Sermons of a Canadian Churchman

My Soul in Silence Waits: A Homily for Proper 3, Year B, 2012

2012-01-22T10:18:00.001-05:00

Homily for theThird Sunday after Epiphany
Sunday, January22, 2012
Trinity Church,Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F.Graves
Text: Psalm62:6-14, Mark 1:14-20

For God alone,my soul in silence waits.

Sometimes we find ourselves waiting. I can think of several kinds of waiting. Forexample, there is the kind of waiting that happens when the world seems to stop,when doors close for us, when we cannot do the things we hoped and wanted todo. It is the kind of frustrating and soul searching waiting that we must dowhen further opportunity seems to dry up. Another kind of waiting, perhaps related to the first, is the waitingthat takes place when we are so overwhelmed by the changes and chances of thisworld, with our work, with our families, with our responsibilities, that in ourall of our overwhelming busy-ness, we are waiting, longing, to just make it throughthe day. And yet, there is a third kindof waiting, a waiting of a more intentional sort, the kind of waiting thattakes place deep within us, a silent waiting and longing to become who we arecalled to be, to enter into the plan that God has for our lives, a waiting tohear his voice.

“For God alone, my soul in silence waits,” writes thepsalmist. What is the purpose of mylife? What am I supposed to do while Iam on this earth? What do you want me todo, O Lord? Why did you create me? These are all the questions that resonate atsome deep level behind that statement, “for God alone, my soul in silencewaits.” We wait to hear the answers tothose questions, for they are not simply questions about what I shall do withthis life on a day-to-day basis; no, they are questions about who I am. They are questions about my identity that Godalone can answer.

The Gospel of Mark reminds us that it is in a time ofwaiting that God meets us. Simon andAndrew, James and John, were hardworking fishermen, involved in the endlesscycle of casting and drawing in their nets, day after day. Were they waiting for something? Was there something that would draw them outof their daily task into something better? Four fishermen, upon the sea –casting, waiting, and drawing in. Theirlife, their very occupation was one of much waiting. And then Jesus appeared tothem with his message: The time isfulfilled, the waiting is over, the kingdom of God has come near, repent andbelieve in the Good News. Their waiting wasinterrupted and they took that incredible risk of laying aside their work. Thefour men took the risk of leaving behind their life of waiting, and put downtheir nets and followed him. As theirsouls had ever longed to break out of the busy cycle of their lives, so Godindeed met them in their waiting and called them forth.

There was something about these fishermen that predisposedthem to hearing the call of God, though. I wonder if it was their habit of waiting. I wonder if in the combination of busy-nessand drudgery of their work, they had cultivated a pattern of waiting. They cast their nets, they waited, and theydrew in. The pattern of their workbecame the pattern into which God entered to call them forth into somethingnew.

The difficulty for many of us is that we lead such frenziedlives that we scarce can find the pattern into which God might be woven intoour lives, much less the place where he might enter in. If we look a little further, though, I thinkwe will all recognize that we are waiting for something. Are we waiting for a better job? Are we waiting to move into a new home? Are we waiting for that child or grandchildto come along? Are we waiting simply forbetter times? It is into this waitingthat God casts his fishing net. It isinto this waiting that he reaches out for us. In our waiting and in our longing we are seeking to be filled by thingstemporal, but God knows our true hungering and thirsting, and in that time ofwaiting offers us living water, bread from heaven; into this longing for thingstemporal, he fills us with things spiritual.

However, we shall not be surprised if the spiritual foodupon which we are fed transforms not only our inner landscape, but our exteriorlandscape as well. We shall not besurprised (or maybe we shall!) when we see that our lives change on the outsidewhen they are transformed on the inside.

When the disciples were waiting, Jesus called them. Not only did they hear the call theyrecognized the power of the call. As thepsalmist also says, “God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, that powerbelongs to God.” The disciples not onlyheard the call, they believed that the one who called them had the power tochange their lives. The call resonateddoubly within their souls and they became fishermen of another sort, turning intheir earthly nets, for spiritual nets. Where once they lived a life of mundane purpose, they now lived forGod.

This is the hopeful message of the Gospel, that in ourmundane waiting, in our troubled waiting, in our angst-ridden waiting, in ourlonely waiting, Jesus turns that waiting into a kingdom moment. The waiting that seems to make us so distantfrom God is the very means God uses to manifest his kingdom. The question for us will be, as it was forthe disciples, will we answer the call? Will we take the risk of turning in our nets for new and betterones? We will believe that the time ofwaiting is over and that the kingdom of God is at hand?

c. 2012, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

You Have Searched Me Out and Known Me: A Homily for Proper 2, Year B, 2012

2012-01-15T08:38:00.000-05:00

Homily forProper 2, Year B, 2012
Sunday,January 15^th, 2012
TrinityAnglican Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Texts: 1Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139; John 1:43-51

“Lord, youhave searched me out and known me.”

-Psalm 139.1

Sometimes,the simpler things bring us to faith. For all the miracles and stories of wonder-working in the gospels, wemust consider what it really is that draws us into a relationship with theliving God. To be sure, there are timesin the gospels when Jesus works a miracle and it causes someone to become hisdisciple. These, though, are theextraordinary tales. Yes, there have been similar stories through the ages ofour history in which miracles have brought people to faith, but what of thecountless number who have not known such grand miracles, and yet have believeddeeply and profoundly, lived lives of piety and devotion, and proclaimed theirfaith in the living God? Can one come to faith without miracles?

The answerof course, is yes. Yes, with a proviso,that we are considering the word miracle in its narrowest terms. If we posed the question, can we come tofaith without mystery, I think the answer would be no. Of course, I do not mean mystery in itsliterary sense, as a kind of story that needs to be solved by a detective.Rather, I mean mystery in the religious sense; the sense of awe and unknowingbefore God, and at the same time being mysteriously and strangely known by thatsame God. The stories we hear today areonly slightly miraculous. However, theyoverflow with a profound degree of sacred mystery. It is this sacred mystery that touches mostof us in the depths of our souls as Christians, even when miracles are scarce.

Jesus toldNathanael that he would see great and miraculous things, angels ascending anddescending upon the Son of Man, whatever such a thing might look like! Yet, this is not what brought Nathanael tofaith. What brought Nathanael to faithwas the revelation that he was already known by God. What brought Nathanael tofaith was the fact that he, a simple Israelite man, a man without deceit, a manwith a sceptic’s eye, might be known, inside and out, by God. When told by his brother Philip that he andhis companions had found the messiah and that he was from Nazareth, Nathanaelscoffed. It might be a bit like sayingthe Messiah came from Bradford. And yet,when he went to investigate what he thought would surely be a fraud, Jesus (asis so often the case with those to come to him in St. John’s Gospel) knows allabout him already. Nathanael, puzzled bythis, asked him how he knew him, and Jesus, in essence responded, “I’ve had myeye on you. I have seen you under the fig tree.” A little bit of mystery, and Nathanael made aprofound proclamation of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! The King of Israel!”

What was itthat inspired this proclamation of faith on the part of Nathanael that not onlywas Jesus simply a teacher, but indeed the Son of the living God and the hopeof an Israel whose spirit had been broken? What was it that caused him in an instant, after having only just metJesus, to proclaim him as the one foretold by the prophets of old? It was simply this, that Jesus knew him. Itwas nothing more, nothing less. And thisis more powerful than any miracle, that God in Christ knows us and seeks usout. For Nathanael, the words of the Psalmist were suddenly real to him, “Lord,you have searched me out and known me.” Sacred mystery!

In oldentimes in the Temple, a young lad was sleeping. He knew little of the ways of God, but was being trained up by the oldpriest Eli to be a servant of the Lord. Three times God called out his name, and thrice Samuel was confused. He thought it was his earthly master, Eli, wakinghim. Old Eli the twice dismisses Samuel, but the third time recognizes that something is up, that Godis at work. He advises his youngapprentice that if he hears the call again, he should answer simply, “Here Iam, Lord.” And so when the voice of theLord calls again a third time, young Samuel, thanks to the wise mentoring ofhis old master, heeds the call and offers himself up to the God who knows hisname. What was the miracle other than a voice thatsounded like that of Eli did Samuel witness? What was it that brought him to faith? It was simply this, that he was known by name by the living God. Sacred mystery!

Back againto first century Galilee – Nathanael’s brother Philip met Jesus first. He was the one who told Nathanael about theMessiah. Unlike Nathanael, though, hedid not share his brother’s scepticism. We are simply told by St. John that Jesus found Philip and said, “Followme,” and Philip followed him and ran to tell his brother about him. What was it that brought Philip tofaith? Was it a grand miracle? Was it even a good sermon? No. Itwas simply this: Jesus found him. Whatdo we know about Philip and Nathanael prior to their meeting with Jesus? We know nothing. Their names mean nothing to us, and theywould remain unknown to history if Jesus had not found them, and called them toproclaim his name to the ends of the earth. They might have seemed insignificant to others, but they meant much toGod. Sacred mystery!

As it waswith Samuel, God went searching and God went calling. God seeks and God finds. God looks into the hearts and lives of menand women, both great and small, both rich and poor and says, “Follow me.” And why do we follow? We follow because by some sacred mystery, werealize that everything we are, have been, and will be are known to this manfrom Nazareth. We look into the eyes whichhave gazed into our soul and know that before us is the very God who created usseeking us out not simply because he has something special for us to do, butsimply because he loves us and longs to be with us. He longs for a relationshipwith us, he longs for communion with us.

It is oftensaid that the purpose and end of the Christian life is that we might partake ofthe divine life. The great mystery ofour lives is that we are wired to long for God, to seek after God, to attaincommunion with God. The greater mystery, though, is that though our feeblenessprevents us from touching God’s face, in Jesus Christ, God reaches out andtouches ours. The greater mystery isthat frail and feeble as we are, imperfect as we are, God longs for us andseeks communion with us. What is thegreatest mystery of all is that as we falteringly seek to partake of the divinelife, God draws near to us and selflessly partakes of human life, that we mightfinally be partakers of the one who is all life and goodness.

This then,is a miracle. The miracle of faith isthat God knows and longs for communion with each and every one of us, and makesthat possible. He knows each of our names, sees into each of our hearts, andeven in our brokenness (and perhaps because of our brokenness) longs to partakeof our life; that we might partake of his. Whether we are like Samuel, a little child with no knowledge of God butwith a wise mentor who can help us hear his voice, or whether we are likeNathanael, a sceptic who is swayed by a personal encounter, or whether we arelike Philip who runs headlong into an unknown future, God is calling us byname. He has searched us out and known us… and that is why we come to faith.

c. 2012, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Let Us Praise His Holy Name - A Homily for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, 2012

2012-01-01T08:22:00.001-05:00

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Name, 2012

Sunday,January 1^st, 2012

TrinityAnglican Church, Bradford

The Rev.Daniel F. Graves

Text: Luke2:15-21

“After eight days had passed, it was time tocircumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angelbefore he was conceived in the womb.”

-Luke 2:21

Until recenttimes, the English Church has traditionally kept this day as the Feast of theCircumcision of Our Lord. The old 1662Book of Common Prayer made provision for a celebration of the Holy Name to bekept on August 7. However, when we readLuke 2:21, we realize that the circumcision and naming of Jesus are one singleevent and therefore, we should celebrate them together. To add a third strand to this festival day isthat in modern times, January 1^st has been kept as the beginning ofa civic new year. And perhaps, this isthe first and best place to begin.

New Year’sDay is a fresh start for us. The day isfilled with resolutions about whom we shall become in the upcoming year, withgoals of what we wish to achieve, and hopes and dreams for a bettertomorrow. It is a time to repent of allthe things we have done that we ought not to have done, and all the things wehave not done that we ought to have done. It is a new beginning, a clean slate, a fresh start. Thus, it is inescapable that we shouldcontinue to celebrate the mystery of Christmas this week (remember indeed, thatChristmas is Twelve Days, starting with Christmas day itself, making this Day8). The mystery of Christmas is that inJesus Christ God has given us a new beginning, a fresh start. The words of the Book of Revelation, “BeholdI am making all things new” apply not only to the New Jerusalem that is tocome, but the new reality we experience as God comes among us at Christmas inthe person of Jesus Christ our Saviour. The great mystery of Christmas, that God is making all things new inChrist, is also the promise of hope that is ever before us. The gift of Jesus is a gift of new life forus. As St. Paul says in Galatians 4, weare no longer slaves but children through adoption. Consider the metaphor. In the ancient world (and in many placestoday) the child without parents is given over to the elements, to poverty andvery soon, to death – a fate even worse than slavery. For one without parents there is no hope; butthrough brotherhood with Christ, God becomes our loving parent. And thus we are not, and never shall againbe, alone. Where in our past we had onlydespair, in our present and our future we are filled with hope and joy becausewe have God as both our loving father and mother.

But as muchas this day is about new beginnings, we are also reminded that we a part of alarger story – the divine disclosure of God to us through the ages. We are not entirely divorced from our past,and indeed, when we are in Christ we are able to look back at our history andsee the hand of God that has directed us to this very moment. In a past we once thought was hopeless, theSpirit of God which is with us from our birth has been moving within and aboutus. In those times we could not discernits presence or its work, but from the vantage point of our redemption inChrist we can see the Spirit’s work everywhere in our history. The Circumcision of Jesus points directly tothis reality. As God entered intohumanity he did so in the context of a humble family in first-centuryJudea. This humble family, this HolyFamily, did all the things required of them by the Law of God. On the eighthday they took their babe to the Temple, the mother underwent her ritualpurification, and the boy was circumcised and named. His life began in very obedience to the Lawhe himself was presently fulfilling. Aspects of that Law would no longer be considered binding to Christiansin a very short time, and yet, in order to fulfill all righteousness, Jesuscame into the world and began his life under that Holy Law. As St. Paul has written also in Galatians 4,“God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” Soon, the Early Churchbegan to realize that the old Law, the former Covenant, had disclosed the NewCovenant through signs and prophecies. The old prefigured the new. Andin the circumcision of Jesus, old became new.

That greatnineteenth-century bishop and biblical exegete, Charles Gore, in his commentaryon St. Luke, wrote that our focus this day should not be so much on the rite ofcircumcision, though, but rather on the naming of Jesus. And thus we recall that Jesus is given thename prophesied by the angel Gabriel when he first came to Mary, “Greetingsfavoured one… and now you will conceive and bear a son, and you will name himJesus.” We learn also from St. Matthew’sgospel that an angel had also prophesied this birth to Joseph, and told himthat the child shall be named Jesus, “for he shall save his people.” The name of Jesus is thus significant to us,for the name itself is a testimony to our salvation. This salvation is not only for those bornunder the law, as St. Paul proclaims, it is for all people. Thus St. Paul was able to begin a remarkablemission to the gentiles, to those who had never even embraced the old law,because the New Covenant of grace is not simply for a single chosen people, butfor all mankind.

Elsewhere,in Philippians 2:5-11, Paul writes about the divine movement of God in Christand unfolds for us the mystery of salvation, that Christ Jesus who was in theform of God, chose not to cling to his divinity, but emptied himself taking theform of a slave, even unto death. ThusGod lifted him up and exalted him giving him the name that is above all names;that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess thatJesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And this iswhat we celebrate and proclaim this day, the name that is above everyname. It is before this name that webend the knee. It is upon hearing thisholy name that we bow. The name of Jesusis for us a token and badge of our redemption. The very name means salvation. It is the very word of health and life forus. It is sweetness upon our lips andmusic to our ears. It is joy. It ishope. It is love; God’s unfathomable and endless love for us. Thus today, let us fulfill all righteousnessand praise his Holy Name.

c. 2012, The Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Hope for Today - A Homily for Christmas Eve, 2011

2011-12-24T14:34:00.002-05:00

Homily forChristmas Eve, 2011
Saturday,December 24^th, 2011
TrinityAnglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev.Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke2:1-20

“I ambringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”

-Luke 2:10

In hisrecent book, The Triumph of Christianity,sociologist Rodney Stark notes that those who deride the Christian faith claimthat Christianity is but “a sedative for suffering in this life by promisingthat we will be fully compensated in the next.” He continues, “Atheists like to ridicule this aspect of faith as ‘pie inthe sky.’” While it is certainly truethat the Christian faith is concerned about what happens to us after we die, itis equally true, that our faith is not about enduring present suffering for thesake of eternal bliss. Nothing can befarther from the truth. Indeed, Starkresponds by noting, “What is almost always missed (in these derisivecharacterizations of Christianity) is that Christianity often puts the pie onthe table! It makes life better here and now. “

It seems tome that the Christmas story is entirely about how our faith not only gives us ahope for the future, but transforms our lives in the present age. The Christmas story is about hope. Hope in the age to come, and hope in thepresent moment. The truth is that inChrist Jesus, God changes lives.

We live in aworld that is desperately searching for meaning. The promises offered by the world are failingall around us. Political systems thatonce seemed so established are being reshaped and reformed in unrecognizableways. An economy that was onceconsidered unassailable has repeatedly suffered blows that have unmasked itsstructural and systemic instability. Evenour beloved public institutions and social safety nets that were considered theenvy of the world are threatened under the weight of the instability of the presenteconomic system. We long for a word ofhope to be spoken into the present moment, not simply a word about some distantfuture hope, but a word of hope for “now.”

“Lo, therewere shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Although we live in a very different worldfrom these shepherds, do not think for a moment that they needed a word of hopefor their present reality any less than we need one today. They lived in occupied territory. They knew great hardship and suffering. All of the things that threaten to defeat anddestroy every generation were part of their story as much as they are part ofours. What were their needs? How did they suffer? What meaning did they seek for theirlives? The human condition changes notfrom age to age.

“Butsuddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shoneabout them and they were afraid.” Sometimesfear grips us when the possibility of change is before us, for even though wehave longed for change, prayed for healing, we can fear it. We have become so accustomed to the pain weexperience, we have become accustomed to the brokenness of our lives and of ourworld, the brokenness of the systems of power that rule this world, that achallenge to that pain and brokenness might seem frightening at first. What we experience may be difficult for us,but it is what we know. Better the devilwe know, so the saying goes.

But intothis fear of taking the plunge into the unknown ocean of hope, into this fearof taking a risk for healing, reconciliation and new life, the angel announces “Fearnot!” Fear not. How easily it is said, but how much moredifficult it is to follow, to believe. Yet,the announcement to be not afraid carries with it a promise, and it is apromise that undergirds the proclamation and washes our fear away. “Fear not, for I bring you glad tidings ofgreat joy! I bring you good news!” Intothe midst of all the bad news of our lives and the brokenness of this world,good news is spoken, glad tidings are proclaimed. And what is this good news? Today, in the city of David, a saviour isborn.

Today a saviour is born; not tomorrow,not next week, not in some far off, distant utopian future. Today, this very night, Jesus is born. This is the power of the Gospel. This is thetruth of its message: God with us, Emmanuel. God changes us now. The moment is not long incoming. The moment is now. The Shepherds were not told to wait, nordid they go to sleep and wait until the morning. No! They made haste in the late evening hours: “Letus go and see this thing that the Lord has done!”

The messageis no different this very night. Amidstthe brokenness of this age and of our lives, the angel voices proclaim, “Fearnot! For unto you is born this day, a saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” And as it was for the Shepherds, so it is forus, Jesus has come, our God Incarnate, God in the flesh, God made human,Emmanuel. We need not wait, we need nothope for a better day, for hope meets us tonight! Shallwe then make haste to greet him as he comes to us?

And what ofthe suffering of this present age? Whatof the corrupt systems? What of ourbroken world? I say, that when Godchanges you and when God changes me, God changes the world. With every heart that receives him a newpiece of divine reconciliation occurs. Withevery heart that receives him, a new and generous heart is created that says “no”to all the forces and powers that seek to destroy this world and the people init. With every heart that receives him, human dignity is restored.

God changesus. Jesus changes us. It is not all about what happens when thislife is finished, although God cares about that, too. It is about God changing this world,transforming this world, one life, one person at a time. When God changes me, when God changes you,together we become a people whose lives are modeled on compassion, generosity,love and hopefulness. When Jesus isbirthed in us, these things are birthed in the world, and the world is changed. When I know joy, the world knows joy. When I know love, the world knows love. When I know hope, the world knows hope. When I am changed, when I am transformed, theworld is changed, the world is transformed.

And so, thisvery night, angel voices proclaim that Good News again. Let us heed their call, and like theshepherds of old, make haste to greet him. But more than that, like them, let us bear witness to this thing theLord has done. Let us bear witness inour changed lives as the shepherds did in theirs. May you know his life-transforming love thisChristmastide and always, that each of you might carry the Christ Child tothose who in turn need to hear the life-changing message, “Fear not, for untoyou is born a saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

You are Children of Light - A Homily for Proper 33, Year A, 2011

2011-11-13T08:36:00.001-05:00

Homily for Proper 33, Year A, 2011
Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

“You are all children of light and children of the day.”
1 Thess. 5:5

One of the distressing things about the age in which we live is the pessimistic tendency to find hopelessness around every corner. It does not help when we are relentlessly bombarded with news of the seemingly unending economic crisis. From time-to-time we are given breaks with other bits of bad news, broadcast over our televisions, radios, or computers. Then there is the bad news we get in our personal lives. We hear of another relationship that has fallen apart, another dear friend has received bad news about their health, or we learn of a family member who is in crisis. Who can blame us if we seem to be walking about in a perpetually depressed state?

The Thessalonians of St. Paul’s day surely knew some hard times, as we have known hard times. They would have been just as affected by unforeseen illness, the loss of loved ones, and economic challenges, as we are affected in this day. And perhaps, having heard the news that Jesus would come again, they were seeking more information about when this wondrous event would take place. When would all the is bad come to an end? Perhaps they were wondering and hoping for this day, that the pain and pessimism that surrounded them would be swallowed up in the immanent return of the one in whom they had put their faith.

Perhaps the Thessalonians were disappointed that Jesus’ return had not come as quickly as they had expected, or as St. Paul might have promised. Loved ones were still dying, conflict continued, economic woes still persisted. If only Christ would return and put an end to it all.

But that is a very pessimistic view of the world, is it not? I know Christians who still take this line and hope that Jesus will return and put an end to this evil age. I think, though, that those who think such things have missed a crucial point and fundamental truth about Christianity. It seems to me that they have overlooked something about the character of God, something crucial to our understanding of who God is, and something crucial about God’s relationship with his creation. I would suggest, rather, that we have a hopeful God, a God who not only loves this world, but a God who seeks to redeem it, and is in fact redeeming it. We have a God who so passionately cares about us and loves us that he desires not to wipe it out and start again, but to bring it instead to its fullness and true purpose.

The Thessalonians were likely depressed, disappointed, and pessimistic. They were willing to cash in their chips and move quickly into the new and throw away the old, to write it off as broken, useless, out of date, and even evil. However, Paul admonishes them not to give up hope. He offers them a reminder of their identity in Christ Jesus. He reminds them that they are not in darkness. They are children of the light, children of the day. He reminds them to be attentive in the midst of a troubling world; to look for signs of the Lord’s coming.

It can be difficult in a troubled world to see signs of the Lord’s coming. I would suggest that as children of the day, as children of the light, we are to seek signs of light even in the midst of a troubled world and our troubled lives. I am not speaking of false optimism nor suggesting that we should be Pollyannas. Rather, I would encourage you, as Paul encouraged those early Christians, to really live as we believe. We believe that Christ has come amongst us in great hope for this world. We believe that God really does love us. We believe that God really does care for us and for his creation. We believe that in offering himself for us, we might have life even as death seems to win the day. To live in this way, to care about our world, to care about our fellow human beings, even those with whom me may find ourselves in conflict, to care about our society, to take an interest in our politics, to reach out to the weakest and the most vulnerable, to live, to live, to live, even in the face of death -- these are all way of walking as children of the day. These are all ways of living out the hope of God in this world. They are ways of being awake, of being watchful, of being mindful, in a world that sometimes feels like it is populated by zombies. And it is true, sometimes we all feel like zombies walking aimlessly through life. But stay awake, Paul says, for the day of the Lord is at hand, it comes like a thief in the night. We speak not of some apocalyptic end, but of a new age dawning now upon us, of which we are a part, and are partners with a loving God in its inauguration.

The things around us can indeed be discouraging at times, but Paul also gives us this reminder to encourage one another, as we have already been doing; to build each other up; to share the hope we have with each other that in times of trial, that we might not lose sight of the great hope that is set before us. The importance of Christian community, one of its primary purposes I would say, is that it is a place for encouraging each other in hope, when the world around us conspires in hopelessness. The Christian community is a place in which we encourage each other to live out in the world our baptismal covenant. It is the place where we say together, “I will, with God’s help,” and send each other out, not as individuals but as a community, into the world to say, that we know a better way. It is a place where we encourage each other with gentleness and love and then go forth to live lives of gentleness and love.

The banners of hate may seem firmly planted. The pessimism of the age may seem at times to triumph. But hope will not be disappoint and faith shall not fail, because whereas hate and pessimism are built on sand, faith and hope and love are built on the rock that is Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ, the one who walked among us and continues to abide with us through the Holy Spirit, is the faith, hope and love of God for a broken and hurting world; and in this faith, hope and love, the fullness of God’s creation will be realized.

We have nothing to fear because we meet the world under the strength of God’s hope. God believes in his creation, loves his creation, and in Christ Jesus, has given us new life, reconciliation, and the strength to live out his hope. God’s hope says yes to the world, not no, for this is God’s world and God will not see it lost.

St. Paul writes, “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live in him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. “

You are doing it. I have seen it. This is why I have hope. Your love and encouragement of each other are a sign to me that Jesus Christ is alive and present in this community and changing the lives of men, women and children. I see hope wherever I turn, and that hope eclipses any pessimism that might distract us from God’s longing for us. That hope also gives me the great courage to participate in the mission of God for this world, and so it should give each of us such courage.

One of my favourite Anglican Churchman was a great liturgist named Percy Dearmer. He wrote this prayer, which has become my favourite prayer of the Anglican Tradition.

Almighty God, who has set before us the great hope that your kingdom shall come on earth, and taught us to pray for its coming; give us grace to discern the signs of its dawning, that we might work for the perfect day when the whole earth shall reflect your glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

When Patience is Tested - A Homily for Proper 28 (National Thanksgiving), 2011

2011-10-07T14:27:00.002-04:00

Homily for Proper 28 (National Thanksgiving)
Sunday, October 9th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Exodus 32:1-14

“Turn from you fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.”
-Exodus 32:12

God had every right to be angry with his people. He had delivered them from the hand of pharaoh and slavery in Egypt. He had led them dry-shod through the Red Sea. He had given them manna to eat in the wilderness. And still, the moment their Moses leader had gone up the mountain to converse with God, the Hebrew people decided to make a false god and bow down and worship it. The anger of God was kindled against his people and God was ready to raise his hand against them.

This story tells us that even the patience of God can be tested once in a while. In one way this gives me great comfort, for I am often disappointed in myself when I find my wrath kindled and my patience tested. While each of us has different levels of tolerance, I am sure that all of us have a breaking point. All of us, from time-to-time, find our patience tested by those around us, not only our adversaries, but family members, friends, and yes (dare I say it?), even fellow parishioners. We are only human, and perhaps it will come as a comfort to all of us that as we find our patience tested in difficult situations, by difficult people, even God finds his patience tested.

When our patience is tested it is easy to raise our voices in violent response. Throughout history, the taking up of arms often happens when we find our patience for talk and conversation exhausted. Violent words, violent actions, regrettable words and regrettable actions often follow the loss of patience. When a certain fury rises up within us, rages within, we are quick to act, and perhaps not so quick to think about the consequences. But oh, there is much time to think about consequences after the act is done, and much of the thinking we do is about our regret for the hastiness of our actions.

In his book Writing in the Dust, written immediately after the events of September 11th, 2001, Archbishop Rowan Williams, who was a short distance from the World Trade Centre that morning reflects on the natural desire to act decisively, vindictively, when we are hurt:

"The Response of at least some people in the face of deep injury, once feeling has returned, is a passionate striking out; there is something recognizable about the language of Psalm 137 – ‘ let their children die horribly, let them know what humiliation and exile are like.’ It is an honest moment; but for those of us who are not totally helpless in terms of internal or external resources it is only a moment" (p. 18).

His point is that when our patience is driven to the point of exhaustion, in that moment, we are ready to let loose. We are ready to exact vengeance. We are ready to make the decisive strike against what has driven us to this frenzied moment of exasperation. But perhaps, we need to step back for a moment and consider what acting in such circumstances will do. To recognize that the shattering of patience is but a moment that must be put in the larger framework of our ultimate response. Williams goes on to reflect that as people who have the freedom that we do in the West, we must use that freedom wisely. We have the freedom to think and express ourselves in so many ways. Williams notes:

"We have something of the freedom to consider whether or not we turn to violence, and so, in virtue of that very fact, are rather different from those who experience their world as leaving them no other option. But if we have that freedom, it ought to be less likely that we reach for violence as a first resort … it means putting on hold our most immediate feelings – or at least making them objects of reflection; and means trying to pull apart the longing to re-establish the sense of being in control and the longing to find a security that is shared …. It means acknowledging and using the breathing space; and also longing and using the rage and revengefulness as a way of sensing a little where the violence comes from." (p 23-4)

If only we had taken the Archbishop’s sage words to heart ten years ago. Now we are left reflecting on ten years of our response in Afghanistan and wondering, was it all worth it? The point, though, is this: As Christian people, we have a freedom in Christ that requires of us a higher response to anger, to hate, to infidelity and faithlessness. In Christ Jesus we have the freedom not to strike back with immediate force (either on the global scale or in our communities and in our relationships). We have the higher calling, when our patience is sorely tested, to breathe deeply, to create some space, to attempt to understand from where the pain that is thrust at us has come, and consider what words we will speak into that situation and what healing and reconciling actions we might live by. It seems to me, this is the calling of a Christian community.

On the mountain, where even God’s wrath was kindled and God himself was prepared to strike down his own people, Moses implored God to take a breath, to reflect on what he was about to do. Moses reminded God that 400 years of slavery is not so easily healed by a walk through the Red Sea and some manna in the Wilderness. Moses reminded God that healing is a process, that deliverance is a journey, and that God himself had made a promise. Moses reminded God of God’s own gracious and loving nature. Moses reminded God of God’s own merciful nature; and God relented.

If it gives me comfort that even God’s patience can be sorely tempted, then it also gives me comfort to know that God can reconsider wrath in the moment of temptation. This story gives me hope, should give all of us hope, that even though we may from time-to-time find ourselves driven to the breaking point where our patience is tested, that we are capable of a much higher calling, a much more compassionate response, and a much more reconciling love. When human beings, God’s children, were at their most rebellious, God chose not to raise his arm in anger, but sent his Son and came to be amongst us himself in Jesus Christ, to understand the pain and brokenness we feel and experience as human beings; to transform us that we might be made whole. When God’s patience could have been most sorely tested, rather than raising his hand, God reached out his hand in the person of Jesus Christ and saved us from ourselves. I can think of nothing greater for which to give thanks; and I can think of no more thankful way to live than to live into that higher calling of compassion, understanding, and peacemaking.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"...Whose Service is Perfect Freedom." A Homily for Proper 23, Year A, 2011

2011-09-04T08:45:00.002-04:00

Homily for Proper 23, Year A, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 13:8-14

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves fulfils the law.”
-Romans 13:8

One of the old prayers of which I am so fond is a prayer that appears in the old service of Mattins from the Book of Common Prayer. It is the second collect, for peace, which reads in part, “O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, whose service is perfect freedom…”

Whose service is perfect freedom.

One cannot imagine a more perfect creed of the Christian life. It is perfect because freedom and responsibility are interwoven in a beautiful knot. However, the freedom about which we speak is not a libertine, selfish freedom, that allows us to do anything we want; nor is the service about which this prayer speaks a slavery in which we are bound to a brutal taskmaster. The freedom we know is of a different sort, and the service to which we are called is of a more perfect kind.

The Exodus story that has been unfolding in our Old Testament readings over the summer months is a story that has been winding its way toward the climax of the Passover, of Moses leading his people from bondage in slavery into freedom. And the whole scope of Paul’s great letter to the Romans (and indeed all his letters) has been about our Christian reinterpretation of deliverance from slavery into freedom through the Christian Passover: Christ’s passing from death into life, that we might be led from the bondage of death into the freedom of new life.

What a wondrous concept freedom through new life is. It is all the more beautiful to behold when we try to place ourselves in the place of our forbears who knew what it was to be enslaved. Consider for a moment the enslavement known by the Hebrew people under their Egyptian taskmasters, and how their suffering led God to call Moses to lead his people out of that suffering, and how Moses cried out in anguish to Pharoah, “Let my people go!” Consider for a moment the Roman empire at the time of Jesus, and the number of men and women who fell into slavery through military conflict and penury, and how St. Paul reminded the early Christians that in Christ there is no male nor female, no slave nor free; that we are all one in Christ. Consider for a moment black slaves of the Antebellum South, or black brothers and sisters who continued to be enslaved by unjust laws in the supposed land of the free until the freedom marches of the 1960s. Consider the child soldiers of the world today who are bound in slavery to bellicose masters. Consider all these things, and imagine, if you are able, what it might be like to taste the longed-for freedom we so casually take for granted.

But there is a different kind of freedom that has gripped us today. It is a freedom that is rooted in a pernicious libertinism that absolves us from all responsibility to others. It is a freedom that is rooted in an individualism so prevalent in our modern culture that commands me to believe that my happiness, my well-being, my financial security is the good above all other that I must seek, to the exclusion, and even to the destruction of others. If they are weak, then let us just sweep them away, or enslave them. A freedom that destroys the life of another, a freedom that enslaves another, is no freedom at all. With such a freedom we also enslave ourselves. In such a freedom we become slaves to sin.

As St. Paul would have set, “Let me show you a better way.”

In another of his great letters, in a passage so often read at weddings, Paul enumerates all sorts of wonderful things that we might lay hold of that would suggest our perfect freedom, not only material wealth, but gifts of tongues, prophecy, and faith. But then he reminds us, if I have not love, I am nothing. In his letter to the Romans, he repeats the very words of Jesus, and reminds us of the character and nature of true. He recalls several of the ten commandments, “Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t covet,” and then he turns to remind us what is implicit in all of the ‘do nots’, namely do not do things that would harm or enslave your neighbour, but rather “Love your neighbour as yourself.” This is perfect freedom, not the freedom to do what we want, but to seek freedom and justice for all through love. Love does no wrong, he says. Love does not hurt your neighbour. Love is the fulfilling of the law.

And herein lies the paradox, to be perfectly free is to be bound by the law of love. This is our divine service. When we gather each week to worship God almighty, it is to prepare us and remind us that love of God is realized and lived out in love of neighbour. The king that we are bound to serve requires only this, to love his other subjects: both the weak and the strong. Love everyone. No exceptions. This is perfect freedom.

As I say to young folk who are getting married, love is not always easy. To love someone so passionately in those early days of romantic abandonment feels like we have been set free, but we soon learn that love has obligations; we soon learn that love requires the abandonment of self. Love requires sacrifice. The Hebrew people who fled from Egypt fled from fierce oppression, but they also fled the only home that they had ever known. Freedom requires sacrifice. Our Lord went to the cross, and oh how he longed for the cup to be passed from him, but he went and so brought all his people freedom through the overthrowing of death. Love requires sacrifice.

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another, for the one who loves fulfils the law.

We won’t love everyone naturally or intrinsically. That is okay, I suspect. What is required of us,though, is that we let God love them through us, because in each person we me, we see look upon the face of Jesus: Slave or free; man or woman; black or white; gay or straight; friend or enemy. In the face of the other we see the face of our beloved, and they in turn see the face of their beloved in us. Love involves risks. Moses and his people risked. Jesus Christ risked. We are called to risk.

Through the strength we find in Christ, the service, the divine service, that we offer is to take the risk of loving not only our neighbours, but even those who would seem unlovable to all others, and abandon ourselves to that love, that in that divine abandonment to love, the whole world may know God’s loving embrace and move one step closer to being the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, whose service is indeed perfect freedom.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Rejoice in Hope - A Homily for Proper 22, Year A, 2011

2011-08-28T08:53:00.002-04:00

Homily for Proper 22, Year A, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Trinity Church, Bradford & St. Paul’s Coulson’s Hill
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 12:9-21

“Rejoice in hope.”
--Romans 12:12

Despair is a disease. It is a very contagious disease. Where it infects one, it quickly spreads to another, and very soon, despair becomes an epidemic. There is something in our human condition that makes especially prone to despair, that makes us exceptionally vulnerable. That is why when our leaders peddle despair, when they choose to speak about fear and impending doom, be it in the church or the world, even when they are doing so with apparently honest motives, it always backfires. Just think how quickly the media jumps on bad news and seeks to rebroadcast, and indeed recast it in even more despairing tones of hopelessness. Just think about how often you pick up the phone or go off to your computer to share a piece of bad news with someone else. Despair spreads as quickly and perniciously as any avian flu or SARS.

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes about how little things can make a big difference. He underscores that epidemics can be destructive, but also that there are good epidemics, positive epidemics, and that there is always something that tips them from being simply and isolated phenomena into a phenomenon that falls upon everyone. He gives a particular example when he writes about the “broken window” concept. In the early 1980’s, the New York subway system was a disaster. Every train was covered in graffiti, fare evasion was rampant, and violent crime so prevalent that ordinary folk would avoid the subway at all cost. The authorities attempted unsuccessfully to treat the symptoms of violent crime, but it was not until a new general manager was hired, who dealt aggressively with the problems of petty crime (graffiti, fare evasion) that things began to change. What that new manager did was essentially to fix the broken window. Broken windows are one ways that epidemics spread. If we see a broken window, we are more tempted to break another, to further vandalize the property, or simply to fall into the apathy of despair and not even bother to try to fix the window, the dilapidated building, and make things better.

If we are prone to despair, though, I believe we also long for hope. Even more than being prone to despair, I believe we are a people programmed for hopefulness. It may come with great difficulty, but ultimately, I believe we long to see the best, hope for the best, and believe in the best. If we are indeed made in the image and likeness of God, who longs for the best, hopes for the best and believes in the best for humanity, than this should come as no surprise.

Yet, we find ourselves mired in despair. But time and time again, remarkable, little things begin to happen. We want the subway system to be safe, we want our political system to work, we want the broken windows to be fixed. This week we witnessed an outpouring of hope. This week we buried at great leader of this nation, a leader who spoke words of hope to a people so prone to despair. This week, in the midst of death and profound loss, hope became an epidemic. The small gesture of a final will and testament, final words of exhortation left by Jack Layton to Canadians was an offering of words of hopefulness that love, hope and optimism are better than the things that would seek to crush us. People gathered, and rain could not wash away tributes chalked onto the plaza of Nathan Philips Square. A tipping point, I believe. And lest this become about the politics of one man, let us not forget the extraordinary gesture of our Prime Minister in offering an unprecedented state funeral to the leaders of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. A friend of mine, and ex-pat American wondered on Facebook if this would have happened in polarized America? I hope and believe that the potential is there, too. Yes, some will criticize our Prime Minister of making a political move, and others will criticize the funeral organizers of organizing one last political rally, but those who do so are purveyors of despair and I encourage you not to buy into their cynicism. When did politics become such a dirty word? Politics is about serving the people of polis, the city, the community, the nation. A political move should not be considered a bad thing, but a principled stand on seeking to do the best for the people we seek to serve. Both the late, lamented leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and our Prime Minister made political moves this week. They both did so with dignity, passion, and deep and profound hopefulness. We learned from both of them that politics can be hopeful and that cynicism and despair can be cast aside.

I have grown up in a Church that has been known as being less than hopeful. Pierre Berton’s Comfortable Pew has left a bitter legacy in the history of the Canadian Church. Church politics for the last forty years or so have been governed by fear: Declining attendance, lawsuits concerning residential schools, insufficient budgets, issues that divide such as the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the Church. Given this legacy, why are any of us here? And indeed, many are not here because the politics of fear has driven them away. But I heard some remarkable words recently. I attended a town hall meeting held by Archbishop Johnson in Barrie. It was an opportunity for him to answer questions and to listen to what people in this diocese are saying. There were many words of encouragement spoken. People spoke of the exciting things that were happening in their parishes. Even in tiny parishes that have traditionally been maligned for being small, we heard reports of the Spirit moving in wonderful ways. It was like the sign that hangs over the fictional record store in Stuart MacLean’s Vinyl Café, which reads proudly “We’re not big, but we’re small!” Then the Archbishop spoke these very profound words, “Everywhere I go, I see signs of hope; I see signs of God at work. I do not see the naysayers proved right. People are tired of bad news. People are tired about hearing about the demise of the Church. People are tired of it, and it is simply not true. Wherever I go I see Good News and I see hope.”

This week on the national scene people made a claim for hope. People who profoundly disagreed with Jack Layton’s politics said yes to his words of hope. Why did these words make such a profound impression upon us? It is because we are a people who, though prone to fear and despair desperately long for words of hope because deep down we do believe that hope is better, strong and greater than fear.

Every time I officiate at a wedding, I underscore a certain point, that in a world that knows much brokenness and hopelessness, I am standing before a couple that is saying “no” to such things, and instead, offering a profound “yes” to love and to hope, in the midst of their family and friends, and that love and hope has the power to change the world. In a prayer for the couple from the marriage liturgy we read, “May their lives together be a sacrament of your love to this broken world, so that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy overcome despair.” Sound familiar? We pray that every marriage will be a “tipping point” in the glorious epidemic of hope.

A small thing: the birth of a tiny babe in stable. This is the most profound and hopeful act since the creation of humankind. God hoped. God believed. God hoped and believed that Joseph and Mary of Nazareth would take this tiny babe and nurture and care for it, in a world of profound infant mortality, in a world occupied by a Roman oppressor, in backwater Judea, God hoped and believed. God hoped and believed that at least a few would follow the young man, that at least some would find his preaching transformative, his preaching of an upside-down kingdom where the last are first. God hoped and believed that the young man would see it through to the end, even as the man longed for the cup to be passed. God hoped and believed that those who turned away would once again follow. God hoped and believed that death would not win the day. And it has not. God hoped and believed that others would catch the vision of hope and love.

A small thing: the birth of a tiny babe in a stable. A tipping point.

Years later a zealous missionary, having caught the vision, would write in his Epistle to the Romans, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers …. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

We shall return home from this place, and surely as I am standing here, we will turn on the radio, television or internet. We will hear peddlers of despair, but they shall not, nor shall their message overwhelm us, hurt us or destroy us, for the point has tipped. We are bearers of Good News; we proclaim hope, and hope changes lives.

Rejoice in hope.

c.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Keys of the Kingdom - Homily for Proper 21, Year A, 2011

2011-08-21T09:02:00.001-04:00

Homily for Proper 21
Sunday, August 21st, 2011
Trinity Church, Bradford & St. Paul’s Coulson’s Hill
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 16:13-20

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”
--Matthew 16:18

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They ventured all sorts of suggestions, but he pressed them further, “Who do YOU say I am?” Did Jesus cast he gaze around at all of them and then rest his eyes upon Peter? Whether Peter answered impetuously or under pressure, we shall never know, for we have only his response, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Perhaps following a moment of silence, a smiled crossed the face of Jesus and he proclaimed, “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” Did Peter heave sigh of relief that he had answered correctly? Did Simon Peter feel like the school-child who has a tentative knowledge of the answer but a fear of putting up his hand? Whatever the feelings in that moment, Peter’s response was taken to be a profound one. Jesus claimed that Simon Peter had spoken not from some information that he had learned from a friend or teacher, but that his knowledge came from a much deeper place, indeed, that Peter’s knowledge was the result of divine revelation. Did Peter know this? Did Peter think this? Did Peter believe this? One suspects that Jesus’ proclamation that this knowledge was as much a revelation to Peter as the message itself.

What happens next, though, must surely have come as more of a surprise. Jesus gave Peter a new name and a set of keys. The name seems to have stuck and Simon son of John was henceforth known to his friends as Kephas (usually anglicized as Cephas), in Latin, Petros, Peter, or more colloquially, Rocky. The keys, though, were not literal keys, but figurative keys, and the church through the centuries has reflected on what the name change meant, and what these keys signify. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters understand the name change and the keys to represent a certain Petrine primacy and authority that has reached its apex in their bedrock dogma of papal infallibility. Other varieties of episcopally led churches, such as Anglicans, have generally reckoned that the keys and Petrine office represent a certain kind of apostolic authority that is diffused across the fraternity of the episcopacy and shared by all bishops alike, collegially. Protestants have envisioned Petrine authority and the power of these keys as further diffused across the leadership of the church, ordained and lay, gathered together, and that the “rock” was referring to the rock that was Peter’s faith.

But do we focus too much on trying to wed these symbols to our ecclesiological traditions at the expense of allowing them to speak to the story of our lives? What if we were to ask ourselves what it means to consider what this revelation that Peter had means to us, who believe that we receive revelation again and again (as much as Peter did) as we open the pages of Scripture and read these sacred words? What if in this story Peter himself is to be understood and read as stand-in for all Christians who in a moment of revelation recognize the Christ in their midst and seek to understand what it is he offers each of us as he calls us by name and hands us a set of keys?

Let me ask you a question, have you ever locked yourself out of your house? Well, I have done it, more times than I care to admit. When we lock ourselves out, we find ourselves relying on the generosity and indeed, the mercy, of others. The most recent time this has happened to me was when we were hosting the Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica. I had recently placed a mousetrap under the sink to trap a little creature I had suspected of infiltrating our green bin on successive evenings whilst the house, and the cats, slept. This particular Sunday morning, I got up and checked to see if I had caught anything, and sure enough I had snared a mouse. While the house still slept, I took the trap outside to dispose of the mouse and upon returning to the house realized that I had locked myself out. So there I stood, due to my own foolishness, at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning, in my bathrobe outside my front door, with a mousetrap in hand realizing that the only way to get back in was to ring the doorbell. I had hoped that Athena, who sleeps with earplugs, might have heard me, or perhaps one of the children, but no. Instead, I was greeted by our houseguest, a rather tired looking Jamaican bishop, in his housecoat, who had been roused by the doorbell. We stood there facing each other with telling smiles, I held up the trap, he gave a bit of deep chuckle, and without a further word exchanged, he let me back in. I made sure when I was dressed that I had the house keys in my pocket.

The power of the keys, we are told in Matthew 16, is that they have the power to loose and to bind, in both heaven and earth. We have traditionally thought that this is about the Church’s power to admit into the fellowship and to exclude from fellowship in the community. This may indeed be true, but this sort of thinking allows us to absolve ourselves from the responsibility of being bearers of the keys and locates that responsibility on others, be it papal authority, episcopal collegiality, or presbyterian or synodical collegiality. What if we were to think that holding the keys we have the power to lock ourselves out or let ourselves in? What if simply, we were to understand that Jesus has given us the keys to the house, the keys to the kingdom? It’s not that we earned them through some theology of works and that our power is to earn our way into heaven or hell through good or bad works; no, it is simply that we have recognized him as master of the house, the Lord, the messiah, the Christ, and in our recognition of him the master of the house has shared with us his keys. I can use those keys to go in, or I can throw them away, lose them, forget about them, abandon them, and find myself locked outside the house. The choice is mine.

But they keys aren’t the whole story here. As a member of the household we are given a name; we are counted as family. Jesus gave Simon a new name, he called him Peter. But oh, we know that Peter was not quite the rock he was supposed to be when crisis struck. At the passion of the one he had proclaimed as Christ, son of the Living God, he denied not once, but thrice that he knew the man. Good old Rocky seemed to have thrown away the keys and locked himself out. This seems to me to tell most clearly against the traditional Protestant reading of the name “Rock” signifying Peter’s faith. What then does it mean for Jesus to have called Simon son of Jonah the Rock? Of what possible significance is this name if it is applied to one whose faith sunk like quicksand at the moment of truth?

Perhaps the Rock is the truth of Peter’s acclamation, that Jesus is the Christ. Perhaps the Rock is the not so much our faith, but the faith of God in Christ. Perhaps the Rock is God’s commitment to his people; God’s commitment to go even unto death so that his people might have a place in the house. Remember that this acclamation directly precedes Jesus’ prediction of his Passion, of his death on the cross. Perhaps the Rock is Jesus and our relationship with him.

He trusts us with the keys to house, and we may lock ourselves out. We may do this intentionally, or foolishly. But the rock of faith upon which we stand is the reality of a faithful God, a steadfast master of the house, who goes to every length to open the door for us, even when we have lost the keys. The Rock of faith is the relationship that our Lord and master seeks to have with us, even when we forget him, turn from him, and believe that we have lost him; that naming us as his own, he will not leave us standing at the door, even when we have lost the keys. The rock of faith is that even when we lose the keys, abuse the keys, forget the keys, he is there to open the door for us again. And when we recognize that we are standing before the Christ, the son of the Living God, he smiles and once again hands us they keys to the kingdom and welcomes us home, as he did Peter.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Except the Lord Build This House" - a Homily for Trinity Sunday, upon the Occasion of the 160th Anniversary of Trinity Church, Bradford

2011-06-19T08:50:00.001-04:00

Homily for Trinity Sunday, Year A, 2011
On the Occasion of the 160th Anniversary of Trinity Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Texts: Genesis 28:10-17, Revelation 21:1-4,22-22:5

“God has made his home among mortals.”

When I worked at Church House, the informal name that was given to the head office of the Anglican Church of Canada, above the door of the rather plain three-story brownstone building stood a majestic plaque, probably four feet tall by three feet wide. It was in the form of the coat of arms of the Anglican Church of Canada. Inscribed at the apex were the words, Nisi Dominus. These are the Latin words which open Psalm 127: “Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.”

There are many buildings in this world that stand as monuments to wealthy and powerful benefactors and serve to glorify those who made the majesty of the building possible, these edfices forever memorialize their founder and patron. For one hundred and sixty years a building has stood on this ground as a monument to a different sort of benefactor, a divine benefactor, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And while there have been many individuals who have passed through the nave of this sacred space, or the nave of its predecessor, the first Trinity Church, this church stands not as a monument to the people, but as a monument to the living God.

More than a monument, though, this church is a home. It is a home and haven for all who enter. It is open to all regardless of wealth or station, to all sorts and conditions (as the old prayer book was want to say). It is open to anyone who feels the yearning for God stirring in their hearts. It is open to all who have lost their way. It is open to all seek to know God and make God’s love known to world. It is open to those who rejoice and those who mourn, those who long to make a joyful noise, and those who need to keep a prayerful silence. It is open to all, and has been and ever shall be a home for God’s people.

It is only the home for God’s people though, because it is first and foremost, God’s home. This is the profound and radical assertion of the Christian faith, that God is not a distant God, but a God who enters into our humanity, into our world, and chooses to reside with us. This is what it means to say that Christianity is a religion of Incarnation, to mean literally that God takes flesh, and dwells among us. Even more profoundly challenging for the world to believe though, than God becoming man in Jesus Christ, is God abiding with us eternally through his Spirit. God’s presence amongst us is not a fleeting thirty year span but an abiding presence in person of the Holy Spirit and in his presence a disparate people have become family. This is why we are able to call God, who is the creator of the cosmos, by the intimate name of Father, because the timeless one has chosen to enter time and be with his creatures. As the book of Revelation remarkably proclaims, “God has made his home among mortals.”

Oh how easy it can be, though, to lose sight of the God who has made his home with us. Should we be hard on ourselves when even some of the greatest of the patriarchs of old could lose sight of this reality from time-to-time? Think of Jacob, who proclaimed after a vision in a dream, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!” Difficult it can be to see the hand of God at work, and we can often get caught up on our own striving, our own building, our own sense of ministry and mission. Yet, time and again, we are granted, as Jacob was granted, a vision of the living God living amongst us. Time and again we are given a new set of eyes through which we can catch a glimpse of a reality that before seemed veiled. Time and again, we experience the God we thought was lost to us, and we proclaim with Jacob our ancestor, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!”

So it does not seem out of place to proclaim that reality once again, lest we forget who built this house and whose house it is. This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. Oh, to be sure, it is a building built with human hands. Yes, it needs its ongoing repairs and maintenance as we know so well. But it is so much more than a building made with human hands. To recognize this church as the Lord’s house is to recognize that it is a place where heaven touches earth; a place where God is again incarnate in the world; a place where God has chosen to dwell among mortals.

Wherever we gather as God’s holy people this is true. Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of you. And yet, people and generations are fleeting. “Frail as summer’s flower we flourish blows the wind and it is gone, but while mortals rise and perish, God endures, unchanging on.” We need our holy places, our holy buildings, not because God needs a house and not because they are the essence of what it means to be “the Church,” but because they are tangible, sacramental signs of the profound and earthshaking reality that God has made his home among mortals. They are a testimony to God’s abiding presence from generation to generation in this world and in this particular community.

Through the bricks and mortar of this place, frail and feeble as any building may be, we encounter the living God, and the living God is incarnate to the people of this community of Bradford. This is a reality that existed long before this congregation first gathered as Trinity Church without a building in 1849, or built the first church in 1851. It is a reality that will exist long after this current building is gone. God is in this place, and this building, and its predecessor, have not only told that story, but have tangibly made present the living God to those who seek his face.

I have been fond of quoting St. Matthew’s gospel in this our 160th year, especially the passage from the Sermon on the Mount: “You are a city set upon a hill … a light to the world.” We must never forget that we are God’s city and the light we radiate is God’s light – the light of the most holy, blessed and glorious Trinity.

While much hard work has gone into this place by human hands over 160 years, this house is not built on the bedrock of our work or the work of our ancestors, but on the bedrock of the faithfulness of God in Christ, and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. I praise the faithfulness of God’s people, but let us all praise together the faithfulness of our God who has chosen to make his home amongst us. Let us praise the Triune God, our patron, the Holy Trinity, who is the foundation and the life upon which this house is built. Let us praise the Trinity for this home we have been given which is both our home and God’s home, and a place where heaven and earth touch. Truly the Lord is in this place. May we never forget our loving patron and the light and hope that shines here for all who seek to make it their home.

Nisi Dominus – Except the Lord build this house, their labour is lost that build it.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Why are You Weeping?" - A Homily for Easter, 2011

2011-04-24T08:01:00.004-04:00

Homily for Easter, 2011
Sunday, April 24th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 20:1-18

“Woman, why are you weeping”

I have seen the Lord.

The Beloved Disciple simply looks inside the tomb, without entering, and sees the graveclothes and believes.

Peter has to enter the tomb, hold and touch the graveclothes.

Mary has to have an experience of the Risen Jesus; she needs to speak with him, she tries to lay hold of him, in order to believe.

In another week we shall hear about another disciple, Thomas, who insists on inspecting Jesus’ wounds.

Some must see, others must understand, some need to touch, others need to feel – but there is one common denominator in all of these stories, and in our Christian faith, the presence of the Risen Jesus our midst. With Easter, we experience a new reality. It is a reality that transforms minds, raises fallen spirits, and mends broken heart. It is an experience that turns the sinner from their sinfulness. It is a reality that changes the way men and women live.

Mary Magdalene weeps and then is filled with joy. The disciples who doubt are inspired by faith.

The resurrection of Jesus is not simply and event in time long ago, it is an event our lives. The Risen Jesus is not only encountered at the mouth of an empty tomb, in middle-eastern garden, on the Emmaus road, or behind the locked door of a house in the Galilee. To be sure, our mothers and fathers of old met him in these places, but down through the ages he has been met, and has met us, again and again. Through the dark valleys of our lives, he meets us. In sickness and in health, as children are born and loved ones die, he meets us. In the angst of all that troubles us, the Risen Jesus meets us.

Oh, we may not know him at first. Like the disciples of old, we may at first fail to see him in our midst. We may only detect an empty tomb, we may see his garments and the place where he once rested, we may mistake him for the gardener, or a strange on the road we may mistake him for another simple fellow-traveler. He may come to us at unexpected times, in unexpected way and in unexpected places. Perhaps, like Mary our eyes will be opened in time to see him, or perhaps like the disciples on the Emmaus road we will only recognize that we have met him after he has disappeared from our sight. In either case, he has been and ever shall be present; and when the reality of the Christ Event touches us, our hearts burn within us with great joy!

Days will come and pass when this seems not to be true. Time will come when we again feel alone. We shall all journey through valleys in which we feel lost and abandoned. There shall be moments when we shall feel lifeless and it seems as if God himself is lifeless, hanging on a tree. But when all seems lost, he confronts us again, he appears and stands before us and asks the age old question, “Why do you weep?”

There shall be no answer to the question for the answer is unimportant, it is simply enough that the question has been asked, for it means he has not left us. As we hear those words we know he is with us and like Mary, we exclaim, “Rabbi,” and like Thomas we proclaim, “My Lord and my God!”

When we hear his voice and his words of comfort once again, “Why do you weep,” it means God is not dead. It means that the end we thought was the end is not the end, but rather the beginning of something new. It means he is raised, and it means we, too, are raised.

Do you not know that all of you that have been baptized have been baptized into his death? Surely then, if Christ is raised from the dead, do we not also share in his resurrection?

Signs of the Resurrection are everywhere to be found: for the disciples it was an empty tomb and strewn grave clothes, a man mistaken as a gardener, or a stranger along the road. Who knows where we shall meet him, we only know that we shall, again and again as our spirits falter, as we again turn to sin, as we again lose hope. We shall meet him, whether he touches your mind, your heart or your spirit, wherever he takes your hand or wipes your tear, you shall see him risen and know that we share in that glorious resurrection from the dead.

C.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Fear Not - A Reflection fo the Great Vigil of Easter 2011

2011-04-24T07:40:00.000-04:00

A Reflection for the Easter Vigil, 2011
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 28:1-10

At the tomb of Jesus, the women heard these words: “Do not be afraid.”
Oh, how there is much to frighten us in this life. We fear the unknown. We fear the future. We fear for our loved ones when they are out of sight. We fear death. Fear has a way of capturing us, laying hold of us, crippling us, enslaving us.

But this is the night the Jesus Christ breaks the chains of all enslavement, shatters the bonds of death, and delivers us from all fear. This is the night that Christ our God tramples down death by death. This is the night that stone of the tomb rolls away. This is the night when we are delivered from darkness into light, from death into life. This is the night in which fear is destroyed.

Early, as the third day dawned, two Marys went to the tomb of Jesus, and the earth shook, the stone was rolled away, and an angel of light appeared and proclaimed, “Fear not!” But they did fear, for they could see that the body of their Lord had been stolen. No. Not stolen, but gone. “I know what you are looking for,” said the angel, “Jesus of Nazareth. He is not here; he is risen, as he said!”

In one instant, in one moment, their fear disappeared, and as Christ himself had slipped the surly bonds of death, so too, did the women find the fetters of their fear loosed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they knew themselves to be delivered from fear, to be ransomed from death.

With great excitement, they ran, their fear turning to joy, they ran to tell the other disciples that their Lord was alive. Without seeing him they believed. Yet with their minds intent on the task before them and their hearts strangely warmed, he appears before the women and greets them. And what are his first words? “Fear not.”

Can we hear these words enough as the troubles of life unfold before us? Thanks be to God that they are ever before us. Again and again we meet our Risen Lord on the road of this life, and again and again he comes to us with these words, “Fear not!” Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I love you. Do not be afraid for I shall be with you to the ends of the earth and to the end of days.

When all seems lost, when fear seeks to grip us once again, when we are feeling enslaved to fear, when the stone seems too large to roll away on its own, listen; listen, and you will hear those words, “Fear not!” Behold, and watch, and you will see the stone rolled away; you will find the tomb empty, and you will meet your Risen Lord on the road yet again, who, ever and always, greets us with the words, “Do not be afraid.”

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Woman, Behold Your Son" -- A Homily for Good Friday

2011-04-22T08:01:00.001-04:00

A Homily for Good Friday, 2011
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 19:26-27
“Woman behold your son”
-John 19:26

Confronted by the cross of Christ, we are changed. At the foot of the cross, beneath the feet of the crucified Jesus, a new family is born – the Christian community. As Mary his mother wept and the disciple he love best mourned, Jesus comforted them with these words, “Woman, behold your son; son, behold your mother.” But these were not simply words of comfort, but rather a radical reordering and recreation of community. Confronted by the cross, confronted by the death of a son, of a friend, of the leader of their movement, these two individuals who might be abandoned, forgotten, left alone, are knit together into one family. The widow and the orphan are drawn together into a new family, the Christian community. “From that hour,” we read, the beloved disciple to the mother of Jesus, “into his own house.”

And so it is, our movement, our religion, is one in which the edges are constantly being challenged. Our family is constantly being transformed and recreated, as others, who might otherwise feel lost and forsaken, are drawn in. Confronted by the cross of Christ, we are called again and again to re-creation, to envisage our family in new and creative ways. We are called again and again to include those whom the world forsakes as part of our family, in our company of friends.

When the family changes, we change, too. It is not always easy to be part of a family. There may be those with whom we disagree. There will be those who challenge us. There will be competing ways of doing things. Yet, there is something greater than our differences that binds us together. What is it? What is the force that makes us one, even when we differ in so many ways? Even when we come together with all our brokenness and sinfulness exposed?

It is the sacrifice of Christ our God on the cross. Jesus said, “When I am lifted up I will draw all people unto me.” At the heart of that sacrifice is the longing of God, longing for all his people, and longing that we may be one. Before he was handed over to death, that was indeed Jesus’ prayer, “Father, I pray that they may be one, even as you and I are one.” And to that end he breathed upon us his Holy Spirit that we might be knit together as a holy and sacred people, who in spite of all our differences, our brokenness, and all our challenges, that we may be one, even as Christ and the Father are one.

To be one may not necessarily mean that we will agree in all things, for some things are indeed a matter of indifference; but do we not agree in this, that Christ died that we might live? Do we not agree in this, that the offering that hangs on the cross is the God’s deepest self-offering of love for his own people? No greater love hath this, than a man should lay down his life for his friends!

“I have called you friends,” says Jesus, and that is what we are, a company of friends, a new family, that seeks to make known to each other, and to the world, the deep compassion of our God through the proclamation of his self-giving love in the cross. We seek to make known in thought, word, and deed the love that knows no boundaries, the inclusive embrace of God in God’s family for all who choose to receive it. We turn one to another in mutual brokenness, each of us knowing loss, exclusion, and forsakenness in some way, and we hear the words of our Lord, “Woman, behold your son,” and “son, behold your mother.” And all things are made new.

c.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Then Crucify is all their Breath" - A Homiliy for Palm Sunday, Year A, 2011

2011-04-17T07:47:00.003-04:00

Homily for Palm Sunday, Year A, 2011
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford ON

He enters in triumph, amidst shouts of “hosanna,” and is proclaimed as a great prophet, but the shouts of “hosanna” quickly give way to the cry of “crucify him!”, and to the derision that he should save himself if he is truly the son of God.” The dramatic sweep of Palm Sunday is summed up so eloquently and poignantly in the exhortation, “we follow him this week from the glory of the palms to the glory of the resurrection, by the way of the dark road of suffering and death.” And although our Lord told his followers again and again, that he was going to Jerusalem to suffer, although he told them again and again, that if they were to be his disciples they must take up their cross and follow him, time and again they could not see it. They chose not to believe it.

Who can really blame them, though, that they looked forward with joyful expectation? Who could blame them when they thought that Jesus would lead them in revolt and overthrow the oppressor who occupied their land? Even though he entered Jerusalem not as a mighty warrior king, but as a lowly king riding on the foal of a donkey, they chose not to see what they wanted not to see. They were looking for instant glory and oh, how their hopes were dashed.

Although this story is one that unfolds in a distant time and foreign place, in a world that seems unimaginable to us, is this story really any different from the story that unfolds before us, the story of our lives? Do we not hope for instant glory? Are we not prone to a sunny optimism about the world, and our lives before us?

This week I heard an interview on the CBC with an author who was speaking out against the myth of eternal youth, and how the post-war generation has somehow come to believe that aging can be beaten, and indeed that death can be beaten, that somehow we can and live forever, if only we buy the right anti-aging products, live to a certain standard, and have the right mindset. If we rebrand the word “Boomer” with “Zoomer” the inevitable reality of aging, and yes, of our eventual deaths, will suddenly disappear, no longer a possibility on the horizon of our existence, and we shall become the first generation of ageless immortals.

We may convince ourselves of this alternate reality, and even live in this alternate universe for a time, but what happens when reality breaks through the veil? What happens that phone call comes, what happens when we get tragic that tragic news about our own health or the health of a loved one? What happens when a cloud descends and blocks the rays of sunny optimism? What happens when the crown of gold is revealed to be a crown of thorns? What happens when “Hosanna to the king,” becomes “crucify him”?

And thus we find ourselves,when stark reality destroys the dream. We find ourselves fragile, we find ourselves alone, mournful, perhaps even angry, but most of all deeply vulnerable. When all our dreams are crucified, wherein shall we seek our hope? Has hope been destroyed?

We gaze upon the hope that is nailed to the tree and weep. We weep over our broken dreams, and we weep to think what we have lost. We weep over our foolishness in thinking that we might be masters of our fate, that we might somehow defeat death on our own, and we weep over our false pride, now a lifeless consolation.

In our vulnerability at the foot of the cross, we realize though, that those things that veiled our vision have fallen away. We come to see, and what is more, to feel, what it is to be truly human. In accessing our deepest pain, in beholding it nailed to the tree, we can at last let go of those thing which we have clung to out of fear, for they have been crucified with our Lord.

As the layers of protection against suffering and death with which we have clothed ourselves fall away into the mists of nothingness and we stand exposed, we contemplate the exposed figure on the cross, stripped, beaten, and lifeless. But he had no false layers to be cut away, nor did he have false dreams that needed to be broken. His vision was ever clear and he was ever meek and humble. His gentleness, his authenticity, his vulnerability was an offering that we might find these very things in ourselves and that our pride and vainglory might be unmasked.

In one short week we shall gather to share the rest of the story, and in between, journey together in the removal of the layers that we have placed upon ourselves to protect ourselves from pain and hurt. In one short week we shall know that to live forever does not mean cloaking ourselves from pain, from suffering and from death, but indeed, eternal life is embraced in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death. Eternal life, the resurrection from the dead, is found when we stand exposed at the foot cross and we behold true hope in the exposed lifeless figure, whom we know and believe shall live again.

c.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Lord is My Shepherd - A Homily for Lent 4, Year A, 2011

2011-04-03T08:41:00.002-04:00

Sermon for Lent 4, Year A, 2011
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Ps 23

The Lord is My Shepherd
-Psalm 23:1

If our memories failed us and we could only remember one piece of Scripture, one word of comfort from our God to us, that would carry us through our earthly days, through each triumph and tragedy, I have no doubt that for many it would be the twenty-third psalm. This psalm speaks to our deepest fear and to our deepest angst. It is a part of our human condition that we fear that we will be left alone, forgotten, forsaken. And we fear that we will not only be forsaken by those who love us, but also by God. This is a fear to which even Jesus succumbed on the cross in his own cry of dereliction. Thus it is to this psalm that we turn at our darkest hour. It not only comforts us when all seems bleak, but challenges us to believe in the midst of our doubt. It challenges us to claim the reality of the Good Shepherd, our Risen Lord, who neither forsakes us nor forgets us, but walks with us and holds us close, even as our faith wavers and our hope falters.

It is a powerful piece of Scripture to which even the un-churched turn in times of crisis. I have a friend whose ministry is almost exclusively a ministry to the bereaved. He officiates at Christian funerals for those whose faith is but a distant memory. He often asks them if there is a particular Bible verse that they would like read as part of the service Invariably they pause for a moment and then say, “Oh yes, do you know that one about the shepherd?” He responds gently, “Yes, I think I know that one… Does is begin, ‘the Lord is my Shepherd?’” “Yes,” they respond, “that’s it!” If they want nothing else, they want Psalm 23. This has certainly been my experience, as well, in working with families with tenuous connections to the Church. Thanks be to God that there is a piece of Scripture that does call to them.

What is it about this simple Hebrew canticle that continues to resonate even with those who have little or no faith. I believe that it is simply this, that our Lord never forsakes us… we are not alone, have never been alone, and never will be alone – even if all others around us fail, God does not fail us. In the words of the psalm, God is reaching out to us, even when this same Lord seems absent from our midst. It is a means through which we can hear the voice of God, feel’s God’s warm embrace, know God’s strong and loving comfort, even when all hope and joy seem but a phantasm beyond our grasp. Thus, it is no surprise that people turn to these words in their deepest moments of loneliness, and particularly in moments in which loved ones are seemingly lost forever to us; when our world has become a lonelier place. For it is not us reaching out for God; rather it is God reaching out for us in our grief and our pain in timeless words of comfort and challenge. I have often wondered if this was one of the Scriptures to which the disciples turned after the crucifixion of their Lord. Was it a Scripture that relentlessly pursued them in their sense of abandonment? After all, Jesus had told them that he was the Good Shepherd, that he would not abandon even one of them to wolves, that if even one of them was lost, he would go searching and find them. Were they able to seek comfort in the Shepherd Psalm when they had lost their Shepherd? Could they find hope in the words “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me,” or “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me?” Could they understand that in these words their Shepherd sought them still?

I knew a man who carried a clipping of Psalm 23 in his wallet, throughout his entire life. It was, for him, a tangible way of expressing the reality that God never left him, that the Good Shepherd was daily leading him beside still waters. He knew the psalm by heart, but he could take it out when times got tough, read it, and form those familiar words on his lips, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” or “Thy Rod and thy Staff they comfort me.” When it seemed like his Shepherd was out of his line of sight, he took out the words, read them, and knew that while the Shepherd might be out of his sight, he was not beyond the sight of the Shepherd. He knew that he was not alone.

For the disciples, after the death of Jesus, perhaps Cleopas and the others along the Emmaus Road, it must have seemed like their Shepherd had abandoned them. Where now was his rod and staff? And yet, along the road they met a stranger who opened the Scriptures to them, broke bread with them, and then their eyes were opened. Had not their hearts burned within them on that road? The stranger then disappeared from their sight, but this time, they knew that they were not abandoned – no! Christ was Risen! He was with them! Their hunger and thirst were met, their tears were wiped away! Their Shepherd was indeed with them, even though removed from their sight, guiding them to springs of living water. As they broke bread with him that day, their wanting and lamenting turned to feasting and joy. Perhaps, just perhaps, the words he spoke when he was with them echoed in their ears, perhaps, just perhaps, his sheep once again heard his voice … “no one will snatch them from my hand.”

A couple of years ago, I was called to the bedside of a dying man. His family asked me to say prayers with them, and with him. I could tell by his breathing that he was moments from death. I began to read the prayers appointed for the time of death. I arrived at the part of the service in which it says “the 23rd psalm may be read,” I did not turn to it, but recited it from memory… until suddenly I drew a blank. An embarrassing pause that seemed like an eternity was broken by the man’s wife taking my arm and saying “I think it’s, ‘yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ dear.” Everyone smiled gently, and we all continued together, “I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

“For thou art with me…” Even in the fumbling of a young inexperienced minister; even in the grief of a family losing their husband and father; even in the moment of our own death… Thou art with me.” I shall fear no evil. Even if I cannot see the Shepherd, I know, Thou art with me. Even if I cannot hear his voice, I know, Thou art with me. Even if it seems all have forsaken me, even you my God, my God, I shall cleave to the truth, Thou art with me.”

Why is it that these words ring so true in the midst of our loneliness and loss? Because they are true. God does not forsake us or abandon us. While all seemed lost on that Emmaus road, along which the disciples walked in sadness and fear, they were pursued by their shepherd, who, in the breaking of bread turned their longing into joy. And while the pain and grief and loss we experience on the road of ithis life is real, so too is the presence of God, the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, whom we meet as we break bread together. For that great Shepherd of the Sheep walks with us through the valleys of our angst and shares with us in our feasts of joy.

c. 2007 & 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves (a version of this homily was preached on Easter 4, 2007 at the Parish of Sharon & Holland Landing)

Hope Does Not Disappoint: Strength in Weakness - A Homily for Lent 3, Year A, 2011

2011-03-27T08:15:00.000-04:00

Homily for Lent 3, Year A, 2011
Sunday, March 26th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 5:1-11

“For while we were still weak, at the right time God died for the ungodly.”-Romans 5:6

Strength, fortitude, self-assuredness – In the coming days as the electioneering gets under way for our upcoming federal election, we will hear much from our politicians about how strong they are, about the fortitude they have, and political statements will be uttered with such self-assured self-confidence that we will be led to believe that not one single one of our candidates has a weak, vulnerable bone in their bodies. All the while, in Libya, we witness horrifying displays of strength and power layered upon rhetorical utterances of strength that either side shall fight to the last man, woman and child. Yet, we only need to cast our gaze toward Japan, or to Christchurch New Zealand, to realize that human strength is but a phantasm and our utterances but bravado when faced by far greater forces that shake the ground upon which we walk and raise the seas upon which we sail. What is human strength when the “earth withdraws its consent”, as author and chronicler of earthquakes, Simon Winchester, has so aptly put it?

Fundamentally, we know that we are fragile creatures. Fundamentally, we know that our lives are fleeting in the cosmic scheme. Fundamentally, I believe all of us know deep down that we are indeed dust, and to dust we shall return. Yet, we continue in our bravado, in our displays of strength, and we continue to seek to “one-up” each other in the rhetoric of strength. Why do we do this?

I believe that it is because we know that deep down that we are not strong, that we vulnerable and fragile creatures, and so we fight against our vulnerability and fragility with words of strength and displays of power. However, the more we claim false strength and fortitude, the more we realize that we are hiding behind a façade. What happens when our self-proclaimed fortitude fails? What happens when we are unmasked? What happens when the curtain is drawn and the wizard is revealed as the diminutive little man masking his vulnerability behind a curtain and the projection of the face of the great and powerful OZ?

Most of us fear the moment of unmasking, and yet we know that it is inevitable. Sooner or later, we shall be found out, whether someone else unmasks us or when our lives spin out of control and we stand unmasked in front of the mirror. When we are faced with our own vulnerability, we are prone to feel like failures, unable to muster the appropriate strength to hold our lives together, unable to be strong enough to hold the lives of others together. At the core of our being we are frightened by something that is intrinsic to all of us as human beings, something from which none of us are immune – our fragility and vulnerability. Because we fear this so much, we create façades of strength to hide behind, but sooner or later we must face the fact that we are mortal, we are vulnerable, and that if you prick us, we will bleed.

The great mystery of our faith, though, is that this is precisely the place that God confronts us, that God meets us, and that God leads us into newness of life. It is not in our moments of strength, nor in our moments of rhetorical bravado that we encounter the loving God, but rather in moments in which we feel the weakest. It is in our moments of suffering, both physical and spiritual. It is in our moments of sadness. It is in our moments of failure. It is the moments in which the wounds of our lives lay open. It is in the moments when human resources are exhausted. It is in the moments when we feel the farthest from God that we meet the Christ: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” When we feel weak, when we feel distant from God, the Christ seeks us out.

St. Paul reminds us that it is not in our perfection, in our strength, or in our righteousness that God died for us, but rather in our imperfection, in our weakness, and in our sinfulness that he goes to the cross. He goes to his death not out of disappointment in us or to punish us with guilt for all the ways in which we have failed; rather, he goes out of deep love and because his heart, the heart that is big enough to eclipse the cosmos, seeks to draw us into its loving compass. In his vulnerability, his vulnerable people are made strong. In his brokenness, his broken people are made whole. In his unjust and death, his unjust people are made right in body, mind and spirit.

Thus, the world’s understanding of strength is turned on its head. No matter how many powerful words I may choose to use, no matter how often a politician may preface words of strength with rhetorical flourishes such as “Let there be no mistake…”, no matter how loud we shout about our strength, strength is not something to be manufactured, but will only be known in the embracing our weakness, in touching our pain, in acknowledging our brokenness, that the Christ might give us his strength, the true strength that comes from God, in the midst of our vulnerability.

This is how St. Paul characterizes strength. It is not a strength rooted in bravado or rhetoric that masks vulnerability, but a strength that embraces its vulnerability in order that the power of God might be made known. This is why he says that contrary to the false boasts of strength of the world, we boast in our suffering , because we know that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

What then is strength, true strength? Strength begins with an admission of our weakness and an open heart to let the Spirit of God work upon us. It is our endurance in allowing God to work through our weakness that character is formed. It is only then that true character, not false strength, shall be formed within us. And with such character we have hope, for we have witnessed the strength of God, we know what God can do for us and for this broken world. With such hope we need not shout. With such hope we need not raise arms against others. We need only to witness to his love by loving, and journeying together in our weakness and vulnerability, for this is the place where he meets us. This is where his heart touches ours. It is where his authenticity touches our authenticity, and it is in this life of shared authenticity and honesty that the strength of God will be known in Jesus Christ.

c.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Choice that Confronts Us - A Homily for Lent 1, Year A, 2011

2011-03-13T08:37:00.002-04:00

Homily for Lent 1, Year A, 2011
Sunday, March 13th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 5:12-19

If because of one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
-Romans 5:17

Life is filled with choices. Some choices are of such an inconsequential nature that we barely realize that we are making them. I may find myself driving on a particular route because it is the one I always choose. I may find myself purchasing a particular brand of tea because it is the one I like and the one I always choose. A detour may cause me to choose a different route, or when my brand of tea is sold out I may be forced to choose another. However, even when such things happen, they are hardly catastrophic, and the decision-making involved in such unforeseen moments is hardly more consequential than the decision-making involved in the original choice.

Other choices may be more difficult and fraught with ethical and moral decisions that may be much more complicated. Sometimes we are called upon to act in ways that are in contradiction to our belief system, and what shall we do. In our working lives we may find our personal values colliding with the values of our employer. In our families we may find our values conflicting with other members of the family. Do we choose to make a stand, or do we go with the flow? We may ask the age-old question, “is this worth going to the wall for?” or “am I going to die in this particular trench?”

Regardless of what we decide in such situations, our decisions will have consequences. Often we make decisions that weigh us down, things done and left undone, action or lack of action that causes us considerable regret.

As human beings we all make bad decisions at some point or another. We make decisions that betray our own and shared values, we make decisions that hurt others, hurt ourselves, and wound the heart of God. Sin has many definitions, but I think that at the heart of any definition of sin, we must seriously consider a definition that includes our human propensity to consistently make bad decisions -- decisions to do the things that we know we probably ought not to do, and decisions not to act when we know action is needed.

In the mythopoetic world of Genesis, in the story of Eden, our primordial ancestors became involved in some very bad decision-making. Although they knew what was right, they grasped at divinity, eternity, and infinite knowledge, and as a result cursed themselves with fallen humanity, the finality of death, and the limitation of ignorance. Our primordial ancestors sought a good thing but did so through a profound act of disobedience to their Creator God.
Deep within our fallen humanity is a longing for what is good and also deep within us lurks the mistaken conviction that the end justifies the means. Our mistakes, our bad decisions, our sinfulness are all about justifying questionable behaviour for the good that may come. The impulse to do so is primal and difficult to avoid.

Thus for St. Paul, the primordial sin of Adam is the sin we all share as human beings. Sin is part of our fallen nature, and the excuses we make for sin and our bad decision-making seem justifiable to us because often the ends we seek are good. But Paul boldly proclaims in the face of our self-deceit that the true end of sin is death. In the cosmic scale, again in the language of Genesis, man’s first disobedience was repaid with the finality of existence, by death. One wonders, though, if the concept of death might function on another level and if the sinner is also condemned to experience a kind of living death?

When I make bad decisions, decisions against my values and beliefs, decisions that I know to be wrong, a part of me dies inside. When I see that my decisions may hurt another person, a part of me dies. The selfishness evident in much of the decision-making that we do as a society creates a world of the walking dead. We need not wait til the end of our lives to experience death, for do we not experience it in life?

Fortunately, for all Paul’s exploration about the origins of sin and its wages, Paul is not primarily concerned about sin or its consequence, death. Rather, Paul cares to share a message of the complete opposite nature. Paul proclaims the message of righteousness and of life. Paul sees the dilemma of the human condition, Paul understands the relentless impulses of our primordial urges, and Paul knows only too well that this is something from which we cannot escape under our own power, for it is simply part of being the heirs of Adam, being human in a fallen world.
Yet, Paul is also aware of a different reality, a different sort of humanity, a new, reborn humanity that has a second chance. Where we might only look about in despair, Paul sees hope; where we might wonder how we can escape the treadmill of things done and left undone, Paul witnesses to the Christ-event as the power of God to transform our reality. Where we are helpless, God enters in and changes things. Paul admits that the power of sin is great, that it is a primordial impulse that is hard, indeed impossible, to resist; yet, how much more powerful is the impulse of God? If sin came to us through Adam, how much more powerful is the righteousness that his imputed to us in Christ? The first Adam erred, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, makes right. The great Roman Catholic theologian, Cardinal Dulles wrote about this passage, “God’s grace is more powerful than man’s sinfulness, so that when sin abounded, grace abounded even more. Our belief in the superabundant power of grace when confronted by evil is founded upon the historical tangibility of God’s redemptive love in Christ.”

The choice then that is before us, the real decision that we need to make, is to whom do we belong? Which Adam is our master? Shall we belong to our primordial reality or to our redeemed reality? Do we belong to Adam or do we belong to Christ?

Ah, you may say, Christ is too high a thing to be attained; I am not capable of choosing the good. This may be so, and it would not be possible unless God first reached out to us. For Christ is not a high thing to be reached for but, the very presence of God come amongst us. Christ is the hand of God reaching for us that we may lay hold on life. The great German New Testament scholar, Ernst Kasemann wrote with respect to Romans 5 that as God reaches out to each individual, “God is concretely reaching out to the world.”

The gift that we receive in Christ is a free gift, we can do nothing to attain to it we may only receive it in the spirit of graciousness in which it is offered. And when is that gift offered? It is in the nexus of choice, in the moment of crisis, it is in the frightening wound of our vulnerability. It comes when all around us and within us urges us to listen to the voice of the primordial Adam which whispers to us the lie that self-preservation is the good above all. But the gift comes to us not preaching self-preservation, but confronting us with self-abandonment, risk, and sacrifice. The Word comes among us confronting us with the scandalous truth that the one who hangs dying on the tree is the one who destroys sin and death through his own self-effacing, self-denying sacrifice. To which tree shall I turn? To the one that gives forth a seductively ripe fruit now but withers when picked, or to the tree which at first seems an instrument of death, yet whose fruit ripens in the sepulcher and blossoms forth with life?

To whom shall I lay hold, to which tree shall I turn? Shall I turn to the tree of beauty that entangles or that stark tree upon which hangs the Lord with arms stretched wide? On the tree on which God hangs, God has risked all. Oh, the fruit of the former tree may be sweet to the taste, but only for but a moment. That same fruit weights heavily within me after but a moment: how it works away on my soul, consuming me from within. It is the tree from which I have tasted all my life. Perhaps it is time to turn to the other tree, to taste of another fruit, the fruit of that tree that confronts me with the dreadful but beautiful choice to abandon all, to plunge headlong into the arms of grace, and to risk being held by the arms that risk all for me.

And what do I find in that choice? I see the arms of my Lord no longer fastened to the wood, but enfolded around me. The fruit of which I have previously eaten is no longer eating away at me from within; rather I find that paradoxically, by clinging to the dying man on the cross, by joining my risk to his, I have chosen life, not only a life that transcends the grave, but a life for this age, a life in this world, a new life, new authenticity. It is not a life without mistakes or bad choices, but a life in which mistake and bad choices no longer destroy my soul, a life in which I find the courage to confront my mistakes, my sinfulness, and ask God to draw me day by day, into the true life which, in which the end and the means are not at odds but at one in self-giving love and joy.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Praying on the Mountain and in the Garden -- A Homily for the Last Sunday after Epiphany, 2011

2011-03-06T11:35:00.002-05:00

Sermon for the Last Sunday after Epiphany (Transfiguration), Year A, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
Sunday, March, 6th, 2011
Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke Matthew 17:1-9

Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain.
--Matthew 17:1

Our Lord commanded us to pray, and in doing so invited us into a life-long conversation with him. It is one of the great privileges of the Christian faith that we are in a relationship with a loving and conversant God. Consider how remarkable it is that the Lord of the Cosmos, who created the heavens, the earth, and all that exists, beckons us into discourse on the most personal intimate level. One wonders that we should be at all surprised by this fact, for did not the Lord of the Cosmos come to us, choose to take our human nature in the form of a tiny child, subject to the limitation of the humanity of which we all share? It seems, then, that it is in the very character of God to seek intimacy with his people. One popular hymn, meant to illustrate how the events of that first Easter morning can be experienced daily in prayer, sings of a God who walks and talks with us in a garden, just like any other friend. And yet, sometimes God seems so strangely distant and his voice seems silenced.

In today’s gospel, we witness a very different sort of prayer and conversation. Jesus leads three of his disciples up the mountain for a private meeting. What was the purpose of this little gathering apart from the rest? The parallel version in Luke’s gospel tells us that it was to pray. When they reach the summit, Jesus becomes strangely changed, transfigured before their eyes. His appearance began to change and his clothes became a dazzling white. Then, two other figures appear, immediately recognizable as Moses and Elijah, two prophets of old. And if one has a hard time imagining a conversation with Jesus in the garden, how much more incredible is this story of this divine manifestation on the Holy Mount.

Yet, be it walking with Jesus in the garden, or seeing him transfigured upon the mountain, both stories can reveal to us something important about the nature of prayer, namely that we can expect that God will be with us – whether as that friend with whom we converse, or in the remarkable form of Glory that reminds of the Sinai experience of Moses. Whether it is the peaceful garden moments or the glorious mountaintop experiences, and yes, even in the deep valleys, God will be with us. The difficulty that we often find in prayer is that we think we are stepping out alone, into an unknown dark place, in the hopes that somehow, God will find us and come to us. But in actuality, where we step is into the presence of the ever-present God, who never leaves us or sends us anywhere alone. In the garden, we mistake him for the gardener, on the road to Emmaus we confuse him for a fellow-traveller, and on the mountain, we think him merely our teacher or rabbi – but each time he opens our eyes, and we see him transfigured before us and we know God is with us.

Why do we fail to see or feel his presence? Why does it seem like God is absent when we have his promise that he will neither leave nor forsake us? I think it often has to do with our expectations in prayer. We expect a garden, when God wishes to show us a transfiguration. We expect a sermon when God wishes to sing us a song. We expect a rebuke, when God wishes to hold us in his embrace. And I think that this is one of the issues at stake in this story of the Transfiguration. What did the disciples expect? We have no way to know, but probably they expected that Jesus would take them up the mountain and they would say together some of the daily Jewish prayers, prayed by all Jews in the time of Jesus. Perhaps they were expecting the ancient equivalent of Anglican Matins, or a United Church morning worship service. And what did they get? They got an epiphany. As their Lord led them in prayer they caught a glimpse of divine glory. And what is more, they received some clarification – some had thought that Jesus might be Elijah, or a new Moses. But Moses and Elijah appeared with him, and the voice of God clarified his identity: My Son, the beloved.

How do we respond to the surprises we receive in prayer? Usually, badly. This was the case with Peter and James and John. What did they want to do? They wanted to set up tents for the three holy figures. In biblical parlance, this means that they wanted to set up temples of worship, or shrines for the three holy men. But was this what God was asking of them? Was this the message of the transfiguration to which they were witnesses? No. But their response was very human. In technical terms we call it the domestication of transcendence. In layperson’s terms it is simply this: If something is amazing and extraordinary and beyond human scope we seek to make it ordinary, control it and manage it by human standards. The disciples sought to control this vision of God’s glory. What does God have to say about this? “This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him!”

This uncovers for us the principal problem we experience in prayer. We seek God, we lament when God appears to be absent, and then when we are granted any kind of inkling of his presence, we seek to control it, rather than let ourselves be transformed by it.

Listen to him, says the voice of God. It is a call to open our hearts to the voice of his Son in prayer. It is a call to set aside all of our presuppositions about prayer. It is a call to allow ourselves to be transformed and changed through God’s gracious self-disclosure, through our Lord’s words that enter our hearts. Should we answer the call, we find ourselves transfigured, too.

In prayer, we find ourselves talking, sometimes shouting at God, and while there are appropriate moments for this, there are moments when we need to stop controlling the conversation and remember that we have a conversation partner, who is God almighty, our maker, redeemer and friend. We need to allow ourselves to be led in to the presence of God, and simply rest in that presence, listening for his voice, waiting expectantly for his Word to transform our hearts and souls, and open to the surprises that he has in store for us, to recognize that we are his beloved. And so, after the disciples have witnessed their Lord in Glory, St. Matthew tells us that they fall down in awe. In the silence of our quietest prayers, and in the awe of his presence, so may our hearts and minds be transfigured in the presence of the transfigured Word of God, who is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Inscribed on God's Hand - A Homily for Proper 8, Year A, 2011

2011-02-27T07:36:00.003-05:00

Homily for Proper 8, Year A, 2011
Sunday, February 27th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Isaiah 49:8-16a

“See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands.”
-Isaiah 49:16

Sometimes it can be hard to believe. Each of us will have moments in which we feel our faith wavering, or even more poignantly, moments when we find ourselves wondering if we believe anything at all. Sometimes, when I encounter other Christians, those filled with such zeal and passion, those who have a Bible verse at the ready for every little problem life throws at them, those who speak of all the exciting wonders God is working in their lives on a daily basis, I take a long, hard look at myself and I ask myself if I really do have any faith at all. In times like this is can be helpful to do a little storytelling, to look back on times when I have felt moved, when I have felt close to God, but even then, sometimes the distance we feel from God can be discouraging. Whether that distance comes from comparing ourselves with others who seem to have caught that holy flame, or whether it comes because we are experiencing other sorts of crises, such as a chronic or terminal illness, the loss of a job, or the breakdown of a family, the feeling of being distant from God can be deeply discouraging.

I suspect that this feeling is one of the reasons God appoints prophets, for one of the things that prophets do is to speak into the vacuum of the seeming absence of God in our lives. Prophets proclaim to a people for whom hope has slipped away that hope may again be restored, the fires of faith again rekindled, and that joy shall return. We often hear talk of prophets speaking about the injustices of the world, and we hear talk about prophets calling sinners to repentance, but there is also a powerful strain of the prophetic tradition in which the prophet proclaims the faithfulness of God when we so profoundly feel God’s absence.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed to his people that God was drawing them out of captivity and restoring them, but they could not see it. They had lived in darkness for so long that they could not catch a glimpse of the light. He called them to sing for joy and to exult, but there was no joy in their hearts. They told Isaiah, “The Lord has forsaken us! Our Lord has forgotten us!” To which Isaiah responded with this powerful metaphor, “Can a woman forget her nursing child; and show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” God loves his people as much as a nursing mother loves her child, and yet, even if that image was not powerful enough, believe this, he says, I have inscribed you upon my hand.

God has imprinted his people upon his hand. What wonderful words of comfort we find in these words, for though it may seem to me that I have somehow lost the imprint of God on my being, I can be assured that my being is imprinted upon God. The prophet Isaiah proclaims this profound truth to a discouraged people. To a people who believed that they had been forsaken by God, who knew captivity at the hands of foreign rulers, who had searched and searched and could not find God anywhere in their situation, the prophet proclaimed that God had imprinted them upon his hand – a powerful symbol that God’s people would never be without the blessing of his touch, that they would always be held firmly in his hand. Thus, when they felt most alone, when their faith failed, God’s faith did not. He loved them so much that he imprinted them upon himself that his people might ever be close to him.

These are words of great hope, then, for you and for me. Oh, how weak and fragile is my faith. How little strength I have in and of myself to keep the faith, much less follow Jesus and proclaim him. But oh, what a gracious and loving God we worship whose faith in us strengthens us beyond any faith you or I could manufacture on our own! What a hope we have when hope seems distant, because the hope we lay hold to is not a hope we dream but a hope God dreams! What joy we touch in that hope because it is not a joy we can muster but a joy that overflows from the heart of God for his creation and for his people!

Difficult as it may be to believe at times, the prophet proclaims that God has not left his people. The time would come again when another generation would feel discouraged, feel abandoned, feel the absence of God; and into their presence as child was born. A rabbi would later gather disciples around him and proclaim the same truth of God’s love for his people. If God cares for the sparrow that falls from the sky, or clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and gone tomorrow, how much more he cares for his people in their sadness and loneliness. These words brought comfort, these words proclaimed the presence of God, but what the disciples would later understand was that the one who spoke these words of comfort was none other than their God in their very midst.

When I forget the baptismal cross that is signed upon my forehead that marks me as Christ’s own forever, God does not forget it, for God has imprinted us, even with all our brokenness and doubt upon himself, upon his own very being, in the crucified Christ, that through him we might be grafted into his divine nature. When the world encloses us round and we lose sight of a distant God, God makes the journey across the chasm that separates us and imprints humanity upon himself that we might share in his faithfulness: that his faith should be our faith, that his hope should be our hope, and his joy might be our joy. This faith, this hope, this joy, are the marks of his love. And it is to this divine love that I cling when I find that human faith, hope and joy are beyond my ability to muster.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

We are God's Temple -- A Homily for Proper 7, Year A, 2011

2011-02-20T07:53:00.004-05:00

Homily for Proper 7, Year A, 2011
Sunday, February 20th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: 1 Cor 3: 10-11, 16-23

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”
-I Cor 3:16

In each generation we are called to be builders. The kingdom of God is an edifice that grows and changes with each generation of Christians; and with each generation new possibilities are revealed. The glorious possibilities that are before us are unveiled when we realize that we build on the work of others. Even a little child standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant alone. Thus, we stand today on the shoulders of giants, not simply the giants of this parish who have gone before us, but the giants of Christendom, our mothers and fathers in the faith, whose lives punctuate a two thousand year history of proclaiming Jesus Christ, the cornerstone. This is reality of the edifice to which we add ourselves as living stones.

As all who have ever been involved in building projects or home renovations know, every building project has its challenges; every home improvement has its hurdles. Sometimes it can be money. At other times, members of the construction team may have trouble getting along. Sometimes fatigue sets in. Sometimes the rules change when a new building code is introduced. Yes, at times it can feel like the challenges and obstacles are too great.

When the challenges seem so profound, it can be helpful to stop and rest for a moment, to stand back and gaze upon the edifice and ponder, for a moment, our place in time and our part in the project of building the kingdom of God.

Sometimes when we look back on the great builders of the past, we wonder how we can ever measure up. Osler, Hill, Creighton, Hopkins, and so many others – they were great builders in this parish, and certainly men whose work I cast my gaze upon with admiration and awe. We all look back to the heroes of our past, mothers and fathers, mentors and friends, who have played their part in the building of the edifices of our individuals lives, who helped make us who we are; and we wonder, can I ever do that for someone else?

Looking back on the great people of our lives and of our history can be an inspiring thing, but it can also be an intimidating thing. Sometimes we can stand gazing upon the edifice that they have built and idolize the builders so much that we forget that we stand with a trowel in hand and task to perform. In Corinth, there was so much devotion to the builders and their work, that this is what the Corinthian people forgot. They boasted of their great builders, of Paul, of Cephas, of Apollos. Each pointed to the parts of the building so carefully and lovingly constructed by their favourite builders, forgetting all the while that they, too, were called to be builders.

The temple that we build is not an edifice that can be seen and touched by human hands. It is not a building, but a community. It is not a house, but a household. It is our shared life in Christ. The edifice of this temple is adorned with acts of kindness, demonstrations of love and compassion, and gestures of faith. The edifice of this temple is adorned with the labour and love of generations offering themselves not only to each other, but to the living and loving God. As we stand back and gaze we see memorials to the magnificent builders of the past, and yet we see new possibilities upon the stones they laid. Standing back for a moment we appreciate the edifice, and are inspired by the labourers of old, and we imagine what the structure will look like when we have done our piece, placed our living stones upon the walls. Standing back for a moment we are granted a certain perspective; that the task is not ours alone. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we lay stones upon which future generations will stand. We realize that we have a part to play. We begin to imagine, and we are reinvigorated for the task that lies ahead.

Have you ever see one of those great European cathedrals? On my living room wall hangs a nineteenth century picture of York Minster Cathedral. Athena and I visited this cathedral in 1995. At the time, the edifice was covered in a scaffold, for necessary renovations and repairs. Even so, we stood back and admired it in awe. In an age when buildings go up over night, it can be helpful for us to remember that a cathedral takes generations to build; and even when we think it completed the work goes on and a scaffold once again goes up. Think of the builders who invest in that structure that never see it through to completion, yet they know that they take part in a holy task, a grand work, an act of faith. That cathedral on my wall reminds me that our work as the people of God is such a thing, and indeed the kingdom of God is such a thing. We shall not see it completed and yet it matters not what we see, what matters is that we form a part of the edifice, as living stones, built upon other living stones – Paul and Apollos, Osler, Creighton, and Hopkins, and oh so many more!

The building only stands though, for one reason, and that is the cornerstone upon which it is laid. That cornerstone is our Lord Jesus Christ. We take up our place in the edifice with confidence because we know the rock upon which it is built. We continue to build because we know that the foundation cannot be shaken. We build to the sky because the Temple is built on Christ and belongs to God. We belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God, and God’s work will not be destroyed.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Why Are We Here? A Homily for Proper 2, Year A, 2011

2011-01-16T08:34:00.001-05:00

Homily for Proper 2, Year A, 2011
Sunday, January 16th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 1:29-42

“…but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
-John 1:31

Why are we here? I don’t mean that in the larger existential sense, but rather, the more particular sense. Why are we here as a church community? What are we about? To what end do we exist? There will be as many answers to that question as there are people who belong to this church. Many wonderful answers can be given: I am here because this is a community in which I am loved through good times and bad; I am here because what we do on Sunday mornings spiritually recharges me for the rest of the week; I am here because the words of Scripture challenge me to live my life differently; I am here because I need healing; I am here because God has called me here; I am here because I love the music of our faith and the song God puts in our hearts; I am here because it reminds me I am not alone; I am here to worship the God who created me, loves me, and redeems me. I am here because my mother made me get out of bed this morning and come.

These are all wonderful answers, and honest answers. Many more could be given. I should like to propose one that occurred to me as I read the words of John the Baptist, in John 1:31, “but I come baptizing with water for this reason, that Jesus might be revealed to Israel.” To the question, “why are you here?” John the Baptist responds, “I am here that Jesus might be known to the world.” To make Jesus known, to reveal Jesus, this is one of the most important reasons we are here.

Now, on one level this might be considered an act of hubris and arrogance, for of course, it is not we that make Jesus known, but the Holy Spirit of God that reveals Jesus. Indeed, John the Baptist goes on to describe how he knew Jesus was the messiah, the Christ: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” John the Baptist recognized the Messiah because the Spirit of God revealed Jesus to him AS messiah. And yet, John has a role to play. What he has seen and what he has heard, he is called to proclaim, and in his act of proclamation, Jesus is revealed to others.

A day passes, and John continues to go about his baptizing. He is standing with his two disciples and Jesus passes by. What does John do? He grabs his disciples by the arms and point out Jesus, probably a very non-descript man of his day, and proclaims, “Behold the lamb of God!” John directs others toward Jesus the Christ. The Spirit of God moves John to participate in the revealing of the messiah. He does not say, “Look, there’s that fellow from Nazareth, Jesus,” instead he proclaims as deeper truth what has been revealed to him. What has been revealed to him he now reveals to others, “behold the lamb of God.” What does this mean? He is the one that will save his people. He is the one who will deliver them from their sins. He is their Passover lamb.

In the act of recognition, Jesus turns to John’s disciples and asks: “What are you looking for?” Did they really know what they were looking for? They only knew something remarkable was happening, that something special was being revealed to them, and so they asked strange question, “where are you staying?” And he said, “Come and see.” Come and see -- words that are mysterious, and yet words that invite. Come and see.

Later yet, one of those same disciples, a man named Andrew, after spending some time with Jesus, returned home to his brother, Simon, and told him “We have found the Messiah.” Something had been revealed to Andrew because John had introduced him to Jesus, and he accepted Jesus’ invitation, to “come and see.” A day with Jesus, and Andrew knew he had found the messiah; and so he invited his brother, he revealed Jesus to his brother, and Simon came before Jesus and Jesus gave him the new name of Peter. In meeting Jesus, something profound was revealed to Simon, namely, who Simon was to be – a rock, upon which Christ’s church would be built. Suddenly, Simon’s existential question, “why am I here?” was answered.

Today, this church sits, a city set upon a hill, as a light to this community, and we ask why are we here? Amidst the myriad of valid and valued reasons, this is perhaps the most important one: that Jesus might be revealed to this community and to this world. Why are we here? Why do we baptize? Why do we sing songs and hymns? Why do we read our Sacred Scriptures and share our sacred meal? That Jesus might be revealed.

When we revisit some of the reasons that we are here, we realize that many of them are because Jesus has been revealed to us, and in our reasons for coming, Jesus is continually revealed to us: We are not alone; we have a song in our hearts; we are loved and cared for in good times and bad; we have found healing. And yes, even “my mother made me come” is a revelation, too. It is sign that God doesn’t give up on us; that sometimes God has to drag us out of bed and into action. All of the reason we gather reveal Jesus to us. We are here because we respond week-by-week to the words, “Come and see.”

But “come and see” are words spoken not only to us, but something we are called to speak to others. For as the Spirit of God revealed Jesus to John, so John revealed Jesus to Andrew, and so Andrew revealed Jesus to Peter. Oh the wondrous things that happened through the sharing of Jesus with friends and families. But always remember, sharing is an invitation, never a command. Sharing Jesus begins with the words “come and see.” That is our part in the journey of revelation. We invite and pray for the Spirit to descend like a dove, that those who join us will indeed see in our love, our worship and our community the face of God in Christ, and will indeed leave this place proclaiming, “I have found the messiah,” and with joy and excitement offer that invitation to another.

c. 2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

A Song of Delight - A Homily for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 2011

2011-01-09T07:42:00.002-05:00

Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, Year A, 2011
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Isaiah 42:1-9

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.
-Isaiah 42:1

Isaiah sings of a servant, and what a strange thing to sing about! When you think about it, how many songs are written to extol the glories of the hired help? Songs are sung about kings and princes, songs are sung about lovers and heroes, but how many popular songs are written about the servant? I suppose with some thinking we might posit an example or two, but when we pause to consider it, the servant is indeed a strange person to sing about. I suppose that if we were to seek a modern equivalent, it would perhaps be like singing a ballad about the Walmart greeter. Nothing against the Walmart greeter, of course, it is just that he or she is not normally the subject of panegyric praise.

The book of the prophet Isaiah contains several songs about the servant; perhaps the most famous is his song about the suffering servant. Many will recognize from our Good Friday liturgy the words, “He was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities.” Today we hear another one of those songs, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights!” These songs that Isaiah sung resonated with the people of the Early Church. They would have been familiar songs, well-known sacred songs of their Jewish heritage. They identified with these songs.

There is much debate in scholarship over who Isaiah thought the servant to be, but it is fairly clear that the people of ancient Judea considered the songs to be about them as a nation. The servant was the chosen one, in whom God delights, who walks in his way, who has his Spirit. But the servant is also the one who suffers, who seems abandoned, and yet is never abandoned. The people of Judea could certainly feel their own story being sung in the words of these ancient servant songs. And so, I believe, it was.

But songs have many layers of meaning, and sacred songs all the more so. Thus, it is no surprise that for the early Christians, new layers of meaning began to resonate in these well-worn and time-honoured sacred songs after they experienced the Risen Jesus in their midst. They sung them once again as they gathered, and as they heard the old, old song, once again, they heard it now with fresh ears. The suffering servant became for them, Jesus on the cross: “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; like a sheep he was led to the slaughter; he was despised and reject; a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”

The servant song we hear today is of a different sort, but it brought to life the story of Jesus with no less power: “Here is my servant, my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I will put my strength on him; I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness; I have given you as a covenant to the people; a light to the nations, to bring the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

Instead of passion of Jesus evoked by the suffering servant song, this song brought to mind the coming of Jesus, the giving of light to the world, and all that that coming brings, especially release from captivity for the poor, the weak, the persecuted and those weighed down by sin and guilt. It called to mind his baptism, the pouring forth of God’s Spirit upon him, his vocation as the chosen Messiah of God, his identity as God’s beloved child and servant, and importantly as the incarnation of God’s righteousness. When the people of the Early Church recalled the baptism of Jesus, this was the song they sung, for it extolled the servant who consented to be baptized in humility by John, in order that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled, even though he need not be baptized. For them, this song was about Jesus, and so it is for us, as well.

Thus, we sing this song still and new layers of meaning continue to burst forth. As we approach the font today, to welcome new Christians into the family, and to renew our own Baptismal vows and covenant, we hear these words, “Here are my servants, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my heart delights; I have put my spirit upon them, and they will bring forth justice to the nations!” The song that was sung about an unknown servant became the song of an ancient people who felt their chosenness in their delivery from the bondage of Egyptian slavery into a promised land, is also the song of Jesus our Lord who delivers us through the waters of baptism into new life. But oh so importantly, it is for us today our song, the song of our servanthood, the song of our deliverance, the song of our chosenness, and the song of our vocation to live out and proclaim the love of God. As baptized Christians, the ancient song becomes our song, we become his children and yes, servants of God, and of one another.

And all of a sudden it makes sense. We can sing songs extolling kings and queens, great men and women. These songs will always abound, but there is another song that echoes from age-to-age, the song of the servant, and it is a song that God sings! God sings a song of praise delighting in his people. It is a song he sings with passion and with love. It is a song he sings with joy and delight. It is a song he sang at the creation of humanity and a song he will sing at the consummation of all history. It is a song he sings of us, his servants, his children, in whom he delights.

c. 2011 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

A Song High Above the Trees - A Homily for Christmas I, 2010

2010-12-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

Homily for Christmas 1, Year A, 2010
Sunday, December 26th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 2:13-23

“Herod… was infuriated and he killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.”
-Matthew 2:16

My wife Athena and I enjoy the television program Madmen. It is the story of a 1960’s Madison Avenue Ad agency which paints a picture not only of that wild world of advertising, but also of everyday middle-class 1960’s life. Although, the events slightly predate us, we share a cultural memory from our early childhoods of the flavor of the day. Many of the little ordinary aspects of daily life that are depicted in that show ring true for us. For example, we both remember sleeping in the back window of the car on long car trips. We remember people smoking everywhere. We remember littering without much sense of consequence to the earth. Many who worked through that period will remember alcohol in the office and sexism and racism in the workplace. What the show depicts so poignantly, though, are those moment that are seared into our cultural consciences, namely events like the freedom marches, the Kennedy assassination and, of course, the Cuban missile crisis.

Although the Cuban missile crisis occurred before I was born, it served as a sign for my generation that we were on the brink of nuclear destruction. Indeed, we grew up in the seventies and eighties believing we would not live to see adulthood. The pessimism and angst of that age seems so far away now. It is now replaced though, for a new generation with wars on terror and the terrors of counter-terrorism. It is replaced by foreign wars in which we are involved that I can scarcely understand and dare not justify. Thus, while the circumstances have changed, our proclivity to hurt one another has not. It is easy for pessimism and angst to grip up once again.

Yet, into our moments of pessimism and angst, a light breaks forth. In the car, listening to my favourite classical music station the other day, I heard the Christmas carol, “Said the night wind to the little lamb,” and I learned something that I did not know, that is probably not news to the rest of you, that this song was written and first performed during the Cuban missile crisis as a plea for peace.

It begins almost as a whisper and finally swells with grandeur as the message of peace is proclaimed throughout the world.

This is how it goes:

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear
A song, a song
High above the tree
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace people everywhere
Listen to what I say
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light

It seems to me that the world of first century Judea, a world ruled by a tyrant king with so tentative a grip on power that he chooses to slaughter innocent children, is not so different from the world at any time and place in human history. Terror is terror in any age, as the mothers of slain innocents in first century Judea knew only too well. It is surely not so different from a 1960’s whose existence hung on the decisions of Kennedy and Kruschev. The angst we feel from age to age, whether it be the angst of older veterans who are haunted still by the things they saw in Europe or the South pacific during the second world war, or the angst my generation knew under the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, or the angst this new generation must feel in an age of terror and counter terror, is not so different or alien that we cannot understand what it is to live under fear.

But fortunately, there is voice above the trees that calls out in the night, “Fear not!” It is a voice that proclaims to shepherds abiding in the fields that the fearful reality they know need not be the reality into which they live. It is a voice that proclaims to a young couple that through their love and care of a little child, peace will indeed come into the earth. It is a voice in the wind that awakens us from our fear and pessimism and angst. And dare we say it, it is a voice that can indeed form in our own mouths, be we kings or lowly shepherds and proclaim to the world a word of peace. It is a voice that says no to war, no to missiles, no to terror. It is a voice that says no to domestic violence, no to bullying in our schools, and no the hurt we cause others through shame and anger. But it is not primarily a voice that cries no, but a voice that cries YES. Yes, to peace, yes, to love, yes to hope. It is a voice that changes things, a voice that can make tyrants stand down, a voice that transforms our hearts and conforms us into the image and likeness of God. It is a voice of humility and a voice of new life.

Listen to the night wind and you will hear that “yes” and through an encounter with the tiny child, born in a stable, you will be given the boldness and courage to proclaim peace to people everywhere.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
words and music for "Said the Night Wind to the Little Lamb" by Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker.

Witnesses to the Light - A Homily for Christmas Morning, 2010

2010-12-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

A Homily for Christmas Morning, 2010
Saturday, December 25th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, On
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 1:1-14

“The Word became flesh.”
-John 1:14

Light

When the sky clouds over, and the snow falls, and darkness reigns for days, oh, how we long for the light! When the days shorten and darkness falls earlier and earlier and the rising of the sun seems so distant and so faint, oh, how we long to feel the rays of warmth on our faces! When night falls and sleep refuses to come and the hours of darkness seem interminable, oh, how we long for the morn to break forth.

Light

In a world of dark thoughts and bleak futures, where is the light? In a world where the weak are forgotten and our human worth is counted by the dark measure of our spending habits, where is the light? In a world where aged mothers and fathers sit forgotten in the darkness of loneliness, and little children cower in the darkness of domestic violence, where is the light?

Light

As soldiers take up arms and march into the darkness of war; as the rulers of this age measure out lives in dark, sterile terms like “collateral damage,” where is the light?

There was a man from God named John. He was not the light, but rather, a witness to the light. He came to testify to the light, to a people who walked in deep darkness, and longed, oh how they longed, to see the light. To them it was but a dream, a hope, a prayer. The light that burned within them seemed so dim, nearly extinguished – it was there, but oh how it needed fanning by the breath of love. Could the light be kindled again? Could the flame be fanned? They hoped and dared dream. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. For them it was a hope and a dream. For us it is a reality.

The Word became flesh and although darkness threatens, but cannot envelop us. Though darkness falls, it shall not smother us. Though the night comes, the lamp burns and shall not be extinguished, for the darker it gets, the brighter the light of the Word of God burns. And where is the light? Shall we seek it on a distant shore? Is it burning in some distant heaven? No. It is here, in this world, shining its rays into the darkest corners, into the gloomiest places, into the saddest hearts. It is here – the true light that enlightens everyone has come into the world. The Word became flesh, and in his life, we find our life.

Life

Where the light shines, Life is found in abundance; where the flame of love burns, there can be no darkness; where the Spirit of God blows, the winds of night will never extinguish the light: there is and ever will be Life, for that Life is the light of all people.

Life

Into a world of death, Life is born; not fleeting life, but eternal and abundant Life. Into a world of death, Life is born and death will not defeat it or destroy it. Though darkness will fall and cover the earth at midday and many will believe that hope is lost, hope shall not be destroyed for Life cannot be destroyed by death, nor will Love be overwhelmed the darkness of anger, hate, or fear.

Love

Into a world of brokenness, Love is born. To hearts that weep with sadness, Love sows compassion. To lives filled with loneliness, Love becomes a companion. Into lives written off in sin and the darkness of mistaken purpose, Love brings healing and redemption.

Love

Light became flesh. Eternal life became flesh. Love became flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Before us his glory illuminates the world casts away the darkness, for the darkness can neither understand it nor withstand it. Upon us he bestows his light, his life, and his love. Within us his glory shines and unveils our deepest darkest places. Around us his light lifts the darkness of the world and restores relationships and opens the way of peace.

Like John the Baptist of old, we are a people sent from God to testify to the light. We are not the light, and yet we are enlightened by the light. We witness to the light; the true light of love that has that has come into the world. As we adore Christ our God this morn, may our adoration be a witness to the light, and may this world know the radiance of the Word made flesh.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

We've Heard it all Before - A Homily for Christmas Eve, 2010

2010-12-24T23:00:00.000-05:00

A Homily for Christmas Eve, 2010
Friday, December 24th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 2:1-10

“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.”
--Luke 2:15

The skeptic might say, “We’ve heard it all before,” and choose to stay home. Indeed, by the time Christmas Eve rolls around, the skeptic might be right – from the time that Hallowe’en decorations are put away until the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we will have heard the Christmas bells for two solid months. Why should we come together on this night sing the carols that have played without stop since November 1st and hear once again the story of a man and his pregnant wife, the birth of their son in a lowly stable, the song of angels and the awe of shepherds? Why? What is there to be gained from one more round of singing and one more telling of the story? We have heard it all before.

But ah! We have heard it all before! And the story beckons us into its presence and calls us deep into its narrative, inviting us to participate as a shepherd, or bystander, or yes, even a as chorus of angels. The story beckons us once again and we heed the words and come. We join the happy throng that proclaims that Christ is born. Because we have heard it all before, we come. Did we once as children wrap ourselves in a towel or ragged cloth and play a shepherd? Did once a beloved Sunday school teacher enfold us in an oversized choir surplice and place coat hanger wings upon our shoulders and a tinsel halo upon our heads? Were we once given the sacred task of holding a simple doll, transformed this night into a holy child, and rock it in our arms while parents and grandparents looked on, faces aglow, with joy, to see us participating in that old, old story? Were we called upon to be Joseph, Mary, an innkeeper, and angel, or even a sheep, donkey or star? Did we once, wearing five and dime (or dollar store) crowns make the journey down the nave of the church, as wise men once from the east came, to worship the newborn king? And even if we have not participated in such retellings of the story, have we not come from generation to generation, holding the hands of mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers, to sing the song of the angels, to journey even in spirit with shepherds and wise men, and kneel before the stable, offering our hearts to the King of Kings, born in low estate?

Ah, we have heard it all before, and what joy that story brings! We have heard it all before and we have shared it all before. In its telling and retelling, in our acting and reenacting of the story, the story shapes us and shapes our lives. The story works away in our hearts and melts away our hardness, our skepticism, our bitterness, and our cynicism. The story, though it be known so well, changes us and transforms us again and again.

We have heard it all before, and as the days slip on the story recedes into the backs of our minds and rests sleepily somewhere in the depths of our hearts. As the days of the year wear on and we face the hardships of life and inevitable sadness that comes simply in the act of living in a world with pain and loss, doubt sets in. As the days slip on, the story becomes one that is harder to hear, harder to believe, harder to tell. The days slip on and the nights become interminably longer and the story disappears into the depths our cultural amnesia, barely visible, barely audible. Just as it seems the dawn will never come and the darkness will never lift, a poor couple emerges from the darkness and find their way once again to a stable and once again a child is born to us.

We have heard it all before, and so we know from the depths of our beings what comes next: in that region, in some region deep within our hearts, shepherds are once again stirred by the angels’ song. And once again, deep within the winter of our souls the ice begins to melt and the story begins to warm us and proclaim to us a song of hope and joy that the darkness is being lifted and the night is far spent. Because we have heard it all before we hear the call to “come and see!” The Lord has worked a miracle and that miracle is not simply the birth of babe in Bethlehem, but the birth of hope for a troubled world and troubled lives. The story that weaves its way into the fabric of our lives is the story of hope for you and for me that though I may sink, from time-to-time, into a dark place I will not be abandoned there but will yet see the dawn break forth and rejoice and be glad that hope springs eternal.
We have heard it all before, and because we have heard it all before the old, old story is always a new and exciting story, because it is a story that changes lives. It is a story, that once told, can never be forgotten and once heard forever leaves the stamp of the divine life on our hearts. It is a story that enacts itself again and again within us and shapes us over and over and over again, molding us into the fullness of beauty that God intends for all his creatures.

We have heard it all before and we come to hear it all again, but not only to hear, but to participate, to journey, to allow ourselves to be shaped by the story of God amongst us, within us, reshaping us, and reshaping the world. We come to see this thing that has taken place, to hear this story, not because it someone else’s fascinating story, but because it is our story. It is the story of our life!

Can you believe, though, that some have not heard it? Some lives have never been shaped by it? Some have never had the wings placed on their shoulders or been wrapped in towels and blankets? Can you believe that some have never held the holy child in their arms and let him work the power of his story in their lives and hearts?

God made this world the stage for his story, and we are the actors, we are the shepherds, the magi, the angels and the holy family, whose lives have been shaped by an encounter with our God in the presence of the tiny child. This is our story, and it is good news for the world. As our lives have been shaped by it, let us sing the story with all our heart and live the story with all our being on the world’s stage that it might become the story of ages for a broken and hurting world. Glory to God in the highest.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Hope Blooms in the Desert - A Homily for Advent III, Year A, 2010

2010-12-15T10:06:00.010-05:00

Homily for Advent III, Year A, 2010
Sunday, December 12th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Isaiah 35:1-10

Listening to the news this week, it is becoming clear that Barak Obama has lost his lustre. It was but a short time ago that the hopes and dreams of America were all pinned on this one man. He could only stand to fail to live up to the expectations that he set for himself and the expectations placed upon him by the American people. In fact, last year around this time I remember a comment that I made in a sermon that this was all bound to happen sooner rather than later, and as much as I like the man, I was pretty sure that he was likely not the messiah, contrary to popular opinion. Closer to home, a messiah has risen on the political right. Toronto has a new mayor, and all the hopes and dreams of people of the opposite political stripe to those who would claim to support a Barak Obama are pinned on this man. Like Obama, though, it is clear that the lustre will wear off in short order as well. While Rob Ford has got off to an aggressive start in turning his platform into political reality, he is being met with much opposition and the city hall battles are beginning once again. It can be easy to see why people may feel apathetic to the political process when the lustre wears off any given administration, be they left or right.

None of this is said to disparage those who offer themselves for public service, nor is it to disparage the political process itself. Coming from a family of civil servants I am deeply appreciate those who serve their communities either as elected officials or as professional public servants. The health and well-being of a community is, in large part, the result of the hard work of the people who serve our communities as teachers, librarians, firefighters, police service officers, transit employees, municipal workers, and yes, elected politicians. The combined efforts of these and other professionals serve to create a public sphere in which we can enjoy the fruit of the good society.

And yet, people being people, we have differing views of what the good society is all about. We fight about its meaning and we offer our hopes and dreams to each other. Sadly though, we take delight in dashing each other’s hopes and dreams. And then we take further delight in deriding the one finds themself unable to keep his or her promises. Where we have the potential to come together as a people, the darkness of sin drives us apart and we hurt, rather than build up our fellow citizens.

This phenomenon is nothing new. The world into which the prophet Isaiah spoke was a world of political disappointment; a world in which hope would rise and fall with every new ruler, with every new direction, with every new platform and with every new administration. Between foreign captivity and disappointing kings, the Hebrew people had every reason to give up on hope; and yet, into their despair Isaiah spoke these words, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.”

Perhaps these words were received with skepticism. Perhaps; but they were recorded and repeated generation after generation by people who knew much despair and much disappointment. They are repeated even unto this day. They are words that we repeat in Advent because they are words that pierce through the frailty of our humanity, and speak hope to hearts when hope is dashed and promises are broken. What is the hope that these words proclaim? That hope shall continue to blossom, that we shall taste its fruit, even as we journey from disappointment to disappointment.

This is a promise that comes not from human lips but from the mouth of the Lord. While it is that these words speak to a time beyond our time, about a kingdom that is to come, about the culmination of a history in which all things are gathered up in God, they are also words that speak to another reality though, and that is a reality that is set among us, in Christ Jesus. They speak to the reality of God’s presence in the birth of a tiny babe in Bethlehem, God incarnate, God in our midst. They speak to the reality of the presence of that same incarnate God through his abiding Spirit animating our shared life. They speak to the reality of Christ’s presence in the words of Sacred Scripture. They speak to the reality of his abiding presence in our sacramental sharing of his body and blood.

Most importantly, though, these words speak to us when all around have fallen away and we feel most alone, forsaken, and abandoned by broken promises of human hope. When hope should fail us because there is nothing left to cling to, hope prevails because it is the hope of God that rescues us. If we rely only on our own ability to manufacture hope, we shall be perennially disappointed, but if we shift our point of view for but a moment, we will realize that hope is not created by human hearts or human hands, but finds its wellspring in the heart of God. You see, God has hope for us. God believes in us. God has faith in us; and this is the hope to which we cling as Christian people, that is, God’s relentless desire for us to know joy, peace and love. The fruit of God’s faithfulness is our ability to know such things in him in Christ.

One of my favourite pieces of Christmas music is called “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.” Whereas the eating the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden condemned humanity to death, the eating of fruit of the apple tree which is Jesus Christ gives us life.

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit, and always green
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared to Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile;
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Last year I read a post by a fellow Anglican blogger, Laurel Masse, who said that this is her life in a song. I believe it is the story of my life, too. Perhaps it is the story of our shared humanity. We cannot manufacture faith. We cannot manufacture hope. We cannot manufacture joy, peace or love. These things come from God, but God does share them with overflowing abundance and grace. In the midst of political angst and uncertainty, in the midst of our apathy, in the midst of doubt, “This fruit does make my soul to thrive and keeps my dying faith alive.” When hope seems lost, God sets before us a tree in the desert and that tree is nothing less than God himself, in Jesus Christ. Isaiah tells us that there is a highway that winds its way through the desert, and as we journey along that road we find that hope blossoms like crocuses, valleys are exalted and rough place made plain. Should we be surprised to find along that road an apple tree bearing the fruit of life? Weary with our toil, let us rest for a moment under the tree and find the happiness and hope we long have sought.

A moment under the tree and we shall learn that whether kings rise or fall, whether promises are kept or broken, whether we succeed or whether we fail we can take heart that hope cannot be obliterated for we do not create it, we only share it. The fruit of Jesus Christ the Apple Tree we are called to share. Share it we will, and share it we must, for it is the tree of the fruit of life that blossoms without end and for healing of the nations. We rise from our rest under that tree, having tasted its goodness and we take up our way again on the road, but this time sharing the fruit of Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, sharing the hope that good will indeed will reign among people, even if only in fleeting moments until such a time that all things find their consummation in the fruit of hope that awaits us all.

c. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Jesus Christ the Appletree - Words Anonymous (New England c. 18th century)
Music - Elizabet Poston (1905 - 1987).

Prepare the Way of the Lord - A Homily for Advent II, Year A, 2010

2010-12-05T07:58:00.002-05:00

A Homily for Advent II, Year A, 2010
Sunday, December 5th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 3:1-12

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
-Matthew 3:3 (quoting Isaiah 40)

As I have shared with you before, as a child I was always one who had a terrible time waiting for Christmas morning. Given the chance, I would have opened my presents at the earliest moment possible. Fortunately, my parents always had the good sense to make us boys wait. While other families we knew had this enviable tradition of allowing their children to open just one present on Christmas Eve, this was strictly forbidden in our house. As I reflect back with benefit of age and parenting experience, I now believe my parents were wise in teaching us that good things are worth waiting for.

I suppose I haven’t grown up that much since then. This is still hard today. While I am less excited about opening presents, I find great joy in watching others; especially those close to me tear the paper away from the gifts piled under the tree. And given the chance, I could easily yield to the temptation of my children who annually plead with me, “just one present Dad; can we please just open one present early?!” I must admit, I have to fight off every urge within me to allow it, and consequently deliver that heart-breaking resounding “no!” Fortunately for me, Athena is a strong partner in this heartless act. I have to keep telling myself, and the children, that good things are worth waiting for.

So what do we do while we wait? We make preparation. Until the hour strikes and the gift is given, we wait and prepare. And thus spake St. John the Baptist, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The preparation to which St. John calls his followers, though, is of a strange sort. It does not involve “trimming the hearth and setting the table,” nor does it involve any of the other requisite “hauling out the holly,” or “setting up the tree before my spirits fall again,” or even “carols at the ‘spinnit.’” Rather, it is a work of self-examination. In order to prepare for the coming of the Lord, St. John the Baptist exhorts us to consider the ways in which we have failed ourselves and each other, how we have been hypocrites about what we claim to believe, and about how we have overindulged in unhealthy and unhelpful behaviours. Most importantly, having examined ourselves, we are called to repent.

Now, I sense that this exhortation probably lands with a resounding “thud” into the midst of our pre-Christmas celebrations. “Oh, Father Dan,” you might say, “trimming the tree is so much more fun!” It is true that you will get no argument with me about that. I love trimming the tree with some good carols on the “spinnit.” But let us consider for a moment the nature and purpose of that special gift that is set before us; that gift comes not under the tree or wrapped in paper, but rests under the precarious shelter of the roof of a cattle stable and is wrapped in swaddling bands. This gift, the most precious gift of all, the one for which we wait, is given to us a salve for our human wounds and a balm for our bruised souls. This gift is given to mend broken hearts and broken relationships. It is offered to restore wholeness to broken lives and bring joy to all who have lost their way. This gift is no ordinary gift. No, it is the most amazing of gifts – the gift of Emmanuel, God with us.

Oh, how we long for such a gift and all its benefits. How can we wait for Christmas morning? How can we wait to receive such a blessing and offering of grace? But we must. We must wait and we must prepare. The preparation that is set before us is the preparation of the heart. It is time for us to look within ourselves and realize just how much we need that most precious of gifts and to search out our own brokenness and discover exactly the wounds to which that salve will be applied and the bruises that the balm of Christ will soothe. And most importantly, to search ourselves and understand that there is nothing I can do to heal my wounds, but with the Lord all things are possible: Come, Lord Jesus.

Where meek hearts will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

c. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

A Revised Edwardian Homily On Salvation

2010-12-03T12:11:00.001-05:00

A Homily for Monday in the Week of Advent I
Framed and Based on the Second of Part of the Edwardian Homily on Salvation
Preached at the Trinity College Chapel
Monday, November 29th, 2010
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves (after Archbishop Thos. Cranmer)
Text: Matthew 8:5-13
(Scriptural References are from the Great Bible of 1539)

Dear friends in Christ, ye have heard how all men ought to seek their justification and righteousness, and how this righteousness commeth unto men by Christ’s death and merits. As good Christian folk ye shall also know that three things are required to the obtaining of our righteousness, that is, God’s mercy, Christ’s justice, and a true and lively faith out of the which faith springeth good works. Yet, ye shall also be aware dear friends, that no man can be justified by his own good works, that no man fulfilleth the law, according to the full request of the law.

These things are of course also attested by St. Paul in both his epistle to the Church in Galatia and in the epistle written to the church in Ephesus. After this wise, to be justified only by this true and lively faith in Christ, speaketh all the old and ancient authors, including Hilary, Basil, and Ambrose. Yet even as these good and ancient authors attesteth (and many more are there to be numbered amongst them) that we are justified by faith, nevertheless, this is not so meant of them, that that the said justifying faith is alone in man, without true repentance, hope, charity, dread, and the fear of God, at any time and season. Nor when they say, that we be justified freely, they mean not that we should or might afterwards be idle, and nothing thereafter required of our part. But this saying, that we be justified by faith only, freely, and without works, is spoken for to take away clearly all merit of our works, as being able to deserve justification at God’s hands, and thereby mostly plainly to express the weakness of man and the goodness of God. This faith the holy scripture teacheth us; this is the strong rock and foundation of Christian religion; this doctrine all old and ancient authors of Christ’s church do approve and setteth for the true glory of Christ, and beateth down the vainglory of man.

Hence we consider that centurion of old, of whom we learn in eighth chapter of St. Matthew, who besought our Lord in consideration of the burthen he knew in the suffering of his servant who lyeth at home sick of the palsye, greviously pained. That dear centurion, having a throrough and full understanding of his own unworthiness before our Lord, pleadeth unto him with such humility, “Syr, I am not worthy, that thou shuldest come under my rofe; but speake the worde only and my servaunt shall be healed.”

What greater humility was ever known in one man than the humility of this centurion who was not a son of Israel? Yet this man understood that our Lord has ordered all things mightily and in an orderly fashion when he said, “For I also my selfe am a man subject to the aucthoryte of another; and have soudiers under me, and I saye to this man, go, he goeth: to another come, and he cometh, and to my servaunt do this and he doeth it.” Our Lord, having been moved by such sensible and true words, marveled and sayd to them them that followed hym: “Verily, I saye unto you I have not founde so great fayth in Israel. I say unto you that men shal come from the eest and west, and shall rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kyngdome of heaven.”

With the eyes of God’s mercy and through the merits of Christ’s justice, our Lord gazed upon the countenance of the centurion of old and drew forth from the well of his soul the waters of a true and lively faith such that not only the centurion knew, that day, the mercy and justice of the Lord, but so too, the servant gripped by the palsye, and indeed the whole retinue, knew and tasted the salvation of our God. Thus, being sent upon his way, the centurion, knew the justifying strength of our Lord to heal and to save.

But think not, dear friends that such a justification was wrought by any righteousness on the part of the centurion, but rather hold fast to the truth that justification is not the office of man but of God. The faith of the centurion directed him only to the Lord and the wideness of his mercy. Meditate thoroughly on the story of the centurion and you will find that ye too, indeed all present, although we hear God’s word, and believe it; although we have faith, hope and charity, repentance, dread and fear of God within us, and do never so many works thereunto; yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues, as weak and insufficient, and trust only in God’s mercy as that centurion did.

The centurion knew whereof he spake, although he commandeth others, he knew that he liveth under the sovereignty of another and that no good work should raise him from his post to command those things wereof he had no authority to command. To such an end, our Lord saw no faith equal to his in Israel and in such a faith the wideness of God’s mercy was thereby known that “many shall come from eest and west to … to rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kyngdome of heaven.” The work of man justifieth not, and the wideness of God’s justice and mercy knoweth not the boundary of nations. Trust only in God’s mercy, and that sacrifice which our high priest and Saviour, Christ Jesus, the son of God, once offered upon the cross, to obtain thereby God’s grace and remission, as well of our original sin in baptism, as of all actuall sin committed in us after our baptism, if we truly repent, and turn unfeignedly to him again.

Even so, as great and good and as godly a virtue as the lively faith is, yet it putteth us from itself, and remitteth or appointeth us unto Christ (as it did the centurion), for to have only, by our Lord, remission of our sins, or justification. So that our faith in Christ saith unto us thus: It is not I that take away your sins, but it is Christ only; and to him only I send you for that purpose, forsaking therein all your good virtues, words, thoughts, and works, and only putting your trust in Christ.

What Time Is It? - A Homily for Advent I, Year A, 2010

2010-11-28T08:07:00.001-05:00

A Homily for Advent I, Year A, 2010
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 13:11-14

“You know what time it is.”
--Romans 13:11

What time is it?

Like the Christians of Paul’s day, we live between the times. We live in a reality in which Christ has been revealed to us, a reality in which we have tasted the goodness of God, in which we have caught a glimpse of the resurrection of his Christ, in which we have begun to experience his healing and saving grace. But we also live in a reality in which there is still much pain and much brokenness. We live in a world in which we still experience sickness. And we live in a world in which we are all still prone to make terrible mistakes. It is a confusing time in which we await the consummation of the love we have tasted.

Advent is a time between the times. While the world around us sings carols (and indeed, when we leave this place we may go home and listen to some ourselves), we enter the church and we sing hymns of expectation, and speak words of Christ’s imminent arrival, but we resist the urge to sing the carols that belong properly to his arrival on Christmas Eve. Advent is a time to hold in tension the polarities of this confusing double-mindedness, and see if there is anything we can learn “living between the times.”

A couple of weeks ago I preached that I did not mind hearing the carols so early in the shopping malls and on the radio because they are a witness to the world of the reality that we proclaim; namely, that Christ is with us and in the world, restoring it from brokenness to glory. And yet, I have asked, as Anglican tradition has long dictated, that during Advent, in church at least, that we hold back on the carols, that we cease our Alleluias and glorias for a few weeks. So you might be asking, “what gives?” If God is present, if the act of salvation has been won, if death has been defeated in the Resurrection, why do we need to put the brakes on as we approach the wonderful celebration of our Lord’s nativity?

The answer, I think, is that we are a “work in progress.” Yes, it is true that God has acted decisively in Jesus of Nazareth and won for us our salvation and victory over death. Yet, day-by-day, the fruits of that redemption are still being uncovered, and they exist in tension with the unfinished work of the restoration of all things. As I have stated, there is much that is still broken, still hurting, and still evil in this world. God is indeed at work, and he will bring that work to completion; but part of that work involves drawing you and me into the divine life, and into the divine work. The coming of our Lord amongst us in Jesus of Nazareth was the decisive act in which the beauty of God’s plan of restoration and redemption was inaugurated and revealed to and amongst us. The Incarnation of the Lord changed things. And what it changed most was us.

This is why St. Paul tells the Romans -- and yes, these are words that echo across the age to us as well -- to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Cloth yourself in the Lord and be a sign to the world of the redemption won in Christ Jesus. We stand before the powers of this age that refuse to believe that God is alive and active and transforming the world, and we say “no” to evil, “no” to power structures that dehumanize God’s creatures, and “no” to the unhealthy desires that draw us away from God. We put on Christ and we say “yes” to the beauty of all that is Good, “yes” to the hope that the world can be transformed for the building up of the Kingdom of God, and “yes” to the best of human longing and desire for intimacy with each other and with God.

What time is it?

It is a time of decision. The time between the times is a time for choices and a time for decision-making. It is a time in which we ask ourselves if we really and truly believe that the appearance of Jesus began a new era that is working its way to the completion in God. And if our answer is “yes”, it is a time in which we ask ourselves if we want to be a part of that journey. It is a time in which we pray to God as a community and as individuals and ask him to reveal to us the unique vocation we have as a community and as individuals as we participate in the unfolding of his Kingdom.

What time is it?

It is a time to wake up. St. Paul says, “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from your sleep.” The liturgical pulling-back that we do in Advent, the reservation of Alleluias and glorias, the change to the colour blue for our hangings and paraments, the lighting of successive candles in anticipation, and finally the singing of hymns and the reading of Scriptures that speak of both the birth of Jesus in a stable and his awesome and great appearance at the end of days, all serve to offer us a sort of wake-up call. They jar us to a moment of awakening and moment of decision. These things remind us that we do indeed “know what time it is!” This jarring change of colour and mood, mingled with restraint in our Christmas excitement and anticipation unveil to us the reality that the “day of the Lord is drawing nigh,” and as St. Paul once again says, “Our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers!”

The wake-up call that we are given is one that reminds us that history is on the move, and in history, God is on the move. As he acted in the creation of the world, in the story of the Hebrew people, in the Christ-event known to us as Jesus of Nazareth, in sending his Spirit upon the Church, and as he has acted through the saints of old, so he continues to act in the church and in the world, today. His voice is calling us to be a part of this movement toward the redemption of the cosmos.

What time is it?

It’s time to put on Christ Jesus and live what we believe, for the salvation we have tasted is at hand, nearer than when we first believed.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Remember Me in Your Kingdom - A Homily for The Reign of Christ, Year C, 2010

2010-11-21T08:28:00.002-05:00

Homily for the Reign of Christ, Year C, 2010
Sunday, November 21th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Luke 23:33-43

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
--Luke 23:42

For those who have heard the old, old story again and again, the irony will not be lost on us. As Jesus is nailed to the cross and as it is lifted up, three successive taunts are hurled at him. With bystanders observing mutely, the leaders of the day mocked the Lord saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” Soldiers, having cast lots for his clothing, offered him sour wine and these words of ridicule, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” And finally, even one of the thieves between whom he was crucified called out, “Are you not the messiah? Save yourself, and us!”

The irony of these taunts is so clear to us because we have the end of the story in sight, we know that while Jesus does indeed suffer death, death is not victorious over him. God indeed delivers his Son from the grave. Where soldiers, religious officials and bystanders mocked him because they thought they were seeing the colossal failure of his ministry culminating in his death, we know that quite the opposite is true: that the cross on which he was hung and that the death that he suffered were, in fact, victory for this cynical, hurting world.

An even deeper irony is revealed in our knowledge of the rest of the story: The so-called “bad thief,” the one who mocks Jesus, not only taunts the crucified Lord to save himself, but also to save him and the other criminal with whom he was crucified. We imagine these words being delivered with such hateful disdain and cynicism, and yet we note again the irony, that this act upon the cross will indeed be a saving act. Somehow, though, at least one character in the narrative can see through the fog of cynicism. The so-called “good thief” is the single person in this narrative with eyes to see, the one person who neither passively observes nor maliciously maligns; the one person who sees in this apparent defeat of the messiah, the fruit of redemption. Thus, he reprimands his companion and turns his eyes to his crucified Lord and mouths what were likely his final words, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” It would be so, for our Lord proclaimed the words so many of us long to hear in all our human brokenness, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

***

We all have images of God that are formed in our youth. While some have very gentle and loving images of God, I think it is true even amongst Church going folk that some of our images of God are less than healthy, and perhaps a bit skewed. Some of us have images of an angry God, or a punitive God, or a God who is watching over us waiting for us to make mistakes in order to punish us. Even if these are not our images of God, I am quite certain it is what many people outside the Church think of when they imagine the God of churchgoing people. Religious fanatics have not helped allay these stereotypes, but have fanned the flames of ignorance and intolerance. But whatever our image of God, I expect that from time-to-time, God will surprise us, smash that image and we will behold him (or her), in a new and splendid way. From time-to-time, God smashes the idols of the divine image we have imagined and gives us new eyes to see the divine glory. This is what happened on the hill known as the place of the skull.

If we recall those three derisions leveled at Jesus, they all contained one element, specifically, they asked, if he was indeed a king he should show great power and come down from the cross, destroy his oppressors and liberate his people. Should we cast our minds back to a certain moment of temptation in the desert at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we will realize that the image of God that people expected to see in Jesus has not changed that much. The temptations that Satan set before Jesus, to seize and demonstrate his power, and yes to even use his power to help others, are the same temptations he faces on the cross. He is tempted by the derisions of the onlookers in the same way he is tempted by Satan, to reveal himself in power. On the cross, when he fails to do so, he is mocked.
People had an expectation of what a messiah, what a king, would do and Jesus failed to, refused to, live up to those expectations. Thus, when God delivered him unto death and raised him on the third day, in an event of iconoclastic gentleness, God in Christ shattered the idol of people’s perception of who God is and how God should act. Instead of a warrior king who comes with sword and army, we meet the humble self-giving, self-effacing messiah. And it is he, in all his humility, who saves us. Irony of ironies.

Consider again, that moment outside Jerusalem, when amidst the waving of palm branches and excitement Jesus prepared to enter the holy city. Those who gathered around him were gathered for a political revolution. What did they get? - A messiah who handed himself over freely to the authorities to be crucified. God in Christ shatters the image of our expectations.

The culmination of the liturgical year is a moment in which we praise Christ as our King, as our Messiah. But do we know and understand what kind of king we serve; what sort of King we worship? History is littered by the stories of Kings who use their power to enslave people they are meant to serve and destroy the spirits of those whom they are meant to inspire. History is filled with kings, rulers and statesmen who have sent young men (and women) into battle for the most selfish of causes, and have left mothers widowed and children orphaned all in an insane lust for power. This is, for many, the image that comes to mind with the word “king.”

Sadly, for many such is the image of God. To many in the world, looking in from the outside at Christians (and other people of faith), we are perceived a religious fanatics who will sacrifice principles of gentleness and inclusivity to serve an angry God. And while there are those in all religions who serve such an image, they are most certainly wrongheaded, and if there are Christians who follow such an image of God, they have certainly misread the Gospel. For the Word of life that is set before us today, the Word that hangs on that cross proclaims something else; something very revolutionary, something very shattering, something very iconoclastic about God - namely that the one that has all power chooses not to exercise it. Rather, for the sake of his children, he joins them in their journey of life and death.

If he is the king, the messiah, if he is God, let him save himself and us, cries the “bad thief,” but by not saving himself, by not taking the crown of gold but receiving a crown of thorns, he puts his people before himself and saves them. In the Incarnation, God empties himself, assumes our humanity, suffers the worst that human beings can suffer, and separates himself from the font of his very essence, so that we might be drawn into the divine life. By making our human story his story, his divine story becomes our divine story. He joins us in the communion of earthly life, that we might join him in communion with the Father.

He is not a king who separates himself from us in palaces distant and lavish, but a king who joins us in the muck of life, in the pain of our own trials and disappointment. He draws not a sword against the enemy, but rather turns the heart of the enemy and makes the enemy his friend and redeems what his broken. He appoints a place in paradise for even the convicted thief. What then do we learn about the nature of God, about true kingship, about the king and messiah we worship and proclaim? That true kingship, and indeed all Christian leadership, is rooted in deepest humility and a love that burns even unto death. This is the nature of God and this is the life we drawn into by the cross of Christ: the life of humility, compassion, and love. To Christ our King, compassionate and kind, we ascribe our honour and love unto the end of the age. Lord Jesus, remember us when you come into your kingdom.

C. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Our Apocalyptic Hope - A Homily for Proper 33, Year C, 2010

2010-11-14T07:32:00.003-05:00

Homily for Proper 33, Year C, 2010
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Texts: Isaiah 65:17-20, Luke 21:5-19

“For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”
--Isiaiah 65:17

As the liturgical year winds its way to its conclusion, the tenor of the texts of the day begin to change. Today we feel ourselves surrounded by apocalyptic words that at once disturb and yet proclaim hope. And while it may be tempting to sidestep such words that offer frightening end-time images, it seems to me that we may be in danger of closing our eyes and shutting our ears to tidings of great joy. Yes, it is no coincidence that as the sound systems in shopping malls and television commercials have begun to ring out such tidings, the words we hear in our sacred liturgy are striking a very different tone. Indeed, as we approach the time of Our Lord’s Advent, or coming to be amongst us, we will hear words not only of a tender babe born in a stable and his mother mild, but also of a great and dreadful king who comes to judge the world. I do believe we do ourselves and the gospel an injustice when we fail to proclaim only part of the story. Perhaps this dissonance sounds loudest at this time of year when shopping mall speakers ring out carols in the midst of growing consumer frenzy.

It should be said that I am not one that gets terribly upset when the carols start playing early in the season (or even before the advent of the season!). I have a confession to make: I was always the first one in the family to pull out the Christmas LP’s (remember those?) and place a stack of them on the old hi-fi stereo (remember those?) and listen to them drop as Perry Como, Bing Crosby and so many others sang words both secular and sacred in praise of the newborn king and in celebration of the season. When the Eaton’s, or Simpson’s Christmas “wish book” would arrive my brother and I would spend hours on the floor pouring over the half dozen or so pages of toys, imagining what Christmas morning would be like with a nice selection of toys, which somehow Santa knew we wanted. The earlier the tree could go up, the better. And while selecting and cutting down the tree was a charming ritual, there was something to be said for that artificial tree we later purchased, as that meant we could start the season earlier and earlier each year. Later in life, I found myself working in retail sales, and I suppose my love of pulling out the Christmas stops early was suited well to that vocation. So you see, I don’t panic when I hear the carols playing in the mall in November. In fact, I rejoice, because they are one of the last places our faith can be proclaimed openly in the public sphere in the midst of a world that so desperately needs to hear that story.

There is another part of the story though, and that is the story we shall encounter as Advent unfolds, and they are words that call us to repentance and words that proclaim justice. The birth of a babe in Bethlehem was certainly meant to bring comfort and joy to all humankind, and especially to bring comfort, joy, and justice to the broken-hearted, the weak, the downtrodden and afflicted. Why was our Lord born into a stable in the lowliest estate? To be amongst the lowliest of God’s people. In this important detail of the Christmas story something important is revealed to us, namely, the justice of God.

And this is what apocalyptic literature is all about, the justice of God. The word “apocalypse” has become to us a frightening and foreboding word, but really, it means nothing else than “revelation.” Therefore, when we encounter apocalyptic literature as we do today in both Isaiah and Luke, we must ask ourselves what is the revelation we are receiving in these terrifying words. In Luke we hear Jesus explain how not a stone of the mightiest edifice known in Palestine, the new Temple constructed by Herod, would remain in place. Amidst the destruction of this symbol of establishment, national pride and stability, there would be dissention, war, earthquake, fire and famine. There will be prophets of hope and prophets of doom. And many will be led astray.

This sounds not unlike our own day, does it not? But of course, this is the enduring power of apocalyptic literature, in that it speaks to the angst of the people of every age. I once heard an interview with an expert in “end-times” thinking. He spoke about how the men in the trenches during the Great War, with bombs falling about them, cried out, “Is this the apocalypse?” And was it? The scholar who was being interviewed said, “of course it was, as it has been for every soldier in battle. What soldier has not cried out, ‘My God, the apocalypse is at hand!’?” Every generation witnesses the injustices of the world, the ways in which human beings treat each other, whether it be in wars, or social policy that dehumanizes the weakest amongst us, or economic systems that value capital over God’s creation, or the bottom line over human lives. Even in the details of our individual human suffering through illness, the inexplicable loss of loved ones, we witness injustice and we are prone to despair. All of us, from time-to-time, cry out, “Is this the apocalypse?”

My friends, the answer is “yes.” But we need not fear, for if the apocalypse is nothing less than a revelation of our God and of both his justice and mercy, then we can only rejoice, for the God that is being revealed is the one who comes amongst us to restore the brokenness of humanity and this world. What is more, this apocalypse, this revelation, is not simply and end-time phenomenon. I choose not to indulge in the guessing of times and dates and conditions of the ultimate return of our Lord and the consummation of history. I shall leave those things a mystery. But what I do proclaim is that God is being revealed in our midst through all our earthly days. To the conditions that seek to destroy the image of God in us, God is appearing. To the unjust systems that corrupt and destroy God’s people and God’s creation, God is appearing. To those in psychological angst, with broken spirits, or deteriorating bodies, God is appearing. It the midst of our darkest days, God is appearing. We need not wait ‘til the end; God appears now! Had we read one more verse into that little apocalypse in Luke we would have read the words, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Hearken then to the words of Isaiah, “For I am about to create a new heaven and new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or called to mind.” The kingdom of God that is breaking through, then, is one in which mercy tempers justice. The justice of God is restorative, not destructive. The call goes out to claim it; shall we our Lord’s call?

You see, my friends, God is revealing himself to us day-by-day, in the midst of troubles of this life. Each day for us, if we choose to see it, is an apocalypse. Each day, there is before us a hand that offers justice and mercy, should we wish to take it. If we listen closely, we will hear a song of justice ring out that proclaims that the things that destroy the creatures of God have no power or victory over us. If we listen closely, we hear a song of mercy that even when we have done wrong, God will welcome us home as his children.

This is why I am not worried when I hear the words of carols sung in the shopping mall in November, for they are words of revelation. They are an apocalypse that rings out in a hurting and broken world. And they are proof that God makes himself known in the unlikeliest of places and the unlikeliest of moments.

c.2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Has Anger Triumphed Over Hope? A Homily for All Souls and Remembrance Sunday

2010-11-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

A Homily for All Souls and Remembrance, 2010
Sunday, November 7th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 11:21-27

“Lord , if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
--John 11:21

Today, the threads of three different commemorations are woven together.

First we celebrate the feast day of All Souls, a time when we remember before God all those who have gone before us into the presence of God and whom we shall meet again when we all share in the Resurrection of the dead. While we remember all those who have been near and dear to us and our now on that other shore, we remember in particular those who have gone to the arms of Jesus in this past year. And so as we read those names later in the context of the Holy Eucharist, the tenderness of our hearts will certainly be touched in a special way. While it is a time to mourn our losses, it is also a time to celebrate our hope in Christ that we shall see them again in glorious resurrection bodies, with sure and certain hope that death is not the final story for them, nor for us.

A second thread, so closely woven together with the first, is the theme of Remembrance. We come to today solemnly remembering and giving thanks for those who made that ultimate sacrifice, who laid down their lives for their friends. We remember also those who offered themselves and came home, but came home forever changed. We remember even our enemies who fell in battle and lament the circumstances that made us enemies. We remember the innocent victims of all human conflict and pray to God that he will ever hold before us a different and better way. We remember our troubled past in all its moral ambiguity.

The final thread before us is the example of St. Martin of Tours, an ancient French saint who died in the year 397. It is one of the striking convergences of our secular and ecclesiastical calendars that Remembrance Day and his feast day both fall on November 11th. St. Martin was a Roman solider by profession, possibly a conscript. At some point in his early life Martin was converted to Christianity, and while he was still a catechumen (that is, one preparing for baptism) he met a poor beggar on the road. The beggar implored him to clothe him, so Martin cut his soldier’s cloak in two and gave one half to the beggar that he might be clothed. Later Martin had a vision of Christ wrapped that same half-cloak, saying, “Martin, a mere catechumen, covered me with his garment.” Martin left the army, was baptized and went on to form one of the earliest monastic communities in France.

There are times when it seems inevitable the sword must be taken up against a terrible foe, and yet there are times when Christ sets before us the frailty of our shared humanity and shows us another way. Most veterans I have ever known have wished not that we might glorify the wars in which they fought but rather that we might celebrate the peace we have known, and to work for that same peace so that we might never raise arms again. In St. Martin we meet a powerful example of just such a movement toward peace. St. Martin is the solider that stoops to help the man in need and in doing so not only demonstrates Christian compassion, but seeks eradicate one of the very causes of war, the poverty of the poor man.

At the root of most human conflict is the inhuman way we treat each other, and in particular, how we treat the most vulnerable amongst us. It is characteristic of the human condition to dehumanize the “other,” and thus we distance ourselves from all the we fear. It is the distance we place between ourselves and those who are different from us; it is the radicalization and fragmentation of peoples that comes through poverty, neglect, religious and ethnic hatred that leads us on the path of war. It is against these things that brave men reluctantly took up arms to fight. And it is against these things that Jesus stands when he sets before us the example to take the risk to reach out to those who are the most vulnerable amongst us in love and charity. By tearing his valuable cloak and handing it to the poor man, the one who was so different, the one who was so distanced from Martin in status and wealth, good St. Martin challenged the fear that drives wedges between us as peoples of this world.

The recent municipal elections here in the GTA and the mid-term elections south of the border were deeply disturbing because they were animated with so much anger. There is healthy anger, and there is righteous indignation. Any good therapist will tell you that it is good to name your anger and get it out. But if our anger is what drives us we shall never be partners in the building up of God’s kingdom. “What has happened to hope,” people are asking. Has it been replaced by anger? Anger, and its close cousin, Blaming, well always be close at hand. Indeed, out of her deep sadness and anger, Martha of Bethany blamed Jesus for her brother’s death, simply because Jesus had not come when he was called. Consider the irrationality of the anger that drives the blaming, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It’s your fault Jesus; death is your fault. Has hope been replaced by anger?

And yet we know the rest of the story, that even in the midst of the anger of Martha of Bethany, in even as she accuses Jesus, resurrection is proclaimed, and Jesus calls out “Lazarus, come forth!” and hope is restored. God repaid anger and blaming not with the sword but with new life.

God looked upon the brokenness of this world and chose not to send a flaming sword to destroy it, but rather to clothe himself in humility, in human flesh, as Jesus of Nazareth, and offer himself in vulnerability to this broken world. To those of us languishing on the side of the road, in the poverty of our humanity, suffering the nakedness of our anger, hate and prejudice, he stretched out his hands in suffering and wrapped us in the torn cloak of his divinity, that we might know his perfect peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding.

We live in an imperfect world. It is a world in which people die. It is a world in which people take up arms, out of malice to harm and out of valour to protect. This is the reality in which we live, but there is another reality which is breaking through, and that is the reality the reality of the sacred cloak in which we are wrapped that reminds us that this imperfect world is passing away and we are being enfolded in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, just as those who have gone before us, whom we remember today, have already tasted.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

What St. Paul Prays for the People of Ephesus - A Homily for All Saints, 2010

2010-10-31T08:25:00.003-04:00

Homily for All Saints’ Day, Year C, 2010 (translated)
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Ephesians 1:11-23

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
-Ephesians 1:17-18

One of the most important things that a priest is called to do is to pray for the people for whom he or she has the care of souls. The Anglican tradition is a tradition rich in prayer. In particular, Anglicans pray the form known as the Daily Office, easily recognized by those who grew up in the tradition of Mattins and Evensong as principal Sunday services. Morning and Evening prayer, offered daily, is a way of prayer shaped by the reading and recitation of Holy Scripture. When Anglicans (and Christians of other traditions who share this liturgical form) pray the Office, our prayer is rooted and grounded in the reality of Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word of God, revealed in the written Word of God. Thus, when we come to offer our intercessions and cares to God, we offer them enfolded in the words of Holy Scripture.

As we come to St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we read a text that is, in effect, a prayer. How helpful it is for us, both as clergy and laypeople, when our words grow stale or even when prayers refuse to form on our lips, to turn to Scripture, and to the Apostle in particular, to learn afresh how to pray. As St. Paul gives thanks for the Ephesians and tells them how he has heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus, he adds these words:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

Can there be any better prayer that a pastor could offer to God on behalf of his or her people? Can there be any better prayer that any of us, as faithful Christian people, could offer for our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Let us consider for a moment what these words might mean to us.

First, Paul prays that God might give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation. This life is a journey of discovery. We might recall the prayer for the newly baptized person in the baptismal liturgy in the Book of Alternative Services, “Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works” (BAS 160). It may be said that the life of the baptized Christian is the journey of discovering the beauty and holiness of God. And how do we come to know such things? Through wisdom and revelation.

On the one hand, there is so much beauty in the world that points to the majesty and greatness of God. Indeed, when asked about how people know God exists, many will simply say look at the stars, or the beauty of the autumnal leaves, or the great complexity of the natural order. In fact, many a scientist has devoted their life to the study of God’s creation because this beauty has driven them with a desire to understand the works of God. The philosopher, the theologian, the scientist, all use the god-given gift of wisdom to seek an understanding of this divinely ordered cosmos. And Paul prays for the people of Ephesus, that they might be given the Spirit of wisdom. May it also be so for all of us.

There are other things, though, that cannot be known through wisdom, reason, or study. These are things that are known only through a special revelation of God. For Christian people, the Holy Scriptures are the place through which this revelation is found. What is this revelation? It is the revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ. This is where we learn that death has no power over us, that indeed Christ has trampled down death by dying, and defeated the power of Sin that we might have life. This is where we learn that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself. For the Christians of Paul’s day this revelation came through the reading and hearing of the Hebrew Bible for signs and prophecies about Jesus, for Christians since the second century or so, it has additionally meant reading the stories of Jesus, the acts of the early church, the letters of Paul and other apostles, for their disclosure of Jesus the Christ. Paul prays for the Ephesians that God might be revealed to them. May it also be so for us.

Wisdom and Revelation, two ways to God not alternatives, but complementary, and these are things for which we ought to continue to pray for each other. But why does Paul ask for these things, and why ought we to continue to pray for them? To what end are they important? Paul continues his prayer, “that we may come to know him (Jesus) and that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened.” Sometimes the Church slips into thinking that it is a service club. Please note, I have nothing against service clubs – indeed, I belonged to one for several years – but the primary work of the Church is not about making the world a better place, but forming Christian people. The Church is a place, or more precisely, a gathering, in which we are nurtured that we might grow into the people God intends us to be. The Church is the gathering in which we pray, learn and serve. It is the gathering in which we are shaped and conformed, through the power of the Holy Spirit, into the likeness of Christ. It is where we come to know Christ and are transformed into the body of Christ. This is what Paul means by enlightenment – that they eyes of our hearts be opened that we might see who it is that we really are in Christ; that we might learn our true identity, and help others on that same journey. It is through the transformation of people, that the world is transformed.

And finally, what do we see with the eyes of hearts opened? We see hope; the hope to which we are called in Christ. This is a hope that the sadness of the world is not the thing that claims us. This is the hope that the broken promises of the world do not claim us. This is the hope that illness and indeed death are not our masters, but rather, we are claimed by a loving God whose love brings joy in the midst of sadness, healing in the midst of brokenness, and life in the midst of death. It is a hope that the world is indeed being transformed, as we hear in the Gospel today -- the poor, the mourners, the despised of the world are blessed in heart of God. With the eyes of hearts opened we see us as God sees us, as saints in light, on the road of becoming who we are in Christ Jesus.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Why it Can be Hard to Give Thanks - A Homily for Proper 28, Year C, 2010 (National Thanksgiving)

2010-10-10T08:07:00.003-04:00

Homily for Proper 28 (National Thanksgiving), Year C, 2010
Sunday, Oct 10th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 17:11-19

"Were not ten made clean?" (Luke 17:17)

There are certain seasons in our lives when it may seem that we have very little for which to give thanks. Those of us in the so-called “caring professions” know only too well that many people are in the midst of making very difficult journeys. One does not need to be a priest, or a physician, or a counselor to witness the pain that many people are experiencing. How many of us have watched marriages dissolve, or been with loved ones when they receive unwanted news of a chronic or terminal illness? Indeed, there are many amongst us who are experiencing such painful journeys, themselves. Thus, it can seem somewhat forced, or even trite, when we gather together on this particular Sunday of the year and offer thanks for all the goodness in our lives. There are seasons in our lives when we wonder what we have to give thanks for. Whenever we gather as families and friends and make merry at times of festive celebration, there will always be those who feel as though they are on the outside, not able to make merry, for the weight of the world is literally on their shoulders. We ought always to be sensitive to such a reality.

While there are times when we feel we have so little to be thankful for, there are also times when we have much to celebrate. Yet, sometimes that spirit of thanksgiving is overwhelmed by the frenzy that is brought about the thing that is the cause for celebration. I think back, for instance, to the births and infancy of our children. One cannot imagine a more wonderful gift, and yet one cannot imagine a more exhausting and frenzied time of life. It is difficult to pause and give thanks when the blessing becomes an all-consuming responsibility. I think also of someone who was without a job for many months and then finds new employment, only to be overwhelmed with the workload, and the stress of allocating the new income to pay down accumulated debt. Sometimes the joyous things in life can distract us from taking the time to offer a word of thanks.

On the way to Jerusalem, ten lepers approach Jesus, calling out to him, but keeping their distance. Now, the leper of Jesus’ time was an outcast, ritually unclean, and was required to announce his or her presence in a loud voice in order that others might not be rendered ritually impure by coming into contact with them. This is why these particular people call out to Jesus from a distance to have mercy upon them. In this particular case (unlike many of his other healings) Jesus does not touch them, or even proclaim them cured, he simply tells them to go and present themselves to the priests, those who can judge the purity or impurity of any given person. To their great surprise, in hearing this simple instruction, they have been made clean. One of the ten, a Samaritan, thus doubly outcast as he was from a derided race of people, returned to Jesus, knelt down and thanked him; and what of the other nine? Jesus ponders this question with the one that remained; were not ten made well? Why has only one given thanks?

Why did the Samaritan, alone, offer thanks?

Jesus’ words have often been taken as a condemnation of the other nine, but I wonder if this is really the case? Perhaps Jesus has recognized, posing a rhetorical question, that it is not always easy to give thanks. Consider for a moment, the plight of these ten individuals: they had been ostracized and cast out from their society, unable to participate in public life and unable to participate in religious observance at the Jerusalem Temple. They called out for mercy, and they received mercy. Jesus healed them. The healing they truly sought, though, was not simply the restoration of failing bodies, but a kind of social healing, a restoration and reintegration into their society and their religion. Having tasted that possibility, would you or I not do as they did and rush to participate and be a part of the thing from which they had so long been excluded. They sought healing and restoration, and their enthusiasm for what they received was a sort of lived out thanksgiving.

We must probe more deeply, though. Was thanksgiving even required of them? After all, they did exactly what Jesus told them to do – go and show yourselves to the priests. They did not look back, but did what they were told. Is it not somewhat unfair then for Jesus to criticize them for not coming back to offer a word of thanks?

The nine are not unlike most of us, who when having the tide go our way for a change, take full advantage of our good luck and plunge headlong into the stuff of life. I am sure they had thankful hearts because they went forth so enthusiastically.

What that one person in ten realized, though, was that the giver and the gift were one and the same. What that one leper realized was that what Jesus had given him was the opportunity to connect, to no longer be alone or isolated. The other nine plunged headlong into the world, but the last one plunged headlong into God. He realized that he did not need to run off to see the priests to cross the boundary from clean to unclean, from outcast to friend, the opportunity was standing before him. He approached Jesus, knelt down and worshiped him. The boundary that seemed impossible to cross was crossed. The divisions were healed. As he made contact with Jesus, this man was reconciled with God and with his society.

Sometimes, the thankfulness of an entire community is carried in the prayers of a single person.

Illness, broken relationships, bereavement, losses of all kinds, estrangement from friends, all have the potential to isolate us from each other, and in doing so lead us to believe that we are isolated from God. But as much as we may feel this to be true, it is not the case. In isolating us from each other, these pieces of brokenness and loss would have us believe that we are alone and without aid or succour. But this is emphatically not true. God is with us always, and God is always stretching out his healing hand to us in Jesus Christ. And while the body may give way, and while others around us may fall away, God is ever and always enveloping us in love, proclaiming to us that we are not alone, or isolated or without hope. Even more, God is always working to restore us amidst our brokenness to community and to those around us.

Claiming the blessing is often thanksgiving enough. Jesus didn’t recall the other nine and take their healing back. That they were restored to health and wholeness in the community was enough. They could be forgiven for forgetting the formal “thank-you.” Yet, once in a while, when we recognize the blessing, something stirs within us to turn around and glance back, and if we take that moment to do so, we will see a smiling Jesus, delighting in the work of healing, restoration and reconciliation. And seeing the joy on his face, the divine gift of thanksgiving stirs in our hearts, and forms on our lips, and then what could dare stop us from falling down and giving thanks and praise to God?

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Restless Hearts - A Homily for Harvest Thanksgiving, 2010

2010-10-03T07:54:00.001-04:00

Homily for Harvest Thanksgiving, 2010
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 6:25-35

“I am the bread of life.”
-John 6:35

Toward the end of the fourth century, St. Augustine began his spiritual autobiography with these words: “O Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” It is in the make-up of every human being to long after God and to seek communion with the one who created us and has loved us from before our births. That is why we gather in these buildings, whether they be modeled on Roman public buildings or eighteenth century tents: we come to meet God.

There is so much about our church life, though, that seems distant from God, possibly because there is so much work to do in church. Is it possible, that from time to time as we go about the “business of church” that we mistake the work we do as the substance of our religion? And that we mistake our work as the foundation of our relationship with the God our hearts so long to seek? Of course, I do not wish to suggest that the work we do is of no value, nor do I wish to suggest that it is not holy work. Yet, it must be stated that sometimes the work overwhelms us and we can forget why we are here. Consequently, in all the exhaustion that occurs we may feel farther away from God than ever before, and that God is not in this place but inhabiting some distant realm that is inaccessible to ordinary folk like you and me. Then comes the question we inevitably ask: Why am I here? This is not the existential question of life and death -- although such undertones may be present -- but rather, why do I bother to come to this place every week?

Why do we bother, indeed?

In the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, the crowd goes looking for Jesus and finds him on the other side of the sea. A conversation ensues in which they reflect back to an incident in the first part of the chapter in which Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes to feed a multitude. As the conversation unfolds, they ask Jesus “what must we do to perform the works of God?” Ah, that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question we all seek answered, is it not? What must I do? Just tell me what to do, and I will do it! Those gathered around Jesus are so willing to do God’s will, if they only he would tell them what to do and how to do it.

But the gospel of Christ is not self-help therapy. Any preacher can get up and give you three nice points which tell you three tasks that you can carry out and go home and then you will be close to God. How is it though, that after hearing three points, and perhaps even trying three tasks, that we feel no closer to God than when asked the question in the first place? We put our noses to the grind stone -- doing, doing, doing … and yet we are no closer to God.

It is not what we do though, that makes us capable of touching the divine, rather it is what God does, in Christ Jesus. That is why when the people ask Jesus, “what must we do?” He responds simply, “Believe.” The answer seems so simple, but then we are prompted to ask, “what are we to believe? Show us a sign!” Jesus had, of course, already given them a sign – bread in the wilderness, multiplied beyond imagination and filling every empty person. Upon recalling this, they suddenly realized that this was like the time that the Israelites were given Manna in the wilderness while following Moses. But Jesus reminds them that it was not Moses that gave them bread, but God who gave them bread. Then, he delivered the real truth to them with these words, “I am the bread of life.”

I am the bread of life. What could this mean for them? What does this mean for us? Simply this: for all the groping in the wilderness that we do, it is God who comes to us. Our hearts are indeed restless, and we can search about for God by joining committees, committing to self-help disciplines heard from people like me in a pulpit, signing up for one more task we have not the time or effort to carry out, but none of these things bring us closer to God; it is God who moves closer to us in Christ Jesus. God is constantly in motion toward us. God is constantly seeking us out. If our hearts are restless for God, it is because God is calling to us, longing for us, desiring after us. God is seeking to touch our lives and so within us comes that deep longing God, on our own part, of which St. Augustine spoke.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and these words are meant not only for that crowd two thousand years ago for they continue to speak directly to us today. These words are a claim that God the Father is not a distant far away reality in some netherworld; rather, God the Father is a deeply caring God who feeds his people with bread – not just any bread but the bread of life, Jesus Christ our Lord. In Jesus Christ, God is present and indeed, we feed on him. He is the nourishment that enables life not only in this world but in the next. When we approach the altar and take the bread of the sacrament in our hands, we truly hold the body of our Lord, the bread of life. And when we take that bread within us as our nourishment for everlasting life, we truly feed on our Lord, and the restless heart at last finds its home. We are thus assured of the reality that the old prayer of thanksgiving proclaims so clearly, “that we may every more dwell in him, and he in us.”

What, you may ask, has any of this to do with a celebration of Thanksgiving and Harvest? Much indeed! The very sacramental act that enlivens our shared liturgical life is called “thanksgiving”, the meaning of the Greek word “Eucharist.” We give thanks that God offers himself to us. We give thanks that God is restless until he gathers all his children home. We give thanks that God relentlessly pursues us. And we give thanks that he has made the calming of our restless hearts, our mystic sweet communion, possible in Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.

Thus, the work we share in this community is not about “keeping a church going,” much less doing holy things that we might be closer to God – for these things can only lead to our spiritual, emotional and physical exhaustion – rather, the work we share in community is the proclamation of our joy and thanksgiving that God has reached out to us and made our relationship with him possible, and not just possible, but a reality! Feeding on our Lord who is present and nourishing us into the depths of our hearts, we shall not hunger or thirst, or find ourselves weary, for this work of belief is an expression of our thanksgiving that it is not through our effort but God’s effort that we have a relationship with God. To proclaim this belief in word and deed is to proclaim our joy and thanksgiving that God is indeed present here in this place and in that presence he is transforming this wonderful world from glory to glory. Thanks be to God for calling restless hearts into his presence.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

God Longs to be with Us - A Homily for Back to Church Sunday, 2010

2010-09-26T10:30:00.001-04:00

A Homily for Back to Church Sunday, 2010
Sunday, Sept 26th, 2010
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 19:1-10

“A man was there named Zacchaeus.”
-Luke 19:2

It was a new beginning for the man called Zacchaeus.

Now, this Zacchaeus was certainly not the most popular fellow in town; he was, after all, a tax collector. And if our present day tax man has a bad reputation, it was all the much worse in those ancient times when tax men earned their pay by either skimming as much as they could off the top of the tax bill, or extorting citizens for unjust fees. Is it any wonder then that when Jesus came through town and the crowds gathered round, that no one would let Zacchaeus through to the front of the crowd? Zacchaeus was an outcast. As folk pressed in around Jesus, perhaps to see him perform a miracle, perhaps to feel his healing touch, or perhaps to hear Good News spoken into the darkness of the moment, Zacchaeus was squeezed out.

You have to give him credit, though. As the crowds surrounded Jesus, Zacchaeus, who was short of stature, ran up ahead and found a tree to climb. Once above the crowd, he at last caught a glimpse of Jesus, and then, something remarkable happened. Jesus spotted him and called to him! Somehow, Jesus knew him and called to him and uttered the surprising words, “Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down; for I must stay at your house today!” One can only imagine the silence that fell upon the crowd, a crowd that was pressing in around Jesus, longing to be close to the Messiah. One can only imagine the looks old Zacchaeus received when the Lord spotted him in the tree and called to him. But in spite of what others might have thought, Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Jesus into his home.

It was a new beginning.

I think all of us need new beginnings from time-to-time. Is there anyone amongst us who has never felt that they have not been included, or that they have been cast aside, or that they have been forgotten? Perhaps, like Zacchaeus, we might have a job to do for which we are disliked or outcast. Perhaps, we just don’t feel like we are as important as other people; maybe we just don’t have enough money, or enough status. Perhaps conflict or disappointments have made us feel as though even going to “catch a glimpse” of that parade everyone else is attending is not even worth the effort. Discouragement can enslave us to loneliness and despair. In all of this we, ourselves, are often outcasts.

But, by God’s grace, it is in those very moments that something stirs within us: perhaps we should just take a little look, maybe sneak a little glance, just to see what is happening on the other side of the crowd. As we move a little closer, we know something is happening, and our curiosity stirs us to peer above or through the crowd, and it is at that moment, as we catch a glimpse of him, that Jesus calls our name.

A new beginning.

When it seems that all is lost, Jesus calls our name. When we feel as though we have been abandoned, Jesus calls our name. When we feel that we are outcast and have nothing left to give, Jesus calls our name. And what does he say? Let me come home with you today. At our lowest ebb, when all others fall away, Jesus says, “I want to be with you!”

Let me come home with you today. I want to be with you. As these words penetrate our hearts and break through the disappointment and discouragement of our lives; as these words penetrate our loneliness, we begin to awaken to a startling reality, that we are not alone and never have been alone; that we are not lost and have never been lost! God has searched us out and found us. He has searched us out through all the changes and chances of this life. He has journeyed with us through all our winding roads, but it is only in our recognition that we need him that our eyes our opened to the reality of his divine and abiding presence. It the moment of our deepest longing, we push through that crowd, and our eyes meet his. Before we even get a chance to speak, he speaks to us, and calls to us by name: Let me come home with you today.

A new beginning.

When Jesus calls Zacchaeus’s name, he is changed; he is transformed. He no longer defrauds the poor, and he seeks to make reparation for his wrongs, but most importantly, Zacchaeus is turned from despair to hopefulness, and from sadness to joy. His encounter with Jesus, and his recognition that Jesus longs to be with him, empowers him to long to be with Jesus. Indeed, through this simple encounter, Christ is formed in Zacchaeus.

As we press forward to meet Jesus through the crowdedness of our lives, from our places of disappointment and our moments of brokenness, we can hear him call our names. As he calls to us with the words, “Let me come home with you today,” we realize that we have been found by God and indeed, that we have never been alone. My friends, God longs to be with us both as individuals and as a community, and with that realization comes for us a new beginning.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

A Farewell Homily for the People of Holy Trinity, Thornhill - Proper 26, Year C, 2010

2010-09-19T14:48:00.002-04:00

Homily for Proper 26, Year C, 2010
Sunday, Sept 19th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Psalm 91

“He who dwells under the shelter of the Most High, abides under the shadow of the Almighty.”
Psalm 91:1

For nearly four years now, this parish has been taking stock of its health through a tool called “Natural Church Development” or “NCD”. Part of the NCD process is a survey in which parishioners have the opportunity to reflect on key aspects of our shared life in this community. One of the many questions asked is, “Do you believe God will work powerfully in this parish in the next five years?”

Sadly, this question sometimes elicits a very negative response. It may be because changing demographics make us wonder if the parish has future viability. Where are the young people? And indeed, where are all the Anglicans? It may be in part because such language of “powerful works of God,” seems much more in accord with images of faith-healing and televangelists, and distant from the experience of this worshiping community. It may also be that sometimes, we simply forget about God as we go about the “stuff” of Church.

Today is my last Sunday with this community and as I prepare to take my leave, I wish to state, even proclaim, without reservation, that I believe God will indeed work powerfully in this community in the next five years. How do I know this? Why do I believe it? I know it and believe it because I have seen it.

It has been my great privilege to have journeyed with this parish for the past three years. It has been a privilege not only because you have welcomed me into your lives and into your hearts, but also because this is a community in which the flame of the living God burns. For one hundred and eighty years God has worked powerfully in this community, drawing first a pioneer people together, later calling the descendents of those same people to take the risk of faith and move this very building to its current location, and is still calling us today to be a city set up on a hill, a light to the world.

That is, of course, the grand sweep of our narrative in Thornhill. There are a myriad of personal stories, though – stories of faith that stand as monuments to the power of our God here in this place. In three short years, a blip in the life of this parish, I have witnessed the power of God working amongst you. God is alive and working powerfully in this place. Perhaps we have to become a little better about sharing these “sightings” as there are many to be shared. Of the many “sightings” I have witnessed, here is one: This past Thursday I had lunch for one last time with our Holy Trinity Quilters. To sit with these wonderful ladies has been a source of weekly joy and encouragement for me. And as I looked around that table, I saw the power and the love of Jesus Christ reigning and shining rays into our broken world. These women are sisters who have upheld each other through sickness, through the death of loved ones, through retirements, through difficult moves, through challenges and disappointments. Week by week they gather in faithful service to each other and to this church, and break bread together. Here is the miracle: Things that would have been too much to bear for one person alone, are lifted and shared, and carried together. How is this possible? Because there in the midst of this love, in the breaking of the bread, Jesus Christ is Risen. Christ has knit these people together and in the midst of much challenge, they have found joy and love in the company of sisters. Alleluia, the Lord is Risen indeed!

This is but one sighting; I could cite so many others. As emails and phone calls have poured in with words of encouragement and farewells, my mind has gone to the intimate pastoral moments I have shared with so many – both the moments of joy when health is restored, new jobs are found, friends and families are reconciled, and also the moments when death comes, or jobs have been lost, or families and friends have fallen away. But I can say with all my heart that I have witnessed the faithfulness of God in all these things; so many sightings. Our Lord is walking with us. Clergy will come and clergy will go, but God has never and will never leave this place. In the days ahead, I would commend you together and as members of your various smaller groups, to consider the sightings of God you have witnessed in your time in this community.

To be sure, any time of transition is a time of anxiety, but be comforted by the truth the psalmist proclaims, “You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” For one hundred and eighty years, the Most High has made this wonderful place a stronghold for all who put their trust in Him. God is here, and working powerfully in the stories of your lives. Never forget this. I am reminded of the words of that old Christmas carol, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day,” and its culminating verse which has the words, “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead nor doth he sleep!” The presence of God is not contingent on any priest. It is not contingent on the perfect congregational development program. It is not contingent on committees, or wardens, or advisory boards or by-laws or church canons. In fact, I believe it is not contingent at all. God has chosen to dwell here, to work powerfully here, to claim this people, to claim you, as his own. Never forget this. Need you then be afraid? What is there to fear? There is no arrow that flies by day, nor any terror of the night that can break the hand of God. God is your refuge; put your trust in Him.

Next week, it is my hope and prayer that each one of you will invite a friend to join you. Bishop Bill and I are perfectly aware that a time of transition is a strange time to expect anyone to come “back to church.” And the temptation will be, of course, to say “maybe next year, when things get back to normal, when we have a new priest, when things settle down.” But my friends, God is here now! We don’t invite friends back to church to boost our numbers or to save the church (saving the church is God’s job, after all, not ours), but rather we invite friends to church because God is here! We invite friends to church because we believe that God is alive, that God is present, and that God, through the power of the cross of Jesus Christ and his glorious resurrection, changes lives. Did you notice that word “change?” That’s right, God changes things. God is here and working powerfully in this time transition. While it has the potential to be a time of anxiety, God sees it as a time to act and changes lives.

So I thank Christ my God, and each of you, for allowing me to begin my ordained ministry amongst at Holy Trinity, in a place where God is working mighty acts of power every day. Keep your eyes peeled for his surprises, take his mighty hand, and allow yourselves to feel the warmth of his loving embrace during this time of transition, and from but a short distance, I believe I will hear word of God’s mighty acts in the parish of Holy Trinity, Thornhill.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

There are no Write-offs with God - A Homily for Proper 24, Year C, 2010

2010-09-12T07:01:00.005-04:00

Homily for Proper 24, Year C, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 15:1-10

"What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"
--Luke 15:8

I am a terrible one for losing or misplacing things. Sometimes I am so preoccupied by other matters that after making a cup of tea I will place the sugar in the refrigerator and the milk in the cupboard. Athena doesn’t even need to ask me any more where these things are. After fifteen years of marriage, she has learned how my distracted mind works.

I used to have a little leather change purse that my grandmother made for my grandfather. After he died she gave it to me. I treasured it very much, but sadly, one day I lost it, never to be found again. This brings me to my current problem. I am constantly losing pocket change in the chairs, in the couch, and in the car. One day this week I got out of the car, carrying an armful of things, and loose change came out of my pockets onto the ground, and a penny rolled under the car. It was raining, so I quickly gathered up most of the change, but decided I wasn’t going to get down on my hands and knees for a penny and rushed into the church. Some things just don’t seem to be worth going after.

When I was manager of the Anglican Book Centre at Church House, I learned a great deal from the General Synod’s Treasurer, a wonderful man named Jim who had the most impressive Scottish accent. When we would take inventory and come up with the discrepancy list, and begin the search for what was lost, he taught us that certain things must be found and accounted for (namely things of great value) and that there were other things (like little trinkets) that were simply “not material.” Some things just weren’t going after. That day as I dropped that change, the penny under the car just seemed to be “not material.”

I think most of us have had moments when we have realized that we have just needed to cut our losses in some way or another. There are some things that are not worth going after. This need not be limited to tangible things. There may be dreams that we have needed to let go of or hopes that we must leave unfulfilled. To return to the old accounting terminology, there are many things we may just need to “write off.”

How fortunate we are then, to have a God that does not believe in “write-offs.” The God we worship deems all of us, and indeed all his creation, of infinite value. When I hear those parables, parables of lost sheep, lost coins, and a third parable about a certain lost son that follows immediately on today’s texts, I wonder if I would go and search for that one coin in ten, or one sheep in a hundred that was lost. I wonder if, having taken inventory, I would count the loss as “not material” and “write it off” grateful for what I still had. Jesus suggests to the Pharisees that they would of course go after what was lost. But I wonder if hearing his words they might share similar thoughts to my own and begin questioning whether or not they would really seek out what was lost. At first glance, it because this parable contains a question directed at the Pharisees (“who among you would not go searching?”), it would appear that the parable is a moral lesson about what we should do and how we should act. When I think about how I would act though, and the pennies that I have left under the car, and the “write-offs” that are strewn about my life, I doubt I can live up to such a standard.

But, upon deeper reflection, the story is less about what we would do and more about what God does. These are parables meant to instruct us on the nature of God. And as we consider the text more closely, we realize that Jesus does not intend for us to align ourselves with the one who does the seeking but as the one being sought out! Recognizing that more than likely, we would not seek out what is lost, our attention turns to what has been lost and in what is lost we begin to see our own story. We are not the Pharisees, whom Jesus questions, but the lost sheep, the lost coin, or the lost son.

Who amongst us has not felt left behind or misplaced or discarded at some moment or another by those in whom we placed our trust. Oh, this feeling can come in so many ways – the unexpected news that we have been downsized; the breakdown of a marriage and impact that has on family members; the death of one dearly loved; or more to the point of the parable, when we have done something that we dearly regret that has isolated us from others. So many situations may leave us feeling abandoned or unimportant. More than once I have felt like a “write-off.” I expect this is true for others as well. We are the lost sheep, the lost coin.

The Good News is that God relentlessly pursues that one sheep in a hundred, that one in coin in ten, that penny under the car, that misplaced trinket, that forlorn lonely one, and yes, even and especially, the sinner. There is not one that is not precious in sight. We deal not with a distant, aloof God, but with one who, in the person of Jesus Christ, chose to walk amongst us through the uncertainty of life and seek us out when hearts are broken and mistakes are made. A lost coin, a lost sheep, a lost soul, these are all precious in his sight. God longs deeply and everlastingly to enfold each and every one of us in the embrace of divine love.

This is a love that brings about reconciliation in the midst of conflict, comfort in the midst of loss, and healing in the midst of brokenness. It is a love offered unto death and yet is more powerful than death, for it is a love that broke the chains of death in the Resurrection of our Lord. It is a love that scours creation for what is lost and restores it to glory. There is no coin of so small a denomination that it matters not to the Lord. There is no sinner with so great a sin that God’s love cannot redeem. The lamp of God shines into the darkest corners and finds us shedding rays of hope and love.

Thus in moments when we feel most alone, fear not, for there are no “write-offs” in the Kingdom of God.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Can't Get No Satisfaction? - A Homily for Proper 17, Year C, 2010

2010-07-25T07:39:00.002-04:00

Homily for Proper 17, Year C, 2010
Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Colossians 2:6-19

“Continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
--Colossians 2:6-7

There is an old country and western song that my grandfather used to sing that went a little something like this:

How many times have you heard someone say:
if I had his money,
I’d do thing my way.
But little do they know,
it’s so hard to find,
one rich man in ten,
with a satisfied mind.

This old song has stuck with me over the years, perhaps because I have so often identified with its sentiment; and if its not about having more money, its about leading a different life, following a different path, about living somewhere else, or being someone else. If rock and roll is more to your taste, perhaps the Rolling Stones said it well, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” How hard it is to be satisfied with who we are and the life we have. I suppose that we all long for something new or different because the journey we make in this life is not always an easy one. Truly, there are moments that can be unbearable.

But there is also joy.

Today marks the completion of three wonderful years for me here at Holy Trinity, and it has been my privilege to journey with so many of you through the changes and chances of this life, and I have certainly journeyed with many of you through very difficult moments. To take one area of parish life, my time here has been marked with more funerals than I would have ever expected. What a privilege it continues to be to journey with you in such intimate moment, but oh, the pain that has been experienced and shared on the journey. In such moments in which we lose those nearest and dearest to us, is it not natural that we should wish to be anywhere other than where we are?

There are so many other painful journeys that I have witnessed. As a community and as individuals we all face the pain and fear of transition, whether it be lost jobs, unexpected illnesses, expected and unexpected deaths, or the moving away of dearly beloved friends, sometimes it can all be a bit too much to take. Our gaze may be distracted for a moment by others for whom the world and their life in it are going so well that we might wish, for a moment at least, that we had their life and their place in the world, instead of our own. It can be awfully difficult to be satisfied with our own lot when we see others doing so well and living in such abundant happiness. It is the age-old question, “why me?”

The truth is, that our lives are all punctuated with moments of joy and moments of sorrow, moments of hope and moments of regret. As a priest in this place what a wonderful privilege it is to be invited into all sorts of moments and all types of joys and sorrows. I constantly remind myself of this privilege and give thanks to God for it, and for each of you.

In nearly all of Paul’s letters (he did have the occasional angry slip), he began by giving thanks to God for the people he had been called to serve. We often gloss over these words of thanksgiving, and what a shame that is. Paul’s joy and thanksgiving for his people suggests something profound about the Christian life, because Paul had cause more than any to wish for another lot in life, and to be fair, he did sometimes express a wish to be done with the hardships of this life. On at least one occasion, he stated that he longed to depart this life, to be rid of its afflictions, and to be with Christ. Paul tells us that he lived with a “thorn in his flesh” – code for some kind of physical disability. Paul, who has been held in such esteem by generations of Christians, was really an ordinary sort of fellow, who knew something of pain and loss, who was prone to lose his temper, and wrestled with his own faith, as the inconsistencies of his thought often reveal. Yet, amidst his own brokenness and ever so fragile humanity, he was sure of something: Paul was confident that in the midst of all life’s mess, his life and hope was founded on Christ. He believed this about his own life and he believed it about the lives of those he loved and served, and this was the source of his joy and thanksgiving.

A life and hope founded on Christ. How hard for us this is to believe when we face the troubles of this life. During troubled times, when we are most dissatisfied indeed with what life has thrown at us, it is much easier to long to be somewhere else and pray for a different life. How normal this is, and how perfectly human it is. Yet, in all my journeys with people through their brokenness and grief, how consistently have I seen the light of Christ shine brightly into their lives and warm their failing hearts! When we would expect to see all hope disappear that is when hope reveals itself. This is when Christ is known amongst the people of God. I know, for I have seen it time and again, and like Paul, I give thanks to God for it.

In the middle of our longing to be somewhere else, God, in Christ Jesus, longs to be with us. When we turn to run away, God turns and runs toward us. When we run to the darkest room to hide, the door opens and our Lord unexpectedly appears. Where there is a tomb, instead we find verdant pastures green where life springs forth eternally. In deepest darkness a light chooses to shine and cast away the darkness.

In the entirety of Paul’s writings, suffering and joy are always mingled together. There is nowhere else to be other than where we are, for when we are in Christ, Christ is never “somewhere else,” but always and ever “here” with us.

To this end Paul reminds us, “to continue our lives in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Paul can say this because God roots himself in us in Christ Jesus. The Christian God, our Christ, is not one that is distant or far away, but one that dwells amongst us, rooting himself in humanity itself, building up the lives of his people, and establishing himself in our hearts. Can we be other than thankful for this grace and love?

This grace and love does not make the mess of life go away, but rather gives us a friend and a hope when the mess seems so lonely and hopeless. Furthermore, that grace and love is a sign of the grace and love that is yet to be known in the fullness of God’s kingdom – but that is for later. For now, we are not without that grace and love, and amidst the toils and snares of this life, that’s all the satisfaction any of us need. Would we wish for anything else?

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
(the song satisfied mind was written by Jack Rhodes and Joe Hayes)

In Him All Things Hold Together - A Homily for Proper 16, Year C, 2010

2010-07-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

Homily for Proper 16, Year C, 2010
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Colossians 2:15-28

“…and in him, all things hold together.”
--Col. 2:17

During times of transition and change, we may be apt to feel that things can so easily spin out of control. As we move from a well-established reality into a place of uncertainty, we may feel a certain anxiety about the future. We may at once ask questions like, will all we hold dear be respected by those who follow? At the same time, we might wonder if those who follow will have the courage to chart a new and necessary course for the future? Will I be able to be a part of that future? These and many other uncertainties fill our heads and our hearts and we wonder, wonder, wonder.

To feel anxiety about the unknown is, of course, to be human. Thus, through a time of transition we need to be gentle with each other, as anxiety is known to fuel tension, and tension to fuel conflict. We need to bear each other with love and patience as we journey through the uncertain waters of change.

Each of us will find ourselves at different places on this vast sea of transition. There will be some who will stand before the waters and say, I’m not very good at swimming and I’m not sure that I trust that boat – I think I’ll drive around the lake. There will be others that will not have even noticed the boat and have jumped in and started their marathon swim to the other side. There will be still others who climb aboard the sailing vessel on the sea of change and as the wind fills the sails, revel in the breeze that blows in their face. And perhaps as storms brew on that lake there will be some who take charge and steer it through tempestuous waters. Likewise, there will be others that prefer to take refuge in the safety of the hold. On the sea of transition there will be many and various ways of making the voyage, and I remind you all, to be gentle with each other and honour the way each person makes the journey.

In the diversity of ways in which we make that journey across an uncertain sea, it may seem to us that the community slips apart, loses its focus and cohesion, as each person takes up that journey in their own way. This may produce a further anxiety - that the whole world is falling apart. Let us remember that our community will not be the first to make such a journey; countless are the numbers that have gone before us.

Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt to a promised land. The journey was not easy, and there was much anxiety, and much struggle. Centuries later the same people sojourned many years in exile before they returned home, and there was much anxiety, and much struggle. And through the ages people have journied and people have struggled with the anxiety that the journey of change brings. One hundred and eighty years ago some faithful Christians built a little white church on a hill, and God only knows the struggles and anxieties they had that are now forgotten to us. Sixty years ago, descendents of those faithful people picked up their church, board by board, in the midst of much struggle and anxiety, and replanted their holy place here on this soil.

So yes, we are part of a long line of sojourners who have journeyed through anxiety and fear. We look about us today, and see very few young people in our midst. We look about our community and see some very dramatic demographic shifts that have occurred in the last twenty years. We wonder and ponder if the next priest who comes will be able to lead us into the Promised Land where anxiety and fear and struggle will be no more. But if we are to learn anything from our ancestors, it is that anxiety and struggle are but a part of our earthly journey, and that the sea of transition, while we may have moments of rest on the shore, is part of the world in which we inhabit. So then, if anxiety, struggle, transition and change are all part and parcel of this life, what hope do we have?

There is another journey that has been made.

It is a journey that was filled with more anxiety and struggle than any journey of any people in any time or age. It is the journey that begins in a stable in Bethlehem, that reaches its dramatic intensity in the halls of a Roman governor and an unjust trial, that climaxes in a brutal execution on hill far away, and finds its dramatic resolution in a empty garden tomb, a risen man, an ascended and glorified Lord.

That journey gives shape to all the journeys we take in this earthly pilgrimage. As the people of God may seem to be going off in every direction, we are reminded by Paul, that “Christ is the head of the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead.” He is our captain on the journey and “he holds all things together.” Thus, we need not fear the anxiety and struggle of the journey, for our captain is in control. He rules the waves and the winds, and he shall bear his people across stormy waters whether they swim, whether they sail, or whether they drive around the sea; he shall bear them up.

He has journeyed with us through our deepest uncertainty and in our deepest anxiety, namely the grave and beyond, shall the earthly journeys that lie ahead be too much for him to captain? I think not. Therefore, I say to you this day, let him lead you. The one who has led you this far will not abandon or forsake you on your way. As he led a people long ago to a promised land, and as he has led countless Christians, and in particular, the ancestors of this place, so he leads us again. Do you see him at the helm? He is there, and in him the fullness of God dwells in our midst. Under his banner we go forward and he will ensure that we shall indeed continue, “securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that we have heard.”

c. the Rev. Daniel F. Graves, 2010

Bear One Another's Burdens - A Homily for Proper 14, Year C, 2010

2010-07-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

Homily for Proper 14, Year C, 2010
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Galatians 6:1-16

“Bear one another’s burdens and this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”--Galatians 6:2

The Galatian community was one that was torn apart by a religious conflict. Paul had proclaimed to them a gospel of freedom, a gospel that did not entail keeping the Law of Moses. It came as a great surprise to him therefore that after his departure, certain teachers began instructing the Galatians that they needed to conform to Jewish Law in order to be fully Christian. It is likely that this community was originally a gentile community who had not previously kept the commandments of the Torah. What infuriated Paul so much was that he had proclaimed a Gospel of freedom, only to find that it was being replaced by the burden of further religious requirements. How could the people of that community so quickly abandon the freedom they found in the gospel he preached? In the end, Paul does not care so much about whether or not taking on the requirements of Torah is a good or bad thing, for in many ways, he suggests that it is a matter indifferent, for “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision are anything,” he declares, “but a new creation is everything!” Rather, he was deeply concerned to the point of anger because the new creation was being obscured with absolutist claims by the judaizing faction about what were actually non-essential conditions for receiving the gospel of Christ.

This first century argument is, at first glance, far removed from us today. It is unlikely that any of us shall ever consider the keeping of the Jewish law as a prerequisite for Christian faith. Yet, if we consider more generally the problem that Paul was addressing, we realize that it is not so far from our door. Paul was speaking about the burdens we place upon ourselves in order that we might live out our faith. He is speaking about self-imposed prerequisites to Christianity that obscure its purpose rather than fulfill it. Such prerequisites are characteristically manifested in ethical terms, such as “I need to be a better person to follow Jesus,” or framed negatively, “I musn’t be a good Christian because I am having trouble loving my enemy, much less my neighbour.” These formulations come at things in entirely the wrong way. Of course, I hate my neighbour, they never cut their grass and their dandelions seed on my lawn. I hate them every time I look out my window at that mess of a yard of theirs! If loving your neighbour, much less your enemy, were a prerequisite to being a Christian we would have no Christians in the world, or at least no honest Christians. But thankfully, the gospel of Christ is not about what I can do for Christ, but what Christ does for me, and more profoundly, what Christ does for us as a people, and for the world.

And what does Christ do?

He lifts the burden that the world places upon us and the burdens that we place upon each other and ourselves. This was the problem in Galatia: not only were new teachers placing new burdens upon the Church of Galatia, but the Galatians were happily taking on these new burdens! Ah, ever it is so in the Church. There is always more work to be done, more committees on which to volunteer, more burdens we can carry as individuals and as a church. Oh, the temptation of it all, and we are so sure it will make us better Christians. And yet, when all is said and done, we are anything but a new creation. We emerge tired, exhausted, angry and cynical. The question we must stop to ask, though, is “is this what Christ wants of me.” For Paul, the answer is an emphatic “no!” What Christ wants is to lift that burden from our shoulders, that he might raise us up to a new and better way of being, to a place where his service is perfect freedom.

At Holy Trinity, as we journey into this new time, awaiting the arrival of a new rector, the uncertainty of the future can be a burden, but it need not be so if we listen to Paul and allow our Lord to take that burden upon himself. One can feel the anxiety as we enter this new time, and yet, how that anxiety lifts when we let God carry the burden. As we let go of the burden, it then remarkable to look around our community and recognize that no single one of us needs to carry the burden of the future. We look around our community and we recognize that God has imparted all the gifts necessary in the Church for the facing of these days! What is a burden to the one may be the joy of another. By letting Christ bear our burdens he enlivens a holy vocation amongst his people, for in the body of Christ we share in the work of bearing one another’s burdens. Instead of taking on a greater load as individuals, as the community, as the body of Christ, we look upon those who cannot stand under the weight and we shoulder it with them. In such a manner, the load, the burden dissipates and Christ is made known amongst his people.

The burdens we carry as human beings are unbearable on our own. Whether it is the burden of caring for a spouse, child, or parent who is sick, or if it is the burden of mistakes we have made or wrongs we have done, we wilt under the weight of such things -- things put upon us, and things brought upon us through our own sinfulness. And then there is the weight of change and all the uncertainty it brings. Ultimately the day will come when we stand in front of our judge, as Paul says, “carrying our load.” I know that if I am to be judged by how well I carry that load, I will not be counted worthy of the task. But as Christian people, another hope, another reality, is set before us. It is a heavenly reality. It is the reality of the Kingdom of God in which my load is not mine to bear alone, for it is Christ who bears it for me and with me. Christ lifts the load of the weight that the world sets upon me, and lifts the load of the weight of my own failings, my own regret, and my own sinfulness and carries it to the cross where that weight is crucified and buried. As a stone is rolled in front of that tomb where that terrible weight is laid to rest, so also a stone is rolled away, and from that tomb emerges a new creation. The new creation that emerges is the body of Christ, the faithful of the Church who embody the freeing work of Christ in their common ethic of bearing each other’s burdens. When the weight becomes too much for the one, it is crucified and buried, as the community, the body of Christ, takes that weight upon itself in selfless love. We do not need to bear the weight alone, for Christ is ever with us in the gathering of his faithful people, and ever drawing us together that we might not only bear each other’s burdens but bear one another, in Christ-like love.

C. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Who am I that I Could Hinder God? - A Homily for Easter 5, Year C, 2010

2010-05-02T05:36:00.001-04:00

Homily for Easter 5, Year C, 2010
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Acts 11:1-18

“Who was I that I could hinder God?”
--Acts 11:17

Peter had some explaining to do. When he returned to Jerusalem from his journey amongst the gentiles, word spread quickly that he had baptized some of them. The leaders of the early Church in Jerusalem were scandalized. The Church, to that point, had been made up of Jews who had followed Jesus, yet had continued to keep the laws of the Torah. Thus, when Peter returned to the Holy City, he was not met with open arms, but with bewilderment, consternation, and anger. He had violated the Law of God, by not ensuring that the new Christians he had baptized were first circumcised according to the Law of Moses.

Peter had some explaining to do. He told the Jerusalem brethren that while he was staying in the city of Joppa, in a trance or dream, God gave him a vision in which he was commanded by God to kill and eat all manner of unclean animals. These would have been animals that the Law of Moses prohibited men from eating. This dream or vision would have been more akin to a nightmare for Peter, for it was asking him to forsake the laws and traditions of his fathers; indeed, it was commanding him to act in a manner contrary to sacred Scripture. He pleaded with God, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” The vision was repeated two more times until he was awoken from the vision by three men from Caesarea (who were gentiles) who asked him to come with them to certain house. When they arrived, they were met by a man who also had a vision. In his vision, an angel told him to send for Peter and that Peter had a message for him that would tell him how to be saved. Peter must have been dumbfounded, for there was only one message that Peter had to share as he travelled about. His message; that Christ Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, gives forgiveness and life to all who believe in him.

Peter stood there, before these gentiles; people who begged him to share God’s message with them. When Peter received his vision he had just finished preaching that God shows no partiality, but did he really believe it. Did he believe it enough to put away the Law of Moses? Did he believe it enough to let it challenge his entire understanding of his religion and faith? Did he believe it enough to let it change the Church? And as he pondered these things, and as he began to share his message, the message of Christ raised from the dead, the Holy Spirit fell upon that house. Then he realized that God truly shows no partiality and that God is ever and always doing a new thing.

Thus, Peter returned to Jerusalem with some explaining to do. But was he afraid? He was not. For as he unfolded this tale of radical inclusion in the kingdom of God he offered this word of wisdom to his brethren back home, “If then, God gave them (that is, the gentiles) the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Indeed, who are we that we can hinder God? To this, the brethren in Jerusalem responded, “Then God has given to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

In Peter’s openness to being changed, God did a new thing. God forever changed the Church. However, the reality is this: God would have changed the Church with or without Peter. Peter had a choice to be part of God’s plan, and he took it up. Wisely, the brethren in Jerusalem saw the wisdom in Peter’s decision and joined him in faith and journeyed into the unknown.

Baptism is always a time of journeying into the unknown because that is what a leap of faith is about, is it not? We have tasted the Spirit of God working in our lives. That is why we come to be baptized, and why we bring our children to baptism, because we know that the Spirit of God is alive and working with a reconciling love that transforms us and transforms the world. In baptism we say “yes” to being a part of that plan, but in doing so we take a risk, because we do not know what that “yes” will mean for us. We do not know where it will lead us or what will be asked of us, we know only this, that God will forever be with us, wherever we go and whatever we do. Our trust is in the fact that God is doing a new thing as each new Christian is baptized.

That risk is felt not only as we begin our faith in the baptismal journey, it is felt again and again as we journey through our lives as Christian people. This certainly was Peter’s experience. Peter and the rest of the Jerusalem disciples thought they understood the faith. They thought they understood what God was asking of them. They thought the Church they knew was the Church that would always be. Ah, but God was doing a new thing!

This is at once the most frightening and the most exciting thing about the Christian faith, God is always doing a new thing. It is frightening because the world we have grown to love will not always be the world it once was. It is frightening because the Church is called to change and grow with each generation and it will not always be the Church we have come to know and love. It is frightening because the things we once thought unclean, have been made clean by God. It is frightening because the person I am today is not the person I will be tomorrow.

But! It is exciting and hopeful because God is doing a new thing! It is exciting and hopeful because the world we have grown to fear will give way to a new and glorious day! It is exciting and hopeful, because the Church that has excluded and hurt others by its unwillingness to embrace and change and hear the prophetic voice of God will come to hear that voice and be transformed! It is exciting and hopeful because we now learn, like Peter, that things (and people) we once thought unclean have been sanctified by God as good and holy! It is exciting and hopeful because the person I am today is not the person I will be tomorrow.

And this is why I have hope for the world, and for the Church, even in the midst of so much uncertainty, and yes, so much conflict.

I have hope for the world today because as I look out at four new Christians, babes in arm now, but ever and always children of the living God, I am not afraid, for I see God doing a new thing.
I have hope as I look about this worldwide Anglican Church, and all its conflicts over whether or not we should bless same-gender unions or ordain women as bishops. I am not afraid, because I see God doing a new thing.

I have hope as I look to this very community here, with so much change, and yes much grieving over the losses we are facing and will face in the not-too-distant future. I am not afraid, because I see God doing a new thing.

Peter had some explaining to do, and he explained it very well saying, “God is doing a new thing, who am I that I could hinder it?”

Who are we indeed, if we think to hinder the work of God; it is but for us to join in, with these new Christians and their sponsors when asked if we shall follow him into the great unknown of the future, with a resounding “yes” and the proclamation, “I will, with God’s help.”

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Freedom and Limitation - the Way of Vocation: A Homily for Easter 3, Year C, 2010

2010-04-18T06:09:00.000-04:00

Homily for Easter 3, Year C, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 21:1-19

“But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else with fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” – John 21:18

When we are young, we are under the illusion that maturity buys us our freedom. One only has to go through the process of raising a child, or holding down a job in order to pay the rent, or to look after an ailing and aging family member, or face the disappointment that money can’t always buy what you want, to know that maturity doesn’t always buy us freedom. As children we might think that adults have all the freedom in the world, but as adults, we might longingly look back upon our youth and remember the carefree days without the responsibilities that we unexpectedly took on as we entered adulthood. This is not to say that as mature, responsible adults that we are bereft of freedom; to the contrary, we have considerable freedom in making choices for our lives. The real mark of maturity, though, seems to be the recognition that freedom and limitation are forever yoked together in a delicate dance.

Parker Palmer, a writer and teacher of teachers, has written some insightful words on vocation and discernment. He notes that he grew up being told that anyone could grow up to become the president of the United States. Upon reaching adulthood and undergoing a long journey of vocational struggle and discernment , Palmer came to the realization that he had been taught a bit of a lie. While it might be true that a society should provide equal opportunity for all its citizens, not everyone has the gifts to live out every vocation. As such, it is not true that everyone has the potential to grow up to be president. Palmer said he wrestled with some time with the idea of ministry in the Church, until he heard from God that in no uncertain terms, was he to be an ordained cleric in God’s Church. I think all of us can relate that there are some things we can do well naturally, that there are some thing that we can learn to do well, and that there are others that we should probably never even try. The delicate balance is discerning what we are called to do, and what we are not called to do -- freedom and limitation in a delicate dance.

I suspect that the Apostle Peter never really saw himself as much more than a fisherman. I doubt that he wanted to be a leader; yet, Jesus saw something in him that challenged him to reframe his self-understanding. Somewhere along the way, Peter made the leap from fisherman to shepherd. Jesus awoke within Peter a discerning spirit and gave him the courage to see within himself his leadership potential. Jesus helped Peter to understand that he would have the gifts and strengths not only to herd his flock but also to push them forward into new and verdant pastures. He saw within Peter a strong leader that could push and encourage his sheep, but also, when needed, to gently tend and feed them. Jesus activated within Peter his gifts for leadership, and there on the seashore, gave him the courage to use them.

Peter still had his limitations, though. He was not the first one to recognize the Lord that morning. No. That honour belongs to the beloved disciple, that unnamed follower of Jesus who rested his head on Jesus at the last supper, who remained faithful at the foot of the cross, who was the first to believe in the resurrection when he saw the empty tomb. So, some time later, on that morning in boats on the sea of Tiberias, after fishing all night with Peter and the others, when the eyes of all others were clouded, the Beloved Disciple looked toward the seashore and recognized the risen Lord. This Beloved Disciple, himself a fisherman, was not destined to be the shepherd of Jesus’ people. No. Instead, he had the gift of insight, the gift to recognize and see the risen Lord in the most unlikely of places, and to share that story with others. If he is indeed the witness that stands behind the words of the Gospel of John, then he had a most remarkable gift indeed, for his words have continued to witness to the Risen Christ, and teach the faith for two thousand years. Jesus stirred within the Beloved Disciple the gifts he needed to live out his vocation.

Peter and the Beloved Disciple shared many of the same practical skills, and likely, they both came from a very similar upbringing and socio-economic class, practicing the same profession -- two men with similar skills, but different gifts; two men with the same Lord and master, but different callings.

Both were called. Both men responded to the words, “follow me.” But their answers of “yes” meant different paths for each of them. They had the freedom to say “yes” or “no” to the call, to continue on doing what they were doing, or to see where unlocking their gifts and following Jesus took them. Both responded with a “yes,” but their individual gifts would shape how they each live out the call in very different ways. Peter could no more be the thoughtful insightful witness that inspired belief in others, any more than the Beloved Disciple could be the shepherd of a people who required equal doses of gentleness and challenge. Each had their gifts and each had their calling.

In their final conversation, Jesus thrice encouraged Peter to care and tend for his flock. Peter was a bit hurt by Jesus’ repetition of this instruction, but it was only to encourage Peter (and to confirm his faith in his gifts of leadership) that Jesus pressed this message repeatedly upon him. Jesus then told Peter that leadership is not about being free, but being yoked. In youth we fasten our own belts, we do what we want, and we go where we want to go. In old age, we stretch out our arms and others dress us and take us where we do not want to go. This was a thinly veiled reference to Peter’s eventual martyrdom. Peter was given the leadership of Jesus’ followers. He would be called upon to make decisions, to arbitrate disputes, to have the final say. If we follow Matthew’s account, “what Peter bound on earth would be bound in heaven.” He was given the keys. That’s a lot of authority, and presumably a lot of freedom. And yet, Jesus’ sermon illustration was about his loss of freedom. With his new-found authority, Peter was bound to follow a new way, the way his own master exercised leadership, that is, the way of the cross -- freedom and limitation in a delicate dance.

Peter, ever the straight-shooting talker (perhaps, one of his traits of leadership) asked about the other disciple, the Beloved Disciple, “what about him, Lord?” Perhaps, like many leaders, Peter was worried about the competition. Jesus simply said, “Don’t worry about him. I have other plans for him.” It was like he was saying to each of them,” I know your gifts; now you two recognize them in each other and all will be well. Now just follow me.” And follow they did. Peter led the people until legend tells us he followed in his masters step’s to martyrdom in Rome. The Beloved Disciple lived to a very great age, outlived all the other disciples, and went on to teach and inspire others to teach the faith to some of the great Christian leaders of the second century. The Gospel of John is a timeless testament to his story of Jesus, and through it, he witnesses to the Risen Lord still, and teaches us today.

As with raising children, working in unexpected jobs, caring for aging parents, in all the strange twists and turns that life throws at us, we find within ourselves the gifts to live the life into which we are called. The question is not whether I can grow up to the President or Prime Minister; it is not whether I can be a CEO or teacher, a nurse or fisherman, it is how might I be faithful to the call in which I am truly free? To live into the call that God gives us, to follow him wherever he may lead us, is perfect freedom, but it closes other doors. There are doors through which we may wish to walk, or have hoped to have walked by any given benchmark in our lives. Perhaps, after all, there are doors better left unopened and road better left unwalked, for not every door is the door to the house into which I am called, and not every path is the path of my life. What is more to the point, is that from the boat on which we drift through the night, working away at whatever we do, the risen Lord calls from the seashore with the words, “follow me.” With him as our friend on the journey, we shall find the right doors through which our gifts will lead us, and right path on which our life and path will unfold.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Blessed are They who Have Not Seen, and Yet Believe - A Homily for Easter 2, Year C, 2010

2010-04-11T05:46:00.004-04:00

Homily for Easter 2, Year C, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 20:19-29

“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.”
-- John 20:29

Recently, the CBC re-ran an episode of Tapestry featuring an interview with the Franciscan writer, Richard Rohr. Rohr explained that while the Western Christian Tradition has a grand tradition of systematic theology, that strength, namely explaining and systematizing every detail of the faith, has also been its weakness. He posed this question: if everything is explained and understood, then where does faith come in?

To be sure, “faith seeks understanding,” as the old saying goes. I would be the last one to say that we should not engage our heads in the task of understanding our faith. To explore the questions of our faith and engage in critical theology is to worship and contemplate God with our minds. It is an act of intellectual piety. Sometimes though, in our efforts to work out all the details of the faith, we lose sight of what the concept faith actually means. Faith is about believing without knowing or understanding how it might all fit together. Faith is about trust. Faith is about believing even in the midst of all the doubts that bounce around in our heads and hearts.

Thomas is to be commended because demanded proof. His faith was not of the mindless sort. He could not make the acclamation “Christ is risen!” unless he saw and touched the risen Lord, himself. In his skepticism and his need for evidence, Thomas would have fit into the Church of our day (or any other day) quite nicely. Perhaps Thomas was the first Christian theologian, seeking to understand his theological landscape by gathering evidence in order that he might sort it out and make sense of it all. We need people who do this sort of work. In fact, we are all called to try to make sense of our faith.

On the other hand, though, we can be riddled with such skepticism and a demand for evidence that we might never believe anything, even when the evidence is put before us. Since the Enlightenment, we have tended to live our lives with a hermeneutic of suspicion: unless I can have absolute certainty about the theological landscape of Christianity, I cannot, I will not believe. But then, what is faith?

Thomas, who refused to believe unless he saw with his own eyes and touched with his own hands, stood before the Lord who offered him just that opportunity. “See my wounds, Thomas. Touch them! Do not doubt, but believe!”

Interestingly, and profoundly, we are not told if Thomas actually touched Jesus, only that he responded with the most forthright confession of faith in the whole New Testament, “My Lord and My God!” Did Thomas realize upon seeing his master, that he had no need to touch him, that sight alone was enough for him to make that leap of faith?

And what of us who have not the privilege of gazing upon those wounds, much less the opportunity to touch them? Will we demand evidence before we believe? Perhaps, though, we ought to look at things from another perspective. Maybe it is not us who touch Jesus, but Jesus who touches us. Perhaps it is Jesus who sees us in our doubt and our distress and reaches out to us, as he did to his disciples with the words, “Peace be with you,” and offering that peace opens for us the eyes of faith. For, it seems to me, faith is not something we can ever really attain by gathering up evidence, rather, it is something we can claim when we have been beheld and touched by our Risen Lord. In recognizing that the Lord has first touched us, then the fire of faith is kindled in our hearts. The work of theology is not about seeking out God to prove God exists and ignite faith within us, rather is our response to a loving God who knows us by name, calls us and reaches out to us. “Faith seeking understanding” is precisely that. It is the working out of the gift of faith that the fire kindled with in us might burn more brightly, more deeply and more fully in our lives. Blessed are we who have been seen by the Lord, and believe.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Incarnation of Truth: A Homily for Good Friday

2010-04-02T07:09:00.006-04:00

Homily for Good Friday, 2010
Friday, April 02, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: The Passion According to St. John

"What is Truth?"
--John 18:38

Before the judgment seat of Pilate, Jesus was asked this question, “What is truth?” In my own never-to-be-produced imaginary Hollywood production of John’s Gospel, I direct a flashback sequence to be inserted, one of those rapid sequences recalling the many times this question has already been answered and reminding the audience of moments they have already witnessed. In rapid succession these snippets pass before our eyes in black and white celluloid:

Cut to: the opening sequence of the film in which John the Baptist is baptizing in the Jordan and suddenly Jesus appears, the omniscient narrator with a deep resonating voice begins –

"There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world … And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth … the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

"John the Baptist," booms the narrator, "testified to the truth."

Cut to: a quickly succeeding montage of moments of Jesus teaching his disciples; a succession of his great “I am statements.” -

“I am the true bread, which has come down from heaven.”

“I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower.”

“I am the way, the truth and the life.”

“I have not come on my own, but the one who has sent me is true.”

Cut to: Jesus, the night before his trial, at supper with his friends praying his final prayer for them. He proclaims –

“When the Spirit comes, he will lead you into all truth,” and then prays to his Father, “Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is true. I came into the world to testify to the truth.

The rapid succession of black and white flashbacks end, and the audience reminded of all that has gone before is returned in full colour to the present of Jesus standing before Pilate and making his testimony:

“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs the truth listens to my voice.”

To which Pilate replies, “What is truth?”

But the actor playing Pilate offers this line neither as a sneer, nor as a philosophically profound rhetorical statement. It is clear to those who watch that this is the empty question of a man who does not understand that the answer to the very question he asks is standing before him, in his very presence.

Jesus is Truth.

We, the audience, understand this, for we have journeyed with him from the outset of his ministry when he was proclaimed as the truth of God by John the Baptist, and through his ministry he proclaimed himself as God’s truth in a world blind and hostile to the truth of God. We have the flashbacks to remind us Jesus’ own confession of his identity, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” His very presence testifies to the truth in our midst.

For a moment we sit, our eyes transfixed upon screen, as the eyes of Pilate meet the eyes of Jesus. At first we experience a sense of anxiety, what will Jesus say, what will Pilate do? And then we realize that Pilate has missed the point altogether; we experience incredulity at Pilate’s ignorance. But soon, our incredulity turns to shame, for we quickly realize that Pilate’s question haunts us, for it is our question, too, is it not? What is truth? Even if we accept that Jesus is the truth, what on earth does that mean?

What is truth? Perhaps somewhere in our silver-screen adaptation, we shall have taken the liberty to create an apocryphal scene. This scene will have shown another teacher, an ancient nameless philosopher, who teaches a philosophy something akin to Platonism. In this scene, this teacher will have taught that Truth (that is, capital “T” Truth) lives in the realm of ideas, in the perfect mind, free from the corruption and decay of the material world. Truth exists in the realm of the divine, in the mind of God, and anything here on earth that appears true is but a reflection of the divine truth. While we may touch truth with our minds from time to time, it is fleeting and any immediate sense of truth is perishable. Truth is only in the mind of God. Anything else is a pale reflection of perfect truth. We can catch a glimpse of truth through the study of philosophy and through a certain ethic, but we are mistaken if we think truth walks amongst us.

Now this scene is not in our Gospel narrative, but I take liberty as the director to include it in my movie because it is a plausible scene and provides a sort of stereotyped image of an ancient philosophical teaching that characterizes the world into which Jesus comes.

Thus, when Jesus is seen amongst his disciples and proclaims, “He who has sent me is true,” our cast of disciples wonder if he is a platonic teacher, and we might wonder it, too, for we have just witnessed another teacher teaching that Truth exists only in the realm of the divine. God is Truth.

But as the film unfolds and the story of Jesus is told, we discover the twist that makes this story different. It is a different story of the truth. It is the story of the Incarnation of Truth. Perhaps that is what we should call the film, “The Incarnation of Truth.” For Truth ceases to be an abstract concept that only resides in the pure and divine mind; rather, Truth enters into the world, becomes part of the world, become part of the human species in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, Truth transforms the world.

“I am the true bread from heaven,” and “I am the true vine.” Not a mere reflection of the invisible, idealized bread, residing only in the mind of God, not an earthly representation invisible, idealized vine taking shape only in the mind of the Father in heaven. No. Jesus proclaimed, “I am the truth.” And to behold the Truth, to behold his glory is to become children of that same Light, not a light that shines distantly in the heavens, but a light that shines in our darkness. The True Light that was coming into the world.

The Incarnation of the Truth is for the purpose of leading God’s people into the Truth by the power of the Spirit. The Incarnation leads us into the truth, not by having us forsake this dark and broken world, but by shining its light into the darkness. The Incarnation leads us into truth not by lifting us out of an untruthful and unrighteous world, but by bringing Truth into the world and transforming the world in Truth. Jesus is the Truth of God that transforms the world from darkness to light, from sin to righteousness, and from falsehood to Truth.

Jesus stands before Pilate, his presence a testimony to the Truth of God. Truth itself stood before Pilate and Pilate asks, “What is truth?”

Blind to the reality of Truth in his midst, he sends Jesus to the cross – a story more sad than sinister. Yet, be it sad or sinister, God’s truth is made known to the world as Jesus hangs upon the cross. It becomes clear to all who watch the drama unfold that the Truth of God is riddled with paradox: strength in weakness, victory in humility, life in death. The instrument of execution becomes the means to eternal life. The cross intended to damn to death becomes the living tree that saves.

Truth stood before Pilate and Pilate knew him not.

Soon the film will wind to its close. Truth will stand in his risen body before others, in the garden near an empty tomb, in the home behind the locked doors of a house and on the shores of the Galilean lake. Yes, others will see Truth and recognize him. As director, I shall cut away to an image of cross resting on its side on a hill, its wood beginning to decompose, but from which green foliage and flowers begin to grow. And lastly, we shall see a man named John (another John, the disciple whom Jesus loved best), dictating words to a scribe. He will dictate words that that testify to the Truth, words we continue to read, believe and proclaim, that even on this darkest day, we might know the answer to the question, “What is Truth?”

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Jerusalem, the City the Kills the Prophets - A Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year C, 2010

2010-03-27T22:09:00.003-04:00

Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year C, 2010
Sunday, March 28th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 24:1-43

One day, in the midst of his teaching ministry, some Pharisees approached Jesus to warn him that Herod wanted to kill him. He told them to send Herod this message, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ... You will not see me until the times comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Luke 13:34,35). And with these words, he pressed on toward Jerusalem.

In time, the shouts of “Crucify! Crucify!” prevailed, Pilate handed the prisoner over to death, and Jesus was led to the place of crucifixion – flogged, beaten, stumbling. Then, a certain man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the countryside and crossing the path of those paraded to their death as he did on so many days, Simon was seized by the soldiers. Laying upon him the cross of this prisoner, they compelled him to carry it. As the beaten and flogged prisoner stumbled forward, Simon followed behind, slowly, under the weight of the timber pressing down on his back. Suddenly distracted by the clamour of the wailing of women beating their breasts and lamenting the fate of this one convict, Simon looked up. And as the shoulders of Jesus straightened and he turned his gaze at the women, the prisoner spoke these chastising words to the women who were already bewailing his death: “Weep not for me, you Daughters of Jerusalem. Hold yourselves in pity. Curse the day that you were born and curse the wombs by which you shall bear children.” Simon asked himself, what manner of man is this who curses those who lament his death? “Pity yourselves,” the prisoner continued, “bless the day of your own destruction for it will be a great relief to you. Don’t you see that if this fate falls upon an innocent man, what fate will fall upon you and all of this city who, guilty of such grievous sin, stand truly condemned?”

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

The very day in which we live is a city that kills the prophets and persecutes those who are sent to it. Would any deny that we are in need of a prophetic voice? Would any, knowing the terrors of Armenia, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Rwanda, and the hidden terrors known only to God, dare to deny that we stand in need of a prophetic word? Would any deny that even as we hear such a word, we fail to receive it? Do we dare, like Herod, ask for a sign, when so many have been given, or call for a word of prophecy when so many have already been uttered?

The women around Jesus knew of the prophets. They knew the story of Israel; they knew the story of Judah. They knew of the Babylonian captivity, they knew of the subsequent short-lived liberation. They knew of God’s wrath, and they knew of God’s compassion. But they could not read the signs of their times. They were aware of the prophets but they were not in tune with them.

And so it is for us, if not more so: Do we even know who the prophets are? Are we so persuaded by those whom the world calls important, and those whom the world calls wise that we are unaware of those whom upon God has granted the gift of prophecy in our age? Do we call upon God to help us discern the prophets of our age? Do we even care to know who they are?

Do we even care when God raises up prophets amongst us? When God raises up those who dare to speak the truth or utter a prophetic word, we make the choice not to listen -- to turn the channel. There are people who cry out about injustice, they cry out with the voice of God and the authority of God, and we feign interest, and more disturbingly, we feign lamentation when their prophecies come to pass. What is more, it is easy to lament them when they are persecuted because we do not believe that we persecute them. But, God help us, we do, through neglect, disrespect, negligence, false piety, feigned interest, self-centredness, and self-indulgence. Is it not much easier to lament the horror and then, turn each one of us, to our own way?

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

As they reach the place of execution, Simon relieved of his burden, falls to the ground, exhausted, not only under the weight of the instrument of death, but under the weight of the condemnation of his city. There they crucify the prisoner. His cross is lifted high, and on either side of him are other criminals, each bringing to the moment of their death the weight of lives wasted and lives of unfulfilled hope and promise. Then, from the lips of the man in the centre, looking down on the crowds, the women, the soldiers, and even this man Simon, and out into the world, come these words: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Have any more beautiful or gracious words ever been spoken? To the one who betrayed me and turned me over to death: Father, forgive him. To those who shouted “Crucify him! Give us Barabbas!”: Father, forgive them. To the ones who slipped away under the darkness of night: Father forgive them. To the one who denied me; Father forgive him. To you soldiers who nail me to this tree; Father forgive them. To that man who carried this cross on which I am nailed, Father, forgive him. And to you, Daughters of Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those whom God sends, Father forgive them. Father forgive them all, for they know not what they do.

But they do know what they do. They have heard the prophets, the voice of God has spoken to each one of them. Some of them followed him, some of them shared in his proclamation of the Kingdom. Many witnessed miracles and healings. Did even one of these stay with him? They knew what they did, and they were ashamed. But Jesus speaks these words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

And then, one man, his name lost to history, one man, a sinner, hanging upon the cross. “Lord,” he says, “I know the evil that I have done. I know that I am worthy of such a death, but you, Lord? Jesus, remember me, a sinner, when you come into your kingdom.”

And then our Lord spoke such words with such power as never before, such words that changed the course of our human history: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

With those words, once spoken, the eyes of many a blind heart have been opened and the ears of many a deaf soul have received the word of salvation. With these words, the prophecy is fulfilled: How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood. One man was willing, one child of Jerusalem, and evil though he was, he threw himself humbly on the mercy of the crucified Lord. Blind to God’s prophets though he had been, deaf to God’s word, in a moment of grace he speaks the words: “Jesus, remember me.” And the words of life are spoken to him: “Truly, today you shall be with me in paradise.”

This then, is the good news of the gospel. Sinful sons and daughters of Jerusalem though we may be, we are heirs of the good thief, whom God called home though he was a grievous sinner. We are heirs to a promise and sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem. Though we are deaf to the prophets of God, God still desires to gather us under his wings as a mother hen broods over her children. Though we stone those who are sent to our city, Jesus still utters those gracious words, “Father forgive them” … although we know what we do.

God has sent us prophets. God has given us grace to hear the prophets. As he turned the heart of the good thief so he turns our hearts, giving and forgiving, opening our hearts to hear his word and giving us grace and power to not only hear but to act, and become prophets of the New Jerusalem. Faithful cross, the sign of triumph, now for us the noblest tree. For in the shadow of the cross, lit by the light of the resurrection, we have been transformed from sons and daughters of the old Jerusalem who wail and beat our breasts and feign lamentation for a prophet we have chosen not to hear into sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem, who at last have been gathered under the wings of God, and of whom this song is sung:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Give them another chance!" A Sermon for Lent 3, 2010

2010-03-06T21:40:00.002-05:00

Homily for Lent 3, Year C, 2010
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 13:1-9

“Sir, let it alone for one more year.”
-Luke 13:8

In considering the evils that have plagued this world in the past century and contrasting the great evils of our time with the relatively benevolent behaviour of everyday men and women, it would be easy for us to say we are free from sin. Most of us lead lives in which we do our best to love our families, be good citizens, and make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. For the most part, we are not criminals or hurtful people and when contrasted with those who stand trial for brutal crimes or against those who perpetrate holocausts and ethnic cleansing, we come off looking pretty good. Without a doubt, the goodness of ordinary people is often eclipsed by the all too real stories of human depravity and brutal disregard for the lives of others. Thus, we should celebrate goodness where we find it and allow goodness to cast a light on the darkness. It is worth remembering during this Lenten season, though, that as good as we might be, we all do things for which we are ashamed and of which we ought to repent. To recall the words of St. John, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

I suspect that this is the thrust of the first part of story found in Luke 13. Some people put a question to Jesus about those who suffered various horrible fates, namely some Galileans murdered by Pilate and those who were killed when a tower fell on them. In the ancient world, disaster was often considered to be a punishment for sin. Indeed, a disaster might have even been considered a display of God’s wrath and evidence of previously committed sins. Sadly, this archaic religion is not a thing of the past. A certain well-known televangelist recently claimed that the Haitian disaster was a consequence of sins committed by the Haitian people in the nineteenth century. Yet, one wonders if this well-known preacher has ever read Luke 13 in which Jesus rebukes the questioners with the words, “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

We are so quick to see the sin in another and to assume that their misfortune is result of their faithlessness, but God forbid my own sins should be unmasked, for I am surely deserving of no better a fate. The truth is that be they large or small, our sins and our mistakes are all things for which God ought to be justly displeased. If our human brokenness were unmasked to the world there is not a one of us that could stand unashamed. We all have things we hide. We all have things in our lives about which we are deeply ashamed. And truth be told, we are all likely afraid that if our brokenness were unveiled, we would be punished for it.

Jesus’ words are harsh, not because God is harsh, but because we belong to a harsh reality, that good and decent as we are, there is not one of us that is perfect, and there is not one of us that does not harbour some shameful secret. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Lent is a time for us to stare the reality of our sinfulness in the face.

Jesus confronts us with a harsh reality, but does not leave us without hope. As he so often does, he tells us a little story, a parable, to teach us something about God and the kingdom. Jesus tells the story of a man who plants a vineyard and this man’s encounter with the gardener who tends it. One particular tree in the vineyard has been without fruit for three seasons and the man, being the practical fellow that he is, commands the gardener to cut it down for it is simply wasting the soil in which it is planted. The gardener pleads with him though, “just one more year and a little more tending to the soil… if it doesn’t bear fruit at that time, then you can cut it down.”

“Give me one more chance, one more season.” We all deserve another chance, for we are all sinners. In spite of the fact that we think we ought to be punished, Jesus says, “Give me another go with him.” Maybe we need a little nourishment, a little cultivation, maybe just a little time. The truth is that maybe what we need is just a little help from our Lord. Left to our own devices we can be decent people, but we will always be flawed people. There will always be someone we offend or hurt, there will always be some way in which we have let ourselves down, let our loved ones down, let our God down. As Christian people, though, this need no dissuade us from pressing forward, for the Lord our God is good indeed. He does not visit disaster upon us for our sins, as some might suggest, rather his style is to say, “let’s give her another year,” or “I’m not finished with him yet.”

Most importantly, though, we are not left to our own devices to make things right, for God himself in Christ, tends the soil of our brokenness and sinfulness, and in doing so brings forth fruit in our lives. The whole Lenten journey is less about what we can do to make ourselves better people, and entirely about what God can do to bring forth fruit in our lives and for his kingdom. The triumph of the cross is the vanquishing of the shame of our sin and brokenness. The cross is at once Jesus’ cry to the Father, “give them one more year,” and at the same time his loving tending to the soil of our broken lives. When we are withering and dying under the shame of our guilt, Jesus stands for us, with us, and puts his hands into the dirt of our lives to cultivate within us the fruit of redemption.

Thus, to keep a holy Lent is not to work harder at something we can never attain on our own, but to offer the things we dare not share with other men and women directly to the Christ, hanging on the Cross, and he will bury them in a tomb from which no stone can be rolled away, and then give us living water that we might flourish and grow under the nourishment of his risen life.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

What Would Jesus NOT Do - A Homily for Lent 1, Year C

2010-02-21T09:15:00.001-05:00

Homily for Lent 1, Year C, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 4:1-14

We often hear it asked, “What would Jesus do?” However, I suppose the question set before us in today’s text is “What wouldn’t Jesus do?” The story invariably read on the first Sunday of Lent, whether it be the version from Matthew, Mark, or this year from Luke, is the story of the Temptation in the Wilderness. Following his Baptism, Jesus is driven out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In the life of the Church, Lent is traditionally a time of preparing candidates for baptism. Of course, baptism is such a joyous occasion and almost always followed by a lovely party with family and friends. Jesus got no party. Instead, he was given forty days in the wilderness, starving, thirsty, fighting of demons, and to top it all off, the devil came to him and tempted him. This story should serve as a word to the wise, and to those seeking baptism, namely, that the Christian life isn’t always a picnic in the park. The Christian life is filled with desert moment. The Christian life is filled with struggle against demons internal and external. The Christian is filled with temptations to do the things we ought not to do, and leave undone the things we ought to do. It may come as a surprise to many outside the Church who harbour such saintly, pious pictures of Christians who seem to never complain, drink, swear, get angry, or sad, that at times we may feel, as the words of the Book of Common Prayer confession says, as if we have no health in us.

There are many moments in our lives when we are confronted by choices. We are called upon to make decisions in our private lives, in our public lives, in our work and in our play that require ethical decision-making. We may not be literally confronted by that caricatured little fellow with the pointy tail and ears, horns on his head and pitchfork in hand, but we are confronted by situations that have the potential to destroy our lives and the lives of those around us. Often, those decisions may not present themselves as very profound. They may be deceptively prosaic. And what is even more alarming, they may offer choices that seem to actually offer a good outcome, but as St. Paul wrote, the devil masquerades as an angel of light, and so we also take the advice of St. John, to discern the spirits because not every spirit is of God.

Thus, we meet Jesus in the wilderness and subsquently taken to the pinnacle of the Temple. Satan sets before him three temptations: the temptation to turn stones into bread, to become the master of all he could see, and to test God to do a miracle by saving Jesus from death. Now, are these things in and of themselves bad? Turning stone into bread to feed the hungry, Jesus as Lord of the world, and God delivering Jesus from death were all things that later became integral to the story of Jesus and salvation history. Feeding the hungry, Jesus as Lord, and the conquering of death through the resurrection are all signs marks of the Gospel. Yet, here, they are temptations by the devil.

Consider it further, in the shorter version of the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11, three of the key petitions clearly echo the evil’s temptation: give us today our daily bread; your kingdom come; save us from the time of trial.” Bread, kingdom, and salvation from the time of trial – all things with which the devil tempted Jesus, and yet, all things for which he prayed to his Father in Heaven.

As I see it, ethical decision-making in the Christian tradition, therefore, cannot simply involve proof-texting the Bible to see what it says, for the devil quotes Scripture, too. The words of Scripture can be twisted to justify the most insidious forms of chauvinism and bigotry. When posed with a difficult ethical question we must ask the question, to what end is my decision directed? Is my decision about filling my own stomach or quenching the hunger and thirst of others? Is my decision about giving glory, power and dominion to myself or about giving glory, power and dominion to God, the Father almighty and to his Christ? Is my decision about saving myself from the time of trial, or about relieving the trials, suffering, pain and brokenness of those around me and of the world at large? These considerations lie at the core of our ethical decision-making. And I believe that these are the principals that Jesus teaches us in Holy Scripture. He could have desired and accepted the good of all that the devil offered him, for the devil was not offering him inherently bad things. Yet, if he accepted what the devil offered, it would have been for his own personal aggrandizement and on contrary to the divine and triune will. He would not only have sold his soul, but he would have broken the heart of the Trinity. The Trinity would have ceased to be perfect holy divine communion. Ethical decision-making is about seeking Holy Communion with God and Holy Communion with each other. It means that we each have to give up a part of our own longings and desires to be together as God’s people, and to be a part of his body, in Christ.

This is not to say that we are to give up our human dignity, for human dignity is nothing less that image and likeness of God in us. Thus, we strive and fight “for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being,” as our baptismal covenant states. We stand against the evil forces that drive a wedge between us as a people and between us and our creator; we stand against the powers and dominions of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God; and we stand against our own sinful desires that draw us from God’s love and break the bonds of our communion with each other.

Christ our God set before us the pattern of Christian ethical decision-making, namely to honour the divine, creative life in each one of us, not by turning to self, but turning outward to others, and upward to God the Father. True, authentic, divine selfhood is free from selfishness.

In and of ourselves, we are incapable of such divine selfhood; yet, in Christ, we learn what true selfhood is. In him we find our identity, and in him we live and move and have our being. And in communion with each other around his holy altar we dwell in him and he in us.

Thus, the answer to making ethical decisions is not always to simply ask what would Jesus do (although that is never a bad place to start), but perhaps to ask what he wouldn’t do. He would not turn stones to bread. He would not take the Lordship of the world for himself. He would not test God to save him from the time of trial. Tempting, and good as these things might have been, to have done them would have been to place his love of self ahead of his love for the world and his love for his Father in Heaven. Jesus knew who he was and what he wouldn’t do, because he knew that there is no greater love than that a man should lay down his life for his friend.

c. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Where the Heart of God Resides - A Homily for Ash Wednesday

2010-02-21T09:13:00.001-05:00

Homily for Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be”
-- Matthew 6:21

The annual exhortation to fasting, almsgiving, and prayer is upon us. Annually we read Jesus’ admonition to go about this work and devotion quietly, in private, without making a fuss. We are not to make a show of our almsgiving, we are not to be ostentatious in our praying, and we are not to disfigure our faces so that other will see we are fasting. And yet, here we are kneeling in prayer, confessing our faults publicly, receiving the imposition of ashes, which we shall wear out into the streets as a sign that Lent is once again upon us. There is a dissonance in all of this, is there not?

I recently spoke with a gentleman who told me that as a child, he was told all good Anglicans wiped the cross off their foreheads when they left church on Ash Wednesday, unlike those terrible Catholics who wore their ashes with pride throughout the day for all to see. Was this really Catholic pride and was this really Protestant humility. I doubt it very much. I think that the pious Catholic had a very different motive, and that the Protestant was little more than an iconoclast. Yes, at first glance there seems to be a dissonance in what we do today with the words of Jesus, but as we explore both the words of Jesus and our response more deeply, I think that we shall come to a deeper understanding than the caricatures of proud Catholics and humble Protestants.

Where is your heart? This is the question that Jesus is asking us. The admonition against practicing our piety before others is really about the state of our heart. Do we long for praise, acknowledgement, recognition, and reward? Jesus is warning us that sometimes the outward trappings of our religious practice are served up to meet that oh so human need for approval. We long to be liked, respected, and admired; yet we are fundamentally insecure creatures. We store up rewards on earth, we display our strength, our perfection, and our wealth before others in order that we might convince people that we are all right. And more than all right, we are perfect. What does this say about our hearts? It suggests that there is something missing and that we are trying fill that void or mend that wound with external trappings. These things are all on the outside, though. That is not where our heart is meant to be.

As with many of the sayings of Jesus in St. Matthew’s Gospel, choices are often presented as stark opposites. There is a temptation here to read the words of Jesus in simplistic terms, but viewed amongst the varied woven tapestry that is the Holy Scriptures, we sometimes admonished to wear our faith on our sleeves, as Jesus says elsewhere in the Gospel of Matthew, “Do not hide your light under a bushel,” whilst in other places, like today’s passage from the same gospel, he encourages us to practice our piety in secret. The corollary of all this must be not that outward piety is bad and inward piety is good, or vice versa, depending on the passage you read; rather the corollary must be that with our hearts set on the things of God, the inward and outward life of faith will both fall into place.

Consider an analogy. Think for a moment of a close relationship that you share with someone, a spouse, a dear friend and confidant, a family member, or even a counselor, spiritual director or priest. Any intimate relationship will be multi-layered and multi-faceted. In the intimacy of a relationship there are things that you will share with each other that you will not share with the rest of the world. There are some things that are meant only for the two of you and your personal intimacy. And that is just fine. At the same time, any intimate relationship will bear fruit in the world, and there will be things about your relationship that will be shared and celebrated with the community around you. We celebrate our relationships and covenants both privately and publicly. If our hearts are set aright on the good and we live our covenant relationships faithfully, then where are hearts are, there too will be our treasure. Wherever we live out depths of covenant love and friendship with authenticity, there we will experience richness and blessing. The same is true of our life of faith. The sign of the cross in ash upon our foreheads, giving to those in need, and being intentional about our public prayer is the external fruit of living out a deep and intimate relationship with a loving God.

There is one hitch, though, and that is where we come to this day, Ash Wednesday. Try as we might, sinners that we are, we are prone to break covenants, betray confidence, hurt those we love and with whom we share our deepest intimacy. We often use our intimate relationships for selfish gain and in doing so we can cause great harm to those we love, and to ourselves. It seems to me that this is what Jesus is speaking about. Thus, when we use the disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving to direct attention to ourselves rather than nurture the deep intimacy of heart speaking to heart, we abuse the sacred mystery of humanity and the divine touching each other.

But herein we encounter the good news, as well. It is not humanity that has reached the heavens and touched God, rather it is God who has reached down and touched humanity. In the Word made flesh, God has placed his heart amongst his people. The heart of God is where is treasure is, and we are his treasure. In spite of all the ways we abuse his holy religion, in spite of all the ways we take advantage of his intimate presence for our own aggrandizement, God still counts us his treasure enough to place his heart amongst us. God longs for a loving relationship with his people, and persists again and again, even as we turn again and again from his intimacy and love.

Thus, to keep a holy Lent is not about whether or not we wear a cross proudly or wipe it away humbly, it is asking about where our heart will be, in the midst of the more profound reality of where God’s heart already is. In the intimacy of hearts meeting, human and divine, we will know treasure in the depths of our being and treasure in our common life with all God’s children.

c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Letting Down the Nets - A Homily for Proper 5 Year C 2010

2010-02-07T05:32:00.003-05:00

Homily for Proper 5, Year C, 2010
Sunday, Feb 7th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 5:1-11

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
--Luke 5:4

Whether or not we enjoy fishing, most of us enjoy a good fishing story. Several years ago, I regularly visited one hundred year old man named Duncan. In his younger days, Duncan loved to fish. Not surprisingly, given his confinement to a wheelchair and his residency in a nursing home, Duncan had come to believe that his fishing days were long behind him. However, for his one hundredth birthday, his son and son-in-law took him to a well-stocked fishing pond, lifted him from his chair into a boat, and drifted out over the water, and for the first time in many years, Duncan fished. When I visited him he told me about pulling fish after fish out of the water. It was the best birthday present a man could have, he said. Duncan and I concluded our visit as we always did, with Communion from the reserved sacrament. Before we shared in Holy Communion I decided to read for him the fishing story from John 21, a passage quite similar to the story we read today in Luke 5. After hearing of Peter casting his net over the right side of the boat and hauling to shore one hundred and fifty three large fish, Duncan exclaimed, “Now that’s a fishing story!” At that moment, the Scriptures came alive for him in a special way. The disciples then shared in a meal of bread and fish with their risen master, and Duncan and I shared in a meal of bread and wine with the same risen Lord.

In the fifth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel we hear of a similar story, yet this story takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, rather than after his resurrection. The crowd has pressed in about Jesus and he has to get into the boat of some fishermen, who were ashore washing their nets, just so that he can get some distance from the crowd and teach them. Just off of the shore, in full view and in good voice, Jesus now begins to share his message with the crowd. After he had finished teaching he turned to Simon the fisherman, a man with whom he had some acquaintance, for he had recently healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and said to him, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon was skeptical. All night they had caught nothing. Was the area fished out? Had someone scared all the fish away? Was it not the right time of day or night? Perhaps we shall never know, but we do know all the usual fishing excuses. Yet, in spite of all his experience as a fisherman, and against his best instincts, Simon obeyed. And what happened next? The nets were so full that they began to break. They caught so many fish that all the fishing boats were filled and began to sink. As my friend Duncan might have said, “Now that’s a fishing story!”

The story does not end there, though, for when Simon Peter saw what was happening he fell down before the Lord and wept, repenting of his arrogance that had previously kept him from drawing in such a hearty catch, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Jesus did not leave him though, rather, in his gentle but challenging way addressed him, “Fear not, my friend from now on you shall fish for men.” Simon Peter, James and John then left everything and followed him.

A fishing story indeed.

The truth is, of course, that this story has nothing to do with fishing, but everything to do with following Jesus and living out his mission in the world. This story could equally be told about a people living in a suburban Canadian community. These people live in relatively wealthy community; they have decent jobs, or are comfortably retired. They have devoted their lives to working hard both for their families, and for their community. They have a lovely little church that has served the community well for nearly two hundred years, indeed, it may be one of the oldest churches in the country. But a sense of sadness hangs over these people because the world has changed so much; their community has changed so much. They do everything they can to preserve the way of life they love so much, have worked so hard for, and have known so well. Yet, the nets seem to come up empty. The demographics of the community have changed drastically, or to put it another way, the fish seem to have relocated. Some will say in despair that the area is “fished out.” Others will suggest that like good fishermen, we just have to wait it out, be patient, the fish will come back. Someone else will suggest that we need different bait. Another will say that maybe we should try fishing at a different time of day or night. Others yet will simply assume that our fishing days are long behind us. All the old fishing excuses are trotted out and no matter what we try, the nets come up empty.

There is one thing that we so often overlook, though, and that is who is in the boat with us. The disciples fished day and night and their nets came up empty. They tried every fresh approach they could imagine, and they used every fishing excuse in the book, but the nets were still empty. Maybe it was time to pull the boat ashore and find a different pond. Maybe their fishing days were behind them.

Or, maybe there was something they were overlooking.

With Jesus in the boat with them, with his voice, his instruction, and with his presence amongst them, they cast their nets and they came up full, so full that the boats began to sink.
You may expect me now to suggest that if only we had Jesus with us in the boat that is called Holy Trinity, Thornhill, the catch would be bounteous. I will not suggest this, though, because Jesus our Lord is with us. He has never left the boat. What I will suggest is that we sometimes fail to recognize this reality; sometimes we forget that we have him as a captain. What I will suggest is that we spend a lot of time trotting out all the old fishing excuses as to why the nets are not full. What I will suggest is that if we let go of our excuses for a moment, as Simon Peter did, and let down our nets into the deep water of our community, that we might just be surprised at the catch we shall pull in. If we listen to his voice, we might just be surprised that the waters have not been fished out, that the fish have not gone away, that we are not fishing at the wrong time of day or in the wrong place, that our fishing days are not behind us. If we listen to his voice we may just be surprised.

What is Jesus saying to us?

He is saying stop making excuses; let down the net where you are. In spite of what you might think, there is deep water here. Don’t wait for the perfect conditions, or the perfect location. Fish on the pond or the lake on which you find yourself, there is deep water here. Whether it is a the country club or community centre; whether it is with your children and grandchildren or around the bridge table; whether you are at the cottage or on a cruise; these are the waters into which Jesus says, “cast your net.” And if the words of Jesus aren’t good enough for you, let me quote a Nike advertisement, “Just do it!”

Jesus is saying don’t be afraid! As Anglicans this may seem frightening, but no one is asking you give anyone the hard sell. Simply be willing to claim the fact that you are a Christian person. Our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters are not afraid to claim their identities, let us not be afraid to claim ours. Be willing to say why you are a Christian and why it matters to you, not in an arrogant or boastful way, but with honesty and love. After all we are not trying to get someone to buy something; we are talking about the love of God for a broken world. If we at Holy Trinity learned anything from Back to Church Sunday, it’s that the roof does not cave in when we invite a friend to church! Back to Church Sunday is not just once a year (or Christmas and Easter). Back to Church Sunday is every Sunday! Cast your net and invite a friend, follow up with someone you invited on Back to Church Sunday, or someone you know who comes only on Christmas and Easter. “Do not be afraid – cast your net!” This isn’t Father Dan or Canon Greg that are telling you this, it’s Jesus – they’re his words, not ours.

Finally, the text today is telling us to kneel before our Lord in humility as Peter did. Peter realized that he was trying to fish under his own strength and when he own strategy did not work, he made excuses. Yet, in a moment of grace, he listened to the voice of his Lord and cast down the net into the deep waters where he was and it came back to him full. When he realized that his sinful arrogance had hindered rather than helped him, he fell down and wept. We, too, must repent before the Lord for thinking that the kingdom is a thing of our own making, that it is all up to us and our church growth programs and designs. We must repent for our fishing excuses, and then receive his gracious forgiveness.

What shall we do then? Listen and obey, let down our nets into the deep water of this community, and let the Lord do the rest. That won’t just be a fishing story, that will be a kingdom story.

c. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

What Happens When the Wine Gives Out? -- A Homily for Proper 2, Year C, 2010

2010-01-17T10:00:00.002-05:00

Homily for Proper 2, Year C, 2010
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: John 2:1-12

“Jesus did this, the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
--John 2:11

What happens when the wine gives out? Most of us have been to a party, or have given a party where something dreadfully embarrassing has happened. In the grand scheme of things such embarrassing moments are rarely of cosmic significance. We forgive our hosts or we forgive ourselves for the faux pas, and we move on. Therefore, it is curiously interesting when Jesus chooses to intervene in just such a prosaic moment, when the wine gives out at a wedding feast, and turns water into wine. At first he shrugs off the request of his mother to do something, “what is this to you and to me, woman?” Yet, ultimately, he acquiesces and we learn, in fact, that his presence in the midst of the mundane has been an occasion for the revelation of God’s glory, for we are told that because of this his disciples believed in him. This was to be the first of his seven signs.

Scripture is filled with ordinary moments. For this we ought to be grateful. Those who do not read the Bible or know it, assume that it is a book that is ethereal and heavenly. While there is no doubt that it is a sacred book, those of us who read it, or listen to its words week by week, know that it is filled with ordinary people, dysfunctional families, weddings feasts gone wrong, loved ones dying unjustly, communities fighting amongst themselves, and so on. At Cana, Jesus is present for one of those moments that may seem so familiar to us, the party gone wrong. Thus, Scripture is not above us or distant from our reality, but a part of our reality. It is our story first and foremost not because we are a people of faith, but simply because we are people, plain and simple.

Into the midst of our ordinary lives, God enters in. God enters in not to rescue us from such a world, but to redeem and transform the world. Thus, we speak of the Incarnation, or literally, the “enfleshment” of God as the nexus of our faith. We do not worship a God who whisks us up, up and away from the world, rather we proclaim God among us as Christ crucified. And God among us changes things. God among us changes us. God among us changes the world. This is what happens at Cana – God uses the mundane moment of a party gone wrong to turn the hearts of a people from fear to faith.

It may seem glib to compare the experience of a first century party gone wrong with the terrible events this week in Haiti. They are on opposite extremes of the human experience. Yet, there is a thread that runs through both events, namely, the human question, “does God really care about us.” At that wedding feast in Cana when the wine ran out, Jesus’ response seems dismissive and aloof, “what is that to you and to me?” Amidst the destruction in Haiti, and in so many other disasters, the same observation might be made. Where is God? It seems as if God sits in his heaven and proclaims “what is this to you and to me?”

As the images of the destruction of Port-au-Prince cascade before our eyes, we will inevitably ask the question, “Why?” Why has this happened? Why did God allow this to happen? Was this the will of God? Does God even care? Many years ago I recall seeing an interview with the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest and Cambridge Physicist, who was deeply concerned about the dialogue between faith and science. He was asked about the 1755 Lisbon earthquake in which thousands were killed, many in the Cathedral Church that collapsed, “was it the will of God that those people should die?” Polkinghorne responded, “I believe it is the will of God that the plates of the earth should move in accordance with their nature.” While the answer rings true to me on both a rational and theological level, it does not console me on a pastoral level. I think it will not console those in Haiti this week. Thus I look elsewhere to try to understand.

Nearly twenty years ago, I read Eli Wiesel’s semi-autobiographical fictional account of the holocaust, Night. It featured a terrifying scene in which a young boy was hanged with two other men for stocking arms. Wiesel writes,

"For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him…Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows…’" (pp. 70-72)

For many years I have struggled with what this passage was intended to mean. Did Wiesel intend it to characterize the absence and abandonment of God? Did he seek to say that Judaism itself was dead? Did he mean to suggest that God was dead? Or did he mean something else? I suppose I shall never really know what Wiesel meant or intended, but I cannot help but feel and see the story of my own God in this brief but horrifying excerpt, a God who hung on the gallows to share our human suffering.

The Christian God is not a God who swoops in and carries people out of danger. He does not engineer miraculous escapes. This may, at first seem the meaning of the story of Cana, of stepping in and saving the day by turning water into wine. But, I think something much deeper is happening in this story. We are told by John that it is a sign. What does the sign signify? I believe it communicates the reality that God does care deeply about us, so much so that he joins us in the crisis. He is the God who is with us in the disasters of our lives suffering alongside us. Where is God? He is at the banquet when the wine runs out. Where is God? He is amongst the rubble of Port-au-Prince and the suffering of the people. Where is God? He is hanging on a tree.

Closer to home, there is barely a week that goes by when the Canon and I do not receive at least one phone call in which we receive word that a member of this parish or someone beloved of them has cancer or some other devastating illness. There is barely a week that goes by when we do not receive a phone call from the Kane, Marshall or Jerrett Funeral Homes asking us to journey with a family who has just lost someone dear. There is barely a week that goes by when we do not see suffering in this parish family and community. It would be easy to believe God has abandoned us. It would be easy to believe that God is dead. It would be easy to cease to believe in God at all. But that would be the easy way out, would it not?

It is harder to believe when we live in a world in which the plates of the earth act in accordance with their nature. It is harder to believe when we live in a world in which cancer and aids ravage our friends and strokes damage the minds and bodies of our loved ones. It is harder to believe when we live in this fragile world in which the wine so readily gives out. However, God hanging on tree means something very different to us. God hanging on a tree means that in cancer, in earthquake, fire and flood, and yes, even in a party gone wrong, God is with us. God is with us in the crisis, God is with us in our angst, God is with us when death surrounds us. God is with us when the wine gives out. When the world comes crashing around us literally and figuratively and we so desperately long to be whisked away, God joins us in our pain. As we encounter God hanging from the tree, then something miraculous happens that appears to contradict reason, we come to believe. The miracle of Cana was not that water was turned into wine, rather that when it seemed like God did not care, they realized his presence in their midst, and in that revelation of his love, they came to believe. Thus, the miracle of water into wine is not deliverance from affliction, strife and need; rather it is the transformation our fear into hope, and the assurance of God with us, even in affliction, strife and need.

c. 2010 the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"A Voice was Heard in Ramah" - A Sermon for the Feast Day of the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents

2010-01-13T14:24:00.002-05:00

Sermon on the Feast of the Holy Innocents
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
Preached at the Convent of the Sisters of St. John the Divine
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves

Texts: Jer 31:15-17, Ps 124, Matt 2:13-18

If the Lord had not been on our side,
let Israel now say;
If the Lord had not been on our side,
when enemies rose up against us;
Then would they have swallowed us up alive
in their fierce anger towards us...

By God’s grace, an angel of the Lord warned Joseph, in a dream, to flee from the wrath of a tyrant; a tyrant, who like most other tyrants in history constantly feared for the loss of power. In Herod, we meet a tyrant who feared a tiny, helpless child, a tyrant who murdered his own sons, a tyrant who in an act of paranoia was willing to drop the veil of death upon the helpless people of his own nation. But, by God’s grace, an angel of the Lord warned Joseph to take his family out of the reach of the merciless tyrant. And so our story goes: The child and his family flee under the cover of darkness into the safety of a different land, as if the very fulfillment of prophecy.

If the Lord had not been on our side,
let Israel now say;
If the Lord had not been on our side,
when our enemies rose up against us;
Then would the waters have overwhelmed us
and the torrent gone over us;
Then would the raging waters
have gone right over us.

The Lord has provided the cover of safety for the holy family.

A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children...

Left behind, unsuspecting, many other families are torn apart by the wrath of the same tyrant -- left behind, no angel to warn them about the unthinkable horror about to fall upon them. Children are torn from the arms of their fathers and mothers and slaughtered. In one swift act of terror, the tyrant tears apart the lives of countless families. The sudden onslaught of death and its swift departure leaves a desolate and despondent people wailing from the very core of their being for the slaughter of their very flesh and blood. God had not warned them. And the hymn of thanksgiving for deliverance begins to echo hollow:

Blessed be the Lord,
he has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth.

Rather, our hearts are crushed by the sound of Rachel weeping for her children:

She refused to be consoled,
for they are more.

By what cruel interpretive slight of hand have commentators of the ages ridiculed the cry of Rachel? For what cruel and self-indulgent purpose have we dared to utter sentiments such as the words of the fifth century bishop of Carthage, Quodvultus:

“The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ child makes those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. See the kind of kingdom that is his, coming as he did in order to be this kind of king. See how the deliverer is already working deliverance, the saviour already working salvation.”

By what cruel and utter madness have we dared to call these tiny victims the first martyrs of the church and written off the gutteral cry of parents destroyed by grief as the grief of those who mourn for martyrs? Give me no part of the kingdom of this Christ. Give me no part of the kingdom that theologizes the cry from Ramah as one that points to the Kingdom of God. Of what use is it to sing “Our help is in the name of the Lord” when, indeed, there is no help for these ones, nor is their help for the many silent voices lost to the purposeful silence of regimes that close their grips on power by massacring the innocent and muting the cry of Ramah throughout all the ages. By what twisted psychology do we justify the death of children and the grief of mothers as pointers to our own salvation, even the fulfillment of Scripture?

She refused to be consoled,
because they are no more.

So must we also refuse consolation.

Wise men came from the east seeking after a wonderful work that God was about to do. These wise men, holy men, in all good faith sought after a newborn king, a king that would bring peace. But they were deceived by a tyrant into revealing the vulnerability of God made human, and as such became inadvertently complicit in the ravaging of a people. They came seeking the light of the world and left in their wake the darkest night of the worst of the human condition.

During this holy time, we too seek the incarnation, God made human, the light of the world. We see his star rising in the east and we seek to follow it to where it rests. We long to do homage before the birth in time of the timeless Son of God. We seek after the light of the world and at that very moment are confronted instead by the slaughter of the innocent.

Why?

Why, when we seek a saviour, why when we seek the light of the word, are we confronted by genocide? Why are we confronted by the calculated destruction of an innocent group of people, simply for being who they are?

We seek the light and are confronted by the darkness. And we cannot, we must not, we dare not turn away. We look for the Christ and find instead innocent blood and are cut to our very core by the voice of lamentation, weeping for what cannot be returned.

Why?

It is in this horrible vision that we meet the darkness of our own souls. It is this very moment that we confront ourselves and realize that we might be Herod. And here, the possibility of our own darkness is the very reason that we need a saviour. In seeking a saviour, we encounter the very worst of human experience. And here is the purpose ro which God became human: to turn us away from the worst of what we might be and transform us into what we are meant to be, the likeness of Christ.

There are those that call this story fiction. It is simply the type of another massacre, a holy massacre. But no massacre is holy. And even if it was formed in the imagination of an evangelist we must not discredit it. If the historical record is silent about this massacre, so is it about many countless others, but do we dismiss or discredit them simply because the voice from Ramah is silent? We in our age, of all people, should know that enforced silence cannot dampen the cry of Rachel mourning her children. We know only too well... Auschwitz, Birkenau, Rwanda, and the near silence of Armenia that Rachel continues to weep for her children, and we cannot deafen our ears. These genocides are among us. This is not simply the fiction of a first century writer, it is the story of evil in the world which persists to this day. We cannot theologize away the death of innocents. It is a sin to hide these things. We must speak of them, and name them. We can only bring the darkness to light by speaking of it and acknowledging its existence. We are called to stare into the darkness and the forces of this world that draw us from the divine likeness, and speak to the darkness of humanity.

It is not the heart of God that these horrors come to pass. It will not do to say that the death of innocents as martyrs point us to the mystery of the Incarnation. It is not the heart of God that families suffer the loss of their heart and joy simply to fulfill the words of a prophet. It is the heart of God to enter into time to turn our hearts from such heresy. It is the heart of God for us to say a resounding no to such twisted nonsense. It is the heart of God to become as us so that we might be as him and not as children of the night.

God hears the cry from Ramah and will not let it be muted in silence.

c. 2003 by the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Gift of the Seeker - A Homily for Epiphany, 2010

2010-01-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Matthew 2:1-12

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”
--Matthew 2:2

They were the original seekers. Whether they were kings, wise men, or astrologers; whether they numbered three, or ten, or twelve, it matters not. What matters most, is that they were seekers. They came from a distant land, a land outside the boundaries of the kingdom seeking to pay homage to a newborn king. They did not need to be conquered or persuaded. Rather they caught a glimpse of his light, in the form of a distant but bright star, and followed its course. Like many seekers, they were not exactly sure where to go or who to ask for directions, and like many seekers they got some bad advice and visited the wrong person. Yet, in spite of their unfortunate visit to Herod’s palace, God honoured the intentions of these faithful seekers and brought them to the child and his mother, and they paid him homage. Kneeling before the one whose star they had observed at its rising, they laid their gifts before him and where overwhelmed with great joy.

In our day, as the institutional church staggers along with its propensity toward inward-looking narcissism, with its fear of change, fear of the world beyond our walls, fear of the outsider, fear of those who are different , we would do well to consider that amongst the earliest seekers of our Lord are found visitors from a strange and distant land. On any given Sunday there will be seekers amongst us. This may not be immediately evident because we may have formed a preconceived notion of what a seeker looks like. However, there are many kinds of seekers. There are those that we may notice readily through different forms of dress and different customs; they may not immediately understand the customs and traditions within these walls, and may feel awkward and out of place. There are less obvious seekers, though. Indeed, I would suggest that there are many more seekers amongst us than we might immediately suppose. In fact, all of us are seekers in one way or another. Even those who were baptized as infants, have been life-long communicants, long-term members of an ACW group, advisory board, attended numerous parish social and educational events, and contributed to the stewardship of the parish through envelopes or pre-authorized giving, even amongst the most committed churchmen and churchwomen, we find seekers.

Wheter we come here today for the first time, or whether we have been coming here week after week for many years, we are all seeking something. For some it will be a solution to a problem that seems irresolvable. Others seek the kind of support and care that can be so difficult to find in the world. Some seek a deepening of their faith, having already known both the peace and the challenge of being a follower of the Christ. Mourners seek solace, the hungry seek food, the sick seek healing, the marginalized seek inclusion, the persecuted seek justice. Each of us come seeking – seeking the embrace of a loving Lord, a Lord who came for all people, not simply for an elect few.

While it is easy for us to imagine that there are many outside these walls who have never felt the embrace of that loving Lord, it is perhaps more difficult for us to understand that amongst us, there are many who come here week after week that still long and hope for that loving embrace, hoping and praying that today will be the day that they know God’s loving touch.

There are all sorts of seekers and they all come bearing gifts. Wise men came from the East bringing gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, grand gifts indeed, and perhaps a bit intimidating for those of us seekers who do not have such gifts to bring. They brought what they had, and gave from their abundance, but their material gifts are largely symbolic. What was important was that they gave the gift of themselves. They left their homelands, journeyed afar, and offered themselves to the newborn king. While it is true they did not stay, they returned home changed people. The light they followed became the light they carried home to their own country. And what is just as important, they left us a changed people, for those who were once excluded from God’s covenant were now included. Foreigners sought out the Lord and the Lord welcomes us all today, not as foreigners but as friends, not as outsiders but as family. The Kingdom would never look the same again.

Here is the frightening truth about seekers: in their seeking they change us. I speak not only of the seeker that has joined us today for the first time, but also of the seeking that continues amongst our oldest and most venerable pillars. Seekers challenge us. Seekers threaten us. We feel threatened because we are challenged to see the world in new and different ways. We feel threatened because we are challenged to catch a vision of God’s kingdom, not as we have shaped it but as God is shaping it. The seeker challenges us to embrace a transformed world, a transformed way of thinking, a transformed way of being. The seeker challenges us to believe in a broader, more expansive view of God.

The visit of strangers, of seekers from the East, frightened Herod, the King of the Judeans. Herod feigned openness and interest both in the seekers and the object of their seeking. But his feigned interest and disingenuous hospitality masked his own murderous intent and his all-too-human insecurity. Often we feign openness to the seeker but wish they would simply go away because we are not prepared for the transformation God will bring through their presence amongst us. Often, those who have journeyed amongst us for years, longing and seeking yet, are afraid to articulate their longing and seeking for fear of what it might do to the stability of our lovely community. We are afraid of the change that comes from seekers and their seeking. If we embraced the seeker, and we embraced the seeking, then we ourselves might be changed. We fear this more than anything.

But this is exactly what happened when foreign seekers sought the Christ under the light of a distant star. Their journey into the land of the Hebrew people, seeking a king, meant that this king would not simply be the King of the Judean people, but the Lord of all people. Their seeking forever changed the way that we Christians are to see our mission to the world. In their seeking we have learned that the will of God is the inclusion not of a few people into the Kingdom, but the inclusion of all God’s children. It is a mission that changes us as we embrace it.

Thus, whether you have joined us here today, seeking for the first or second time, or whether you have been amongst us for ninety years, seeking, searching for the Christ, welcome home. It is path well-trod from ancient times, by king and peasant alike, by wise and foolish, by rich and poor, by healthy and sick, by adult and by child. It is a journey that changes the seeker and faithful, alike. What excitement and what joy it shall be to learn who we shall become together, to learn how we will change each other, but more poignantly how God will change us and shape us together in the Kingdom of the Christ. Make the final step of the journey to his cradle, kneel and pay him homage, and offer what you alone can give him, the gift of yourself. And even as you find him, you will learn that it has not really been us that have been doing the seeking after all, rather, it is he who has sought us out, who has placed his star in the longing of our hearts, eternally offering himself to us.

“Where meek hearts will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

copyright 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves

"Fear Not! I Bring You Good News of Great Joy!" - Homily for Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

Homily for Christmas Eve, Year C, 2009
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 2:1-20

“Fear not, for behold I bring good news of great joy!”
--Luke 2:10

Into a world gripped with fear, a tiny babe was born. Over the past several hundred years, Judea had been a place that had been passed from foreign power to foreign power; it had known revolution upon revolution; and had known unjust ruler upon unjust ruler. There was prosperity for some and poverty for many. And just like today, amongst the names of the long-forgotten people of that day, there were many broken lives and broken hearts.

Broken lives and hearts – so many problems plague this age (and every age), but never is something so tragic as a broken life or broken heart. Some of you will have seen a full-page advertisement in the Toronto Star last week from our Archbishop, Colin Johnson. The headline read, “Does Jesus really matter anymore? Christmas is about shopping, presents, family and feasting, right?” He then goes on to remind us that our time is not so different from the time that Jesus was born into, “we suffer from worries and concerns, broken relationships, wars and famines. The very things that kept our ancestors awake all those years ago keep us awake still.”

It seems to me that fear is at the heart of all those things that keep us awake. Fear moves us to destructive action and paralyzes us from righteous, compassionate action. Fear tricks us into believing that we can do nothing to change the course of poverty, loneliness, economic injustice, and ecological degradation. Fear tells us that broken hearts are not to be mended. Fear also tricks us into thinking that the only way to solve the problems of the age is by engaging brute force, or conversely, by apathetically giving into it. Fear tricks us into thinking that there is no hope for the world or the people in it.

Fear drove a young unwed couple to journey the long distance from their home in Nazareth to the father’s ancestral home in Bethlehem for a taxation census. The unbreakable power of the Roman Empire demanded a head count for all to be taxed, and one can only imagine the fate of those chose not to obey the imperial edict. A young couple, afraid to show themselves in public for fear of the shame of the unplanned pregnancy, afraid to journey a dangerous road alone, afraid of what such a trip might do to the unborn child, pressed forward. Afraid that they would find no place to birth their child they scrambled about until a stable was found – no place for a baby to be born.

Yes, fear may have driven them, but God found them where they were, came to them and was birthed before their very eyes. He came to them as a tiny, vulnerable child, and turned their fear into joy and their angst into fulfillment. The stable was no longer a stable but the temple of God.

To this temple came poor shepherds, and I am sure, countless others (both rich and poor) who had eyes to see in that tiny child the one who would deliver them; who had ears to hear in his infant cries the voice of the one who would offer words of compassion and justice for all people. Why did the shepherds come to the child and his parents in this lowly place? Because in their own poverty and isolation they heard an angel loudly proclaim, “Fear not.” They, who were not worthy to be counted in the census, those shepherds keeping their watch, had courage stirred within them to leave their only source of income and well-being, and seek out a pearl of greater price, the newborn king! The song of joy had dispersed their fear.

The shepherds heard those great glad tidings and rushed, not with fear but with joy, expectation, and hope from their fields to that stable in Bethlehem, that unlikely temple, to see with their own eyes the great thing that God had done.

And what was that great thing. Had the Roman Empire fallen? No, Augustus was still Caesar. Did that young family find a manor house to live in? No, the child was still born in a stable. Did midwives and physicians show up to help in the birth? No, the woman gave birth with only her husband as a birth companion. These things had not changed, and yet, everything had changed, because the fear that had gripped their world was broken.

We draw nigh tonight like shepherds who have left our flocks. We draw nigh to see, to witness, to believe in the great thing that God has done. We have left our lives behind for a moment, even if just for a moment, to take time from presents, from shopping, from our families and from our feasting, to witness once again for ourselves the birth in time of the timeless Son of God. We draw nigh, to remember once again that though empires may rise and fall, though economies prosper and collapse, though jobs come and jobs go, though children are born and loved ones die, though the tides rise and fall, we are not afraid. We gather here to proclaim that fear is not our master, but rather the transforming love of the gentle babe who was born to a frightened young couple. We gather here to say that amidst the angst of the age, we shall not be overcome or sorrow as a people without hope but rather rejoice with that rag-tag group of shepherds that Christ is born.

Whether it be Bethlehem of Judea or Thornhill of Ontario, people are people, pain is pain, brokenness is brokenness, and fear is fear. But whether it be Bethlehem of Judea or Thornhill of Ontario, Jesus is the Christ and he has broken through the darkness of our pain and fear.

To a world that is hurting, he comes. To the fear that threatens to displace us, angels shout, “Fear not! Behold, I bring you good news of great joy!” Fear not, because a child is born who changes things.

He changes minds.

He changes hearts.

He changes people.

He turns the valley of the shadow of death into the way of life.

He has shone his light into the darkest places of our lives and welcomed us to his heart and cradles us, as his most holy mother cradled him those years ago. What greater joy can we know, and what better hope can we have, that the fear of the ages is dispersed by his ever-present light? Thus, I bid you return to your fields, to your flocks with this good news of great joy, having witnessed what the Lord has done, and like those shepherds of old, tell all about what you have seen and heard, as it has been told to you.

c.2009 by the Rev. Daniel F. Graves