Looking Ahead to June 6, 2021

 This Sunday we are really pleased to announce that we are resuming in-person worship (and continuing with online worship on our YouTube channel). We will be following the same protocols for gathering safely that we were using in the fall.

This being the first Sunday of June we will also be celebrating the Sacrament of Communion.  This will be our last Communion service until September.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 2 Corinthians 4:1-10
• Matthew 28:16-20

The Sermon title is United? Uniting?

Early Thoughts:  June 10th marks the 96th Anniversary of the service marking the formation of the United Church of Canada. How are we doing? Have we lived into the dreams of our founders? Do we have new dreams? Do we need new dreams?

This "Church with the Soul of a Nation" (which was one vision of what the United Church could be) has, like any other human institution, been a mixed blessing. At local and national levels we have accomplished great things. At local and national levels we have taken part in deeply regrettable things. As I write this, just a few days after the news broke about unmarked graves at a residential school in Kamloops, I am remembering that the United Church was part of the effort to colonize and "civilize" the Canadian landscape. Sometimes we have indeed been the church with the soul of a nation when we maybe should have been the church challenging the soul of the nation. On the other hand, this Sunday is also PRide Sunday and the United CHurch may not have been the first at the table but we have certainly been at the table pushing for the full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ siblings in society.

About 16 years ago (based on what ages my girls were at the time) the Moderator at the time, Peter Short, talked about the United Church heading into it's 3rd generation -- counting 40 years as a generation apparently. That resonated with me because it matched my personal experience. At the time I remember writing that the church in which I was providing leadership was not the church which my grandparents became part of at Union when their Presbyterian church joined this new thing. Nor was it the church in which my grandmother had been a Presbytery secretary in the 1950's. Nor was it the church in which my parents had come to adulthood in the 1960's, and then offered leadership at a local level for decade after that. Nor was it the church in which I had been confirmed. Now I will say it is not the same as the church in which I was ordained, nor is it even the same as the church 16 years ago.  There is continuity to be sure. In some or many ways is it the same, in many other ways it is very different. Both the continuity and the changes can be good things.

In 4 years the United Church of Canada will mark its centennial. Over the last few years there have been people wondering if we would even be around to mark that event. We have been getting smaller and, arguably, quieter for 60 or 70 years now. Who will we be when that century mark comes? 

Are we still United? Our founders had a vision of a church that would continue to be a uniting force in Canada. Is that who we are? Locally and nationally what is our place in Canada of the 21st century?
--Gord

Covid Pastoral Letter #9

 May 28, 2021

Friends in Faith,

This is a letter I have been wanting to write for 5 months now. Back in December when Council first decided we would move our worship services online-only the longest anyone thought it might last was maybe March. Each month we would look at where things were at and each month the number of active cases in Grande Prairie and area was higher and so we kept extending the decision to keep worship online only.

By April some of us were starting to think that maybe the time was coming soon. But then case counts really spiked – peaking at over 500 in the city alone. Still we knew that vaccinations were occurring and with those shots came a promise of hope. At our May meeting we looked at vaccinations and decided maybe it was time. At that point the provincial regulations were really saying “don’t do in-person worship” so we decided we would go with when the province loosened restrictions again. This week the day came. Instead of 15 bodies in the church for worship we are now allowed 15% of our fire capacity, with the possibility that in a couple of weeks we can have 1/3 of capacity. Our Sanctuary has a fire capacity of 388 so 15% is 58 and 1/3 would be 129.

Which is a really long way of getting to the point of saying that as of June 6^th St. Paul’s will once again be having worship both in-person and online. We will be using the same protocols we used in September-November. As the provincial mask mandate is still in force masks are required. We still will not have congregational singing but will have our 3 person choirs each week to share music with us. Humming along with the singers is appropriate. We will have folk greeting and ushering at the door. We will keep a record of who is there each week in case contact tracing is required later. We will still be spacing ourselves around the sanctuary. We still can’t have post-church coffee (in person at least, coffee time on ZOOM will continue). But at least some of us will be together in person. It has been a long winter where we have not been able to say that. Believe me when I say that it feels really odd (or even terrible) to lead worship to an empty sanctuary and a camera. I look forward to having real live bodies looking back at me.

Like many of you, I am living with the hope that the end of COVID-tide is drawing near. It has been a long 15 or 16 months thus far. I miss getting together in person. I tire of connecting only over a computer screen. I feel disconnected. There is still a ways to go, we are not past the finish line yet. Some of us will still take time before we really feel comfortable getting back to “normal”. But we are getting closer. As I went to name this file I noted it was the 9^th letter of COVID-tide. I sincerely hope it is the last pastoral letter I write with COVID in the file name

As we start to see the end of COVID-tide on the horizon I have a request. I think that if we try to go back to doing things exactly the way we were doing them before we will have missed a chance to learn new possibilities from the past few months. So I have a question for you. What have we learned about being the church in this time? What do we want to do differently than we did before? What might we need to let go of so we can take on something new? What is really important to keep? We are still called to be the church. What does that mean in this new era?

June 6^th marks a new stage in our journey. We will be worshipping in person and online. Conveniently it is the first Sunday of the month so we will mark the new stage with the celebration of communion and a reflection on the 96^th anniversary of the United Church of Canada. And whether we are present together in person or present through cameras and screens we are present together as a community of faith. God is there in the sanctuary and God is there in the cables and the bits and bytes. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.

Have a Blessed Summer, May God be with you till we meet again,

Gord

June Newsletter

 ...to Live with Respect in Creation

13 or 14 (I think) years ago I was at a public meeting in Atikokan. As I recall, the purpose of the meeting was to talk about forestry, in particular as it was impacted by new regulations aimed to protect caribou habitat in Northwestern Ontario. As often happens in such discussions, the industry was lamenting that the new restrictions were overly restrictive and limiting their ability to function profitably. Also present at that meeting was at least one of the Town Councillors. Bud had to leave early but as he left he made a comment about how he “did not see why other animals should get treated as more important than humans”. I assume he saw that the caribou were getting preferential treatment because protecting them was interfering with economics. I have always thought Bud was missing the point. In fact I think he was showing the clear assumption made by many over the years that human economic activity trumps all other claims to the earth.

What does it mean to live with respect in creation?

This line was not originally in A New Creed. There have been two changes to A New Creed (also known in ecumenical circles as the United Church Creed) since it was first adopted in 1969. In 1980 modifications were approved to adapt the original language to make it more inclusive. The other change came about in the mid 1990’s. In Our Words of Faith, a study document about United Church statements of faith produced in 2010 we find this:

In 1994, Toronto Conference petitioned the 35th General Council to “amend the United Church creed to explicitly acknowledge our responsibility for the integrity of creation and our place in it.” The General Council approved this motion, the task was referred to the Committee on Theology and Faith, and Moderator Stan McKay asked former Moderator Walter Farquharson to suggest some phrases to the committee for its consideration.
In October 1994, the committee recommended to the Executive of the General Council that the phrase “to care for creation” be added immediately after the phrase “to celebrate God’s presence.” The Executive concluded that the phrase did not adequately convey humanity’s interrelationship with creation and asked the committee to do more work on this possible addition. At the next General Council Executive meeting in March 1995, the committee recommended that the phrase “to live with respect in creation” be used. This time the Executive agreed, and in the motion approving the change noted that “the inclusion of the phrase ‘to live with respect in creation,’ continues our attempt to live out the apology to First Nations peoples, it calls us to care for a creation of which we are a part and the phrase acknowledges respect for self as integral to respect for creation.” (Page 18)

In the mid 1990’s there was an upsurge in eco-theology within United Church circles and this change was one of the results of that. But as the excerpt above points out there was a recognition that the issue was about more than simply taking care of the earth. What is added by that phrase “live with respect”?

I think living with respect is far more than being good stewards. I think it reminds us that it is not all about us humans. In fact I think that while this phrase was added specifically with an eco-theology lens it is in fact a whole -life lens.

To live with respect with creation means that we see the rest of creation as of equal importance as us. So it shapes how we approach environmental issues AND it shapes our attitudes towards other people. It pushes us to think seriously what it means to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. All are equally deserving of respect. Psalm 24 reminds us that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that it holds, the world and its inhabitants”. We are created by the Creator, we are challenged to remember that the other people and other creatures and other parts of the world are also created and loved by the Creator. As Genesis 1 reminds us, “God saws all that God had made and found it very good”. We need to respect that which God loves and calls good.

And this is why I think Bud had it wrong all those years ago. When we set policies to protect other species or set aside area as protected from economic activity we are not saying they are more important than humans. We are saying humans are not more important than those caribou, or frogs, or birds, or plants. That is what living with respect means. It means we treat each other as of equal value. And sometimes it means we give up something of value to us because the other has equal value.

Imagine if this ethic of respect shaped our all our social policy. Imagine if it shaped all our economic choices. What a wonderful world that could be!
--Gord

Looking Ahead to May 30, 2021 -- Trinity Sunday

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 6:1-8
• Psalm 29

The Sermon title is God Is.....?

Early Thoughts: Traditionally the Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday, which is the only Sunday of the liturgical year dedicated to a doctrine. Trinity Sunday is often seen as a time to try to understand why Christians understand God in a Trinitarian way -- which is a big challenge to do in one sermon.

Embedded in any discussion of the Trinity is a more basic question. Who do we understand God to be? How do we understand God? How do we picture or imagine or describe God?

Come to think if it, that also seems like a big topic for any one sermon.

Scripture ahs a multitude of images for God. Some of them might be: Creator, Destroyer, Parent, Warrior, Lover, Love, Hen, Wisdom, Spirit. Centuries of faith and tradition have added other images. I suspect many of us have our own favourite image(s) for God, often based on how we have experienced God's presence.

We need to spend time contemplating how we understand God. We need to spend time sharing with each other our images and pictures and metaphors for God. The danger lies when we want to insist that our image of God is THE image of God. We all benefit from a broader image, we benefit from the wide variety of ways to understand God.

SO how do you finish the sermon title? Who is God for you?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to May 23, 2021 -- Pentecost Sunday

The Scripture Reading for this Sunday is Acts 2:1-21

The Sermon title is In Your Own Language

For some of the thoughts that are going into this weeks sermon see also this column I wrote for the May 21 paper.

Early Thoughts: Language matters. If you have ever been in a place where you do not understand the language you know how much it matters. If people have tried to explain something to you using terms that you do not understand you know that language matters. We all want a chance to hear important things in language that we understand, in words that mean something to us.

One of the beautiful parts of the Pentecost story, in my opinion, is that everybody is able to hear the Gospel in their own language. I am not going to get into a discussion of how (or if) it actually happened. I am going to accept that it did, and that this is a beautiful statement about God caring for the needs of God's people.

A story/memory...
In my first year at seminary a fellow student was recalling a discussion she had in a University English class. The instructor asked who spoke with an accent. The student named that she did, which confused everyone else because she didn't appear to. But the student explained that they all spoke (and wrote and heard and read) with an accent. Even if the words were are pronounced the same they may carry different meanings based on our own personal accent, how we have been shaped by the world.

When we refuse to use language that the other can understand we are making a statement. Same thing happens in reverse. When we refuse to allow others to use language with which they are comfortable we make a statement. Same thing is true in reverse. More than once I have heard people complain about folk talking amongst themselves and the person overhearing is upset because they don't understand the language. Most often in that situation the complainer has been someone from the dominant culture insisting that "they" must speak "properly" (usually this has to do with English vs. non-English in my experience, but I have also seen it in a cross-generational context and different slang/idioms).

Language matters. Being allowed to hear and speak the form of language that brings you comfort matters. 

Another example comes to mind. How many adults have grown impatient because a child in their care did something that "they knew better"? I suspect almost all of us have done that. How many times have we asked why and found out that while we thought we were clear, the message did not get across for some reason? Maybe we used the wrong words. Maybe we used concepts the other did not understand.  Maybe we used shorthand of some sort and assumed the other knew what we meant. Language matters.

Acts 2 tells us that God knows how much language matters. Acts 2 reminds us that to actually communicate we need to take time to translate -- sometimes into a whole other language, sometimes into a different form of the same language.

What language do we need to use to spread the Good News today?
--Gord

What Language Do We Use? (A piece for the May 21st newspaper)

 By now you should all have filled out your census. Did you get the short form or the long form? Like most others, our house got the short form. Even with 6 of us to list it only took 5-10 minutes to fill out. I was struck by how little information the short form asked for this year. I may be mistaken but I am sure that it has asked about more than names, ages and languages in the past. That being said, as one Facebook contact opined after filling it out: “how many different ways are there to ask what language I speak?”. At the same time, that made me start to think about language.

As people who are called to share our faith language matters. As people who are called to be communicators language matters. If we use language that only insiders recognize (jargon or acronyms for example) than we are not communicating clearly. If we use language that nobody uses anymore we are not communicating clearly. Language matters. What language do we use to share our faith?

Language matters, it matters a great deal. This is why more and more government documents are made available in a variety of languages – an e-mail from Alberta Health Services recently included a document in 9 languages. If we can not share a language our ability to communicate largely disappears. We know this when we are obviously speaking different languages (English or French or Cree or Tagalog for example). We miss it when we think we are speaking the same language but have different assumptions, because language changes with time. Are we sharing what is important to us in language that connects with the people we are talking to?

A story comes to mind. About 14 years ago I was at a conference. The speaker was talking about the history of hymn singing in the United Church. This was just after our new hymn resource More Voices had been released and there had been complaints that too many songs asked folk to sing in a “foreign” language. People really only wanted to sing in English because it was where they were comfortable. A friend of mine, who is a few years younger than me, said that she had been singing in a foreign language all her life. She is a native English speaker but was referring to the fact that many “classic hymns” use language that would be perfectly at home in the King James Bible or a Shakespearean play. They did not use language that was automatic to her. Could she understand them? Yes. But it was not her natural language.

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. I have always called Pentecost the second most important event in the whole Christian Year. The story of Pentecost is told in Acts chapter 2. It tells of how the Holy Spirit came upon and into the disciples and moved them to start proclaiming the story of Jesus; his teachings, his death, his resurrection, to anyone who would listen. Without this event the church would never have spread far and wide, it would have been limited to a small group of insiders. One of the best elements of the story is that whoever heard the disciples proclamation heard it in their own language.

I have always imagined that God was acting like the Universal Translator in the Star Trek franchise in the Pentecost story. The Universal Translator is what allows all the different races in Star Trek to communicate freely. As such it is a big piece of helping keep peace in the galaxy. In the Pentecost story the Holy Spirit seems to do this for the people gathered in Jerusalem that day. Alas, that is not what happens in our everyday life. There is no Universal Translator. It is on us to make sure we are communicating clearly.

Thankfully the story of faith is easy to translate. The story of faith, the story of the God who created and loves us, the story of a God who seeks relationship with us can be told in many different ways. We can tell it in Shakespearean English, in beatnik poetry, or in hip-hop rhymes. We can tell it in any of the many languages on the face of the earth. I am sure it has even been told in Klingon! What we can NOT do, and claim to be interested in communicating, is insist that it can only be told in one language or in one way. We can not be so selfish as to insist that our language or our way of speaking is the way others have to speak.

What language have you been using to tell your story? What language might you need to use instead?

Looking Ahead to May 9, 2021 -- Easter 6B

We remain in on-line only worship until the end of May. Hopefully another month of vaccinations will help create the right conditions where it is time to move to in-person AND on-line worship in June. You can find us Sunday mornings at 10:00 on our You Tube channel.

The Scripture Reading this week is Acts 10:9-16, 34-48.

The Sermon title is Breaking Boundaries

Early Thoughts: Humans, as a species, are good at drawing line. We are really good at determining who is in and who is out, or who is and who is not acceptable/holy/righteous/____________. 

To a degree this is helpful. If you are forming a specific community, with specific goals, with a specific identity, it is important to name what marks someone as a member of that community. Where it goes wrong is when that setting the limits of a community is used to pass judgement on others, or when the limits are created specifically to ensure some "undesirable" group or person can not join.

Religious communities are not immune from this tendency. As far back as the Nicene Creed in the 4th century the Christian Church has used statements of faith not only to define what Christian faith is but also to define what is unacceptable within the church. In more modern terms, many a Ministerial Association has written a faith statement within their structure to specifically exclude groups like the Church of Latter-Day Saints or the Jehovah Witnesses. And the reality is that in those discussions the language moves from "this is what we believe" to "we have the truth and those others are heretics" (or pagans or misled or flawed...). When that happens we have a problem.

The Gospel, as I understand it, is not about setting limits and building fences. So from the beginning of the Jesus movement, even before they were called Christians, there has been tension about who belongs. This week's reading from Acts speaks to the first major source of that tension.

The earliest church was, essentially, a Jewish sect. The members were Jewish, they followed Jewish law. But there were increasing numbers of Gentiles, non-Jews, attracted to the community. Did they have to become Jewish to follow Jesus? Did they have to follow Jewish law (circumcision and dietary laws being two key sticking points)?

The book of Acts has a few stories about how the Gospel of Christ breaks down the wall of a Jewish sect. The stories also talk about how previous assumptions about what makes one clean/acceptable/holy and what makes one unclean/unacceptable/profane need to be questioned. From the beginning to follow Jesus means to question and break down boundaries. Following Jesus is about openig ourselves to the wideness of God's grace and love.

Peter's dream helps him come to a new understanding of who belongs on the community. Paul's work around the Eastern end of the Mediterranean will expand the sense of who is part of the community, extending to his letter to the Galatians where he will proclaim that  "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

I saw this one on Twitter

Christians communities are still busy setting up fences and defining who is unacceptable. God is still in the business of challenging those fences, sometimes in the business of breaking them down and erasing the lines we draw. We still need to hear the words from Peter's dream: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 

What boundaries is God breaking down in our midst? Are we helping in that or are we busy trying to repair the breach?
--Gord