A Short Note
Before I put new material on this site, I need to explain that surgery, in late March, meant that a number of things liturgically were unable to be done. For the first time in a long time I did not preside at Holy Week services but watched them on You Tube (very disappointed at the lack of Lutheran services but pleased with the services offered by Canterbury Cathedral in England). At present, as well as Church related duties, there is the work of ingathering for winter — and this midst torrential rain and hail damaged garden, fruit trees, and much else.
The positive thing is that, despite years of drought, we are not having the wildfires others are suffering, and the ground water is being replaced. However, with weather, fires elsewhere, and the ongoing world crisis brought about by the Trump White House and the concept of American exceptionalism, however skewed, plus Manifest Destiny writ large, one cannot help but be deeply concerned. Pray for Canada, the world community and the climate crisis. Act, as well, in all the ways we each are able, making of this lived prayer (see Romans 8:26-27).
Thoughts On the Need For Unity in Alberta
We live in a world presently fraught with wars and/or authoritarian governments. Despite our Canadian stability overall, there are those who seem to desire instability. They also seem to misconstrue what makes for freedom. Of late, Brexit is being held up as an expression of what separation might look like. However, England is a country with a long and established history and structures, which Alberta, alone, would have to create; from the basics of governance to minting money. Trade agreements would need renegotiating, movement regulated, there would be severe costs to households and businesses, and the perception internationally that Alberta is a pariah, a place ripe for gobbling up by the US, not in sympathy but strictly for our water and oil.
Alberta separate from Canada? There are ongoing diatribes against perceived injustices, and misunderstandings about federalism, also regarding equalization payments which are to provinces not from provinces. Dictionaries describe federalism as a compact between political units, “that surrender their individual sovereignty to a central authority but retain residual power of government.” Canada’s history has been a long journey towards Centralized Federalism. We have a fascinating history. All Canadian students should take Canadian history as a given, to better understand our history and political structure and how it differs from other countries, particularly the United States of the Americas.
Senator Eugene Forsey said forcibly in 1976 that “What we are dealing with in constitutional change is not paper or things. It is human lives” (Senate debate May 4, 1976, quoted from Politics in Canada). This is how all Albertans must address the present threat of separatism. “The history and detailed development [for] this option [to separate] does not exist.”
In Canada, health and education are matters for provincial governments, which, however, have some answerability. For example, the Canada Health Act requires that all provinces maintain a system that includes full care for all persons equally. There are financial penalties for breaking this Act which negates the use of user fees and extra billing. To ensure that this be so, the Federal Government offers healthcare transfer payments. Alberta receives $7 billion per year which, as with other conditional Federal grants, must be spent in accordance with Federal standards or be cancelled or rescinded. We know that this last is not Alberta’s case as yet. The present push to legitimize “dual practice” in Alberta under Bill 11 is not just breaking a provision set for all provinces and territories, but appears to be pushing this situation at a fraught time for Alberta. Perhaps timed to force a federal response that could be held to be one more grievance. Then there are the AISH payments soon to be reduced while Alberta speaks of windfalls from a possible AI revolution, already impacting jobs and human relationships. Where do the “least ones” fit into the scenario now and how under a separate state?
These issues, and others, need both clarity and federal action, along with that of informed citizens. Many of us can tell stories of years of waiting for surgery or to see specialists. There is a shortage of primary health care doctors and the present political unrest will mean even less, not more, medical care; firstly by those who will leave, or not come, and secondly by those who double dip systems. These last will take public health care into crisis mode, creating higher costs and longer wait times, as research here, and elsewhere, concurs. These studies are readily available. The results of separatism are less clear.
There are concerns that some Albertans are making light of the danger created by those who choose separation and will therefore not take time to vote this Fall. This despite those who have not been above gaining illegal access to voter registration for nefarious purposes. It is critical that the threat to separate is not seen as toothless, or something that can simply be ignored. It is essential to take a stand. If you love this country, VOTE, but carefully read the questions, which can be seen now online for your perusal.
For those who feel it is acceptable to cause separation foment at this point in history, you might ponder rights and freedoms as defined by International Law and many nations versus the interpretation within the United States, having watched in real time just what events in the US convey of liberty and justice for all. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all levels of government. The rights we embrace as Canadians are not ambiguous. At the same time, though, in a democratic society, rights cannot be absolute. They must be qualified in order to protect the rights of others, “and will be subject to such limitations as are shown to be justified in a free and democratic society” (Charter Explanation and Preamble, p. 2). I have heard it said , from separatists, that their choice, or desire, is democratic. “It is hoped, then, that citizens “acquire a deep understanding of their own liberties as well as an even deeper appreciation of the liberties of others” (The Honourable Edward Broadbent, November 20, 1981), thereby acting for a greater good.
In a worse case scenario, if separatism were to take place, many professional people would leave, including physicians, teachers, medical staff, and others who love Canada. We ourselves have had this discussion with others. There will be chaos with years of deliberation over illegal action taken, as there is no path to separation in Canada. Isolation will be omnipresent as Canadian provinces would be divided in landmass and placed at risk by the authoritarian government now governing in the United States. The perceptions of liberty and license conveyed by the US media has caused a general “laissez faire” attitude opposing the Canadian Federal Government’s supposed interference, while yet holding somewhat unrealistic expectations of said government. The present US Federal Government is AWOL on nearly every moral and ethical stance of governing. There are several adages to ponder: “Look before you leap,” and “Never sacrifice the future to the present.”
To this last, think of what it means to begin creating a supposed nation from scratch. There would be little help in the process, for a perceived pariah state, from other Canadian provinces. So,
●Beware of those who offer, or seek, large financial support for separation.
●Recognize that health care and education would be the full responsibility of any new entity, as well as Trade Schools and Universities.
●Policing (the RCMP is Federal) will require developing.
●Pensions:many people would leave if pensions were to be taken over by this government or a separatist government.
●Social Services, Senior care, prisons and judiciary, taxation, and many services federally assisted, would now be the full responsibility of the once Canadian Province.
●Federal highways would not exist as such, and so much more.
●Oil is a non-renewable resource (transporting it depends on the good will of other provinces and the Federal government).
●Aboriginal rights precede Alberta’s becoming a province.
●The arguments to leave are based on a narrative told to, and believed by, some who accept what is objectively untrue. Who can be trusted to lead when all is said and done? How much unity is there beside perceived grievances?
There are real and present grievances to deal with, such as a dysfunctional medical system at present in Alberta, and elsewhere in Canada, that does not honour the Canada Health Act. One can wonder why the Federal Government does not act to enforce the Act by using “Equality Rights” #15 The Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Physicians, scientist, and international research have shown how that a two-tiered health system does not reduce public wait times or serve the public good.
On Canada Day we watched, intermittently, the celebrations across our country, Canada. It came to me, as we watched the celebrations in Banff, that Federal Parks within Alberta might well become an issue, should the truly incomprehensible push, by some, to remove Alberts from Confederation come to fruition. A research paper I wrote in undergrad revealed that aboriginal peoples were once relocated in order to create Federal Parks as a legacy for all Canadians.
We live in a world presently fraught with wars and/or authoritarian governments. The western world is, overall, seeking security and unity over division and mayhem. The world is in a distinct age of transition because of both climate change and shifting super powers. It is important to be on the right side of history now and for our future.
The Reverend J. J. Trudeau
Everything Old Is New Again
Preface
This extra comment, on the text for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, is a response to the angst, anger, and bewilderment, of life with Donald Trump. His reckless attempts at world hegemony, have created world disorder and chaos. His is a typology of Anti-Christ, as with Putin. The difference is that Donald Trump claims some affiliation with Christianity, albeit with the religious right even within fundamentalism.
While I believe in final answerability before God, I say with a song writer, “We want justice now, we already have it in heaven.” And with another song writer who writes of the US, “We the people can change/We the people can change/We the people can change/Our hearts to ring true/ [and this is repeated in a different cadence]/ May this be so, please God.”\
A World In Chaos
The sense of darkness and drowning is not unfamiliar to those who read, or listen to, the daily news. The world seems fraught with chaos, and the response seems to be — in this day — to create more chaos, in order to circumvent chaos. It is a Pandora’s response to world events, that we seem increasingly schooled to. The recollection of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the aftermath we live with, seems to be largely forgotten. The winds of war — as current response — seem ever with us. History repeats itself and threatens to swamp us.
We tend to demand that God move the chess pieces around — and rescue us. But God gave us reason and will, and a paradigm for human relationship, so that we steer a straight course through storms and act in ways to bring a cessation to freak weather patterns in life and living. As we step forward we will experience God’s presence. As we at times leave the safe and the practical midst fears of making ourselves ridiculous, a hand reaches out to us in the love of family and friends, in support from those previously unknown, in a deepening of the knowledge of God with us. As we recall today’s Gospel, we can note that God comes to us, as we respond to God, even when our response seems ridiculous and tentative, or loses its focus as we are overcome by fears. At those times, Jesus will seem to say to us, as He did to Peter, “You were doing it! You had it! Don’t lose that!” Belief is not settled once and for all. The gift of faith is given to us and blown to life in Baptism. It is nurtured to belief, among God’s faithful people, but the flame flickers and wavers at times. Storms and winds can play havoc with it.
We are reminded that Jesus’ love for His disciples sent Him out into the storm first of all. He accepted Peter’s need to come to Him, as he did, and chided Peter’s wavering trust, while yet responding to Peter’s obvious need with compassion, and perhaps laughter. God does not require that we demonstrate our trust, or belief, in similar ways. However, there will be times when the ground beneath our feet will seem no more substantial than water. What matters is that Jesus comes in chaotic times and places, to be present with us, and to still the storms we are experiencing, making order of chaos, being present with and for us.
Amen.
Prayer: God of Presence, God of Outstretched Arms, we thank You that You —frequently in the person of your people — help to bring thoughtful processes — and order — in chaos. We need your help, as ever, in refocussing our lives so that we are able to see, hear, and be with, those who are in danger of drowning in the world — as it exists for them. Give us, we pray, the strength to be part of stilling the storms around, and among us — so that your reign truly comes to earth — as in heaven. Amen.
The following is a verse from a hymn that I love.
Come through the faith whereby the Church must live;
Come through the Word and Sacraments you give;
Come through your teaching and your healing too;
Come through the work enlightened hearts can do;
Come through the work enlightened hearts can do.
( “Your Kingdom Come” vs. 3)
Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings:
1st Reading: 1 Kings 19:9, 11-13
Psalm: Psalm 85:8-13
2nd Reading: Romans 9:1-5
Gospel: Matthew 4:22-33
Hymns:
● “Peter” (Sr. Miriam Therese Winter)
● ”My Life Flows on in Endless Song” (With One Voice #781)
● “O Bread of Life From Heaven” (Offertory Hymn; Lutheran Book of Worship #222)
● “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” (Post Communion Canticle; Lutheran Book of Worship #294)
● “I, the Lord of Sea and Sky” (With One Voice #752)
Today’s Gospel pericope is framed by the telling of Herod’s drunken and bloody banquet juxtaposed with Jesus’ joyous, but simple, banquet for five thousand men, plus unnumbered women and children.In this instance, five loaves and two fishes, blessed and broken, were able to satisfy everyone and to spare. Then, the healings at Gennesaret. In between these events is the story of crossing over the lake midst a terrifying storm.
We read that Jesus has remained behind in an attempt to find solitude and prayer time. The disciples “by now some furlongs from land” were “hard pressed by rough waves” and a headwind. Despite sailors on board they were beyond their depth both literally and figutatively, their boat battered by waves (literally tortured).
It must have been quite a storm because they, many of whom were fishers, were terrified. If possible, their fear is intensified as they see, within the mist and sea spray, the figure of a man walking toward them on the water.
In fairness to the disciples, we need to know some of the beliefs and myths of the time. The Sea of Galilee is a huge inland lake, beautiful and moody — with sudden storms springing up without warning. The Sea’s size, and its moods, helped in keeping alive ancient beliefs about deep waters holding within their dark depths spirits, and demons, unseen things and beings. Deep waters and darkness represented chaos, envisioned an untamed and untameable underworld, a parallel world. We need only hear the creation story to hear this. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void— and there was darkness over the deep, and the Spirit hovered over the waters.”
We hear it again in the great story of Yahweh’s power over the waters, in the recalled telling of Noah and the Great Flood, and in the story of the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, and in the words of a Psalmist, where Yahweh is described as striding across the sea to subdue nations, and elements and evil (see Psalm 77, and elsewhere).
In other Eastern and Mediterranean cultures of that, and earlier periods, there are echoes of these beliefs. The Egyptians believed that you had to cross the River Styx in order to be tested and accepted by the gods. People in the 18th century still believed in a flat world. If you sailed too far you would sail over the edge. Terry Pratchett created such a tongue in cheek world in his “Diskworld” series. Then, of course, there is Calvin, with his fears of the dark. All these stories touch our own fears — lest we be too critical of the disciples, as told to us.
Such tellings prove what we ourselves already know, some of us personally, that people are afraid of the unknown, of darkness and deep waters which hold unknown, and some known, dangers.
But what the creation stories, and scripture generally, tell us is that God is able to control, even use, darkness and chaos. Which is not to say that people have lost their fears of darkness and the unknown. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel recalls how that darkness and a storm framed the vision of someone walking on water towards them. Midst mist and waves all their primal fears were shaken awake and they were terrified.
Across the waves they heard a shout, His voice — “Take courage! It is I; do not be afraid.” And Peter, at times a rather Charlie Brown figure, responds, “If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus said, “Come.” He did not command, but invite, a dubious disciple, and Peter began to walk over the water to Jesus until Peter lost his focus on Jesus and began to realize that what he is doing is unprecedented, impossible and unlikely. His motive was mixed, certainly to reach Jesus and safety but his return to a focus on the storm, the wind and the waves and that reality, caused him to stumble and to go under. He called out for help and Jesus responded, merely chiding him for his doubt, his if you are (“…if it is you, command me to come to you on the water”). Rather like the devil’s temptation of Jesus (“If you are the Son of God,” do this and test God for survival” [Mt 5:5]), is rather what Peter did, and we do, as well, as we demand things that we ourselves must work to do, first of all, and then be met halfway, as with Peter. To lose focus is to be overwhelmed, but we are not alone. First of all we have the community of the baptized to reach out to in God’s name, then to touch belief and not choose the storm, and become distracted.
Much in society also gives us these messages. If you ever watched cartoons, you will remember Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner around cliffs and gullies. The Road Runner inevitably leaps over a gap, easily making it over the gap, but every time the coyote, automatically following, is halfway across — he then becomes aware of nothing beneath his feet, stops cold, and plummets straight down, gathering speed as he falls. Maybe the cartoonist went to Sunday school. Maybe the cartoonist remembers the story of Peter’s attempt to walk on water. The point is similar — focus.
In our world children learning to walk while being held by the hands of parents, or others, are initially timid walking alone. Theirs are unsteady and wavering steps when released – until, suddenly aware of the miracle happening, knowing that they are holding nothing, they collapse in an astonished heap. Some cry, others clap, but most want to be held and reassured. So it is with us, so it was with those first disciples being taught to be leaders – not yet ready to take on the role, too aware of the shifts and changes facing them, unable to move behind their fears.
There are lots of underlying themes and threads within this pericope. Holding it all together is the theme of belief enough to embrace trust, a trust that casts out fear, even fear of darkness and chaos. In this case the others, still in the boat, watching the bravado of Peter midst the storm, observing, experience it all. When Jesus gets into the boat and the storm ceases, they begin their collective journey towards commitment.
The Matthean telling of Jesus walking on water, and Peter’s attempt at going to Him in this way, has spawned some very bad theologies. Peter’s escapade has been used to teach, or infer, that God requires a demonstration of what some would call belief, by taking pointless risks, the testing of God, as well as self. The words, “You of little belief, why do you doubt?” have been used as a kind of useless dare. This can lead to the presumption that nothing can, or will ever happen to us, a Jesus and me, or us, as the song “With God On Our Side” suggests some would have it. This kind of belief stifles the journey from faith to believing, which is a thoughtful pilgrimage that brings us to cross bearing ultimately, having addressed fears and doubts as with those who remained in the boat.
Jesus, sensing trouble, left His few hours of solitude. His arrival was not a test of belief but a lesson in focus, of which there would be many. The journey with Jesus caused some to leave Him, saying He was too much for them, and those first disciples seem to have lost focus a number of times.
The endearing thing about Peter is that despite his bombast, brashness, and the way he seems always to leap before looking — is his growing love for, and trust in, Jesus. His endurance, following stupid choices and betrayal, assures us. His was a dogged constancy which we can find helpful — in light of our own, at times, poor choices and stumbling love for God. We are to “take heart,” even midst chaos, for God is with us. Amen.