Passion Sunday
(The
Fifth Sunday after Lent)
David Phillips
Holy Communion
Petite Riviere,
West LaHave, Broad Cove – March 28, AD 2009
Hebrews 9:11f
John 8:46f
Which of you
convinceth me of sin?
and if I say
the truth, why do you not believe me?
Today is Passion
Sunday. Today our minds are being turned towards the end of our
Lenten journey – we are getting to the heart of the matter, and it
will involve the death of our Saviour and the death of ourselves –
that we may be reborn to eternal life.
I don’t know how
each of you are finding your Lenten disciplines going.
I found last
week to be intense.
In fact it was
so intense I broke down on Monday and watched two movies! and
through the week I had more than my daily quota of one cup of tea in
the morning, even had some red meat.
Here are some of
the struggles that are on my heart:
A parishioner
called me “stupid” last week for forgetting to bring a worship
schedule. Some won’t come now because the service is 9am not
9:30am. Someone said the problem is I’m preaching medieval
Christianity.
But here are the
more immediately pressing issues.
In New Dublin
Parish:
How to keep the
flock in the three churches from turning in on itself and on one
another as it struggles to determine who owns the Rectory, in the
event of its sale.
In New Dublin
and Petite Riviere Parishes:
How to keep the
flock in our two parishes from turning against each other around
questions of the sale of the Rectory and around the question of the
division of expenses between the two parishes.
And for both
parishes:
How do we make
ends meet when we seem to be falling short always, our parishes,
especially New Dublin is bleeding out its memorial funds to make
ends meet and we are relying in some churches too heavily on
fundraising, and dear women are becoming exhausted.
And there is the
question of our parishes and the Diocese:
Our allotment is
viewed by many as expendable – are we going to turn against the
diocese further – again, infighting within the Church ready to
swallow us up.
And of course
there are the larger issues within the Church. We are ready at
every turn to be devoured by blaming one another.
Then on Friday,
a gracious letter from our bishops, encouraging us, but noting that
there are some parishes that are turning in on their rectors –
initiating steps for their removal – as we look around in tough
times for someone to blame…we need a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb.
And of course I
have to look at myself, and try to see how I am culpable in the fact
that our financial situation is not improving but deteriorating each
year, and more importantly, that our numbers are not up but down.
Or do I have to look to myself? Maybe I can just blame everyone
else or simply the times or something else.
No! I have to
look at myself – what am I doing wrong? what could be done better?
how am I resisting the love of God, the grace and
refreshment that God would pour down upon us in this wilderness
wandering. Am I resisting the Truth?
And you, maybe
you can just sit by and blame the Rector? or can you blame the other
parish, or can you blame another church within your parish or the
Diocese or the wider society? No, each one of you has to look at
yourself, to see what part you are playing in the building up or in
the tearing down of the church in this place. What efforts are you
making, I know you are sacrificing, are you sacrificing enough? are
you hurting or helping as we walk in this wilderness wandering
together to the promised land? Are you resisting the Truth?
Very intense.
Couldn’t be
anything I am doing or not doing could it?
Couldn’t be
anything you are doing or not doing could it?
Which of you
convinceth me of sin? and if I say the truth, why do you not believe
me?
These are the
words of Jesus to the Pharisees and Jewish leaders as he questioned
their leadership, as he went about doing good, doing miracles,
showing love and was not thanked, in fact, as he got closer, as he
got more in their faces, they began to hate him more intensely.
They began to look at ways to put him to death.
As we journey
more deeply into lent – deprived of some of our normal consolations
and looking towards Jesus for spiritual consolations, we discover
not just Jesus’ greater love, but a consuming fire – He is the Way,
the Truth and the Life. And we can continue to draw near that fire
and be purged and freed of lies that still bind us, or we can at any
moment, turn away, pick up the stones to cast at him, and reject the
Truth who will set us free.
The beauty is,
the promise is, that after the purging, after the fire, God promises
a gracious rain will fall on his inheritance. The rock that is
us is split and water flows out – new ideas come to our minds, new
ways of going forward. Jesus has not left us to perish in this
wilderness.
You will receive
a letter this week with a financial update and way forward agreed
upon reluctantly by our wardens that I think you will see is both a
reasonable sacrifice and necessary, and clear steps towards a
recovery.
But we know that
financial solvency is not really the measure of our success
as a church, though it does say something – what Lent is about is
drawing us ever closer to Jesus that our whole world is changed –
beginning with our hearts, sprinkled with the Blood of the Lamb –
we allow the truth to pierce us and love is renewed in us.
We discover
there must be some dying to ourselves as we travel with Jesus to the
Cross, and a full trusting in His self offering, before the promised
resurrection can come upon us.
For if the
blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling
the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh;
under the Old Covenant how much more shall the blood of Christ,
under the new Covenant who, through the eternal Spirit,
offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God?
None of our
wilderness wandering is easy, there is very real suffering, but all
of it, when we travel in faith and in love with Jesus, is good.
WE beseech
thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon thy people: that by thy
great goodness they may be governed and preserved evermore, both in
body and soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
