Looking Ahead to December 5, 2021 -- Advent 2

 This being the first Sunday of December we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion. If you are joining us via YouTube you are invited to have bread and juice available so we can all eat and drink together.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Genesis 17:15-22
• Psalm 78:1-7
• Luke 1:39-45

The Sermon title is Trust, Surprise, Laughter

Early Thoughts: We continue talking about birth stories. This week we hear about the promise to Abraham and Sarah finally being fulfilled. Well maybe it is more accurate to say that we hear about the promise being renewed -- with a fairly firm date about the when it will actually come to pass.

As people of faith we are part of a family. We are part of a family that stretches back to Sarah and Hagar, forward through Elizabeth and Mary, all the way to the people that we meet when we are walking down the street. The babies we hear about in our Advent readings this year are a part of that family.

Sarai/Sarah was well past the age where child bearing was a possibility. Could she bear a child at her age? Abraham found the idea laughable.  Were they still able to trust in the promise? Other parts of the story tell us that Sarah found the concept a bit laughable as well. But surprise of surprise, it happened -- and they name the child Isaac, which means laughter

Elizabeth was also well past the age where pregnancy seemed possible when she found herself with child. And then here young cousin, pregnant too soon, arrives. When the two babies draw near to each other the child Elizabeth carries dances for joy. Surprises again. Laughter and joy. Trusting in the promise.

What does it mean for us to name that these people are a part of our family? What does it mean to say that these mothers, these powerful mothers are a part of our lineage?

Then there is Ishmael, son of Hagar, almost forgotten child of Abraham. At least Abraham still remembers and cares for Ishmael in this passage, even as the story is busily pushing the child off to the sidelines. The forgotten and pushed aside children are a part of our family story as well.

How do we tell the family story this Christmas season?
--Gord

December Newsletter

 The Word Made Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-4, 14)

I have an uneasy relationship with the Gospel of John. For years it was my least favourite of the Gospels, but I have to admit that I have always loved this opening.

For the writer of John, Jesus is the physical incarnation of The Word that was around at the beginning of time. John has no nativity story because John does not need one. For John the second person of the Trinity has been around forever, but in Jesus of Nazareth The Word became flesh, The Word shared our reality, The Word entered the world in a wholly different way.

Possibly my favourite Christmas album from the time I was a teenager is a Medical Mission Sisters album called Gold, Incense, and Myrrh. All the songs on it were written by Miriam Therese Winter in 1971. One of them is based on the Prologue of John’s Gospel. It includes these words:

And by the will of God himself,
the Word was with us, the Word was flesh.
He lived among us, side by side.
We saw His glory far and wide.
He touched our race, full of truth and grace.
In the beginning was the Word
(found at https://moam.info/gold-incense-and-myrrh-word-sheet-from-the-original-_5a010c861723ddd4632f2bb1.html)

To me it captures the mystery of the Incarnation.

The mystery of Christmas is, after all, the mystery of the Incarnation. Why would the Eternal Word become flesh? Why would the Eternal Word “live among us side by side”? The Christmas story reminds us that God is not above getting down and dirty with God’s people. The Incarnation shows us the extremes to which God will go to connect with God’s people. In Jesus of Nazareth God is trying a whole new way of leading God’s beloved people, God’s beloved children, to live in The Way.

There is a story I once used on Christmas Eve in Atikokan. A man sees a flock of birds at risk of perishing in the cold. He knows that if those birds sought shelter in the barn they would be safe. Nothing he tries can entice the birds into the barn. Finally he realizes that if only he could become a bird himself he could lead them into the barn.

The Incarnation is God becoming one of us so that we can be lead to safety. The Word becomes flesh so that God can meet us on our own terms, sharing our reality, and so lead us into a new way of living. That is why after all these centuries we still affirm that “We believe in God.... who has come in Jesus, The Word-Made-Flesh , to reconcile and make new” (The New Creed).

One month from the day I write these words it will be Christmas Eve. We will once again tell the story of a baby in a manger. We will once again sing about angels and shepherds. We will remind ourselves that to a peasant family in a backwater part of the Roman Empire hope and love took the form of a helpless infant. Why? Because God loves the world, because God has a hope for the world, because God wants to lead God’s people into God’s Reign of Shalom. And God decided that the way to do that was to become, as Joan Osborne sang many years ago, “one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus...” (https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/joanosborne/oneofus.html).

This Christmas season, I invite you to ask what it means to you that the Eternal Word, who was present at the beginning of time, becomes flesh and walk around among us. I invite you to ponder what sort of God would do such a thing. I invite you to embrace the love shown by such a choice. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel Jesus (the Word-Made-Flesh) will describe himself as the Light of the World. And behold, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness con not overcome it. The Word speaks into the noise and the noise can not drown it out. The Word whispers into the silence and fills it with echoes of hope and possibility.

God is born at Christmas. God breaks into the world again and again. The Incarnation changes us, changes the world, changes everything. Joy to the World! The Lord is Come!

Merry Christmas.
Gord

Looking Forward to November 28, 2021 -- Advent 1

 Welcome to a New Year! (Liturgically speaking that is) This week we enter into a new year as we begin the season of Advent. With the beginning of Advent this year we are also starting to work with a new lectionary. This is the Women's Lectionary and will push us to view Scripture from a different point of view.

One of the traditions we have developed in the last few years is to have a tree of memory in the sanctuary. This is a place where we recognize the 'blueness' that can accompany the Christmas season and we are invited to hang the names of those we hold in our memories on the tree. The tree will be available starting this Sunday and you are invited to hang your name(s) on it as you arrive. The tree will remain in place throughout the season and you can add a name at any time.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Genesis 16:7-13
• Luke 1:26-38

The Sermon title is Congratulations?!?

Early Thoughts: A slave girl who can not consent. A peasant girl where the question of consent is very wide open. These are the two young women who are told that they will give birth in this week's readings.

Hagar has no choice in the matter. The Divine One tells her to return to her place of bondage, her place of abuse and there she will have a child. The child will be the ancestor of many, but will also be a handful -- "wild ass of a man" is what the text says. Are congratulations due in this case?

Mary does not start the story as a slave. But in the end she embraces the role of slave. She offers her body, her being to God. Over the years many people have pondered if she truly had a choice. Could she have said no? And given what we know about the life and death of the child Mary will birth, are congratulations appropriate with this pregnancy announcement?

This Advent we will hear a lot about babies. For each of them the birth is announced by God (or a messenger thereof). For each of them we are told that God has a plan for their life. All told that seems to be a mixed blessing for each of them -- sometimes the mixture leans positive, sometimes it leans negative.

Are congratulations always the automatic response to news of a pregnancy? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 21, 2021 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

 This Sunday is the last Sunday of the Church year. On November 28th we will begin a new Church Year with the first Sunday of Advent. Many people follow the example of our Roman Catholic siblings and refer to this last Sunday of the year as either Reign of Christ Sunday or Christ the King Sunday.

The Scripture Readings we will hear this week are:

• Mark 1:9-15
• Luke 4:14-17
• Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
• Luke 4:20-22

The Sermon title is Jubilee, Shalom, Reign of God

Early Thoughts: Jesus was all about the Kingdom of God. In both Mark and Luke he starts his public ministry with proclamations about it.

In Mark Jesus is quite explicit. The Kingdom of God is near now. In Luke it is not quite so explicit but at the beginning of his public ministry Jesus reads in synagogue. The passage he reads describes what life will be like in the time of God's favour. Then he closes the scroll and says that these words have been fulfilled. The time of God's favour is now. The Reign of God has begun.

I have often wondered if we tend to get the idea of the Reign of Christ or the Kingdom of God wrong. I suspect that we hear that monarchical language and we think of a society sort of similar to what we know, just with God in charge (remembering that as part of Christian faith Christ is God, so we are not talking about two different rulers here). And the fact that the festival of Christ the King was first declared by the Pope in part as a response to the dwindling of political power for the Papacy does not help that percerption.

But what if the Kingdom of God, the Reign of Christ, is more of a time for us to say "and now for something completely different"?

This fall I have been reading a book called Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision. In this book Randy Woodley talks about something he has encountered in North American Indigenous peoples called "The Harmony Way". Woodley suggest that this resemble the way of Shalom that we meet in the Hebrew Scriptures. The short form translation of Shalom is peace, but the term is much deeper than that. It is a peace based on justice and abundant life for all. The English mystic Julian of Norwich spoke of a time when "all matter of things be well". A society living out Shalom is that very time.

What would that deep peace and justice and abundant life for all look like? What might it look like when the Reign of God becomes fully real around us? That is what I think we are invited to explore on Reign of Christ Sunday.

Jesus begins his ministry proclaiming that the Kingdom is near, or even here. We also know that it is not really her in full power and wonder. We live in what is traditionally called the "now and the not yet". And so we wait for the fullness of time, the fullness of God's Realm. Are we ready to imagine what it might look like?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 14, 2021 -- 25th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 28B

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Hebrews 10:19-25
• 1 Peter 4:8-10

The Sermon Title is Provoked? To Love?

Early Thoughts: Have you been provoked to love in your life? What provoked you? How did the provoking change you?

One of the things that has most marked the last 20 months for me has been the change in, or even lack of, community. From Mid-March to Labour Day of 2020 all my worship offerings were to a camera with one other person in the room. From mid Advent 2020 to the end of May 2021 I was leading worship looking at a (basically) empty sanctuary -- the only other people in the room were either the singers behind me or the tech team way off in the back corner. As I read these verses from Hebrews with the line "not neglecting to meet together" that is the first image that comes to my mind. Covid-19 has certainly challenged us in how we gather as community, how we provoke each other to love, how we encourage and serve each other.

Christianity is a faith system based on community. It is by being together that we can encourage and provoke and challenge each other. In the last 20 months we have learned that there are a variety of ways to be together as a community. I have often wondered what this pandemic would have looked and felt like 20 years ago, when the tools we have for virtual connection were so much more limited (pretty much to the telephone). But still, it has not been the same as gathering together in the same space. One of the most consistent things I hear people express that they miss, that they grieve, is that ability to gather together, to be a community in person.

That being the case, that we desire and need to gather together, to be a community that encourages and provokes and serves each other, a key question (a stewardship question) must be "how do we support the creation and maintaining and growth of that community?".

God works in a variety of ways in our communities. God challenges us to use the gifts we have been given to serve (to love) each other. God provokes us to build communities where we in turn provoke each other to love and good deeds.

How have you been provoked? How have you provoked others?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 7, 2021 -- 24th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper27B

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

The Scripture Reading this week is Mark 12:38-44.

The Sermon title is Why Did She Do It?

Early Thoughts: This is an interesting story. Some read it as Jesus commending the widow for her commitment and devotion to the Temple -- so devoted that she gives all she has. Others read the story and see Jesus condemning a system that demands that the widow give all that she has, more than she can afford, while others are able to give a portion of their excess. I know that my earliest memories of discussing this story used the first interpretation. How have you been taught to read it?

Does the widow give those two small coins, the 'widow's mite', all that she has, freely? OR does she have no choice? Or maybe she has been guilted or coerced into it? Why she does it matters.

Why do we offer up our time, our talents, our energy, our money to the church or to various other causes in our lives? Is it out of a sense of obligation? A sense of excitement for the good work our gifts help make possible? Habit? How do we encourage others to share their time, energy, talent, and money?

There was a time, I remember hearing such things said in fact, when around October or November churches would issue panicked statements and attempt to guilt the congregation members into increased giving to meet the budget by the end of the year. And in many cases it may have worked, or at least seemed to work (mid-October through Christmas is often the time of year when a healthy portion of church income arrives). Even here at St. Paul's we have memories of the so-called 'Christmas miracle' that helped balance the year off.

It is questionable that such tactics work as well (assuming they did work before) anymore. Those messages were often based on tying into a sense of obligation and even guilt. Obligation is certainly a reason to give. Membership may not, despite what American Express tells us, have many privileges, but it does have responsibilities. However creating a situation where  people give because they want to, because they are excited about what their gift helps to accomplish is --in the long run-- a far more effective stewardship tactic.

So why did the widow drop those two coins in? She may have been paying the obligatory tithe. It appears that is what the others, the ones Jesus says gave less, have done. Possibly they calculated carefully what they were obliged to give. Or was she giving what was required and a bit more because she was thankful for the gifts God had given her in life? Had she once been supported by the Temple and this was part of how she was responding? The story leaves both these options (and likely a few others) as possibilities.

This Sunday we will explore why the widow gave what she did. We will talk a bit about the various answers might mean as an appropriate response.  Do we praise her or condemn the system? But we will go from there and talk about why we choose to give. We will look at how we make our choices. In the end it is not always the amount that matters, it is the motivation.
--Gord