Acts 11: 1-18 Codette, Nipawin, Online

Psalm 148

John 13: 31-35 May 18, 2025

On any given week, because of the bulletin production deadlines, I have to come up with a sermon title before I really know what I want to say. It’s not too bad when I am looking ahead from week to week and I can keep several passages at the back of my mind all the time On vacation this time though, I totally put the upcoming passages out of my mind. The title you see in the bulletin is one of about 5 I could have used. When I finish you may, or may not, agree that the title was appropriate.

The question for us today is, “just what is this odd passage about a hammock full of animals, really about? Is it about changing dietary laws or does it have another focus. First, we have to remind ourselves that the Jewish people had a list of foods they were not to eat and as the animals are described we realize that the hammock in this vision is filled with animals on the “do not eat” list.

At first Peter is shocked.

When I was in New Brunswick, the last time, I belonged to the University Women’s Club which is an international organization which, among other things, promotes the education of women and girls. One day we participated in a meet and greet with other local clubs and a tour bus filled with members from further away.

I believe that the meal that day was lobster. It’s a specialty of that area of New Brunswick. PEI is a great place for lobster as well - Here’s a photo of me enjoying my spring feed. It’s also not a cheap food, but I think it’s worth the extravagant price a few times a year!

However, there would have had to be another choice, some people are allergic to sea food, don’t like lobster, and others do not eat it for religious reasons. If the apostle Peter were one of those men on that bus, he would have been one of those ordering the alternate meal and it could not have been t would not have been roast pork either. Offering choices is simply good hospitality in the 21st Century.

These days there are groups of people, in addition to Jewish people, who follow a similar diet, usually referred to as “kosher”.

So this hammock-type sheet was being let down from heaven and it was filled with unclean animals - I’ll say , buzzards, pigs and lobster and he was told to get up and eat. He refused saying that he had never eaten any of that stuff in his life. But he was told that God had made them clean. Now this happened three times.

Context is important. In this case it is crucial. There was indeed controversy in the early church about food because Jewish people had strict laws while Gentiles did not. BUT the context tells us that that is not really what this particular passage is about. This is a passage about people.

In this case there are two groups of people; Gentiles and Jews. Since we are Gentiles, by definition, we might think that this passage is irrelevant to the church today - we have solved those issues, but metaphorically speaking it is so relevant. Back then, the strict Jews wanted all Gentile mem to be circumcized and become Jewish before they accepted the teachings of Jesus but others did not see this as necessary.

This passage tells us quite clearly that the Holy Spirit was at work in the lives of uncircumcized Gebtiles, so ikf God had invite them, who were mere humans to turn them away.

Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, “who would be the most surprising person to walk in our door?” What would it take to notice, and say to ourselves, “well that person certainly does not belong, or we cant accommodate their needs.” And so on and so on ..... After all, Pentecost is the season of church growth.

Would it surprise us if the person had green and purple hair and various facial piercings?

And I’ll mention the elephant always in the room these days, “ the same-sex couple.”

Or the person experiencing a disability that requires to make new accommodations.

Or the extra noisy todler, the autistic child.

Or the blind and deaf person?

Or the socially active person who has no interest in coming on Sunday but will do anything for Matthew 25, or the food bank or another outreach program.

Are we willing to try new music. Igt seem that other churches in the area are not singging the “oldie goldies” but new stuff. How are we with that?

As I have already said, the thing we need to remember that the Holy Spirit had already told the Gentiles that Peter would come and give them the words of salvation. If Peter had not gone he would have been as if he were standing in the way of the work of the Holy Spirit.

One of the things we are working on in the United Church as a national policy is becoming an inter-cultural church. Our “national staff” have been chosen, in part, to bring forward that mission and that goal. A few summers ago I was in Tatamagouche Nova Scotia for a seminar and one of the presenters was a United Church minister living and working in Toronto. A total stranger to the community she was shopping in a local store and knew very quickly that she was being followed around the store - presumably to guard against shoplifting. Did I say she was African Canadian? We had a discussion about that - when we all got together for our first session - because as Caucasian people most of us had never had the experience of being pre-judged by the colour of our skin.

Toy Story is a series of films for children, which take place in pre-school where the childre never age. Of course the childrne do age but when they get to be 5 they go to regular school and are replaced with a new crop of younger children and the toys are happy. They will not be forgotten.

Some time after graduating from University I was on the campus on my way to a Conference Committee meeting and I marvelled at how young the students seemed - but the University had not started to admit children - they just seemed to be children to my now 30 year old eyes.

How do we listen for the Holy Spirit and how do we allow that message to change us? Quite a few years ago the stewardship division of our church hired Charlie Farquharson to do some skits. In one scene, his wife and son came home from a church meeting to get pledge cards ready but he said he refused to sign one because he had already made hus commitment! He said something along the lines of, “I have been giving the same amount, week in and week out for nearly 40 years”. The statement is more common than you might think. The logic sounds ok coming from your own mouth sounds until you hear the same words voiced by Charlie Farquharson, otherwise known as Don Harron, who died about 10 years ago. I think that Archie Bunker provided the same “mirror” to middle-Republican-America. It sounded so good when you or a friend said it, but ludicrous when Archie uttered it. Archie made people think about themselves.

As we contemplate going forward in the near future with new ministry leadership and new goals we will have to decide whom we are welcoming and what we will do to enable them to feel they belong. Are we comfortable inviting people we know from other groups in which we participate? If we don’t invite them, how will they hear the Good News we are preaching and living.

Who are we? Whose are we? How will people hear if we don’t tell the story?

Amen!

Ephesians 1:15–19, 3:16-21 Nipawin & Online

United Church Anniversary Sunday

In the Spirit We Live and Move and Have Our Being

I’ve known the date of church union my entire life, or most of it; June 10, 1925. You may known that June 10 was also the birthday of Phillip Mountbatten, the late Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth’s husband. Actually, though, to be perfectly honest, I remembered it because June 10 is my own birthday but I’m a little off the hundred!

I am a student of history. I love studying it and talking about it, especially the history of Church Union. Not everyone was gung ho about church union though. I remember visiting with a friend of my great aunt who was “a continuing Presbyterian.” She thought church union was the worst that ever happened to the church.

I recall that the village in which I once lived which had a Presbyterian church as well as a United Church but learned that in 1925 the United Church ended up with 2 church buildings and 2 manses. In 1925 those who wanted to stay Presbyterian had to buy their former building from the United Church but they did not need the manse. I never asked how much they had to pay and I don’t know what they got for the Methodist parsonage. .

However since about half the presbyterians joined the new church, we got the records which the Presbyterians had to borrow when they needed them - which had at least one Presbyterian senior cranky. I remember that person. Then, when I was serving the Charge, the Nova Scotia Provincial Archives made a copy for each of us and they were happy.

The church of my upbringing was built because the courts awarded the existing church on the top of the nearby hill to the Presbyterians and the United people had to build their own. The Johnstons still lived in Saskatchewan in 1925 but of the 4 sets of grandparents there was a mixture of both Methodist and Presbyterian.

In some pastoral charges there were former Methodist congregations and former Presbyterian ones which even 60 or more years after union, retained much of their tradition and unique flavor. In many cities the signs on the front of the building were changed but the worship and some governance often remained the same in tone and focus. As a result of Union the United Church operated for 95 years with both Presbyteries and Conferences where each denomination had had only one.

Over time, congregational amalgamations happened, adopting previously unimaginable names of St. Andrew’s - Wesley United Church, for example, giving homage to what were two very different denominations. Sometimes, former Methodist and former Presbyterian churches were grouped together, into a Pastoral Charge, expecting one person to lead and minister to both. Theological colleges were closed as we needed fewer in certain geographical areas.

In addition, over time other denominations joined us such as the Evangelical United Brethern, and a number of individual congregations from various backgrounds. We have always been and remain a diverse church.

Out here in the west, except for the larger centres, those who were Protestant did not have the numbers needed to support a variety of churches among the far flung farming settlements. Many communities established Union Churches before 1925 to meet the needs of the settlers who had come from many different countries and backgrounds. As a denomination, the United Church was seen as a solution to this dilemma and gave the people an alternative where they could work together despite differences.

Throughout our 100 year history, we seem to have always been in the news and not necessarily seen to be in a good way. I’ll let you decide which news story fell on what side of that line!

Those who know their theology (and I don’t really count myself among those people) are amazed at how such a diverse group of Protestants could actually come together into one church. The Articles of Faith became part of our foundational document, the Basis of Union. Two General Councils ago (or was it 3) we added three other statements of faith, to sit below the Bible, as our “subordinate standards” of faith - to show that we are rooted in the Bible but allow the Spirit to lead us in the present and into the future.

In many ways we are a church of firsts: The Rev Lydia Gruchy was the first woman ordained in the United Church and eventually the first woman to received an Honorary Doctorate from a theological school.

One of our moderators, the Very Rev Dr Lois Wilson, who died in September at the age of 97, was also the first woman to serve on an international stage with her work on the World Council of Churches.

We were the first to state that sexual orientation was not a barrier to consideration for ministry. That was controversial but I believe we have become richer by accepting the gifts of a more diverse group of clergy.

We regularly admit to ministry those who were trained in other denominations, and who have come from other countries, adding to the diversity of our already diverse nation.

Initially, this sermon included a long list of United Church firsts - and controversies but I deleted all of that after re-reading the introduction to the book, “Fire and Grace” published 25 years ago - to mark the 75th Anniversary. The 75th banner still hangs at the back, now over the crying room - and the brand spanking new one hangs where the old one did.

The introduction was written by the Very Rev Bruce McLeod, a former Moderator , now 95 years young, as a kind of ode to the church he loved. It reminded me that our church is much more than the church that makes the news, or sits by the dozens or hundreds in stuffy rooms every few years, but we are a people called to worship and work for the Gospel. Our Statement of Faith which we will recite later in the service speaks of the church I love - when it is transformed from printed words to lived action.

McLeod wrote, “.....near the end of my term as moderator, I met a terminally ill United Church elder in a Regina hospital. He was a farmer. He had a sense, he said, of having participated in the ongoing spirit of creation that worked through him in his strong years, and to which he gladly gave his life, as a trumpet gives itself to the one who blows it.”

I have led in celebrations of life of many such people and I was privileged to walk with them for a time - to serve them communion in church and in their homes down isolated country roads. I baptized grandchildren and grandmothers; many babies and even a few young children at their own request. One of those younbg people is now an ordained minister.

When I pass a long abandoned house, falling into the basement, I wonder about the lives begun and ended there. When I pass a former church building, I wonder about the people whose faith was formed by listening to the word read and taught and lived out in that building and among the people as they departed for their lives in home and field and other places of life and work. A few years ago I stood across the road from the church in which my grandfather was probably baptized, before he and his whole family moved to Saskatchewan.

At our best we make ourselves available to the Spirit and it’s world-warming power. At our best the “cure of souls” is taken on by the whole community, not just clergy. At our best we become the hands and feet of Christ.

We once rested in our status as the largest Protestant denomination in Canada but we can no longer do so. I doubt we will ever see the Prime Minister at the opening of General Council as John Diefenbaker once did. The question is: when we speak do we speak for those who have no other voice - do we care for the hurting and show God’s love to those most in need of it?

My dad was a man of many stories and I thought I had heard them all, until he told one to Walter Farquharson when he was Moderator and visiting in the church I was serving in Nova Scotia.

Another Saskatachewan moderator, The Rt Rev George Dory who served from 1954-1956 had known my grandfather’s family in Saskatchewan. During his term as moderator and my grandfather, ill and unable to attend the event 10 miles away was treated to a home visit - from a moderator who had been a friend. At that moment the distance across the miles of this vast country all but disappeared - and Moderators were just regular people.

Yet, in the midst of it all, communities of faith continue to gather and praise God. We continue to participate in the cure of souls, comforting the bereaved, caring for the sick, teaching the young, singing the songs of the faith and feeding people - we do food well in the united church

Moderator, McLeod writes, “We have the grouchy, the open, the tired, the talkative, the hopeful, the nay-sayers - sometimes all in the same person depending on which day you ask.”

In 2019 we restructured our denomination. What was once new, designed for a different century was changed. It brought a new term into our governance structure: community of faith, but of course its really not a new term, it just makes what we have done all along official. We are not a congregation which congregates, or gathers but a community centred around our faith as disciples of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Come, Follow Me.”

Let us continue to feel God’s blessing as we seek to follow in the next hundred years.

Amen.

And You Thought Doing the Right Thing, Was The Right Thing ! Or No one Would Post Bail

When I was in University, I was part of a student group that got together on Friday nights to sing gospel music, hang out and avoid our homework for a few hours. My residence had become a party place and was so noisy the floors shook so I had to go somewhere. The group I mentioned mostly suited my needs, though I was not nearly as conservative as they were!

One of the songs we sang was about Paul and Silas being in jail, because no one would post bail. As I recall the song did not deal with why they were in jail in the first place. The song focussed on the miracles of them being let out of jail by the doors springing open in an God directed earthquake. The thing they focussed on was Paul and Silas also using it was an opportunity for saving souls.

I’m not sure how I treated this passage the last time it was read in church; I decided not to look it up. I may have preached on the Gospel, for all I remember! However, this year I looked at titles such as, “so much for good intentions.” If you were paying attention to the story you heard the text tell us that Paul and Silas healed this young woman out of annoyance. One of the characteristics of the demons that plagued the folks encountered in the early church was an unwillingness to be quiet about Jesus identity or that of the disciples. They HAD to shout that these people were servants of the most high God. Why Paul and Silas wanted it kept quiet, is a subject for another day.

So, annoyed, Paul and Silas healed the girl. I am not a doctor and have no clue what those symptoms would mean today. Connie? Dr Pat? After the healing she no longer had any connection with her “spirit of divination” and as a result she was not able to earn her owners any money.

THIS was why Paul and Silas were thrown in jail. It had nothing to do with promotion the fledgling Christian faith.

When Jesus was walking the roads of Palestine he healed many people, some of whom were no one’s cash cow, but some who were! I suppose it might be like the “circus freaks” of a different century where people paid to see the two headed man or the Giantess of Tatamagouche NS, who grew to 7.78 feet. I lived about 25kms away for a few years. I recall giving a talk on the Tatamagouche area 20 years or more ago, to a group of colleagues from all over Canada and the USA, who were meeting in Tatamagouche. Most of them had Googled Tatamagouche and found out about this famous woman. I had not even added her to my list but could satisfy at least some of their curiosity with a general FAQ off of the top of my head.

At this point we need to ask ourselves what kind of a world do we want, a world where all have what is needed for life or a world where the sick suffer or are taken advantage of, or the rich become richer by taking advantage of the poor and the marginalized.

Many years ago I became familiar with an umbrella term under which many social organizations operate, called BDS which stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. As far as I know it focuses on certain companies that work in the occupied territories in Israel. What we were asked to do was to not to buy stuff from these companies. We were to ask others not to buy from them or to invest in them if they were publically traded. In most cases the Palestinian people who work for these companies have asked the west to help them in this way. Given the other restrictions on their lives, the workers are exploited in so many ways. The one company I know of best is “Soda Stream” whose products are available in this part of Saskatchewan. Earlier pressures led to moving a factory but the company simply put it somewhere else, which took advantage of another group and continued the exploitative labour practices.

Of course some people believe that churches should not be messing in politics but it seems to me that the early church did it all the time when lives and human dignity were at stake. Their troubles often arose from rocking the boat; a very shaky boat to begin with to be honest. I have also been told that the church should not be messing with economics but how can we stay silent when people are suffering. On the surface it was clear that that young girl was suffering - how can any decent person make money off of that?

Let’s talk about food for a moment. How many would be willing to give up bananas, well, ok, we can eat apples which are grown in Canada. Now, it’s not really a food, but how about coffee. What have become everyday products are often grown in conditions, with no respect for worker safety, which would not be allowed in Canada but the workers or their governments think they need the investment dollars. People who were accustomed to growing their own are not allowed to do so any more. The corporations own all the land.

Some of you would know much more than I do about the confusing knot of contracts and legislation with regard to seed and chemicals and licences to grow certain crops and many people have differing opinions if this tangled web is in the best interests of the bigger picture. Some people have turned vegan because of the amount of water needed to raise livestock, while others would argue that beef can be raised on land unsuitable for planting and harvesting crops. I love a juicy steak, a plump chicken or a feed of lobster and scallops and feel all these things can be sustainable industries.

About 38 years ago, the manual for my first car gave instructions for taking the grille off so that you could change a headlight! So as eventually happens, a light burned out and I went to the local garage and bought a new one and the mechanic installed according to the instructions, but when he turned the page the instructions did not tell you how to put the grille back. After several unsuccessful attempts, the garage guy tied it on with plastic zipper ties. Later that week I went to the dealer and he showed me how to get it back on - but it was not the logical reverse of removing it! In my mind there was no intuitive way of figuring it out. Im not sure if I wrote to Nissan or not! It was a few years before email was common.

Often we need help in seeing connections and solutions and beginning to walk a new path or in a new way.

In the modern world one of the things that causes trouble, is the social action that seeks to shut down mining operations in developing countries.

In our own north there are generations of people who are living with water that is undrinkable due to a wide variety of causes, many of which had nothing to do with the current residents. Successive government have failed to solve the issues, but the people are still waiting.

When we consider the ministry of Jesus was about bringing life in all its abundance to people, we need to have a serious look at what exploits and harms others, and seek to end it. If that is political, well then we need to see it as part of our Christian mission.

Life in north central Saskatchewan in our farming communities is very different from the word we encounter in the biblical texts, it is very different from the world in which we all grew up; farming changes greatly at least every decade. The size of the average farm in Saskatchewan would not be legally possible in the province in which I was raised. Applying the principles of fishing on the sea of Galilee to modern fisheries on either of our coasts would be impossible

We need to see the connections, do what we can to bring abundant life and do it in faith and as a response to the Gospel call to abundant life.

So let us go to be among those who bring release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom and dignity to those who have lost it. All people are created in God’s image. Let us proclaim that in word and deed.

Amen!