Wednesday, June 30, 2021

To Love and Serve... (Newsletter Piece)

I’ll start with a story...well maybe two or four.

18 years ago, a day or two after we arrived back in Atikokan with newborn Sarah there was a knock at the back door. A friend (daughter of an Anglican priest as it happens) was standing there with three or four foil containers. “Here,” she said, “Shepherds Pie, Meatballs...” as she listed off what was in the containers. “Just have to be heated up.” What a great gift for new parents.

Story #2, just under a year later. We have been back in Atikokan for a day or two, with newborn Devyn this time. Some ladies from the UCW show up with a full meal for us to share. They did the same various other times for other members of the congregation, often at a time of bereavement. It was a part of how they understood their role within the community.

Story #3, 11 years ago. We have been in Grande Prairie for a day or so (also with a slightly older newborn at the time). Our furniture has not even arrived at the house yet. My dad and I return from buying supplies for the work we were trying to get done before said furniture arrived to find a couple members of M&P and the Board Chair at the house, dropping off baskets of food stuffs and envelopes with gift cards and such in them. Welcome to the community!

Story #4, many years, decades really, ago. A death happens in the family, my parents have to go away for the funeral but don’t want to take the kids. A call to one of our close friends and my sister and I have a place to stay (or maybe someone came to stay with us – details are a bit fuzzy).

Those are just some stories that come quickly to mind. I could tell many others. I bet many of you could tell the same sorts of stories about your lives. Sometimes you have been on the giving end, sometimes on the receiving end. In the end, it turns out that loving and serving others seems to come pretty naturally to people who live in community with each other.

In fact, I have a great deal of trouble imagining a community (religious or secular) where loving and serving others is not an active part of their story. I have talked to people who were not a part of such communities. I have heard stories where that love and service was not available. In fact for three years I worked at a place that existed to help the families where story #4 was not a possibility. Think of all the reasons you might nave needed emergency child care, or support when parenting was hard – and then ask what if nobody was around to help out. It made me realize how blessed I had been.

I grew up in a community that lived these words. The families supported each other, offered child care when it was needed, provided ears to listen when things went badly, celebrated life’s accomplishments together. We didn’t do it to prove we were living out a creedal statement, many of us did not even know the New Creed well enough at the time to know those words were in it. We did it because we were a community. We were, when you came right down to it, extended family.

In the 11 years I have been a part of this community I have seen love and service put into action repeatedly. Both within the congregation and in the wider community of Grande Prairie I have seen people who give of themselves for the benefit of others. Sometimes it is to benefit one individual, sometimes it is to benefit a larger group. And many times the love and service, the loving service, has been offered by people who did it automatically, who would not think it worth making a fuss about. Sometimes the small acts of love make such a big deal. The church (both this congregation and the wider church are full of people who offer such service simply because it is who they are – they live to serve.

Our next newsletter will have as its theme another phrase from the United Church Creed (aka the New Creed) – to seek justice and resist evil. I suggest that one flows from the other. Because we know what it means to love and serve each other we can be filled with a passion for justice. Because we know what it means to be loved and served and considered important we know it is important that all people get that same feeling. Because we offer and receive loving service we know that evil, those things that deny and work against love, needs to be resisted if we are to flourish as the Body of Christ.

I have said before that there is an old phrase about Stewardship. “Stewardship is everything we do after we say ‘I believe’” Loving and serving others is an act of faith, an act of stewardship. Thank you all for all they ways (big and small) that you have offered to your neighbours over the years. Thank you for all the ways you will do it in the future.

Have a blessed summer. (And since I am writing this in the middle of a heat wave remember to stay hydrated and keep cool!)
Gord

Monday, June 28, 2021

Looking Forward to July 4, 2021 -- 6th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 9B

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

  • Ezekiel 2:1-5 (you might want to read verses 6-10 as well)
  • Mark 6:1-13

The Sermon title is Will They Hear?

Early Thoughts: Have you ever wondered why so often people have trouble hearing? Well maybe that should say listening. OR comprehending. Or simply paying attention.

Both our passages this week talk about trouble hearing but it is not talking about needing a hearing aid. These are not medical issues at play here.  The passages talk about those who choose not to hear, who choose to ignore, who choose to rebel against what is being said.

When have you met with that response? When have you perhaps offered that response?

My suspicion is that many of us have felt not heard at times. My suspicion is that, if wee are honest, many of us have often chosen not to/refused to listen to unpleasant or uncomfortable or challenging news at some point in our lives. What do we do with that?

Jesus instructs his friends to shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against them. That is a possible response. IF people won't listen then leave them behind and find someone who will. It often seems like that might be the easiest way to respond. Much less frustrating than continuing to talk to one who will not listen.

Ezekiel is told just to keep talking. Some will listen, some will not. And in the end many will acknowledge that something has happened. This approach takes patience. It requires that we are sure of where we stand. It means we have to be persistent. It also means we have to trust that a difference is being made even if we don't see signs of that happening.

WHat makes us stop and listen? IS it the "expert from outside"? Many people have found that if someone from outside a situation comes in and says something, even if people in the situation have been saying the same thing over and over again, it has more credibility. Is this why Jesus points out that "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house."? Do we sometimes need the outside voice to help us see clearly? Are we too enmeshed in the situation?

Or is the answer to being able to listen time and repetition? Many people in leadership roles talk about the value of planting the seed and waiting for it to germinate. Just know that some seeds take an incredibly long time to germinate. Another form of this is the idea that the leader or the outside person makes a suggestion and waits. Maybe the occasional reminder. Maybe a rewording or two over time. And then the community accepts the idea as their own and the seed bursts into life.

WE do tend to be a stubborn species. WE tend to avoid news or ideas that make us uncomfortable or unpleasant. We tend not to listen if a change seems just too big. Do we want the speakers to shake the dust off their feet and right us off? Or do we, deep down inside where we won't admit it, know that we really do need to hear what is being said and need people to keep talking until we get over ourselves and listen?

If we are going to move forward as citizens of the Kingdom of God we need both to listen and to talk -- and we need to know when it is time to do either. We who benefit from how our society operates need to listen to the voices who are telling us what our community really is like. We need to give space and time for uncomfortable and inconvenient truths to be told. We need to hear so that when it is our turn to speak we have a clue what we are supposed to say.

Are we willing to hear? Are we willing to listen? Or will we remain stubborn, impudent, and maybe a little rebellious (though maybe we should be rebellious in some ways)?
--Gord

Thursday, June 24, 2021

O CAnada (A piece for the Newspaper)

It is what some pundits call “silly season”. As Parliament draws near to its summer break there is a flurry of activity to get legislation passed by both House and Senate before MPs and Senators head back home. Over the last month a bunch of stuff has been passed (I just looked up both Commons and Senate activities). Two or three pieces caught my attention. One was this week when the House of Commons passed Bill C-10, legislation to ban conversion therapy, and sent it on to the Senate. I have been wanting such a bill to be passed for many years now and am happy to see it moving forward, we shall see if the Senate passes it before they recess for the summer.

The other pieces of business that jumped out at me were both passed by the Senate in June and given Royal Assent on June 21st, National Indigenous Peoples Day. One was Bill C-8, which adopted changes to the Citizenship Oath in accordance with one of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. The other was Bill C-15, which mandates Canada to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What all three of these pieces of legislation have in common is that they make clear statements about who we want to be as a nation. They speak to the question of how we can best support and love all of our neighbours.

As I sit at my computer to write this column it is a week before Canada Day. This will be a different type of Canada Day. In part that is because we are still coming out of pandemic restrictions at various speeds in different parts of the country. But there has been a new mood about Canada Day moving across the country this year. More and more people are asking serious questions about our history. In the light of the recent news about unmarked burials around Residential Schools we are forced to look seriously at our history and our present and ask if we are really the kind of country we want to be. Add in repeated news stories, including one I just saw pop up in my Twitter feed this afternoon, about racially-motivated assaults happening on a disturbingly regular basis and I have to ask: Who are we as a nation? Should Canada Day be marked with celebrations or with serious conversations about who we have been, who we are now, and where we go from here?

Are we ready to have those serious conversations? Are we brave enough to have them even if we claim we are not ready?

Earlier this week a colleague posted a Facebook comment asking what we mean when we say we are not ready for the hard conversations about what it means to be fully inclusive of those long defined as ‘other’. It is my opinion that we, as individuals and as communities, use the excuse of “not ready” as a way to delay hard conversations – often with the hope of avoiding them altogether. Sometimes we need to, as the saying goes, pull up our grown up pants and get on with it. I think Canada will never say we are ready to have hard conversations about our history of colonization (and how that colonization continues to affect our present relationships with Indigenous peoples), our history and current reality of racism, or how we treat our LGBTQ+ neighbours. Certainly if we think we can wait until everybody is ready for the conversations they will never happen. So let’s take a hard look at who we really are, at both our history and our present, and commit to taking concrete action to be a different community in the future.

This will not be a comfortable process. To be honest, many of us will want it to just go away. It will take longer than one or two election cycles. Many of us will get tired of hearing about it. There may be times it feels like our whole understanding of who we are as Canadians is under attack. So be it. Nobody ever claimed building a just and fair and loving society was going to be easy. But we can do it.

Earlier this month I preached on the story of Jesus calming the storm at sea. In that story Jesus asks “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”. When we remember that we are not alone we are able to do the hard scary things even though we are afraid. To live as citizens of God’s Kingdom requires us to be honest about our history and our present. But God is there to help us ride out the storm. And that is Good News.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Looking Forward to June 20, 2021 -- 4th After Pentecost Year B, Proper 7, Indigneous Peoples Sunday

 The Scripture Reading this week is: Mark 4:35-41

The Sermon title is Facing the Storm!

Picture Source


Early Thoughts:
When in the middle of the storm it is natural to want it to calm down. But maybe sometimes what we need is to ride it out.

Jesus tells his friends to go to the other side of the lake/sea of Galilee. They don't take the safe route skirting the shore, they go straight across the center. Along the way a storm blows up. The disciples are frightened. Jesus is having a nap. Convinced that they are about to sink and drown, the disciples wake Jesus up. Jesus calms the storm. The disciples are amazed. As the song says "put your hand in the hand of the man who stills the water".

But pay attention to what Jesus says. "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" Is Jesus saying that the better thing to do was ride through the storm? Is Jesus challenging the (very natural) terror and desire for safety? 

What storms are we trying to avoid when we should be facing them head on and riding them out?

This Sunday is the day before National Indigenous Peoples Day. As I reflect on the work that has been done and is being done on the goals of Truth-telling and Reconciliation that was started by the TRC I find myself wondering if we as a nation have been busy trying to seek the safe and calm path rather than braving the storm. And in order to move forward we need to brave the storm.

Intentionally stepping out into a fierce storm makes no sense. The sensible thing to do is seek shelter. Jesus does not always call us to be sensible. Jesus calls us to be faithful. Jesus calls us to serve truth and love. The Prince of Peace knows that sometimes the way to true peace is a path of danger that has to be walked. And while Jesus may call us to brave the storms that frighten or disturb us Jesus promises that we do not do it alone.

In the musical Carousel we find a song with these words;

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone.
 I think this is where Jesus is when the storms of life threaten to upset our comfortable boats. And I think Jesus wants us to risk getting the boat upset. Maybe the stuff that gets washed out is, we will find, stuff we needed to get rid of anyway.
--Gord

Monday, June 7, 2021

Looking Ahead to June 13, 2021 -- 3rd Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 6 Year B

The Scripture Reading this week is Mark 4:1-8, 26-34.

The Sermon title is Growing Growing Growing

2013-- maybe the last time our garden was this lush

Early Thoughts:
What is needed for good growth? As the children's song says "can you or I or any one know how oats peas beans and barley grow?". (I know my gardening success is related to luck far more than skill)

This morning, as I began to ponder what this week's worship might look like, I looked at the passage and these words from 1 Corinthians 3 came to mind;

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

 In the end God gives the growth. It seems that both Paul and the writer of Mark agree on that. But the parable at the beginning of Mark 4 certainly suggests that conditions make a difference. How do we help to create good conditions where growth can occur? How do we create conditions where growth is difficult or impossible?

Another thought that floats through my consciousness this morning is about weeds (which reminds me of a whole other Parable in Matthew). How accurately do we identify weeds? What about invasive species? Are there times we get so focused on what seeds we want to grow that we lose sight of which seeds and plants should be allowed to grow instead? Are there times we try to support the wrong growth, keep the wrong plants healthy? If we do that who suffers?

Lots of questions in my head as I start this week. We are called to grow. We are called to help each other grow. We are called to be fruitful. The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus tells us in these parables and in other places in the Gospels, is like a seed--something that starts small but grows big and produces many times over.

How can we help the seeds grow and be fruitful?
--Gord