All Saints’, Dorval
May 15, 2022
Baby Catherine’s mom and brother (left) planting bulbs with others at the children’s Holy Week event
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Sadly, there are many things that people think about followers of Jesus, both now and historically, that are not about how much we love each other. It’s been a long time since we were a small, scrappy sect that impressed the cynical Romans with its ability to care for each other in community and face martyrdom with courage.
Ironically, though, the church’s current situation may give us another chance. For the first time in a millennium and a half, Christianity in the western world is being decoupled from state power and social expectation. The process is slow, and messy, and painful for many, but it is also an opportunity. In a world where church attendance is an affirmative choice rather than a matter of unthinking conformity, perhaps we can redefine what it means to be Christian, back towards love.
In general, I think Christians like us – progressive, liturgical, rooted in tradition – could do a lot more to be distinctive than we now do. Just because Christmas is still a statutory holiday in our society doesn’t mean that most people know who we are or what we stand for. Members of minority religions, like Muslims, Sikhs, and observant Jews, are frequently highly visible in public – and let’s face it, being a practicing Christian is also a minority in Quebec in 2022. I think it would be salutary for us to make ourselves slightly more of a target for the laïcité laws, in the best possible way.
In fact, this desire to be visible, to be distinctive, even when it makes life more complicated and inconvenient, is arguably what’s behind the dynamics in our reading from Acts today. The “circumcised believers’” object to Peter’s sudden and dramatic breaking of the rules because to them, in abandoning the dietary laws and the boundaries on table fellowship which had defined the Jewish community for so long, he was abandoning the distinctiveness that gave meaning to their identity as Jews in a hostile empire.
Not that we should start wearing yarmulkes, hijabs, or turbans, let alone trying to make converts via public proselytizing. But there are lots of ways we can learn from our siblings in less “mainstream” religions, about ways to let our love of God and each other shape our lives.
One way would be to create a prayer practice at home. I was reminded while flipping through the BAS the other day that it contains a section, starting on page 685, for “home prayers”. “Christian households,” it says, “should consider a regular pattern of worship and celebration in the home,” and then offers solid practical advice, including forms for grace over meals and prayers for observing milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, and moving into a new house.
We could also be a good deal more distinctive in terms of how we observe holidays other than Christmas. Easter is our biggest feast, and is preceded by the holiest week of the year, but those services could stand to be better attended – even with Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays. Meanwhile, our Jewish and Muslim siblings cope with observances lasting for a week or a month, involving fasting and huge disruptions to daily life, while getting no time off at all.
Engaging the ritual year physically and spiritually, immersively, with all our senses, would, I suspect, revolutionize our relationship to our faith. Pancakes (and costume parties) on Shrove Tuesday, chalking the door at Epiphany, creating altars at All Souls’ – these are good places to start, but there is so much more to draw on in our rich tradition.
Frankly, this is one reason I get so excited about things like the Palm Sunday procession and the Great Vigil of Easter – because it gives us a chance to be out there, visible, wearing funny clothes and conducting obscure rituals and being weird. In fact, I think “lovingly and lovably weird” is an excellent standard to aim for in one’s spiritual life and religious practice.
But all the external distinctiveness in the world is no help if it doesn’t reflect the inward reality of the love that animates God’s relationship with us. In just a few minutes, little Catherine’s parents will come forward and promise, just like they did three and a half years ago when her big brother Thomas was baptized, to “continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.” At this point in their family’s life, that mostly looks like bringing the kids to Messy Church. And showing up in Christian community, participating in the sacraments, and making prayer central to your life, is foundational to any practice of Christian faith. But God knows, sadly, that going to church doesn’t automatically make you someone at whom others, out in the world, will look and say, (1) that person is definitely Christian, and (2) based on that person, Christian is a good thing to be.
For that, we need to keep going through the promises that comprise our Baptismal Covenant. Forgiveness; recognizing that everyone is a beloved child of God; serving our neighbours; working for justice; and caring for the earth. And learning enough about what we do, and why we do it, that when people ask us, “so what’s so great about your church, that you can never go golfing with me on Sunday morning?” you have an answer more nuanced and compelling than “well, because that’s just what I do.”
I love that when putting together the slides for this morning’s service, Jennifer used actual pictures from the parish to illustrate the baptismal vows – photos of us out there sharing our love with the world, serving at St. Michael’s Mission, planting flowers on the front lawn (and that picture actually has baby Catherine’s mom and big brother in it!).
Imagine if, when the world heard about someone offering a difficult and painful apology, or traveling across half the world to feed people, or turning down a proposal to build a dirty oil pipeline, they thought, “oh wow, that person’s probably Christian.”
But the thing that makes us most distinctive is really the message of today’s reading from Revelation. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
We believe God loved all people so much that Jesus has defeated death for us, and we await the re-creation of the world.
Imagine if we lived as though we really believed that – not as the dominant, default religion, but as a ragtag bunch of lovable weirdos, for whom what we believe really does make us different from everyone else.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Amen.
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