Gagetown Anglican

09/04/2026

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow me.”
Matthew 16: 24

For three years, on three consecutive Good Fridays, I was able to take this command quite literally. I was Priest-in-Charge of the Anglican Church on the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. These are the Blackfoot people, the Kainai.
Early on the morning of Good Friday we would hoist a large wooden cross and carry it 14 kilometres, along gravel roads, over the bald prairie, from the parish church to the former residential school, where we would hold a short service.
The cross was made of rough-cut 6 by 6’s, ten feet high and four feet wide. It weighed about 40 lbs, and though not particularly heavy, it was an awkward size and shape. It bruised our shoulders, and left slivers in our hands and forearms.
The walk took three hours. We would stop every 15 minutes to lift the cross onto someone else’s shoulders – without ever letting it touch the ground – and pray the Stations of the Cross: the liturgy in which we enact the journey that Jesus made, carrying his cross on the road to Golgotha and crucifixion. I was happy to take my turn carrying our common burden and, though no one mentioned it, I think it pleased people – especially former students – that I, the Anglican priest, might share in the sufferings they had endured at the Anglican residential school.

There is some truth to the idea that to “take up the cross” means to suffer. Anyone who has walked even a short distance with Jesus will know that the journey is sometimes difficult. We will bear the judgements and suspicions of other people. We will submit to particular disciplines of body and mind. We will forgo small pleasures for the sake of a larger happiness, the Holy Spirit growing within us. And in some small way, our sufferings help us draw near to Jesus in his sufferings. In the words of the old hymn,
“Take up your cross, the Saviour said, if you would my disciple be.
Deny yourself, the world forsake and humbly follow after me. “
But suffering is not, I am certain, the essential truth about the cross, for nowhere in the Bible is suffering considered meaningful in itself, and Jesus certainly did not go around looking for trouble. Though there are many Christians who would place the death of Jesus upon the cross at the center of their faith, I am not one of them. Though there are Christians who presume that suffering is the price of their admission into heaven, I am not one of them.
I’m certain that there are enough trials in even the most blessed human life without the need to look for more. So long as we meet such trials as we have, with courage and modesty, they will prove sufficient. The full meaning of “Take up your cross” is not found in suffering, but in our confidence that Jesus is with us in our sufferings, and will carry us through them.

“Take up your cross and follow me” Jesus says, and so he speaks of a journey. We are headed to Jerusalem, he tells his disciples, “where he will suffer at the hands of the elders, the priests and the teachers of the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised to new life.” I imagine Jesus saying this quietly, without drama, as one might speak about the weather, something clearly beyond our control. It is the very opposite of boasting. Even so, it leaves Peter in shock. He had thought that they were on an entirely different kind of journey. He was picturing perhaps one triumphant miracle after another. But a deliberate submission to death? “This shall never happen” he says.
But Jesus turns to Peter and calls him Satan, which simply means “tempter.” “Get behind me, you Tempter,” he says, in much the same dismissive way he spoke to Satan during his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. “You are a stumbling block” he says to Peter. But with you behind me, instead of trying to lead me, I will not stumble. I will keep going. I will reach my destination.
And what is the destination of Jesus? It is heaven, and nothing less. It is a life beyond suffering, and nothing less. It is the full presence of God, and nothing less. And this destination, this glorious arrival, Jesus says, is offered to everyone. “Whoever wants to be my disciple,” Jesus says, “must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
For us, as for Jesus, the cross is not a destination, nor even an event entire in itself. The cross is but a painful station upon the way, the scary but necessary step between earth and heaven. To put it simply, the cross of Jesus means nothing without his resurrection. It is the empty tomb that completes the work of the cross. As the angels delight to tell us, “He is not here. He is risen.”

If we experience some small part of Jesus’ sufferings in this life, it is also true that we may experience something of his resurrection. After three hours and 14 kilometers of carrying the heavy wooden cross, we would arrive at the old residential school, formerly St. Paul’s, but now Red Crow College. A large crowd would greet us. Finally we could set the cross on the ground and stand it tall. And we who had carried the cross would also stand tall, rolling our shoulders, stretching our backs and, despite the solemnity of the day, grinning foolishly at each other. We would sing “Were you there when they crucified our Lord?” We would recite the famous words from Isaiah, chapter 53,
“Surely he took up our pain, and bore our suffering.
He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed by our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. “
Then the cross would be set in the back of a pickup truck, and we, in defiance of all common sense and traffic laws, would climb in around it, packed tight, our hands resting lightly upon the rough wood, giving and receiving the kind of affection you feel for an old friend. Bumping over the gravel roads, with grey dust boiling up behind us, we would be carried back to the church where we had begun, and the cross would be put back in the basement, where it would rest until it was needed a year later. And we would linger, reluctant to leave, absent-mindedly picking the slivers out of our hands.
We were not entirely the same people who had set out to carry the cross that morning. We were tired, of course, and our shoulders were sore, and our hands bled, though certainly not to the same degree as Jesus, then at least in the same places. And we knew that, if we had carried the cross of Christ, it was as nothing compared to the way he had carried us, and carries us still, through life, through suffering and joy, through faith and death, and into eternity, the full presence of God. Amen.

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08/06/2026

A sermon for July 25th at St. James Church, Jemseg, NB
The Feast of St. James
Have a look, if you will, at the grave, mysterious figure held within the east window. It is myself, St. James, and I would like to say a few words.
I have been dead a long, long time, and should be long forgotten. But I am famous. My bones – if you are interested in bones – are revered by the church as holy relics, powerful, charged with the glory of God. They now rest inside a silver box, which is kept on display in the crypt, deep beneath the high altar of the Cathedral that bears my name, in the city that also bears my name, in northern Spain. Santiago.
How many millions have visited my bones over the last thousand years? Countless. You might as well try to number the steps you take as you walk through life, or count the stars that light the sky while you sleep. Yet I tell you plain that my bones have never held the meaning of the journey. So long as we human beings remain creatures of earth, bound by gravity and sin, yet always dreaming of escape, the journey itself must always be the purpose of the journey.
We do what we are. We human beings are restless creatures. God has created us to seek, to learn, to suffer insufficiency, to find somewhere beyond this earth our ultimate home. We were made to move, and so we do. If my bones – kept in a silver box beneath the high altar of my cathedral - should serve as pretext for the necessary journey, then I am content. Also, a little amused.
For a thousand years I have watched the pilgrims journeying to me. At first it was just the locals, peasants and craftsmen and housewives. They came bearing their superstitions and prayers, for they had heard the story: my bones, the bones of Saint James, the third disciple of Jesus, had been found buried in a nearby field. A shrine was built to house my bones, and a story built to be worthy of the shrine. There was talk of angels and voices and strange lights in the sky. They called the place “Campus Stellae, the Field of Stars.”
And yes, the miracles happened: the healings and the answered prayers. And yes, I played my part in them, for heaven is not so far from earth, and I have some influence. But the stories grew with each new telling, beyond my control, and spread beyond the mountains. Pilgrims came from ever further away and in greater numbers, speaking strange languages. The passing of their feet, millions and millions of feet, coming and going, wore a groove into the earth. The groove became a path, and then a trail, and finally a road: the French Road: the Camino.
In time my shrine was replaced by a modest stone church, not unlike this one in Jemseg, and that was the home I loved best, a place of quiet shadows and stone arches, round and earthbound. I liked it there, but it proved too small. Since then my home has been rebuilt and expanded many times, to accommodate the growing crowds and the changing ideas of what a holy place ought to look like. And now it seems, for most people, I have become the building. I am a cathedral, a tourist destination. I am Romanesque and Gothic and Baroque, a story held in stone. I have been dead a long, long time, and should be long forgotten. But the pilgrims keep coming. I am, it seems, still needed.

In EngIish-speaking countries I am known as James. In France, I am Jacque. In Mexico, Diego. In Spain, the land that adopted me, I am Iago: Saint Iago. But I began my life as Jakov, and I was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way. My brother and I were sitting in our boat, late one afternoon, drifting off-shore. It had been a long day. We had caught our fish and cleaned them, and now we were mending the nets, when we noticed a man walking towards us: Jesus, the rabbi from Nazareth. We had heard the stories about him, which we did not believe. And now we saw him standing knee-deep in the water between us and the shore. “Come,” he said. “Follow me.” Then he turned and walked away.
I cannot explain what happened next. Without a word my brother and I stepped out of the boat into the water. We pulled it on shore and folded our nets on top of the fish, knowing that Zebedee, our father, would take care of them. Then we started to walk, to follow him.
That’s how it began, with a short walk up the beach, leading we knew not where. For three years we followed him: my fisherman’s hands growing soft, my feet growing hard. For three years we walked with Jesus through the hills of Galilee, collecting alms, distributing food, watching and learning. Occasionally my brother and I would return home, to help our father with the fishing. But we knew, as he knew, that we had found a new home, a new life.

I often think that, before I met Jesus, I had never truly noticed the world.
But Jesus gave me new eyes. “What is the Kingdom of Heaven?” he would ask. Then, with a laugh, he would point at a bird, or a flower, or a tree; and I would truly see them, as if for the first time. I was like the man who had been born blind, whose eyes Jesus opened. The Kingdom of God, I learned, was all around me, and always had been. There were parables everywhere: a sower and his seed, a man building a house, a woman and her lost coin, a shepherd calling his lost sheep. Even my own life, Jesus said, was a parable. “You have been fishing for fish,” he said. “But now you will start fishing for people.”
I will not tell you everything that Jesus said or did for those three years. If you are curious, I commend to you the work of my colleagues: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But I was with him in the beginning. I followed Jesus to the top of a mountain and saw him transfigured by the glory of God. I knelt by the bed of a young girl, the daughter of Jairus, and watched Jesus restore her life. I followed him into the Garden of Gethsemane. I saw him arrested, tortured, and crucified.
I was in the upper room two days later when the women burst in, shouting that they had seen him alive. I was there the same evening when Jesus himself came among us from the dead, bearing his scars, yet more fully alive than any human being has ever been.
Forty days later he appeared for the last time, telling us to go to the ends of the earth, to proclaim all that he had taught. And so we went, all of us. Myself, I went west, as far as I could. I followed the setting sun to the end of the world, to the place you now call Spain: Hispania, Galicia, Finisterre.
I was not a successful evangelist. I admit it freely. It is possible that I converted no-one to faith in Jesus. But though I was not always believed, I was loved, and I learned to love the people of Spain in return. In this, the gospel was fulfilled. Finally, after many years, at the end of my strength, I returned to Galilee, and discovered that faith in Jesus had grown, becoming both popular and dangerous. As always, the poor understood Him best, while the powerful were quick to condemn. I myself was condemned for preaching how, in Christ, God’s love is offered to all people, in all times, in all places. For this crime I was beheaded at the command of King Herod. The sword fell. My earthly life ended, my heavenly life began.
In Jesus I found peace, but not idleness. Even in death my body remained in motion. My body was interred for a year, and then my bones were laid in a box, and the box loaded onto a small boat, not unlike those I used to sail on the Sea of Galilee. Two of my friends piloted the boat west, across the Mediterranean and beyond Gibraltar. Without benefit of sails or oars, the Spirit carried us over the waters, until we reached the port of Padron. From there my bones were carried inland, and buried in the soil of my beloved Spain. And I slept for 700 years.
This is my story. Do you find it hard to believe? Perhaps you do not like miracles? But I tell you plain: all of life is a miracle. Your life, my life, the life of Jesus; the earth, the moon, and the stars beyond: it is all dust, but dust sustained by the breath of God. I say it again: all of life is a miracle, if we could only see it.
After seven centuries my bones were discovered, and a shrine built to my honour, as I have already told you. Then a church was built to replace the shrine, and finally a great cathedral, which still stands, and which you are welcome to visit. Today there are perhaps 5000 churches, in a hundred countries, named after me - I have lost count. But this church, here in Jemseg, is one of my favourites: solid, quiet, strong with prayer. And it rests comfortably in this place. The walls are built of sandstone gathered from the shore of nearby Dykeman Lake. All the wood - the beams, floors, pews and panelling - were milled from trees cut nearby. Local, too, were the men and women who transformed these elements into this House of God. And what has been my contribution? I continue to offer something of my spirit, and of course my name, St. James.

The stained glass windows are lovely, but the best of them – I say it with all humility – is mine, the window from which I am now speaking. Have a look at me if you like. I have nothing to hide. You can tell at a glance that I am a traveller, a pilgrim, footsore, but strong. I wear a red cloak, red for the blood of the martyrs. In my right hand I hold a staff, to keep my balance on rocky trails, and to fend off the angry dogs of Spain; and from the top there hangs a hollow gourd, my water bottle. I wear a broad-brimmed hat, protection against the sun and rain, and upon its brim is a scallop shell, taken from the sea at Finisterre: the badge of pilgrimage in every age and in every land. And about my head still shine the stars that led to the discovery of my bones on that strange night 1300 years ago.
There are two inaccuracies in the window that I must point out. First, my left hand holds a Bible. This, I’m afraid, is pure invention. I am, you remember, a 1st century Galilean peasant. No one in my family has ever learned to read or write. Second, my feet are bare. Truly, I wish the artist had given me sandals. As every pilgrim knows, it is essential that you care for your feet.
Still, it is a good likeness. My face is sun-burned. I need a shave and a haircut - but you know how hard it is to stay well-groomed when you are on the road. And I am, I think, neither smiling nor frowning. I am tired, clearly, from the many miles that lay behind me, and the thought of the miles that lay ahead. But I am content – even, perhaps, resolute. They have a word for this in Spanish. “Ultreya,” they say.” It means “Keep going.” And so I do. And as I go, I keep this thought in mind: that by travelling faithfully, we have, in a sense, already arrived.
You are welcome to visit this Church of St. James any time you want. The door is unlocked - indeed, you might notice that the lock is broken. The key was lost many years ago, and will not be replaced. Only one thing I ask: when you come to this place, you do not look at me; but look through me, for I am a window. I bear only the light that Christ is pleased to shine through me. I have no virtues of my own, only those that He still inspires and sustains. I am no one’s destination, but like you, I am a pilgrim. Still, if you would seek Christ and His Kingdom, then perhaps you and I might walk together for a while.

07/27/2026

August 's schedule, a lot of 11 a.m.'s this month. You get to sleep in a bit! Next week Canon Cathy Laskey will be with at St. John's and layreader Cath Coombes will be guest preacher!

07/23/2026

Matthew 13: 1-8
Later that day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables.
He said, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

If you are a woman, your name is Rachel. If a man, Jacob. You are married, have three children and a farm by the Sea of Galilee. You work the land: tilling, planting, weeding and adding manure. It is not the best land for growing wheat, but it is yours. And sometimes, when the weather cooperates, giving enough but not too much rain, and the sun sets and the air grows cool, and the children are asleep, you stand and look at your land and know that you are lucky. And you smile to see, at the water’s edge, the small boat you use for fishing, because, though it seems a terrible thing to say, sometimes you grow tired of the land.
If you are a woman, your name is Rachel. If a man, Jacob. You are a faithful Jew - not fanatical about keeping every letter of the Law - but you are faithful. Every Sabbath you go to the synagogue to hear the scriptures, and pray, and hope to hear some good news. It is not that you are without hope, but sometimes life seems to promise more than you know how to harvest. Sometimes you feel like a dry field, when the clouds pass above, but no rain falls.

One day at synagogue a man sits next to you. You have heard of him: Jesus from Nazareth. He sits quietly. He listens and prays. He does nothing remarkable. But this is a man about whom stories are told. For example, there was a wedding at Cana, and they ran out of wine - a hundred people, and after an hour there was nothing to drink but water. It seemed a bad omen, a distressing way to begin a marriage. But Jesus was seen being led to where the jars of water were kept. He was seen praying over them. He was seen directing the servants to open them for the guests, and they were full of wine. Very good wine. Now, that was a party.
Then there’s the story of the big picnic. Thousands of people walked into the wilderness to hear this man talk. For hours they listened and would not leave, because they were hungry for the word of God. Eventually, of course, they grew hungry for other food as well, but there was none to be had except two fish and five loaves of bread. But Jesus took the fish and the bread and prayed over them, and with them fed the thousands of people until they could eat no more.
This is the man sitting beside you now: the miracle man. You would like to talk to him, but have no idea what you might say. When the service is over, he smiles and leaves without a word.

Next afternoon you see him again. He is walking, with his friends, on the road that runs above your house. Hesitantly, as they pass, you wave to him and he waves back. “Where do you live?” he shouts.
“Come and see,” you shout back.
He leaves the others, and you show him your little farm. You offer him some water, some bread and figs, and then the two of you walk the gravel path that leads down to the water. He slows his pace to match yours and listens to everything you say. He does nothing remarkable, though there is an odd moment when he stops and picks up a handful of gravel. He seems to weigh it in his hands, and smile, before letting it drop to the ground.
Where the path leads through the stony part of your land, where the bedrock is near the surface, he scuffs the soil with the toe of his sandals. Again, he smiles that strange little smile, as if struck by a memory he does not wish to share.
He walks slowly beside the field you have left fallow. This was last year’s field, and will be next year’s field, but now it is resting, full of weeds. He pulls out a stalk of timothy, breaks it off at the root and places it between his teeth, tasting its sweetness. Just like a farmer.
Then, where the path leads beside your best field, he grins broadly and steps into it, walking carefully between the furrows, allowing his hands to pass gently over the stalks of wheat, heavy with grain. Then he closes his eyes and begins to sing. The words are familiar, from the prophet Isaiah:
“As the rain falls from heaven, making the land flourish,
so my words go forth: they will not return to me empty.”

Finally, you stand at the water’s edge, beside your little boat. He asks you how the fishing is, and do you think it will rain in the next few days? Despite his otherworldly air, Jesus is a local boy, and his questions are intelligent. It is all small talk, but you feel yourself enlarged by it.
The two of you chat until you are distracted by the sound of people walking down the path. The followers of Jesus are approaching, followed by a few of your neighbours. It seems as if the word has gone out and, sure enough, more and more people walk down the path from the road to the lakeshore. They crowd around Jesus, almost pushing him into the water. He turns to you and points to your small boat. When you nod to him, he steps into it. You push it gently offshore, and then step back into the crowd.
Jesus sits, allowing the rocking boat to settle, waiting for the people to become quiet. Then he begins. “A farmer went out to sow his seed,” he says, and though he is staring into the distance, far beyond the crowd, you feel that he is speaking only to you. He gestures to the path that he walked down to the water. “As he was scattering the seed,” he says, “some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.”
Then he gestures to the band of rocky ground that cuts across your land. “Some seed fell on rocky places, he says, “where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and withered because they had no root.”
He gestures to the field you have left fallow. “Other seed fell among thorns,” he says, “which grew up and choked the plants.”
Finally, after a long pause, he gestures to your best field, your pride, your future, that you have tended so carefully. His smile broadens into a grin. “Still other seed fell on good soil,” he says,” where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
All around you the people are hushed, waiting for him to say more.
But he says only one thing more. He says what the prophets always say: “He who has ears, let him hear.” Then he steps out of the boat into the shallow water, and pulls it to shore. He hands you the rope and then walks away. No one follows.
After he has gone, some people are disappointed. “What was that about?” they ask. “I don’t need a preacher to tell me how to run a farm.” But others slap you on the back, for it seems that Jesus has paid you a great compliment, though precisely what it is they do not say.

If you are a woman, your name is Rachel. If a man, Jacob. You are married, have three children and a farm by the Sea of Galilee. And for the first time in your life, it occurs to you that your life is a story, though one that you do not fully understand. “He who has ears, let him hear.”
That evening, when dinner is over, the chores are done and the kids are in bed, the two of you walk together outside. You walk into your story. From the barn you take a handful of seed. You let it trickle through your fingers. Seed is precious, you think, but the man in the story had so much seed that he could toss it into places where he knew it would not grow. “What kind of farmer is this?” you ask. “Who is it that has so much seed?”
With this question, the story begins to grow. For what is a seed? A seed is a promise. A seed is the future. A seed is life, and who has so much life that they can throw it around so carelessly? Only God has so much life.
So yes, you think, the man in the story is God. Yet the man in the story is also Jesus, for you remember how he sat in the boat and cast his words, like seeds, onto the people standing before him. He sowed the word upon everyone, without discretion, upon the rich and the poor, the curious and the bored, the just and the unjust. He sowed the seed everywhere, trusting that some would take root.
You walk down the path toward the water, allowing seed to slip between your fingers. It falls on your feet and scatters over the path, where it will not grow. As Jesus said, the birds will find it, and eat it. And again, you feel the story grow. If the seeds are faith, then the birds are doubt and fear. They consume your faith in the future.
You walk over the rocky part of your land, and let more seed fall. This seed will germinate quickly, but that will not fool you. You know that it will never grow roots deep enough to survive. Even a week without rain, and it will die. And so you come to see the shallow places in your life, the places where good things might take root, but you do not let them. You think of the kind words you do not say, the forgiveness you do not offer, the acts of mercy you do not perform. You ask yourself: Can such a rocky place become a garden? And you answer “Yes, of course, but only if it yields to the plow.”
You walk through the fallow field, through the weeds that have grown while the land is resting. It is good soil here, so you let fall some of the seed in your hand. They will grow into plants, certainly. But the weeds around them will also grow, and choke the wheat. So you recognise the wild, untended places in your life, where bad habits bloom. You ask yourself: Can a patch of weeds become a field of wheat? And you answer “Yes, of course. And so it will be next Spring, when I will plow these weeds under, and begin sowing the new seed.
Finally, you walk onto your best land, the field you have spent all year weeding and watering, the land you pray for, and give thanks for, the land you love. And here you cast all the seed left in your hand. And because you are a farmer, and you live by faith, you see the land not only as it is, but as it will be. You imagine all of your life becoming like this field, all the barren, and rocky, and weedy parts of your life growing rich with grain and moving in the wind like a living creature.
It is an old, old story, and one that you thought had nothing new to teach you. But now it has become new again. “A farmer went out to sow his seed.” The farmer is God, and we are his garden. He wants to make our lives beautiful.
Amen.

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07/15/2026

Sorry we haven't updated the July schedule but here is the schedule for the next 2 weeks!

July 19th Holy Communion at St. Johns, Gagetown at 11am
July 26th Joint service at St. James, Jemseg, with Layreaders at 11 am. (No service in Gagetown that day)

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05/12/2026

ALL THINGS IN COMMON

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
These two verses from the beginning of the Book of Acts have inspired and haunted the church for 2000 years. They speak an ideal of human harmony and solidarity that we know, in our bones, should be true: that there should be no divisions of power or wealth among us. We belong to God and to each other, and that’s an end of it. This ideal survives to this day, precariously, in a thousand monasteries and convents. And if, beyond its cloisters, the Church has never been equal to this ideal, neither have we forgotten it. It haunts us still.

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
So the early disciples lived, and the only way to account for it is the fact that Jesus had recently risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent his Holy Spirit upon the people. This, they felt, changed everything. The disciples held the audacious idea that, if we have God, we have everything we need. If we have God, then everything else just gets in the way. So, they thought, we might as well share. The disciples trusted that when Christ rose from the dead, all creation was made new, and that their relationships should share in that newness. If they were united in Christ, why should they be divided by mere possessions?
Let us admit that the idea makes us nervous. We think of all we own, and can’t imagine giving it all away. We sympathise with the young man in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus tells him “’If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Perhaps we, like this young man, do not wish to be perfect.
It has been argued that the idea of sharing all we have with others was easier 2000 years ago because the disciples believed that Jesus would soon return to Earth, and history would come to an end. Saint Paul, in his earliest letters, clearly believed that the second Coming of Christ would be a matter of weeks or months - a year at most. All earthly things, he believed, were soon to pass away. So why save for the future when the future might be only a few more days?
Well, we know better now, and I’m sure that if we could tell young Saint Paul that the Church would still be here 2000 years later, and that we are still reading his letters, he would be astonished. It is only in his last letters that Paul accepts that the Church must settle in for the long haul. As the years passed and the church grew in numbers, it had to start planning for the future. The church, when it was not suffering persecution, began to invest in real estate and property, and to ordain deacons and priests - people like me - and pay them a living wage. It was understood that the church, though its purpose is heavenly, must also learn how to live sensibly upon the earth.
The church therefore is a human institution, bound by history and time and circumstance. But we are also called to live in the light of eternity, as citizens of heaven. We insist that Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, has already returned to us, and that our eternal lives have already begun, on this side of heaven. So it is that the promise of heaven and the demands of earth continually come into conflict.
Consider the issue addressed by our Diocesan Synod last week. We have a Cathedral in Fredericton, very beautiful, very precious, that will cost us 20 million dollars to maintain. This we do not have, and the question, obviously, is should we keep it? Do we own the Cathedral, or does the Cathedral own us? Maybe we should just give the building away, to a secular foundation. Like the early disciples, maybe we should share it with everyone?
Or is it possible that we can be loyal to both a building made of stone, and a Kingdom made of human souls? Perhaps. Such was the uneasy decision we reached at our meeting. But it is a difficult question: how do we balance our earthly needs and our divine purpose? It is a perennial question, one that has shaped Christian history for the last 2000 years. It is also a deeply personal question, one that you and I will wrestle with for the rest of our lives. As Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

”All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
These verses have rarely been lived out by a community over a long time. But they have been lived by a few extraordinary individuals. So far as we know, Jesus in his adult life had no earthly home. He did not own land. He had no bank account, no Visa card. Instead, he lived on charity, which is another word for “love.” He gave away all he had, trusting his Heavenly Father to provide everything he would need, and this allowed him an extraordinary freedom.
“Let tomorrow’s problems wait for tomorrow” he counsels us. “Why do you worry about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field. They do not labour or spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. If this is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?” If today we celebrate Jesus as our Good Shepherd, it is because he promises to care for us in the same way.
Beyond Jesus, I suppose Saint Francis comes to mind. One day, in central Italy, back in the 13th century, wealthy young Francesco Bernadone went for a ride in the countryside on his horse. When it began to rain, horse and rider turned and headed for home, a warm fireplace, and a hot meal. But on his way, Frances met a poor man on the side of the road. He was cold and wet, and at the sight of him Francis felt his heart divide. Why should this man have nothing when he, Francis, had everything? So he climbed off his horse, gave the man his cloak, and rode away, shivering cold but happy. And why? Because the giving gave him joy.

”All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
It should be joy, not guilt, and not the heavy burden of obligation, that we hear in these astonishing verses. Why should we love our neighbours? Well, maybe because it will make us happy. Francis later gave away his property so freely that his father, a wealthy cloth merchant, confronted him in the village square and threatened to disown him. Whereupon Francis took off all his clothes and said that from that moment on he would possess nothing, absolutely nothing. “Give them to the poor,” he said about the clothing at his feet. The Bishop of Assisi, witnessing the argument, hurried over, took off his cloak and covered Francis with it - whereupon Francis, famously, walked off into the woods, singing a French folk song.
And there I think we’ll leave them, Jesus and Francis, you and I, and the Christian church throughout the world and throughout the ages, with the generosity that brings joy, and the faith that brings freedom. Amen

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