Looking Forward to Monday JAnuary 21, 2019 -- Week Of Prayer for Christian Unity Service

This year the local week of Prayer for Christian Unity service will be held Monday at 7:00 at Forbes Presbyterian Church. It is my turn to preach this year.

The Scripture readings for the service are:

• Deuteronomy 16:11-20
• Romans 12:1-13
• Luke 4:14-21

The theme verse comes from the end of the Deuteronomy reading Justice and only justice you shall pursue

Early Thoughts: The Kingdom of God is a place of justice. Which means what exactly?

On the website for the Week of Prayer we find:

This year’s theme calls us to move from shared prayer to shared action. Drawing on the traditional values of Bhineka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) and gotong royong (living in solidarity and by collaboration), Indonesian Christians invite us to be a united witness, and an agent of Christ’s healing grace in a broken world, by making specific commitments to justice, equality, and unity. 

 In a world with many different expressions of Christianity what makes us unified? Christ is the obvious answer. Another is that we proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God both the now and the not yet. And one of the markers of he Kingdom of God is that justice shall reign.

JEsus, at the beginning of his ministry, reads a passage from Isaiah in the local synagogue. Judging from the words says after reading it is clear Jesus sees these words as a description of what his ministry will be. ANd those words are clearly a call for God's justice to be made real on earth.

Deuteronomy is, according to tradition, Moses' recounting of the Law just before he dies and the People of Israel cross the Jordan into the promised land. One of the themes in the book is that if the people do not choose wisely and follow the commandments then then land may be taken away from them. To choose wisely is to choose the path of justice. As the story of the People of Israel continues through those books we call the Old Testament we will find that they wander off the path of justice and so repeatedly the prophets try to call the people back to the right path.

WE as people of faith, one branch of the spiritual descendants of Moses,  are still called to follow the path of God's Justice. This year our service falls on the same day as Martin Luther King Day in the US. Dr King once said that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." (though it appears that the idea behind this statement predated Dr. King by about 100 years and was used by various others before Dr. King said it). To be walkers on the path of justice means we follow those words from Isaiah that Jesus read in synagogue. It means we follow the song Mary sang before Jesus was born. It means we agree to take part n the transformation of the world as the Kingdom of God becomes more and more real in our midst.

How can we remain steady on such a path?

In and of our own strength and willpower I am not sure we can. But we are not alone. We trust in God. AS people of faith we place ourselves in the hands of God in whom we live and move and have our being. I his letter to Rome St. Paul bids us "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.". We can follow the way of Justice because God is renewing and transforming us.

As followers of Christ may we continue to be people of justice.
--Gord

Looking Forward to November 4, 2018

As this is the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion.

This past summer folk were invited to suggest topics for sermons or sermon series. This week's topic comes from that box. The actual suggestion was "Is there a Devil? What is the Source of Evil?"

The Scripture Reading for the week is Genesis 3:1-10

The Sermon title is Is Evil Real?

Early Thoughts: Reading the news it seems like a ridiculous question doesn't it. Can one seriously question the reality of evil when just days ago people were gunned down at worship in a Pittsburgh Synagogue? Can we really ask if evil exists a week before we pause to remember those who dies in the largest wars of the 20th Century? Earlier this month I read the novel Indian Horse. Can we examine our own national history and even pretend there is a question that evil exists?

Which was sort of why I chose that as the title of the sermon. It is helpful to get the obvious answers out of the way first. Even if people would like to believe otherwise I think it is clear that there is a thing called evil in the world.

But how does it work? Where does it come from? Does it have a central personified essence?  Are there people who are purely/simply evil and people who are never evil? Those are harder questions.

The passage we read this week is often seen as the place where evil enters our faith story. Which is why we are reading it. But I am pretty sure it does not answer those questions up above.

It is tempting to be able to set clear boundaries of evil vs good. to have a personalized character of evil (devil), to say these people are good and these people are bad. It would be nice to say "evil comes from X".  Unfortunately life is rarely that cut and dried.

In the end I think much (maybe even most, possibly all) great fiction has, at its root, the idea of good battling evil. And in the best of them they have a sense of ambiguity. Someone, (I think it is Gandalf, might have been Elrond) tells Frodo that even Sauron was not evil in the beginning. When Harry Potter is worried he is turning evil his godfather Sirius tells him plainly that the world is not divided cleanly between good people and Death Eaters. The world of the story is about the fight between good and evil but the murkiness of the line keeps coming up.

Evil is in the world, I think, because we have free will and we have the freedom to set our own priorities. Sometimes those priorities mean we are willing to stomp on others (or let people stomp on other on our behalf) to get our way. And those things we call evil results. Evil exists because of things like fear, and jealousy, and insecurity, and hatred, and self-centeredness.  I am not big on demons or a person named the Devil (Lucifer, Beelzebub, Old Scratch....). I think evil is a part of the world, a sign of the broken-ness of the world. But I also believe that in the end, as Julian of Norwich was wont to say, "all will be well". Evil will not have the final answer.

--Gord

Looking Ahead to July 2, 2017 -- A reflection of #Canada150

This Sunday we will celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism.

The Scripture passages we will hear are:

• Psalm 72:1-14
• Jeremiah 29:4-9

The Sermon title is What Kind of Nation?

Early Thoughts: National holidays are a bit of a conundrum in the church.  On the one hand (many would say the dominant hand) we in the church are called to recognize an allegiance beyond nationality, we are called to be citizens of the Kingdom first and Canadians (or Americans or British or...) second. On the other hand, when something is a large event (celebration even) can we truly ignore it?

Then there are questions about whose party it is....

On July 1, 2017 we recognize 150 of a political entity. 150 years since a group of British colonies officially joined together to form the Dominion of Canada. That is what the day commemorates. Technically you could say that the day is only #Canada150 for Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia since all other provinces joined later.

We are not commemorating the length of time Europeans have been present on the continent (Montreal marks 375 years since Ville-Marie was founded this year, and other communities are older than that). And to be really obvious, our Indigenous neighbours have been on the continent for 1000's of years before that. We are not even marking 150 years of colonization (though the reality is that colonization have been an integral part of our history) since that too goes back long before Confederation. We are marking 150 years of a political entity, nothing more, nothing less.

But even then, how do we bring our faith to bear on the commemoration? After all, despite what some people may claim, Canada is not a "Christian nation". We have no national religion, no national church. Our laws are not shaped to conform with any one theological position. So what does our faith have to say about what it means to be Canadian?

This is when I start to think it would have been easier to not build a service to reflect on #Canada150....

But the reality is that something is missing from all the party preparations. There has been, in the official resources, a focus on celebrating what Canada has accomplished -- as evidenced in April when we heard all about the battle of Vimy Ridge on it's centennial -- but a lack of encouragement to stop and reflect on who we are as a country, how we have gotten here, and at what cost. I believe that as people of faith, as people who are called to be citizens of a larger Kingdom, as people who have a faith story which points us to a way to live in community we are placed to have that reflection. SO that is part of what we do this weekend.

And then I remembered the passage for Jeremiah. As their world is crashing around them, as they are being lead off into exile, the people have a choice. They can lament. They can resist. They can make life miserable. Or they can, as Jeremiah says, " seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.". AS citizens of the Kingdom who happen to reside in and are governed by the nation of Canada I think that Jeremiah's challenge lies before us as well. We need to seek the welfare of the nation, as residents of a democratic society to seek the welfare of our communities is to be active in helping to shape those communities.

So I ask: What kind of nation do we want Canada to be? How does the nation Canada currently is reflect those aspirations, and how does it vary from them?

In order to seriously ask those question we need to take seriously that a large number of people who live within the political entity are not celebrating this year. We need to take seriously the ways that Canada has not been a nation of which we can be proud and ask how we can do better.

WHat does our faith say about how we live together?
--Gord

Freedom! (A Newspaper Column for October 21)

About 24 years ago a theologian shared these words in song:

This ain't comin' from no prophet
Just an ordinary man
When I close my eyes I see
The way this world shall be
When we all walk hand in hand...
We shall be free

Admittedly, few people would call Garth Brooks a theologian, but in the song We Shall Be Free he paints a picture of what the world would be like when the Kingdom of God is made real and actual among us.

The story we find in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is the story of a God who is trying to free God’s people from chains that bind.

We see it in Moses confronting Pharaoh and leading the people of Israel to freedom, an event so central that they remember it every year with the feast of Passover.

We see it in Cyrus of Persia, telling the exiles that they can go home again.

We see it in Jesus of Nazareth, standing in a synagogue and saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18). We see it in Jesus healing a woman who had been bent over and crippled by an unclean Spirit for 18 years and asking “...ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage...” (Luke 13:16)

We see it in the writings of Paul, telling people about God’s grace and forgiveness.

As people of faith we tell these stories over and over again to remember where God has brought out freedom. We also tell them to remind ourselves that we are a part of the continuing story of God bringing freedom to the world. People are still in chains, bound, enslaved and God continues to help us break those chains.

Indeed, one question that is still used at baptism in some traditions asks “Desiring the freedom of new life in Christ, do you seek to resist evil, and to live in love and justice?”. To follow The Way of Christ is to follow the path of freedom.

Which makes me ask, what do we need to be set free from? What are the chains and bonds that we find in 2016? I think there are lots.

Some are personal and individual. Some are cultural and societal. Some of us need to be freed from addictions and unhealthy habits. Some need to be freed from cages built from shame and poor self image and low confidence. Some of us need to be freed from social structures that aim to keep people ‘in their place’, structures that discriminate against people based on their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. And if we are honest, some of us need to admit that we are a part of putting our neighbours in chains.

Recently I realized again that the Christian tradition has been responsible for a lot of chain building. The Western Church has tended to cling to interpretations of Scripture that often preference Christian, European, straight, cis-gendered [meaning not transgendered], males with money. Conveniently the leaders and power-brokers of Western society have historically fallen into those same categories. Too often we have chained people in the name of the same God who seeks freedom for all by claiming God supports our positions of privilege.

On the other hand, Liberation Theologians from the last century read the Scriptural account and pointed out that consistently God appears to have a preference for the oppressed, for the underclass, for those cast aside by society. This is the God who is working toward freedom. This is the God who has steadily been at work in the church and in wider society over the last several decades to break the chains of racism, sexism, hetero-sexism, religious triumphalism, economic disparity, and trans-phobia. God challenges all of us to break chains, to stop putting chains on ourselves and others.

As people of faith we affirm that freedom is coming. We trust that the God who wants God’s people to be free is at work in the hearts and souls of individuals and in the structures and norms of society. Some of us find the path to freedom in The Way of Christ, some through Islam, or Hinduism, or Sikhism or any of the other faith traditions we may meet. As Brooks point out in song, one of the signs of the Kingdom is “When we all can worship from our own kind of pew”.

Thanks be to God, through whom we SHALL be free!

Looking Forward to May 1, 2011 -- 2nd Sunday of Easter

The Scripture Readings this week (the day before a Federal Election) are:

• Deuteronomy 30:15-20
• Luke 20:20-26

The Sermon title is Making Choices

Early thoughts: How does our faith inform or influence our vote?  How should it?

It is a difficult question isn't it?  Some people maintain that to be faithful you HAVE to support one side of the political equation.  Others insist the ONLY faithful response is to support the opposite side.  What makes it more complicated is that our Scriptures are not written with a modern representative democratic government model anywhere in view.  And so it is hard to say that Scripture speaks to how one should make voting choices.  Or is it?

To begin with we have to make one thing plain.  No political party platform equals the path that leads to the Reign of God.  Not the Conservatives, no the Greens, not the Liberals, not the NDP, not the Democrats, not the Republicans, not the Labour Party, not Israel's Likud, NONE of them.  Despite claims that may get made the Reign of God is not affiliated with any political party on the face of the earth.  And so a faithful response to an election does not mandate a vote for any one person or platform.  The best way I have found to express this is the subtitle of Jim Wallis' book  God's Politics -- Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.

However, while Scripture does not contemplate the realities of living in a democratic society and the practicalities of voting, Scripture does share a vision for how the world could/should/will be.  AS people of faith we are called to embrace that vision.  As people of faith we are called to live as if it is there.  In Deuteronomy Moses reminds the people that they have a choice.  They can live as God would have them live or not.  As we prepare to vote on Monday we have a choice to make.  Faith calls us not to automatically vote for any specific party.  Faith calls us to consider how we get closer to the world as God would have it be.  Faith calls us to cast our ballot in a way that we honestly believe leads down that path.  Faith calls us to vote not solely based on "what's in it for us" (despite the fact that so much propaganda tries to sell us on that point) but rather on what is the best for the society as a whole.

And may we have the capacity as a society to live together civilly and respectfully with whatever the result may be.
--Gord

Looking Forward to March 20, 2011 -- 2nd Sunday of Lent Year A

So many possibilities this week.  And remember that the CGIT are having their Mission Lunch following the service!

The Scripture Readings for the week are:

• Psalm 121 (VU p.844)
• John 3:1-17

The Sermon Title is Born of Spirit, Born Again

Early Thoughts: Born Again Not a term we use often in our tradition. Certainly a word that has, through common usage, come to have a particular theological ring to it. What might it mean to us to use it more?

In his book The Heart of Christianity Marcus Borg spends an entire chapter on the idea of being Born Again (maybe I should just read the chapter on Sunday???) because it is such a key term for faith. And yet because we are uncomfortable with how some people have used the term we have given it up.  Still it is unquestionable that becoming a person of Christian faith involves being re-born, or born anew, or born from above.

To be a person of Christian Faith is to embrace a new way of living, a new life.  This is what it means to be born anew.  It means to leave one way behind and to start a new way.  This happens through the work of the Spirit.  And so it is uncontrollable.  It sometimes takes us by surprise (as it apparently does with Nicodemus) and pushes us to do things that we never would have done before.  The stories of people in faith who have had this happen are Legion.

How are we being born anew/from above/of Spirit/again?  Does our new birth impact how we react to and interact with the events of the world around us?  (Libya, Japan, homelessness in Grande Prairie...)  
--Gord

Also this week we will pause for a moment to look at Japan.  What is happening? What is/could be/should be our response? Where is God?  I encourage us to look at the last question in light of the Psalm reading which promises that God is with us in our hardship (although those last verses are a bit more problematic...)

Japan

This is an excerpt from a posting on the General Council website Dated March 12, 2011:

The situation in Japan remains fluid. The extent of the devastation and damage is still not fully known. Attention is now also on the nuclear power plants in the quake area and the possibility of serious damage that could present dangerous consequences for people living near them. The United Church continues to monitor the situation closely and is ready to offer support as we are able to United Church personnel and partners.
While Japan has a well-developed emergency response protocol and capacity, the magnitude of the disaster presents serious challenges. Any donations received at the General Council Office, designated for earthquake relief and reconstruction in Japan, will be gratefully received and used to support United Church partners in this work. Donations can be made online or mailed to:

The United Church of Canada

3250 Bloor St. West, Suite 300

Toronto, ON M8X 2Y4

For ongoing updates about the UCCan response you can click here.

Children's Well Being Initiative

70 000.  That is how many children in Alberta, one of the richest provinces in the country, who live in poverty.  To many of us that seems almost criminal, at the least shameful.  Surely we as a society have not only a responsibility but also a vested interest in lowering that number.

The UCW of Alberta and Northwest Conference agree.  And so they have embraced the Child Well-Being Initiative.  As part of this they have made dozens of cloth dolls and shared them with various people in leadership roles in the church around the conference.  They are also going to the Alberta Legislature on November 18 to present a doll and information about child poverty to every MLA.

More information about the CWBI can be found here