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 …

The 2106 Decoration Day Service at The Old Durham Rd Cemetery

Rev Shawn's Preaching notes from the Decoration Day Service at The Old Durham Rd Cemetery:

I grew up in Stratford Ontario, in the mid 80’s my home congregation centennial United Church called The Reverend Robert Gibson to be their minister. Not an unusual nor uncommon event, but Bob was black and calling him to a pulpit in Stratford became a bit of a new story

People all over town said things like – there’s never been a black preacher in Stratford … that’s the first Black minister in town … and so on … but what we learned was that there was a deep, almost wholly forgotten strata of story in the Festival City that Bob’s arrival rediscovered and reanimated …

We learned Bob was FAR from the first black preacher in Stratford. In fact, he was just the latest of MANY black preachers in pulpits in Stratford … the stories emerged of vibrant black churches that formed as former slaves made their way up the underground railway and opted to stop in the sleepy little village of Stratford … stories emerged of vibrant black churches and service clubs that grew out of the resident population of porters who served the various train lines that ran through Stratford over the years … stories of an active, vital and fairly large black community in Stratford rose to the fore with Bob’s arrival, and people began talking about the history and heritage of Stratford that had lain forgotten and neglected for decades …

This little cemetery is a similar place … here, you can physically connect and even touch a significant chapter of local history that had lain domant (physically and literally) for years …

I grew up hearing stories of the escaped and freed slaves who made their way up the underground railway, following the drinking gourd as they made their way to that elusive place of freedom far to the north … I’ve delighted in watching documentaries about houses and buildings scattered across the US that have secret tunnels, hidden rooms and other almost forgotten legacies that served the cause of freedom throughout the years as men, women and children struggled for freedom … I’ve marvelled at the history the resident black families forged in places like Owen Sound, Collingwood, Stratford and countless other communities where they settled and built a life only to have that history neglected and almost forgotten by the dominant narrative …

My own family in the Owen Sound area is interconnected to that history, and it has largely gone unspoken …

But thanks to places like this – thanks to groups like the committee who passionately and tirelessly work to preserve these wonderful little corners of history, the stories are not forgotten, but can be reclaimed and reanimated … names, stories, experiences and history can be told and retold …

Our society tends to remember the Henry Ford’s and forgets about the hundreds of workers who toiled on the lines to make Ford’s name great … it was the guys on the assembly line putting the nuts and bolts together into the Model-T that made Henry great, yet we know next to nothing about them … These quiet forgotten corners scattered across this land of ours are what made this country great … the men and women and children who lie memorialized in cemeteries like this are the people who came and with back-breaking labour cleared the forests, building the communities and created the landscape we take for granted today … they came in pursuit of freedom and through hard work helped build our nation, our communities and all that we hold dear. And now, our obligation is to REMEMBER.

To remember them

To remember their stories

To remember their names

To remember … my friend and mentor Bob Gibson, is a great preacher, an amazing minister and a cherished friend – he happens to be black, and in my view of the world it is the content of one’s character that matters not the colour, creed or anything else … but Bob’s arrival in Stratford in the early 80’s opened an important door … the door to the stories of a community that otherwise had been forgotten. We stand at a similar door here – the stories of the people who came and settled in this area and built a community and a life for themselves and their families had ebbed away over time, but thanks to this place, and the persistence of a dedicated few who continued to remember and who worked to amplify those stories – we have a place that not only honours those who lie under our feet, but that honours ALL of those who made their way up the Underground Railway and by claiming freedom helped build this country.

We still have a LONG way to go in the enjoyment of a freedom free of bigotry, racism, and ignorance – but today, we pause to give thanks for this place and all that it represents, and we give thanks for all the work that has been done to make this a place to be proud of …

Our history can teach us much, and places like the Durham rd Cemetery offer the ability to touch that history and to reanimate it to make our journey forward much better …

Thanks be to God … let us pray !!

Sermon for the 121st Anniversary of Eugenia United Church

Rev Shawn's Sermon for Eugenia's 121 Anniversary:

Too often, we focus on the negatives and what we lack rather than what we have … our readings this morning have request for prayer for those in places of authority and power, the parable of the unjust manager from Jesus and lament from Jeremiah seeking a Balm in Gilead … balm, a substance that brings healing and comfort to a wound … and a lament – that powerful tradition of prayer that names the harsh reality, while standing firmly grounded in the Holy Presence of God, knowing full well that God is with us even in the face of the negatives and the challenges …

One of our commentaries for today notes: “the problem is, we often feel overwhelmed and do not know where to start. This is especially true when it comes to the brokenness … we wonder if there is anything we can possibly do” … BUT … it goes to note: “to long for healing means to live in hope. It is a beginning …”

To long for healing is to live in HOPE … Hope, is as American Theologian Jim Wallis likes to point out - believing inspite of the evidence and watching the evidence change … Hope is knowing God is with us …

So, today, 121 years on as a Church and a congregation, awash in challenges and struggles – where do we find our hope?

How do we stand on our anniversary Sunday and not only feel hopeful, but live in a hopefilled way?

Where do we draw our hope from ?

How about all around us?

I set out with a challenge – to list 121 things about us as a Church community that we do and are and give thanks for, but 121 things that give us Hope and show the world we are alive and well and still sharing our lives and faith … (I didn’t quite make it … not because there aren’t 121 things to be thankful for – things that make us hopeful, but because as I compiled my list I started realizing how oriented backwards that list really is …)

So, I started by noting:             

1.  We have a beautiful building

2.  We are a small buy dedicated congregation

3.  Our music

4.  The prayer circle

5.  Men’s coffee

6.  The women’s group

7.  The annual pancake breakfast

8.  The yard sale

9.  Coffee and goodies after church once a month

10.      The Xmas pot luck

11.      Our space for community groups

12.      Our commitment to the food bank

13.      Our involvement in the community

14.      Our easter morning sunrise service

15.      Our easter breakfast

16.      Our Christmas services

17.      Our observance of November 11^th at the cenotaph

18.      Our Pork dinner

19.      Our Sunday school – past AND present

20.      Our volunteers

21.       Our musicians

22.      Our stuff – the books, tables, chairs and the things we use regularly in our outreach

23.      Each other …

And it was at this point I started thinking about the things not only whisper HOPE today, but that are the very embodiment of HOPE.

I quickly got to 23 … there are more.

If each of us started listing the things we can think of, the list would grow and grow and grow … and that my friends is the very essence of HOPE … being able to frame the world with things – people, items, places and most importantly – relationships and interconnections – that that say boldly and with faith – we can and we do make a difference

The world is a better place for our presence

The challenge in the Church today, is that we’ve stopped believing that. We’ve stopped seeing that we do make a difference, and we’ve convinced ourselves that the world doesn’t care if we live or die as a community … but as we transition into whatever we are becoming – and as a church, we are most definitely in a time of transition and change – the old ways of being and doing church are waning, and something new is looming … we are being called to be part of birthing or delivering this new entity … as we make this transition, it gives us the opportunity to seriously consider the core values of who we are and what we are about and we will build with our lists in the future.

Likely the most important piece of who we are and what we are about as a Church – past, present and future – are the connections and relationships that we forge through our interactions and our faith … our dinners and services and outreach activities will ebb and flow, and we will lose interest and try new things, but the constant is and will be US – you and I – the people …

In modern theology it is drilled in our head that the church is NOT the building nor the stuff – the Church is the gathering of people - and even that is a broad definition … if you ask most church people, their definition of Church includes things like worship, a building, and many of the things that may or may not be important in the future …

What if … what if, as we move forward into our next 121 years, instead of focusing on Sunday morning worship, our building and the stuff that we’ve taken to be part of our working definition of Church, we instead allow the things that we do well – the things that are stirrings perhaps of where we are meant to be … we allow those things to dominate our life and ministry.

What if … we let go of our buildings and dare to dream of being Church in new ways.

What if … we let go of our services and instead focus on the small groups – the mens’ coffee, the womens’ group, the knitting group, the prayer circle, and other gatherings as our main ministry – using those times as places to worship and fellowship and reach out into the world by being present to our community?

What if … we dare to let go and with prayer, reflection AND faith boldly step out that door this morning open to the call of the Spirit and having the guts to follow wherever it may lead ?

It starts with prayer … prayer for each other, prayer for our community, prayer for the work we have to do … prayer that calls on God to be present in our midst as we seek to discern where we are to go, and what we are to be about … prayer for courageous openness that builds relationships in our community and enhances and encourages the interconnectedness that has kept us alive and well for 12 decades …

I’d like to think that when the call went out over a Century ago to bring sparkly stones for the foundation of this building, the men, women and children who dug around in their fields and yards and in the bush around Eugenia, had a dream of a Church that generations later would be the hub for their community – not a building that is used once a week for an hour or so, but of a gathering of people IN A BUILDING that was present to the community around them. A place of fellowship, a place of belonging, a place that welcomes one and all, and was a presence in life’s ups and downs …

We ARE that, if we dare to dream and dare to believe.

Our financial crunch will not suddenly disappear, and our problems and challenges will not just go away – but if we take seriously that dream of presence – that HOPE embodied and shared across the decades, we can start to be something different … something new … something that not only speaks eloquently (and often) about the Resurrection, but instead embodies it and more importantly - LIVES it …

We can focus on what has been and continue to wring our hands in worry as things seem to fail … or we can embrace our hope and boldy dare to embrace the future in the same way a dedicated group of people did 122 plus years ago when they saw HUGE and hopefilled potential here in Eugenia, and gathered their sparkly rocks and build themselves and US a beautiful little church to call home … let us this gift to build and grow the Church for our community and our world … let us begin with dreams and prayer and the knowledge that God is with us now and always … thanks be to God - Let us pray …