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Showing posts from 2008

The Lord Has Comforted His People -- A Christmas Message

In the quiet of the night, in lowly estate, the Lord bared forth his holy arm before the eyes of the slumbering nations. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. In the darkness of the darkest night, in poverty, in humility, in the womb of a virgin mother, the Creator of the Cosmos came, and entered into our humanity so that all the ends of the earth might see the salvation of our God. And on this morning, as the shepherds return to the their sheep, and the angels’ glorias fade into the waning night, as a young mother comforts her newborn child, we know that the Lord has indeed comforted his people. Comfort – comfort in our weakness. He came, for those who could not come and kneel at the foot of the manger – he came. Comfort – comfort in our sorrow. He came, for those who had lost hope that God could ever be with them in their despair – he came. Comfort – comfort in our darkness. He came, for those who had turned from the goodness and mercy of God – he came. He came to his own and

Imagine -- An Advent Reflection

A reflection for Advent from the fortieth chapter of the Prophet Isaiah The Word of the Lord endures forever. Even though we wither like the grass, God goes ever unchanging on, ruler and Lord of all. And in the unending faithfulness of God, he is ever working to reconcile us to himself and to each other. The season of Advent is about us becoming reconciled to God, it is about waiting on the moment that God himself entered human history and called us back to his heart as a shepherd leads his flock. In the time of the Second Temple, John the Baptist was making this very call, telling people to turn back to God and be made ready for his coming – Make straight a pathway for our God. John’s words evoke another time spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, a time when the Temple had been destroyed and the people of Judah had been taken into captivity by the neo-Babylonian empire. Imagine yourself there. It is very much like the time of the Exodus – it is a time in the wilderness, a time that will ap

The Gospel of Mark Challenge: Reflection Six -- The Little Apocalypse

This Generation Will Not Pass Away Until All These Things Have Taken Place It can be frustrating for those of us in mainstream Christianity when we feel as if certain very conservative sectors of Christianity have appropriated the Bible for their sole use, and their own particular stream of interpretation as the only “true” mode of interpreation. Who are we to blame, but ourselves, though? Do we in the Christian mainstream assert ownership over the Bible? Do we openly engage in a public conversation with the text of the Bible? Do we attempt to deal with difficult passages as they present themselves? I fear we do not. As I have said previously, sometimes our lectionary does not help us much. It often excises difficult passages, and in particular, severely edits many of the apocalyptic passages of Scripture. As I see it, this is extremely problematic for mainstream Christians. For most mainstream Christians, the only teaching that they ever get, or sermons that they ever hear about the a

The Gospel of Mark Challenge -- Reflection Five: Cursing the Fig Tree; Cleansing the Temple

Some time ago, one of our parishioners asked me about the passage in Mark 11 in which Jesus curses a fig tree and it dies. I had hoped to write on this sooner, but moving house at the beginning of the month followed by a week of conferences delayed things a bit. Subscribing to the adage, “better late than never,” here is my reflection: The story of Jesus’ cursing of a fig tree occurs in the second half of Mark chapter eleven, following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The day after, he goes out to Bethany and comes upon a fig tree in leaf. The tree however, has no fruit. Jesus curses the tree and says to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Jesus then returns to Jerusalem, goes up to the Temple and overturns the tables of the money-changers in what has become known as the story of “the cleansing of the Temple.” The next morning the disciples and Jesus pass by the fig tree again and Peter points out that it is withered to its roots. Jesus then proceeds to give a short “ser

The Sermon I Did Not Preach

I prepared two sermons for last Sunday. One of them I never gave. In our parish, as in many parishes across Canada, we celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving on the Sunday before National Thanksgiving. Given the events of the previous week and the turmoil created by the financial crisis, I felt very strongly moved to offer a sermon that would challenge those who, even in the midst of such crisis, still have so much more than many in the world. However, after writing the sermon I found myself filled with considerable anger. Indeed, the process of writing brought that anger to light. I then found myself questioning my motives in writing such a sermon. Whence came my anger? I had hoped that it was righteous anger but was worried that it might be something else. I spoke with others close to me about the sermon and tried to sort out my motives and goals. I argued that, in the words of that great scholar and preacher, Walter Brueggemann, a preacher must always "bring a word from somewhe

Gospel of Mark Challenge: Reflection Four -- You Are Not Far from the Kingdom of God

“The Kingdom of God has come near.” These are the first words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of St. Mark. As the gospel unfolds, Jesus’ various miracles, exorcisms and healings all serve to underscore the reality of the closeness of the kingdom. It is therefore ironic that during his lifetime few of his followers really come to understand and believe that the kingdom truly is breaking through in their midst. I often wonder how much we are like those disciples who hear those words but cannot quite believe them to be true. As I noted in a previous post, we long to believe that God is alive, active, and working in our lives and in our world, but so much of what goes on around us speaks to the contrary. Furthermore, if we do believe these words, “the kingdom of God has come near,” we often have our own particular ideas of what the kingdom of God means. Is the kingdom of God a small select group of holy individuals who have “got it right” with respect to their theology, doctrine, ethic

The Gospel of Mark Challenge: Reflection Three -- Lord I Believe, Help My Unbelief

The ninth chapter of St. Mark’s gospel features one of my favourite sayings in the whole of Holy Scripture. A man whose child is possessed by a self-destructive spirit has come to Jesus and asks him, if he is able, to cure his son. “If you are able! – All things can be done for the one who believes,” to which the man responds in a cry, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” Lord I believe, help my unbelief. Were truer, more honest words ever spoken by any man or woman of any age? Each of us, especially in moments of crisis, earnestly longs to believe that God is not only present but also active in our lives. Yet, in the midst of crisis when it can seem that we are alone and lost, when world comes crashing down around us, when we feel most powerless, when we our lives tumbling out of control, how difficult it is to believe. At the same time, it is in those moments when all seems lost that we, in our exasperation, most frequently call upon God in a call of last resort to intervene and pull

The Gospel of Mark Challenge: Reflection Two -- "Who Are My Mother and My Brothers?"

For the introduction to the Gospel of Mark Challenge , click here . In the latter part of the third chapter of The Gospel of Mark we learn that Jesus’ family is somewhat worried about what he has been up to. When he returns home (Mark 3:21), his family tries to restrain him because people were accusing him of being out of his mind. A Scribe had even come down from Jerusalem and accused Jesus of being possessed. In 3:31, with his mother and brothers (and possibly his sisters, depending on the manuscript evidence) standing outside, he shrugs off their concern for him. In fact, Jesus seems to shrug off his family of origin entirely and insists that those amongst him (his disciples, the ones who do the will of God) are actually his true family. As a parent I am sympathetic to his poor mother. On the one hand, she must have seen what he was doing and been wonderfully proud and deeply moved, and yet, she certainly would have feared for both his safety and his reputation. But if trust is

The Gospel of Mark Challenge: Reflection One - "Follow Me"

When I issued the Gospel of Mark Challenge (click here for original post) and pledged to read and pray alongside each of you, I had no preconceived program for what form my reflections on the Mark’s Gospel would take. I planned simply to reflect on themes that occurred to me in my own reading and to speak to comments and questions offered by each of you. There are certainly several themes and concepts that emerge in the first two chapters that would be fruitful to consider. There is, of course, the fact that St. Mark begins not with a birth narrative but with Jesus’ baptism, temptation, and immediately moves into his early ministry. Indeed, you may have noticed that the word “immediately” is a connecting word that Mark uses very frequently. Mark’s narrative moves along at a quick pace, in the present tense, and certainly has a sense of immediacy and urgency. The immediacy is also found on the lips of Jesus, “The kingdom of God has come near/is at hand; repent and believe in the good n

The Gospel of Mark Challenge

In my August 31st, 2008 homily ( click here ), I issued a challenge to parishioners to engage in praying the Daily Office over the next month and reading through the Gospel of Mark. In my homily I stressed that prayer (although requiring both effort and discipline) is not principally about doing, but about being. Prayer is about being in relationship with the living God. All relationships require commitment, effort, and time. However, the most important thing about being in a relationship, be it with a friend, lover, child or parent, is simply being together. As Christian people, prayer is our way of being in relationship with God. In prayer we make the time, we commit ourselves to being together with God, and we enter into a conversation with God. How do we do this? In my homily I suggested the following. First, make a regular time everyday to spend in prayer. If you are a morning person, this could be early in the day, before anyone else in your house awakes. Perhaps ending the day

What the Lectionary Doesn't Let Us Read

In preparing for my homily for Proper 20, I found myself once again frustrated with the Revised Common Lectionary. Throughout the summer I have been preaching on the The Epistle to the Romans . For Proper 20, Year A, the lectionary appoints Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, to be read, thus skipping over a large portion of chapter eleven. This happens several times with respect to Romans . On Proper 9, we read 1:16-17, 3:22b-28, thus skipping much of chapters one and three, and all of chapter two. Similarly, much of chapter nine is missing later on in the cycle. As a result, we are carefully directed away from passages that might lead us in the direction of sermons that address themes and concepts such as homosexuality, knowledge of God through natural theology, supersessionism, predestination, and yes, sin). Careful readers of the lectionary will note that considerable portions of the The Revelation to St. John are also absent, as well as several unpalatable passages from the Old Testament. T

On Reaffirming Our Faith

During these summer months I have decided to move away from the prescribed Daily Office readings and instead read a chapter from Paul during each of my prayer times. I have been moving through the Epistles in canonical order and have found this a most edifying discipline. As parishioners and regular followers of my sermons page will note, since June, I have been preaching on Romans. The daily reading of Paul, combined with reflection and research on the texts for my Sunday homilies has helped me consider the importance for Paul of turning to Christ in our moments of crisis. I have preached on this subjected much, of late, and from several angles. Several key themes have emerged – decision, community, being alive to God, not being ashamed of the Gospel, amongst others – and I suppose what I find most exciting about reading Paul, and particularly Romans, is the challenge he lays before us. It is essentially a reworking of that old deuteronomic admonition: I set before you life and death,

In Search of a Passionate Spirituality

As churches in this diocese have engaged in a self-evaluation process called Natural Church Development it has become clear that surveyed Anglicans feel that they lack a “passionate spirituality.” “Passionate spirituality” is one of several categories under which survey responses are collated and evaluated using this valuable assessment tool. While churches have high scores in a variety of other areas such as worship, small groups, leadership and effective structures. There has been a general concern that Anglicans across this diocese are not spiritually engaged. In the parish in which I serve as Assistant Curate, “passionate spirituality” has certainly been one of our weaker rankings. With parishes in our dioceses fairly consistently ranking “low” in “passionate spirituality,” a recent clergy conference was held with “passionate leadership” as its theme. The call has gone out to work on these results. While tools such as the NCD survey are quite useful in taking the pulse of our congr

Book Review Page Added

To my readers: I have added a new Book Review page to this site. You can visit the site by clicking on the link in the right-hand column of this page. I intend to publish about one book review per month and offer reading suggestions from time-to-time. I have moved the "currently reading," and "recently read" lists to that page, as well. As always, I welcome your comments and (as with this page and my sermons page) you are free to post them. Sincerely, The Rev. Daniel F. Graves

The Problem with Spirituality; or, Why I’m Not Ashamed to Say that I’m Religious

It seems to be all the rage these days to claim to be spiritual but not religious. In this dichotomy, spirituality is characterized as an authentic searching after a connection with God, whereas religion is characterized as a false way, followed only by spiritually dead institutional dunderheads, who unwittingly succumb through either stupidity or spiritual vacuousness to empty regimes of liturgical banality. On the other hand, spirituality is for those who are enlightened, and in their enlightenment need no mediator between themselves and whatever or whoever they define as “God” (be that the Judeo-Christian God, or a more ethereal “source of being,” or even the universe, itself.). To these post-modern spiritual elites, those who are “religious” have placed their very small God in a very small box and seek to mold him (yes, him) in their own image. Religious people are legalists who are only concerned about the rules and not about a relationship with God. Indeed, do religious peopl

Anglican Book Centre to Publish Collection of Healing Prayers

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I am pleased to announce that ABC Publishing (The Anglican Book Centre) will be publishing an anthology of healing prayers that I have been collecting for some time. Prayers for Healing in the Anglican Tradition is a collection of healing prayers from official prayer books from around the Anglican Communion. The tentative release date is January 2009, pending the securing of rights and permissions from the respective copyright holders. My hope is that clergy, lay visitors, lay anointers, those involved in prayer chains, those leading the prayers of the people, or simply anyone involved in the healing ministry will find this book useful. The collected prayers are grouped thematically (e.g., general collects, prayers for recovery, for those facing chronic or terminal illness, those facing depression, those preparing for surgery, etc.). Each section is introduced with a short series of "pastoral considerations." The book's Introduction gives a short history of the healing m

The Secular Observance of Religious Holidays

It was recently found that York University’s long-time custom of canceling classes on specific Jewish holy days is discriminatory against other faith groups. As a student at York in the early nineties, it never occurred to me that such a practice might be construed in this way. Indeed, as a member of the so-called dominant culture, which forced its Christian holidays on all other faith groups, I thought this practice a good one, given the number of Jewish staff and students at the university in those days. Given current demographic studies of students, faculty and staff, I now understand how a practice that was meant to extend fairness has ultimately limited it. I believe that it is high time that this country abandons the practice of honouring the religious holy days of some religious groups at the expense of others. My wife is a teacher in a local school board that allows days of “religious observance” to be taken by its staff. While there is always some negotiation around what const

On Article XXVIII

During a recent meeting of our Lenten series at Holy Trinity, a well-esteemed and highly respected member of the community made the suggestion that the clergy of this parish (and many clergy in the Anglican Church, at large) have either rejected or neglected the Articles of Religion (i.e., The Thirty-Nine Articles ). In particular, it was suggested that we were acting in contravention of Article XXVIII, “On the Lord’s Supper.” I would not presume to speak on behalf of any other cleric, but as the suggestion of neglect or contravention was made publicly to this cleric I wish to issue this public response, on my own behalf. The Articles of Religion, or as they are commonly known, The Thirty-Nine Articles , are a “set of doctrinal formulae finally accepted by the Church of England in its attempt to define its dogmatic position in relation to the controversies of the sixteenth century.” (F.L. Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church , 3rd ed., p. 1368). The Articles, approved by