home-grown products. I know I have felt good asking in the pet store whether that bone I am getting for my dog was made in Canada, choosing Canadian condiments, and Canadian chocolate. When Erin sent me a video of that old beer commercial of the Canadian being mocked at a bar by Americans, and producing his attack beaver – I felt a swell of emotional patriotism.

Indeed, we have become angry and overtly patriotic in a way the world will see as out-of-character for our country. As I know from when my son Samson travelled – as the Globe and Mail pointed out in a story this weekend – he wore the Canadian flag, and announced his Canadian citizenship not so much as an act flag-waving patriotism in a foreign land, but to signal that he would be a respectful and considerate guest in the country.

Now, we are waving the flag, metaphorically and literally, as many of us haven’t since the convoy took over Ottawa several years ago. Our best friend has summarily cut ties over a small issue that we could have talked through, as our envied relationship should have demanded. Has that best friend forgotten all the support we showed after 911, on the ground in Afghanistan, during Hurricane Katrina and the forest fires in L.A. and picked a fight for the fun of it?

Who wouldn’t be angry? And we showed it – in our comments online, and at hockey games, where the booing of the national anthem continues.

As Canadians we long prided ourselves on our modest patriotism (hockey excepted) and our ability to openly discuss the flaws of Canada, while allowing the many, many brilliant aspects of our nation to speak for themselves. So this angry unity – this national call to arms – feels empowering. Many of us are wondering why we waited so long to let it out.

But in this moment of anger and outrage, we must also remember that we are not slaves to our emotions. Through of all this, we have a choice: our actions will decide who we are, as a country, and as citizens, in this moment.

This idea of choice comes up a lot in my sermons. But that’s because it is among the most powerful gifts that we receive from God. We are not commanded – despite those Ten Commandments – we are called as people of faith. We are not ordered to follow, we are asked to do so. The choice, every day and at every stage of our lives, is ours to make.

We hear that so plainly in our gospel this morning in the famous story of how Jesus met his early disciples, a group of fishermen. Jesus befriends them. He does not win them over with fear and negativity. He goes out on the water with them and fills their nets. In their moment of fear, he soothes a storm that threatens to sink their boat.

Jesus shows them who he is – by helping them, by protecting them and by teaching them. And then, in that fateful moment, he says: “Come, and I will make you fishers of people.” And we understand, because of who Jesus is and how he speaks the words from the gospel, that he does not mean: Come – or else. He means it as a question: Will you not come, and follow me, and do noble and kind deeds in the name of the gospel?

It is a big ask, no matter what, but we also know that the disciples have a choice. No one will drag them along behind Jesus. They will decide for themselves: remain by the sea, keep fishing, and continue their current lives comfortably. Or abandon all they know, and go with Jesus, into an uncertain future. We know what they chose – to take the risk. In doing so, they faced danger and gained wisdom and peace that comes from a life of meaning and purpose.

But the choice did not end there: they faced it every day. They often stumbled. When they were skeptical how Jesus was going to feed the 5,000, they made a choice. When they told Jesus to stop talking to poor women and tax collectors they made a choice. When they all but abandoned Jesus at the end, they made a choice.

And yet, they also made a choice to heal people with Jesus. To gather crowds for Jesus. To confront the powers that be with Jesus. They made a choice to be the companions of Jesus, and to follow him to Jerusalem. And when he was gone, they made a choice to believe and teach the gospel in his absence.

The point is not all our choices are good and pure and selfless. But if we are careful in making them, many of them, enough of them, will be.

And so, in this current situation - and really every tense or difficult situation – we choose. Faced with this existential and economic threat to our country, we may choose to do nothing – to remain with what we know just as the disciples might have done. Or we choose to unite, to buy Canadians goods, and push for more open trade across provincial borders. We choose to stand together and reflect on what it means to be Canadians.

Of course, we can also go to a hockey game and boo an anthem. We can choose, as has happened, to boo young American kids playing hockey in our country. And we can choose to respond with humour – by lining the hockey sticks along the border, as an act of quintessential Canadian pointed humour.

But we should be careful – for our choices, however imperfect, define us. On the one side of choice, the disciples appear selfish and undermining, judgmental and cowardly. On the other side of choice, they appear welcoming, selfless, brave, and loyal.

In each one of us, all these qualities may be true at one time of another as well. But who are we in the end, when we look back at the sum of our choices? Did we let anger and betrayal rule our days? Or were we guided by reason and unity?

That is a personal decision – one hopefully guided by the gospel. In this case, we have the benefit of being able to take individual action that will collectively make a difference. That alone should ease our frustration.

What’s more we have one another– we can be in it together. We can channel our anger into positive action. And hope that moments like this will clarify our own priorities and values.

Let me ask you this: How do you feel when you hear the crowds booing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Canadian hockey games? And how do you feel when you hear that American fans cheered “Oh, Canada!” in San Jose. Is it insults hurled across the border, or homegrown pride for our country that lifts your spirits? Is the boos or the cheers?

I know the answer for myself. I know that when I hear my fellow Canadians rallying together, I feel calm, collected and part of a community. I know I feel less alone.

On that day on the shore, Jesus reached out his hand and said, “Come, and I will make you fishers of people.” And the disciples made a choice that shaped their lives. May it guide us in these stressful weeks to come.

Amen.

Feb 2 ~ What if They had Opened Their Hearts and Listened?

A recording of the sermon is available by clicking above

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

February 2, 2025

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 4:21-30

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

A person is not without honour except in their own home. This is the famous line that emerged from our gospel this morning. And who among us doesn’t know the truth of it in one way or another? It speaks to the way that going home, either at the end of the day, or at Christmas for a short stay, places us among people who know us, in some ways better than we know ourselves. They know what makes us happy. They know who we used to be, and who we are away from the expectations of the outside world. If we are lucky, those memories bring laughter, and changes are accepted and embraced. If we’re less lucky, the home crowd knows where to poke the wounds that hurt us most. They might feel threatened or judged by the way we have changed and lash out. Just like the people did when Jesus returned to his hometown, preaching the gospel.

“Isn’t this Joseph, the carpenter’s son?” they ask one another. The gospel of Jesus doesn’t only fall flat, it riles them up. “Who the heck does this guy think he is to preach to us?” we can imagine them huffing to one another. “We knew him when he was in diapers.” They feel judged and criticized. “Was his home not good enough for him?” someone might have said. “Does he think he’s better than us?”

In the end, these former neighbors of Jesus become so enraged, they plot to throw him over a cliff.

They are so filled with insecurity, defensiveness, and close-mindedness that they miss their moment: to hear the gospel and gain wisdom.

And so we hear that famous acknowledgement from Jesus, as it appears in this passage from Luke: “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

But as this line appears in Luke, it is about much more than Jesus’s being teased and threatened by the bullies and judgers that knew him when he was young.

We are reminded with this passage that it’s often those considered least deserving who receive and follow the gospel with the most wisdom, and the ones who believe themselves most deserving who fail to receive it with any wisdom at all.

As the crowd is turning against him, Jesus speaks of Elisha, who, among all the lepers in Israel at the time, chose to cleanse only one – a soldier from Syria. And of all the widows in need, Elijah was sent to one: the poorest of women in Zarephath. Both are examples of times when God’s care was given to those who exhibited faith and trust and openness – regardless of race or background. They are both reminders that no one falls outside God’s grace. And that no one person is more deserving than another – not even the community who helped raise the son of God, only to fear and reject him later.

The very human story of Elijah and the widow, whose name we never learn, is the example I want to focus on this morning. When Elijah first meets the woman who will save his life, he’s in a bad spot. He’s angered powerful leaders with talk of drought, and he is on the run.

He finds his way to Zarephath, where he is guided – the Old Testament says – to one woman in particular. She is, by her description, the least likely to come to his aid. She and her son are starving, and she is getting water to prepare what she believes will be their last meal. Elijah asks if she will make a loaf for him, and promises her that if he does, things will work out. So she brings him home, and shares what little she has, and a miracle occurs: they eat well all week.

But when her son gets sick, in her grief, the widow unfairly blames the easiest person – this strange man who has shown up at her house. Elijah does not leave, though he’d repaid his debt with bread. He begs and prays to God to save her son, just as the woman’s faith had saved him. And his prayers are answered.

This story has been interpreted many ways, but let’s consider it in the context of Jesus, standing before his fuming former neighbors, who have turned on him.

Jesus is observing that when people feel entitled to benefit from something, they often value it the least. If we come to church every Sunday and do our bit, we might think we get a golden ticket to heaven, but if we do not truly hear the words of the gospel – if we judge and gossip and spread harm – we have been blinded to the presence of God on earth.

The widow, with nothing to her name, took Elijah into her home. How many others would have turned their backs or even called the authorities? Because Elijah was there, her family was fed. How many times have judgement and closed-mindedness cost us the chance to experience God’s bounty? And, as the Old Testament says, because Elijah was welcomed, when her son fell ill, he was healed. How many times has a lack of generosity and openness led us to miss the power of the divine in our lives?

People aren’t without honour except in their own home. When we hear that line, we often think of ourselves as the person not getting recognition at home or being forced to play a part they have long grown out of. It is that person who must adapt then – to accept their home as it is - or shorten the stay.

But, of course, it’s not the person at all who is missing out. Just like it was not Jesus. When we fail to accept change in those we love, we don’t get to know who they truly are. When we don’t listen with fresh ears to familiar voices, we learn nothing new. When we aren’t open to new ways of hearing the gospel, our own telling of it becomes unbending and narrow.

As Jesus is constantly reminding us, the gospel is offered to everyone. The starving widow. The foreign leper. The tax collector and the fisherman. It may also be spoken and shared by anyone: that same poor widow, those fishermen, the Good Samaritan. Even that son of Joseph the carpenter.

Think of it: the people of Nazareth were so unwilling to listen, that, according to Luke, they drove The Messiah out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff. What might have happened had they opened their minds and hearts to listen can never be known.

May we all be wiser than they were.

Amen.

Jan 26 ~ Where Will God Send You? And Where IS God Sending You?

A recording of the sermon is available by clicking above

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

January 26, 2025

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

When I read the gospel this week, I felt a sense of joy in the words, the quiet peace of reassurance – as if something great was about to happen.

Jesus is still just getting warmed up, when he returns to Nazareth and goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. These were words certainly most of the scribes would have known very well, but held in Jesus’s hand on that Sabbath Day, they took on a new meaning, a new life.

It was no longer about someone who was coming to do these great things. It wasn’t about a promise that something great might happen someday. It was the realization that someday was today, and that someone was Jesus.

Part of that comes from the gift we have of hindsight – we know who Jesus was, and what he did – in a fuller sense than anyone in the synagogue on that day. But these are powerful words. “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus said, holding the ancient scroll. “God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

That is a powerful speech. It suggests the expectation of miracles, the hope of humanity. It reassures us that however rough it is – in times of political and economic uncertainty, or natural disasters, or when family problems trouble us – things will get better.

Now, Jesus said those words a long time ago, and sometimes we wonder if they came true. Well, certainly we have made a lot of progress – in better protection for people who fall outside of society’s mainstream, in more social safety nets for the poor, in our belief that wealthier nations should share their offerings with less fortunate ones. Our lives today are infinitely safer and healthier than the ones of generations past – and certainly better than those who lived in the time of Jesus. And yet, while humanity’s overall trajectory may be progressing, we also have this sense of society’s sliding backwards, that we may be living in a dip in progress. Many of us will have felt it this week, especially. A cracking of democracy. A move away from values such as mercy and equality – the very values that Jesus espoused, the ones that shaped our society.

As always, in the words and actions of Jesus, we hear a call. Jesus was a fire starter, but the oxygen that kept that fire going was his followers, then and now. Jesus, in our gospel today, is clearly making a proclamation of what was to come, or what was expected. God has sent me, he says, to free those who are oppressed, to make the blind see. We might then imagine him looking out into the group, into the eyes of each one standing there saying: Where will God send you?

To the mother in the crowd, standing with her children, who would decide what they were taught about how to treat their fellow humans: Where will God send you? To the teacher whose words reach into the hearts of their students and carry them into adulthood? Where will God send you? To the tax collector, who would choose every day whether to resist the temptation of power or set an example of integrity: Where will God send you? Each one in that crowd who heard the words of Jesus, knew it to be true: this was a beginning. A new mission statement to guide the world.

As our second lesson reminds us – all these people – mother, teacher, tax collector – are part of the body that forms the work of the gospel. All are essential. Every part matters.

The second lesson reminds me of a theory a dog trainer suggested recently: in a traditional wolf pack, he suggested there are three kinds of members. There is the leader, who takes charge and goes out in front. There is the middle dog – the social, happy go lucky one, who holds the pack together socially and smooths out conflict. And in the last third there is the watchful dog, a little anxious. This dog warns the others when danger approaches. Now if you are a dog owner, you might want your dog to be the leader, maybe you’d be happier with the sociable, goofy jester. You may be less keen on the back of the pack dog – which is what I have at home. Our dog, Gus, seems to go through life in a constant state of worry. He is always on the lookout for threats. Unfortunately these threats include airplanes in the sky, and plastic bags that appear suddenly on the sidewalk. It’s as if, he thinks, better err on the side of reporting danger, than missing it.

But it seems to me that what’s key is that the pack needs all three. Without a leader, it would be in disarray. Without the chill presence in the middle, conflict might boil over. Without the warning from the back, harm might befall them.

And that’s the same with us: every part matters. And not just as an individual part, but as a collection of parts. In every community, including this one, we need thinkers and builders and teachers. We need people who like to take the stage, and people who quietly share their wisdom in the background. We need sparkle and substance. This is what creates a healthy, productive, resilient pack of followers for Jesus. It’s what creates a balanced body of believers who can fulfill the gospel, even in times that feel more than a little hopeless.

Jesus sets a very high bar. It may be that we work to meet it all our lives but see only small progress. (Although, in my opinion, progress is assessed differently depending on where we look.) But Jesus is right: We need to set a high bar for what we want out of life, and for what we want to see in the world. When we despair, we must lean hard on those among us who are cheerful and resilient. When we are distracted, we should look to those who would remind us of the dangers we are fighting against. And always, we must be guided by the words and actions of Jesus, who was sent by God to walk among us, and who poses this question, to each and every one of us, each and every day: “Where will God send you?”

Amen.