Love said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to God except through me.

Vicki & Scot with Imam Shahid & Ali

Following the worship service this past Sunday, during which I got my dander up a bit while I was preaching, someone remarked, "Donald Trump has sure gotten under your skin, hey Vicki?" To which I replied that it was not DT that I was fired up about - it is what is happening within our society (let's be honest, our Canadian society is heavily influenced by American society) as a result of the new presidential administration's decisions and directives.

Vicki reading the letter during prayers

Shoes & Hospitality

On the Friday after the Executive Order on Immigration was enforced in the USA and the shooting at the mosque in Quebec, leaders of Symons Valley United Church made muffins, tea and coffee for the Muslim Prayer Group which has prayed in our building for the past several years. The Chair of the Board and I co-wrote a letter of support (found at the end of this post), which I was invited to read at both of the prayer services that afternoon. We had a sign made up that is a play on our own vision statement.

We visited with the many, many people who came for prayers that day. The men, women and children were so grateful to be remembered by our Christian community. One Muslim man asked if he could attend our Sunday worship. I told, 'of course!'. He then asked, 'but will people be afraid when they see me arrive?' Seriously, that's what our world has come to? That he feels the need to ask this question!!? I assured him he would be welcomed with open arms. Which, of course, he was.

Following the afternoon prayers, two of us made our way downtown, in the cold and the snow, to stand vigil at a multi-faith gathering at City Hall. It was a no brainer on what needed to be preached on Sunday morning. Please see below for excerpts from my sermon. For the full text, please go to SVUC's website.

Rev Tracy (St.Thomas UC),
Colleen & Vicki

Scripture: Matthew 5:13-16 & Matthew 22:34-40
In the ancient biblical world, salt was a precious commodity—one of the most important necessities of life. Salt was used to preserve as well as to season food—it added flavour and zest. Salt was also used with sacrifices—spread upon cereal offerings and burnt offerings. It was used for making covenants and representing commitment as we heard today in the reading from Leviticus. Just like when you open a bag of potato chips and you just can’t eat one because the salt compels your taste buds to demand another chip and then another, back in the day salt also made people thirst for something more. Jesus knew this applied to more than food. He wanted his disciples to give flavour and zest to the world through his teaching; to preserve the truth as he proclaimed it to the world; to make the world thirst for more. The concern that "salt has lost its flavour" is difficult for us to understand today, especially because of the purity of the salt we use. In the time of Jesus, salt was not purified in the manner, as we know it but was collected from deposits left by the Dead Sea as it dried. This salt was exposed to the elements and could break apart resulting in its loss of flavour. As such, salt was an excellent metaphor for discipleship, which can and does lose its vigor over time if care is not taken to keep it alive. And you can always tell when cook has forgotten the salt, right? Meatloaf is just not the same with the absence of salt, is it?

Light has the characteristic of dispelling darkness, of warming all it reaches, of exalting what it is we hold dear—portraits, statues, memorials. This is done with the speed of light—the reference we use when we want to covey it is faster than fast. Being the light of the world means, for Christians, spreading everywhere the light that comes from on high, form our God, magnified by our teacher, Jesus. It means fighting darkness created by systemic evils—those most often caused by ignorance, prejudice, selfishness and greed. By inviting us to be "light," Jesus invites us to make him present in the world.  Just as the presence of salt and light cannot be hidden and their absences will be noticed, kindness and love cannot be denied. 

So, we sit here and listen to these very wise and inspiring words, understanding that if all the world cared first about being salt and light, our world would find the peace of God’s Kingdom in the blink of an eye. But we are here today, with a week behind us like no other in recent history. I may already said this a little a bit in the days since the American election, but last weekend seemed to cement it—the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Executive orders. Shooting people as they pray inn their house of worship. In Canada. More Executive Orders this week. You know, when I was in Israel and Palestine in 2012 I spent a lot of time in the Occupied territory talking with local, Palestinians. The conversations covered the themes you would expect—right of return to the homes that they had to abandon or which were taken away, safety issues, education for the children, clean water. But what made my heart break a little bit was the repeated stories of the lack of freedom experienced by those people without documents. Not just travel documents. So many Palestinians do not belong to a nation—they live in no-man’s land and therefore do not possess a passport. And, when they want travel, just there across the town or get out of Gaza, or make their way to the airport because they might have been so lucky to have a family member who is able to sponsor them to come out and live in another part of the world, they have to line up to cross the checkpoints. If they arrive when the border guard is in a bad mood, if what ever papers they have seem out of order, if the checkpoint is EVEN OPEN, they cannot cross that day. Or maybe the next. Or the next. There is not freedom of movement in Palestine. And that is what Trump has done. Here. In North American. The new Promised Land. The tired, the worn out, the persecuted, the desperate, DO NOT HAVE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT. Rights and freedoms are rapidly falling by the wayside. It’s all going to hell in a handbasket.

I know I’m not supposed to say that. I’m supposed to be offering words of hope, goodness and love and tell you, don’t worry, God’s got this, we’ll be okay. But you know what? After the Second World War ended and the fullness of truth about the holocaust, the mass genocide, the internment camps, when the world finally knew the totality of Hitler’s insanity and cruelty, there was an existential crisis in the world—particularly amongst people of faith. They wondered, where was God in the chaos of the Nazi regime? God is dead it was declared because if ever God were to have intervened in the world, it would have been with the gas chambers. With the starvation. With the separation of parents from the their children. With the death of more than 6 million people. If God was to ever break into the world, it would have been then, would it not? But, that was the wrong question. God is there forevermore. The question is not where was God. No. The question should have been, ‘where were the Christians? Where were the people of all faiths who believe, above all, that we are to be love. To offer hospitality, kindness and seek justice for all those in need. The question then and now, is not where is God? The question we need to ask ourselves in this time of western society fraying at the edges, the question is, ‘where are we?’

And I want to answer this question, just a little bit, by throwing the big C Christians completely and thoroughly under the bus. When I say big C Christians, I mean those self-proclaimed “Christians” who, instead of putting the needs of the poor, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, instead of putting their needs ahead of their own, use the Bible as a weapon, use God’s words for hate and twist and turn the teaching of Jesus to first benefit themselves rather than for the collective good, working towards peace for all. Essentially, denying their necessary and active role in the bringing about of God’s Kingdom here upon our earth, in our here and now. Okay—you know what I’m talking about, you feel me? ‘Those’ Christians do not understand there are many paths of faith to God. Our United Church is pluralistic—we United Church Protestants are not the only possessors of the knowledge of God’s love. But many other denominations do not agree. They, their doctrine, their pastors, their flocks, look towards ONE line that Jesus said and use that as confirmation that Christianity is the only religion worthy of God.

The line comes at the end of a piece of scripture often spoken during funerals. It’s from chapter 14 in the Book of John. The lead up is this (I left in the reference to God as Father because this how conservative Christians would read this passage): Jesus is telling the disciples, “‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’” And then comes the line used to deny every other religion besides Christianity. “Jesus said to Thomas, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also.” And so, Muslims matter not. Hindus matter not. Sikhs matter not. Indigenous beliefs matter not. Religious freedom matters not. As long as Christians have the ability to carry on doing whatever they want to, the needs and wants of those who practice a different religion MATTERS NOT.

But what if? What if we read that passage again, knowing that Jesus came to earth, as God’s beloved, to be love, to be filled with love and to be love for others. To teach others how to love, fully and completely? What if we read this as Jesus is love? Thomas said, ‘We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’” In reply, “Love said to Thomas, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also.” What if. We are to love God with all our heart, our soul and our mind. And we are to love our neighbour has ourselves. Because it is from God’s love that we have been created and it is to God’s love that we return. Peace on this earth will come only when we love one another with abandon. When we love without ceasing. When we love first and foremost. No matter what.

After 9/11 religious persecution and cultural fear did not allow Muslims the freedom to pray in any given space. Prayer groups were denied access to spaces they had been renting peacefully for years. Syed Sohowardy told me it that the United Church was one of the only places Muslims found safe harbor in Canada following the devastating attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001. The United Church, understanding Islam to be a religion of peace and knowing extremists exist within their tradition JUST AS extremists exist within Christianity, decided to stand up and tell the world that they would not give into fear and hate and churches across the country opened their doors for prayer groups. As our congregation did when this building was opened.  In 2008 the Al-Makkah of the Calgary Islamic Assembly began meeting here on Fridays and other Islamic high holy days to pray to their God. Our God. For Allah and God are one and the same. The God of Abraham who fathered both Ishmael and Isaac—the beginnings of Islam and Judaism. 

Your stewardship allows for us to band together, to plan together, to take strength from one another, to be emboldened by the word of God and the example of Jesus. Through your stewardship, this congregation can live out the words from John: Love said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to God except through me.” Loves compels us to  not stand idly by in these difficult times. Let us not be silent when Muslims are banned. When people can be fired for practicing a faith tradition that is not one of Jesus. When places of worship are defaced. When people are targeted for hate speak. When people are killed for being a people of peace. When they are at their most vulnerable. We, as Christians will not stand idly by and let others blame this on God. God despairs with us. God weeps with us. This time around, we will not stand idly by. This time we will stand and say no to hate. Say no to lies. Say no to mistruths, alternate facts, to hidden agendas. We will stand. We will be salty and full of light. Being salt and light is not optional. Jesus did not say you can be...or you have the potential to be...He said you are. Go, be the salt the world needs. Go, be the light the world craves. Go, knowing the love of God goes with you, the courage and strength of Jesus our Christ is alongside you and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit is behind you.