An ecumenical Lenten series exploring the doctrinal consensus and convergence on key issues of church life and practice. Join Nick Jesson and Rev. Amanda Currie as we harvest the significant agreement reached between the churches in the past half century and look to the future. Together with an ecumenical panel, we will discover the faith that we share and the practices and beliefs that we hold in common, as well as seek to understand the differences that make each of our church Traditions unique.

You are invited to a 5-week Lenten series for all Christians who are praying and working for the unity of the church. On Mondays from Feb. 27 to Mar. 26 from 7-9 pm at Mayfair United Church (902 – 33rd Street West).

2012 is the 30th anniversary of the World Council of Churches’ statement on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (BEM). Thirty years after BEM have our Churches truly embraced the ecumenical agreement that is expressed in the document? And are we still engaging in the dialogue necessary to move towards even greater agreement, co-operation, and Christian unity? If you would like to read BEM in advance of the series, you can find it online at http://oikoumene.org/?id=2638.

Registration on the first evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. There is no fee for this series, but you are welcome to make a donation to support the ministry of the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism. For more information, contact Rev. Amanda Currie at 306-242-0525 or email hidden; JavaScript is required.

A sermon preached by the Rev. Amanda Currie and Nicholas Jesson at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Saskatoon and St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Humboldt on January 29, 2012.

In the introduction to the ecumenical service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this year, the Polish authors of the material emphasize the theme of transformation. Using the main biblical text from 1 Corinthians 15, they speak boldly and hopefully about the transformation that awaits us when our lives in this world come to an end.

With the foundational conviction that Christ was raised from death to life forevermore with God, the Apostle Paul proclaims the good news that precisely because Christ is raised, those who love him and follow him will also be raised. We too will be transformed from death to life, not because of our own goodness or power, but because of the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery!” Paul explains it, “We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”

When we profess our faith together in the words of an ecumenical creed (such as the Apostles’ Creed that we will share today) we are reminded of how much we hold in common as Churches and Christians. We may sing some different songs, wear some different outfits for worship, and emphasize different aspects of our faith, but there are some very foundational beliefs that we share.

Even if we can’t quite get together on the particular translations of the creeds to use, still, we can stand together with our sisters and brothers in Christ today and profess that we believe (among others things) in “the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting.”

When I first looked at the scripture theme for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I must admit that I was confused. I was expecting a text about Christian unity.

There are some wonderful texts about Christian unity, for example first Corinthians 1: “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

Or first Corinthians 12: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

One of my favourite ones is Ephesians 2: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.”

Another one from Ephesians is in chapter four: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all…”

And we can’t forget John 17: Jesus prays that we may all be one:  “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Even the psalmists had something to say about unity. Psalm 133 says: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

But the theme text that was chosen for this year is about resurrection. It’s about dying and being raised. It’s about giving thanks to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ – victory over sin and victory over death.

This text from 1 Corinthians is often chosen as an appropriate one for funeral services. When a loved one has died, we are encouraged and strengthened by this message of confident hope in the power of God to transform our perishable, mortal bodies into ones that can live forever in the presence of our loving God.

I wonder if you’ve noticed that there are some Christians and some churches that focus almost exclusively on the promise of resurrection and eternal life with God. The major faith question is “Are you saved?” with the answer to that having to do with committing your life to Christ and receiving the assurance that you will be going to heaven when you die.

There are other Christians and churches, of course, that hardly ever talk about heaven. Their major concern is what God may be doing in your life in this world. Are you learning to follow Jesus more closely with your life? Are you doing justice, and loving kindness, and walking humbly with God? There’s not a lot mentioned about salvation, or if there is, it’s about being saved from a life of meaninglessness or selfishness, and taking up a life in relationship with Christ.

Most of us can probably locate ourselves (or our churches) in terms of where the emphasis lies in our faith. Are we mostly looking forward to experiencing the Kingdom of God in the afterlife, or are we mostly focussed on finding the Kingdom right here on earth?

It seems to me that what’s required is a balancing of these different perspectives. We need both the “already” and the “not yet” because that’s where the Kingdom of God is to be found.

When I think of the Kingdom of God when it finally comes to completion, I think of that image from the Book of Revelation of all God’s people standing together in God’s presence and singing praise:

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… [And] they cried out in a loud voice, saying,‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb… Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”

It’s an image of unity – one church, one body of Christ – a unified People, praising God together.

There’s another image of praise in today’s text from the prophet Habakkuk:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines…
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

“Though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food…
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

“Though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will exult in the God of my salvation.”

Even though the goodness of the Kingdom of God has not yet arrived in its fullness, still, we will rejoice in the Lord.

It is commonly said that we are in the winter of ecumenism. After the excitement of the first years of the ecumenical movement, we have seen diminished attention and concern for the unity of the church, for dialogue between our communities, or for resolving historic divisions and reconciling memories. It sometimes seems that ecumenism has been put on the shelf. It is not forgotten, but it is out of the way. It can be pulled out for special occasions, dusted off and displayed to our friends, but it is really not something that we think about every day.

Perhaps on the Prairies we have a unique perspective on winter. Normally, winter is harsh, bitterly cold and even treacherous. Yet even as we bundle up for winter, we get on with our daily lives. We go to work or school, we run our errands and do our chores, and we visit our friends. Some of us play outside: skating, skiing, snowmobiling. We go for walks and we find beauty in the snow drifts and the hoar frost. We even gather to pray for Christian unity in the midst of January, the coldest month of the year. We endure winter because we know that it will end. Already we feel the days growing longer and the sun shining more directly. We know that the snow and ice will melt, and the spring rains will clear away the dust, and perhaps in April or early May we will see the buds on the trees signalling that another season of growth is at hand.

I find it fascinating the way that God has made everything to work together. The seeds that fell from last year’s plants will lay dormant beneath the snow until the spring warmth and rains begin the process of growth. But the cold of winter is necessary. Many of you know better than I that cold is an essential stage in preparing seeds for germination. Freezing destroys some of the diseases that inhibit germination, but it also assists in breaking through the hard outer shell of many seeds. Once spring has arrived the farmers will plant their seeds, but with some plants and trees nature takes care of this all on its own. In God’s providence even the death grip of winter leads to new life.

If we are experiencing an ecumenical winter then we must live in Christian hope that winter will end and the seeds of unity will sprout once more. But we don’t just wait for spring, we must work patiently to prepare for the springtime. We must prepare the tools for ecumenical relationship: a greater understanding of our own traditions and the causes of division and a respect for the gifts of the Spirit lived and celebrated by our ecumenical partners. We must prepare now because the time is short, spring will be here very soon. Even now, this is not a winter of despair but one of new birth. In the spring we will experience a resurrection of unity.

As most of you know, we are an interchurch family. While I am Presbyterian, Nicholas is Roman Catholic, and we have decided not to give up either of our Christian Traditions, but to worship and pray together in both of our churches, and to work diligently for ecumenical education, dialogue, common witness, and common mission between our churches.

A: Because of our double belonging, we feel very keenly the divisions and brokenness within the Body of Christ. We notice the misunderstandings when people make assumptions about Traditions with which they are unfamiliar. And we find it hard to ignore when people use stereotypes about certain kinds of Christians, or when they make “we know better than they do” type comments. We are very aware of the things that our churches disagree about, and the doctrines and practices that maintain the barriers between us.

But our interchurch life also provides us with glimpses of the Body of Christ in its fully reconciled form. We celebrate the many opportunities to come together in prayer, to share our common faith in Christ, and to engage in dialogue and share our churches’ particular gifts. We are united in our baptism. We are united in our marriage. We are united in our faith in God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have a long way to go before we will experience the full visible unity of the church, and perhaps we are in an ecumenical winter. And yet, we will rejoice in the Lord. This Week of Prayer for Christian Unity gives us all an opportunity to experience a foretaste of the Kingdom of God – to pray together, to interpret the scriptures together, and to stand together with all Christians and profess our faith in God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

As we journey through the seasons of the church year and explore the texts of scripture each Sunday that are assigned by the lectionary cycle, we have the opportunity to focus on different parts of the Christian story.

During Advent, we enter into the experience of waiting. Longing, hoping, waiting for a Messiah to come… waiting for his return, waiting for our world to be put right. When Christmas finally arrives, we enter into the experience of the Holy Family, of the shepherds, and of the angels. We celebrate the gift of God in sending Jesus into our world, almost as if he has just arrived. And then, at Epiphany, we walk with the wise men to greet him. We experience the “aha moment” – the knowledge that Emmanuel has come – “God with us” for the whole world.

Today is the third Sunday after the Epiphany in our church year. We’re in what we call the “Season of Epiphany” and our scripture texts contain some wonderful epiphanies of their own. But I can’t help summing them up with one message from God: “It is time to live differently.”

The Greek word that is translated as “time” in each of our New Testament readings today is KAIROS. You might recognize that word from the name of our Canadian ecumenical social justice organization. KAIROS doesn’t have to do with what time it is on the clock. That’s CHRONOS – chronological time. CHRONOS deals with time in the sense of calendars and clocks. KAIROS refers to an opportune time, an appropriate moment. KAIROS declares that the right time has come – God’s time. And it calls us to act.

Our social justice organization calls itself KAIROS as a way of saying, “The time has come.” We are called to act on behalf of the poor, on behalf of the oppressed, on behalf of all those who are denied justice by our society’s structures and decisions. When we read the word KAIROS in our Greek New Testament, it will not be a comment about the time of day or the season of the year. When we see the word KAIROS, we know that something important is happening. Something long-awaited is taking place. It is time.

In the Gospel reading from Mark, we hear Jesus’ declaration that “it is time.” Jesus proclaims what Mark’s Gospel describes as “the good news of God” saying: “The time (the KAIROS) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

What made it the right time? It’s hard to say. Jesus had been born, and grown up, and been baptized by John, and been through the temptations in the wilderness. Perhaps he was ready now – to do the work of ministry for which he had been born. Jesus says, “It is time.” I’m ready. This is the right moment.

But it’s not only the right moment for Jesus. It’s also the right moment for the people to whom he preaches. He says, “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” It is time. Time to believe in God and God’s good news of love in Jesus Christ. Time to repent. Time to turn from selfish and sinful ways. Time to turn towards God’s ways.

We watch as Jesus approaches Simon and Andrew, James and John. We listen as Jesus says, “Follow me,” and they turn from their occupations and their families and everything that had been a part of their normal lives. We watch them get up and follow Jesus – to learn his teachings, to travel with him, and to help him proclaim his message – to let everyone know that “It is time.”

Those first disciples of Jesus, who left their nets to follow a wandering preacher, made a radical response to the message “It is time to live differently.” Others who came after them would not necessarily make such dramatic changes in lifestyle when they became followers of Jesus, we might assume.

And yet, in the early church, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, leaders like the Apostle Paul had the expectation that becoming a Christian would dramatically alter the course of each person’s life.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he tries to help them to sort out what their lives are to be like as followers of Jesus, post-resurrection. It’s one thing to drop your nets and follow a real, live person who will guide you and teach you and give direction and shape to your life. It’s quite another to respond to the call to follow when Jesus is not on earth to show the way.

So Paul teaches the Corinthians about worship, about sharing resources, about sharing gifts, about loving one another, and about how to interact with people of other religions within their multi-cultural city. But essentially, what Paul teaches them is that “it is time to live differently.”

Paul had the hope and the expectation that Jesus would be coming back very soon and that the present form of the world would be passing away. He told them not to concern themselves with buying things or with possessions. He told them not to focus on marriages or mourning rituals.

I think he was saying that the things that caused them so much worry and anxiety at that time would not be very important in the long term. I think he was saying that they should focus on God and on what God was calling them to do right there and then. He was saying, “It is time to live differently.”

Today, in this time, we are invited to consider what time it is now. (In terms of CHRONOS, it’s 11:35 a.m. on Sunday, January 22^nd, 2012.) But in terms of KAIROS, is it time for you to respond to a particular calling from God? Are you being asked to leave some part of your life, some priority, some activity behind, and to do something different with your life? Are you being asked to take a risk, to give of yourself to proclaim the Gospel, or to create justice, or to make peace? What mission or calling or change is God calling you to make in your life today? Or what has God been calling you to do for some time now that you’ve been avoiding?

When I think about the question of KAIROS – what time it is right now, what we as Christians and churches are being called to do at this time – an important event that comes to mind is the upcoming National Event of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC is already in Saskatchewan right now, conducting hearings in a variety of communities, giving opportunities for the survivors of residential schools and others impacted by the school system to tell their stories and be heard.

In June of this year, the TRC will hold a National Event here in Saskatoon at Prairieland Park. The event will include statement gathering, witnessing survivor statements, survivor gatherings, traditional ceremonies, cultural performances, and education. And all Canadians, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, are being encouraged to participate.

Today, our churches (our denominational bodies) are encouraging local Christians to participate in the TRC process. We have church representatives on the planning committee for the event in Saskatoon, and representatives from our national churches will come and participate by witnessing survivor statements and offering apologies. In Prince Albert, the Presbyterian Church is organizing to have church representatives present for each day and hour of the hearings that will be held there next week.

It is time for us to be present, to listen, and to provide opportunities to share the truth of our history as a country so that healing and reconciliation may become a real possibility.

Many people would say that something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should have happened years ago. After failing to act for so long, maybe it’s simply too late to make a difference in the lives of the residential school students or their children and grandchildren whose lives have also been scarred by the damage done to previous generations. But I would argue that it’s never too late to respond to God’s call and do what is right.

I would like to report that when God calls me to action, or to repentance, or to generosity, or to a new way of life, that I always respond immediately – that I drop what I’m doing and follow. But that’s not really true. I’m sure that I’m not the only one here who has a tendency to procrastinate.

Especially when it comes to tasks that are particularly challenging, or unpleasant, or scary, it’s easy to put them off and to avoid doing the things that God is calling us to do immediately. In fact, we may be wracked with guilt over the things that we should have done, that we should have done immediately, and we still haven’t done them – whether it’s having a difficult conversation to make peace in a relationship, or picking up the phone or going to visit someone who is sick, or making the time to finish a project or task that no longer seems interesting to us.

But today, I invite you to remember the story of Jonah. When God told Jonah that it was time to go to Ninevah, Jonah didn’t just procrastinate about the journey, he actually ran in the other direction to avoid the trip. God sent Jonah to go to Ninevah and call that great city to repentance – to call them to return to the ways of God. It wasn’t the kind of mission that most people would get excited about, and I think it scared Jonah to death!

It was time for him to go to Ninevah, and Jonah ran away. But after a bit of back-peddling and a time-out in the belly of a fish, Jonah eventually went. He went to Ninevah and he marched around the city and called the people to repentance, as God had told him to do.

And they did repent. Right away. All the people “great and small” proclaimed a fast and put on sack cloth – signs of repentance. Even the king repented, and he made a decree that everyone in the city should do the same – repent of their evil ways and cry mightily to God. “Who knows?” he said, “God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” And that, indeed, is what God did.

It is time, Jesus proclaimed. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe in the good news. It is time, Jesus called. Come and follow me and be my disciples. It is time, Jesus continues to call. It is time to live differently, to make your lives about following my way, to respond to my invitations, to do my work in the world. It is time to stop, to listen, and to seek to understand our Aboriginal sisters and brothers who were affected by the legacy of the residential schools. This is a KAIROS moment, and one not to be missed. It is time.

The following sermon is posted with thanks to Kathryn Matthews Huey, whose reflections on Psalm 139 (from the website of the United Church of Christ) provided significant inspiration, and from whom I borrowed several paragraphs.

There is an obvious connection between the Old Testament and Gospel readings this morning. They are “call narratives” – stories about people who received a call from God. In First Samuel 3, a little boy is called to become “a trustworthy prophet of the Lord,” and John’s Gospel tells the story of Philip and Nathanael leaving everything behind to follow Jesus when they realize that he is the one “about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

Many of us here today (perhaps all of us) have also been called by God. We probably weren’t wakened by God’s voice calling out our name in the middle of the night, and we didn’t have Jesus literally walk up to us and say, “Come and follow me.” But we have heard God’s call in the words of the Bible, through the voices of preachers and teachers, or as an urgent sense of needing to get out of our own concerns and do something for God.

Some have heard calls to particular ministries in the church. Others have sensed a call to speak up for someone who was in trouble, or to speak out for what was right and just at work or in the community. We’ve been called to give our gifts and to give our time and talent. We’ve been called to live our lives for God and to follow the way of Jesus, whether or not we have a dramatic story to share about the day that we first heard God’s voice.

I noticed an odd little detail in the story about Jesus calling Nathanael this week. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said to him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” What a nice thing to hear from Jesus!

“I know that you are a good person, an honest person, not the kind of person who would lie or steal or try to trick someone!” That’s the gist of what Jesus says to Nathanael when Nathanael first walks up to him.

And Nathanael asks Jesus, “Where did you get to know me?” “You’ve never met me before. How do you know what I’m like?” And Jesus tells him, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

A more argumentative person probably would have had a few more questions for Jesus: “So you saw me under the fig tree… So what? What could you possibly know about me from that? You don’t even know my name!”

But Nathanael replied instead, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” The implication is that Nathanael has come to believe simply because he can see that this man knows him.

It makes me wonder about how Jesus must have been looking at Nathanael – what he must have been conveying through his eyes, or through his posture, through more than just his words. Jesus barely even speaks the words, “I know you, Nathanael,” and somehow Nathanael feels that he is known – maybe even that he is loved. And he believes. And he follows Jesus.

Psalm 139 is one of my favourite psalms. And when I thought about Nathanael’s question, “Where did you get to know me?” I realized that the psalm provides a fitting response.

If Nathanael was familiar with the psalm prayers of his Hebrew Tradition, perhaps Psalm 139 sprang to his mind as he stood before Jesus for the first time. Perhaps what became clear to Nathanael in that interaction was that this man KNEW him in a way that only GOD can know each one of us.

The psalmist writes this prayer to God:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.”

Unlike the rest of the Bible, the psalms are addressed directly to God. The other books are history, stories, law, proverbial sayings, letters and other forms of writing. But the psalms are Israel’s prayer book. And even today, thousands of years later, they still express our deepest feelings, fear and joy and anger and confusion, better than anything that we can come up with.

Isn’t it amazing to think about the psalmist? We might picture him sitting on a rock on a hillside, writing these beautiful words. When I read them, they bring to mind the pictures, provided by modern technological wonders, of an unborn child, curled in the foetal position, sucking her thumb, cradled in her mother’s womb: “It was you who formed my inward parts;” the psalmist writes, “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

A prayer arises naturally in our throats when we see such a wonder. It’s a prayer of praise, not of ourselves, as if we are responsible for our own beauty or even for the beauty of our children. From our hearts comes a prayer of praise and worship and adoration of the God who has formed not only the vast expanses of heaven and earth and all the unfathomable mysteries they contain, but also the tiny, delicate fingers and toes of a newborn baby.

It is easy for us, as parents, or grandparents, or loving friends, to see the beauty and wonder of God’s handiwork when we look at a newborn baby or a child, or when we raise our eyes to the heavens and gaze at the stars, or when we walk in a garden and see the exquisite loveliness of flowers and stones side by side.

What seems to be more difficult is for us to look at ourselves, all grown up and somewhat the worse for wear, and to pray that same prayer with quite the same enthusiasm. As we live out our lives, knowing both failures and shortcomings, as well as accomplishments and successes, we seem to know especially well our faults and limitations. Of course we try to hide them. But they are ever present in our own minds.

Peter Gomes wrote a book about the Bible called “The Good Book.” In one chapter, entitled “The Bible and the Good Life,” he describes the “imposter syndrome” that afflicts us all. We spend our days, he says, in image building, trying to hide our weaknesses from one another, whether in the boardroom, on the athletic field or on the battlefield. We dress a certain way, use body language and speech in a certain way, and even pile up credentials and experience to prove that we are “good enough.”

But Gomes reminds us: “There is good news, and that is why they call it the Gospel. The news is not that we are worse than we think, it is that we are better than we think, and better than we deserve to be. Why? Because at the very bottom of the whole enterprise is the indisputable fact that we are created, made, formed, invented, patented in the image of goodness itself. That is what it means, that is how one translates being created in the image of God: it means to be created in the image of goodness itself… People may take everything away from you, they may deprive you of everything you have and value, but they cannot take away from you the fact that you are a child of God and bear the impression of God in your very soul.”

What the psalm tells us is that God is with us at the core of our very being, deeper than anything the scientists can ever measure or understand. The psalm reassures us that no matter what, God knows us, each and every one of us. We are precious in God’s sight.

The reading from First Corinthians today – as specific as it may be about what Paul teaches we should and should not do with our bodies – is, at its core, about the fact that we belong to God. Our spirits, our minds, and indeed our bodies, are the good creation of God, made to glorify God in all things. We are temples of the Holy Spirit – creations of God made to carry God’s good Spirit within us. And we are not our own – we belong to God.

And yet, it’s still hard to hear those stories of God’s call and not to assume that God calls only especially good, or talented, or wise, or holy people to do God’s work in the world. James Limburg, writing in the commentary “Feasting on the Word,” assures us that each and every one of us is that specially created and chosen one of God. He says “we are not mass-produced but custom-made.” And then he tells the story about a young rabbi called Zusya.

Zusya was quite discouraged about his failures and weaknesses. An older rabbi said to him, “When you get to heaven, God is not going to say to you, “Why weren’t you Moses?” No, God will say, “Why weren’t you Zusya?” So why don’t you stop trying to be Moses, and start being the Zusya God created you to be?”

“I praise you, O God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.”

May we know, this day, that we are beautiful, wonderful creations and precious to the God who knows us completely. And may we hear God’s voice calling us to follow Jesus and to use our precious lives for the glory of God alone. Amen.

St. Andrew’s Will Host an Ecumenical Worship Service on Monday, January 23rd at 7:00 a.m. During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity each year, the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism co-ordinates a series of worship opportunities in churches of many denominations across the city of Saskatoon. St. Andrew’s has agreed to host one of the early morning services, followed by a continental breakfast in the lower hall of the church.

We hope that many of our members will take the opportunity to participate in this prayer for the unity of the church, either by attending the service at St. Andrew’s and welcoming our Christian friends, or by joining in the other prayer services throughout the week. See the full schedule for the WPCU in Saskatoon January 22-29, 2012.

Holy Communion: A Study of Theology and Practice: The Session of St. Andrew’s is planning to meet on Saturday, February 4th from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. to study and discuss the theology and practice of Holy Communion in our church. This event will be open to anyone in the congregation to attend and participate.

Holy Communion is a gift from Christ to the church. Before there were Books of Common Order or formal creeds, even before the New Testament was written, the first Christians met on the Lord’s Day to read the Scriptures, the letters from the apostles, and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Please join us for this time of study and discussion as we deepen our understanding of this Sacrament, as well as appreciate the mystery of Christ’s presence with us when we gather at the Table of the Lord. We will conclude the afternoon with a short worship service and celebration of Holy Communion.

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” Well into the Book of Acts and the story of the early Christian Church, the Apostle Paul passed through a particular region and came to the city of Ephesus, where he found some disciples. Paul asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” And they replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

It’s probably a reasonable assumption to expect that there is no one here today who has not heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Some of you may be intimately acquainted with the Spirit, having experienced its working in your lives. Perhaps it was a nudge you felt pushing you to do something for God’s mission. Maybe it was a peace that you experienced despite the fear and stress associated with a crisis in your life. Or perhaps you knew that the Holy Spirit was surrounding you when you simply had the sense that God was near and that you were not alone.

We have an advantage, compared to the first small group of Christians in Ephesus, and that advantage is that someone has already come to tell us about the Spirit. We have the witness of our parents and grandparents in the faith. We have the testimony of the apostles and the church throughout the centuries. We have the Scriptures, including the New Testament writings, that pass along the convictions of the earliest Christians.

We can read about how they experienced God’s abiding presence, not only in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but through an intangible presence that remained with them even after Jesus had died and been raised up to heaven. They experienced this Spirit of God both as a comfort and encouragement, and as one who filled them and equipped them to be instruments of God’s work in the world – proclaiming the Gospel and sharing God’s love with all whom they met.

But when Paul first stopped by the city of Ephesus, the group of twelve disciples there had not even heard of the Holy Spirit yet. They knew that God was doing a new thing in their time. They had received the baptism of repentance that John the Baptist had been offering, and they had probably repented of their sin and turned their lives towards the goal of following Jesus and his teachings.

We can imagine that they were probably very excited about the new life that they had begun. But they were probably also pretty worried about whether they would be able to live up to God’s expectations. Jesus’ way of life was not an easy one to follow, and they may not have been too sure that they could pull it off.

Until Paul got to their city, no one had told them that they weren’t alone. No one had told them that they would have help along the way in their new Christian lives. No one had told them that God was not only present in Jesus Christ, when Jesus walked around in the world preaching, and teaching, and healing… and God was not only present as a heavenly Father above them… but God was actually present in their lives, in their bodies, in their relationships, and all around them.

Over the next several centuries, as the church grew and became established, the Scriptures were written, collected, and edited. The doctrines of the church were put into words and eventually agreed-upon creeds or statements of faith. And I don’t think you could become a Christian today without first having learned about and professed your faith in God the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This past Fall, the Sunday morning bible study group decided to explore the Holy Spirit together. We didn’t find a study book or resource to guide us, so we simply delved into the Scriptures themselves looking for the many references to the Holy Spirit and seeing what we could learn about this mysterious and powerful presence in the lives of God’s people throughout history.

This morning’s readings provide some great samples from the passages that we discovered together, and they emphasize the fact that the Holy Spirit was present from the very beginning, was made manifest in the life of Christ, and continued to inspire and animate God’s people even after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And today is not an exceptional Sunday. You can’t hang around the church community for very long without noticing the readings about the promised Holy Spirit, without hearing prayers for the Spirit’s help and encouragement in our lives, without joining in words such as these from Living Faith:
“The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life,
the Renewer and Helper of God’s people.
By the Spirit, God is present in the world,
the source of all goodness and justice.
By the Spirit, God convinces the world of sin
and testifies to the truth of Christ.
By the Spirit, Christ is with his church.”

When we welcome a new little one into our church family, or when a teen or an adult comes to profess their faith and be baptized, we are clear about what we believe is happening. It’s the Holy Spirit who is at work in the Sacrament of Baptism. And we pray:

“Almighty God;
by the power of your Holy Spirit,
by the sign of this water,
you cleanse from sin through the death of Jesus Christ,
those who receive this sacrament;
you raise them to new life through his resurrection,
and you graft them into his body, the church.
Pour out your Spirit upon these your children,
that they may have power to do your will
and continue forever as servants of Christ
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit
be all honour and glory, now and forever.”

But I wonder… if Paul or someone were to come through Saskatoon today and meet the little group of disciples that meets for worship and service and fellowship in this place… if Paul were to come by and ask us straight up, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” how would we respond? How do we know that we received the Spirit? How do we know that the Spirit is actually within us?

Some might claim that they felt the Spirit’s presence at their baptism. I’ve been heard to say something like that when I reflect on my baptism as a teenager… that I felt the warmth of the Spirit around me, that I had a sense of being surrounded and filled with the Spirit of God.

But others might say that they know that the Spirit is in their lives because they trust in the statements and doctrines of the church. The church teaches that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us in our baptism, that the Spirit fills and equips the people of God to be the Body of Christ in the world, and many of us may place our trust in that authority.

Of course, as Christians in the Reformed Tradition, we place a great deal of emphasis on the ultimate authority of the Scriptures. And the Bible is full of the assurance that God’s Spirit is promised and given as a gift to God’s people. We might easily rely on that promise and proclaim that yes, indeed, we did receive the Holy Spirit when we were baptized.

At times, the Spirit has been compared to the wind. And rightly so, because both the Greek word for Spirit (pneuma) and the Hebrew word for Spirit (ruach) can be translated appropriately as spirit, breath, or wind – that amazing force or power of God that brings life to the world.

The wind, of course, cannot be seen. But the wind is powerful, and the effects of the wind can be seen and heard and experienced. Indeed, the effects of the wind are often very difficult to ignore. And the same is true for the Holy Spirit of God.

I’m reminded of that when I think of the first day of Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection. I wonder how the various disciples that were present described the experience they shared of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Someone said it was like a great wind sweeping through the room and tongues of fire landing on the disciples. Someone else might have said that they suddenly felt filled up with courage and boldness to engage in God’s mission. And another would have described it as an uneasy feeling that would not subside until they got out of that house and starting telling the people about Jesus.

But we know that the Spirit was poured out on the gathered disciples that day because we see the effects of the Spirit in their lives. They began to preach the Gospel. They reached out beyond boundaries of language and culture, and told the Good News that changed the lives of many and turned their hearts towards God.

In his letter to the Galatian Christians, Paul makes it clear that the Holy Spirit can be seen in the lives of God’s people. There is a way to know if they received the Holy Spirit, or at least to know if they are living BY the Spirit, allowing the Spirit to guide and direct their lives. And that evidence is the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I attended a funeral yesterday. It was a celebration of the life of a Saskatoon woman who died way too young at the age of 40. I knew Sheryl from having served with her on the Leadership and Program Committee for Camp Christopher where I appreciated her cheerfulness, her helpfulnesss, and her kindness. And I learned a great deal more about her life yesterday as I listened to the tributes and remembrances of her family and friends.

They didn’t spend time at the service talking about what Sheryl believed, or the fact that she was baptized, and there wasn’t a big focus on reassuring us all that she would be heading towards heaven to be with God. But I left the service with a deep sense of the Spirit of God in her life.

I don’t know if she had any “spiritual” experiences, and I doubt that she ever spoke in tongues, but the fruit of the Spirit was evident in her life. The people who came in contact with her could attest to the fact that her life brought love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control into their lives. And so I have no doubt that she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she was letting that Spirit guide her life, because that Spirit was producing good fruit.

It caused me to reflect, as funeral services often do, what might be said about me if my life were to suddenly come to an end. I wonder if you’ve thought about that too at times. In what ways is my life, my time, my energy being directed by the Spirit such that it produces kindness or generosity? It what ways am I allowing the Spirit to guide me to share love, and express joy, and cultivate peace?

Perhaps there is an area or two that is challenging for you… generosity that is stifled by fear, patience that is tried by difficult circumstances, or faithfulness that is undermined by experiences of being betrayed. But the fact that we do not yet produce all this fruit perfectly does not indicate that the Spirit has left us, or that we never had the Spirit of God within us. It simply means that the Spirit has some work left to accomplish within us, and we need to make space in our lives for the transformation that God is preparing for us.

I believe that whether we know it or not, we have all been blessed with the gift of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives. And no, we don’t have to prove it, or account for it, or give any evidence to demonstrate it. But we do need to make space in our lives for the Spirit to guide us – to let the fruit grow and bless the world.

Consider the various fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Which one can you simply celebrate as a gift that is already manifest in your life? Which one do you need to make space for, or to cultivate? Don’t expect them all to grow as easily and quickly as the others. But remember that their growth does not come from your determination or your strength, but by the Holy Spirit’s activity in and through you.

When the end of your life does come, and your friends and family and church community share stories of the difference that you made in the world and in their lives, it won’t be because you are awesome. It won’t be because you are the best person in the world. It will be because of the gift of God’s Holy Spirit that filled you, and equipped you, and worked through you to produce wonderful fruit. Thanks be to God.

Children’s Message:
Good morning, and Merry Christmas to all of you! I am so glad that you are here today. It is good to see you, and to shake your hands, and to be together to praise God on this Christmas morning!

I wonder… have you ever been far away from someone you loved at a special time like Christmas? Maybe you sent that person a Christmas card, which is nice. Or maybe you even got to talk on the phone, which is even better. That’s what I’ll do with my parents and sisters and brother this Christmas. I’ll talk to them on the phone. That will be good, but not quite as good as actually being there – where you can see each other, and give each other hugs, and just spend time together.

This year, Nick and I are going to fly to BC. We’re leaving this afternoon to visit Nick’s parents, and we’re looking forward to being with them. I wonder if you have anyone special visiting you this year… Does anyone have any special guests with them for Christmas? (We are so glad that you are here!)

Now, to those of you who are hosting guests: When did you start to get excited about your visitors? Was it just today when you got up on Christmas morning? Or was it the day your guests arrived? Or was it the day you found out they were coming? It was earlier, wasn’t it? Before they even arrived!

That reminds me of a passage from the bible – from the prophet Isaiah. He wrote it a long time before the time of Jesus. It was during a time when the People of Israel were feeling very lonely and sad. Some of their friends had been taken away to live in exile in a foreign land, and things back home just weren’t the same without them. The people felt so discouraged that they thought maybe God didn’t care about them anymore. They couldn’t imagine how God could let something like this happen!

But the prophet Isaiah knew better. He knew that God never abandons us, and he was sure that something good was going to happen soon, the exiles were going to come home.

This is what Isaiah wrote: (Isaiah 52:7-10)
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

That bible reading had some big words in it, but I hope you got the idea… A messenger is coming to announce the good news that God’s People are all coming home to be with their friends in Jerusalem. God has not left the people. God is helping them. And God is planning for a wonderful reunion. They can see the messenger coming with the good news! It’s almost time!

The people must have been so excited when they say the messenger coming. Even before the messenger arrived, they were excited. They said, “Look at the beautiful feet of the messenger who is coming!” They were so excited about the good news he was bringing that they thought even the feet that carried him to them were beautiful.

Some of us have been excited about our visitors and about visits we get to go on this Christmas. But we’ve all been excited about Christmas itself, haven’t we? I don’t know about you, but sometimes on Christmas Eve, I’m almost too excited to go to sleep. I lie awake thinking about all the special Christmas things – with Christmas carols running through my mind – and wondering about the special things that will happen on Christmas Day.

I hope that today will be a wonderful day for all of you, and that you’ll remember the best gift of all that we celebrate at Christmas. God’s people waited a long, long time for this special gift – for God to actually come and visit them IN PERSON. (Not just a message or a commandment.) Jesus was born. And Jesus is God coming to be with us in person. Let’s celebrate this wonderful gift!

Meditation:
Today we celebrate the incarnation of God. God is not just a good idea, or a kind thought. But God became a body – with hands and arms, feet and legs, head and heart. As the author of the book of Hebrews explains it, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets.” God preached, and God instructed, God corrected, and God comforted. And God did all this with words.

But now, “in these last days [God] has spoken to us by a Son.” “And the Word became flesh,” John’s Gospel proclaims so eloquently, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

We have all experienced the blessing of having someone we love come to visit us. Strangely, we don’t always have much to say when they come. After all, we’ve been communicating all along through letters or emails or texts or phone calls. But something is so different and so special when that person comes to visit us. We’re not alone. We’re at home. We can just BE together.

“How beautiful are the FEET of the messenger who announces peace and brings good news,” Isaiah proclaims. “But what is beautiful about feet?” we might ask. Not much, really. Feet are pretty funny-looking, when you think about it. They can certainly look pretty yucky, especially when they’re tired and sore, when they’re blistered or calloused… and they might not smell very nice either!

But what is beautiful about the feet is their coming. What is beautiful about the feet is the purpose they serve in carrying the messenger and his good news. What is beautiful about the feet is what they are doing – travelling the distance and climbing the mountains to get there.

How extraordinary is this good news that the messenger brings to the People of Israel? It is so good that the exiles rejoice even before it is achieved. They praise the very feet of the messenger who is bringing news to Zion that its citizens are on their way home; they break into singing when the sentinels send out word that the exiles can be seen in the distance; they are comforted even before they celebrate their reunions.

Biblical commentaries note that even the verb tenses in the passage play up the relationship between what has already happened, what is happening, and what has yet to happen. And there is excitement about all three! God HAS COMFORTED his people, he HAS REDEEMED Jerusalem. The messenger IS ANNOUNCING peace, he IS BRINGING good news. And all the ends of the earth WILL SEE the salvation of our God.

This interplay of tenses is a normal part of our expression of faith as well. In Advent, we waited for the God who CAME to us in the form of a manger-born baby, and now we wait for God who WILL COME again.

At Christmas, we celebrate God’s redemption of the world through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It’s an event that happened more than 2000 years ago. It is finished. And yet, even as we celebrate what God has done, we have to notice that God is doing something right now. God is present with us, and God is coming to us in Word and Sacrament. God is comforting us in our sorrow, and rejoicing with us in our joy. God is forgiving us for our sins, and calling us to follow the way of Jesus with our lives. God is turning our lives upside down, just as God turned the world upside down so many years ago with the coming of the child.

What God has done for us in the past, and what God is doing in us, and among us, and between us today are beautifully intertwined. And they are also tied up with our hope for what God will one day complete.

For we look and wait for the day when Christ will come again to make all things new. We watch and we work for the day when the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled, when the earth is filled with the knowledge and love of God, as the waters cover the sea. Even today, on Christmas Day, we live between “the already” and “the not yet.”

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news.” As we learn to see even the feet of the messenger as praiseworthy, we gain practice in praise for that day when the ends of the earth do see the salvation of our God, and praise is all that is left to do. Amen.

This reflection followed a creative presentation of the Christmas story by the children of St. Andrew’s Church School. The Christmas story was told in an imaginative way – from the perspective of the inn keeper’s family and their neighbours down the street who were actively looking for God’s Messiah to come.

I went to see Handel’s Messiah on Wednesday evening last week. It was presented, as usual, by the Saskatoon Symphony Chamber Orchestra and the Saskatoon Chamber Singers – the continuation of a wonderful Christmas tradition both here and around the world.

Although I’ve listened to Handel’s Messiah many times before, and even sung in performances of the choruses in my youth, I was struck once again by the amazing musical settings of some of the most powerful and meaningful words of scripture that are so dear to us as Christians.

One of the things that stood out was how many of the texts Handel chose were from the Old Testament – from the prophets. In our children’s Christmas play this morning, these would have been the prophetic texts that the father was trying to teach to his children, and that his daughter, Esther, was exploring. These were the texts that explained that God would send a Saviour, a Messiah, and that he would come as a child. And Esther and her father were waiting and watching for these texts to be fulfilled, for God’s promises to be granted.

• Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel – God with us.

It is interesting to imagine, with the author of today’s play, that a family of Jewish people, living in Bethlehem at the turn of the first century, were studying the prophets’ words and watching for God’s promises to be fulfilled in the birth of a child who would come to be God’s very presence with us.

The historical reality, of course, is more likely that Jesus was born without anyone much noticing that he was born. No one probably figured out that he was anyone special until many years later – maybe when they heard him preaching in the synagogue or teaching in the countryside, maybe when they saw him performing miracles or heard his bold pronouncements of grace and forgiveness.

But even then, most people missed the fact that Jesus was God’s Word made flesh. They had no idea that the promises and predictions of the great prophets were being fulfilled in him.

• For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, unto us a son is given…

It wasn’t until much later that Jesus’ followers and others began to truly understand who he was. It was long after his birth, after his ministry, after his rejection and his death on a cross. It was after some of Jesus’ followers started to proclaim that God had raised him from death, that he had appeared to them, and then gone up into heaven.

That’s when they were able to look back on his life, his ministry, and his death, and to see the amazing gift that he was – to see that he was God’s very presence with us, God’s Word made flesh, God’s promises fulfilled, God’s love for us lived out in the life of a human person.

My hope for each one of us this Christmas is that we would not go through this season unaware of the presence of God in our lives. Sure, we could probably look back on this time many months or years from now, and identify the ways that God was present and active in our church, in our families, and in our community.

But my hope is that today we will catch a little bit of the spirit of the Esther character in the play. Not only was she interested in God’s promises, but she was actively looking for God to be doing something in her life. Not many people would have noticed what she did.

But not only that… Esther wanted to get involved in what she saw God was doing. She decided to participate – to help in preparing God’s way into the world.

I wonder… Can we be people who are actively looking for God’s presence in our world, who are noticing what is happening right in front of our eyes where God’s presence is made flesh among us?

And can we be people who are looking for ways to be involved – to provide a cup of water, or a place to sleep, or a blanket for a cold night?

May the words of the prophets be fulfilled, and the Word of God become flesh once again this Christmas. May the Word become flesh in our lives.

• Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
  Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
  and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.

Peace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet,
Peace within us, peace over us, let us around us be peace.

Advent is an appropriate season to spend time in prayer for peace.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of this busy month, we might pray for moments of peace, quiet, and calm in which to experience the presence of God in our lives. And we could pray for the gift of peace for those whose schedules keep them running, or whose “to do” lists are too long to complete in these few weeks.

Remembering those who are weighed down by heavy responsibilities and stressful situations, we might pray for the gift of peace that relieves stress and reduces anxiety. We could pray for those who suffer from anxiety disorders, as well as for those who are experiencing stress-inducing circumstances.

It would be appropriate also, for us to pray for peace in the lives of those who are struggling with brokenness in their relationships – for couples who feel stuck in cycles of conflict, for parents and children who cannot see eye to eye, for siblings, cousins, friends, and colleagues who are mis-communicating, mis-understanding, and so desperately need God’s help for reconciliation and peace.

We might also think of so many people who are longing for peace in their own minds and hearts. For those wracked with guilt, we could pray for God’s forgiveness to lead them to healing and peace. And for those consumed by anger, we could pray that they receive the courage to offer forgiveness themselves, and to find freedom and peace.

Even as we pray for peace in our own lives, in our families, and between friends, we should also pray for peace in our church, and in all the churches of the world. People outside the church might wonder at that. Don’t church people get along with each other? Or if we don’t seem to get along, they might write off the church as a place full of hypocrites. You people are supposed to be good! You’re supposed to be kind and generous and forgiving, and you can’t even get along?

But we’re all human, and we need God’s help to live and work and serve together in peace. We need God’s help to care for one another in appropriate ways, to make space for one another to share all our gifts, and to be patient with each other when we’re not perfect.

And, of course, we need to pray for the gift of peace in our world. We need to pray for peace between countries and world leaders, between cultures, tribes, and religions. We need to pray for peace – for the true SHALOM of God – which is not just the absence of conflict, but the fullness of life for all people.

True peace needs righteousness. Not the puffed-up morality the word has often come to connote, but righteousness in its original meaning, that is, RIGHT RELATIONS, be they with God, with others, in our families, or among nations.

Sometimes we call it justice. But for that righteousness or justice to be more than legalistic fairness, it needs the breadth of vision found in God’s shalom – God’s peace.

Peace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet,
Peace within us, peace over us, let us around us be peace.

Last Sunday we talked and prayed about the longing that we have for a world set right – for God’s kingdom to come in its fullness, for Christ’s return, for a new heaven and a new earth. And today, it’s almost like we’re one step closer to that longing being fulfilled. We’ve moved from LONGING to ANTICIPATION.

We heard the words of 2^nd Isaiah this morning, encouraging God’s people as they neared the end of their exile in Babylon: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term… See, the Lord God comes with might… He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

The struggle is nearly over, and peace is on its way. God is with the people, and God is helping them and guiding them towards a hopeful and peaceful future.

In the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel too, there is great anticipation for a new day that is dawning. The long-awaited Messiah is on his way. The powerful One who will baptize the people with the Holy Spirit is coming. He’s almost here, John the Baptist proclaims. It’s time to start preparing for his coming.

I’ve preached on those classic texts from Isaiah and Mark many times before, but I don’t think I’ve ever paid much attention to this morning’s psalm. This week, however, it was Psalm 85 that piqued my interest.

Not unlike Isaiah’s words today, Psalm 85 proclaims the goodness of God and the amazing grace of God to forgive the people and restore their fortunes. It includes several verses of lament in which the people pray for God’s help and salvation, and then the psalmist shares a wonderful vision of God’s salvation this is coming: “Surely God’s salvation is at hand,” he assures us. And this is what salvation will look like:

“Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.”

I think you have to have a bit of a poetic heart to understand this psalm. These wonderful characteristics of love, faithfulness, justice, and peace are coming together in a beautiful meeting. These holy attributes are personified so that we may imagine hands reaching out in greeting, and arms opening wide in an embrace.

These virtues coming together in unity are what bring about the salvation of God – they are what make for the new order that is full of God’s peace.

The peace that the psalmist expects God to proclaim is SHALOM, a comprehensive well-being that encompasses the fulfillment of every individual and corporate need, as well as the health of the natural order, in addition to the absence of violence and conflict.

The covenant bringing SHALOM is God’s gift. It is at God’s initiative. It is God’s work and God’s accomplishment. And yet, the people also have a part to play by turning to God, remaining faithful, and co-operating with God’s purposes.

After all, both Isaiah and John the Baptist told the people the good news about what God was doing, and they called the people to respond. They said, “Repent!” They told them to “Prepare!” They made sure that everyone knew that something wonderful was about to happen and that everyone had a chance to be a part of it.

One commentator suggests that in Psalm 85, attributes of God (steadfast love and righteousness) are paired up with responses from God’s people (faithfulness and peace). It is God’s righteousness that is described as “looking down from the sky,” and our faithfulness is springing up from the ground. (Doesn’t that description sound like some of Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of God?)

The coming kingdom is not something that we can accomplish for ourselves through our own good works, but neither is it something that God does in isolation. The kingdom is something that happens when God’s steadfast love meets our faithfulness, when God’s righteousness and justice embrace our commitment to peace.

And so, as we wait and pray for peace in our lives, in our relationships, in our church, and in our world, we do so NOT as passive observers, waiting for God to set things right. But we do so as people who are called and empowered to respond to God’s goodness. We do so as people who are invited to participate in God’s plan for salvation and peace.

Peace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet,
Peace within us, peace over us, let us around us be peace.

Although most congregations and ministers might agree with the ecumenical goal in theory, actual sharing in worship, witness and service with our Christian neighbours often gets pushed aside because of the busy schedules and many demands on our church leaders.  On the Canadian Prairies, the churches have a long history of working together, and the current members of the Presbytery of Northern Saskatchewan have inherited a great legacy of involvement and relationship with our Christian friends. Not only do our congregations and ministers participate in local ministerials and councils of churches, but as a presbytery we are one of seven sponsoring denominations of the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in Saskatoon. The purpose of the Centre is “to be an instrument for Christian reconciliation and unity… and to advance towards that unity in order that the world may believe.”

Read the complete letter on the Record’s website.

The concert will follow the “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” format, which is an order of service made famous by the annual performances from King’s College, Cambridge.  The format for the “Lessons and Carols” was created in 1880 by Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury but at that time Bishop of Truro in Cornwall.  It was further adapted in 1918 by Eric Milner-White, dean of King’s College Cambridge.  Lessons and Carols occur in Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.  St. Andrew’s will be using seven of the nine lessons and after each lesson there will be a choir anthem, solo or a carol sung by choir and congregation.

Please join us in this enchanting, inspirational evening of Christmas readings and song.

Anyone interested in joining the festivity is welcome to participate; a free will offering will be taken for the Good Food Junction. Children and youth interested in taking part are asked to be at Third Avenue United Church (304 3^rd Ave N) at 2:00 pm on December 10^th for a rehearsal (with costumes, if you have them!).

Those who would like a CD of the music to practice ahead of time can contact Janice Sanford Beck at 655-5301. Refreshments will be served. Anyone willing to contribute cookies or fruit is asked to bring it to Third Avenue United Church between 1:00 and 2:00 pm on Dec 10^th.

If your life is perfect, then you may not be able to relate to the scripture texts this morning for the first Sunday in Advent. If you are happy and healthy and well, and you live with your beautiful family in a lovely neighbourhood, enjoying your spacious home and your comfortable income… If you’re getting ready for an absolutely wonderful holiday season of socializing and gift-giving, laughter and good times, without a care in the world… then perhaps this morning’s readings will seem a little out of place or off the wall.

But, you know as well as I that the congregation here on Sunday mornings is not made up of super-duper people with perfect lives. That’s not the reason for the smiles and laughter that we share as we gather in this place. In fact, you’re not the only one here today who’s come despite the struggles, who’s come carrying heavy burdens, who’s come with pain, or disappointment, or stress, or grief beyond compare.

For one, it’s the fatigue that comes from constant caregiving and the many thankless jobs still needing to be done. For another, it’s the worry and stress caused by a difficult work situation or a boss who just doesn’t seem to understand.

Someone else is finding it hard to get up in the morning because of a chronic illness, while another is aching with loneliness through the night because of a loved one who is no longer present.

A young person is struggling to find meaning and direction in life, and one who is older is looking back with regret at missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams. Even the one whose life seems to be going well may be feeling overwhelmed and ready to break from all the demands to serve, and help, and give for those who are in trouble.

And while one person’s relationship struggles are making her feel like her whole world is coming apart, another is feeling something similar as he considers the world in which we live with so much conflict, chaos, and destruction.

How many times have we prayed something that amounts to “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”? We long for a resolution to our own particular issues. We long for relief from our own particular pain and struggle. We long to see a world set to right, peace and stability prevailing, justice reigning, and safety surrounding. And this is a longing that both Isaiah and his contemporaries in the post-exilic period, and the early Christian community of which Mark’s author was a member, could understand.

The reading from 3^rd Isaiah that we heard this morning was a prayer of longing. Its origin is the city of Jerusalem during the period immediately after the Babylonian exile, sometime after 537 BCE. As you probably remember, Judah and Jerusalem were conquered by the Babylonians, the temple was destroyed, and many of the people were sent to live in a foreign land.

During that troubling time, the prophets provided encouragement, and 2^nd Isaiah in particular expected a glorious return and restoration of the people, the land, and the temple. But instead, even when they got the opportunity to go home, they found themselves frustrated by innumerable hardships. And as despair increased, the returnees begged God for a miraculous resolution to their unhappy situation.

What is clear is that the people felt like God had abandoned them. They thought God must be hiding from them because all they could see around them was hopelessness, despair, and destruction. They hadn’t noticed God doing much of anything for a long time. God has hidden himself, they were saying, and that’s the reason why no one was paying much attention to God.

Haven’t we all felt something like that at times? And how difficult it can be to keep on praying, to keep on coming to church, when nothing seems to change, when there seems to be no response from God, and no sign of God’s presence or compassion?

But what is striking about this prayer of longing is that someone utters it. Someone keeps on talking to God through the darkness and doubt of God’s seeming absence. Someone keeps on crying out and begging for God’s help, while others have given up and gone their own way.

What the author of the prayer does is to look for signs of hope. Now, what he might have done was to look around at the situation and try to find something to feel optimistic about… “At least we’re not still in Babylon…” Perhaps all of these trials will make us stronger?” “Well, now that we’ve hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go from here but up!”

You see, optimism and hope are not quite the same thing. I think optimism is more like “looking on the bright side” or having a good idea that things are likely to improve. But as Patricia E. de Jong puts it, “Hope is what is left when your worst fears have been realized and you are no longer optimistic about your future.”

Those praying in Isaiah did not look AROUND THEM for a reason to be optimistic, but they looked BACK to find hope in the God who had shown himself to be faithful, compassionate, gracious, and powerful. They oriented themselves in the direction in which God was last seen, remembering God’s acts of old, and expressing faithful longing for restoration.

I wonder if that is something that we can do also. In the face of whatever troubles or challenges we face today, and even in those moments when God’s presence is not so apparent, can we access the memories of those times when the Holy One seemed so close that we could almost reach out and touch God?

Remember that early morning, up at the lake, when everyone was still in bed, but you were up watching the sunrise? You were so aware of the gift of the day ahead, of the gift of life itself, and God’s presence around you and your family.

Remember when things were bad once before, and remember the friend who came to listen and encourage you? At first you may not have noticed, but God’s presence was with you in that time – listening, caring, consoling, strengthening.

Remember when you were sure of God’s presence and God’s call on your life? You were filled with excitement and plans and dreams, and you knew that God would be with you through it all. You made promises. You committed your life to God. Remember what that felt like?

Those who prayed the prayer of longing in Isaiah’s time found hope and strength as they looked back because they could recognize God’s saving power in their lives in the past, and that gave them hope for the future as well.

The early Christians, similarly, lived in a time of war, chaos, and disorientation, and they also needed a source of hope and strength to carry on. While Isaiah’s people were struggling with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, these Christians (more than five centuries later) were living in the midst of a war with Rome. The temple was about to be destroyed yet again, and the followers of Jesus were living in fear for their lives as they navigated the new “way” that Christ had called them to live.

But instead of looking back, the early Christians were encouraged to look forward for signs of hope. Words placed in the mouth of Jesus himself acknowledged their suffering and encouraged them to hold on until Jesus’ return: “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the ‘Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

These words in Mark’s Gospel serve to steady and comfort those who are experiencing tribulation with VISIONS that they can hold on to. The point of the speech is not to demonstrate Jesus’ predictive powers, nor to offer explicit details revealing when or how the world will end, but rather to exhort disciples to faithfulness, courage and attentiveness.

As we look forward for signs of hope, we are assured that God will act, that Christ will return, and that the world of justice and peace and security that we long for will be accomplished.

Could we just ignore the problems in our lives or in our world? Perhaps we could just look on the bright side, and try to be optimistic about things. Perhaps we could. But I appreciate the way Patricia K. Tull put it in our bible study material this week: “The more we are aware of that longing, the more it will structure our visions of tomorrow and our prayers for today. Prayers prayed with integrity will shape the way we live… May our longings for redemption structure the decisions that we make each moment of each day.”

As some come forward today to profess their faith for the first time, and as we all join in re-affirming our faith once again, may we be filled with the hope of Jesus to carry us through both the high points and the struggles of our lives. And as we celebrate Holy Communion together, may we experience that hope in the recalling of God’s gracious acts, in the foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and in the very real presence of Christ as we gather at the table of the Lord. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty used to all this sheep and shepherd imagery in the Bible. Granted, it’s not exactly something I have a lot of experience with – sheep, or farm animals in general. But I think I get the picture of what it’s all about.

The shepherd cares for the sheep. Makes sure they’re fed. Protects them from predators. Leads them to green pastures and beside still waters. Sometimes the shepherd even goes off to look for a lost sheep, if he’s willing to risk the rest of the flock. And that’s the kind of shepherd that God’s supposed to be – one who cares about each individual sheep and rejoices over every one that’s found.

The prophet Ezekiel is one of the Biblical writers who compares God to a shepherd who cares for, feeds, and guides the People of Israel. They’ve had a number of human leaders ruling over Israel at this point, but Ezekiel accuses these kings of being false shepherds – looking out for themselves instead of the people, ignoring the needs of the people, and allowing them to be scattered.

Ezekiel’s talking about kings that totally messed up – failing the people and letting them be conquered by foreign powers – failing so badly that some of the people have been sent into exile in Babylon. So now God will be their shepherd, the prophet tells us – the true shepherd that these human kings could not be. Ezekiel says that God will “bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land…”

God will be the shepherd of the sheep and will make them lie down. God will “seek the lost, and bring back the strayed, God will bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. But the fat and the strong, God will destroy. God will feed them with justice.”Destroy? Feed them with justice? Uh oh! This isn’t the nice gentle shepherd God that I was expecting.

The lectionary reading for today suggests that I stop here at verse 16 and jump over to verse 20, but I keep reading anyway, and I find that this shepherd God has become a judge. Judging between fat sheep and lean sheep, between rams and goats. Some of the weaker sheep are being butted around by the stronger ones. The first ones to the pasture are eating their fill, but then trampling on the rest of the field so the others go hungry. The first ones to the stream are drinking what they want of the fresh, clean water, but then ruining the water source with their dirty feet. And the shepherd judge is angry, as well he should be.

In places like China, people know what it’s like to try to survive on what’s left after the pasture has been trampled and the water source filled with dirt. While we sit comfortably in our offices, bemoaning the fact that we haven’t been able to upgrade the computer for a few years… On the other side of the world, women and children are sifting through computer junk yards.

Discarded computers from places like Canada are piled high, and they are carefully going through the wreckage, searching for usable pieces, any metal that can be melted down to make other things, anything at all that could be valuable. The fat sheep of North America have taken what we needed, and the junk has been passed on to the thin sheep of the 2/3 world. A pile of rusty old computers to sift through, and mercury leaking into their water and food supply as a result.

If there are fat sheep and thin sheep in God’s flock, it’s pretty clear that we are the fat ones. We are the ones in danger of God’s harsh judgement. For “I will judge between sheep and sheep” says the Lord.

I’ve passed that old man so many times now – the one who sits on the ground outside the grocery store, except when it’s raining. I don’t know where he goes when it’s raining. He’s been told off by the management for offering to push people’s shopping carts back from the parking lot, and for accepting their 25cent deposit as a reward.

So now he just sits. He doesn’t even say much to the people rushing in and out of the store. His clothes are dirty and worn, and he’s rubbing his hands together to try to get the blood moving again. How did he get there? Well, he got sick and his wife left him because his mental illness was too much for her, and then he lost his job, and then he lost his house, and no one was there to take care of him and help him get well again.

Then he couldn’t get a disability cheque, because he didn’t have an address. And now, here he sits, on the damp pavement, face towards the ground, a skinny wretch of a sheep, while the fat sheep wheel their heaping carts past him to the parking lot.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.

God is our shepherd who provides for all our needs. And yet, Ezekiel’s vision shows our God with a shepherd crook in one hand and a judge’s gavel in the other.

One of my first memories of going to the movies was when we went to see “Return of the Jedi.” I think it must have been a P.D. day, because we didn’t have school, and we went to a matinee at one of the theatres downtown, only about a 20 minute walk from our house. It was an exciting adventure. Mum was taking all four of us to see the movie, and she even said we could get some popcorn to share.

I think the trouble began early on when we complained about the walk to the theatre and began to bicker about who was walking next to who. When we arrived, we picked at each other in the line for the tickets, we argued about how big the bag of popcorn should be. We fought over who sat next to mum, and poked at each other during the movie.

Although I can’t remember the details, I imagine that my little brother got the worst of my bullying, and my older sister scoffed at how annoying we all were. Even as we left the movie theatre, we could not leave each other alone, going on and on until my mother could not contain her anger any longer.

“You ungrateful wretches!” she might have cried. “Look at what I did for you. I took you out. I paid for a movie. I bought you popcorn. And all you can do is fight each other. You embarrass me – the whole lot of you! I might as well leave you all right here!”

We were stunned and horrified at this outburst. Right there on the busy sidewalk, our mother was yelling at us, judging us, accusing us. I remember crying as we followed our mother and my siblings were crying too. I felt guilty. I felt awful that I had hurt her so much, and even worse that my disgraceful behaviour had been so openly acknowledged.

When we got home, my mother made supper for us all, and then we knew that everything was okay again. We were not abandoned by my mother on the street corner, nor would she ever leave us.

God’s judgement of our actions and our inaction may make us feel just like that. Like a child standing on a street corner balling her eyes out. There’s no taking back what you did. There’s no fixing the hurt that you caused. You’re suddenly faced with the reality of your sinfulness, and there’s nowhere to hide. You’re naked before God, and God is holding up a mirror so you can see for yourself too.

But just as God makes us face up to our sin, God also provides for us in our weakness. “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David,” says the Lord, “And he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God…” Even after God judges between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Even after God pronounces judgement upon the fat sheep that pushed and butted at the weak sheep. Even then, God is the shepherd of the whole flock.

Just like the mother who took all her children home and made supper for them. God will feed us too, and God will set up one shepherd over us, one leader in the line of King David. Not a false shepherd, but a good shepherd who will lead us in God’s way, who will show us how to live, who will protect us from the wild animals, and gather us together when we wander. Jesus is our good shepherd – our leader – our guide.

Today, on Reign of Christ Sunday, we also celebrate the fact that Christ is our King… “raised from the dead, and seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”

Today we celebrate the fact that Christ is our King – our leader – the one who gives us our orders – the one who shows us the way. Christ is our King. Or at least, Christ can be our king if we will let him – if we will follow him.

When our shepherd king comes, may he find us at his side and say to us… “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… for just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Amen.

“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” It’s a hard saying from Jesus. It’s strange, and jarring, and it seems counter to everything we know about our loving God and our compassionate Christ. “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is the master’s response to the slave who received a gift, (just a small gift), and did nothing with it. He tried to hold on to it. He buried it in the ground. And after that, he wouldn’t be receiving any more gifts from the master.

It reminds me of a story that I read recently: A man went each day to his back yard and uncovered his money, which was buried in the ground. He would then put it back in the ground and cover it up again. To his shock and disappointment, on a particular day he dug up the ground only to discover his money was gone!  He began to cry out in dismay. His neighbour heard his cry and came to his aid right away. Upon discovering his plight, the neighbour dropped his head, walked away and said, “What’s all the fuss about? You weren’t using the money for any good anyway! Maybe whoever got it will use it for some good.”

The parable of the talents is an interesting one because it’s about money, but it’s also about more than money. A talent, in biblical times, was a fairly large amount of money. It was approximately how much an average labourer could earn in about a year. It was way more than most of Jesus’ listeners could imagine ever having at one time.

It was an amazing gift, and an amazing opportunity that those slaves received from their master. And they had a choice to make about what to do with it. They could take it, and guard it, and keep it until the master returned, and then give it back. Or they could risk it, invest it, use it, and possibly multiply it. They could be bold and brave and give it a try. Or they could be fearful and play it safe, and bury it in the ground.

Now, I’m pretty sure that Jesus was not trying to give his listeners financial investment advice. If that was his point, he would have been promoting some pretty high-risk investments, and I don’t think that was what he was talking about.

At this point, we could, as interpreters of the parable, stop thinking of the talents as actual money. We could switch over, as we so often do when we’re reading this parable, and start thinking of the talents as talents – the things that we’re good at, the gifts that we have been given – our abilities to sing, or dance, or do math, or give leadership, or listen, or pray.

Some of us have many talents and abilities, and others have just a few. And Jesus seems to be telling us that we should put our talents to good use. We shouldn’t hide them, or ignore them, or bury them in the ground. We are gifted for a reason, and we are meant to use our gifts for God’s glory and God’s purposes in the world.

It makes sense to me that God multiplies the gifts that we put to use. When I sing in the choir every week, my voice gets stronger, my range gets wider, and my ability to read the music and make my voice do what it says gets better. When I take up invitations to write, or to preach, or to teach, the practice helps me to improve those skills as well. And the same is likely true for you when you use your talents – whether you are baking or knitting, administering or counselling, teaching, or leading, or mending, or praying. When you use your talents, those talents are multiplied.

But just for a moment longer, let’s stay with the idea that the talents Jesus is talking about refers to actual money. And he is telling us, not to invest our money in the stock market, but to make use of it in the risky business of doing Christ’s ministry in the world.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not always sure that when I give my money to a church, or to a mission project, or to a particular ministry of the church that it’s going to work. I mean, I’m confident that the money’s going to get used for something, but sometimes I wonder if it’s going to make a difference.

Maybe I give money to support the youth group to go to a Canada Youth conference, and I wonder, “Are they going to experience God in Christ through that event? Are they going to grow in faith? Is it going to make a difference in their lives?”

Maybe I give money to the Good Food Junction store at Station 20 West, and I wonder, “Is the store going to make a difference in the core neighbourhoods? Are people going to eat more healthful foods? Are the lives of mothers and children going to be impacted for the better? Will it be a concrete expression of God’s love in a neighbourhood that is struggling?”

Maybe I give money to the ministry here at St. Andrew’s, and I wonder, “Is this church making a difference in people’s lives? Are they experiencing the presence of God in this place? Are they hearing and responding to the Gospel through the church’s ministry? Are their lives being transformed for the better as they become disciples of Jesus and members of the household of God? And how are the people, in turn, reaching out to transform the community and the world?”

Giving our money to the church’s ministry is risky business. And spending the church’s money on ministry and mission, instead of tucking it away in mountains of investments, is risky business too. Will it be multiplied in new members and more offerings? Maybe, maybe not. But I am very confident that it will be multiplied in the impact that it will have on the world.

“St. Andrew’s exists to proclaim the Gospel and share the love of God in our church and our community.”  That’s our mission statement. And both our offerings and our time and talent are needed to fulfil the mission that we have from God.

Though I do think that Jesus’ parable was about money, I also believe that it’s about more than money. At its core, the parable is about the amazing gifts that we receive from God and what we decide to do with those gifts. It’s about money, and it’s about time, and it’s about talent, and it’s about resources. It’s about life itself, received as a gift from God, and spent – despite the risks – for God’s glory and God’s purposes.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Christian church at Colossae, prayed for his Christian friends: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to God, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

We talk about our stewardship being a response to the gifts we have been given by God. This passage speaks of sharing the inheritance of the saints. The Greek word for inheritance used in this passage, “kleros,” is the same word that is used in the gospels for lots, as when the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ garments.

The inheritance that we have, then, is not something that we deserve, as families sometimes believe when the will is read – “This is our due,” but rather it is like winning the lottery. It is a windfall, a gift we did nothing to deserve.

It is God who qualifies us for our inheritance, not we ourselves. This inheritance can change the future, depending on whether we hoard or spend the inheritance and whether we spend it for ourselves or for the glory of God.

I would like to end this morning by sharing a story from the author, Robert Fulghum. Fulghum was attending an institute in Greece on healing the wounds of war. The speaker was Dr. Alexander Papaderos, a doctor of philosophy, a teacher and politician.

At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields who were recruited by Papaderos from across Greece, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out.

He turned. And made the ritual gesture: “Are there any questions?”

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

“No questions?” Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.

So. I asked.

“Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”

The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.

Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.

“I will answer your question.”

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.

And what he said went like this:

“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

“I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine — in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

“I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light — truth, understanding, knowledge — is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world — into the black places in the hearts of men — and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

Let us give thanks today, for the light of Christ that God has shined into the darkness of the world and into the darkness of our lives. May our lives too, become like fragments of a mirror – not simply receiving that light for ourselves – but reflecting it in our church and in our community. May God give us the courage to use, to risk, and to multiply the gifts that we have been given. Amen.

The Session is asking everyone at St. Andrew’s to refrain from using perfumes and other fragrances on Sunday mornings. Let’s go “fragrance free” so that everyone can breathe easily as we gather together to worship God.

Recently I heard a preacher suggest that Christianity is unique in that it demands that you make a choice. You consider the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus that you read about in the Gospels, and you decide what to make of it. You decide how to respond.

At some point, you have to make a choice about what to believe about Jesus. Either he was somehow the God of the universe made physically present in our world – reaching out, loving, forgiving, and reconciling the world – or he was a crazy person – living an itinerant life of poverty and getting himself killed. We have to choose what to believe as well as how to live in response to those convictions.

The book of Joshua tells the story of the Hebrew People entering the land promised by God and settling there. It’s the story of God’s chosen people – the ones who once lived as slaves in Egypt, who cried out to God to help them, and who followed Moses out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years.

These are God’s own people, who have finally been freed both from oppression and from their wandering. They finally have a home – a place where they are no longer the ones being oppressed – and they have a choice to make.

It’s not that they hadn’t made this choice before. They had chosen to cry out. They had chosen to follow. They had chosen to rely on God’s help along their journey. But perhaps those choices were simpler to make – almost as if they didn’t really have any other options. Well, some of them had tried to worship a golden calf at one point, but their foolishness was quickly revealed, and they turned again to worship the one true God, the only one who could actually help and protect them.

But now, as they made their homes in the new land of plenty, Joshua reminded them that they had a choice to make. He reminded them about what God had done for their ancestors and for them, and he called them to declare their allegiance. He challenged them to make a choice: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” And he announced his own choice too: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

I wonder if you have ever made a choice like that. Can you remember a time when you declared your faith and your intention to follow Jesus with your life?

Perhaps it was here in this church that you stood up to profess your faith for the first time or for the hundredth time. Or perhaps it was in an outdoor chapel at camp, or in the midst of a deep conversation with a friend. Maybe it was in a hospital room, or during a long walk along the river. You might remember choosing God after a period of thoughtful prayer, or you might have mad that choice in the midst of a crisis.

I wonder… did someone challenge you to make that choice? And did that person ever point out the fact that it is a choice? In other words, we actually need to choose between several options. Our faith is not just an “add on” – an extra thing that we get to do on top of all the usual things that are part of life.

When Joshua asked the people if they wanted to serve God, they said, “Yes, of course!” They remembered how God had been with their ancestors and helped them. They remembered how God had led them and guided them into the Promised Land, and they were grateful. “Yes, of course, we will serve the Lord.”

But instead of simply agreeing and congratulating them for their choice, Joshua said, “Are you sure? I’m not convinced that you can do it.” “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God,” Joshua warned them. “He is a jealous God” and “he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will consume you, after having done you good.”

In other words, this choice that we are asked to make is not just to come to church and worship on Sundays. It’s not just an extra thing that we devote some of our time and attention to. But it’s a choice that requires us to leave some other things behind. It requires us to stop worshipping the god of money and the god of things. It challenges us to put aside the gods of personal comfort and pleasure. We have to give up the gods of power and prestige, popularity and fashion.

The choice we are asked to make is no small thing. “Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua said. You can serve the one true God of the universe who made you and who loves you. Or you can serve yourself – you can serve all those false gods that claim they will make you happy. You can’t serve both. You have to choose.

In our Christian tradition, when individuals make the decision to profess their faith and to serve and follow God, they make several vows or promises. We promise not only to serve God and to follow the way of Jesus, but we promise to turn away from hatred, selfishness, and all that is contrary to God’s ways.

It’s the same thing that the people of Israel decided to do, even when Joshua challenged their commitment. They said, “No, we will serve the Lord!” And they agreed to put away the foreign gods that were among them, and to incline their hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel. They promised to do it. They made a covenant, and vowed to live by it.

Like many of you, I made those promises once too. As a teenager, I professed my faith and I was baptized. I promised to turn away from evil and towards God. And I can’t count the number of times that I have renewed those promises in church, in my own personal prayers, during spiritual retreats, and in moments of crisis and stress.

But if I’m honest, I’ll also acknowledge that I’ve let the false gods creep into my life as well. I’ve been vain and self-serving. I’ve craved attention and recognition. I’ve let impatience, bitterness, and pride direct my interactions, and failed to demonstrate the forgiveness and love of Jesus to my neighbours.

Like a foolish bridesmaid, who was initially excited about the wedding banquet, I haven’t always followed through and fulfilled my promises. I’ve let my lamp go out. I haven’t always been there to do my part in preparing the world for the coming Reign of God.

Jesus’ parable is a warning for those who want to join in the great celebration when the Kingdom of God is made complete. Now is the time to be working towards it, to be preparing for it, to be leading others to it.

Now is the time for us to choose whom we will serve, and to do our best to follow through on those choices. Will our choices each day contribute to the building of the Kingdom? Will they help to set the table for the great celebration, or lead others through the darkness towards the great feast where there is no more hatred or war or oppression or fear?

I know… it’s a lot to ask. It’s a lot to live up to, and we are probably right if we predict that we’ll mess up again, even after we renew our promises. But although our God is a jealous god, demanding our allegiance and our faithfulness, we have seen in Jesus Christ the amazing capacity of our God to forgive. It is never too late for us to put aside those false gods and to choose to serve the one God of the universe who made us and who loves us.

Let’s begin again today to fill our lamps and to prepare for the celebration. The Reign of God is coming. It is almost here.

In many churches, including Presbyterian ones, the last Sunday in October is designated as “Reformation Sunday.” As Presbyterians, we are part of a Christian tradition or a family of churches that is called “Reformed.” And although we don’t celebrate Reformation Sunday every year, we have the opportunity on this Sunday to remember and give thanks for the Reformed tradition of which we are a part.

I suppose that a good place to start on Reformation Sunday would be with a few definitions of terms. My apologies to those of you who may have grown up in a Presbyterian Church and heard this stuff about a million times already.

First of all, there is the word “Presbyterian” – the Christian denomination of which we are a part. The word “Presbyterian” doesn’t describe our theology or our beliefs as a church, but it describes the way our church is structured and how we make decisions.

“Presbyterian” comes from a Greek word “presbyter” which means “elder.” Presbyterian churches are ruled by elders who come together in the courts of the church. These courts are called sessions at the local, congregational level, presbyteries that oversee a number of congregations and ministers in a geographic area, synods that cover larger areas, and General Assemblies for whole countries.

This Presbyterian type of church structure was a significant reformation from a structure that included rule by bishops. So significant, I suppose, that it came to be the actual name of our denomination. Whereas Pentecostals and Baptists are named for their theological emphases, Lutherans and Mennonites are named for the theological leaders who led them, and Anglicans are named for their country of origin, we Presbyterians are named for our church structure. So, if someone asks you what makes a church Presbyterian, you might say, “We are ruled by elders.”

Presbyterians do belong to a larger family of Christian denominations that are sometimes called “Reformed.” “Reformed” is a term that emerged during the time of the Protestant Reformation in Europe during the 16^th century.

Prior to the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church (which had divided from each other in 1054) were the major Christian bodies. In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther began a movement that questioned his own church’s position on a number of theological issues.

What Luther really wanted to do was to reform the church from within, but that didn’t work out too well. Instead, he and other Protestant Reformers ended up being separated from their church as they began new movements and churches that reflected their theological concerns and emphases. Luther’s followers, for example, eventually came to be known as Lutherans.

Other reformers agreed with Luther’s criticisms of the Roman Church, but also began to differ with him on some items of biblical interpretation. Theologians such as Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and Heinrich Bullinger became leaders of this movement, which became known as the Reformed tradition. The term “Reformed” apparently came from a comment by Queen Elizabeth I in England that the followers of Zwingli and Calvin in England were more “reformed” than the Lutherans, in that they wanted a more thoroughgoing reform of worship practices based on their understanding of the bible.

The Reformation theologians made huge contributions to our church’s theology and practice that are still evident today – things like the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favour. Or the emphasis on the bible being for all Christians to read, and study, and interpret for ourselves. Biblical interpretation is no longer reserved to a small group of educated clergy.

Issues like these divided the Christian Church in the 16^th century. But today many churches have found agreement on most of the issues that once divided us. We’ve all gone through reformations over the centuries. And though there are still issues that divide us, we are recognizing what we hold in common more and more.

In “Living Faith,” our Presbyterian church’s statement of Christian belief, we are reminded: “The church is in constant need of reform because of the failure and sin which mark its life in every age.”  The Roman Church in 1517 needed reform, as did the Reformed churches in 1650. And all our many and varied churches today, and indeed the Christian Church as a whole, is far from perfect and needs to be continually reformed according to the Word of God.

If there is one principle that we should remember on Reformation Sunday, it’s that God is not finished with us yet. One of the basic tenets of the Protestant Reformation was expressed in the Latin phrased “Ecclesia semper reformanda est,” meaning “the church must always be reforming.” It refers to the conviction that the church must continually re-examine itself to maintain its purity of doctrine and practice.

If, at any point in our life together as a church, we start to think and act like we have everything figured out and we’re doing everything right, that’s when we’ll be in trouble. That’s when we’ll ruin any chance of being reconciled with our Christian neighbours. That’s when we’ll get so focussed on being right that we’ll forget about being kind or loving. That’s when we’ll start to turn into the hypocrites that many people outside the church already think we are. And I think that’s what Jesus was talking about in today’s Gospel text.

I don’t think it’s that the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time were so terribly awful. Most of them were probably very well-intentioned and very faithful people. It’s just that they had become over-confident in their ability to follow God’s commandments and to please God through their religious practices and rituals. They had everything figured out, and their goals were to impart their religious knowledge to others, and to hold others to account for their inability to live according to all the many rules and commandments that had become their faith. These were the teachers – the leaders in the religious community – and they were seriously lacking in humility.

I have a friend, a retired priest here in Saskatoon, who – whenever I have done something well – tells me quietly, “Stay humble.” Father Bernard has said this to me numerous times after hearing me preach, or lead worship, or speak at a workshop. And I’ve heard him say the same thing to others who have done something well.

And I’ve always interpreted “stay humble” as a subtle compliment, which it probably is. But “stay humble” is also a warning. It’s a warning to remember that everything we know, and everything we understand, and everything we can do for God is because of God’s grace and goodness and God’s Spirit at work within us. It’s a warning not to raise ourselves up above others within the church or outside of it, as if our knowledge or our background or our role in the church makes us somehow worth more than others around us.

No matter how well the Pharisees may have done at following the details of God’s laws, if they raised themselves up and lorded it over others, if they did good things only to be SEEN to be doing good things, if they did not love their neighbours as they loved themselves, then they were missing the point. And Jesus would humble them. And Jesus will humble us.

One of the things that Jesus says in today’s Gospel is that we shouldn’t call anyone “teacher” because we have only one teacher who is God. And we shouldn’t call anyone “father” because we have only one father – the one in heaven. Now, it seems to me that none of the churches follow this instruction literally. Presbyterian ministers are also called “teaching elders” to emphasize our particular call to preach and to teach within the church, and Catholic priests are often called “father” as a way of acknowledging their authority and responsibility in the community of the church.

But in fact, even the apostle Paul soon contradicted Jesus’ instruction not to call anyone “father.” In today’s reading from his letter to the Thessalonians, he refers to himself as a father to their Christian community. He writes that he “dealt with each one of [them] like a father with his children, urging and encouraging [them] and pleading that [they] lead a life worthy of God, who calls [them] into his own kingdom and glory.”

But this is not the image of an authoritarian father figure who lays down the law and demands obedience. Neither does Paul describe himself as a teacher who knows it all and makes his students suffer if they don’t measure up or understand everything right away.

I don’t think that Jesus’ point was that we shouldn’t be teachers or fathers or mothers to one another. In fact, Jesus sent out his earliest followers with instructions to preach, to teach, and to heal in his name. But when we do become teachers, the Gospel reminds us that we need to stay humble so that we can continue to learn and not turn into hypocrites.

One of the things that I am appreciating about our newest staff member here at St. Andrew’s is her desire to learn. As you know, the church has hired Laura Van Loon to serve as our Pastoral Care Nurse, and we are all learning together what this new ministry is going to look like.

Laura is a very knowledgeable and experienced registered nurse with wonderful skills and the gifts of compassion and care. (Laura: Stay humble.) But working as a Pastoral Care Nurse within a congregation is a new challenge – providing spiritual care, and integrating health and wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. And Laura is just soaking up all that she can possibly learn – in the Parish Nursing Education Program, in Bible Study, and in her work with the Pastoral Care Committee. With that kind of attitude to learning and growing in faith and knowledge, I have no doubt that God will bless her ministry among us. As Jesus said, “all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Like so many of you, I love this Presbyterian Church of ours and the reformation principles that have shaped our theology and practice. And so, on this Reformation Sunday, I pray – May God keep us humble, both as individuals and as a church, so that we may be reformed and always reforming according the Word of God. Amen.

Newcomers to St. Andrew’s are especially encouraged to attend, to hear about our church and some of the ways you can get involved in our programs and groups, as well as to get your photo taken for our photo display board.

Church Membership Classes – Begin this Sunday, Oct. 30:th:
St. Andrew’s has been happy to welcome many new people into our worshipping community over the last several months. We are so glad to have you with us! Several people have been asking about how they can become members of the church, and so it is time to offer a membership class.

Participating in the class will give you the opportunity to learn about the Presbyterian Church in Canada, what we believe, and how we live out our faith together in Christian community. It will also give you an opportunity to learn about St. Andrew’s and some of the ways that you can become more involved in our church family.

You are welcome to join the class if you are thinking of becoming a member of the church, if you are already a member and want to brush up on the basics, or if you just want to explore a bit and have an opportunity to ask some questions. Everyone from grade 9 to age 99 is welcome!

The class will be on Sundays after church (12:30-2:00 pm) starting next today with a potluck lunch and continuing for three more weeks (Nov. 6^th, 13^th & 20^th). Please phone or email the church office to let Rev. Amanda know that you would like to participate.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm in the bible that is attributed to Moses. Many of the psalms are attributed to King David, the harp-playing songwriter. Others have no attribution and their authors remain a mystery.

But the tradition is that Psalm 90 came from Moses, and it’s not hard to imagine him composing this poem near the end of his long and eventful life – near the end of his 40-year journey leading God’s people through the wilderness towards the Promised Land that God had prepared for them.

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations,” Moses’ prayer begins. A couple of generations had already gone by while Moses and the Hebrew People were wandering in the wilderness, and God had been with them along the way – providing food when they were hungry, providing water when they were thirsty, and giving direction for their lives in relationship with each other.

And even before the Exodus from Egypt, God had been their God. God had called and directed Abraham and Sarah. God had blessed and helped Isaac and Rebekah. God had raised up Jacob and guarded Joseph, and been present to hear the cries of the Hebrew People when they became enslaved by the Egyptians.

Moses’ psalm celebrates the God of wisdom and compassion who had been their dwelling place in all generations, who had existed from the beginning, and would continue forever and ever.

And then Moses acknowledges that we humans are nothing compared to this God. While God “was, and is, and is to come,” our lives are comparatively temporary. They seem fleeting… they seem so brief compared to the vastness of God. Moses talks about the fact that God “turns us back to dust,” and our lives are swept away like a dream, or like grass that fades and withers in the evening.

At the age of 118 or thereabouts, we might expect Moses to feel grateful for his long life, and pleased with all the things that he was able to accomplish. But at least in this moment, Moses doesn’t seem to be feeling very good about the end of his life that is coming.

It sounds to me like he has some doubts as to whether his life held meaning – whether his years made a difference. He writes, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”

I wonder… if, for some reason, your life were to come to an end today, would you feel like Moses did? Would you think, “Oh… it wasn’t enough time! It went by too quickly!” Would you have some regrets about how you spent your brief span of life? Would you do it differently if you could do it again?

I was talking to a friend the other day who has to write a paper for a religious studies class that she’s taking, and the topic of her paper is tombstones. And so we got talking about the meaning and significance of tombstones, cemetery markers, columbariums, and practices around scattering the ashes of our loved ones.

And during the conversation, someone brought up the dates that are normally engraved on the stone. She said, “There’s a birth date, and then there’s a death date. And those dates are obviously pretty important to the person and to their loved ones. But the only thing that really matters is the DASH.” The DASH that separates our birth date from our death date… the DASH that is our life… the days, months, and years, however many or few they may be.

“So teach us to count our days,” Moses prays, “that we may gain a wise heart.”

This weekend our congregation is saddened by the death of one of our long-time members. Ron Bremner has been an active member of St. Andrew’s since 1956 and he served as a ruling elder for the last approximately 53 years. Ron was relatively healthy and active until just a few months ago. But his health deteriorated rapidly over the last few months, and he spent the last several weeks in hospital.

In our recent conversations, it was clear that he was preparing for his death. For example, he wrote his own obituary just a few weeks ago. And he was talking about a memorial service and possible hymns to include, and that sort of thing. Not that Ron had given up on life. He was still hoping to recover. But he was preparing for what he knew would ultimately happen, whether sooner or later.

One of the things that Ron wanted to talk to me about a few weeks ago was the Session Benevolence Fund at St. Andrew’s. Ron was the treasurer for the Session Fund for over 30 years – since it was set up, I believe.

If you don’t know about the Session Fund, it’s a discretionary fund that can be used by the minister to help when members of the church or people in the community have an urgent financial need. We use it regularly to provide food for people who are hungry, and it is often a very practical expression of God’s grace and love when people are struggling with the circumstances of life.

Members of the congregation can make donations to the Session Fund at any time by designating an offering for that purpose. And I would certainly encourage you to do that because the need is great. But the time of year when we receive the most income to the Session Fund is at Christmas.

Every year (for I don’t know how many years) the entire Christmas Eve offering has been directed to the Session Fund. And every year (for I don’t know how many years) Ron Bremner, the Session Fund treasurer, has taken responsibility for receiving, counting, and depositing that offering. It has been a Christmas Eve tradition for Ron that he has always taken so seriously and done with such diligence. And Ron wanted to talk to me about the Session Fund because he wanted to make sure that someone would take up his responsibility and take care of those precious, precious offerings.

When Ron died this weekend, I couldn’t help but make the comparison in my mind to the death of Moses that we read about this morning from Deuteronomy. Both men had faithfully served God throughout their long lives. And both men likely felt like it was too soon for life to end – that there was more that they would have wanted to do, to accomplish, and to be a part of.

Moses, of course, went up on Mount Nebo just before he died, and looked out over the land. The Lord showed him “Gilead as far as Dan, all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain – that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees – as far as Zoar.” God’s people would go on to inhabit that land, but Moses would not be with them. He would die on that mountain and be buried there, while the rest of God’s people would go on with the leadership of Joshua.

I wonder what that must have felt like. Was he totally devastated by that news, or did he take it in stride? Did he want to cling to life just a little bit longer so that his mission could be completed? Or was he able to let go, trusting that his mission was God’s mission, and that God would eventually make it happen.

One commentator on this psalm points out that Moses’ death before they entered the Promised Land is an important reminder. It’s a reminder that God, not Moses, would lead the people into the land. It’s a reminder that our time is not all there is to measure. God’s time is primary, and God’s time is from everlasting to everlasting.

The book of Deuteronomy eulogizes Moses with these words: “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh… and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”

When Moses died, the Israelites wept for him in the plains of Moab for thirty days. But then, when the period of mourning was over, they accepted the leadership of Joshua, and they continued their journey into the land promised by God.

Today, we pause to give thanks to God for the faithfulness, and love, and generosity, and wisdom that Ron brought into the world and into our church here at St. Andrew’s. And over the coming days, we will also shed some tears for Ron, and for the loss of his presence among us. But our lives together and our ministry in this place will continue with the help and direction of God.

I want to end this morning by drawing our attention to the final part of Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90. Moses writes: “Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands – O prosper the work of our hands!”

It’s a wonderful prayer in many ways… asking God to bless us and help us in our work, asking God to make the work we do accomplish something, asking God to make our efforts worth something. I think I could pray that prayer every day in my ministry. Maybe it would remind me that the ministry is not really mine, but it belongs to God.

But remember that this prayer is attributed to Moses, perhaps written near the very end of his life, as he prepared to let go of his great mission, and to trust God to finish the job. “Prosper the work of my hands,” Moses prayed. “Let all of this work I have done for you accomplish something good for your people. Please, God, let my life’s work make a difference.”

We give thanks today that God did prosper the work of Moses’ hands as he brought the people into that good land. And we pray that God will prosper the work of Ron Bremner’s hands through the Session Benevolence Fund and so many other ministries in the church and in the community. And we pray that God will prosper the work of all our hands, today, and tomorrow, and far into the future, that we may serve God’s good purposes faithfully and continue the mission of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Tomorrow – October 17^th – has been designated as the “International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.” And here in our city, the Saskatoon Anti-Poverty Coalition is hosting its 8^th Annual “Poverty Awareness Week,” with special events being planned throughout the week to raise consciousness about poverty in our community, as well as to encourage those who live in poverty as they continue their daily struggle.

Last year was the first time (in my almost 8 years of living in Saskatoon) that I participated in the “Hands Across the Water” event during “Poverty Awareness Week.” “Hands Across the Water” is a kind of symbolic act. People gather at the bottom of the Broadway Bridge. Then we line up, and join hands as we walk up the bridge, with the goal of being able to reach to the other side.

We come together as people of all socio-economic levels, and we join hands to combat poverty, to reach across the troubled waters that so many people experience because of poverty. We recognize that poverty is an issue that affects us all – both the West side and East side of Saskatoon – and that together we can overcome it.

They told us last year that we managed to reach further than we had ever reached before, and there was lots of rejoicing and cars honking their horns as they drove by. But I was near the front of the line, and I would say that we reached a little more than half way up the bridge. We had a long way to go! And it kind of made me feel disappointed that we couldn’t reach further.

The crowd of people looked pretty big in the park beside the bridge, but as we tried to stretch out across the bridge, I realized that the bridge was much longer than our arms could reach, and we just weren’t enough people to reach across it.

Sometimes that’s exactly how we feel in our work to combat poverty. We give and we give, and it seems like the needs around us just keep growing and growing. There are people starving because of famines in Africa, and others starving because of low incomes and rising costs right here in our city. We write cheques for Presbyterian World Service and Development, and we donate bag after bag of food for the Food Bank, and it often seems that we hardly make a dent in the problem of poverty.

I think of Jesus and his ministry among the poor. I suppose he probably interacted with a few people of means, but most of those who came to him and followed him were relatively, or even extremely, poor.

Of course, Jesus was poor as well. He gave up his livelihood to go out on the road as a preacher and healer. And there was no stable congregation of people to provide him with a stipend and housing allowance, and supplies for his ministry.

When the crowds gathered, looking for healing and help, Jesus didn’t have the resources to provide for all their physical needs. Yes, there were some miracles along the way. But there were probably also many times when Jesus and his friends, not to mention the other poor people of Galilee, went to bed with empty stomachs and no prospects for breakfast.

In his preaching, Jesus encouraged the hungry and the poor who listened to him with a vision for a world to come in which they would be filled. I’m pretty sure that Jesus was not planning to host a supper right after the sermon, but he was encouraging the people to hang on and to have hope for the Kingdom of God that was on its way. “The Kingdom of God is near,” he told them, “and when it arrives the poor will be lifted up, and the hungry will be filled, and all will be well.”

Some people probably think that having an “International Day for the Eradication of Poverty” is a waste of time. And gathering with a bunch of people at the bottom of the Broadway Bridge, and trying together to reach across it may also sound like a waste of time. And whether or not we can get enough people together to reach across the bridge, we certainly can’t eradicate poverty. It’s just not possible.

I’ve heard people quote from the bible to make this point too. They remember the day that Mary of Bethany used up a whole pound of costly perfume by pouring it on Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair. Whether his intentions were honorable or not, Judas made a good point when he suggested that if the perfume had been sold, it could have gone a long way to help the poor. But Jesus said, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

People read those words from Jesus, and they conclude that it’s going to be impossible to get rid of poverty. “We’ll always have the poor with us.” That’s what Jesus said. But we have to read the story of the anointing side-by-side with the proclamation of Jesus that the Kingdom of God was near. We have to read it, remembering how Jesus responded with compassion to the very real and overwhelming needs of the crowds that came to hear him. We have to remember the way he took time for them, to bless them and heal them. We have to remember the way he instructed his disciples to provide for the hungry crowds – “You give them something to eat,” he said.

Mary of Bethany made a choice that day to spend her money on perfume so that she could anoint her Lord Jesus before his death, just as Christians today spend money to build places of worship so that we can gather to praise and glorify our God in Jesus Christ. But while Judas tried to set up these priorities as opposed to one another, we are called both to worship God AND to care for the poor, the hungry, and the homeless in our community and throughout the world.

We could be out right now, gathering food for the Food Bank or planning our political advocacy strategy for the poor, or we could be sitting in a park “occupying Saskatoon.” But we are here at worship, being inspired and encouraged and challenged to keep up the work of building the Kingdom of God, including the eradication of poverty.

Lately it seems like every organization that I’m a part of is talking about having a vision and a mission. In our work at the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism, we’re talking about a vision of being One Church – One Body of Christ with many members. In our new Pastoral Care Nurse ministry, we’re talking about a vision of a church and community in which all people are healthy and whole in body, mind, and spirit, where everyone receives the care and support that they need. And just this week, our denomination – the Presbyterian Church in Canada – sent out an invitation for the people of the church to explore what our vision as a church should be… what vision God is calling us to work towards together.

The thing about visions is they’re big. They’re way beyond what we can see here and now. But they keep us moving and doing our mission because we know and trust that God will one day make those visions a reality, and we just keep moving towards them.

At times we may feel like a small group of people who gather together at the bottom of the Broadway Bridge, who join hands and walk together to reach across the water, and so far, we can only reach a little past the middle.

But God’s vision is that our group will grow, and we’ll make it all the way.

God’s vision is that poverty will be eradicated.

God’s vision is the one that Jesus came to tell us about, and to show us.
It’s a vision of the world as the very Kingdom of God, and it is near.

I did something a little unusual with the scripture readings this morning. As most of you know, we often follow the Revised Common Lectionary’s 3-year cycle of readings for Sundays. But today we had a choice of readings. (Look on the back of your bulletins… at the two sets of readings…) Today I could have chosen the readings for the 17^th Sunday after Pentecost, or I could have chosen the special readings for Thanksgiving Sunday.

But instead of choosing one set or the other, I mixed them up a little. I chose Philippians 4 from the 17^th Sunday after Pentecost, and matched it up with two of the readings for Thanksgiving – Deuteronomy 8 about being sure not to forget God when things are good, and Luke 17 about the ten lepers getting healed and the one who goes back to say thank you to Jesus.

The Deuteronomy reading makes a lot of sense for Thanksgiving Sunday. The message is: “When everything is wonderful in your life, when you’ve got everything you need, when you sit down to a wonderful meal of turkey and potatoes and vegetables and pie, surrounded by good friends and dear family, don’t forget about God…

“When the harvest is plentiful, when you move into a nice new home, when you get a promotion with a big raise, when your children get straight A’s, when you win an important award, when everything is going well in your life, don’t forget about God.”

I suppose that’s what the other nine former lepers were doing – forgetting about God. They were forgetting about Jesus – the one who had healed them and given them back their lives.

It didn’t take them long to forget, either. Just minutes before, they had been calling out to him for help in the street: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” But once they were healed, most of them just kept going. They were anxious to get on with their lives, and they forgot about God. They forgot about Jesus who had healed them and given them back their lives.

The Thanksgiving Sunday scripture texts lead us towards a simple, but important activity for today and this weekend. We are invited to pause and consider the good things in our lives, and to give thanks and praise to God. Like the one healed man who turned back, we are encouraged to praise God this morning with a loud voice, and to come before Jesus and thank him.

But the Thanksgiving texts also seem to take it for granted that we have plenty of good things in our lives for which to be thankful. The author of Deuteronomy writes: “WHEN you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and WHEN your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, THEN do not exact yourself, forgetting the Lord your God…” The text seems to assume that our lives will be filled with blessings and abundance, and our one shortcoming will be that we neglect to give the glory to God by saying thank-you.

And although I wish that were the case, I happen to know that things are not so simple or straight-forward in most of our lives. Some of us won’t go home tonight to a thanksgiving table that is overflowing with food – either because money is tight, or because we don’t have a family with which to gather, or because we have to be at work, even on Thanksgiving Sunday.

Some of us won’t feel particularly thankful this weekend because of a loved one who is ill, or someone dear to us who has died. Some of us won’t join in the celebrations because we’re suffering from illness or pain ourselves. And some of us will be distracted by the troubles and stresses of our lives – by the job we just lost, by the relationship that is in need of repair, by the debts that are piling up, by the heavy demands of being a caregiver, or by the fact that we are worrying about a family member or friend who is struggling.

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving Sunday. The harvest in Saskatchewan has been great, and the weather is warm and beautiful, and we should be thankful on this special day!

But this week I felt very drawn towards the text from Philippians 4 – the text for the 17^th Sunday after Pentecost – the text that is not for a special celebration, but for ordinary time. What I really appreciated about this text was the fact that Paul is encouraging his readers to be thankful, but not necessarily because everything in their lives is going great.

And Paul knew what he was talking about. After all, Paul was in prison, facing a capital charge, when he wrote this letter. And that was not his only problem, for his responsibility for the churches was a constant concern. Even from prison he was trying to guide them, and help them, and to sort out their problems.

Moreover, the people to whom Paul was writing were unlikely to be living comfortable lives. Most of them were poor, many were slaves, and few of them would have known the meaning of security.

And to add to all the stresses and strains that would have come with being a Christian in first century Philippi, these Christians were also struggling with internal conflict. The apostle makes it clear that the disagreements between the Christian leaders – like the conflict between Euodia and Syntyche – must get worked out, and that the way to do that is for everyone to be of the same mind – the mind of Christ.

Now, we don’t know what these two Christian women were fighting about, but we can probably assume that like most conflicts, it would take a lot of patience, dedication, and time to work it out. In fact, Paul asked another person – someone that he referred to as his “loyal companion” to help them to work it out.

Very much like the conflicts that we may have experienced within church communities, this was a disagreement between two well-meaning and dedicated co-workers in the task of spreading the gospel. Paul urged these women to “be of the same mind” so that their good work could continue unhindered.

And then, from his jail cell, while he awaited potential execution, Paul wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, and on every Sunday, and on every day of the year, Paul invites us to rejoice. Don’t rejoice because you have a nice car, or because you’re looking forward to a great dinner tonight, or because you are smart, or talented, or fortunate. Paul says, “Rejoice IN THE LORD.” Rejoice because the LORD IS NEAR.

Now, the commentators do speculate about what he meant by “The Lord is near.” Some of them think he was talking about the second coming – the idea that Christ would soon return to earth and make everything new and right and good. The Lord is near in a temporal sense because Jesus will soon be back to sort out the problems of our world once and for all. And that’s certainly a wonderful thought when things in our lives here on earth are not going as smoothly or as well as we might hope.

But I think when Paul said, “The Lord is near,” he also might have been talking about the fact that God is spacially near to us. Even when life is hard and difficult, God has not abandoned us, but God is with us through the challenges. Like Psalm 145:8 says, “The Lord is near to all who call upon him.”

Paul did not want his Christian friends at Philippi to be overwhelmed by fears and worries – about him, about the church, or about their own lives. And so he said, “Do not worry about anything.” Of course, he didn’t mean that they should just ignore their problems or stop caring about the concerns of the church or the community around them. Paul said, “Do not worry,” but I sometimes think of it more like, “WHEN you worry” here’s what you need to do.

It’s probably a bit unrealistic for Paul or for a preacher today to simply say, “Do not worry.” But we can say, “WHEN you worry, here’s what you can do. Talk to God about it. Bring your troubles to the God who is near. Pray, and ask for what you need, and remember to give thanks as well. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

And then Paul gives some final instructions. He encourages his Christian friends, in the midst of all the challenges of their lives, to THINK GOOD THOUGHTS. He says, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

It sounds like a strategy that people use all the time to cope with the difficulties of life. Maybe your husband has died, but you’re thinking about your beautiful grandchildren. Maybe you’ve lost your job, so you’re concentrating on the many talents and skills you have as you put together your resume. Maybe you’re not as successful as you once hoped you would be, or maybe your life hasn’t turned out quite the way you dreamed it would. But you’re thinking about the good things – about the things for which you are truly thankful.

One commentary I was reading pointed out that there is nothing particularly Christian about the qualities that Paul is encouraging us to think about. They are qualities that would be admired by anyone. And the writer wondered whether Paul might have borrowed the list from popular moral philosophy, and whether he might be making a deliberate attempt to show that Christianity is not incompatible with pagan or secular culture at its best. Perhaps.

But what we can be sure of is that Paul is claiming that anything and everything that is “excellent or praiseworthy” is divine in origin.

And so today, whether our lives are filled with celebration and gladness, or whether we are coping with hardship and challenge, we are nonetheless invited to think about these things – to think about the things that are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. And we are to give thanks and praise to God who is the source of all that is good.

Remembering that the Lord is near to hear us and to help us in all things, “Let us keep on doing the things that we have learned and received and heard and seen in [Paul, in other Christian leaders, and in Christ himself,] and the God of peace will be with us. Thanks be to God.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. I wonder if you have ever felt like that when you heard one of Jesus’ stories of parables. I wonder if you have ever read something in the scriptures and thought, “That was written for me!” Or if you have ever listened to a sermon, and wondered if the preacher was addressing you specifically.

Well, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, and when they realized that he was speaking about them, they weren’t very pleased. Though the crowds thought that Jesus was something special, the religious leaders had concluded that Jesus was a problem – telling stories that cast them in a negative role – and they wanted to arrest them.

You see, when the religious leaders of Jesus’ time heard today’s parable, they must have quickly figured out that it was an allegory. It wasn’t a story about an actual historical landowner who leased out his land to some bad tenants and had to deal with the consequences. It was an allegory – a made-up story in which the characters and plot lines represent actual people and things that are happening in the world.

Listen to the parable again, and consider… where might the religious leaders of Jesus’ day have seen themselves in Jesus’ parable?

There was a landowner who planted vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

It goes almost without saying that the landowner in the parable is God. God is the one who is the Creator and Sustainer of all that is, who has leant us this land – this earth – on which to live and to make our home. So who are the tenants in the parable? Who are the bad tenants who do not share the harvest, and who beat and kill the servants and then the son of the landowner?

The chief priests and the Pharisees seem to think that Jesus is talking about them – that they are the bad tenants – the wretches that Jesus’ listeners concluded should get chucked out and put to a miserable death so that the land could be leased to other tenants would will give him the produce at the harvest time.

To a group of people in positions of power, Jesus’ parable may have sounded like a subversive attempt to undermine their authority. Without confronting the religious leaders directly, Jesus is making a bold statement about these leaders and their lack of goodness and faithfulness to God. God has been sending prophet after prophet after prophet for years, and the religious establishment of Israel has been ignoring (at best) and more often persecuting these servants of God.

But there were others there that day as well. There was likely a good-sized crowd gathered to hear the well-known teacher and story-teller. Some of them were Jesus’ disciples who had been travelling with him for quite some time. Others were there hoping that this man would do some healing miracles today. They had heard that he did that kind of thing sometimes. Some of the people were probably poor and hungry, and looking for some help. And some were the kind of people that others moved away from in the crowd – tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners.

Everything seemed to be turned upside down with this Jesus prophet. He was sticking it to the Pharisees and priests, and he was just welcoming the outcasts and sinners. And I wonder if they too saw themselves in the parable when Jesus told it.

Of course, they would have been used to seeing themselves as the bad tenants. After all, they had ignored God’s commandments and God’s call, and they were used to religious people telling them off, or tut-tutting at them, or generally excluding them from polite society. They wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone suggest that they had messed up and that God was going to punish them for it. That was probably something that they heard on a regular basis.

I wonder though, if some of the people in the crowd that day, might have had the gift of imagining themselves as the “other tenants.” Could they picture themselves as the tenants who hadn’t messed up yet, as the ones who still had the potential to be good tenants, enjoying the good land and the vineyard, and being proud to hand over the produce at the harvest time.

Maybe the disciples thought they could be “other tenants” – receiving the prophets and messengers from God with grace and hospitality, recognizing God’s very own son, and welcoming him with joy. People like Peter and Andrew, James and John hoped that they could live up to that calling, but it proved to be very difficult just a short time later, and they too ending up rejecting God’s son – denying him and running for their lives while he was killed.

I was thinking about our other scripture text this morning from Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians, and I tried to imagine Paul reading or hearing this parable that Jesus had once told. After all, Paul was a Pharisee once, and he was a persecutor of the very earliest Christians. As he reflected on his life, I don’t think he would have had any trouble imagining himself as one of the bad tenants. Remember that voice that he heard on the road to Damascas? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” And the reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

But in his conversion, Saul (who became Paul) somehow discovered that having been a bad tenant would not exclude him from seeing himself in a new role in the parable. He could move from having been a bad tenant who had messed up, and done wrong, and persecuted the servants of God, and he could become an “other tenant” just starting out with the potential to be good and faithful to God. He could move from a bad tenant to a new tenant because he believed in the mercy and grace of God.

In today’s letter, we heard Paul re-iterate the emphasis on God’s grace that is found throughout Paul’s writings. “[I do not have] a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”

I imagine that Paul definitely could have seen himself as one of those new tenants, embarking on a new relationship with the landowner who is God, and working so hard to preach the Gospel far and wide and to produce a good harvest for God. But as I read this morning’s text from Philippians, I wondered whether Paul might have seen himself in another role in Jesus’ parable.

The usual assumption in interpreting this parable is that the slaves of the landowner are the prophets that God sent to the people of Israel, and the son of the landowner is Jesus, the son of God, who is rejected and killed by the bad tenants. But if we, as followers of Jesus, are supposed to become members of the body of Christ… if we are supposed to act as his hands and his feet and his voice in the world, following his ways, engaging in his mission, and doing his work in the world… then perhaps we might see ourselves in a different role.

I have a feeling that the apostle Paul wouldn’t have seen himself as a tenant at all. He would have placed himself in the role of a slave of the landowner, or even as one of the landowner’s very own children.

Paul wrote: “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him… I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Paul believed that his faith called him to much more than simply being a good tenant, simply receiving God and God’s servants and trying to be good and faithful. Paul believed that his faith called him to the risk-taking, self-giving way of Jesus – bringing the message of judgment and grace to God’s people, and enduring the rejection and suffering that so often comes along with that mission.

This morning I invite you to reflect on your own relationship with God. And I invite you to think about where you see yourself in Jesus’ parable today. Where you see yourself today may not be where you were yesterday, and you may be in a different place tomorrow. There is no right or wrong answer to the question.

As we gather around the Communion table this morning, we will remember Jesus’ death – the beloved son of the landowner who was rejected and killed. We will remember his sacrifice – his self-giving love – for us, whether we are bad tenants in need of his amazing grace, or whether we are new tenants who are striving with God’s help to live more faithful and righteous lives.

But as we receive the gift of this holy meal, we must also recognize ourselves as servants of the landowner and as daughters and sons who are called to be ambassadors for God – often walking into dangerous and volatile situations and accepting the risks that come with that.

Even as we receive the gift of Christ’s sacrifice for us, we are simultaneously called to become what we receive – to become Christ’s body in the world – to become the ones who are ready and willing to go where God sends us, and to give ourselves for others and for God’s loving purposes in the world. Amen.

The Christian Education Committee at St. Andrew’s is encouraging everyone to participate in the “Gems of Encouragement” program. Take some time to consider how you can be an encouragement to someone in your life this week.

You may feel called to say something or do something encouraging for a member of your family, for a colleague at work, for a friend at school, for a stranger that you meet, or for a sister or brother in Christ. Every time you say or do something encouraging, you are invited to place a gem stone in the glass jar at the front of the church. If you do many acts of encouragement during the week, keep track of them and place that number of gem stones in the glass jar when you come to church on Sunday.

We hope to fill up the glass jar with “Gems of Encouragement” by Thanksgiving Sunday (Oct. 9th). And then we’ll have a little contest to guess how many acts of encouragement have been completed.

“FIRE is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.” I looked that up on Wikipedia, where it also says this about FIRE: “Fire in its most common form can result in conflagration, which has the potential to cause physical damage through burning.” That is, unless we’re talking about Moses’ burning bush where the bush was miraculously burning and burning, but not being consumed.

As you may have guessed by now, FIRE is the topic of my sermon this morning, just as FIRE was the theme of our Saskatchewan Presbyterian Youth event here this weekend. When we titled the weekend “Fire’s Burning, Draw Nearer,” we hoped that youth from across the province would come together this weekend – drawing near to one another (making new friends and renewing old friendships) and that they would draw near to God as well through worship, study, discussion, prayer, and music. With participants from Regina, Prince Albert, and Saskatoon, I think I can speak for the group when I say that we’ve had a wonderful time together.

Now, when I say that we’ve had a wonderful time together, I don’t mean to say that everything about the weekend went smoothly or as planned. For example, I was really excited about the idea that we were going to have a campfire on Friday night to get the theme of the weekend started. I brought a portable fireplace, matches, newspaper, kindling, and some wood, and some of the guys helped me to set it up in the parking lot.

Then we went back inside the church for a few opening activities. And while we were inside, it rained a little. Not too much, mind you. And it stopped raining in time for our fire, so we went out and got it lit. Well, we’d hardly begun to sing “Fire’s burning” when it started to rain again, sprinkling at first, but then harder and harder until we were all soaked. It was a pretty short campfire.

On Saturday we had more issues with fire… Well, not exactly fire, but smoke. I was upstairs doing something else before dinner when the fire alarms started to sound. No, the kitchen crew hadn’t set the church on fire (at least, not literally on fire) but some cheese from Laurie’s delicious lasagne had dripped onto the aluminum tray at the bottom of the oven and caused enough smoke to trigger the smoke detector just outside the kitchen. It took us a few minutes to get it sorted out, to turn off the alarm and make sure that the security company hadn’t already sent us a fire truck.

I guess when it comes to fire, things can be unpredictable. When we try to set fires, they don’t always take off as we would hope. And sometimes, when we just want to avoid a fire, fire seems to have a mind of its own. Perhaps that is why FIRE can be so fascinating. Because as much as we need fire  and we use fire for so many things like heating our homes and running our cars and cooking our dinner, FIRE still remains somewhat beyond our control – an unpredictable power that brings with it danger and risk.

And what we discovered here this weekend as we studied the scriptures together is that God is very much like fire. FIRE is a metaphor that is used over and over again throughout the bible to describe God’s activity in our lives. Let me give you a few examples starting with Moses and the burning bush.

Have you ever wondered about that story? What’s with the bush that’s burning, but not getting burned up? Moses is up on a mountain looking after the sheep, and God appears to him in a flame of fire out of a bush. Moses looks, and the bush is blazing, but not consumed. And Moses says, “Huh? That’s kind of weird! I totally have to stop and have a look at this burning bush! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

And the point is that God has gotten his attention. Moses would probably have been perfectly content to spend the rest of his life looking after sheep and staying out of politics and religion. But God had plans for Moses to lead the Hebrew People out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land, and God needed to get Moses’ attention so God could tell him about the plan.

Even without the drama of an ever-burning bush, God is still working on getting our attention so that we too can hear God’s voice and make the decision to co-operate in God’s plan for us and for the world. I invite you to think right now about the ways that God has gotten your attention when God had something to say to you. Was it through a dream or a vision like Moses experienced? Or was it through the beauty of creation, or through the scriptures, or through a negative or a positive experience, or through the voice of a friend or a stranger? I wonder… how might God be trying to get our attention today? And are we ready to turn towards God and listen for what God might be telling us?

Once God had Moses’ attention, God spoke to Moses and Moses listened, and God gave him a rather big and important job. Unfortunately, Moses didn’t feel very worthy of the task. He responded, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Most of the callings that we receive aren’t quite as big or daunting as the one that Moses received from God. Our callings may include things like spending the weekend sleeping in a church with a bunch of Presbyterian youth (like our chaperones did this weekend) or our calling may be to become an elder in the church (like Leslie and Laura and Elizabeth did last Sunday).

Our callings may include caring for people who are in need in our family or in our community – giving significant amounts of time and attention to ensure the safety of a family member, or perhaps even a stranger that comes across our path. Our callings may include taking on leadership roles in our workplaces or community organizations, and speaking up for justice and kindness towards those who are suffering.

When we receive our callings, we may feel very much like Moses did – unsure, hesitant, or even sceptical as to whether we’ll be able to handle it or not. And it’s a logical feeling because none of us are actually worthy of the missions that God sends us out on. We wouldn’t actually be able to accomplish them alone. But God tells us, as God told Moses, “I will be with you.”

Not only is God with us on the missions that we are given, but God is continually working on us. In the text that was read from the prophet Malachi this morning, we heard about God’s fiery activity in our lives. The prophet tells us that the Lord “is like a refiner’s fire… he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”

We include a prayer of confession in our worship every week because we know that as humans we are unable to live up to God’s high standards or to follow God’s commandments perfectly. Even the commandment to love one another that is so simple to say, is not so simple to put into practice in all our relationships.

But God’s fire is not just about getting our attention, it’s also a refiner’s fire that is purifying our lives and helping us to become more and more like Christ. You know how a refiner’s fire works, right? It burns at such a high temperature that the impurities in the gold or silver are removed so that they become more and more purely gold or silver.

We often talk about how God accepts us “just as we are” and I certainly believe that. But that acceptance doesn’t mean that God wants us to stay “just as we are.” When we become followers of Jesus, God takes us as we are. But then, like a refiner’s fire, God works on us – judging us, correcting us, purifying our lives, and shaping us into the image of Christ.

God promised to be with Moses on his mission and on the long journey with the Israelites through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. Along the way, God led them with a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire in the night… and eventually, the one who was so unworthy managed to accomplish God’s plan because God was with him.

Our Christian faith invites us to remember that God is still acting like that pillar of fire in our lives – that we can look to God for guidance and direction… for help to make important decisions in our lives, and for assurance to know that we are never alone as we face the difficulties and trials of life.

In our final scripture text this morning, we heard about the fire of God’s Spirit on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Once again, God is acting like fire in this story. But the fire is neither to get our attention, to refine our lives, or to simply lead us through the difficulties of life. In this important account of the birth of the Christian Church, the Spirit of God is poured out on the disciples of Jesus and a tongue of fire rests on each one of them.

And the fire doesn’t just grab their attention or identify them as Christians. The fire in this case, is sending them out into the streets to preach the Gospel and tell the good news about Jesus Christ to all the people of the world in all the languages of the world. Like people rushing out of a burning building, the disciples get themselves out – but not because they are afraid of the flames, but because the Spirit of God has inspired them, and filled them, and equipped them to get out and share their faith.

That same fiery Spirit is flashing through the lives of God’s people today also. Once God has gotten our attention and begun the work of purifying our lives, then before we know it (and often before we feel very ready) the Spirit is sending is out to participate in God’s mission in the world.

Just like Moses was pretty scared to stand too close when God spoke to him from the burning bush, we may feel pretty tentative about drawing near to the fire of God. But hopefully, like him, we can have enough courage to stay close, to take off our shoes, and to recognize that we are standing on holy ground in the very presence of God. And no matter how unworthy we may think ourselves to be, and no matter how big and challenging the mission God has for us may be, God will be with us like FIRE – catching our attention, leading us on our journey, judging us, correcting us, and purifying our lives. God will be with us like FIRE – inspiring us, equipping us, and filling us with a passion for God’s purposes.

The fire of God is burning. Let us draw nearer. Amen.

• The session received many responses to the “Worship Time Survey” that was originally circulated in the May newsletter. Thank you for giving us your input on this important decision. Please know that we took all of your comments, needs, and preferences seriously as we made this decision. Worship at St. Andrew’s will continue to be at 11:00 am, and in future years we will not change the time during the summer months. It will be at 11:00 am year-round.

This morning’s “Gems of Encouragement” theme comes from the Christian Education Committee, with special thanks to Mary Jane Hanson for the idea and for taking care of many of the details. The committee decided that a focus on the spiritual gift of “encouragement” would be a wonderful way to start another educational year, as well as a good way to build up supportive relationships between the people in our church community.

But when we first talked about doing this encouragement theme in September, I didn’t realize how many things would be coming together on this day. We are beginning a new year in the Church School, and we have a number of new teachers coming on board. We are ordaining three new elders who will join our session and serve in the leadership of our church. And we are announcing that we have hired a Pastoral Care Nurse for the congregation for the very first time.

And simultaneous with all of these joyful and exciting beginnings, we are aware of the fact that today is the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. In so many ways, “encouragement” seems like the right thing for us to be doing today.

And so, setting aside the lectionary readings for today, I selected the passage from the book of Hebrews that Logan read for us this morning. I thought that the final verses (24-25) – originally written (or perhaps preached) to one of the earliest Christian churches – went perfectly with the focus that the CE Committee was suggesting. After all, the Committee has placed a glass jar at the front of the church and provided some lovely coloured stones. And they are asking you to do all that you can over the next three weeks to be encouraging to one another and to the people you encounter.

The text says: “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Do you feel provoked?

That’s a pretty strong word, isn’t it? – provoked. The original Greek word in the text is paroxysmos which can be translated as “provoke” or “irritate” or perhaps “pester.” It sounds really annoying actually. The kind of thing that might keep a lot of people away from church… the idea that there are people here, or sermons preached here that don’t necessarily inspire or encourage, but they just keep pestering you to be good and generous and kind all the time.

The word “provoke” can definitely have a negative sense, but the Greek word used here also had a positive use, in the sense of disturbing the apathetic or fearful person into activity. Its purpose is to produce love and good works. And so the expression is strong, but necessary, for a community earlier characterized in the book of Hebrews as inattentive, neglectful, and drifting.

Now, please don’t take that to mean that I’m suggesting that the people of St. Andrew’s are inattentive, neglectful, or drifting. In fact, when people ask me about this church, I usually describe you as gifted, engaged, committed, and generous people. But I’m pretty sure that the earliest Christian churches to whom this text was written probably shared those characteristics as well.

Still, the preacher hints that “some” members of the community are neglecting or abandoning the assembly – the gathering for worship, and acts of mutual support. And it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that’s happening in our church too.

Although the reason for this desertion is not stated, later chapters will suggest possibilities: fear of persecution, heresy, feeling the group is not essential to personal faith, leadership tensions, and discouragement over the fact that Christ has not yet returned.

There is a little video getting passed around online recently about something called “Back to Church Sunday.” A friend posted it on my facebook page earlier this week, and I liked it enough that I re-posted it on the Presbyterian Church in Canada facebook page, sparking a significant online discussion about the video and its potential impact.

The video was produced by the National Council of Churches in the US to promote a cross-denominational initiative to invite people “back to church” on Sunday, September 18^th.  The video begins: “Here’s a few reasons why people don’t go to church…” And then it gives some reasons, some questions, some concerns, followed by responses and reassurances from regular people who do go to church and can share about the experience.

With a little humour and a lot of humility and hospitality, it invites those who may have become alienated from the church to consider coming back, and giving it a try. The video concludes with these words:

“You see, it’s not about a religion. It’s about a relationship.
So please, come to my church…
where nobody’s perfect, where beginners are welcome,
where socks are optional, but grace is required…
where forgiveness is offered, where hope is alive…
and where it’s okay to NOT be okay… really.”

When I look back at this morning’s text, I notice that before the preacher starts admonishing the members of the Christian community to meet together, and to care for each other, and to provoke one another to love and good deeds… First, the preacher names the one big barrier that may be holding them back. She identifies the misunderstanding that may be stopping these would-be followers of Jesus from taking up the faith and living it out in their lives within the Christian community. And it has to do with fear.

I know, there’s some old language in the Bible and in the church’s prayers that suggests that “fear of God” is appropriate. It’s the idea that God is so far beyond our understanding, so perfect, and so powerful, that we have good reason to be afraid.

Some of the people in the “Back to Church Sunday” video said, “I can’t come to church until I get my life together,” or “If you knew me… and what I’ve done… you wouldn’t want me.” Their fear was holding them back, creating a barrier that kept them away from the church, and the Christian community, and from a relationship with God. And I’m quite sure that that kind of “fear of God” is not particularly helpful.

But the author of Hebrews encourages us, “my friends… we have confidence to enter the sanctuary [we have confidence to come into the presence of God] by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain…” In other words, we have no reason to fear. We have no reason to hold back or be uncertain. We can have confidence to approach God, knowing that in Jesus Christ, God has already reached out to us in love, and forgiven our sins, and prepared us for lives of love and good deeds.

We may be in awe of God’s goodness, and holiness, and power… but we have no reason to be afraid. We have no reason to fear because we belong to God. In fact, the preacher continues: “let us approach [God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water,” and I’m pretty sure that she’s talking about baptism. She’s reminding these Christians – some of whom are lagging in their commitment to the mission of the church, some of whom have drifted away – She’s reminding them about their baptism. And their baptism (like ours) is the basis for all they are being called to do and to be within the church and the world.

As we remember our baptism, we remember that we are members of the household of God. As we remember our baptism, we remember that we are washed clean of sin – forgiven, and renewed in God’s love. As we remember our baptism, we remember that we have died and been raised again with Christ. And as we remember our baptism, hopefully we remember that our baptism calls us to live a new life in Christ. It calls us – maybe even provokes us – to love and good deeds within the church and the world. And with the power and help of the Holy Spirit inside us, we have no reason to be afraid.

On the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we may be especially aware of the fear that grips so many people in our world. We might remember those who are grieving the loss of loved ones who died on that terrible day. And we might think also of others throughout the world who are suffering from famine, disease, persecution, discrimination, or abuse.

As we remember and pray for both friends and strangers who are struggling today, let us take this opportunity to recommit ourselves to living out our baptisms. There are three members of our congregation who are coming forward today, responding to the call to live out their baptisms through the ministry of ruling eldership. But we all have gifts to use within the body of Christ, and we are called not only to meet together, but to provoke one another to love and good deeds, and to encourage one another each and every day. Amen.

When Jesus walked through the towns and villages of Galilee, he taught and healed and helped the people that he met. And he had a consistent message wherever he went: “Repent,” he said to all the people, “because the Kingdom of God has come near.” And when Paul took up Jesus’ mission, he said pretty much the same thing.

In today’s passage from Romans, Paul uses the metaphor of night and day. He points out how much changed when Jesus came into the world like a light shining into the darkness. The change that has come upon the world was as swift and as unstoppable as the sun rising in the morning. And the Christians have got to realize that the night is over, and “wake up!”

Paul describes this time that we live in as that wonderful time when the darkness of night has dissipated, and the day is near. It’s the in-between time… between the dark night before Christ, and the full brightness of the kingdom of God. And it’s time, Paul says, for Christians to start living like it’s day time, like the kingdom of God is here.

“Let us live honourably as in the day,” Paul writes, “not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.” This short list of sins is meant to be suggestive, not exhaustive. But notice that the sins he mentions are primarily night time behaviours in the literal sense that they normally happen after dark, and in the metaphorical sense that they belong with the old age rather than with the new day that is dawning in Christ.

“Quarreling and jealousy” seem to be the exceptions on the list – the sins that don’t seem to go along with the others. One commentator notes that there are many churches where the first four sins on Paul’s list are unheard of, but the last two run riot. Underneath the show of politeness and even friendliness, there are all kinds of conflicts and disagreements and negative feelings that rarely come out into the light of day.

I get the impression that church communities (perhaps all kinds of communities) have always struggled with conflicts and quarrels like these. In other words, we don’t have to feel bad about ourselves when we realize that our churches are not models of perfect unity and peace. But we do need to face up to that fact, recognize that it is something that must change, and then commit ourselves to the difficult work of working through the conflicts and disagreements rather than letting them go unresolved.

Like Jesus before him, Paul explains that the long list of commandments can be summed up in the one instruction to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” And when we love one another we have fulfilled the law.

Of course it’s easy to SAY that as Christians we will love another. But it’s quite a bit harder to actually DO the loving – especially when we’re in the midst of a conflict. Especially when we are sure that we are right and someone else is wrong. Especially when we are feeling hurt, or taken advantage of, or unjustly accused. That’s when loving one another can get to be extremely difficult.

In the NRSV translation, this morning’s text begins with these words: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” And we might assume that it’s an instruction not to get into debt. But the NIV translates it differently. The NIV says: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” In this context, Paul seems to be saying that the command to LOVE is a debt owed to everyone – a debt that can never be discharged.

And so when it comes to living together in Christian community, it seems that there is nothing that a person can say, or do, or fail to say or do, that can free us from our Christian responsibility to treat them with love. That’s a hard teaching, I know, but I’m pretty sure that’s what Paul is suggesting.

And the Gospel text this morning backs it up. Here we have a very practical text about what to do when another member of the church sins against you. If someone does something or says something that hurts you, embarrasses you, or offends you in some way, Jesus doesn’t say that you should just ignore it, put up with it, and be kind in return. No, Jesus is clear that when a problem arises in a relationship in the church, we need to go and work it out.

And the purpose of going to the person and talking to them about it is not to get justice for yourself. It’s not to make sure that they feel bad about what they’ve done. But it’s for the sake of repairing the relationship – for the sake of reconciliation.

It’s interesting to notice where this text appears in the Gospel of Matthew. Just before it, we have the parable of the lost sheep: “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.”

And just after this morning’s text, we have Peter asking Jesus about forgiveness. Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” And Jesus says to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven times.” That’s how often you need to forgive your brother or sister who sins against you.

This morning’s text seems to be clear. If someone sins against you, you must go to them and point out the fault. If the person listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, you must take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses – so that two or three together may convince the one who has done wrong to admit the error of her ways. But if the person will not listen to them, and then you tell it to the church, and still he will not listen, Jesus says, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

“What does he mean by that?” I wonder. Well, in the bible, the word Gentiles refers to people who are not Jewish. Gentiles couldn’t trace their ancestry back to Abraham’s son Isaac. Gentiles didn’t follow all the laws that God gave through Moses. And many Jews in Jesus’ time did not trust Gentiles. Some Jews even hated Gentiles. They were different. They were outsiders.

Tax collectors in the area where Jesus lived usually were Jewish. However, they worked for the Roman Empire, whose leaders were Gentiles. The tax collectors had permission to collect more money than taxpayers actually owed. They kept the extra as their salary. Some tax collectors mad huge profits, and that made their neighbours pretty angry and bitter. Tax collectors wouldn’t have had a lot of friends among the Jews.

So it sounds like after three attempts to bring the offender back into the community, Jesus is saying we’re allowed to give up. If the person just won’t listen, you can treat her like a Gentile or a tax collector. You can avoid him, or mistrust her, or treat him like an outsider.

Three attempts is pretty generous, we might think. Except if we remember the shepherd who goes searching high and low for the sheep who has gone astray until he finds him… except if we remember Jesus’ answer to Peter about how many times we should forgive – seventy times seven times – that’s a lot more than three!

Jesus says that after the third attempt, we should treat the one who has offended us as we would treat a Gentile or a tax collector. But maybe he doesn’t mean that we should treat them as the average first-century Jewish person treated a Gentile or a tax collector. Maybe he means that we should treat them as he (Jesus) treated a Gentile or a tax collector!

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” [Later that day], as Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [But] when Jesus heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of teaching pretty difficult. It seems nice in theory, but when it comes to a real person in my life that I have experienced as rude or unkind or unreasonable, it gets really hard to carry it through – to keep on trying to mend the relationship, to keep on working to forgive, to keep on attempting to be more than just polite, and to actually show love for someone who has hurt me. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of humility, and I know that I don’t always do very well at it.

And a part of me is sometimes arguing in my head, “If I don’t genuinely FEEL any love for that person, I shouldn’t just pretend to respect and love him.” Unfortunately, Paul disagrees. Paul says that the command to LOVE is a debt owed to everyone – a debt that can never be discharged, no matter how we might feel about the person standing in front of us.

“But here is the strange thing,” one commentator writes, “if you try to treat someone you thoroughly dislike as though in fact you cared very deeply for them – if you try to think of how it is to live inside their skin and walk in their shoes – then it may well happen that a genuine sympathy arises, and from that real affection, and finally an unhypocritical love. This is, after all, more or less what Paul is commending in our text today. The love of which Paul speaks is tough in the sense that since it doesn’t spring from the emotions but from the will, love will grit its teeth and act as if the emotions were in place, trusting that they will follow in good time.”

As difficult a teaching as this can be, sometimes it helps me to know that there are likely others in the Christian community who are working hard to love me also, despite the ways that I may have failed them or hurt them in the past or the present. And it also helps to know that God loves me, and God loves each and every one of us in that way. God does not love us because we have been so faithful and good and loving towards one another. But God loves us simply because we ARE, and simply because we belong to God. And when we fail or get lost in our mission to love one another in this Christian community, God goes searching for us high and low – like the one lost sheep that cannot be left behind. And God forgives us and draws us back into relationship not once, not three times, not seven times, but seventy times seventy times, or as many times as it takes.

1. Worship Schedule:

• Worship at 11 a.m. – beginning on Sunday, Sept. 4th
• “Gems of Encouragement” – Sunday, Sept. 11th Worship at 11 a.m.
• World Communion Sunday – Sunday, Oct. 2nd at 11 a.m.

2. Special Events:

• Church School Teaching Training – Sunday, Sept. 4th after worship
• Women’s Camp at Camp Christopher – Sept. 9-11th
• Saskatchewan Presbyterian Youth (SPY) Weekend at St. Andrew’s – Sept. 16-18th
• Operation Sandwiches – Make sandwiches for the Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry – Sunday, Sept. 18th & 25th after worship

3. Programs & Groups:

• First Choir Practice – Thursday, Sept. 8th at 7:30 p.m.
• Prayer Group – Friday, Sept. 9th & 23rd at 11 a.m.
• Thursday Group – Thursday, Sept. 15th at 1:30 p.m. with guest speaker Brian Graham on Tuberculosis treatment in SK
• Church School Classes Begin – Sunday, Sept. 18th
• Hildur Hermanson Women’s Missionary Society – Monday, Sept. 19th at 7:30 p.m.
• Kids’ Club Begins – Friday, Sept. 23rd & 30th at 7:15 p.m.
• Women’s Breakfast at Mulberry’s – Saturday, Sept. 24th at 8:30 a.m.
• Sunday Morning Bible Study Begins – Sunday, Sept. 25th at 9:30 a.m.
• Youth Group Begins – Sunday, Sept. 25th at 7 p.m.
• Women’s League – Wednesday, Sept. 28th at 10:30 a.m.

Committee Meetings:

• Worship Committee – Wednesday, Aug. 31st  & Sept. 28th at 7:30 p.m.
• Session Meeting – Tuesday, Sept. 6th at 7:30 p.m.
• Board of Managers – Tuesday, Sept. 13th at 7 p.m.
• Stewardship Committee – Wednesday, Sept. 14th at 7:30 p.m.
• Presbytery Meeting at St. Paul’s, Prince Albert – Friday, Sept. 16th at 10 a.m.
• Christian Education Committee – Tuesday, Sept. 20th at 7 p.m.
• Outreach Committee – Wednesday, Sept. 21st at 7 p.m.

As I told the children this morning, today’s text from the Gospel of Matthew reminded me of the difficult reality that our faith in God and in Jesus Christ our Lord calls us not only to good things, but to hard things.

When Christian churches are reaching out, inviting new people into the family of God, that isn’t normally a big part of the message. We’ve all seen the messages that churches try to put out there in the community at large – on our church signs, on our websites, on the flyers that are dropped in mail boxes. They say, “Everyone is welcome!” They say, “Come and experience new life in Christ!” They say, “Come and worship with friendly Presbyterians.”

I’ve absolutely never seen any church advertising that said: “You’re most welcome to come and suffer with us!” I’m sure that I would have remembered a message like that. And I might have wondered if they were talking about suffering through the Sunday sermons! No, when we tell others about our church, when we tell others about our faith, we tend to focus on the positives – on the good things that we have experienced in the community of faith and on the journey with Jesus.

We talk about the encouragement and hope that we gain from the scriptures and from the spiritual songs and hymns that we sing. We talk about the support that we experience from our sisters and brothers in the church community, and the sense of meaning and purpose that we have in offering our time, talents, and gifts in serving one another and the world. Perhaps we talk about the freedom that comes from the assurance of God’s forgiveness when we fail in doing what is right, or even the gift of the Spirit in our lives that empowers us to do better and to love more and more each day.

If we consider not just the last day, or the last week, or the summer that is almost over… but if we consider our whole journey of faith, there may be many good things that we could remember and name as good things – good things that we have experienced as a result of our decision to follow the way of Jesus.

But we know that’s not the whole story. We can’t put the whole story on the sign outside the church or squeeze it onto a card small enough to put through somebody’s mail slot. Some might challenge that it’s a kind of “bait and switch” that we’re doing – telling about the good things, and neglecting to mention the hard things that come right along with them.

Jesus did something similar, of course. I’m not suggesting that he tricked the fishermen and the tax collectors and the women into following him throughout the countryside. But he didn’t exactly reveal all the details about what the journey was going to entail. Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

Jesus taught them about God’s blessing, and he taught them about how to live and love in God’s ways. He taught them to pray, and encouraged them not to worry. He taught them the Golden Rule (do to others as you would have them do to you) and he explained that hearing his teachings wasn’t good enough – they had to become “doers of the Word” – living out their faith in action.

Jesus was not all talk, either. He put his words into action as he cleansed a leper, healed a Centurion’s servant, and then cured Peter’s mother-in-law who was suffering from a fever. That’s when the crowds really started to come. The people were hearing about all the good things that happened when Jesus was around, and they wanted to be a part of that joy and gladness and hope. And that’s when we hear the first hint from Jesus that living his way is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

Well, to be honest, those who listened carefully to his sermon on the mount might have caught the references to loving our enemies and doing good to those who harm us. But by the end of the sermons and after the healings, most would have gone home remembering the blessings, and the restoration, and the promise of Jesus: “how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

But at the middle of Matthew 8, Jesus is starting to tell a little more about what following him will involve. A scribe approaches him and says, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus says to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” And from that point on, Jesus begins to open up more and more about the hard things that the disciples are choosing as they choose to continue on his way.

This journey is going to be hard work, he tells them – “the harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few” – and he sends them out to proclaim his message and to do his work. He warns them about persecutions that will undoubtedly come, and explains that many people will reject them and the message they bring. Jesus himself is rejected in his home town, and soon after John the Baptist is killed. Jesus continues to astound the people with miracles and healings, but not everyone appreciates his perspectives and the religious leaders are beginning to plot against him.

Peter is a rock through all of this, of course. Early in chapter 16, Jesus has a private chat with his closest friends. He asks them what people are saying about him. He’s sort of checking in to see how things are going in his ministry. And while the general public seems to have a wide variety of ideas about Jesus being some kind of prophet, Peter, at least, is ready to profess his faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he says.

And “from that time on,” this morning’s text begins, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Perhaps Jesus thought that after such a confident declaration of faith from Peter that maybe the disciples were ready to start learning about the really hard things. Peter’s rebuke makes us wonder if Jesus may have started a little too soon. But maybe it doesn’t really matter when the hard things rear their ugly heads – they’re always going to be difficult to face, and to accept.

Now, when Jesus talked about hard things – when he talked about suffering – he wasn’t talking about the suffering caused by a hemorrhage that had plagued one woman he met for 12 years. He wasn’t talking about the suffering of two blind men who had to sit and beg in the street because they had no way of earning a living. Jesus had compassion for those who suffered from illness or injury or poverty or social rejection.

But when he spoke about the suffering that he himself would experience, and when he spoke about the suffering that his followers would share, it was a kind of suffering that was a direct result of their ministry. It was a kind of suffering that they were going to choose. Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Someone commented on Christians wearing crosses or crucifixes on necklaces, asking “Why would you want to hang a cross around your neck? It was an instrument of torture and death! It’s like hanging a little electric chair on a chain!”

Christians, at times, may have a tendency to forget that a cross is more than a pretty piece of jewellery. We may lose sight of the fact that a cross was a cruel and torturous way to have a person executed. And Jesus tells us that being one of his followers means “taking up our cross.” It means making a conscious choice to accept the hard things that will come our way as a result of our faith and ministry.

Though many of Jesus’ first disciples would indeed end up hanging on crosses, or suffering some other form of execution, most disciples today will be spared such persecution. But the way of Jesus will undoubtedly lead us into many hard things.

We’ll have to struggle with Jesus’ teachings and what his life and death means for our lives. We’ll have to figure out what to believe, and sometimes learn to be content not knowing all the answers.

We’ll have to learn to live together – growing in love for our neighbours, learning to welcome the strangers, forgiving one another, and staying faithful even when we have different ideas or priorities or perspectives.

We’ll be challenged to give of ourselves – to give our time, to give our effort, to give our gifts. We’ll be challenged to give until it hurts, and then to give a little more.

And perhaps the hardest thing of all… Jesus will call us to lose our lives for his sake.

Maybe we’ll begin by giving up half an hour to make sandwiches for people who are hungry. And then we’ll set aside one day a month, or even one day a week to volunteer at the Native Ministry.

Perhaps we’ll begin by making a small offering to the church on those weeks when we make it to worship. And then we’ll make it more regular, and add gifts for special appeals, and maybe even start to consider giving a percentage of our income.

Maybe we’ll begin by knitting a prayer shawl or making a friendly visit to a person who is lonely or sick or grieving. And then we’ll knit some more, and remember to pray more often. We’ll start noticing when someone nearby has a need, and we’ll visit some more and learn how to listen and to show care more and more – making it a part of our daily lives.

Perhaps we’ll begin by listening carefully to a sermon or two, or by cracking the spine on an old copy of the Bible. We’ll start taking every opportunity to learn more – attending studies, taking courses, reading books. And then we’ll become teachers or preachers or prophets. We’ll start talking about our faith, and taking greater and greater risks.

And as we begin to lose our lives for Jesus’ sake, as we embrace the risks and the hard things that Jesus has called us to embrace, it is then that we will find the new life that God has prepared for us.

When churches decide what to put on our signs or our websites or our brochures, we don’t put things like “Come and suffer with us” – not because hardship and suffering are not a part of the journey with Jesus, but because we know the end of the story. We know that Jesus’ way of goodness and love led to his suffering and death. But we also know that in the end, Jesus was raised to new life beyond death. And we have the promise that God’s goodness and love will win out for us in the end as well.

Many of you probably watched the funeral for NDP Leader, Jack Layton, yesterday. And you may have read the letter that he wrote to Canadians just a few days before his death. When I read Jack’s final words, they sounded very familiar – very similar to some other words that I knew very well. Layton wrote: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” Those are wonderful words, and I have no doubt that they will encourage and inspire many Canadians to greater civility, inclusivity, and generosity.

But the words they reminded me of came from the song that we learned this morning – a song by John Bell of the Iona Community, based on the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu:

Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours, victory is ours through him who loved us.
Victory is ours, victory is ours through him who loved us.

As a Canadian, and as a person of good will, I will do my best to be loving, hopeful, and optimistic, as Jack suggests. But as a Christian (in the midst of all the good things and the hard things that come with following Jesus) I will trust in the good news that I have heard, and seen, and believed in Jesus Christ who suffered, died, and was raised by the power of God. In the end, we will see that goodness, love, light, and life are not only better, but they are stronger than evil, hate, darkness, and death. And victory is ours through Jesus Christ who loved us. Amen.

Marie-Louise is a Roman Catholic lay woman who studied at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. She is an active leader in the ecumenical community of Saskatoon and area, including the Women in Ministry group of which Rev. Amanda is a participant. Marie-Louise serves as a Pastoral Associate at St. Augustine’s Parish in Humboldt, SK.

Matthew 15:21-28

There is tension in the Gospel today. Who is Jesus’ ministry for? Do foreigners and outcasts have a right to lay claim to God’s grace and healing? Just like in our time, there were strong cultural opinions in Jesus’ time about who was acceptable and who was not: clean and unclean people, they called them back then. So it is no wonder that even Jesus hesitates to grant the Canaanite woman her request. The Canaanites were deeply despised by the Israelites, especially because fertility rites were part of their religious practices. Jesus experiences tension and the reality of human limitations.

This foreign woman approaches a Jewish man, does him homage and begs a favour she has no right to. She bursts into Jesus’ space and pleads with him: “Lord, son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is terribly troubled by a demon.” Jesus refuses …he refuses to give in to the disciples’ pleading to remove this nuisance from their midst. Instead, he directs himself to the woman and leads the discussion in a such way that she should accept his hesitation to cure. He says quite forcefully: “I am a stranger here; I should not interfere.” Is this out of character, or is Jesus merely testing her? Or in the worst case, is he just profoundly rude, insensitive, and harsh? “Help me!” the woman insists. Jesus’ next words seem excessively harsh: “It is not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs!”

“Dogs” was a term used for outsiders who encroach upon another’s holy place. It is an insult, a metaphor that sees others not as human beings, but as animals eating leftovers. We have every good reason to be troubled and even scandalized at Jesus’ terrible rudeness to this needy woman.

Jesus left the place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Both Jesus and the woman are outside of their native territories. Both are looking for something, both are in need, both are strangers to the area and to one another. They are different in race, nationality, gender, religion, and probably in politics, economics and spirituality as well. The disciples view her intervention as a problem; they do not wish to be caught up in something that has nothing to do with them or with Jesus.

The Canaanite woman issues a bold challenge: even if Jesus’ mission is initially meant for the Jews,is he nevertheless willing to respond to genuine faith no matter whose faith it is? But then again … who knows what this woman is about…Better safe than sorry; better not throw the message of God’s kingdom to the dogs.

We’re disturbed that Jesus would act this way, but let’s be honest … how often do WE act in this way? We’d rather be safe than sorry ourselves. Most of us have made up our minds about what is important in our lives and who counts in the grand scheme of things (and who doesn’t count). We are diligent in living our faith and church commitment. We stick to our priorities with honourable loyalty and a principled sense of duty. So principled and so loyal are we that nothing can divert us from our goal to serve God. Until someone rattles our cage, like the Canaanite woman does today…

Several years ago my friend Bob was asked by a social worker to become a buddy to a man suffering from AIDS. Bob started to visit Jerry regularly, and the two men, similar in age, became friends. Bob learnt about Jerry’s struggle with his homosexuality, about his failed marriage ending in divorce, and about his feeling ousted and rejected by the church. Yet, despite feeling judged and not wanted, Jerry had maintained an unfailing trust in God. Now, in the final stages of the disease, Jerry had come home to his family to die. Bob contacted the pastor of Jerry’s church to request a reconnecting and a reconciliation.

The pastor was afraid to visit Jerry. Even when he did come, months later, he remained too fearful to make it past the hospital-room door. Meanwhile, Jerry and Bob talked about everything, and prayed about everything. When Bob offered to bring Jerry Holy Communion, Jerry replied: “The church has made it clear that I am not wanted. But thank you anyway.” When Jerry died just after Easter, the pastor came to the funeral…Better safe than sorry…

Sure, Jesus’ mission is intended for God’s chosen people. But who are God’s chosen people? My friend’s experience reflects today’s Gospel. Both accounts hold up the mirror. We see ourselves. We are the disciples who tell Jesus to send the woman away, for she keeps shouting at us. We are the pastor, afraid to enter into relationship with the gay man dying of HIV/AIDS.

The Syro-Phoenician woman calls Jesus Lord, refers to him as master, and humbly says that she, like dogs at the table in the household, will gladly take the leftovers of his mission and power. It is no coincidence that Matthew placed this story right smack between the two miraculous feeding of the multitudes: in the previous chapter 5,000 men, besides women and children were fed and twelve baskets of leftovers were collected. Immediately following this encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman another 4,000 men, besides women and children, are fed and seven baskets of leftovers were collected. Ever wondered what happened with all those leftovers?

While the crowds were adequately provided for, it is the Syro-Phoenician woman who seeks what Jesus’ own people will not accept. And Jesus is astounded at her faith (28). A woman, an outcast, stopped Jesus in his divine tracks and forced him to rethink his whole mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Together they broke down the barriers between them.

Leaving the beaten track to respond to a cry for help always, always upsets routines, goals and priorities. Jesus feels that, and we feel that most of the time. We fear engaging with Canaanite women, with contemporary outcasts. In many parts of Europe – as we saw so brutally in Norway last month – Muslims are the new undesirables. And as the US approaches the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, there are already bumper stickers that read: “All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11.” Really?

When we engage with the least desirable among us, we come face to face with ourselves. How many times, Lord, have we not recognized you because we were too busy with our own private interests and have long ago set limits to whom we love? We can all be outraged when we hear news reports of rioting in England, suicide bombers, or illegal immigrants smuggled onto our Canadian shores. “Punish them, lock them up” “Send them back,” many shout. But our outrage is cheap and hollow. For we are the ones who have everything at the expense of people who are oppressed and exploited. We all help perpetuate the unjust distribution of the earth’s wealth, a wealth given by God to be shared with all people. Is it any surprise that England’s riots are taking place in the poorest of neighbourhoods where the prospects of a decent living are next to nil? With the disciples we say — if not out loud, surely in our hearts — “Tell them to go away, for they keep shouting at us.”

Sure, Jesus’ mission is intended for God’s chosen people. But as Jesus himself discovers, God invites the Canaanite woman, invites the gay man dying of AIDS, invites the smuggled immigrants and all people of good will, to be part of God’s chosen people. Even though we are limited by time and space, God’s love has no limits and accepts no boundaries.

Immediately following this Gospel scene, Jesus crosses over to the other side of the lake and feeds the crowds once again. But now his mission is to the world – to all peoples of the earth and all the lost children of God. Because of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s persistence, Jesus gains new insights into universalism, love and service and extends his mission past his own people, his own religion, his own nation.

Any encounter with and understanding of the Word of God changes us – our way of seeing God, of relating to him and to others. Who knows what will happen to us when we open ourselves up to God and allow his Word to work within us? We will meet strangers and outsiders who interrupt our lives, stop us in our tracks, and force us to ask deeper questions. We may end up, like Jesus, praising the still greater faith in strangers and outsiders.

On this side of death, we are all saved and unsaved, saint and sinner, both at the same time. We all bear the status of “foreigner” in God’s kingdom. We are really not that different from the Canaanite woman, the gay man with HIV/AIDS, the suicide-bomber, the smuggled and suffering illegal immigrants. We may not experience their particular illness, social rejection or utter destitution. But we all know times when we feel rejected, unloved, ignored, denied, attacked and judged. None of us goes through life without collecting the deep scars that sin and evil inflict. Engaging with someone who cries out for justice and healing is always unsettling, will lead us to the scars in our own heart. Only when we let this happen can compassion be born and healing occur. In the end, we all stand together, hungry and thirsty before our God as God’s chosen people. Only then, boundaries and distinctions will fall away.

With the Canaanite woman, we too can lay claim to God’s grace and healing, no matter who we are. We do not have to belong to the right church, nor follow the right rules and obligations. She didn’t, yet great was her faith. Sometimes established religious institutions can become the obstacle instead of the vehicle for the Gospel.

It is that glorious freedom of the Gospel, filled with the boundless grace of God, which makes Jesus exclaim in surprise: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done to you as you wish.” Despite Jesus’ initial reluctance, never once does he rebuke the woman, never does he silence her, and never does he send her away. Instead, Jesus engages her in dialogue. Jesus enters a relationship with her, binding both her and himself in dialogue. God’s inclusiveness has nothing to do with cheap grace without demands or expectations. But it has everything to do with human dignity and the cost of entering into relationship.

In and through Jesus Christ, God entered into relationship with all humanity. For God, there is no turning back, and neither is there for us. Like the Canaanite woman’s faith, our faith in God’s unfailing grace will bring healing and lead us to God. Even if we feel like the dogs under the master’s table, we are still entitled to the scraps which fall from that table.

The courageous heroine of today’s story could not accept the premise that salvation did not include all people. It is she – the woman, the outcast, the despised one – who teaches Jesus that God’s grace and mercy are intended for all who believe regardless of origin or social condition. It is she who proclaims that God’s love knows no bounds. Which outsider in our time is teaching us this same truth?

Standing before God with bold faith, we can indeed claim God’s grace and healing, no matter who we are and no matter what church we belong to, if any. We cannot limit God nor trivialize what God can do. To those of us who hang on to rules and regulations, Jesus says: “Risk dialogue and relationship, leave the beaten track, and be open to find faith in unexpected places.” To those of us who downplay rules and commitment, Jesus says: “Put a face and a name on the one in need, enter into the demands of relationship, for your sake and for the sake of the other.” And to all of us Jesus says: “Always remember both your own need for healing as well as your calling to bring God’s healing to the world.”

And so, the tension in today’s Gospel is not resolved. Rather, we live the tension fully in the day-to-day challenges and encounters. For we are wounded healers, saint and sinner. As wounded healers God calls us in the service of the Gospel. Without limiting God, and without trivializing God’s healing love, we are the hands and feet, and the heart, of Christ. “We” are all God has on this earth.   Amen.

Matthew 14:22-33

When Amanda asked us some time ago to take this service, she suggested we could choose a text, or use the Lectionary. I looked up what the suggested readings are for this week. When I read the passage of Matthew, I knew I would like to study that a little more.

There is a little bit of an irony: here is a man who studied Science for many years in University, and who worked for almost 40 years in the sciences. Now I am going to preach on a miracle in the Bible!

The story of Jesus walking on the water is well-known. Many jokes are made around it. When working in the yard, I always wear my wooden shoes. People ask me sometimes if I use them to walk on water.

The story of Jesus walking on the sea is found in 3 Gospels, Mark, Matthew and John. It follows on the heels of the story of the feeding of the multitude. In the evening, when the crowd has been fed, Jesus immediately sends the disciples away to row to the other side of the lake. He also sends the crowd of 5000 home. Jesus wants to be alone to pray and to grieve over the murder of his cousin John the Baptist. He had to postpone this for a day, because he had compassion on the crowd that followed him, cured their ills and fed them. But now he sends everyone away with some urgency. Notice the word immediately. Even Jesus has to make time for prayer and meditation. Should we take an example here?

The disciples get into some rough water and have to row against a strong wind battering the boat. This is probably not something too scary. Some of them at least are fisherman used to ply these waters. They row a long time. In the light of the early morning they see somebody walking towards them across the water. Apparently, they do not recognize him, as they say in fear:” it is a ghost”, and they are terrified, not of the rough sea, but of a ghost. Often the unknown causes us to fear.

Immediately, Jesus tries to reassure them, saying: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid”. Jesus uses the phrase: it is I, literally: I AM. This is the name with which God revealed himself to Moses by the burning bush. Matthew here again stresses the Godhead of Jesus.

Notice again the word immediately. Jesus responds to the fear and need of reassurance of the disciples without hesitation or delay.

The interesting thing in this passage is what follows and what made me decide on this text. Only Matthew has the added story of Peter trying to walk on the water. This is a story of fear, doubt, faith and action, all intertwined, and of the saving grace of Jesus.

Remember, Jesus has identified himself to the disciples. ”It is I”. Hear what Peter says: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water”. He has heard Jesus’ voice, seen him on the water, calls him:” Lord”. Still Peter says:” if it is you…” He is still not sure of the identity of this person, does not dare to believe it is Jesus, and maybe doubts Jesus’ ability to walk on water.

Nevertheless he asks Jesus to command him to walk on the water. We don’t know what prompted Peter to ask this. Maybe he wanted to be like Jesus. That reminds me of a song I learned in kindergarten; “I wish to be like Jesus”. The end of that song is like a cold shower: “Alas, I’m not like Jesus, that’s plain for all to see”.

Jesus simply replies with one word: “Come”.  And look, in spite of his hesitation or doubt, Peter steps overboard and starts walking on the waves. He leaves the relative safety of the boat and steps onto unknown territory when Jesus says: “Come”. He believes Jesus’ word and acts in this faith. He leaves his comfort zone when Jesus says “Come”, even though he has some reservations. He overcomes his doubt.

All seems to go well. Peter starts to walk and goes toward Jesus, goes in the right direction. But then troubles begin. Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and looks at the strong wind. Peter becomes frightened and begins to sink. Yet, he does not give up hope, has not lost his faith. As he is beginning to sink, he calls out to Jesus: “Lord save me”.

What is Jesus’ reaction? Does He think: let him have a good soaker, that will teach him a lesson? No, immediately Jesus reaches out and grabs Peter. No hesitation on the part of Jesus. Jesus is near, Jesus acts with saving grace. What a friend we have in Jesus.

Then Jesus says to Peter; “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” I don’t think Jesus is reprimanding Peter here, rebuking him. Rather, I like to think that Jesus reminds Peter of the parable that if you have faith even the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Jesus and Peter climb into the boat and the wind ceases. The other disciples have watched this whole drama unfold. What is their reaction? They worship Jesus. They say: “You are the Son of God”. They confess their faith in Jesus.

The word used here for worship is to kneel or to prostrate yourself. It is used in the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts to Jesus. There it is translated as: they paid him homage. (In the KJV it says: “They fell down and worshiped”.)

In the end of the Gospel of Matthew the word is used again.  (Chapter 28) After the resurrection the disciples are told to go to Galilee to meet Jesus. The disciples worshiped him says Matthew 28. And a few words are added: “but some doubted”. Then Jesus says that all authority in heaven and on earth is given to him and commands the disciples to proclaim this Good News to the entire world.

Here again faith and doubt go together. I think that is a rather comforting thought. Who does not doubt at times? We believe that this world is God’s world and that he cares for his creation. But if you watch the news or read the paper you may doubt whether God is in control. Jesus told his disciples that the kingdom of heaven has come near.

This Gospel was written probably 50-60 years after Jesus died. It was written to the new churches that had been formed. They were in the Roman Empire. The Emperor was considered to be a god and was worshiped. Christians were often prosecuted. In his Gospel Matthew proclaims that Jesus is Lord, the Son of God, and is to be worshiped. This is of course a theological statement. Jesus is God’s Son. Jesus says when he identifies himself on the lake I AM, the name the Jews identified with God.

It is also a political statement. It is not the Emperor who rules and is worshiped. Matthew seems to say: Churches, Christians, do not worry about the political situation or about the Emperor. Worship God in Jesus. We live not in the Emperors realm, but in the Kingdom of God. We are in the world but not of the world.

We may doubt at times, but even with a little bit of faith we can move mountains. Amen.

I think I understand why Jesus’ disciples would have needed him to explain the parable of the weeds among the wheat. Like them, I don’t think I would have gotten the point just from hearing it once and thinking about it a little. In fact, I read the parable over and over this week. I reflected on it for hours. I read what others had to say about it online and in several published books. I even had a couple of conversations with other Christians about what Jesus’ parable might mean for us today.

But when I stopped reading and thinking and talking… when it was time for me to start writing, to decide what I would say to you today, I felt stuck. There seemed to be so many possible interpretations of the parable that I didn’t know where to begin. So I decided to begin with the explanation of the parable that is provided in the Gospel. Maybe that was Jesus’ own explanation to his disciples on that day when they were confused:

They were back in the house, and the crowds were left outside. And the disciples said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” And he answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evil-doers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

Although the explanation might sound pretty scary to most of us, Jesus’ first disciples might have heard these words as words of comfort and encouragement. After all, they were on a mission with Jesus to build the kingdom of heaven on earth. And they might well have been feeling a little frustrated and discouraged by all the set-backs.

Not only did they have to accept the fact that people’s responses to their message were not always positive, there were times when they felt like they were competing with strong negative forces. The Pharisees and religious leaders that opposed Jesus’ ministry could be compared to the evil one sowing weeds among the wheat, and they had pretty much had enough of those trouble-makers.

Talitha Arnold explains that bearded darnel is a devil of a weed. It defies Emerson’s claim that a weed is “a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered.” Known in biblical terms as “tares,” bearded darnel has no virtues. Its roots surround the roots of good plants, sucking up precious nutrients and scarce water, making it impossible to root it out without damaging the good crop. Above ground, darnel looks identical to wheat, until it bears seed. Those seeds can cause everything from hallucinations to death.

No wonder Jesus uses this noxious “cheat weed” to illustrate evil incarnate. Bearded darnel, also known as false wheat, is the botanical equivalent of the “ravenous wolves… in sheep’s clothing” of which Jesus has already warned. And though the disciples may not be able to deal with the weedy Pharisees themselves, the parable encourages them to hang on and be patient. God will sort things out in the end, and the weeds will be thrown into the fire.

But I wonder what those same disciples might have thought of the parable if they heard it again a few months or years later. I’m thinking of the time in Jesus’ ministry after things started to go drastically wrong. Just imagine if Judas had been reminded of the parable, just after he leaned over to greet Jesus with that kiss of betrayal. Or consider the possibility of Peter hearing the parable again while he was standing in the courtyard outside the house of the high priest, with his words of denial still hanging in the air.

When they first heard it, Jesus’ followers were probably pretty confident that they were the good seed growing into wheat, and someone else was the bad seed growing up into weeds and causing them problems. But maybe things weren’t so clear anymore. Perhaps there was some doubt – just enough to help them understand the parable in a new way.

Maybe then they started to wonder about the reason that the slaves are told to leave the weeds and the wheat alone. The slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then did these weeds come from?” That may well be a question that the disciples grappled with in their own lives. They had been called and equipped to grow a kingdom of wheat, but somehow along the way – when they were looking the other way? When they were sleeping? – something happened and they got off track. They got scared. They got selfish. They got confused.

Maybe the weeds didn’t refer to the Pharisees at all. Maybe the weeds were the disciples themselves. Or maybe the point was that it was too soon to tell. The point of the parable could be that we still have time to figure out how to be wheat instead of weeds. There’s still time for us to change and grow and to become the children of the Son of Man who feed and bless the world. It’s a word of grace for us, when like those first disciples, we’re not so sure where we belong in the story.

However the earliest followers of Jesus understood his story, they thought it important enough that they passed it on. They warned their children about the weeds among the wheat, and they shared Jesus’ words of wisdom with the new Christians that joined their communities of faith. It was a difficult time for Jesus’ followers. They waited anxiously for him to return and usher in the kingdom of heaven, but the people and the culture around them made being Christian increasingly difficult.

Once again, it would have been easy for those early Christians to identify themselves as the wheat and to name all their enemies as the weeds sown by the evil one. In the context of their persecution and sufferings, those Christians might have related to the words of Psalm 139. (These are some of the verses that the lectionary skips over because they are so harsh.)

The psalmist laments to God, “How I wish that you would kill all cruel and heartless people and protect me from them! They are always rebelling and speaking evil of you. You know I hate anyone who hates you, Lord, and refuses to obey. They are my enemies too, and I truly hate them.”

You can see why the lectionary chooses to skip over those verses, eh? It’s hard to reconcile that kind of hatred coming from a person of faith, but there it is. And if the early Christians were human, then they could probably relate. It takes a really special kind of person to absorb the ridicule, rejection, and hatred of others, and to keep on responding with patience, understanding, and even forgiveness. It takes a really special person to do that.

Now, Jesus’ parable could have said, “Love the weeds. Accept the weeds as they are, and forgive them from your heart.” But instead, Jesus (in the voice of the householder) just says, “Leave the weeds alone.” Don’t put all your energy into digging out weeds. Let them grow, and let the reapers sort things out at harvest time. Let God sort things out at the end of the age. Be patient, and let the weeds and the wheat grow together for now.

But let’s consider the field for a moment. The explanation in the Gospel suggests that the field is the world. And we can certainly acknowledge that good and bad seed is planted and continues to grow in the world today.

We hear a lot about the bad seed on the news – dictators grabbing power and oppressing their people, madmen kidnapping women, and raping and murdering them, and selfish people or companies ravaging the earth for its resources, committing fraud, or taking advantage of the poor and the vulnerable.

As Christians, we are not supposed to simply accept the reality of these evil forces in our world. We are certainly called to work against them, seeking justice, and speaking out for the vulnerable and the voiceless. But when we are feeling overwhelmed or powerless or discouraged, the parable reminds us that God WILL sort it out in the end. God WILL rid the world of evil and malice and hatred one day. And the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

But I noticed as I was reading, that many commentators suggest that the field might not refer to the whole world. It could just as easily refer just to the Christian community, to the church. And if that is the case, then this parable may be a response to the question of who is in and who is out.

What do we do about “less committed,” “less faithful,” perhaps even “trouble-making” members of the church? Don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed that SOME people aren’t as interested in bible study as others. SOME people only seem to show up when they need something, and they don’t help out with any of the church’s missions. SOME people hardly open their mouths except to voice a complaint or a criticism. And SOME people don’t give very generously when the offering plate comes around, let alone when there is a need and no tax receipt being offered.

There are weeds among the wheat, even in the Christian community, and like the faithful slaves of the householder, we (at times) are anxious to pull them out. They are making our lives difficult and stealing our joy!

God forbid that we have sinners in our midst! Never mind all those stories of Jesus eating with sinners, or his words about not judging one another. But as Fred Craddock says, there’s a lot of tension between the compulsion to purge imperfection and the “obligation to accept, forgive, and restore… the task of judging between good and evil belongs not to us, but to Christ.”

Is it possible that the mystery of the parable has something to do with God’s timing, and our inability to judge or, for that matter, our unwillingness to trust in God’s own judgment? God’s judgment, of course, is always better for someone else than it is for us. Still, there is evil and wrongdoing, and surely we’re supposed to do something.

Barbara Brown Taylor says that “what the householder seems to know is that the best and only real solution to evil is to bear good fruit. Our job, in a mixed field, is not to give ourselves to the enemy by devoting all our energy to the destruction of the weeds, but to mind our own business, so to speak – our business being the reconciliation of the world through the practice of unshielded love. If we will give ourselves to that, God will take care of the rest.”

And if, perchance, the field in the parable is actually within each of our individual lives… then perhaps by minding our own business, by focusing on our own calling to do our best and grow love in the world… then perhaps the wheat will grow within us, and among us, and between us. And there will be a wonderful harvest!

Responsibilities will include working with the Minister and the Pastoral Care Committee (10 hours per week) to provide a health ministry which emphasizes wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.

The qualified applicant will be a Christian registered nurse who is called to the ministry of Pastoral Care Nursing. She/he must be qualified as a Parish Nurse, or be willing to train through Interchurch Health Ministries Saskatchewan.

Further information, copies of the full ministry description, and application forms, are available from the church office (306-242-0525, email hidden; JavaScript is required). Applications will be accepted until August 12, 2011.

On the day that Jesus told the parable of the sower, the author of Matthew’s Gospel tells us that the crowd of listeners was so large that Jesus got into a boat and sat there to speak, while the crowd stood on the beach to listen. You might imagine that at this point in his ministry, Jesus would have been pleased with how things were going. What could be a greater sign of success than the crowds clamouring to get close to him, to touch him, to be healed by him, or to hear his words of wisdom, as they were doing on this particular day?

But I wondered, as I reflected on the parable this week, whether Jesus might actually have been feeling a bit discouraged. After all, when Jesus told parables, most of the people didn’t really understand what he was on about. Sure, they came in droves to listen to him for a while. But as we hear in the Gospel accounts several times, even Jesus’ closest disciples were confused by the stories that he told. So Jesus probably didn’t have any illusions about the fact that the average person in the crowd that day was going to completely miss the point of his speech.

If the story is an allegory, maybe Jesus himself is the sower, scattering the seeds of the Word of Life here and there and everywhere he goes… watching and waiting and hoping for those seeds to sprout and grow into people of faith and love and goodness and joyful discipleship. But while Jesus’ efforts are admirable, and the seeds of his teachings are good, many of those seeds have fallen on rock-laden, thorn-strewn ground.

Jesus may be experiencing the Pharisees and other religious leaders as weeds that want to choke out his message. And he’s soon going to find himself trying to plant seeds in the hard soil of his home town as the people of Nazareth reject him completely. And even his closest disciples, whom he might have thought were starting to get the point, suddenly lose their faith during a storm at sea. As one commentator puts it, “Jesus does not just tell this parable, he lives it.”

Jesus knows what it feels like to put your heart and soul into your mission, what it feels like to spend yourself completely on the work that God has called you to do, and to see, over and over again, the seeds being blown away in the wind, the seedlings shrivelling up and dying, and the small plants being choked out by the weeds. And Jesus’ followers in every age can relate to the challenges of doing ministry, of sharing the gospel, and trying to pass on the faith successfully. With this parable, Jesus reminds us today that rejection of Jesus’ message does not mean the message is wrong or our efforts are folly. It is simply a fact of life, whether in farming or in faith.

It would be simple for me to cast myself and other Christian preachers in the role of the sower. After all, we stand up in pulpits like these, Sunday by Sunday, having poured our hearts and souls into our sermons. We trust that our words are somehow God’s words for this day, and we hang on to the hope that the Word of Life will take root… knowing all the while that the odds are not any better than the sower’s. That is the preacher’s particular job, our calling. To sow the seed and to bear the heartache when it falls on rocky, arid, or weed-infested ground.

But in accepting this calling, we stand in solidarity with all those who know the hard truth of this parable. The parent, whose words of guidance and compassion fall on their teenager’s deaf ears, understands hard-packed ground. The businessman, who produces a quality product and pays employees a living wage, only to see his clients go where things are cheaper, is well acquainted with shallow roots.

Whether we are preachers or teachers trying to get a message across, or social workers, nurses, or volunteers trying to make a difference in people’s lives… Whether we are scientists or researchers trying to make the world a better place, or friends or family members trying to be present for one another… or certainly, if we are Christians trying to pass on the Word of Life, the parable reminds us where to keep our focus. We can’t get caught up in the temptation to spend our resources – time, energy, and hope – trying to coax, cajole, and beg for growth from inhospitable places and people. And we can’t let ourselves spend too much time despairing when the seed does not take root.

That’s not what the sower does. Instead, he accepts the reality that some seed, a significant portion of it, will fall on bad soil, and he simply keeps sowing. As the next fifteen chapters of Matthew demonstrate, Jesus keeps spreading the word, no matter how dry, rocky, or weed-infested the ground. His followers are called to do the same.

When I planted my garden this Spring, I used a different strategy. I didn’t go out into my back yard and just toss the seeds everywhere and anywhere. Nick and I actually built some garden boxes a few years ago on the sides of our deck. We lined them with a gardening cloth that lets through the water but not the weeds, filled them with good soil, and that’s where I plant my seeds.

Before I planted this year, I waited for the weather to get reasonably warm, I pulled out any weeds that had found their way into my garden, and I carefully did the planting at the appropriate depth and distance apart. And still, I’m just hoping for a good harvest of beans and tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.

So what should we make of a sower who just throws the seeds everywhere, even in such unlikely, seemingly unproductive places? We may scratch our heads and wonder at such a foolish waste of seed and other precious resources. Even if we are not farmers or gardeners, the lesson here seems easy to apply to our situation as Christian churches.

If we ever set out to plant a new church, we should plant it in a carefully scrutinized, sure-to-grow neighbourhood. If we ever decide to develop a new mission, we should choose one where the odds are good and the possibilities are promising. If we ever decide to double our church’s membership, we should craft our message for a promising demographic and reach out to people who are motivated and purposeful and driven enough to receive and do something with it. We should be strategic about the location we choose – like any self-respecting hamburger or gas station or grocery chain – and maximize our effort towards the arena of greatest result. Find the good soil and throw seed on it! It’s just good business!

But that is not what the sower in the parable does. The sower just seems to fling those seeds anywhere and everywhere. I wonder, does he do it this way to remind us that the gospel might be bigger than good business principles, bigger than just good soil? Does he do it to suggest that “anywhere” is, in the final analysis, the arena of God’s care and redemptive activity. The sower throws seeds not only on good soil, but also amid the rocky, barren, broken places. And we are called to do the same – despite our best guesses that many, if not most of those seeds will not grow.

In “Feasting on the Word” (Year A, Volume 3, pages 239-241) Theodore Wardlaw tells the story of an experience when he caught a glimpse of God and God’s mercy in such a place. Let me end this morning with his story, and his reflection on this parable:

I was with a group of civic leaders – lawyers, politicians, foundation representatives, journalists – touring various outposts of our city’s criminal justice system. It was near the end of the day, and we were visiting the juvenile court and detention center. That place was so depressing, its landscape marked by wire-mesh gates with large padlocks and razor wire wrapped around electrified fences. When the doors clanged shut behind us, I imagined how final they must always sound when adolescents – children! – are escorted there. We were led, floor by floor, through this facility by an amazing young judge who worked there. She showed us the holding cells where the new inmates are processed. She showed us the classrooms where an ongoing education is at least attempted. She showed us the courtrooms where cases are prosecuted.

Near the end of the tour, she led us down one bleak hall to give us a sense of the cells where young offenders lived. Each cell had a steel door with narrow slots about two-thirds of the way up, through which various pairs of eyes were watching us as we walked down the hall. Some of these children were accused of major crimes; some of them were repeat offenders. Most of them, we learned, had had little or no nurture across their brief lives – not from a primary adult who cared about them, not from family, not from neighbourhood, not from church.

It was hard to notice those eyes staring through narrow slots without doing something. So I lingered at one door and whispered to one pair of eyes: “God loves you.” The eyes did not appear to register much, and sometimes I wonder what, if anything, happened next. Did that news fall on the path to get eaten by birds? Did it fall among thorns to get choked out? I will never know.

As the tour went on, the cumulative effect of all this brokenness got to one member of our group, who finally just stopped in the hallway and began to cry. When the judge noticed this, she paused in her narration, walked back and put her arms around that person, and, with tears in her own eyes, said, “I know. I understand.”

I thought to myself, “If I am ever to be judged, I want a judge like that.” Then it dawned on me – like a seed thrown onto my path – that indeed I do have a judge like that!

Our blessed judge – the holy One towards whose ultimate judgment we now make our way – is like the sower in this text. The parable, true to its form, is more like a riddle, hiding as much as it reveals about God. It must have been confusing to its original readers and hearers too, because an allegorical interpretation was finally added to clean things up and drive home a good point about good soil.

Ultimately, though, this parable is not so much about good SOIL as it is about a good SOWER. This sower is not so cautious and strategic as to throw the seed in only those places where the chances for growth are best. No, this sower is a high-risk sower, relentless in indiscriminately throwing seed on all soil – as if it were ALL potentially good soil. On the rocks, amid the thorns, on the well-worn path, maybe even in a jail!

Which leaves us to wonder if there is any place or circumstance in which God’s seed cannot sprout and take root.

John and Jesus were related. Their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary had been cousins and they were probably pretty good friends as well. Though the women were different ages, they shared an important bond of friendship and shared experience. They had been pregnant at the same time (a first child for each of them) and it was a bit of a miracle for them both as well.

I wonder if John and Jesus spent much time together as they were growing up. And I wonder if they were friends. The only Gospel story we have about Jesus’ childhood is the one where the whole family goes to Jerusalem for one of the festivals. It’s the story where Jesus gets left behind while the rest of the family starts heading for home. He gets caught up in the temple talking about God with the older men. And no one even notices that Jesus is gone until they are well on their way home. I wonder if John was the second-cousin who reported him missing.

Anyway, they could scarcely be more different, these two, at least by the time they had grown up: John, the bug-eating wilderness prophet, and Jesus, who was known to love a good meal with all kinds of company; John, who wore scratchy shirts on purpose, and Jesus, who could occasionally be persuaded to invoke the power of YHWH to keep the wine flowing at a wedding reception; John, who addressed the people who came to hear his preaching as a “brood of vipers,” pointing out their sins and failings and urging them to repent before it’s too late, and Jesus, who in Matthew opens his signature sermon with congratulations… Blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who are meek, blessed are you who are peace makers… Jesus, who fed people, and healed people, and who told story after story about the amazing grace, and love, and forgiveness of God.

John and Jesus turned out to be so different… but they came to a similar end, if you think about it. They both attracted crowds and a lot of attention for a while. They both gathered a following. But they both got people angry and upset with them, and they both ended up dead… John, with his head cut off and displayed on a platter, Jesus, whipped and stripped, and hung on a cross to die.

In Matthew 11, the section before this morning’s Gospel reading, the author is trying to make sense of these two and their roles. At this point in the story, John the Baptist is in prison, but he’s been hearing about what Jesus is doing. So John sends word by his disciples to ask Jesus a question. He asks, “Are you the one who is to come… [are you the Messiah] or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus encourages the disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Then Jesus tells a parable about the differences between himself and John and the rejection they have in common. He compares the people of his time to fickle children who keep changing the rules of the game. He points out that John came “neither eating nor drinking.” John lived out in the wilderness, survived on locusts and wild honey, and with strong and sometimes harsh words, he called the people to repentance – to turn their sinful lives towards God and God’s ways. And they did not care for his style at all. He was too old school for their taste – too stern and demanding. So they played the flute, and said, “Come on, John, lighten up. Lay off the hellfire, and dance to our tune.”

Then Jesus came and he was ready to dance – to dance as they had never dreamed! Every meal was a party, as long as everyone was invited. But they had complaints about him too. They wailed about the company Jesus kept and called him a “glutton” and a “drunkard.”

While John was almost too religious for them, and demanded too much, Jesus didn’t seem religious enough. It was obvious that he knew the scriptures pretty well, but then he’d go and break the rules when he wanted to. He even performed healings on the Sabbath day, and that just wasn’t acceptable by any religious standards.

It seems to me that people today aren’t so different from the people back in the time of John and Jesus. Most of us who get involved in some kind of religion have an idea of what we’re looking for, of what we’re hoping to get out of our faith, or out of our church. And we get turned off by certain emphases that we encounter in different churches or from different ministers.

For some of us it’s the harsh and demanding preaching that’s difficult to take. We don’t appreciate coming to church and being reminded of all the mistakes we’ve made during the week. It makes us feel guilty, and that isn’t a very nice feeling. We don’t want to be judged. And we don’t want to become judgmental ourselves. And so we avoid those churches.

But for others, it’s the lovey dovey stuff we’re hearing that gets on our nerves. God is love. And everyone is welcome and affirmed no matter who they are, no matter what they’ve done or what they’ve failed to do. It’s almost like there are no expectations anymore for how God wants us to live. And so we avoid those churches.

But John and Jesus were both sent by God. In Matthew 11, Jesus speaks very highly of John the Baptist. Jesus calls John the messenger who was sent to prepare his way. And so somehow, the urgent message of repentance and the comforting message of God’s grace and love are both a part of the Gospel of God.

In a reflection on today’s text, Lance Pape writes that God’s ways can be both too little and too much for us – God’s agenda somehow simultaneously too “conservative” and too “liberal.” We chafe under John’s unapologetic insistence that a moment of decision is at hand for each of us – that we must examine our hearts, let the chaff burn away, and embrace God’s future with our whole lives.

However, Jesus can also rub us the wrong way. In his irrational exuberance he just does not seem to grasp that some people are beyond hope – that we must keep select company in order to keep our lives on an even keel.

Both of these messages are a threat to our hard-won autonomy. We long to maintain a happy medium between John’s stifling demands and Jesus’ frightening inclusiveness. So we keep changing our tune, insisting on the moderation (or is it the mediocrity?) that we can secure for ourselves, not the extraordinary future that God dreams for us and the world.

It seems to me that the Gospel calls us, not to choose an emphasis that works for us, nor to take a little of each perspective and to try to find a good balance. Instead, we need good healthy servings of both John and Jesus. We need to listen to that urgent call to repentance and turn away from sin and towards goodness, and righteousness, and justice in every aspect of our lives. And we also need to know, in the depths of our hearts, that no matter who we are, or what we have done, or how many times we have failed in that turning, that we are held and embraced by the merciful and loving arms of God.

I think the apostle Paul understood that he needed both. In our reading this morning, we heard him struggling with his inability, despite his best intentions to do good. He wrote, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Wretched man that I am!”

In other words, Paul was still trying to live according to God’s ways and God’s laws. He was still trying to turn his life away from sin and towards goodness and love. He was trying, and at times failing, and he was trying some more. But when it came down to it, he knew that God was gracious. He knew that God loved him. And in Jesus Christ, God had forgiven him for all the times when he just couldn’t manage to do the good that he wanted and intended to do. Paul wrote, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” And then he answered his own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus knew that following the commandments of God isn’t easy. And he knew that loving one another – loving our friends, and our neighbours, and our enemies – is easier said than done. He compared it to a yoke across our shoulders, to a burden that we have to carry. And that may well be how we experience our faith at times. But it is a burden that we do not have to carry alone. It is a yoke that we can share with Christ, so much so that it even becomes light.

Jesus invites us: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Last Sunday one of our scripture readings was the Great Commission from Jesus at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 28). Jesus sent his apostles out saying: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

By this time in the Gospel story, Jesus is on his way out. He’s gone up a mountain with his closest followers, and he’s well on his way to heaven. He’ll no longer be physically present to lead them and guide them in their new mission.

But the mission isn’t really all that new. Way back at chapter ten of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had sent them out with a similar task. At Matthew 9:36-38 we read, When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

It seems that even with Jesus there in the flesh, the work of spreading the Gospel and inviting the people to return to God was not a one-person job. Jesus could see that there were more people than he alone could possibly care for. And so, as Matthew tells it, he calls together twelve of his followers. He gives them power and authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.

And so the first mission trip of Christianity begins. Many more have followed throughout the centuries, as followers of Jesus have heard the call of Christ to join in Jesus’ mission and the mission of his earliest followers.

I’m thinking of the mission trip that a few of us from here at St. Andrew’s went on a little over a year ago. It’s not that there aren’t good things that we could be doing right here in Saskatoon to serve God and share the good news about Jesus. But like so many others before us, we felt a call to go out, to travel to a new place, to meet new people, and to share God’s love with them in a very practical way.

We went down to a little community outside of Atlanta, Georgia where there had been a bad flood the previous September. And our work for the week was to help in fixing up a home that had been badly damaged by the water. It was already eight months since the flooding, but the single mother and her children who lived in the home were not properly insured, and the only way that the home would get restored enough for them to live there again would be if someone – in this case, an organization of Christian churches – decided to give their time, energy, and money to make it happen.

It was a very well-organized mission trip. We received financial support from the St. Andrew’s Memorial Fund. We booked out flights down to Atlanta and got a rental car to get around where we needed to go during the week. We stayed in the local Presbyterian Church where the congregation had set up rooms with cots for us to sleep on, and they had bathrooms with showers right there in the church. The church kitchen was well-stocked with food for our meals, and drinks and snacks to keep us going throughout the day.

One of the members of the church served as our host, got us set up in the church – our temporary home for the week – and came to join us for evening prayer each night. And a representative from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance checked in with us too, oriented us to the program we’d be a part of, and got us set up at the work site.

It all went rather smoothly, I must say. And though we worked really hard that week, and got really hot and tired and sore from the physical labour, we were really warmly welcomed. And there were lots of people checking in to make sure that our needs were met during our short visit.

That’s a real contrast to the first mission experiences of Jesus’ earliest followers. We can only try to imagine the conditions under which they did their work… the long days they endured, the hot temperatures, the minimal supplies, and the hard places where they took their rest.

And whereas our trip was nicely planned out in advance with the appropriate financial support, they just got up and went. They visited towns and villages where no one was expecting them, where they neither had a room reserved at an inn, nor any money to pay for it, and where there were no church communities to provide for their needs.

Whereas we packed carefully and brought along plenty of American dollars for our mission trip to Georgia last year, Jesus tells the apostles that they should not bring any gold, or silver, or copper in their belts, no bag for the journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff. He sends them out to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons, and he doesn’t even arrange a place for them to stay. He simply tells them to look for people in the villages who will welcome them into their homes. They were to depend on the kindness of strangers.

As Jesus sends them out, Matthew’s Gospel reports that he gives the apostles fair warning about what they’re getting into. Not only will they be likely to be tired and hungry at times, but they’ll actually experience a lot of rejection and persecution along the way.

Jesus compares the apostles to sheep being sent out into the midst of wolves. He tells them that they’ll need to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. They’ll get handed over to councils and be flogged in the synagogues. They’ll get dragged before governors and kings because of Jesus.

Of course he encourages them not to be afraid. He says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” He tells them that God will be right there with them, caring for them, watching over them. Even the hairs of your heard are all counted, Jesus assures them.

And then finally, at the end of this long chapter of instructions from Jesus for the journey, he tells them about the people that will welcome them when they come through town: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Jesus refers to his apostles by three different titles in this passage. They are to serve as prophets – proclaiming messages from God to the people they encounter, calling the people back into relationship with God, back into the way of life that God has prepared for them. They are to be righteous people – people who live the loving way of Jesus, who do what is right, who do God’s will.

Those titles make sense. The apostles will go out to be prophets and righteous ones as they cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. But Jesus also calls them “little ones.” Though he has blessed them with power and authority to do some wonderful things, they are going out with a great deal of vulnerability. They’re not independent and self-sufficient. Instead, they’ve got to depend on the people they meet to be helpful and co-operative. They are “little ones” who, along the way, might find themselves in desperate need of something as simple as a cup of cold water.

And Jesus is clear that the people who do welcome them, who do provide them hospitality and take care of their most basic needs… these people are just as vital in the ministry of Christ as the apostles that get sent out. By welcoming the missionaries, they are welcoming Christ, and by welcoming Christ, they are welcoming God. And they will receive the same reward as the missionaries themselves, the amazing grace and mercy of our loving God.

I’m thinking of the mission that is closest to us here at St. Andrew’s and perhaps closest to our hearts, and that is the Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry just a few blocks away up 20^th Street at Avenue E. The Rev. Stewart Folster serves as the minister there… or we could call him the lead missionary. Others work with him there… a mission support worker, Chantel, members of the Board, and others who volunteer their time and talent for the mission.

They do the work of prophets and righteous people among the First Nations poor of our city. They feed the hungry, they welcome the homeless, they offer healing circles and prayer, and they invite the people to turn to the Creator for help and hope in the midst of the difficulties of their lives.

When you think about it, Stewart began the street-front ministry a few years ago without a lot of supplies and resources to back him up. It began with a small rented space and the offer of some coffee. And slowly it grew, and developed, and expanded.

Since SNCM is not a travelling ministry, there isn’t a need for individuals and congregations to welcome these missionaries into our homes and to provide for their needs like the “little ones” in Matthew’s Gospel. But there is certainly a need for congregations like ours, and others in the Presbytery and across the country to welcome the work of these missionaries by giving generously to support what they are doing.

Not all of the followers of Jesus were called to go out on the road. Some of them just needed to be ready to welcome the prophets and take care of their needs. Not all of us Presbyterians will be called to go on mission trips or to become front-line workers in the missions of our inner city. Some of us just need to be willing to support and encourage and provide for the prophets, the righteous persons, and the “little ones” who have themselves responded to the call of Christ to go out.

Jesus said to the missionaries, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

Today is Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the church year that calls us to ponder a teaching of the church rather than a teaching of Jesus. The scripture readings, of course, are carefully chosen to reflect the Three-in-One doctrine: God as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. And the readings provide biblical backup for a non-scriptural word: Trinity.

Although this mystery of God revealed in three ways is a core belief of Christianity, we struggle to explain it. Monotheistic Christians do back flips explaining why such a belief doesn’t make us polytheists. It sure sounds like we worship three Gods, while we claim that God is One.

A reflection on water has often been used to provide insight into this baffling doctrine. At different temperatures, water exists as a gas, as a liquid, or as a solid. Water is one substance, but it has three very different forms. Is that helpful for wrapping our heads around our one God – Father, Son, and Spirit? Perhaps.

A Lutheran pastor, Mary Anderson, in a reflection on the Trinity, describes a memorable experience of the Three-in-One. She was watching her grandmother sleep during her afternoon nap. As she contemplated the old woman’s existence, she thought wisely, “That’s Grandmamma, Mamma, and Odelle.”

Mary’s grandmother smiled in her sleep as Mary called her by the names used for her by her grandchildren, her daughter, and her husband. Three names, three relationships – and yet the same person.

I think it’s interesting that Trinity Sunday happens to land this year on Father’s Day. On a day when many people in our society are celebrating and thanking their human fathers, Christians are invited to reflect on God as Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Those among us who have experienced the blessing of having a wonderful father likely understand why Jesus and those who became his followers began to call God their father. They experienced God as one who was as close and caring and reliable and generous as a loving father, so that when they addressed their prayers to God they began to call God Abba, Daddy, our Father.

Some of us, of course, may have never experienced that kind of a father. Perhaps if we never knew a father at all, we might find comfort and encouragement in the God who is the true father of us all.

But others have had fathers who abandoned them, fathers who abused them, or fathers who seemed to only make demands and showed no grace or love. For these, Father’s Day may not be a day of celebration, and God as Father may not be a particularly helpful metaphor.

But it seems to me that the purpose of the Trinitarian language – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is not to set limits on our understanding of who God is. Nor are these words the only words that may assist our minds and hearts to connect with the mysterious God that Christians have experienced as One in Three.

The doctrine itself was likely not formulated for the purpose of fully explaining the nature of God. After all, the church doesn’t fully understand the nature of God, nor could we find words adequate to express it. It has been suggested that the point of the doctrine is not to provide a full and complete explanation, but it is simply an attempt to put the faith of the church into words, an attempt to share what Christians have come to know and experience of God.

We might think of the doctrine of the Trinity as part of the church’s response to the Great Commission from Jesus.

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus appears one more time to eleven of his closest followers. And he gives them a Great Commission. He makes it abundantly clear what they are being sent to do in the world:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” he tells them, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

The apostles were sent to baptize and to teach, to invite others to turn away from sin and towards God, and to help them learn the wise ways that Jesus had taught and demonstrated in his life.

Throughout history, the church has always taken that commission very seriously, but it hasn’t always led to the results that I imagine Jesus was hoping for.

Just think of the crusades. Christians in that era took the commission seriously all right. They took it so seriously that they would force people to be baptized on pain of death. And those who refused would be slaughtered. The crusaders must have thought that they were getting the job done, but no one was turning to God through that kind of baptism. And the Christians themselves were turning away as they engaged in the kind of violence and misuse of power that is so contrary to Jesus’ way of life and his teaching.

Of course, the crusades were a long time ago, and the churches today bear little resemblance to the powerful and militant church of that time. And yet, not so many years have passed since the Christian churches of this country teamed up with the Canadian government to impose our religion and culture on the First Peoples of this land.

The legacy of the Residential Schools witnesses to the arrogance of our churches to assume that we have God and God’s will all figured out, that we could assume that the Aboriginal children would somehow be better off if we removed them from their homes and families and communities and put them in our schools.

There is no doubt that many Christians of good will and good intention participated in the process, alongside others who took great advantage of the system to torment and abuse these vulnerable children.

At the heart of the problem, I think, was the fact that we Christians presumed that we were the ones who understood and could explain God and God’s will for our lives. We were fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus to baptize and to teach. And we were so focused on that mission that we never stopped to notice that our Aboriginal sisters and brothers knew something of our mysterious God too.

On the back of this morning’s worship bulletin, Lori Ransom shares a glimpse of the faith and deep wisdom that is found in Native Spirituality:

“We live every day as a prayer,” explains the traditional Native Elder. “All day we give thanks to the Creator for all the Creator has blessed us with, providing for all of our needs in this world.”

Indigenous people in Canada always pray by giving thanks for each element of God’s creation: the plants and medicines that nourish and heal; the birds and animals that feed, clothe and provide companionship; the winds that cool; the waters that refresh; the rocks and minerals that help build our communities; all things bright and beautiful that lift our spirits.

Today is not only Father’s Day for the world, and Trinity Sunday for the church. The Presbyterian Church in Canada has also designated today as Aboriginal Sunday – the Sunday immediately following the Canadian Aboriginal Day which was celebrated this past Thursday.

Today is a good day to recognize and celebrate the gifts and insights of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters in our church and in our communities. It is an important day to remember the errors of the past, and to commit to doing things differently in the present and the future.

It has been 17 years since the Presbyterian Church in Canada made its official apology for our participation in the Residential School system, and we still have a long way to go and a lot of work yet to do to promote healing and reconciliation with those whom we harmed and their children and grandchildren.

The doctrine of the Trinity may serve today to remind us that God is yet a mystery to us. Though we keep on trying to understand God more and more, and we keep on doing our best to put our faith into words, and we keep on trying to share our faith with all the people of the world, we need to be reminded from time to time that God is yet beyond our human understanding. God is yet a mystery.

And, in fact, those people that the church once tried to evangelize may actually understand many aspects of God’s character even better than we do.

Indigenous peoples, for example, share the Christian belief in the sacredness of all that God has created. And their traditional ways of life allow them to live out that belief by respecting and caring for the created world and all its gifts and blessings.

May God grant us wisdom as we try to understand God and God’s will for us more fully. May God grant us humility, as we try to carry out the Great Commission of Christ with grace and integrity. And may God fill us with joy as we grow together in mutual love and understanding. Amen.

The sun is rising very, very early these days, so hopefully you’ll be up earlier and ready to worship God a little earlier too. And perhaps you can go out from worship at St. Andrew’s to continue to worship God as you enjoy God’s creation and some beautiful summer Sundays.

Are you travelling this summer? Take the opportunity to worship with a local Presbyterian Church or a church of another denomination wherever you are staying. Take a holiday from work. Take a holiday from your usual routines.  But don’t take a holiday from your true purpose of glorifying and enjoying God.

The May issue of the newsletter included a survey on the Sunday worship times. The suggestion has been made that we might consider moving worship to 10:30 am year round. The Session is interested in hearing how everyone feels about this. Please fill in the survey and return it to the church office. Session will be considering your input in the fall before making any changes.

The wind was blowing yesterday. It was slamming the screen door and rattling the blinds of my house. It was pushing my little red car as I drove along the freeway so that I had to hang on tight to the steering wheel. It was rustling through the branches of the trees and sending out showers of seeds through the air. And up above, it was streaking its way across the sky, playing with the clouds and creating an ever-changing display of God’s glory.

It makes a lot of sense to me that the Spirit of God should be compared to a rushing wind… an invisible force that seems to come out of nowhere, but that makes its presence and power seen and heard by its effect on whatever it blows upon.

I remember a friend in my church membership class years ago trying to describe what the Holy Spirit was. She said the Spirit is the “umph” I need to do and be what God is calling me to do and be. The Spirit is like the “divine shove” that disturbs us out of our resting places and moves us to start doing God’s work in the world.

That definition fits pretty well when you think about the Spirit being poured out on the gathered disciples on that first Pentecost day after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They described the Spirit as a rushing wind swirling around them, as tongues of fire resting upon them. It was a sudden, surprising, and powerful interruption of their quiet waiting, and the effect was that they got going.

I can imagine the wind of the Spirit blowing open the doors of the house where they were gathered. I can imagine the flames of firey Spirit flashing about and encouraging them to get moving. And out they went. Into the streets. And the Spirit somehow gave them the ability to tell of the mighty acts of God and to be understood by all the people of the world.

I often think about the Spirit when we’re trying to recruit volunteers in the church. Whether we’re looking for new elders or Board members, church school teachers or hospital visitors… we pray for the Spirit of God to help us think of the right person. And we pray for the Spirit to prompt that person to know whether they are, indeed, the right person for the job.

It’s easy in the church to get really worried about whether we will find enough willing volunteers to do all the different jobs we think we need to get done. We end up with a sheet of paper with slots to fill, and we have to find people willing to fill those slots.

But the danger is that we might stop thinking about the people because we get so wrapped up in filling the slots, of making sure that we have someone assigned to do all the jobs. For example, right now I’m looking for someone to take on the job of serving as the treasurer of Presbytery. It’s a very specific task, requiring a certain set of mathematical and organizational skills. And it’s a slightly different set of skills than is required of our nursery caregivers, for example.

But even if we think carefully about who we might ask to do certain ministries within the church, and even if we pray and ask the Spirit to lead us in our search, we’re still kind of going at it backwards, I think.

We’re starting with the job, and then looking for the person to do it. And I wonder if we really should be starting with the person, and asking God’s Spirit to show us what each one should be doing, what each one is being called to do, what each one has been gifted by the Spirit to do.

When I think about my own call to ministry, that’s the way it worked. There wasn’t someone who phoned me up and said, “Amanda, there’s going to be a minister needed in Saskatoon. Won’t you consider going to school and becoming a minister? We’re really going to need someone to fill that pulpit.”

Instead, my decision was part of a long process of discerning gifts, and listening for the Spirit, and preparing for ministry long before there was a slot to be filled in Saskatoon.

Now I suppose it doesn’t always work that way. When I became the Clerk of Presbytery it was the other way around. I wasn’t thinking that I wanted to be a clerk. I wasn’t feeling called to take the minutes, and keep the records, and take on the administrative role for the Presbytery of Northern Saskatchewan or for any Presbytery. But there was a need. And I thought about whether I COULD do it, whether I had the organizational skills required, or whether I could develop those skills. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt called by God to respond to that need and to trust the Spirit to help me get the job done.

One of the things that I noticed about the Pentecost story this week was that when the Spirit rushed into the house in Jerusalem that day, it didn’t pick one person to become the preacher or teacher of the Good News. Instead, the wind blew through all the gathered disciples, and a tongue of fire rested on each and every one of them.

Sure, as the church grew and developed, Jesus’ followers took on different tasks and responsibilities. But they were all filled with the Spirit, they were all gifted with the power of God, and they all used that power to spread the news about God’s goodness and love far and wide.

The Apostle Paul made it clear to the Christians at Corinth that God had an important part for every person to play in the church. He told them, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” And that meant that the Spirit was filling each and every follower of Jesus, whether they were speaking in tongues and wowing the crowds, or whether they were simply and quietly caring for their sick neighbours.

Paul said, “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in every one.”

One of the topics that came up during our congregational planning retreat in April was spiritual gifts. And we dreamed about the possibility of doing something to help each other to figure out what gifts we have so that we can make good use of them for God.

The Stewardship Committee has a goal for next year to focus on Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts. They’re going to invite everyone to join a small group and participate in a short program – probably just 2 or 3 gatherings – on spiritual gifts. It will be an opportunity to learn about different gifts and to discern what gifts we have been given… so that we can celebrate our gifts, and develop our gifts, and so that we can make good use of our gifts within the church and in our daily lives as God’s people.

Today I’m wearing my red stole for Pentecost. The embroidered doves on it are a symbol of the Holy Spirit, whom I trust is in me and around me, gifting and equipping me to do the work of ministry to which I have been called.

But I also invited YOU to wear red or orange or yellow this morning as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in your life and in our midst. Some of you heard that invitation, and some of you remembered. And as I look around, I see a church full of people who are filled with the Spirit, gifted by the Spirit, and sent by the Spirit to do the work of ministry to which God is calling you.

As Paul writes, “In the one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

As we share in the holy meal of Communion with one another and with our Lord Jesus Christ, may the wind of the Spirit blow in and among us, and bind us together in unity and peace. And may the Spirit’s fire rest upon each one of us, and send us out with courage and power to use our many gifts for the work of God in the church and in the world. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes get worried about whether we’re going to manage to pass on the Christian faith to the next generation. It’s kind of a critical task, you see… not only because the church won’t last very long if our children and our grandchildren don’t receive the faith and continue the work of the church. But perhaps most importantly, it’s kind of a critical task because it’s exactly what Jesus told his first followers that they were supposed to do.

As the book of Acts tells us, Jesus promised the power of the Holy Spirit and said, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Those of you who have children or grandchildren of your own might spend even more time worrying about this problem than I do. You want your kids to learn the biblical stories of the faith. You want them to learn how to pray. You want to find a way to show them that God is real, to help them to know that God is present and active in the world, and that God is always there for them, and is always calling them to live in the way of Jesus.

Some of the worrying may have to do with not really knowing how to pass on the faith, or feeling guilty about maybe not having done enough already. Your kids may be getting older, and you’re wondering if it’s too late. Did you miss your opportunity?

Jesus’ commission to his followers may have sounded pretty challenging, as it certainly does to us: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” But it’s possible that talking about God and faith and Jesus to a bunch of people that you don’t really know or feel connected to, is actually easier than trying to pass on your faith to your own family and the people you love.

Everyone in my family of origin has blue eyes. My father had blue eyes and blonde hair when he was a kid. My mother had blue eyes and blonde hair when she was a kid. And my brother, my sisters, and I all ended up with blue eyes and some shade of blonde or light brown hair too. It was something that we all inherited from my parents, without any particular effort on their part.

We also all ended up being pretty near-sighted too. You couldn’t have known that we’d all inherit that trait when we were young, but by the time we hit age 12 or 13 we were all squinting at the blackboards at school and starting to get headaches from the eye strain. If only we could pass on our faith as easily as passing on our long legs or our pointy noses to our biological children!

I’ve inherited a few other things too. I’ve inherited my mother’s talent for worrying and my father’s tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve. And although we don’t always agree on every issue, I think I’ve inherited a lot of their values. We tend to vote the same way… and not because they suggested how I should vote as a young adult, or even hinted that I should follow their lead. But I guess I inherited some of their priorities, and their ways of thinking, and so we often come to the same conclusions about things.

In the first century, the apostle Paul was among the most prominent of Jesus’ followers who was doing his utmost to pass on the Christian faith. And when he had success, he was filled with joy. Writing to the new Christians in Ephesus, he said, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

But he also knew that receiving the faith was not something that could happen in a moment and then be complete. It was a process of learning, growing, and living according to that faith. And the Christians at Ephesus, like any others would need his continuing support and encouragement if they were going to receive the Good News and pass it on both to their neighbours and to the next generations.

In today’s reading, Paul shares a wonderful prayer for the Ephesian Christians. He writes, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him…”

Wouldn’t that be a great prayer to pray for our children today? That they will be filled with the wisdom of God, that God will reveal God-self to them, that they will come to know God?

Paul continues… “so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”

A few years ago when we were visiting my husband’s parents in BC, my mother-in-law pulled out some lovely silver serving dishes which she had inherited from her mother and grandmother, and she asked me if I would like to have any of them. I guess she’d already asked all her other daughters-in-law, and as the newest one, it was my turn to have them offered to me. Well, I couldn’t imagine myself making good use of them or taking care of them with the proper regimen of polishing and proper storage, so I said, “Thanks, but no thanks”… just as all the daughters-in-law before me had done.

I wonder if I had grown up with those silver trays and dishes… I wonder if I had watched my own mother or grandmother looking after them, if I had learned to polish them with her, if I had seen the way that she treasured them, and sat with her drinking tea, enjoying special treats, and serving honoured guests… I wonder if that had been my experience, whether I would have wanted to have them, and keep them, and use them…

When it comes right down to it, passing on an inheritance takes two. It takes someone who wants to pass it on, and someone who wants to receive it. We cannot force the next generation to receive the gift of faith any more than they can receive it if no one takes the time to share with them the Good News.

Paul prays for the Ephesians that they may have the eyes of their hearts enlightened so that they may know the riches of God’s glorious inheritance. Now isn’t that a fitting prayer for our children and grandchildren? If they could somehow know that this church thing we do on Sundays is not just something we do to get out of the house and meet people… If they could somehow know that our religion is not just another thing that we happen to like doing, no different than joining a bowling league or going to Toast Masters…

If they could somehow know the riches of this glorious inheritance that we have received from our parents, or from our parents in the faith… If they could somehow know that it is God who gives meaning to our lives and helps us make sense of the world, that it is Christ who gives us direction when we are struggling with the most challenging decisions of our lives, that it is the Holy Spirit who fills us with hope and courage when the most difficult circumstances come our way…

If they could somehow know the riches of this glorious inheritance that is ours… then perhaps they might want to receive it from us, perhaps they might want to share it with us. There certainly aren’t any guarantees that the next generation of our children will take up the faith or that the church as we know it will survive. But there is a guarantee that Christ will be with us, and in us, and working through us as we take up the task of being his witnesses to the best of our abilities.

Let us also pray for one another, that the eyes of all our hearts may be enlightened, so that we may know the hope to which he has called us, that we may remember the riches of the glorious inheritance which we have received, and that we may trust in the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. God’s Spirit, working in us and through us, has the power to do more than we would ever ask or imagine…. including passing on that glorious inheritance.

Remember to pray for all the commissioners, for the Moderator – the Rev. Rick Horst, for the local arrangements committee, for the national staff and all those involved in the General Assembly. Our commissioners from the Presbytery of Northern Saskatchewan are the Rev. Bev Shepansky and Lawrence Black from Mistawasis Memorial Presbyterian Church. Our Young Adult Representative is Logan de Bruijn from St. Andrew’s, Saskatoon.

Want to know more about what’s happening at General Assembly? Check out the General Assembly 2011 website to read the reports that are being considered and to get live news coverage.

Several stories in this sermon are borrowed from the book “Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian” by Thomas G. Long (San Francisco: 2004).

I’ve been reading a book this week called, “Testimony” by the American Presbyterian preacher, Thomas Long. Out of the various volumes that I brought home from my study leave last week, it seemed the most appropriate one to read as I was reflecting on this morning’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

Testimony is about bearing witness. It’s about using our voices to tell about what we have seen and heard and experienced of God in Jesus Christ. And testimony is a fundamental part of what Christians are called by Christ to do in the world.

Love God. Love our neighbours. And tell the world about God’s love in Jesus Christ. If we wanted to sum up our purpose… that would be a pretty good summary.

But at least within the mainline churches, and at least within the last several decades, we don’t do a lot of talking about our faith out loud. We don’t want to offend our neighbours or come across as pushing our religion on anyone, so we generally keep our mouths shut and we blend in with the rest of secular society.

I don’t think it’s that the average mainline Christian is lacking in faith. It’s just that most of us aren’t used to putting our faith into words. We’re not used to praying out loud where others can hear us, and we’re not used to giving testimony about what we have seen and heard and come to believe.

The strange phenomenon of the 1950’s in North America, in which more people than ever attended church on a regular basis might have something to do with it. For a short blip in history, Christians started to live like we were everyone… like everyone was Christian… like everyone went to church… like everyone knew about Jesus and his love.

Sure, we still had missionaries. But missionaries were especially gifted people who answered a call to travel to the farthest reaches of the world and to tell the good news to the poor people of those countries that had not heard. It’s just a theory. But I’m wondering if that’s a part of why talking about our faith is so challenging for us today… because there was a time (not so long ago) when we thought everyone already knew.

Well, the only way that people come to know God and God’s love in Jesus Christ is if we tell them… if we testify to our experience and tell them what we have seen and heard and what we believe.

Tom Long tells a story in his book about the day that Fred Rogers (of Mr. Rogers’ neighbourhood) had been invited to address the prestigious National Press Club in Washington. The National Press Club was accustomed to hearing speeches from diplomats, top administration officials, and key opinion makers on the top issues of the day, and some members of the press had privately joked that with “Mister Rogers” on the podium, they were probably in for a “light lunch.”

However, when Fred Rogers stood up to speak, he said that he knew the room was filled with many of the best reporters in the nation, men and women who had achieved much. Rogers then took out a pocket watch and announced that he was going to keep two minutes of silence, and he invited everybody in the room to remember people in their past – parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and others – who had made it possible for them to accomplish so much. And then Mister Rogers stood there, looking at his watch and saying nothing. The room grew quiet as the seconds ticked away, but before Fred Rogers tucked away his watch, one could hear all around the room people sniffling as they were moved by the memories of those who had made sacrifices on their behalf and who had given them many gifts.

Likewise, Long continues, if those of us who find meaning and comfort in the Christian faith were to take two minutes to reflect on how our faith came to be, few of us would say that we got it from a book, and none of us would say we thought it up on our own. Quickly or gradually, we would begin to remember the people who spoke to us about God. “Faith,” the Apostle Paul once observed, “comes from what is heard,” and that is true about our faith, too.

We heard and we believed; slowly or suddenly, in a moment of stillness or in a thunderstorm of passion, we believed. The faith we have, whether large or small, whether born of struggle or comfort, whether richly textured or barely patched together, whether grasped firmly or held onto be our fingernails, is a part of our lives because somebody along the way had the courage and the conviction to talk to us about God and about Jesus Christ.

It all started back in the first century, in a time and culture not so different from our own. I mean, not so different because in neither case was Christianity the norm. And in neither case was Christianity known and understood by the average person on the street. And though most people today wouldn’t say that they worship “other gods,” most of us do bow down to the gods of fashion and popularity, materialism and success. Our culture is not so different from the culture of Athens in the first century.

And the Apostle Paul got up and spoke to the people of Athens. He spoke to them with respect… acknowledging their religiosity and their interest in searching for the unknown god. And then he told them about the One God in whom Paul had come to believe, and how this God had been made known in Jesus Christ. Paul explained that God was the maker of everything in the world, but that God was also very close to us – like a loving parent. Using the poetry of Athens, he described this amazing God saying, “in him we live and move and have our being.”

Now, it would be logical to think that preachers and missionaries should learn to give speeches like Paul’s. And we do… though perhaps not as eloquently as he spoke that day. But I think that Tom Long is right when he suggests that testimony is a practice of faith that all Christians must learn. Most of us probably won’t be standing up in front of crowds of people and giving convincing speeches about our faith.

But as 1 Peter encourages us to remember, we should “always be ready to make [our] defence to anyone who demands from [us] an accounting for the hope that is in [us]…” and we should do it (as 1 Peter adds) “with gentleness and reverence.”

Let me share another story from Tom Long’s book: One morning some years ago, a young bookstore clerk named Deborah arrived at work early to open the shop. Standing at the door waiting for the store to open was a man dressed in the characteristic garments of a Hasidic Jew. As Deborah was unlocking the door, the man quietly asked if he could come in. She hesitated; it was nearly an hour before the store was supposed to open, but the man seemed polite and evidently needed something right away, so she decided to let him come in early. After turning on the lights, she said, “Would you like any help?”

Softly and with an accent he said, “Yes, I want to know about Jesus.” This was not an altogether surprising request, since the store specialized in books on religion. So Deborah guided the man upstairs to the shop’s ample section of books about Jesus. She pointed to shelves filled with scholarly volumes of Jesus research and books about the early history of Christianity. Then she turned to go back downstairs, but the man called her back.

“No,” he said, “I want to know about Jesus the Messiah. Don’t show me any more books. You tell me what you believe.” Was this man asking for interfaith dialogue? For spiritual counsel? For evangelism? Deborah was unsure. All she knew was that she was being asked what she had almost never been asked before: to put her faith into words.

“My Episcopal soul shivered,” she said later, recalling the encounter. “I gulped and told him everything I could think of… as much as I could sputter out in my confusion, in the dark.”

Deborah’s “Episcopal soul shivered,” and many of us, regardless of what denominational brand our souls happen to be, would shiver as well. If we were suddenly put in the position of having to express what we believe, many of us would also feel confused and in the dark.

Moreover, Deborah recognized that he conversation partner was himself a person of faith, which made visible a truth about all urgent speech: it must be spoken with tenderness and awareness of its impact on others. The man who talked with Deborah eventually chose to be baptized and became a Christian. Deborah was grateful, of course, for his spiritual awakening, but her gratitude was mixed with concern. She did not want what she had said to transgress delicate interfaith boundaries, and she did not want to be any part of any aggressive evangelistic techniques – “winning trophies for God,” as she put it. “I am not ashamed of my faith,” she wrote. “I am, and will always be, a Christian. But the God I catch glimpses of is a large-hearted God, one to whom all hearts are open. Spiritual arrogance is inexcusable.”

That’s a pretty blatant example of a Christian being invited – even pressed – to testify… to give an accounting for the hope that was in her. Maybe you can relate to that. Maybe something similar has happened to you, either with someone who was curious about your beliefs, or maybe with someone who was challenging them.

Were you ready for that conversation? Or did your Presbyterian soul shiver? And did you speak, or did you find a way to avoid the conversation?

Tom Long suggests that church (and worship, in particular) should be a training ground for testimony. In preaching and prayer and praise, we should be learning the language of faith. We should be getting used to the sound of the words of faith rolling off our tongues. We should be preparing for all the conversations that we will have this week out in the world.

All the God-talk that we do in here should be getting us ready to talk about God wherever we go… not beating it over the heads of the people we meet at work or in the grocery store… but nonetheless talking about God with gentleness and reverence.

Most of the opportunities won’t be as obvious as someone coming up and saying, “Tell me about Jesus the Messiah.” And so we’ll need to pay close attention as we get ready to speak about our faith in God.

One final story: In 1986, a woman named Susan decided to take a spring course at the local community college. Checking the catalogue, she spotted an offering titled “U.S. Foreign Policy: 1945 to the Present.” She’d never ventured into politics, and she thought this course might stretch her. It met in the evening, once a week, so it looked convenient, interesting, and challenging. She enrolled. At the first meeting of the course, she was surprised to discover that she and the professor were the only American citizens in the class. The dozen or so other class members were all international students, some of them taking the course as part of the process of becoming naturalized citizens of the United States.

The course moved along well until mid-April, when newspaper headlines announced that the U.S. military had carried out a bombing raid against Libya, resulting in the deaths of several dozen people. President Reagan said that the air attack was a direct response to the bombing one month earlier of a German nightclub in which American soldiers had been killed and Libyan agents were suspects. Public opinion strongly supported Reagan, viewing the air raids as an appropriate and needed retaliation against Libya and its leaders.

The professor began the next meeting of the class by saying, “We have seen in the news this week a controversial expression of U.S. foreign policy. What reactions do you have?” The students were silent as stones. Finally Susan hesitantly ventured a response. “My husband and I disagree about this,” she said, “but I don’t think America should have done the bombing.”

A young Asian woman in the class looked dumbstruck. “You are the only American I have heard say anything like that,” she stammered. “Are you a revolutionary?”
“No,” Susan snapped. “I’m a Republican.”
“Then why,” asked the woman, “why are you against the bombing of Libya?”

Susan said later that she was tempted to respond, “Hey, it’s a free country. Everybody’s entitled to an opinion,” but she sense that something was at stake here, that something about the situation called for a deeper, more honest response.

“The reason why I disapprove of the bombing,” Susan said, “is because of my Christian faith. I know we cannot make foreign policy out of the New Testament, but we are told to ‘repay no one evil for evil,’ and I just can’t rest easy with this.” What followed was a spirited and probing conversation, involving the whole class, on balancing love and justice, peace and security, national loyalties and faith commitments, all because the window opened and Susan decided to speak.

It was an amazing week… filled with beautiful worship, inspiring preaching, informative lectures, and so many interesting conversations with ministers from across North America. I spent Monday to Friday last week in Minneapolis at the Festival of Homiletics (that’s a fancy word for preaching) and I got to listen to some of the best preachers and teachers of preaching of our time.

We heard Barbara Brown Taylor, Thomas Long, Walter Brueggeman, Anna Carter Florence, Otis Moss III, and many more, as well as lectures by Diana Butler Bass and Brian McLaren. I don’t know if these names mean anything to you or not. But trust me, these are the big names in preaching today… and we were absolutely inundated with fantastic sermons and lectures on preaching all week.

The conference ended on Friday at noon, after an absolutely wonderful worship service at the huge Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis where the largest events were being held. They told us there were 1700 pastors at the conference, and when we all got together, we filled the church almost to capacity. When we sang together, it was a huge swell of sound such that we didn’t really need the help of the organ to lead us. It was like a giant massed choir that seemed to need no rehearsal as we blended our voices together to sing some familiar and many new hymns of our shared faith in Christ.

Some of you are probably going to think I’m weird, but I loved the pattern of the days in Minneapolis. In addition to two or three lectures on preaching, we gathered for worship four times every day. And I don’t mean short little 10-15 minute opening and closing prayers. Every service lasted about an hour with at least a 20-30 minute sermon as part of it. And despite the weariness that can start to set in by the end of a conference, we were still staying awake through those sermons! They were interesting and relevant and insightful, and they made us both laugh and cry. If we could have stayed for another week, I think most of us would have.

But the week sped by, and soon Friday morning was coming to a close with a beautiful Communion liturgy and 1700 pastors coming forward to receive the bread and wine by intinction. And then it was time for me to say good-bye to some new and some old friends, to kill some time at the Mall of America, and then to head to the airport and home to Saskatoon.

It felt kind of strange walking around the mall that afternoon. It was one of those giant malls with an amusement park and an aquarium and a comedy club. I kind of felt like I was re-entering the world after having retreated from it for five days. I was no longer surrounded by pastors and preachers who wanted to do nothing more than worship, sing, pray, and listen to sermons together. Now I was back to the everyday realities of our society – to the hustle and bustle of mothers with strollers, teenagers hanging out, sales people working hard to offer their free samples, and crowds of people hurrying to their destinations with bags of new purchases in hand.

After checking out a portion of the massive mall, I found an arm chair in an open area and sat down thinking, “I really should start thinking about my sermon for Sunday.” What was God calling me to say this week to a congregation of faithful people who were living in the world… not exactly the “Mall of America” world, but also not the world that I had been living in at the Festival of Homiletics.

I reflected on all the amazing preaching that I had heard throughout the week, and I wondered about how that might influence my preaching this Sunday. Would it make a difference? Did I learn any new techniques or take away any good ideas that would actually help me to share God’s life-changing and relevant Word in the context in which we live?

It’s one thing to spend a week listening to the experts preach and appreciating their skill. But it’s quite a different thing to come back home and try to put those lessons into practice in the real world. Not one of those excellent preachers was willing to come home with me to help me figure out what to say to you today! Well, I didn’t actually ask them to, but I’m fairly sure that they would have said no.

I wonder if Jesus’ disciples were feeling something like I was as their master’s ministry was drawing to a close. They had been travelling with Jesus for some time now… not just one amazing week, but maybe a year or two, or even three. They too had heard some amazing sermons, and they’d witnessed some spectacular events. They had devoted their days to following along with Jesus’ group, and they’d left their families and their jobs behind so that they wouldn’t miss a thing. They had watched and listened, and struggled with his stories and his ideas. They had hung on all his words and tried to soak up as much wisdom as they could.

But by the time we get to Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel text, the disciples are starting to come to terms with the fact that this very special time of travelling with Jesus of Nazareth is coming to an end. And as much as they would prefer to avoid or at least delay the inevitable, their leader is making it clear that he is going to be gone and they are going to have to continue his work.

Now, Jesus DOESN’T tell his followers that they’ll get a PORTION of his power and authority so that they can preach a few little sermons and do a bit of good in the world. He doesn’t let them go thinking, “Well, I won’t be able to do what I saw and heard Jesus doing, but I’ll do my best and hopefully I won’t mess up too badly.”

No, Jesus says to his friends, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me [the one who has faith in me, who trusts in me] will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.”

Jesus predicted that his followers… Peter and Mary, Thomas and Paul… Patti and Leslie, Judy and Trudy and Joan, Logan and Walter, Elizabeth, Tanyss, Alice and Lydia and… Well, you get the idea… Jesus predicted that his followers (that WE) would do the works that he did and, in fact, we would do even greater works than these.

If someone had told me in the middle of last week that I would come home to Saskatoon and preach a better or greater sermon than Barbara Brown Taylor or Thomas Long, I would have said, “Oh ya, right… sure I will…” I can’t imagine even my best work measuring up to the creativity and eloquence that I heard from those masters in Minneapolis.

So how could the disciples of the Lord possibly imagine their ministry measuring up to the wonder and power and wisdom and grace of Jesus’ words and work in the world? They must have thought that he was crazy to be suggesting that what they would do after his departure would be even greater than what he did during his ministry.

After all, what HE did changed the course of history and transformed the world! As John’s Gospel explains it, “God’s Word became flesh and lived among us” and Jesus revealed God’s very presence in the world, calling all people to return to relationship with the God of love and grace and goodness.

But what Jesus’ first disciples were just discovering, and what followers of Jesus today so often forget is that God’s Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth was just the beginning of the incarnation. It was a high point… that’s for sure. It was a moment of revelation in which God’s people were beginning to understand that God is not a distant God who watches and judges from above. They were starting to realize that God is with us, and in us, and between us creating communities of caring and concern, welcome and sharing, right where we live.

But as Jesus prepared for his inevitable death and departure, he tried to explain to his followers that his physical absence from their community would not mean God’s absence. The Spirit of God would come to them to comfort them in their grief, but also to fill them, to equip them, and to guide them in carrying on Jesus’ work. The Spirit of God would live within and between them so that these fishermen and tax collectors and women would BECOME the very presence of God in the world. They (and WE) would BE the body of Christ in the world. And through our many hands and feet, ears and hearts and voices throughout God’s world, we would do even greater works than Jesus did.

The 1700 pastors with whom I gathered last week likely all experienced the Festival of Homiletics as a gift and an inspiration. Many of us came home with copious notes and books, and some purchased CD’s of their favourite presentations. But no matter how much we may try to hang on to that experience, or how much we might wish for an expert to give us the words for our Sunday morning sermons, we have to trust that it will be God’s Spirit that goes with us into the world and who equips us to do the greater works in our particular communities and contexts.

Today’s Gospel passage is one that is often selected for funeral services. That’s probably why it sounds so familiar to many of us. Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places [there are many rooms. And] I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.”

It’s reassuring, isn’t it? When you are nearing the end of your life, or when someone you love has died, this text may give you hope and comfort in the midst of your sadness and grief.

But Jesus wasn’t preaching to a bunch of dying disciples. He was the one who was going to die. They were going to run and hide from the mounting danger, and they were going to live… at least for a while longer. And so even though I appreciate the comfort and encouragement that Jesus’ words offer to us in the face of death, I think that they are PRIMARILY instructions for us as followers in the middle of life.

“I’m going to die,” Jesus is telling his friends, “and you’re going to live. But you’re going to need to live like I did. You’re going to need to live my way. And that means that you can’t be held back by your fear of death.”

“You noticed that about me, didn’t you?… How I spoke my mind… how I spoke the truth? Even when I knew that the words were going to get me into trouble with some pretty powerful people, I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“If you can do that… if you can follow my way, and speak my truth, and live my life… then you will carry on my work and do even greater things than I have done.”

“The key to all of this is that you’ve got to trust God. You’ve got to have faith in me. And since faith comes as a gift from God, I know that you’re going to do just fine. You’re going to do wonderful things!”

For disciples like Stephen in the early years of Christianity, speaking the truth about God’s love in Jesus Christ literally led to his death. While they were stoning him, Stephen followed the example of Jesus, asking God to forgive the attackers and to receive his spirit. And like so many other martyrs throughout history, we get the impression that Stephen went to his death without fear. He trusted God, and he was not afraid, and that is great.

But what is so much more important than how Stephen died is how Stephen lived. And he lived his life (however brief) without fear. He lived with freedom because of Jesus’ promise and because of the gift of faith to live and to serve, to preach and to witness without fear of what might be done to him. And that is the way of Jesus that we are invited to follow.

As a preacher, I know it means that I can’t get stuck worrying about whether my sermons will be as spectacular as the experts. And it means that I can’t get caught up with concerns about whether my preaching will either keep everyone happy or get me into trouble.

But this message is not just for preachers. As the people of God, we are all called (as 1 Peter reminds us) to proclaim the mighty acts of God who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.

We are called to proclaim it in our words and in our actions, in our churches and in our families, workplaces, schools, communities and friendship circles. We are called to speak the truth and work for justice and goodness. We are called to use our hands to reach out to people who are in trouble, to use voices to speak up for what is right, and to use our ears to listen for the cries of those who have been left behind or left out. We are called to engage with the world around us, to witness to God’s presence and love within it, and to do all this with the help of the Spirit and without fear.

Thomas was confused by Jesus’ words about going ahead to prepare a place for his followers. He didn’t know where Jesus was going to, and he didn’t know how to get there. I suppose Thomas was like so many of us today when we get caught up in a religion of figuring out what we can believe and what we can do so that God will welcome us into heaven.

But I really think Jesus was telling his disciples, “Don’t worry about death. Don’t worry about heaven. Just focus your attention and your energy on the life that I have given to you today, and do your best to live like me. Trust God, and live without fear. And you will do the works that I do and, in fact, you will do greater works than these.”

“Ambassadors and Assignments” (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)

Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ

You may wonder why I began the sermon with this particular greeting. This phrase is not mine. My father, who was a minister in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, always began his sermons by saying: Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think that we all know, deep down in our hearts, that this is what we really and truly are.

But, how did we become Christ’s beloved congregation? When Jesus was on earth, he called twelve people to be his disciples. They stayed with him during the years of his public ministry. Before Jesus went up to be with God, he commanded his disciples to spread the Good News, he had taught them, saying: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the earth. (Matthew 28:18-20b.)

The disciples directed their mission efforts first to their fellow Jews. Gradually, they began to reach out to the Jewish communities outside their own country. However, they did not seem to see the need to reach out to the Gentiles. Peter was reluctant to go and visit the Roman centurion in Philippi.  And Christ himself had to convince Saul that he had been chosen to bring the good news to the gentiles, the non-Jews. Yet, it took some time before the twelve apostles accepted Paul’s ministry to the gentiles.

But the Gospel News began to spread through the missionary activities of the apostles. Christian churches were established, first in Asia Minor, then in Rome and then further in all the lands conquered by the Romans.  And as the centuries went by, the gospel was preached all over the world.

The Roman Catholic Church sent out missionary priests as far away as China. And in the early 1600s, the mission work among the Huron people in our country began. The Huron carol: ‘T was in the moon of wintertime, reminds of that early mission work in Canada.

In the late 1800s, the Protestants churches became involved in mission work, sending missionaries all over the world. They did wonderful work building churches, schools and hospitals. Some worked diligently for many years to translate the Bible into native languages. Others worked in the field of agriculture to improve native nutrition.

But mission work did not come to an end, when St. Andrew’s became a Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The mission work continued. Through our gifts to Presbyterian Sharing, the Presbyterian World Service & Development and the Women’s Missionary Society we support the mission work of our national church. The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a small denomination. Yet, its mission work is quite comprehensive. We are involved in International Ministries and Canada Ministries.

Internationally, missionaries are working in: Guatemala, Granada, Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, Taiwan and India. Canada ministries involves creating new ministries, renewing ministries, sustaining ministries, supporting specialized ministries such as Inner-City Ministries and Native Ministries. And our national church supports Chaplaincies @ at least 10 universities.

If I have confused you by now, take heart. At the table in the narthex are copies of the booklet Stories of Mission. (Show booklet) They are free. So take one on your way out If the pile is gone by the time you are ready to pick one up, let me know. I will contact the office of the WMS in Toronto, and ask them to mail me more booklets.

Another way to become informed about the mission work of our church is to read the mission magazine, called Glad Tidings. There are a few copies of this magazine on the table as well and they are also free. The WMS office could only provide me with a few copies. When they are gone, that’s it. But why not subscribe to Glad Tidings? A yearly subscription will cost you only $14.00. Do talk to Yoka de Bruijn and she will happily sign you up.

You could also join the Hildur Hermanson WMS. We meet every third Monday evening of the month for study and fellowship from September till June @ 7.30 in the library. You can all join us. Although we are called a women’s society, men are most welcome to become a members.

The most expensive way of learning about the mission work of our church is to go on a Mission Exposure Tour. These tours are a joint effort by the PCC and the W.M.S. An exposure tour is not an action tour. Participants are not going to a mission field to build a school or to dig a well. They go to observe the work missionaries are engaged in on our behalf.

We just heard Helen Foss read to us from the second letter to the Corinthians, where is says: So, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

It is not customary in the church to use the term ambassadors. How should we then interpret these words for us in our time, in our secular 21st century? Let us reflect a bit on this. What are the characteristics of an ambassador?

A definition which first comes to mind is that an ambassador is a diplomat, living abroad in an embassy. Such a person has been asked by a government to go and live in a foreign country and be its representative. An ambassador is thus someone who has been sent to represent the government.

The text states that we are ambassadors for Christ. Just as an ambassador represents a government, we have been asked to represent the government of the Kingdom of God. And it is God who reigns in that Kingdom. Who do we then represent? We represent God.

Representing God? When that thought takes hold of us, we become both awestruck and afraid. And we are quick to respond by asking: How can I do this? What does it involve? Do I have to become a missionary? Must I leave my comfortable home, my job, my lifestyle? Go to a mission field? Me?

Those questions show how frightened we are to be sent out. That is quite understandable, but is it the right answer? Is that what God expects? I don’t think so.

How should we then reply? We could say that we give weekly or monthly to the mission work of the church. Or that we serve on the session or on a committee. That should count for something!

The scripture passage states that God has reconciled the world onto himself. Our gracious Lord has forgiven humankind. God was “not counting their trespasses against them.” Then the writer pleads with us to become reconciled to God.

But then what? Where does this lead to? Those questions lead us to a difficult part of our text, where it says that God … has given us the ministry of reconciliation; That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Entrusting the message of reconciliation to us? Yes, that message is entrusted to us. But what are we supposed to do with it?

It is entrusted to us, but it is not ours to keep or to hoard. We may not stockpile it. It ought to be shared. And in sharing we will become more and more like the people God wants us to be: kind, caring, compassionate, sympathetic, loving and concerned. God trusts us with that special ministry. What an honour, what a privilege!

God says to us: I trust you; I trust that you are willing and capable to share my grace and love with my world. We may agree with God that we are willing. But capable, that is something else. Of that we are not so sure.

In fact, we may not feel capable at all! We feel like trying to get out of this. Like saying: Please, God, don’t single me out, no, not me. But God does not give up on us. God knows we cannot do this alone. God promises to help us to carry out this ministry. We do not have to do this all by ourselves. In love and grace God sends the Holy Spirit to enable us to share message of reconciliation.

How do we go about it? Will it be difficult? Must one be a saint to do this?

I don’t think so. It is not too difficult. When we encounter other people while riding the bus, in the office, at school, when shopping, or going out for a walk, we should always realize that God sees them as human beings to be loved, to be valued, to be treasured and to be ministered to.

And so we must imitate God. We are to be mindful of our fellow human beings, regardless of nationality, race or colour. We must meet them in love and compassion. We become God-fearing people to whom the ministry of reconciliation has been entrusted. We humbly accept this position.

To be appointed as an ambassador is a great honour, graciously given to us by God. But how do we become humble? We find the answer to this question in the Old Testament, in the prophet Micah. He writes: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8b)

Walk then humbly with God! May the Holy Spirit work in our hearts, making us willing to reach out in loving kindness to all our neighbours, to those that are close by and to those that live far away! To those known to us as friends, but also to those known as enemies! Amen.

• Fri. May 13th at 11 a.m. - Prayer Group meets in the parlour. Everyone is welcome to join in this time of reflection on scripture and prayer for our own concerns and the needs of the church and the world.

• Sat. May 14th at 7:30 p.m. – Margaret Wilson (clarinet) and Gillian Lyons (piano) in Concert. This is the CD release recital for “Weber to Tango.” Tickets are $15 or $10 for students/seniors.

• Sun. May 15th at 11:00 a.m. – The Hildur Hermanson Women’s Missionary Society leads worship for “Mission Awareness Sunday.”

• Tues. May 17th at 7:30 p.m. - Helen Kashap piano recital.

• Fri. May 20th at 7:30 p.m. – Gustin House presents William Lewans (baritone) and Gregory Schulte (piano) in concert. Tickets are $25 or $20 for students. Pre-concert chat at 6:45 p.m.

• Fri. May 27th at 11:00 a.m. – Prayer Group meets in the parlour.

• Sun. May 29th following worship - Carol Kostiuk, Parish Nurse at Augustana Lutheran Church, will speak about her ministry for about 15 minutes. This will be followed by lunch, served by the Youth Group, and the Annual Program Meeting.

• Sun. June 5th at 11:00 a.m. – Church School Wind-Up and an Old-Fashioned Congregational Picnic following worship. Come to church in comfortable clothing. Lunch will be a pot luck picnic with BBQ hot dogs, ice cream and drinks provided. Games, singing, and fun for all ages!

• Fri. June 10th at 11:00 a.m. – Prayer Group meets in the parlour.

• Sun. June 12th at 11:00 a.m. – Pentecost Sunday with a celebration of Holy Communion.

• Fri. June 17th at 10:00 a.m. – The Presbytery of Northern Saskatchewan meets at Camp Christopher.

• Sat. June 18th – The Worship Committee hosts a Labyrinth Retreat Day in Meota.
• Sun. June 19th following worship – Congregational meeting for the election of new elders to St. Andrew’s Session, as well as consideration of the ministry description for a pastoral care nurse for St. Andrew’s

• Fri. June 24th at 11:00 a.m. – Prayer Group meets in the parlour.

• Sat. July 2nd, noon – 3 p.m. – Open House at Camp Christopher, including a BBQ and worship around 2 p.m.

• July 6 – 9 - The Prairie Centre for Ecumenism hosts the 2011 Summer Ecumenical Institute at Lutheran Theological Seminary. Theme: “From Dialogue to Common Mission.” For details and a registration form go to Ecumenism in Canada.

I have always appreciated Luke’s story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. It’s a story of disappointment turning into possibility, of sadness turning into hope, of loneliness turning into friendship, of confusion turning into understanding. It’s a story about an ending becoming a new beginning, of disciples who were wandering away returning with great hope and purpose.

An interesting point that has been noted in the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is that only one of them is named. The author of Luke’s Gospel tells us about two disciples “who were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.” One of them, we are told, was named Cleopas. The other is not named.

Now, it’s not that unusual in the Gospels to encounter characters that are not named. Yes, we meet many of Jesus’ disciples by name: Simon, Andrew, Matthew, John, and Mary Magdalene, just to name a few. But then we hear about others identified as “a blind man,” “a sinful woman,” or “the woman at the well.”

Some have pointed out that the women in the Gospels are disproportionately left unnamed. The classic example is the woman in Mark’s Gospel who anoints Jesus at Bethany. Some of those who were there scolded the unnamed woman for wasting such precious ointment. But Jesus thanked her and praised her for what she did. And he said, “Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” And still, we don’t know what her name was.

And so it has been suggested that the other disciple on the road to Emmaus might have been a woman. Maybe it was Cleopas and Mrs. Cleopas, on their way back home to Emmaus after the disappointment of Jesus’ arrest and execution. And as they walked along they were talking and discussing with each other, as couples often do, the strange, upsetting, and confusing events of their visit to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival.

I like the idea that the other disciple might have been a woman because I like to think that in the early days of Christianity, men and women were exploring and discovering an emerging faith in the risen Christ together. Jesus appeared to some women in the garden, and the men didn’t believe them. Jesus appeared to the men in a locked room, and they started to believe. And Jesus appeared to a couple on the road to Emmaus, and they were so happy and excited that they walked the whole seven miles back to Jerusalem to share the news with their friends.

But someone else has suggested that one of the disciples on the road may not be named for another reason – not because the author couldn’t remember what the guy was called, and not because a woman’s name wasn’t deemed to be very important. But there is the idea that the unnamed disciple can leave the readers free to use our own imaginations.

Could the Gospel writer be inviting us to place ourselves into the story?… to imagine ourselves on the road with Cleopas, at the end of the disastrous week in Jerusalem, walking away in confusion and disappointment, and wondering what to do next?

Most of us know what it feels like to have a disastrous week. And so imagining ourselves on the road to Emmaus, perhaps we can picture what our reaction would have been like.

Some of us would have been angrily ranting about the injustice of Jesus’ arrest and the arbitrary release of Barrabas instead of our friend Jesus. We would have been complaining about the torturous method of execution that the Romans used, and arguing that there was really no evidence of Jesus having done anything to warrant execution in the first place.

Others of us would have been responding more quietly. Instead of anger, we would have simply felt overwhelmed by sadness and disappointment. We thought Jesus was going to be our Saviour, and we must have been wrong… ‘cause now he’s dead and his movement is over. We feel stupid, and embarrassed, and just sad.

Still others of us would have been just torn up inside about what happened. We would keep replaying the events of the week in our minds, trying to imagine what we could have done to prevent such a terrible outcome. What could we have said or done to save Jesus from that horrible death? Could we have convinced him to run? Could we have done something to help him? We would be wracked with guilt and regret and despair.

As the disciples walked along the road that day, they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened. And as they talked and discussed, Jesus himself came near and went with them. It would be convenient if whenever Jesus came near to us, he would just LOOK LIKE JESUS, but that’s not the way Jesus works… at least not the risen Christ.

They walked along, talking and discussing, and Jesus walked with them, but they didn’t recognize him. He asked them what they were discussing, and they told him about their experience in Jerusalem. Together, they discussed the scriptures, the law and the prophets, and he reminded them about the Messiah that they were expecting God to send.

And though they didn’t even realize it at first, the disciples were being transformed. They were being converted. They were coming to a new understanding of God and Christ, and their own identity as children of God and disciples of Christ.

And I’m wondering… If today’s Gospel text invites us to place ourselves within the story… to imagine ourselves as disciples on the road with Jesus… Then we must ask ourselves, “Are we walking through life and faith as if we know all the answers already? Or can we open our minds and our hearts to hear and to understand new ideas or new perspectives?”

When in our lives do we take the time to study the scriptures, to read some theology, to talk and discuss our faith – including our questions and our doubts – with our friends, with fellow believers, or even with the strangers that we may encounter along the way? If we are to be transformed – to be converted – it will only happen if we are open to those conversations – if we are open to listen, to learn, and even to change to a new direction.

But the theological discussion on the road was not the whole of the encounter with Jesus that day. Perhaps if the story had ended there, the story might never have been told… Because it wasn’t until the disciples were sitting at the dinner table with the stranger that they suddenly recognized that Christ was present with them.

Without knowing that it was Jesus, they had invited the stranger to stay with them in Emmaus – to rest and to share a meal. That kind of hospitality would not have been exceptional. It was a normal part of the culture to welcome and feed a traveller on their way through town. And as disciples of Jesus, these two had likely been on the receiving end of this hospitable practice more times than they could count.

But as they sat down with the stranger, and he blessed and broke the bread, they remembered Jesus and the many meals they had shared with him. Perhaps the memory of his words came flooding back: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup… Do this in remembrance of me… This is my body, which is given for you.”

And the story says that suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized him. It seems odd to think that if the stranger looked at all like Jesus that they wouldn’t have noticed until then. But maybe he didn’t look like Jesus. He just looked like a stranger. But in the welcoming, the blessing, the sharing and remembering, Jesus’ disciples could suddenly see that Christ was truly present with them. He’d been with them in their grieving and their grappling, and he was with them as they shared bread together, just as he had been so many times before.

Imagining ourselves within the story, we are invited to look for Christ’s presence within the ordinary encounters of our lives. When we welcome a stranger, when we share food with someone who is hungry, or when we allow someone to care for us when we need it, Christ is with us. And when we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion, it is so much more than simply a memorial for one who died for us. But it is a holy meal hosted by one who was raised from death and is present with us here and now. Perhaps in that sharing our eyes will be opened too, and we will recognize him.

As the story continues, it becomes clear that the lives of these two disciples have been radically turned around by their encounter with the risen Christ on the road and at the table. It has been good to study and discuss, and to understand more fully. It has been a blessing to share food together, and to experience Christ’s presence. But Cleopas and the other disciple do not linger there… reflecting some more, discussing and sharing. Instead, they get up and go! “That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem… [and] they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

Getting up and going… going out and telling… that may be the most difficult part of the story in which to imagine ourselves. We don’t think of ourselves as evangelicals, even if the word “evangelical” just means “sharing the good news about Jesus Christ.” It may seem daunting to think that you might have to explain your faith to someone else – to put your experience of the risen Christ into words. But we are, indeed, called to do that.

But I think that the three steps in the story are in that order for a reason… First – scripture study, discussion, and conversion to faith in Christ, Second – experience of the risen Christ, in worship and in our daily lives, Third – witness to the risen Christ.

If you haven’t done the first and second step (or at least begun to do them) then no, you’re probably not ready to do the third one. If it scares you half to death to think about putting your faith into words, it could be because you first need to do some exploring and studying and reflecting on Christ and your own faith. But even the most theologically-educated, even the most spiritually-mature Christian, may still feel a little apprehensive about going out and sharing the Gospel.

But I think it’s interesting that BEFORE Jesus’ disciples started preaching the Gospel far and wide, they got together and told each other about the experiences they were having of the risen Christ. They began by sharing their faith within the community of believers. They noticed how similar all their stories were sounding. And eventually, Jesus sent them to go out and tell the world the good news. So maybe that’s where we need to start… just by witnessing to each other, just by telling each other what we understand and what we have experienced.

This morning I want to invite you to make a new commitment on your journey as a disciple. But it’s up to you to decide what that commitment will be. During the hymn, I’m going to pass around some baskets of yarn. And I want you to take a piece of yarn to remind you of the commitment that you are making today.

Take a piece of blue yarn if you want to open your mind and heart to learn and grow in your faith and understanding of Christ. (Think of blue as committing yourself to be as open as the blue sky is wide.) Maybe you will study the bible more, or read some theological material. Maybe you will take a class, join in a study, or engage in a conversation about faith. Take a piece of blue yarn if you want to commit to opening your mind and your heart to conversion.

Take a piece of red yarn if you want to commit yourself to offering hospitality. (Think of red as opening your heart and your life to a stranger.) And open your heart to the presence of Christ in those with whom you will share. Take a piece of red yarn if you want to commit to offering hospitality.

Take a piece of white yarn if you want to commit yourself to witnessing to the risen Christ with another believer. (Think of white as the colour of new life and resurrection from the dead.) Take a piece of white yarn if you want to commit to sharing your experience of the risen Christ in your life.

Invitation to Commitment:
So come and follow Jesus,
you who have committed yourselves already,
and you who would like to do so for the first time;
you who have given yourselves to the care of creation
and to the suffering ones of the world,
and you who feel moved by the Spirit
to begin to offer yourselves;
you who have been faithful in your life commitments
and you who have failed.
Come, for our Lord invites us to follow him,
and to make new beginnings in our lives. Amen.

Come and enjoy great company, pick up some delicious home baking, and for just $3.50 you will get a scrumptious dessert and coffee or tea. Also check out the Youth Table at the Tea. One person’s trash may be your treasure!

There are stories that get told every year at Knox College (where I went to seminary) about the ghosts that have been seen over the years in the academic wing of the building. People have spotted them numerous times in the chapel, in the classrooms, and especially in the library. One student, who studied at Knox a couple of years before I did, described in great detail the appearance of a ghost who seemed to walk right through her as she stood in the hallway late one night.

According to the stories, library staff have often noted one particular chair which is always pulled out when they arrive in the morning, and a series of books that mysteriously find their way back to that desk. Some say that the ghost must be a doctoral student who died before completing his thesis.

As compelling as some of these stories may be, especially when told with dramatic detail and suspense, when I heard them, I was sceptical. I just don’t believe in ghosts. They don’t fit in with my understanding of the world. People are either alive or they’re dead. And as much as I believe in eternal life, I don’t think it involves disembodied people floating around old buildings or trying to finish uncompleted dissertations.

The Easter story – the story of Jesus’ resurrection – his rising from the dead – is similarly unbelievable. It was Sunday night, the same day that Mary Magdalene said she saw Jesus alive and outside the tomb. The disciples were understandably freaked out. Their leader had been horribly killed, they had deserted him, and now Mary was claiming that he wasn’t dead anymore!

Gathering inside a house, they locked all the doors, and probably worried about what to do next. But suddenly, Jesus stood among them. He appeared out of nowhere, and appropriately greeted the shaking disciples with the words… “Peace be with you.”

If I wasn’t a Christian and hadn’t heard this story before, I would have plenty of possible explanations for Jesus’ sudden appearance… It was a magic trick… a hologram… a hallucination… some kind of special effect. Perhaps I might say that the disciples must have been hysterical or dillusional.

Anyway, I wouldn’t believe it. And that’s why it seems harsh to me for us to call the disciple who wasn’t there to witness Jesus’ first appearance “Doubting Thomas”. After all, wouldn’t I have doubted too if I had been in his place? Wouldn’t I have asked to see and touch for myself before I would consent to believe in such a ludicrous tale? If I wouldn’t believe in the studious ghost of the Knox College library, why would I believe in this Jesus raised from death?

And so Thomas would not believe it. When his friends said “We have seen the Lord.” Thomas replied: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

This guy wanted real proof. He wanted to see and touch and be sure of the reality of the physical Jesus before he could be convinced. And Jesus doesn’t disappoint him. It’s only a week later when Jesus appears again. He does a repeat performance, and this time, it seems that he’s come just for the sake of Thomas.

Once again, he stands among the gathered disciples and says: “Peace be with you.” And then the rest of the conversation is between Jesus and Thomas: Jesus says: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

Thomas wanted proof, and Jesus gave him proof. Or at least, Thomas wanted to see for himself, and Jesus came back again to invite Thomas to see, and to touch, and to experience the presence of the risen Lord for himself.

As much as the story of Jesus appearing in the upper room for Thomas is a great story all on its own, whenever we read the stories of the Gospels, we must take note of the context in which we find them. Each of the Gospels is somewhat different from the others. Put together within its own early Christian community, and written for its own unique purpose.

The Gospel of John, the only one of the Gospels that contains this story of Jesus with Thomas, has its own particular focus. The author of the book put together his collection of Jesus stories and sayings for a particular audience and a particular purpose, and it shows. In the final verses of the chapter we read today, the author even tells us what that purpose is: “So that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

The Gospel of John is a collection of stories, signs, and wonders, put together so that its readers might come to believe in Jesus the Christ. All through the Gospel, we have stories of people struggling to understand who Jesus is, and Jesus trying to show them that he is God’s son. It’s all about a movement from doubt to faith, from scepticism to belief in Jesus the Messiah.

What convinces them? What moves them from their scepticism? What makes them think that this Jesus is not just a crazy travelling preacher who thinks he’s God’s son? What makes them start actually believing that Jesus really is that special – that Jesus really is from God?

Well, in the Gospel of John we read that…. Nathaniel believed because Jesus knew his name without asking. The disciples first believed because Jesus turned water into wine. The woman at the well believed because Jesus told her everything she’d ever done. A royal offical in Cana (& all his family) believed because Jesus healed his son. In chapter 7, we read that… many people in the crowds believed because of the signs that Jesus did. A man born blind was healed by Jesus, and when the Pharisees questioned him about it, he too was convinced that Jesus must be from God. The crowd standing around Lazarus’ tomb believed because they saw Jesus raise him from the dead. And now, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, and the other disciples believe when they see the risen Jesus standing in their midst, when they hear his words of peace, when they receive the Holy Spirit from him.

The author of the Gospel of John wrote all these Jesus stories down so that those who read them might believe. Is it convincing? Are you convinced by what you read in John’s Gospel? They are great stories. But you know, I’ve read too many stories and watched too much T.V. to be convinced by stories alone. Who’s to say that they’re true stories? There’s nothing to make me sure that they’re authentic any more than I might be inclined to believe the ghost stories.

But I stand before you today as one who believes in the truth of the stories of the bible — as one who believes that Jesus was and is the Son of God — the one sent into the world from God — the one who was killed by his own people, but didn’t stay dead! I believe that God raised Jesus up to a new kind of life – an eternal life with God. And I believe that this Jesus gives us the promise and the hope of joining him in that eternal life when we die. I believe it — and so do many of you. Why are we convinced?

Well, when Thomas missed Jesus’ appearance, he said that “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” He needed to see and experience the risen Jesus for himself. Only then would he believe. Jesus gave him the experience he needed so that he could believe, and Jesus will do the same for us.

I’m going to tell you some reasons why I believe in Jesus. As I do, I want you to consider why you believe, why you are leaning towards believing, why you are thinking about the possibility of believing… I believe in Jesus because I’ve seen communities of people drawn together in his name to worship and work and serve together. I believe in Jesus because through him, I have experienced forgiveness for my failings, strength for my endeavors, and hope for my future. I believe in Jesus because I’ve watched relationships being reconciled, people giving their time and money and effort to help others, and people reaching out to each other in times of crisis.

Why do you believe in Jesus? I invite you to take a moment to consider that question.

I believe in Jesus because I have seen and experienced Christ standing among us, just as he stood among the disciples that Easter week. He doesn’t look like a ghost. And he doesn’t look like any picture of Jesus that I can remember. Sometimes he looks like an elder serving Communion. Sometimes he looks like a new friend with open arms offering a hug of welcome. Sometimes he looks like young person, asking honest questions and challenging the status quo. Sometimes he looks like an older person reflecting on years of experience and pointing in a wise direction. Sometimes he looks like a person in need, drawing attention away from our selfish agendas and forcing us to look and to see him. Sometimes he looks like a congregation worshipping, and serving, learning and growing, and supporting one another as they seek to live out Christ’s mission in their community.

You, like me, may not be convinced by ghost stories, but like Thomas, you can ask to see for yourself. When Thomas wouldn’t believe, Jesus came back especially for him. Jesus did a repeat performance so that Thomas could see and experience the risen Lord – so that Thomas could believe. Jesus will do the same for each one of us.

So look, because you will see Christ. Then, when you have seen, go where Jesus sends you in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and show Jesus to those who have not yet seen. Amen.

1. Weber to Tango: CD Release Recital
   Margaret Wilson, Clarinet
   Gillian Lyons on the Piano 

   Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
   Adults $15, Students/Seniors $10
   Reception to Follow

   To purchase the CD Weber to Tango, follow this link.

2. Gustin House Presents:
   William Lewans, Baritone
   Gregory Schulte, Piano 

   Friday, May 20, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
   Adults $25, Students $20
   Pre-concert chat at 6:45 p.m.

On the website of the Presbyterian Church in Canada you will find several election guides that may assist you as you study the issues and consider the options. They also provide some helpful questions that you may want to put to your candidates, particularly related to the issues of poverty and justice.

Matthew 21:1-11
Philippians 2:5-11

I was thinking a lot about the federal election as I was preparing my sermon for this morning. I was thinking about the political rallies and the crowds of people waving signs and hoping to catch a glimpse of, or shake hands with their favourite leader. Not that Canadian politics has any really charismatic leaders like Obama once was in the United States. I’m not sure what’s worse… to get really excited about a leader and then to turn against him when he doesn’t manage to satisfy all your desires, or to just not get excited about anyone at all.

On Palm Sunday, we are invited to join with the cheering crowds who greeted Jesus as he entered the city of Jerusalem so many years ago. They must have heard some great things about the prophetic new leader, and they were pinning their hopes on him to lead them out of oppression, poverty, and despair.

But as we wave our palm branches today, what are we thinking? We know what happens next for Jesus – how his popularity suddenly drops in the polls. Some were likely disappointed that he didn’t take the city by force. He chose a donkey instead of a steed, and so even with the support of the crowds, a military take-over was not on his agenda.

Others might have hoped that he would at least fight for some reforms in the religious systems of the day. He preached against the hypocrisy of following the letter of the law and ignoring the needs and concerns of the people. He confronted the religious leaders and their corruption. And when he drove the money-changers out of the temple, some of his supporters must have thought that he was about to do something really big!

But all the while, the rumours and the lies were spreading. He was dangerous. He was blasphemous. He was doing the work of the devil, opposing those who were in power. He was breaking the rules, and he must be stopped.

Most of those who had betted on him to be a winner lost interest when he seemed to have no success. Others turned their anger and disappointment against him and joined in the new chorus of insults that had begun.

And though Jesus must have known where this turn of events was leading him, he didn’t run or hide, and he didn’t even fight for himself. He didn’t try to change his message to something that would be more popular with the people or with the leaders. He was who he was to the end. And I, for one, believe that he was the very presence of God with us in the world.

The apostle Paul uses the poetic words of what might have been an early Christian hymn to express what Christ did for us in the world:
Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on a cross.

Unlike so many in our world today, Jesus was not grasping for power. Not only did he willingly let go of the popularity that he seemed to have won as he entered the city of Jerusalem… but as Paul suggests, his very coming into the world to share our humanity demonstrates his willingness to let go of power.

Christ was with God. Christ was God. And he emptied himself. He humbled himself, and was born as one of us.

And Christ didn’t come down to our level so that he could rule over us. Even as a human person, he wasn’t grasping at power and prestige. Instead he came to serve, and to teach, and to show us what God is like… to show us what we can be like as God’s children, as people who are created in the image and likeness of God.

Taken out of its context in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, this poetic hymn sounds a lot like an early Christian creed. It’s a Christological creed. It declares what Paul and his Christian friends believed about Jesus the Christ… That he was God, that he humbled himself and was born as one of us, that he was rejected by people, but God raised him up to live and reign in heaven with God…

But I don’t think Paul wrote the hymn into his letter to the Philippians just to make sure that they knew what to believe about Jesus. Paul may have thought that believing the right things was important, but he also knew that doing the right things was critically important.

Chapter two of the letter begins with Paul encouraging the Christians at Philippi to live together in humility and love. He writes:
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

He might as well have told them to pause in each and every situation and to ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” He wrote, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus didn’t grasp at power. He emptied himself. He humbled himself. He became a servant, and lived and died for the sake of others. That is the model for living that we must follow as well. In stark contrast to the modern spirit of encouraging competition and giving rewards to individuals who get to the top, Paul insists on mutual concern and service.

Paul’s words are a terrible indictment of the lives and attitudes of many who have called themselves “Christian.” How many of us have really taken the self-giving Christ as a model for Christian behaviour? How many have been more concerned with airing our own opinions than with coming to a common mind with others? How many church leaders have seen their own role in terms of position and power, and have forgotten that true honour comes to those who “make themselves nothing”? How many have been prepared to take on the role of a slave?

As a church, we may enjoy the beautiful poetry of the passage about Christ and his self-giving love for us. But we cannot ignore its implications for our lives. We cannot detach theology from ethics, God’s gracious act from the divine demand that follows.

If we keep on reading in Paul’s letter… if we do not stop at the end of the hymn, we will not miss Paul’s conclusion. We must take the example of Christ to heart and start living like him in the world. We must “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

It’s easier said than done though, isn’t it? And so often in Paul’s letters, the instructions about how we should live and show our obedience are general and imprecise. We are told to live “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,” and we sometimes wish that he could have been more specific.

But Christian obedience does not mean living in accordance with a set of rules; rather, it means responding in the appropriate way to the self-giving love of God. The vision that Paul provides us with is, in fact, far more valuable than any set of rules would be.

Christians in the modern world are faced with innumerable ethical dilemmas, which multiply each year with advances in science and medicine. We cannot expect ready-made answers to these modern-day questions in the Bible! But Paul always went back to first principles.

He says, “This is the gospel. This is what God is like. This is what God has done for you, and this is what God expects you to be like. Work out what that means for yourselves!”

So we need to go back to first principles too: What is the Christlike thing for us as a Christian community, for us as individual Christians, to be doing? How do we respond, in obedience, to what God has done?

The answers to these questions are not necessarily easy. In any particular ethical dilemma, we may well find Christians sincerely supporting opposite viewpoints.

If someone is apparently in an irreversible coma, is it more “worthy of the gospel” to preserve life by continuing treatment or to allow the patient to die?

When a tyrant like Hitler arises, is it right to resort to war in order to put a stop to his atrocities?

What is the Christlike approach to using fetal tissue in medical research, in order to prevent disease?

How does one balance the advantages and disadvantages to societies and environment when “development” seems to clash with “conservation”?

After careful study, consideration, and prayer, Christian communities may come to conclusions about some of the complex issues of our time. But we do not tell people how they should vote. Even if Christians could come to agreement on all the issues, there would still not be one party that could fulfill all our priorities and concerns.

But whether we are grappling with particular issues or deciding how to vote in the upcoming election, what may be most important is that we approach all such problems in humility – not thinking that we know all the answers.

Let us not make our decisions or cast our votes out of selfish self-interest. But let us do so in love, looking to the interests of others, and not seeking to exploit what we consider to be our rights.

Paul does not give us precise guidelines about what to do in particular situations, but he has given us a very significant hint. The basis for all our actions is our life in Christ.

As we wave our palm branches and raise our voices to praise Jesus today, let us do so, not because we are sure that he will become the winner and do something great for us. But let us do so because he is our Lord and we are ready to follow his way. The humble, self-giving, suffering way of Jesus is the way that we have chosen. May the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, and may God’s kingdom come. Amen.

It is the fifth Sunday in Lent. We are still two weeks away from Easter Sunday and the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. But today we have heard a couple of wonderful scripture texts that point towards the joy of the resurrection. They proclaim the power and love of God to bring hope where there is despair, to bring joy where there is sadness and grief, to bring life where there is death.

The prophet Ezekiel uses the striking image of a valley full of dry bones. And he tells about how God will raise them up, and put them back together, cover them with flesh and skin, and fill them with breath so that God’s people will live again.

The author of John’s Gospel tells the amazing story of the raising of Lazarus. This friend of Jesus had been dead for four days. He was already in the tomb. His family were grieving. But Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out. He was still wrapped in his grave clothes, but he was alive again!

And the Apostle Paul reminds the Roman Christians, and he reminds us also, that as God’s people we have the gift of the Spirit within us. The Spirit of God that lives within us is the same Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead. And so we can trust and believe that God’s Spirit will give us life also… abundant life today, and life everlasting.

For those of us who know these biblical stories so well, it’s easy for us to jump to the end of the stories and the celebration of life and joy winning out over death and despair. We know that the bones will come back together and rise up and live again. We know that when Jesus calls, Lazarus will indeed come out and he will live again. But today is not yet Easter. We’re still in the season of Lent. And though we may know what is coming, we are invited in this time to wait for a while in the earlier part of the stories. We are asked to hold back our rejoicing, to refrain from singing “hallelujah,” and to be in the desert place that was a part of Jesus’ journey.

And so I invite you to consider the vision of Ezekiel: “The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.” God asked the prophet, “Can these bones live?” And Ezekiel must have been thinking, “Um… I don’t think so.” But he said, “O Lord GOD, you know.” I guess God had surprised him before.

As the text later makes it clear, the bones represent the whole house of Israel. They are all of God’s people who are as good as dead. You see, Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians. Jerusalem had been destroyed. And God’s people had been sent into exile.

They’d been there for a long time now, and most of them had given up any hope of returning to their land. They’d concluded that God had abandoned them, and they’d turned to other gods, and other ways, and they’d blended in with the other people in Babylon. They had ceased to be the people of God.

Ezekiel describes their utter despair and hopelessness by saying that they have become like a pile of dry, dry bones in a deserted valley. They are dead. They are long dead and without any hope. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”

I hope that you have never felt quite like the Israelites did during that difficult time in exile, but I imagine that most of you have felt like that at one time or another in your life. And it’s likely that most of us will feel like that again at some point in the future. For some, bouts of clinical depression are part of the reality of life. But even for those with good mental health, there are times when the troubles and trials of our lives can become overwhelming…

When our plans and hopes don’t seem to work out right…

When we get tired of working so hard and never seeing the results we hope for… When the daily grind seems to have no meaning for us anymore…

When illness or injury makes every day more difficult for us, even basic activities becoming exhausting…

When we experience breakdowns in relationships and we don’t know how to fix them…

When our families or friends are in trouble, and we feel powerless to do anything to help…

When we get frustrated with the politics and power struggles in our society, and our workplaces and communities…

The valley of the dry bones is not an unfamiliar place to most of us. We’ve been there before. And we’ve stood in the middle of the valley too… kicking at the dusty bones in frustration… shaking our fists at the stale air in anger… letting the tears roll down our faces in despair. And in those moments, those hours, or those days, we have not been able to imagine the bones rattling and coming together. Our bones were dried up, and our hope was lost. We were cut off completely.

Or perhaps like Martha or Mary, your most difficult time has come with the loss of someone that you deeply loved. And just as the sisters of Lazarus sent a message to Jesus asking him to come and help them, you sent up many prayers to God for healing and help as well. And then you waited, as they did. And you said goodbye, as they must have done. And then you mourned.

Like Martha, your faith may have given you strength and hope through that difficult time. Like her, you may have told yourself or even others, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” But like Mary, you may have also thought or even said to God, “Lord, if you had been here, my loved one would not have died.”

Unlike the Gospel story though, Jesus did not show up four or five days after you called for him, and proceed to bring your loved one back from death. As difficult as that wait must have been for Lazarus’ family, we often have to wait much longer. And the new life that we most often experience is not our loved ones back with us again, but rather the slow process of healing and hope and purpose that begins to grow within us when we start to come to terms with our loss.

The words of the anthem that the choir sang this morning are appropriate. God says to us, “Come unto me and wait, for my time is not your time.” These are difficult words to accept in the midst of the desert places of our lives. At least, the “wait” part is difficult to accept. In the fast-paced rush of the world and our busy lives, waiting is not something that we’re very good at or very willing to accept. We hate waiting in lines. We avoid waiting in traffic. We get annoyed when we have to wait for each other. And so when God asks us to wait, we wonder if God is with us at all, or if God must be busy paying attention to someone else.

But during this season of Lent, I wonder if we can focus on the first part of the line in the anthem: “Come unto me.” Because that’s where we are invited to wait… not on our own, not abandoned by God, not alone. God invites us to come into God’s very presence… to be still and know that he is God, that God is with us, that God’s Spirit lives within us, and around us, and between us.

And God promises, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” God promises, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice!
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

In the presence of God, with the Spirit of God within us, and around us, and between us, let us keep a time of silence together. Let us wait for the Lord.

Just before we hear the Gospel reading, I want to say a few things. During the season of Lent in year A, we get a series of long stories from John’s Gospel, and today’s Gospel story about the healing of a blind man from John 9 is no exception.

All of the Gospels have stories about Jesus healing people who are blind. But if we were reading a healing story from Mark’s Gospel it would be much shorter! The Gospel writer would tell us that someone was blind. Jesus would do something simple to help. The person would be healed. And everyone would rejoice and praise God. There might be a few Pharisees around who would grumble about it a little bit, especially if it happened to be the Sabbath day. But that would be the story.

John’s Gospel is different though. When the author of John’s Gospel tells a story about healing a blind man, it’s about much more than just healing a blind man. It’s almost like John’s stories are parables. They’re not parables really, because parables are made up stories that are told to make a specific point. On the surface a parable is about one thing, but it has a deeper level of meaning too, and that’s the point of the story.

John’s stories are about things that Jesus actually did in his ministry. But they’re told in such a way that, if you listen carefully, you’ll notice that they have a deeper meaning too. Today’s story is about Jesus healing a blind man, but it’s also about something else. Let’s listen carefully for that something else this morning.

John 9:1-41

Sermon:

That was a pretty complicated healing story, wasn’t it? There is a man who was born blind. And Jesus’ disciples ask him a theological question about the blind man. They ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Can you believe that they ask that question? It seems shocking to us today. But the idea that when something bad happens to you that it must be because you have done something wrong was not unusual, and it’s probably not that unusual today either. If there’s something wrong with you, God must be punishing you. Or if it’s something genetic that you were born with, maybe God is punishing your parents for something they did wrong.

That’s what the disciples are wondering. Who did something wrong? The blind man or his parents? But Jesus breaks their assumptions and tells them, “No one sinned. Neither the man nor his parents have done anything to deserve being struck with blindness.” Or I could imagine Jesus saying, “Come on, everyone sinned! Everyone makes mistakes. This man and his parents aren’t perfect either. But that has nothing to do with this man being born blind! In fact, this particular man was born blind so that God’s works could be revealed in him.”

And Jesus proceeds not only to heal the man of his blindness, but to use this event to show God’s power and God’s love to many others. It was a simple and straightforward healing. First the man was blind. Then Jesus spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread it on the man’s eyes. Jesus told the man to wash, and he came back able to see. Once he was blind, but now he could see.

But instead of celebrating – the usual response to a healing in the Gospels – everyone was confused and upset and worried about how it was done. The neighbours wanted to know how it was done and “where was the man who did it?” The Pharisees wanted to know how it was done, and they were upset that someone had done it on the Sabbath day. They called the man’s parents and questioned them about it. All they could say was “Yes, this is our son. He was born blind.” They didn’t know how the healing took place. They told the Pharisees to ask the man himself.

So they did. They called the man again, and they tried to get him to say that Jesus must be a sinner because he did this thing on the Sabbath day. But the man said, “I don’t know if he’s a sinner. All I know is that though I was blind, now I see.” And the Pharisees just pestered him some more, asking him again how Jesus did this thing. And when the man finally says that Jesus must be from God, they drive him out.

At the end of the story, there is a final encounter between Jesus and the healed man. And though the man still does not understand exactly what has happened, he knows that once he was blind, and now he sees. He knows that Jesus is responsible for the healing. And he believes that Jesus is from God.

And Jesus finally says, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Although the story is about the healing of a blind man, I think on a deeper level, it’s about healing our spiritual blindness. Although the story is about opening the eyes of a man who cannot physically see the world. I think on a deeper level, it’s about opening our eyes to see God in Jesus Christ, to understand who we are in relationship to God, and to have our lives transformed by that relationship. I think the story is about conversion.

Conversion isn’t a word that I use all that often. Maybe if I had become a Christian later in life, I would talk about being converted. But I grew up in the church. And although I can identify some key moments in my faith life and commitment, I can’t identify a single moment of conversion and tell you exactly what happened.

Like the preacher John Wesley who described the feeling of his heart being “strangely warmed,” I can tell you about the day of my baptism when I felt absolutely surrounded and upheld by the love of God in my church community. Like the first disciples who dropped their nets to follow Jesus on the road, I can tell you about the day that I became sure that I was being called to ministry. I didn’t feel ready or equipped, but I felt called and I was ready to go.

When I think about it, I can’t even trace the key moments in my development of faith. I can’t remember the sermons that made a difference in my understanding of God. I can’t recall which songs I was singing or which scripture passages I was studying when I recommitted my heart and my life to serving God so many times over the years. And I certainly can’t repeat the many conversations I had with people of faith and with people with doubts… the debates, the earnest discussions, and the prayers that were shared.

Like the man who was formerly blind, I can’t explain to you how it happened. But I can tell you that Jesus was there. He was there through it all. And I once was blind, and now I see.

Consider the Gospel story that we just heard. And tell me… when was the man born blind converted to the way of Jesus? Was it when Jesus touched him and put mud on his eyes? Was it when he opened his eyes and found that he could see? Was it when he was talking to the Pharisees and found himself saying, “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Was it during that final conversation with Jesus when the man responded, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him?

Think about your own moment of conversion… or perhaps many moments of conversion throughout your life of faith… And think about what difference your faith makes in your life. You once were blind, but now you see. How is your life changed because of your relationship with Jesus? Give thanks for that change, for that transformation, whether you can remember one key moment of conversion, or whether your growth in faith has been a gradual process over many years.

But I don’t want us to make the same mistake that the Pharisees always seem to make. They keep thinking that they have everything about God all figured out. They keep thinking that they can see perfectly already, and so they aren’t looking for opportunities to have their own eyes opened.

I’m reminded of a minister that I once knew when I was growing up. He was a wonderful minister. Thoughtful, kind, and caring. But he was finished learning. Although Presbyterian churches provide time and money for clergy to do continuing education every year, he had no use for taking courses. He said that he learned what he needed to know in seminary, and he was finished. It made me wonder how great a minister he could have been if he had been open to learning even more.

Continuing education is something I don’t have a problem with. I’m very excited about the time I can get to read, and study, and attend conferences and lectures. I’m signed up to go to the “Festival of Homiletics” – a major preaching conference in Minneapolis next month. And I’m happy to learn from the masters, and hopefully improve my preaching.

What is more difficult than learning new ideas or skills is learning the humility to admit that you can’t do everything well, that you made a mistake, that you missed something important, that you made a wrong decision. Because unless you and I can humble ourselves enough to let God lead us in new ways… Unless you and I will open our eyes to see the new things that God is showing us, then we might as well be blind.

Yesterday we had a very good gathering here at the church. We were a small group of 15 members, and we were talking, discussing, thinking, and praying about what God is calling us to do to grow the health and effectiveness of our congregation. We shared some excellent ideas, and some good suggestions. Some of the good suggestions shared will be forwarded to the committees and the Board so that they can be implemented as part of the regular work of those groups. And a couple of excellent ideas you’ll be hearing more about in the next few months. We decided that it will be fun and fruitful to work on developing some Major Community Sundays in our church. And we decided that it will be fun and fruitful to discern and develop the spiritual gifts of our congregation members.

I won’t get into any more detail than that today, but you can expect to hear more from this group, and there will be more opportunities down the road for you to get involved in putting these ideas into action. But I think the best thing about what we did yesterday was that there was a Spirit of openness to excellent ideas and good suggestions. We listened to each other. We expected God to speak through those with whom we gathered. We opened our eyes to see something new, to see something good… and we did.

This morning’s Gospel story reminds me that conversion is a process. Faith is a journey, and we’re on the journey together. So if we’re willing to listen to one another and be patient with one another, we can help each other to see new possibilities, to embrace new ideas, and to journey on with new hope and courage.

Wherever we’re at right now is not the end point of our faith or understanding of God and God’s will for us. There will always be more to learn, more to understand, more to enact in the world… And so we have a wonderful reason to hope, because God is not finished with us yet. Let’s open our eyes, because there are more wonders yet to behold! Amen.

Did you know that Tuesday, March 22^nd was the international World Water Day? I didn’t know that it was until yesterday when the day had already passed. But marking World Water Day a few days late is probably better than not marking it at all. The purpose of the day is simple – to raise awareness about the achievements made and the challenges faced in ensuring people around the world have access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

I hate to admit it, but I went down to Regina on Friday afternoon with our Synod Youth group, and I complained about the tap water. I’m not the kind of person who ever bothers with bottled water. Tap water is fine. But I suddenly realized that I’d become accustomed to some pretty fine tasting tap water here in Saskatoon. Just brushing my teeth with the Regina water was unappealing, let alone actually drinking it. And that is good, fresh, treated water that is perfectly safe to drink. Even the people of Regina have it pretty good!

Clean water is essential to life, yet over a billion people around the world still do not have adequate or sustainable access to safe water or proper sanitation facilities. A lack of sanitation and clean drinking water leads to serious health problems such as cholera, diarrhea, scabies and malaria. In many developing countries, women and children are responsible for collecting water from wells or streams that are far away and may not be clean. Children often miss school because they are collecting water or are ill from drinking unsafe water. Large cities and slum areas struggle to provide appropriate infrastructure that keeps pace with the growth of urban populations.

Our Canadian Presbyterian development agency, PWS&D, works with overseas partners to provide clean water, improved sanitation facilities and hygiene education in schools, churches and communities around the world. People are living healthier lives through programs that construct wells and rainwater tanks closer to homes, repair broken water taps, install latrines and teach families about proper hygiene practices. These are all good things, and we can be proud of the contributions that we make to these programs through our church. But at the same time, there are many people right here in Canada that don’t have access to enough clean water.

I read an article the other day about thousands of Manitobans living on northern reserves that were hoping that the federal budget presented earlier this week would come through with money to bring clean water to more of their homes. In late January, a review of water systems on more than 600 Canadian reserves was completed and will likely help to draw attention to this issue. But one article suggested that some of those living on reserves survive on less clean water per day than is provided in refugee camps in war-torn nations. Most have to cart buckets of water from pumps, but several reserves can’t produce enough clean water from their treatment plants to meet demand. It is a public-health nightmare, with residents reporting higher rates of infectious diseases due to overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions.

The United Nations recently declared access to clean drinking water a basic human right. But Canadian diplomats didn’t support that resolution. A few years ago, we all heard about the E. Coli found in the water supply of the Cree living in the Kashechewan First Nation along James Bay. That situation was bad enough that much of the population was evacuated from the community for treatment of ailments caused by the water. But five years later, there are still 117 First Nations under drinking water advisories.

Now, I suppose that you probably didn’t come to church this morning expecting to hear so much about water. Perhaps if this Sunday was planned for a special focus on the work of PWS&D, you wouldn’t be surprised by a bunch of talk about access to clean water. But on a regular Sunday you likely expected to hear a message that’s a little more “spiritual.”

But the thing about God that religious people may be most inclined to forget is that, for God, the physical is spiritual… and the spiritual is physical. Remember, this is the God who began with the divine Spirit brooding over the soupy mess of nothingness, and created the physical world and everything in it, and called it good. Remember, this is the God who became flesh in Jesus Christ – who became physical and lived in the world as one of us. And Jesus didn’t tell us to stop doing all the physical things that we do… like eating, and laughing, and loving, and playing, and working. No, he joined in all those things with us.

And he pointed out that the physical is spiritual too. He pointed out that the God who created us, and who loves us is with us, and in us, and around us, and between us. He went fishing, and he began relationships. He shared food, and he touched and healed sick people. He drank wine at parties, and I imagine that he danced, and laughed, and celebrated with his friends.

And though he told stories and shared teachings that spoke to people’s spiritual needs, he did not neglect or make light of the physical needs of the people he encountered. They were hungry. They were sick. They were injured. They were oppressed. And he cared about all those things, and all those people.

John’s Gospel is great for putting together the physical and the spiritual sides of life. Because in John’s Gospel, Jesus is always using physical, everyday things to help people to understand the spiritual. Last week, we heard Jesus tell a man called Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. That image of the struggle to be born… to come out into the light of day and participate in the risks and joys of living in the world… is a physical reality that points towards a spiritual journey towards an adult faith. Later in the Gospel Jesus will heal a man who was born blind in order to teach about spiritual blindness. And he’ll feed a hungry crowd with bread, but then invite them to realize that he himself is the “bread of life” that will truly nourish them.

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus says to the woman that he meets at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

He’s not saying that the physical doesn’t matter or that she doesn’t need actual water to live. Obviously she does, as we all do. Even Jesus needed water. And having no bucket with him, he was relying on this stranger to help him out and get him a little water to drink.

But Jesus’ message invites us to pause and consider how extremely critical it is to human life to have water. We can’t live without water. If we don’t have enough, it has to become our first priority to get water. And then we are invited to consider that Jesus is offering us something like that… something like water. Jesus is offering us something like water. And when we drink it, we’ll never be thirsty again. When we drink THAT water, it will become like a spring within us… it will never run out… and it won’t just keep us alive, but it will give us life forever.

I went to a meeting this week with a small group of leaders from some of the innercity churches here in Saskatoon. We meet together often at the Innercity Council of Churches, but this meeting was called by Dr. Ryan Meili, one of the doctors at the Westside Community Clinic. Ryan was concerned about the growing problem of homelessness in Saskatoon, and he was wondering whether some of the churches might be able to work together to provide emergency housing for people who sometimes end up sleeping outside in the winter.

So we got together to talk about this problem. We talked about people who are homeless and the services that are available to them. We talked about the various shelters, who they serve, and what they provide. We heard about the “Out of the Cold” programs in Toronto and Calgary, and thought about whether the Saskatoon churches could or should consider doing something similar if it is needed here in our city.

One of the people that came to this meeting was Don Windels who is the director of the Lighthouse (just up the street from us at 20^th Street and 2^nd Ave). Some of you will know the Lighthouse because our Outreach Committee organizes an annual event where we go and sing carols and spend some social time with the residents there. (You also might remember that it used to be called the Capri.)

Anyway, the Lighthouse is primarily a residence for people with physical or mental disabilities that make it difficult for them to live independently. They house both men and women in hotel-style rooms, and provide meals, encouragement, and support to be actively engaged in the community. But the Lighthouse also includes an emergency shelter. They have space for both men and women who have nowhere else to stay. And because of the increased need for emergency shelter, they have opened up a couple of common areas that become “overflow areas” when the need is greatest.

What we discovered at our meeting is that even though there are people sleeping on the streets in Saskatoon, the Lighthouse pretty much always has space to take more people in their overnight shelter. The problem seems to be that not everyone knows that they are there and able to house more people. In fact, the Lighthouse is building right now so that they can expand and improve their facilities, both for those who live there permanently, and for those who stay in the emergency shelter. And so the conversation shifted from a discussion about opening up churches for people to sleep on the floors of our halls towards a focus on how the churches might give support to an organization like the Lighthouse that is seeking to meet this growing need in our city.

We got talking about the ministry that the Lighthouse offers. It is not ministry of a particular congregation or denomination, but it is a Christian organization. Although they provide housing and support to people with mental or physical disabilities, as well as emergency shelter for both men and women, they also see their ministry as filling more than just physical needs. They want to share the good news of Jesus Christ, and to invite people into relationship with God. You might say that the Lighthouse wants to offer water to thirsty people, but they also want to offer the “living water” that only Jesus can give.

Hearing this mission of the Lighthouse, Ryan asked whether that might ever become a barrier to people accessing the help that they need in a physical sense. And the answer was “no.” We certainly hope not. We never push religion on the people. There is simply an invitation, never a push or a shove or a bribe. That was certainly the mistake that many Christians and churches made in the past. We made physical help dependant on acceptance of a spiritual message. And when we did that, that was a matter of manipulating people. It was using our power unfairly. And it was a distortion of the good news of Jesus Christ.

But I think that Don Windels wanted us to know that at the Lighthouse, they don’t want to become just another place where people who are desperate can find a place to sleep and something to eat. They do want to provide for people’s needs, but they know what so many people are struggling to understand… that life is more than food and drink and shelter and entertainment.

Like Jesus at the well in Samaria, the Lighthouse wants to be more than just a place where people can have their basic needs met. It wants to be a place where people are invited to go deeper and to meet the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ to bring hope, and meaning, and purpose to our lives.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is bold to tell the woman of Samaria that life is more than food and water, and that through him and the living water that he would give to her, she could experience this deeper, more meaningful, more purposeful life. And because of that conversation at the well, the woman’s life was changed. Not only was she ready to experience the Spirit-filled life that Jesus was offering, but she was ready to tell others and invite them to come and see for themselves.

And did you notice? When she ran back to the city to tell others about Jesus, she left her water jar behind. Yes, she would be back to collect water there again… but now her life was going to be about something more as well.

This isn’t a message about how everything “spiritual” is good, and the “physical” is bad or unimportant. The fact is that Jesus calls us and sends us to provide for the physical needs of the people in our community and around the world. Everyone needs clean water, healthful food, reasonable shelter, and meaningful activity. But those things aren’t enough either. Those things on their own don’t make for the life that God intends for us.

Strangely enough though, often it is those of us who have all of our basic needs met that seem to miss that point. We have everything we need and more, but we go searching for something to make our lives feel complete. We look for distractions. We reach out for comforts. We strive for success, and accomplishments, and we try to acquire more things. Maybe it’s the rich among us that need to learn from the poor of the earth, from homeless guy staying at the Lighthouse, from the woman at the well. Because when she heard Jesus’ invitation to receive the living water, her life was transformed. She left her water jar beside the well, and she went running to tell her friends.

May the Spirit of God fill us and give us life, like a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. And may our lives overflow with blessing so that we may share God’s love both by providing for the needs of the poor and those in crisis, and by telling the good news of Jesus Christ to all. Amen.

Abram and Nicodemus provide an interesting contrast in our readings today. First we have Abram, a model of faith, courage, and obedience to God. Today’s brief story is the first time that we hear about Abram in the bible. God tells him to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” And Abram goes. He does what God has told him to do.

He goes. And we know that he becomes the father of many nations, and the father of the three major religions of the world. After Abram, so many others come to believe in the One God. They worship God, and listen for God, and do their best to follow God and God’s ways.

Abram is a wonderful example of faith. Nicodemus? Not so much. John’s Gospel tells us that Nicodemus is a religious person. He’s a Pharisee and a leader in the religious community. And just like Abram must have been hearing God’s voice in a new way, telling him to leave everything and start fresh in a new place, I think Nicodemus must have been hearing God’s voice in a new way too.

Nicodemus was hearing God’s voice and seeing God’s wonders in the man called Jesus of Nazareth. Maybe Nic was at the wedding in Cana. Maybe he saw what Jesus did – turning water into wine. Or maybe Nic was in the temple when Jesus drove out the money changers and the people selling animals for offerings. Perhaps he heard what Jesus said, and he was intrigued.

But unlike Abram who heard God’s voice and set out on the road, and unlike the disciples who dropped their nets at the invitation to follow, Nicodemus wasn’t ready to jump into the Jesus movement. He wasn’t ready to leave behind his life quite yet. He wasn’t ready to begin again. He had to check things out first.

And so Nicodemus goes to see Jesus at night. He wants to ask his questions, but he doesn’t want to be seen asking them. He wants to find out about this “teacher from God” who performs signs and wonders, but he doesn’t want to make any commitments, at least not yet.

Jesus says to him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” without being born of the Spirit, without being born again. And Nicodemus is confused. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

As usual in John’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking in metaphors and people don’t always understand what he means. Interpreting the words centuries later, Christians have considered, and re-considered, and debated what Jesus’ words really mean. Those who call themselves “born again Christians” talk about a moment of conversion in their lives when they left behind their sinful ways and embraced the life of discipleship. Others think of baptism as that moment of metaphorical rebirth.

But I came across another idea in my reading this week. It’s the idea that Jesus was not just telling Nicodemus the next step on the journey to becoming a disciple. After all, I don’t remember Jesus telling anyone else that they needed to be born again! Instead, Jesus may be responding to Nic’s particular situation. His instructions may be specifically for Nicodemus,
based on Jesus’ observations of this man.

By indicating that he needs to be born again, Jesus is implying that Nicodemus is still in the metaphorical womb. He’s keeping himself in a safe, secure place of comfort and nurture… And he’s probably quite content to stay there.

Jesus is saying that if Nicodemus wants to be a disciple, then he’s going to have to be willing to leave the womb. He’s going to have to come into the light of day. Yes, it’s going to be scary, and there are going to be risks, but there are also going to be joys and wonders to see, life and love to experience.

If Nicodemus, who came to Jesus under the cover of darkness, really wants to experience the Kingdom of God, he’s going to have to find the courage of Abram to leave behind the safety and security of his life and his position and embark on a journey into the unknown.

I’m reminded of an old phrase that used to get used a lot in churches when we were talking about the imperative to share our faith with others. We talked about “getting out of our comfort zones,” and it was the idea that God might sometimes (or perhaps often) ask us to do things that make us uncomfortable. And sometimes (perhaps often) we need to face that uncertainty, endure that discomfort, and forge ahead to do what we believe God is calling us to do.

Maybe God is calling you to be present with someone who is suffering or dying. Maybe God is calling you to stand up for someone who is being hurt or abused. Maybe God is calling you to speak out against injustice, discrimination, and hatred. Maybe God is calling you to give generously (even to the point of your own need) so that others may have the necessities of life. Maybe God is calling you to share your faith with another person – perhaps not only through your loving actions and the way you live. Maybe God is calling you to put your faith into words, and to be vulnerable enough to share them with someone who is wondering and searching.

If these things make us uncomfortable, then perhaps we are more like Nicodemus than we are like Abram. Perhaps Jesus’ message for us today is that we need to be born again. We need to squeeze out of the safe, warm, comfort of the womb (or the church) and get out in the world to participate in Jesus’ work of building the Kingdom.

I wonder if any of you have one of those fish magnets on the back of your car. The fish, as you probably know, is a symbol for Christianity. According to tradition, ancient Christians, during their persecution by the Roman Empire in the first few centuries after Christ, used the fish symbol to mark meeting places and tombs, or to distinguish friends from foes. When a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company.

But today many Christians put fish magnets on the back of their cars. Some of the fish magnets say “Jesus” on them, and others have the Greek word for fish “ἰχθύς” whose Greek letters are an acrostic for “Jesus Christ God’s son Saviour.” (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ)

The fish magnets still identify that someone is a Christian, but now everyone knows what the fish symbol means. It’s no longer a “secret symbol” only understood within the Christian community. Instead, it clearly identifies (to those inside the church and out) that this person is a follower of Jesus and they don’t mind if everyone knows.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we should all run out and buy fish magnets for our cars, or that we should wear crosses around our necks to let the world know who we are. But I do think that like Nicodemus, Jesus is inviting us to come out of the comfort and safety of our religious traditions, and to let God lead us into new, risky, and exciting possibilities.

If we are serious about our faith, if we really want to be disciples of Jesus, then we can’t let our Christianity get compartmentalized. We can’t let it be something that we keep in the dark, that we only do on Sunday mornings or in the privacy of our own homes.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes worry about whether I can be a good model of the Christian faith. You know, there are so many people who have been turned away from Christianity or from religion in general because they encountered Christians who seemed to be hypocrites. You know, people who put fish magnets on their cars, people who wore crosses around their necks, and then drove dangerously, cut people off in traffic, and swore at the other drivers.

Putting a fish magnet on your car (or being open about your Christian faith to the people around you) can feel like a lot of pressure. Because now that people know who you are, you have to start actually living like a disciple of Jesus. Whether you are at work, or with friends, or encountering strangers in the community, you have to be the one who is humble and kind, giving and forgiving. You have to be the one who puts the other first and who goes the extra mile. Even if being open about your faith doesn’t seem like as big a risk as it was for Nicodemus, it may still feel like a lot of pressure.

Well, the good news is that the burden is not ours to carry alone. As Christians, we are not expected to be perfect all the time. We don’t have to have all the answers, and we don’t have to have everything figured out. Perhaps, like Nicodemus, we will have questions for Jesus and things that get us confused. But we’ll be asking those questions in the light, along the way, on the journey with Jesus.

God promised Abram that if he went where God was sending him that God would bless him so that Abram would be a blessing to others. And the same promise is true for us. But we are called to be a blessing to others, not because we are faultless, but because we can reflect the One who is. Abram was a blessing, not because of his own skill, but because God used him to purely reflect God’s light.

In a short time, the religious part of your week will likely be finished. The church service will be over, you’ll go on your way, and on to work, or school, or play, or whatever else you will do this week. And so I invite you to pause and consider… How will you carry your faith into your life this week? Having experienced the love and grace of God today, where will you reflect that blessing during the week?

Think of the people that you will meet… those you know, and those who will be strangers… Think about those people and the opportunities you may have to share God’s love in word and in action.

God is saying to you today: “Go from this community, from this church… to the places that I will show you this week. And I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.” Let us go where God sends us, filled with God’s Spirit of courage and faith. And may we see God’s Kingdom come. Amen.

The Japanese government has requested international assistance to respond to this massive disaster. Presbyterian World Service & Development partners are currently assessing the extent of humanitarian needs, especially at evacuation sites where food, water, health and sanitation kits and blankets are in short supply. Updates will be posted on the PWS&D website as available.

Please pray for the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this disaster in Japan. For those who would like to make financial contributions, Presbyterian World Service & Development is currently accepting donations. Funds will be sent through our international church networks to meet the needs of those who are affected.

Donations to PWS&D can be made through the offering at St. Andrew’s, by mailing a cheque to the office, donating online, or calling PWS&D at 1-800-619-7301 ext. 291. Please mark all donations “Japan Earthquake.”