Looking Ahead to June 18, 2023 -- 3rd Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 6A

 The Scripture Reading this week is Matthew 9:35-10:16

The Sermon title is Sharing the Story

Early Thoughts: Do we love to tell the story of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love?

Jesus sees that there is too much work for one person so he deputizes the inner circle to go out and share the work. They are to tell the story, proclaim the love, carry God wherever they go. They are to pack incredibly light and rely, as one might say, on the kindness of strangers.They are to seek out those who are 'worthy' (which I think might mean those who are amenable to the message that is being shared) and to avoid those who are 'not worthy' (after all why beat your head against a wall). 

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew the Risen Christ will appear to these same people on a mountain in Galilee and send them out again "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you", words that the church has held as instructions for all of us ever since.

So, like the original 12, we have been deputized. We have been sent out to share the story, to continue the tradition that is close to 2000 years old now.

What is the best way to do that?

The 1986 Apology

If we are honest, following this instruction has sometimes led the church to a bad place. In the era of colonization the church, in alliance with the kingdoms of Europe, saw this task of sharing the story as a part of "civilizing" the Indigenous peoples of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Our forebears mistook their version of the faith story as the only correct, or even the only possible, version of the faith story. 

At the General Council meeting in 1986 the United Church of Canada made an apology, and named that we had made that very mistake.

So how do we share the story, share the promise, share what feeds our spirits, and also respect that other people have their own story, their own spirituality? That may be the big question of how we do evangelism into the future.

If the church is going to survive, grow, thrive we need [at least] three things to happen: 1) we have to share the story, 2) the story will need touch the hearts of those who hear it, and 3) God will stir the hearts of the listeners to respond. We have no control over the last one. We have a good deal of control over the first two.

The church, us, has made mistakes in how we share the story in the past. We have to name that and learn from it. We have a story to share, a treasure in clay jars as Paul described it (we may be the clay jars in that image). We need to share the story, the promise, the hope. We also have to honour and respect the people with whom we are sharing the story. We can't assume that our understanding is the best or the only or the right one. We have to be ready to listen as we share. We have to be ready to celebrate what others have to share.

And then we trust that God is at work. Who knows what may happen next?
--Gord