Excerpts From: The Messenger |
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(Luke 13:10-17)
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagle; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
Dear friends in Christ, I welcome you once again to St. Ansgar’s Messenger Fall edition. I hope you all had a relaxing summer, and are all rested. I must admit, so far, I have had the busiest year in recent memory: in April, I was in Edmonton, Alberta for ‘Equipping the Saints for Mission’ an inspiring conference for lay & clergy that I wished went on forever.
Then in June to Eden Mills, Ontario for a Synod Leadership Training for Resource persons - a great weekend of learning and sharing of ideas for ministry, (my area of responsibility is Witness). I came home, changed clothes and off to ELCIC National Church Convention in Winnipeg, which was great.
In between all these activities I had two weddings, a funeral service as well as regular church responsibilities, plus much neglected work such as fixing and painting windows at home. It is not over yet folks, now the upcoming events: attending Luther’s seminar in Camp Lutherlyn, Golden Lake, Ont. in October, and St. Ansgar’s 80th Anniversary …..etc. Well!! We are doing fine, and God is good.
The prophet Isaiah’s words to the people of Israel centuries ago, rings so true to us today:
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagle; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
There is a story about a certain man who went through the forest seeking any bird of interest he might find. He caught a young eagle, brought it home and put it among the fowls and ducks and turkeys, and gave it chicken food to eat even though it was an eagle, the king of birds.
Five years later, a naturalist came to see him and, after passing through the garden, said 'That bird is an Eagle, not a chicken.' 'Yes' said the owner, 'but I have trained it to be a chicken. It is no longer an eagle, it is a chicken, even though it measures fifteen feet from tip to tip of its wings.'
'No,' said the naturalist, 'it is an eagle still; it has the heart of an eagle, and I will help it soar high up into the heavens.' 'No,' said the owner. ' it is a chicken and will never fly.' They agreed to test it. The naturalist picked up the eagle, held it up and said with great intensity. 'Eagle thou art an eagle; thou dost belong to the sky and not to this earth; stretch forth thy wings and fly.'
The eagle turned this way and that, and then looking down, saw the chickens eating their food, and down he jumped. The owner said; 'I told you it was a chicken.'
'No,' said the naturalist, 'it is an eagle. Give it another chance tomorrow. '
So the next day he took it to the top of the house and said: 'Eagle, thou art an eagle; stretch forth thy wings and fly.' But again the eagle, seeing the chickens feeding, jumped down and fed with them.
Then the owner said: 'I told you it was a chicken. ''No,' asserted the naturalist, 'it is an eagle, and it has the heart of an eagle; only give it one more chance, and I will make it fly tomorrow.' The next morning he rose early and took the eagle outside the city and away from the houses, to the foot of a high mountain. The sun was just rising, gilding the top to the mountain glistening in the joy of a beautiful morning.
He picked up the eagle and said to it: 'Eagle, thou art an eagle; thou dost belong to the sky and not to the earth; stretch forth thy wings and fly.' The eagle looked around and trembled as if new life were coming to it. But it did not fly. The naturalist then made it look straight at the sun
.Suddenly it stretched out its wings and, with the screech of an eagle, it mounted higher and higher and never returned. Though it had been kept and tamed as a chicken, it was an eagle. You see! Society has a way of dehumanizing us, of causing us to fail to see our worth before God, of making us little more than objects to whom advertisers make their pitch, and about whom governments create statistics and form policies to keep everything safe and predictable.
And religion without vision also has this effect - reducing us to the status of law keepers - or law breakers. But, in and through Christ Jesus, like the bent over woman that Jesus healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath day (Luke 13:10-17), we are sons and daughters of Abraham. We are part of the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven - the New Jerusalem, where thousands upon thousands of angels are gathered in joyful assembly.
It is easy to lose track of who we are - and whose we are – I think and to slip into the old ways of trying to please God by dos and don’ts. It is easy to forget that we are eagles and that we are meant to fly in the highest heavens by the very presence of God.
The gospel passage (Luke 13:10-17) is about how Jesus heals a woman who has been crippled by a spirit for the past eighteen years - she has become a bent over woman, a hunch back - unable to look up - unable to do all the things that we who are not crippled can do. It is a wonderful passage that shows us something of the incredible grace and the wonderful power of our Saviour.
In this story, Jesus tries to wake people up to the kind of life God wants for them. Jesus often talks about the Kingdom of God where people have equal worth and all of life has dignity - and in this story he acts that message out. There are six points I would like to derive from this passage:
First, Jesus speaks to the woman. In Jesus’ time, Jewish men did not speak to women. Remember the story in the Gospel According to John where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well.
She was shocked because a Jew would speak to a Samaritan. But when the disciples returned, the Scripture records, "They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman " In speaking to the bent over woman, Jesus throws out the male restraints on women's freedom
.Second, Jesus calls her to the center of the synagogue. By doing so he challenges the notion of a male monopoly on access to knowledge and to God.
Third, Jesus touches the woman, something forbidden under the holiness code.
That is the code which protected men from a woman's uncleanness and from her sinful seductiveness.
Fourth, Jesus calls her "daughter of Abraham," a term not found in any of the prior Jewish literature. This is revolutionary because it was believed that women were saved through their men. To call her a daughter of Abraham is to make her a full-fledged member of the nation of Israel with equal standing before God.
Fifth, Jesus heals on the Sabbath, the holy day. In doing this he demonstrates God's compassion for people over ceremony, and reclaims the Sabbath for the celebration of God's liberal goodness.
And last, and not least, Jesus challenges the ancient belief that her illness is a direct punishment from God for sin. He asserts that she is ill, not because God willed it, but because there is evil in the world. (In other words, bad things do happen to good people.)
The leader of the synagogue was shocked by Jesus' behaviour and let it be known, saying: "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day. "He was like the usher in a church where a man under the influence of alcohol staggered into the service and sat on the front row. As the preacher started his sermon, the gentleman shouted "Amen" or "Praise the Lord" or "Hallelujah" after almost every sentence.
The entire congregation was becoming agitated about this unusual behaviour so the usher made his way to the front to escort the gentleman out. When the usher informed him that he was making too much noise, he replied, "Well, brother, I've just got the Holy Spirit!" To which the usher replied, "Well, you didn't get it here so you gotta leave!"
By the power of God Jesus healed the bent over woman, and the synagogue leader's response was, "Well, you didn't get the power of God here! Not on the Sabbath!"
But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?"
Jesus reacted with strong language because the leader of the synagogue just didn't get it. The leaders did not understand the nature of God nor of the purpose for which Jesus came. Jesus saw God's will as focused on people, not on rules. The rules are there to help people, not to break them.
They are there to help us fly like the eagles God made us to be, not to turn us into chickens. The ruler of the synagogue reflected the understanding that being "religious" was about obeying the commandments. It's a view that is still with us today.
For Jesus, God's chief concern was that we should love and care for one another; that all people should be brought into a healing and saving relationship with God himself - and with one another. To Jesus, God is a life-giver.
When we understand Jesus' view of God, suddenly the focus moves from God's law to God's love for people and the world. A love that is forgiving - a love that is healing - a love that is transforming - a love that sets us free to be all that God made us to be.
We have come to God, the judge of all people, the blood of the new Covenant speaks to us not of justice and retribution, but rather it speaks to us of forgiveness and of reconciliation. That forgiveness, that reconciliation, allows us to enter the holiest of holy places without fear.
We have come - in coming to Christ - to a new place, to a place of the Spirit, to a kingdom that cannot be shaken because it is not built out of perishable things, but rather out of imperishable things
.We are children of the King - meant to come to that place where those who love God, those who are in right relationship with God and seek to do his will, are made perfect. There is a mystery here.
The mystery of our communion, our oneness, with God through Christ Jesus; the mystery of how, despite our failings, God sees us and treats us as his beloved, where he treats us as eagles rather than as chickens.
Life sometimes has a way of beating us down, zapping our enthusiasm, crushing our plans. Little by little we can find ourselves bent over from the failures, disappointments, and guilt.
And little by little we can find others placing burdens upon us and robbing us of our status as the children of Abraham - the children of promise, - those who have been called to come to Mount Zion - to the heavenly city of God.
We can end up like the bent over woman - lurking at the edges of the sanctuary, wondering where can we go. This is the place - not these four walls that can be shaken - but this assembly where Jesus walks among us and reveals to us the fullness of the love of God. This is the place where Jesus calls out to us to come forward and to be healed and to worship God with reverence and awe.
Jesus calls us to be healed of the spirit that afflicts us and bend us over.
Don't refuse Jesus because we feel unworthy of his call. Rather, come to Christ knowing that it is his will to set us free from those things that make us less than the person God created us to be – and that in coming to his heavenly mountain we will find life instead of death - and mercy instead of judgment.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagle; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Have a blessed autumn, and may God continue to renew us by transforming our weaknesses into strength, we may mount up with wings as eagle; we shall run, and not be weary; and we shall walk, and not faint.
Shalom.
Your friend, and pastor,
Pastor Samuel King-Kabu
On Saturday, August 11, 2007, The Montreal Gazette published a full-page article on Anni Zarudzka, a cherished member of St. Ansgar’s. Anni, 91, now lives in St. Sauveur. During WW2 she worked for the BBC, where she also lived and ate.
"This is London calling Denmark", were the words heard following the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. They were part of half-hour segments of encoded messages heard four times a day. In Denmark, people were gathered around their crystal radio sets listening carefully, especially those in Denmark’s Resistance movement. The voice was that of the young Anni.
Anni, one of 8 children of a Danish shopkeeper, had arrived in London at the age of 19 shortly before the war to improve her English and was at first employed as an au-pair girl. When the war broke out, her life, as well as the lives of so many others, was changed forever. The godfather of one of her charges, a member of Parliament, suggested that she apply to the BBC, due to her linguistic talent. She was hired after careful scrutiny by the BBC for security reasons and was kept entirely in the dark about the nature of the coded broadcasts she was asked to read. Every six hours, beginning at 6 a.m. Anni read these broadcasts on the radio. The messages seemed like innocent birthday or anniversary greetings to people back home. Greetings such as ‘birthday greetings to Peter’ or ‘greetings from Sophie to Niels’ might have been heard. But to the Danish Underground they were key. It was about impending ammunition drops or German troop movements.
Peter Aage Jørgensen (81, and now living in St. Lambert) was one of the young resistance fighters, only 16 years old, who had been listening to these broadcasts. About 4 years ago, he discovered the identity of the young woman who had read these broadcasts, when they met at The Danish Club in Montreal. He remembered hearing her messages every day all those years ago. The Danish resistance worked in 6-member cells and only their cell leader knew the identity of each member. The Gestapo caught up with Jørgensen one day, after tapping his phone, and he was tortured before being sent to Dachau prison camp in Germany. He would be released just before VE day in May 1945, after spending 3 months under horrible conditions at Dachau.
Jørgensen petitioned the Danish Ambassador to Canada to officially recognize her wartime contribution. With some help from the Embassy, Zarudzka received a medal in February 2006, commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the end of WW2, sent to her by a member of the Danish Resistance. Recently, the Danish Club in Montreal presented Anni with a plaque acknowledging her long membership and her much-appreciated and vital service to Denmark during the occupation.
Anni suspected she was reading secret messages all those years ago, but it wasn’t until recent years that she knew the real meaning of these messages. In July, Anni visited Denmark with her daughter, Julia. During their stay, where they connected with family and friends, they also re-visited the Danish War Museum, where Zarudzka’s wartime broadcasts can still be heard as part of the exhibit on an old RCA Victor radio. The coded messages read by Anni were authored by the British Secret Intelligence Service agents. At the time she had no idea what these messages meant, the Secret Service made sure of that.
More than 500 Danish resistance fighters were killed during the war. Another 102 were executed and 260 died in prison camps. Allied casualties in Denmark numbered some 2,000 airmen, some 180 of them from Canada. Estimates of German losses are at 25,000. Danish civilians, numbering in the thousands, also perished during the war.
Anni married Kazik in 1944 in London. He had been a sailor with the Polish Merchant Marines when the war broke out. His ship headed straight to London. During the war he sailed between London and Halifax and New York carrying munitions for the Allied war effort. After 13 years of marriage they immigrated to Montreal where they raised 3 children. Zarudzka worked for 13 years at McGill University before retiring in 1981. She was widowed in 1993.
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St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church - Montreal