Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 21], rcl yr c, 2025
Jeremiah 1:4-10; PSALM 71:1-6; HEBREWS 12:18-29; LUKE 13:10-17
my Spirit abides among you; do not fear
One of the things I like to do as I’m preparing a sermon is to find a little nugget in the readings—some short phrase—that helps to provide a seed out of which my sermon can grow. It provides a bit of a centre, and (sometimes, at least), it keeps me on topic and from drifting on the wind of a short attention span. And that little seed is usually the title of my sermon—and it is usually the first thing you hear me say. Like today: “My Spirit abides among you; do not fear.”
Now if you were to say, today, “ummmm I didn’t hear that in today’s readings, Preston,” you’d be one hundred percent correct. It didn’t come from Jeremiah, Psalm 71, Hebrews, or Luke. It didn’t even come from the Collect of the Day. It comes from the Minor Prophet, Haggai. I’ll get there—and I will let you know why I would choose a title from a part of the Bible that seems very far away from today’s readings.
I spent a couple of weeks in Winnipeg this summer, and it’s really easy to forget, and to underestimate—if you’re not familiar with a prairie thunderstorm—just how frightening they can be. We did have a Southern Ontario thunderstorm driving in the very early morning from Sault Ste. Marie towards Kitchener, made especially perilous by a dog with, how should I put it … a dog with “digestive issues”? … and that was spectacular in its own way.
But even in the middle of city like Winnipeg, in the early hours of the morning, when you’re somewhere in that fantastically real dreamland between sleep and wakefulness, and you hear a thunderclap that sounds like a ten storey whip cracked right above your head followed immediately by lightning as bright as the noonday sun—that can be terrifying.
It’s what came to mind as I read Hebrews this week, where we hear of God’s voice, a voice that “shook the earth,” a voice that “will shake not only the earth but also the heaven,” a voice that sounds more than loud, but enough to make you quiver and shake, a voice that is terrifying and disorienting, a voice that shakes all created things—from pebble to angel.
Ancient commentators on Hebrews, like Gregory of Nazianzus hear this voice of God that shakes both the earth in three ways: first, in Israel being called from idolatry and into the law of God; then in God calling his people from law to Gospel; and finally, the voice of God will shake both heaven and earth on the last day, when all things, heavenly and earthly, will be renewed and made well.
What I like most about what Gregory has to say, though, about the voice of God, is that when God speaks, it is no sudden thing sparking immediate change in us. Instead, for Gregory, we are given time. So the transformation that God invites us into, the transformation of a desire for idols into a desire for the Gospel is no instantaneous thing.
For Gregory, if God’s voice led to instantaneous change it would be forced. Instead, though, God gives us time: time enough to come around, time enough to be persuaded, time enough to learn and grow away from idolatry, and into grace.
Of course sometimes we do hear God’s voice in stillness, and calmness, and with a deep and abiding peace. But there’s certainly also truth in what Hebrews tells us, and how someone like Gregory understands what he reads in Hebrews. The voice of God shakes us, and it keeps shaking us. To hear the Gospel is to have so many of our assumptions turned upside down; it causes us to change and re-evaluate our priorities in life; it calls us into places that are often deeply uncomfortable for us, where disorientation, re-evaluation, even deep discomfort. Part of the challenge of following Jesus, the challenge of a Gospel that is not forced upon us, the challenge of the God that instead gives us time to be persuaded: God’s challenge rarely resolves at all quickly.
Hebrews imagines that there is an end, and an intention, in the voice of God that shakes both heaven and earth: God is shaking all of creation, us included, “so that what cannot be shaken may remain,” and that we would receive “a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” We are shaken not so that we would live perpetually in fear, but so that we would be reoriented to that which is eternal and unshakable: heaven and earth are shaken into the reorientation of the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom where greed and selfishness are transformed into equity and abundance; a Kingdom where
we learn that there is no need to earn love, and where we become confident that we are already made with goodness; a Kingdom where the feared stranger becomes a fellow child of God, and perhaps even a beloved friend; a Kingdom where we dwell in community with the Living God. A Kingdom where heaven and earth, from pebble to angel, and all in between, are transformed.
But! But what about that minor prophet, dear preacher, you might want to say? This still has nothing to do with your title, your little seed, the voice of God spoken through Haggai: “my Spirit abides among you; do not fear”? Well—Hebrews points us in this direction. When we read: “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven,” Hebrews quoting Haggai. And when the New Testament quotes the Old like this, it’s often instructive to go and read the passage where the quote is found, because often quotes like “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven” are meant to refer us to something much more than we might find just in the quote.
And what do we find in Haggai when we take the time to look? Two things. First, that this shaking of heaven and earth by the voice of God has as its end the transformation of the whole world—an orientation of all our political communities, and not just us as individuals—to the glory and splendour of God and God’s kingdom. But in Haggai, in that passage, God also takes the time to remind us that God’s spirit abides among us, here, and now; and that we have no need to fear.
No matter the disorientation, the challenge, the frustration; or that we might feel shaken and disturbed and inadequate and under great duress; in all this we are accompanied by the Spirit of God; and that by the Spirit of God, we need not fear. Because God is not leading us into the wilderness, but through it, and into the security of that Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
And so, as Hebrews suggests: “let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire”; and live in confidence, because the Spirit of this living God abides among us, transforming us and the whole world; and this challenging transformation is nothing to fear.
The Revd Canon Preston DS Parsons, PhD
Rector, St. John’s, Kitchener
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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.