Early Thoughts: We will not be left orphaned. We will not be forgotten -- "Can a mother forget her child?". An Advocate, the Spirit of Truth will be sent.
Do we really believe that? All the time?
I am not sure we do. At least I am not sure I always do.
It can be hard to believe sometimes. Say, for example, when the world has been totally turned upside down by a pandemic. Even then can we believe that we are not alone?
Maybe. Or Maybe not. But does that change how God is acting?
Still some basics remain. We are commanded to love each other, to let love be our identifying mark. As John's Jesus has told us in Chapter 13, we are to love each other as we have been loved. Jesus, I think, knows that it will be challenging to remain true to the Kingdom when he has gone. This, I think, is why he is promising to send a helper, and Advocate, the Paraclete. The Spirit will abide in us just as we already abide in the Spirit (sounds very panentheistic to me -- as far as I understand panentheism anyway). This is how we can continue to remain true to the Way.
God is with us in all this mess, all this turmoil, all this anxiety. God known in the Risen Christ continues to offer God's peace. Our hearts may still be troubled at time. We may still be afraid. But God is there, offering peace and hope, showing us the way forward.
Early Thoughts: As followers of Christ we are called to be people of peace. We are challenged to treat each other gently. How well do we do that?
This week's passage from John's Gospel comes from what is called the Final Discourse, the section of teaching that lies immediately before the story of Good Friday and Easter. Preparing his closest friends for his imminent death Jesus offers them peace that flows for Jesus. Later, after the tragedy of the cross and the triumph of Easter, the Risen Christ will greet those same friends with the words "Peace be with you". AS followers of Christ, people who have been touched with the presence of Christ, the peace of Christ is a part of our being, part of how we act in the world.
Which is one of the reasons Christians have traditionally included a time in worship to greet each other with the words "May the Peace of Christ be with you".
I think gentleness goes with peace. To me gentleness is about attitude and presentation. It is not necessarily about content. Sometimes to be people imbued with and passing on the Peace of Christ means we are not "nice". But we should always be gentle. Sometimes we have to share hard truths, give hard messages. That is not usually counted as being nice. But we are not called to be jerks about the hard messages. WE have to continue to recognize the other as a sibling, one of God's children and treat them with respect. To me that is what gentleness means. And in the end I am not sure we really grow peacefulness if we are not gentle. Forceful and strong when needed but gentle. Velvet and iron together at times.
I think we sometimes forget the gentle part in favour of forceful and strong. And so we may fail to be peacemakers.
Other times we forget the forceful and strong in the name of being nice or getting along. And again we fail to be sharers of the Kingdom's Peace.
--Gord
During the Easter Season we are going to work through a series looking at the Fruits of the Spirit as Paul listed them in his letter to the Galatians. Paul listed 8 fruits (well sort of as there are 8 things listed but the word fruit is actually singular in translations that use the metaphor -- the Jerusalem Bible simply says "the Spirit brings") and we have 4 Sundays available for the series so we will look at 2 each week. This week we look at Kindness and Generosity
Also as this is the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating Communion.
Early Thoughts: Be kind. Be generous. Sounds like pretty common advice doesn't it? One of the things that came to mind as I was starting to think this morning was this song:
Yes technically the song is about being humble and kind but it seems to fit. (Lyrics here). To be fair there are lines that resonate with a number of the "fruits" we will look at over the next few weeks.
One of the possible sermon titles for this week that I considered and discarded was the phrase "Sharing is Caring". TO me Kindness and Generosity are often two sides of one coin. Can we truly be kind to each other if we are not also generous, if we don't give something? That something might be money or some other object that can be held in the hand (this passage from 2 Corinthians is taken fro ma section where Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to contribute to a fund he is collecting to support the Christian community in Jerusalem). It might be time. It might be something else. It isn't necessarily that 'what' that is important, it is the act of giving. I am tempted to say that to give is to be kind and that to be kind is to offer something. While you can give without being kind (Premier Ralph Klein throwing money at people in a shelter comes to mind, though I am not sure that counted as giving) the reverse is not, to me true.
The challenge, of course is to know best how to be kind. What is the best thing to give? What is the best way to support? Don't think I will be able to fully resolve that in one sermon.
Jesus challenged/encouraged/exhorted/commanded us to love our neighbours both as we love ourselves (Matthew Mark and Luke) and as we have been loved (John). Being kind and generous of spirit is a part of that. And PAul tells us that God loves a cheerful giver. I read that as saying that God prefers us to give, to be kind, to be loving not because we are commanded but because we choose to.
How will you be kind today? How will you be generous? How will you nurture kindness and generosity in your circles of the world? Somehow I suspect the Time with the Young at HEart this week will be about Random Acts of Kindness....
--Gord
This week we reach the pinnacle of the Christian year as we walk with some women to the tomb of their murdered friend only to find something amazing.
This year we will hear the empty tomb story as told in Luke 24:2-12.
The Sermon title is Dawn
Early Thoughts: It is a story we hear every year. It is the story at the heart of Christian faith. Every year when I read it I try to imagine what it must have been like to not know the story. What would it be like to be a part of that rag-tag group of disciples who are sure that the great journey has come to a sudden catastrophic end? "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."
Just before this the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee have stayed at the cross to the bitter end. It was they who knew where the burial had taken place because they were the only members of the group who had stayed around log enough to see it happen. Now, after Sabbath has been observed, they come to properly honour the one they followed, the one they loved. The text tells us that it is early dawn, but I often wonder if that is only a meteorological comment. At this point have the first rays of dawn been able to to pierce the shadow of death that lies on their hearts? Are they still deep down in the valley? I suspect so, it is only logical that this is true.
Then suddenly dawn breaks through. They find an empty tomb, which must at first have confused and horrified and terrified them. Only then does the great surprise get shared. "He is not here, but has risen". I now envision the excitement (and confusion and probably still a bit of fear) as they rush back to the rest of the group to share this news. The first evangelists, the first witnesses to God's great act of Resurrection are these few women who had the courage to stay at the cross, to watch the burial, and then to go out early in the morning. Without these women would Easter have happened?
It is telling that at first the men do not believe dawn has come. Luke tells us they consider it an idle tale. After all it made no sense. Who could believe it? But eventually they each come to see those beams of light breaking through the darkness. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
I often think that Easter suffers because we know the story so well. I think because we know the whole cycle we lose the effect of dawn breaking. And that is to our detriment, because we really need to see dawn break. There are many things that lead us into the valley of shadow. What brrings us back into the light of dawn?
Where do you need the promise of resurrection and life in your world? What shadows does dawn's early light need to chase away?
--Gord
Because the Youth Group is leading worship the first Sunday of May we will be celebrating Communion this week instead of May 6.
The Scripture reading for this week is Acts 17:16-34
The Sermon title is The Unknown God
Early Thoughts: How do you explain Christianity to people with no idea of the background? What if they have a totally different culture, different poets, different understandings of the Divine, different thought processes? Would simply tell the story and hope it sinks in?
Paul shows that he knows a different way. Greek philosophical types are not likely to be swayed by references to Jewish Scripture (which is the tool used early in the book of Acts by Peter preaching to people in Jerusalem) so Paul shapes the message in ways that will interact with what they know. And apparently it piques their interest, at least for some who say they want to hear more.
This has been the challenge for any faith that tries to spread itself beyond the place where it was founded. How do we cross a cultural boundary? How do we make ourselves relate to this new people without insisting that they become like us? Christianity has a mixed record on that. At times, like Paul in Athens, the church has done it well. At others it has been a little heavy handed. Other times it has opened itself to accusations of cultural appropriation (from a modern viewpoint at least).
I think that the question is opening itself again. For generations, even centuries, in the Western World we have assumed that people had some familiarity with the story. We assumed that we shared enough culture that we could tell the story using all the old tools and people would be drawn in. I suspect we have over-estimated how true this is for a few decades now--and that it is getting less true all the time.
Earlier today I saw this picture, it reminds me of the attitude we need to bring if we want to share the Christian story, message, and hope with a culture that is differnt from what we know, or what we want it to be:
How do we tell the story today? What new images do we need to borrow
and recast? What new poets do we need to quote in a new light? God
remains known only in part, God remains unknown (and unknowable) in
part. What is our message about the Unknown God in the marketplaces of
Grande Prairie?
--Gord
Early Thoughts: God is doing a new thing! Why is it so hard to see that? In this week's passage both Saul and Ananias have to have their eyes opened (in Saul's case quite literally).
By this point in the story we have already met Saul. We saw him standing and approving as Stephen was stoned, then we are told that he was an avid persecutor of the new community. But then he experiences the presence of the Risen Christ and changes to an avid proselytizer for this new thing God has done/is doing.
All we are told about Ananias is that he is a disciple. It would seem a logical guess to think he might have been a person of some importance within the Christian community in Damascus. God calls on him to bring Saul into the fold. But Ananias knows Saul...surely God must be joking? or God is mistaken? This horrible man who is out to destroy us, you want me to go to him? But Ananias does so and God's ability to change people is revealed. I do note that because the story is about Saul we do not know what Ananias thinks of the end result.
The work of the Risen Christ is to transform people. Sometimes that transformation is to bring the outsider, even the violent opposition, into the fold. Sometimes that transformation is to remind us that God can call and use "even them" in the work of the Kingdom.
What are the new things we might miss because we are too set in our understandings of how God is at work? Where do we need our eyes to be opened? And what will it take to make that happen
--Gord
Early Thoughts: The world is changed, but sometimes we just want to go back to what we know best...
But once touched by Easter can we ever truly go home again?
Not if you are Peter. By now we have had multiple appearance stories in John's Gospel. Jesus has been seen and spoken with 3 times in Chapter 20. But still the Disciples have yet to become ready to go out and share the story. They have gone back to the beginning, back to where it all started [although strictly speaking John's Gospel does not have a story of the fishers being called by the lakeshore at the beginning of the story -- unlike Matthew Mark and Luke]. And once there I get the sense they are not sure what to do next.
So Peter goes fishing. It is what he knows best. Is he trying to get back to what once was? Is he seeking comfort in the familiar? Is he trying to earn a bit of money? Is he just trying to fill time with something because otherwise life is just too difficult? We don't know.
What we are told is that the fishing was not good. Total failure in fact. A whole night of nothing. The some stranger comes by and makes a suggestion: "try the other side". Because every fisher likes to be given helpful advice from some stranger walking by. Right?
The miraculous catch that ensues reveals who the stranger is. "It is the Lord!" And then Peter and Christ have this shore lunch exchange about love and service. It is often suggested that the threefold declaration of love is John's counter to Peter's threefold denial during the passion story.
What does this story tell us about Easter?
One is that once having experienced Easter we can't go back to doing things the same old way. We have to be ready to "try the other side". Because life has been changed and so we also have been changed (if we let ourselves be changed).
The other is that as followers of the Risen Christ we have to remember that love is a verb. It is not enough to love Christ, we also have to follow him, we also have to put love into practice by caring for those whom God loves.
The second point pushes us to ask how we care for the lambs and sheep as commanded by the Good Shepherd. How do we respond when there is a chemical attack (again) in Syria? How do we respond to the reality that Grande Prairie has such a high rate of overdose deaths in the midst of the opiod crisis? How do we care for our neighbours near and far?
The first point pushes us to ask if we are truly open to being transformed. Often we really want things to go back to the "good old days" rather than be introduced to the "good new days". We are reluctant to admit we need to try the other side. Where do we, as individuals, as a community of faith, as a larger community need to be open for change? Where do we need to stop doing things the way we always have done?
--Gord
In my line of work I am often asked “ready for Sunday yet?” Normally my response is something like “sort of”. But at this time of year I think the question is really quite apt. Are we ready for Sunday? Are we ready for resurrection to be revealed and the world to be changed? Or are we really spending our time living on Saturday, to stay in the space between death and life.
Holy Saturday, the time of waiting does not get a lot of attention. Some churches have prayer vigils on that day, but many use the time to change the decorations from the sombreness of Lent and Good Friday to the brightness that will accompany the Easter celebration. But we need to stop in that time in-between time, we need to ponder what it means to exist in the time between death and life.
There is a cartoon that popped up in my Facebook memories as Easter approached this year. It was about “Schrödinger's Easter” and said that as long as the tomb remains closed Jesus can be seen as both dead and alive. (The reference is to a thought experiment called Schrödinger's Cat and I only know that courtesy of Sheldon Cooper and The Big Bang Theory.) I think it is a great way to describe Saturday living. Dead or alive?
Jesus is dead. They watched him die. But we who know the rest of the story know that on Sunday morning the tomb will be empty. There us a temptation to jump to the end. Even as we tell the story of the death we want to jump to the end, because it makes us feel better to celebrate life than to name and feel the reality of death. I want us to stop and spend time in the in-between.
Being in the in-between allows us to name the reality of death and loss. Remaining in the in-between allows us to feel the reality of death and loss. I know it is not often a comfortable place to be but maybe it is the time spent in the in-between that opens us up for the transforming power of resurrection. Because, in the end, Easter changes everything. Unlike Lazarus, Jesus is not resuscitated, he is resurrected and transformed. Truth be told, I think most people actually look for resuscitation.
One of the biggest challenges about resurrection is that it means transformation. The Easter stories in the Gospel make it clear that people had trouble recognizing the Risen Christ. In a very real way the man they met in the garden or on the road to Emmaus was different from the man they had seen led out to be killed. It was not just life being breathed back into the old body and the stopped heart restarted. Jesus had been transformed; the new life after Easter was not the same as life before the cross.
The same can be said for Jesus’ followers. Before they experienced resurrection they were afraid, hiding, certain they would be next for the cross. Afterwards they were filled with strength and courage, able to launch a movement that would reach from a tiny Roman province to the center of the world and beyond. The transformation was complete and world-changing.
To embrace new life means we have to stop looking for the old life to return. To open ourselves to the possibility of resurrection life means that we need to be ready to be surprised (although that does sound like a contradictory sentence). Nobody expects resurrection, it comes out of left field and surprises us with a life we had not foreseen. Saturday time, the liminal space between death and life, gives us the space to let go of old hopes as we stand on the threshold of something new.
Maybe we need an economic resurrection? Not just the resuscitation of the way we have been for decades but a transformed way of living with each other. Maybe we are struggling with addictions, and we need to let that part of our life be killed so that healing can occur? Maybe we have been aiming at the wrong goals and now need to let those things fall away so we can work toward goals that bring fuller life? Where do you need death and resurrection in your personal life? Where do we need death and resurrection in our corporate life? Can we sit in the in-between to give God space to bring new life and hope?
Blessed Easter to all. Beyond the fear and uncertainty of Saturday time, the space between death and life, may we all find the promise, the hope, the joy of Sunday’s dawn.
This Sunday we are pleased to welcome the handbell choir Jubiloso as they take part in our worship.
We will also be celebrating the sacrament of baptism.
The Scripture passage for this week is John 20:19-31
The Sermon title is Would You Believe?
Early Thoughts: I have always felt sorry for Thomas. In John 20 we are told that on the evening of Easter Day the disciples are huddled in an upper room, plausibly hiding from the authorities who might haul them all off to be crucified next, Thomas has the courage (or maybe he drew the short straw) to go out into town. Maybe he went to buy food?
While he was away Jesus appears in the room, Easter becomes real for the people gathered there. When Thomas gets back they all tell him “We have seen the Lord” but Thomas says he will only believe when he sees for himself. And ever since Christians have called him Doubting Thomas
It has been said that Thomas is the patron saint of everyone who misses church (or some other gathering) only to be told that the most wonderful thing has happened that day. But really I think he gets a raw deal. After all, what would you say if you were him? Would you believe this amazing story?
And to be fair Thomas does not ask for anything that all the others did not get. They all got to see and hear the Risen Christ before they believed/understood Easter. Thomas simply says he needs the same level of proof.
The challenge is for us. We do not generally experience the Risen Christ standing in our midst showing us the wounds of crucifixion (or if we do it is a much more mystical way than that described in the Easter stories). Even Paul (whose story we will hear later this month) has a different type of experience than the ones we find in the appearance stories. How can we believe that Jesus who died is now alive? And can we accept that this Risen Christ has deputized us, as he deputizes the disciples in an upper room in this passage, to go out and continue sharing the Good News? Where do we find the energy/strength/confidence to continue the work of Kingdom-building?
It is the Easter season. Christ is Risen. Can we believe it? Can we allow resurrection to change how we live?
--Gord
This being the first Sunday of the month we will include the celebration of Communion in our Easter celebration.
Also because it is the first Sunday of the month we will be having our 2nd Offering. This is a monthly offering taken specifically to fund our Outreach program, which offers grocery vouchers to people who have been referred by one of the social agencies in Grande Prairie.
And because it is Easter Sunday the Handbell Choir will be playing during the worship (and the Sr. Choir will be singing 2 anthems and the Jr Choir will also sing -- I am thinking the sermon might need to be shorter!)
This year we will hear the Easter morning story as told by John (John 20:1-18)
The Sermon title is April Fool's?.
Early Thoughts: They thought they had won! The troublemaker was dead and buried. The kingdoms of the world had triumphed over the one who proclaimed the kingdom of God.
And then...
SURPRISE!
Easter comes as a surprise to everyone in the Gospels. Nobody is expecting it. In fact most people do not even recognize what has happened at first. Jesus is dead (everyone is clear on that....as a minister in my childhood pointed out, if the Romans wanted you dead you would be good and dead). By all appearances, the story has come to a tragic end.
Somehow it is a little fitting that this year the surprise is revealed on April Fools day. There is a tradition that Easter was a grand joke God played on the powers of the world (usually personified as Satan). Just when they think they have one God plays a final card and everything is turned around. The powers are in fact defeated, death has lost its sting. Life wins!
Where do we think the powers of the world have won this year? What has happened to help kill the promise of the kingdom this year? Where might we be surprised to find that the dead is indeed alive?
--Gord
As I sit down to
type this the calendar is telling me that it is March 1st.
How did we get to March already? Did we cut January shorter by a
couple of weeks? Because in my mind I am sure it should be the
beginning of February. Alas it is not. It is indeed March 1st.
And that means that exactly one month from today will be the pinnacle
of the church year.
No I am not
referring to April Fool’s Day (though a month from today is indeed
April 1st). It will in fact be Easter Sunday. It will be
that morning when we once again celebrate that life conquers death,
when hope shines from an empty hole in the ground, when God goes
“all-in” and then lays down the winning hand. On Easter Sunday we
look at the broken world and are reminded that God is actively at
work mending it.
Alleluia!
Sometimes it seems
hard to believe that hope can be more powerful than despair. Some
days, looking at the world makes it hard to believe that anyone,
not even God, could fix the broken-ness that fills up my news feed.
And then along comes Easter.
Easter
reminds me that God has not played all the cards. Easter reminds me
that God has an ace in the hole. Easter reminds me that God can
surprise us all. April Fool!?!???
Just
a couple of months ago we gathered and sang carols about a baby being
born. In those carols and stories were words of hope and promise. The
baby would change the world. The baby would bring on the Kingdom of
God. On the first Sunday of 2018 we heard the beginning of John’s
Gospel about the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness
can not overcome it. And yet...
On
the second last day of this month we will read about that baby, now
fully grown, being arrested, put on trial, convicted, and put to a
torturous death. Where is the hope of the baby in the manger? Has the
darkness actually overcome the unquenchable light? Has
the Kingdom of God been chased away? When will it come?
Then,
in what may be the greatest reversal of all time, SURPRISE! As
I read the Gospel accounts it is clear to me that none of Jesus’
friends expected Easter to happen. They were despondent and afraid,
some had even fled home to try and pick up the life they once knew.
But out of left field life came and defeated death, hope came and
chased away despair, resurrection came and transformed their lives.
Because
of Easter the world is different. Because Easter keeps happening the
world keeps getting transformed. Because Christ has been raised we
are able to be people of hope. Because God played the final card the
Kingdom is alive and well and growing in our midst – even when we
try to keep it down the Kingdom keeps sending out new shoots.
Alleluia indeed!
Where
do you need the truth of resurrection this Easter? What are the
places in your life where the power of death seems overwhelming? What
tomb do you go to visit to weep and mourn because something precious
is gone? Where might God
surprise you with new life, new hope, a new dawn?
Gord
PS:
What might it mean to have Easter Sunday on April Fool’s Day?
Maybe in a month I will have an answer to that question
Early Thoughts: We often proclaim that God offers us freedom. Marcus Borg suggests that one of the meta-narratives of Scripture is that of the exodus, the freedom from bondage, and another meta-narrative is that of exile and return (which also has a flavour of freedom about it).
But freed from what? Freed to what?
For Paul freed from the law, freed from the bondage of sin would be a big part of what being in Christ means. Paul spends much time in his letters trying to determine the role of law and grace in the Christian life. In the end he comes down firmly on the side of grace, God's grace that brings freedom. And so we are freed from those things that once bound us, which includes status words like Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free.
It appears that the Galatian church, after being founded by Paul, was visited by a person or group of people who tried to convince the Galatians that they needed to follow Torah in order to be full members of the Christian community. Paul finds this a terrible idea (to put it mildly). In this week's passage Paul suggests that the law did once have a purpose but now it no longer does. The law was needed to shepherd God's people along until the coming of Christ (who is often called the Good Shepherd, following from the Gospel of John). But now that Christ has come (and more importantly for Paul, now that Christ has been crucified and raised) the law is not needed. We are freed from the (in Paul's eyes unattainable) standard that the law places on people.
Christians continue to maintain that Christ sets us free. In the forgiveness Christ preached (or offered) we are freed from the burden of guilt and shame. In the (freely offered, not earned by our actions) gift of the Holy Spirit that flowed from and through Christ we are freed to a life of where God is active in and through us. We can put the ways of the past aside and live into the new thing God is now doing.
Sometimes we in the church want to replace the old law with a new one. I think Paul might suggest that this is just exchanging one chain for another. Are we ready to be free?
--Gord
Early Thoughts: Who gets to be part of the community? What rules need to be met?
These are questions that the church has wrestled with from the beginning (and continues to wrestle with today).
The earliest church was a Jewish group. Jesus was Jewish, Jesus' disciples appear to have all been Jewish, the people who were flocking to the community in Jerusalem appear to have all been Jewish. But that only lasts so long.
In Acts Chapter 10 Peter has a dream, a dream in which he hears God challenging him to broaden the circle of belonging to includes Gentiles. In Chapter 11 Peter has to defend this action to some others in the community. As Paul begins his work he seems to have more success among the Gentiles than among the Jewish communities where he visits.
Which leads us to Chapter 15. Some people come to Antioch (where Paul is present, it is his "home base" at this point in time) and insist that all these Gentiles who have joined the Christian community need to be circumcised [and presumably follow the rest of the Law, though the text only talks about circumcision -- maybe a free pass for the female members of the community?]. The Christian community of Antioch discusses the question (Paul and his compatriot Barnabas appear to have led the argument against requiring circumcision) and are unable to resolve it. So a group are sent to Jerusalem to discuss it with the heads of the church. Probably a modern equivalent would be for a Roman Catholic group being sent to the Vatican to discuss and resolve an issue, or a United Church Congregation making a proposal to the next meeting of the General Council.
In writing Acts, Luke has chosen not to tell us how the debate goes. We are left to guess how virulently the opposing sides made their arguments. He does say there was "much debate" and some of us in the church might have our guesses about how the debate might have gone --- based on our own experiences of the church discussing hot, divisive, topics. But really we jump to the decision. Peter reminds the listeners of his experience from Chapter 10. He reminds folk that at that time God showed Peter that God calls Jew and Gentile alike to the Spirit-led community of Christ. Paul and Barnabas share what they have witnessed God doing in their work among Gentiles. And then James, commonly believed to have been the leader of the Jerusalem church, speaks from the stories of Scripture. Interestingly, it appears to be James that makes the final decision, as listed in verses 19-21. The full Law is not required from Gentile Christians, only some very specific things.
So what does this have to do with us?
The church is often described as a family. Which works to a degree. The comparison reminds us to love and care for each other. And on the shadow side, church splits and disagreements can be just as hurtful and deep as some family estrangements. But the church is not a family.
Family tends to suggest a fairly homogeneous group. Family are those people who are related to us, for most of human history this has tended to mean that the members of our family are largely like us. Humanity being the tribal species that we are (or at least really tend to be), family can be a pretty closed circle. God might have different ideas.
I said above that "These are questions that the church has wrestled with from the beginning (and continues to wrestle with today). ". We continue to wonder where the boundaries of the faith "family" should lie. The challenge for us is to find where God is leading us in those discussions.
The gathering in Jerusalem does not decide that God has made a sudden turn. The acceptance of the uncircumcised is not a new thing God is doing. The gathering in Jerusalem determines that God has been at this work all along, God is just now calling the church to get with the program. They made that determination after considering Scripture, past practice, and lived experience. And it took time.
Luke tells the story in a few verses, accomplished in one meeting. But by the time of this one meeting it is likely that the discussion has been going on for years. [If we assume that Peter's dream in Chapter 10 was in the first year after the Easter experience. Paul tells us that after his conversion experience he went away for two years to be instructed in the faith, and now Paul has made his first journey so we know that time has passed.]
To follow God is a long-term proposition. To live in the the Kingdom of God takes time. Change does not happen as fast as some would like it to. It requires us to listen to each other and to hold each other in prayer. And sometimes we find out that God has a much broader understanding of grace and community than we once believed.
--Gord
This week we are celebrating the Sacrament of Communion. Normally our next Communion service would be May 7th but as the Youth Group is providing service leadership that day Communion has been moved up one week.
Early Thoughts: How is the Risen Christ recognized? What breadth of things might Easter mean?
Most of us associate the experience of Easter with the empty tomb stories. However a further reading of Matthew, Luke and John (Mark's original ending only has an empty tomb story and the women fleeing in fear) suggests that people experienced the Resurrection in a variety of places. Matthew and John suggest that some only truly got resurrection once they went home to Galilee. Luke and John suggest that a meal (in John a fish meal following a miraculous catch of fish, in Luke a simple breaking of bread) was a part of the Easter moment for some.
Which brings us to this week's story.
Two people traveling away from Jerusalem. A third joins them (the text is not clear--does he overtake them on the road? or does he just appear?). In response to a couple of questions they pour out their fear, their grief, their uncertainty, their shattered hopes following the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus of Nazareth.
Which cues the stranger to explicate Scripture to them, to review what those old passages might mean, to open their hearts to the possibility of Easter. Later the two will realize how their hearts burned during this part of the journey. Is this burning the fire of hope taking hold? Is it the Spirit stirring the embers back into life?
Then the journey comes to an end. It is evening. As a simple act of hospitality the two encourage the stranger to stay with them. But then...
The stranger takes on the role of host at the table, and as he breaks bread he is revealed as the Risen Christ.
It wasn't in the hearing from the women who went to the tomb early that morning that Cleopas and friend felt the reality of Easter. It was not from the reminder of what Jesus had foretold. It was not in the detailed exploration of Scripture they heard along the road. It was in the Breaking of the Bread.
Gathering at table was a marker of the Jesus community throughout the Gospel account. Gathering at table remains a marker of the Christian community for most of us. We trust that we meet God at the table. We Break the Bread and we share the cup and we remember Jesus. But we also meet Jesus, the Risen Christ, the one who invites us to the table.
I suggest that it is not only at the Communion table that this is true. I suggest that, if we are open, if we allow our vision to be cleared, we meet Jesus at a variety of tables. Maybe at the lunch following a funeral. Maybe at the church picnic. Maybe at the community BBQ.
There is an old joke about the United Church (or sometimes about other denominations -- this version comes from a Methodist source).
A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment. Each
student was instructed to bring in an object that represented their
religion to share with the class. The first student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David." The second student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Mary. I'm a Catholic and this is a Rosary." The third student got in up front of the class and said, "My name is Tommy. I am Methodist, and this is a casserole."
We sometimes laugh about the fact that so often in the church we find an excuse to eat together Personally I have been known to refer to the Sacrament of the Potluck. But maybe it is not a joke. Maybe we eat togehter so often because we know that in eating together we build community. We know that in eating together we meet Jesus, the Word made Flesh, the Risen Christ.
--Gord
The Scripture reading this week are some portions of the Story of Stephen, the first Christian Martyr. (The whole arc of Stephen's story starts at the beginning of chapter 6 with the decision to appoint deacons and continues through to his death and burial. The majority of chapter 7 is a sermon by Stephen which leads to his stoning.) We are reading Acts 6:8-7:2a; 7:54-8:3
The sermon title is Witness and Reaction
Early Thoughts: Who knows who Stephen is? For much of my life the only reference I knew of to Stephen was in the first line of the carol Good King Wenceslas where we are told that the king looked out "on the feast of Stephen". And then even the first few times I was referred to his story in Acts it was in relation to the end when we see a man named Saul watching Stephen's execution with approval (reading into chapter 9 we find Saul having an experience on the Damascus road which leads him from persecution to proselytizing and , name changed to Paul, becoming the leading spreader of Christianity in the New Testament).
At the beginning of Chapter 6 it is evident that the Jerusalem church is not the utopia described back in Chapter 2. Earlier we were told that all things were held in common and distributed to each person according to need, now in Chapter 6 we find that there is dissension about this very distribution. And the 12 seem to think that waiting on tables is below them, they have "more important" things to do (which may well be a possible future sermon, remembering the Christ who knelt down and washed their feet). And so they decide to name a group of 7 deacons whose task it will be to serve the community. Stephen is one of those 7. Which brings us to our reading...
Chosen to serve, it becomes obvious that God has other things in mind for Stephen. HE becomes known for being " full of grace and power," and doing "great wonders and signs among the people.". And this attracts attention (how could it not), which leads to Stephen being put on trial [with charges that seem eerily reminiscent of those laid at the feet of Jesus] for his preaching about Jesus and The Way.
Then follows one of the longer sermons in Acts (and there are some long passages of sermon/instruction in these earlier chapters of Acts). Stephen rehearses the entire salvation story from Abraham, through Moses, into the building of the temple,and the work of the prophets into the execution of Jesus (the Righteous One). He further accuses his accusers and those who stand in judgement of being in opposition to the Holy Spirit.
And this is where our reading jumps back in, at the end of the trial. For some reason the trial panel is not feeling warm and fuzzy after being called stiff-necked and labelled as betrayers and murderers. In the face of their fury Stephen remains grounded and trusting in Christ, sharing a vision of Christ standing by the throne of God. ANd then even as he is being stoned he dies in ways that are indeed reminiscent of the death of Jesus on the cross. Stephen becomes the first martyr for the sake of Christ.
Sometimes sharing God's vision for the world causes complicated reactions.
What do we do with a martyrdom story in 21st century North America?
Do we ask what the price is for being part of a counter-cultural movement (as the church is becoming once again)?
Do we remember our brothers and sisters in Egypt whose churches were bombed on Palm Sunday?
Do we ask how willing we are to witness and test the reactions?
--Gord
The emotional life of Holy Week is a true roller-coaster.
We start in triumph on Palm Sunday with the parade into the city.
Then we get somber with the Last Supper.
Then we go down in to the valley of the shadow of death as we watch the crucifixion and burial.
and then...
then there is a BIG SURPRISE!
This year we will be reading the Easter story as it is told by Luke (Luke 24:1-12)
The Sermon title is Risen!
Early Thoughts: The climax of the Christian year has come!Without the Easter story we would not tell any of the other stories. We would not talk about a baby in a manger. We would not talk about a Cross on a hill. Without Easter there is little reason to believe that the other stories of Jesus of Nazareth, that the movement that coalesced around him, would have survived long past his death.
The women go to the grave to weep and mourn. They go to perform that basic act of mourning (anointing of the body) that was not possible before the burial. And when they get there...
A new beginning! New life! New possibilities!
AS Natalie Sleeth says in hymn (VU #175):
“This is the day that God had made! Rejoice! Rejoice, and be exceeding glad! This is the day that God has made! Rejoice! Rejoice! Hallelujah! Christ has conquered death at last, Left the tomb that held him fast! Gone the sorrow, gone the night, Dawns the morning clear and bright! Jesus lives who once was dead, Lives forever, as he said! Risen now our Saviour, King; Songs of gladness let us sing!”
The world is changed. Life wins. Can we believe it?
The other disciples couldn't. They dismissed the women's story as an "idle tale" (one commentary suggest a more idiomatic way of saying that might be "a load of...", or more politely "wishful thinking"). Jesus was dead. They all knew it. Only when he went to the tomb himself did Peter believe.
Can we believe it? Can we trust that the end is not the end? Is the Risen Jesus here alive and among us?
More from Natalie Sleeth (VU #703)
In our end is our beginning, in our time infinity in our doubt there is believing, in our life eternity In our death a resurrection; at the last a victory unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Early Thoughts: 6 weeks ago we began the Easter Season with the story of women visiting
the tomb, finding it empty, being told of Resurrection and then fleeing
in terror. Now, on the last Sunday of the Easter Season we listen to
Paul tell the Corinthians what Resurrection means.
Part of me would like to read the whole 58 verses of chapter 15. I
think we miss out on the full strength of Paul's argument when we skip
those central verses (we miss the spiritual body and the physical body
as well as the seed imagery-- although that does tend to lead into a
dualistic approach to body and soul/spirit). But then there would be
even more options to choose from as a sermon hook. As it is there are
plenty to choose from. In fact I suspect one could use 1 Corinthians 15
as your primary text for the whole Easter season...lots of sermons in that chapter.
One of the themes in this chapter is the idea of victory. Conquering the last enemy. This idea
of victory is an ancient understanding of Easter. In opening the tomb
and raising Christ God shatters the power of death. I suggest that we
still live in a culture where death and dying are sources of terror.
Maybe we are afraid of the death of our loved ones or ourselves. Maybe
we fear for the death of our church, or our service club, or some other
organization. But theoretically as people of Easter faith we should no
longer be afraid of death because we know that life wins. In the end
life still wins. How do our lives show that we believe that death no
longer has the victory, that death has lost its sting?
Not to mention that this is the passage where we find "The last enemy to be destroyed is death", which is inscribed on the tombstone of James and Lily Potter. When they find this Harry and Hermione have a discussion about what it means, about how death is destroyed.
The sermon title is a Hebrew toast, literally meaning to life. As we stand in the Easter season, as we proclaim that God has conquered death, what other statement of faith could we share but l'chaim?
--Gord
Early Thoughts: Just before this (and again just after it as it happens) Paul spends time talking about Spiritual Gifts. In chapter 12 he has outlined a number of them, even as he has also reminded the divided (possibly even fractious) congregation in Corinth that they are not to lord their gifts above others, that all gifts are needed. Then we have this beloved passage [one of my favourite pieces of Scripture].
This passage suffers, I suspect, from being overly associated with Weddings. And I get it, what better time to share Paul's great hymn to love than a wedding. But we need to go deeper with it.
In the Gospels Jesus makes it clear that the greatest commandment we have is to LOVE. Love God, Love neighbour, love each other as Jesus has loved us. Love is the gift that makes all the other gifts possible. Love, so they say, is what makes the world go round (or is that money???). All we need is love the Beatles told us so many years ago (before some of us were born).
It is in love: deep abiding love, love that sees each other clearly, love that pushes us to do the impossible that we are able to be the people God has called us to be. And even more, if we don't have that deep abiding empowering love we are nothing. Without love our gifts are useless. Love is what completes us.
Another writer of the Christian Scriptures, the writer of the letters of John, will later tell us that God is love.
The whole of Christian tradition tells us that LOVE is the center of how we are able to be who we are called to be. The whole of Christian tradition tells us that living that love is our primary task. [And the whole of Christian history tells us how hard that has been to actually do.] SO we stand with Paul and say....THe Greatest of these is LOVE.
--Gord
Early Thoughts: What does it take to build a church?
It takes a vision, and possibly a visionary. It needs a person or a group of people who see what is possible. People who are willing to pony up the support needed as the new community coalesces and grows.
It takes a sense of mission, a clarity of the Gospel.
It takes a willingness to work together despite differences.
Sometimes it seems that last one can be the hardest to find...
As we follow Paul through the book of Acts, supplemented by what he himself says in his letters, we see him planting and building churches. We see a visionary with a firm grasp of the Gospel he is called to share. We see a preacher who is not dismayed by early "failures" and obstructionist behaviour but shakes himself off and tries again. We see a man who is able to form a core community of faith who will carry on after he has moved on. And when it comes to Corinth, we see that differences withing the community can cause trouble from the beginning.
The overarching theme of the letter we call 1 Corinthians is unity in (or despite?) diversity. This will come up over and over. But in this first chapter the problem appears to be that the community is divided by who they see as the best teacher of the faith. In response Paul reminds them that the teacher is not the point. The one to whom the teachers point is the center of attention.
THe process of church building never really stops. We don't get to the point of being able to point at it and say "There! Done!". And so we continue to need that core group of vision-keepers (and vision-casters). And we still need that clarity of mission, that understanding of the Gospel/Evangel/Good News that we have to share. And we still need to be ready to look at and deal with the differences of opinion and understanding that come up.
How do we continue to build/renovate/re-build the church?
--Gord
This Sunday we will celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism.
Over the Easter Season we will be hearing stories from the Early Church in the book of Acts and some Passages from Paul's letters. The Scripture Reading for this week is Acts 3:1-10.
The Sermon title is Get Up And Walk.
Early Thoughts: Immediately before this story is the account of Pentecost. The church has just been inaugurated. The apostles have received the blessing and gift of the Holy Spirit. ANd they go out and start building the church!
Imagine, no strategic planning sessions, no vision and mission statements, they just go out and do it.
And in the first outing that we hear about Peter and James meet a beggar. Now there are choices. Ignore him and walk around. OR just say "sorry can't help you". How many of us would do those things? But Peter has another option. He can't give what is being asked. But he can give something else. Wholeness.
That is what the church is about. Offering wholeness. It may or may not take the form that people ask for, but we are called to offer wholeness. We are called to share the God we meet in Christ Jesus, to offer wholeness in the name of Christ, to meet the people at the gates of God's kingdom and invite/help them come in and join the community.
Can we do that? Can we challenge people to get up and walk? Do we know what it is we have to offer? Are we willing to offer it? Even when it is not what people are directly asking for?
--Gord
