Jeremiah 31: 1-16
Psalm 118
Acts 10: 34-43
Matthew 28: 1-10

“More Than We Ever Imagined”

There are things that happen in life; things you can’t explain; but things that everyone you meet has to hear about just the same anyway! When one of these things has happened to you, people can see it on your face. People can sense that something has changed. People know that something significant has happened. Yet, when you try to explain yourself you’re likely to turn into a babbling idiot! There are times when words fail you - yet if you have to explain it to someone, words are often all you have!

For Jesus followers the first Easter was one of those kinds of things. Each gospel tells it in slightly different ways; with details somewhat mixed up and confused. The gospel writers couldn’t seem to agree - Yet, they all agreed: EASTER CHANGED THEIR LIVES FOREVER. BECAUSE OF EASTER THE WHOLE WORLD HAD CHANGED - FOREVER! I remember reading a quote somewhere that went like this: For the disciples, the real miracle of Easter was not Jesus absence from the empty tomb but the presence of the living Christ in their previously empty lives”. The real miracle of Easter is not the empty tomb but that the presence of the Living Christ transformed the disciples from fear filled disciples into faith filled proclaimers of the word.

Easter is, or should be, far more important in the church than Christmas. Easter is the event toward which we have been moving since the beginning of Advent and it is the one thing we will be trying to explain to the world and to ourselves until next Advent (if you go by the flow of the lectionary, that is).

If you have accompanied the disciples on each step of their journey through Holy Week, no doubt you would have felt as if you were on a roller coaster. During and after all of the ups and downs you might well have said, with them, “Is there anything left to happen?” You would have said, “what a difference a few days makes!” If we walked with the disciples on Palm Sunday we probably shouted our hosannas along with the crowd. We gathered at table for the traditional Seder meal and listened to the re-enactment of the great story of the liberation of the children of Israel from Egyptian oppression. If we had been there we most likely would have fallen asleep along with the others during Jesus’ agonizing prayers in the garden. By Friday we too would have been cowering in fear as we heard shouts of “crucify him” and “give us Barabbas instead”. Maybe we shouted it too, not wanting to be found out.

We heard from those who had been there that he died more quickly than was usual for this kind of execution. We were told that some of the guards didn’t know what to do with this man who seemed to be so different from all the others they were all too used to executing.

For two nights we sat along with the others in our sorrow as we were too tired to think or feel and too afraid to sleep, hoping that it wouldn’t get any worse and wondering if we might be next.

Then it DID get worse; it had been reported to us that someone had taken Jesus’ body. Well, that is not what was reported, but what other explanation could there be? Who would take it? Wheree did they take it? Who would do this? Why would they have done this? Why torture us like this? Why rub salt in our wounds. Along with the the disciples we thought he was to be the One to lead our nation to greatness.

Yet there were the stories of the women; stories that wouldn’t go away; stories of those who had claimed to have seen and talked to the Lord. It couldn’t be true, could it? (Pause)

Well, we as a church have based our entire existence on that truth; not then empty tomb truth, but the presence of the Living Christ truth.

This was a transforming and living truth. This was a truth that changed lives. It not only brought the “down and out” reprobates from out of the dust but it transformed the ones who were sure of their own righteousness into a people dependant upon God’s grace and love and open to others. It accompanied people through their darkest valleys and soared with them on eagles wings when joy came to them.

Today’s passage from Acts follows almost immediately after the one which records the disciple Peter’s life changing vision. In this vision all people are declared to be worthy of the Gospel of Jesus and beloved by God, where previously he had regarded many as unclean and unworthy. This vision, you might say, blew Peter out of the water. This vision opened him to the grace of God in a way he had never experienced it before.

This vision taught him that you cant truly know the love of God without also knowing that it is for all people - no matter who they are.

This vision tells us that in a way the message of Easter is not so much for us as it is for the world, through us.

We are called to live as people of the resurrection; as a people who know the presence of the Living Christ. It is the one thing that makes us who we are. It is the one thing that gives us purpose in life.

We can’t always explain how we know it’s truth for sometimes even we can doubt it, but when we do we gather with those who do believe it so that we may come to know it through their words, their hymns, their lives. We support one another in faith and in times of doubt.

Late on the first day some came to experience that presence in the breaking of the bread. Some others experienced it while fishing while others found it in the room they had locked in fear of the authorities. Others have since come to know it in jail cells and hospital rooms and quiet garden places.

The resurrection is not a past event it is a present statement of faith. May we all receive the grace tosay it now and always.

Christ IS risen. And Christ lives among us.

Amen.

Acts 7: 55-60
Psalm 31: 1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2: 2-10
John 14: 1-14

In The Footsteps of Jesus

There is an old story about a man who was horribly disfigured in an accident. A renowned facial surgeon stopped by his bed and told him that he could reconstruct his face if he had a photograph of what he looked like before the accident. Sadly, the man replied that he had no such photograph. He saw a picture of a serene looking man on the wall and asked if he could be made to look like “that man”. Though he looked somewhat surprised, the surgeon agreed to perform the surgery and it was completed. When the bandages came off his new face bore a striking resemblance to the man on the wall.

One day he asked the nurse who was attending to him, “Who is that man in the picture?” She looked at him with an astonished look, “You don’t know! .... That is Jesus.”

The story goes that the man decided that from that point he would try and live his life like Jesus had, figuring that if he chose to look like him, he should try and act like he did.

This is the season of Easter; a season of travelling in the footsteps of Jesus’ first followers who were following in Jesus’ footsteps. In today’s passage from the book of Acts we read of a man whose following also led to his own death. The church has long referred to Stephen as the first Christian martyr. In this passage we see a compassionate and fearless deacon of the church, a proclaimer of the word; we see someone who stood in the tradition of his people and sought to interpret the “Christ event” for his hearers.

This passage is an intriguing one, both for the way in which it shows the biblical and theological connections the early church community made with their past and the ways in which they sought to live their lives in the way of Jesus, even if that meant death.

The story is very well told; as it is recorded here, the speech of Stephen makes connections with the famous figures and events of the past but yet his vision was fixed on the future with the teachings of Jesus as a way of being faithful to the original intentions of that past.

We must remember that the leaders of the early church did not set out to start a new religion. Jesus and his followers were faithful Jews and remained so until they were no longer able to remain within their synagogues. As the missionary endeavours of the early church expanded many non-Jews came to believe and the church had to struggle with the question: “must these people become Jews first, or not?? Eventually they did not. However we must remember that the church continued and continues to regard what we often call “the Old Testament” as “Scripture”.

What struck me as I read this passage was the ways in which the followers of the way were indeed following in the way of Jesus of Nazareth, whose teachings they spent their time proclaiming.

Today’s lesson from Acts tells us the story of Stephen, a deacon and a preacher, who became a martyr for the Gospel. He was one of many who died because they had decided to live in the way of Jesus and because of the way in which they interpreted the traditions of their people. This story connects the death of Stephen to the death of Jesus, through the simple but very obvious reference to Stephen forgiving his executioners as Jesus did. reference to “the young man named Saul”. To understand the irony of this reference we need to know that this Saul will eventually become Paul, the missionary and he too will die for his faith in Jesus.

I read a much larger portion of the story of Stephen than the lectionary indicates for this day because I felt that the rest of the story needed to be told in order for us to be able to understand. What he does is to retell, in one speech, the entire story of his people. I could use it in my Confirmation Class in which I summarize Genesis to Malachi in less than a half an hour. However, it not the history lesson, as such, that seems to anger them, it is the way in which he connects the disobedience of those who “killed the prophets” to their own disobedience in killing Jesus, whom Stephen proclaims as the “messiah”. It goes to show- “Call a self- righteous person a ‘hypocrite and a sinner’ and watch the fur fly!!! “

However we will learn nothing from this passage if we conclude that because WE follow Jesus, we are “home free”. This passage was written down when there were so many hard feelings between synagogue and church that we cannot automatically adopt the attitude of the author toward those who remained in the synagogue.

The issue for those of us who call on the name of Christ is this: are we truly following in his way or have we compromised our own lives of faithfulness for the sake of convenience, power or money - in much the same way that some of Stephen’s contemporaries did?

For a while WWJD bracelets were common, particularly with young people. WWJD sands for “What Would Jesus Do?” and wearing the bracelet was a reminder to the wearer that he or she was called to ensure that his or her actions matched what Jesus might have done.

Yet, after the exuberance of youthful faithfulness and certainty has passed we realize that life in the 21st century is not that simple, if it ever was. Jesus knew nothing of many of the things we take for granted such as electricity, automobiles and airplanes, space travel and basic medical tests. Even if even if we look to his teachings we will find no direct references to stem cell research, to keeping people alive by the use of complicated medical equipment or global warming. To discern the ‘way of Jesus’ in these matters is more complicated than “looking it up in the good book”.

We need to struggle with our faith tradition and the values it has passed on to us and we need to do so within the faith community and the community at large.

We cannot take the teachings of Jesus and apply them in a “one rule fits all”, blind and legalistic fashion. We know that he himself re-interpreted the laws of his own people in the light of compassion and common sense. For example, when Jesus found it necessary he did what was considered work on the Sabbath; that is he harvested enough grain for his meal and he healed the sick. He associated with sinners and outcasts as well, because, he reasoned that it is only the sick who need doctors; it is only those who recognize their sinfulness who knew they were sinners.

Yet, I wonder what he would say to w world which seems to operate at full throttle 24/7 . More importantly perhaps, what would he say to church people who don’t seem to see anything wrong with this?

I wonder what Jesus would say to a world in which money is regarded as a ticket to happiness? What would he then say to our own governments which are addicted to the revenue from gambling dollars, even when those lotteries are known to cause untold problems for those least able to afford the money they pump into the lottery machines - in the hopes they will win this time and solve all of their problems.

One of the things that we can do, and as the United Church we do do, is to avoid fundraising through the use of raffles and lotteries. It is a small way, but I think it enables us to stand in solidarity with those who have become addicted to gambling. It also says a great deal about the true nature and grace of giving.

Why, I wonder, does a charity have to entice people to give with a car, a grand vacation, or even a dream home, as a grand prize. If the organization is worthy of our support we should be giving because of the work it does, not because of the attitude “someone will win, so it might as well be me”.

Like Jesus, Stephen looked back at his tradition and told his accusers that all he was doing was calling them to take seriously what they professed to believe. He was willing to give his life for this because he had already giving his life to it.

The same Spirit which enabled Stephen to face his accusers without denouncing his faith also worked in Saul’s life until it brought him to the life changing decision to follow God in the way of the carpenter of Nazareth.

That Spirit can work in our lives as we seek to be truly faithful to what it is that we profess to believe.

We may come to different conclusions than those of previous generations; but we are all called to enter into those struggles and discussions.

We may never be called into a court of law, with the threat of capital punishment hanging over our heads as we witness to our faith, but we are witnesses just the same. Our lives are the first gospel some will see, our lives are the only one some will see.

We must work at it, individually and in community if it is to be living and relevant presentation of the gospel for our time and place.

You never know what the Spirit is seeking to do in the lives of those who see and hear our witness.

Amen.

Acts 17: 22-31
Psalm 66: 8-20
1 Peter 3: 13-22
John 14: 15-21

“The Life In God”

Christ is Risen!

No, I’m not behind the times. It is the SEASON of Easter, a seven week time of celebrating the presence of the Risen Christ. Often called, “The Great 50 Days” it is a time of celebrating the resurrection and spreading the Good News. So I will say it again - Christ is Risen!

(Pause)

This “immediately after Easter” time was one of great struggle for the disciples. THEY were constantly having to having to make sense of the teachings of Jesus, and THEY had to make some sense of the recent events in their lives involving his death and resurrection. THEY had to figure out how to remain faithful in the midst of growing opposition to the Gospel.

Our readings for this day speak to the response of the earliest Christians to the world in which they lived.

In our reading from the book of The Acts of the Apostles (Which should probably be better named, The Acts of the Holy Spirit”, Paul, recently having very recently become a follower of “THE WAY” is speaking in the Areopagus (which was either a place or the court which met in that place) to profess his faith.

It does not look like he is on trial at this point; he is merely trying to present the gospel to these people in a compelling manner. Paul would have been very familiar with this city and all of the idols to the various gods and goddesses which had been erected by their devotees. It seems that someone had erected an altar to “An Unknown God”. Perhaps the sponsors of the altar wanted to make sure all the bases were covered; in case some gods had been missed, this altar was a kind of generic offering.

So Paul starts with this altar as a way of proclaiming the God. In an astute move, he praises them, rather than calling them a “bunch of heathens on the way to eternal punishment”. (By the way, I’ve never really thought that such language was an appropriate method of evangelism anyway!) Paul does what any good evangelist or preacher does: he met them where they were. He went from praising them for their religious nature to proclaiming the “One True God”. He formed his message in terminology with which the “thinking” people who gathered at this Areopagus would be able to connect. In a sense, he started “where they were” and went on from there to proclaim his faith in the God of heaven and earth.

I heard a story once about the Rev Herb Ashford who was once the minister at Trinity in Charlottetown. On one occasion he had the children up at the front and asked them what was the last thing before they went to bed! Of course, one little boy shouted out, “Pee”. Ashford was not easily thrown; he started with where the children were and said, “ Well that’s the first letter. There is a little more to it than that though - its P-R-A-Y.” He them went on to talk to the children about bedtime prayers. (That must be a true story because the Rev. Gordon MacBeth told me. His picture hangs on the back wall of the church I am preaching in this day. He was from that congregation!

Note that we are not told that everyone there became believers! That didn’t happen. In fact, we are told elsewhere that Paul wasn’t very successful that day. What we are told is that some scoffed while others has a sense that Paul’s message would be heard again. They were the ones who heard something compelling, something that merited a second look. Perhaps they became followers at a later time.

Here we are almost 2000 years later and we too are faced with proclaiming the Christian message in world that has a lot of other things on its mind, a world that has many other priorities.

Our passages for today offer us guidance on how to proclaim the gospel to the world in which we live.

We are told that without compromising the message of the Gospel we need to frame it in terms relevant to modern life. I think we need to keep in mind what our young people ALL know about space and science and dinosaurs and the age of our planet all that and stop talking about heaven being “up there” and God being an “old man sitting on a throne in the sky”, just for example. Perhaps the church never actually taught some of that, but somewhere a few images used to help people better understand the reality of God, became more than an image to help people understand what cannot really be captured by the human mind, and became a description that excluded other ideas.

We know that the people with telescopes and involved in the space program have never found “God’s dwelling place” in the skies. This does not mean that “not finding God’s house in space” destroyed the astronauts’ faith; there is one account of an astronaut celebrating communion on the moon.

One way of saying this is that the things of faith are about “Who?” and “Why” rather than about “how?” and “when>”. In 2008 we need different ways of describing God and God’s ways. In the tradition of the United Church we have always given people the opportunity to discover the path that is comfortable and meaningful for them and now forced people to accept a narrowly defined faith.

There has been a lot of press lately about what is sometimes called, “Progressive Christianity”. Various magazines have run cover stories on the topic and a United Church minister by the name of the Greta Vosper has been interviewed for various articles and on CBC radio One.

I agree with some of what she has said but it seems to me that she has succeeded in throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

A dozen years ago the Ottawa Citizen published an interview with the Moderator of the day, the Rt Rev Bill Phipps. According to the Citizen, Phipps expressed doubt as to the divinity of Christ. The church was in an uproar. As Chairperson of Truro Presbytery, I presided at a meeting which sought to formulate a response to this statement. Some wanted to call for his resignation while some supported his belief to express his own beliefs. Wheter or not his words were misconstrued, one thing is certain: more than most of us had in a long time, we all talked about our faith. We were all called to reflect on the question of who Jesus was for us. We were all called to reflect on what his relationship to God meant for our life of faith.

We are now presented with the same opportunity. Notice that I used the word OPPORTUNITY. As a community of faith and as individuals we are called to talk about our faith, preferably in groups of mixed ages and take a hard look at some of the “beliefs” we have taken for granted or believed without questioning.

What is clear is that the new discoveries in the realm of science and the not so new ones have caused a great many people to leave the church because they have been unable to reconcile the God of the church with the reality with which they live from day to day. While there are churches who offer certainty to their members the United Church has always offered people a place where they can walk the road of faith in community and come up with their own conclusions and beliefs, within a broader set of parameters. Born out of several very diverse Protestant traditions the United Church has been a church which embracces this diversity from its very beginning.

The early church had to struggle with the reality of their world and the experience of the risen Christ in their midst. Their struggles are recorded in the letters and writings that came to be regarded as scripture. What we need to recapture is the “engagement” they had with their faith; the dialogue between the teachings of their ancestors and their experiences as followers of THE WAY, which was, incidentally, what the early Christians were first called.

What was foundational for them was the presence of the Risen Christ in the community of faith. They didn’t all agree on the details. In the days before the Ascension the stories don’t all agree. In some stories he could be touched and in others he could not be. Yet, after the experience of Pentecost what is clear is that the fear-filled groups of followers were transformed into fearless proclaimers of the Gospel, ready to die for living in the way of Jesus Nazareth.

In the Epistle of Peter the advice to “never tire in doing right” is given to someone who is likely tiring of “always doing what is right”. When we as a church go out of our way to be advocates for justice we may take a lot of heat. When we advocate for the poor we may feel as if we are banging our heads against a stone wall. When we oppose a popular government action we may be criticized by others, even other Christians. We are called to be grounded in our faith, yet open to the winds of the Spirit which may be blowing us in other directions.

One of the realities of life in the twenty first century is that we no can no longer expect the society to mirror the values of the church. This is not something to lament because it frees us to truly speak about what it is that we believe. We are free to witness to our faith. We are freed to live out our differences and to truly proclaim the Gospel.

We may share some values with “people of good-will” who have no particular faith perspective at all, and we can rejoice over what we do have in common. What we are called to do, in addition to this is to procliam our faith, to speak to “the hope that is in us” as the Epistle of Peter puts it. As an Easter people we are called to profess our faith about the God whose love motivates us. We are called to share our faith that the love of God as manifest in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

By action and word may our lives proclaim:

Christ IS Risen

(And all the people said)

CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED

Amen1

Acts 1: 6-14
Psalm 68: 1-10, 32-35
Dundas 1 Peter 4: 12-14; 5:6-11
John 17: 1-11

A little over 20 years ago now the students of Atlantic School of Theology had a vote over a somewhat divisive issue. I have no doubt that the president of the school had his opinions but he didn’t really express them on this occasion as it was essentially a student issue. What he said to us was, “I know that people have strong feelings about this and some of them do come from our different denominational backgrounds. All I am going to say is, Please don’t fight about it.” He did not want division to come between the various parts of the community.

Today’s passage is part of what is often called, “Jesus’ high priestly prayer.” It comes at the end of Jesus “farewell remarks” to his disciples and close followers. After speaking to them he prays for them, and one of the things he prays for is their unity.

What is unity?

It may be easier to state what unity is not, than it is to state what it really is.

Unity is not sameness and uniformity. It is clear that Jesus chose very twelve very different people to be his disciples and their differences were valued and embraced. Later, in a pastoral letter, the apostle Paul compared the body of Christ to an individual human body, with each part having a different function but being equally valued.

We must also say that we are not to seek unity by attempting to change the other through forceful or even mild persuasion. Unity cannot be attained by force or fear nor.

Unity does not fall out of the sky but it is a gift of the Spirit. Unity is a decision we make in community, in the face of differing opinions, ideas, lifestyles and priorities.

Unity is a process, it is a journey; perhaps true unity can never be achieved, but we can get closer to it through work, prayer and allowing the Spirit to work in our lives.

Unity does not preclude disagreement, but it allows for such disagreement within a context that shows mutual respect and acceptance. We can differ and as long as we truly accept the right to differ within the wider context of unity.

Unity, is a product of true love and it seeks the greater good over the individual good. Like love, unity is self-giving.

Today’s prayer for unity comes at the end of Jesus’ “farewell discourse” to his disciples. Jesus seems to know that they would soon face an unprecedented time of change and danger. When these words were written down in the gospel for the early church they were indeed facing persecution and death for just being “Jesus’ followers”. “That All May Be One”, was Jesus’ prayer for his disciples.

In what became the Western Provinces a “united church” was the only logical answer to the vast open spaces and sparse settlement. There were just not enough people or resources to build three or more churches in every town or at every bend in the road. Eventually the idea caught on in the whole country. Incidentally the motto of the United Church of Canada is “that all may be one”. That is the meaning of the words in Latin at the bottom of the United Church Crest. These words reflected the hope of those who worked for the union of three Canadian churches that this coming together would be a witness to the greater unity among churches that was possible and indeed desirable. Some of them hoped that the United Church would continue to be a uniting force in Canadian society. They believed that they would be a able to do more for the cause of Jesus Christ united than they could as separate congregations and denominations.

In prayer before God, Jesus reflects on his life’s work and places his desire for his followers’ unity before God. LIKE MANY THINGS, Jesus took them to God in prayer. Jesus knew that the conclusion of his own earthly mission would not be easy and he knows the road ahead of the disciples after he is gone won’t be easy either. He knows that it is only with God’s help that it can be achieved.

We are in the midst of an almost unprecedented time of change. We are constantly being told that we will have to figure out how to reduce our environmental footprint on this planet if life as we know it is to survive. Critical food shortages, driven in part by the hope of bio-fuels are putting basic food grains out of reach of the poorest of the poor and increasing the cost of our own food-baskets substantially. Globalization and other factors are driving our farmers out of business in record numbers and as a country rich in agricultural potential it is ironic that we run the risk of becoming dependant upon other nations for our food because our farmers cannot make a living. The cost of gasoline and heating fuel is on a steady rise with no end in sight and we know that the gap between rich and poor is widening day by day.

In this precarious climate charities, including churches, are facing declines in giving. The church is having to institute cutbacks while the needs keep increasing. Church attendance is declining as families develop other priorities and many activities and organizations vie for precious free time.

We desperately need the unity that Jesus prays for even more than ever. We should stop pining for the “good old days” because if we were honest we would remember that they had plenty of troubles of their own.

The only way we can go is forward, but the specifics of how we do that is up to us. We need dialogue and mutual understanding now more than ever. In a world context we need to realize that our futures are all linked; the futures of the people of India, for example, are just as crucial to our own survival as are just as close as those in the other Maritime Provinces.

As a Pastoral Charge we are at a cross- roads. We face a time of hard decisions. Fuel costs are continuing to rise at the same time as we are struggling to maintain ministry on a reduced income. We know that other pastoral charges have amalgamated and congregations have amalgamated and closed some buildings.

As we talked and listened to one another last week we tried to look forward to the future. If we look at the change only as a loss, it will never work. If we look at it as a fix for all our troubles it will be a short-lived fix.

What we need is to embrace a new vision. I know some of you are tired of that word. BUT I have to use it because I don’t know of a better one. Jesus called the 12 to “fish for people” . We need to look round us and through prayer, reflection and study we need to discern what it is that we are called to be an do in the early years of the 21st century and then seek the human, architectural and financial resources to accomplish it.

We have been called. Jesus has prayed for our unity so that the greater mission of the gospel may be accomplished.

Let us seek the Wisdom and insight we need to be able to accomplish all that this call involves.

Amen.

Acts 2: 1-21
Psalm 104: 25-34, 35b
1 Corinthians 3b-13
John 7: 37-39

Happy Birthday!

No, I’m not crazy, it IS your birthday - it’s the birthday of the Christian Church that is.

Happy Birthday! and Happy Pentecost!

In the Jewish calendar, Pentecost was a harvest festival and on the Pentecost in question it seems that many people were gathered together in Jerusalem, from places we have never heard of, (sometimes when other folks who don’t like “big words” read that passage I just tell them to say the people are from all over the world. They were there to celebrate the harvest. This was a common, yearly, occurrence.

It seems to me that there are two things that are of particular importance that we need to clear up as we consider these texts.

When I was a child I had a set of Bible story books that pictured the first Christian Pentecost as if the disciples and others had turned into human candles - they all had a little candle flame coming out of their heads. I know the text seems to say this; but surely the image merely a vivid metaphor for being alive and on fire with the Holy Spirit. Surely it’s a metaphor for how the power of the Spirit caught on and went from one to another until all were enthused and alive with faith and courage.

We make another mistake when we assume that it was on Pentecost that the Holy Spirit came into being. It is clear that throughout what we often call the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit of God was present and active. The first story of creation has the “Spirit of God” hovering over the waters. Clearly the Spirit was with the prophets of old as they sought to speak for God in very difficult situations.

It seems to me that what this Pentecost Story is about, FOR THE CHURCH is the enlivening and empowering of the followers. The Spirit enabled them to move from fear into action. The Spirit took that group who were huddled together in fear for their lives and gave them the courage to risk their lives for the gospel. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit that the Church grew and the Gospel spread.

It is clear to me that on this day the Spirit of Pentecost was about overcoming barriers. The miracle of Pentecost was not in the speaking of many languages, but in the hearing. We are told that they were heard by those who listened in their own native language. (And they were from all over the known world. ) This language was the language of the heart and soul.

We are told in the Epistle that it is the Spirit who gifts the people of the church with different gifts. It takes a variety of gifts to make up a church community just as it takes a variety of body parts to have all the required functions. We need not bemoan the gifts of another; ours are just as important. Today we also value the gifts of those elected to serve as elders.

Today we celebrate(d) the sacrament of baptism in Bay Fortune. We formally welcome(d) a child into our (the) community of faith by the sacrament of baptism. By transfer of membership we welcome(d) others. Whenever we celebrate Baptism, we covenant together to grow in faith and to provide Christian nurture and enrichment for all, but especially for our young people. At a baptism, we each have the opportunity to publically profess our faith by saying our Statement of faith together. We commit to God and to the mission of the church, a mission that would not be possible without the God who created us and the Christ who names us as sisters and brothers; and the Spirit who guides us and strengthens us in our life of faith.

Happy Mother’s Day! It’s the day when we honour our mothers and by making them breakfast in bed, by taking them out to dinner or supper, by buying them flowers and by waiting on them.

It’s a day for all mothers to pray to be as good a mother as they can be. It’s not an easy job a nd all too often its taken for granted.

Mother’s day has been around a very long time, but not always in the form that we know it. Originally it was a pagan festival to honour Rhea, the mother of the gods. In early Christian times, it became a festival to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus. In the years just after the new world was settled, Mother’s Day was not celebrated. Then in the 1870's, a woman by the name of Julia Ward Howe proposed and organized a day for mothers to pray and work for peace. In 1914, after much lobbying by a woman named Anna Jarvis, president Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as a day to honour mothers. Before her death Anna became angry at the commercialization that surrounded her day as, in her view, merchants were capitalizing on this day to honour mothers and saw it merely as a way to increase profits.

In the Spirit of both Howe and Jarvis we can honour mothers and the part they play, the sacrifices they make , in raising their children and contributing to the good of the wider community. We can also work and pray for peace - we know our world certainly needs peace. At this very moment countless mothers struggle to feed and clothe their children in war zones and situations of drought and flood and emotional and physical abuse. Countless mothers await the return of husbands and children serving in the military from their tours of duty. (Of course, fathers wait and worry too! And of course women and mothers are now involved as enlisted personnel in “harm’s way”.)

We can also call for society to be more supportive of mothers in society and in the workforce. Women have traditionally earned less than men for work of equal value and we can work toward the equal valuing of women’s work as a way of valuing women and particularly mothers for what they do for their families.

Happy Christian Family Sunday. This is a day when we celebrate that other, larger, family to which we belong: the body of Christ. This a family that transcends race, social status, nationality and language. This is the family of those who have been touched by the hand of Christ and named as Christian. We are all one family. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, hence Christian family Sunday.

There IS a great deal going on today.

Amen