This being the first Sunday of the Month we will be celebrating Communion.
The Scripture Readings this week are:
- Acts 4:32-35
- 2 Corinthians 8:1-7
The Sermon title is: Sharing Sharing Sharing
Early Thoughts: It is one of the first life skills we learn. It is a key part of how we get along. Many years ago when Robert Fulghum shared his list of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten the first item on the list was "Share Everything".
In both Guiding and Scouting the youngest groups are reminded of the importance of sharing at every meeting. This week's sermon title is the Beaver motto (and has been for decades, I remember learning it when I was a Beaver). The Sparks promise is captured on the t-shirt pictured above -- which used to be the official uniform for Sparks when our girls started in the program.
Turns out it is a Biblical injunction too. Both in this week's reading from Acts 4 and earlier at the end of Acts 2 we are told that the early church survived by sharing what each had for the benefit of the whole community. [If you read the beginning of Acts 5 you will find a tale about a couple who tried to skirt this requirement of being a part of the community.]
Both Christianity and Judaism (from whence Christianity sprung: Jesus, Peter, Paul and many others--all the earliest Christians were Jewish) place a high priority on the communal well-being. I am sure the same is true of many other faith traditions. Jewish law has in it restrictions aimed at ensuring the well-being of the whole community. More than once the Gospels tell of Jesus warning about the dangers of accumulating wealth (in human communities the accumulation of wealth often happens at the cost to other members of the community). We are called to share what we have for the benefit of all.
Some might call that Stewardship. Some might call it love in action. Some might call it ridiculous Marxist thought.
The faith community we call St. Paul's United Church only exists because people have shared. For over 100 years, starting when Alexander Forbes first began to create a Presbyterian church on this site, people have shared what they had with each other and with the larger community of Grande Prairie. For this faith community to continue to exist and move from surviving to thriving we need people to continue to share.
This week I ask you to prayerfully consider what you have to share. What can you put in the common pot? What do you have that can help the community bloom and grow? Yes that includes cash, the bills have to be paid. It also includes all sorts of other gifts. We pool our gifts of talent, time, treasure, prayer and love together and find that the sum is greater than the total of its parts (or at least that is the hope).
Sharing. It's a good thing to do. That is why we teach it to our kids so early in life. (And both when we are young and when we are older it can also be a challenge.)
--Gord
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