Monday, August 20, 2012

Sermon for August 19th 2012 - PROUD of the UCC!!



 EUGENIA UNITED / ST. JOHN’S UNITED
Summer Worship 2012

AUGUST 19TH – 12TH of Pentecost

Scripture Readings:
          I Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
            Psalm 111                                                    (VU 833)
            Ephesians 5:15-20
            John 6:51-58

Hymns:
          Eugenia:
410 VU           This Day God Gives Me
                        651 VU           Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
501 VU           Break Now The Bread of Life
224 VU           Sing a Happy Hallelujah
                        509 VU           I The Lord of Sea and Sky
         
St John’s:
410 VU           This Day God Gives Me
                        224 VU           Sing a Happy Hallelujah
                        501 VU           Break Now The Bread of Life
                        651 VU           Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
509 VU           I The Lord of Sea and Sky

Call to Worship:
One: Come to us, Holy God, as we gather before you;
ALL: encircle us with your love.
One: Bless us with your sustaining presence;
ALL: surround us with your grace.
One: Draw us ‘round your living Word,
ALL: and bind us to one another as disciples of Christ,
One: whose Spirit is in our midst.
ALL: Amen.

 SERMON:

Diana Butler-Bass writes in her recent book “Christianity after Religion”:
The history of Christianity can be told as a story of the tension between order and prophecy. Jesus came as a prophet, one who challenged and transformed Judaism. A charismatic community grew up around his teachings and eventually formed into the church. The church organized, and then became an institution. The institution provided guidance and meaning for many millions. And then it became guarded, protective of the power and wealth it garnered, the influence it wielded, and salvation it alone provided.  (pg 89)
I offer this quotation today because for the first time in a very long time, I can honestly say that I am proud to be part of this United Church of ours … I’ve had a long and winding road in the United Church, and have often felt that as a bureaucracy, the United Church has lost its connection with that which makes it the United Church. We’ve let the rules and the policies and procedures define us – we’ve listened to the lawyers so much in the wake of the Residential School findings, that our core of being a Church engaging the world with values of faith has slipped away … today prophecy has pushed back the order and something courageous has happened …
But this past week as I watched, listened and read about what was happening at the 41st gathering of our General Council, I felt the refreshing winds of the Spirit blowing not only through that court of the Church, but outwards into the circles of community we call home … For the first time in almost 30 years our Church has embraced and enacted spirit fueled change. And over and over and over, as resolutions were discussed, debated and voted on, delegates and Church voices spoke of prayer … spoke of discernment … and spoke of listening for and listening to the Spirit …
It was a truly remarkable week, and one that stirs hope … this past week we’ve moved and grown and embraced our faith like never before.
Some of the highlights from this General Council include the changes to the United Church crest to reflect our long history with the First Nations of our country. Our Crest now bears the four directional colours in the background panels, and the Mohawk words for “That all may be one.” As GC ended, a formal protocol was signed between the Church and the First Nations ministries to reflect not only the past that we’ve walked, but to help improve relations in the future … we’ve taken another step in living the historic apologies our Church has offered our First Nations sisters and brothers for the errors of the past.
At GC we’ve also had the adoption of the three articles of faith we were part of studying through the fall and winter – now, in addition to the Articles of Faith we include the Statement of Faith, the New Creed and the Song of Faith as part of the definition of who we are …
GC also stood with the First People of BC and said an emphatic NO to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil into Kitamaat and send tankers out through the rugged BC coastline.
GC took the unpopular stand to call on Israel to stop building settlements on the occupied territories and to change its approach to the Palestinian people. The initial proposal was modified, and we are called now to boycott products from the Occupied territories and to prioritize our support of the Palestinian people.
And perhaps most significant of all – our new moderator The Reverend Gary Paterson, the minister from St Andrew Wesley in Downtown Vancouver steps into the role bringing with him a gracious and gentle leadership, a deep personal spirituality, a gift for preaching, and a poet’s sense of the prophetic role of Church. Gary also happens to be gay, and his spouse of over 30 years, Tim Stevenson, are very much part of the historic journey we’ve taken as a Denomination in our acceptance of Lesbian and Gay people not only in our congregations, but in our leadership.
We stand in an interesting time … our Church has courageously and boldly wrestled with issues of economics, politics and spirituality, and for the first time in a very long time we have a positive feeling coming out of our National meetings …
Yet, yesterday the media offered a ‘study’ that claims the United Church is doomed … a researcher at a very conservative Bible College examined the results of a survey conducted with a small cluster of University students and announced that we – the United Church – we lost and we are in an irreversible decline …
According to their findings, our bent for social justice, our political involvement, and our wandering away from things of faith – have resulted in our increasing irrelevance. I read the article and found myself laughing at the one sided bias it offered – the study’s authors are standing outside and yet again taking aim at the United Church and saying “They’re no longer Christian.”
As I read it sitting at the farmer’s market, I wondered what their criticism of the Church would be like NOW with a Gay Moderator … or with our stand against the Northern Gateway … or our stand WITH the Palestinians …
Yet, in those public stands, I see hope.
As people get to know us through our booth at the farmers’ market I see and experience hope … yesterday a woman bought one of our “Love They Neighbor” t-shirts saying – “I can’t believe a Church group ACTUALLY offers something like this. Too many church say the words, but won’t live them … I think it’s great that your Church offers these to the community … you’re saying AND living the words …”
And that simple idea is key to sharing our faith and moving forward in our world.
People are not interested in Church the way it has BEEN. They have wrestled with, and struggled with the hypocrisy that has too often marked our journey. We have been rightly accused of saying one thing, but living another … we haven’t been living the words we share and we’ve suffered the consequences of that.
But today – there is every indication that within the life of our church – locally AND as a denomination, something is stirring that not only calls us back to that place of speaking, living and sharing a consistent message, but it is also something that draws other people into becoming part of that journey.
Theologian and researcher Diana Butler-Bass shares an experience she had while on a flight across the US. The gentleman sitting next to her commented on her going to a Church Conference that he used to attend Church but didn’t any more.
He noted that Churches didn’t care about his questions, so there was no reason to keep going.
Diana pressed him about what questions the church didn’t care about and he replied “Oh doubt, life making the world a better place – you know – questions … They seemed more interested in things that don’t really matter. And then perhaps most telling was his last observation – “Church is disconnected from life …”
Ouch.
We have been disconnected from life. We’ve built our comfortable worship spaces and shut the door and tried to create the Kingdom of God here within our neat and tidy walls … and we’ve failed …
We’ve failed, not because there is anything wrong with the Kingdom of God, but rather because the Kingdom of God is not something that will prosper and grow behind closed doors, but because the Kingdom of God is about going out into the world and engaging our neighbors, our community and our world in sharing, celebrating and LIVING the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is about living the words we speak.
ALL around us our world is struggling … economically many people are struggling to make ends meet and to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads … politically we see struggles all around the world from far flung corners like Syria where that struggle is bloody and violent and devastating to our own nation where conflicting ideals are being wrestled with, people are discontented and alienated … and socially, we are awash in a myriad of issues that can frighten and divide us … Comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart observed that we live in Hard times, but not in the end times like some voices would counsel … Diana Butler-Bass picks up on Jon’s observation by noting that we do indeed live in hard times, and perhaps the opportunity is there for Church folks – you and I – to step up and engage the world with what we have to offer.
We are the Body of Christ – the risen and transformed community that has the Gospel to share … we are the Kingdom of God and we have that message to offer not to one another, but to our neighbours, our community and the world.
AND, today, perhaps like never before we have an opportunity to LIVE our faith because of the discontent rampant in our society:
Butler Bass observes of discontent:
Not many people think of discontent as a gift – however, discontent is the beginning of change. Only by noticing what is wrong, seeing the systems and structrures that do not foster health and happiness, can we eve make things different. If people were satisfied, there would be no reason to reach for more, no motivation for creativity and innovation. Discontent is one short step from longing for a better life, a better society, and a better world; and loning is another short step from doing something about what is wrong. Indeed, restlessness possesses a spiritual quality – as Jesus said – blessed are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of God!” (pg 84)
Butler Bass goes on to celebrate the spiritual dimension of discontent noting:
Religious discontent is indistinguishable from the history of spiritual renewal and wakening. Relgion is often characterized as contentment, the idea that faith and faithfulness offer peace, security, and certainty. … religion has another guise as well – the prophetic tradition. In the prophetic mode, faith discomforts the members of a community, opens their eyes and hearts to the shortcomings of htier own lives and injustice in the world, and presses for human society to more fully embody God’s dream of healing and love for ALL peoples.
Religious faiths struggle between the pastoral and prophetic comfort and agitation. In a very real way, institutions are inherently pastoral – they seek to maintain those things that give comfort by baptizing shared values and virtues of a community. They reinforce the way things are (or were) through appeals to divine or supernatural order. They are always slow to change. Institutions resist prophets. Prophets question. They push for things to be different. They push people to behave better toward one another. They want change.
… What the church taught seemed at odds with their experience of life or God. They became increasingly disenchanted with what the Church offered. Discontent grew. They questioned the way things were done. They experimented with new ideas and spiritual practises. They  met on the sly, singing subversive songs and praying to their favourite (often unapproved) saints, and served people the institution overlooked or oppressed. They bent the rules and often broke them. The established Church typically ignored them, sometimes tolerated them, or often branded them heretics, tried to control them and occasionally killed them. When enough people joined the ranks of the discontented, the institutional church had to pay attention. In the process, and sometimes unintentionally, the church opened itself up for genuine change and renewal
Today, the movements of the discontent are remembered by names many people REVERE: the Benedictine renewal, the Franciscan movement, the Brethren, the Protestant Reformation, the Anabaptist community and THE METHODISTS. (pg 88-89)

We DO live in hard times – times of discontent and uncertainty … and every indication is there to tell us that as the Spirit moves among us, we are embodying and sharing a faith that when lived rather than just spoken of, has the potential of transforming not only ourselves, but the world around us.
Being willing to engage the world and wrestle with the big and uncomfortable issues has been part of who we are as United Church, and today, for the first time in almost a generation we seem to have once again remembered that … research tells us that people today are searching for places to explore their spiritual issues and to wrestle with life’s questions. They want a place where they can feel God’s presence and where the people practise what they preach …
Today it would seemt hat the United Church of Canada has remembered our heritage as a Church that was born of spiritual and Spirit-FILLED discontent!!
Look around this sanctuary … we’re doing that in real and tangible ways every day … the doors are open … let’s go out in to the world and offer the whisper of hope that arises from our faith engaging the discontent ALL around us!!
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Sermon for August 12th 2012


AUGUST 12TH – 11TH of Pentecost

Scripture Readings:
          2 Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33
            Psalm 34:                                                     (VU 761)
            I Kings 19:4-8
            John 6:35, 41-51

Hymns:
          Eugenia:
506 VU           Take My Life and Let it Be
                        664 VU           What a Friend
466 VU           Eat This Bread
477 VU           I Come With Joy
                        288VU            Great is Thy Faithfulness
          St John’s:
506 VU           Take My Life and Let it Be
                        477 VU           I Come With Joy
                        466 VU           Eat This Bread
                        664 VU           What a Friend
288VU            Great is Thy Faithfulness

Call to Worship:
One: Greetings to our brothers and sisters in the faith.
ALL: We come to celebrate God’s presence,
One: and God’s love expressed through Jesus Christ.
ALL: We come remembering Christ’s life and ministry,
One: and the life we are called to live.
ALL: We come as a pilgrim people
            searching for ways to live out our faith.
One: We come seeking the strength to carry on our journey.
ALL: Let us rejoice in God’s gift to us!

SERMON:

 
This morning, in Ottawa our General Council sits down to meet for the 41st time since the inception of the United Church of Canada. Before them are a myriad of mundane procedural motions and suggestions, and there are a number of controversial ideas and proposals that have in recent days caught the attention of the media who have decided that the Church has no place in politics, international affairs, or economics …
Yet repeatedly in the Scriptures we find that Jesus had far more to say about economics and politics then he EVER had to say about sexuality.
Reality is not as important to the newspaper editors and media pundits as a good headline …
But today as General Council 41 opens for business, and the delegates from across Canada get down to the issues before them, they not only have to wrestle with the issues of prophetic witness, social conscience, and faithfully living out the Gospel  they also have to struggle with the reality of being Church in the early 21st Century and what that means to them, to us, and to our society … overarching ALL of the conversations at General Council, and ALL of the media coverage on the United Church in recent days, is the place of living out the Gospel in our world.
Our readings today hint at the power of God in our midst, but use as the metaphor the idea of food – the very bread we break and share and so easily take for granted.
Jesus said – I am the bread of life.
Elijah orders the killing of the prophets of Baal.
And David mourns the death of his son …
The Gospel is about the fullness of life.
Faith is about confronting, living and embracing the fullness of life.
Faith – what draws us here, and united us as a community and a people – what undergirds the very United Church of Canada, of which we are a part – is about living life fully as a child of God, trusting in God and knowing that we are never alone, and we will never be abandoned.
AND in our tradition – the Table – the place where we break bread and share the cup is CENTRAL to that. The heart of our community, our faith, and what we are about is here (…).
Food spiritual and physical is central to who we are, what we are about and how we live our lives and faith whether we realize it or not.
I wonder though, how often we really think about that though … how often do we think about our faith and what it means and how it lifts us up and sends us into the world?
Do we ever think about that? Or do we just get up in the morning, splash a little cold water on our face, toss on some clothes throw back some food and beverage and head out the door into our day?
What about prayer?
What about pausing as we put our toast in our toaster and thinking about how incredibly fortunate we are to have bread, and hydro, and a home, and butter, and cutlery … and expressing our appreciation for those things … what about even just saying thanks once in a while?
Do we remember where we’ve come from, and as the old gospel hymn muses – to whom we belong?
Elijah not only remembered – he showed the power of God.
Jesus, after feeding the multitude and hearing their calls for more miracles, needed his disciples to remember what was important – NOT the physical bread that satisfies the hunger pangs. But it is the spiritual bread that feeds and nurtures our soul that becomes important. Failing to feed the spirit means we begin to die …
In my time off, I have been busy with a few things – one of them was tending the now overgrown garden in my front yard. I have grand visions of what I want in my yard – but I’m also FINALLY of the age that I am a bit more realistic about what I can achieve. So, I am building my gardens bit by bit, a little more added each season and overtime it will move closer to my vision. For now I planted a whack of perennials, a dahlia bed, and what was supposed to be a tight, neat and easily accessible veggie patch … unfortunately the pumpkin, beans and tomatoes didn’t get the memo … and I have a very overgrown and wild veggie patch that is overflowing …
I have, during the hot dry weeks that have marked our summer, found myself having to water my gardens a couple of times a day.
In the process of planting, tending, watering, and now harvesting my veggies and flowers, I’ve found a quiet place that has fed my soul as well as my body. Looking after a garden reminds us of where food comes from to begin with, but it also provides us a place where we need to be patient and where we need to let go and wait for things to happen.
We don’t plant a tomato plant at 8 in the morning and have fresh tomatoes on our plate for dinner.
Instead we plant and we wait … we watch and tend … we weed and fight back the bugs … then after days or weeks, we have the fruits of our labour.
The seed grows into a plant that blooms and blossoms and in time produces fruits which we in turn enjoy. It takes time. I means waiting and letting things happen. I means trusting in God and nature and the weather and all manner of other factors before we enjoy the end results. And in our culture of instant gratification and immediate responses – the notion of waiting is strange and alien.
Yet, that counter-cultural idea - that notion of standing in a place different from the society around us – placing our value on things that feed and nurture the spirit and aspire for the ways of God in our world is EXACTLY what runs through our readings today.
Elijah opposed the prophets of Baal in the name of God because God’s ways offered a better way of living life and moving through the world.
David publically mourned his son and showed his grief…
Jesus speaking to the authorities about the bread of life is not just hinting at a better way of framing the world and living our lives, he is proclaiming the transformative nature of that to our spiritual and physical beings.
We can run to the supermarket or the nearest fast food outlet and grab our next meal and in a matter of minutes sit down and satisfy our physical cravings. Or we can approach our table mindfully, knowing that food is more than just sustenance.
This week in Ottawa HUNDREDS of delegates from across Canada will gather to do the business of the Church on our behalf, and they will need to be fed physically AND spiritually.
The logistics of hosting and organizing a GC meeting has always been daunting – finding enough room, enough food, and accommodations for the folks who come is a HUGE task – but this year I’ve noticed through the social media a change – we’re being asked to pray for the General Council and those taking part.
The requests began as the selection process for delegates began back in early January, and have continued as we’ve had our various working groups and task forces presenting their findings and reports. In recent weeks the requests have been for the work and the delegates themselves. And over the past week it has been requested that we hold our General Council in prayer as they sit down to the business before them.
I may have been out of the loop in the last 20 years, but I don’t remember this kind of request for the spiritual resources of our Church – or you and I – to be involved and mindful of the work of the greater Church like this.
And yet, food for the spirit is as important as food for the body.
Prayer is how we begin to feed the soul and claim the Bread of Life Jesus not only speaks of, but is …

The question though lingers … do we even care?
Do we care about our food enough to think about where it’s come from, how it’s production is affecting our world, and whether the hands that planted, tended and harvested it are being well treated for their labour … or do we just see food?
And when it comes to the bread before us, do we see only the physical bread or do we see the Spiritual bread too? Do we see the necessity of feeding the soul while we feed the body?
These are big questions … and at the end of the day, they are the questions and issues we face as a people of faith. In EVERYTHING we do from our support for the local food bank, through to our actions for oppressed and marginalized people in Syria, Palestine, or the streets of downtown Toronto, is a reflection of our faith, and ultimately is about feeding our minds, our bodies AND our souls.
Jesus said – I am the bread of life … let’s go into the world living like we believe that …
It all begins with an occasional “Thank you” for the bread before us, and it continues as we feed the soul too …  

May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …