Isaiah 12: 2-6
Psalm 118
Acts 2: 43-47
Matthew 6: 25-34
Have you ever been to Berwick Camp, during their “Annual Encampment” - it’s always the day before the last Sunday of July to the first Sunday of August! We would love to have you join us. The flyer is in the bulletin.
For accommodations we offer cottages, dorm rooms, small apartments and full and partially serviced camp sites. They have at least one wheelchair accessible cottage. We welcome all ages, from one day to 100+ years!
For programs we offer Bible Study, book club, scrap-booking, VBS, and for the younger set, yoga, cribbage, singing and, of course, worship - several times a day. They offer home style meals served to you by increasingly sleepy teenagers in a dining hall. They aren’t paid; they work for tips and they really don’t get all that much! The opportunities for fellowship are endless and for those who don’t get to Berwick that often, there’s Bargain Harley’s on the main street and they get new junk in every week. If it rains for three straight days there is always the movie theatre in New Minas. When I lived much farther away those last two things were more important.
Mostly though, Berwick Camp offers memories. Berwick people develop life long friendships. Berwick people know that they are as responsible as the rest of the camp for creating the memories that they and others will take home and that will bring people back next year. Unlike Vegas, what happens at Berwick should not stay at Berwick but become part of life, year round. This year is Berwick 145. While there is obviously no one left alive who was in attendance at Berwick 1, at least one camper remembers someone who was.
I know someone whose mother told him every morning before he left for school, “Remember who you are and whose you are!” In her mind this identity was an antidote to bad or embarrassing behaviour.
In Judaism, there is a practice of placing a tiny box called a “mezuzah” on the frame of the door that leads in and out of one’s house. The ones I have seen are small rectangular metal boxes about the size of a doorbell ringer and half as thick. Inside every mezuzah is a copy of the prayer that begins “Shema Yisrael”—“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One...”
Observant Jews touch this object on their way out and their way in - every time they leave or enter their house. It’s there as a constant reminder of the presence and place of God in their lives.
I wonder what prayers and reminders United Church people would put in a similar place. Perhaps Jesus’ interpretation of the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.... You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39). Perhaps the words from today’s gospel reading, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you drink, or about your body, what you will wear.... can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your span of life?” (Matthew 6:25, 27).
It is far too easy for us to go through our days missing out on the moments that we’re living— sometimes being caught by our past, sometimes being caught by our future, worrying about something that has happened or something that is yet to happen or may never happen. It is much more difficult for us to live in the here-and-now, to live in this moment and cherish it. Even though this is the only moment we can truly live we may feel that a better one has passed or is to come - and thus we miss what this one has to offer or what we have to give. Many of us find ourselves going from item to item, from event to event; “drop off X, drop off Y, pick up X” with little time to recognize the gifted-ness of the here and now.
How do we live like this in this moment? Some of us are finding that there are practices that, when we make them part of our lives, help us to just that.
Here’s an acronym for you: U.N.I.T.E.D:
U... well, we’ll get to that in a minute;
Nurtured through worship;
Inspired through scripture;
Transformed through prayer;
Empowered through spiritual relationships;
Developed through service. The early church—and the Christian community through the ages—lived these practices as a way of helping people to deepen their relationship with God and with each other. They weren’t meant to be “add-ons”; or “extras” , but an integral part of every moment of every day of a a follower of Jesus’ way. Worship, scripture, prayer, relationship, and service: all—or any!—of these spiritual practices can make a huge difference in living the moments of our lives. Sadly, as we noted earlier, even when we’re able to live into the now of our life, the way we look at those moments can either help or hinder. The glasses we wear—complaint or compliment, attitude or gratitude, thankless or thankful—can build those moments or break them down.
That’s where the Ucomes in. Uplifted by God’s love.
Recognizing that all people are beloved of God, no matter what we do (or don’t do) or who we are (or aren’t) is central to our faith and our faith life. In North American culture—majority culture, at least—people’s sense that they are unworthy or unlovable is an epidemic. When I was younger I was taught not to boast - not to think of myself more highly than I should. But I this kind of thinking can be carried too far.
Possibly in response to those feelings, there seems to be another, insidious—almost hidden—belief: that putting others down is acceptable behaviour. Gossip and “trash-talk” are all too often the order of the day. We tell children and teens not to do it but then many of us go and do it ourselves. I think it is an attempt to hide a gaping emptiness in our hearts.
There is a spiritual practice that speaks to these empty spaces in life. It is the practice of thanks-living. The practice of seeing abundance and celebrating it. The practice of an attitude of gratitude! It’s not about the difference between seeing the glass as half full or half empty, its about seeing the glass as full to overflowing! And its not about “stuff” either. That’s the practice that stands in the face of trash-talk—either about ourselves, or about another—and says, “No! I see the good, and I celebrate it! I thank God for it!”
Some folks find keeping a “gratitude journal,” a helpful way of living out this practice. The process of regularly listing what we are thankful for can help us to train our hearts to be open to the abundance of God’s world. Some folks wear a band around their wrist and, when the words of a put-down, either about themselves, or about someone else, —start playing in their mind, or coming out of their mouth, they move the band to the other wrist, and they consciously say, “Thank you, God, for X—your beloved.”
Thanks-living is a way we remind ourselves of God’s great love for us and for all creation. It’s a way to make our moments memorable in ways that bring hope and wonder in the world. It’s a way of letting go of the worries that bind us—or at least putting them in their place.
But it’s more than that. Our thankfulness and our celebrating the beloved-ness of everyone we meet doesn’t only change us, it changes the world. When we look to the good, we’re more ready to give our time and our energy and resources to help this blessedness grow. When we share ourselves that completely, when we speak with gratitude, when we’re full of thanks, others begin to respond in kind—not just to us, but to those around them.
It’s a way that we can live Christ’s call to love with all that we are. Each and every day.
Amen.
Jeremiah 29: 4-14
Matthew 5: 13-16
As Mr. Plumbean The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Manus Pinkwater, Scholastic Books, 1977. told us, “My house is me and I am it.” His house is just as he likes to be even if others think it’s odd. And it looks like all his dreams. I wonder if God might say the same things about this, the house of God, our congregation, as we live out our ministry together in this place. What might God’s dreams be for us? How are we called to reflect those dreams here in this part of Nova Scotia? Do we look like what we say we are?
Today we are in week 2 of our Called to Be the Church sermon series. We are exploring the various ways we are called to live out our faith in our ministry. Last week we explored how we live out our mission individually; this week we’re exploring what it looks like to live out God’s call in our congregational life.
The faith statement we used to call “A New Creed” offers a number of ways in which we live out our calling as a congregation. This “Statement of Faith” is going to be 48 years old this summer so we cant really call it “new” anymore! If you’d like to take a look at it as I preach go to p. 918 in Voices United.
I am looking specifically at the second part; the part that starts: We are called to be the church.
This faith statement declares that we are called to “celebrate God’s presence”. And we do, in our Sunday worship and at funerals and weddings, but also when we pause for prayer at a committee meeting and when our hearts express gratitude for God’s action in our lives. As individual families and when gathered here and we say grace before we eat. At home when we say bedtime prayers with our children. When we pause to take notice of a moment of beauty or grace.
About 20 years ago, we added a line to this creed, “to live with respect in Creation”. The First Nations people in our country and in our church have taught us that creation is more important than most westerners ever thought, until recently. How do we live with respect in creation? Every time we make a change in the way we live from day to day - from being less wasteful to sorting our garbage to reusing something instead of buying something new or instead of buying something disposable. Every time we decide to wash dishes instead of using disposable ones even when that is easier, we live with respect in creation!
We love and serve others through our outreach initiatives, partnerships, and acts of hospitality. We bring something nutritious for the food bank because we can and because we are blessed with more than enough this month.
As a congregation we provide a safe and confidential place for AA to meet so the members of that group can help one another on their journey of sobriety.
We seek justice and resist evil—every time we advocate on behalf of another especially when doing the right thing may have a cost for us.
We proclaim Jesus—through our preaching and discipleship programs, but also when we bring good news and hope through our actions to a hurting world.
Do we make our decisions based in fear of “not enough” or do we go forward sure that “God’s abundant blessing will be sufficient?”
It would be easy to read the Creed as a checklist for congregational activity, matching each of the “shoulds” against our activities and programs, and checking them off as we go down the list, but it might be better to measure our congregational calling against two characteristics described in our scriptures today.
Do we stand out and are we investing in our communities?
Going back to the book. Mr. Plumbean’s unique house is a delight to think about, because of the way it stands out in his neighbourhood. Then the neighbours each begin a journey of transformation, realizing that maybe their neat street isn’t so “neat” after all.
Jesus, likewise, calls us to stand out from our surroundings. In Matthew 5, he calls us to be the salt of the earth, bringing taste and flavour to our surroundings. He calls us to be a lamp on a lampstand, shining our light brightly so everyone can see.
We have declared our welcome for all people. We have an elevator so people in wheenchairs and with mobility issues can access all floors (well, all except the balcony)
As I said, we host AA.
Out UCW visits shut ins.
What more could we be doing?
When we stand out, shining our light, bringing our unique flavour to the neighbourhood around us, we are living out God’s call as a congregation.
Sometimes people get nervous when we talk too much about standing out as a congregation. Standing out can sometimes come across as condescension and sometimes as losing our focus by not taking a stand against this kind of sin or that kind of sin. That’s why it’s important, just as we are called to stand out in our community, to know that we are also called to invest in the community around us. We stand out in a way that doesn’t erect barriers, but seeks the betterment of everyone around us.
The exiled Israelites of Jeremiah’s time were asking all sorts of questions about how to relate to their captors, their neighbourhood, when God spoke through Jeremiah.
They didn’t particularly want to be there, having been captured and forced to live in Babylon. Their preference would’ve been to be back home, living free. But through Jeremiah, God encourages them to invest in their new community— build houses and make this their home, plant gardens and participate in the economy of that place, fall in love and start families. In other words, let this place and these people imprint on their DNA and change them. For when we seek the welfare of the place where we find ourselves, when we pray to God on its behalf, then we find in it our own welfare and blessing as well. There is no such thing as God’s blessing falling on one at the expense of another. When that happens, it is not of God!
When we invest ourselves—our hearts, our prayers, and our resources—into our community, we receive God’s blessing.
I think of most of our ancestors who came to this country to free famine or oppression or of those who came simply seeking a better life. We need to remember that out ancestors came to this country as refugees and economic migrants.
I read lst week that a number of Syrian refugees are sending care packages and aid to Ft McMurray because they know what it is like to have nothing left.
Jeremiah’s words also remind us that the work we do as a congregation, to stand out and invest in our community, is done against the backdrop of the larger work God is doing in the world. Our creeds, our experience, and the life of Jesus show us that God is working to restore humanity back into relationship with God’s self. Sometimes the fruit of our investments is not realized until generations down the road, like planting an oak tree, but God is painting a picture; God is casting a dream. In that dream of the future, we will call upon God, we will pray and search and seek for the divine, and God will let God’s self be found because we will be restored into right relationship.
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
The work we do as a congregation, to stand out and invest in our community, is important work because it allows us to realize God’s dream for ourselves and for the world. The work of this congregation is worth supporting, because it allows God to say of us, “My house is me and I am it.” God’s house is where God likes to be. And it looks like all God’s dreams. With God’s grace, may it be so.
Amen
Acts 2: 1-18
Psalm 104
Actes 2: 43-47
Wouldn’t you love to have been there on that day; to have been a “fly on the wall” and have seen and heard the events which are remembered in the passage from Acts?
Oh, to be there at the church’s beginning! Each and every person there, sprouting his or her own personal “birthday candle”. You can’t buy that kind at at any party store and definitely not the “dollar store”!
But that is not the most fantastic part of the event! Imagine it—we are told that people of all known languages and nationalities were there! There were people of all ages - girls, men, women, boys, babies; each and every person sprouting their own personal dancing tongue of flame.
We are told the people were filled with joy but I’m sure were at the same time, totally and utterly terrified. Has anything like that ever happened to you or in your presence?
The sights and sounds of Pentecost captured the attention of all witnesses and the imagination of all who’ve heard the story since. What a wonder-filled story! All these years later it is also our story!
First time parents know both the joy of a baby’s arrival and the terror! This parents know that “this little helpless person is depending on us for everything” and they quickly discover that “the instruction books do not seem to apply to their model!”
In the same way that families retell the events of each loved one’s arrival, the church recounts this dramatic story, every year, in order to reconnect and to be reacquainted with its point of origin. This story helps to answer two important questions: Where did I come from? Where am I being called to go?
Similarly, Acts 2, tries to help the church explain our identity, understand our calling and our nature. Acts 2 draws on the writings of the prophets and tells us that we are a justice- seeking, Spirit-birthed community.
Pentecost is, in a way, the noisy and unmistakable moment the assembled body of Christ took its first collective breath. It is “labour and delivery”.
It’s 2016, almost 2,000 years since the event remembered in the book of Acts, and the church peers once again into this story seeking to be inspired.
Think of a door opening and wind rushing through the room, rusting the papers on the desk or blowing them onto the floor. We are a people who are to rely on the wind-breath of the Spirit.
Then, with the wind, the first startling cry of life! N read it in Dutch, her native language. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” The Spirit’s first gift to the church is the gift of speech: but the second is the gift of understanding. They must go together. There must be a voice and it must be understood for the Spirit to do her work.
Peter confirms this as he reminds onlookers of the prophet’s words, “I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy”
There is nothing commonplace about our birth story. It is a grand and glorious story of fire and wind and speech and it immediately attracted attention. A bewildered crowd gathered, drawn to the proclamation of the gospel.
And, here we are, years later, all together in one place—the weird and the wonderful, the descendants of fire and whirlwind. How do we resemble our human-candle many language speaking ancestors?
The United Church of Canada turns 91 next month. It may be difficult in the year 2016 to imagine the energy that surrounded church union and what has been described as the “passionate engagement” of communities all across the country in this new church. (Or, to be fair, the equally passionate arguments against it) When you read some of the sermons that were preached at that time you can easily become caught up in the whirlwind of those tumultuous days. Many clergy announced that something completely new was about to happen. Congregations came together and a new spirit-filled enterprise began.
The Rev George Farquhar of New Glasgow called the Church Union movement, “the greatest since the Reformation and that the eyes of the world are focused on Canada.” He went on to say that the United Church could preach “a fuller Gospel” with more people preaching it, and do so “with a more economic expenditure of God’s money.”
These words and the hope expressed through them, may give us pause. All these years later, can we, as the United Church, declare that we have preached a fuller gospel? When we are the shepherds of change have we made the change in order to “preach a fuller gospel”; are our changes done so that we can be “better” at seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God.
The first birthing of the church attracted the immediate attention of a crowd in need of a little good news. It also created confusion, prompted questions, and evoked derision. (“All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’”
The Mission & Service Fund (earlier the Missionary and Maintenance Fund) came from the vision of committed church members who believed that living out a life in the fuller gospel was done through walking with and working with the marginalized at home in Canada and around the world.
This is a reminder that our good news must be proclaimed in the face of bad news. The story we tell will describe a kin-dom meant to challenge the principalities and powers of this world.
Through the years, the Spirit- infused United Church has indeed proclaimed a fuller gospel when we have become the topic of public conversation and yes, even scorn. We have been both faithful to past and future generations when we have broadcast the good news -bringing the attention of churches, communities, corporations, and governments to the ugly reality of bad news wherever it exists.
Then?
And then what? What happens the day after Pentecost and in the pause after proclamation?
The whirlwind subsides as words are followed by witness; an uncommon crowd becomes a unified community. Our story describes a newborn church that lives and grows as its members share all things in common. The entire assembly flourishes as the needs of each body and soul are met. The passionate speech heard at the beginning of Acts 2 is now embodied in compassionate action.
As faithful people we live out this calling through our support of our local congregation, the Mission & Service Fund, and our communities.
Gathered “from every nation under heaven,” the church displays the power to do wonder-full, risky, and radical things. Something truly unconventional is at work within and among those first believers as they fearlessly sell all their possessions and redistribute their resources.
Something equally unusual is seen in their table manners. Onlookers were again shocked by behaviour that illustrated no regard for the discriminatory customs of the day. The servants and the lords and ladies of Downton Abbey are all eating together at the same table. The Spirit had bestowed the gift of companionship —companionship in the truest sense of the word (com meaning “with,” panis meaning “bread”). The church became larger and stronger every day as disciples sat side by side at table. So much more than a simple response to physical craving, in breaking bread together, the church is given the power to conquer to the world’s deepest hunger.
How are we living out our call to be a “United and Uniting” church? “Uniting” depends on sharing, service, self-giving. It is the risky work of visionary stewardship and extravagant and inclusive hospitality and it requires the deep conviction that we can indeed make a world of difference every day of the week. In the sharing of our resources, in the redistribution of abundance, we can indeed change the world. Through the decisions we make in the marketplace and the workplace, through the power of our purse and our political will, we will change the world.
As the church today, we are called into life through story and we will continue to thrive through our being the church at all of its levels.
We are the ones the Spirit will ignite and empower. We are messengers of Good News and stewards of abundance. Human candles and table-turners, let us speak and live the Good News.
Amen,
li> May 22, 2016 Called to be Church Weeks 4&5
Exodus 35: 20-29
Luke 1: 1-14
I’ve been watching episodes of Dr Quinn Medicine Woman this spring. If you wanted to send a message to someone in the world outside of Colorado Springs just after the Civil War, you went to the telegraph office and, for a fee, Horace Bing, would tap out a telegram for you in morse code. Apparently they had the telegraph even before they had the railway tracks to run it alongside! Of course there were letters but they came and went by stagecoach and were much slower. Considering that the telegraph operator had to hand print the telegrams and deliver them, it seems, in the show at least that telegrams were almost as fast as our modern e-mail.
When I went to Mount A, there were no personal computers, let alone the “internet”. We did not talk to our parents very much because of the cost. We weren’t allowed to have our own phone in residence! Most of the campus had a daily ritual: checking our mail. Between the third and fourth classes each and every weekday there was a run to the mail-room, which was in the basement of the library. Many students went down the stairs hoping for mail and most went back up - disappointed. Most of us wanted a real letter - a connection with someone from home; family member or a high school friend. Sometimes a cheque was inside! At the beginning of e-mail, AOL created a notification sound for the arrival of a new message, which said, “you’ve got mail!”
Now I receive so much junk mail by e-mail that such a notice over and over again would be so much more irritating than a simple chime! I don’t know about university students these days but they all have email, are on Facebook and most would have smart-phones. Some are even in daily contact with their parents - as if they never left home!
A year or so aga, I received a letter, via CanadaPost from a university friend. There was something special about seeing her handwriting, and being caught up on all the happenings that had been missed in occasional e-mails. I have read the letter several times.
The entire Gospel According to Luke, and its companion piece the Acts of the Apostles was written by someone named Luke to a mysterious “Theophilus”. It seems like it was a research report, converted to a very long letter.
We actually don’t know who either of these people, Luke and Theophilus, were. We have probably all been told that Luke was a physician. The identity of Theophilus remains a mystery. Some have surmised that he was was some sort of government official - being referred to as “most excellent” is not a usual thing.
However, there is a another possibility with respect to his identity. Theophilus is a name composed of two Greek words and it, in essence, can be literally translated as, ‘lover of God’ What if this letter was written to any person who is a “lover of God”! What if it was designed for all lovers of God who were yet to be born, even 2,000 years later including bith the oldest and youngest people in this congregation.
What this says to me is thatthe events recounted in the gospel have been selected and told so that we might believe and that our lives might be informed and changed by the story of Jesus of Nazareth.
Any and all of the Gospel stories are much more than a mere telling of events. The events have been chosen so that we can know the identity of Jesus and so that his life and teachings which show the heart of God, will show US God’s heart and God’s call to US.
Each story, each parable, is good news for you and for me.
The older testament sometimes has stories that seem, at first to have little to teach us. The one read today is a detailed account of the furnishing of the first, great temple in Jerusalem.
We have all been thinking of the people of Ft McMurray these days. I think of them re-building their houses. Each family rebuilding a house will need to build the actual house with all of the materials that involves, lumber and nails, shingles and siding, gyprock and floor covering, paint and wiring and light fixtures and plumbing and much more. Then they will have to buy furniture and bedding, clothes, appliances and housewares.
Similarly, the temple needed to be outfitted with everything and the vestments for their religious leaders had to be made. This was seen as a labour of love and we are told that God had put it into their hearts to do this. No one person had to bring everything but each person donated what they had that was needed. In telling this story, the long ago writer of Exodus, was teaching that when things are important - the community gets together and gets it done.
In this day and age it is good for all of us, on a regular basis to review our budgets with respect to our charitable giving. We know the church budgets keep increasing. We know the needs in our community are great. We also know that there are more empty pews every year. No one can answer the question for us: “does my giving reflect how important this church community is to me?”
We offer PAR as a way of being able to count on a certain amount each month and people on PAR avoiding the mad rush to find the appropriate amount to put in the envelope on the way out the door.
I know that when I was a university student it was hard to budget for my church offering and I could not afford the entire $20 bill that would have been dispensed by the bank machine and for the most of my university career I didn’t have a chequing account.
All Canadians have been asked to dig into our pockets to send aid to the families of Ft. McMurray and to the agencies helping as they stay away from home and try to cope with the stress and the displacement.
I read a Facebook post yesterday and the Rev Donalee Williams, the minister of the United Church in Ft McMurray, is calling her congregation together tomorrow afternoon - they have been given space in a United Church in Edmonton - it will be an opportunity to meet together for support, prayer and, fellowship around a pot-luck table. It will be an important community time.
As a church we are called to support one another, to share the good news of Jesus of Nazareth and reach out to the wider community and world.
We are a people who are sustained by the Word but also by gathering at the Table - as we do today. May today’s meal give us bread for the journey.
Amen.