Thursday, April 13, 2017

Lent 5 - March 26, 2017

One of the complaints people have about Council meetings is the way the meetings tend to spend more time on finances than on anything else. If you’ve ever been to a Council meeting, or even an annual meeting, which runs very much the same, you’ll notice that if you were to compare the amount of time spent talking about the theological or biblical or faith reasons for making a decision to the financial reasons for making a decision, like starting a new program, or cutting down on spending in some area, the time spent talking about whether or not the church can afford it would take up the most amount of time by far. Which is frustrating, when you consider that the whole point of a church is to follow Christ, who talks about sharing the Gospel, and comforting the afflicted, and fighting for justice for the oppressed. Church meetings, synod conference, national church-wide assemblies––all of these gatherings tend to make decisions based on the amount of money that’s available, and not on following Christ.
And, typically, these meetings all end with people walking away feeling kind of depressed because there’s never enough money. Often, there’s barely enough money just to keep going, and once we’ve allocated that money for our survival, there’s not really anything left for anything else - none for the afflicted or the oppressed. And deep in our hearts, we all know that this isn’t right, but we don’t see any other option. We have to keep going, and yet that doesn’t leave us feeling very good.

I bring this up because of something I’ve noticed here at St. John in the last month. It particularly hit me at our last Council meeting, two weeks ago. Now, Council meetings here have been difficult for the last few years. Don’t get me wrong - this is a great Council, and I am impressed that Council meetings are focused and people listen to one another, and everybody is on task. But they have also been sad and stressful as those on Council have been struggling with what to do about the dwindling finances, and the lack of people to help out or take part in activities, and the number of funerals we are having, and the burden of taking care of the building. Council is deeply committed to this congregation, but every time we had to talk about money, I would see everyone’s face fall, and everyone would take a big breath, and we’d hear how much money we had to spend, and how much less money came in.

Until the most recent meeting. Instead, when we were told that giving is down, everyone kind of shrugged, and went, “Yup,” and we went on to the next thing. Everyone was relaxed, and the little worry lines that everyone has had were gone. And I didn’t even quite realize it at the time until I got home, and Josh asked me how the meeting went, and I stopped and realized that we had left the meeting feeling refreshed. We even laughed at that Council meeting, and I don’t mean to say that Council is full of very serious people who can’t take a joke, but honestly there hasn’t been much to laugh about in the last year. But there was laughter at this last meeting.

And when I brought this up at the latest pastors’ meeting (all the Lutheran pastors in Calgary try to get together once a month), and mentioned how amazing it is to be at a Council meeting where we aren’t worrying about money, and how relaxed everyone was, Pastor Margaret, who was here two Sundays ago, said, “Oh! Yes, I noticed that when I was at your church! Everyone was so relaxed they were almost giddy!”

So there is something going on here. There is a noticeable absence of stress. There is, in its place, something I would describe as joy. It’s a bit odd, because you would think that we would all be feeling grief and loss. And we are, to be sure. We are all in a period of mourning, some just a little and others more intense. But there is also a joy here. In meetings, in worship, in the day-to-day activities that happen here throughout the week, as Calvary Grace takes on the responsibilities and the excitement of owning the building, and as we began the process of figuring out where to give money. At the last meeting we had of the disbursement committee, when we realized what it would look like to give money to the various organizations that you chose, it was so exciting to realize that we could help! St. John is in a position it has never been in before, where instead of having to decide whether or not we can help those who come to us, and figuring out how to help, we can just help. There is a feeling of rejoicing over this that I’m not sure has been felt here in decades.

Why is this? Where is this new joy and new peace coming from? We have decided to close, to die really, and there is a lot of sadness over that, so how is it that we are now experiencing also this joy?

In our reading from Romans today, Paul says, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” And then he says, “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. ... If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

It’s interesting what Paul says in that last verse––that God will give life to our mortal bodies through the Holy Spirit. We often think that the new life that is awaiting us will come in the next life, not this one. Like Mary in our Gospel story, we know that the Messiah will give us new life on the last day. We know that when we are dry bones in the valley, like in Ezekiel’s vision, that God will bring us back to life. But Paul is saying that this new life happens now. And Jesus tells Mary that she doesn’t have to wait for the last day, that he is the resurrection and the life now. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

This is what we are experiencing right now, here. Back in January, this congregation was faced with a choice: to keep struggling to live, which would have used up all of our resources on ourselves and nothing else, or to choose death in Christ, which would allow us to focus our time and our money and ourselves on others. And you all, in a profound act of trust in God, chose death in Christ. And I said at the time, and I say it again, that was a holy moment. That was the Holy Spirit working within you, and you all letting the Holy Spirit work.
You stopped striving for the “fleshly” life that Paul condemns, which means that you stopped trying to simply exist, you stopped focusing on material or worldly signs of success, you stopped trying to delay the inevitable simply for your own sake. Instead, you chose to die so that Christ might work new life. You chose to live (which means accepting the reality of death) instead of simply existing. You chose spiritual depth and the Christian marker of success, which is to follow where Christ leads, even to the cross. You chose to accept your own mortality and to accept death, so that others, not even yourselves, would experience the new life that would arise. The Spirit of Christ, which has been with each one of you since the day of your baptism, gave you the strength to set your mind not on the flesh, the physical continuation of this congregation, but on the spirit.
And the result has been life and peace, as Paul said it would be. The result has been that even though we are sad about this death, we are also experiencing new life and joy and peace now, not just on the last day. As I said, there will continue to be sadness, but in the remaining months and weeks, there will also be more joy and more life, as we choose who to give money to, and how to bless others with our death.


This Sunday is the last Sunday in Lent, but here at church we have been walking through Lent for the past year. And just as we know in Lent that we are moving towards Easter, and indeed that Easter has already happened, the same is true for this congregation. What we are going through now we see through the lens of the resurrection of Christ. We will die, but it will be an Easter death, just as Christ experienced. And that means it will end in resurrection and new life. Not in a way we will necessarily recognize, but it will happen nonetheless. Like Ezekiel, like Mary and Martha, like Paul, we see small glimpses of it in the here and now, in joy and peace and relief, and one day we will see it fully. Easter is coming. New life in Christ is coming, and is already here. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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