Looking Forward to October 27, 2013 -- Reformation Sunday

The Scripture Readings for this week are:

• Habakkuk 2:1-3
• Revelation 21:1-7
• Jeremiah 31:31-34

The Sermon title is Que Sera Sera...

Early Thoughts:  There is a tradition (more strongly recognized in some churches than in others) that the Sunday before (or closest to) October 31 is a day to celebrate the Reformation [because according to tradition October 31 is the date on which Martin Luther launched the Reformation by posting his 95 theses].  But Reformation Sunday is not just about remembering the saints of the past, it is also about asking what Reformation is happening/could be/should be happening in the church of the present.  Because Reformation is a constantly ongoing process.

Reformation is a challenging business.  It makes us uncomfortable.  We are the inheritors (in part) of a Spiritual tradition that prized life being lived "decently and in good order".  True Reformation often is neither decent not orderly.  True reforming of our lives, our understandings, our structures is a messy, disorderly, untidy business.  In the process there are ragged edges, there are things we might find irritating or unwanted but that we need to hold on to for a while to see where they get to.

And in the end it is not us who is in control.  [Which may be the most unsettling aspect of the whole process.]  We certainly want to be in control, to shape the process, to work towards some pre-determined goal.  But we are the church.  As people of faith we claim the Someone Else is in control. And so to a degree part of being reformed is letting go, is learning to live -in trust- with some disorder, is waiting for the first signs of new fruit.  And in the end....what will be will be.
--Gord

Looking Forward to October 6, 2013 -- Proper 22C, 20th Sunday After Pentecost

This Sunday is the First Sunday of October so we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion.

The Scripture Readings this Sunday are:

• Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
• Psalm 137

The Sermon title is Faith Sings in Exile 

Early Thoughts: They were in exile. Forced from their homes, driven across the wilderness, how could they possibly sing the songs of faith?

And yet that is exactly what they are asked to do.  In fact they are told to do more than that.   Jeremiah says that in this strange land the people are to:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But 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 advice to exiles, to a people whose national identity was tied up with the land and the temple that is now occupied and destroyed it seems to go against all logic.  It would seem more sensible to tell them to keep the faith, to hang on, to wait until they are able to go home and be the people they once were.  But instead God tells them to live.  Not wait until they can be what/who they once were, but live.  Embrace the new place as if it were home and live there.  Can they do that?????

Well do they have much choice??????????

The image of exile and return, in addition to being one of what Marcus Borg calls the meta-narratives of Scripture, is one that has often been used to describe the church of the 21st Century.  And I have used it myself.  IT works n some ways.  The church finds itself in a whole new place, in a whole new world.  The rules, the landscape, the culture is different, strange, sometimes it seems unfriendly or hostile or threatening.  Aren't we in exile?  Who could blame us for wanting to return "home", to go back to that comfortable familiar place?

The problem I have with the exile image is that it suggests we can go back home some day (which is what Scripture says happened to the people of Israel -- at which point there is a struggle about those wives and children that Jeremiah encourages in this week's reading).  But the thought that we can go back leads us to spend too much time remembering what was, too much energy trying to recreate those "golden days" of yore.  Back in August Terry Leer wrote in the Daily Herald Tribune:

...hungering for the past is like feasting on cotton candy: Tasty while it lasts, but only tooth-rotting, empty calories in the end.

Nostalgia tricks us into thinking we’re doing what God wants. We cannot move forward if we are living in the past. The past cannot be recreated for our current circumstances have changed – almost beyond recognition. Our Sunday Schools are not full. Budgets are a problem. And most non-Christians regard the church with disdain and distrust.
Hungering for the past, for the time when Christians prayed in school, when the church was the centre of social life and when clergy were respected authorities in the community, will leave the church abandoned in the past. Nostalgia will not save the church – it will be the death of it.
So, what is the opposite of this religious nostalgia? Mission, God’s mission.

Maybe we too are called to live in the "exile" land.  Maybe we are called to sing the songs of faith (both old and new) in a strange land.  Maybe we should not yearn for what was and embrace what is. Can we do that????

Do we have much choice??????????
--Gord

Looking Forward to September 22, 2013: Proper 20C 18th Sunday After Pentecost

This Sunday we will Celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
• Lamentations 3:19-26 
• Psalm 79 (VU p.793) 

The Sermon title is What Gets You Down? 

Early Thoughts: Have you ever felt that the world, or more precisely YOUR world, was falling to pieces around you?  Have you or a loved one struggled with depression?

Arguably Jeremiah did.  Tradition tells us that Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations in response to the disaster of the fall of Jerusalem.  We even have a word, jeremiad, that comes from his laments.

The UCCan worship resource Gathering had this suggestion for this week:

Sermon Starter
Last week the passage we read from Jeremiah described the desolation of the land. This week we read about the desolation of the people, perhaps an appropriate time to inform and educate the congregation about the issue of mental illness in our communities and country. Goodness knows, enough people in the pews are dealing with issues of mental illness including stress, anxiety, and depression, but they are probably suffering in silence. It’s time to open the discussion. (The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (www.camh.ca) has information, statistics, and resources.) As the people of Jeremiah’s time found, it can be impossible to hold on to faith in the midst of depression, grief, and anxiety. Talk about the role of the faith community in being the strength and hope of faith for someone at a time in their life when they can’t hold on to faith.

Normally I don't use many of the sermon starter suggestions in Gathering (often I find myself wondering where that idea came from).  But this one struck me as something that needed to be done.

Last time I checked (I have to do some research this week for current information) prescriptions for anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications were increasing steadily.  Mental health issues are arguably reaching epidemic (or even pandemic) levels.  And to be honest the church has not always been helpful in response.

I hunch that we all know someone (relative, friend, co-worker) who has had struggles with depression or anxiety (or both).  Some of us are that person.  Sometimes it is a short "episode" sometimes it lasts for years, sometimes it is lifelong.  AS a community of faith how can we help each other in our struggles?  Can we help find the Balm in Gilead that makes the wounded whole?
--Gord

Looking Forward to September 15, 2013 -- 17th After Pentecost, Proper 19C

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 14
• 1 Timothy 1:12-17

The Sermon Title is Who is the Fool?


Early Thoughts: Why believe in God? Who is the foolish one, the believer or the unbeliever?
The psalmist makes a bold statement when he says Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”. Richard Dawkins got a lot of press a few years ago for saying the exact opposite in his book The God Delusion. 

Many years ago Blaise Pascal laid out Pascal's Wager, a statement that said the safest bet was to believe. Pascal argued that if you believed and there was no God, then you lost nothing. But if you didn't believe and there was a God judging you at the end of life then you lost everything. That would be a reason to believe (not necessarily a good one but it is a reason). So why believe in something which, in the end, can not ever be actually proved?

In some ways this is a question that has plagued the church for years. There have always been atheists and agnostics who challenge the concept of faith. In the last century however the challenge has become more strident. Likely this is due to a number of things: the end of Christendom as a socio-political force, the continuing development of thought started in the Enlightenment period, the development of scientific theories and knowledge that directly challenged a literal view of Scripture, and horrific events such as the World Wars and the Holocaust. In fact in April of 1966 Time Magazine's cover story announced that "God is Dead"

And yet we still believe. Some believe experientially, that is we have experienced God's presence in our lives. Some believe "genetically", that is we have been raised in a believing family. Some of us have believed, have not believed, and have come back to believing. Are we deluded? Have we been indoctrinated (a charge used by some atheists regarding faith formation activities for children and youth)? Are we just following Pascal's wager and playing it safe?

In the end charges of foolishness where faith (or no faith) are concerned are probably not helpful. So are words like delusion. In the end we each come to our own decision on whether and why (not) we believe. And that is as it should be. On Sunday we will explore a bit about our "God Delusion". Want to come and join in the foolishness of faith?
--Gord

UPDATE: while the TIME story from 1966 is (sadly) no longer available without a subscription (as of 6 years ago it was available) here is a NEWSWEEK cover story from 2009 on a similar topic, the article title is "The End of Christian America"

Looking Forward to September 8, 2013 -- 16th After Pentecost, Proper 18C

This week will be reading one Scripture lesson.  The letter to Philemon.

The Sermon title is What IF? -- An Experiment in Reading Scripture

Early Thoughts: What preconceptions do we carry to Scripture?  What assumptions do we make about what is being said and what "everyone" knows about the story?

I suspect there are more answers to those questions than we are aware of.  SO this week I am revisiting an experiment from my first seminary class in New Testament Studies.  This will involve dialogue, so consider yourselves warned!

We are going to read Philemon as if it was the first and only Christian document we had ever seen.  What does it mean if we know nothing else?

Admittedly this is really difficult.  It is almost impossible to "un-know" something -- sort of like trying to unring a bell. 

I'll be honest, I have no idea how well this will work.  That is why it is called an experiment.  Right?
--Gord

Looking Forward to September 1, 2013 -- Labour Day, 15th Sunday After Pentecost

This being the first Sunday of September, we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 55:1-3, 10-13
• 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
• Luke 12:22-32

The Sermon title is For What Do You Labour? 

Early Thoughts: On this Labour Day weekend we pause to think about the meaning of/for/in our Labour (in between watching football games of course).

The Isaiah passage asks us:
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2)

Good question isn't it? Why do we labour and labour and seem to have such trouble finding happiness or comfort? Or, as Jesus asks, why do we worry all the time?

Of course we labour, in part, to provide for ourselves and our loved ones. Jesus may speak eloquently about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field but our lived experience tells us that we have to do more than simply trust the what we need will be provided.  And indeed Paul`s letter to the Thessalonians seems to speak against such  an approach.

And we labour at things we love, things we find are important. Remember that not all of our labour is paid, that not all of our labour is work/career. Parenting is labour, serving on community boards is labour, taking time for self (reading, walking -- whatever one does for refreshment) is also labour. It is of course hoped that some of this labour brings re-creation, that some of our labour is re-energizing as well as draining.

But the reality experienced by so many is that labour is labour is tiring. So many of us find ourselves exhausted by the labour we do for sustenance and by the labours of love. Why? Are we in fact going for the things that do not satisfy?
 

The words of Isaiah tell us of people who have lost their way. They talk of people who have lost (or abandoned) the connection with God. Their choices take them away from the promise and into the land of dry water and unfulfilling purchases. But they also point us to the cure.

The cure is to find the balance of our labour. The cure is to remember that our labour isn't meant as busy work, but that it is to bring us what we need. The cure is to remember that God is part of the labour, that unless we let God work in us (which is hard when we are constantly ont he treadmill of busyness and worry) we will not find that which we truly need. The cure is to trust that God will help us get what we truly need (if not everything we want) When we do that then we too can go forth with joy and celebration -- dancing trees and all.

But I am still dubious about living like birds and flowers. That level of trust seems a little bit beyond my capability.
--Gord

Looking Forward to AUgust 18, 2013 -- 13th After Pentecost, Proper 15C

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 5:1-7
• Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19

The Sermon title is Renewing the Vineyard 

Early Thoughts: What shape is your garden in? 

The image of the vineyard as a metaphor for the land of God is fairly common.  And of course the Scripture story both begins and ends in a garden.  Which makes us wonder who is caring for the vineyard?  ANd if the vineyard starts to fail how do we renew it?

What shape is the vineyard in?

As the church has developed over the centuries there has been a misguided understanding that the church is the vineyard (it isn't, it is a part of the vineyard--the vineyard is the Kingdom of God, or in this passage it is the kingdom of Judah).  Some churches have even called themselves Vineyard churches.  ANd while the church is not the whole vineyard, it is a part.  And we each have a responsibility to tend that part of the vineyard where we dwell.
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So what shape is our part of the vineyard in?

And more to the point, if we sense the vineyard is falling into a state of disarray, how do we renew it?

Isaiah suggests that the vineyard falls into disarray when the caretakers don't follow the instructions, when they go their own way, when things are allowed to go wild.  So to renew the vineyard we have to stop and listen.  We have to pull ourselves back to the path.  ANd if we can't renew it maybe it will go back to the wilder part of the greater garden.

We renew the vineyard by trusting in the Gardener.  We bring life back by listening to the Voice of the One who has a vision.  It may be a different vineyard than what was there before.  It may be wilder, less controlled.  The protective fence may be gone, and that may be a good thing.  We need to catch the vision, so that life will come back to the vineyard.

How can we tend the part of the vineyard where we live????
How will we????
--Gord

Looking Forward to August 11 (using a reading from the Lectionary for August 25)

The Scripture Reading for this Sunday is Hebrews 11:29-12:2

 The Sermon title is Faith That Endures

Early Thoughts:  What is faith?  What worth is faith?  Can we run the race and persevere?

And where does the cloud (or crowd) of witnesses come from?  Where do they fit in to our life now?

We are inheritors from those who have gone before us.  They are the cloud of witnesses.  They are the ones who have laid the road.  It is up to us to do the same for those who will come after us.

Faith is commonly equated (when used in a religious sense) with believing.  BUt it is far more than that.  Faith is one of the words Marcus Borg talks about in his book Speaking Christian.  In that volume Borg challenges the reader to recover earlier understandings of a variety of words and concepts.  Faith comes from the same Latin root as Fiduciary, being faithful is a matter of love and trust and commitment, not about believing (Borg also suggests that modern Christians use the word believe wrongly by the way).

So what is this faith that the writer of Hebrews is talking about?  Is it believing in a set of doctrines/statements/ideas or is it trusting in God, relying on God, floating in God as in a deep pool of water?  I suggest the passage only makes sense if it is the latter.  Trusting in God, floating in God (in whom, according to the book of Acts, we live and move and have our being) has empowered people to change the world despite hardships big and small.   Do we have the faith and trust to run the race that is before us and persevere?

We run our race in the presence of the great cloud of witnesses.  Near the end of Deathly Hallows, when Harry goes out to face death at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named he uses the fabled Resurrection Stone--a stone that can bring the dead back to life.  And so he marches off to his death with the support and comfort of those he loves who have died.  Yes, as he approaches the Death Eater camp he drops the stone and so the figures of those he loves disappear but Harry knows that he is not alone.  This is the great cloud of witnesses.  Those who have gone before us, with their own successes and failures, those who have run their race and continue to support the rest of us in the running.

The secret to faith that endure, to living faithfully within the cloud of witnesses is in remembering that we are supported by the cloud but not directed by it.  We are inheritors of those who have gone before, but not imprisoned by them.  If we are to live as faithful people we have to trust in the God who may call us in a whole new direction.  I read a quote on Facebook this week:

There are those of us who prefer a dead Christ in his place to a living one outside of our control.

There is truth in that.  The church is guilty of wanting to confine or contain God: Creator Christ and Spirit all 3.  But being faithful means trusting in the Living God, the Risen Christ, who shatters all boxes and preconceptions.  Can we embrace that God and run the race and persevere?

Only with faith and trust.  Add some dust and we can fly.

Shall we fly together?
--Gord

Looking FOrward to July 14, 2013--8th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 10C

The Scripture Reading this week is Luke 10:25-37.

The Sermon title is What Stops Us??? 

Early Thoughts: The Good Samaritan.  It may well be one of the best known stories in Scripture, a story that those of us who grew up in the church have heard many many times over the years.  And a story with so so many possible sermons in it.

One could preach on the commandment to love your neighbour, about how love is a verb and not an emotion.  Or one could preach on the whole "who is my neighbour" piece, the call to think beyond the box (arguably this is one of the most common directions to go with the parable).  One could read it from the point of view where the Samaritan is the hero, reaching out beyond the lines of culture and acceptance.  Or one could posit that Jesus' listeners may have felt more for the victim, waking up to find out that he has been helped by, of all things, a Samaritan.  Sometimes loving outside the lines means accepting help as well as giving it.  But I think there is another, more important question.

When we read the story, we sometimes tend to slide over the ones who didn't stop.   We might make some note about possible reasons why they didn't stop but they are rarely the focal point.  We choose to focus on the positive.  After all, we want to encourage or exhort each other to be like the Samaritan.  But let us be honest.   We don't do that, at least not all of the time.  So what stops us????

I am quite sure that if you did a poll of the general population you would find that the majority of folks think that helping someone in need is the better choice.  I even suggest that this would be true regardless of religious affiliation (or lack thereof).  But I am equally sure that the majority of people are often reticent about offering that help.  What stops us???

It is somewhat fashionable in theological circles to claim that it is selfishness and self-centredness pure and simple.  WE don't help because we don't believe it is in our best interests.  There may be times when that is the case.  But I have a higher opinion of people than that.

One study done a number of years ago suggested that we are too busy, in too much of a hurry (or at least we believe that we are) to stop and help.  Here is a description of that study (taken from this site, emphasis added):

In the book you give a wonderful example of the power of context: the experiment done on the seminarians.
Oh, yes. There was a study done at a seminary in the 1970s, in which seminarians were told to prepare a religious paper that they then were supposed to deliver as a speech in a conference hall in a nearby building. The architects of the experiment made sure that as the seminarians were walking to the conference hall they would pass a man writhing on the ground in pain. The question was, Who would stop and help? The experiment was set up with three variables. First, all of the seminarians were given a questionnaire asking them why they had gone into the ministry. Was it to help people? Was it for spiritual and intellectual stimulation? Second, some seminarians were told to prepare their paper on the story of the Good Samaritan, and to make it the subject of their speech. Finally, some of the seminarians were told that they had to hurry, that they only had a very limited amount of time before they had to give their speech; others were told that they had a lot of time. The question was, Which variable would be most important in determining who would stop to help the man writhing on the ground?
The seminarians' stated reasons for being in the ministry didn't seem to have much impact on their behavior as they passed the man writhing on the ground. Whether they had just studied the story of the Good Samaritan had no impact. The only thing that really seemed to matter was whether the seminarians were in a hurry: those who were didn't stop. To me that's just a wonderful example of how important our immediate context is in determining our behavior. I'm sure these seminarians were all very kind, thoughtful, generous people, but the point of the story is that there are certain contextual conditions in which all of those intrinsic personality traits can be thwarted. To me, there's a powerful lesson there, which can be applied to the control of problems like crime -- namely, that there are conditions that can allow people to express their better side. Maybe what has happened in a lot of our inner cities is the equivalent of the seminarians' having been told to hurry: situations have been created that cause people to act like jerks.

When we are busy or in a hurry we are less likely to offer help.  I suspect many of us can feel the truth of those words in our own experience.  This is part of the answer to my question.

But I think probably the biggest reason why we don't stop is that we have been convinced that it is not safe to do so.  There are urban legends about the use of an injured child as bait for a mugging/sexual assault/murder plot.  There are plentiful stories about people who stop to offer assistance and then it goes bad.  Every day on Facebook I read people in Grande Prairie saying they would never offer help, or open their door to an unknown person at the door, because they are convinced the person is trying to do them harm.  This is the real problem.  Not that we are uncaring, but that we are afraid.

Why don't we stop?  Why do stories of Good Samaritans still appear to be the exceptions rather than the rule?  We need more than encouraging each other to do what, in our heart of hearts, we know is the better choice.  We have to seriously talk about the things that keep us from helping.  We have to address the twin taskmasters of busy-ness and fear.  Then maybe more people will stop.  And that can only make us a better society as a result.
--Gord

Looking Forward to July 7, 2013 -- 7th After Pentecost, Proper 9C

(Although for those who are picky one of the Amos passages comes from Proper 10C and the others are thematically related but not in the Lectionary for this summer)

The Scripture Readings for this Sunday are:

• Amos 2:6-8; 5:21-24; 7:7-9; 8:4-7
• Psalm 82 (VU p.799)

The Sermon title is Evaluation Time ... 

Early Thoughts: Prophets (both modern and ancient) are clear.  There will be a call to accountability, there will be a time of reckoning.  And sometimes, like Amos, they really don't pull their punches.

What shall we do with these passages?  They are not always comfortable to read are they?

What shall we do with these passages so that we don't get lumped into the same category as Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson?  I mean really there is little philosophical difference between announcing the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem for their moral/ethical failings and decreeing that the Haitian earthquake or hurricane Katrina or the Boston marathon bombings are a result of the moral/ethical failings of the present.

What shall we do with the call to accountability?  I assume we still think such a call is worthwhile.   I assume we still think that there is a time when we need to take stock of how well we live up to the mark, how "plumb" we are.

I think that the first part of that process is to ask what the measuring standards will be.  Amos gives us some guidelines.  What is the important stuff?

Then we have to seriously ask ourselves how well we meet those standards.  How well have we kept track of what is truly important? 

And then we remind ourselves that we wait and work for the time when we let "justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream".
--Gord

Looking Forward to June 30, 2013 -- 6th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 8C

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Galatians 5:13-26 
• Matthew 7:12-20

The Sermon title is What Fruit Are You?

Early Thoughts: How do we judge something? By appearance or by substance?  How do we judge ourselves and each other?  By our words or our deeds?  By our appearance or our substance? By our beliefs or our actions?

The passages we read this week make it clear that substance, actions and deeds count more than appearance, words (although to be fair words can be counted as deeds or actions), or beliefs.  And this is hardly news to most of us.  Remember the old adage about not judging a book by its cover?

Now of course we all tend to judge books by their cover.  For me the thing that will make me take a second look at a book is usually the title, possibly along with the author's name and the cover art.  And in the end we tend to do the same with people.  Just watch how people react to a picture shown of a "person of interest" in a crime story.  If the picture makes them look slovenly or dis-sheveled people jump to the conclusion that they are somehow in the wrong.  (I would point out that many of us have pictures of ourselves where we may look like less than prime citizens)

In the same way people make assumptions about how we will react to issues based on our membership is certain groups.  Or because of our position in society.  Or because of our age/skin tone/gender/sexual orientation....

THe passages this week tell us to look beyond all these things.  Yes where we came from, who we hang around with, our place in society are important.  Yes they help shape who we are.  But they do not necessarily define us.  What should define us (for both our self-definition and how other define us) is the fruit that we bear.

So what fruit do you bear?
--Gord

Looking Forward to June 23, 2013 -- 5th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 7C

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 1 Kings 19:1-13
• Matthew 14: 23,24a
• Mark 1:35-37

The Meditation Title is The Sound of Silence 

Early Thoughts: To misquote Simon and Garfunkel: "Hello silence my old friend...."  But is that really how we approach silence?

How much silence do you find in your life? How much silence to you invite into your life?

Silence is more or less an urban legend for most of us these days.  Many of us always have the radio, or a CD, or the television on to provide background noise to our lives.  And then there is all that other background noise that we just can't escape.  But what would be the benefit of more silence?

Would more silence be oppressive or freeing?  Would we welcome it or fear it? (or possibly both)

It is my belief that we need more silence, we need more times to sit and listen and reflect.  All too often the constant background noise contributes to my busy-ness, it reduces my ability or inclination to sit and reflect and ponder.

Scripture (which was written in a time when silence may have been easier to find) is clear that silent times are a good thing.  Silence times are part of how Jesus re-energizes himself.  Silence times are sometimes how we become aware of God's presence.

I encourage us to find silence times.

Now of course there would be something highly ironic about a service that talked about silence but did not include it.  (Let us be honest and admit that most United Church, most Protestant churches for that matter, have very little silence in our worship -- we seek to fill almost every minute with words of some sort)  So this week we will have a time of silent meditation interspersed with the Lord's Prayer.
--Gord

Looking Forward to June 16, 2013 -- 4th Sunday After Pentecost Proper 6C

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 32 (VU p.759)
• Galatians 2:15-21
• Luke 7:36-8:3

The Sermon title is Forgiveness, Justification, Grace 

Early Thoughts: For many people these words lie at the very heart of Christian theology.  And of course there are several sermons that can be spun out of each of those words.

One of the meta-stories of Scripture is the story of the God who forgives us when we miss the mark.  Some people will try to claim that this is THE story of Scripture.  I disagree.  There are other meta-stories about being released from bondage, about being made well/whole, about being in exile and coming home.  These are all images on par with forgiveness when it comes to talking about renewing our relationship with God, with being the people God would want us to be.  But certainly the question of forgiveness is a key point in Scripture.

God is one who forgives.  In both Jewish and Christian Scriptures God is one who forgives.  Jesus proclaims that fact in his ministry.  Paul proclaims that fact in his ministry.  The writer of Psalm 32 proclaims and celebrates that in his poem/song.

God forgives not because of anything we do.  God is not bought off by good or merciful acts.  God does not forgive because of what we believe.  Nor, in my belief structure though others will call what I am about to say heretical, does God forgive because the death of Jesus on the cross paid a blood price on our behalf.  God forgives because God is gracious.  God forgives through the Grace of God.

In his book Free of Charge (see a review I wrote of this book here) Miroslav Volf describes forgiveness as acknowledging that a wrong has been done but then setting it aside without punishment.  This is an act of grace.  The challenge for us as people of faith is that we are called to forgive as God forgives.  God's grace is abundant enough.  Is ours?
--Gord

Looking Forward to June 9, 2013 -- 3rd Sunday After Pentecost

The Scripture Reading this week is Psalm 146 (VU p.868)

The Sermon title is Whom Shall We Trust??? 

Early Thoughts: Trust.  Some of us would claim that trust is the foundation of human society.  Imagine life without the ability to trust (admittedly some do not have to imagine this).

The Scripture story is clear in many places that even when other humans prove less than trustworthy we can/should trust in God.  Now I am the first to admit that there are times in the Scripture story where trusting in God seems a dubious activity.  I will also admit that there are times in the life of faith where I forget to trust, where I can't "let go and let God".  But in the end we need to trust.

We need to trust others, we need to trust ourselves, we need to trust God.

The Psalmist gives us reasons to trust God.  Sometimes life gives us reason to be wary.  How do we reconcile the two?

Trust.  An easy word to say.  Pretty easy to spell.  A good and needed thing to do.  But sometimes very difficult.
--Gord

Looking Forward to June 2, 2013--2nd Sunday After Pentecost

This Sunday we will Celebrate the Sacrament of Communion.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 96 (VU p.814)
• Isaiah 42:9-13
• Psalm 98 (VU p.816)
• Colossians 3:16

The Sermon Title is Sing! Sing a Song!

Early Thoughts: Why do we sing?

If you ask many people what their favourite part of church services are they are likely to say "the music". People are far more likely to remember a hymn they really like (or really dislike) than a favourite sermon (despite what ministers might like to believe).

We sing in church because people are inherently musical, all cultures have music. We sing in church because Scripture encourages, nay commands, us to sing. We sing our joys and we sing our laments. We sing our way through the faith story -- in fact more people learn the Christmas story through carols than through reading the Scriptural text. We sing to remind us of God active in our lives, to remind us of God's hopes for the world, to remind us of our obligation to respond to God's call. For many of us music is simply part of our faith life.

Where the question gets clouded is when we ask what do we sing. Do we only sing the old favourites or preference the new songs? How do we choose what is "singable"? Well we sing both old an new (remembering that every old favourite was once a new piece. We look at the words and at the music. Sometimes we let go of an old favourite because the words don't have meaning for us anymore. Sometimes we can change the words a little bit and still sing it. Sometimes new words can be sung to familiar tunes. And of course sometimes we need to stretch ourselves a bit and learn music that is different.
--Gord

Looking Forward to May 26, 2013 -- 1st After Pentecost

This week we will mark the end of the Sunday School year.  And as part of that there is a lunch (or a "wiener boil" if you remember the announcement in the bulletin) following the service to which all are welcome.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• John 14:15-17, 25-27
• John 20:19-23
• Matthew 28:16-20

The Sermon title is Sent Out in Jesus' Name

 Early Thoughts: Easter has happened, Pentecost has come, now what?

The Gospels are fairly clear about the answer to that question.  You go out into the world.  What you do out there has been the subject of a great deal of theological debate and controversy over the centuries.  But you simply have to go out into the world and live as though Resurrection means something, as though the Spirit blowing through your lungs makes a difference.

We go out into the world to baptize.  We go out into the world to share truth (or is that Truth?).  We go out into the world to be people of peace.

Last week we heard the story of Pentecost as the writer of Luke-Acts tells it.  This week we hear the way Matthew and John cover some of the same territory.  Maybe not quite as spectacular as Acts tells it.  But the point is the same.  We are sent out in Jesus' name.  Our hands are ready now.  To make the World a place in which the kingdom comes.

The real question is how will we do that?
--Gord

Looking Forward to May 19, 2013 -- Pentecost Sunday

This Sunday we will Celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Genesis 11:1-9
• Acts 2:1-21

The Sermon Title is Babel Babble Baffled 

Early Thoughts: Near the beginning of our faith story people are separated, driven apart by their different languages.  Near the end of the Scripture story those self same divisions are broken down as people lose themselves in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is often called the "birthday of the church".  As the writer of Luke-Acts tells the story it is only at Pentecost that the early followers of Jesus gained the confidence/courage/certainty that they needed to move out from amongst themselves and build a broader community.  Without Easter there would be no faith community.  Without Pentecost it may never have become more than a small local movement.  Such is the power of the Spirit to move within and through people.

AS people of faith we are called to allow the Spirit to feel our bodies, we are called to let the Spirit blow us where it will (which may or may not be the direction we intended to go).  This can be a threatening challenge.  But Pentecost reminds us that what seems impossible is in fact possible.

The tower of Babel story is about people being divided.  Life in the Spirit is about people being united (remembering of course that unity is not uniformity -- the people in Jerusalem that day each heard their own language, they did not all hear the same language).  How is the Spirit at work in our communities?  What walls of division are being broken down?
--Gord

Looking Forward to May 12, 2013 -- 7th Sunday of Easter

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Revelation 22:12-21
• John 17:20-26

The Sermon title is: Ut Omnes Unum Sint, Akwe Nia’Tetewá:neren

Early Thoughts:  What do those words mean?  The Latin is "That All May be One".  The Mohawk is "All My Relations".  They are included on the crest of the United Church of Canada and come from the Gospel reading for this week.  Jesus prayer for his followers, prayed just before his arrest, trial, and execution, is that:

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.(verses 22-23)

Back in time, this sentiment was included on the crest because there was a dream that the events of 1925 were a precursor to a series of unions that would created one united Protestant church in Canada.  A wonderful dream.  Not all that likely to become a reality...in fact sometimes it seems that rather than May Be One we should be saying Maybe One?...

So what do those words mean for us today?  When the Mohawk was added to the crest last year (Mohawk was chosen because the Mohawk were the nation that the first Methodist missionaries worked with) it was noted that although the English translation was different, the 'sense' of "All My Relations" was the same as the 'sense' of "That All May Be One".  So how do we tie that 'sense' to our lives as people of faith?

As usual with such things, I am sure there is more than one "right" answer.  But at the same time the answers are related.  It is my firm belief that the "right" answers all have to do (as does so much of living as a person of Christian faith) with how we treat each other.  They have to do with respect, with caring, with seeing them not as the other but as one of us, with the importance of focusing on what links us instead of what keeps us apart.  How does it change our attitudes and behaviour to take these phrases to heart?  How does it effect the choices we make towards the people who sleep on our doorsteps, the ones who cut us off in traffic, the ones who teach our children, the ones we elect to government?

How do we live lives that show how we care for "all our relations"?  Do we share Jesus'' prayer that "all may be one"?
--Gord

Looking Forward to May 5, 2013 -- 6th Sunday of Easter

The Scripture Reading this week is Luke 24:13-36

The Sermon title is God Revealed in Bread Broken  

Early Thoughts: The Risen Christ is sometimes hard to recognize. It is sometime hard to see that God is walking along side us.

One of the markers of the appearance stories is that people never seem to know who they are talking to.  It isn't until something happens that suddenly people realize what is happening.  This story is no different.

Strangers on the road.  Chatting with a fellow traveler.  And then at the end of the day God is revealed.   One part of me thinks back to the old show Touched by an Angel.  As the bread was broken and Christ revealed did he start to glow like a cheap lighting effect?

More seriously though....
It is my belief that Easter was not a one-time event.  I think that Easter was and is an on-going event.  Easter is that moment where we realize that Christ is among us, not as a memory but as an active "thing" (person, presence, life-force).  And I think this realization comes to people in a variety of ways.

For the early faith community it appears that one way was through the shared meal.  In Paul's letter to the Corinthian church it appears that the shared meal was an actual meal, not just the symbolic bread and cup that it has become in our worship services.  Something in that meal made the presence of Christ real.  Was it the memory of the Last Supper?  Plausibly that was part of it.  Was it the memory of Jesus' practice of being willing to eat with anybody?  Plausibly.  But for whatever reason the shared meal was and is one of the ways the church has celebrated the presence of the Risen Christ.

And notice what happens after Christ is revealed to the travelers.  They look back over the day and ask "how could we not know?".    Is that our reaction to realizing God has been present and we were clueless?   What is it that reveals God in our midst?   What do we do after that?
--Gord

Looking Forward to April 21, 2013 -- 4th SUnday of Easter, Earth Day Celebration

This Sunday is the day before Earth Day.  And so we will use our worship to mark that occasion.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 104:1-23
• Genesis 1:26-31

The Sermon title is Standing on Holy Ground?

Early Thoughts: Scripture is clear that, as the song Take Off Your Shoes says

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
from the waters beneath to the heavens above
so take take take off your shoes
you're standing on my holy ground

 The question I have is....do we actually believe that to be true?  How do we show that we believe that to be true?

How are we called to live on the earth?  Where do we find the balance points between all the competing needs on the globe?

This Sunday I invite you to consider those questions.   I invite us to consider how caring for the environment is not only sound financial and social policy but is also sound theology.  And yes that means making choices.  And yes, living in a country that has traditionally been "hewers of wood and drawers of water", a nation whose wealth has traditionally come form rocks and trees and fossil fuels, may well throw a curve into those thoughts.  In the end it is about balance.  So how do we find that balance.

There is a story I was going to use for Children's Time but it is a bit long for that.  So I will use it as a part of the sermon.  Come and hear about After the Beginning (the author, Carolyn Pogue, is the partner of former UCCan Moderator the Very Rev. Bill Phipps). 
--Gord