April 6, 2023
Maundy Thursday
Friends,
First, a word of gratitude. I’m grateful for the privilege of the pulpit, especially tonight. Thank you, Preston. My thoughts this night issue from our Rector’s invitation to take up a contemplative Lent and contemplative Holy Week. And so our Sunday to Sunday liturgies and the special devotions of Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday have been constructed and may be construed with this idea in mind. And so, this sermon as well. Something to contemplate.
Two months ago, in his charge to our community, our Rector invited us into a “sabbatical of imagination”. He was specifically not inviting us to construct a project proposal, five-year plan or “to do” list. Preston gave focus to his invitation by asking the question “Where might the Holy One be leading us?” He was asking a question which can be answered by suggesting a destination or a journey without sorting out the turn by turn navigation we have grown accustomed to. But it can also be answered by looking for such places as remind us that the Holy One is at work in our midst and along the way.
Now, that was all before Lent in the waning days of Epiphanytide.
This sabbatical of imagination was requested in the wake of a five year plan having had two arcs: worship in the beauty of holiness and concern for the welfare of the city. Biblical images, both.
To our pastor’s question my feverish little brain conjured a bit of Liberation theology.
Liberation theology had it’s day when I was young and before my colleague was born. The little bit of theology was/is this. My salvation is bound up in my neighbour’s salvation. My salvation is bound up in Simon’s salvation. Simon’s salvation is bound up in Barbara’s salvation. Barbara’s salvation is bound up in the salvations of Anguses One and Two …
… and all of a sudden there emerges a web of interconnectedness; interdependence. The web of interconnectedness in our lives means that when one person is brought low others are brought low with them and when one person rises in triumph others rise with them.
Now there are Christians who are allergic to this idea. Some, I think, are too busy working for their salvation rather than working out their salvation. Working for salvation is someone else’s job. Working out salvation is your job and mine.
I’m getting it right and you not so much … bites the dust. There is and can be no room for that conceit or that world view.
I should say that the idea of mutually assured, mutually engineered salvation, is congenial to one found among some First Peoples on this, Turtle island. For peoples, for whom creation is alive, we also rise or fall with creation. Our lives are nurtured by the Holy One in the web of life which joins us to creation such that we, with creation, its very self, rise or fall together.
So there’s a micro sort of view and a macro sort of view for this proposition.
Micro view: Ours is an invitation, on Maudy Thursday, to imagine a future together where no relationship and no person is so injured that the whole of us is brought low. Where is the Holy One leading us? One answer might be “to a place where we arrive together”. How is the Holy One leading us? We need look no further than the examples underpinning tonight’s foot-washing or tonight’s last supper with his friends. Micro view.
And the macro view? The Holy One is calling us to a place where this community arrives together with the wider community. The salvation of this worshiping people is bound-up in the welfare, the salvation, of the city.
The significant question is not whether our salvations are mutually interdependent but how.
So when we imagine the world to which the Holy One is leading us, we are contemplating, we are turning our imaginations toward relationships which see us fall or rise together.
We seek after a place where our siblings of whatever stripe or hue or provenance and the wider community, however conceived, circumscribed or disposed, where we all travel a shared road where our innumerable particular reconciliations, particular triumphs, particular glimpses of salvation, have bound us together in the company of the Holy One.
Now, why does this matter?
Two weeks ago, in his sermon of Lent 5, our Rector reminded us, or told us, actually, that, in John’s Gospel, friendship is the highest form of love. Friendship is the highest form of love.
I don’t think I had ever heard that minimalist construction before. Or if I heard it, it didn’t register. But it registered when Preston said it. Friendship is the highest form of love.
It follows that, for John, friending (to borrow a word from social media) friending or befriending must be the highest forms of lov-ing even to the point of laying down our lives for our friends. Friendship is the highest form of love.
Moreover, there is a communal face to this idea. We might well ask how best we might friend of befriend our neighbourhood, community to community, church to city.
The significant question is not whether the Holy One calls us into friendship but how.
I love the idea of “friendship” because I have a better sense of what this means on the ground. To “love” can be such a many-splendored thing that it may harbour this meaning or that or some meaning or none. I can grasp friendship. In tonight’s gospel, when Jesus calls us to love one another, he is pointing to friendship, I think, more than any thing else. Another word might be devotion. You are truly my disciples if you are devoted to one another. But, still, friendship is better than devotion because it is, by definition, reciprocal. Unreciprocated friendship is meaningless like some of those friends on my Facebook page. Who are these people?
You can see why this idea admits to the notion that your salvation is bound-up in my salvation.
There are two signal verses in the gospel of John. John 15:14 … “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” I believe that was love your God and love your neighbour. And in the next verse “I no longer call you servants but I have called you, (note the enduring action in the past bleeding into the present), I have called you friends”. Preston has it right. Friendship, according to John, is the highest form of love.
Friendship. Love. These are the strands which link us together in the journey of, in the journey led by, the Holy One.
I can say for myself that the bruised and broken places of my life are places where friendship or the possibility of friendship has been damaged, is damaged. And the places where I have the biggest work to do are exactly in those places. And life is so fleeting that I am sometimes unsure of whether I want to do that work or not. Sometimes there is no consolation, where desolation holds sway, mostly because there is simply no easy consolation.
Such as all of this is the stuff of tonight’s devotion, contemplation, and the journey of the next three days. To start I would simply have us dwell in our friendships but also to sojourn in the friendships that are bruised or broken. My salvation is bound up in your salvation. The life of our community is bound up in the life of the city and in the creation which is our island home.
Now, this theology is one of profligate grace. And it could be that some believe, and some do not. But what might our world be like if we all lived as if we did?
Silence
May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in God’s sight. And let the church say “Amen.” R/ Amen.
André Lavergne, CWA (The Rev.)
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.