Sunday November 2nd 2008

When Times are Tough

MESSAGE GIVEN BY THE REV. PAUL MULLEN

Greetings to all the Saints of Scarboro United! Did you know that you are saints if you have been consecrated? Does that bring a sigh of relief? “Whew, that isn’t me!”

Has anyone here been baptized, confirmed or joined the church? . . .

Well, you see you are consecrated. Did you know you are also martyrs?

The word martyr originally meant witnesses, and attending a worship service is a form of witness, presuming people could see you come in or out of the building. So, by showing up for worship here this morning service, you are a martyr!

Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day (which was actually yesterday). In old English it was All Hallows Day, and the night before All Hallows’ Evening or Halloween. All Saints’ Day is a time for celebrating the Saints of old, witnesses all, who have brought us our faith in our day. This is the gift they have given us that we might worship together and serve together in the name of the one who calls us in our diversity to be together as one. This is a time to remember price they paid in suffering and death to enable our worship today. It is a Christian version of Remembrance Day, if you will.

In the Book of Revelation John of Patmos has given us an image which recalls the suffering of the early Christians. John was a bishop of the early church sent into exile during an early persecution of the emerging church. Perhaps just having learned of, or remembering his friends who had died for their faith, for the right to worship their God and not Augustus Caesar, the god of the Roman Empire, he imagines a heaven that is one eternal worship service in which those early martyrs could do the one thing they had died for doing – worshipping their God. An eternal worship service – no beginning and no end – may not your version of heaven, it was theirs.

There is no doubt that times are tough now, although not as tough as during those early persecutions. No one is being killed for their faith. At least not here. We are faced, though, with real financial challenges and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In one way times are only tough because we think being blessed by God is means life is wonderful – our marriages are fine, our kids are cooperative, our jobs are great and we have a lot of stuff.

Easy to trivialize the beatitudes in a similar way. Years ago Robert Schuller titled a book “The Be-happy Attitudes.” I have to admit that I never read the book. The title makes me cringe, though, as the Beatitudes are not about any kind of superficial happiness.

As I said, our times are not violently tough in faith terms. We are more ignored than persecuted. Yet times are always tough for people of faith because we tend to see life from a different perspective. We often find ourselves swimming upstream. So it is fair to ask, “What does it mean to be a saint today?”

I think we can get some help answering that when we take a careful look at the Beatitudes. When we read carefully we can see that they are more about a deep joy that comes from being in right relationship will all aspects of life. Schuller did have part of his book title right in that the Beatitudes are about our attitude – our angle of approach to life, our vision of the purpose, goals and direction for life. Where we see life going, what goals will help us get there and the direction we need to head to achieve them.

The Beatitudes challenge us to think anew about where we want our congregation to be in ten or twenty years time. On All Saint’s Day 2025 what would you like the members to be thanking us for when they look back on 2008, on the first decade of this millennium? What about the residents of Calgary and Alberta and Canada? The planet?

This is a holy conversation we need to have as we proceed with our financial campaign and our Joint Needs Assessment and in months afterward. What do we want this congregation look like and feel like in 2025 and what will it take to get there?

To look carefully at the Beatitudes sometimes it takes a new translation to really hear them. Especially when we have tried to memorize them in childhood, and not always successfully, we tend to assume that we know their contents. Neil Douglas-Klotz, a scholar of Aramaic, Jesus’ first language, has given us a new translation (Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, p. 175-6) by taking the Greek text of Jesus’ words, translating them to Aramaic and then to English. In this version we can see that the Beatitudes are deeply personal, yet leading into justice seeking. His preferred translation is:

Tuned to the source are those who live by breathing Unity; their "I can!" is included in God's.

Blessed are those in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by love.

Healthy are those who have softened what is rigid within; they shall receive physical vigour and strength from the universe.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for physical justice; they shall be surrounded by what is needed to sustain them.

Blessed are those who, from their inner wombs, birth mercy; they shall feel its warm arms embrace them.

Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere.

Blessed are those who plant peace in each season; they shall be named the children of God.

Blessings to those who are dislocated for the cause of justice; their new home is the province of the universe.

Renewal when you are reproached and driven away by the clamour of evil on all sides, for my sake . . .

Then do everything extreme, including letting your ego disappear, for this is the secret of claiming your expanded home in the universe.

For so they shamed those before you:

All who are enraptured, saying inspired things -- who produce on the outside what the spirit has given them within.

What kind of life are we being called into -- as individuals . . . as a congregation . . . as saints of this age? Whatever it is, when we engage in holy conversations, open discussions with hearts open to God’s guidance, we will not journey alone. God is with us. Thanks be to God.

Amen