Sunday, October 16, 2016

Sermon for October 16th 2016 - Dancing on the Margins ...



       
  I started my thoughts on this week’s sermon using the Gatherings resource from the United Church and had themes of envisioning and experiencing faith, living out our faith and learning to pray … good themes … solid themes … themes that challenge us to find hope in the face of discomfort and uncertainty …
          But it got me thinking and reading and reflecting on that experience ALL of us have had at some point when someone has done something in a church context that has caused a hurt that may linger for a moment, a month or a millennium … We’ve ALL had that experience … Mrs so and so, or mr so and so said or did something – it may even be something completely well intentioned and with no malice involved, but it hurt …
          My brother left church after an incident in Sunday School when the collection plate was passed around and our Sunday school superintendent accused him or putting Canadian tire money on the plate as a joke … My brother took offense on several levels, not least of which was that as a budding car mechanic, he saw value in Canadian tire money, and he would NEVER have done something as foolish as wasting it on the church collection plate … he could buy tools, and parts and car stuff with that – why give it to the church?? But the deeper level was – why was HE of all the kids in that room – and at the time, there were lots in our Sunday school – why was he accused of it? (Looking back, I can’t help but wonder why it mattered anyway – Canadian Tire money could be used for stuff – I’ve accepted it at the shop and used it for supplies – so why couldn’t the church do the same? …)
          But the damage it did was immense, and it sent a very sensitive and very spiritual young man out the door and FOREVER soured his view of the church … he never went back … he missed it, and he encouraged me in my ministry because he valued faith and spirituality and what it offered, but for himself he could never go back because of the damage Mrs X did … and he wasn’t the only one … over the years Mrs X did little things to many many many young people in our church, and as the church withered and died and some of us as alumni talked about why the church died a theme developed … over and over people left BECAUSE of little things that happened, and likely without any malicious or hurtful intent … but the damage was deep and it was done …
          It may not be politically correct to admit to it, but I never let Mrs X bother me because I ended up punching her son in the middle of a Christmas concert when I finally had had enough …
          Eventually, Mrs X and her family moved on to another church – but the lasting impact remained … our church never regained what it lost and in time it like many others - closed …
          Later in my journey in ministry, during the debate about marriage equality and churches conducting same sex weddings, I had a conversation with a church member who excitedly showed me an article in a national gardening magazine about her son and his husband and the absolutely breath-taking gardens they had in their west coast home – as she showed me the article she said “you are the only person I can share this with …” I questioned her and she spoke of the horrible hurtful things said back in the dark days of “The Issue” by members of the congregation around the ordination of self-professed gay and lesbian candidates in the United Church … this mom was immensely proud of her son, but was terrified that she would be rejected by her church because of him, so she opted for silence …
          And there was the time when as a student minister I was asked to find out why one of the faithful elders of the congregation had stopped coming … I went to have tea and as we talked she shared with me the horrendous few months she and her family had been through – she had stopped coming for church initially because she was SO exhausted that Sunday morning was the only day of the week when she could sleep in and rest … then finally she decided she needed to go back, she wanted the comfort of community, the hymns, the prayers, the context – and so she came and as she walked through the front door of the church, her friend and neighbour – with the purest of intentions said “Oh would you like to sign the guest book …”
          Intended as a joke, and offered with nothing but love and respect – it rubbed the first woman the wrong way and she walked out after service and decided to never come back … when she told me the story, I wove it into a sermon the following Sunday and when the second person said over coffee after service ‘how horrible that is …” I seized the moment and suggested that she should call her neighbour and say “sorry …”
          She was mortified … but she did and the next week both women were back at church and a friendship was restored …
          There are countless examples of those hurtful things we may be oblivious to … as minister I’ve done them … I’ve witnessed them … I’ve tried to bring resolution to them … they are common and they are part of the narrative of any faith community, and in truth, they are a HUGE reason why so many of our churches are withering and dying. We have too many stories of Mrs H and the lasting damage and the inexplicable habit churches have of IGNORING it completely.
          United Church minister Gordon Turner wrote a book entitled “outside looking in” in which he explored the world of church drop outs and those who for whatever reason have left Church behind, and he offered some powerful observations and some poignant suggestions on how to address this uncomfortable reality in our churches, our communities and dare I say – within our own families.
          So, if we let our readings today settle within us, and we pause on the difficult message they seem to be carrying – and how do we envision and experience AND SHARE our faith in the face of the kinds of hurts I’ve mentioned today.
          Step one … honesty … a willingness to name and own the past hurts and address them … my brother never went back to the Church … the parishioner with the gay son gave me permission to share her story anonymously and the day I used it in a sermon one of those who spoke words of venomous hurt came up after church wanting to know who it was that was SOOOOOOO hurt and scared that they could tell others about their gay son. The mom was standing there and when I looked at her, she nodded and I said “I would like you to meet the mom …”
          The two women had been friends for years … even after the dark days of the late 80’s and all the hurtful things that had been said, the mom had remained silent … that morning in the narthex of our church tears flowed as the truth was revealed and a relationship restored and renewed …
          Step two … openness to the possibilities of what might be … in naming hurts caused within the church, we are opening ourselves to a spectrum of possibilities and to the discomfort of moving beyond the comfort and familiarity of what is and being open to what might be …
          This perhaps the point where we as congregations stand without even fully appreciating it … we are struggling with finances, dwindling memberships, escalating costs and a history of families and individuals who USED TO ATTEND but don’t for some reason … we are in the very heart of what shelves of books have struggled with.
          In my office, I have study after study that looks at why people leave churches, and what that exodus means … Canadian scholar Reginald Bibby has written more than a half dozen books on the condition of Churches in Canada and the peril they are in … his studies build on dozens by writers around the world.
          And it is Gordon Turner who perhaps gets to the heart of the issue when he writes: The Gospel will pinch some lives if spoken truthfully. It will release the yoke and burden of others. And people will also leave the Church if they don’t hear the prophetic word of the Gospel. We have to chose which side of the cutting edge of faithfulness we shall be on. A prophetic ministry can indeed be exercised if based on pastoral caring for persons …
          A prophetic ministry can indeed be exercised if based on pastoral caring for persons … addressing past hurts is pastoral care … avoiding current or future hurts is pastoral caring … recognizing the circumstances our neighbours find themselves in is pastoral caring … a prayer chain is pastoral caring … honestly facing our fears is pastoral caring … throwing open the doors and welcoming in people is pastoral caring …
          AND NONE OF IT NEEDS TO HAPPEN SOLELY ON A SUNDAY MORNING here in this time and space … pastoral caring is about going out into the world and engaging our friends, our neighbours and our communities both local and global and exercising and sharing our faith.
          It is about moving in to the world and living out our faith with integrity and with an awareness that what we say and do WILL have an impact on others – faith necessitates that we do everything we can to ensure that impact is positive. Pastoral caring is that positive impact.
          So, as we survey the road ahead, and we as congregations take a deep breath before plunging forward into whatever lies ahead have an opportunity to start envisioning our community differently …
          What if … what if, we opt for mid week worship instead of weekends?
          What if, we opt for small group devotions in slow seasons, and gather in homes or elsewhere instead of in church?
          What if we hold lunch time hymnsing services instead of Sunday morning?
          What if … what if, we dream and see where the Spirit is leading us by daring to play at being church … not silly amusement type of play, but joyous experimentation and testing new things way beyond the walls of what is traditional and comfortable … play as adventurous expressions of faith beyond what we might be used to?
          What if we dare to be a community that takes the Gospel seriously – the gospel that pinches and discomforts – the gospel that calls us from our complacency into action – the gospel that challenges us to step beyond our boxes and to follow the spirit into a place of healing, wholeness and transformation that not only welcomes back the lost sheep, but that courageously and rightly listens to their voices and addresses their bruises and hurts …
          Our readings challenge us to live out a simple covenant of God being our God, and we being God’s children … it challenges us to live lives with hope and faith under this new Covenant, trusting in God to be with us always …
          The spirit beckons us to envision a new reality and to embrace new possibilities … the rest is up to us …
          What if?
                        Let us pray …