January 16th, 2022

The story of the miracle of Jesus’s changing water into wine is a bit unusual. As miracles go, no one’s life is saved, no healing happens. So what is the point? To make sure the party continues into the third day. Then we also have this strange exchange between Jesus and Mary, his mother. Mary points out to Jesus that they have no wine, and Jesus, like other sons before and after him, gets a little frustrated: Why are you telling me this? Am I supposed to fix this? And Mary responds, like mothers before and after, knowing that of course he will. She has asked him to. Just do as he says, she tells the servants. And Jesus turns the water into wine, and not just any wine, but the finest wine. The metaphor becomes clear: the fine wine of the gospel is free and flowing for everyone, without charge. Wine, at the wedding in Cana, kept the party going and the people together. The gospel serves the same purpose; it is a responsibility, yes, but follow it, and life becomes lighter and more joyful. We know what happens when a bottle of wine is opened at dinner; the conversation usually becomes bouncier, people open up, they become more relaxed. The gospel is that which brings together different people with different opinions. It is a radical form of equality. On the subject of those different people, our second lesson also has some points to make. If we think about our own individual contributions to the gospel story through time, we tend to do one of two things: we overestimate our contribution, or we underestimate it. The second lesson is a reminder to us to equalize our contributions; just as God freely shares the gift of faith, the wine of the gospel is with us. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” we are told in the second lesson. “And there are varieties of services, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activities all of them in everyone.” The second lesson is also an argument for radical equality. If all gifts come from the same Spirit, if all services from the same Lord, if all activities from the same God, then what? Then the ruler is not above the servant, the rich man is not above the poor. The banker is not above the carpenter (surely the Christmas story makes that clear). The largest giver in church is not above the smallest; the chair of council is not above the member who slips out quietly on Sunday mornings. Indeed, there will always be times when the skills of one are needed more than the skills of another. We can’t all be leaders when there is work to be done. When the roof is leaking, who is more essential - a roofer or an accountant? Indeed, the communities that thrive are those for whom value is placed on diversity. A diversity of skills, of gender, of background, and of race. Those are the most innovative spaces, the places where many voices have a chance to be heard. And so we have those blessed with wisdom, others with knowledge, and some with faith, and so on. And from that diversity a common good becomes possible. Many of us will know the old parable of the group of blind people who come across an elephant. The first person, whose hand touches the trunk, says, “This creature is like a snake.” The second person, who touches the side of the elephant, says, “This is a wall.” The person who touches the elephant’s leg thinks it is a tree trunk. These perceptions are different because they have approached the elephant from different places. But the parable works only so far: it is meant to show us how people may have different perceptions, different truths, but it doesn’t value them. After all, the creature is not a snake, a tree trunk, or a wall; it is an elephant. But of course, we know that with different skills, with each of our different stories, come unique perspectives. This is true in our families, in church, even in our own lives, as we age and change. The roofer may admire the elegant architecture of the church that the accountant never notices. The accountant may delight in the balanced budget line that young parents could care less about, and so on. But a diverse community benefits from all those perspectives – all those services. The roof doesn’t leak, the budget is balanced, the Christmas pageant is a success. This is true in workplaces where diverse teams are more innovative and successful. And it is true in our lives when we benefit from diversity among our friends and from exposing ourselves to activities and people outside our comfort zone. There is a version of that old parable in which the blind people get so angry with one another that they come to blows. They lost sight of their common goal – to figure out what the creature was. What if that group sat down and shared their perspectives? Would they see the fullness of the picture? Would they understand truth in a different way? Our readings today are meant to reflect the radical equality of the gospel. This does not mean that all ideas are equal in the gospel; only that there are many ways to achieve them, and many skills required to do so. If the wine flows for everyone, then how is any one above another before God? If all gifts, services, and activities in the name of the gospel come from God, then how is one above another? Indeed, it cannot be. We are meant to rejoice that there are many ways to follow the gospel and see that it is a strength. We are meant to figure out together that what we need to see is not a snake or a tree trunk or a wall; it is an elephant. We are meant, in diversity of service to the gospel, to find the common good.

January 9th, 2022

This morning, here’s another good news story to guide us forward in this uncertain first

month of 2022.

This one is about a young woman named Nadia Popovici, who was sitting in the stands

at a hockey game between the Seattle Kraken and the Vancouver Canucks. But instead

of watching the action on the ice, she couldn’t take her eyes of Brian Hamilton, the

Canucks’ assistant equipment manager. And specifically, she couldn’t take her eyes off

the back of his neck. What had caught her eye was a strange mole. After the game, she

ran down to the boards and pounded on the plexiglass to get Mr. Hamilton’s attention.

She held her phone up with a message: “The mole on the back of your neck is possibly

cancerous. Please go see a doctor.” Just to make sure: she had highlighted : mole,

doctor, and cancer, in red. As The New York Times story would later detail, Mr.

Hamilton went away rubbing the back of his neck and thinking, “That’s weird.” Ms.

Popovici, for her part, went away thinking, “Was I just being a weirdo?”

But the next day, Mr. Hamilton asked the team doctor about the mole, and the doctor

sent him to have it checked. Indeed, it came back as cancerous, and he had it removed

a few weeks later. Unchecked, the oncologist told him, it would have been lifethreatening.

Is this story weird? It sure is. It may also have saved someone’s life.

Here’s another weird story that saves lives: our baptism. Today, we celebrate the

baptism of Jesus, but it is really meant to be a call back to our baptisms. That day we

don’t remember, when a minister poured water over our heads, and wiped oil on our

faces, and adults lit candles and said prayers over us. Baptisms are one of my favourite rituals to perform as a minister: you never know the baby you are going to get, but they are always cute and entertaining, and wide-eyed about everything that happens. In our baby minds, baptism might be a strange day; in our adult lives, it is meant to save us – not only from the world, but also from ourselves. It is our fresh start, limited only by our ability to receive it. How does the good news story of Nadia Popovici and Brian Hamilton inform the good news of our baptism? Well, first let’s consider Nadia. Little pieces of her come out in the story: she worked as a nurse’s assistant at a hospital, which is how she recognized the suspect mole. When Brian Hamilton finally managed to track her down to say thanks, she was answering calls at a distress centre. She wants to be become a doctor. Nadia had already made choices to learn and to train herself, to build the habit of helping others: when she saw something that needed to be said – even if doing so felt weird – she could not stay silent. There are many ways that we also train ourselves to be other-centred, to be gospel-led, to truly receive the gift of our baptism. We read the Bible, we pray, we practice mindfulness. There are ways that we practice being gospel-led: volunteering, reaching out to strangers, biting our tongues when the words we are about to say won’t be helpful, speaking up when kind words are needed most. And what of Brian Hamilton - who saw Nadia’s strange message and listened to it? There are also many ways we can be open to advice and kindness from unusual corners and unexpected people in our lives. But are we always open? Do we watch for them as closely as we should? And so we have a story of someone offering a gift – one of experience, perspective and even risk – and someone receiving it – openly, without judgement and with gratitude. Brian Hamilton not only tracked down Nadia Popovici, he and the Canucks also arranged to give her the generous gifts of thanks and money toward her medical degree scholarship. A gift offered, and opened, with gratitude. The story of our baptism has the same components. The gift of baptism arrives at our metaphorical doorstep no matter what – it is already earmarked for us, most of us before we were walking. The next part is up to us: do we leave it wrapped up, forgotten at the door? Does it get unwrapped, and then stuffed in a corner, dusted off once in a while? Or do we unwrap it and make it a part of our daily lives, a gift that never loses lustre or breaks down or expires? Our baptism tells us: you are loved, you have value, feel safe taking risks in the name of the gospel, because that never changes. This is your permission to be weird, if being a little weird means doing what is right. And it is your reminder to listen for wisdom in the weirdness of others. It is perhaps hard to think of fresh starts when so much of this year is already dragging the refuse of the past months. This week, in all the stories about January 6th and the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol and attempted to stop democracy, we saw clearly how much the division has not healed, and how fragile that democracy still feels. Our kids started again in remote learning, with all the stress and disappointment that means for families. We are bracing, again, for a tough winter. It is true that the world does not start fresh. But people can. People can open their eyes to a new day and decide to be different in this one than they were in the last. It doesn’t happen easily. It takes training and practice. It takes openness and gratitude. But each day, to help us, we have our baptism, to open anew, to revisit yet again. Think of it this way: God is there, pounding on the plexiglass of whatever box we find ourselves in and holding up a sustaining message for us: You are loved. Have faith. Go and serve. Or just to be sure, the words highlighted in red: Love, Faith, Serve.

January 2nd, 2022

What shall we inherit from 2021, and carry with us, as burden or blessing, into 2022? We already know what we are bringing with us: more months of an already interminable pandemic, a new variant that doesn’t know it is a new year and a fresh start. We are carrying the baggage of stress and anxiety brought on by uncertainty, and the weariness of these heavy days. Perhaps the bright night of Christmas has already passed, clouded by more weeks of lockdown, possible school closures, and the threat of self-isolation. This year of 2022 begins with a cloud, and we are left watching for the sun. The idea of inheritance is already fraught to start with. It is a source of tension in families – who gets what, how will the goods be divided, who is loved more? Beyond those material things, we also inherit our family burdens and blessings – the mythology that we have been told about our place in the family, our role, however much we chafe at it. Perhaps you are the eldest upon whom so much responsibility and expectation fell. Perhaps you are the youngest, a bit freer but still expected to shine. Perhaps you are the middle child, balancing all the rest, keeping peace. These are stereotypes, to be sure, although in my experience, they often have truth to them. They are the inheritances, welcomed or often not, that we wrestle with all our lives. And so we enter into 2022, not released from those earthly, oh-so-human inheritances but carrying them forward into the new year. We do not magically shake them off at the stroke of midnight on the 1st, just as the virus is not magically vanished by a lively rendition of “Auld Lang Sang.” Indeed, they travel with us into the new year, and we ignore them at our peril. In fact, the public health guidelines are a good metaphor for how we might deal with all that we carry into 2022. The guidelines are a way of safely and constructively dealing with the virus: we do not pretend it doesn’t exist, but we take intentional steps to protect ourselves from it, to make ourselves as safe and secure as we can. Perhaps, in our own personal lives, wearing a mask might equate to putting that holdover baggage to one side while we practice being more mindful in the moment. Or getting vaccinated can translate to talking to someone – a friend or an expert – about better strategies to inoculate us from being pressed down by that baggage in the future. But what else do we inherit? In the midst of New Year’s resolutions we will feel guilty about not keeping, and the baggage of the past that will creep back in to our lives, what have we forgotten? What else have we inherited? It is our human nature to focus on negatives: staying alert to danger is what keeps us safe and surviving. But what do we miss? Perhaps it is this line, buried in our second lesson this morning from Ephesians: “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of [the One] who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.” We have another inheritance to receive. It is not divided up based on human motivations; it is not laid upon us by our families; it is not even the inheritance we adopt for ourselves. It is given to us – gifted to us – in a perfect, equal, loving way by God, and by Christ. This inheritance is never all spent. It does not weigh us down. It does not box us in. Just when we most feel its absence, it is there, waiting to be received. It is given again and again. This inheritance, as the writer of Ephesians describes it, has two parts. First is the inheritance of hope. Hope changes our perspective. It grabs us by the shoulders and points us in a different direction – toward a brighter horizon. It says to us: this too shall pass, you can do this, you will get through this. And second, it is the inheritance of responsibility. We inherit the gift of living for Christ’s glory. But wait: isn’t responsibility just another chore, another duty, another burden? It is not: for the one quality known to weigh life down is living without purpose. We have inherited purpose: we have a role to play, a task to fulfill. It is our job to think outside ourselves to see who else is heavily burdened and make their load lighter. To see who else needs a kind word and offer it. To see where injustice is happening and right it. Among all our earthy inheritances, these divine ones are what truly matter. Hope and Purpose. They are the key to a life well-lived, and they are our certain gift from Christ. And so, what follows? Let us remember, this day, and in the weeks ahead, the promise of our first lesson, made by God, and fulfilled by the inheritance of Christ: Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. May we hold this promise in our hearts, and go forward, into this New Year, with hope and purpose. Amen