Good morning and welcome especially to our visitors. It’s good to be back here in our heritage church for the patronal Feast of St. James the Apostle. If you have not yet heard, we at St. James are excited about the news of our historic building being awarded the Hidden Gem of the city by Doors Open Winnipeg. It was our first year participating and quite a few turned out. This church and our Collegiate Street church will both be on the list next year.
While we celebrate our patronal festival at this time each year, the actual date for this feast is July 25. Our community is named after one of the Apostles: James, the son of Zebedee. He and his brother John were among the 12 disciples of our Lord. Together with Peter, they were privileged to witness the transfiguration (Matthew 17), the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and the raising of the daughter of Jairus. James was also called aside to watch and pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before Jesus died. James and his brother John were fishermen, but according to research the two were on a higher social level than the average fisherman. Their father could afford hired servants and John had connections with the High Priest. The two brothers were nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus, likely because they were headstrong, hot tempered and impulsive. On one occasion, for example, Jesus and the disciples were refused the hospitality of a Samaritan village and James and John proposed to call down fire from heaven on the offenders.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear of another occasion. The two sons of thunder are looking for a special place of honour in the Kingdom. Their mother actually asks “Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, the other on the left in thy kingdom.”
Jesus gives the two stern advice, saying those who want to be greatest in the Kingdom must be the least of all. It was a difficult concept to grasp for someone inclined to be impulsive and ready and quick to take on authority. The human nature wants to be in control and authority is sometimes exercised through power and use or abuse of control. The only reason the two brothers would be concerned about the place in the Kingdom is if they had this inflated view of themselves and their place in society and in particular their place among the rest of the disciples.
And so, Jesus asks “Are you able to drink of the cup I shall drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” The disciples were plainly told that the way of honour was the way of suffering.
True leadership in Jesus’ mind was as a result of servant hood. The authority of the disciples would come from their ability to serve. The leadership of the Apostles would need to demonstrate the way of leadership was the way of love. Jesus then used His own life as an example. “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
The way of servant hood is often born out of suffering. One who has suffered and has experienced healing, forgiveness and love, knows something about that and can effectively witness to others. Liturgically, the servant role is recognized in the procession and recession in the service. The clergy, you may notice, and the bishop when he is in attendance, are always at the end of the line-up as the least shall be first. Leadership is always from behind, encouraging, enabling, equipping, shepherding, and not up front dictating the way.
This type of leadership style was not uppermost in James’ mind at the time and perhaps not until much later. Prior to the death of Jesus, the disciples often felt confused over Jesus’ teaching that He must die in order for the plan of God to come into play. Instead, the disciples often challenged Jesus expecting Him to act as a military style leader; a Messiah who would ultimately bring final peace by way of the sword or violence.
The disciples, including James, did not understand that the way of Jesus was the way of unconditional love, of surrendering to God and obeying His command to go out and make disciples of all nations. However, that partial understanding was corrected I believe when the disciples were alone in the Upper Room and Jesus appeared among them. He said, "'As the Father has sent me, I now send you.” He then breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any they are retained.’”
The reception of the Holy Spirit transformed the disciples from frightened followers into Apostles. The word “Apostle” means “sent.” From that moment, the Holy Spirit, the very life of Jesus, was working in the Apostles to continue the work Jesus had begun. Through the Holy Spirit, the Apostles would continue the healing and miracles and they preached with a new energy. The Holy Spirit guided them and eventually, at Pentecost, the Apostles were there when many more received the Holy Spirit and the church began in earnest.
As for James, he carried out the work of an Apostle, delivering the same Gospel message as Jesus and the other Apostles. Just as that message threatened military and political leaders of Jesus’ day, it would do so again. James became the church’s first martyr. About AD 42, shortly before Passover (Acts 12), James was beheaded by order of King Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (who tried to kill the infant Jesus—Matthew 2), nephew of Herod Antipas (who killed John the Baptist—Mark 6—and examined Jesus on Good Friday—Luke 23), and father of Herod Agrippa II (who heard the defense of Paul before Festus—Acts 25). James was the first of the Twelve to suffer martyrdom, and the only one of the Twelve whose death is recorded in the New Testament. (http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/07/25.html)
As you know, a church is not the four walls of a building. As beautiful a place that this is, the heritage church of St. James the Assiniboine is not the church. Rather, the church is you and me, the people who gather week by week in one spot and who identify themselves with one community of people.
Back in 1812, the first group of Selkirk settlers established a burial ground immediately south of where St. John’s Cathedral in the north end is today. The Rev. John West, the first Anglican priest in Western Canada, arrived from England under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society and the Hudson’s Bay Company, in October, 1820.
The church would expand, moving west from the Red River settlement and the congregation, a group of Red River settlers and Hudson’s Bay employees, started to worship in 1849 at this location. The original church was consecrated in 1855. Prior to that, the site had been used as a refuge for victims of the flood of 1852. This church was built in an ideal location high enough to avoid flood waters.
That original community was made up of ordinary folks like you and me. The church and the community that had developed around them worked together to establish a thriving community. Eventually, this whole area would take its name from our church’s leadership and be known as St. James Assiniboia.
We are pleased to honour our original agreement with the Hudson’s Bay Company to ensure a worshipping community would remain on this site and we have not faltered. Instead, we have seized the Apostolic leadership of James and worked alongside our neighbourhood to continue to promote the Good News, that God so loved the world, so loved you and me, that he gave His only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in Him would not perish in sin but have eternal life.
Today, St. James still works alongside the neighbourhood to include and involve people in programs such as Happy Mike’s, our outreach to singers and song writers and the concert series that starts here July 6 at 7 p.m., our Lighthouse program on Collegiate Street that reaches out to at-risk youth. We work in partnership with groups like the Neighbourhood Resource Network. We offer our 12 Steps to Spiritual Growth program and our Quiet Days once a month at the Collegiate Street location where we worship through most of the year. Later this summer, we will once again offer a Video Camp and Vacation Bible School.
Those early settlers had it right. The community and the emerging church were one and supported each other. At St. James, we continue to offer the same leadership and we welcome those guests from the City that we cherish as partners and supporters of our common cause to love one another as Jesus loves us.
Let us remember the command of Jesus to the Church wherever it may be, whether it is comprised of Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, United Church, Roman Catholic or other. “Go…and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” And then Jesus says this…. “Remember…I am with you always to the end of the age.” Let us pray.
O gracious God, we remember before you today your servant and apostle James, first among the Twelve to suffer martyrdom for the Name of Jesus Christ; and we pray that you will pour out upon the leaders of your Church that spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. (http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/07/25.html)
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