Looking Ahead to January 5, 2025 -- Epiphany Sunday

The Feast of Epiphany falls on January 6th, right after the 12 Days of Christmas. This Feast is when the church marks the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family, as told in Matthew's Gospel). When January 6th is not a Sunday many churches choose to mark Epiphany on the Sunday before.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 60:1-6 (which is the basis of the Call to Worship) 
• Matthew 2:1-12

The Sermon title is Strange Visitors

Early Thoughts: What did Mary and Joseph think about it? When there was a knock at the door and these strange men from far away came into the house what thoughts might have run through their minds? For that matter what did Herod think when these visitors from afar appeared talking about a new king? (We are given a hint of his thoughts in the verses that follow this week's reading -- suffice to say that joy and praise are not in his heart).

Matthew tells us this story as a way of showing that the coming of the Messiah is both a gift for all nations, not just the Jewish people, and is recognized by those who know what to look for -- no matter where they may be. Strange visitors may have told Mary and Joseph something more about this child (it is unclear if Matthew sees this happening when Jesu was still an infant or moving into toddlerhood) they had in their family. Strange visitors warn the powers that be that change is in the air. Strange visitors proclaim that God is at work.

Even the gifts that Matthew mentions have (or have been given over the years) deeply symbolic meanings, as the carol We Three Kings will tell us. The Magi seem to have chosen these rich gifts to mark the birth of a king (Gold), the birth of one who is deeply connected to the Divine (Frankincense), and foretell his death (Myrrh, a burial spice). Strange gifts for a peasant family.

There is a saying in community development that sometimes you need the outside voice to tell you what you already know. Sometimes the voices from within the system just don't get heard but the outside expert says the same thing and everybody sits up as if it is new information (many clergy will tell you that churches can be really bad for this). Maybe the strange visitors can open our eyes to what God is doing in our midst. Maybe that is part of what the Magi do in Matthew's Gospel -- they help open the eyes of the readers/listeners to see what God is doing in the Jesus story.

What strange visitors have helped you grow in you awareness of God's activity in the world? What strange visitors might we need today to help us see where God is in our midst, to show us a way forward -- even if it is by a different road than before?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 22, 2024 -- 4th Sunday of Advent -- Love Candle

 

The Scripture Readings this final Sunday of Advent are:

• Psalm 146 
•  Luke 1:39-55

The Sermon title is Jesus Is Coming, Sing Justice, Dance Love

Early Thoughts: Mary was not, it appears, meek nor mild. Mary had a vision of how was God was at work to transform the world -- ands wasn't shy about sharing it.

I think I like the story of Mary and Elizabeth's meeting as much as the Christmas story itself. Elizabeth, pregnant when it was well past the time that such thing should happen (to quote a play I was in 30 years ago "when a women who shops the Co-Op on Seniors day is about to have a child the world is not out of surprises yet") meets her cousin Mary, pregnant too soon. As Luke tells the story, the child Elizabeth carries will be known as John the Baptizer, he will predict the coming of the Messiah. The child Mary carries will be seen as God living among us, the Word-Made-Flesh, Emmanuel. Two special children and two bold mothers.

When they greet each other Elizabeth feels her child leap for joy (which can't have been too comfortable for mom in her last trimester), some might even say John was dancing in his mother's womb. At that instant one of the women (generally seen to be Mary but some sources say Elizabeth) is moved to song.

But her song is not a lullaby. Her song is not about the worries and wonders of impending parenthood. Her song is a cry for change, a manifesto for a just new world, a proclamation that God ahs something grand in mind. Mary sings of justice, of a world turned upside down by the God who created and loves the world.

I believe that working to create a world where justice reigns is what it means to put "love your neighbour" into action. The Christmas story is not just a sweet story about angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger. The Christmas story is a story of the world being changed. It is a story of God breaking into the world to live among us and start the avalanche of justice called for by the ancient prophets "But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:24) Mary sings a song of justice to help us dance the dance of love.

Both the children who are in this story today (albeit in utero) will carry forward the song of justice and the dance of love. John will preach a baptism of repentance and encourage folk to change how they live (se Luke chapter 3 for how he does that), Jesus will call attention to the way the world could be and invite us all to live into a new way of being. It is an old song, an ancient dance -- it's rhythms can be felt from the days of Moses right through to the new heaven and new earth in Revelation and on through wise ones, prophets, and teachers to this very day.

We are invite to sing and dance too. Are we ready to lift up our voices, faltering as they may be at times, and try out the steps, even when he may have two left feet? Can we join Mary, Elizabeth, John and Jesus in hope and joy, working for peace love and justice -- a world reborn and renewed?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 24, 2024 -- Christmas Eve Celebration.

 

Nativity Scene at St. Paul's

This year we are going to reflect on the story of the night.  We will in fact hear it 4 times:

1. As set for children in The First Christmas
2. from the King James Version of the Bible
3. form the First Nations Version of the New Testament
4. from the GenZ Bible

Stained Glass from St. Paul's

The Reflection title is The (N)Ever-changing Story

Early Thoughts: In her Advent song Hope is a Candle United Church musician Linnea Good writes: "For we are a people of a Story. Of stars that sing and love that cries". In his book The Truth About Stories Canadian writer Thomas King says "The truth about stories is that that's all we are". Hearing and telling stories is one of the biggest ways we learn about and find meaning in  life.

At Christmas there are lots of stories we tell -- we have a rather heavy (as I remember each year as I haul them up from the basement) collection of Christmas books in our house. Some of them are stories about a jolly old elf who lives at the North Pole and flies around in a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer. Some of them are stories about families gathering together for song and merriment. And then there is the story that lies under the season...

From Riverview United in Atikokan

In the age-old special A Charlie Brown Christmas Charlie spends most of the episode trying to figure out what Christmas is all about. Finally he lets out an anguished cry "Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?!?". At this point his friend Linus steps in, calls for the spotlight and shares an ancient story about shepherds and angels and a baby lying in a manger. That is the story we tell tonight.

I have learned that one of the wonderful things about truly great and timeless stories is that they can be told in a variety of ways. We can change the setting (either in time or in geography). We can tell it from the point of view of different characters. We can tell it in song, in poetry, in narrative, in drama, or through pictures -- maybe even interpretive dance. We might find new and innovative ways to tell the story and yet it remains the same story.

Found on Facebook

This is, I have found, true of the Nativity story as well. We may be used to hearing it in one way [Though I have heard and read it in many different ways over the years to this day there is a part of me that always hears it in Linus' voice using King James language.] but it can and has been retold many different ways. This picture recasts it in a more modern setting (and there are lots of references to the Biblical story hidden in the picture.  How many can you find?). 30+ years ago I was in a musical that set the story in rural Saskatchewan during a farm credit crisis.

My daughter loves Nativity scenes.  We have a living room full of them -- when she eventually sets up her own house and takes them all away we might have to find new Christmas decor. We have sets with South American imagery, or Little People, or one called a Canadian Nativity. But despite the wide variety of art and style they all tell the same story. They all tell about a baby born in a less than ideal place. Most of them include angels and shepherd or Magi, unusual visitors for a newborn child.

I happen to think that the story actual gains meaning when we find new ways to tell it. When we use our imagination to re-tell the story in new ways we might notice something we never have before. Or maybe changing it from 2000 years ago in a far off land to be a story about a young homeless family on our downtown streets will bring it home in a new way, make it more relevant to our lives today. Or maybe using language and slang and idiom of a new generation will open it up to that new generation. The story doesn't change -- how we tell it does.

Found on Facebook

On Christmas night we tell a timeless story. We talk about God breaking into the world in a different, unexpected way. We talk about a baby born long ago and far away. At the same time we tell the story of a God who continues to break into the world and live among us. We tell a story that happened long ago and continues to happen today. God's time works in a cyclical fashion, God's time moves forward by pulling us into a story that keeps flowing.

The story never changes and the story always changes. Join us on Christmas Eve to reflect on the ongoing story.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 15, 2024 -- 3rd Sunday of Advent, Year C -- Joy

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Zephaniah 3:14-20
• Isaiah 12:2-6
• Philippians 4:4-7

The Sermon title is Jesus is Coming, Relax Into Joy

Early Thoughts: What does Joy mean to you this year? Where does joy fit into the chaotic world in which we live?

I think that when defined in a faith sense joy is not about being happy. I think it is about trust.  Earlier this fall I saved this quote with the thought it might come in handy this week:

We are called to be joyful not by ignoring the chaos of the world but despite the chaos of the world.

Our Joy rests in the knowledge that we are not alone. Joy comes with the promise that God is at work transforming us and transforming the world. Joy comes with the reassurance that the powers of death and destruction will not have the final victory. Joy, as one of our Easter hymns tells us, comes with the dawn, with the morning sun, with the empty tomb.

All three of our passages this week talk about rejoicing, about being joy-filled. And in each of the presence and work of God is a key part of the call to rejoice.

As we go through Advent, as we move closer to the day when we will listen for angel song and eavesdrop and the angel says to the shepherd "I bring you Good News which shall be for all people" we await God breaking into the world yet again. When God breaks into the world, when God acts decisively in our lives we are called into joy.

Can we trust in God's presence and action enough to allow us to relax into Joy in the midst of a broken world?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to December 8, 2024 -- 2nd Sunday of Advent, Peace Candle

The Scripture readings this week are:

• Malachi 3:1-4 
• Luke 3:1-18

The Sermon title is Jesus Is Coming, Be Refined for Peace

Early Thoughts: We all Jesus the Prince of Peace. We share the promise of a transformed world where peace will be the norm. How will we get there?

I think this weeks passages hold a clue, or at least part of the answer. But first a song. Whenever I read this passage from Malachi I am reminded of a song that I learned many years ago in my late teens.

Now back to the idea of peace. Certainly peace comes from structural, systemic change. We can not have a reign of peace unless the rules of how we live together (as individuals, communities and nations) are changed. But it also means that we ourselves have to be changed. We need to be refined.

This week we hear from John the Baptist, who Luke tells us is a cousin of Jesus. John is an interesting character in our story. From what Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us it seems he was wildly popular. People flocked out into the wilderness to hear him and be baptized by him in the Jordan (Jesus himself will be baptized by John a bit later in the story). But John's message is not warm and fuzzy. He is not in this business to make friends. John is in the business of calling people to repentance -- his is described as a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (which makes for some interesting questions when Jesus gets dunked) -- and he is not shy about telling them how they have fallen short of the target.

Source

John's vision of what the promised Messiah will do is not different. He envisions a Messiah who will be big on judgment, on separating out the wheat from the chaff, of getting rid of the dead weight. Such a nice message to hear as we prepare for Christmas. "Joy to the World! You are all terrible people"

Then again, maybe some self-reflection is in order as we prepare for God to break into the world yet again. If we are honest with ourselves we know that we could probably do better, live better, love better. Using imagery like brood of vipers, chaff fit to be burned, or a tree that needs to be cut down might be a bit over the top but it does not hurt to be reminded that personal change is needed.

Historically Advent, like Lent, has been described as a penitential season. To repent means more than admitting where we have made wrong turns, it means to change directions. In Lent we are called to change directions in preparation for the story of cross and tomb, when God will break into the world and change the world through the Resurrection. In Advent we are called to change direction so that we are ready for God to break into the world through a baby in a manger. And our lives will never be the same again.

I actually like the imagery used by Malachi, of refining and purifying. It reminds me that each of us has the final product (gold or silver) inside us already. Refining ore removes the overburden and dross so that the pure  (or purer) product gets released. Each one of us is a diamond in the rough, a chunk of ore being refined to draw out our true essence.

As the years have passed some folk have felt uncomfortable seeing Advent as a penitential  season. Repentance language is not always comforting or joyful. There has been a desire to spend Advent in a mode of joy and celebration, to focus on Good News, to keep it all light and cheery. I get that. I understand the need to counter the dark news that fills our world. But I also don't think it is being honest.

If we are to be peacemakers in a troubled world we need to be prepared for the job. If we are going to be labourers for the Reign of God we need to be prepared for the task. Jesus is coming. God is going to break into the world yet again. It is time to let the dross get melted away, to toss the chaff into the air to blow away, to be refined and cleansed and purified. Thanks to God who continues to refine us to be who we are meant to be.
--Gord

Advent Pastoral LEtter

 Advent candles burning bright
Gods love shown in flickering light
Love and Joy and Peace and Hope
It’s with God’s help that we can cope
Advent candles glowing fair
Driving out fear and despair

When the nights grow long and cold
Gods promise calls us to be bold
A promised child, with us to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
See the candles glowing there
Shining Gods love everywhere.
(Untitled poem ©November 2006 Rev. Gord Waldie, Atikokan ON)

November 25, 2024

Friends in Christ,
Grace, Peace and Advent Blessings to all of you!

All of a sudden another year has gone by and we are starting Advent again. Once again we enter the time of lighting candles and looking for Hope Peace Joy and Love in the world around us. Once again we sing the carols and tell the stories. Once again we await God breaking into the world in the form of a helpless infant. What will the Advent journey bring us this year? How might God surprise us in this time of waiting and preparing?

I don’t know. God tends to reveal them-self in ways we don’t expect after all. But some things I do know.

I know that we at St. Paul’s will continue to open the door (or maybe a window) to let God come in. I know that we will continue to welcome all God’s Beloved Children to join us in worship, either in person or via YouTube, as we light candles, explore the Advent themes, and remind ourselves that Jesus is coming. I know that the CGIT and Explorers once again invite us to join them for the Vespers service at 7:30 on December 1^st as a way to launch us into the Christmas Season. I know that on Christmas Eve many of us will gather in the sanctuary at 8:00 for a time of singing and storytelling as we celebrate the birth of the Word-Made-Flesh and hear again the words of the angel “for to you is born this night...a Saviour who is Christ the Lord”. These things I know. I just don’t know what God will do or reveal as we do all these things.

Like any community, we have traditions at St. Paul’s. One of our traditions is to highlight our Local Outreach Program during the Advent season. In the past this has meant collecting items to pass on to our partners. More recently we have made cash gifts to them. This year our Local Outreach fund has been a bit depleted which limited our options. We realized we could not support as many agencies as we had in the past. One of our long-time partners has been the Elders Caring Shelter and as they are an agency that tends to have less public support we decided that we would make a special appeal for funds to share with them. The other goal is to replenish the Local Outreach Fund so we can continue to provide grocery vouchers to our neighbours throughout the year. St. Paul’s has consistently showed itself as a very generous community and I thank you for that.

For many of us the Christmas season is a time of great joy and anticipation. For others it is a time of sadness and uncertainty. There are members of our community who feel quite strongly the absence of a beloved family member or close friend. There are some of our neighbours who will be stressed about the costs of trying to have a joyful season. Amidst the bright lights and the bouncy songs there is ‘blueness’. We need to make space for that. One way we do that is through our memory tree, where folk are invited to put a name or names on an ornament and add it to our tree. At the same time I encourage all of us, in our Advent and Christmas prayers to name the ‘blueness’ and uncertainty of the season and lift it up before God. Jesus comes into the world to meet us where we are and bring the assurance that God is with us in the bright lights and shadows, the loud joy and the quiet sorrow.

Each of my planned sermon titles for the four Sundays of Advent this year start with “Jesus Is Coming”. To me this is not only about preparing for a birth. Advent is a time to get ready for Christmas but it is also a time to make room for the Risen Christ who breaks into the world, and our lives, on a regular basis. Jesus comes into our lives, into the world, meets us where we are and invites us to be transformed. Jesus is coming to invite us to follow him into a whole new world. Jesus is coming to help us see the world through a different set of lenses. This Christmas season as we make room for Jesus to come into the world, into our lives, again may we keep our eyes open for Hope in a chaotic world, may we relax into Joy, may we allow ourselves to be refined for Peace, and may we sing of Justice and dance the steps of Love.

Have a Blessed Advent and Christmas season friends. May God surprise you with Hope, Peace, Joy and Love
Gord

A Possible Newsletter Piece (it also might make no sense)

Another Taste of Fruit...

How are you a generous person? How does generosity guide your decisions?

Yes I am making an assumption there but I believe that most people are in fact generous, at least most of the time. I believe that most people know that sharing is a good thing. After all it is that list of things we learned in kindergarten. Sharing, they say, is caring.

So how does generosity make an impact on your life?

I am going to suggest that for most of us generosity makes an impact both in the giving and in the receiving. When we share something it makes us feel better, but also when someone shares something with us it makes our lives richer. I also suggest that this mutual benefit then results in a spiral of generosity. We become more generous because we have been generous and because we have experienced others being generous.

And I think that for people of faith it all starts with God. We have been the recipients of God’s overflowing grace and love. If we sink into that Divine generosity I believe it changes our hearts and moves, pushes, cajoles, maybe even requires, us to pass it forward. As recipients of gifts we share them with the world around us. It is how we live into our calling to be citizens of a New World.

In the end the key to generosity is not, I think, in the stuff we share. It would be easy to turn a column on generosity into a column about what we have to share. But I don’t want to do that, largely because I find those columns become a little pushy. I think the key to generosity is the heart behind it. I think the generous spirit is more important than listing off all that we have shared (which sometimes sounds a bit like bragging anyway). I believe that God is inviting all of us to have a generous spirit and when we accept that invitation generosity can become part of our very being.

There is a certain aptness to talking about generosity at this time of year. It is called the season of giving after all. But I encourage all of us to be aware of generosity all year round. I encourage us to look at the world with eyes that see what is being shared. I encourage us to look at ourselves with eyes that see what has been shared with us. As I said above generosity breeds generosity. In today’s world we talk about things going viral, about the contagious effect of memes or TikTok dances. Let’s help generosity go viral.

I have always found that St. Paul’s is a very generous community of faith. I may even have bragged about it on your behalf more than once. Let us continue to be generous. After all sharing IS caring.
Gord

Looking Ahead to December 1, 2024 -- 1st Sunday of Advent, Hope

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Jeremiah 33:14-16
• Luke 21:25-36

The Sermon title is Jesus Is Coming, Seek Hope in Chaos

Early Thoughts: The world is a chaotic place -- and getting more so. In the midst of that chaos is a lot of fear and despair. In the midst of that chaos are wars and rumours of wars, or economic instability, or social unrest. All of that brings worry, or foreboding, about the future.  Will things get worse? Will everything fall apart?

In the middle of all this comes Advent. In the middle of all this unrest and chaos comes the promise of God breaking into the world -- either as a baby in a manger or as the returning Christ, come to change the world.

That is where our hope lies. Our hope is in the God who promises to be with us and promises to b an active force in the world. The days are surely coming....

To a large degree we see what we want to see. Or we see what we expect to see. Or we see what we are looking for. Which does not mean that what we see is not actually there. It does mean that we may not be seeing the whole picture. In the Gospel reading this week Jesus tells his friends to be alert and watchful so they would be ready and prepared. He acknowledges the hard things but still look for the signs of something else happening. Look out and recognize the signs that the kingdom of God is near.

Traditionally the first week of Advent we light the candle of Hope. Hope, I think is a vital commodity for human well-being. Hope is what keeps us moving forward. Hope is what keeps us from self-destructing.

The world is a chaotic place. There are lots of stories about what is going wrong. If we choose we may only see the problems and the chaos. Or we can choose to look for the hope. This Advent (and on into the next year) let us commit to seek signs of hope. Speaking through the centuries Jeremiah still tells us that the time is surely coming when the world will be changed. What new leaves are sprouting? Will we miss the hope and not be ready for the transformation?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 24, 2024 -- Reign of Christ Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
• Psalm 93
• John 18:33-37

The Sermon title is King?

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to talk of God/Jesus as our king?

I think that is a question about authority and loyalty. I also think it might push us to reconsider how we currently assign those things.

Jewish  Scripture is, at best, ambivalent on the question of whether or not kings are a good thing for society. I think it in fact leans heavily to the side that human kings "like other nations" are not a good thing for the people of Israel. The people of God do not need a king like other nations because they already have a king to whom they owe total loyalty and from whom authority flows -- that would be God. At their best the human king is seen as God's anointed/chosen (sometimes, as in Psalm 2:7, also described as Son of God) and acting as God's surrogate.

In the Apocalyptic parts of Scripture we also find this insistence that God is the proper King, source of authority and owed our loyalty. When the world is changed then God will rule over the world.

And then we have Jesus. All three of our hymns this Sunday will have us singing about Jesus, the Messiah, as Lord and King. A relatively common Christian understanding of Daniel 7:13-14 is that it is talking about Jesus, particularly the Risen Christ. This is not a Constitutional Monarchy being discussed [which makes sense since the ancient world had no concept of a Constitutional Monarchy like we find in Canada and other nations today] but a King with full authority and power.

In a world where kingship has largely taken on a totally different understanding what does it mean to proclaim God/Jesus as Lord and King? In a world where we try to flatten the distribution of power where do we place authority? In a world where we are constantly told we have to be loyal to our country, or community, or 'our people' or even our church where does the Reign of God that extends beyond all human divides come in?

This is the final Sunday of the year, a day when we explicitly name that we are part of, and waiting for, the Reign of Christ/Kingdom of God. I think that taking that seriously means thinking seriously about things we largely took for granted in the days of Christendom.

In a Christendom world there were assumptions made. It was assumed that the king (or other form of government to some degree) was still God's chosen and anointed. Part of the coronation of Charles III included an anointing with oil by an archbishop. It was therefore assumed (generally) that the King was owed your loyalty and that to rebel was not only disloyal to the realm but an affront to God. This is part of why it was such a big deal that England and France (in different centuries) executed their properly installed monarchs.

I think assumptions are dangerous. Human kings and governments are prone to error, to say the least. AS we have move to different understandings of government and have moved out of a Christendom-defined worldview I think we can start to challenge some assumptions.

I think the first assumption is about loyalty.  We hear a lot about loyalty these days and are liable to hear a lot more.  President-Elect Trump showed during his first term and has continued to show that he expects his appointees to be loyal to him personally even when their role (and even their oaths of office) are to loyal to the US Constitution.  Sort of a modern-day equivalent of l'etat c'est moi (I am the state) from the days of France's monarchy. That is an extreme example but there have always been voices in many countries calling that people prove their loyalty in some way.

Maybe the voices are wrong. Maybe the ultimate loyalty for people of Christian faith is not to any country, political party, or leader. Maybe our loyalty is meant to be given to God and God's Reign/Kingdom first and foremost. Maybe our call is to be a citizen of God's Country/Reign/Kingdom first and a Canadian (or British or French or....) 2nd. 

The loyalty question leads almost automatically push us to consider authority. What does it mean to say that God has authority over us? Maybe the authority question, in a world where we are increasingly encouraged to claim our own personal autonomy and authority, is in fact the hardest part of seeing God/Jesus as king. Who or what does have authority to guide or direct us? To influence our decisions?  To tell us where we have gone wrong? Why do we grant them that authority?

Christian Scripture and tradition have long proclaimed Jesus, the Risen Christ, as our King (king of kings and lord of lords one might sing). Pilate passes on the accusation that Jesus is a king in opposition to Caesar (and Jesus sort of evades the question -- or at least moves it into a different realm, different type of kingdom). But Scripture and tradition have also proclaimed that Jesus is a different type of king, a Servant King who is among us "as one that serves". In this world what does it mean to talk about the Kingdom or Reign of God or Christ as King? How do we show we are loyal to God's Reign? Where do we cede authority to God?

ANd what do we do when the systems of power that govern our lives act in ways incompatible with our understanding of being a loyal citizen of God's Realm?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 17, 2024 -- Proper 28B, 26th Sunday After Pentecost

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Daniel 12:1-3
• Mark 13:1-8

The Sermon title is Is the End Near?

Early Thoughts: This past weekend I was thinking of a quote from the movie Hope Floats (which may make a re-appearance on the first Sunday of Advent when we consider seeking hope in the midst of chaos):

Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.

 It is my firm belief that really life is a series of endings and beginnings (with more than a few continuings thrown in for good measure). That can be both exciting and distressing. IT can lead us to explore a brave new world or it can lead us to weep and wail, to tear our clothes and mourn.

Maybe not this particular preacher

Our Scripture readings this week come from a genre of literature called apocalyptic. Apocalyptic literature often leads to discussion of the 'end times'. It is also not a part of Scripture that many United Church folks spend a lot of time talking about. Talking about the end times conjures up images of the street corner preacher with a sandwich board and a loud voice calling everyone to repent before it is too late.

However it is undeniable that talk about the end is a part of our faith story. In both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures there are predictions of what will happen when God transforms the world and what currently is will come to an end. So we really should talk about it at some point.

I see at least two things that need to be part of our discussions. First is to ask what we mean by 'near'. Scripture does not tell us how to know exactly what near might mean. The apocalyptic literature in Scripture can, and has, been used to describe almost every era of human life in the last 200 years. And given that Christianity talks about the coming of the Kingdom of God in terms of the 'now and the not yet' that is not really surprising. If God is, as I believe to be true, constantly at work transforming and changing the world the the end has come, is now, and is yet to be. So maybe near is not the best term to use unless your vision if of some cataclysmic event where everything will be changed in a flash.

The other question is based on remembering a couple of hymn lines: "In our end is our beginning..in our time eternity..in our death a resurrection", The Christian story of cross and empty tomb reminds us that endings open the door for a new beginning. I also remember that all good things come to an end, that nothing human is in fact meant to remain the same forever. Change is, as they say, the only constant. 

As God's Reign grows to full flower in the world some things must end so that the new thing God is doing can start to grow. Some things have to end so that others can begin. In a finite world, where energy and resources are limited, the only way to grow is to die.

So the end being near might be a good thing. It might be a cause for celebration as well as a cause for concern. Talking about endings may bring sadness as we prepare to say good-bye to something we hold dear. But talking about beginnings may bring hope and promise (as well as a bit of anxiety). As we celebrate the coming of the Reign of God the end is indeed near...but so is the beginning. Thanks be to God.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 10,2024 -- Remembrance Sunday, 25th Sunday After Pentecost, Proper27B

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 146
• Isaiah 61:1-4 
• Luke 4:16-21

The Sermon title is Peace, A Transformed World

Our reflection prompt for this week

Early Thoughts: Peace. What does that look like? How do we get there?

One of the markers of the Reign of God/God's Kingdom (or Kin-dom if you prefer) is that this will be a time of peace and harmony. Isaiah and the other prophets point to this with images like the Peaceable Kingdom in Isaiah 11 or when both Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 talk about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and then going on to say "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more". In the Sermon on the Mount, as part of the Beatitudes, Jesus says that the Peacemakers will be blessed. 

The Reign of God is also a Reign of Peace. It is a transformation in how we live with our neighbour. It is a world where all has been changed. It is a time when the hearts and priorities of humanity have been transformed.

I am one of those people who believe that peace will never come from a show of strength. It does not come from the use of force to crush those who disagree. I believe that peace comes with justice (by which I mean social justice). Unless we have a just world we will never have a peaceful world.

All 3 of our Scripture readings this week echo this call and hope for justice. They share images of release and liberation, of healing, of God's special concern for those on the margins. This is the transformation the Jesus announces at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus is, in the Gospels, all about proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come (indeed in Mark's Gospel that is precisely how he begins his public ministry). With Jesus God is at work bringing transformation to the world.

Next Monday we are invited to pause for 2 minutes at 11:00. In that pause we honour those who have been sacrificed by a world that does not yet know what peace could be. In that pause we recognize that the transformation has not yet happened, or at least has not yet been completed. Some days it seems unlikely that the transformation to a world where peace and justice are the rule and norm could ever happen. It would be easy to write it off as a utopian pipe dream.

Another CHatGPT creation

But we are called to be people of hope. We are called to remember that God is not done with the world yet, that God continues to work in, around, and through these often-flawed children that God loves. We are people of a dream, God's dream. In Scripture we see the stories of people trying to sort out how God would have them live. But we also see in Scripture a picture of what is possible. God proclaims that there WILL be a day when peace and justice are not only possible but a reality.

It will take transformed hearts and minds and souls. It will take a radical change in human priorities. It will look very different from how the world looks now. But it IS going to happen--someday.  Peace will break out. Justice will flow like a river. And we shall be living in the full-blown Reign of God.

May it be so.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 3, 2024 -- Proper 26B, 24th Sunday After Pentecost

All images created using ChatGPT

For the month of November we are building toward the last Sunday of the Church Year, a day when we intentionally talk about the Reign of Christ/Christ the King. I encourage us to take this month to reflect on what it means to procalim the reality of God's Kingdom in the world today.

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Leviticus 19:33-34
• Ruth 1:1-10, 19-22
• Mark 12:28-34

The Sermon title is Love the Migrant, the Refugee

Early Thoughts: The heart of what it means to follow Jesus is to love your neighbour with a very broad definition of neighbour.

9 Years ago, in the middle of a Federal election we had the leader of a federal party talk about "old stock Canadians", a phrase which caused a fair bit of reaction and discussion. Earlier this fall the premier of Alberta talked about Albert only wanting to accept immigrants who "share our values". In the current US election there have been a LOT of comments/discussion about immigrants and how dangerous they are (most recently one candidate referred to the US as an occupied nation that he would free with the largest deportation program ever). The former British government developed a scheme whereby refugee claimants would be sent to Rwanda.

How we respond to migrants (economic migrants, people looking for a change/second chance, and refugees) has probably been an issue for human civilizations since the beginning. In countries like the US and Canada which have been built through immigration there have been long debates over who is "acceptable" as immigrants. In recent years asylum seekers/refugees in general have been largely seen with deep suspicion both in North America and Europe. [And we have to note that skin colour/country of origin has often or always played a BIG role in determining if people should be welcomed with open arms or not.]

So it is that this year as I mused on what to do with the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself my mind went to the question of those who come from away. Really it is a focusing on one aspect of the question Jesus is asked in Luke 10:29 "But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?". Is the economic migrant, the refugee, the newcomer truly my neighbour? Am I really supposed to love them like I love the people I grew up around? The people who are like me? 

Pretty sure Jesus would say yes.

The stories of Scripture show us that those people were also concerned with how to treat migrants, newcomers, and those from away. And while there are parts of the story that are not friendly to those who are 'not like us' (eg. the people who returned from exile in Babylon were told to put aside the foreign wives they had acquired while in exile) there are other parts of the story that talk about caring for, acting lovingly toward, the stranger, the outsider, the migrant.

Ruth was an outsider. She married into the people of Israel because her husband's family were economic migrants to Moab and settled there, building a life.  Then she herself became a migrant when it was time for what was left of the family to return home. Poor Naomi is an economic migrant or refugee twice in the story.

Levitical law tells the people (who as the story goes were a whole refugee people fleeing one life for a better life) treat the outsider well. A big part of that argument is "for you were aliens in Egypt" . You know what it is like to be mistreated so do better when you have the chance.

Then Jesus tells us that we are to love our neighbour as we love ourselves and the. Jesus tells us to love our enemy. Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan to answer the question about who is my neighbour. Jesus tells us that others we will know we are his followers by our love.

THere are many concerns that go into the immigration discussion. How does population growth impact housing and public services is a big concern. We can't pretend there are not details to sort out to make it work. We also can not, as people of faith, followers of Jesus, try to limit ourselves to only accepting the 'right sort' of people. We have to care for the refugees and migrants. We have to push for them to have the same standard of living and opportunities as the rest of us.

Most importantly we can not allow ourselves to be led in to thinking they are a problem to be solved or a threat to be neutralized.

Jesus never promised that loving friend neighbour or enemy would be easy after all.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 27, 2024-- Proper 25B, 23rd Sunday After Pentecost

The Scripture Readings this week as we close Thanktober are:

• Jeremiah 31:7-9
• Psalm 126
• Mark 10:46-52

ChatGPT's image for healing and renewal

The Sermon title is Thanks for Renewal

Early Thoughts: When have you felt healed and renewed? Is there a difference between healing and renewal? If so what do you think it is?

This week we have two passages that talk about the renewal or restoration of the nation of Israel (meaning the scriptural nation of several thousand years ago, not the modern nation-state) alongside a healing story where Jesus gives sight to Bartimaeus -- we are not told if Bartimaeus has been blind since birth or came to be blind later in life, though the last verse does suggest that he once had sight but lost it through accident or sickness.

I asked ChatGPT to add Jesus

Over and over again in Scripture God is revealed as one who bring wholeness, healing, restoration and renewal to the world. I believe God continues to do this. 

So when have you felt healed or restored or renewed? When has God brought wholeness back into your life?

Conversely, when have you felt in need of healing, renewal or restoration? When have you felt a broken-ness that you wished could be made whole again? Did the healing/restoration/renewal or return to wholeness match what you thought you wanted or needed? [Sometimes it doesn't.]

I suggest that sometimes, maybe even often, we miss the acts of God to bring healing or renewal because they seem so small. Or we think that there is some other reason, like some choice we made. Or we might even miss the healing/restoration/renewal because it was not what we expected.

A year ago this congregation was, to a degree, in a state of panic. For three consecutive years we had 5 figure deficits, with 2022 being around $30 000. We knew that this put as in danger of running out of resources but we were really unsure what the solution might be. We were sure we had to either sell the building, cut staffing time, or both. The concern was palpable. But God had already been working -- we just hadn't quite caught on yet.

Then I asked to add a sense of community

Starting in the first half of 2023 God had obviously been at work in the hearts of the members of this faith community and revenue started to improve. So much so that we finished 2023 with essentially a balanced budget, without major cuts to expenditures. There was still a bit of wondering of "was this a one-off event" but many started to feel that we had a bit more time to breathe and ask who God was calling us to be as a community of faith in the space and time. Then halfway through this year we got a surprise -- someone wanted to lease out half of our basement. All these things happened because people made choices but it is my belief that God was at work in hearts and minds and souls as those choices were made.

God brought a measure of healing and renewal into our midst. Even when some had started to lose hope God was at work.

This is one example. Many of us, in our personal lives, can think of other examples. Maybe we need to stop and look at the events again, to have our eyes opened and see with new sight, to see where God was at work. Still God has been at work in our lives, healing our hurts, renewing our world, restoring our hope, making whole that which was broken.

Thanks be to God.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 20, 2024 -- 22nd Sunday After Pentecost Proper 24B

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 92:1-4
• Psalm 91

Did some playing with ChatGPT

The Sermon title is Thanks for Being There

Early Thoughts: When have you felt alone and isolated? What was that like? Did you feel vulnerable, unprotected, at risk?

One of the things I truly appreciate about the Psalms is that they invite me to explore, settle it, maybe even wallow in the reality of life with God. One of the other things that I appreciate about these ancient poems is that they can bring me comfort, they can remind me that God is there, they can tell me that God is looking out for me.

I could have chosen many different Psalm readings for that purpose.

Psalm 91 is, for me, a very comforting piece. Like many others I know the stomach churning that comes with feeling alone, isolated and vulnerable. Maybe that is why I have always been so drawn to the fact that A New Creed begins and ends with the affirmation that we are not alone.

This is our month of Thanktober, our Month Of Thanks, a time when I want us all to stop and reflect on why we are thankful.

More ChatGPT Playing

One of the reasons that I am thankful is that I am not alone, that it is not only my wits and strength that are going to protect me.

And that is a good thing.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 13, 2024 -- Thanksgiving Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Joel 2:21-27
• Matthew 6:25-33
  

The Sermon title is Share Thanks, Not Worries

Source

Early Thoughts: There are a number of lists of failed church signs/announcements circulating around the internet (and have been for decades, well before social media took over the world). One of those failed messages is shown in the picture. It could be a great statement about faith helping us deal/cope with worry--or it could be a much more negative comment.

Some of us are natural-born worriers.  Worry is a default reaction for some of us -- we are always wondering what could/will go wrong or how this could end badly. For others worry is a reality of life because no matter how they do the math there just isn't 'enough'.

Quite often I read this passage from Matthew with at least half my mind saying that Jesus is not being reasonable or realistic. Then again I am one of those natural worriers. Still, telling people not to worry about where their next meal will come form but to live on trust seems a bit utopian to me. Maybe I am being a bit too literal, a bit too all or none in my thinking?

What happens when we dwell on our worries and anxieties? Does it, as Jesus reasonably asks, "add a single hour to the span of your life"? One could (and many have) in fact argue that dwelling on our worries and anxieties and fears can shorten our lives, while simultaneously robbing us of happiness.

What might happen if we dwell on the reasons we have to be thankful? What happens if we choose to highlight the ways God has been with us, bringing hope instead of despair, abundance where we only saw scarcity, renewal where we only see destruction, life instead of death? It might not add a single hour to the span of our lives, or it might by lowering our blood pressure and saving us from cortisol poisoning, but it almost certainly would add happiness to those days. It might also make us easier/more pleasant to be around.

Many years ago Bobby McFerrin urged us all to Don't Worry, Be Happy. A bouncy little song, it lifts my spirits just to listen to it but when you look at the lyrics you see that it has a degree of realism. Unlike Pharrell's song Happy from a decade ago, which is just about being happy all the time, McFerrin's lyrics name several reasons one might have worries that weigh them down. Still he encourages us to put those worries aside, to not let them run our lives.

This, I think is a path to better mental emotional health (or at least part of the path). We need to be honest and realistic about life but then we need to make a choice. We can choose to focus on our worries and anxieties. Or we can choose to focus on the good things and give thanks with a grateful heart.

When I talk about this month being a Month Of Thanks or call it Thanktober I am encouraging us to make the second choice. Joel shares a promise to a people who have had a hard time of it, a promise that God will reverse their fortunes. Jesus tells his followers to live lives based on trust and hope rather than worry and anxiety. Let's all try to share our thanks more than our worries. It will, I believe, make us happier as individuals and as a community. It also appears to be how God would have us live.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 6, 2024 -- Creation 5, Worldwide Communion Sunday

Source

St. Francis of Assisi is often seen as having an affinity for God's Creation (particularly animals). The Scripture Readings this week were chosen from readings sometimes used on his feast day (October 4th):

• Isaiah 55:1-3, 10-13
• Psalm 148:7-14

The Sermon title is Celebrate and Praise the Creator!

Early Thoughts:  We sing our praise. We sing our praise and celebration. We have done it repeatedly over the last month. Titles like It's a  Song of Praise to the Maker or This Is God's Wondrous World or All Things Bright and Beautiful or the one we will sing this week Praise With Joy the World's Creator all move us to celebrate the world God created and God the Creator.

And there are many other hymns and songs which do the same thing. Why? Why is this such a common thing in our library of worship song?

I think it is because in our hearts, even those of us who spend most of our times in the urban jungle and inside, looking out at the world through panes of glass or the widows on our computer screen, we know that we meet God in creation. God is revealed in the world around us, particularly in the natural world. 

I have a LOT of nature pictures...

Christian theologians talk about two different types of revelation: General Revelation and Special (I prefer specific myself) Revelation. Special Revelation is what we find/see/hear/experience in the words of Scripture and especially in Jesus, the Word-Made-Flesh. General Revelation is what we find/see/hear/experience in the world around us. God's creation is God's General Revelation. Therefore we sing our praises.

IT is an easy thing to lose track of though, this idea of looking for GOd in the natural world. In a world where too often the earth is valued for how we can use it for our own benefit and many of us spend very little time in nature it can sometimes be easy to lose track of the wonders of creation. We need to be reminded sometimes.

Celebrating the Creator and singing praise for the gifts of creation can also be a bit counter-cultural. One of the reasons that Celtic Christianity was disparaged, rejected, and quelled by Roman/Latin/Imperial Christianity may well have been that the Celtic version of Christianity always upheld the sacredness of nature. When one holds up the sacredness of a thing it is much harder to turn that thing into  mere tool to be used solely for our benefit (as I typed that sentence my thoughts turned to some of the rhetoric used to support slavery and racism). Roman/Latin/Imperial Christianity had, since the time of Constantine, been pressed into service of the Empire. The Empire needed to utilize the earth's resources as "best as they could" and seeing the sacredness of the tree simply as a tree rather than as firewood or a spear shaft might get in the way of that.

We are a part of the world that God has created and is creating. We live in the midst of the creation where God is revealed. Therefore let us sing our praises and celebrate both the gift and the Giver.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to September 29, 2024 --Creation 4

Image Source

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Genesis 8:1-22
• Revelation 22:1-5

The Sermon title is Paradise is a Garden?

Early Thoughts: Our story begins and ends in a garden. I read the Genesis passage this week and I find it suggestive of Noah returning to a garden. Certainly there are echos of the instructions to Adam in the instructions to Noah.

Maybe paradise (where our story starts and stops) is in fact a garden. [The hours of weeding over the years make me doubt that a bit] But then I remember something I learned a few years ago. Something etymological.

Picture on the cover of Saving Paradise

 9 years ago I read a book called Saving Paradise. Early in that book it talked about how the earliest church focused not on the crucifixion but on paradise. I remember wondering what it might mean if we chose to focus our attention in the same way. That might be another sermon, maybe for Reign of Christ Sunday some year....

Anyway, in the first part of that book I was introduced to the idea that the word 'paradise' has its roots in words relating to a walled enclosure or garden. Add that to our Genesis and Revelation accounts of Eden and the New Jerusalem and yes maybe paradise really is a garden.

What might that mean for how we live in the world?

Now I am remembering a more recently read book. This was a book on Celtic Christianity and spirituality called Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul. In this book it is suggested that one of the reasons Celtic thought was incompatible with "orthodox" Roman Imperial Christianity was because it raises up the sacredness of creation. Empire (Roman, British, American to name a few) is built and maintained largely by seeing the creation as a tool and/or raw materials to use as the structures of empire are built and maintained. To name Creation as sacred and something to be honoured and treasured for what it is rather than what we can do with it gets in the way. How do we see the world around us now? Is it gift to be celebrated or tool/raw materials to be utilized effectively? Do we sometimes like to claim one answer while our actions reveal something different?

We are invited to see the world as a garden. Or maybe we are invited to pine for the time we will return to the garden. I am now pondering what it might mean to see the world as a garden (though maybe without the wall implied by the etymology of the word paradise).
--Gord

Looking Ahead to September 22, 2024 -- Creation 3

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Job 37:14-24
• Psalm 104:24-32

The Sermon title is Can We Understand It All?

Early Thoughts: Sometimes we need to be a little bit humble. Humanity, as a whole, understands a whole lot about physics, chemistry, and biology. We know a great deal about how the world works. We don't know or understand everything -- not even those people who are at the top of those scientific fields claim to know or understand everything. Those of us making do with high school science classes or maybe some post-secondary science can certainly not claim to know how the universe works.

Humility is a good thing.

Which is what led me to look at Job for this week. Job is a strange book, but one which pushes us to consider some pretty deep questions. Certainly, and for some very obvious reasons, it is often used to get into questions of justice and fairness and "why bad things happen to good people?". But I also think as the text pushes forward it raises questions about humility.

The section we are reading this week comes from the end of one of the speeches of Job's so-called friends and supporters (personally I don't find them to be all that supportive to Job). As Elihu draws his soliloquy to a close he pushes Job to consider that he can not know or comprehend the full mind of God. Job can not know how the world God has created works because God's majesty is so far beyond our existence. Interesting theology of nature perhaps, and not one I totally agree with but it raises some interesting questions, particularly given what comes next...

In the next chapters, starting literally the verse after this reading, God finally shows up to respond to Job's complaints and accusations. Speaking out of a whirlwind God asks Job a series of questions and issues a series of challenges about Job's level of knowledge and control over the way the world was created, the way the world works. (There are multiple sections from these chapters that I could have chosen to use this week instead of the words of Elihu.) By the beginning of chapter 42 Job responds in humility, humbled before the majesty of God.

In context both Elihu's words and God's response out of the whirlwind are not really about eco-theological concerns. They are about recognizing the God who is in control and in charge. However I have come to think that humility and being willing to say "we don't know how that works" or "we don't really know how to do that" or (to re-purposes some words of Hamlet) "There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy".

We want to know it all. We want to understand it all. Humans are, and I suspect have always been an inquisitive and curious species. We also tend to be a little bit proud. Sometimes a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. We might start to think we have all the answers. We don't. Interestingly I find that often the people with the most knowledge and understanding are more likely to be the ones who admit there are limits to what we know and understand (and that limit keeps changing as time goes by). Some of the people most insistent that we have all the answers are the ones who have limited direct experience in the field -- take the furor over a certain Olympic boxer this summer and questions around gender as an example.

In the most recent United Church faith statement A Song of Faith God is repeatedly referred to as Holy Mystery. I remember talking to someone whose (either agnostic or atheist) son was a physicist, working at a high-level. The son told his father that beyond a certain point they could not explain how things worked, it was a mystery. Faith and science agree that there are things (they may not always agree on what things) that can not be explained. We have to be humble enough to accept the mystery (at least temporarily -- science and curiosity will continue to explore and search for answers) and trust that there is meaning in it.

HOw do we live with the reality that we don't, or possibly can't, know everything about the world? First are we willing to admit it? Then how do we live in the uncertainty? As people of faith I think part of the answer is trust. Part of the answer is trust in the God who has created and is creating both to continue to reveal the world to humanity and to be at work in the world around us. After all God loves the world that God calls good (and yes that is a faith statement, not a scientifically provable claim).
--Gord