Looking Ahead to June 4, 2023

This is the first Sunday of the month and so we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion;

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Matthew 28:16-20
• John 20:19-23

The Sermon title is Be the Church

Early Thoughts: We are called to be the church. Not called to go to church. Not called to support the church. Not called to say the right words of faith or sing the hymns. (Though those all may be good things in and of themselves) We are called to BE the church.

How do we do that? What does it mean to be the church?

These passages this week both come from the end of their respective Gospels. After Easter Jesus give his disciples instructions. In both cases the instructions are about going out into the world. The Risen Christ does not tell his friends to sit around and tell each other the stories. He tells them to go out into the world, to share the story, to share the promise, to share the hope.

How will we be the church? Are are we the church today?

We gather together as a community of faith to remind ourselves of the story, the hope, the promise. We read the scriptures and sing the hymns and say the prayers. We reflect on how the old story intersects with our story. But in then end we gather together, we do all those things, to gain wisdom and strength so that we can be the church in the world.

Our lives, hopefully, are our testimony. How we live, how we interact with the world around us, how the world is different because we have passed through are signs of how we have chosen, as people of faith, to be the church in the world.

Like Peter and Andrew, Mary and Martha, and so many others over the centuries Jesus calls us to follow The Way. Like them Jesus also sends us out into the world. Teresa of Avila wrote a poem which begins "Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours," (read the full poem here -- this poem is referenced in #171 of More Voices). If we are to be faithful we have to go out and be the church.

Will you join me in being the church? Will you help me tell the story, share the promise, spread the hope, pass the peace in the world?
--Gord