Reflections of a Canadian Churchman

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...