How Bold Do We Want to Be? -- June Newsletter

Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice

These three word pairs are a recent articulation of who the United Church thinks we, as a denomination, are called to be. These words were adopted at the national level during a meeting of the 43rd General Council last October. You can read a bit more about them at this link. Now we are challenged to figure out what they mean. They look great in print, would probably look nice framed and hanging on the wall, but what do they look like on the ground? What does it look like when we live as people of deep (and presumably deepening) spirituality? How are we and/or how can we be) bold as disciples of Christ? What makes justice daring?

The invitation for this newsletter was to talk about what it means to be a bold church. I think it means embracing all three word pairs. I do not think we can be a bold church unless we seek deep relationship with the Divine. We have to be disciples, learners and followers, of the Teacher who shows us The Way. And if we are not ready to take chances, to be daring in our crying and working for justice can we ever claim that we are being bold?

So how bold are we? How bold are we willing to be? How bold do we need to be?

If we are to be around in 20 years, either as a local congregation or as a national denomination, we have to be bold. Which is not to say that we are not already being bold, it is to suggest that maybe we need to be bolder. We need to be bold enough to try new ways of being the church. We have to be bold enough to share our vision, our understanding of God’s vision, of how the world could be. We have to be bold enough to proclaim, to shout from the street corners, to share on the internet, that God is active in transforming the world and how we are along for the ride. We even have to be bold enough to share our own story, maybe even to brag a little bit, about how we respond to God’s call in our lives.

I think that remembering how people from this congregation were involved in getting Odyssey House and the Friendship Centre going reminds us that we have a history of being bold. More recently, putting a Pride flag in our front window, and using the LED sign to pronounce support for the LGBTQ+ community, or Black Lives Matter, or Indigenous peoples, are ways we have been, and continue to be, bold as a congregation. Boldness led this congregation’s council to write a letter during the pandemic calling for more access to public washrooms in the area. 6 years ago we were bold enough to host a panel discussion where people shared stories about the Residential School experience. We are bold as we live out our faith. We are bold in standing up for a vision of what the world can be. We dare to speak for what justice can mean in the world today. We share our understanding of how God calls us to be in the world. This is boldness.

Boldness has results. Sometimes positive, like the people I and others have talked to this past year who have come to explore who we are because they say the Pride flag, or the “A Come As You Are Church” sign and wanted to find out if we really meant it. Boldness sometimes challenges others. There have also been people who have come because they saw the Pride flag and tried to convince me that I had to get it taken down (not knowing I was the one who suggested putting it in the window). In 2020, when we had bulletin boards with pro LGBTQ+ and pro Indigenous peoples and pro Black Lives Matter messages on the sidewalk for the reverse Canada Day Parade we had some very appreciative responses and some people flipped us the bird as they drove by. Boldness means we stand out a bit more. Some people will like that. Some won’t.

Which is why the question is not only “are we bold?”. The question is more about how and where we will be bold. The question is more about how bold are we willing to be. Are we willing to stand out and let people react both positively and negatively.

We have been bold in the past. We are being bold in the present [side note, I keep missing the ‘b’ as I type bold which makes it seem like I am saying we are old...]. I encourage us to keep finding ways to be bold as we move into the future. I think that to follow Jesus requires that we are bold. Some people will cheer us for it. Some will condemn us. But still we have to be bold.

Who is with me?
Gord

Looking Ahead to May 29, 2022 -- 7th Sunday of Easter

 This Sunday we will be celebrating a Baptism. Actually we will be celebrating a pair of Baptisms.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Deuteronomy 29:10-15
• Psalm 111

The Sermon title is Faithful Relationship

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to say that we are in relationship with the Divine? How are we faithful to that relationship? How are we unfaithful to it? How is God faithful in that relationship? When might we feel that God has been unfaithful or has left us to our own devices?

Periodically in the story of the people of Israel they are invited to remember and re-establish their covenant relationship with God. These events are often a chance to remind themselves how God has been part of their lives, of the promises God has made, of the gifts God has given, and their own responsibility to respond to God's presence and activity. I wonder if we should do that more often as well  (John Wesley might agree as he encouraged the use of a Covenant Renewal Service). I think we do ourselves a favour when we regularly remind ourselves that we are in relationship with God and with each other. Then we have ask ourselves what it means to be in relationship and how we need to act to maintain that relationship.

In this Deuteronomy reading Moses invites the people to remember and renew their covenant relationship with God. In the Psalm reading we are reminded how God remains faithful to that relationship. When we celebrate a baptism I hope we remember our own identity as baptized people (recognizing that most of us will not actually remember the act of being baptized). As a baptized and baptizing community we recognize our relationship with God. We recognize that we are called, claimed, and commissioned within that relationship. How are we faithful to that covenant of baptism? How do we live out that relationship?

I suspect we all have different answers to the questions I have asked thus far. Many of them might overlap with each other but have a specificity unique to each individual. Those answers are certainly important but asking ourselves the questions is even more important.

What does it mean to you to be a part of faithful relationships with your neighbours? With God? With yourself?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to May 15, 2022 -- 5th Sunday of Easter

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Acts 5:12-16
• Deuteronomy 28:1-14
• John 5:25-29

The Sermon title is Blessings Will Come

Early Thoughts: In the promise of Easter is a promise of life, and that in abundance. As followers of Christ we are people of hope, we are people who trust, we are people who look for the blessings of life.

This is a strange combination of readings. Acts talks about the continuing growth of the Christian community and the signs and wonders that accompanied (or caused?) that growth. The growth of the community is accompanied by blessings. The Gospel reading is a little odd. But I think that there is a blessing in the doing of justice (more than the execution of judgement but the bringing on of full justice which is what Jesus was all about). There is a blessing in removing those things that are death-dealing and calling people to leave their tombs. 

Then we have the Deuteronomy reading. It is all about promised blessings. It also is clear that those promised blessings flow from the people making good choices. This is a common theme in Deuteronomy and in the stream of theology sometimes called Deuteronomistic. If the people live well, in accordance with the law given by God, they will be blessed in the land that they are about to conquer. If they do not live well, and not follow the law, they will be cursed ad the blessings will be withdrawn/withheld. Blessings are conditional on our choices.

This makes perfect sense. It is also a challenging image of how God operates. Do we behave well just to keep God happy and be blessed? There may be days... However I am not sure that is the whole truth to be drawn out of this theological theme. I think the deeper truth lies in the realization that living well naturally brings blessings. Living in the way that God would have us live brings us blessings simply because they are good practices for the betterment of the community. We do not behave as a sort of a bribe, or to avoid a negative consequence. We are called and challenged to get to the point where we see the bigger picture, see beyond the carrot and the stick to the grand vision of what could be.

Some days I wonder if we will ever get to that point. Some days I am actually see it happening..

--Gord

Jesus, Good For What Ails Ya! -- For the Newspaper

Found on Facebook

What does Good News sound like to you? Does it sound like forgiveness of sin? Or release from oppression? Or being accepted as you are? Or healing for your wounds? Maybe it means food for your empty stomach. It could be welcomed in when you have been tossed out. It might be the conquering of death, or the crushing of evil. What does Good News sound like to you?

Recently I saw a commercial for Northern Lakes College. Maybe you have seen it as well. It asks the question “where is Northern Lakes College?” and the answer was “wherever it needs to be.”. I suggest that in many ways the God we meet in Jesus is the same. In my Good Friday sermon last month I shared this idea. “God meets us right where we need to be met.” God comes into our lives and brings healing where ever we might be broken. For those of us who carry the identity of Christian we see that most clearly through the life, teachings, and resurrection of Jesus. In the Jesus story we can find soothing balm for our painful sores. In the Jesus story we find that our deepest longings are met. What wonderful news is this!

Long ago I realized that we do not all bring the same questions to our relationship with God. In hindsight this should have been self-evident. We all have our own histories, our own wounds, our own experiences. Of course we each meet God in different ways. Of course what it means to be reconciled to God, to be made at-one with God, is going to be a little bit different (or sometimes a whole lot different) for each of us. There is no one way to be in relationship with God. Why should we expect anything different?

There are two authors whose writing has helped me sort out what this means. One is Marcus Borg who suggests that there are three broad stories in the Bible. One is the story of being freed from slavery and oppression. One is the story of being forgiven for wrongdoing. One is the story of exile and return from exile. Borg points out that it would have been ridiculous for Moses to go to the Hebrew slaves in Egypt and tell them that they were forgiven. They did not need forgiveness at that point, they needed to be free from Egyptian oppression. God met them where they were, God came to resolve their greatest problem.

The other author I like on this is W. Paul Jones. In his book Theological Worlds Jones invites us to see 5 major ways people’s lives interact with their understanding of God. Some of us may wrestle with feelings of being separated (or exiled) from God, or feel there is an ongoing conflict (perhaps framed as good vs. evil) in the world, or just feel empty and outcast, or feel guilty and condemned, or have an overall feeling of suffering and exhaustion. God can meet us in each of these places. Christ meets us in each of these places. And each one is met with a different response. God meets us where we need to be met. The dominant notes and chords in the song of Good News sound different depending who is listening.

So what does the Good News sound like to you? What song rings in your ears, stirs in your heart, fills your soul when you encounter the Risen Christ this Easter season? And maybe there is another question of equal importance. What does the Good News sound like to your neighbour? How do we let our neighbours know that they too are recipients of Good News? What song do we sing to them?

For myself, and for my Christian neighbours, God is revealed in the life, teachings, passion for God’s Kingdom, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Risen Christ. In the stories told over the centuries about Jesus God meets me, God speaks to my deepest pain and brings healing. For Christians Jesus is a primary and unique way God meets us where we need to be met but I am under no illusion that this is the only way God meets people. God also meets me and offers healing in my lived experience of God’s presence in the world around me. Followers of other faith traditions meet God in other ways. But still for them God meets them where they need to be met. God offers hope and healing in many different ways. This is Good News, which is for all people.

God meets us where we need to be met. Then God brings comfort and healing and leads us where we need to be next. This is Good News!

Looking Ahead to May 8, 2022 --4th Sunday of Easter

This Sunday is Mother's Day, also known as Christian Family Sunday. We will take time to talk about what makes up a family during the Time for the Young at Heart.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Acts 2:22-24 
• Deuteronomy 18:15-22
• Luke 7:18-23

The Sermon title is The One Foretold?

Early Thoughts: " The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet" "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" A promise shared by Moses, a question asked several centuries later by the followers of John the Baptist.

Is Jesus the one who was expected?  Is he the prophet, the judge (Moses was both of these), the one who will lead the people back to The Way? OR is there to be another?

John wasn't sure. John's followers were unsure. Probably many people around Jesus were asking themselves the same question. There was a promise. There was a hope. But things were not quite happening to match expectations. Is it the time?

Jesus' response puts it back on the questioners.  "What do you see? Go tell John what you see." He does not say if he is the one or not, he leaves it up to interpretation. Jesus lets the evidence tell the story.

For the Christian community the answer to John's question is yes. Jesus is the one for whom we have been waiting. Jesus is the one who will lead us back to The Way. For those outside the Christian community the answer may be no, or maybe, or even who care.

I think that in some ways we are still waiting. We are still waiting for the full hope, the full promise to come to fruition. The Kingdom of God is still not fully real among us.

Does that mean Jesus was not in fact the one? Does that mean Jesus spoke presumptuously (to use the language from the Deuteronomy reading)? OR is just a way to remind ourselves that the story is not yet complete?

I think we go back to the answer Jesus gave. We continue to watch and listen and tell each other what we have seen and heard and experienced. We let the evidence tell the story. A story of life and love and hope over against despair and fear and death. A story of transformation, heart by heart and step by step. A story where promises are fulfilled in pieces, not all at once.

What do you think? What answer should John's disciples have taken back to him?
--Gord