December 7, 2003                                                                                        Rev. Dr. C. DiNovo

EPISTLE TO THE TORONTONIANS                              Philippians 1:3-11; Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6

There was a wise woman who sat at the edge of a city.  A stranger from another town came up to her and asked her what the people were like in the city.  She said, “Well, tell me what were the people like in the town from whence you came?”

The stranger said, “They’re a money grubbing lot.  They’re violent.  They’re mean.  They’re the most ungenerous people you could ever want to see and on top of that, they don’t honour the poor or any holiday, including Christmas.”

She said, “Well, you’ll find about the same thing here.”  She continued to sit there.

Another stranger came up to her and she asked him, “So what are the people like in your town?”

He said, “Oh, they honour Christmas, the true spirit of Christmas.  They’re generous with each other, they love when they don’t have to, they share their wealth.  They look out for each other.”

She said, “You’ll find about the same thing here.”  Just hold that story.

You know, our brother Paul, the Paul who wrote the epistles, (epistle just means letter) to all those little Christian churches.  He wrote them while working full-time as a tentmaker.  He was a working man and he never gave up tent making.  He was also a funny looking little guy by all accounts.  He had bandy legs and he had eyebrows that met in the middle.  He wasn’t much to look at and the first part of his life he spent selling out on his own people, the Jews, the Christian Jews to their enemy, the Romans.  For doing this he got a Roman citizenship which was kind of a get out of jail free card for him – that’s what he received for doing it, there was a payoff.  But then one day he got struck by something, fell off his horse he did, and changed his name from Saul to Paul.  He spent the rest of his life forming little Christian communities and then helping them as they struggled to get on their feet.  And remember it wasn’t easy to join a Christian community in those days, in fact, you were sure to be killed if they caught you.  So it wasn’t an easy sell and Paul traveled hundreds of miles while working to set up these little communities, these communities that shared everything with one another, all around the Mediterranean, all around his world.  And when he couldn’t be there in person, he wrote them letters to tell them what he thought and to give them encouragement.

So, you’ll never guess what happened to me.  I was cleaning out the basement at the manse and I saw this parchment paper just kind of jutting out from a couple of the bricks.  I pulled it out and guess what it was?  It was an original letter from Paul written to you!  You know, I think this is the answer to all of our financial problems.  I’m just going to phone the ROM tomorrow and we’ll be walking on easy street around here.

Now, the parchment, I was actually scared of bringing the parchment to you today, I was afraid it would disintegrate so I copied it on to just regular bond paper here and if you bear with me, I’m going to read this letter from Paul to you.

Grace to you, the faithful of Toronto, in the name of Jesus Christ and all the saints!  Peace be upon you. 

You are the ones, after all, who took your precious time - the only true possession that you have – to come to this holy place of worship this day.  You could have had brunch, you could have slept in – those without children, that is.  You could have wandered about the aisles of Wal-Mart but you didn’t, (it’s amazing how he knew about Wal-Mart), you came to this strange place despite all your misgivings about organized religion, both the religion and the organized part.

You know churches and synagogues and mosques and temples are often allied with power and oppression and you know they’re filled with hypocrites and the needy.  You are humble enough to admit that you are both a hypocrite and that you are needy.

You even suspect that this place has some nasty history of its own, and you’re probably correct.  You admit you have some nasty history of your own.

You came because you are wonderfully wise.  You are too wise to believe in your own reason and the reason of the world’s most brilliant humans.  You’ve seen all the efforts of such reasonable people end in just increased bloodshed.  You’ve seen them try to create heaven on earth and end up a little closer to hell.  You’ve witnessed the ones who believe in the power of the human mind.  You’ve seen them stepping over the homeless and ignoring the hungry children.  You’ve seen the best and the brightest buying baubles at the jewellery stores and then locking them in safes because they’re too valuable to wear.

You’ve seen the pollution in Lake Ontario and breathed in the smog created by this, the smartest of all the animals.

You hear the scriptural story of our ancestors who say there’s nothing new in this, humans have been doing this for centuries.  But you are the prophets of a new way.  You are wise enough to know what also happens to prophets.  You don’t care because you don’t fear death.  You pray for a meaningful life and a meaningful death.  You have re-defined ‘family’ here.  You understand that the Source of Love, that promise that is the God of creation sees us all as family.  You know that to make that vision real, you need to learn to be family with a sanctuary-sized group first and foremost.  You love the others here because love is a choice and you choose to do that, whether they are like you or not.  You have loved them, you have, whether black or white, employed or not, old or young, male or female, straight or not, conservative or communist, easy to love or difficult to love.  You know, you are difficult to love for some as well.

You do this because you are gloriously imperfect.  As an imperfect one, you are made in the image of God.  Like Christ, you see your own reflection in those around you – bruised, tired, beautiful and oh, so human.

You came to be vision keepers for your tribe and boy, are we tribal!  You have come because you understand the importance of having ancestors.  You know that to love our enemies means we can never hurt them, never hate them.  You came because you are strong enough to admit your weakness and your fear, the enemy inside you, the frightened, hurt, lonely, perhaps abused, child that is you.

You came because the struggle for justice is always successful not because it is up to us or you but because it is up to God.  Our God is a God of justice.  God stands with the abused child, the frightened child, the lonely child, in short, God is with you.  You know that.  You know that we shall overcome some day.

It was your faith that brought you here which means that you doubt everything you hear and read.  You doubt that there is a God at all, if you’re honest with yourself.  You wince at some of the Bible passages, you find some of our traditional rites weird sometimes.  You don’t always understand.  You recoil at aspects of worship that you find new-agey, or too traditional, or too evangelical, or stuffy, or just plain boring.  You recall all that toxic religious stuff from your youth.

You get that this is what faith is, the ability to question everything, except God.  You have no doubt that even if you doubt God, God can handle even that.  You even doubt that this letter was actually written by Paul.

You, in your beauty and your wisdom, as vision keepers of this faith, have created a place here where people congregate around the table of God and share their lives and their money, their hearts, their fears, their questions and their despair and their hope.  You made a place for others to share, weep, argue, laugh, worship together.  You have created heaven on earth here by not creating anything at all.  You found the table already set when you walked in the door.

My brothers and sisters, there are those moments in life that are so startlingly beautiful, so perfect, so graced.  This is one of those moments.  Knowing that you gather for no other reason than to make peace on earth brings peace on earth.  You know that peace can only exist in a world of war if it exists in you and that it can only exist in you if it exists in the world.  You are followers of the Rabbi Christ who called us to the action of peacemaking.  You, each one of you, has acted as a peacemaker.  This is the moment that I, looking upon you, from thousands of years ago, can see in you the dream that my people had come true!  You are, each one of you, the dream come true. 

Thank you, in the name of our brother Jesus, the one with whom we walk.  Thank you in the name of our God.  Thank you with all the power of the holy spirit, your ancestor in faith, Paul.  Amen.

/sermons/Dec703