In Radical Gratitude, Take What You Need

I believe in one God, Father and Mother of us all who created everything that we can see and touch and everything that we can’t even comprehend yet.

And I believe that God who created us also out of the most perfect love sent us Jesus Christ, a son, a man, so that we might know what God’s life would be like here on earth. I believe that Mary, a blessed woman, was chosen to bring forth this son, who was not created but rather who sprang forth from God. I believe that Jesus was killed on a cross to save us from ourselves, from our pettiness, from our selfishness, from the rule of law that bound those who went before us. I believe that when Jesus died he went back to God and then returned to earth to continue teaching his disciples.

I believe in the Holy Spirit that springs forth from both God our creator and Jesus the son. I believe that together these three, God, Jesus and the Spirit, are with us always. I believe that the Church, the one universal Church of God, has been given the task of carrying on the inspiration throughout the ages and I believe that when we finish our time on earth we too will return to God’s loving embrace.

This is my version of the creed. This is something that we say when we gather together week after week and it affirms how we understand God to be. But there is so much missing. There is so much that is not said in the Creed particularly about the ministry and the life of Christ. I do believe that Jesus is God made manifest and that Jesus coming here on earth was for the intention of giving us a human example of how God intends for us to live.

I love the Anglican Church. I love being Anglican. I love that within the communion of saints that includes cultures, languages, faithful believers from all over the world, there is great diversity, great faith and great passion. I believe that within the Anglican Communion you can find what you need and that there is no need for us all to believe, act, or respond to God’s call in a particular way. If you need the formality of tradition, that tradition handed down to us through generations, the pomp and circumstance of standing to sing, sitting to receive the word of God and kneeling to receive the body and blood of Christ you can find it here in the Anglican Church. I believe that if you need an interactive model of worship, one where you can stand to pray, wave to sing and sit in silence to contemplate, you can find it in the Anglican Communion. I believe that you can have either communion every Sunday or simply prepare yourself to hear the words of God; you can find what you need.

I believe that even though we do not agree on everything, even though we do not have a head of the Church who demands from the top that we do understand God in only one, unique way that God works within this communion, within this Church and within this very community.

I believe that we spend a considerable amount of time paying attention to the shiny balls that are used to distract us from the work of Christ in the world. I believe that we need to focus on the “middle bit” left out of the Creed – the life and example of Jesus Christ.

As I sit in my office during the week catching up on correspondence, preparing the Sunday service, preparing for Vestry & baptism preparation, making pastoral calls and appointments, studying the scriptures and being inspired by the message I have contractors popping their heads in the door. This will just take a minute, they say. The architects plans say blah, blah, blah but I don’t think I can do it that way. I think I need to do blah, blah, blah instead. After five minutes they get to the point and I finally figure out that they’re trying to up-sell me to something that we don’t need and didn’t want. My key’s not working. We’re out of toilet paper. Who’s cooking on Sunday. We can’t finish your office until we get the carpenter back in and his daughter has typhoid and his wife is suffering from the bubonic plague.

These are shiny balls. In the moment they seem important and they manage to take my focus off of what it is that I am called to do. It is like arguing about whether one should stand for Communion or kneel – it has nothing to do with Jesus and what we are supposed to learn from his life here on earth. It is in those times, in those moments of distraction, that I sometimes receive my greatest gift from God. It comes in the form of a whack upside the head and I am grateful.

I had two moments this week that reminded me of why I do what I do. One was a young woman, distressed and alone, who wandered into my office because the door was open. Her very presence grounded me, brought me back to the radical welcome that Jesus teaches us about and for that I am grateful. I cannot fix the problems of the world but I can sit with someone in their pain and remind them of God’s healing presence. I can welcome anyone who comes into this community and I can do so with God’s grace.

Another was a phone call from someone wanting communion for their mother who was in the hospital and near death. I’m sorry to bother you, she says. I know you’re busy, she says. My heart was heavy when I realized that she thought that her request was an imposition. It is what I am called to do. It is why I became a Priest, it is who I am called to be, a companion on the journey in the times of great joy, in the times of profound aloneness and in the times of great sorrow.

I am reminded on a daily basis by situations like these about why I am called to do what I do. My life is not perfect, my life is not without its extreme struggles and times of profound hardship but I walk in a world where I am never alone. God is always with me. God always responds to my prayers. God always encompasses me in that love that is more than we can ask for or imagine. Just sometimes I forget.
In the desert around Israel the Bedouin live a simple life. They are nomadic and move from place to place as the seasons change. But there are two things that are ingrained in their culture from the times of the Old Testament. The first is, no Bedouin family or tribe can “own” an oasis. Any water that is found in the dry, arid landscape is left open to anyone who needs it. The second is that in the Bedouin camp that we visited on my last trip, the ramshackle collection of tin roofs and waterproof goat-hair coverings, there is always a place for visitors. These people have next to nothing and yet if you wandered into their camp they would give you everything you need. They would feed you, give you water to drink and give you the safety and comfort of a tent that is kept only for weary travellers.

I believe in One God, mother and father of us all, who created everything we see and can’t see. I believe that God loved us so much that Jesus Christ came to live among us and give us an example of how we should respond to the overwhelming, all encompassing love that God has for us. God loves us more than we can imagine. God loves us in ways that we don’t even understand. And God calls us to respond to that love with a radical love of our own. The Church is not bricks and mortar. The Church is not even always about meeting our own needs. The Church is about responding to the needs of others as God responds to us.

To that end I would like to tell you two things. The first is that every morning during the week we would like you to come and join us for coffee. I would like to get to know you better. I would like to know about your journey with God and your journey in the world. Now, I am not always here as I have commitments that take me away from the building so on Wednesdays my calendar dictates that I will be present in the Fellowship room to be part of the fellowship that happens there. On Wednesdays we will put a sign out on 33rd Avenue and on 17th Street inviting the community, anyone who is so called, to come and join us for refreshment on companionship. Just as in the desert, we will be the oasis in the midst of the journey that is not always an easy one – the source of refreshment is open to all. This is not a mandate from Vestry this is my response to the extraordinary love that has been shown to me by God. This is what I am called to do. In the Bedouin style I will offer you something to drink, a morsel of food and a safe place to be. In response to God we will radically welcome all who come.

The second thing that I’d like to talk to you about is in regards to the radical love that God has shown us. In the radical acceptance, the radical compassion, the radical reaching out that Jesus exemplified today we will do something different with the offering. As I said before the Church is not bricks and mortar nor is it about having our own needs met but there are times in our lives when we all need a helping hand. I know that here in Alberta there is a culture of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps but sometimes those bootstraps are too heavy to pull up on our own. So, because we are the community of God, because we are a community of Christ, because we know that the Holy Spirit is working in this place, the plate this week is a “take what you need” plate. As the plate passes you by, as you consider the blessings or the hardships in your life, you can either place an offering in as you are called or you can take what you need. The money that we gather each week is not just for the bricks and mortar of this place, you do not give to the Church but rather through the Church. So through this Church, through this communion of saints, take what you need or give what you can.

We do not want Jesus to be amazed by our unbelief. We do not want Jesus to be turned away in this, his hometown. We do not want to say but aren’t you the carpenters son when we hear about the miracles and compassion of Jesus’ ministry. We want to be the place where when the disciples of God enter they are welcomed, they are fed, they are cared for that we might learn from them. We do not want anyone who enters here feel the need to shake the dust from their feet when they leave. We are the community of God here in this neighbourhood. We must radically welcome everyone who enters as if they were the disciples of Jesus himself. I believe that God loves you more than you can even imagine, more than we can comprehend and that you are never alone. Give what you can or take what you need.

Thanks be to God.