Looking Ahead to June 9, 2019 -- Pentecost Sunday

This week we mark Pentecost, the celebration of the Holy Spirit and the "birthday" of the Church.

We will also be celebrating the sacrament of Communion.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Galatians 5:22-26
• Matthew 7:16-20
• Acts 2:1-4

The Sermon title is You Got Spirit in You?

Early Thoughts: On that first Pentecost of the Christian Era God arrived. The Holy Spirit blew in and through the community of Jesus' disciples and transformed them completely.

That is what the Holy Spirit does, it changes how we see the world, how we live, how we interact with the world. And the people around us should be able to see that, they should notice and wonder we we act the way we do.  Hopefully they won't sneer and decide that we are drunk, as some did on that first Pentecost.

This past Easter season we took some time to look at some of what Paul says grows in us when the Spirit is a part of our lives. This week we are reminded of wisdom from Matthew "Thus you will know them by their fruits". Now Matthew has a bit of a judgement twist, has no sense that transformation is possible, but the great witness of our faith stories is that transformation is possible. When God works in us and others by the Spirit transformation happens. We proclaim that the Church is populated by people who have been born by water and the Spirit. I sometimes wonder if people see the Spirit at work in our lives?

So do you have the Spirit in you?  What sort of fruit do you bear?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to May 19 -- Easter 5 -- Patience & Self control

This is the third of our 4 part series looking at the Fruits of the Spirit.  This week we have paired Patience and Self-Control.

The Scripture Readings for this week are:

• Galatians 5:22-26
• James 5:7-11
• 2 Peter 1:3-9

The Sermon title is Wait For it!

Early Thoughts: There is a song whose chorus I often sing (or threaten to sing) to the girls:


It tends to annoy them  but it gets the message across. Or at least it fills some of the time while they are waiting. Maybe I should play it out my car windows while driving?

While we are at it, here is the self control song from that same album:


It is somewhat telling that close to 40 years after learning the songs to Music Machine in Junior Choir (Sunshine Choristers was our name) those are the two songs I remember the best.  Because both are what are often termed "growing edges" for me. Which means they are qualities I sometimes lack.

When I was sitting down and pairing up "fruits" for this series this pairing was one of the first to be matched up. They are such a natural pair.  Being patient and having self-control are very similar attributes. They both are related to delayed gratification. They both are related to remembering that it is not all about me. They both remind me that while there is value to living in the present there is also value in living for the future.

Sometimes it can be hard to wait. We live in a world where "buy it now"  and "one click shopping" is a feature of online commerce. Having to wait, having to go by somebody else's speed or timetable seems so inconvenient.

And then there is ego. IF we are honest we sometimes (often?) want it to be all about us. We want to be able to do what we want when we want. It seems a bit of a slap in the face to be reminded that this is not the case.

The Spirit moving in us and guiding our growth changes us. That is what the Galatians passage is about. Life is about the wider community, not just about the individual. We need to know when to be patient. We need to control our instincts and urges at times. It makes us healthier both as individuals and as a community.

If only it wasn't so hard at times.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to May 12, 2019 -- Easter 4 -- Peace and Gentleness -- Christian Family Sunday (aka Mother's Day)

This week marks the end of our Sunday School year and so we will be celebrating graduates.

This week our Fruits of the Spirit series has us looking at Peace and Gentleness.

The Scripture Readings for this week are:

• Galatians 5:22-26
• John 14:23-29

The Sermon title is Peace I Give...

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

Looking Forward to May 5, 2019 -- Easter 3 -- Kindness and Gentleness

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.

The Scripture readings for this week are:

• Galatians 5:22-26
• 2 Corinthians 9:6-12

The Sermon title is Gently Growing Kindness

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