Sunday, September 24, 2017

Sermon for September 24th - What is important - lessons from the desert



Scholars know that the first five books of the Bible – the Pentateuch, are an amalgamation of a number of other source documents.
          When I was a student at Mac one of our courses looked at the footprints of the various documents … what I remember of the course was that there is the Priestly document, the Yahwehist document, the Elohist document, and depending on the scholar three or five others.
          What distinguishes the threads is the name used to refer to God – the name  Yahweh is used in some, Elohim in others, and other variations on the name of God appear …
          For the most part the blending together of the various texts is seamless and the average reader fails to notice when the texts combine – but every once in a while a passage leaves us as the reader scratching our heads a little bit and wondering why the text seems so awkward.
          Today’s passage from Exodus is such a reading … repeatedly we hear the same account … the people whined and grumbled at God, but Moses and Aaron were simply the messengers … three times in ten verses, the same account is offered in slightly different language …
          Three separate accounts of the same story were merged together by the redactor of Exodus, leaving us with a HEAVY emphasis on the grumbling and complaining of the people …
          The people are in the wilderness, freed from the bondage and slavery of Egypt – they are free … but they still complain.
          We’re hungry … we’re tired … we’re thirsty … are we there yet?
          He’s touching me … she’s looking at me … he’s touching my stuff … I have to go to the bathroom …
          If the Israelites start to sound A LOT like a bunch of kids on a road trip, it is because that is exactly what they became …
          Moses, Aaron and Miriam, lead the people up out of Egypt – they defeated the Egyptian armies (with the help of God and foul weather along the Red Sea) and now they were free … but there was no appreciation of that freedom …
          We’re going to die in this wilderness … we’re going to starve … we have nothing … then they waxed nostalgically of the past … they could remember the food, the water but they conveniently forgot everything else. It is an echoing of the “Make American Great” sentiment we are witnessing playing out south of the border – yeah, it was great back in the 1950’s if you were white, employed and male … if you were a black southerner it wasn’t so great … if you were a female immigrant or first nations woman, it wasn’t so great … if you were non-white it wasn’t so great … yet, the nostalgic myth persists.
          We see it in the Church today … this past week I have conversation after conversation with non-church and non-united church people about the shift from traditional Sunday morning worship that we have come to embody in this community. From the coffee shop, to mens’ coffee to the ladies’ groups I hear it over and over how new ways of being church, new ways of forming spiritual and spirited communities, are exciting and open the door to the future …
          Yet, we still hear the ‘good old days’ voices … the people pining for the flesh pots by the nile … we will over look the slavery and suffering, and remember only the good things … good things that really weren’t so good afterall …
          I recall a discussion once with some colleagues about this reading and one of them said ‘we should preach on what the ‘good’ in Egypt was really like … was it really good? Or was it comfortably familiar?’
          He went on to muse – the flesh pots were rotten vegetables, scraps of meat from the tables of wealthy Egyptians … the broth had more than a few bugs and wiggly things floating in it … the bread was wormy … the water warm and filled with little swimmers … it really wasn’t all that good … but it was FAMILIAR … familiarity is comfortable … comfort means not stretching and being challenged …
          When I was on the study tour in Egypt in the 80’s we had lunch sitting in a plaza facing the sphinx and the pyramids. Our lunch consisted of a small fresh baked loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, some fruit and a few other things along with a bottle of water … I was enjoying sitting in the sun and marveling at having lunch staring at the sphinx when I noticed little white crawly things in my lunch bag … looking closer, I realized they were in my bread … my prof, sitting beside me looked as his bread and found the same critter then with a big smile said – “extra protein … as he continued to eat …”
          The bread had been freshly baked the night before and in the Egyptian heat had already become home to larva … it happens THAT fast in Egypt … I’m sure the food the Israelites pined for so fondly was even more ripe with critters …
          So, Wandering through a desert completely cut off from all that is familiar, far from anything recognizable or known … the wormy bread and rotten vegetables of Egypt would be inviting and enticing … so as the people experienced fear, anxiety, uncertainty and more, the prospect of what was suddenly seems bright and amazing …
          The suffering and slavery of the past seems better than the prospect of an uncertain future …

          And so, into that moment of fear and anxiety, God speaks …
          We are to focus on what is important …
          In North America today two of the fastest growing industries are Food Banks and the storage industry … food banks to feed people who do not have enough, and the storage industry to store the stuff of people who don’t have enough room for their stuff …
          And what kind of stuff do they put in those expensive secure lockers? Extra clothes, extra furniture, extra appliances, extra toys and stuff they don’t use but that is too good to throw away … (now I will not throw any stones here because my basement is FULL of stuff I really don’t need, but that I haven’t had time to sift and sort and deal with – so I get the acquiring stuff …) But what I took note of this week is that on one hand we have more and more people just struggling to put food on their table, while on the other hand we have people in the SAME communities filling storage facilities with more and more stuff they don’t really need …
          The Israelites wander into the desert and complain that they would rather die … if only we had died … AND God hears their complaining and answers WITH ABUNDANCE.
          Scriptures tell us that in the evening quail descend upon the Israelite encampment and they have more than enough meat … then in the morning they are given the wondrous and mysterious Manna – “what is it? – Man’ah??”
          In the face of their complaining and belly aching, God offers ABUNDANCE and a reminder of what is important.
          In the face of anxiety and uncertainty, instead of relying on stuff, instead of accepting simplistic answers like “make America great” – cause let’s be honest, he has failed epically in fulfilling THAT promise, instead of giving into the anxiety and fear it brings, we instead place our trust in God and open ourselves to God’s unexpected abundance.
          It’s not the stuff … it’s not the fleshpots they left behind … it’s not the past that is important – it is THIS moment, the gift of here and now. And within this holy moment, God gives us what we need …
          Food … companionship … community … awareness … relative healthiness … enough.
          We live in a culture who have made a virtue out of acquiring and getting more and more and more …
          This past week I was invited to share in the funeral service for one of my dad’s best friends – a few very short weeks ago, I sat at his son’s wedding dinner and was regaled in stories of my dad as a teen and young man … and on Friday I stood with his family, and a LOT of my extended family and said our good byes.
          At the cemetery later, I shared a beverage with Bruce, who was one of my brother’s best buddies growing up … we stood looking amongst the tombstones of our family and reminisced about our earlier years and his family and mine … as we talked about the connections between our families and how, despite the passage of years and years we are still like one family, it made me realize that what is important is not the stuff – not the jobs and titles and positions we can obtain – not the gadgets and gizmos – but what is important is the gift of life, and within it the relationships we form and maintain between family and friends … the most important thing we have is the love and care for each other …
          In the dry dusty desert of Sinai, the Israelites forgot to trust God and give thanks for the abundance and the freedom they had … as Jesus and his disciples wandered the hills of Galilea and Judea, they had forgotten to trust God and give thanks for the abundance and freedom they had …
          The people grumbled and complained and pined for a past that never really was … and God delivered abundance …
          Man’ah? What is it? … bread in abundance …
          Community in abundance
          Life in abundance
          Love in abundance
          The challenge is not to focus on the niggly little negative details, but to have the faith and courage to trust in God enough as we celebrate the bounty and goodness of life.
          In the reading from Exodus today, the grumbling and complaining were answered by God’s overwhelming abundance … an abundance that is around us all the time, but that we fail to see and experience.
          May we, in this season of harvest and plenty, remember that God’s abundance is not about the stuff – it is about the unexpected manna moments when we ask “what is it?” and we are left with only one answer – it is God present and working in our lives …

          May WE make it to be so, thanks be to God … Let us pray …

Monday, September 18, 2017

Eugenia United Anniversary Sunday: 1895 to Today ...




          Eugenia Anniversary Sunday

          In 1895, ground was broken and work began on the building in which we worship today … history tells us that the foundations were dug by hand with shovel and pick, logs were cut north of the village on various farms and cut into usable lumber in the Wilson mill that stood near the falls, bricks were brought by the wagon load from the Bowler’s brick yard near Markdale, and the foundation stones were comprised of bright shiny rocks donated from the farms and yards of members, friends and neighbours.
          It is interesting to note that local men laid the foundation and brick, including the fancy scroll work around the outside of the building. As the project progressed, the minister of the day Rev. Wells donated the red and blue glass for the windows.
          Reading the description of the work that brought this building into being over three years, one is struck at what a community effort it was. Everyone lent a hand, everyone rolled up their sleeves and took part – it was not a case of hiring a company and waiting for the end results. It was a case of the people of the congregation and community who had for over 25 years worshipped in various houses, the Orange Hall and even the Methodist Church on occasion, were working diligently to create a legacy for their community … a home for the church to reach out into the community and beyond.
          Pretty impressive, for a tiny village perched on in the bush, on the top edge of the Niagara Escrapment.
          But even after the official opening on November 1897 along with a fowl supper, there was still work to be done.
          The first marriage came in 1903.
          A floor was installed in the basement sometime in the 1920’s or 30’s to cover the dirt floor that had been host to numerous fundraising dinners put on by the ladies groups over the years.  
          In 1990, a series of upgrades and renovations were undertaken that saw significant improvements that we continue to enjoy today …
          Long gone are the days of having a caretaker rise in the cold early pre-dawn morning to trudge into the church and light the wood or coal stove to heat the building up before worshippers would start to arrive. Now, programmable thermostats mean that with a push of a button, the building can be warm and cozy on cold winter mornings – a few Sundays in the last few years not with standing …
          Over the last 120 years this building has witnessed many changes, many renovations and celebrations and set backs galore … it has watched the community around it rise and fall … and ebb and change … and here it still stands – a survivor.
          And in this history and heritage of this place is a reminder that with the passing of each day … each week … each month … each year there comes an unrelenting and unstoppable series of change … The church is a dynamic and spirited place where we bring our joys and celebrations and where we seek comfort and peace in times of challenge … on one level the church is timeless and by virtue of our sacraments and our faith, offers a presence that transcends time and space … but because it is truly human, the Church is also an ever changing place, where we grow and change …
          At BC conference a couple of decades ago, Anglican Theologian Herbert O’Driscoll reflected on how subtle AND how profound change in the Church really is … he mused that if you doubt that churches ebb and flow and change, try moving forward or backward in churches … he began by saying that if you took a Byzantine Christian and moved them forward to the Reformation, or took a Lutheran Reformer and moved him forward or backward even 50 years, they would be hopelessly and irretrievably lost …
          There would be bits and pieces that may seem remotely familiar … communion with bread and juice remains universal … but the hymns we sing, the words we speak, the prayers we offer, and even the folks who lead us, would be very very different …
          Think back … in the 1960’s – the golden era so many pine for – clergy were men, they wore collars and gowns, they read from the King James Bible, and prayers were full of Thee’s and Thou’s and other Elizabethean English colloquialisms … then along came the New Curriculum … along came the upheaval of the 70’s … along came The Issue and the gut wrenching machinations we went through over the place of self-professed Gay and Lesbian candidates for ministry … then came the Apology to the First Peoples … same sex marriage … a multi-cultural and multi-coloured society … the revelations of Residential Schools … law suits and more and more …
          In 50 short years, the Church has CHANGED dramatically … we are being called to move beyond that neat and comfortable image of Church we had back in the 1960’s when it seemed that EVERYONE went to Church, and everything was fine …
          I’ve heard blame leveled at Sunday Shopping, hockey and baseball on Sunday’s, the openness to Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual, Queer and Transgendered people, same sex marriage, our relationship with First Nations … we live in an uncomfortable time with changes unfolding around us at a mind-numbing rate, and we yearn – we truly YEARN for a place of peace and quiet, and the church is supposed to be THAT … yet, the church has never been only that …
          The church – this place, is where we are equipped and strengthened for the path ahead … facing a challenge? The church is the place where we can come and name that challenge, where we can find people who understand and have shared that challenge, and THEN with the power of our faith face the challenge KNOWING that we are God’s people, and with God behind us, we need not be afraid …
          Our reading from Romans drives that point home:
          Welcome those who are weak … the church is not about only the strong and the righteous, the church is here for EVERYONE … some eat anything, while others eat only vegetables – those who eat everything are not to judge those who abstain, and those who abstain are not to judge those who eat everything … the bottom line is that there is no place for judgement in the church – we are ALL here as servants of Christ, and we, though different are equally valued …
          Verse 8 underscores who we are to be and what we are to be about:  If we live we live to the Lord, if we die, we die to the Lord, so then whether we live or die we are the Lord’s … why pass judgement on our sisters or brothers, because one day ALL of us will stand before the Lord … and in that moment every knee shall bow and every tongue confess praise to the Lord.
          And at the end of the day, that’s why we are here – to confess our praise to the Lord … to worship God … to share our faith … to support and nurture each other on the pilgrimage we find ourselves walking …
          The constant in the Church when we move forwards and backwards is satiating the spiritual hunger by faith … by celebrating the very presence of God.
          Unfortunately, too often we get waylaid and misdirected by politicking and personal agendas that interfere with the will of the Spirit. But if we step back and remember that moving forwards or backwards even 50 years within this grand tapestry that is the Church, we will find ourselves lost and confused … BECAUSE what is important remains, but everything else passes away …
          In dramatic form, the Exodus reading reminds us to focus on what is important … the fleeing Israelites watched as the Pharoh’s army were swept away by the sea, and they passed safely thru … the WPOG curriculum notes that the story is about the rebirth of the people – it is a story of a second creation – dry land appearing in the midst of the waters to allow a new people to be created. Their jubilation springs from their previous despair. Annihilation has turned to hope; powerlessness to an act of faith …
          A powerless and enslaved people turned to God and everything else was washed (literally) away … the passage from Romans reminds us that we are to not pass judgement on each other, but to be open and accepting of one another just as God through Grace has been open and accepting of us … and Jesus teachings on the breadth and depth of forgiveness is about standing firmly in the Grace of God and trusting always that God is with us …
          And as we say – if God is with us, who can be against us?

          The challenge today is to remember what our faith rests on – what is the foundation on which we stand?
          As beautiful as the sparkly rocks making up our foundation are, they are not the foundation on which our faith rests – this is just a building – a wonderful, beautiful, and very comfortable building – but it is just a building … the Church is the gathered community … the people … you and I … and the foundation on which we stand is NOT rock or concrete or mortar … the foundation on which we stand is faith …
          The faith grounded in the generous gift of grace … faith that guides us through the most troublesome moments and places our feet firmly on dry land even in the midst of a raging sea … faith that fills us with joy and allows us to focus solely on what is important … revelling in the presence of the Holy …
          And as beautiful as this building is – its gift to us as a survivor of 120 since its doors were officially opened – is not its physical presence, but its housing of a community of faith that has shared life’s ups and downs, life’s twists and turns, lifes ebbs and flows, and still finds the ability to fall to our knees in prayer, and to lift our voices in worship and praise to God … and sometimes we do it on Sunday mornings … but we always do it together as a community of faith – the children of God …
          Thanks be to God for the many blessings we enjoy and share … May WE make it to be so, thanks be to God …