The moment was fleeting as such moments are wont to be. It was communion time during this morning’s Eucharistic Celebration. As people received communion our piano accompanist began to play the designated hymn, Amazing Grace. Those who had already received communion started to sing the hymn.

I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

As more people returned to their seats, the sound of the voices began to swell. Yes, more and more voices were joining in but, for me there was something to the moment much more important that just the physical number of people singing.

T’was Grace that taught…
my heart to fear.

A wave of emotion swept over me as I became aware of a mystical sense that the power of the Eucharist, that the power of having received the Body and Blood of Christ was growing as each person received the bread and wine.

And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear…
the hour I first believed.

It was a moment of spiritual renewal, of renewed faith, ample food, as they say, for the journey.

Through many dangers, toils and snares…
we have already come.

For that brief time, the Holy Spirit had flooded the church in an especially tangible way and entered the hearts of each person there. The bread and wine, the Body and Blood, food and sustenance for a journey guided and protected by the Holy Spirit’s watchful eye.

T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far…
and Grace will lead us home.

And so it was with renewed spiritual energy and faith that we recited together the doxology:

Glory to God,

whose power, working in us,

can do infinitely more

than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to God from generation to generation,

in the Church and in Christ Jesus,

for ever and ever.

1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) The Lord chooses Samuel as a trustworthy prophet

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?

John 1:43-51 Jesus calls Philip and others to follow him.

Reflection

Calling or vocation is a strong theme running through today’s readings. The Lord calls Samuel. The psalmist sings, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” Paul preaches of our call to holy life. Jesus calls Philip and others to follow him.

In 1955, Twentieth Century Fox released A Man Called Peter, the story of Peter Marshall and his call to ministry. This account of calling and those from scripture convey powerful, often incredibly emotional images.

However, as inspiring as these stories are, they are in inherently deceptive because they are the exception rather than the rule. Most people experience their sense of call, not in a stroke of lightning or thundering voice from heaven, but in the quiet circumstances of their everyday lives. There is a story of a drowning man who refused the lifeguard’s help because, “the Lord will save me." When he stood face to face with the Lord, he demanded to know why the Lord had not saved him. The Lord replied, “Well, I sent you the lifeguard. What more did you expect?”

If we live our lives waiting for a resounding call from God to tell us what to do, most of us will die without even recognizing, let alone fulfilling, our true vocation. The sad truth of, “Life is what happens while you are waiting for something better to come along,” takes on special meaning in this context.

How then are we to know our true calling, what it is we are ‘supposed to do’ with our lives? Paying close attention to our inner sense of fulfillment may be the closest we ever come to a ‘big bang’ epiphany. Does what I am doing stir within me a sustaining sense of well-being, a sense that this is what I enjoy doing more than anything else?

Of course there is a risk of being deluded by a sense of temporary gratification. What I am doing at this moment my be exhilarating but vocation, calling, is not momentary, not for the short term. Again, knowing and understanding one’s true vocation most likely does not come in a single blinding flash.

More likely, it comes from a realization over time that, whenever I am doing a particular activity I consistently have a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, of being most in touch with myself, than I have with anything else I do. Whatever the activity is may be demanding, frustrating, energy draining, yet, whatever negativity accompanies the activity is overshadowed by the sense of, ‘yes, this is what I am meant to be doing.’ Chances are, this is your vocation.

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle (Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Begins)St. John the Evangelist, Sault Ste. Marie The Rev. Mal Binks (Interim) Ecumenism throughout Algoma

Anglican Cycle of Prayer The Church of Bangladesh The Most Revd Paul Sarker Moderator, Church of Bangladesh & Bishop of Dhaka

Genesis 1:1-5 God created the heavens and the earth.

Psalm 29 Worship the Lord in holy splendour.

Acts 19.1-7 Paul teaches baptism in the name of Jesus.

Gospel John baptizes Jesus.

Reflection

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Many people claim that science and Christian Faith are at odds. Consider the on-going debate between ‘creationists’ and ‘evolutionists’ for example. The term ‘debate’ hardly suggests the bitter rancour with which proponents on either side frequently address the issue. Then there is equally bitter debate of Genesis versus the Big Bang Theory.

How real are these ‘irreconcilable differences’ really? The difference is far less real than many would have us believe. The root cause of the dispute, I believe, is limited human understanding and ability to comprehend so-called ultimate truth.

The first two lines of a hymn by William Cowper, God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, speak volumes about the limitations all of us are burdened with. So too does Paul address the point, For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13.12)

There is an ironic twist to knowledge and learning. Some people put it this way, the more you learn, the less you know. The path to knowledge starts with questioning; the first step on this journey is often a single question. We don’t all start out with exactly the same question but that doesn’t really matter. The general process is the same.

Learning is like a self-sustaining chain reaction. That single first question leads most of the time to an answer. But that is just the beginning of the process because the first answer inspires two or more, perhaps even many more, new questions. Each question leads to answers that in turn lead to yet more questions. Mathematicians call this a geometric progression, growth at an ever-increasing rate.

It seems then that for now we can only ever know, as Paul says, in part. Only when we are are face to face with God will we experience a fullness of knowledge. Perhaps in the meantime we can overcome the polarization to which humans seem prone by opening our eyes and minds a little and listening more objectively to what astrophysicists and Genesis are both saying.

Doesn’t the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep sound a lot like how astrophysicists describe the moment before the Big Bang? Doesn’t a wind from God swept over the face of the waters sound a lot like the Big Bang?

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle St. John the Evangelist, Thunder Bay The Rev. Mary Lucas

Anglican Cycle of Prayer The Anglican Church of Australia The Most Revd Dr Phillip John Aspinall Archbishop of Brisbane & Primate of Australia

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 … the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

Psalm 148 Let all Creation praise the Lord.

Galatians 4:4-7And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

Luke 2:22-40 Simeon and Anna recognize the infant Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Reflection

Making New Years Resolutions seems to be a common practice. Perhaps the practice stems from the thought that the beginning of a brand new year is a good time to ‘wipe the slates clean’ and start over.

The name, January, is derived from the name of the Roman god Janus, who was their god of endings and beginnings. Many people traditionally mark the beginning of the New Year by making resolutions about improvements they hope to make in their lives. Out with the old and in with the new, so to speak. The problem with most resolutions however, is that they are too general and lack the essentials of good goal setting. Some people like the buckshot approach and start the year with a whole catalogue of resolutions, all of which are soon forgotten. The buckshot approach, it seems, sets you up to fail.

Set yourself up for success instead by focusing on just one improvement you would like to make in the new year and make it a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time bound) resolution. So it is not good enough to resolve that I am going to change this or that annoying habit that I have. You have to set a realistic deadline and come up with a way of measuring your progress regularly while you word to achieve your goal. Measurement helps give you a sense of success with each step toward ultimately achieving the goal You’ve heard it said that the longest journey begins with a single step. So it is with achieving goals. With each step you take, take a moment to recognize that you are one step closer to your goal.

It has been said that, nothing succeeds like success. You may find that when you have fulfilled your resolution, you will be ready to tackle another, maybe long before the next New Year. On this, the first day of the rest of your life, set one specific goal for yourself. Be specific, know how you will measure success, keep it simple by choosing something attainable and realistic, and most of all, set a realistic deadline. Then start doing it.

The key to success with New Years Resolutions, however, in addition to keeping them specific and well-defined, is perseverance. Perseverance is not a word often heard or used in today’s world of instant gratification. Truth be known, however, the best of life does not just happen. Only through persistent striving do we even approach becoming the person that God intends us to be.

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle Church of the Epiphany, Sudbury, The Rev. Dr. Tim Perry, The Rev. Canon Michael Hankinson, (Hon.), St. Thomas’, French River, Mr. Robert Lewis, Pastoral Worker

Anglican Cycle of Prayer The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia The Most Revd William Brown Turei Pihopa o Aotearora and Primate and Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia

Media, Presentation in the Temple, reproduced under Creative Common Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

Attribution: Presentation in the Temple, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46082 [retrieved January 1, 2012].

Isaiah 62:6-12 Prepare the way for the people.

Psalm 97 The heavens proclaim the righteousness of the Lord.

Titus 3:4-7 God has saved us not because of our works but according to his mercy.

Luke 2:(1-7), 8-20 Jesus is born in humble circumstances in Bethlehem.

Reflection

Living as we do in a ‘culture of celebrity,’ the circumstances of Jesus’ birth should come as a shock, as a startling contradiction. The rich heritage of music and art depicting the Nativity, it taken literally, would have us believe that the heavenly choir filled the air with selections from Handel’s Messiah. However, we need always to keep in mind that the music and paintings are the artists’ response to the event not the literal story.

Luke tells the story as it was, without embellishment. A cold drafty barn is hardly an appropriate nursery for a new born of any rank or class. Yet, as common folk, there was not even a single modest room for Mary and Joseph. The best accommodations were reserved for the rich and powerful. The city was simply full to overflowing; every hotel room was occupied or reserved for ‘important’ people. How presumptuous of a simple tradesman and his pregnant companions to even thing of staying in an inn.

Then as now, there were likely many people who were ‘legends in their own minds,’ insisting they were entitled to all the best that life had to offer, that they were better than most of the people with whom they reluctantly associated. Imagine what they thought as they looked down their noses at simple folk like Joseph and Mary. Their thought probably went something like this, “How dare this carpenter and his slut even dare to try to share my space?” And so, the King of Kings was born in a place that was probably unfit even for the animals it was intended to house.

The humble circumstances of Jesus’s birth  imply an extremely significant message for humanity: Jesus’ mission embraces all humanity, not just the rich and powerful. From the very moment of his birth he ‘rubbed shoulders’ with common folk. Throughout his life his companions and associates were simple everyday people, many of whom the religious and civil authorities considered as ‘undesirables.’ They built their empires and religious edifices on the back of the common people yet held them in utter contempt.

Jesus’ predilection to ignore the trappings of office an social positions and to look to the person behind the facade set him apart from the rest of humanity. The religious and civil authorities could not accept this attitude because it put them on an equal footing with every other human person. Ultimately they thought to gain the upper hand and quash Jesus’ teaching by crucifying him.

There lies the ultimate irony. By putting Jesus to death, his persecutors ensured the perpetuation of his Truth. Throughout history, there have been thousands upon thousands who lived as if their wealth and power somehow set them apart, better and more entitled than those who ‘have not.’ Then it was royalty and privileged classes. Today, in many parts of the world, it is the ‘celebrity’ who somehow expects to be treated differently, apparently believe that they are entitle to different standards and rules than other, ‘less worthy’ people.

I wonder how many of these self-important people would even consider that every other person is truly their equal.

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle Pray for Christian vocations and for candidates for ordained ministry. Pastoral Chaplains, The Rev. Bob Elkin, Algoma, The Rev. Peter Simmons, Muskoka The Rev. Glen Miller, Sudbury/Manitoulin, The Rev. Canon Paul Carr, Thunder Bay

Anglican Cycle of Prayer York – (York, England) The Most Revd John Sentamu, York – Beverley – (York, England) The Rt Revd Martyn Jarrett, York – Hull – (York, England) The Rt Revd Richard Frith, York – Selby – (York, England) The Rt Revd Martin Wallace, York – Whitby – (York, England) The Rt Revd Martin Warner

Media, Media Title, reproduced under Creative Common Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

Attribution:

Nativity, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46148 [retrieved December 22, 2011].

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 The Lord establishes the House and Kingdom of David

Luke 1:46b-55 Mary’s song of praise

Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26 Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings?

Romans 16:25-27 Glory to God forever, through Jesus Christ.

Luke 1:26-38 The angel announces unto Mary

Reflection

And now, the season of Advent is drawing to a close. It is interesting to note the difference in the length of Advent compared to the length of Lent. Traditionally, much more time in our Christian calendar is dedicated to preparing for the death and resurrection than to preparing to greet the Christ-child. The birth of Christ is important, to be sure but the event’s import pales when compared to the importance of the Passion, Death and Resurrection.

This relative difference in emphasis says plainly that Christ’s Death and Resurrection are the central Christian Truth. Without the Resurrection, Christianity would simply be another cult among a multitude of man-made belief systems. Without the Resurrection, Jesus’ birth would have little or no significance.

So in Advent we prepare for the Birth of Christ knowing full well that the greater event will come. Perhaps the greatest scriptural gift of this season is Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat. We could do far worse than to adopt this song as our life’s theme song.

 

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." Luke 1:46b-55

 

The song suggests a framework within which we can live our lives, dedicated to the praise and love of God and service to our neighbour. It is though us that God fills the hungry with good things. What more can we ask? When the Angel greeted Mary, she surrendered completely to the will of God. What better can we co?

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle St. Mark’s, Garson, Mr. Robert Lewis – Lay Pastor

Anglican Cycle of Prayer Wyoming – (VI, The Episcopal Church), The Rt Revd John Smylie

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 Isaiah proclaims his mission to bring good news to the oppressed

Psalm 126 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy….

or

Luke 1:46b-55 Mary’s song of joy.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 Hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

John 1:6-8, 19-28 John preaches of the Messiah

Reflection

John was a man who knew his place. When asked if he were the Messiah, he could easily have claimed the honour. Instead, he proclaimed that he was not the Messiah but rather a harbinger sent to prepare the way for the real Messiah. He stressed his personal insignificance next to “the one who is coming after me.”

You could say that, unlike many of us, John was a person who lived without pretence. In today’s Gospel we meet a somewhat different John from the wild man Mark introduced us to last week. Mental health practitioners tell us that a realistic sense of self, of who we are, is a cornerstone of mental health.

People who are grounded in a realistic understanding of their true selves are easy to recognize because, sadly, they are in the minority. One word sums up these people, genuine. They stand out like a bright light on a moonless night against the backdrop made up of all the pretenders, all the ‘wannabes’ who spend their lives frantically trying to maintain the false front behind which they hide.

It’s easy to point to celebrities and public figures who live such lives of pretence but it is sadly true that ordinary people are equally susceptible to pretence. Empty flattery can be very seductive. Each of us must constantly be on guard against buying into the lie.

False modesty, unfortunately, is equally damaging. John didn’t back away from his truth. He didn’t claim to be the Messiah but, equally, he did maintain that he was the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,  that his mission was to prepare the way for the one who followed, the one whose sandal he was unworthy to untie.

In truth, trying to maintain a facade of false modesty is equally as pretentious as hiding behind an image of bravado.

In a word, living as the person you are, may be difficult because you first must come to an honest understanding of who you are but attempting to live as the person you want other people to think you are is far more difficult in the long run. The choice is simple, stay the course, or allow yourself to be pushed and pulled by the whim of everyone you meet and know.

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Hamlet, Act 1, scene 3

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle Christ Church, North Bay, The Rev. Marie Loewen, The Rev. Canon Murray Tipping (Hon.)

Anglican Cycle of Prayer Western North Carolina – (IV, The Episcopal Church) The Rt Revd Granville Taylor

Isaiah 40:1-11 The word of our God will stand forever.

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 The Lord will speak peace to his people, who turn to him in their hearts.

2 Peter 3:8-15a We wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Mark 1:1-8 John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Reflection

Mention the word, ‘prophet,’ and perhaps the image of John the Baptist comes to mind: a wild man, clad in rough clothes, with unkempt hair and beard, partaking of a strange diet. Is it purely coincidence that more than a few homeless men that you might encounter on the streets of any city share a similar physical description?

I suppose it would be folly to summarily assume that every homeless and disadvantaged person is a prophet of any sort let alone a prophet of John’s stature. Yet it would be equally foolhardy, and certainly not Christ-like to simply write them off out of hand and walk by as if they didn’t even exist. Regardless of who we encounter, our actions and attitude should by guided from the theme we heard and read on the Reign of Christ: Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

Re-adjusting your attitude benefits not only the other person but also yourself, provided you are not acting simply out of enlightened self-interest. I recall an older women I used to see regularly on my bus-ride home.

Anna was not a homeless street person. She had a job and assume that she lived around the corner from where I live because she always got off the bus two stops before mine. Intellectually challenged, she was quite frankly annoying to the weary commuter. Her voice had only a single volume level – loud. Whatever statement she started out with, she repeated and repeated and repeated. In the beginning I cringed whenever I saw her waiting at the bus stop.

However, there came a time when somehow I got over my annoyance and pettiness and began to look forward to encountering Anna when I was on my way home from a tiring day. Oh, she still had the same quirks in her behaviour but what I became aware of was her the enthusiasm with which she greeted every person. Her joyful spirit was infectious. Quite simply she brightened my day and that of everyone she met. On the days when I chatted with her briefly, I arrived home spiritually enriched not by anything I said or did but by having been privileged to be with this wonderful woman for just a few brief minutes.

Anna didn’t preach or throw scripture at people. She just lived her joy in the best way she could. Anna has retired and I no longer see her on the bus. My trip home has become just a tiring bus ride looking in vain to see if she might be on the bus.

The lesson for me is that every person, no matter how unlikely it seems to my sceptical self, carries a divine spark. You just have to look very carefully to see it.

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle St. James’, Goulais River, The Ven. William Stadnyk, St. Mark’s, Heyden, Mr. Henry Gaines – Lay Pastor

Anglican Cycle of Prayer Western Kansas – (VII, The Episcopal Church) The Rt Revd Michael Milliken

Media, John the Baptist, mosaic from Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey,, reproduced under Creative Common Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.

Attribution: John the Baptist, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46584 [retrieved November 25, 2011].

Isaiah 64:1-9 Look on us with compassion, Lord, we are all your people

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (16-18)Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9 The Lord Jesus Christ will strenghten us to the end.

Mark 13:24-37 Be always strong, vigilant, and prepared.

Reflection

And so, we begin another year. These words of the Dalai Lama, for me, resonate with the today’s Gospel.  At first glance, however, the Gospel’s theme seems to contradict the Dalai’s theme of living in the moment.

After all the Gospel says that we should keep the end times always in mind but the more important message is to be always prepared. The message is not, “Obsess on the end of heaven and earth as we know them” or “Think only of the end of time to the exclusion of everything else.”

The message is “Be prepared. Live in such a way that you are always ready to die.” From a human psychological standpoint, actively preparing to deal with and mitigate some future possibility is a significant stress reliever. If all we to is think and obsess about something, not actually doing anything to look the eventuality square in the face, we are buying into an ever-escalating spiral of anxiety and despair. So as the Dalai says, we sacrifice our health to make money then sacrifice the money to buy back our health. If we live lives saturated with anxiety, we lose our ability to live in the moment and when we die we will have never really lived.

When we turn our lives to living the Gospel, when we give up fussing and fretting over what the future, near and ultimate, will have in store for, when we begin to truly act as if every day wer our last, we lose our shackled. Living the Gospel, living as the people we are called and intended to be frees us to live every moment of every day to the full.

Diocese of Algoma Prayer Cycle Rural Muskoka Trinity Parish, Christ Church, Port Sydney, The Ven. Eric Paterson, St. Mary’s, Beatrice, St. George’s, Falkenburg

Anglican Cycle of Prayer Wellington – (Aotearoa NZ & Polynesia) The Rt Revd Dr Thomas John Brown

The hosting site for this video introduces it with these words:

At Carnegie Hall, gospel singer Wintley Phipps delivers perhaps the most powerful rendition of Amazing Grace ever recorded. He says, "A lot of people don’t realize that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano. Probably the most famous on this slave scale was written by John Newton, who used to be the captain of a slave ship, and many believe he heard this melody that sounds very much like a West African sorrow chant. And it has a haunting, haunting plaintive quality to it that reaches past your arrogance, past your pride, and it speaks to that part of you that’s in bondage. And we feel it. We feel it. It’s just one of the most amazing melodies in all of human history." After sharing the noteworthy history of the song, Mr. Phipps delivers a stirring performance that brings the audience to its feet!

Video from KarmaTube

In this, the final week of the Christian year, I think this powerful video provides a fitting conclusion to Algoma Reflections’ first year. As it happens, I started my day following the link to this video. I was probably still half-asleep but in the few minutes it took to watch the video, I found myself becoming completely energized. The story that Phipps tells of the black notes, is amazing in itself but Phipps performance is indeed incredibly stirring.

As I listened to Phipps’ performance, a realization began to dawn on me that, better than perhaps any other Christian song or hymn, Amazing Grace  summarizes the entire meaning and substance of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, as is fitting in written work I share this video and these words as the conclusion of Algoma Reflections’ first year.

Thank you Wintley Phipps and thank you the Rev. Roberta Wilson Garrett for sharing this amazing link.