Proudly Canadian... and Christian
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 1, 2012
On Thursday morning, cup of coffee in hand, for a few minutes I looked out of my front window. I saw my neighbour Cathy leaving for her teaching post. Pete, headed out for his auto-shop. Tina hopped in her BMW, while husband Tom bundled the kids into the van to take them to day-care. But it was Joe who got me thinking. Joe is retired and the whole time I gazed out the window he was puttering in his front garden, proudly wearing his grey t-shirt with a large Canadian flag imprinted on it. For someone who has grown up in a relatively uniform culture, the peoples and cultures that I can see, within metres of my front door are truly amazing. Cathy went to Bishop Strachan School and is perhaps representative of those with several generations of Canadian background in their veins. Tina and Tom are Greek. Pete and his wife are Greek, Tony is Italian, Paul is Irish, Karen is from England, and Joe (with his Canadian t-shirt) is from China. Most are immigrants or first generation Canadians and we all live peacefully, sometimes waving our former national flags in support of our respective nation of origin's soccer prowess. At Christmas, Cathy will have everyone over for a party, during the summer, Joe shares the produce of his garden with his neighbours, Pete looks after our vehicles. It's a wonderful community to live in and be a part of. This is Canada.
I remember well when my mother spoke to me about moving to Canada. She did so twice, perhaps because I was the eldest and father had died a few years earlier. The first was when I was 14 but I wasn't ready as I still had dreams of playing for Manchester United. Then again at 16 years, when I realized United hadn't noticed such an aspiring talent. It was then I said, “Yes, let's go,” and my mother started the process to emigrate to Canada. We arrived at Toronto Airport in the mid-70s. It was an early September evening and we all bundled into a friend's '72 Pontiac Parisienne Wagon, the likes of which I had never seen before (in terms of size). It was a huge vehicle but so were most of the other cars on the road before the late-70s gas crisis forced North Americans to down-size vehicles … a bit. That evening, we swam in a backyard pool for the first time. That September, I encountered more 80+ degree temperatures and blue, sunny skies than I had ever seen before. In October, I saw leaves turn colours that I had never seen on trees and I experienced my first Thanksgiving. In late November, I saw snow and started to learn to skate. In December, I experienced my first somewhat white Christmas. By January, I had made a good group of friends - one of whom is now my brother-in-law. In February I found my first Canadian Valentine. In March, I had seen enough snow for one winter. In April, saw the most snow I had ever seen in my life when a storm brought some 16 inches of the stuff. In May, my friend Roy, from Jamaican, invited me to a party and I had a tremendous education when I arrived to find that I was the only white guy there. But it was a warm and friendly gathering. In the summer months, we drove and drove, we visited friends and extended family in the States, but we also went north, to Muskoka, Sault St. Marie, Manitoulin Island and enjoyed the beauty of Lake Huron, Georgian Bay, and the Bruce peninsula. As a family, and as individuals, we were beginning to discover the sheer size and wonders of the great nation we had come to. Over time, we have come to appreciate a land that moves from the Atlantic to the Laurentians, The Great-Lakes to the Prairies, and from the splendour of the Rockies to the Pacific. In this land one can live in or near the relative warmth of Pelee Island or the relative cold of Grise Fiord, Nunavut. We benefit from rich resources, strong educations, universal health care, sensible bankers, good government, prosperity, liberty, and justice. Canada is not perfect, of course, but the peace, safety, and tolerance levels we enjoy lead me to count myself fortunate that I can call Canada home. And I resonate with the words of another Joe who went out on a stage down south and said,
Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader....
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled....
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
although I'm certain they're really, really nice.
I have a Prime Minister, not a president.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'.
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, not policing,
diversity, not assimilation,
and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch,
and it is pronounced 'zed' not 'zee', 'zed' !!!!
Canada is the second largest landmass!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America
My name is Joe!!
And I am Canadian!!!
Happy Canada Day everyone. I trust that you will enjoy this 145th anniversary of our nation's Confederation, this year as the 200th anniversary of the end of the War of 1812, the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede, and the 20th anniversary of the true north teaching our neighbours to the south how to play baseball. (I know, I know, there were mostly Americans on the team but it's our story. And the other guys keep winning the Stanley Cup with Canadians) So …. Happy Canada Day, and for the Americans in our midst, we love having you here and this is all in good fun, of course.
As much as I am proud to be a citizen of Canada, I am equally honoured and privileged to be a citizen of another realm, the kingdom of God. The apostle Paul speaks of Christians as “fellow-citizens with the saints, members of the household of God.”
Paul had been a Jew from birth and functioned in a setting in which the Jewish people felt that they were a chosen nation. They viewed the Gentiles (non-Jews) as foreigners, what Americans call “aliens,” and since many of our Bible translations were done in the US, many contain that terminology (Eph.2:12). Purity laws prohibited the Jews from engaging in certain activities with Gentiles. Pious Jews would not eat with Gentiles lest they become defiled. The Gentiles were viewed as separate, disconnected from God, not a part of God's people. Yet, with Christ, all that changed for Paul, and he speaks of how the Gentiles had been outside of God's influence, dead in their sins, following the course of the world (2:2). They had been foreigners, strangers to the covenant of promise (2:12). But now because of Christ's act on the cross they had been drawn together with the Jews to be one, new humanity, one people of God in Christ (2:15). No longer are there Jew - Gentile divisions. No longer are Gentiles aliens. No longer are they as foreigners. They are citizens, in Christ, full-members of the household of God, fellow heirs to the riches of Christ (2: 19, 3:8). You may remember Jesus telling Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. The follower of Christ is a citizen of that supra-kingdom, the kingdom of God.
As much as I remember a time when I came to this great land of Canada, I remember too the time when I really entered the Christian fold. I was 20 years old, not pleased with the direction of my life, and over the course of a year of searching, determined to follow God. It was not an easy decision nor has it always been an easy walk. In those first months, some of my friends thought I had lost it. They didn't understand why I was suddenly going to church, much less going to bed a little earlier on Saturday evening so that I could go to church. They didn't quite get it when a clerk in a store handed me more change than I was due, and I handed money back to her. But there was a new force driving my life and standards. Something inside had shifted, I had a new guide, I was a citizen of another kingdom, not of this world. Being a Christian brought some changes and being a Christian has not always been easy.
While we may not have to worry in Canada about persecutions of the kind that are going on is some parts of the world, persecutions that the western press is, incidently, beginning to wake up to. The Toronto Star recently declared that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. While thankfully, we do not have to worry about that here, being a Christian in Canada is not what it once was when, it could be said that to be Canadian was to be Christian. The secularization of Canada since, perhaps, the 1950s, has meant that being Christian is being a little different than the common culture. Christians have different standards, a different force within them and, for all its tolerance, I believe that Canada has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Christianity. It is not just the doing away with Christmas and Easter symbols and events either. I have noticed for instance that Christianity is now largely deemed detrimental to political office and perceived ability to run the country. Notwithstanding our current prime-minister's quiet faith, or the fact that many of our early prime ministers were Christians, in the last decade or so, Prime Minister, Paul Martin, at one point was forced to declare that his Catholic faith would not interfere with his ability to run the country. A few years earlier, during the 2000 election campaign, the leader of the opposition, Alliance Party, Stockwell Day took it on the chin for his faith. While I, personally, may not see eye to eye with Stockwell Day on some theological or political matters, I was astonished that the liberal machine relentlessly attacked Day on matters of faith, suggesting his unworthiness for office.
Beyond the world of politics there are the stereotypes that the Christian must overcome. I like to say that I am Christian and relatively normal, but it is not always easy with the stereotypes. The media seems to depict clergy, for instance, in one of two ways. Either they are physically weak, airheads who are so spiritually minded that they were no earthly good, or they are depicted as television-evangelist types whose main interest was money. Then there's Dana Carvey. Carvey gained notoriety in this country for his depiction of the Church lady on Saturday Night Live. For those of you who don't know, the church lady was a pious old girl, dressed in a sensible suit and hat, who saw Satan under every blade of grass. It was brilliantly done. Hilarious! But unfortunately added to the negative stereotypes of what Christian people are like.
And so it's a little tricky being a Christian in Canada today. There may not be persecution but there are a lot of negative vibes and it is sometimes difficult to stand up and say, “I am Canadian and I am Christian.” Recently a colleague in ministry confessed that he had difficulty actually telling people that he was a Christian, never mind a clergyman.
One also wonders if we should expect anything other than we encounter. After all, Jesus and Paul spoke on a number of occasions of the other-worldly aspect of the gospel. “Paul wrote, “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles (1 Cor.1:23).” He differentiates between the spirit of this world and the Spirit which is from God (1 Cor.2:12). Jesus speaks of the “Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him (John 14:17).” And then states to his “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you (John 15:18).” And he prays, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they no longer belong to the world (Jn.17:14).” You are no longer of this world (John 17:14).” “You are citizens of another realm,” says Paul, and Jesus spoke of these things to keep us “from falling away (John 16:1).”He was saying, expect it. You are different. You will not be able to get away from ridicule and intolerance, even in a culture as tolerant as Canada.
So what should we do? I would put it to you that we should keep on following Christ. I would put it to you that we should count the blessings that we have as citizens of God's realm. I would put it to you that we should think of the suffering and the glory of Christ. We should think of the cross and the resurrection. We should think of this world and the world that is to come and then revel in whatever the world throws at us. Why, the unease that we experience may be evidence that we are indeed citizens of another dominion. And it is a greater dominion than anything this world can offer and reason enough to stand with St. Paul and say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith (Rom.1:16).”
So on this Canada Day, let us stand together and, yes, let us be proud of our nation and proud to be Canadians, but let us be equally honoured and equally privileged that we stand with Christ, Canadian… and Christian.