As this is the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating Communion. If you are joining us via YouTube you are invited to have bread and juice (or equivalents) ready so we can all eat and drink together.
The Scripture Reading for this week is Hebrews 11:8-16, 32-12:2.
The Sermon title is Who Is In Your Cloud?
Early Thoughts: Who has fed your faith? Who has helped you develop as a person of faith?
The writer of Hebrews (and we don't know who that was) reminds us in these verses that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. All of Chapter 11 is a recounting of the great heroes of faith from Hebrew Scriptures. [I was tempted to read the whole chapter this week but that seemed a little long.] We are not the first to wrestle with how God is active in the world, not the first to explore how God would have us live, not the first to struggle to be who God calls/created us to be. If the ancient writer could write those words in the 1st Century CE how much truer are they almost 2000 years later.
Often people use the language of the "cloud of witnesses", along with language like the "communion of saints" to describe those who have gone before us, people who are now counted among the dearly departed. Certainly this is true. The cloud, the communion, includes those names like Luther, Wesley, Calvin and Aquinas. It includes those who laid the foundation upon which later generations have built. But I don't think that is the whole picture. When I think of the cloud of witnesses I think that some are dead (some long dead) and some are living. Some of the people in our clouds, some of the people who have helped us understand what it means to live and love as followers of Christ, as beloved children of God are still alive. They still teach us. Some of them are older than us, some are younger.
In the end, each of us has our own cloud. That cloud intersects with a larger cloud held by our communities. And that cloud intersects with a larger cloud held by the wider community, which then intersects with a still large global cloud. A large part of me thinks of these various clouds as subsets, with each cloud nestled within the next one up. Another part of me wonders if maybe a venn diagram is more appropriate, because there are members of some of those clouds that are specific to that individual or community or even denomination. (And who doesn't like a math-based example as part of their reflection on Scripture).
So who is in our cloud as a congregation? Who are those people living and dead, past and present, who have shaped how the faith community called St. Paul's United Church (Grande Prairie) lives out its faith?
Who is in your cloud as an individual? Who are the people from your past and your present, living and dead, who have shaped you and your faith? Some of them are possibly family members. Some of them were named as teachers and mentors, others took on those roles less formally. Some of them may have been within a church community, some of them may have intersected your life from somewhere else.
While we each make our own decisions about various aspects of our lives, we never do so in a vacuum. We have all been shaped (positively or negatively) by the examples, teachings, and actions of others. We continue to be shaped by the examples, teachings, and actions of others. The cloud of witnesses is an active part of life. And that, I think, is a good thing -- most of the time at least.
As you arrive on Sunday you will have a chance to add names to our cloud of witnesses board {see picture above}. The board may stay up in the sanctuary for most of November so names can be added. Also, during the sermon there will likely be a time when folk are invited to share some names and/or stories of why they count someone as a part of their cloud.
Let us celebrate all those who have shaped, and are shaping, who we are as followers of Christ. God speaks to us in a variety of voices, God appears in our lives wearing a variety of faces. THat is how our cloud is formed.
And of course, we may never know who counts us as a part of their cloud... ti goes both ways after all.
--Gord
No comments:
Post a Comment