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For the birds - A Sunday morning sermon about the Great Mystery


For the birds

A Sunday morning sermon about the Great Mystery

By Doug Tennant 
June 21, 2020


Do you have a favourite Gospel? I think my favourite one is Matthew. For the most part I think it reads more easily than the other 3 and perhaps it is its mixture of sayings from Jesus and the connotations to the Jewish law. Plus, it has the full sermon on the mount in chapters 5-7.

The reading from Matthew’s gospel has a lot packed into it.
- The message that we are in it together
- A message about not being fearful or full of fear. “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell”.
- There is a story about birds.
- There is a story about the hair on your head. More applicable to some rather than everyone if you know what I mean.
- Another message sort of about being in this journey of life together.
- There is the clarification that Jesus came to upset the norm, to cause division between the old and the new. To cut old style family ties and offer a new way, ‘The Way of Jesus’.
- There is the admonition to take up your cross, to take on and be an active participant in the ‘The Way of Jesus’ not just a bystander.
- And finally, there is the wise counsel that if you think you can ‘do it’, live your life on your own, that if you think you know everything you need to live then you are wrong. We are counseled by Jesus to lose ourselves in Him. We are to wrap ourselves up in his Way and journey through life together with him. It is by ‘losing ourselves in Jesus’ that we will find a rich, fearless, and satisfying life.

So, there is lots in this one reading from Matthew 10:24-39 today. Indeed, we could be here for a long time exploring all that is contained in this reading.
But I would like to focus on the birds.

Jeannie and I often sit outside first thing in the morning having a cuppa coffee on the side deck. It doesn’t get the full sun in the morning and is rather nice and full of peace. We sometimes talk, but for the most part, at least what I have noticed, we gather together in silence. No wait – that is wrong. We do not gather in silence but rather we gather in a 360 degree pool of incredible birdsong. We estimate that there are well over a dozen types of birds who provide some form or version of birdsong for us to bathe in during our coffee and quiet time together. It is remarkable and wonderful. I mean that it is full of wonder and reminds me of the hymn ‘All things bright and beautiful’.

It is during this mystical and peaceful time that I also keep hearing my mom’s remark about “How can anyone say there is no God – just look and hear what is going on around us in Creation”. My mom
Elaine Tennant
views creation, all this around us in here and out there beyond the walls of this house of worship, as holy. She wonders, truly wonders about who or what is the mystery of creation.

I too, wonder about the Great Mystery. What is the great mystery, that essence of which we cannot ever truly know or completely understand? The mystery of creation, the great creator, the Originator or yes, God. 

Those birds in the morning, with Jeannie beside me supporting and loving me, coupled with a nice cuppa coffee makes me feel like I am in heaven. A wee bit of heaven here on earth out at Rosehall Farm in little old North Renfrew.

And it is then that I think of these words from Jesus as written by the writer of Matthew that tell me that:
We are not alone
We are in this together
We have nothing to fear for our friend Jesus is with us
We have work to do – we won’t get bored as we work on completing small and or big daily intentional acts of peace
And that the wondrous great mystery, the Great Creator has put us all here, through various types of paths, to share in this wonderful creation, to work together for peace and harmony and ….
We are indeed loved by the great Mystery.

You don’t have to over think all this. You just need to look around, listen and acknowledge that we are part of the great mystery, the family of God, that we are all, in our own unique ways, a part of the great mystery. We are in this together. We are not alone. And it is through immersing ourselves in the love of Jesus, by being people of action and creating those intentional daily acts of peace, big and small, that they will know we are Christians by our love. Amen

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