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Are you one of those people who
loves change or hates change? Maybe somewhere in the middle? Maybe you see the necessity of change but you don’t like the discomfort it brings. Maybe you rage against change and then, when you finally give in, you realize you need it.
Everything in life is touched by change. Our bodies change and age, our relationships struggle and grow, and our world is full of change and instability too. But what about our relationship with God? Can our dance with the sacred withstand significant change?
Let’s look at a time in ancient Israel’s history when change rocked God’s people. Israel was exiled by Babylon, and when they slowly made their way back home they discovered that home wasn’t quite what they hoped it would be. Change can do that - it can upend you.
The Ezra and Nehemiah stories call us to prepare, rebuild, and intentionally choose healthy change. So if change is going to happen, let’s at least be ready.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Your temple can fall, and it can be rebuilt. Your country can collapse, and it can be rebuilt. Your heart can break, and it can be find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Guys, yesterday was my birthday.
Speaker 1:Oh, all the love from 10/30. I hope that you had a Star Wars tastic. May the fourth be with you. I turned 41, so I'm not sure if that means I'm, like, now well into my forties. But whatever it is.
Speaker 1:41 feels great. I'm really glad to be 41. I'm gonna change gears for a moment, though. I am mindful that though yesterday was my birthday, it was also a sad day. We lost someone in our progressive Christian world way too soon.
Speaker 1:Rachel Held Evans passed away yesterday at the age of 37. And her voice as a writer and a thinker and a speaker has been so valuable to so many. We have her books here in our lending library, so her voice has shaped us. There's no better time than now to sink into what Rachel Held Evans has left for us, thoughtful, grace filled, sharp memoir and theology. So our hearts are with her loved ones.
Speaker 1:Next, I do wanna say a very big thank you for taking time to fill out the in seat survey. We value you. We value your voice. We value your feedback, and we take it very seriously. So thank you for speaking up and involving yourself in our larger transformation.
Speaker 1:And that is today. But last week was Vision Sunday, and Vision Sunday is this place in our teaching calendar where we peer into the future a bit, and we wonder where is commons going, and how will we get there together? One of the cultural pieces that we talked about on vision Sunday is this move in our culture away from Christianity as a default. And like many movements, there are good reasons for the change. Christians have not always brought their best selves into the cultural conversation, but it's always been my experience that when I stop and listen to why people have ditched their Christian tradition, there's real pain there.
Speaker 1:Maybe someone didn't have enough room to ask really hard questions. Maybe when they stood up to say, hey, this is who I really am. Can you love me as me? They were met with bible verses as swords and even shown the door. Maybe church became a place of guilt and never being good enough.
Speaker 1:So finally, a person says enough. Enough of that already. And commons has appealed to people like this, and we are so glad for that. We are so glad. But as a community, we also know it's time to be more than just that last stop out of town on the road to ditch your faith tradition.
Speaker 1:We are wondering together what it looks like to be a community not only for people who are dones, like done with church, but also for those who are what the sociologists call, none's. What can commons be for you if you didn't grow up with all of this Jesus stuff or the only time that you really go to church is for a wedding or a funeral, and the metaphors and the stories are mostly just foreign to you? Can commons be a community for you if your spiritual story is anything but typical and doesn't include a map of all the churches you used to go to? We think we can be. And in fact, we sense this invitation from the spirit to use our minds and our imaginations, to use our social media and the voices on our team, to use the community that you shape as you embrace people who are different from you, all of that used to serve a God who is always always wooing us to the creator inside these walls, but also outside of these walls to follow in the nonviolent, all loving ways of Jesus, and to sense the holy spirit who is at work in each of us.
Speaker 1:So I encourage you, if you missed church last week or didn't get a chance to listen on YouTube or the podcast, take a moment this week to listen to the vision sermons. Jeremy's here in Kensington and Scott's in Inglewood and hear more about how we are leaning into our future. It is beautiful, and it is so much fun to be a part of. But today, we are starting a new series, and it is all about change. And last week, when I was hanging out with the 7PM service here at Commons, I mentioned to my friends Hadija and Blaine that I was working on this change series.
Speaker 1:And Hadija said, with these bright eyes and electric smile, I love change. And Blaine, her husband, looked more serious and paused, and he replied, some people hate change so much, they got rid of the penny. Guys, that's an actual joke. Well, it's kind of a groaner. I know, but I love Blaine.
Speaker 1:He's always good for those jokes. This moment with Hadija and Blaine, it they highlights this spectrum of our relationship with change. We love change. We hate change. We resist change.
Speaker 1:We seek change. We attend to change. We get rocked by change. And today, we are kicking off this series on change. And as we just take a moment and sort of quiet ourselves and we pray together, I encourage you to consider just one part of your life where things are really changing for you right now.
Speaker 1:And hold that with us as we pray together. Loving God, you hold the world and everything in it. We are mindful. We are reflective even that life is so full of change. Our bodies change.
Speaker 1:Our relationships change. Our work changes. We change our minds. We change our ways. We change our hearts.
Speaker 1:And Jesus, you lived and breathed as we do. And you are intimate with the cycles of change, none of which shocks or surprises you. So spirit, help us to listen to your invitation. We pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:So what grounds you in change? What stabilizes you and helps you feel secure in transitions? That is where we're going today. And in the last few years, I have been a keen student to change in very personal ways. I changed cities and homes and friendships.
Speaker 1:I changed my relationship status, my job, my ordination. I changed my proximity to family, to flatter land, to colder weather. Come on, Alberta. I changed. But is it noticeable?
Speaker 1:And with all this change, am I still Bobby? Am I still the same Bobby I was three years ago or five years ago or even ten years ago? And there's a long history to change in how we think about it. Back in the five hundreds BCE in antiquity, the weeping philosopher Heraclitus held these three claims to be true about change. Number one, all things are changing.
Speaker 1:Number two, life is like a river. You cannot step twice into the same river. And three, contradictory proportions are also true. Meaning, while one steps into the same river, other and other waters flow. But the river is not different, it is the same.
Speaker 1:Heraclides implies, if the water stop flowing, the river ceases to be. All that to say, people have been thinking about change for a long, long time. Change is as simple and as complicated as its history. So we are turning to a section in the Hebrew scriptures to guide us through the series, the book of Ezra, Nehemiah, two books in most bibles, but one in biblical studies. And you don't have to know a single thing about these books for us to begin, so let's start with some background.
Speaker 1:It begins as tragedy. Does that sound dramatic? I wanted it to sound dramatic. Begins as tragedy. The people of Judah, an ancient people, God's holy people, are torn from the land.
Speaker 1:Sacred treasures are stolen. The temple is destroyed. Loved ones are separated. And the book of Lamentations literally laments the fall of Jerusalem with these tragic words. How deserted lies the city, once so full of people.
Speaker 1:How like a widow is she who once was great among the nations. After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. She dwells among the nations. She finds no resting place. Tragedy.
Speaker 1:And the works of Kings and Chronicles try to make sense of why it all happened. And the authors of those books, they boil the reasons down like this. They say, we were unfaithful to Yahweh, and our rebellious ways nearly destroyed us. This is the theology of immediate retribution, the belief that God is involved in the destruction that we suffer. And we do this with our tragedies all the time.
Speaker 1:Right? We wonder, what did I do to deserve this? Why is God against me? If only I could be better or more spiritual or many things, then maybe I wouldn't be in such a mess. Well, we're in ancient company when we look at our tragedies like this.
Speaker 1:And decades and decades pass before these exiles see a better day. Life is really hard when you're hard on yourself. But then, a new day dawns, and Cyrus, king of Persia, the king of what used to be Babylon, issues a decree. This is what Cyrus, the king of Persia says, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem and Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem and Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.
Speaker 1:Now there is reason to be actually suspicious of these words if we're looking for the facts. There's a problem with the timeline of the kings named in the first chapters in Ezra. There are issues in the archaeological record when it comes to these exact places, and the verses are written in Hebrew, not Aramaic, which means that this is not the original proclamation. Rather, this is what proclamation sounds like when it's reshaped to give hope. So this literature isn't really about the facts, it's about the truth.
Speaker 1:The truth of what it is like to be the people of God in this time. And the reality is that Cyrus was looking out for himself like many political leaders. He's looking out for his power, for his empire. And by sending God's people back to Judah, he is beefing up the fringes of his empire. Judah would be between Cyrus and his enemies, the Egyptians, and that would be a pretty good buffer if Cyrus could just keep God's people happy enough to stay on his side.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, isn't it? When God's people are used as political pawns in global power moves. But the people in the first chapters of Ezra, Nehemiah are totally actually down to play their part. This is their ticket out of Dodge. This is their road back home.
Speaker 1:So they go. But who goes home? In Ezra chapter two, we have a list of names and numbers, and even a list like this tells a story. We've got 32 verses that are just a list of men. We've got four verses that name the priests and Levites.
Speaker 1:We've got lists of the musicians and the gatekeepers and the temple servants, right down to the descendants of Solomon and other kind of VIPs. And then we read, the priests, the Levites, the musicians, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants settled in their own towns along with some of the other people. And the rest of the Israelites settled in their towns. And this list is not the first of its kind. In fact, it's kind of like a hyperlink.
Speaker 1:Back in Exodus, when the people follow Moses out of slavery, they keep lists of names in their experience too. It's found in numbers. Not a very sexy name, right, for this long list of names and numbers, but even without this sexy name, the list is really sacred to the people. Because even as slaves and exiles, they actually don't forget who they are. They are women and men and named and counted with a sacred identity intact, even if life is swirling and changing all around them because change has a way of undoing us, upending us, making us forget our identity.
Speaker 1:These lists in the bible all over the Hebrew scriptures through Abraham's bloodline and all through the New Testament in the expanding family of God, these lists matter. Holding on to who you are and who you are with has a way of grounding you in change. What would it feel like if we enact a practice of naming and numbering those who are with us through a time of change? Maybe it's a friend who texts you to see how you are. So you take a moment and you just write her name down.
Speaker 1:And maybe it's a person who steps in and looks you in the eye to see how you're really doing in a tough time. And maybe you're not ready to talk about it yet, but you know he means well, so you write his name down. Maybe it's standing in a crowd, maybe at a concert and singing along with strangers while tears just run down your face. You don't know any of these people around you, but you're singing the same song, So you count that experience as sacred. You take note.
Speaker 1:You write it down. Before you know it, you have a list of people who have shown up for you, who have tried their very best to say that, yes, you are loved, and your identity is intact. Even in change, you can know that you belong. And the author of Ezra and Nehemiah tells us that soon after the people settle into their old homeland, they rebuild the altar. And the story has this way of saying, now that the people of God are home, they're gonna be who they know that they're meant to be.
Speaker 1:They're gonna be worshipers. Chapter three begins with these verses. When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, The people assembled together as one in Jerusalem. Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices. And in antiquity, it is believed that the relationship between the gods and humans is reciprocal.
Speaker 1:They're involved in each other. So to skip past offerings was to skip past devotion, and that could lead to disaster. Now even if we don't live like this anymore, that if I miss church one Sunday, I'm gonna bring all this disaster into my life and into life of my loved ones. We don't live like that. Right?
Speaker 1:But there's still something here for us. An altar is about worship, and the heart of the community is in their offerings. It's their very best intentions. The exiles have come home. Maybe they're a little worse for wear.
Speaker 1:They're definitely facing more opposition than they expected with all kinds of mixed political motivations making their return possible, but they've come home, and their worship is there to ground them. Now, my relationship with worship has changed a lot, a lot over the course of my life. As a little Catholic kid, I tried to keep up with the sign of the cross and kneeling in the pew after holy communion. And in bible college, I was definitely into raised hands and altar calls. And in my thirties, I fell in love with the contemplative tradition tradition and prayer books.
Speaker 1:And you know what? Worship is changing for me right now all over again. But there is this thread through all of the changes in my worship that grounds me, and it is simply this, wonder. A body bowed in prayer, a body raised to praise, a body quiet just to make a bit more space. The thing about worship is that worship will go with you wherever you go.
Speaker 1:Worship is there for exiles and slaves and returnees who gather as one in their holy city and rebuild an altar of wonder. Maybe they didn't even know what it all meant, but isn't that the point? Sacrifice, offering, bowing your head in prayer because you don't actually know it all, but you know that there is a charge in the cosmos, and you wanna get as close to that source as possible. The power of wonder to ground us in change, I think there's really something to that. But it's not all starry eyed worship and wonder.
Speaker 1:The people of God, they have work to do, so they get to work. They do deals with masons and carpenters, and cedar logs are hauled from Lebanon. Priests and governors, fathers and sons, they all join together to construct the house of God, the Beit Elohim. But then something interesting happens. As they lay the temple foundation, the people pull out these priestly cymbals and trumpets and they sing together.
Speaker 1:Yahweh is good. Yahweh's love towards the people endures forever. And just as that song gets louder and more spirited, there is herd sniffles in the crowd. And then the sniffling actually turns into sobbing, and the sobbing turns into weeping. And we read.
Speaker 1:But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping because the people made so much noise, and the sound was heard far away. The people, they're on the brink of something new, but they cannot forget the old Because every change involves a loss, and loss is felt as grief. Whether we are starting fresh or we're forced to make a change that we resist, whether we start a new job or move to a new city, or say goodbye to the love of our life. Change is loss is grief.
Speaker 1:I live by that. Change is loss is grief. And the ceremony of celebration also becomes a ceremony of loss. So with all of this space for both, the people can be wholly present to life as it really is, full of endings and beginnings and endings and beginnings all over again. So don't go thinking that God is not near to you as you rebuild your temple.
Speaker 1:Cry over what is no more. But then, when you're ready, get back to work. The ability to rebuild a temple, it is not easy. I mean, what deep work ever is? Ezra chapters four, five, and six tell the story of opposition.
Speaker 1:And it turns out temples aren't rebuilt overnight. Now, the reality of the text is that chronology is actually not its primary concern, like, at all. Up until this point, we assumed that we're just cruising along in the narrative, you know, the top down and the wind is in your hair. I've never done that. But one event is kind of passing us by.
Speaker 1:And in the next section, it actually shoves us forward, like, fifty years without us really noticing. Truly, it's kind of all over the place. And while this is really interesting to textual critics and historians, we are simply gonna read the text theologically, meaning that we look for how the people see God in their story. And some of my seminary profs wrote a book about the biblical history of Israel, and they write. So stay with me.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit dry, but it's good. Opposition soon rose to the rebuilding of the temple, and our sources suggest our sources suggest that this opposition, along with perhaps financial struggles and even the people's lack of interest, led to the cessation of building activity during the remainder of Cyrus's reign. So it took the voice of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to get the people back on track. The prophets show up, and they say, it is God's will to rebuild this temple, so get after it. And still there's this opposition.
Speaker 1:There's this nearby governor in chapter five that writes a letter which says, look out. The people of Judah, they are rebuilding. And something about the governor's challenge actually forces the people to find their own voice. They say, we are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, one that a great king of Israel built and finished. They demand better from the governor, and they demand better from the king.
Speaker 1:And I love this part so much because they find their voice. And it's wise even just for a moment, and it guides them. Finding your voice in a time of change and even opposition is grounding. It is so very grounding. So I've been obsessed with a photo that I saw in the news a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:The grainy picture is taken on a phone, and there are rows and rows of screens in front of the camera. And all of the screens are pointed at Allah Salah, a protester standing on top of a car in the middle of a crowd. She's dressed in white, her arm is raised, her finger points to the sky, and her mouth is open. Allah Salah stands to protest the twenty nine year dictatorship of Omar al Bashir in Sudan. And a piece in Maclean's magazine said after Salah became famous for being in this picture, she traveled around Khartoum, reciting a revolutionary poem which goes, and she's actually saying it in this picture, the bullet does not kill.
Speaker 1:What kills is the silence of people. And the writer of this piece in Maclean's called the photo an almost religious portrait, and it is. Allah Salah is so Jesus y. She stands in this time of change. She speaks the truth about power, and she calls people to imagine a world where oppressors do not have their way.
Speaker 1:To imagine a world where change is actually possible when we join forces that work for the good of everybody. In times of change and opposition, conflict and transformation, Let's be really clear about what opposes us, and then speak up. Maybe you're actually in opposition with yourself, and you need to speak words of affirmation and assurance just for you to hear. Maybe you're in opposition with someone who doesn't understand you, and you need to say, this is my truth, this is my truth, over and over again. Maybe you're in opposition with an unjust system, an abusive history, a toxic work workplace, and you need to say enough.
Speaker 1:I demand better. Find your voice and speak up. And if you aren't sure what to say, find a voice that you trust, who will speak for you, and then add your voice to that. The Eastertide word we speak for revolutionary change is resurrection. Your temple can fall and it can be rebuilt.
Speaker 1:Your country can collapse, and it can be rebuilt. Your heart can break, and it can be rebuilt. Eugene Peterson reminds us that we cannot do resurrection work alone. Peterson writes, resurrection happens. We do not make it happen.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't raise himself from the dead, so remember that the spirit initiates all healing and resurrection. We just get to join in. The people in Ezra and Nehemiah eventually get that temple built, they celebrate. For seven days, they celebrated with joy the festival of unleavened bread because the Lord had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria so that he assisted them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. Now to be clear, the story is not squeaky clean.
Speaker 1:In a way, the people of God kinda jump into bed with the politicians of their day to get that temple built, so go people. But there is beauty here too. Change is never perfect. Change is messy and complicated, and we get ourselves all turned around when we are in the thick of it. But God doesn't seem to mind that one bit.
Speaker 1:God will step in to work with us just the way we are. And when I think back on the change that I have been in the thick of in the last few years, change that led me to leave a home I love and a city I love and friends I love, I've thought long and hard about questions like, am I still Bobby? Am I better for this change? And is this the life I actually want to be building? And the answer is yes.
Speaker 1:I left home to come home. I was alone, and now I have more love in my life than I ever thought possible. And in small, private ways, I bow my head, and I build altars to say thank you. Sometimes you build an altar, and sometimes that altar, it builds you. We could say it like this, sometimes you make change, and sometimes the change, it makes you.
Speaker 1:We're not done with our journey, but we are grounded, grounded in God who works wonders with our imperfection. And even in the thick of change, God will never cease to amaze. Will you join me in prayer? Our loving God, in whom all hearts are open and all desires known, Some of us love change, the newness, the freshness, the challenge in change. Some of us dread change, the disorientation, the fear, the insecurity that it brings.
Speaker 1:Jesus, won't you show us your way that leads from death to life, from fear to love, from insecurity to deep trust? So holy spirit, present with us now, enter the places of change in our lives, and through it all, will you heal us of all that harms us. Amen.