Coins of Earth and Coins of Heaven: A Homily for the Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, The Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost, 18 October, 2026.

Readings for this Sunday:  Ex 33:12-23; Ps 99; 1 Th 1:1-10; Mt 22:15-22.

“for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit”.  (1 Th 1.5)

I once met a man who was a Christian in Egypt.   He told me how, after the 1979 revolution in Iran, there were fears that the turmoil could spread to his country.   He and his fellow believers worried about what would happen if an Islamic government in Egypt came to power and outlawed Christianity.  What if it became dangerous even to possess a bible?

So, his church decided that each member would memorize a part of the bible, so that when they met, the scriptures would always be with them.  He told me that he chose to memorize the gospel of John, and years later, he could still recite large chunks of that most difficult of the gospels.  Not only did these people receive the word from the Holy Spirit, they literally took that word into themselves.   You would have to feel intense love and joy from Jesus to be so faithful, even when faith is a risk.

If we as Christians were faced with such a threat to our faith and to our safety, I wonder if we would be as dedicated as that Egyptian church was?  Perhaps.   We should never understimate how the Holy Spirit can inspire us.   But I wonder, if we were faced with persecution, would we be happy, even joyful ?

In our second lesson, we heard St Paul praise the new Christians in Thessalonica, “for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit”  (1 Th 1.5).  Biblical scholars believe that the persecution Paul mentions was because these Greek Christians were no longer honouring the statues (Paul calls them idols) which were part of the official Roman religion honouring Caesar as a god.   Participating in such rituals was a loyalty test, so their choosing Christ as the true God and lord must have made life unpleasant for the Thessalonian Christians.

We don’t know what made these early Christians joyful, but we can imagine.  No doubt they were joyful that in a world where only a few had value, they were all equal in the sight of the the God who created them.  In an empire where strength and cruelty prevailed, they knew that true strength lies in gentleness, forgiveness, and community.  And I am sure that they were joyful because they were loved and forgiven by God, and because they had Jesus as lord and friend in their midst.  That’s a lot to be joyful for!

Friends, all of these reasons for joy apply as much to us as they did to these first Christians.   We enjoy the same love from the same God as them.  We are a community as they were, a community that strives to love and respect one another as imagebearers of that God.   And Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, is in our midst, shaping the kingdom of heaven through our thoughts and through our actions.   These are all reasons to be joyful, as I’ve said before, joy marks our life together as church,

There is so much about our parish to be thankful for, and just as Paul thanked the Thessalonians for their “work[s] of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”, so I give thanks for all that happens here, and I pray that we will continue to be a vibrant and Spirit filled church for decades to come.

This week we start a six week campaign that we call Joyful Giving.  You’ll hear different voices speak to those things that give us joy as the people of God - our worship, our unique building, our many volunteers, and most importantly, our care for one another and for the people outside these walls.  

We will be invited to think about what it costs to maintain this community and its ministry, and we will be encouraged to see our giving of the “Three Ts” of time, talent, and or treasure as causes of joy rather than as burdens or obligations.

Today in our gospel reading, Jesus holds a coin and says “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 21.22).   We know well enough how money works on earth but what are things of God that we are supposed to give back to God?   

On Sunday, 1 November, All Saints Day, we’ll get one answer from the gospel reading, from Matthew’s Beatitudes.   Blessed are the humble, says Jesus, blessed are those who want justice, who care for others, who love truth and mercy.   Friends, if we want to know what the coins of the kingdom of heaven look like, they don’t have anyone’s face on them.  The coins of the kingdom of heaven are love, and truth, are mercy, are care for the earth and for the least of those who dwell here.   

As a church, we pay our costs with the coins of earth, but our value is weighed in the coinage of the kingdom of God.  At the end of this campaign, those of us who wish to will all be invited to examine our household finances.  Those of us who are able will be invited to realign our givings with the needs of the church and with the values of the kingdom of God.   My hope and prayer is that we can see our givings, not just as dollars, but as the coinage and currency of heaven - love, mercy, faith, hope - and that our givings will be a source of joy and satisfaction to us as people of God.

Authentic Gratitude: A Homily For Thanksgiving

A Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday (the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost), Preached on 11 October, 2026, at Prince of Peace, Wasaga Beach, and Good Shepherd, Stayner,  Anglican Diocese of Toronto.   Readings for this Sunday:  Exodus 32.1-14, Psalm 106.1-6,19-23,  Philippians 4.1-9, Matthew 22.1-14

It’s Thanksgiving, the time when we take stock of our blessings.   Giving thanks is spiritual centre of this holiday.  Giving thanks, in our personal prayers and in our worship together,  comes from a place of gratitude.   This season of Thanksgiving reminds us that authentic gratitude comes from acknowledging our dependence on the God who sustains us.

The Christian write Anne Lamott has written that the best and the simplest prayers she knows are ‘help me, help me, help me” and “thank you, thank you, thank you”.     It’s a wise observation.   We might go beyond it to say that all prayers, or at least, all prayers that we typically pray, fall into the two categories of “please” and “thank you”.

Our “please help me” prayers are usually urgent, even desperate, as when we are racing to the hospital after receiving terrible news, or when we want the pain to stop.   “Please help” prayers are born of crisis.   We need help and we’ll try anything, even prayer.  

Gratitude, our “thank you” prayers, are harder, because we can easily forget them when a crisis has passed.   In Luke’s gospel, for example, Jesus meets ten lepers,  They shout “Jesus, master, have pity on us” (Lk 9:13).  Jesus heals them.  Nine go off happily, but only one turns back to say thank you.  Jesus bitterly remarks, ““Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this [one[?”

So it seems to me that we have to work at our “thank you” prayers because we can easily forget to be grateful when trouble has passed.  When a person gets a clean bill of health, they might just go “Phew, lucky me!”.   Praying “thank you Lord” is harder because we go deeper than just saying “lucky me”.  We have to actually give God credit for being with us, for providing for us and protecting us. Our “thank you” prayers don’t come easily.  Maybe that’s because the only time most of us are ok with depending on God is when we don’t know where else to turn.  

These last few weeks in church our first lessons have been from the book of Exodus as we follow the Israelites in the wilderness.   It’s a dangerous place.   The people are totally dependent on God.  They have no comforts, no food, no water, and so they blame Moses.   They were slaves but they look back and think “Man, slavery was better than dying in this desert”.  They stop trusting the God who has rescued them time and again, and they turn to a god of their own making, the golden calf.

It’s often said that the story of the Golden Calf is about idolatry, but it’s also a story of a Thanksgiving celebration that goes horribly wrong.  What’s particularly tragic about this episode is that it is an example of misplaced gratitude.   Not able to trust or understand the God they have, the Israelites want to give thanks on their own terms to gods of their own making, who will ask nothing of them in return. 

I think that we as a society can be a lot like the Israelites.  We don’t want to be dependent on God who asks us to do hard things, like love our neighbour, give of what we have, and renounce violence.  But we sure are ready to depend on gods of our own making that don’t ask much of us.  In Collingwood, where I live, it’s not uncommon to see luxury cars on the street.   High price restaurants and boutique stores abound.   Those with some spare millions can buy a luxury home in Blue Mountains and can join private ski and golf clubs.  Spas and cosmetic surgeons offer youth and beauty.  Sometimes I think a lot of folks here make a comfortable lifestyle into a religion, which is why some people appear so uncomfortable when they come to church for an occasion like a funeral.  Maybe they realize that church is where they meet a god who might actually ask something of them.

We may not make golden calves, but we are inclined to put our trust in gods that we can comprehend and which seem to offer security.  Our culture makes Gods which offer a sense of security and satisfaction, they tempt us to give them our trust and even gratitude that we have what others lack.  These are gods that we turn to with misplaced gratitude.  Being thankful to a God who makes demands on us is what I called earlier authentic gratitude.

Authentic gratitude is challenging because it makes us vulnerable – it exposes us to the needs of others and it does not meet every one of our perceived needs.  Authentic gratitude takes us away from ourselves and towards God, which is why in our prayer books we combine our thanks AND our praise.  Authentic gratitude means that we are grateful for the things that we hold in common with all humanity – the ability to love and be loved as creatures who all bear the image of God and who thus deserve equal dignity– and thus share what we have.

 

This Thanksgiving, may our gratitude be properly placed, with thanks and praise, in the living God who rescues us from sin and death, things that no god of our own making can do.    May our prayers of  “help me” be answered as we need and not as we deserve, and may our prayers of “thank you” be born of authentic gratitude which sees the love of God for all his creation and which compels us to love and share with our neighbours.

 

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Grapes Are Us: A Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Sunday, October 4th, 2026, the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost (YrA).  Readings: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; Philippians 3:4B-14; Matthew 21:33-46

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom  (Mt 21.43)

Last Sunday we talked about Jesus’ authority.  Today’s gospel, assuming that we accept Jesus’ authority over our lives, asks us to think about how we show the results of following Jesus in our lives.  In talking about those results, Jesus uses a familiar metaphor of good fruits in the parable of the vineyard.

So let’s start by thinking about vineyards.  We all have our favourite places to visit, but I suspect that a lot of us like to visit a winery.   Joy and I love a winery visit, especially if it’s a sunny day, there’s a nice view, a delicious flight of wine and a tasty charcuterie plate.   But wineries are more than fancy restaurants and bottle stores.

When I visit a winery, I like to notice things like a shovel leaning against a shed, an ATV scooting around, or someone tending the vines.  These details remind me that a winery is a workplace, a factory designed to make good and abundant grapes to become delicious wine.  That’s the point of the winery, to produce good fruits.

Likewise, producing good fruits is the point of today’s gospel, which can be confusing.  We struggled with it in this week’s bible study.  There’s a political battle going on, between Jesus and his adversaries, the chief priests and religious leaders of Jerusalem.  That battle is a continuation of the argument over Jesus’ authority, which we talked about last week.   It’s a battle that Jesus seems to lose when he is executed but the resurrection is his victory and vindication as the Son of God.

So let’s just ask a simple question while focusing on the vineyard in the parable.  What does the vineyard represent?  Well, Jesus is drawing on a Jewish tradition of portraying Israel as a vine planted by God.   In fact, the parable is basically riffing on a passage from the prophet Isaiah:

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
    is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
    are the vines he delighted in.  (Is 5.7)

As in Isaiah, the owner of the vineyard in the parable takes care to protect and nurture the vines so that they are fruitful and protective.  So in the parable, the owner is God, the tenants are the chief priests, the slaves are the prophets who were often poorly received, and the owner’s son is Jesus.   The parable is thus a prediction of Jesus’ death (the sequence “they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” mirrors Jesus’ arrest, expulsion from jerusalem to Golgotha, and his death there) but also an assertion of his authority.  When Jesus says he is the “the stone”, he’s quoting again, saying that he is the “stone” rejected by the “builders” (chief priests) and is now the “cornerstone”, the chosen one of God.

OK, all well and good, but how do we relate to the parable?  Where do we find or see ourselves in it?  Well, I’d say it’s clear that we are the grapes.   We are the ones that God has planted and lavished care on.  In Isaiah, God wants his vineyard Israel to grow good grapes that can make wine but all he gets are “wild grapes” (Isa 5.4).  The good grapes are the results of God’s people living by the covenant, the long agreement that God’s people would live well and respect God’s law.  

Law in scripture is God’s way of shaping God’s people.  In our first reading from Exodus, the law given to Moses is a kind of blueprint for what God wants his people to be once they finally arrive at the promised land.  The law is good because it comes from a God that is a liberating God, the God that brought them out of slavery.  The law is designed to orient the people towards God but also to orient the people to one another.   The law is designed to create a people that respects one another, that learns wisdom from its elders, that carves out time for rest, and which allows neighbours to live together in peace.  The spirit of the law is, if you will, the design for the garden or vineyard that God will plant when God’s people reach their destination, so they can grow and flourish as a people.

How does all this relate to us?  Well, I would say that if we want good grapes and good wine, we need to tend our vineyard.    The covenant idea of Israel as God’s vineyard does not apply to us directly, but I think it is helpful in understanding God’s expectations of us as beings that he has created. All that we are and all that we have is a reflection of what God has given us.   Our individual lives as disciples and our collective lives as church are vineyards that God has given us to tend.  

If we want to think of our own lives as vineyards that God has given us to tend, then God expects that we will be spiritually fruitful.  What does being spiritually fruitful mean?   St. Paul gives us a  famous example in Galatians, when he describes the Christian virtues as fruits of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5.22-23). 

Our accountability to God can seem daunting if we think of it as a series of good deeds that we must produce, or laws and commandments that we must keep (I told you about my speeding ticket last week).   We can dispel this fear when we realize how badly God wants us to succeed and flourish.  In Isaiah 5, God sings a “love-song” to his vineyard, and asks “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”  Creating the vineyard is God’s dearest project, and in Jesus’ parable, the landowner pours everything he can into saving the project, including sending his Son.  

The parable shouldn’t make us anxious when we realize that the son comes to us as the gardener, someone who wants us to thrive and bear good fruit.  We only bear good fruit because of Jesus.  We couldn’t do it without him.  In John’s gospel, Jesus says “I am the vine; ^ayou are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15.5).   

Today’s parable teaches us that the goal of the Christian life is to be fruitful.  Traditionally the church saw fruitfulness as being expressed in acts of charity and piety.  A fruitful life was expressed in acts of love and kindness to the poor and in acts of devotion and worship to God. 

These definitions remain valid and worthy but today we might add to them – we can also see fruitfulness as the absence of racism and hatred, as healthy community, and as a care for the environment and the earth as part of God’s creation.  Fruitfulness can be expressed in a hundred small and practical ways, and like a good perennial plant it should be deeply rooted in our lives and sustained by our relationship with Jesus.  Jesus deeply wants us to be fruitful, to show something of the kingdom of God to those around us.   Being fruitful is to live our best life, to flourish as God intended.

My prayer for is is that we can be a fruitful vineyard, or if you will, that we can be a wonderful flight of wine, as varied as our personalities and talents.  Some of us are crisp chardonays, others are rich merlots, with here and there an ice wine or perhaps even a dandelion wine!  The point is that we all flourish and bear fruit if we are deeply rooted in Jesus, all of us a good vintage that will be pleasing to God and to others.