Looking Ahead to January 2, 2022

 This being the first Sunday of the month (and of 2022 for that matter) we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion. If you are joining us on-line you are encouraged to have elements ready so that we can all eat and drink together

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Micah 4:5-10
• John 1:1-5

The Sermon title is One God? One Word?

Early Thoughts: I was always led to believe that the stories of Scripture unflinchingly claimed there was only one God. That is not true.

The stories of the Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that other cultures have other gods. At most there is a claim that "our" god is the One True God. There are parts of Isaiah that predict a time when all the nations will worship the God of Israel. But otherwise there is an acceptance that there are other cultures with other gods.

Even Paul preaching in Athens (Acts 17) is dealing with the question of other gods, although Paul gets closer to saying "those aren't actually gods".

What do we do in a pluralistic world with multiple expressions of faith? How do we make a claim to there being one God, known in many different ways, with many different faces and not make a claim that other expressions of faith are unworthy or evil or wrong? I am not sure we have done all that well on that point.

In the end, I think faith language is a love language. I think faithfulness to our understanding of the Divine is a statement of love. Years ago I watched an interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner who used the example of a spouse claiming that their partner was the best partner in the whole world. Obviously that can not be proven or dis-proven but it is still a true statement -- even when multiple people say it about their own partners.

So our challenge, as people of faith, is not to prove that "our god is better than your god" or that our understanding of the Divine is more accurate than someone else's. The challenge is to witness to what we believe about the Divine and why and what difference it makes in our lives.

Reading the Micah passage reminds us not only that other cultures have other gods, other understandings of the Divine, but also that God is with God's people, that we are being redeemed and lifted up. Reading the opening of John's Gospel reminds us that the God we meet in Jesus of Nazareth is the God who was present at the beginning of our faith story.

As Christians we proclaim a particular understanding of God. Like Judaism and Islam Christianity proclaims that there is one God. Unlike them we proclaim that the one God took human form. Our task is to proclaim how we understand God, how we understand God's activity in the world, how we understand God's hopes for God's people. What does it mean to us to name that there is one God, and one Word that takes on human form. How does the Incarnation inform our understanding of how God is redeeming us, how God is building us back up?

--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 19, 2021 -- Advent 4

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 1 Samuel 1:19-28
• 1 Samuel 2:1-10
• Matthew 1:18-25

The Sermon title is The Promised Child

Early Thoughts: At the heart of the Advent-Christmas story is a promise. The promise of a child.

This Advent season has been full of stories about promised children. Each of those promises comes into a situation where pregnancy and childbirth are not straightforward. A slave girl (Hagar) who has no choice in the matter, whose child is a product of her enslavement. Multiple women (Sarah, the mother of Samson, Hannah, Elizabeth) who were considered to be barren, who were never expected to have a child. And then there is Mary, a young girl, pregnant too soon, possibly to be cast aside because of the child she carries. Sometimes the promise of a child is complicated.

The interesting thing is that in each of our stories this Advent season the promise of a child has also been accompanied by hope. True there has sometimes been a shadow along with the hope (Ishmael will be a wild-ass of a man for example) but there has always been hope. Maybe the hope is that the child will be the progenitor of many nations. Maybe the hope is that the child will be a deliverer, saving his people. Maybe the hope is that God will do something amazing with/through this child. But there has always been hope.

We hear about two children in this week's readings. One will grow to a ripe old age. He will (for better or worse) anoint the first two kings of Israel. He is long expected and is dedicated to God's service from a very early age. His birth prompts his mother to sing of justice and hope and promise, a song about the God whose priorities are different from the way the world tends to operate. God hears Hannah, God responds to Hannah, and Hannah responds in turn. Samuel will be a major figure in the story of faith.

The other child will not grow to a ripe old age. His commitment to embodying and preaching God's vision for the world will lead to conflict and a cross on a hill. But his impending birth also prompts his mother to sing of justice, hope, and God turning the world upside down (many scholars believe that Mary's song is based on Hannah's song). One of the names (Emmanuel) he is given in this week's reading leads us to a place beyond any of the other children we heard about this season. He will be called "God is with us". He will bring salvation and deliverance. For those of us who are called Christians he is the central figure in the story of faith.

A child is promised. A child will be born. And that will make all the difference.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 12, 2021 -- 3rd Sunday of Advent

As Advent progresses we continue our journey through stories about birth announcements this week. Also this week we will be celebrating the sacrament of Baptism.

 

The Scripture Readings for this week are:

• Judges 13:2-7
• Luke 1:46-56
  

The Sermon title is He Will Deliver

Early Thoughts: All parents have dreams and hopes, maybe even expectations for their children. Some of them might be grandiose, some might be more humdrum. but they are always there. I suspect few of us have reason to expect our child will change the world, will deliver their people.

This week's passages are about expectations and promise. Both Samson and Jesus will, in their own way, change the world. Both are hailed as the ones who will make things right. Samson's mother is told to respond to the promise with a specific lifestyle, to begin the child's life in a way that he will later live. However the [un-named] wife of Manoah knows full well what has happened here. God has sent her a message. God is choosing to intervene in her life and through this intervention God will bring deliverance to the people of Israel. 

Thus far in Advent we have seen Mary's encounter with God's messenger, where she was told of her impending pregnancy. We have seen Mary visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is also expecting a child. NOw after all that has happened Mary is moved to song. Her song sets out her understanding of what God is up to in the world. While the song never explicitly says that Mary's as yet unborn son will be part of how God will do these things verse 48 contains a strong hint that this is her understanding.

I wonder. Did Samson and Jesus know about these hoes and expectations? Did they feel a need to live up to them? Wouldn't that be a heavy weight to carry as you grew up?

All parents have hopes and dreams and expectations of their children. Mary and the mother of Samson had particularly special ones.
--Gord