PENTECOST 5C (PROPER 13) – JULY 1, 2007
2Kings 2:1-2,6-14; Ps 77:1-2,11-20; Galatians 5:1,13-25; Luke 9:51-62
 
As usual when the councils of the Church come to a conclusion, hardly anyone is happy.  Of course, this is the case with the recent gathering of General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada.  Individuals feel that the Church – that great impersonal entity and institution – does not represent their personal desires and opinions.  After the recent gathering and the presenting issue, which received all of the attention, there are those who feel the Church has abandoned them, either for passing resolution A186 or for not passing resolution A187.  We begin to hear the rumours of those who will now walk away. Indeed, some have already made that choice.
 
For those who were present at General Synod, there were other issues that wove themselves in and out of our eight days together. For some of us present, these have had a profound impact.  One of these in particular that surfaced again and again was the significant presence of indigenous peoples in this country of Canada and within this institution of the Church.  A profound and moving moment happened when representatives of different First Nations from across the country welcomed and gifted the first national indigenous bishop, Mark McDonald.  This is a huge event in a Church that has been dominated for so long by a European mindset and structures of governance and by the controversies and pain of its legacy. It comes as a milestone along the journey of encounter between First Nations and Europeans on this continent and in the midst of continuing systemic intolerance and racism, signs of which were also clearly among us as Church. The Rev. Lily  Bell, an Anglican priest of the Haida First Nation, preaching at the Sunday Eucharist referred to this development.  She said, in the typical understated way of indigenous peoples: “You know they talk about Indian time.  And people think it’s because we’re always late, they say “Indian time”. But you know it’s not. It’s because we take as long as it takes.”   Here are many who have been victims or at least affected by the abuses of residential schools; who are still often excluded from the councils and worship of the Church because of language barriers; who will hear racist remarks from some clergy and lay people who profess to love Jesus and his teaching; who celebrate their belonging in this Anglican Church of Canada that has so struggled for so long to come out of denial and move into places of reconciliation and healing. Lily taught us a word in the Haida language: goodenaykluska. It means, “to be strong-minded; to have strength, and she appealed to us all to embrace this word as we continue to approach our life as Church.
 
Through the Hebrew Bible story of Elijah’s last journey with his disciple Elisha, and then the dynamics between Jesus and his disciples as he sets his face to go to Jerusalem, today’s Scriptures providentially speak to us about the hard realities of the journey into the reign of God.  Elijah and Elisha through their story present us with the inevitable difficulty of facing the reality of this journey.  God’s reign is not a moment in history or a perfect relationship or an ideal place of being.  God’s reign is the vast fulfillment of time.  Elijah must come to the end of his personal saga in which he has done the best that he could do (and sometimes looked pretty silly too).  Elisha who loves his teacher and depends on him for example and strength, naturally does not want to be parted.  Only in a vision of the mighty presence of God lifting Elijah from the Earth, does Elisha receive in himself, the continuance of the journey.  “Where is the Lord, the God of Israel?”, he shouts in doubtful wonder and there, with the mantle of Elijah to accompany him, gets the answer.  Elijah did not perfect or complete the work for the prophets of God. Elisha now bears that Spirit of the Divine into the future, even though with personal grief and disappointment he would have wished it to be otherwise.
 
As usual most of the folks around Jesus can’t figure out why he does the things he does, walking as he does apart from the priorities that mean so much to them.  The Samaritans who think they see that Jesus has set himself a course that does not include them – i.e. Jerusalem – don’t even want to talk with him.  They can see no farther than the Temple they have built for themselves on their own mountain.  The reign of God stops here, thank you very much.  Jesus’ disciples feel the snub and want to attack these Samaritans who were never good enough for Jerusalem anyway as far as they were concerned.  They too localize God’s reign, and Jesus rebukes them firmly.  Winners and losers - inside and outside - is not what he is about.  Others keep coming out with all of the enthusiasm of converts ready to follow Jesus.  But each of them wants Jesus to make a place for their personal delay.  They ask that the journey to the kingdom be delayed here at their personal place of need.  But the reign of God is so much bigger than their own circle.  “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  This is not Jesus longing for a mountain retreat.  It is his conviction that the journey towards the reign of God does not have stopping points. It must simply continue and that might sometimes mean the present abandonment of what we assume to be the most pressing personal agenda.  It might mean the disappointment of the “not now” when we are certain of the immediate necessity or the hard challenge of “this is the direction we are heading” when we are sure that our destination lies elsewhere. We can hardly suggest that Jesus did not appreciate these individuals’ needs, but how could they have the stamina for the journey that he was on when they could not let go of the now and the “me and mine”?  
 
The kind of freedom in Christ that Paul refers the Galatian community to is a freedom that enables them to “Stand firm”.  It is like Lilly’s Haida word.  The temptation of the community as they progressed in this Christian life of faith- as it is with just about every community - was sometimes to fear or despair of what was happening or the desire to return to some security of the past – to narrow God’s reign.  To Paul, this was like submitting to a yoke of slavery again.  The resurrection has put this kind of limitation to rest.  The Spirit of God has far outstripped such narrow and time and space definitions of the reign of God.  They lead only to all of the negative and soul destroying behaviours of human beings each of whom thinks and acts like they alone are the centre of the Divine God’s love: “I hate you.  I will not walk any longer with you.  Why do they have to get all the benefits?” (It is worth noting Paul’s list of human behaviours opposed to the Holy Spirit.  Although we may get caught up on the first on the list because of our hangups; most of the behaviours listed are about people not finding the way to live and journey together.)
 
Does this mean that we must then be content when, for some, the path to justice seems to be thwarted or, for others, something integral to the relationship with God is abandoned?  Certainly not!  Like Elisha, we look to see God in the past and in the present moment and then take up the mantle with God as the still present companion stepping out into the new day.  Like Jesus we set our face to the destination – Jerusalem – which we know to be not a geographical city but the City of God.  Like Lilly and so many of her people, we do not go away – we will not go away.  We stand strong in the faith of God’s call to justice and peace manifesting the presence of God in the gifts of the Spirit until that day of fulfillment when God’s reign will come.