KNOWING THE WAY. A sermon preached by the Rev. Aaron Billard St. John s United Church, Moncton, NB May 22, 2011

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Alberta Lee
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1 KNOWING THE WAY A sermon preached by the Rev. Aaron Billard St. John s United Church, Moncton, NB May 22, 2011 I found myself relating to Thomas a little more than usual this week. Thomas, of course, is the disciple who needed a little extra evidence in order to believe that Jesus had been raised to new life; Thomas, who was so unconvinced that he had to touch Jesus side, and to feel the holes in his hands in order to really understand what Jesus body went through in order to know that it was him. It s the sense of invited touch that gives Thomas a belief he d never had before. But there s another way to go deeper in faith: questions. This week Thomas asks, How can we know the way? I m convinced that there s no better place to ask that question than standing in the Toronto Airport in front of a United States border agent. Apparently I had left a line blank on my border crossing form when he said, Where are you going? I told him I was going to Minneapolis. He said, Why didn t you fill in the state? I sheepishly admitted that I wasn t sure what State Minneapolis was in. He said, Why don t you know what state Minneapolis is in? I shrugged and I said that I didn t have a really good answer for that. He said, Write in Minnesota. So, nervously, I did. Then he said, Why are you going to the United States of America? I told him I was going to a conference. He asked the name of the conference and I said, It s called the Festival of Homiletics. He asked, What s it about? I replied, It s for church leaders. He looked me in the eye and said, Are you a church leader? I thought for a second and said, I guess I am! As if that s the first time it ever occurred to me that I really was a minister. So then he said, What does homiletics mean? Now, that s when I should have just answered him, but instead I

2 decided to switch my humour button on. Those of you know border-crossing-guards, know that they really aren t prone to smile. So when he asked me what does homiletics mean, I said, Why don t you know what homiletics means? He stared at me and said, Answer the question, sir. I turned red and said, It s the study of the art of preaching. He nodded for a few seconds and said, Are you a good preacher? and I said, My church is sending me from Eastern Canada to Minneapolis on a preaching course. What do you think? How can we know the way? After Saturday s failed prediction of the rapture by Family Radio s Harold Camping, the world continued to spin. But for a few days, it sparked a lot of questions about how it is we do religion. Mainline churches across the world, in a rare show of unity, agreed that what Family Radio was talking about actually didn t make any sense. His words and his math prediction of the date of May 21 st held no Biblical meaning. Yet, despite that, millions of dollars poured into their coiffeurs as they advertised worldwide. I wonder about what his Camping s followers will say in their religious crisis today, or how those with children were scared by what they thought was about to happen...so many questions. People who gave much of their savings, signed over their belongings to finance his campaign, all for what? But, in light of the silliness, many people were asking questions. Questions such as, How do you get to heaven? were asked. People were writing to me wondering about the validity of all of this, to which I would reply, none. It seems as if it struck a chord in people in which we do worry about how it is we get to heaven. Who do we have to believe? Who do we make the cheque out to? What particular church should we belong to? Fear is permeating our society. And when churches participate in this fear, it plays on a lot of our feelings, especially for those who have been spiritually abused. And because so many of us do wonder about what comes next, it played into the fears of so 2

3 many people with obviously deep pockets to cut cheques in support of what God was going to pluck up to heaven as opposed to what God is already doing here right now. We do it all the time. When someone dies, we say that they go to a better place. We think of heaven as the great reward for a faithful life on earth. We think of heaven as a place of golden roads and no more tears. We anxiously prepare for the there because we can t handle this kind of here. One night, I received a phone call from the RCMP asking me if I would accompany them to a home of a woman in my village. Her husband had died in Indonesia. After a few hours, her son young son Ryan, a boy of about 12, was talking to me. He said, Everyone keeps saying that my dad is in a better place. But the place he would most want to be is right here with me. How can we know the way? asks Thomas. We can almost hear the tension in his voice. Do the works that I do, and in fact do greater than these he says. If you believe in me, that s what you ll do. Because I am the way says Jesus. Not the Harold Campings of the world, who seek your fear. Not the prosperity Gospel people, who seek your money. Where I am, you also will be which, if you turn it around, says, Where you are, I am there too. Where are you right now? Not just physically in this space, but where are you in your heart? Where are you in your thoughts? And where are you in your soul? Because Christ is there too. Showing you not a way as so many people clamour to show you, but giving you the way. The way through life, the way through pain, he is the way through joy, he is the way through loneliness, he is the way through anxiety, he is the way through injustice, he is the way through heart ache, he is the way through fear, and ultimately Christ is the way to God. It s in what you do, he says. It s in what you do. 3

4 Each of us, you see, has also had moments where we wanted some reassurance, some glimmer of hope, that all that we had heard and learned about God is not just some false story but true. That all of this isn t some far-fetched fairy tale. "Just show us the Father," we plea, "and we will be satisfied." To which Jesus responds, not in frustration but in love, both to Philip and to us, "Have I been with you all this time and yet still you don't know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the father!" (David Lose, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota) I was struck this week by a prayer led by a young Lutheran pastor from St. Paul, Minnesota, as she spoke about the rapture. She prayed that if there was such a thing, and we find ourselves in one of the many mansions, that we not argue about things like who gets the better view. Then she prayed that if the rapture didn t happen, that on Sunday morning we wake up and be concerned about those who still have no place to sleep; those who still have no place to call home. I often think that when Jesus did what he did, and does what he does in the Gospel, he creates a minor moment of heaven, when he taught God's love, when he healed the sick, when he opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame to walk, and then conquered death so that even the grave can no longer claim us. Several weeks ago, because of the difficulties our son Eli has been having, we were referred to a paediatrician, Dr. Blaney, here who specializes in one to two year olds here in Moncton. Now, if there s one thing Eli can do, it s eat. He s a breast-fed baby, and he feeds all the time. Because of his severe acid reflux, the doctor told us that sometimes Eli drinks because he s hungry, other times it s a soothing thing because his throat is probably very sore from the reflux, and then from the crying. I Peter says, Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4

5 Sometimes we seek the spiritual milk of God because we hunger for God in our lives, and other times we it s because it soothes us through our pain. Whatever your reason, and we all have many, I encourage you to taste the goodness of God. I encourage you to drink deeply of God. The first night of the Festival of Homiletics I heard Barbara Brown Taylor preach. She s been listed as one of the top ten preachers in the English language. We want to see Jesus, she said, but people have a particular Jesus in mind. People want to see the Jesus who gives them a pass on the hard parts of life. And the hard part for all of us is that we have to preach the Gospel to those who are scared to death. But the reality is that dying is about knowing the way to God. We in this church know that faith is about setting our hearts on the welfare of others to keep them in life even when it means losing our own, or partly losing our own. And despite what is happening to us, and what is against us, and what is hurting us, there is one power left to you: the power to let go. The power to commend it to God. During our visit with the paediatrician he did a little test on Eli. He let him fall, just a little bit, and Eli s reaction was to reach out. It s ours too when we are falling: the reaction to hold someone s hand. It s a human response. It s just as human to want someone to save you from falling. There is salvation in falling. It s about losing so much, and seeing what you have. It s about sitting in a hospital room, beside a bed, and watching someone become more and more translucent. The conversation changes; it becomes more meaningful. The things you could never say before you can say now. I remember when Eli was born, and he made no sound. And I knew we were in trouble when the room became quieter and quieter. And in that moment, nothing mattered to me. I didn t worry about money, I didn t care about weight, I didn t think of the people who cause me stress, all that mattered to me was my little family and specifically him. So 5

6 many people talk about those moments when they really learned what life was about. We have all had the dream where you fall and you startle back awake and grab at something. The Gospel is about admitting the truth you know deep down. When you wake from the dream from falling, to see that it s not a dream. It s then you know that you can open your hands and open your heart. God will know what to do with you next. Trust that. 6

ART FOR LIFE: A HOPEFUL RESPONSE TO SUFFERING

ART FOR LIFE: A HOPEFUL RESPONSE TO SUFFERING A sermon preached by the Rev. Aaron Billard at St. John s United Church, Moncton, New Brunswick May 30, 2010 Oscar Wilde, who visited Moncton in 1882, said