Looking Ahead to June 9, 2024 -- Affirmiversary, Church Union Sunday

 

A year ago St. Paul's had our celebration to mark our decision to become an Affirming Ministry. This Sunday we will mark that anniversary during our worship time. 

A photo of the Inaugural Service

99 years ago next Monday there was a worship service in a hockey arena in Toronto (the Mutual Street Arena) which marked the official beginning of a new Canadian Denomination -- the United Church of Canada. We will also mark that with a reflection on how we are called to be the church as the UCCan prepares to mark a century of existence in 2025. (Nationally there are plans to make it a year-long celebration starting this weekend)

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 1 Corinthians 12:4-13
• John 17:1-25

The Sermon title is Called to Be Church: Deep, Bold, Daring

Early Thoughts: How do we deepen our spirituality? How are we bold in our discipleship? How are we daring in crying out for/acting for/being transformed for justice?

In 2021 the General Council adopted the following Call and Vision statements that would guide the work of the National church over the next three year (2022-2025) period:

Vision

Call

While these are really more binding on the work of the General Council, all parts of the church, including local communities of faith, are encouraged to hold them in thought and prayer as we consider how God is calling us to be the church in our own contexts.

Our Scripture readings this week might help us in this consideration (at least that was my hope when I chose them). From Paul's first letter to the Corinthians we have a reminder of the importance and gift of diversity and remembering that while diverse we are also tied together in Christ. How does that unity in diversity help us be Deep, Bold, and Daring?

John chapter 17 (this week's reading is the whole chapter) is a prayer from Jesus to close the Farewell Discourse. Right after this prayer we launch into the story of arrest, betrayal, trial and execution. The UCCan motto Ut Omnes Unum Sint (That All May Be One) is taken from verse 21 and speaks in part to the hope of our founders that we would be a united and uniting church. While this is written as a prayer Jesus is offering to God, it is also a public pronouncement being made by Jesus. He is praying this in front of his closest disciples and obviously they are meant to hear and pay attention to it. I think that it is in part Jesus sharing words of hope for who they will be, in part some words of encouragement to keep them faithful when the road gets hard, and in part a reminder of who and whose they are. There is a bit of a sense of commissioning in these words to my ears. How does this prayer Jesus offers for his followers help us grow deeper in our relationship with the Divine, be bold as followers of The Way, be daring in our quest of justice in the world?

If I am honest I think that often in the UCCan we have done better at the daring justice and bold disciple ship part of the call than the deep spirituality. At least as far as our public face goes. A few decades ago the UCCan was known in some circles as "the NDP at prayer" -- and while some folk wore that badge proudly it was not, I think, intended as a compliment (nor was it as universally accurate as some might have thought). We have sometimes been seen as a faith community more interested in non-spiritual things than talking about how God is part of the world, a group that is more of a 'social club' or political movement than a church.

If I am equally honest I don't think that is and accurate picture of who we are. One of realities of faith life is that those three aspects of our call interweave and feed each other. Maybe it is that we sometimes find it easier to talk about the daring justice than our spirituality. Maybe our bold actions make better headlines than our prayers. But each feeds the other.

Our way forward as a a denomination, as a local community of faith, as individual followers of Jesus, is to go further. We need to take the time to deepen our relationship with God. We need to listen for where GOd is calling us to be so that we can step into those spaces. We need to have the courage to speak boldly about the vision for the world God shares with us, to follow a different path with different priorities than others in the world. We need to challenge voices and systems and actions that bring injustice and suffering to our neighbours (near and far) even if it might cost us something.

We are called to be the church, to continue the work of building unity in diversity, to share the Good News that God's Kingdom is growing in our midst. It may not always be easy, but still we try to be faithful.
--Gord

For our Young at Heart Conversation this week...