Church of the Transfiguration

Beyond Rational

Father David — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:09:44 +0000

In his book “Falling Upward,” Theologian Richard Rohr asserts that one of the greatest problems for the 21^st Century Church, when attempting to believe in the Resurrection is that our supposed enlightenment has caused us to reduce ourselves to dualistic thinking. He states that because of this the Church tends to reduce the answer to any difficult issue to only one of two possibilities.

On one hand are the rational thinkers who cannot possibly believe in a man who died and came back to life – for science should prove otherwise. On the other hand would be the irrational thinkers: the ones who are unable to see how ridiculous it is to believe something you cannot prove.

But Rohr argues for a third category of rationality. He says that for followers of Jesus and witnesses of the Resurrection, we must come to understand that Christian faith is not rational or irrational, but is instead what he calls “trans-rational.” It is a belief and a faith in something we cannot explain and something we know does not make complete sense, but it is a belief and faith in something that we have tasted, touched, heard and seen, but cannot explain how.

It is beyond rational. It is beyond explanation. It is our deepest mystery and our greatest joy. It is at the center of all which we hold dear.

But in this, there will be doubt. In this, there will be struggle. In this there will be moments when we question what it is that we believe.

But regardless of whether you were a 1^st Century disciple in the upper room, witnessing the Resurrection first hand, or whether you are a 21^st Century follower of Jesus who desires to live an Easter life – it is not our responsibility to explain the resurrection, but it is our duty to point to it and witness to the life it brings.

Christ our Lord who has Risen

Father David — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:39:08 +0000

On Easter weekend a few years ago, I remember hearing a story about a minister who, instead of singing the hymn “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” on Easter Sunday morning, led the congregation in a rendition of a more thematic and edited version of the hymn, entitled: “Glorious Hope is Risen Today.” The idea seemed to be that in the progressive, modern and intellectual world in which we live, people weren’t really expected to believe the Easter story anymore.

According to that mindset, if the Church had any hope of surviving, it had to take advantage of Sundays like Easter Sunday, when there was more than the usual number of congregants in the pews, working to create an easier, more palatable, and more inclusive message to share.

Thus, instead of the proclamation of the Risen Christ, “Glorious Hope” was instead proclaimed.

In the eighteen months since I began as the Pastor of the Church of the Transfiguration, I have witnessed what it looks like when Jesus transforms and transfigures a community.

I have watched as we have read scripture more intentionally. I have been enthused by the movement towards more community centered prayer. I have been inspired by the voice of Christ I hear in the words of the children who teach us so much. I have been humbled by the wisdom I glean from our most senior parishioners, whose lifetimes of following Jesus have given them so much to teach.

I have become deeply aware that the Church does not and has not come to grow in size or in scope because of the great “country club” or fabulous “community center” that it has the potential to be – for in the city of Toronto there are far more well resourced, well equipped and more accessible places to find such a thing.

I have become deeply aware that the Church only finds true growth and true life when we invite the Risen Christ to lead us; the Church only finds true growth and true life when we offer our minds, our hearts and our lives to witness to his power in the world.

I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ because I have seen it with my own eyes. I have seen him alive and at work in my own personal journey – redeeming me and offering me new life again and again and again. I have seen Jesus alive and at work in this community and in others, as I watch his followers witness to and transform the life of the world.

It is not “hope” or “peace” or “joy” that have risen from the dead – even though Jesus’ life does bring such things. It is a man named Jesus who is our God. It is Christ our Lord whom I have seen Risen.

Lent is here!

Father David — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Is my Lenten practice good for me, or greater for God? When I choose to go without something for the forty days of Lent, is it so that I will look better to myself when I look in the mirror, or is it so that I can offer greater glory to God? When I kneel to pray, do I do so to be a better me, or do I do so to be an instrument of God’s work? When I open my wallet to spend my money, whether it is for me or for someone else, do the items that I choose to buy, say yes to the building of God’s Kingdom, or are they just to amass my own?

After being driven into the wilderness of temptation for forty days, Jesus emerges proclaiming the good news of God and declaring that the Kingdom of God has come near! Telling all who would listen that it was time to repent and to believe in God’s Good News.

Lenten practices are not intended for our suffering for sufferings sake, or to test what will power we have for self-improvement. Our Lenten practices are intended to seek first God’s glory and to allow our lives to bring greater glory to God.

As we begin the Lenten season this year, let us commit to fast, to pray, and to give of ourselves – for these forty days. So that when Easter arrives and the Christ is raised, and the world is right again, we will emerge from our trials and temptations in the wilderness, proclaiming the Good News that Christ is risen – ready to build the Kingdom of God.

Communication is key!

Father David — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Regardless of whether we find ourselves in the 1st Century like Jesus or Saint Paul, or in the 21st Century like we do today, communication has always been the linchpin for the Gospel to be successfully shared. The letters of the New Testament tell us that Saint Paul would travel from town to town and city to city to share his witness of Jesus Christ with the wider world. Upon his departure he would promise to continue to stay in contact with each community by letter, so that their commitment to one another in Christ would continue long after he had gone. For both the early Church and for our Church today, communication is key! In the 21st Century, we have far more communications tools at our fingertips than we ever might have imagined we would have, but too often the multitude of options means we do not use any of them very well. Throughout 2011, I made it a major priority to continue to find new and different ways to reach out to the emerging generation by means of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other forms of social media, while continuing to develop avenues for our parish family to find closer connections with one another through the Transcript Newsletter, our new and improving website, and often through the good old-fashioned means of letter writing. It has become abundantly clear to me that we must continue to utilize every means available to us to share the message of the Gospel with each other and with the world, so that we make it widely known that this community is a place where new people can come to know Jesus, and all people can come to call home.

The Vestry Charge

Father David — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:35:59 +0000

In the early 1960’s, President John F. Kennedy gave a number of speeches in which he shared a story, which I think illustrates the crossroads at which our congregation stands today.

President Kennedy spoke of Frank O’Connor, an Irish writer, who tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they would come to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and climb – when they came to a wall that seemed too difficult to permit their voyage to continue – they would take off their caps and would toss them over the wall, so that they would have no choice but to follow them and climb.

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples not to worry about what they will eat, what they will drink, or what they will wear, but to trust that God will provide. Jesus instructs his disciples to take a ‘leap of faith,’ to strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then to find that all that they need will be given to them as well.

My brothers and sisters, it is not us, but it is God who has thrown his cap over the wall. It is not us, but God who is leading us to a beautiful transfigured place that can be found on the other side. Today, we gather as a family on this Vestry Sunday, to make decisions about how we will follow where he is asking us to go. So I invite you to come with me. I invite you to take off your cap as well. I invite you to throw it up and into the air and watch it disappear on the other side of the wall. Let us climb that wall together. Let us follow in the footsteps of our Lord.

Conversion

Father David — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:27:08 +0000

The conversion of Saint Paul – or the conversion of any other person for that matter – is not so much about a conversion from one religion (or from no religion) to the Christian religion. Nor is it even so much about the conversion from being a persecutor of Christians to an apostle of Christ, or a ridiculer of the faithful to a believer in something more.

Conversion to following Jesus, was, is and must be something far more radical than that.

Conversion to following Jesus is accepting a call from God to invite all people, from every nation, to participate in the coming of the Kingdom. It is a call from God for each one of us to faithfully and actively build up the kingdom that Christ proclaimed; a kingdom where peace, justice, love and redemption will come to encompass all of God’s creation.

My brothers and sisters, our conversion is our acceptance of the forgiveness which God offers, our conversion is living our life in God’s abundant love – and so we actively participate in the conversion of others, so that they too will know such forgiveness and such love.

The New Year’s Lie

Father David — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:37:26 +0000

Have you ever noticed that by the first day of February, very few people are still talking about the New Year’s resolutions that their friends, their family, and even themselves had made? Have you ever noticed that many of the resolutions have fallen by the waist-side, and that most people have been unable to succeed? I used to make one almost every year – and I used to spend Christmas telling everyone about the changes that I was about to make. But for me, I never seemed to be able to live up to the changes that I hoped the resolutions would bring. Over the years, I have learned that there is an inherent lie found in the practice of New Year’s resolutions. Not an intentional lie, really, or something evil or malicious that we do, but a lie that is present in the foundation and the premise of resolutions which tell us that they will make us different this year. That giving up smoking, drinking, junk food, or another habit will somehow reset our lives so that we can start fresh. That the 2012 version of ourselves will somehow be a new and improved version – a fundamentally different person than the “us” we were last year. There are two really big problems with this lie. First, the lie denotes that it is our bad habits that are what need fixing. It pretends that the habits themselves are the problem, when in fact, the bad habits and less positive aspects of our character – only point – to the deeper void or emptiness that we are experiencing. A deeper void and emptiness that we are often trying like hell to fill as fast as we can, with whatever we can, so that no one will see how broken we really are. Second, this lie denotes that the “us” who lives with the void, the “us” who suffers from the emptiness, the last year’s version of ourselves with all the bad habits and things we dislike about ourselves, was not a person who was loved amidst our flaws, or someone for whom God did not cherish for exactly who we are. The lie tells us that we somehow have to change ourselves for the world to find our value; we somehow have to change ourselves so that God can find his love.

Romanticizing Mary’s Call

Father David — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:03:24 +0000

This past week, while perusing different Facebook pages, I came across a newspaper article about a very provocative advertisement upon a billboard in Auckland, New Zealand. In what appears to be a teenage actor in an after school special, the picture upon the billboard displays a young woman with her hand covering her mouth and a stunned, scared look in her eyes. She holds in her other hand a positive pregnancy test, and is reacting astonished, yet terrified.

The reason I took so much notice of this billboard is because the picture upon it is not a warning for teenage pregnancy, as one might think at first glance, but it is a modern depiction of the Virgin Mary, sponsored by a church in their community taking a serious risk.

The advertisement has caught the attention of the world wide press and has been condemned by all the usual suspects. Many Evangelical leaders have called it a “disgraceful display” and some Roman Catholics have condemned it as a “perversion of the Blessed Virgin.” But although the billboard caught me off guard at first, the more I have prayed and thought about it, I actually think it pushes us in a very helpful direction.

We know that Mary was poor. We know that she was yet to be married. We know that women in her culture were mostly invisible, unless they were about to be condemned. The central figure of today’s gospel had every right to be terrified. She had every right to stand up and ask God why he would ask this of her. This would not have been an exciting moment in her life – just as the billboard portrays – for this unexpected pregnancy would have been an impending nightmare, just as it can be for many today.

So when we hear the gospel of the calling for Christ’s birth, when we hear the story of Mary’s call to birth and mother him, it is important not to romanticize what is actually happening in this scene – to acknowledge that she does not immediately jump for joy, or answer God with an automatic or overwhelming “yes.”

The Prophetic Voice

Father David — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:06:50 +0000

“Prophecy” is one of those words that conjure up thoughts of crystal balls and fortune tellers; the likes of Nostradamus and other predictors of the future. But we, as followers of Jesus, must understand “prophecy” to be something much different. We, as Disciples of Christ, must come to understand “prophecy” as something much more.

The prophetic voice heard in scripture does not predict the future, as some would immediately guess, but rather it announces what is already happening in the world. Isaiah’s purpose has very little, if not nothing, to do with the predicting of the end of the exile, but his words call his people to open their eyes to see what God is doing in their world.

As the the Book of Isaiah tells us, the prophet is sent to proclaim God’s good news to God’s people: to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, and comfort to the broken hearted – the prophet Isaiah is sent to joyfully announce to God’s people, that God’s restoration is not only coming, but that God’s restoration has already begun.

The Advent Season

Father David — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:26:06 +0000

Advent is a season that I have always had mixed feelings about.

When I was a kid, an incredibly impatient kid for that matter, I didn’t like Advent because it took too long. I didn’t like Advent because I preferred Christmas, and Advent just never seemed to be finished soon enough.

As an adult, and as a preacher to boot, I often find myself struggling with Advent again, but for different reasons now. I find this time of year difficult, as the weather is getting colder and the light dims to darkness earlier in the day, and it seems as though outdoor activities seem to happen less and less. It feels like it will be forever, before the warmth will emerge and the light will beat back the darkness, so that we can go outside again.

The season of Advent arrives, and I am reminded that there is some serious waiting to do. Perhaps, I am still that impatient kid.

Advent calls us to a period of expectant waiting – a time of anticipating God’s fulfilling his promises again. It is a time of knowing that something is coming, but it is a time when we are forced to live in a period of ‘almost’ but ‘not yet.’ It is a very different thing than waiting for something you aren’t sure is going to happen – like waiting for the Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup – because waiting in Advent is waiting expectantly for something you know is on its way, but with absolutely no control over the fact that it hasn’t come yet.