Friday, September 21, 2012

Sermon for Sept. 16th 2012 - Eugenia Anniversary Service




When we celebrate an anniversary in a Church, whether it is marking the dates of forming the first stirrings of community, setting cornerstone, opening the building, adding an addition – whatever it is – when we pause to remember and celebrate the achievements and accomplishments of the past, it is a good time to ALSO remember what it is we are about in community – the reason for our being in the first place.
There is a reflective poem I encountered many years ago, and have often found myself returning to. It comes from the Hindu tradition, and is a reminder that faith is more than religion – it is spiritual awareness and connectedness.
The poem reads:
To talk with God, no breath is lost – Talk on
To walk with God, no strength is lost – Walk on
To wait on God, no time is lost – Wait on.

How often do we find ourselves distracted by mundane and minor issues that when we step back from them become relatively silly?
We speak of God, and feeling God’s presence in our lives, then we bicker over the colour of the carpet, or the type of pain we want to use in the fellowship  hall.
We sing our hymns of praise and joy, but then fight over whether or not to buy a new coffee maker, or make do with the old one.
We gather to worship, but get our backs up over the style of communion, or the choice of hymns, or the version of the Bible the preacher is preaching from.
We have a beautiful building in which to gather and worship, and we get caught up in debates about buying pillows for the pews, or toughing it out the way our forefathers did.
The list can go on and on and on – and in many corners of the Church, it does. Communities fight over the most remarkable and at times SILLY things, while we overlook the simple call we have been sent into the world to live: the call to be and form and encourage and build community.
Community gathered together in faith
A community gathered together by a common and shared yearning for something more – that’s what formed this in the first place – that’s what keeps drawing people to this – that’s what we are ultimately about – a common yearning for more.
Like the kids hymn we sing periodically – “the church is not building, the church is not the steeple, the church is not the meeting place – the CHURCH is the people.”
We’ve lost sight of that in our modern era. We’ve gotten so hung up on rules and procedures and regulations and dogma, that we’ve lost sight of what Church is.
Ultimately, Church is the gathering of the spiritually hungry to find a place of belonging, and acceptance where we can tell and share our stories. Where we can build community. Where we experience the Holy.
And where we celebrate being the very children of God.
The Church is not about the building – as beautiful and comfortable as it is – the church is about the yearnings for the holy that draw us together and inspire us to do and be the Body of Christ sharing the Gospel with the world.
But what is this ‘Holy’ that we yearn for?
It is experienced – it is tangible – it is real.
The Holy is that moment in time when we find ourselves standing in awe and catching our breath knowing that God is truly with us.
We often speak of Holy Spaces – towering majestic cathedrals, or quiet reflective shrines – but the space is not itself holy. It may be sacred and special – the history, heritage and use of the space imbibes it with a air of sacredness that says clearly – this is special – but holiness is not about the space or the structure or even the use. Holiness is something more.
Often in Church settings, we mistake this sense of sacredness as The Holy – we want to protect it and keep it safe and clean. But in the process we engage in what researchers have dubbed “the pastoral idyll”.
The pastoral idyll is simply the process by which we see a quaint pretty country church and say – “ah, it’s that lovely” and want to preserve the image in a Thomas Kinkaide like moment …
The ultimate extreme of this process has been found in Japan where a rural English stone church has been meticulously recreated in an atrium on the 21st floor of an urban skyscraper as a wedding chapel for Japanese couple who want a quaint English country wedding but can’t travel to England to have it. Instead they rent the replica church – in the 21st floor of a skyscraper – and have their wedding there over the city.
There is nothing holy in that place – it is a pastoral idyll – a vignette of something quaint and pretty – but it is NOT sacred space – it has no community maintaining it with love and devotion . It has no history, no heritage, nor connectedness to the people and stories in a village around it. It is simply a gathering of wood and stone …
The Holy comes from the flesh and blood who gather together and create this thing we call Church.
Along the way, they do amazing and notable things – but at the end of the day – the Church is not what has been in the past, it is what we are in the present and where we’re going and what we’re doing to help and benefit our community and our world into the future.
Today, we do acknowledge that the first worship service connected to this community of faith, happened in 1876, when the Presbyterians held services in the local Orange Lodge Hall. Then in 1891, the first Kirk – or session, was founded and the Presbyterian Congregation formally worshipped with communion and its own minister. As they gathered, they committed to building their own worship space, which they did in 1897 when this building was formally dedicated.
For the first 21 years though, the Church existed and offered its care and ministry to the community growing around Eugenia WITHOUT a building. When the time came to create a space in which to worship, the creativity and devotion to the undertaking was impressive.
I like the description of the call for foundation stones – people were encouraged to bring ‘nice sparkly stones’ from their farmsteads to form the foundation – the lumber was milled from logs fallen in the surrounding forests, and the bricks were brought by horse drawn carts from Markdale.
Together, the people of the community created this space to gather in – and in the years that followed, they hosted fowl suppers, Sunday School classes, and countless community events as they supported, maintained and cared for the building and most importantly, for one another.
The holiness of this place, has never been about the building – it has ALWAYS been about the people.
The building is our clubhouse – the place where we gather to worship, to play, to hang out. The meaning – the holiness – comes when we go and engage the world in the work we are called to do, and make room for God in our lives.
This past week I had a conversation in which we talked about caring for people who are struggling and who need an oasis for their mind, body and soul – the comment was shared that they need to slow down and make room for God.
As I prepared for this service, I kept coming back to that idea of slowing down and making room for God. And I couldn’t help but think, that this simple phrase should be at the very heart of what we do and who we are as Church.
In everything we do together as Church – from our Sunday morning worship, through to men’s coffee on Wednesday morning, or the Womens’ group meeting once a month, or the knitting circle – ALL of it is about making room for God in our lives, our community and our world.
Pausing to remember that we are part of a community. Part of a bigger whole than our little circle. Is the first step.
When the first stones were laid for the foundation of this building back in 1895 – the esteemed Presbyterians understood that, and took their job of sharing the Good News of faith seriously. They weren’t building the building just for themselves – they were building it for us – and for ALL of the generations that followed, so together we would have a place to come, share meals, swap stories, offer support, find encouragement, and most of all a place to belong.
They built this building KNOWING that making room for God was vital and central to what ALL of us are about.
The readings this morning celebrate this truth – and as we gather and look about this heritage building and give thanks for the gift that it remains to us today, over a century after it was first opened, let us courageously go into the world proclaiming, embodying, celebrating AND sharing the understanding that united us in community – the understanding that we belong here, and that as children of God we know there is room in our lives for God!!

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

Order of Service for Eugenia United Church's Anniversary Service



16th Sunday After Pentecost
September 16th 2012
Eugenia Church Anniversary Sunday

Welcome to worship. May God bless you during this time & renew
your spirit. Please sign the guest book if you are visiting.

OUR WORSHIP APPROACH TOWARD GOD
*Asterisks invite all who are able to stand

Gathering Music:
Welcome and Announcements:
Let us quiet ourselves before God
Lighting of the Christ Candle:
*Introit:         Blessed Assurance                                           HFG 67

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!

*Hymn:          Amazing Grace                                               HFG 107 

Our Personal Confession and Silent Prayer …
            Silent Prayer …………………..
            Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
            Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,
                        on earth as it is in heaven.
            Give us this day our daily bread.
            And forgive us our trespasses,
                        as we forgive those who trespass against us.
            And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
            For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory,
                        for ever and ever. AMEN
Prayer of Approach:
One: We feel your welcome, in this time of worship, O Loving God,
            In this place, you welcome young and old, you welcome all who
come seeking peace and all brimming over with energy. In this place you welcome newcomers and long-time members, you welcome all who seek a familiar expression of praise and prayer, and all who come seeking a startlingly new celebration of faith.
            You welcome us all, O Holy and Welcoming God. AMEN.

*Hymn:          Take My Life and Let it Be                            HFG 458
Special Music:

Story Time:                                                               
*Hymn:          I Love to Tell the Story                                  HFG 619

WE LISTEN FOR A WORD FROM GOD
Proverbs 1:20-33
            Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
            Mark8:27-38

*Hymn:          Pass Me Not O Gentle Saviour                       HFG 416
Reflection: Daring to Make Room for God …

WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD

Minute for Mission:

Offering:
Offering Hymn: “We Praise You O God”                            VU 218
            We praise you, O God, Our Redeemer, Creator
            In grateful devotion our tribute we bring.
            We lay it before You, we kneel and adore You;
            We bless Your Holy Name, glad praises we sing.

Offering Prayer:

Prayers of the People for Others:
*Hymn:          Onward Christian Soldiers                             HFG 617
*Benediction:
May the grace of God, deeper than our imagination;
the strength of Christ, stronger than our need;
and the communion of the Holy Spirit, richer than our togetherness;
guide and sustain us today and in all our tomorrows.

*Choral Response: Amen, Amen, Hallelujah, Amen           (VU 974)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Reflection from Salem Cemetery Memorial Service - Sept 9th 2012



I like little country cemeteries.

I like exploring them, I like spending time in them. I just like them.

I like them because they represent the history and heritage of the area that hosts them – the stones and graves are the people who have created the communities we enjoy today. These places are where we’ve come from.

United Church musician and composer Linnea Good, has written a beautiful and haunting hymn entitled Roots and Wings, that celebrates the dynamism of our faith, and the importance of knowing where we come from as we prepare to live and celebrate our dreams and visions and hopes.

For Linnea the ability to fly – be it flight through life choices, career choices, education, experience – whatever it is as we grow and mature – that ability to fly is provided by the grounding we have in places like this that inform and education the foundations on which our lives rest.

In my life, I have three or four little country cemeteries that inform my journey and help me remain grounded as I live my life and seek to realize and embody my dreams and hopes. Two of them lie not far from here – one in Tara where members of the Cain family on my mom’s side of the family lie up at the back – the other is over in Chesley where many members of the Elliot family (the other side of my mom’s family) lie scattered through the old section of the cemetery in the town they founded and built.  

But the most meaningful cemetery for me is on the south side of Hwy 7&8 just west of New Hamburg, where many members of the Ankenmann side of my family lie. When I stand at the grave of my father, my mother and my brother, I can see the graves of my grandparents, my uncles, my great grand parents and a an assortment of other family members who were part of my journey to this time and place.

As I stand at the grave of my parents and my only brother I can see over the hill to the west the farm my Dad’s family called home for almost a century and a half, and to the right, I can see the Church where my father was baptised, my parents were married, and my father was buried with an OPP honour guard accompanying his casket to its final resting place …

As I stand in the cemetery of my family, I am immersed in the history and memories of my family – some bad, but many of them good. The names etched on the cold stones around me are in my memory, living people who laugh and joke and share life … 

There’s my Uncle Bruce the pig farmer with the heavy Germanic accent and loud laugh … my Uncle John who raised cats and was seldom seen without a smile on his face … my Great Auntie Marie who’s german ‘auch’ was ALWAYS followed by a smile, a laugh, a hug and a kiss …

As I stand in the quiet of the cemetery and remember – one of the things Cemeteries are good for – life is affirmed, and our memories and experiences that have made us the people we are today, are recalled and celebrated.

American writer Robert Fulghum, the author who gave us books like “everything I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten” offers a very powerful example of how one can actively live that process of remembrance to inform the path we have ahead.

Fulghum was given a gravesite by his children in a scenic west coast cemetery, and in one of his books, he shared that he enjoys taking a lawn chair to that grave and sitting on it to reflect on his life. Fulghum says he things of the chair and the grave as the bookends to his life. He is sitting here, and one day, he WILL be lying THERE – and he has an opportunity to fill the space in between with meaning.

I’ve frequently encountered a reading entitled “living your dash” that talks about the life that lies between our birth and our death. The reading challenges us to fill that dash with meaning and actions that care for others.

Fulghum is offering the SAME reminder. From this moment, standing, or sitting here – to the moment sometime in the future when we are left lying here – we have an opportunity to use the lessons we’ve gleaned from the lives that went before us, to continue to build a better community, to care for our neighbours, to share our enthusiasms and our faith, to embody and live out our dreams and hopes and – like Linnae Good suggests – TO FLY.

To fly – to fill our lives with meaning and hope and faith – because of the lessons the people we remember in places like this, have taught us.

To fly – to make the world a better place by achieving, sharing and living our hopes and our dreams and our aspirations that have been nurtured and encouraged by our circle of family and community. (The very people we come here to remember today)

Personally, when I stand by the graves of my dad, my mom and my brother in the little country cemetery, I pray that I may be the kind of person their tried to be in their life, and sought to teach me to be through their guidance and influence … each generation seeks to inspire and teach the generation that follows us by building on the lessons and experiences of the past – and it is when we pause and stand quietly in a cemetery surrounded by the names and reminders of those who went before us, that we are able to actively embrace that process.

Cemeteries are reminders not so much of the past, but of the lessons these folks have offered through their lives, and how their lives and experiences inform, educate and inspire OUR LIVES.

The stones may be cold – but the memories that are recalled by the names etched on them, are a place of warmth and comfort because they tell us ALL we need to know about living a life worthy of the legacy we’ve been left, and the heritage we’ve inherited.

In the coming days may we continue to live our lives with faithful enthusiasm, continuing to build the good community that places like this, are part of creating.

I would like to end with a poem I often use at Memorial Services that stands as a reminder that death, and places like this are not the end of the story, but merely the turning of a chapter:

Death is Nothing at All
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.
Henry Scott Holland