Have you ever gone on vacation and discovered you had forgotten something you really needed? Have you ever gone on vacation and realized that you had taken way too much stuff? That is probably much more common! I was channel surfing last week sometime and came across this show on which the guest was showing various combinations of clothing to pack so that you could go somewhere with as few pieces as possible. The host was impressed; the studio audience appeared impressed. It could be done!

Every time I move I have to decide what I am going to take with me and what I am going to sell in a yard sale, what I will give away, and what I will consign to the garbage. If you are moving to a bigger house the decisions aren’t so hard; if you are moving to a much smaller house, or moving a long distance you need to decide what you can live without and what you will need to move.

The part of the slave population of Egypt who were descendants of Jacob and his many sons were soon to be on the move. The story up until now has been short and to the point: the Hebrews have been enslaved and various attempts at genocide have not been working. Their life is very, very hard and the people have cried out to God for deliverance. God has called Moses - who by coincidence or design - is uniquely qualified for this task. 1) He is a Hebrew by birth, and b) he was raised and schooled in the royal court. He has been on the run from the law since an unfortunate incident in his youth when his temper got the better of him and he killed an Egyptian who had been treating a Hebrew badly. However this leads to the third qualification: c) Until recently he had been living in the desert and minding sheep for his father-in-law. So he had the right ethnic background, he knew how the Pharaoh worked and thought, and he knew how to survive in the desert!

In many ways “the exodus” is the dividing point in the history of the Hebrew people and it would be hard to over-emphasize its importance. In the biblical story - from the call of Abram, the story has been moving toward the exodus event. From the event, throughout their time in the wilderness and during their time in the promised land and in exile, the deliverance from Egypt was the one event to which they referred again and again.

In today’s reading we are told that this event was so significant that it was the beginning of a whole new way of noting the passage of time. It was to be the beginning of months.

It is also the inauguration of a ritual which was to become one of the defining rituals of their religious faith. The Passover, so named because the “angel of death” “passed over” the homes with the bloodied doorposts and no one in those houses died. It was a ritual which reminded them of the saving acts of their God - the God who named them, called them to freedom and then led them into that freedom.

They are to eat it ready to go out the door - eat on the run - the original “fast food”. It’s now or never; they leave tonight or not at all, ever!

In and through the exodus they received their identity as a people under the command of God, not their harsh Egyptian taskmasters.

But what does this story have to do with us - all these many years later and so removed in culture and experience. We are not a slave population seeking freedom. We are not our ancestors fleeing the highland clearances in Scotland or the potato famine in Ireland.

It has more to do with us than we might think! Perhaps we, or our children, make the annual pilgrimage to Alberta to get enough money ahead so we can settle down here at home. Perhaps it is just dad who goes away to *make the money the family needs to live. Perhaps it is your children who have moved away to make their lives elsewhere. These days a growing number of grandparents are moving away to be near their grandchildren.

Families have to learn how to make new traditions and find meaning in their lives in new ways - ways that might have seemed odd a few years ago.

I think though that this passage can and does speak to us, not only as individuals and families, but also as a Pastoral Charge, a community of faith, and to where we find ourselves at this time.

Like the Hebrews at the Passover, we can all recite the history! A few years ago we were part of two pastoral charges. In 2005 St David’s in Georgetown opted not to join the Kings United Charge. Since that time we have ceased to use the St James and Annandale buildings and will soon be discussing where we go from here. Oh, how we long for the good old days when the churches were full and everyone went to church - sometimes twice on a Sunday!

Well, sometimes, if the truth be known, the good old days weren’t always as good as we remember them! Church minutes tell stories of shortages of funds and the hard work necessary to keep the churches open.

If we were to read ahead in the story of the Hebrew people in the wilderness, it was not long before they were complaining about the conditions in the desert. They were free, but they were tired of the manna God provided each day. They wanted to go back to Egypt. We know though that “you can’t go home again! You have changed. Home has changed. The challenge for us, as it was for those folks, all those generations ago, is to live in the present knowing the presence of the God who promised to never leave us or forsake us.

Now the people of Israel would not have had much to begin with, in terms of material possessions, they were probably able to take everything, but they had to leave behind what was familiar. They had to learn how to live in tents - remember the nomadic lifestyle had been left behind many generations before! They would have had to learn how to live on a different kind of diet. Used to being told what to do, every waking minute, they had to learn out how to live their own lives.

We have both the benefit and the burden of making some decisions about what we will take with us and what we must leave behind.

In the movie from the 1980's, about the resettlement of the Newfoundland outports, “John and the Missus”, we encounter dying town of Cup Cove and with the explosion in the mine they begin the process of abandoning it. John Munn, well played by Gordon Pinsent, is opposed to the move. He cannot leave behind that for which his ancestors laboured> In the most memorable and humorous speech in the movie, Munn gestures to the cemetery and says, “We can’t just go! Why, I know every living one of them that’s buried in that there graveyard”! And by the miracle of special effects we do see them, these sepia toned ancestors, in period costume, lurking in the background, always present but never really visible.

We have been given a great legacy by the ancestors who worked and sacrificed to build the church buildings we now use and to sustain the congregation and its ministry. That was their way and their time.

We are now in a different time. Travel is easier and people do go more places, more often. We have more people around who go to other churches or who don’t go anywhere at all! The ones who do go to church aren’t having families of ten anymore and they are often away on weekends - and the list of differences goes on and on. We can rejoice that there still are people who are interested in and able to participate in the life of a church. We can rejoice that we have a group of people who are interested in the ministry of the church.

But there are not enough to keep four buildings open, and it seems that we are wasting money trying to duplicate our services.

The reality is (or hope it is the reality) that we never build a legacy for our children in the hope and expectation that it would become a burden to our children. Our children will have enough trouble making their way in the world without having to carry the things from our generation which are more burden than benefit.

We need to continue to ask ourselves the very difficult questions about what we need to be able to serve God and meet the needs of our community and our outreach in the upcoming generation? We have decided that we do not need four church buildings; but do we need two? Do we need even one? University Hill Congregation in Vancouver does not have a building of its own at all. They rent office space and use a university chapel for worship. Of course, that is their solution and we have to find our own! What is the best for our Sunday School program? What will serve the needs of whatever outreach programs we will decide upon. We need a vision (I know some of you don’t like that word) but unless we know what our purpose and our call is, we will never know what we need to load into the wagon for our journey and what we can leave behind, in thanksgiving for the role it has played in our lives and in our ministry.

Our ancestors worked hard to build this church and the church in Bay Fortune. The people of Souris and Annandale did as well. So did most of you, in your younger years, or just the other day or year.

But we do not worship our ancestors or their works. We do not build altars to ourselves. We build churches so that the family of God will have a place to gather and out of church the ministry radiates.

Like the folks who go back to school mid-life to retrain for a new career, we have to make hard choices and sacrifices. We can’t do it all. What we have to decide is, “what do we need for this stage of our journey?”

The ritual of the Passover served to remind them of the past but it was very much a way to remind them that their God was a God of freedom and presence - a God who called the people to go forward in faith to remind them that they would never be alone.

Let us go into the fall, into the future, intentionally choosing how to follow the call of the God who will be with us always.

Amen!

Isaiah 55:12-56:2
Psalm 148
Revelation 22: 1-5

Worshipping the Creator in the Midst of Destruction

When the Rev Brent Hawkes, while preaching at the funeral for the Hon Jack Layton, a little over two weeks ago, quipped that orange was not a liturgical colour YET, he was met by noticeable laughter. Actually, Brent is a little behind the times; for orange is indeed the recommended liturgical colour of the newly revived season of creation. Rest assured that it really has nothing at all to do with the NDP! The season of Creation is the result of an international movement to revive our collective connection to the earth and to give thanks for its bounty and to call people of faith everywhere to care for creation. Orange is the colour of ripe pumpkins, the real kind, not the plastic Halloween ones, the hue of leaves turning from green through all those beautiful fall colours, as their life cycle ends. It is the orange of a glorious sunset, and has been described as the red of passion tempered by the yellow of wisdom.

Last year I decided to stay with the regular lectionary, but a while ago I decided to go with the Season of Creation for 2011- and I was getting into that groove until I realized that today, the first Sunday of this season would be September 11, 2011.

In the last week it would have been almost impossible to miss the fact that it is the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. TV news stations and special documentaries have been focussing on this anniversary and CBC radio has also aired many special programs in commemoration of that terrible day. It is a day whose images are seared into the memories of all of those who were old enough to understand what they were seeing on television or experiencing directly.

As I struggled with these two things coming together I realized that I could treat them together, in the same sermon. The crisis in which the world finds itself ecologically is similar to the crisis posed by everything that has happened in the world since that fateful morning 3652 long days ago. It calls us to respond to it, not primarily as Canadians and Westerners but as people who follow Jesus of Nazareth!

Psalm 137 tells us of the despair the people of Israel felt in exile when they asked, “How could we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?” In many ways the events of that morning ten years ago have placed us all in a foreign land. We may indeed be safer than we were eleven years ago, but I don’t think many people feel that way.

We have been told that the increased security in various aspects of our lives are working and the cost is just the price of being vigilant, but it seems to me that the vigilant borders on paranoia.

Many people of middle eastern descent feel they have been blamed for 9/11 but since that day Islamic leaders in North America have been reminding us that Islam, like Christianity is a religion based in responding to a God of love. We need to be reminded that “Allah” is not a different God than the God we worship. I am told that Arabic speaking Christians, in referring to the name of God, use “Allah”. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three closely related religious traditions. Jesus is recognized as a prophet in Islam. Abraham is the father of all three religious faiths.

Since that day over 6000 military families in the USA and Canada have had to grieve the loss of an enlisted personnel and an untold number have had to cope with an injured family member - often severely maimed in body or suffering from an invisible enemy now widely known as PTSD.

We wonder if and when the fear will end. We wonder when the need for a response to terror will end. We wonder if we can ever let our guard down again?

So we come to this day at the beginning of this renewed season of creation. The news here is not all that rosy either! We know we had an unusually wet and cold summer - “rain, rain, go away” - climate change. Others have had unending dry heat and forest fires galore - climate change. The sea level is rising - climate change. Winter will probably be wacky and weird once again - climate change. Many crop failures in already poor countries are endangering the lives of millions - climate change. Navigating the Northwest Passage, once the goal of only the most daring and the visionary, seems like it will soon become child’s play. Even the ice in Antarctica is melting - climate change!

Farmers in Canada cannot compete with those who send their cheaper products to our shores and we aren’t sure if their safety standards are adequate, but the food is the right price.

Some would lead us to believe that if you aren’t eating organic food, you are being poisoned.

As more and more people leave the farm, fewer and fewer know much about what it takes to grow food or to raise animals or to put bread, butter and milk on the family table and the average person does not really know who to believe and who to trust!

We are also being told we need to cutback on those things which cause greenhouse gases but the alternatives are expensive and plagued with problems. Being dependant on products produced by “big oil” may cause pollution but at least it employs people and people without jobs can’t help themselves, let alone the planet. We truly don’t know what to do or where to begin.

In all of this, we feel the broken-ness of creation more than its health. What is the role of the church in all of this? As Christians how are we to respond to acts of hate? How do call all people to accountability? How do we proclaim what we believe: that the will of God is for the health and well-being of ALL of creation - not just the Christian west?

We need to proclaim that God is the God of all of creation: our friends and our enemies; the God of God’s friends as well as God’s enemies. God is the God of the poor and even of the rich!

After September 11 some people asked the question, “Why do they hate us so much?” and generally speaking, it resulted in, not honest and heartfelt introspection and a desire to change, on behalf of most, but rather a “shoot from the hip” kind of reaction that has resulted in an attempt to bomb an entire culture back to the stone age!

If we look at ourselves, in terms of our relationship to the created order we can see several things. We are a people, and this includes Canada, obsessed with a progress based on consuming more and more. We want the newest and the best and what we have this year will be obsolete, in some ways, by the time the next one begins. In many cases it will be worn out and no longer functioning and cost more to repair than replace.

We are also a people obsessed with a certain image of beauty. We are a people obsessed with bigger and better all the time and we have spent less and less on the world’s poor. We have come to believe that God has favoured us with our wealth and we have lost sight of the call that our wealth gives us to share with the poor and the judgement that perhaps, we are wealthy BECAUSE we have taken far more than our share of the world’s resources.

I recall reading somewhere that after the recent massacre in Sweden, a survivor was asked about retaliation, and that person said, “If one man can hate so much imagine how much love we could show together”

If those 19 terrorists and their supporters could hate us enough to kill so many, how much more can we show we love not only our friends, but those who would wish to be our enemies.

Our call is, as it has always been, a call to faithfulness, not a command to success. We can, as someone once said, “light a candle instead of cursing the darkness”.

The Rev. Victoria Stafford, a Unitarian Universalist minister, has written a beautiful and challenging piece that was quoted recently by our moderator, Mardi Tindal, and it goes like this:

 Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope--
not the prudent gates of Optimism, 
which are somewhat narrower; 
not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; 
not the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); 
nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything is gonna be all right." 
But a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling, 
about your own soul first of all and its condition, 
the place of resistance and defiance, 
the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, 
as it will be; 
the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, 
but joy in the struggle. 
And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, 
asking people what they see. 

It is not enough, it is in fact misguided to talk only about “other” people and what other people should do. We must search our own hearts and souls and speak and act for ourselves. All significant societal change involves both individuals and the fabric of society as a whole.

If we go back to the primary teachings of our own faith we have the guidance we need. We have a God who proclaimed that creation was good. We have a God who called our ancestors, and who calls us to individual responsibility for faithfulness. We have a God who calls us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.

We have the guidance we need. God wills life for ALL of creation. Let us listen - of we have the ears to hear!

Amen!

Job 12: 7-12
Psalm 104: 24-34
John 1: 1-15

There is an old saying among people who make their living on the water: “Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.” In the poem “Sir Patrick Spens” the sailor by that name warns the king that a planned voyage is doomed because it is the wrong season of the year for sailing and he has seen “the new moone, Wi the auld moone in her arme”. The king did not listen, forced the ship to sail and the ship sank. We know so called “old wives tales” that predict the level of snow by the height of the nests native bees build in which to overwinter. Many animals, both domestic and wild, can tell of an approaching storm long before humans are aware of it. People who live on the land, such as Inuit, who have been able to retain their culture, can read the signs - and for them to be able to do so is a matter of life and death. In such a harsh environment, being able to do so, is a matter of life and death.

For the people of Israel, living in the wilderness, knowing how to interpret the signs of nature, was also a matter of life and death.

The passage from the book of Job calls human beings to pay attention to what the world is saying. The passage goes on to say that the one who pays attention to the earth and the birds of the air is someone who is wise. Wisdom is not book-learning - someone cannot learn to be wise from a book, or from attending a thousand lectures or by memorizing all of your times tables up to 99. Wisdom comes from a deep reflection upon life and its intricacies. Biblical wisdom is also founded upon the principle that human beings are not God and have no business acting as if they were!

We are in the season of creation - a season in which we are called to reflect on the gift of God that is the creation - from the wings of a butterfly, to the smile of a human baby to the majesty of far away mountains piercing the clouds, creation is a gift of God; a gift which, unfortunately, we have taken for granted for too long.

In Psalm 104 we heard:

God, how manifold are your works!

With Wisdom at your side you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

There lies the great and mighty Sea,

teeming with living things both great and small.

We who live in PEI are blessed with beautiful scenery and landscapes. We take for granted the clean air and the water that Marine Atlantic used to claim were free of pollution (so don’t throw your garbage over the side, use the receptacles provided). Do you remember that announcement every time you took the Ferry! We all know that its definitely not a good idea to throw garbage into the water. Years ago there was a campaign aimed at those who fished for a living. “When you throw garbage overboard it does not just “go away”; it eventually lands on someone’s beach or causes harm to sea life.

When I was a kid, a favourite summer activity was clam digging. We would pick an evening based on the moon and the tide table and take our buckets and shovels and go out as far as we could and then let the tide chase us in. We would haul the clams home and then have a great feed - and freeze the rest. My cousin, home from Alberta, has sometimes landed at my Mom’s with buckets full of clams and they spent hours opening clams and eating till everyone was stuffed. I have a jar of bar clams in my cupboard that were dug somewhere on the Island. One of the best places to dig clams was also a rifle range and that has its obvious safety risks. These days a beaches may be posted and you cant dig because the clams have been contaminated by sewage or chemicals. The folks who raise the famous Island Blue Mussels are restricted from selling them in certain seasons because of the so called “red tide” during warmer months but now that the research has been done the dangers can be easily avoided.

We have fishing seasons to regulate when certain species can be harvested, and restrict who can harvest them, in order to protect the species - as a conservation measure. We all know what happened the cod which used to be plentiful in Newfoundland. An early observer from Europe saw cod so numerous they were seen as being of “unending supply”. But as more and more boats fished with more and more efficient ways of catching cod, the stocks almost became extinct. The same happened with whales. The buffalo. The list could go on and on.

We have heard all of this - and we hear it over and over. While it might seem that the churches have better things to be doing than getting involved in such obviously political issues, passages such as the ones read today make it clear that the world we are talking about using, abusing, protecting or ignoring, is the world God created. It is the world God loves. It is the world we are charged with protecting and caring for.

Many of the parts of today’s service came from a resource on the Untied Church’s website. I wondered for quite a while why the prologue to John might have been chosen as a passage for this Sunday. In its original context it spoke of John the baptizer whose purpose in life was to point toward Jesus the one who came to show God’s way. John was not important, but his message was. John was not important but he showed the way to the One who was important.

People didn’t like John; lets put that another way, people in power did not like John. Like it was with Jesus, most of the people liked John’s teaching because he presented a refreshing way of looking at faith and he gave them a way to look at things fresh and new. Through his offer of repentance, they were able to start over and begin again; they were able to get themselves ready for Jesus and his message.

John was eventually executed because he told someone in power that his life did not measure up to what God intended.

The people who read the Gospel are challenged to listen to John and let John lead them on a journey to see and know Jesus who was called the Christ.

Here we are, in the season of Creation wondering who to listen to; wondering what is true and what may be overreaction.

As consumers there are many things we have to decide. Is “certified organic” really better than food grown in traditional ways. We have many environmental regulations; is cheaper imported food as safe as our own, Canadian grown? Just how can imported food be cheaper than stuff grown just down the road! What is wrong with a system where our farmers are going bankrupt but the stores are still full of the same kinds of food they used to grow? These are not just economic questions, they are spiritual questions about life, its meaning and our responsibility toward God, our community and ourselves. What is really important in life? How do we live day to day?

There is a lot of promotion lately of “eating local”! The 100 mile diet. The 200 mile diet. I think that sort of thing is easier if you live in the southern Ontario, or the Annapolis Valley or the Okanagan, where they can grow peaches and cherries and many more things we simply can’t grow here - but what about not buying things we CAN grow when they are out of season. Buy them frozen! I’m told frozen vegetables are better for you than imported out of season because of the amount of vitimans lost in time and transportation. We have become so accustomed to finding anything we want in the grocery store at any season of the year we forget at the cost to the environment that it took to get it here!

Part of the reason we have gotten ourselves into the problem we have is the mistaken assumption that humans could not possibly change the environment in a lasting way. I guess it’s a little like littering - one used Tim’s cup from your last extra large double double doesn’t create much litter, but when added to hundreds of others who also think that way - the ditches are full of litter that does not need to be there if the Island’s drivers and passengers just thought for another second or two and took their garbage home!

In the same way previous generations of humans thought that their smoke, their chemicals, released into the environment were the same. BUT generations of humans with that attitude and increasing mechanization had multiplied human efforts and we are now noticing that climate change is happening - that is if we really want to believe what our John the Baptizers are telling us!

Yet there is hope. Prophets don’t come to condemn and give no hope. Prophets, like John the Baptizer was, tell us we can listen to what is being said and then act to make a difference. It’s all so overwhelming. We are called to think about the impact of what we do has on the world around us. Then we are called to think about how what we do can make a positive difference.

The problems are very complex but we can consciously act as if we could do something positive for our world AND WE CAN.

God has given this beautiful planet. The planet is shouting at us. Look at me. Look at how interrelated the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the animals and plants on land are! Look at human beings who have such privilege and such responsibility.

Let us live and act with wisdom, love and gratitude.

Amen!

Isaiah 55: 10-11
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-11
Matthew 13: 1-8

There Is A Time and A Season!

Somewhere on the road between Tatamagouche Nova Scotia and Bible Hill there is an old store that has been converted into a private home. They have a unique lawn; they painted the asphalt green. (Chuckle) It’s my kind of lawn; it does not require mowing.

You don’t need to be a farmer to know that you cant grow grass in a parking lot. They didn’t have asphalt in Jesus day, but the principles are the same. Some land just isn’t for farming.

I’m told that these days we have potato planting equipment and sprayers guided by GPS so everything can be very precise and you don’t drive over the potatoes while spraying. Within days we will be into the annual potato harvest - full swing. The farmer who rents the field behind the manse sprayed his potatoes to kill the tops – - really, really early on Thursday. I guess that was before the wind came up (when is it NOT windy on my hill?)

I don’t know what kind of implements were used to plow land back in Jesus day but it seems that all planting was done by hand. A farmer wanting to sow wheat for example would make a kind of seed sack out of a long piece of fabric tied around his waist like an apron and walk and fling the seed by the handful as he walked.

Apparently they plowed after they sowed and didn’t know where the good soil was till after planting . Seems to me a farmer would know from year to year what the land was like! I have seen pictures of Palestine and Israel taken recently and I am amazed they can grow enough food to feed a goat, let alone plant a crop with any kind of harvest expected.

We know that best practices dictate what kind of crops should not be planted on slopes and in what direction the rows should go in order to prevent soil erosion We are starting to larn about buffer zones and that we need to abandon some farming practices for the greater good. We also know they are controversial changes in the farming community.

We all know that there is a cycle to any kind of farming especially potato farming - with potatoes it is a three year cycle - till, plant potatoes, tend, harvest, rest, till a little less than last year, plant a different crop, wait, harvest, rest, wait, bale the hay, rest, plow and harrow and then plant potatoes again. The cycles are determined by weather, government regulation, common sense and experience. People can forget about the seasonal cycles because there is little difference in what is available at the big grocery stores. Since we can buy fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes and cauliflower, and a host of other produce, year round we forget that around here at least they have a natural season. Fresh is usually tastier than frozen but the experts tell us that frozen broccoli, for example, is processed close to the fields where it is grown and retains more nutrients than the stuff that is flown across the country or half-way around the world to arrive on our doorstep looking fresh picked.

Now my attempts at growing bananas have not been very successful, but I don’t like to buy fruits out of season - that I can pick myself in the proper season.

Our food distribution system is so wasteful and convoluted that it is hard to figure out why we must send our farm animals away to be killed and then bring someone else’s beef and pork sides here so we can buy them. How is it that New Zealand lamb is more attractive to the grocery chains than lamb grown ten miles from the store? I wonder why we can’t buy local at the grocery store.

There are so many things that don’t make a bit of sense. They are out of whack with the rhythms and seasons of life.

The passages chosen for today ask the listeners to reflect on the life of faith, based on what we know of the life of agriculture, the life lived on the land. It’s a life of cycles, a life of everything not being available any old time at all!

We in the United Church in general, Kings United in particular, and in many mainline churches, are in a similar cycle - it may seem as if the soil has changed, or the seasons are changing, or we have to try new ways of growing our crop.

After a number of years of work and discussion we made the decision to first close and then the decision to sell Annandale and St James. The trustees will be meeting soon to seek Presbytery’s permission and assistance in this process. As part of this process we are also going to do what the church does in the midst of this kind of change, to come to worship and give thanks for what once was and to look to the future certain that God will continue to be with us and to bless us. In a way this kind of service, called a service of decommissioning, can seem like a funeral, but it can also be what a funeral should be, a celebration of a life of joy and blessing. The worship that took place in these buildings - the fellowship that took place in these buildings - the weddings, the funerals, the Sunday school classes - they were all a part of who we were and who we are. It was this worship and fellowship that fed our souls and enabled our life of faith and service.

A little girl in my first pastoral charge grew out of her crib - as children tend to do at a certain age. She was ready for a big girl bed, but she did not want to give up her crib completely - for a year or more, it became a “pen” for her stuffed sheep. It was a long time before her mother could convince her that she would have more space in her room - more life in her room - if she got rid of the crib. (She is a professional musician now, studying, performing and teaching in Florida and as of yesterday afternoon, that sheep is still in her childhood bedroom in her parents’ house!)

In almost every life there are many transitions - from living at home to moving out for college or university, to marriage and moving to an apartment - to a house and then - to a bigger house full of children - to an empty house with or without grandchildren visiting - to a seniors apartment - to a community care facility - to a manor room.

Our housing needs reflect our stage of life. I remember a woman who was living by herself in a very large old house. She had experienced a lot of tragedy with the death of her husband, all but one of her children and at least one of her grandchildren, and I think she saw her home as the one tie to happiness of her past. Eventually, her daughter was able to convince her to move, with great reluctance, to the local seniors apartments. After a period of adjustment, she was able to declare, “I should have done this ten years ago.” When ill health necessitated a move to the nursing home she said the same thing, “I should have come here ten years ago.” From a complete unwillingness to change she became very accepting of it.

We know from our own experience, or the experience of relatives that such change is common, but it is not easy. In the end we know that the staff is far better equipped to car for people with many needs than a spouse or a number of family members.

We forget that congregations have stages in life - whether we think they should or not. Congregations don’t look the same (with just the faces changing) over a number of generations or decades. One of the things I learned from the congregations in transition program I took when I first came here was that there is a natural life cycle from birth to death in a congregation just as there is to an individual human being. In order for a congregation to be sustained there has to be intentional change - to not only keep it going but also to keep it vital and alive.

As members of congregations in change I see we have two choices: to see the stage we are in now simply as loss or to bury our heads in the sand and deny its inevitable outcome OR to be proactive and make intentional changes to reflect the new stage into which we are moving.

We do not need the number of buildings we have been trying to maintain. There are many people who could be coming to church but shouldn’t we be asking them to participate in something more than keeping a building open? In the church I think we need to look at it as a balance between how we attract new people and how those of us who are already here may be nurtured toward having a faithful and faith-filled response to the good news of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s not just about Sunday morning attendance, or the offering in the plate, though those things do have a place in the health of a church - its about enabling the people of the church - that’s you folks sitting here, to BE the church from now until next Sunday.

I have asked this before: “Where is the church of Jesus Christ on Tuesday”. When the doors of this building are shut and locked, where are we and what are we doing for the gospel?

What kind of building or buildings do we need and what location or locations are necessary for us to be able to worship, carry on our fellowship and our community activities, and for us to be able to be the Church of Jesus on Tuesday and Wednesday and Saturday and all of those other days we don’t come here or to Dundas United.

It’s not about what our ancestors needed. It is NOT dishonouring them to make changes - its about what we need for our worship, work and witness. What is it the time for ? To what is the God of past, present and future calling us in OUR generation, in OUR day and age?

We have the questions. If we have the courage to listen for the guidance of the Spirit we WILL come up with the answers. Let is continue the journey.

Amen.

Genesis 2: 4-15
1 Kings 19: 1-13
Job 38

Back before most people had direct deposit for their pay cheques and child tax credit and such like, people had to actually go to the bank to cash their cheques. I would be standing in line at the bank and I would hear a child exclaim something like, “Wow Mom. That’s a lot of money.” There is a certain age of children whose voices carry all over a room - you cant help but hear. “Can we get that Nintendo now?” (Or some other purchase that the mom has probably told the child they can’t afford) Usually, the mom, with obvious frustration, will say something like, “No! There are more places for this money than you know.”

Grownups know about the cost of groceries, phone, cable, oil and power bills to say nothing of car payments, insurance, and the car that seems to require endless trips to the gas station. Children with their limited experience and big plans know little of economic differences between families and how quickly a pay-cheque is eaten up by the necessities of life. If their friends have a certain toy or electronic gizmo, they see no reason why they cannot.

In the passage from the book of Job, God sounds a bit like a frustrated parent talking to a child about unreasonable expectation. God wants Job to gain perspective about his life and the vastness of the creation.

When Job was living the scientific and geographical information most people had about planet earth was very limited. In this passage the voice of God points out to Job that there are things a human cannot know. While our knowledge has expanded exponentially, the point is still quite valid, even today, perhaps especially today.

Back in the 1970's, when people were talking about the effects of pollution on the cleanliness of cities and human health, no one was talking about that pollution changing the planet itself.

While we know that human efforts could eradicate an entire land based species, no one thought that the Northern Cod, for example, was vulnerable to such a danger. After all the oceans were huge!

We were to learn how destructive the human animal can be when combined with technology and the notion that there will always be “more fish in the sea”. That may have been true when those who fished did so from a dory or a small inshore vessel but when factory trawlers can suck up every fish in a certain area, the human capacity to affect the planet should have raised alarm.

The human capacity for destruction has changed for at least three reasons. 1) There are so many of us, and 2) we have taken the industrial revolution to great heights, and 3) we think that every tree, rock, river and animal has put on the planet for our immediate use and to do with as we please.

We are in the midst of a great social upheaval centred around environmental regulation, globalization and climate change. Corporations who cannot farm as they want in Canada go to the rainforests, cut down the trees and raise massive herds of cattle for our burger chains or pant other crops. Free of environmental regulations or labour laws they pay wages they claim the people would not have otherwise. This does not compensate people for the environmental and social destruction they endure. They toss indigenous peoples off of their land so that they can grow coffee in massive plantations, or mine gold, or build their factories. What we don’t often realize in all of this is that our cheap products come at the expense of life and culture in the countries affected and now we know, such practices are usually harming the planet as well.

I was looking for a pair of shoes the other day and was informed that the brand I usually buy has taken production off-shore and has stopped production of their specialty sizes - which was why I bought them in the first place. But I did not notice that the prices had not gone down! I suspect that the shareholders are happy though.

I have some investments. My pension plan has investments and I want them to do well but I don’t want people to be hurt as my investments grow.

I know something of how hard it is to make a living in farming these days; and I want our food to be safe. I would like more opportunities to buy local and not have the food we eat trucked back and forth in the interests of what is sometimes seen as efficient distribution.

If we knew the hardship caused by certain companies would we buy their products, or want to hold their shares in our portfolios?

If we are living on a fixed income we certainly don’t want the price of necessities to go up any more but the rest of us should wonder why some of us have more money that we know what to do with and some live in such poverty that proper nutrition is out of their financial reach.

Job had experienced great tragedy. It seemed to him that the powers of the world were playing games with him - and that’s what the story actually says. Job is certain that he is innocent and knows of no reason why this should be happening to him. Among other words, God replies with the passage I read earlier, “Where WERE you when I created the world, decided how the tides would work and created the stars that form the constellations. Tell me, if you are so smart, how was that done?

I can hear God’s thunderous voice, as Job heard it. “Don’t you care about the planet, I worked so hard to create. Don’t you care about other human beings, even if you have never met them and never will; even if they are poor and live elsewhere? Do you think they exist just to serve you? Do you really need to have another TV set, another jet ski, or ATV, or snowmobile. Why not spend some of your money and time helping someone in need instead of what you are doing. Don’t you think you have enough? When will you be satisfied?

Do we think everything will last forever or are we really afraid that things will run out and we have to have our own private store so we and our families will have enough? Do we trust in God’s abundance or are we hedging our bets and laying up treasures for ourselves - and the rest of the world can fend for themselves?

We are called to live in response to the generosity of God and to live in respect with our planet and its delicate balance. There is plenty for everyone if we take care of what has been entrusted to us.

Amen.

Deuteronomy 8: 7-18
Psalm 65
2 Corinthians 9: 6-15
Luke 17: 11-19

Years ago, I saw a cartoon in a magazine. It was probably in the United Church Observer. The cartoon depicted a minister (an older man, balding, black suit, high round collar) and a woman (presumably his wife) sitting on stools at a lunch counter. Their food is in front of them. The minister is praying (head bowed, hands together, eyes closed.) The caption tells us what the woman is saying to her husband, “Geoffrey! its only a hot dog”.

It seems that Jeffrey could not eat without praying, even in public, even when it was only a hot dog eaten at the local drug store lunch counter!

Tomorrow, is Thanksgiving Day! - It’s only had its own date in the calendar since 1957, but our first nations people in what is now Canada had annual harvest celebrations for generations before Martin Frobisher became the first European to celebrate a thanksgiving in the new world in the 16th century.

It gradually became a tradition; at the end of the summer for people to give thanks for the harvest which would keep them through what was usually a harsh winter.

Toward the beginning of the last issue of the Observer, there was an article titled, “Giving Thanks Amid Uncertainty”. When our tables are groaning with food; when there’s more where that came from; and we have lots left over, when jobs are easy to find and the price of lobster, potatoes and beef are high, we will readily give thanks. When everyone is healthy, we give thanks.

But we are still in an economic downturn. Ocean Choice (the local fish plant) didn’t open this spring, and we don’t need to be told all that is wrong with the economy in eastern Kings! We all know someone who is sick or has a sick relative or we know someone whose loved one has died tragically.

We wonder how we can give thanks in situations like this? Some might say, “how dare we suggest that people are expected to give thanks in situations like that?”

When we think of the Exodus story, we usually think of the high points, the ones which bookend the time in the wilderness:

- the crossing of the sea

- the triumph of crossing the Jordan and shouting till the walls of Jericho tumbled down.

But we forget they were in that wilderness for 40 long years:

- we forget the death by snakes;

- we forget the monotony of desert life, including the manna

- we forget that it was so bad at times that a return to slavery was seen by some as “better than this”.

- we forget that none of those who left Egypt were to actually make it to the land of promise. It was their children and grandchildren who were to make it to the promised land;

We forget that while we know how it all turned out, they did not know how it would end. They were living in the uncertainty day to day! Their story was still being lived, and had not yet been written.

We have all heard stories from our ancestors - mostly how rough they had it and how easy we have it. Our PEI ancestors often build cabins out of logs - now a log house is chic and expensive - back then it was damp, dark, smoky and small!

They did not know if they would survive the first winters, let along provide a better legacy for their children and grandchildren. They were still living their story.

We are called to “radical thsnksgiving”; a kind of thanksgiving that says that the generous God of life always has the last word; not the forces of evil, death and destruction. The message of thanksgiving is that it is in thanking the God who accompanies us on our way that we find our true identity and true freedom.

The people of Israel were told not to forget God, BEFORE they had entered the promised land. This passage sounds a bit like counting your chickens before they have hatched. They say a bird in the fist is worth two in the bush but what if the one in your hand is a half pound Cornish hen and the bush is filled with 20 lb meat king chickens! The people’s lives in the wilderness were lives of trust and hope.

The people of Israel were not defined by the wilderness but by the land of promise and, most especially, the God who led them there.

Even in the face of death we know that the doctors tried their best; we know the caring nurses brought a smile and relief, even if it was for just a short time; and marking these passages in community we know that a burden shared seems to be a whole lot lighter. Gratitude means that we are more than the sum of our pain!

The passage addresses the tendency to blame out misfortune on God and credit our good fortune to ourselves!

The people of Israel had it hard in the desert! In this and other instructions about thanksgiving they were enjoined not to forget that it was God who led them from slavery to this place of milk and honey. The two things that strike me are the recognition that God has been with us and our ancestors in the past, and secondly that we humans, even we prosperous ones, are not self made.

Gary and Shona have come here with Elin for her baptism. Part and parcel of baptism is a commitment to the Christian way, despite the ups and downs that may come their way. Part and parcel of the birth of a baby is thanksgiving. The parents hold their little bundle of joy in their hands and they are thankful. They are thankful despite what they KNOW is ahead! Weeks of sleeplessness. Never being able to go anywhere without first checking your shirt for baby-barf. Toys everywhere. Always having to have eyes in the back of your head. Realizing that one day they will start having secrets, not because they are things of which you would disapprove, but because they need a life of their own! Knowing the new bike will mean skinned knees. Knowing the first love will probably be followed by a broken heart. Knowing that the teenage years may well mean more sleepless nights - when you don’t know where they are. Knowing that one day your home will no longer be theirs as their parents once went through the same thing. If I were to tell them this - would they still be thankful? Would they still look at Elin with the same love they do at this moment? YES! They would - so I wont tell them that! We will let them discover that for themselves and let them discover the thanksgiving in the midst of both the loving hugs and the less loving stomping off in a rage.

We are a people meant to be in relationship with God and an attitude of gratitude is an intrinsic part of this relationship.

So stop. Smell the air. Let the soft breezes caress your cheeks. Let the howling winds and driving take your breath away. Shout over the roaring sea or into the quiet night, “Now thank we all our God”.

Amen!

Exodus 33: 12-23
Psalm 99
Thessalonians 1: 1-10
Matthew 22: 15-22

Caesar and God!

Has someone ever asked you a question that you were sure was a trap of some kind and that your future relationship with that person depended on the answer?

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew tells of such an occasion in the ministry of Jesus. We are told that some Herodians and some disciples of the Pharisees come to see Jesus when he was teaching in the temple.

Herodians were something like a political party who were very loyal to King Herod - a cruel and brutal ruler, who was really just a puppet of the Roman Empire.

The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism who were noted for a very strict interpretation of and adherence to the law.

The somewhat odd grouping comes to Jesus and begin with a series of compliments. Remember when you went to your mother when you were younger and said, “Mom you take such good care of us. Your roast beef is the best, your lasagna is divine, and your biscuits are definitely better than Boomers, ( For my internet and email sermon readers, this is a reference to a current contest on the local CBC radio station (public radio) where the CBC meteorologist is putting nhis biscuits up against those made by anyone in PEI. Kevin “Boomer” Gallant is the kind of weather forecaster who does the weather on CBC TV in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, in February in a snowstorm! Of course, since it is a current contest the reference is anachronistic, since it could not been from “when we were young”) I put it in there for humour, plain and simple! and we would never get to school on time without you making our lunches, washing our clothes and waking us up again and again! Now, as you were saying all of this, your mother was wondering what request you have up your sleeve. So when you ask for the car on a school night, or $100 for a pair of jeans, or a new iPhone4 she is not really surprised! Of course, Jesus had not just fallen off of the turnip truck, Another anachronism, I know he knew a trick question was on the way!

“Is it lawful, to pay taxes to Caesar?” On the surface it is a very strange question! Is it lawful to pay taxes? Of course, under civil law it is ILLEGAL, NOT to pay your taxes. The question is phrased in the terms of religious law. Is it OK to pay taxes to a corrupt and idolatrous regime that thwarts God’s law at every turn?

You can just hear the trap being set and the questioner smirking and holding his breath and saying to himself, “He won’t get out of this one! Either way, I’ve got him!!!! Ha ha ha! The questioner had likely expected one of two answers! Jesus was expected to have answered “Yes” or “No!” and both answers would be Wrong! Wrong! W R O N G! And to make matters even more enjoyable, Jesus would have been caught with his very own words.

Why? Well if Jesus said “NO!” He would run afoul of the civil authorities. No popular leader could be allowed to encourage people to break the law.

If, on the other hand, he had said “YES”, he would have been shunned by a people who were quite literally almost taxed to death. We may think we have a lot of taxes to pay , but the people who followed Jesus were taxed mercilessly - by the state and also by the temple! The common folks hated the Romans! They wanted a popular leader who did too. If he said yes they would have stayed away from him in droves.

But Jesus was smarter than that! Jesus asks them for a coin, a legal tender coin to be exact! The denarius, the official coins of the realm, had pictures of Caesar on them and inscriptions which stated, among other things, that the emperor was a god. I am told that strict Pharisees were not supposed to carry these coins within the bounds of the temple - but here we have them carrying such a coin

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Jesus next request them speak out loud what is obvious: this is a Roman coin and bears the image of Caesar! The words on the coin were particularly grating, saying something along the line of “Tiberias Caesar, high priest and son of the Divine Augustus!”

He concludes quickly, “Give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s”. The trappers discover their prey has gotten away and probably wonder why a perfect plan had gone awry!

But what does Jesus statement mean?

It IS a tacit yes, to the question about paying taxes in the light of faith, but the answer does NOT imply that we can draw a line in the middle of our lives and assign some things to Caesar and some to God.

Taken in the broader context of Jesus’ ministry and teaching what he is really saying is this: Pay your taxes and give everything to God.” Notice that I did not say, “pay your taxes and give everything else to God.”

Some folks regard this one hour a week, this “sweet hour of prayer”, as their time commitment to God, AND their offering - even if it is as much as 10% of their income as the total of what they owe to God. Some weeks they will add a meeting, or a fund-raiser, or some other event, but by and large their lives are separated into two separate categories, “God stuff” and “everything else”. It seems to me that what Jesus was asking people to do was to make EVERYTHING, “God stuff”. Jesus is saying that God is a 24/7 commitment. God is to be involved in our work and our play; our relationships and our solitude. God wants everything.

In what way though, does God want everything. Maybe it’s like the chicken and the pig who were talking about their respective contributions to the farmer’s ham and egg breakfast. The pig says to the chicken, “well, for you, it’s only a day’s work - but for me, it’s total commitment!”

Of course, the farmer’s breakfast requires both the total commitment of the pig and the day after day work of the chicken. Of course, giving 100% to God is done in the context of raising a family, keeping a roof over your head, feeding the hungry, finding some enjoyment in life AND voting and paying taxes!

Jesus does not answer the question in such a way that lets us off of the hook. How could he possibly give an answer that would be 100% applicable 2000 years later!

We have decisions to make. We have to do the struggling with our faith and the expectations of the emperor, or the king, or “Canada”! We have to struggle with the expectations of our family, our community, our job. We can’t always give everyone everything they are looking for.

As far as I know the separation of church and state was never intended to mean that people of faith are to ignore their faith while they operate in the public sphere. Of course not!

As Christians, we are meant to approach all of life from the context of our faith. We are meant to go into the voting booth with our faith in front of us. We are meant to do our jobs as people of faith. We are meant to raise our children and greet our neighbour, no matter what faith he or she has, as a follower of Jesus.

There are no easy answers out there. The question of Sunday sports has been a hotly debated one for many years. Past agreements about not having children’s hockey on Sunday morning seem to have gone by the wayside! Lots of questions surface for us. Is hockey more important than our faith? I think that answer is easy! (Or should be. ) But the next one is harder. Is a hockey practice or a hockey tournament more important than going to church on a Sunday morning? What if the child cannot take part at all if he or she isn’t available on Sunday? How do we teach our children and our hockey parents how to be people who follow Jesus, in the midst of all that is hockey culture?

What are we doing to meet the Christian Development needs of those who simply can’t fit church and Sunday School in to their Sunday morning.

While commitment to the church and commitment to the way of Nazareth is not one and the same I think it is quite clear in scripture and tradition that participation in the faith community is an essential part of living as a Christian. How do we help people to do that!

For those of us who are here every Sunday, 52 Sundays a year, rain or shine, how do we express our faith the rest of the week? How does our faith affect our ethics, our life in business, our investment strategy? A long ago parishioner of mine had a saying, “She goes to church every week but she would still skin a louse for a penny!” For this unknown person faith and making a profit had nothing to do with one another. Jesus words read this day present this kind of thinking with a stiff challenge.

In an ideal world we would not have to make choices between our faith and the things of Caesar. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement which seems to be catching on around the world, is the only way some people see to protest the way of the world in which unbridled profit is the way things work. No doubt some of the protestors are there because of their faith in Jesus which teaches them that we must share and help those who have less - that we must feed the hungry, visit the sick and in prison, and find a way to make it so that people do not need to be poor and will have the dignity of meaningful work and enough money to have a decent living.

Jesus comments on this long ago day ask us to struggle with our faith. If everything really belongs to God, then what we do with it? Our public and our private lives belong to God. Our church and our social spheres are part of our commitment to Jesus. We can’t leave anything out; there are no loopholes, no exemptions we can enter on a certain line of our Faith Return to reduce our overall indebtedness.

These aren’t easy decisions! We are promised that we will not be alone as we make these decisions. So let us work together in community and help one another listen to the scriptures and interpret our tradition as we decide what and who we are; as we decide how to live as Jesus’ disciples.

Amen!

Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
Psalm 90
1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8
Matthew 22: 34-40

The Greatest Commandment: Love!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, ...........

So begins one of the most well know love poems in the entire English language. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this poem, and many others, to her husband Robert while they were secretly courting. She could hardly believe that the handsome Browning truly loved her, for she was always in poor health and rarely went out of her home. He encouraged his wife to publish them when he first read them, after their marriage, because he considered them the finest works since those of William Shakespeare.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

These are probably some of the most well known words of scripture. The sentiments expressed are not unique to Christianity though as words like them are to be found in many different religious traditions.

A number of years ago a friend of mine returned to the theological school residence after her “ordination interviews”. Naturally, we all wanted to know how the interview had gone. She reported that one of the more eccentric members of the committee had asked simply, “Speak to me of love”. When reporting this to us, she was not quite sure what she actually said, since it was not a question she has expected, but the committee must have liked the answer because she passed and was ordained.

When we think of the word love we most often automatically equate it with romantic love. The world, if you believe the popular magazines, songs and tv shows seem to equate love with romance and with sex!

English has a lot of words, but the Greek language really outdoes us when it comes to words for “love”. There are four Greek words we can translate as love. They refer to romantic and sexual love, strong affection between friends and family, and a more general affection for friends, family and one’s own community”.

Then there is a fourth kind of love; a word refers to a love that is self-giving. This love is what God feels for humanity and what human beings are called to feel for one another and for God, in return. The Bible tells us that it is the love we are to have for God because God first loved us.

Biblical writers struggle to explain and expound on this love. They tell us that God does not love us for any other reason than this is God’s nature. God IS love.

God is love. God’s being is love. God’s desire for creation is that creation will live out this love; the love out of which all that is, was created in the first place. A love which sustains creation. A love which seeks to have creation fulfil its destiny. The destiny of creation IS to live in love.

So our call is to love God and to love neighbour as self. I don’t know about you but when I was a child I picked up somewhere that this meant that God was first, the neighbour was second and I was LAST. But that is not what the passage says, nor is it good psychology.

Students learn that they can only burn the candle at both ends for so long. Self-care cannot be sacrificed for good grades forever.

Raising children is an exercise is sleep-deprivation (at least in the infancy and teenage years), self-sacrifice and self-denial. Good parents give up a great deal for their children. I tell couples that the best thing they can give to each other is a healthy partner and the best thing they can give to their children is a healthy relationship.

People in the helping professions are often fooled into thinking that they should attempt to respond to every need and look after themselves only when no one else’s need is on their “top do” list!

Practically speaking, this does not work. No matter who we are and what we do in life, we cannot live out of an empty well. If we give and give and give as friends, as parents, as nurses, as bus drivers, as spouses, as ministers, as neighbours, we will very soon have nothing left to give.

Theologically speaking, if we do not also love ourselves, as a valued part of God’s creation, and treat ourselves that way, we will not be all that we can be, we will not be able to live as God wants us to. I really see them as two sides of the same coin.

I read a very disturbing article that came to me through a tweet from Rick Mercer, the comedian, of all people. I usually think of Rick as someone who does not take anything seriously. This tweet was very serious though. It linked to an article about a teenager named Jamie Hubley from Kanata Ontario, who committed suicide because of bullying related to his sexual orientation. We have all heard such stories. Some of you may have heard of the “It Gets Better Campaign”, which encourages teens who are bing bullied, to hang on until they grow up and can move to a more supportive environment.

I know this is a sensitive and divisive issue, but as people who love as we would like to be loved, we are called to ensure that our communities are safe places for everyone. We are called to ensure that gay adults do not have to live in fear of someone trying to burn them in their beds. A direct reference to a local event We must ensure that gay teens are safe at school and in our communities.

We must teach our children about bullying. We must instil in our children the self-worth, the self-love that means that no one needs to be a bully in order to make themselves feel better. We have to teach that putting someone else down will not make us feel better about ourselves and love ourselves any more.

When we are having dinner-table conversations, or commenting on news stories, or expressing our opinions we must be careful not to encourage our children and youth to act in ways that demean others.

We must teach ALL of our children that God loves us AS WE ARE. God wants us to be loving - not to earn that love - but to embody that love.

God wants us to live that love so that others will know that they too are loved. We sometimes forget that love is a choice and that as we practice living in love we become closer to God and God’s love for us.

Sometimes loving in this way involves hearing hard truths about the reality of our world. I had fully intended to attend the session in Charlottetown that was part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - I forgot to check my calendar and made other plans before I realized that was the day! These hearings will enable our Aboriginal brothers and sisters tell their stories of what happened at the Residential Schools and how it has affected their lives and their communities since then. As the dominant culture, we must listen to these stories if we hope to begin to bridge the gaps between our communities and begin to truly understand one another.

The most memorable line from the 1970's movie, “Love Story” is “Love means never having to say you are sorry”. My one response is that this statement could not be more wrong. Love means being open to the pain of another, acknowledging our part in that pain AND repenting and seeking out a new directions.

Love means being open to the other and vulnerable to the hurt that may come because it is in that vulnerability that we can be open to great love. Jesus lived his life in great love and great vulnerability and it was a way that led to the cross. It was a price he was prepared to pay, to show this love to the people who followed.

Love is also unconditional. We don’t live in a certain way to earn God’s love; we live in a certain way because God loves us. God does not need for us to return this love, but we are the ones who need to live in love.

Most codes of law work by stating what is prohibited but this passage talks about how to be in the world. It does not prohibit hate; it mandates love. Its easier to go through life knowing where each activity fits: stealing - NO; murder - NO; sharing - YES ; living in love is harder if only because we have to constantly evaluate our actions based on the love which surrounds our lives and gives them meaning, based on our own growing and developing relationship with the God of love. Living in love involves more than checking lists of what is ok and what is prohibited; living in love involves a relationship which enables us to choose the way of love from a bunch of other options.

Now some think of love as a feeling that you either have or don’t have. Love is not a feeling, love is an action and love is a choice. I would not recommend arranged marriages in the Canadian context, but I am told that in cultures where the match is well thought out and there is family and community support these marriages work out well because the love between the couple grows as they share their lives together. In the running of a household, in the raising of children love can be nurtured and love can grow, much as one nurtures a perennial garden - from season to season the plants grow and spread and can be shared with others because they have a firm base and good soil in which to flourish.

The so called ten commandments formed the identity and parameters of a community; but they were not always followed, they were not always easy to follow. It is the same with the two commandments in this passage, upon which, we are told, hang all of the law and the prophets.

Love God completely.

Love yourself completely.

Love others completely.

Amen.

Joshua 3: 7-17
Psalm 107
1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13
Matthew 23: 1-12

Kingdom Reversal

There was once a magician who could hold his breath for 6 minutes while underwater. He offered a prize of $25,000 to anyone if he or she could stay underwater, with no special equipment, for longer than 6 minutes. A young boy took up the challenge and easily won.

You may wonder how he did this.

Well, he filled a glass with water and had someone hold it over his head. Since he did not need to hold his breath he was able to stand UNDER the water for much more than 6 minutes! groan!