Looking Ahead to November 16, 2025

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The Scripture Readings this week are:

• James 2:12-17
• Luke 6:27-37

The Sermon title is Upside Down Power

Early Thoughts: Do you remember last January and Bishop Budde? She spoke truth to power. She lifted up a different understanding of how we could live together. She advocated for mercy and grace. Some thought it was inappropriate to bring 'politics' into a sermon (with the President and Vice-President sitting right there). Others thought it was the best time to speak the gospel hope for a renewed transformed world.

We all have power, to one extent or another. We all have power and authority in some sphere of life. Sometimes the sphere feels really small. Sometimes it is bigger than we imagine. The question for all of us -- those with great power and those with just a little bit -- is how do we use it.

There are those who say you use your power to get everything the way you want it. There are voices who will always say that those with the most power get what they want. And if we look at how the world works it appears that people with power have a tendency to use it to benefit themselves, their supporters, and their agenda. Governments pass legislation enshrining their policies in law. Influencers convince people to ignore decades of science or history (or sometimes just basic facts and logic) in favour of a particular idea or understanding. Those who resist or protest are seen as troublemakers or unrealistic dreamers.

Power can certainly be abused.

How are we called to use power as people of faith, as citizens of God's Reign?  What does power mean in a worldview where the last shall be first, the weak shall be strong, the least shall be the greatest?

I think there are a few key points. One is that we use power to lift up and build up not to keep down and put down. We use power to create community rather than to divide. Another is that we use power with grace and mercy at the forefront of our decision making. A third is that we use power in ways that stand with the vulnerable and weak against the strong and powerful. Finally (and possibly the most importantly)is that we use it for the betterment of others, not just our own agendas -- sometimes we use it in ways that appear to set us back in the interests of our neighbour.

Obviously there is some overlap in those points.  Life in faith ends to be a web of ideas.

Using power in the kingdom might look like going the extra mile. It might look like malicious compliance to point out the implicit injustice in a policy. Using power in God's Reign might look like caring for someone who can never reciprocate. Using power in a Christ-like way  might mean making a bold choice to put others first at cost to yourself. It might look like challenging those with more power to be more gracious, merciful, loving. It might mean being seen as divisive or 'too political'. Using power as a follower of Christ means doing things that help us see that God's Reign is breaking forth all over the place.

Using power as a person of faith most certainly does NOT mean violating people' rights. It does not mean using your platform to dehumanize people. It does not mean helping the winners win bigger while the losers fall farther behind. It does not mean retreating into some worldview where the Reign of God makes not impact on how the world actually works, of telling people "your reward will be great in the next life" while they suffer here and now.

Bishop Budde had power by virtue of the office to which she has been called. She had the chance to speak to those with a different sort and understanding of power. One showed faithful use of power, one has consistently shown a different use and understanding.  WHich way will we follow with our power?

To close this piece I share this screenshot I took sometime after Charlie Kirk was murdered. I think it too talks about power (and I encourage folk to search Benjamin Cremer on social media)...

MAy God help us to use power faithfully, lovingly, mercifully as we live into the "world God imagines" (as our hymn last Sunday put it)
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 9, 2025

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 119:33-40
• Romans 12:17-21
• Matthew 5:38-48

The Sermon title is Upside Down Vengeance

Early Thoughts: This Sunday is two days before Remembrance Day. How do we get to "Never Again" in a world that seems hardwired to repeat history. How do we get to Peace in a world so prone to violence?

By turning things upside down. By living into Jesus' upside down logic and commandments.

Jesus challenges our understanding of how to react in the face of mistreatment (real or imagined I would say). Much of the time the natural reaction is to want to strike back or at least to complain. Jesus seems to tell us to go further along the path of being mis treated.

Jesus challenges our understanding of how we respond to our enemies. Common sense says that you love your friends but have different feelings about your enemies. Jesus tells us to love them and to pray for them. [To be fair he does not say how to pray for them so there may be room for malicious compliance on that count.] Jesus points out that any fool can love their friends but the true calling is to love your enemies also.

Then there is Paul. Writing to Rome, Paul points out that payback is not the way of Christ. Years ago Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.". I have heard that for years without realizing how deeply rooted it is in Romans 12. Dr. King understood that to live into a new word meant changing our thinking. We move beyond payback and vengeance. We act lovingly instead. It is a hard calling. It is easier, and feels better, to at least dream of getting back at others. Though I do like the slightly twisted idea that by loving our enemies we "heap burning coals on their head". We overcome evil with good, maybe in part by shaming the other????

Psalm 119 is a very long piece of poetry -- 176 verses -- that talks about the glories of following the Law. In Jewish tradition the Law is often seen not as burden but as gift. In the same way that boundaries can help children grow healthily or "good fences make good neighbours" (as Robert Frost tells us) the Law, a set of rules about how we live together, helps keep us healthy. In a world where we lift up the importance of self and self-determination we might lose sight of this principle but we need boundaries to be healthy as individuals and as a society. In these verses we see the psalmist asking God for guidance and wisdom so we might stay inside the boundaries.

We will never get to true peace by putting down others, even if "they did it first". At no point in human history has the path of vengeance and pay back led to lasting peace. As it has been said, "eye for eye and tooth for tooth only leaves everyone blind and toothless".

Instead we lift up the upside down logic of the Reign of God. The path to peace is to love your enemy, to act lovingly toward them. The path to peace is to let God lead us in new ways. The path to peace is to stay between the lines -- even when the lines seem to lead in a strange direction.

May we continue to let God turn our worlds upside down.
--Gord

For the Advent Newsletter

Dream a dream, a hopeful dream...

Dream a time, this Christmas time...
Dream a peace, our planet’s peace...
Dream a gift, the Christmas Gift
that changes everything we see...
(Words from Dream a Dream by Shirley Erena Murray, #158 in More Voices)

We are entering the time of preparation and waiting we call Advent. Four weeks of lighting candles and preparing our hearts for the birth of a baby who will change the world. As we get ourselves ready for Emmanuel, God-With-Us to be born what dreams fill your heart, soul and mind this year? What does Christmas need to bring for the magic of The Word becoming flesh to re-energize your world as we move into 2026?

Dreams are important, they help us envision a world renewed and re-vitalized. Dreams remind us that there is another possible reality. In our faith stories dreams are often a way that God communicates with God’s people (it happens 4 times just in the first 2 chapters of Matthew!). What dreams has God placed on your soul this year?

This year as we gather on the four Sundays of Advent I invite us to be open to the power of dreams. The theme I have chosen for the season is The Christmas Dream:____. Each Sunday we will finish the phrase with one of our Advent themes: Awakened Hope, Transformative Peace, Blosoming Joy, and Embodied Love. Sometime between now and then I will figure out how we might finish the phrase for Christmas Eve itself. When you think of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love what dreams stir in your heart?

The weeks leading into Christmas can get very busy and hectic, but let’s take time to pause and listen. Let us dream together. Let us share our dreams with each other. May we be open to how God is speaking to our hearts and minds as we prepare for God to change the world by becoming one of us, to walk around among us. In 4 weeks a baby will be born. We will sing carols and remember shepherds and angels. Hope, peace, joy and love will break into our lives again. Life can be a dream. Dream along with me.
--Gord

For the Next Newsletter

It is October 28, 2025. My heart is heavy. My outrage is bubbling. To be honest I don’t know how to write about Gentleness today.

Between the draconian and undemocratic ending to the Alberta teachers strike, the prospect of millions of US citizens losing access to financial support for food through SNAP, the real possibility that ethnic cleansing will continue in Palestine, news of a category 5 hurricane set to ravage Jamaica, and whatever other troubling things might pass under my eyes today my heart is heavy.

How do we respond to all the {expletive deleted} that comes flying at us these days? How do we remain gentle and meek in the face of injustice and unfairness and suffering? Some days I think the better question is “should we remain gentle and meek?”...

In the end I think we should. I think we are called to respond passionately but gently. I think we are called to find a different path. We follow the one who told his followers to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek, to put away their sword. Jesus reminds us that there is the way the world usually works and there is the way the Reign of God works – and we are called to strive for the second one.

Which does not mean it will always be easy.

Maybe part of the problem lies in what we often think it means to be gentle. Maybe it is only me (though I guess I am not alone) but to be gentle carries with it the idea of letting others walk all over you. It suggests remaining calm and not getting worked up, not calling people out, not engaging in conflict. Certainly it seems idealistic and naive to suggest that we respond to the violence of the world with gentleness and expect to make a difference. In all of this I think I am wrong.

To be gentle does not mean we can’t be passionate or forceful or just accept things as ‘that’s just the way it is’. To be gentle is about how we are passionate and forceful about what we believe to be right. To be gentle means following the path of a Mahatma Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King. To be gentle is to model a different way of changing the world rather than letting the world change us.

We know that the world is not what it could (or should?) be. There are things that will make us rage. There are things that will make us weep. There are things that call for us to stand in the breach and protect the vulnerable in our midst. Do all those things. Be passionate about what it means to love. Be forceful about how we should live. But also be gentle. Be loving. Don’t let the violence of the world lead you to counter with violence. May God help us to live lives filled with all the flavours of the fruit of the Spirit.
Gord

Looking Ahead to November 2, 2025

This is a first of the month Sunday so we will be celebrating Communion this week. If you are joining us via YouTube you are encouraged to have some bread and juice available so we can all eat and drink together.

Also the first Sunday of the month is a day when we at St. Paul's intentionally remember our Local Outreach Fund with designated gifts to support our neighbours.

With the beginning of November we start to prepare for the end of the Liturgical Year when we mark the Reign of Christ Sunday (Nov 23 this year). A month from now we will be into Advent and starting to prepare for Christmas. AS we lead into the Reign of Christ this year I encourage us to think of how Christ tends to turn our expectations and assumptions about the world upside down.

The Scripture Reading this week is Luke 6:20-26

The Sermon title is Upside Down Blessings

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to be blessed? Is Jesus seriously saying that the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated/reviled/excluded/defamed are the blessed ones? 

Last week I came upon a video which included a clip of Jordan Peterson responding to the version of the Beatitudes that we find in Matthew, a parallel passage to what we have here in Luke. In Matthew is where we find the familiar "Blessed are the meek" and "Blessed are the peacemakers" and Dr. Peterson was responding (in the clip which was presumably from a longer piece) to the idea that the meek and humble are blessed. Surely, he said, Jesus meant something else by meek -- his suggestion was those who had great power and strength but chose not to use it were the truly meek. The clip was spliced with a Biblical scholar who said that Peterson was clearly trying to renegotiate with what the text actually said to make it more palatable. In short, to make it fit with Peterson's assumptions about how the world should work.

But Jesus challenges our assumptions on a regular basis. Jesus is the one who tells us that the last shall be first and the our calling is to be servant-leaders. Jesus proclaims a kingdom that upends the way the world works, a kingdom where power is assigned differently, a kingdom which gives preference to those on the margins instead of those at the center.

In our world of late-stage capitalism we would think that Jesus has it all wrong in this combination of blessings and woes. Surely it is the rich, the well-fed, the praised who are truly blessed. Right?

What if we are wrong about the signs of being blessed? What if we are called to see the world with our head on the ground and our feet in the air? 

WHat does it really mean to be blessed?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 19, 2025

The Scripture readings this week are:

• Psalm 133 Acts 2:42-47
• Hebrews 10:24-25
• Romans 12:15-18

The Sermon title is A Thankful Community

Early Thoughts: In the end we are a communal species. Certainly  we are a communal faith. Really human life, Christian life is about how we function in community.

I may not always have believed this. There may well have been a time when, speaking out of having been consistently hurt by a specific community, I thought that the Simon and Garfunkel song I Am a Rock sounded like a good motto. Or at least that is what I told myself at the time.  It felt safer to be alone behind walls.  (On reflection I am not sure I had myself totally convinced even then.)

I still understand the impulse. Bit in the end we are a communal species and Christianity is a communal faith.

Over and over again when you ask people why they go to church some part of the answer is "the community". Together we dance and celebrate. Together we weep and lament. Together we complain about how the world is and dream about what the world could be. It may be a cliche but together we are more than the sum of our individual parts.

Our Scripture readings this week talk about the blessings of community. They also talk about the importance of being in community. They talk about the importance of  supporting each other in community.

5 years ago we were pushed to re-think how we are as a community.  How could we continue to be a community when we didn't gather in one place? We learned how to be community not only in-person but on Zoom as well. 5 years later we are still a different type of community.  Some of us gather together in a room on Sunday morning, others join us online either in real time or later that day.  We have people who have joined us for Sunday worship from other towns, even other provinces. We are a community that expands well beyond the walls of our building or even the boundaries of the city. AS time goes by the community grows and reshapes, we find new things that re important about how we are community together. Still we see the importance of community.

This week, in the middle of Thanktober, I ask you all a couple of question. Why are you thankful for the communities of which you are a part? How do our various communities make a difference in the world (both local and global)? What difference does it make to be in community --both when it is easy and when it is hard, when it feels safe and when we feel really vulnerable?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 12, 2025 -- Thanksgiving Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 100
• Deuteronomy 26:1-11

The Sermon title is Thankful Remembering, Thankful Giving

Early Thoughts: DO you pause to remember? Do you pause to recall what God has done? What happens when you do that?

This passage from Deuteronomy describes a ritual of presenting a thank-offering. It describes it as one of the first things you do at harvest (I wonder if first fruits means every year or just the first harvest in this context?) You take a portion and offer it to God. As you do that you name those things that God has done for you and for the people and out of thankfulness you give to God as you celebrate the abundance of the land.

So what do we do with this story?  We have not just entered the Promised Land. Many of us do not have fields to harvest and bring in the first fruits. Few of us have a story of how our recent ancestors were delivered from an oppressive empire (at least not as specifically as the Exodus story). The story can't be talking about how we are to act -- can it?

It is my contention that we read these ancient stories because even if our context and lives are very different from the culture that passed them on to us they do have something to teach us about how we are called to live.

In this case the story has much to tell us.  There are three parts to the ritual that is described: offering, remembering/recalling/retelling, and celebrating.

How do we incorporate all three into our lives?

It is my firm belief that the act of remembering with thankfulness how we have benefited for the gifts we have been given changes our hearts and minds. When we intentionally pause to name those gifts, to retell the story, to celebrate the abundance we are more open to do the offering. A thankful heart is most often a generous heart.

AS we move into Thanksgiving weekend this year I encourage us all to remember. As we remember I encourage us to tell stories, talk about the gifts we have received. Then celebrate them. Be glad for the gifts, even sing  if you are so minded. Then open yourself to the next step -- sharing, making an offering. I want us to ask ourselves what 'first fruits' we might have to lay down before God, not just on Thanksgiving or in some sort of ritual but on a day-to-day basis. As I said above, we will be more open to identifying what we can share if our hearts are filled with a sense of abundance and a feeling of thankfulness.

When we forget to remember, when we don't tell ourselves the stories of gifts received we can more easily fall prey to the ongoing claxon telling us there is not enough. We miss the abundance. Worry or jealousy take the place of gratitude. In that place there is little celebrating, little impulse to be generous.

THe choice, in the end, is ours. What will we choose to remember? What will we choose to see? Will we be generous and thankful?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 5, 2025 --Worldwide Communion Sunday

As this is the first Sunday of the month it is our monthly day to highlight our Local Outreach Fund, the designated gifts which allow us to support our neighbours here in Grande Prairie.

Also as it is the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion this week.

Oh and it is the beginning of Thanktober, so our Tree of Thanks will be up and ready for folk to hang some leaves.

For Worldwide Communion Sunday this year we will be reading John 6:5-14, 35, 48-51 which is from the "Bread of Life Discourse".

The Sermon title is Daily Bread, Daily Thanks.

Early Thoughts: It is one of the most basic of foods. Ground grain, water, a little salt, usually some sort of leavening agent.... bread.

Bread has long been a staple food.  It is energy dense. When made with whole grains it provides a variety of nutrients. It is fairly easy to make.  Here is a list of links about bread as a staple food. Many communities would have had large bread ovens either for communal use or the earliest commercial bakeries.  Bread is a big deal!

In the sixth chapter of John's Gospel we hear a lot about bread. First we have the feeding of thousands with five loaves and two fish --staples that turn a hungry crowd into a giant picnic, with leftovers to boot. Then Jesus spends almost 40 verses talking about the bread of heaven. Twice in this discourse Jesus describes himself as the Bread of Life, and then also the living bread that comes from heaven.

Jesus, in this passage, links himself with a daily staple, a basic part of life. Jesus is part of maintaining life, and that in abundance.

Sometimes I think we might take bread for granted. It is a danger for those of us who seldom have to worry about it being there. At most when we think about bread it is more "what kind of bread do I prefer?" (white, whole wheat, sourdough, naan...). But what does it mean when we pray "Give us this day our daily bread"? What does it mean to stop and give thanks for that daily bread?

AS we enter into October, the month when we will celebrate Thanksgiving, I invite us all to reflect on this common staple food.  Why are we thankful for bread? I also invite us to consider what it means to give thanks daily, to look for things that make us thankful on a daily basis. How might that feed our souls?

AS we gather at the table of faith I invite us to consider what it means to hold up a loaf and say "the body of Christ, broken for you. What does it mean to consider Jesus as the bread of life, broken and shared? How are we fed at the table, how are we fed by Jesus' presence in our lives?

--Gord

Looking Ahead to September 28, 2025 -- Truth and Reconciliation Sunday

AS this is the Sunday before Orange Shirt Day (September 30th) we encourage everyone to wear an Orange Shirt to worship.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 24:1-2
• Jeremiah 32:6-15

The Sermon title is This Land is...Whose?

Early Thoughts: Who owns the land? Who benefits from the land? Who is denied benefits from the land?

 This  passage from Jeremiah comes just before Jerusalem is about to fall. As an act of faith and trust in the future Jeremiah is told to buy  a piece of land.  Realistically the timing makes no sense -- why buy land just before everything gets destroyed, what use is a title deed when the whole land is now in the hands of an invader? But the land is bought to remind the people that in the end the land will be theirs again. Some might see it as a claim that when push comes to shove the land will always belong to the people of Israel/Judah.

Several centuries later we can see that this claim of perpetual ownership can lead to a very difficult reality....

For most of human history land has been the basis of wealth and well-being. Only when we have control over the land can we have control over the economy, control over the people, control over our lives. The people who control the land can control how it is used, who gets to live where, and (especially in the last century in Alberta) who profits from the resources that lie under the surface.

But there is another claim in Scripture. Even in the same tradition that talks about a Promised Land and a Chosen People there is another perspective.  There is a perspective that says the earth is God's. If the earth (and all that is in it) is God's then maybe we should change how we talk about ownership and rights to use and rights to make decisions. Maybe.

This Sunday is 2 days before Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. There are lots of thins we could talk about when it comes to seeking truth about our history. There are lots of things that might go into finding reconciliation. (Personally I think we have much to learn from the Jewish teaching on repentance as laid out in this book by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg as we do that work.) The question of the land, and the treaties that were made to help us share (or help colonizers steal depending on one's point of view) the land is a big one.

Each week in worship we have a Land/Treaty Acknowledgement, Such things are becoming increasingly common (or perhaps even an expectation) at many/most public events in Canada by now. Which is a bit surprising because it really wasn't that long ago that they were a "do we really need to do that?" thing in many minds. Why do we do that?  How does it help us along the road to truth and reconciliation, to building right-relations? Or does it even do that, is it more performative, a meaningless gesture when not backed up by action?

Whose land is this anyway? Does it belong to us, to our ancestors, to our descendants (7 generations on perhaps?) or does it properly belong to God/Creator/Great Spirit?

I have sat with people who are deeply troubled by issues of land and treaty. Sometimes they have been troubled because of a feeling that the colonial negotiators negotiated in bad faith, that it really was a land grab. Sometimes they are troubled because they feel that the Indigenous folk are asking too much or are given too much (one I can remember clearly was about the issue of mineral rights).

I, like many of you reading, have read many stories about land claims and treaty discussions. Sometimes about lands they were not actually released through treaties. Sometimes about reservation lands that were later found to be valuable and so acquired (not always fairly) from the First Nation that had them. Sometimes about who gets to profit/benefit from the minerals (thinking most recently of mining in Northern Ontario) the land holds. Sometimes about pipelines crossing those lands. So many stories, so much heated discussion. Some of them are big stories like the Oka crisis almost 35 years ago or the long saga of the Lubicon Cree here in Alberta. Some of them hardly make the news.

Whose land is this anyway? Who has the 'best' claim on it and its riches?.  Jeremiah makes us think it can be bought and that gives the best claim. Some stories of the treaty making process name that the Indigenous negotiator knew the land was not theirs to give away. Psalm 24 says that whatever rules or agreements we might make in the end all of it belongs to God. Whose is it? Who gets to control it?

As we live seeking reconciliation, as we seek a renewal of the relationships between those who were here, those who came after and those who will come in the future we need to look hard at how we share the land. Control of the land is power and wealth. I am not at all convinced the current model is working. What might be a new one?
--Gord

Looking Forward to September 21, 2025 -- Creation 3

The Scripture Reading this week is Psalm 104:10-28

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The Sermon title is God's Great Web

Early Thoughts: Touch one strand and another vibrates. Tear open one section and the whole structure is weakened. 

This is not only true about the spider web, it is true of a much bigger web, a web of which we are all a part. In the masterful weaving of God's creation we are all attached, all interconnected, What we do impacts every thing else. We forget these links at our own peril.

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As I was typing that paragraph I reminded myself of something called the Butterfly effect. In Chaos theory the Butterfly effect reminds us that seemingly minor things can have massive impacts. The most well known formulation is to suggest that a butterfly flapping its wings in one area can spawn a tornado hundreds or thousands of miles away. That might seem a little outlandish but the fact remains that given the interconnectedness of life, the universe, and everything, we can not be sure what ripples our actions might have. If we take seriously our call to live with respect in creation then we have to think about all the impacts our choices might have.

It is possible to read the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 and decide that creation is there to serve humanity. Form much of human history we appear to have lived with that impression, that human needs/wants are of first importance and the impacts on the world are secondary. Some cultures are more guilty of this than others, with industrialized Western European and North American arguably being the worst of the lot. I am not sure that is a good reading of the Creation accounts, particularly Genesis 1 where humanity is created last and everything created before us is called good in and of its own accord. Then a passage like Psalm 104 comes up and reminds us that is really is not about us.

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These verses from Psalm 104 remind me that God is out there caring for all of creation, the entire web. We humans are, in the grand sweep of billions of years, a tiny point on that web. We have punched above our weight so to speak. We have made an impact that has helped to reshape the earth, the climate, the creation itself. We may have forgotten that it may not actually be all about us.

AS a part of the web, and remembering that when one strand vibrates everything else feels is we may want to ask what vibrations we are creating. Remembering that the stone falling into a lake can, if the ripples are big enough, flood the far shore we might stop to ask what is at risk way over there. Remembering that if part of the web is damaged or destroyed the strength of the whole thing is impacted we might remember we have a duty to help keep the web strong and resilient.

I think it is what we mean when we say that we are called to live with respect in creation...
--Gord