Looking Ahead to November 24, 2019 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Jeremiah 23:1-6
• Psalm 46 (VU p.770)
• Luke 1:68-79

The Sermon title is Shepherd, King, Protector

Early Thoughts: Shepherd, King, Messiah/Christ (Anointed One). These are just some of the titles used for Jesus of Nazareth.

Some people might say that shepherd and king are very different roles.  Shepherd suggests the least of the least, people with so little power that they earn a living driving livestock from one point to another, finding food and water, and keeping away predatory animals. King suggests someone at the other end of the social strata, someone with massive amounts of power, someone with the authority to have others bring food and drink, someone who has soldiers to drive away predatory people.

But they have something big in common.  They are all about protection.

A shepherd's role is to protect the flock. Some do it well, some do it less well. Some, according to Jeremiah, disperse the flock.

The proper role of the Monarch, in some points of view, is to protect and serve. The Monarch sets up the things that will protect the realm. The Monarch participates in the life of the people. Some have done it well, some have done it less well, some have seen the power balance very differently.

For some time various parts of the Global Church have called this Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, by names like Reign of Christ or Christ the King. In large part this practice was started in Roman Catholic circles as a counter to the loss of political power. But it does give us a chance to reflect on what it means to give Christ , who John's Gospel calls the Good Shepherd, the title of King.  What kind of King is Christ? What kind of protector is Christ?

Is the God made known in Christ a shepherd? Does God lead God's people in search of food and water and protection? Is the God made known in Christ a King? Does God lead God's people to stride forward and claim their place in the world?  Yes to both. And apart from relative power I am not at all convinced that the role of shepherd and king are all that different.

Shepherds lead. Monarch's lead. Monarch's set the pace. SO do Shepherds. Monarch's set up protective structures. Shepherd throw up fences and wield clubs. Christ is the Good Shepherd, Christ is the King of Kings. Through Christ God leads and protects us (even if it sometimes seems doubtful, even when we really want to go our own way.)
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 17, 2019

This week we will be Celebrating the Sacrament of Baptism (which means cake after church).

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 65:17-25
• Luke 21:5-19

The Sermon title is Change is Coming – Rejoice... or Be Very Afraid

Early Thoughts: The preaching of Jesus had a main focus. -- the Kingdom of God. AS people of faith we work for and within the Kingdom that is "now and not yet" -- here among us with the coming of Christ and yet not here in full flower. To be honest many (most?) days the "not yet" part seems much more real than the "among us here and now".

But what does the coming of the Kingdom in full flower mean? What should we expect?

Maybe it is a cause for great joy as, in the words of Julian of Norwich, "All manner of thing be well". Maybe it is a cause of great fear as so much that we know is turned upside down and destroyed. Maybe it is both. That is what I think our passages this week suggest.

Isaiah tells us about the wonders of the new heaven and the new earth (similar joy can be found at the end of Revelation). This is the hoped for Kingdom of God in full flower. Where do we see signs of this happening in our world today?

On the other hand, Luke seems to be talking about the transition. And the transition as Jesus portrays it in the Gospels (or as John of Patmos portrays it in Revelation) is not a pretty sight. It seems to bring chaos and destruction and danger. Do I dare ask where we see this in the world today? [To be honest people have seen signs of these things in the world in every generation.]

Waiting for the Kingdom to come in full glory is not a matter of checking of lists, either positive or negative. We can't take the predictions of Jesus that literally. But we have to admit that for the Kingdom to come in full glory requires a massive reshaping of how the world works. And such a reshaping is never easy. It brings out fear, it brings out reactionary "we can not change" responses. It brings out anger, which I believe grows out of the fear. But we are called to look through to the other side...and see the hope that lies after the fear.

It sort of reminds me of this:

The kingdom is growing among us. To get there we need to be ready to face hard choices, we need to be able to change how we work within the world. We need to be ready for the world itself to be changed.  I suspect for the change to happen in full will require some form of cataclysmic event. We as a species are just too reluctant to change, being afraid of what we have to give up (make no mistake we will have to give up some assumptions and structures and things) and sometimes it is hard to see the hope on the other side. But God is calling us to embrace a new heaven and a new earth. It is the promise of our tradition.

Are we ready for the fear and the joy?
--Gord

Looking Forward to November 26, 2017 -- Reign of Christ Sunday, Light in the Darkness

This Sunday we will be celebrating the sacrament of Baptism.

The Scripture Reading for this week is Isaiah 9:2-7 [in the Tanakh it is actually Isaiah 9:1-6 as they put the chapter break at a different place].

A little Handel for your day:


The Sermon title is Dawn.

Early Thoughts: This is a passage that is often read during the Advent-Christmas season. And to Christian ears (after almost 2000 years of teaching) all those words about light in the darkness and the child being born and the coming reign of peace do sound very Christ-like. 

I hunch that is not what Isaiah (or his original hearers) had in mind. In fact some commentators think that Isaiah is referring to Hezekiah, king of Judah.

IN the preceding chapters of Isaiah we learn that the nation is under threat. When a nation is under threat there are people who get very gloomy. If the threat is dire enough (or the people are made to believe it is dire enough) the communal mood becomes dark. [And history has shown that in these periods of darkness communities and nations can be lead to do horrific things, though Isaiah does not say that Judah follows that path.]

In the middle of the fear and gloom Isaiah brings a word of hope.  In 7:14-16 he tells King Ahaz:

Therefore Adonai himself
will give you people a sign:
the young woman* will become pregnant,
bear a son and name him ‘Immanu El [God is with us].
¹⁵ By the time he knows enough
to refuse evil and choose good,
he will [have to] eat
curdled milk and [wild] honey.
¹⁶ Yes, before the child knows enough
to refuse evil and choose good,
the land whose two kings you dread
will be left abandoned.

Promising that the threat will be short-lived, that the armies which are threatening Judah will fade away.

Then we have our passage of the week. A promise that light will dawn, a promise of release from oppression [the reference to the day of Midian points back to the book of Judges and the story of Gideon].

Where do we look for dawn today? What darkness threatens to overtake our world?

This is the last Sunday of the Christian year. On the last Sunday of the year we celebrate the Reign of Christ even as we acknowledge that we have come to the end of another year and the Reign of Christ/Kingdom of God has not yet grown to full flower in the world around us. Next week we begin the season of Advent, a time both of preparing for Christmas but also a time of preparing for the coming of the Kingdom of God in full flower. We look at the darkness and we celebrate the promise of light.

Light in the darkness. Dawn is coming. We know darkness. We know those things that bring fear. Deep in our hearts we know that when we are afraid it is harder to be who God has called us to be. But dawn is coming. The kingdom of God is birthing.  We are people of hope, or at least we are called to be people of hope. 

Where do we look for the first rays of dawn?
--Gord 

PS: I think this is a riff off of the chorus of the dame name from Handel's Messiah..but it sure has a different musical feel:

Looking Forward to November 20, 2016 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Jeremiah 36:1-8, 21-26
• Jeremiah 31:31-34

The Sermon title is On Our Hearts?

Early Thoughts: A new covenant, a new way of directing how we live with each other and with God.

The story of Scripture in inextricably bound with the idea of covenant. After the flood God makes a covenant with Noah. Later God makes a covenant with Abram/Abraham. In the Exodus and at Sinai God makes a covenant with the people of Israel. Each covenant involves promises and expectations from both sides.

The life of faith is full of covenant imagery. We not only tell the story of faith and the covenants within that, we make covenants. When we are baptized, and when we re-affirm our baptism, we enter into and renew a covenant. When we dedicate our lives to one special partner we enter into a covenant. When we call a new minister to serve with a faith community we have a service of covenanting to begin that relationship. And again there are promises and expectations between all parties.

God is always faithful to the covenants. God's people on the other hand....

Within Israel and Judah, the work of the prophets was to call people back to living out the covenant. They are less than successful. Near the end of his career Jeremiah takes time to get the words he has spoken on behalf of God written down into a scroll (plausibly showing that the people are starting to transition from a primarily oral culture to a more literate culture). The king listens to the scroll read aloud and then systematically destroys it.

What is a God to do?

Oral reminders have not worked. The written reminder is subject to destruction. What if the covenant is written in the very beings of the people? Will that work?

For many years Christians have looked at those verses in chapter 31 and seen Christ. Jesus is said to have instituted the (or at least a) new covenant, the one that would be written on our hearts. And so we are people of the New Covenant (there are churches that have chosen that as their name).

God is still faithful to the covenants. God's people....well sometimes (often?) we struggle, we miss the mark [sometimes our aim seems 180 degrees off]. Thankfully the God who calls us into the covenant also pledges "for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more".

About 240 years ago John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (and so one of the Spiritual ancestors of the United Church of Canada), developed a service of covenanting. The idea of Wesley's covenanting service is that it is a chance to rededicate ourselves to live as people of the covenant, to live as people who seek to follow the Way of Christ, to live as citizens of God's Kingdom. Over time it became common in Methodism to mark the beginning of the New Year with the Covenanting Service.

Reign of Christ Sunday is a day when we remind ourselves that we are citizens of a different Kingdom, when we remind ourselves that we follow a different law. It is also a time of transition, the end of one liturgical year with Advent 1 (which is next Sunday) marking the beginning of a New Year. And so it seems appropriate that this Sunday when we talk about the covenant that is written on our hearts we will take time to join in the tradition of our Methodist forebears (and current sisters and brothers) and re-affirm our commitment to live as people of the covenant.

Is it really written on our hearts? How can we tell?
--Gord

Looking Forward to November 23, 2014 -- Reign of Christ Sunday, Jeremiah

This week we have two selections from Jeremiah:  Jeremiah 1:4-10; 7:1-11

The Sermon title is From the Mouths of Babes...
 
Early Thoughts:  Called as a child, convinced he was too young, Jeremiah goes on to challenge the understanding of the house of God....

Now there is nothing in the text to tell us how young/old Jeremiah is when he stands in the gates of the temple and gives his sermon, challenging the listeners to rethink their understanding of God.  But in conjunction with his call story it is tempting to see a teenager standing there lambasting the adults.  After all it touches a favoured saying from Isaiah "and a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6) along with Jesus saying "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Luke 18:17).  And there is something attractive about the idea that children/youth are sometimes (often??) wiser than their older neighbours.

Within the Jewish Scriptures there is a variance in the idea of God's protection.  One strand holds that the Promised Land belongs to the people for ever and ever amen.  And in that stream the fact that the House of God (the temple) stands in Jerusalem gives Jerusalem special protection.  Another stream holds that the gift of the land may be revoked if the people do not live up to their part of the covenant.  If the people fail to live as God would have them live then there will be consequences.  AS do most of the Prophets, Jeremiah here stands in the latter stream.

In some ways he is in the same place as Micah from a couple of weeks ago.  Micah points out what God wants is not sacrifices of rams but justice kindness and humility.  Jeremiah points out the hypocrisy of ignoring God's desires, of worshiping other Gods, and then standing in the temple calling on God to protect the nation.

This is the last Sunday of the Church Year.  As we prepare for Advent to begin, we pause to consider how the Kingdom is closer this year than it was a year ago.  Jeremiah suggests that if we live lives of justice then we will know that God is in our midst.  So where are we along the way (because the profession of Christian faith has always been that the Kingdom is already here and yet the full bloom of the Kingdom is still coming--the Now and the Not Yet.


Referring back to Jeremiah's call experience, what needs to be pulled down and plucked out so that the Kingdom will bloom?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 25, 2012 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

The Scripture Reading this week is John 18:33-37

The Sermon title is How Do We Know? 

Early Thoughts: It is almost lost in most discussion of this text. But it is a great question.  Because this passage comes from the Passion story and because the other time it shows up in the Lectionary is on Reign of Christ Sunday most discussions focus on the nature of Jesus' kingdom out of these verses.  Another common option (one I have used many times) is to extend the reading into the next verse where Pilate asks "What is truth?" (a question I always hear as it is sung in Jesus Christ Superstar).  But look more closely at verse 34: Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  As people who bear the name "Christian" but obviously never knew the human person Jesus it seems we have to answer that question for ourselves.

Do we know Jesus or do we know about Jesus?

 Some people of faith can speak very passionately about the personal relationship they have with Jesus.  Some people of faith can speak very knowledgeably about Christology and who Jesus may have been and the stories about him and analyze those stories.  Some people can do both.

Do we know Jesus or just know about him?  Do we have a personal stake in our relationship with Jesus?

I think we need to take time to build that relationship with Jesus ad with the God we revealed.  Part of our faith will always be to hear and to pass on the witness of those who have gone before us.  But that is not where we need to stop.  We need to be able to sing with full conviction "What a Friend we Have in Jesus".  WE need to know Jesus, not just go on the witness of others.
 --Gord

Worship Teasers

November 25 -- How Do We Know? -- No not a take-off on the Whitney Houston song. (Although that sounds like a great idea! Maybe I will go with that) Instead it is asking how we know Jesus. Now I have to go write a song...


December 2 -- Hope or Fear?-- A baby being born changes life completely. And any parent will tell you that there is both hope and fear in that time of waiting. Why should Christmas be any different? Oh and we will have Communion this Sunday.

December 9 -- Ready to be Refined? -- Sometimes the lectionary gives us strange readings as we prepare for Christmas. But what if preparing for God to break into our world means refining our lives? Are we ready for that? Now to research charcoal burning and ore refining...


December 16 – Our Christmas Pageant Sunday. Come and see what the Sunday School has in store for us this year!

 December 23 -- What if She Said NO? -- Gentle Mary Meek and Mild. Or maybe not. Linnea Good has a song about Mary where she is bold and ready to claim her place in the world. And so I have to ask, what if Mary had said no???? Did God have a back-up plan?

Christmas Eve -- What is Born For You Tonight? -- If you are like me you always hear the Christmas story told in the voice of Linus Van Pelt “For unto you is born this night...That is what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown” But Christmas is about more than one baby being born. Christmas is about God breaking into our lives here today. So how is hope breaking into your life this Christmas?



December 30 – Shall we have a “regular” service this week? Or something more informal involving carol singing and chatting together? Maybe some looking forward to 2013 or reflecting on 2012? What would you prefer???

January 6 -- The Wise Ones Visit –Our Christmas story and season end with the story of visitors from abroad. This year the three “traditional” Magi will come to visit with us and tell their story. Anyone want to be a wise guy????

Looking Ahead to November 18, 2012 -- Proper 28B 25th After Pentecost

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Daniel 12:1-3
• Mark 13:1-8, 24-37
• Revelation 21:1-8

The Sermon title is The Day is When?

Early Thoughts: As the liturgical year draws to a close our readings encourage us to look to the end times.  The Day of the Lord is coming we are told.  BUt when?  Should we be worried? afraid? noncommital? hopeful?  Do the Mayans have something to do with this?

The last question is the easiest so let us get it out of the way first.  NO.  The Mayans have nothing to do with it -- despite all the hype about the supposed end of the Mayan calendar next month (so yes we do still have to get ready for Christmas).

The first question is also relatively easy, although the answer may be less clear than some would want.  The Gospels make it plain that Jesus told his followers "no one knows the day or the hour".  In this I see a suggestion that we should not spend a whole bunch of time trying to figure out when it will happen --although I note that several people over the ages have spent hundreds of hours (and thousands of pages) analyzing the world so as to make a specific prediction of a day and hour.  And to be fair it appears from the Scriptures that both Jesus and Paul expected that the Day of the Lord, the changing of the world, was fairly imminent -- that some who were alive then would still be alive when it came.

Before we continue on the when question (because it gets more complicated), a quick diversion into the middle questions.  On one hand the readings this week suggest we should view the coming of the Day of the Lord with great trepidation.  It does not sound like it will be a very positive experience.  On the other hand the changing of the world, the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God is a cornerstone of Christian Hope.  We live in hope for the time when the wolf will lie down with the lamb, when all will live in peace and all will have what they need.  But given how humans deal with change (and changing from how we currently live to the full bloom of the Kingdom of God will be a very substantial change in lifestyle and expectations) getting to the endpoint, however promising that endpoint may be, will be a somewhat torturous process.

In a way this brings us back to the when question.  Because in Christian theology the traditional answer to the when question is "now and not yet".  The Gospels and Paul proclaim that the Kingdom is present in the life and resurrection of Jesus.  So it is already here.  But obviously it is not here in all its fullness and potential.  So it is not yet.  Maybe the real question is "how is it growing closer?"  Are we moving toward or away from (or possibly remaining stuck in one place) the fullness of the Kingdom of God?  Are we responsible for bringing that fullness to existence or are we to wait for God to do it? 

And no, there is no easy (or universally accepted) answer to either of those questions.  But we continue to wrestle with them as we try to figure out how to live as faithful people in a sometimes very confusing world.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 20, 2011 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
• Psalm 95 (VU p.814)
• Matthew 25:31-46

The Sermon title is Who Are We Ministering to?

Early Thoughts: Back at the beginning of our faith story Cain asks (after killing Abel) "Am I my Brother's keeper?"(Genesis 4:9). Arguably the answer that Scripture points to is YES. We are our brothers' (and sisters') keeper. We have a duty and responsibility to care for our neighbour, to feed them when they are hungry, to support them when they struggle.

It is possible that this duty is made clearer in this Matthew passage (which is one of my favourite passages in all of Scripture) than anywhere else in our faith.  In my opinion this passage describes how we act when we live as if the Reign of Christ/Kingdom of God/Kin-dom of Heaven is a reality in our midst. THis passage answers the question asked by a lawyer in Luke's Gospel "Who is my neighbour?", it rells us what to do and why.  It is a call to action.

During Advent we will be collecting stuff for our partner agencies in town.  This Advent collection is part of how we live out our call to care for our neighbours.  And so this Sunday we will use our reflecting on the call to care as a kick-off for our Advent campaign.
--Gord